Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Another selection of short fiction, often lost and forgotten, culled from newspapers, magazines and out of print collections and anthologies. All in Life+70 public domain. 1: It Happened at Christmas / Anonymous 2: Lanfranc / Alexander Vindex Vennard 3: The Bend of the Road / Capel Boake 4: Long Distance / Frances Noyes Hart 5: The Last Boat In the Lock / Edith Stewart Drewry 6: On the Plains / Ernest Favenc 7: Problem of Footgear / Bertram Atkey 8: The End of the Search / Bertram Atkey 9: Poison / Katherine Mansfield 10: The Story of Richard Lavender / Roderic Quinn 11: The Creeping Shadow /

PAST MASTERS 146

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

12 Dec 2023

Contents

1: It Happened at Christmas / Anonymous

2:  Lanfranc / Alexander Vindex Vennard

3: The Bend of the Road / Capel Boake

4: Long Distance / Frances Noyes Hart

5: The Last Boat In the Lock / Edith Stewart Drewry

6: On the Plains / Ernest Favenc

7: Problem of Footgear / Bertram Atkey

8: The End of the Search / Bertram Atkey

9: Poison / Katherine Mansfield

10: The Story of Richard Lavender / Roderic Quinn

11: The Creeping Shadow / Morris Price Williams

12: The Great Auk / Irvin S. Cobb

13: The Heiress of Glenmahowley / Arthur Conan Doyle

14: The China Bowl / E. F. Benson

15: In the Way of Business / Stacey Aumonier

16: The Ghost of Barmouth Manor / F. Frankfort Moore

17: Blanchard's Passenger / Morley Roberts

18: The Celestial Bulletin / Arthur H. Adams

19: Garibaldi Hogan, Detective / Ernest Francis O'Ferrall

20: The Golden Ingot / Fitz James O'Brien

__________________

1: It Happened at Christmas

Anonymous

Albury Banner and Wodonga Express, 17 Dec 1937

ALTHOUGH the East Coast express was crowded that Christmas Eve, there were only two men and a red-haired girl in the first-class smoker towards the front. And the girl scrambled out just before the train started. That left the sickly-looking young man and the American with the compartment to themselves. They smiled at one another as the girl hurried away, and the younger man said: 'We're in luck.'

'We certainly are,' the American, agreed. Then the guard's whistle blew, and they settled down to their papers. The American looked rich, a lean-faced, hard-eyed man, with owlish spectacles. He was going through a batch of New York papers with business-like precision, piling each as he finished it neatly on the seat by his side.

The young man glanced casually through an evening paper before proceeding to amuse himself with its crossword puzzle. Presently a waiter lurched along the corridor calling: 'First dinner ready, please!' and the young man sprang to his feet.

'I'm hungry,' he said, with a pleasing smile. 'Missed my lunch.'

'Been travelling?' the American queried, looking up from his papers.

'Yes; and no restaurant-car on the train.

'Too bad. I guess I'll wait. Rather early yet. '

The young man joined a shuffling crowd in the corridor moving towards the dining-car. The American returned to his reading. But not for long. His eyes lifted and fixed on the luggage rack opposite. After a couple minutes he rose, went to the door, and glanced up and down the corridor. Then he began to remove his light tweed overcoat. To anyone passing by in the next few nimtues it would have seemed that he was merely placing his overcoat carefully on the luggage-rack, but the American was, in fact, carefully inspecting the young man's suitcase. It was a good suitcase, well worn, and covered with lables. It ibore the initials 'M. F. F.,' and a crumpled tie-on tag amplified those initials to 'Martin F. Fearon.' An old address had been scratched out and the words 'Grand Hotel, Fleetwick,' added in pencil scrawl.

The American concentrated, on the scratched-out address. He turned the. tag over. It seemed to have been, used many times. Again there were erasures. But one line, in clerkly hand, could still be read, despite much criss-crossing.

'The Hon. Martin Fearon. St. Giles' College, Oxford.'

The American seemed to move quite naturally back to his seat. It was his profession to do furtive things in a natural way. Then he sat for some little while, his forehead wrinkled in thought as he searched an amazing memory. That memory had brought him much success in his profession. Fearon?— that was Lord Cubert's family name. Cubert? There had been something about him in the papers lately. What was it?

At last he got it. He was the old chap who had gone bankrupt over some big company smash earlier in the year. A distinguished soldier, he had been, who'd lost his money fooling about in the City with things he didn't  understand.

Suddenly the American rose again and made his way along to the dining car. Young Fearon was alone at a table for two.

'Changed my mind,' the American, said, smiling. 'Reckoned I might get a better dinner now than if I waited. May I sit here?'

'Do. Delighted.'

Fearon answered, shifting his papers from the table. The American talked freely; he was, he said, a, bill-broker in New York, and had come to England, unexpectedly, on a matter of business. Fearon asked about New York, and presently volunteered: 'I'm studying law.'

'Is that so?- I guess it's pretty interesting.'

'It is rather, though I don't know that there's -much to be made at it, unless you're one of the lucky ones.'

The American led him into an explanation of the Inns of Court, and watched him as he was speaking. He noted his clothes— good, like the suit-case, but none too new. He noted the blue striped Old Etonian tie. But he did not note that young Fearon, while he talked, was taking stock of him, too. The American missed the gleam, of enthusiasm that he saw from time to time in the grey eyes that fixed earnestly upon his face.

Presently, the young man asked: 'You going far?'

'Fleetwick. The Grand Hotel.'

'Are you, by Joves? So am I. Do you know the place?'

'No. I just saw its advertisement, and it read good to me. It seemed better than spending Christmas alone in London, so I phoned for a reservation.'

'I believe it 's quite a decent place, and the air, as a matter of fact, is first-class. I've had rather a bad go of 'flu, and my doctor thought it might brighten me up a bit. I had meant to go down to Nice to join my people, but it's a long journey, and I've got to be back in London on Monday. '

'Know anybody there?'

'Not a soul.'

'Nor do I. Still— we'll each have one acquaintance now.' He gave a stiff little bow. 'My name is Samson— Elmer Samson.'

'Mine's Fearon,' The young man smiled cheerily. 'Yes, by Joves! you're right; we'll both know someone!'

They laughed, and when the express stopped at Fleetwick Junction, they were talking quite intimately. But in the bustle on the platform somehow they missed one another, and Fearon found himself by the red-haired girl who had left his compartment at Liverpool Street. She did not appear to be speaking to him, yet she asked:

'Going all right?' He did not appear to be speaking to her, though he answered: 'Fine! He's swallowed me. Elmer Samson. Bill-broker, New York.'

She gave a curt little nod of understanding and he drifted off into the crowd. For it happened to be his profession, too, to do furtive things in an inconspicuous way.

IT WAS LATE in the evening before the two men met again. Fearon was sitting over a drink, alone, in the corner of the lounge, looking mildly dejected. For there was a fancy-dress dance at the Grand Hotel that night, and the lounge was gay and noisy. From the ballroom, beyond, the rhythmic throb of music sounded alluringly. Laughing, carefree young people, in colorful, fantastic dress, swarmed in and out for drinks between their dances.

Fearon raised a welcoming hand when he saw Elmer Samson push in through the turnstile door. Samson's face was flushed by the wind. He looked like an overgrown schoolboy in horn-rimmed spectacles.

'Hullo, Fearon,' he called. 'I was looking all around for you, but I couldn't find you, so I reckoned I'd take my little walk alone. Gee! But it's fresh outside. It makes you feel fine— and ready for one large drink. What about it?'

'No; have one with me.'

Fearon beckoned to a waiter, and ordered two double whiskies.

'I was looking for you, too. I feel rather out of this.'

'Sure. So do; I,' the American said, regarding, the lounge. He smiled. 'Say, I wasn't figuring ,on anything like this. Do ,they have these shows every night?'

'Yes; two to-morrow. Children's Christmas party in the afternoon, and a fancy-dress ball and supper in the evening. '

'I'd rather like to be in on that,'' Samson said. 'Do you reckon we could hire clothes anywhere?'

'You can hire them here. I've been making inquiries.'

Fearon had. And certain other inquiries that did not concern fancy dress, as well.

'Now that's fine. We ought to have a real good time.' Samson was enthusiastic. 'I'm mighty glad I met you. It makes all the difference in a crowd like this.'

'I'm mighty glad I met you, too,' Fearon responded as the waiter brought the drinks.

He was called to the telephone a few minutes later.

'Is it Mrs. Fearon?' he asked the page.

'Yes, , sir. That's the name.'

'My sister-in-law,' he explained to Samson. 'Ringing up from Southsea to know if I died on the journey, I'll bet. She's like, that.' He went along to the call-box.

'That you, Gwen?— me speaking,' he said.

A woman's voice answered. 'Is he back yet?'

'Yes. Where's he been?'

'Met a man out on the cliff walk beyond- the pier. ? Be careful, they were talking about you— I caught your name.'

' Anything definite?'

'No; I was lucky to get what I did.'

'Where's the other man gone?'

'To, the Marine. I saw him go in.'

'You'd know him again?'

'I think so.'

'Good: Now listen, Gwen.' His voice dropped instinctively. 'He's in room 45. Fourth-floor back, near the fire escape. Curiously convenient, eh?' He laughed softly. 'You try and make them give you one on the same floor; I'm on the second— 27. Anyhow, get one at the back if you can.'

'I understand.'

'Right.' Fearon strolled back to the lounge.

'As I thought,' he said. 'Full of good advice, bless her.'

He finished his drink standing. 'What about coming along to the smoking-room for another? It feels a bit draughty here. '

'Sure,' Samson said. 'I didn't know there was a smoking-room.'

Presently the visitors who had come by the last train began to arrive at the hotel and, with them, the red-haired girl with the luggage.

ELMER SAMSON commented upon the girl with the red hair at breakfast next morning.

'Isn't that the girl who did us a good turn yesterday?' he said, when she came into the dining-room just as they were finishing. 'By Jove! So it is!'

Fearon watched her as she crossed to, a table near the window.

'Looks rather attractive, don't you think? I must get to know her.'

'Go to it. It's great to be young. I don't suppose she'll mind a good-looking dance partner.'

Samson smiled knowingly. 'I guess I've done the same in my time.'

'I wonder who she is?' Fearon said innocently.

'Go ask her, boy. She'll tell you some tale.' He winked solemnly. They drifted out to the lounge.

Samson suggested a walk, but Fearon did not 'feel' like it. 'I'm not quite myself yet and I'd better go slow at first,' he said. 'I'll just potter along the cliff path later on and see how I feel after that.'

'Saving yourself for to-night and the lady, eh?' Samson laughed. 'Perhaps you're wise.'

He went out soon afterwards, and from the hotel terrace Fearon watched him striding away in the distance. Then he turned.  The red-headed girl had come out and was standing close by him.

He grinned.

'I'm going to make your acquaintance, then you'll be able to make his, and we'll all be friends together,' he said. 'Any news?'

'No; I got a room on the floor near his— 40. It's a rotten room, but it's, convenient.'

'I know it. Let's get inside. It doesn't matter now if we are discovered talking.'

They found a secluded corner from which they could watch the door, for  they had certain plans to make and not too much time in which to make them.

They were still talking when Elmer Samson returned an hour later.

He glanced across to Fearon with a smile, and would have passed him, but Fearon waved.

'Samson, let me introduce you to Mrs. Ashton— whom you have seen before,' he said, as Samson came across to their table.

'Why, so I believe I have,' he said with tremendous gravity.

'And, according to Mr. Fearon, were very glad to see the last of me,'  the girl put in.

'Well now, I wouldn't say that, Mrs. Ashton,' Samson protested. 'I certainly would not—'

'He did.' Her manner, was bold and challenging. 'You're more polite— though I know you don't mean it.'

'I do. But I reckon I'd better prove it with a cocktail,' he laughed.

'Oh, well— then I reckon I'll have to forgive you,' she retorted, imitating his accent. 'Say, I just love the way you Americans talk.'

Elmer Samson looked pleased.

'And I just love the way you English talk,' he said gallantly. Fearon sat back in his chair, watching Gwen was playing her part skilfully and Samson was reacting well. They talked on, almost ignoring him, until the cocktails came, and then, suddenly Fearon sensed that something was wrong. The girl had lost much of her ease of manner. When Samson turned to pay the waiter, Fearon caught a quick glance of warning in her eyes. She gave a little backward nod of the head, hardly perceptible, but enough to send his eyes across the lounge, to a tall, florid woman in rich furs standing at the inquiry office. She was asking idiotic questions about the Christmas mails. Deliberately the girl pushed her bag from the table, and Samson and the waiter stooped to pick it up. Her gaze fixed on Fearon.

'Fade out, Freddy, quick,' she whispered. Then: 'Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Samson. I'm always drop

Samson raised his glass. 'Well, here's to a Merry Christmas,' he said.

Fearon glanced over his shoulder towards the inquiry desk. The woman was still talking. Suddenly he began to choke. He grabbed for a handkerchief and buried his face in it, coughing. Samson leaned forward to beat him on the back, and he protested feebly. Then, abruptly, he dived for the door.

When Elmer Samson came to find him a couple of minutes later, he was in a chair at the far end of the terrace. He looked shaken.

'It's got me like this once before since I had that go of 'flu,' he explained. 'I'm all right now, but I think I'll sit here for a bit. You go back to Mrs. Ashton.'

'She's found a friend— or a friend found her,' Samson said enigmatically. 'I left them to it— and they're still at it.' He nodded towards the door.

Gwen and the fur-clad woman had come out.

The woman's voice carried. 'Then, my dear, if you are all alone, you really must join us tonight,' she was ,saying. 'We'll be just a family party, but I know...'

They walked slowly down the steps, and the woman's strident voice faded.

'If I was asked,' Samson said, blandly, 'I'd say that bright young woman wasn't too set on joining that family party.'

But Fearon expressed no opinion, save a vague 'Yes, yes.' Then he rose. 'I feel rather rotten,' he said. 'I think I'll go up' to my room. Make my apologies to Mrs. Ashton when she comes back, will you?'

Samson was sympathetic.

FEARON did not appear at lunch. He was not feeling very well, and was having some food in his room, the table-waiter explained to Samson. Samson said that was too bad. His eyes ranged the room. Mrs. Ashton had not yet come in, he noted. But from a big table on the far side of the room he could hear the strident voice of the fur-clad woman to whom the girl had been speaking that morning. He knew who the woman was— a Mrs. Staverton West, widow of a rich stockbroker. The rest of her party seemed to be relations. He watched them without seeming' to watch.

Presently Mrs. Ashton stopped at his table, on her way across the room, to ask about Fearon. She had, in fact, just been speaking to him on the telephone; but her manner was convincing.

'It is a shame. I do hope he'll be well enough for to-night,' she said. Samson agreed.

He went up to see Fearon after lunch. He found him sitting before a gas-fire, looking pale, but otherwise cheerful.

'I didn't feel like facing a big lunch,' he said. 'This influenza's left me a bit queasy, and I don't want to miss my Christmas dinner and tonight's fun.'

'Don't feel well enough for a little drive, do you? I've asked Mrs. Ashton. I thought the three of us might have a look round the neighborhood before dusk. '

'I'd love to; but I don't think I'd better. '

'I'm sorry. I'd have liked you to come. And she's grand company, that red-headed girl. But I'm  sure glad I'm not her husband.' Samson shook his head, 'No, sir!'

'Oh, well,' Fearon laughed, 'we're neither of us likely to come to any harm.'

'Let's hope not.'

Samson left him, and a few moments later there was a faint tap outside. Fearon was expecting it. He opened the door and the girl slid in. She was looking desperately worried.

'He's told you, I suppose?' she said.

'Yes. Why are you going?'

'I've got to. I've got to get him out of this place. That blighted West woman's getting interested in him. Wants me to introduce my nice American friend— and you know what will happen if they get together for five minutes. Once your name cropped up, she'd give you away at the top of her voice.'

'Oh, help!' Fearon said, irritably. 'Gwen, you don't think he's suspicious?'

'I don't think so. He talks a lot about you. It may be only bluff.'

'Try and call it. If he is suspicious, I've got to move quick. I'm taking a big enough chance as it is.'

She nodded. 'I wish we'd never set eyes on that West woman last Easter.'

'Well, we did— and so I've got to sit up in this dashed room all day, with an odds-on chance of the whole job going to blazes.'

'Why don't you chuck it?' she asked, suddenly.

'I'm .dashed if I will! I'll never get another chance like this.'

'If it comes off.'

'It's got to come off.'

When she went, he was staring moodily at the fire, and she hurried down to the lounge. But at the entrance she stopped in consternation. Elmer Samson was there, talking to Mrs. Staverton West.

Gwen started to turn, but it was too late. Samson had seen her. He came forward with it.

'Here we are, Mrs. Ashton,' he said. 'Your friend was just asking if I'd seen you. She wants you to play contract, but I'm hoping you'll not let me down.'

'You bet I won't, Mr. Samson. Gosh! But she's the ghastliest bore!'

'Do you know, she struck me that way. Come on— let's make a quick getaway, or, she'll have me playing contract too.'

A fow moments later Gwen Ashton had another unpleasant surprise.

FEARON'S nerves were on edge. He wandered restlessly about his room trying to decide what to do. It was damnable to be penned up there, afraid to show himself in the public rooms while the West woman was about.

For an hour he fretted before, on sudden impulse, he went out and walked along the corridor to the staircase. It was the quiet time of the afternoon; servants and guests alike were resting, or amusing themselves, below. He met nobody, but he noted much: the run of the corridors, the way to the backstairs, and, on the fourth floor, the door at the end, near Samson's room, marked 'Way Out in Case of Fire.'

Gwen's door was unlocked, and he entered, moved to ,the window, and stood regarding the fire-escape. It was too easy— a sheer gift to crooks. Any agile man could manage it, as he could the ledge just beneath the window. For a moment he was tempted to scramble along that ledge. Samson's window was open, he could see. But the risk was too great, and his luck was bad enough as it was. He concentrated on the yard. There would be no trouble in scaling its wall, and once over, with a car waiting, a man could be five miles away within ten minutes.

The hotel was stirring from its afternoon's slumber. Faintly he could .hear children's voices raised in excitement, and the whine of the lift. Fearon realised that it was time to be going. Quietly he slid out of the room and made his way downstairs. The telephone was ringing in his room when he reached the door. He hurried in and grabbed the receiver.

'Yes,' he said, steadily. 'Yes; it's ' me speaking. What!' He frowned. 'You think he's coming back alone? Where are you?'

'Some hotel miles away.' Gwen's voice was anxious. 'They've faked a breakdown, and Samson's supposed to have gone to see about another car. But it's a put-up job, I know. I believe he's spotted you. That woman must have given you away. He was talking to her in the lounge when I went down.'

'How long's he been gone?'

'Nearly twenty minutes, but I couldn't get a chance before. I'm supposed to be powdering my nose. And Freddie, the chauffeur of this car is the man at the Marine— the man he met last night. I recognised him outside the hotel before we started.'

'Oh, hades!' Fearon exclaimed. 'That's done it.'

'Don't waste time, Freddy. I can look after , myself. Get on with it. ' She spoke impatiently.

'But, Gwen—' The line was dumb. She had hung up.

Fearon stood for a moment staring at the instrument. Gwen was right. He. hadn't a second to spare. He'd got to chance everything now. He seized a hat and coat.

'I shan't be back for an hour if anyone wants me,' he told the hall porter as he went out. 'You might let the telephone operator know.'

'Very good, sir.'

FEARON had been gone ten minutes when Elmer Samson reached the hotel. The lounge was full of excited children in fancy dress and agitated parents, for the Christmas party due to begin shortly. Samson avoided the crowded lounge and took a way through the dining-room to the stairs. He went straight to Fearon's room and hesitated for a moment by the door, fingering an automatic pistol in his pocket.

Then he knocked. After some moments he knocked again, more loudly. Then, with a quick glance up and down the corridor, he produced a key and let himself in. Fearon 's absence puzzled him. He made a swift search of the room and noted that a hat and coat were missing. A few minutes later, from his own room, Elmer Samson asked for Fearon on the telephone and received his message.

'How long has he been gone?' he asked, casually.

'About a quarter of an hour, sir.'

'All right. I'll see him when he comes in.'

He went down to the lounge. It was deserted now. Everyone seemed to be in the ballroom, where a glittering Christmas-tree had just been lighted up. The children had started dancing, and the room was filled with noise and laughter. Samson wandered in. He eyed, very carefully, the grown-ups, clustered together looking on, for he wanted to be sure that certain of them would not be likely to be in their rooms in the next quarter of an hour.

His eyes shifted to the doors, each of which framed a group of smiling servants, intent only upon the excited children. The dance finished, and a round game was announced, after which Father Christmas would arrive to distribute the presents.

That was the moment for which he was waiting. Unnoticed, he drifted slowly out. He was alone in the smoking-room when the shrill cheers that greeted the arrival of Father Christmas came to his ears.

Furtively he glanced out. Even the hall porter had gone to look on at the merry scene. Samson made for the staircase. It was on the second floor that he  began.

He stoppod in a dark corner of the landing, peered carefully all about him, pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, and let himself into a room close by Fearon's. He moved silently, like a shadow, and he worked with machine-like precision, pulling open drawers, ignoring this, taking that, seldom hesitating. Once he shone his torch on to an opulent looking diamond ring, then discarded it with a low-voiced expression of disgust. Once he whistled softly in satisfaction as a faded jewel case disclosed a string of pearls.

He had planned his rooms; there were only four of them and the last was Mrs. Staverton West's. He had reckoned on a big haul there, and he was not disappointed. Eagerly he crammed the stuff into his pockets, opened the door a crack, listened, then stole shadow-like into the corridor.

He was well satisfied as he walked boldly up the last flight of stairs to his room. It was very silent up there. Only the faint strains of dance music disturbed the quiet. Samson looked out of his window. He was expecting a car to be waiting in the road beneath. It was there. He chuckled softly as he. transferred his booty to a belt about his waist. But there was no sense in wasting time. Samson pulled on a dark overcoat, took one final look about the room and satisfied himself there was nothing there to incriminate him. Then he opened the door, and came face to face with Fearon.

Fearon said calmly: 'Hullo, Samson; you were asking for me, so they told me downstairs.'

A mask seemed to fall over Samson's face. It was almost expressionless. He backed into the orom.

'Sure,' he said. 'Come in. I've only just come up. Haven't got my coat off yet.'

'Have a good drive?'

'Fine.'

Suddenly Samson swung him into the room and the next moment Fearon was facing the muzzle of an automatic.

'Shove your hands up!' Samson ripped out. 'Get over there.' Fearon obeyed. 'Now listen, son; I don't want to shoot, but if I do, I shoot to kill. Get that?'

'Don't be a fool, Samson,' Fearon 's voice was strained. 'Put your gun up! You don't know who I am. I am? a police officer.'

'Sure I know. And that redheaded girl's your sister. That old dame West told me. But you've got to study a lot more law, son, before you beat Elmer Samson. You pretty schoolboy cops! Gosh, I was dealing with real cops before you were born. Do you want to eat your Christmas dinner, baby?'

'Why?' Fearon was puzzled.

'Then you get in there.' Samson pulled open the wardrobe door. Fearon felt the muzzle of the pistol against the back of his neck. He had no option.

'Now, son,' Samson said. 'I've got a job to do. In ten minutes' time you can  raise hell. If you shout before that— I shoot.'

He locked the wardrobe, moved in his shadow-like way to the door, and made for the fire-escape.

Fearon breathed more freely as he heard him go, but he made no attempt to shout.

Samson breathed more freely when he felt the iron steps of the escape under his feet. He even smiled as he thought of the, consternation in Fearon's face when he forced him into the wardrobe. It was pretty poor for a cop.

He went down the steps noiselessly as a cat, crossed the deserted yard, and carefully scaled the wall. He was lying flat on the top when he saw a light flash above him. Frantically he glanced at the waiting car so close at hand, then dropped.

But before his feet touched the ground, it seemed that two men had arisen from nowhere. They seeped out of the shadow and took him as, he fell. They had his arms tight grasped, and an ominous voice in his ear said: 'Come along, my man, we've been waiting for you.' Then from far above his head he heard Fearon 's voice.'

'Got him?'

'Yes.'

'We'll come down.'

And presently five men piled into a waiting police car and drove to the Fleetwick police station.

Fearon sat in the inspector's office reading over his statement. It was official and concise.

'I am a Metropolitan police constable,' it began.  'On the 24th December I was at Liverpool Street Station proceeding to Fleetwick on sick leave. At about 5.45 p.m. I saw a man I believed to be Patrick Morley, whom I knew to be an expert jewel thief. I kept him under observation and found that he was proceeding to the Grand Hotel, Fleetwick, to which I also was going.

'I continued to keep him under observation and at about 4 p.m., on the 25th of December, I received information which led me to believe that he was about to commit a felony. I immediately communicated my information to the inspector in charge at the Fleetwick police station.'

'That will do, Inspector, won't it?' he said looking up. 'I don't want to drag my sister into this part of it.'

The inspector nodded. 'I think you're wise not to mention his attack on you. We've got all we want without that.'

'Oh, that was nothing,' Fearon laughed.  'I knew your man was outside in case of trouble.'

He signed the document and passed it across the desk. The inspector scanned it.

'A bit irregular,' he said with a smile. 'But it won't do you any harm, Fearon. In fact, you might find a pleasant Christmas present coming out of this. I'll see it gets to the right quarters.' He rose. 'Well, get along, my boy, or you'll be late for your dinner, and keep your sister waiting.  'I'll be round later on and I'd like to meet Mrs. Ashton,' he added, and Police Constable Martin Frederick Fearon of the 'I' Division went out into a cold night walking on air.

_________________

2:  Lanfranc

Alexander Vindex Vennard

As by "Bill Bowyang"

1884-1947

Smith's Weekly (Sydney) 26 July 1919

Alexander Vindex Vennard

Best known by his frequent pen-name "Bill Bowyang", Vennard was born on Vindex Station, a cattle station in Queensland a short distance from Winton. The Station itself was named after the nearby Vindex Range, a sprawling, irregular mesa which is now a prolific source of Australian dinosaur fossils.

THE REEK of dead shell-fish rode triumphantly on the prowling breezes that swept in from the Coral Sea. The striped poles of pearling schooners stood up like black fingers in the blue wash of the tropical night. Scraps of song, harsh and heathenish, flittered from the fo'c'sles, where Jap and Malay chanted weird tunes which tugged at one's soul like cords binding it to a barbaric past.

Lanfranc, the pearler, was seated in Connelly's bungalow high up above the sandy beach. Connelly, standing at the window, suddenly turned and said, "There's someone coming this way."

Lanfranc puffed a cloud from his cigarette.

"It is the police," he replied, "I have been expecting them ever since I left the lugger."

Connelly turned quickly.

"That means you, then," he said. "They have got word from Port Moresby. Come on, your skiff's at the wharf, and perhaps you can get it to the schooner before they can spot you. I'll hold them here as long as I can and give you a show to sail for it."

Connelly started for the back door, but seeing that Lanfranc did not move, he faced around again.

"Come on, man!" he cried, "Good God! I don't want to see you arrested for murder."

The pearler calmly blew another cloud of smoke. "I have seen fat men like you in these parts, who drink too much whisky, and sit down all the time, die when they get too much excite. They choke all the same as when they hang."

And he laughed, ironically.

Connelly, the pearl-buyer, grew red in the face. It is bad enough when you are trying to help a man save his life to have him laugh at you for your pains, but when he throws in a sneer at your personal appearance it is unbearable.

"Well, you can hang, and be damned!" he snorted.

"I t'ink," replied Lanfranc, as Connelly grasped the handle of the door, "you bes' stay' out there for 'bout half-hour. I'll try amuse the police."

The pearler was still smiling when Sergeant Molloy opened the door, and he waved his hand gaily in greeting.

"Looks as if you search for someone," he said.

A flicker of a smile came over the Sergeant's face, but it died away as he walked up to where Lanfranc sat.

"Yes," he replied. "I came after you."

Lanfranc slipped quickly off his seat.

"Mon ami," he said, "you are a 'damn brave man to come :here alone on such a mission. So when I say that I have the wish to speak, to you for the- time of a smoke first,' I do not say I could kill you before you move your hand if you say 'no.' I say, 'it is my' wish,' and you—" Lanfranc finished with a wave of his hand.

Molloy knew that the pearler spoke the truth. Yet it was not fear that made him nod his head in assent to Lanfranc's questioning gaze. He knew Lanfranc and liked him, as much as a man with his clear-cut idea of life could like a careless adven turer of Lanfraqc's stamp. He knew also that the pearler would not have made such a request unless he had something important, to tell, and, although it was his place to execute and not to judge, there could be no harm  in hearing what the man had to say.

The smile flashed out again in Lanfranc's face when he saw the Sergeant nod his head.

"Mon ami," he said, "Brave men do not kill each other without reason. Let us sit down."

"It is three years since I met you last in Cooktown," he began, "and much has happened. I t'ink you know me well enough to know that Lanfranc is not what the good priest would call pious— no! I never go to the church. I have not confess since I was a boy. I gamble too much; and too good— perhaps. But no one has said to my face that I cheat. No one can say that Lanfranc is a coward, or that he speak lies. No! And no one can ay that be has seen Lanfranc drunk, or"— Lanfranc inhaled in a draught of cigarette-smoke and fastened his eyes on the Sergeant's face— "or no one can say that Lanfranc has made hell for a woman. No! He is not good, but he has live clean. Is it not so, mon ami?"

Sergeant Molloy nodded his head. Lanfranc threw away his cigarette. "Patience, mon ami. I will speak quick. Two years ago I went ashore at Tamatoa Island. I find a good bed of shell in shallow water, and I like the place well. There was only one white man on the island who had planted rubber. I did not like Burton, as he called himself — and I do not like him yet. He was made for the cities, not, the islands. But he had a girl—"

Lanfranc waved his hand at the Sergeant, who had half started up.

"Sit still! Yes! I know you met her once in Cooktown, and she was beautiful; is it not so? Edith was her name, and it was a good name. Her smile was sof' like the spring, and her eyes were all the same as the blue flower that grows under the palm trees. I have never lof any woman, and I not lof her, but I feel, like a good man when she smile on me. I t'ink she see that Lanfranc was not all bad, for she was ver' good to me. Once when I step on a stingaree in a coral pool, and the pain was like hell, she fix the foot up with a hot cloth; I t'ink it was more the touch of her cool hand, but the pain go.

"Well, one day I arrived here with some pearls and much shell, and when I return to the island I bring some little presents for her. When I go to the house I fin' a strange man there. He was good to look at, yes! But I not like his eyes. You can tell mos' things, from the eyes,  if you know when to look.

"He Had great idea that there was guano on the island, and I see the father already had the lust for riches on his face. They dig all the time on the high ground, and the girl talk and laugh with the stranger. I tell her one day what I t'ink about him, but she laugh at me. You know how those t'ings go— she t'ink all men was good as herself. One has to have a little piece of hell in him before he see the bad in the rest.

"Well, one time I feel like a change, and I go for a trip to Sydney. I see many strange t'ings and live as a man should live. But at las' I feel some-t'ing tell me' to turn roun' and go back. So I start for the coral seas again. One morning I land at Thursday Island and Shamo, the diver, he tell me somet'ing about the girl on Tamatoa Island that make me strike him. Afterwards we shake hands like men, and I sail and steers for the island.

"In six days I step on the beach once again. I t'ink the girl was glad to see me, but she was ver' weak. Her father was like mad, and he tell me that he try to get the priest from the mission on the mainland, for the girl wish to have the blessing of the Church. But the priest he shrug his shoulders and refuse to come.

"I stepped on the lugger once again and sailed, for the mission. The priest say 'No' again, but I say. 'Yes!' and drop my hand on his shoulder. That good priest was hot strong and I carry him aboard the boat. We return fas', but we were in time." ....

"The next day we bury her under the clump of feather palms she love, so well. From that day I dive for no more pearls, but search, search, all the time.

"Well, las', week I visit Port Moresby, and step into the hotel. The place was full— much talk, much drink. But Lanfranc has no lof' to let the whisky make a fool of him. So I stand one side, and drink one, two glasses— not much. By and bye a man come in. He not see me, but I have no need of the whisky to make my blood run fas'. He been drinking, and he laugh, and wave, his hand at the crowd, and tell the publican to-fill up the glasses.

"Everybody ver' glad to drink with the stranger, but I take, my glass and spill it on the floor before someone's dog. He see what I do, and he turn quick. 'Damn,' he say, 'for what you do that?' I laugh and point where the dog has turned away. 'I t'ink I had rather drink with the dog than with you,' I say, and I smile in his face.

"Men have said I am too quick with the knife, but I gave him much time. He had a revolver out before I move. Then I drew my knife quick, and I have no fear, for it was my time. It was fate. See! That stain on the blade looks good to me."

Lanfranc laid the knife down on a chair before the other man. Ser geant Molloy's hand went out mechanically to the weapon,, and his. fingers ran caressingly along, the sharp edge.

"Good! goodl" he muttered half to himself.

Lanfranc's finger touched the back of the Sergeant's hand for a second. "Shall we go, mon ami?" he asked softly.

Sergeant Molloy straightened up as if he were about to salute.

"No, Lanfranc, damn, it, no! I am more  a man than this!"— and he touched the stripes on his sleeve. Lanfranc's black eyes flashed with a brilliant smile.

''You have the great heart, mon ami," he said simply "I leave here to-night. You have heard, that France is at war with Germany. Yes, it is so, and I return to fight for my country."

________________

3: The Bend of the Road

Capel Boake

1889-1944

Weekly Times (Vic), 8 July 1922

Doris Boake Kerr

BARTLETT had missed his way. He had been vaguely conscious of it for the last hour; now he was sure. Straight ahead the road stretched through the monotonous plains, the wide sweep of the sky edging down to the far horizon, but of the town of Warndoo, where the motor was to wait for him, there was no sign. He paused to take his bearings. Three miles on from the crossroads he had been told. That was definite enough, but on reaching the cross-roads he had been unable to decide winch road to take. As he hesitated an impulse had seized him to turn to the left.

That impulse had been wrong. He remembered now that as the car drove off the man had pointed to the right. It puzzled him how he could possibly have forgotten. It was not like him to forget, but all day a strange spirit of unrest seemed to have possessed him. It had been a ridiculous impulse, for instance, that had urged him to dismiss the motor with instructions to the driver to wait for him at Warndoo. Why had he done it? He did not know. He had urgent business at Warndoo, and had to return to Melbourne as quickly as possible, yet quite suddenly he had felt that he must get out and walk the rest of the way.

With a sense of joyous freedom he had watched the car drive off. It was good to be on the road again, even though it was only make-believe. He was rather out of condition, of course, but once on his feet it did not take him long to get into the steady stride of the good old days. He bore with perfect equanimity the knowledge that he was miles away from his destination, and that his business could not be attended to that night at any rate. Of course, he could retrace his steps, but this absurd impulse was urging him to go straight on, persuading him that he would miss something if be turned back. If he kept on he must come to a farmhouse where he could put up for the night and borrow a trap to take him across to Warndoo in the morning. Better to follow the impulse and see the adventure through. He would rather like to see where this road led to. Further on it seemed to take a turn, just where that curiously shaped hill broke the monotony of the plain.

It was five miles further on, and the sun was setting when Bartlett approached the bend of the road. Sombre and forbidding, the hill rose dark against the evening sky. Bartlett's eyes rested on it, reflectively at first, then with a sense of dawning excitement. He had never seen it before; all this country was strange to him; yet the queer shape of that hill was somehow vaguely familiar. In the half light of evening, which plays queer tricks with the eyesight, it looked like a sleeping lion, its great limbs hunched together and its head sunk forward on its breast. He knew it— somewhere he had seen it before.

He tried to dismiss the thought as ridiculous, but in his mind was the sure and certain knowledge that when he had rounded the curve of the hill he would see an old-fashioned farmhouse, surrounded by trees and a garden gay with flowers.

It was as he thought; only the gate swung broken on its hinges and the garden was overgrown with weeds. The place looked desolate and forlorn, as though in the struggle for existence the spirit of beauty had taken fright and fled. A few melancholy cows grazing in the paddock and a couple of horses appeared to be the extent of the farm stock. In another paddock grew a crop of some kind, but it was too dark for Bartlett to see what it was.

"Am I mad, or dreaming?" he muttered. "I'll swear I've never been here before, and yet somehow I know it."

He hesitated a moment before entering, conscious of almost an uncanny feeling. This recognition seemed to be the culmination of those queer impulses which had been urging him on, and he wondered what he was going to find inside.

As he stepped on to the verandah a board broke under his feet. The house seemed to be rotting away. Bartlett felt a sudden contraction at his throat. To him the place was infinitely pathetic, as though it was his own home settling into decay. A dog barked at the back, and footsteps hurried up to the hall. Someone fumbled at the lock and the door was thrown open.

"Jim!" It was a woman's voice; breathless, excited. "Jim! You've come at last."

"I— I beg your pardon," stammered Bartlett, taken aback.

The woman peered out at him. There was a moment's silence; he could see her white face and dark eyes and the restless twitching of her lips. Then she raised her hands in a gesture of despair.

"It's not Jim," she said dully.

"No," returned Bartlett apologetically. "The fact is I have missed my way, and I wondered if you could put me up for the night?"

"Come in." She stood aside for him to enter, and with a trembling hand lit the lamp. "I'll tell Anne," she said. "Anne will know."

She disappeared, and Bartlett could hear her calling outside, and then the clear, full notes of a girl's voice.

"What is it, mother? Someone wants us to put him up for the night? Very well, I will see him."

There was a clatter of cans as she spoke. "I've brought the milk in, mother, but don't you bother with it. I'll fix it up directly."

Bartlett smiled. So that was Anne! He had a fastidious ear, and there was a freshness and a vigour in the voice which pleased him. Evidently Anne looked after the place while the mother waited hopelessly for the return of Jim. But who was Jim? A husband or a son? No wonder the place was falling into decay. There were limitations to what one pair of girls' hands could do, and he guessed, looking at the bare room with its shabby furniture and thin, faded carpet, that the struggle was hard.

Then the door opened and Anne entered.

Bartlett had not known many women, and love was a word he fought rather shy of, but Instantly he know that this was the woman for him. She was young, barely twenty, he would have said, but yet she looked much older. Perhaps it was the flickering shadows playing on her face that gave her that expression of arrested life. Eager, living, yet at a standstill.

It was only for a moment that Bartlett got this impression, then she moved out of the shadows and her composed gaze met his. Conscious of his thoughts Bartlett flushed a little under her calm scrutiny. He felt she was weighing him in the balance, and if he faded in passing the bar of her judgment she would have no further use for him. Still, he returned her glance with one as straight as her own. He explained how he had missed his way and asked if they could put him up for the night.

The girl listened gravely, then evidently deciding he was to be trusted, smiled and held out her hand.

"Why, of course," she said, "you must stay here, and tomorrow my brother will drive you across to Warndoo. I hope that will suit you, Mr—" she glanced at the card Bartlett had given her, "Mr Bartlett."

"It's very good of you." Bartlett paused, then smiled rather diffidently. "Now there's only one other little thing."

"Yes?" queried the girl.

"Well, I don't know your name."

"Neither you do," she laughed. "It's Graham, Anne Graham, and this place—" she waved her hand—"this is known as Graham's farm throughout the district. My grandfather was one of the early pioneers here. He built this house and was so proud of it, but now I'm afraid"— she looked round rather wistfully —"it's not what it used to be."

"Graham." Bartlett repeated the name to himself, but it conveyed nothing to him, nor, now that he was inside the house, was he haunted by that strange feeling of recognition. He had never been here in his life, and he had never heard of the people. He was ready to put it down as a bad attack of nerves or imagination. All the same, he was glad of the chance that had brought him here. He had to go away in the morning, but he would return very soon. Now that he had found Anne he was not going to let her go.

He had a solitary meal, for Anne explained that they had already had theirs, and then while he was smoking in the sitting room she came in to him. She looked flushed, and a little anxious, he thought, and he wondered what was troubling her. She sat down opposite him and leaned forward, her hands clasped together on her lap.

"Mr Bartlett," she said abruptly, "there is something I want to ask you. You may be able to help me."

"Why, of course, Miss Graham." Bartlett knocked out his pipe and laid it on the table. "Anything at all, Miss Graham. I'd be only too glad." His eyes, diffident and intensely earnest, met hers. "I haven't known you very long, but I feel as though—  well, as though I belonged here."

"Thank you." Anne smiled faintly. "About my mother," she went on. "When you came this evening she mistook you for my father. He disappeared ten years ago. We don't know where he went to or whether he's living or dead. Whenever there's a knock at the door mother thinks it must be him. Mr Bartlett, my mother has a strange feeling about you. She says that you know something of my father— that you can tell us what has become of him."

Anne laughed uncertainly. She was trying to carry it off lightly, but he could feel the tense anxiety under which she was labouring "It's ridiculous to suppose you know anything about him, but if you do— oh, Mr Bartlett, if you do, please tell me. Even if he's dead, we'd sooner know; otherwise we might live here for ever, waiting for him to return."

"Miss Graham," Bartlett knitted puzzled brows, "There's nothing I wouldn't do to help you if I could, but I'm afraid you've asked me the one impossible thing. So far as I know I've never met your father, but perhaps your mother could give me some clue. She may have some idea as to where I might have met him."

Anne sighed.

"I was afraid there wasn't much hope," she said, "but mother gets these strange feelings sometimes. Still, if she does ask you anything about it you will try to help her, won't you, even though you know it is hopeless?"

Bartlett nodded absently. He was wondering whether he would tell her the experience he had had. It made him look rather a fool perhaps, but there it was. It certainly had happened.

"It's rather strange," he said slowly, "that your mother should have had such a feeling about me. Coming here this evening I had the queerest impression. I was sure I had seen this place before, though to the best of my knowledge I've never at any time been in this district. Unless I saw it in a dream," he said, with an embarrassed laugh, "I can't imagine how it happened."

"Mr Bartlett." Anne sprang to her feet, her face flushed with excitement. "There may be something in mother's feeling after all. Perhaps somewhere you've met my father. You don't remember it, but it's there in your mind. Oh, try and think, won't you? Try and help us all you can."

"I'll try, but don't build too much on it. I'd hate to disappoint you. Perhaps your mother—"

"Hush!" interrupted the girl softly, "here she comes. Don't let her know we've been talking about it. It worries her.

"Well, mother darling?" she said cheerfully, as Mrs Graham entered the room, followed by a slim lad of fifteen with a pale face and rather a sulky mouth, "you and Mr Bartlett have met before, haven't you? This is my brother Jim," she added, laying an affectionate hand on the boy's shoulder and looking proudly at him. "We do lessons together every night. Unless I kept him up to it, Mr Bartlett, he'd never learn anything."

"Aw! what's the good," muttered the boy, flinging his books on to the table and stealing a sidelong glance at Bartlett as he did so. "I'll have to stick here all my life milkin' cows, so what's the use of learning anything?"

Bartlett looked at the boy and frowned. That feeling of vague recognition was awake in him again. Somehow the boy's face was familiar. It reminded him of someone. But whom? Jim? He had never known a Jim Graham, but something was struggling to light in his mind. If only he could remember! The faintest clue would help him. He was sure he had seen that boy's father somewhere.

"Mrs Graham," he said abruptly, "have you a photograph of your husband?"

Anne looked up quickly, and their eyes met.

"Do you remember?" she hardly dared ask the question. Instinctively he laid his hand over hers.

"I don't know," he muttered. "There's something, but I'm not sure— not yet."

Anne did not remove her hand, and together they watched while her mother looked among a pile of photographs she took from a drawer. At last she picked out one which she handed to Bartlett.

"That is my husband," she said quietly, "taken when he was a young man. You will see the likeness to my son. If you don't remember," her voice sank to a whisper, "I don't know what I shall do. I've counted so much on you."

"Mother, darling," said Anne, "don't expect too much. It's only a chance, you know, but Mr Bartlett will do the best he can."

They both watched him with passionate anxiety as he took the photograph and studied it. In the features of the young man there was almost a startling likeness to the boy. Where had he seen that face before? It was connected in his mind with something if he could only bring it out. How long ago? His thoughts were going back, and the mists were clearing away. In a moment he would have it! Let him think. He clenched his hand in the effort to remember. Ah, now he had it. It was on the opal fields, seven years ago, when he had been down and out, and Jim had given him a corner of his hut. Why, of course! It was Jim, old Jim, as he had called him; drunken; graceless Jim, with his charming manners and periodical fits of brooding. No wonder the house and the hill had been familiar to him.

In these last days, when Jim was dying— quite unromantically, as the result of a drunken brawl, and Bartlett had nursed him, he had raved deliriously of the hill where he had played as a boy, and his home at the bend of the road. Jim had been quite lyrical when he was delirious. Day after day he had raved on until Bartlett had a clear mental picture of Jim's old home. At the end there had been something Jim had wanted to say. He was conscious, and Bartlett remembered the agony in his eyes as he struggled to speak. Perhaps then he had wanted to tell Bartlett who he was and send a message to his wife. Bartlett laid the photograph face downwards on the table. He did not like to see Jim's eyes staring at him and to remember them as he had seen them that last time.

"Yes, Mrs Graham," he said quietly. "I knew your husband."

There was silence. Mrs Graham looked the question she could not speak, and Bartlett bowed his head.

"He is dead," he said gently. "Seven years ago or longer. I met him on the opal fields, and I was with him when he died. I think he was waiting to strike it lucky before he came home. At the end he wanted to give me a message, but he could not speak. I never knew his other name or anything about him."

"He wanted to send his love to you, mother," whispered the girl, "and ask your forgiveness."

"He always had that, Anne," said the mother. "Mr Bartlett, there is something else," she looked at him with an appeal in her eyes. "My husband—" she faltered a little and then went on. "He must have met many temptations, and he was always a little weak. How— how did he die?"

He knew what she meant. Did her husband die as he had lived; a graceless, drunken scamp. If ever a lie was justified it was now.

"Mrs Graham," he said steadily, "your husband died as you would have wished, a good man. If he had been spared to come back to you I think you would have been proud of him."

"Thank you." She drew a long breath. "Mr Bartlett, you have made me very happy. God must have sent you here today."

Bartlett felt rather uncomfortable, and stole a glance at Anne. He wondered what she was thinking, but her face was inscrutable. Somehow he got the idea that she did not quite believe him. Well, it could not be helped. He simply could not have told her mother the truth.

Presently Anne sent her brother off to bed and helped her mother from, the room.

"Wait for me, Mr Bartlett," she said, as she did so. "I'll be back in a moment. There's something I want to ask you."

"It's coming now," thought Bartlett ruefully. "I thought she did not believe me." He was standing at the window looking out into the darkness when Anne returned. There was rather a tender little smile on her lips, but she repressed it as she met his eyes.

"Mr Bartlett." she said quietly, "you know you did not tell us the whole truth."

Bartlett looked embarrassed. He could not tell her a deliberate lie, so he took refuge in silence.

"You see," she went on, "I remember my father. If he had changed he would have come home. He loved this place. He left it because he could not bear us to see him as he was—  sometimes. You lied, Mr Bartlett, but"— her voice broke a little—"thank you a thousand times for it. My mother believed you, and that is all that matters."

"Oh, that's all right," muttered Bartlett, feeling extremely foolish. "Your father was decent to me once when I was down and out, and I had to do the best I could for him. And now," he smiled and squared his shoulders, "suppose we forget all about that? In return there is something you can do for me. I have to leave early in the morning— young Jim has promised to wake me at six— but next week I want to come back. You see," he added boyishly, "I want you to learn to really like me."

"But we do."

"Not enough. Oh, look here. Anne," he said impatiently, "let us be done with pretence. You know what I mean. May I come back next week to see— you?"

A soft colour flooded her cheeks and her eyes fell. She did not speak. He watched her, wondering what she was going to do. His whole life hung on this. Slowly she turned to the door. Surely she was not going to leave him without a word! As he despaired, she looked at him and smiled.

"Yes." she said softly, "come back next week."

__________________

4: Long Distance

Frances Noyes Hart

1890-1943

Pictorial Review Mar 1923

Frances Noyes Hart

DEVON SNAPPED the stub of his cigarette into the fire with a movement of amused impatience, his fingers more eloquent than his thin, impassive countenance.

"Nothing, was it?"

"No, nothing— that unspeakable wind." Anne Carver gave a last reluctant glance over her shoulder into the shadowed hall, and pulled the door to behind her, turning her face to the warm, bright room with a rueful smile. "I'm sorry, Hal; it's outrageous of me— right in the middle of that thrilling story, too."

In spite of her slim height and the sophisticated skill with which she had wound her velvety black hair about her small head— in spite of the length of filmy train that swept behind her, she looked like some charming and contrite child as she came slowly across the room to the deep chintz chair and the dancing warmth of the fire.

"But it's nonsense, my dear girl; sheer, unmitigated nonsense! Here you are spoiling what might have been a delightful evening by working yourself up into a magnificent state of nerves, and over what, I ask you? Over nothing, over less than nothing! Poor old Derry telephones that he won't be able to get out to-night because he's been dragged in on some fool party, and you apparently interpret it into meaning that you're never going to lay eyes on him again in this world. You've been restless as a witch all evening— every time a door's slammed or a latch has rattled you've fairly leapt out of your skin; and permit me to inform you that you're getting me so that I'm about to start leaping, too. Nice, cheerful atmosphere for the stranger within your gates, my child."

"I'm awfully sorry, Hal. I'll be good, truly. It's only that—"

"Only what, for the love of Heaven? You aren't expecting him back to-night, are you?"

"Well, of course, I know that he said he couldn't possibly manage it, but he might— he can manage anything. And he wanted so dreadfully to see you; it's been years, hasn't it?"

"Three," replied Devon concisely.

"Well, you see! And of course he'd want to see me dreadfully, because it's been years since he's seen me, too; we have breakfast at half-past seven. Isn't that hideous? It takes him an hour to get into town; I do hate that. A whole hour away— think of it—"

"Anne, I blush for you; I do indeed. It's embarrassing for any well-behaved bachelor to hear you talk. It's sinful to lavish that amount of devotion on any man that lives."

"Not on Derry." The clear face was a little flushed, but the shining eyes met his unwaveringly. "You lavish it, too, Hal! I used to be bored to distraction by the tales that you'd pour out for hours on end about the fabulous student who was on his way back from Paris to spread havoc amongst the maidens of America. I used to laugh at you— remember?"

"Of course I remember." The dark, ironic face was suddenly touched with a very charming smile. "That first evening that I brought him over after supper, and he talked until a quarter to one until he had everyone as excited as he was about things that we actually wouldn't give a snap of our fingers for; I can see him standing by the mantel now, with every golden hair on his head ruffled up, and those crazy sherry-coloured eyes of his half mad with excitement, ranting like a Frenchman and laughing like a lunatic— I can see you with your face tilted up to him, forgetting that any of the rest of us were alive— You had on a gray dress and someone had sent you white flowers, and you were wearing a long string of green beads that hung to your knees—"

"Hal, you're making that up! Four years—"

"Is four years too long to remember green beads and white flowers? Perhaps you're right! But it isn't too long to remember Derry's voice when he told us about the night that he and the drunken cab driver spent in the Louvre, is it? Shades of Gargantua, how that kid could laugh! After all, there's never been any one else just like him, has there?"

"Not ever— oh, not ever. It's the cruellest shame that he couldn't be here now; he'd love it so, and you could have such a beautiful time reminiscing— oh, I can't bear having him away on a night like this. When I went to the door just then those trees by the gate were straining like dogs on a leash, and the wind had wrenched a great branch off the lilac bush. I do hate November! And the rain like gray floods— and so cold, Hal. He oughtn't to be out in that, truly. He ought to be here where he could play with us, where it's warm and kind and— safe. Do you suppose they were motoring?"

"I don't suppose anything at all. My dear girl, you aren't going to start that all over again?"

"Ah, it's frightfully silly, I know. Old married people— three-year-old married people— they oughtn't to mind things like that. But it's the first time that he's been away all night, and I'm— oh, I'm ridiculous. Scold me, scold me hard!"

"You're a very difficult person to scold, all things considered. It's those unprincipled eyelashes, probably. First time in three years, honestly, Anne? Good Lord, it's unbelievable!"

"Hal!"

"Well, but my good child! Long Island and the twentieth century and the tottering state of holy matrimony— it's simply defying the laws of gravity! Do you sit here hanging the crane every night of your lives?"

"Oh, Hal, you lovely idiot! Of course we don't; we go out any amount and have people here a lot, and go in town, too. Only we happen to like each other— rather— and to like to play together— rather— so we just go ahead and do it. It's simply happened that up to now nothing turned up that we couldn't do together; of course it was bound to happen sooner or later. Of course I know that, Hal." She leaned forward, the firelight painting flying shadows on the vivid, high-bred little face. "But I'm an utter goose about Derry. I feel empty when he isn't around, and I don't care who knows it."

"A bit hard on the rest of us, isn't it? Still, if it's the same Derry that I practically bestowed on you at the altar I'm rather inclined to get your point of view. Not changed for the worse?"

"Changed for the better, thank you!" laughed Derry's wife. "Better and better and better every minute, once removed from your sinister influence." She smiled her gay affection at him, and then suddenly the smile wavered, faded— she sprang to her feet, trailing her blue-green draperies over to the long window.

"Don't you hate that noise, Hal? No, listen. The rain's out to drown the world, and that wind—" She shivered, staring out into the menacing blackness, raging like a wild beast on the other side of the lighted window. "Poor Hal, it's going to be simply awful for you! It's a good ten minutes' walk to the club, and these back roads turn into mud soup if it even showers! I do think it's a wicked shame."

"Perhaps I'd better be getting on my way—"

"No, no!" There was a note of sheer panic in her voice, though she laughed it down valiantly. "Why, it can't be eleven, and he isn't going to call up till twelve. You simply have to entertain me; I won't be abandoned yet. No, I mean it. Let's start again— about Brazil. You were telling me about Brazil—"

"You aren't even remotely interested in Brazil," he accused. "But I'll talk to you about any place from Peoria to Patagonia, if you'll stop wandering about like a lost soul, and come back to the fire, like a good child."

"Yes," replied the good child obediently, dropping the curtain. "Does— does it seem cold to you in here, Hal?"

"Cold? It's heavenly warm; if I were a cat I'd purr for you."

"It feels— cold, to me," said Anne Carver, spreading her hands before the leaping flames. "As though the wind had got in through the window somehow, and into my blood— and into my bones—"

"Nonsense," said Devon sharply. "You got chilled standing over there; you're an unconscionable goose, and I'm beginning to be strongly out of patience with you. Sit down and put your feet on the fender— want something over your shoulders?"

She shook her head, holding her hands closer to the fire.

"No, please— I'd rather not sit down just yet. It was the window, of course. Don't be cross; I do want to hear the rest of that about Brazil. Some day I'm going there; some day I'm going to find a country where there's no such time as autumn— no such month as November, full of dead leaves, and wind and cold— and emptiness. Tell me what's prettiest there; there must be so many pretty things? Birds with shining feathers— butterflies like flowers— flowers like butterflies— gold like sunshine and sunshine like gold— oh, I'm warmer just for thinking of it! Tell me what was prettiest?"

"I saw nothing half so pretty as a lady with the lamplight falling about her, bending over pansies black as her hair in a bowl green as her eyes."

"Oh!" She straightened swiftly, giving the flowers a last friendly touch, and facing him, lightly flushed, lightly reproachful. "Green, Hal? That's not pretty at all— and it stands for something shameful."

Devon raised quizzical eyebrows.

"Never felt the honest pangs of jealousy, Anne?"

"But how could I, even if I were capable of such cheapness and ugliness? I've never in my life cared for any one but Derry."

"And Derry, lovely lady, would never give you cause?"

"Derry?" The startled incredulity of that cry rang into clear mirth. "Why, Hal, it may be difficult for you to believe, but Derry loves me."

Devon tapped the ashes off his cigarette, and sat staring for a moment at the reddened tip.

"It doesn't precisely strain my credulity to the breaking point," he replied drily. "No, I can imagine that Derry might love you. It hardly requires any colossal stretch of imagination on my part, either. I've loved you myself for thirteen years."

"Hal!"

"Loved you with every drop of blood in my body. There's no use looking stricken and melodramatic, Anne. I've never worried you much about it, have I?"

"No," she whispered voicelessly.

"No. Well, then, don't worry me about it now, there's a good girl. I'm off for Ceylon to-morrow, and I haven't the most remote intention of making a nuisance of myself to-night. You don't have to remind me of the fact that Derry's my best friend, that I was his best man, that you are his wife. I have an excellent memory for such trifling details myself. It's only fair to add, however, that I wouldn't give a tuppenny damn for the whole collection if it weren't for one other."

"Which other?" she asked, her eyes meeting his steadily, infinitely gentle and remote.

"The rather important one that you're happy," replied Devon evenly. "I came all the way back from Brazil to find out whether he was making you happy— and now I'm off to-morrow."

"Happy is a poor word for what he has made me," she said. "You should have known that, you who know Derry. Oh, Hal— oh, Hal, how could you?"

"It isn't done, I know," he assented. "It's always the cad and the villain who is caught out making love to his friend's wife at all hours of the night. But there's a slight distinction in my favour, you see; I am loving you, not making love to you."

"You're hurting me," she told him. "Pretty badly."

"You have no right to be hurt. It's nothing ugly that I am giving you. Out of pain and bitterness and despair I've wrought something rather fine; it isn't like you to disdain it, my dear. Ever since you were a little girl with dark braids swinging to your waist, I've brought you presents; every corner of the earth I've ransacked just to have you touch those gifts with your fingers, and say, 'That's lovely, Hal— that's lovely'— and smile. The only thing worth giving you was not in my power to bestow, but I wanted to make sure that you had it, no matter whose hands had held it out to you. Happiness is yours, Anne— I have nothing left to give you but my love. I swear to you that there is not one thing in it that gives you the right to say that it hurts you. Believe me, you can take it in your hands— and smile."

"Yes. Yes, Hal." She smiled at him, grave and misty-eyed— and he smiled back.

"Then that's about all, my dear, and I'll be going. It's no hour at all for a poor bachelor to be awake. Good-night, Anne; sweet dreams to you."

"Hal, I don't want you to go— please, I don't want you to go." There was something so desperate in her low entreaty that he halted with lifted brows. "I know that it's utterly foolish and unreasonable— and— and selfish, but I simply can't bear to be left here alone until Derry calls me up. Please, please don't leave me."

"Very well." He turned back to his chair slowly. "This isn't like you, you know."

"I know." She sat staring down at her locked fingers. "It isn't a bit like me; I haven't any nerves at all, as a rule— not enough to make me sympathetic even. Derry says my lack of imagination is simply appalling— that unless I can see a thing or touch it or taste it or smell it or hear it, I simply won't believe that it exists— that I don't really believe that the world's round, because it looks flat to me! He laughs about it, but I do honestly think that it worries him."

"It generally worries Derry when someone doesn't see things his way." Devon smiled reminiscently.

"Well, you know how he is. He fully believes that they're trying to signal to us from Mars, and he almost goes wild because no one pays any attention to the signals! He thinks that phonographs are much more incredible than Ouija boards, and that telephones are far more extraordinary than telepathy. It wouldn't be any effort to Derry to believe that the world was shaped like a hat-box, with blue and green stripes and a nice little handle to carry it around!"

"You must be a great trial to him, Madame Materialist."

"Oh, he wrings his hands over me. He says for any one to seem as spiritual and be as literal as I am is nothing more nor less than a swindle. Oh, oh, if he could see me to-night!"

"But will you be good enough to tell me what in the name of Heaven is the matter with you to-night?"

"I don't know; I don't know." She drew a long breath, making a piteous effort to smile. "I'm— frightened."

"Frightened of what?"

"I don't know, I tell you." She glanced about her with a long, despairing shiver. "Of the night— of the world— of the room— of— of everything."

"The room! You know when you talk like that, Anne, you make me seriously consider ringing up a doctor. I don't believe that all America holds a more delightful room— gayer or kinder or more friendly; it's nothing short of a miracle what you've done to this old barn! It's the most reassuring room I've ever set my foot in; you know, when you come into it with its fires and flowers and lights, you can almost hear it singing and laughing to itself, 'Here— here dwells happiness.'"

"Oh, yes, you're right— it has been happy." Her eyes strayed over its treasures; the shelves warm and bright with books, with the beloved Lowestoft standing like flowers against the panelled cream of the walls, the lustre gleaming in blue and copper bravery along the firelit mantel, the glazed chintz holding out its prim nosegays proudly for all to see— the English prints on the walls echoing the gay warmth of the hooked rugs on the floor— she brought her haunted eyes back to Devon.

"It's a pretty room," she said in a strange little voice. "I do think it's quite a pretty room. But do you know what it looks like to me to-night? To-night it looks to me like a corpse that someone had dressed in a flowered frock and a ribboned hat."

"Anne!" His voice cracked out like a whip. "Now that's enough; you're to pull yourself together at once, or I'm going to call up the doctor. That's an abominably morbid thing to say— it's simply not healthy. I'm not joking, my dear; I have every intention of calling him up if you haven't yourself in hand in the next five minutes."

He leaned across to the table, drawing the shining black instrument closer toward him.

"D'you think I'm sick?" she asked piteously. "You know, I do think I must be sick. I'm so— I'm so dreadfully cold."

"Here—" He rose abruptly. "Where's your scarf?"

"No— no— it isn't a scarf I want. I'm cold inside, dreadfully, dreadfully. It isn't a scarf."

"You're worrying me badly, Anne. Look here, what is it? This party of Derry's, honestly?"

"Yes, the party. It's foolish, I know; I know— don't say it, please— I know."

"Well, but what about it? Did Derry seem worried himself? Did he sound upset?"

"No. He sounded— casual. As casual as— as casual as—" She made a little despairing gesture with her hand. "I can't tell you how casual he sounded."

"Well, then—"

"Well, then, but that's it, Hal. Derry isn't a bit a casual person, and here were you for the first time in three years— and here was I, and he knows how I loathe being left alone out here with the maids— and he sounded as though it were— nothing. Just nothing at all."

"And is this honestly the mole-hill out of which you've built your mountain?"

"No— I don't know; I can't even explain it to myself— how could I explain it to you? It wasn't anything tangible at first. Just a feeling of— of discomfort— something vague and not pleasant; I couldn't even put my finger on it. I told myself that I was being silly and unreasonable— I did indeed. You mustn't think that I enjoy this kind of thing. I hate it, I hate it."

"But I'm so utterly at sea to account for this, my dear, and I want to help you. You're tormenting yourself about something real if we could only put our finger on it. Something that Derry said or did that worried you; you can't make me believe that you've manufactured all of this out of thin air! It's too unlike you— why, ever since that first day I met you, a pale mite of a thing with great eyes and long braids, brave and proud and gentle in the midst of the rest of those young hoydens, I've found you exquisitely fair and adorably, adorably reasonable. No one's ever been like you, Anne; you mustn't wreck my world by showing me little clay feet to-night."

"Trying to flatter me into being a good child? That's dear of you, but oh, I'm beyond flattery. I'm making up for any past arrears of reason to-night, I promise you."

"Well, then, let's try to get to the bottom of it— hunt the good old subconscious into the open! Now what exactly was this famous telephone conversation, word for word?"

She turned her head restlessly.

"Oh, Hal, what does it matter? Very well— only I've told you once, you know. He said, 'I'm awfully sorry, dear, but I won't be able to get out this evening. Tell Hal that I'm sorry as the dickens, but that we can have lunch at the office to-morrow; one sharp. That'll give him plenty of time to get off again on his globe-trotting.' And I said, 'But what time will you get out?' He said, 'Six-thirty to-morrow, as usual. I may bring Joe Carey along with me.' I was so surprised that I almost lost my voice, Hal, and I said, 'Why, Derry, not to-night?' And he just laughed, and said, 'No; I've been roped in on the darnedest party you ever heard of— got to run now, or I'd explain. I can't possibly get out of it. You'll be awfully amused when I tell you. It's a good joke on me!' I said, 'But where are you going?' And Derry said, 'Lord knows! I've got to run, honestly, dear. Tell you what I'll do: I'll call you up when it's over, and let you in on the whole blooming thing. It's too good to sleep on; wait till you hear! It may be late— will you be awake at twelve?' And I said, 'I'll be awake at six if you don't call up. Promise, Derry.' And he said, 'Promised! Not later than twelve. Give Hal my best— see you both to-morrow.' And— he rang off."

"That was absolutely all there was to it?"

"Absolutely all."

"Very well. I'll bet you five thousand dollars to a pansy, Lady Tragedy, that the midnight expedition runs somewhat on these lines. Mr. Jabez K. Rugg from Omaha, Nebraska, blows into our Derry's office late this afternoon with an interesting proposition. He has heard that he is the most promising young architect in America, and as he is desirous of presenting his third wife with a cross between a Moorish palace and a French château for a little anniversary surprise he has applied to Derry for some sound advice, for which he is willing and eager to disburse colossal sums. Time presses, however, and the worthy Mr. Rugg yearns to invest his precious hours in New York both profitably and pleasantly. He suggests that the promising young architect put on his hat, lock up his office, and sally forth into the night, which they will spend together, chattering of business and painting the unfortunate town a brilliant red. He doesn't happen to know the ropes, but he has a really touching confidence in our Derrick. And our Derrick, fired with the desire to hang pearls about your neck and sables about your shoulders, wafts a good-night kiss to the pleasant anticipation of firelight and candlelight, and sallies forth into what the poet refers to as 'the lights of old Broadway.' And there you are! Please pick me out a nice pansy."

"That's all very clever and amusing, Hal, but it isn't especially convincing. And it doesn't relieve me any more than if someone tried to cheer things up by doing a fox-trot to the funeral march. You needn't scowl; it doesn't. If it was as simple as that, why didn't he explain it at the time?"

"My dear child, he was evidently in a tearing hurry— he'd have had to go into elaborate explanations to make it clear, and he obviously wasn't in any position to indulge in the luxury of explanations. The impetuous Mr. Rugg may have been clamouring at the door, or tooting his horn underneath the window. At any rate, he's going to call you up in a bare half hour, and clear up the whole thing; he's apt to keep his word, isn't he?"

"Apt to?" she echoed scornfully. "He'd keep his word if the world came to an end. I thought that you knew him."

At the disdain in her voice something violently resentful flared in the dark eyes that met hers.

"Why, so did I," he returned evenly. "But apparently I was mistaken. The Derry I knew was not a plaster saint, you see!"

"Nor is the Derry that I know— plaster." Her voice shook, but she held her head very high. "Are you trying to make me mistrust him, Hal? Be careful, please; you are only making me mistrust you."

"Oh, good God!" He flung at her a look of such revolt and despair that the small frozen face softened. "Look here, don't— don't let's make more of a mess of this. You can't believe that kind of thing of me, Anne; you may know Derry, but you've known me longer, after all. I'd cut my throat before I'd try to come between you two. Derry's worth a thousand of me, of course— I know. He's made you happy, and nothing that I could do in this life or the next would ever repay him for that. But just for a moment it galled me hideously to have you lavishing that flood of adoration on any man that lived: it was a flick on a raw wound, and something deep in me yelled out rebellion. You think jealousy a cheap and ugly thing, you say— well, now you know just how cheap, just how ugly it can be!"

"Ah, I'm sorry—" She leaned to him, all gentleness once more. "I'm sorry that I was hateful; it's nothing but these unspeakable nerves, truly. Let's forget it all, shan't we? Do you think it's letting up a little outside? It doesn't sound quite so— so savage, does it?" As though resentful of her waning terror, the beast outside flung itself at them once more, pouncing on the house with a long and terrible roar, shaking it in its monstrous claws as though it would rattle the flimsy barriers of wood and glass out of their cracking frames. She shrank deeper into the chair with a tremulous laugh. "Oh, no, it's incredible— no, listen to it. I'll wager that it's literally tearing trees up by the roots and—" She broke off tensely. "Hal, you don't think that it could damage the wires, do you?"

"No, no; nonsense! It sounds a great deal worse than it is; this house is nothing but a rattletrap, I tell you. It takes a worse storm than this to put a telephone out of commission."

"If he doesn't telephone, I can't bear it," she said softly. "That's not rhetoric. I simply can't bear it."

"Well, we can settle that," said Devon briefly. "I'll get Central and—"

The telephone that he reached for suddenly gave a faint jangle— a small, far-off warning of sound— and then it rang aloud, sharp and imperative.

"Oh, Hal!" Her voice was an exultant quiver. "No, no, give it to me; he's early, isn't he? It's not nearly twelve, is it? Yes— yes, this is Mrs. Carver— this is Anne, darling—" The thrilled voice wavered and flagged. "Oh— oh, I'm sorry; you must have the wrong number.... Yes, it's Mrs. Carver— Mrs. Derrick Carver. No, but it's a mistake.... No, no one's been using the wire this evening; no, it hasn't rung at all. I've been rather expecting a call, but the wire's been perfectly clear since nine.... What?... I can't hear— there's a singing on the wires.... What?... No, the receiver hasn't been off; I'm sorry that you've had so much trouble getting us, but I really think that there's some mistake— perhaps the maids—" She bit her lip, with a glance of despairing amusement at Devon. "Why, yes, it's possible that someone else has been trying to get a call through to me, but none has come through.... Yes, it might have been long distance.... What? You've been trying for an hour? Well, that really isn't my fault, is it? If you'll tell me what you want.... I can't hear; please speak a little louder.... No, it doesn't make any difference whether any one else is here or not, you can give the message to me. I'm quite as capable of hearing what you have to say as any one else.... No, I most certainly will not; please tell me what you want, or I shall simply ring off.... Yes. Yes. I can hear.... Oh, its Headquarters. Well, you can tell for yourself that the telephone's not working well; there's that singing on the wires and every now and then it buzzes, too. I suppose it's this storm; I'm so glad you're working on it. Do see if there's not something that you can do; I am expecting an important call any minute. Can't one of your men?... Well, then, what on earth did you call up for? I do think that this service— Oh—" Her voice died suddenly in her throat, and at the look in her eyes Devon leapt to his feet.

"Here, Anne— give it to me!"

She shook her head, fighting desperately to get back her voice.

"No, no— wait.... Yes, I heard you perfectly— yes, Police Headquarters. I didn't understand. It's some mistake, of course.... No.... No, he's not here.... Well, then, if you knew that, what do you want?... I don't know where— I don't know, I tell you.... I can't hear you— please spell.... Green's? Breen's?... No, I never heard of such a place.... No, I don't know who he went with; it was some kind of a party— some kind of a.... Who?... Lola? Lola what? No, no, never mind— I never heard of her— never.... Please— please wait a minute— I want to ask you a question— just one. Please. I've answered all of yours, haven't I?... Then— where is Mr. Carver? Where is he?... No, no, you know where he is— you do— you do— you do! You have to tell me— You have to— you.... Hal! Hal!"

She thrust the telephone toward him, the frantic voice slipping and stumbling in its haste.

"Make them tell you— you're a man— make them— make them—"

Her teeth were chattering so violently that the words were lost; she clung to the table edge, shaken with a dreadful and racking tremor, her tortured eyes fastened on his face.

"What the devil do you mean, calling up at this hour of the night?" demanded Devon violently. "I don't care who you are; it's a damned outrage, ringing up a woman at this hour and frightening the heart out of her. One of your dirty charges for speeding, I'll bet.... If you've got Mr. Carver there, send him to the 'phone and send him quick.... Well, if it comes down to that, I don't like your tone, either.... What?... What?... Oh, report and be damned; you're going to get a report on yourself that'll blow the inside of your head out.... Well, get me Mr. Carver then and snap into it.... I can't hear.... Where is he then?... Where?... Oh, speak louder— where is he?... What?..."

There was a moment of absolute silence, and then he spoke again, very quietly.

"Yes, I heard you; I heard you perfectly— be good enough not to shout.... Yes.... No, I'll explain to Mrs. Carver.... Well, I can't give you credentials over the telephone, but I have known Mr. and Mrs. Carver for years; I was at school with him— yes. My name's Devon.... D-e-v-o-n. Henry Devon.... Yes, I'll drop in to see you to-morrow.... No, you can't speak to Mrs. Carver— no, that's final. I'd be much obliged if you'd give me any details that you have. Just run over the facts.... Yes.... I didn't get that.... Oh— blonde.... No, I couldn't tell you.... No, you're on the wrong track; there has been no trouble of any kind between them.... Well, there isn't any explanation— not any; it's— it's.... Look here, give me your number and I'll call up again in a few minutes.... Yes. 5493?... oh, 53!... In about fifteen minutes.... Yes."

He placed the receiver slowly on the hook, and stood staring down at the little black instrument that had been so vocal, and now was dumb.

"Hal?" The voice was not more than a breath, but at its sound he shuddered, as though he were cold. "Hal?"

"Sit down, Anne; here, I'll pull it closer to the fire— that's it."

"Hal, what did that man say? Has there been an accident?"

"Something like that."

"Is Derry— hurt?"

"Yes, dear."

She sat quite still, only her fingers stirring, drawing the silken tassel on her girdle back and forth, back and forth.

"Is Derry— dead, Hal?"

"Yes, dear."

She let the girdle slip from her fingers, lifting her hands to push back the weight of hair from her forehead with a small sigh, like a tired child.

"I think it's just some mistake, don't you, Hal?"

"I wish to God that I could think so."

"Well— but what made them think it was Derry?"

"He had letters— cards— initials on his cigarette case."

"Oh, yes, it's a diamond-shaped monogram— awfully pretty. I gave it to him last Christmas; you can't think how pleased he was. D.H.C.— Derrick Horn Carver— Who was Lola?"

"She was a— a girl who was with him."

"Was she? Where did it happen?"

"In New Jersey, somewhere this side of Princeton."

"Please tell me just what happened. Did another automobile hit them?"

"No."

After a long moment she said again in that dreadful, gentle little voice.

"Well? Then what was it? I'm waiting."

"Anne, I don't know how to tell you. I'd rather have the heart torn out of my body then tell you. Wait—"

"I'm through waiting. Is it as bad as that? Hurry up, please. What happened? Where did they find him?"

"In a road-house near Princeton— a place called Breen's."

"Was he alone?"

"No— there was a girl with him. They don't know who she was; her handkerchief had 'Lola' on it."

"Had she killed him?"

"No."

"How do they know she hadn't?"

"Because she was shot herself— in the back."

"Then who killed him?"

"They—" He set his teeth, the sweat standing out on his forehead. "I'm not going to tell you any more about it now. Wait— wait—"

"If you don't tell me, I'm going out through that door and walk until I get to New York. Who killed him?"

"They say he killed himself."

"Killed himself? I never heard of such ridiculous nonsense." She was speaking as quietly and evenly as though she were discussing the labour problem, frozen to a calm more terrible than any madness. "Why should he have killed himself?"

"My God, how do I know? There was no one else to kill him— the pistol was still in his hand."

"Where were the rest of the party?"

"There was no one else in the party. The proprietor said that they came alone, arrived at about nine and ordered supper— it was after ten when they heard the shots."

"The proprietor probably did it himself," said Anne Carver softly. "You let them say these things about Derry without contradiction— you, who know that he would die rather than give pain to any wretched little animal that lives?"

"I can't believe it, Anne. I can't believe it— but what else in God's name can I believe?"

"You can believe what you please; and you evidently please to believe something more filthy than any nightmare that I have ever had."

"You are being extraordinarily cruel, Anne. What explanation do you give?"

"There are a thousand. Robbery—"

"But nothing that he had was touched—"

"He was protecting the girl—"

"Against whom?"

"It might have been blackmail— it might have been a maniac; it might have been anything, anything, anything but the thing that you think. If Derry were here he would strike you dead for what you believe of him. I wish that he were here to strike you dead."

"I wish it, too. Believe me, life does not very greatly appeal to me at present."

"Did you think that if you destroyed my faith in him I would fall weeping into your arms?" she asked smoothly. "Spare yourself the trouble. I would die before I touched you with a finger, now that I know what you think of him."

"By God!" He towered suddenly above her. "That's enough, I'm off. You'll live yet to regret that, Anne."

"No— no— no— don't leave me— don't, don't." She caught at his arm as though she were drowning— slipping, slipping deeper into icy water. For a moment he thought that she was going to die where she sat in the great chintz chair. "No, no; I'll be good— I'll be good. I didn't mean it, truly, truly. Hold me, hold me— you loved him, too, didn't you, Hal?"

"Yes, dear."

"If he were here he'd tell us how it happened— you'd see. He said it was an awfully good joke on him, too good to keep. He'd tell us."

"Yes, dear."

"Isn't it too bad not to believe in God and Heaven and angels and Ouija boards? Then I could pretend that I could see him again, and that he would tell me. Derry believed all that kind of thing, but I never believed in anything but Derry— and now he's gone. What time is it?"

"A minute or so to twelve, by this clock."

"He didn't keep his word, either, did he? He said not later than twelve— promised! Think of Derry breaking a promise—"

"Anne— Anne—"

"Oh, I know— of course he's dead, but still— he was Derry. The wind's worse, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"When it pounces like that, you can see the flames flatten out; it comes down the chimney. Look— it's burning lower. I'm cold— I'm cold—"

"I'll get more wood. Is it in the hall?"

"No, let it burn out. It's late; you must go, mustn't you? I don't want you to go— there's too much wind. It sounds as though it were alive— it sounds as though it were the only thing alive in the world— listen—"

She leaned far forward in the winged chair, and suddenly above the rush and clamour of the wind the telephone rang out, loudly and urgently. Again— again. She sat quite still, with lifted hand, her incredulous eyes frozen on the small black messenger blaring out its summons, the receiver fairly quivering on the hook. Again— again— strident and insistent— again. Devon rose slowly to his feet.

"I'll answer it."

"No," breathed Anne. "No."

"It's probably Headquarters again."

"No," she whispered. "No— no— it's not Headquarters again."

She stumbled out of the chair, clinging to the arms, groping, uncertain, like someone suddenly gone blind, and then in a swift rush she was past him, and the telephone was fast in her hands.

"Yes," she said clearly. "Long distance— yes, I know.... It's Anne, dear, it's Anne.... I can't hear— it's so far away— can't you speak louder? Please, please.... Can you hear me? Can you?... Listen— listen.... I can't hear very well— listen— you were going to tell me about the party. Remember?... The party— you were going to explain.... No— no— no— I can't hear.... Make me hear— make me hear— say it again!... No, no, don't go— no, you can't go.... No! Derry! Derry!"

The terrible cry tore through the room like something unchained, and Devon sprang to her.

"Take your hands away," she panted. "Don't dare— don't dare.... Central!" She jangled the hook frenziedly. "Central— you cut me off.... Central.... No, no, I won't excuse it— never, never.... Get him back, I tell you— get him back.... No, I don't know the number.... No— you mustn't say that— you can help me.... You can...." She was weeping terribly, throwing back her head to keep her lips clear of the flooding tears, stammering desperately, "No— no.... It was long distance, I tell you— long distance— long—"

Her voice rose— fell— was suddenly and startlingly silent. After a long moment she let the receiver slip from her fingers; it swung limply across the blue-green draperies while she stood very straight, holding the telephone against her heart.

"There's no one on the line," she said, in a small, formal, courteous voice.

Devon tried to speak, failed, tried again.

"It was a mistake?"

"Oh, no." She smiled forgivingly at him. "It wasn't a mistake; it was Derry. He wanted to explain to me, but I couldn't hear. It was my fault, you see— I couldn't hear."

She stood quite still, stroking the small dark thing against her heart with light and gentle fingers, and then, with an infinitely caressing gesture, she bent her head to it— closer, closer, still smiling a little, as though against her curved lips she heard the echo of a far-off voice.

_________________

5: The Last Boat In the Lock

Edith Stewart Drewry

1841-1925

Belgravia, Holiday Number, Midsummer 1877

I AM an artist, and a well-known one, for the last several years, though I am not even now more than four-and-thirty; but whatsoever may be my gifts, the world would certainly not have so early recognised them but for the strange circumstances which brought me per saltum into the full blaze of public notice.

Not that at the time I was quite unknown. The name of Gerald Leigh was spoken of as that of a rising man, who might be expected in time to make considerable mark. I loved my art. I was ambitious, and a hard worker, without which last, the genius of a Michel Angelo can attain to nothingness— if such a paradoxical expression be permissible.

I had been very hard at work all that year, and about the middle of June, was glad to get a week's rest where I was an old habitué for that sort of modest holiday— at Cookham Lock, where I lodged in the pretty little house or cottage of the lockman. I was always welcome to him and his wife and son Jack, a fine lad of eighteen. I could lounge in the little garden, bounded on one side by the lock itself, sketch, read, study the faces of those who passed through the lock, or take my boat (hired pro tem. from Cookham), and go or come as early or late in as I pleased— in fact, do as I liked. So I donned the whites, packed my few traps and transported myself to old Tom Baynes' rustic, flower-surrounded home. That was on a Saturday, and I intended remaining just over the week, that is, till the Sunday night when I should return to my London lodgings ready to start work on the Monday.

The weather fortunately was splendid, and I thoroughly enjoyed my dolce far niente— up to the Friday night. If I were to live a hundred years, I can never forget that awful night.

All the morning I was out in my boat, but I came back about two to dinner, and after that remained in— that is, in the garden, where I could always find amusement by the hour together, helping old Tom or his son with their tickets and money-taking, and observing, whilst I chatted with this one or that of the passengers in my free and easy way, especially with the pretty girls. There is always too such a delightful freemasonry on the river that is all its own.

Dear old Thames! how I love thee!

A good many boats and launches had gone through both up and down during the day, but about three there was a long lull, the pleasure traffic being of course nothing to what it is in the autumn, when all the riverside places are full of visitors. The last craft that went through after three was a small launch going up-stream, so that the lock was left full when Tom shut the up-gates behind her and went in to his tea.

I remained where I was outside, lounging on a low, comfortable old deck-chair, basking like a cat in the glorious sunshine; I made not even a pretence of reading the book I had fetched out, but let it lie on the grass whilst I lazily feasted my eyes on the picturesque scenery before them of river and foliage and the noble heights of Cliveden beyond on the left, down stream.

But presently, it might be a little after four, I heard the cry from up-river of "Lock"— not the modern shout of the word merely repeated short and sharp several times, but the good old fashioned sing-song call. And this was a woman's voice too, rich and full-toned, giving out the prolonged "Lo-o-ck," on two musical notes, resonant and carrying the sound, as no shout ever can do. I called out at once to Tom.

"A-hoy, Tom! boat coming down stream," as I sprang up to see who was in the boat and waved my hand out as a signal that the call was heard. She was coming down easy, a pretty craft, a single sculler rowed by a gentleman, his  sole sitter being a young lady, who was steering. She too was in white, but had a crimson sailorcollar, ditto cuffs to her wide sleeves, and a crimson sash and cap.

"By Jove, she is pretty, Tom," I said, as the old seaman began to open one gate, "I'll do the ticket taking."

"All right, sir, here you are." Tom laughed, and handed me the ticket.

The next moment the rower shipped his sculls and the boat floated into the lock, where the man kept her comfortably alongside our bank by holding to one of the chains attached to the walls of all the stone-built lock for that purpose. From where I stood I took a regular good look at the occupants of the boat before I moved into prominence.

The man was, I should say, decidedly over thirty, fair, and good-looking; but to me there was something repellant in his face, a sort of latent storminess behind it, a quick, suspicious look in the eyes, a perpetual restlessness of the mouth, which, even as I watched, brought out once or twice an almost sinister curve. All of these characteristics I have found to belong broadly to a very violent jealous temper which veritably "makes the meat it feeds on."

"I don't like you, sirree," said I mentally. I am blessed or cursed, whichever it may be, with the artistic temperament in full measure— sensitive, high-strung, impressionable, often almost painfully alive to a sense of sympathy or antipathy. To-day, with these two people, I was curiously impressed by both sensations, for, as instantly as the man stirred the latter, so the woman drew the former. She was quite nine or ten years his junior, exquisitely pretty, with large, beautiful dark eyes, and a skin like the soft downy side of a peach; a face that stamped itself strangely on my mental vision, partly, perhaps, for the wistful, pathetic, underlying of pain I detected in it in repose.

Tom was now beginning to open the sluices of the down-gates, and I went forward for the money. As I came into full view both passengers looked up straight at me naturally enough; the man with a quick frown, which roused a mischievous spirit of devilment in me. Over the girl's face on the contrary there went a flash of pleased recognition— unmistakably so, as when one suddenly recognises a person seen elsewhere, but a stranger personally.

"A return ticket, I suppose?" I asked of her more than him, purposely of course, and I smiled as I bowed, offering the ticket.

She smiled too, said: "Please. Thank you," and stretched up her left hand, which was nearest, for the bit of pink paper, and it gave me an odd start to see that she wore a wedding ring.

"Give it to me, please; here's the money," said the man quickly, leaning forward to intercept my hand, evidently irritated.

I took the threepence, but, coolly ignoring his hasty movement, gave her the ticket, remarking with comic gravity: "That gives you in printed words the curious permission to pass in, through, under or over the lock or weir, but I fancy few would care to try that last experiment."

The gentleman said shortly: "Not unless they were fools," but his wife (so I guessed her to be, poor girl!) laughed and answered in the same strain. "I'm not sure that I won't get my husband to see what we can do with that mode of transit. What say you, Alfred?"

"That I prefer the ordinary water-way to Bolter's Lock," was the curt, ungraciously spoken answer. "What a time that fellow is with the sluices," flinging an angry look round towards good old Tom Baynes. I quite understood what all this palpable and uncourteous bad temper meant. The man was jealous, even because his wife noticed or was noticed by a mere stranger like myself, but I also saw by the look of quiet defiance on her resolute mouth that she was no meek, submissive fool.

I said carelessly: "The water is sinking quite as fast as is safe. You can begin to go forward soon."

Water and boat sank down, down, until the first was level with the down stream. As Tom opened the gate the lady looked up and said to me brightly: "Good day, and I hope you'll be famous some day."

"Thank you for so kind a wish," I answered, surprised and amused, "but I had no idea that—"

But there her husband gave the boat a savage swing forwards by the next chain hanging down, and exclaimed sharply: "My dear Clare, do mind the rail: it ground the wall!"

Which was of course not true. She only said: "It's all right," but added to me as the boat, with which I kept pace to the gate, neared the outlet: "I saw you at the Academy in May, and you were pointed out to me as Gerald Leigh, the artist."

Then the boat swept away down stream before the strong stroke of an angry rower. Tom and I watched it, hearing distinctly on the clear air that he was speaking fiercely to the girl.

"Contemptible, jealous brute," I said indignantly. "Who are they, Tom? Have they been through here before?"

"No, sir; but the boat, the Formosa, belongs to Bill Grealy, at Marlow, so these two must be stopping at Marlow. I don't like him, sir, anyhow."

"Nor I, by Jove!" I answered, emphatically. " I can't imagine how she came to marry such a fellow, at all."

"Neither me, sir. He can't abear her to speak to a handsomer gentleman than hisself," chuckled Tom. "Ah! there's the missus to call you to your tea, sir."

"Thanks. And after that, Tom"— the old seaman and I were very chummy— "I'm going to sit out here and sketch those two people's faces. I can't get them out of my head. And look here, Tom, if the Formosa comes back by chance while I am indoors later— at supper, maybe— mind you give me the tip."

"All right, sir."

I was busy over my sketches all the time after tea till quite dusk, and so entirely had I the two faces before my memory and imagination that the likeness on my paper could not have been more perfect had the originals been sitting to me in bodily form. At nine I went in to supper, but was soon out again. A curiously inexplicable restlessness was beginning to creep over me. Most of the craft both ways, which we knew must repass the lock, had returned by this time, but not a sign of the Formosa, for which I was in truth unconsciously watching with a strange expectancy.

About ten Mrs. Baynes and the son Jack went off to bed, and Tom came out to me, gave a look each way and said: "I'm about tired too, sir, wish them two blessed craft were through so as I'd turn in."

"Are all counted through but two?" I asked. "There is the Formosa up—"

"And a launch down, sir, what come up with a big party from Skindler's this morning while you was out; and if she'll only come through first the water'll be down beautiful ready for t'other party to come in straight."

"Yes— and there is the launch then," for at that moment we heard the shrill whistle and quick regular beat of the screw of a steam launch; then her port and starboard lights showed up the lock stream and in a short time she was in the lock. She had a lively party on board, and I caught the oddest criss-cross of chatter about the day's pleasure principally, but just as the launch began to fussily puff-puff out of the lock again my attention was caught and chained by a name, and parts of remarks from a group on the poop.

"Yes, Clare Beverly and that husband of hers. Saw them as we passed up to-day at Grealy's place. Yes, his mad jealousy would drive any girl to bolt, I should say. Got friends at Maidenhead, I think—"

Then the launch was gone. Beverly! so that was her name! Beautiful, unhappy Clare, who— Bah! What a fool I was to keep thinking of her, wondering where they had gone. Perhaps to see their friends at Maidenhead and so were later back.

"Tom," I said, when he had shut the gates again, " you go and lie down on the big sofa in my parlour and I'll call you when the Formosa is coming."

"Thank you, sir, but you—"

"Oh, I never do turn in till very late, and I certainly shouldn't go to bed early this splendid night. Why, the moon is getting above the woods already. No, I'll keep watch out here, old chap, so you do a doss, as I tell you."

He went in and I was alone in the still, mysterious night, with the weird, deep shadows and glint of the silvery moonlight on the rippling river as the moon rose higher and higher, gazing down on earth with her face of still, awesome wisdom, as if she read one's very soul.

Half-past ten, a quarter to eleven, eleven, struck slowly out from Cookham church and somewhere else far off, then again silence, save for the eternal wash of the weir away in the backstream, right behind the house. How deadly still it was, how lonely, myself the only creature awake, the solitary, sleepless watcher. Heavens! how sleepless and watchful— for what ? I scarcely knew, save that I waited for that last boat to come into the black deep waters in the lock. Was it only this awesome solitude and vastness of silence around that grew— grew into an oppression like an actual weight? Half-past eleven! Would that boat never come? Why should I wait longer? Why could I not tear myself from my self-imposed watch? I tried, but I could not— that is the word— could not. Something impelled me to stop, held me at my post, no longer even pacing to-and-fro, but standing where I commanded a full view down stream, where I should see any craft the moment it rounded the bend and passed from the shadows of the trees, into the moonlight.

A quarter to twelve! and then suddenly there came the signal for which I watched, the musical, prolonged "Lo-o-ock" of the morning, the same voice of Clare, and yet the sound made my very blood run ice-cold with a chill, nameless horror, strange and beyond measure awful, as the cry came again, afar, near, around me, real, weird, a wild wail of agonised appeal, in the slow, prolonged cadence, and, as it died away, my wide-strained eyes saw the boat rowed by the girl, sweep round the turn into the cold, pitiless moonlight— Clare Beverly only— alone in the boat at this hour. What did it mean, in Heaven's name? What had happened? She came on with a long, powerful stroke and perfect form that riveted admiration. But where was the rhythmatic click-click in the rowlocks and plash of the water off the sculls? There was not a sound of either, and the curious, dreadful sensation that was creeping over me, deepened. I called hoarsely— it seemed like some strange voice:

"Tom, wake! wake! the boat is coming," and had begun to open back the gate when he came stumbling out, rubbing his dazed eyes.

"What— why?" he began, mechanically taking up his accustomed work, and pushing the huge lever beam. "Boat! I don't see nothing, sir."

"You are blind with sleep," I said, "she is closer now," I was helping him all the time, and the nearest gate was now well back against the lock wall, "and only the— only Mrs. Beverly in her; her dress is dripping wet too! Don't you see now?"

Tom stared hard at me, then down the stream, and again rubbed his eyes.

"Lord, sir, is it you or me that's queer-like? I see the boat jest there— but not a soul in her, as I'm a living man," said he, with an odd, sharp shiver. "You give me the creeps, sir."

He stepped back where he could see the water below the bank, but I felt that he was looking at me with an odd sort of fellow feeling ; he was not a " sensitive," as I had been told I am, but seamen are rarely materialists, they see too much o f God's wonders for that error.

As he drew back, the rower gave three or four strong strokes to send in the boat against the current with the impetus, and no shipping the sculls, was instantly in the stern seat steering, and so faced me as the boat drifted slowly past into the lock. And my God! the awful horror of that bloodless face! shall I ever forget it? I knew now, I had known it somehow in my soul from the first— that I was face to face with no mortal mystery of life and death. I knew, with a strange great calm possessing my whole being that It had come for me, that I must go back in the boat whether I would or not, alone with that awesome figure in the stern, whithersoever it steered me.

I laid my hand in Tom's, feeling him shudder as if the hand of a corpse had touched him, and said in a hoarse whisper:

"She— it— has come for me and I must go. Go you to sleep when you have shut the gate after— after us, Tom. This will be the last boat in the lock to-night."

Tom wrung my hand in silence and followed me to the edge of the lock above where the boat lay in gloom below by the wall. I went over, lowering myself by the chain into her, took the rower's seat, pushed off, wore her head round and pulled out of the lock down stream, with that dreadful white figure sitting opposite, steering me I knew— by the terrible prescience that had its source beyond mortal bounds— to the discovery of an appalling crime. Then I saw that the white dress was dripping wet.

I felt every nerve strung up to a kind of agony, and yet I seemed for the time endowed with a strength more than human. The boat flew at racing speed before my strokes, down the lock stream, out into the open river, past Formosa Island on the right, and then, as I had foreseen, my weird guide headed straight for the famous backwater which skirts Cliveden and Taplow Heights, parallel to the main stream nearly down to the weir and mill by Maidenhead (Bolter's) Lock.

I had to ease down now and go carefully— the current runs strong, the backwater is narrow and reedy near the banks— and how deep the gloom was under the heavy shadows of the trees, how black and deep the water looked! I shivered in the warm, summer night, as if the breeze that sighed overhead were a winter blast.

On, on, still in the grim quiet, and yet no sign to arrest the slow measured sweep of the oars in my hands— on, past the gateless old gateposts which divide the Cliveden from the in Taplow Court grounds— on, still for just another hundred yards, where the bank was rather steep and high and the water very deep and, I knew, full of bind-weeds below. I felt every fibre, every nerve to be strung up to a tension that seemed nigh to breaking point. For the first time I glanced back over my shoulder and in that second I felt a clammy dead-cold touch on my hand that made my very heart stand still, but I instantly checked the boat, starting round towards—

It was gone, I was alone in the awful solitude and the silence of a dark deed, done to-night. I bent over the boat's side— I saw the white garments below, caught perhaps amongst reeds and tree roots. I could surely discern the beautiful dead face, staring up with wide, sightless eyes through the water— my God! the corpse of a murdered woman!

I MADE MY WAY to the Maidenhead police station to get help and give full information and a description of the murderer Alfred Beverly, adding that I could give the inspector a drawing of the man, and of course I went back with the police to the scene of the crime, and when the body was brought ashore and examined by the divisional surgeon he found marks on the white throat which showed that the assassin had at least half throttled his helpless victim before he drowned her. The watch Clare wore we found had stopped at twenty-five minutes to twelve, that is, just ten minutes before I heard and saw Clare's spirit self, my twin soul. And assuredly but for my aid, so mysteriously invoked, the black deed would have remained undiscovered long enough for the murderer to make good his escape. Now, any attempt came too late— descriptions, and the likeness of him were fatal obstacles, and he was traced and arrested the next evening.

I have little more to tell of this strange, most awful story, which I do not even pretend to explain, for our finite mortality can only, we know, "see through a glass darkly." I can only say what happened— the why is beyond me.

The whole case and its extraordinary circumstances made a sensation not soon forgotten, and naturally my strange evidence, which Tom Baynes corroborated, was talked over, discussed, canvassed by everyone.

There stood the logic of fact. I had not, could not possibly have known or suspected the murder unless my story were true. The wretched jealous husband's guilt was proved fully at the trial and the law's just penalty was carried out, while for me, Gerald Leigh, the artist, the tragic story fulfilled poor Clare's generous and even terribly prophetic wish: "I hope you will be famous one day!" I stood at once in the fierce white light of public notice. I received commission after commission at almost my own terms, and a leading picture dealer offered me an enormous price for a portrait of Clare Beverly. I refused. Only my two or three very intimate friends, and now, my dear wife, ever see a picture which hangs in my private room next the studio— a picture which something beyond myself impelled me to paint, so deep and haunting was the impression on my inmost soul of the scene and first sight of that mysterious messenger. Underneath the picture I have written only "The Last Boat in the Lock."

_______________

6: On the Plains

Ernest Favenc

1845-1908

Mataura Ensign,  New Zealand; 7, 14 April 1898

Ernest Favenc

THE SUMMER SUN of tropical Queensland had done its best, or rather its worst. On the great, boundless, western plain stood a horse in all the agonies of a coming death from thirst. The staring, projecting eyes, pinched flanks, and quick, panting breath told that it would not be long before death came to release it of its pain. It still kept its legs, and owing to that fact the occupants of a buckboard buggy on the road about a mile or so distant caught sight of the dying animal, magnified by the deceptive heat mirage to about the dimensions of an elephant.

An elderly but tall and tough-looking man and a young girl were in the buggy; the girl was driving a pair of smart-looking nuggety little horses. She pulled up when they caught sight of the horse, and the man stood up.

"A knocked-up horse left out there," he said; "either knocked up or lame, or it wouldn't stop out there on the plain in the sun at this time of day."

"Let's drive over, dad," said the girl; "perhaps we can get the poor brute on to the water."

Her father nodded assent, and she turned the horses off the road, and they were soon with the unfortunate animal. The girl, with a cry of pity, impetuously jumped out of the buggy, and was hastening to the back of the vehicle, where a substantial-sized water-bag was swinging, when the end came. The horse staggered to his knees, rolled over on one side, and after a struggle, and beating its head once or twice on the ground, lay still—dead.

"Too late, Bertie," said the man, "all the water in North Queensland would be no good now; but we have other work before us."

A saddle and a saddle- cloth were lying on the, ground, and on the front of the saddle was strapped a valise.

"Somebody's got bushed," he continued; "We must go after him."

"Not more than a mile from the road, and within five miles of water," remarked the girl.

"A new chum evidently," he replied, pointing to the cruel marks of the spurs on the dead horse's ribs. "No bushman would have punished a dying horse like that."

"But so close to the road!" repeated the girl. "You don't know what these plains are like to a greenhorn, particularly now, in the middle of the day, with the sun straight overhead," answered her father. "But we must track him up; he can't have gone far. Put the saddle in the back of the buggy, and then drive slowly after me."

And Graham— or Long Graham as he was more popularly called— strode off on the foot-tracks leading from the dead horse. His daughter Bertha put the saddle, bridle, and valise in the buggy and drove slowly after him. After a while Graham stopped, and when the buggy reached him got into it.

"I can follow them easily now," he said, taking the reins. "He's not far off by the look of the tracks."

He was not far off. In about ten minutes Bertha, who had been standing up holding on by the back of the seat, called out that there was something like a man lying on the ground ahead. Graham roused the horses up, and they were soon at the prostrate form. The man was not dead, but he was terribly flushed in the face, and he groaned heavily at times. In his hand he still grasped an empty water-bag.

The exertions of the two and the application of water to his head and chest roused him somewhat, and he was able to drink a little, but he was not restored to consciousness.

"We must get him on the buggy somehow, Bertie," said Graham, " but he's not a light weight to lift."

Between them they managed to dispose of the helpless body across the front of the buggy.

"You'll have to perch up behind Bertie," said her father. "I'll drive and hold him in. We'll have to camp at the Lily Lagoon tonight instead of going home. Fortunately we have got the tent and some rations with us."

The strange-looking caravan proceeded slowly over the plain for about an hour, when a clump of timber became visible above the horizon, and presently the buggy pulled up at a broad lagoon fringed with the beautiful pink lilies that stand up high out of the water. Round the banks grew some crooked coolibah trees and some shady bauhinias. The road ran past the place, and it was evidently a standing camping-place.

Getting their patient out of the buggy, they made him comfortable under the shade of one of the bauhinia trees, and then Graham and his daughter turned the buggy horses out, and fixed their camp.

It was after dark before the stranger showed signs of returning consciousness, and after a while he was able to drink soma tea and eat some bread soaked in it.  Somewhat revived, he was presently able to sit up and talk.

He was a man of about seven or eight and twenty, well made, and  good-looking, but evidently new both to Australia and the bush, as shown by his clothes. He informed them that he was a doctor, and was proceeding to the district township of a Brookford, where he intended to start a practice. His "traps" had gone on by a carrier, and he himself had ridden round by the different stations.

"How did you come to get bushed?" asked Graham,

"I left Valdock yesterday morning; they told me that if I kept due south I should strike the road leading past Haughton Downs, a station belonging to Long Graham—"

"I am Long Graham," said the owner of the name quietly.

"I beg your pardon."

"Not at all; I don't object to the name as I am over six foot two."

"I kept on until I thought I must have passed the road with out noticing, so I turned back, and then back again; and at last got completely confused. I was riding best part of the night, and at about 12 o'clock my confounded horse knocked up."

"I should think he did, when you had been riding him continuously night and day without water. But you should not abuse the poor brute, for if he had died ten minutes sooner we should not have seen him from the road, and you would by now have learned the great secret. You rode your horse to death man, and the sooner you drop wearing spurs as those you've got on, the better."

The man glanced uneasily at the long-necked "rakers" that decorated his heels, and then said somewhat shame-facedly: "Was I so close to the road, then?"

"About a mile from it," said Bertha.

The young doctor looked at her rather earnestly, then said that he was tired and would try to go to sleep.

ii

"Dad," said Bertha the next evening when her father and she were alone, "it's my opinion Dr Vernon is  a humbug."

"Rather a hasty opinion to form. I think he's a bit of a muff myself,  but that will wear off as he gets experience."

"Oh, it's not his innocence of the bush that l am alluding to, but his character apart from that. You see if I'm not right. He is not what we up here call a 'white man.' "

"Well, have it your own way. As soon as he is. well enough to go on to Brookford we shall not see much more of him."

"Unless in your character as J.P  you have to commit him to take his trial before our friend Judge Fortescue."

"Come, come, Bertie; you're going too far. You're forgetting yourself."

Bertha shook a preternaturally wise head, but held her tongue, and Graham changed the subject.

The western climate had dealt kindly with  Bertha Graham. It had not shrivelled her up into a sallow, parchment-faced mummy, but had given her cheeks healthy touch of brown that was rather an improvement to he piquant style of beauty. Her figure was perfection, and, like a  sensible girl, she had taken good care of her hands.

Vernon noticed this, and, being a rather susceptible sort of man where female charms were concerned, and moreover with a past reputation as a lady-killer had considered the feasibility of getting up some sentimental passages. The fact that it was evident that the girl regarded him with a sort of pitying contempt as a poor creature who could not be trusted off a main road did not at all deter him. In fact he reckoned on his rescue from death as a groundwork of interest to start upon.

Graham had hospitably asked him to spell a week on the station; then he would himself drive him over to Brookford and help him to make the acquaintance of the local magnates. So for a week Vernon ogled and sighed without any response. If at times Bertha felt inclined to amuse herself with his openly-expressed admiration, the natural antipathy she felt for the man stopped her at once.

BROOKFORD was not celebrated for a large population ; but, being the centre of a thriving pastoral district, it was a busy place. The general verdict on Dr Vernon after a few weeks, was that he did not drink hard enough to be a clever man. A doctor who not require shepherding to keep sober when he had a case on hand was nowhere in the estimation of the Brookfordians. Still it seemed probable that Vernon would make up a good enough practice to compensate  him for what he considered his exile in the backblocks.  Haughton Downs was only fifteen miles. from Brookford, so Vernon often found opportunities to ride over and strive to win a smile from the unresponsive lips of Bertha Graham.

"Look here, old man," said an acquaintance to him one day with all frank familiarity of the west, "it's no good you're hanging your hat up at Long Graham's place; don't you know the girl's engaged?"

"No, I did not," said Vernon.

"Yes, and to one of the smartest fellows out here, who'd think nothing of twisting your neck if he caught you trying to poach on his preserve."

The doctor sniffed derisively at the idea,

"I tell you," said the candid friend, rather nettled, "Charley Hawkshaw is expected back every day. He's been away west of the Georgina. Take my advice and drop it. You're not Miss Graham's style. Better get, up a spoon with the new barmaid, Flossie."

And, with this disinterested advice his affectionate friend left  him.

But he had sown evil seed in a good soil to bring forth a crop. Vernon was a man who had already ruined himself in England by giving way to his passions, and he seemed likely to repeat the process in Australia. Certainly he had persuaded himself that he was madly in love with Bertha Graham, and was resolved to win her despite all rivals.

He was in this moody state when he heard that Hawkshaw had returned seriously ill with malarial fever. Vernon chuckled at the idea of being called in to treat his rival.

Yes, the man who had started out strong and healthy, fit to tackle the  whole of the continent, had come back worn and wasted, racked by fever, and scarcely able to sit on his horse. Sick or well, Bertha welcomed her lover back with joy. She got her father to try to persuade him to come to Haughton Downs to be nursed, but with the obstinacy of an invalid he insisted on remaining on his own place, saying there were lots of things wanted doing that he could still look after. So he remained there, and Dr Vernon was called in to attend him.

Hawkshaw had been ill nearly a fortnight, and there was no perceptible change, for the better in his state, and both Bertha and her father were urging him to go down South, while he had yet sufficient strength, when Dr Vernon called at Haughton Downs on his way to Hawkshaw's place, which was only five miles further. Bertha was alone, and it was the doctor's opportunity, and he seized it. To Bertha's cold inquiry, after his impassioned declaration, as to whether he was not well acquainted with the fact of her engagement to Hawkshaw, he replied that he was, but that only urged him on to attempt to win her for his wife. Just as Bertha was going to give him his dismissal, and him in her father's name from entering the house again, he said—

"Your engagement is only a farce, Hawkshaw is a dying man; nothing on earth can save him. The fever is in his system; if you marry him you marry  a husband you will have to bury in a week or two."

He left the room without another word, leaving Bertha speechless between anger and grief. She heard the horse's steps die away, and then ages seemed to have passed before she heard her father's voice speaking to someone. She roused herself and went out.

"Bertha, don't you remember our Old friend Twisden?" asked her father.

"Of course, but you have been away nearly four years," she said as she greeted their old-time neighbor. "Where are you from last?"

"From a little village just a trifle larger than Brookford— London. I've been there for the last-year."

Twisden was an inveterate gossip, and as > such a welcome break to the monotony of the bush. At dinner he remarked: "I seem to have got on the track of a man you had best take care of. I believe he has settled at Brookford under the name of Dr Vernon."

"Isn't he a doctor?" asked Graham, not noticing the sudden pallor of  Bertha.

"Oh, he's a doctor right enough. His real name is Dr Vernon Rushley, and he only escaped being tried for life by the skin of his teeth."

"The deuce! Why, Bertha and I picked him up on the point of death, and brought him back to life again. Seems a pity we did it."

"There was no moral doubt about his guilt, but it could not be proved. Anyhow, he was professionally ruined, and had to leave England. Why, Miss Graham, how white you are!"

"I'm not very well, and I think I'll get you to excuse me Mr. Twisden," said Bertha, rising. Twisden rose also and opened the door, and spoke a few words of sympathy as she went out.

"I say, Graham," he said as he returned to the table. "I hope I didn't put my clumsy foot in it. Miss Bertha's not got a liking for the doctor has she?" Graham burst out laughing.

"Quite the reverse; she took an instinctive dislike to him from the first. What were the particulars of the case?"

"Patient was the husband of a pretty woman, between whom and Rushley tender passages had long been suspected. Rushley was accused of helping him to a better world, where there are no marriages, and consequently no unfaithful wives. But there were no grounds for a committal."

Bertha had halted just outside the door. She had suspected that Twisden would say more after she left the room, and stopped and heard every word.

iii

BERTHA felt that there was need of action. She had lost her mother when young, and had grown up since then as her father's sole companion, and, having had a boy's education grafted on to a girl's she was thoroughly self-dependent. If she spoke to her father he would put it off until the morning, and she felt that action was imperative; she would go herself. Every minute that passed her lover's life was in danger.

She hastily put on her habit, strapped on her pretty revolver— a birthday present, a toy to look at, but anything but a toy in reality— and before long was cantering along the short five-mile road that divided the two stations. Taking the precaution of dismounting some distance from the house, she tied her horse up and advanced cautiously. Reaching the veranda, she took the extra precaution of taking her boots off, and then stole silently to the French light of the room where she knew Hawkshaw was lying, and looked through the glass.

VERNON, or Rushley, rode on to see after his patient with murder ripening in his heart. No thought of his narrow escape in the past troubled him, for the man who has successfully , evaded the punishment of his crime once thinks he will be always immune. Hawkshaw was no better; Vernon had taken care of that, but the means he was employing were not quick enough for his purpose, and this night there was going to be a change of medicine.

Arrived at the station he dismissed the woman who was acting as nurse, , saying that a crisis was impending, and he would remain all night; then, when his patient had fallen into a restless kind of stupor, he sat down and commenced to brood, a miserable man.

Strange to say, his anger was mainly directed against the girl who, with her father, had helped to save his life. Why could she not have had the sense to return his love without driving him to the necessity of putting this fellow out of the way? Handsomer women than she had been glad to have him as a lover. Who was this bush-bred girl to flout and despise him? So the thoughts of his warped brain ran on for an hour or more, when, glancing at the clock, he saw it was past 8 o'clock and time to act. He arose and looked at the sleeper; he was quieter now, and his lips wore a smile.

"He's dreaming of her," mused the watcher with a look of hate. "Well, dream on, old man, while you can." He opened his medicine case and took out a bottle, rinsed a glass out, and, holding it up, began to drop some of the fluid from the bottle into the glass. He counted twenty, put the glass down, and re-corked the bottle. As he did so a draught of air smote his cheek. Looking round to see if the door had blown open, a dark figure suddenly snatched the bottle from his hand, and stood between him and the bed.

Aghast he started back and gazed at the apparition in terror— Bertha Graham, with all the fury of a woman protecting a helpless loved one blazing in her eyes.

"Dr Rushley," she said in a low voice, "I will give you a chance of your life. I know all about your past, and how near you escaped the penalty of the crime you were about to repeat. Your horse is in the stable; mount, and go back to Brookford, and leave it at once. After twenty-four hours from now I will put the police on your tracks if you are not gone."

"What hysterical nonsense is this?" said Rushley, recovering himself a little. "Give me back that bottle, girl, at once," and he took a stop towards her.

"Stop, if you're wise," she said, raising the revolver. "What this bottle contains I do not know, but I feel certain it will convict you of attempted murder. Now, go while you have the chance. One cry from me would bring men here who would tie you up with a green hide rope till the police came for you."

"Then you will not give me back that bottle?"

"I will not. It is well said that if you save a man's life he will do you some injury, and my father and I saved the life of a murderer. Go quickly, or some of the men will be over directly. By to-morrow afternoon you must be gone from Brookford."

Rushley turned to leave.

"It would only have expedited matters," he said with a vindictive sneer; "he will die whether or no."

He passed out of the door and out of Bertha's life.

DR VERNON had been suddenly called way. Rumor said that a wealthy relation had died and left a large fortune and a title. Anyhow, he had packed up his traps to come on by carrier, and had started for the terminus on horseback early in the morning.

He reached the Pink Lily Lagoon, where he had been brought back to life, just as the sun set; he hobbled, his horse out, brought out some food and a bottle of spirits, and tried to eat. Always a temperate man, the unaccustomed use of alcohol soon mounted to his brain, and he spent half the night wandering up and down the bank of the lagoon uttering impotent threats of vengeance against Bertha and her lover. What galled him most was the knowledge that his parting gibe was an empty throat, and that left to Nature and his own strong constitution Hawkshaw would soon recover.

Towards midnight he thought he would start on again, and after listening for some time he imagined he heard the clink of the hobble-chain in a certain direction, and taking his bridle started in that direction, first filling the half emptied bottle of whisky with water, and taking it with him.

On he went, the clinking hobble chain of his excited fancy always ahead of him. Every time he stopped to listen the sound always seemed the same distance off. He cursed the horse at last and determined to sit down and wait for daylight. He took a long drink from the bottle, and was soon asleep on the spongy soil of the downs.

The sun blazing in his face awoke him. He sat up and tried to get his scattered wits together. Then he arose and looked around him. He was alone on a wild treeless expanse of country. The timber surrounding the lagoon was no longer visible, nor was there any signs of his horse. He was once more lost, hopelessly lost, and he recognised the fact with terror. He sat down again and tried to reason things out and arrive at the direction he ought to go, and, having at last made up his mind, he arose and started.

There was still something left in the bottle, and he took a long drink, and then threw it away. Hotter grew the day, but no welcome timber appeared in sight, and he concluded he had made a mistake, and tried another direction. And so throughout the day— aimless wanderings in every direction, till night closed on a tired-out, despairing man on the brink of madness. And through it all there was ever before him the picture of Bertha nursing her lover back to health.

Night, peopled with phantoms of the past, who through the long hours came and talked with him, brought no solace. In the morning he was delirious, and staggered on, raving and talking incoherently. When the sun smote him down for good he fell near the dried skin and skeleton of a horse that had lain roasting there since he abandoned it months before,

__________________

7: Problem of Footgear

Bertram Atkey

1880-1952

West Gippsland Gazette, 2 July 1912

THE DRIFTERS come shuffling easily, with the indescribable gait of the long distance tramp, out of the New Forest, passing my house en route for the workhouse some five miles away— less across the downs.

"Tramps" the villagers call them— "More of them tramps"— and despise them.

But recently it has been borne in on me that indiscrimately to despise them in all, and so ignore them is to lose rather than to gain. Because a large proportion of these shabby nondescripts think— although their thoughts are not often profound or valuable. They have time to think— for the whole of the professional tramp's physical labor, between meals, is purely mechanical. All he has to do is to keep his feet lifting up and down and to and fro along the side— the shady side— of the road, a process which inevitably becomes merely mechanical after a few days of it. So that, the knack once acquired, the drifter has practically unlimited time for thought.

And he uses it. Think! I have talked with a drifter who once walked from Salisbury to Yorkshire solely to call at a house where they had once handed out a whole fruit pie which had nothing the matter with it, and all the time he was on the road he was thinking about a pair of cast-off boots which he had found in a chalk-pit in Wiltshire and nearly decided to wear on the journey instead of his own.

He was an elderly man with mixed whiskers, wistful eyes that had a gleam of humor at the back of them, an educated voice, and a slightly theatrical maner. He said, across my garden fence, having fairly introduced himself,

"I confess freely, my dear sir, I went nearly a thousand miles thinking eternally of those boots. Never a sunset died down in the west"— any student of the submerged will tell you that a certain type of drifter invariably becomes flowery as by the deepening of his listener's a interest he realises that the possibility of the ultimate loan is momentarily increasing— "died down in the west, I say, that I did not tell myself that on the following day I would return to the chalk-pit and exchange the boots I was wearing for the pair had cached there. My own boots, sir, were a pair of rather light, comfortable, and, I think I may say, comparatively smart, elastic sides, I which had. been passed out to me by a lady at Dover some 18 months previously.

"The pair I had found were fine, sturdy, robust boots... a little bitten by dogs, perhaps, and on the stiff side... but I could see that they would wear like cowhide— with care, of course. I emptied them and tried them on. They fitted admirably, considering. With three weeks careful humoring they would be like kid. The shot holes would not have mattered in the least— eh? I beg your pardon— oh, yes, they had been shot at--someone had I emptied both barrels at them in a moment of idleness, no doubt. Wanton, of course. Or a poacher, perhaps, prowling in the twilight had mistaken them for rabbits feeding in the chalk pit. Well, I thought it over. And, ultimately, I was weak enough to decide for comfort and appearance rather than strength and endurance. I know now that it was an error of judgment— vanity, in fact. Yes, I decided to rely on the elastic sides."

He shook his head.

"I intended travelling via Cornwall— a county of singular charm, sir, and one which I had long been desirous of seeing. Besides, I had a friend in that county— a man in regular work— comparatively well-to-do indeed. Connected with the bait-digging industry for the visitors who go fishing, you understand. I hoped to— ah!— touch him for a little silver. I— ah!— failed, if you will pardon me mentioning finance.... As I have hinted, the elastic sides also failed. One morning, just outside Penzance, I pulled on the right boot carelessly— roughly, indeed. I pulled too hard. My foot went clean through the boot and the 'upper' slid up my leg, stopping at the knee like a garter."

He smiled faintly.

"Fortunately, I had some wire, and was able to replace the sole... But you will easily understand with what passionate regret and longing I thought of the pair I had hidden in the chalk pit. But what was the use? I limped on into the north. Near Bristol the elastic-sides perished— lost their vitality— doubtless you know this peculiarity of rubber. A friendly— though slightly inebriated—  chauffeur, whom I met shortly after and helped drag his motor-car from the ditch, very kindly offered to vulcanise the worst of the elastic sides for me. Optimistically enough, I permitted him to try."

The drifter paused to shake his head sadly.

"The man simply ruined the boot," he said curtly. Then he brightened up as he added: "But I am glad to say he ruined the vulcaniser also. Still, he had the instincts of a man of delicacy— he offered me his own boots. Did I explain that he was slightly inebriated? I accepted— I trust— with becoming reluctance. But the chauffeur's boots were too small... Picture it!

"Near Dolgelly I— ah— pinched a pair of fisherman's boots. But I was unfortunate. I was observed by their owner, who was reclining on the shady side of the boat— observed and captured... A month later I resumed the road to Yorklshire, wearing one elastic side and a very serviceable rope-soled slipper cast up on the beach by the tide. At Macclesfleld the surviving elastic side fell off. I did not stop— I passed on, leaving it where it fell— and by a curious chance I found immediately after a pair of tennis shoes, rubber soled, on the seat in the garden of a house close by. It was dusk, and I was not captured on that occasion. I walked from Macclesfield to Bingley in those shoes, sirand they were on the tight side— you know how rubber draws the feet."

Then he burst out with extraordinary vehemence.

"And all the time— all the time— that grand pair of boots, built for road work, sir, lay hidden hundreds of miles away in a Salisbury chalk pit. Pardon me if I am bitter— I have suffered." He recovered himself.

"I went to the house in Bingley where they had handed me out a large  fruit pie with nothing the matter with it some considerable time before. But the residence had been pulled down. An ironmonger's shop had been erected in its place. I might have guessed it— for it had been an unlucky venture from the start.

"I started back to Salisbury for the boots I should never have deserted. They were an obsession with me now, sir, those boots. On hot days there were times when, upon my word, they danced on the horizon like a mirage— and at night I used to look up at the beautiful stars and fancy sthey were myriads of twinkling hobnails. Folly— folly, of course. But I yearned so for those boots— you, as a man of the world, will understand. Bingley is something like two hundred and fifty miles from Salisbury, but I did the journey in less than three months— counting a slight misunderstanding at Rugby which cost me seven valuable days. I ran the last twenty yards to the chalk pit, sir. And the bIoots were gone!"

The drifter smiled wanly.

"Stolen, of course. I had hidden them in a rabbit-hole— and probably some scoundrel had spied on me while I was doing it. Some gipsy, perhaps. Pah!"

He took the florin I silently offered, removed his hat, and bowed not ungracefully.

"It is good to meet a florin," he said jauntily, smiled, detached himself from the fence, and so drifted away.

It was growing dusk, a mist was rolling up the hillside, and he vanished into it as the old and battered ruin of a once-glorious sailing ship may silently vanish into a cold and clinging mist of the sea.

_________________

8: The End of the Search

Bertram Atkey

The Red Magazine Feb 15 1911

Eyre's Peninsula Tribune (S. Aust), 14, 21 July; 4 Aug 1911

HE WAS sitting on the extreme edge of the landing-stage, staring absently across the lake which my trout were ringing busily in their evening rise. By his side was an old lobster-can filled with water, and he was chanting an interminable composition in which the word Shoesmith occurred at almost every other line. At intervals he would break off the chant in order to sip delicately at the can. After each sip he would throw back into the lake what water remained, and gravely refill from the water just below his dangling feet.

I halted on the edge of the trees which ran down almost to the edge of the lake and watched him, listening. At first I had imagined him to he after the trout; but fish-poachers do not sing, at their work, nor sip water, nor dangle their feet over-landing stages, ignoring time, opportunity, and the approach of people. He was black-haired, and his beard and moustache and whiskers stood out from his throat and neck and fate like a mane. All of his skin that I could see was burnt and weather-worn to the color of an old riding-saddle. Near the lobster-can lay a bowler hat that had long bleached from black to brownish green. His clothes— for so palpable a tramp— were unusually neat, hut they were shabby to the limits of usefulness. He was short and thick-set and middle-aged. And certainly he was the last man that I had ever expected to discover sitting upon my landing-stage on a midsummer evening quavering a tuneless song that dealt wholly with the tribe of Shoesmith.

It was impossible not to connect him with my neighbor, Sir John Shoesmith. But how the two could be associated, and in what enterprise of the past, present, or future, it was difficult to even hazard a guess. I listened:

"Shoesmith ninth was the same-size man,

But his eyes was blue like the sea;

And his ways was mild and he preached in a chapel—"

The man on the stage checked for a moment; then, suddenly raising his voice, announced decisively;

"So he wasn't the man for me!"

He sipped at his can, emptied it, and refilled as before. Then he began again, chanting softly and surely, like a man singing a song which he has sung a thousand times:

"Shoesmith ten drove a motor-cab,

And his age was twenty-two;

And I says; 'All right, Shoesmith !' I says—"

Again he checked, and raised his voice:

"I mean no harm to you!"

He was dealing with Shoesmith the eighteenth before I understood that probably the man was searching for a certain Shoesmith, and was running over in his mind the Shoesmiths he had encountered during his search. Perhaps he was one of those who possess a crude gift for rhyme, and had found the doggerel he was now chanting the best way of keeping the characteristics of the various Shoesmiths fresh in his memory.

I went down. He was refilling his can, and did not notice me until I was within a yard of him. But he did not exhibit any concern when he discovered me, though he must have known that he was in private grounds. He looked up at me, and I saw that his eyes were brown and friendly, and even affectionate. I have seen a dog with such eyes.

Now that I was quite near him, I was able to mark the ravages which sun and storm and cold had worked upon his face. So tanned and worn and beaten was it that his soft eyes looked half absurd in their seamed and corrugated setting. The man must have suffered at some period or other of his life. His face, such as was uncovered by his extravagant beard, was that of a man who had endured much suffering, much pain. He gave me a slow smile as he reached for his hat.

"I'm just goin', mister," he said. His voice was slightly hoarse, but pleasant. "I ain't got no right in here. But I ain't hurt nothing. It was the look of the water. I seen it shinin' through the trees from the road, and I thought I'd just like to sit down for a spell. It's a good lake, mister, and it's sweet water. Fed all the year around, I reckon, with an outlet at the lower end. More of a big pool. That's the kind of a lake for my money, too, mister. Them lakes that's fed only in the rainy season, and is left to shrink and stink all summer, is nothing. I don't reckon I disturbed nobody with my singing."

"All right," I said. " What song was it?"

I sat down and dangled my legs also. I liked the man for liking my lake. The lake is my hobby, and it is my delusion, as it were, that I know every fish in it by name, and almost every water insect by sight.

"What was that song you were singing?" I asked, and gave the man a cigar.

He looked at me sidelong, and uttered a pleased, nervous little laugh.

"Oh that's a rough kind of song I made up to help me remember something!"

"Shoesmith, I suppose," I said, without thought, and with no intent of any sort, it was just one of those easy, obvious things to say. But I have never seen so swift and deadly a change of front in any man as I saw in my stranger then. He bristled— literally, his monstrous, unkempt beard stiffened so that each prickly-looking hair stood out— and his eyes burned suddenly, and I saw for the first time a network of tiny red veins about the whites of them.

"That's the man, mister!" he said, in a curiously changed voice. "Damn him, wherever he is! Shoesmith's the man!"

I said nothing. It did not seem necessary to apologise to a shabby tramp, trespassing on my own ground, because I had mentioned a name which he himself had cried aloud half a hundred times in the previous hour, but, nevertheless, I was conscious that I had disturbed his feelings. There was a queer pause. I heard him take a sip from his can.

Then he cleared his throat.

"Your name ain't Shoesmith, I s'pose, sir?" he said, his voice toned to a faintly irritating obsequiousness. It sounded as though he hated me, but was trying to be polite. The voice of a man unpractised in dissimulation. I shook my head.

"My name is Drake," I said.

He nodded. "They said so back in the village," he corroborated, and lighted the cigar I had given him. His voice was natural again. For a time he smoked in silence, staring at the water. The shadows over at the far bank had joined hands, and were stealing out from under the trees. The one old heron that I tolerate on the water, despite the heavy toll he levies on my trout, rose from the upper end of the lake and flapped himself away over the trees to his roost back in the woods, and the rise of the rainbows died out suddenly as it began. We sat absorbing it all; we might have been two very intimate friends who can smoke together without talking.

Then my trespasser spoke:

"No, there's nothing like a lake— with trees round it," he said, summing up. "Was you ever in India, Mr Drake, sir? There's some nice pools out there— evenin's. The monkeys come down to 'em and all manner of birds. And there's deer bellin' and barkin' not far off, and wild hogs visits there. Later at night than this is, of course. And I'm speakin' of jungle pools— not tanks nor reservoirs. P'r'aps you've never heard a sambur come up to the water, Mr Drake? It's a kind of a big stag, very dignified, and he sort of trumpets when he's oneasy. And I seen a tiger come down and drink one night— lappin' like a cat. And there's hyenas and panthers, too. Very interestin', and— you leave them alone and they'll leave you alone. Unless it's a man-eater. And they'll usually take a native, not a white man. But I dunno— India's a hot and broodin' place, and there ain't much peacefulness there. It was in India me and my mates fell in with Shoesmith, Mr Drake. The man we're lookin' for. And me and my mates are goin' to find him. We've got to find him. Three of us there is— me and Collins and O'Hara, and we're dredging England for the hound. Time we got 'im— plenty, all the time there is. Folks call us tramps, and tramps we are— but we're tramping to Shoesmith, and no other. That's it, Mr Drake, sir— Shoesmith, and no other man but Shoesmith. And we shall come up to him one of these fine days. You'll say, very likely: 'Here I see three fools walking up and down England, in and out of the parishes and districts, living like the birds of the air live, begging and borrowin', starving and drenched along with the rain, huntin' for a needle in a haystack— huntin' for a man name of Shoesmith. Three born fools!' Many a man has said it, and maybe many another to come, but that makes no matter to us three men, wherever we may prove to find ourselves. Because, when all's said— when all's said and done— we're going to get the man.

"All for the sake of a drink of cold water! All for just that, and no other thing!" he gulped at the clear lake-water in his can. "Many a Shoesmith 'ave I seen, sir; many a one and oft. Young ones and old 'uns, both men and feminine ones— there's a big body of Shoesmiths living in England, for all the noteworthy name. But we have not found the Shoesmith that sold three men a drink of cold water in India ten years ago. Never you mind. There's time before us. Every parish in the South and the West and the Midland part of England 'ave we dredged through for Shoesmith, excepting Yorkshire, which is a North-Eastern county. My mates are drawing down here working parallel, returning from the Scotch border. If they have not found him, then there's no place in England but Yorkshire where he can live. We've hunted patient for ten years; and even a flea named Shoesmith, if such there was, we should not have overlooked!"

He stared at me with his patient eyes, and I realised what such a search, conducted by men who had been compelled to find their livings as they went, would mean— the rigours of it, the disappointments, the hopelessness.

"All for a drink of cold water Shoesmith sold us out there in India!"

"Sold you?" I asked.

"Sold us, mister. Sold very dear and expensive." He laughed without mirth. "A very expensive drink, that was. Onusual expensive. It was this way, sir. Back there in them old days four men— no, I tell a lie; five men, for Shoesmith was one of us then— five men they got to hear tell of rubies buried in a city back behind a desert in India. They have such in that country, ruined cities, with broken temples and palaces of marble, empty of all but the owls and the cobras and the jackals and hyenas. Perhaps there's crocodiles in the tanks. Those are very desolate places in the night-time for a man who's been brought up to believe in ghosts and spirits. A countryman from a Yorkshire village, you may say— such as I should be. And a person from Ireland, such as might be named O'Hara, would not be amiss if he was terrified to live in one of them old cities. Or a respectable butler, with a name like Collins, who had a weakness and had suffered heavily by his weakness, such as drink, would be called upon to screw himself up to visit a silent dead city away there on the edge of the empty desert, and to explore it for rubies hidden by a queen along with her own hands. But there was three men of that kind— me and O'Hara and Collins. Ford was another, but he had no fear at all. When you go walkin' alone at dawn or in the dusk through a dead city, sir, and your boots rattle on the broken slabs from one end of the ruins to the other end, and the jackals are all a-howlin' very mournful outside, and the snakes slide in and out of the dark places and you think of the thousands of folk who lived there once, and of the queen who buried her rubies and the men who came and cut her throat soon afterwards, you begin to think you've earned your share, and it's valuable to you. For you go about with your heart in your mouth, and feel afraid and desperate anxious. And you look over your shoulder for no cause. If you are a decent, respectable man— only with a weakness, such as drink. Only a gutter-bred city thief can prowl through such a place as that for a dead queen's jewels, and whistle and sing comic songs on the way— a hyena from the slums like Shoesmith!

"We had come to this dead city for the rubies— four of us, as I explained— and we had come across the desert that rolled all around the city. There was no water nearer than a day and a half. And so, on our way there, we filled up at the water-hole in tho desert— enough for four days apiece— and headed across to the city. We was there in one day and a half. But it took us two days to find the rubies. We knew where the place to look for them was, hut we had not allowed for the ruins that had fallen on that place, nor for the sand that the wind had blown up and covered down upon them ruins. It was very hot weather that summer, and we worked long spells. And we got them rubies. Very beautiful precious stones. There was only four of us working when we came down to the hole where the jewels was, for Shoesmith had been knocked down by the sun that same morning, and we had made him lie up in the shade. That come hard on us, for we had only half a day's water apiece left to give us a drink after more than one man's work apiece, and on the top of that we had a day and a half's crossing over desert to make. All on half a day's water apiece. We had to give Shoesmith more than his share.

"We sat there on the spot where we had found the rubies until the night came, when it was a little cooler. We had to wait till it was cooler, for we was afraid to go near to the water, because of our weakness, which was drink. And we had fallen to drink too many times not to know that if we got near that water we should finish it. And us with a day and a half of desert before we could get to our next drink. For in that dead city we could not find water, which, I make no doubt, was the reason why it had become a dead city. There was one tank we found, but it was green water in it, and it stunk and was alive. Moreover, it was deep down and full of snakes that had fallen down there. And we consulted in the dark there and decided we would do better to strike out for the water-hole in the desert on what we had in our bottles. 'For there's fever and malaria and dysentery and cholera and plague and everything horrible and putrid in that green water, to judge by the look of it and the smell,' says Ford; 'and if I got to die, I'd sooner die clean of wholesome thirst out in the desert than rot away here on account of poisonous water.'

"That was sense, Mr Drake, sir, and we abided by it. And we went back to see how Shoesmith's sun-stroke was, and to show him his share of the rubies we had got.

"But Shoesmith, he was gone— gone away, Mr Drake.

"We had left him in a kind of temple we was using to sleep in, and we had left the water there, too. There was a sort of carved stone idol sitting at one end of this temple, and we had put the water on her legs. But when we looked the water was gone too. The water was gone! 'Oh, my God!' says Ford. 'We're done for— done for. Rubies or no rubies, millions or nothing, it all makes no matter to us four men. We're dead 'uns. We can lie down and die here, and the cobras can come and cover us up with rubies like the babes in the wood, or we can try for the water-hole in the desert, and die on the road. There's no more water for us, unless we take a swig at the green stuff down the tank.' 'Mebbe we can just make the water-hole if we start now. A man can last a long time when he's put to it,' says Collins.

" 'Last!' says Ford. 'Last! By God, I'm afire now! I couldn't last for sake of the sweetest water in the world!'

" 'No,' says Collins: 'but one of us got to last for sake of Shoesmith. He can't get away— he can't— God wouldn't let a hound like that get away. Why, we give him some of our own share to his own. Somebody's got to last long enough to kill Shoesmith. Come on— let's all last till we get him!'

"Well, there wasn't anything else to do, and we divided the rubies in case we lasted, and started off, dark as it was. O'Hara it was who guided. O'Hara had a most wonderful gift for steerin' and findin' his way by the stars. All that night we travelled into the desert towards the water-hole, moving very slow and painful on account of the thirst. Collins said he had read about thirsty men sucking pebbles which helped them. So we put pebbles into our mouths, but they come out as dry as they went in. And our tongues swelled all up like sausages— dry ones. We went on till the stars began to dance and shoot about the sky, so that O'Hara had to stop for fear of losing the way. He turns round to us. 'Look! They've done something to the North Star, somebody have,' he whispers. He can't keep to his place. 'How can I steer by a star that don't stand still ? Let's lay down.'

"And we all laid down and watched the stars dancing quadrilles, as Collins, who knowed about dances, said they was. But it looked more like catherine-wheels to me. And our tongues went on swellin'.

"But we moved on again a bit before the sun rose, and we done very well for a time. O'Hara reckoned that another six hours would get us to the water; but Ford, he only laughed. 'Six hours!' he whispers out of his black lips. 'None of us'll last more than another two hours,' he says. 'Six years ain't any likelier. Why, I been goin' mad half the night, and now I'm gone.' And with that he bites into his arm and— drinks. The blood ran down his chin till he licked it off like a cat. And then the sun rises suddenly up into the sky and knocks him down where he stood, as dead as a stone. I never seen a man die that fashion before nor since. He had burnt himself out, as Collins said.

"So we left him there— along with his share of the rubies. It was not worth the trouble of takin' them off of his body. And it didn't look as if they was likely to be any good to any of us. We steps it, headin' into the eye of that blazin', blindin', sun, and half an hour afterward Collins drops like a log. Not dead, but dyin'. ' Water's the only thing for him,' says O'Hara. 'Don't wait. Keep on for the water, and we can bring it back to him— if ever we get there. It can't be far off now. The kites won't hurt him till lie's dead,' he says; for the birds come slidin' and whistlin' down the sky afore Collins had hit the ground. But, all the same, we bandaged his eyes in case the kites felt tempted for them, and left him there.

"We made a few more miles, me and O'Hara, and then O'Hara kneels down on the sand, very slow, and without notice or warnin'.

" 'My God! I'm going, Uncle,' says he— they called me 'Uncle' because I used to sing 'em a Devonshire song named 'Uncle Tom Cobley'— 'and you're the last perishing chance!' He puts his hands up to shelter his eyes, and stares ahead, swayin' to and fro. 'Look, Uncle— look!' I looks, and I couldn't see anything but sand and sunlight. 'There's trees there!' says O'Hara, swingin' to and fro like a clock pendulum. 'Go straight to 'em, take a little drink, and fill the bottles, and come back,' he says. And with that, down he goes on his face.

"I pushes on...

"That was a wonderful day for me, Mr Drake, sir. Sometimes I thought I was walking on a gentle medder, with cowslips and dandelions swishing round me legs sometimes I reckoned I was wanderin' across cool ploughed fields; once I fell down and tried to swim, till the sand burnt me face; and then I seemed to be walkin' in the dark. It was dark, only the darkness had deep edges of quiverin' white-hot light, and every now and then red and purple jags of lightnin' would rip acrost this burnin' darkness for a while. Then, all at once I seen the trees— I seen 'em stranding clean and clear round the water-hole.

" 'By gosh, I've done it!' I says. I fell down again, but I struggles up, and drags on towards the water.

"And then a man as big as a mountain, with eyes like great rubies and a face like silver, blocks the way. He shoves out all arm that looks like the arm of a giant and with a great pink-colored fist on it the size of a baby, clutchin' round a shinin' revolver. 'What! Uncle?' he says, and I knows him to be Shoesmith. 'Water!' I says. 'Sure— take a drink.' And he hands me a bottle with about a quarter of a pint in it, no more.

"I hardly tasted it, but it cleared me eyes and me wind. 'I've been watchin' you,' says Shoesmith; 'wobbling like the loose hind-wheel of a waggon. If I hadn't come out to you, Uncle, you'd have died in a minute or two. Where's the others— dead?' 'Ford is,' I says. 'But a drink'd save Collins and O'Hara.' 'Well, take 'em a drink,' he says.

"I shuts my eyes tight, for the darkness was closin' in round me once more, and the colored lightnin was flickerin' and dancin' through me head again.

" 'I can't,' I says. 'And you know it, Shoesmith— you murderer!' And with this I feels myself fallin'.

"Shoesmith bends down over me. 'You lyin', scandalous dog!' he whispers. 'You call me a murderer. Didn't I give you water? Now you shall pay for it. I ain't no bhisti (water-carrier). Where's your rubies?"

"I felt his hungry hands go pluckin' and flutterin' and feelin' all over me until they settled on the rubies— which they took. Then Shoesmith whispered in my ear again: 'Give me these silly stones for one good drink, Uncle,' he says. 'Will you do it? One good drink and a bottleful sluiced over your head. Will you do it?'

"What was rubies to me then? Nothing but hot stones that hurt the back of a man's eyes to look at. Bad, burnin' things.

" 'I will, Shoesmith,' I says, and feels the bottle at my mouth again. It was only a taste he give me then, but— 'This is just to keep you goin',' he says. 'I've got to do business with O'Hara and Collins yet. You can have your sluice when I get back.'

"And he was gone— back to find them other two men.

"That was what he done to 'em both. Worked 'over 'em out in that blindin' desert like a doctor till they'd got sense enough back to give up all they'd risked their lives for— to give up the rubies just for the sake of the drink he'd stole from 'em. Collins he brought back to O'Hara somehow, and left 'em with a bottle of water between 'em to do the best they could.

"But he never went back for Ford. Ford's bones and rubies is there still— just as the kites and jackals left 'em— for all I know.

"Shoesmith emptied a bottle over me as he passed back to the water-hole, and that was the last I knowed of him.

"I made the water-hole about two hours afterwards. I had fallen further from it than I reckoned, and after a rest I went out to help O'Hara and Collins in. After a sleep we was improved and ate some of the grub we had stored there. We did not talk much. There wasn't much to talk about. We seen how it was and how that 'ound Shoesmith had led his plans. He'd left us at the dead city, and, takin' all the water with him, had struck out for the water-hole. He reckoned very correct and close. He judged we should try for the water-hole, bringin' the rubies with us, and miss it by a few miles.

"Then, knowin' he'd have nothin' to fear from three dying men, he'd come out to find us and get our rubies in exchange for the water he would bring. Then, having got the stones, he'd leave the water-hole at once and get on across the desert to the railway and make his way out of the country. The thief knew it'd take us a day or two to get strength enough to foller him. He had so planned it, Mr Drake, and had done it so, too— all correct and accurate— except for Ford. He had not reckoned on Ford dyin'. He did not want to be a murderer— only a 'water-seller.' But Ford made a murderer of him— and that's why we each got one of these."

The man indicated something that lay on the landing-stage at his side. I had not noticed it before. It was a well-handled rope, supple, greasy, strong. There  was something inexpressively sinister in the look of it, after the story I had just heard.

"But you don't mean—" I began. He saw what I meant in my eyes, I suppose, for he nodded.

"It ain t nobody's business but ours, Mr Drake," he said, gentle and apologetic.

There was a silence.

"Uncle" took another luxurious sip from his can.

"I shall join up with O'Hara here to-night, and Collins'll very likely come in tomorrow. Would you mind us sleepin' in the boathouse, Mr Drake, sir? We should be cautious not to scratch no varnish. There's plenty barns about, but we all feels the same way about lakes and streams."

I handed over the key of the boat-house. It seemed little enough to give. I had some loose silver— that went with the key.

I was uncomfortable, for I could not shake my mind free from the conviction that Sir John Shoesmith— my wealthy neighbor, whose huge new stone mansion up on the hill dominated the district— was the Shoesmith "Uncle" and his comrades sought.

I had dined with the man often. I had never liked him, never disliked him. I suddenly remembered that Sir John had often said that he would like to see India, conveying by that the impression that he had never been there. And yet— I decided now— he looked as most white men look who have lived in India. And there are few who escape the hall-mark of the country.  Again, I had heard it said, in business, that he was cruel and unscrupulous... but all that was nothing. There was something more tangible than that.

I stared across the lake, and asked casually what was the name of Shoesmith the water-seller.

"Name, sir? Jack we called him."

"But would you know him again if you saw him? Ten years alter a man."

"Uncle" laughed— not mirthfully. "Know him, Mr Drake, sir! listen. About five foot six high, narrow across the shoulders, straight and light-colored hair, long nose with a blue gunpowder spot on the side, a scar running into the hair across the left temple, light moustache, smallish ears, that don't curl in much at the edges— flat, I mean — wide feet, the top off the little finger on the right hand, sharp stick-out chin, eyes kind of yellowy-grey, and a little black mole just under the jaw-bone on the left side of the throat.

"That's a rough idea of the man— from which I shouldn't expect you or anybody to recognize him. If there was any chance of you knowin' him, then I could give you a full description; for we know that man, sir, hair by hair, scar by scar, mark by mark. Either of us could pick him from a regiment or a division or an army of Shoesmiths!"

The man suddenly stretched out his hand. He had described Sir John Shoesmith to the life.

"Know him, sir!" he said, with a sort of dignify. "If we was blind and deaf and dumb, we should know him by instinct, if ever he approached us. Why ? Because he taught us himself. Have you ever patted a strange dog, sir, and passed on. If you have, in two days you have forgotten what that dog was like. But if the dog had bitten your hand through, would you have forgotten him all your life? You wouldn't. We shall remember Shoesmith, for he learned us how to remember him— learned us very thoroughly."

I suppose it was wrong ! I have been told many times it was wrong, and I offer no excuse. But the man and his story had gripped me. I pointed up the hill, where the lights of Sir John Shoesmith's big house were burning yellow through the dusk.

"Shoesmith lives there," I said. And "Uncle" scrambled to his feet, making a sharp, dry sound in his throat.

"He's dying there, too— typhoid fever!" I added.

"Uncle" was looking at the lights as he might have looked at the rubies of the dead queen as they came up from their hiding-place. Then a man came treading quietly through the gloom, and approached the landing-stage.

"Uncle!" he called softly, with a vague Irish accent, and I knew that new-comer was O'Hara— O'Hara who had the "wonderful gift of steerin' by the stars." How he had known that his comrade was on my landing-stage, or by what instinct he had found him, I do not pretend to explain.

Uncle looked over his shoulder. "He's there, O'Hara— there!" he said, and pointed to the lights on the hillside.

I saw O'Hara stiffen and stare, like a pointer. Even as we looked, two of the lights on the first floor dimmed, as though someone in the house had pulled down the blinds. Almost immediately after, the sound of a suddenly started motor-engine whirred down to us from the house. We watched the distant haze of pale moving light from the car-lamps slide forward as the motor dropped down the drive.

"That's the doctor," I said. "He can tell us how Shoesmith is tonight."

But I knew— I was sure that Shoesmith was dead.

I turned and went down the long ride that loads out to the main road. The others followed silently, like shadows. The car came along, and I signalled Bryant, the doctor's driver, lie pulled up and I put my head in at the window. The shadows were at my shoulder.

"Well, doctor, how is Sir John?" I asked.

"Died half an hour ago," said the doctor reluctantly.

"Is there any danger of an epidemic in the village?" I questioned, and the shadows pressed closer, listening.

The doctor laughed.

"None whatever. It was the awful water supply and sanitary arrangements at the new house." he said. "The people who did the work should be flogged. Man, the water there was rank poison!"

I heard two long, low, sighs of utter content behind me. That last must have been music to the listeners.

"It was the water that killed him?" I persisted.

"Nothing else," said the doctor.

The end of his cigar glowed red as he pulled vindictively at it. "Nothing else," he repeated.

I said "Goodnight," and stood away as the car rolled forward. Then I turned to the others. But they were gone— silently, unobtrusively as they had come. I never saw them again.

Only I heard some weeks after that on the following morning three ropes— each with a noose at the end— had been found on the floor of the room in which Sir John Shoesmith's body had lain that night!

Nobody knew how they had got there, nor could anyone suggest why they had been so placed. But that was because nobody knew the story which "Uncle" had told me down there by the lake, while Shoesmith was dying.

In the light of that tragic history, I could picture them retreating softly from the doctor's car to the landing-stage. I saw the later coming of Collins, also guided by that strange instinct for finding his comrades which the last ten years had developed, and I was able to guess the whispered consultation, the silent approach to the big house on the hill, the stealthy entry to the chamber of the dead man, and the keen, rapt scrutiny of the cold face. They had seen it last in the hot dazzling light of the Indian desert, they saw it now by the feeble ray of a candle-end or a match, and the illumination of their unforgotten agony. But they had known it. And they had left their ropes upon the floor. They had carried them for ten bitter years, but the time had come at last when they could lay them down and leave them.

_______________

9: Poison

Katherine Mansfield

1888-1923

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine Dec 1950

In: Something Childish and Other Stories (1924)

Katherine Mansfield Murry

THE post was very late. When we came back from our walk after lunch it still had not arrived.

"Pas encore, Madame," sang Annette, scurrying back to her cooking.

We carried our parcels into the dining-room. The table was laid. As always, the sight of the table laid for— two— for two people only— and yet so finished, so perfect, there was no possible room for a third, gave me a queer, quick thrill as though I'd been struck by that silver lightning that quivered over the white cloth, the brilliant glasses, the shallow bowl of freesias.

"Blow the old postman! Whatever can have happened to him?" said Beatrice. "Put those things down, dearest."

"Where would you like them?"

She raised her head; she smiled her sweet, teasing smile.

"Anywhere — silly."

But I knew only too well that there was no such place for her, and I would have stood holding the squat liqueur bottle and the sweets for months, for years, rather than risk giving another tiny shock to her exquisite sense of order.

"Here— I'll take them." She plumped them down on the table with her long gloves and a basket of figs. " 'The Luncheon Table. Short story by— by—' " She took my arm. "Let's go onto the terrace—" and I felt her shiver. "Ça sent," she said faintly, "de la cuisine..."

I had noticed lately— we had been living in the south for two months — that when she wished to speak of food, or the climate, or, playfully, of her love for me, she always dropped into French.

We perched on the balustrade under the awning. Beatrice leaned over, gazing down— down to the white road with its guard of cactus spears. The beauty of her ear, just her ear, the marvel of it was so great that I could have turned from regarding it to all that sweep of glittering sea below and stammered: "You know— her ear! She has ears that are simply the most..."

She was dressed in white, with pearls 'round her throat and lilies-ofthe-valley tucked into her belt. On the third finger of her left hand she wore one pearl ring— no wedding ring.

"Why should I, mon ami? Why should we pretend? Who could possibly care?"

And of course I agreed, though privately, in the depths of my heart, I would have given my soul to have stood beside her in a large, yes, a large, fashionable church, crammed with people, with old reverend clergymen, with The Voice that breathed o'er Eden, with palms and the smell of scent, knowing there was a red carpet and confetti outside, and somewhere, a wedding cake and champagne and a satin shoe to throw after the carriage— if I could have slipped our wedding ring onto her finger.

Not because I cared for such horrible shows, but because I felt it might possibly lessen this ghastly feeling of absolute freedom— her absolute freedom, of course.

Oh, God! What torture happiness was— what anguish! I looked up at the villa, at the windows of our room hidden so mysteriously behind the green straw blinds. Was it possible that she ever came moving through the green light and smiling that secret smile, that languid, brilliant smile that was just for me? She put her arm round my neck; the other hand softly, terribly, brushed back my hair.

"Who are you?" Who was she? She was— Woman.

....On the first warm evening in Spring, when lights shone like pearls— through the lilac air and voices murmured in the fresh-flowering gardens, it was she who sang in the tall house with the tulle curtains. As one drove — in the moonlight through the foreign city, hers was the shadow that fell across the quivering gold of the shutters. When the lamp was lighted, in the new-born stillness her steps passed your door. And she looked out into the autumn twilight, pale in her furs, as the automobile swept by...

In fact, to put it shortly, I was twenty-four at the time. And when she lay on her back, with the pearls slipped under her chin, and sighed, "I'm thirsty, dearest. Donne-moi un orange," I would gladly, willingly, have dived for an orange into the jaws of a crocodile— if crocodiles ate oranges.

"Had I two little feathery wings And were a little feathery bird..." sang Beatrice.

I seized her hand. "You wouldn't fly away?"

"Not far. Not farther than the bottom of the road."

"Why on earth there?"

She quoted: " 'He cometh not, she said...' "

"Who? The silly old postman? But you're not expecting a letter."

"No, but it's maddening all the same. Ah!" Suddenly she laughed and leaned against me. "There he is— look — like a blue beetle."

And we pressed our cheeks together and watched the blue beetle beginning to climb.

"Dearest," breathed Beatrice. And the word seemed to linger in the air, to throb in the air like the note of a violin.

"What is it?"

"I don't know," she laughed softly. "A wave of— a wave of affection, I suppose."

I put my arm round her. "Then you wouldn't fly away?"

And she said rapidly and softly: "No! No! Not for worlds. Not really. I love this place. I've loved being here. I could stay here for years, I believe. I've never been so happy as I have these last two months, and you've been so perfect to me, dearest, in every way."

This was such bliss— it was so extraordinary, so unprecedented, to hear her talk like this that I had to try to laugh it off.

"Don't! You sound as if you were saying goodbye."

"Oh, nonsense, nonsense. You mustn't say such things even in fun. She slid her little hand under my white jacket and clutched my shoulder. "You've been happy, haven't you?"

"Happy? Happy? Oh, God— if you knew what I feel at this moment... Happy! My Wonder! My Joy!"

I dropped off the balustrade and embraced her, lifting her in my arms. And while I held her lifted, I pressed my face in her breast and muttered:

"You are mine?" And for the first time in all the desperate months I'd known her, even counting the last month of— surely— Heaven— I believed her absolutely when she answered:

"Yes, I am yours."

The creak of the gate and the postman's steps on the gravel drew us apart. I was dizzy for the moment. I simply stood there, smiling, I felt, rather stupidly. Beatrice walked over to the cane chairs.

"You go— go for the letters," said she.

I— well— I almost reeled away. But I was too late. Annette came running. "Pas de lettres," said she.

My reckless smile in reply as she handed me the paper must have surprised her. I was wild with joy. I threw the paper up into the air and sang out:

"No letters, darling!" as I came over to where the beloved woman was lying in the long chair.

For a moment she did not reply. Then she said slowly, as she tore off the newspaper wrapper:  "The world forgetting, by the world forgot."

There are times when a cigarette is just the very one thing that will carry you over the moment. It is more than a confederate, even; it isa secret, perfect little friend who knows all about it and understands absolutely. While you smoke you look down at it— smile or frown, as the occasion demands; you inhale deeply and expel the smoke in a slow fan. This was one of those moments. I walked over to the magnolia and breathed my fill of it. Then I came back and leaned over her shoulder. But quickly she tossed the paper away onto the stone.

"There's nothing in it," said she. "Nothing. There's only some poison trial. Either some man did or didn't murder his wife, and twenty thousand people have sat in court every day and two million words have been wired all over the world after each proceeding."

"Silly world!" said I, flinging into another chair. I wanted to forget the paper, to return, but cautiously, of course, to that moment before the postman came. But when she answered I knew from her voice the moment was over for now. Never mind. I was content to wait— five hundred years, if need be— now that I knew.

"Not so very silly," said Beatrice. "After all it isn't only morbid curiosity on the part of the twenty thousand."

"What is it, darling?" Heaven knows I didn't care.

"Guilt!" she cried. "Guilt! Didn't you realize that? They're fascinated like sick people are fascinated by anything— any scrap of news about their own case. The man in the dock may be innocent enough, but the people in court are nearly all of them poisoners. Haven't you ever thought"— she was pale with excitement— "of the amount of poisoning that goes on? It's the exception to find married people who don't poison each other— married people and lovers. Oh," she cried, "the number of cups of tea, glasses of wine, cups of coffee that are just tainted. The number I've had myself, and drunk, either knowing or not knowing— and risked it. The only reason why so many couples"— she laughed— "survive, is because the one is frightened of giving the other the fatal dose. That dose takes nerve! But it's bound to come sooner or later. There's no going back once the first little dose has been given. It's the beginning of the end, really— don't you agree? Don't you see what I mean?"

She didn't wait for me to answer. She unpinned the lilies-of-the-valley and lay back, drawing them across her eyes.

"Both my husbands poisoned me," said Beatrice. "My first husband gave  me a huge dose almost immediately, but my second was really an artist in his way. Just a tiny pinch, now and again, cleverly disguised— oh, so cleverly!— until one morning I woke up and in every single particle of me, to the ends of my fingers and toes, there was a tiny grain. I was just in time..."

I hated to hear her mention her husbands so calmly, especially today. It hurt. I was going to speak, but suddenly she cried mournfully:

"Why? Why should it have happened to me? What have I done? Why have I been all my life singled out by... It's a conspiracy."

I tried to tell her it was because she was too perfect for this horrible world— too exquisite, too fine. It frightened most people. I made a little joke.

"But I— I haven't tried to poison you."

Beatrice gave a queer small laugh and bit the end of a lily stem.

"You!" said she.  "You wouldn't hurt a fly!"

Strange. That hurt, though. Most horribly.

Just then Annette ran out with our apéritifs. Beatrice leaned forward and took a glass from the tray and handed it to me. I noticed the gleam of the pearl on what I called her pearl finger. How could I be hurt at what she said?

"And you," I said, taking the glass, "you've never poisoned anybody."

That gave me an idea; I tried to explain.

"You— you do just the opposite. What is the name for one like you who, instead of poisoning people, fills them— everybody, the postman, the man who drives us, our boatman, the flower-seller, me— with new life, with something of her own radiance, her beauty, her—"

Dreamily she smiled; dreamily she looked at me.

"What are you thinking of— my lovely darling?"

"I was wondering," she said, "whether, after lunch, you'd go down to the post office and ask for the afternoon letters. Would you mind, dearest? Not that I'm expecting one.— but —I just thought, perhaps— it's silly not to have the letters if they're there. Isn't it? Silly to wait till tomorrow." She twirled the stem of the glass in her fingers. Her beautiful head was bent. But I lifted my glass and drank, sipped rather— sipped slowly, deliberately, looking at that dark head and thinking of— postmen and blue beetles and farewells that were not farewells and....

Good God! Was it fancy? No, it wasn't fancy. The drink tasted chill, bitter, queer.

________________

10: The Story of Richard Lavender

Roderic Quinn

1867-1949

The Lone Hand, Sydney, 1 Aug 1907

Roderic Joseph Quinn

Australian poet and author

I WAS doing duty in the office of the Inspector-General when Inspector Jackson from the —— western district sought an audience.

Soon the Chief's gong sounded, summoning me.

"Lavender,"he said, "I gave you some correspondence dealing with the Lacy Gang, two days since. What did you do with it ? "

I pointed to a shelf. "It is there, sir," I said, and made a movement to reach it down, but he stayed me.

"Put this with it," he said, lifting up a photograph which he had been scrutinising. "It is a picture of Dan Lacy, the leader of the gang which has been playing such ducks and drakes with Mr. Jackson's reputation."

He turned a stern look on the Inspector and a smiling one on me, and then his eyes fell on the photograph again, and from the photograph rose to my face, and once again they fell on the photograph, and the smile died on his lips, and he said, "Good Heavens, how curious!"

Presently he addressed Jackson. "About how old is Lacy?"

"Thirty."

"Lavender's age," he commented.

The Chief mused. "It is a coincidence," he said, "and ought to prove of service. Coincidences are not sent for nothing. This remarkable likeness, if properly operated, might prove the gang's undoing."

After a moment's reflection he looked up at me.

"Lavender," he said, "if you succeed in bringing about the downfall of this gang, I will make you a sergeant."

My opportunity had come at last, and I said, "Thank you, sir, I shall succeed."

IT WAS a long way from Sydney to the scene of the Lacy exploits, but the trip gave me time to learn something about the notorious bushranger and his associates. Mr. Jackson talked to me of them and of their doings at somewhat tedious length.

When I got to my new headquarters I just idled about the town for the first few days, seeking information, and getting it. I had disguised myself with blonde whiskers, matching my hair, and no one remarked on my likeness to Dan Lacy. I discovered that the gang held the district in a state of terror.

Lacy and his men were speedy riders and reckless fellows, and they came and went with a rattle of hoofs and a hurry of words, and no one within a hundred miles of them felt secure by night or day. I learnt that they had more than one rendezvous. One of these places was known as the "Hut," but it was no more a hut than it was a clipper ship, being a limestone cave in the hills. And one evening, as I sat talking to the woman in whose house I stayed, I heard startling news— Dan Lacy was in love! I do not know why I should have attached such instant importance to the information, but it seemed to me that Lacy's love affair was to help me.

The next day I saw the woman— a slight girl in a riding-habit. My hostess beckoned me to the window, and pointed her out as she sat her horse at the far side of the street, talking to the local bank manager. She had fair hair with a shade of brown in it, and her profile was delicately cut. Once she turned my way, and I noticed that her eyes were long and blue. Her horse (a chestnut) was full of fight and fire, reefing at the reins and pawing the ground fretfully; but she sat him with ease, and held him with a masterly, firm hand. As she said good-bye to the bank manager she blushed prettily.

Afterwards, I praised my landlady for her cooking, which means that I took the high road to her good graces, and she spent a full two hours talking to me. Having told me much concerning herself and her past, which did not interest me, she came round to discuss the subject which lay close to my heart.

"He met her in a coach two years ago," she said, "and let the coach go its way for her sake. Wasn't that nice? She was coming from town, where her mother had died, to stay with her uncle at the 'Girth and Surcingle.' Maybe you've heard of the 'Girth and Surcingle'— a public house at the foot of Dingo Hill, ten miles out or thereabouts? People say that Kitty Bell is a good girl, but they don't speak well of her uncle. He knows how many beans make five, and who butters his bread, and since you seem to be a trusty man who can keep a confidence, I may as well tell you that there's those that say when the Lacy gang makes a haul old Tom Bell doesn't need to ask for his share. He generally finds it lying around pretty handy."

I SPENT a full fortnight, before making a move, idling about the place— drinking in bars, attending race meetings in many of the centres round about, and dancing at house parties. I learnt on one occasion that Dan Lacy generally rode a big brown horse, with a white star on his forehead; and shortly after I seized an opportunity, which offered, to become possessed of an animal of that description. I did not take delivery at once, but said I would  send for the horse when I wanted him. At the end of the fortnight I heard something more, and I decided to move. From two different quarters news came of the gang. In one place they had robbed a coach. In the second a station had been held up by them. But in each case Dan Lacy was an absentee. I knew that in all previous exploits he had led the gang, and that he took a kind of joy in exhibiting himself conspicuously as their leader. I sat down and did some hard thinking, and my thinking convinced me that Dan Lacy must be either sick or gone on a far venture. Afterwards I discovered that the latter conclusion was the correct one, and that he had ridden a hundred miles to buy a trinket for the girl he loved.

As a result of my planning, Constable Brown left town one morning, and early in the afternoon of the same day I strolled across some paddocks out into the country. At the end of a mile's walk I came to the comer of an out-paddock, where Brown waited for me. He was sitting in a saddle, holding a second horse—the animal I had purchased—by the bridle, and I mounted and rode off, Brown following. I skirted the road, which led to the "Girth and Surcingle," for some miles, not venturing on to it till I was well free of settlement. Then we put our horses to the canter, and as wn rode side by side I made Brown aware of the part he was to play.

All day leaden clouds had been marching up from the North, and lay heaped layer upon layer above us. At intervals a quick thread of lightning shot through the piled masses, and now and again thunder muttered. The long-deferred monsoonal rains were about to fall.

The first drops came when we had been riding an hour, and so heavy was the onset of the storm that in five minutes we were wet to the skin. Our spirits rose, however, when through a thinning among the trees, we saw the "Girth and Surcingle," with its roof ofironbark shingles. We rode across a creek that wound along at a hundred yards distance from the public-house, and on the further side, putting myself well in view r of the place, I reined up, while Brown rode on. I watched him till he had covered every inch of the space which intervened between my halting-place and the "Girth and Surcingle." There he dismounted and entered the bar. I waited, disturbed by anxiety, and wondering what sort of a fist he would make of his part.

He had a simple story to tell and a simple question to ask. I had instructed him to explain to Bill that I, Dan Lacy, was afraid to enter his place, as I feared a police ambush, and that I waited there in the open with an eye on the country-side. He was to ask the whereabouts of the gang, and haying got the information, to leave hurriedly, as though imminent danger threatened.

He was longer in the place than I had anticipated, and nervousness overcame me, making my fingers twitch at the reins; but the nervousness gave way to suspense when Bell appeared at the door, followed by Brown. I waved my hand to the publican, and he waved his to me in return, looking steadily at me the while ; then, as though satisfied, he turned to Brown and said something, and Brown, without another instant's pause, hurried to his horse, mounted, and came towards me. I wheeled my own horse and rode off, but, even as I turned away, I noticed that a girl, dressed in blue, had come round the side of the house, and was looking towards me. I knew the slight willowy figure and the clear-cut profile of Kitty Bell, even though the space between us was filled with grey rain. I lifted my hat to her, and she returned my salute with a grave nod of the head. That was all, and I found myself thinking that, if she were in love, surely she would not content herself with a nod only. A moment afterwards Brown galloped up to me.

"At the 'Hut'!" he said.

AT THE corner of the paddock, where Brown and I had met earlier in the afternoon, I dismissed him with a message to Inspector Jackson, and I told him that whatever was to be done must be done instantly and with the greatest possible secrecy.

The rain fell and time passed, and, soaked to the skin, I stamped my feet or paced to and fro, eaten with impatience. I could well understand, as I waited, the mood of the Emperor Charles of Spain when he,

In great boots of Spanish leather,

Cursed the Frenchman, cursed the weather.

I suppose all the sounds of the bush, the crying and the calling of night birds, went on as usual around me, but I had no ears for them : all my hearing was strained to catch the fall of the horses' hoofs coming up out of the dark. At last I heard them, and presently four troopers, with Jackson at their head, showed themselves out of the night, and drew up beside me.

"Wilkins knows the track to the 'Hut,' " said Jackson. "He says it is not difficult going."

An hour's riding brought us to rough country —hill and hollow, and in every hollow we crossed was a creek that the steady, streaming rain had filled with the noise and motion of sudden waters. The troopers were armed with carbines, slung across their shoulders, in addition to the revolvers which they wore in their belts. They were a smart body of men, lightly built and capital riders.

We might have taken the outlaws with-out firing a shot if it had not been for the clumsiness of Inspector Jackson.

We crept up the hill, leaving our horses by a creek-side at the bottom, and had reached the flat table of cleared land in front of the cave, when, suddenly, Jackson stumbled, inadvertently pulled the trigger of his carbine, and so announced that we had arrived. I dropped to the ground as an answering gun sounded, and wriggled on my stomach to a log, feeling a trifle unnerved. The troopers had all taken cover behind rocks and stumps and logs, and presently Jackson called out to the men in the cave, them that we were police, and ordering them to surrender in the Queen's name. There came back a voice shouting defiance. Thereupon Jackson parleyed no longer, but gave the order to fire, and our guns roared out. From where I lay I saw chips of rock fly from the sides of the cave's mouth, and a great echo went rolling through the hills. When it died away, from three holes in the rocks— one on either side the entrance and one above it— red tongues of flames shot, and the choked explosions of the outlaws' guns made a dull noise in the night. We fired again, and again the outlaws returned our fire, and for more than an hour an aimless, fruitless, exchange of bullets went on.

Then, as I lay on the wet ground, tired and disappointed, an idea suddenly sparkled in the gloom like a star through clouds, and I could have laughed for very joy— it promised to solve the difficulty so simply. Moving stealthily, I made my way to Jackson, and in a whisper acquainted him with my plan. He demurred at first, objecting that Lacy might have returned, and that if such were the case I should be little better than a dead man.

Presently, I overcame his scruples, and he praised me for my cleverness and courage, and trusted to God that no harm would befall me.

I crawled through the under-scrub from one to the other of the troopers, making them aware of my plan, and to the last man I handed my revolver, and in return he handcuffed me, and I whistled to Jackson. Jackson thereupon hailed the outlaws and spoke to them.

"Look here, you fellows," he said, "you've got to give in, and the sooner you follow your leader's example the better."

There was a laugh that died away suddenly, and a moment's silence, and then one of the outlaws asked in concerned tones :

"What's that you say about our leader?"

"I say he's a sensible man," shouted Jackson. " We got him down at Bell's— he gave in without firing a shot."

"It's a lie," growled back the cave.

"Very well," said Jackson, " I've given you a chance —it's the last you'll get."

The moment was intense, and we waited for the outlaw's reply. Then one of the men spoke again.

"Is that a fact about Dan Lacy?"

The Inspector laughed.

"So much a fact, my man, that we've even got him here alongside of us now."

There was another interval of loaded silence, and then the same voice sounded from the cave.

"What's good enough for him, is good enough for us. If he tells us to chuck the game, we'll chuck it and come along to you, quiet as lambs."

"Right!" returned Jackson.

I came up through the bush with a quick, desperate stride, and advanced a few feet in the open. There Jackson ordered me to halt. The light of the .fire was on my face, and looking towards the cave, I raised my manacled hands as though the situation had left me a broken man. In the cave I heard the men groaning. I did not speak, pretending that my heart was too full for words, and, Jackson calling me in the nick of time,

I stumbled back to him.

"Well," said Jackson, crying out again ; " are you satisfied now ? "

"Don't fire," came the reply, "we're coming." And presently they issued from the cave, drawing on their coats, and slouched into the open.

The rest was easy work, but I did not wait to see it.

WILKINS HAD directed me to follow the creek till I reached the road. Afterwards, an hour's fast travelling would bring me to the " Girth and Surcingle." I felt that, even if I failed to find Lacy there, I would see Kitty Bell, and (who knows?) be permitted, perhaps, a quiet word or two with her. But once or twice, in a hush between the gusts of a great wind that had come up, I fancied that I heard the sound of galloping hoofs. Suddenly, on rounding a clump of trees, a light in the near distance warned me that I was approaching the "Girth and Surcingle."

It wanted about an hour to dawn, and at such a time the light looked suspicious. Five minutes afterwards I hitched my horse to a sapling and moved steathily towards the house. I went slowly, not wishing to make any noise, but suddenly I heard a woman's voice, heavy with terror, and I threw discretion to the winds and started to run. As I approached the house the cry resolved itself into the words— "Not here, Dan Lacy— no murder here, for God's sake." I heard that voice all the way to the house raised in tones that palpitated with fear and anxiety.

"'Twas you he told, and only you," she said, "you sat on your horse out there by the creek and you sent a man to find out where the gang was, and you waved your hand to him, and you raised your hat to me— and it's a pretence you're making, so that you may kill him— and that's all, Dan Lacy."

Her voice, with its rich contralto tones of fear, put a madness in my veins, and I thrust myself through an open door into the middle of the trouble. I had drawn my revolver from my shirt, and as I entered the room I levelled it at Lacy's forehead.

Afterwards I remembered the grouping in that room, and many times since the details of the picture have come back to me. Dan Lacy, pale, and with wet hair, stood above Bell, the publican, holding him by the collar of the shirt so that his knuckles pressed the publican's windpipe and made his face blue with strangulation. The girl hung on to Lacy's disengaged arm, despair and appeal in her eyes and attitude. It was evident from her attire that Lacy's appearance was unexpected, as she wore only a loose wrapper, which fell back on her shoulders, disclosing more than her throat's whiteness.

I stood at the door unnoticed till I said— "Surrender!"

More in surprise than in obedience to my command, Lacy released Bell, regarding me with wonder. The girl drew back clutching at her wrapper so as to hide her throat, and she too wondered at me.

"Who the Devil are you?" said Lacy.

"An officer of the police," I answered, "come to take you."

"Indeed," said he quietly, "I thought you might be my own mother's son, but I'm not so sure that you're going to take me, all the same."

"I took your mates," I answered.

"I know it; I was there and saw the curs surrender."

"It was the only thing they could have done," I said.

"No," he replied, " they could have died like men."

"I'm waiting for you," I said.

"I'll be a weight to carry," he answered.

"You mean—" I said.

"That I'm going out of here dead, or not at all," he replied.

He had his hand on the back of a chair, and I saw his fingers tighten on it. I knew that he was desperate and would use anything that came handy as a weapon.

He gave a side look at the girl.

"I'm sorry for to-night's business and the way I made you feel," he said to her. "The fellow over there (indicating me) is so like me that I can understand how yesterday's affair occurred. I've got a trinket here. I had to ride a mile or two to get it, but I bought it honestly. Perhaps you won't mind wearing it, Kitty?"

He released the chair, undid a pouch attached to his belt, and drew from it a leather casket. He held it towards the girl, but she shrank away from it.

"It's by way of a parting gift," he said appealingly, and I suppose she pitied him, for she took it.

"And now," said he to me, his eye flashing, "I'm not going out of this room alive."

"My arm," I said, "is getting tired, and I never allow any man to play the fool with me."

"Look here!" he replied. "Anyway, things seem to be at a dead finish with me. My gang's taken, and I don't appear to matter much to anybody. If I allow you to take me I'll hang, and hanging's not the kind of end I care for. Since I chucked things aside and took to the bush I haven't been over-happy, but one thing I swore, and that was that I'd never go to gaol. I swore that the night I got even with black Dawson, the trooper— everyone knows that story— Kitty knows it.... She was my favorite sister."

"I've got my duty to do," I said. "I give you while I count ten to hoist your hands— while our friend Bell claps these on you." I threw a pair of handcuffs on the table. I began to count, but he interrupted me, smiling.

"When you've finished your counting," he said, "I'm afraid you'll have to make a mess of Kitty's room."

Then suddenly a great gust of wind, rushing through the house, slammed the door on me and threw me forward, and when I recovered an erect position he had me covered with his revolver.

"I could have shot you," he said, "but it wouldn't do any good, seeing that I'm at the dead finish, any way. I'm going down fighting, however, and since this is to be a duel, why not have it out fair and square in the open?"

I said nothing, and again he repeated a phrase he had used earlier.

"There's no occasion to make a mess of Kitty's room."

Day had broken, and I recognised that if I could hold him in parley for a while longer, Jackson with his men would come along and make an end of the affair. But when he looked into my eyes and said— "Afraid?" I turned, and, "When you're ready!" I answered.

The rain still fell, and the land was full of early light. We took our places at twenty-five paces from each other, and Bell, a handkerchief in his hand, stood to one side of us. I heard a kookaburra laughing.... I saw the handkerchief fall.... and I fired. A sudden pain stung my right arm, but I did not pay much heed to it. I was watching Lacy, and wondering why his chin had dropped upon his chest. When his knees gave way, and he fell gently over, I did not wonder any more, and then the green bush, shrouded in grey rain, began to circle round me, and I sank down wounded and very tired.

________________

11: The Creeping Shadow

Morris Price  Williams, (as by "R. Pardepp")

1842-1900

Belgravia, Oct 1896

[Extracts from the Diary of the late Rev. J. Burcot, M.A.]

I AM sitting in my study in what is, I think, the very prettiest rectory in this country-side. My attitude towards my clerical neighbours’ grounds and houses is certainly not Ahab’s towards Naboth’s vineyard. Yet, somehow, the feeling I have does not seem quite an innocent one. And, if it be not pride (I am certainly not a man conceited in my possessions), I wonder why it is not innocent. But there! it makes my head ache to try and think it out. And now I call to mind having noticed in myself of late a strange inability to follow up the simplest chain of argument; a dulness of the intellect akin to that dimness of vision which heralds the failing of the sight. And I fear my sight is going, for I now and then see a shadow whose presence cannot be accounted for by a corresponding substance. And what is this but dimness of the vision? It is but a trivial thing. But it strangely saddens me, as though it carried with it some deeper meaning ; and I numbly wonder what that is!

[Dated three months later.]

SITTING here at my study table, I am looking out of my French window on the most charming garden man ever worked in, and you cannot taste the true sweetness of a garden unless you work in it with heart and soul. Every rose that nods at me in a friendly way I budded myself with my own hands.

WHAT is that gleaming white among the bushes? Ah! I see now. It is Mabel in her white dress! Sweet Mabel! Little did I think, when my old chum Garton asked me to be his baby’s godfather, that the child would one day come and live here to be the light of my life! I trust I have made her orphan-hood a lighter burden than it might have been. How exquisitely lovely the girl is, with the sunlight kissing her brown tresses! She catches sight of me and her charming face lights up and here she comes—! But no! I must not let the madcap in, or good-bye to all work. So I wave her away.

GOD help me! I have just seen the shadow again! It was lurking near the moss-rose tree at the corner of the path as Mabel passed, a few minutes ago, with a pretty pout on her lips at being refused admittance, and a playful shake of her bit of a fist at me. Could the thing have been lying in wait for her behind the bushes? It may have been my fancy, but it seemed to me to outline dimly the shape of a crouching man. I cannot now hide from myself the conviction that the awful thing is growing more distinct each time I see it. At first it was a mere suggestion of a shadow rather than an actual shade; something like the very faint shadow cast by a sickly sun— a mere blur. And the crowning horror of it is that it appears to have some mysterious affinity with Mabel, for it is never visible unless she be somewhere near! May God shield the poor child from harm!

WHAT drivelling nonsense is this that I have been writing? It is unutterably absurd that a grotesque fancy should so prey on a healthy man. What would my sister Martha say ? Why, I have never (till now) known what nerves are! An old University oarsman and cricketer, I should be above this morbid nonsense. Here goes for a ten-mile walk over the cliffs by the sea-side! That is the broom to brush away these cobwebs of the brain. And I’ll see a doctor to-morrow.

[Dated the following day.]

I’VE SEEN old Crake. How the dear old doctor laughed when I told him of my ailment.

“Shadow of your grandmother!” he scoffed. “Why, man alive, any fool could tell ’twas indigestion! Come now! When d’ye go to roost? What d’ye eat? How many pipes a day do you smoke?”

And he was quite triumphant over my confession of latish hours and a hearty appetite for meals and tobacco. I am feeling better already, and am following the doctor’s rules implicitly.

[Dated a month later.]

AH, ME! My secret trouble has returned in an aggravated form, and I am powerless to battle with it. Very gradually, but very surely, the mysterious shadow, which has drained the sunshine out of my life, is growing into substance. Even now it is, as the book of Exodus has it, “a darkness that may be felt”— so distinct are its outlines, and, I had almost said, its features. And I do not know that the word would be out of place; for now and again there surely flashes upon me out of its dusky lineaments the glance of a malevolent eye, and yesterday the gleam of teeth shone for a moment where its cruel lips were curling into a mocking sneer at some innocent remark of Mabel’s. Aye, it is ever Mabel! I never see the phantom save close to her. Horrible! Most horrible! Yet the child is, as yet, thank Heaven, unconscious of the dread something flitting near her which causes her guardian such agony. I strive with all my might to hide the emotion it excites, for the girl’s sake. And I hope and think that no human being— not even Martha— knows my strange trial. Like Jacob, I wrestle on a mountain-top of utter loneliness; not, like him, with a good angel to gain a blessing, but with a bad one to avert a curse. And as Jacob’s dear ones peacefully rested in the valley, unwitting of his dire struggle, so, please God, my sister and my ward are now, at dead of night, sleeping a sweet and dreamless sleep, while I am agonising in the cruel grip of this nameless fear!

THE thrice accursed shade is beginning to use threatening gestures! Yesterday from behind Mabel’s chair, it shook a clenched hand at me, and the words I was uttering froze on my lips. I forget what I was saying. I forget everything now, save this horror which I would give the world—! What was that I heard just now? Thank God for one thing. Never yet have I seen the grim presence hovering near Mabel in church. There only have I rest. But is not this additional proof that it is an evil spirit from the bottomless pit luring my darling to some awful—? Again that sound! Would to Heaven that the shadow were substance! Then would I grapple with it to the death for Mabel's sake!

[Statement of Silas Chipp, gardener to the late Rev. J. Durcot
and Parish Clerk of Barbax]

HE WOR allers a good measter to me, wor the Rector. A fine hup-standing gennleman as hever I seed, six foot in ’is stockin’s, stronger nor Tim Blacksmith and with a pair o’ shoulders like Farmer Bates’! And, afore his trouble, a jolly ’earty man with a larf as wor better nor doctor’s stuff to a sadly pusson! But yer knowed ’im yerself? Jess so. When did I tek notiss of hanythink differ ? Why, ’twor on the Monday— no, Toosday, after Stillbro’ Fair. That day he walked back and fore in the garden a-mutterin’ to ’ isself and makin’ no more account o’ me, has wor a-workin’ ’ard by, nor if I wor a stone himage, and ’im so sot on his flowers and wegetables and sich! Thinks I, “There's bound to be summit wrong vvi’ Measter."

Well, some fortnight arter, Rector, ’e cum to me one fine mornin’ for to pick a place for the sailary and brokilo, and more like wot 'e use ter be nor I’d sin ’im for some time sunce.

“Silas, my man,” sez ’e, quoite cheery loike, "now for a loikely spot for them brokilo,” sez ’e, “for we beant a-goin’ to let nobody else take the cake for brokilo this year, not if we can ’elp it.”

Jess then I heerd a click o’ the garden gate and in cums Miss a-singin’ loike a thrush, and a sweeter young lass nor Miss Mabel yer couldn’t see nowheers, and loike a darter to Rector and Miss Burcot for all she be no kin o’ they, not wotever. Measter ’e hup and looks at ’er as she cum ’long the path, and in a jiffy yer mout a-knocked me down wi’ a spray of fennel, that skeered wor I. For he wor a-peerin’ o’er Miss’s shoulder at summat ahint ’er, ’is eyes ’most a-startin’ hout of ’is ’ead and 'is face loike the dead! I wor that creepy that I tuk but one look, and nowt in loife could I see but a wheel-barrer, not my own self I couldn’t. But Rector ’e mout ’a sin the Devil ’isself! Howsumdever, when Miss cum hup ’e whips round and teks her by the harm so as she couldn’t see ’is face, and I heerd ’em a-talking' together on their way back to the ’ouse. But Measter ’e forgot all about them brokilo. Nothin’ hout o’ the common, not has I can call to mind, ’appened after this up to a Froiday night in June. ’Twor our choir practiss. Measter, in coorse, wor there and the choir, hall save Bertie Cobb, who wor that sadly ’long o’ heating green gooseberries as ’e’d ’ad to boide in bed. Bertie ’e be a reglar limb ’e be, but hour best treble, moind yer, hall the same. I’d lit the candles in the chansull and a couple agin the wall, down in the church (wich ’e be a dark ’un, ’e be), for Miss, who use ter slip in and listen to the moosic. Well, practiss was nigh hover when Fred Timms ’e lends I a dig i’ the ribs and sez ’e in my hear at the end of a werse :

“Wot’s cum to Rector?” sez ’e. Wi’ that I turns and Mrs. Babbs, the horganist (she’d heerd some choir boys a-w’isperin’), she turns, and we hall turns, and looks hat Rector. He wor a-standin' nigh the haltar-rail, a-facin’ to’rds the west winder, wi’ that same gruesome look on him as I’d sin afore— only wuss— ten toimes wuss. It guv hus hall the cold shivers, it did! For ’e wor a-seein' summat, has none hon hus could see, somewheers close agin Miss Mabel. Miss, she wor a-stoopin’ down 'er ’ead to look hat ’er book, or mebbe drowsin’ a bit, and small blame to ’er, for Chant 31 ’e be a powerful soothin’ ’un; and we wor glad she didn’t ’appen to look hour way. Measter, ’e looked has hif ’e’d sin his death, no less; ’is face loike the chalk, ’is lower jaw dropped, and ’is eyes— well, we dursn’t look hat ’em and that’s the fac’! Has for hus, we didn’t stir nor speak no more nor if we wor friz. Leastways we couldn’t Bymeby Rector ’e cums to ’isself a bit and sez ’e, hin a strange, holler-loike woice: “That’ll do. Good night, hall! Chipp, tek this to Miss Carton.”

And wi’ that ’e scrubbles summat on a leaf of ’is pocket-book and sez ’e, “ Don’t wait,” sez ’e, “ I’ll put hout the lights meself.” I took the note to Miss, and out she whips by the big door. And, thinks I, “ Sure has heggs, Measter he’ve bin and haxed ’er to do summat in th’ ’ouse to get ’er hout o’ the way.”

Well, when I’d locked t’ big door ahint me, I can tell yer I felt strongly sot on it to skedaddle loike the rest on ’em, for I’d heerd ’em, when they got outside chansull door, makin’ tracks for ’ome loike rabbuts. And my ’air had stood on hend whoile Miss wor a-readin’ the note, for fear I mout ’a chanced to see summat hin that wetry spot. But I couldn’t aboide to leave Rector by ’isself hin that lonesome place a-seein’ wisions. So I steals round and sees the loight through the chansull winders a-gittin’ weaker as ’e wor a-doutin’ the candles, wun by wun. When mebbe wun her two were left I waited and waited:

“Wot’s hup?" thinks I, “hev’ ’e bin and fainted away or wot?” So, werry gingerly, I hopens chansull door and pushes my ’cad past curtain and peeps roight hin. There wor Measter a-kneelin’ hon the haltar step and a-sobbin’ quietly to ’isself. Hit med my ’eart sore to see ’im, hit did! Now and agen he wor a-mutterin’ summat, a prayer ’tis loike, but I couldn’t roightly ’ear. So I cums haway and waits houtside, and arter a bit hout ’e cums and locks the door hall roight, and I hup and sez, same has hif nothing ’adn’t ’appened:

“ ’Tis a foine night, sir, and I’m thinkin’ we’d best get in that ’ere medder-’ay to-morrer.” He wor glad to see me, leastwise I thowt so, and sez e, quoite chirpy:

“Ye’re roight, Silas,” sez ’e. “Tell Farmer Bates cz ’ow we should be glad hof a lend o’ the waggin, hif so be has ’e beant a-husin’ on hut ’isself.” And I walks ’long hof ’im has far as Rector)’ door, ’im and me together, a-talkin’ jess loike hold toimes, ’cept that I heerd none o’ that ere jolly larf of ’isn. No ! nor never will no more, poor soul !

[Last entry in the Diary of the late Rev. J. Burcot:

almost illegible].

FRIDAY night, June 13. Even consecrated walls cannot keep out the accursed thing. I saw it to-night behind Mabel in church. It stole nearer and nearer her, till at length it thrust out its dusky arms towards her, like a great black spider about to clutch its prey.

[ Two years later. Scene: Dr. Crake's sanctum. Time, 11 p m.

Dramatis personae: Dr. Crake and his new partner, Mr. Jebson]

“SO,” said the rosy-cheeked, white-headed doctor, filling his favourite pipe with a deliberation born of the consciousness that the next ring at the surgery-bell would be a matter for the junior partner’s attention, “so, Jebson, you were like a boy in pursuit of a soapy-tailed pig. Just as you thought you had caught old Telfort and were in for a yarn— the yarn, in fact— you found him slipping away from you ! ”

“Yes, just like the boy, what I want is a firm grasp of the whole tail,” said Jebson, whose cigar was in full glow. “And the whole tale you shall have,” chuckled the doctor, who had a way of genially annexing other people’s jokes in the sincere belief that they were his own, “but first let me light up.”

“Poor dear Jack Burcot!” The doctor’s rollicking voice had become tender and cooing as the note of a turtle-dove, and, as he blew meditative clouds into the air, he watched them drawing off into thin wisps with a far-off gaze. Now Jebson, himself a man of few words, could sympathise with and respect an eloquent hiatus. So he sat still as a mouse, till the doctor was ready to proceed. At length a belated fly lit upon the senior partner’s bald pate and created a diversion.

“Where was I? I had known Burcot from his cradle. He was worth knowing. Physically, he was quite the handsomest and finest man I have ever seen; a grand athlete, a ’Varsity blue—”

“I know,” said Jebson reverentially, “made big scores for the Gentlemen v. Players and rowed two years running for Oxford.”

"As a friend,” the doctor went on, “he was peerless! For instance, his old school-fellow, Garton, Rector of Pikewich, having lost his wife (it was a case of cancer), and all his property by the breaking of Cobton’s bank, died, leaving a little girl who happened to have Burcot for her godfather. And a fairy god-father he was! He did all that a father could have done, and amply provided for her into the bargain. And he was not without his reward. Mabel Garton grew up into the sweetest and loveliest girl in the county, and was as the apple of his eye. Even Burcot’s only sister (who is the grimmest spinster I know), was, in her stiff way, oddly fond of Mabel.

“Well, Burcot had been ten years rector of this family living, beloved by his parishioners, with ample means, and apparently superb health, in short, as happy as a mortal could be, when one day he consulted me, in a half-joking, shame-faced way, about an appearance like a shadow which vexed him.

“Of course I knew there was insanity in the family; but I had always regarded poor Jack as a splendid illustration of ‘mens sana in corpore sano.' “ I pooh-poohed, and called it indigestion, and so on, but at the end of the interview it was clear to me that the family curse had lit upon him. So it proved. He grew morbid and hippish, and finally his brain gave way. A curate was put in charge of the parish, and competent keepers were placed in the Rectory to look after poor Burcot. His sister stuck by him, and as a matter of fact there was no risk in her doing so, as his malady had taken the form of extreme despondency without the smallest tendency to violence.”

Jebson shook his head. “You can never tell,” said he, “what turn a case of mental weakness may take.”

The old doctor was pugnaciously argumentative, and felt all the temptation of a favourable opening, but the swing of his story was upon him, so after a wistful pause, he went on:

“His ward too would have stuck by Burcot through all. But I sent her away on the ground that her presence, much as he loved her, was, in some way or other, a source of agitation to him. The reason why was found on examination of her guardian’s papers.”

Here the doctor, noting that Jebson had changed his attitude, and that every line of his face and body was shaping itself to the keenest attention, inhaled the full fragrance of the incense so dear to the teller of a story.

“It was this. To Burcot’s mind there was some sinister association of the shadow he had mentioned to me with Mabel Garton. He fancied, in fact, that it dogged the girl’s steps.”

“Tell me one thing, Crake. Was it ever surmised that Burcot had any warmer feeling for the girl than the paternal kind of affection you have described?”

“I never heard the smallest hint of it. Not only was Burcot at that time fifty and the girl nineteen, but there never had been in the man a trace of a weakness such as that.” (Dr. Crake was a bachelor.) “It was a matter of comment.”

Jebson waved his cigar in token of waiving the point.

“Mabel was packed off, ostensibly on a short visit to a cousin of the Burcots in another county— a Mrs. Tanwick, who was a widow and well-to-do. Here an admirer turned up in the person of a young baronet, whom Mrs. Tanwick— an indefatigable match-maker— considered an eminently eligible candidate for Mabel's hand. I met him once, and must admit that he had remarkable personal advantages. He was as dark as a Spaniard, and his black eyes were strikingly brilliant and piercing. They had the singular quality of seeming to arrest and take hold of one’s attention in so vivid a way that it was like the grasp of a hand. There was something weird and uncanny about it, and it reminded one of the Ancient Mariner. For the rest, he was a tall and athletic man of distinguished presence. But— there was an indefinable something— some subtle note which jarred.”

Jebson’s cigar had gone out.

“What did the young lady think of him?”

“Why, it was difficult to tell! The man clearly exercised a strong influence over her. But it was, some thought, more like the fascination of a bird by a snake than anything else. His personality seemed to dominate her in spite of herself. At last matters drifted into an engagement. The poor child certainly did not look as other maidens do in like case. She was wretchedly pale and distraught, and her wan little face began to wear a frightened and hunted look. One day Sir Dudley Sake—”

“Ah!” said Jebson. “I felt that name was coming.”

The doctor paused and took his turn at listening.

“Why, Crake, he was a fellow-student of mine in hospital before I went to sea, and we youngsters all regarded him, and with reason, as a dangerous reptile. He used to say that he was studying anatomy and medicine, not for a living, nor for healing’s sake, but to arm himself for vengeance on his enemies. He had travelled much, and went in for charms, incantations and spiritualism. He was a cynic, and sneered at everything good and pure. This is not a handsome foot” (thrusting out a huge boot), “but I am glad to remember that it once administered a sound kicking to Sir Dudley Sake for his rudeness to a certain young lady among the hospital nurses.”

This was a long speech for Jebson, He was slightly flushed, perhaps with the unwonted exercise. His bolt being shot, he subsided into his chair with a muttered apology for his emotion.

“Go on, doctor, do.”

“Well, one day, the baronet took it into his head to make an expedition all by himself into this parish of Barbax. Possibly he wished to learn something of Mabel’s old surroundings. Heaven knows! Now, Jebson, you have been here long enough to know that part of the sea coast where the precipitous Pincost rocks tower over the bay. As you are aware, paths for the convenience of visitors wind among the cliffs.

“Now Burcot happened to be out for a walk with one of his keepers on the Pincost path, which, as it was winter time, was the most secluded in the parish, when a stranger came into sight at a turn of the path, walking briskly to meet them, some two hundred yards off. As the man drew nearer, Burcot started violently and showed signs of the strongest agitation. According to the keeper’s account he cried ‘It’s the shadow come to life!’ The man, seeing that some crisis was at hand, tried to detain his patient and guide him homewards, but Burcot dashed him to the ground and rushed madly towards the approaching figure. The keeper was, for the moment, stunned by the fall, but soon picked himself up and gave chase, arriving, however, only just in time to sec the end of the encounter.

“They were in a death-struggle on the very verge of the cliff. The stranger was a powerful man, and was fighting for his life. But Burcot’s malady had given him superhuman strength, and the awful wrestling-match was not long in doubt. In spite of his frantic struggles Burcot pushed the man over the edge, and both fell, gripping one another in a deadly clutch, forty feet before they reached the water, which was, at that point and tide, full twenty feet deep.

“When the bodies were found, knit together in a grim embrace, that of the stranger was identified as Sir Dudley Sake’s.”

There was a long pause. Then the doctor soliloquised aloud:

"Yes! This man was the shadow creeping over Mabel Garton's life. But the question is how Burcot, who had never seen him before, came to connect him with his ghastly visions!”

“That,” said Jebson, who was his dry self again, “was the merest coincidence."

“But, my dear fellow,” cried the doctor, hastily mounting his hobby of argument, “ consider the circumstances—”

There was a ring at the surgery door.

“Mrs. Boobyer took bad,” reported the doctor’s man.

_____________

12: The Great Auk

Irvin S. Cobb

1876-1944

The Saturday Evening Post, 29 April 1916

Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

AS REGARDS the body of the house it lay mostly in shadows— the man-made, daytime shadows which somehow always seem denser and blacker than those that come in the night. The little jogs in the wall behind the boxes were just the same as coalholes. The pitched front of the balcony suggested a deformed upper jaw, biting down on darkness. Its stucco facings, shining dimly, like a row of teeth, added to the illusion. At the bottom of the pit, or the family circle, or whatever it was they called it at the Cosmos Theater, where the light was somewhat better, the backs of the seats showed bumpily beneath the white cloths that covered them, like lines of graves in a pauper burying ground after a snowstorm.

A third of the way back, in this potter's field of dead-and-gone laughter, a man was hunched in a despondent posture. His attitude would make you think of a lone ghost that had answered the resurrection trump too soon and now was overcome with embarrassment at having been deceived by a false alarm. The brim of his hat rested on the bridge of his nose. Belonging, as he did, to a race that is esteemed to be essentially commercial, he had the artistic face and the imaginative eyes which, as often as not, are found in those of his breed.

His name was Sam Verba. He was general director for Cohalan & Hymen, producing managers. He was watching a rehearsal of a new play, though he did not appear to be. Seemingly, if he was interested in anything at all it was in the movements of two elderly chore-women, who dawdled about the place deliberatively, with dust rags and brooms. Occasionally, as one of the women raised her voice shrilly to address her distant sister, he went "Sh-h! Sh-h!"— like a defective steam pipe. Following this the offender would lower her voice for a space measurable by seconds.

Border lights, burning within the proscenium arch, made the stage brightly visible, revealing it as a thing homely and nude. Stage properties were piled indiscriminately at either side. Against the bare brick wall at the back, segments of scenes were stacked any-which-way, so that a strip of a drawing room set was superimposed on a strip of a kitchen and that in turn overlapped part of a wainscoted library, the result being as though an earthquake had come along and shaken one room of somebody's house into another room and that into another, and then had left them so. In sight were four women and nine men, who perched on chairs or tables or roosted, crow-fashion, upon the iron steps of a narrow staircase which ascended to the top tier of dressing rooms, extending along a narrow balcony above. The hour was eleven o'clock in the morning. Therefore these persons wore the injured look which people of their nocturnal profession customarily wear upon being summoned out of their beds before midday.

At a little table, teetering on rickety legs almost in the trough of the footlights, sat a man hostilely considering a typewritten script, which was so interlined, so marked and disfigured with crosses, stars, and erasures that only one person— the author of these ciphers— might read his own code and sometimes even he couldn't. The man at the table was the director, especially engaged to put on this particular piece, which was a comedy drama. He raised his head.

"All right, children," he said, "take the second act— from the beginning. Miss Cherry, Mrs. Morehead— come along. Stand by, everybody else, and, please, in Heaven's name, remember your cues— for once."

A young woman and a middle-aged woman detached themselves from one of the waiting groups and came downstage. The young woman moved eagerly to obey; she was an exceedingly pretty young woman. The other woman, having passed her youth, strove now to re-create it in her costume. She wore a floppy hat and a rather skimpy frock, which buttoned down her back, school-girl fashion, and ended several inches above her ankles. Under the light her dyed hair shone with the brilliancy of a new copper saucepan. There were fine, puckery lines at her eyes. Her skin, though, had the smooth texture which comes, some say, from the grease paint, and others say from plenty of sleep.

She held in one hand a flimsy, blue-backed sheaf; it was her part in this play. Having that wisdom in her calling which comes of long experience, she would read from it until automatically she had acquired it without prolonged mental effort; would let her trained and docile memory sop up the speeches by processes of absorption. Miss Cherry carried no manuscript; she didn't need it. She had been sitting up nights, studying her lines. For she, the poor thing, was newly escaped from a dramatic school. Mrs. Morehead wanted to make a living. Miss Cherry wanted to make a hit.

These two began the opening scene of the act and, between them, carried it forward. Miss Cherry as the daughter, was playing it in rehearsal, exactly as she expected to play it before an audience, putting in gestures, inflections, short catches of the breath, emotional gasps— all the illusions, all the business of the part. On the other hand, Mrs. Morehead appeared to have but one ambition in her present employment and that was to get it over with as speedily as possible. After this contrasted fashion, then, they progressed to a certain dramatic juncture:

"But, mother," said Miss Cherry, her arms extended in a carefully-thought-out attitude of girlish bewilderment, "what am I to do?"

Mrs. Morehead glanced down, refreshing her memory by a glance into the blue booklet.

"My child," she said, "leave it to destiny."

She said this in the tone of a person of rather indifferent appetite, ordering toast and tea for breakfast.

A pause ensued here.

"My child," repeated Mrs. Morehead, glancing over her shoulder impatiently, but speaking still in the same voice, "leave it to destiny."

"Well, well—" snapped the man at the little table, "that's the cue, 'leave it to destiny.' Come on, McVey? Come a-w-n, McVey? Where's McVey?" He raised his voice fretfully.

A nervous, thin man hurried down the stage.

"Oh, there you are. Go ahead, McVey. You're keeping everybody waiting. Didn't I tell you you'd have to read the grandfather's part today?"

"No, sir, you didn't," said McVey, aggrieved.

"Well, anyhow, I meant to," said his superior.

"But I'm reading Miss Gifford's part this morning," said McVey, who was the assistant stage manager. "She had to go to see about her costumes."

"You'll have to read 'em both, then," ordered the special director. "Anyhow, the parts don't conflict— they're not on the stage together during this act. Do the best you can. Now let's go back and take those last two sides over again."

Vibrantly and with the proper gesture in the proper place, Miss Cherry repeated her speech. Wearily and without gestures, Mrs. Morehead repeated hers. The flustered McVey, holding the absentee Miss Gifford's part in one hand and the mythical grandfather's in the other, circled upstage and, coming hurriedly down, stepped in between them.

"No, no, no," barked the director, "don't come on that way— you'll throw both these ladies out. Come on at the upper side of that blue chair, Mac; that's the door. This is supposed to be a house. You can't walk right through the side of a house without upsetting things. You realize that, don't you? Once more— back again to 'leave it to destiny.'"

The rehearsal went on by the customary process of advancing a foot and a half, then retreating a foot, then re-advancing two feet. The novices in the cast were prodigal of their energy, but the veterans saved themselves against what they knew was coming later, when they would need all they had of strength and more, besides.

A young man let himself in through the box-office door and stood in that drafty, inky-black space the theatrical folks call the front of the house and the public call the back of the house. Coming out of the sunlight into this cave of the winds, he was blinded at first. He blinked until he peered out the shape of Verba, slumped down midway of a sheeted stretch of orchestra chairs, and he felt his way down the center aisle and slipped into a place alongside the silent, broody figure. The newcomer was the author of the play, named Offutt; his age was less than thirty; and his manner was cheerful, as befitting an author who is less than thirty and has placed a play with an established firm.

"Well," he said, "how's everything going?"

"Rotten, thank you!" said Verba, continuing to stare straight ahead. "We're still shy one grandfather, if that should be of any interest to you."

"But you had Grainger engaged— I thought that was all settled last night," said the playwright.

"That tired business man? Huh!" said Verba expressively. "By the time he'd got through fussing over the style of contract he wanted, in case he liked the part and we liked him in it, and then quarreling about the salary he was to get, and then arguing out how high up the list his name was to appear in the billing, your friend Grainger was completely exhausted.

"And then, on top of that, he discovered we were going to Chicago after the opening in Rochester, and he balked. Said his following was here in New York. Said he'd supposed we were coming right in here after the opening instead of fussing round on the road. Said he couldn't think of being kept out of New York at the beginning of the season unless he got at least seventy-five more a week. Said he'd go back to vaudeville first. Said he had a swell offer from the two-a-day shops anyhow.

"Then I said a few things to Grainger and he walked out on me. His following!— do you get that? Grainger could carry all the following he's got in the top of his hat and still have plenty of room left for his head. So there you are, my son— within ten days of the tryout and nobody on hand to play dear old grandfather for you! And nobody in sight either— in case anybody should happen to ask you."

"Oh, we'll find somebody," said Offutt optimistically. The young of the playwrighting species are constitutionally optimistic.

"Oh, we will, will we? Well, for example, who?— since you're so confident about it."

"That's up to you," countered Offutt, "I should worry!"

"Take it from me, young man, you'd better worry," growled Verba morosely.

"But, Verba," contended Offutt, "there must be somebody loose who'll fit the part. What with thousands of actors looking for engagements—"

"Say, Offutt, what's the use of going over that again?" broke in Verba in a tone which indicated he was prepared to go over it again. "To begin with, there aren't thousands of actors looking for jobs. There are a few actors looking for jobs— and a few thousand others looking for jobs who only think they can act. Offhand, I can list you just three men fit to play this grandfather part— or four, if you stick in Grainger as an added starter."

He held up a long, slender hand, ticking off the names on his fingers.

"There's Warburton, and there's Pell, and there's old Gabe Clayton. Warburton's tied up in the pictures. Damn the movies! They're stealing everybody worth a hang. I got a swell offer myself yesterday from the Ziegler crowd to direct features for 'em. The letter's on my desk now. Old Gabe is in a sanitarium taking the rest cure— which means for the time being he's practically sober, but not available for us or anybody else. And Guy Pell's under contract to Fructer Brothers, and you know what a swell chance there is of their loaning him to our shop.

"That doesn't leave anybody but Grainger, who's so swelled up with conceit that he's impossible. And, anyhow, he's too young. Just as I told you yesterday, I only figured him in as a last chance. I don't want a young fellow playing this part— with his face all messed up with false whiskers and an artificial squeak in his voice. I want an old man— one that looks old and talks old and can play old.

"He's got to be right or nothing's right. You may have written this piece, boy; but, by gum, I'm responsible for the way it's cast, and I want a regular, honest-to-God grandfather. Only," he added, quoting the tag of a current Broadway story, "only there ain't no such animal."

"I still insist, Verba," put in Offutt, "that you overestimate the importance of the grandfather— he's only a character bit."

"Son," said Verba, "you talk like an author! Maybe you thought he was a bit when you wrote him in; but he's not. He's going to carry this play. He's the axle that the whole action turns on and if he's wrong the whole thing's wrong. If he falls down your play falls down."

"Well, suppose he is," said Offutt plaintively. The bruised worm was beginning to turn. "Am I to blame because I write a part so human and so lifelike that nobody's competent to do it?"

Verba gave him a sidelong glance and grinned sardonically. "Don't ask me whose fault it is," he said. "I know this: In the old days actors were actors." Verba, who was perhaps forty-four, spoke with the air of having known Edmund Kean intimately. "They bred real artists then— people who had versatility and a range. You got hold of a play and you went out and hired a bunch of troupers, and they played it for you. Now we don't have actors any more— we only have types.

"Everybody's a type. A man or a woman starts out being one kind of type, and sticks right there. Dramatists write parts for types, and managers go out and hire types for the parts. Sometimes they can't find the right type and then there's another expensive production taking a trip to its eternal rest in the storehouse. I don't know whose fault it is— I only know it's not mine. It's hell— that's what it is— simply hell!"

Gloom choked Verba. He stared moodily ahead of him, where the broad of a wide, blue-ginghamed back showed above the draped tops of the next row of seats but one. Suddenly he smote his hands together.

"Bateman!" he exclaimed. "Old Bird Bateman!"

Up from behind the next row of seats but one rose a chorelady with her nose in the air and her clenched fists on the places where her hips should have been— if she had any hips.

"I beg your par-r-don?" she inquired, quivering with a grand, indignant politeness; "was you referrin' to me as an ould boid?"

"Madam," said Verba, "resume your pleasures. I wasn't thinking of you."

"Thin why was you lookin' at me whin you said it? You may be the owner of this bum dump, f'r all I care, but job or no job, let me tell you this, young man— there's no black Prowtestant Jew alive kin call me out of me own name an'—"

"Oh, shut up," said Verba, without heat. He got on his feet. "Come on, Offutt, the lady thinks I'm trying to flirt with her and between the three of us, we're breaking up rehearsals. Let's get out— I've got an idea." In the half light his eyes shone like a cat's.

Outside, on the hot pavement, he took Offutt by the lapels of his coat. "Boy," he said, "did you ever hear of Burton Bateman— better known as Old Bird Bateman?"

Offutt shook his head.

"Never did," he confessed.

"You're too young at this game to remember, I guess," said Verba. "Well, then, did you ever hear of the Scudder Stock Company?"

"Of course I've heard of that," said Offutt. "It was long before my time though."

"It was long before everybody's time," assented Verba. "Ten years is the same as a century on this street. But twenty-five years ago Burt Bateman played leads with the Scudder Stock Company— yes; and played juveniles and walking gentlemen and friends of the family and long-lost heirs and Dutchmen and Irishmen and niggers— played high-comedy parts and low-comedy parts— played anything there was to play.

"He wasn't one of your single-barrelled modern types and none of your old-time ranting scenery-biters either; he was an actor. If he'd come along a little later they'd have made a star out of him and probably ruined him. You'd have remembered him then. But he never was a star. He never was featured even. He just kept right on being an actor. And gee, how he could eat up an old man's part!"

"You speak of him as though he were dead," said Offutt.

"He might as well be— he's forgotten," said Verba, unconsciously coining all Broadway's epitaph for all Broadway's tribe. "I haven't seen him for fifteen years, but I understand he's still alive— that is, he hasn't quit breathing. Somebody was telling me not long ago they'd crossed his trail 'way downtown.

"You see, Burt Bateman was a character in his way, just as old Nate Scudder was one in his way. I guess that's why they hung together so long. When the theatrical district started to move uptown Nate wouldn't move with it. It moved from Fourteenth Street to Twenty-third, and from there to Thirty-fourth, and from there to Forty-second— and it's still headed north. But Scudder stayed where he was. And it broke him— broke his heart, too, I guess. Anyhow, he died and his organization scattered— all but Bateman. He wouldn't scatter. The heirs fell out and the estate— what was left of it— got tied up in litigation; and it's been tied up ever since."

He turned and waved a long arm at a passing taxi. The driver curved his machine up to the curb.

"Come on!" said Verba, making to cross the sidewalk.

"Come on where?" asked Offutt.

"We're going to University Place— you and me," said Verba, quickened and alive all over with his inspiration. "We're going down to Scudder's Theater. Didn't know there was such a theater as Scudder's, did you? Well, there is— what's left of it. We're going down there to find Old Bird Bateman. That's where he was, last accounts. And if the booze hasn't got him he's going to play that damn grandfather in this show of yours."

"Can he do it?"

Verba halted with one foot in the taxi.

"Can he do it? Watch him, boy— that's all! Just watch him. Say, it's a notion— digging that old boy out of the graveyard.

"You never heard of him and I'd forgotten him; but you take a lot of these old-timers who don't think there've been any actors since Fanny Davenport and Billy Florence— they'll remember him. And you bet they'll come to see him. We'll give this town a sensation— and that's what it loves, this town— sensations."

Once upon a time— that was when he was a green reporter newly come to town— Offutt had known, more or less minutely, almost every prowlable inch of the tip of the long seamy tongue of rock that is called Manhattan Island. Now, as a story-writer and a play-writer, he only went down there when he sought for local color in Greenwich Village, or around Washington Square or on the lower East Side. As for Verba, he found his local color, ready-mixed, in scene-painters' pots and make-up boxes. Being a typical New Yorker— if there is such a thing— he was as insular, as provincial, as closely bound to his own briefened ranging ground as none but a typical New Yorker can be. To him this wasn't a metropolis of five boroughs, many bridges and five-and-a-half millions. To him this was a strip of street, something less than two miles long, with shorter stretches of street meeting it at right angles, east and west, as ribs meet a spine. His map of New York would have resembled a codfish's skeleton, its head aiming toward far-away Harlem, the fork in its tail pointing to the distant Battery. To him therefore Twenty-third Street was Farthest South. What might lie below was in the Antarctic Circle of community life.

They crossed Twenty-third Street and invaded a district grown strange to his eyes— a district where tall loft buildings, the successors to the sweatshops of an earlier, but not very much earlier, day, mounted, floor by floor, above the humbler roofs of older houses. They crossed Fourteenth, the taxi weaving a way through dense masses of men who gabbled in strange tongues among themselves, for lunch-time had come and the garment workers, the feather-workers and the fur-workers, deserting their work benches for an hour, had flocked into the open, packing the sidewalks and overflowing upon the asphalt, to chaffer and gossip and take the air. Just below Fourteenth Street they swung eastward and turned into University Place, which is a street of past memories and present acute activities, and, in a minute, obeying Verba's instructions, their driver brought them to a standstill before a certain number.

"Give it the once-over," advised Verba as he climbed out and felt in his pocket for the fare. "You can figure for yourself how far out of the world it is— nobody's had the nerve to try to open it up as a moving-picture palace. And that's the tip-off on any shack in this burg that'll hold a crowd, a screen and a projecting machine all at the same time."

Offutt looked, and marveled that he had never noticed this place before since surely, covering assignments or on exploration jaunts, he must have passed it by a score of times. It stood midway of the block. On one side of it was a little pawnshop, its single grimy window filled with the strange objects which persons acquire, seemingly, for pawning purposes exclusively— sword-canes and mandolins with mother-of-pearl insets in them, and moss-agate cuff buttons. On the other side was a trunk store with half of its wares cluttering the narrow-door passage and signs everywhere displayed to inform the public that the proprietor was going out of business and must sell his stock at an enormous sacrifice, wherefore until further notice, perfectly ruinous prices would prevail. It appears to be a characteristic of all trunk-stores that their proprietors are constantly going out of business and that their contents, invariably, are to be had below cost.

Between these two establishments gaped a recessed and cavernous entryway flanked by two big stone pillars of a dropsical contour and spanned over at the top by a top-heavy cornice ponderously and painfully Corinthian in aspect. The outjutting eaves rested flat on the coping stones and from there the roof gabled up sharply. Old gates, heavily chained and slanting inward, warded the opening between the pair of pillars, so that the mouth of the place was muzzled with iron, like an Elizabethan shrew's.

Above, the building was beetle-browed; below, it was dish-faced. A student of architectural criminology would pause before this facade and take notes.

The space inclosed within the skewed and bent gate pickets was a snug harbor for the dust of many a gritty day. There were little gray drifts of it at the foot of each of the five steps that led up to the flagged floor level; secretions of grime covered the barred double doors on beyond the steps, until the original color was only to be guessed at; scraps of dodgers, pieces of newspaper and tattered handbills adhered to every carved projection at the feet of the columns, like dead leaves about tree boles in the woods.

On the frieze overhead might be made out, in lettering that once had been gold-leafed, the line: Scudder's Family Theater. The words were scarcely decipherable now. Bill-posters had coated every available inch of space with snipes and sheets.

Verba shook the gates until the hasps gritted and the chains clanged.

"Nobody at home," he said. "I guess the sheriff locked her up when the lawsuits started and then threw away the key. Well, let's scout round. Somebody's sure to know our man; they told me Bateman was a neighborhood character down here. A cop ought to be able to help us— only I don't see one. Maybe they don't have cops in this street."

Speculatively his eyes ranged the vista up and down the block and opposite. He pointed to a saloon diagonally across the way, next door to the first corner south.

"When in doubt," he said, "ask everybody's friend. Come on; we'll go over and brace the barkeep."

A young man, with a humorous slant to his eyebrows and dark hair combed back from the forehead in neatly ornate scallops, pulled down the front of a reasonably clean white jacket and spread both hands on the bar, awaiting their pleasure.

"Mister Wine Clerk," said Verba, using the ceremonial title of his Tenderloin range, "we're trying to find an old boy named Bateman— Burton Bateman, retired actor by profession. Ever hear of him?"

"Sure!" assented the barkeeper. "He's part of the fixtures— Old Bird is; but he ain't about now. To ketch him, you've come an hour late."

"Lives round here somewhere, doesn't he?"

"Search me," said the young man succinctly. "I guess he don't exactly live anywhere— not in a regular lodging house or anything like that. See? I never asked him— him being sort of touchy about his private affairs— but I guess he sleeps in some hole somewhere. He mostly does his scoffin' here though— as a guest of the house."

"Does his what here?" asked Verba.

"His scoffin'— his feedin'. See?" The young man flirted a thumb in the direction of the free-lunch counter.

"Oh! He eats here?"

"You said it! The boss— man that owns this liquor store— is a kind of an old-timer round here himself. I've heard him say he knowed The Bird away back yonder when the old theater 'crost the street was runnin' and things was breakin' better for the old boy than what they do now. So he stakes him to a drink every now and then— Old Bird won't take a piece of change, but he will take a drink— and he lets him browse off the free lunch all he's a mind to.

"He comes driftin' in here twicet a day regular and fills up on chow for nothin'! But he's been here already and left today— 'bout an hour ago. I figure he won't be back now till 'long about four or five o'clock."

Verba became cognizant of a tugging at his coat. An incredibly small, incredibly ragged boy, with some draggled first editions under his arm, had wormed silently in between his legs and was looking up at him with one eye. The boy had only one eye to look with. The other eye was a flattened slit over a sunken socket.

"Mister! Say, Mister!" beseeched the gamin earnestly. "Gimme fi' cent and I'll—"

"Hey, you, Blinky!" interposed the barkeeper, bending over the bar to see the small intruder. "Beat it!"

There was a scurrying thud of bare feet on the tiled floor and the wizened intruder magically had vanished between the swinging doors.

"You gents can sit down and wait if you want to," said the barkeeper. "It's liable to be a long time though. Or I can tell Old Bird, when he comes in, somebody's askin' for him and try to hold him for you. I could phone you even, if it's important— if you'll gimme your number."

"It is important— in a way," said Verba. "Suppose we do that, Offutt— give the wine clerk our telephone number."

He laid a coin and a card on the bar. The young man regarded the name and the address on the card briefly.

"All right!" he said, depositing the coin in his pocket and the card against the mirror at his back. "I won't forget. The old boy don't have many people lookin' for him. Fact is, I don't remember he ever had anybody lookin' for him before. Are you gents friends of his? . . . No? Well, anyhow, I'll fix it."

"Funny old sneezer!" he continued. "Dippy a little up here, I guess."

He tapped himself on the forehead.

"If he had a habit I'd say sometimes he was hopped. F'r instance, he'll come in here and spiel off something to me 'bout havin' been in his Louie Kahn's drawin'-room— anyhow, that's what it sounds like. The only Louie Kahn round here that I know of runs a junk shop over in Ninth Street. And it's a cinch that Louie Kahn ain't got no drawin'-room. Or he'll tell me he's been spendin' the day on the seabeach. Only yes'day he was handin' me that junk."

"Mightn't he have taken a little run down to Coney?" suggested Verba hopefully.

"Go to Coney— him!" scoffed the barkeeper. "Where'd he raise the coin for carfare down to Coney? You can take it from me, gents, Old Bird forgot what the sad sea waves sound like, long time ago. I'll lay you a little eight-to-five he ain't been a quarter of a mile away from this liquor store in ten years. . . . Well, good day, gents."

"It strikes me, Verba," began Offutt as they passed out, "that possibly we're only wasting our time. If what that gabby young drink wrestler just said is right we're—"

Something wriggled at his knees and caromed off against Verba. A single bright, greedy eye appraised them with an upward flash.

"Mister! Mister, listen!" pleaded a voice, the owner of which managed somehow to be in the path of both of them at once. "I heard yous spielin' in there. I know where Old Boid is. I kin show yous where he is."

"Where is he?" demanded Verba.

"Gimme fi' cent— gimme ten cent— first. It's a secrut. It's worth ten cent."

"It is," agreed Verba gravely. "It's worth all of ten cents now and it'll be worth a quarter more to you, sonny, if you deliver the goods."

He tendered the advance instalment of the fee and a hand, all claws like a bird's foot, snatched it away from him.

Blinky carefully pouched the dime in some unfathomable inner recess of his rags. Having provided against any attempt to separate him from the retainer in the event of the negotiations falling through, his code of honor asserted itself.

"It's a secrut. See? They ain't nobody but me and two-t'ree udder kids wise to it. Yous gotta swear yous won't tell 'im nor nobody 'twas me tipped yous off. If yous did it'd spoil me graft— he'd be sore. See? Cold nights he lets us kids bunk in there wit' 'im. And daytimes we plays audiunce for 'im. See?"

"You play what for him?" asked Offutt.

"C'm on, an' I'll show yous," bade Blinky. "Only yous is gotta lay dead w'ile it's comin' off. See?"

"We'll lay dead," pledged Verba.

Satisfied, Blinky led the way. Mystified, they followed. He led them back across University Place again; and on past Scudder's Family Theater, with the lowering stone frontal bone above and, below, the wide maw, bitted and gagged by its scold's bridle of snaffled iron; and on round the corner below into a fouled, dingy cross street.

Beyond the canvas marquee of a small walled-in beer garden the child went nimbly through a broken panel in a short stretch of aged and tottery wooden fencing. Wriggling through the gap behind him they found themselves in a small inclosure paved with cracked flagging. Confronting them was a short flight of iron steps, leading up to a wide, venerable-appearing doorway, which once, as the visible proof showed, had been sealed up with plank shorings, nailed on in vertical strips.

"One of the old side entrances to Scudder's," said Verba. "Where the carriages used to wait, I guess. The plot thickens— eh, Offutt?"

Offutt nodded, his eyes being on their small guide. A little sense of adventure possessed them both. They had the feeling of being co-conspirators in a little intrigue.

"Wotcher waitin' fur?" demanded Blinky. "Stick wit' me and don't make no noise." He climbed the iron steps and shoved the nail-pocked door ajar. "Watch yer step!" he counselled as he vanished within. "It's kind o' dark in yere."

Kind o' dark was right. Straining their eyes they stumbled along a black passage, with Blinky going on ahead silently. They turned once to the left and once to the right and emerged, where the light was somewhat clearer, into the shelter of a recess just behind the lower boxes of the abandoned playhouse.

"Wow!" said Verba in a sort of reverential undertone, as though he stood in the presence of death. "I haven't been here in twenty-odd years. Why, the last time I was here I was a kid!"

Veritably he did stand in the presence of death. The place looked dead and smelled dead and was dead. The air was heavy-laden with bone-yard scents— rot and corrosion and rust and dust. With the taints of molded leather and gangrened metal, of worm-gnawed woodwork and moth-eaten fabrics, arose also from beneath their feet that other stench which inevitably is begotten of neglect and lonesomeness within any spot inclosed by walls and a roof, provided sun and wind and human usage are excluded from it long enough. Offutt sniffed and, over Verba's shoulder, looked about him.

He could make out his immediate surroundings fairly well, for the curtains that had guarded the windows in the hip roof and round one upper side of the building were turned by decay into squares of lace-work, patterned with rents and with cracks; and in some instances they had fetched away from their fastenings altogether.

Through the glass panes, and through the grime that bleared the glass, a measure of daylight filtered, slanting in pale bluish streaks, like spilt skim milk; on vistas of the faded red-plush chairs; on the scrolled and burdened decorations of the proscenium arch; on the seamy, stained curtain; on the torn and musty hangings of the boxes; on an enormous gas chandelier which, swinging low over the pit from the domed ceiling above, was so clumped with swathings of cobweb that it had become a great, dangling gray cocoon.

Curving in wide swings from above their heads to the opposite side ran three balconies, rising one above the other, and each supported by many fat pillars. The spaces beneath these galleries were shadowy and dark, seeming to stretch away endlessly. So, too, was the perspective of the lower floor, at the back, elaborated by the gloom into a vast, yawning mouth which fairly ached with its own emptiness. But at the front the screened angles of sunlight, stippled as they were with billions of dancing motes, brought out clearly enough the stage of the old theater and, down under the lip of the stage, the railed inclosure of the orchestra and, at either side, the scarred bulkheads and fouled drapings of the stage boxes, upper tier and lower tier.

Close at hand Offutt was aware of crawling things which might be spiders, and a long gray rat which scuffled across the floor almost beneath his feet, dragging its scaled tail over the boards with a nasty rasping sound. He heard other rats squealing and gnawing in the wainscoting behind him. He was aware, also, of the dirt, which scabbed and crusted everything. And he felt as though he had invaded the vault of an ancient tomb. Sure enough, in a manner of speaking, he had done just that.

"Some place— huh, mister?" said the small gutter-sparrow proudly, and, though he spoke in a whisper, Offutt jumped. "Stick yere, yous two," ordered the child. "Somethin'll be comin' off in a minute."

Seemingly he had caught a signal or a warning not visible to the older intruders. Leaving them, he ran briskly down a side aisle, and apparently did not care now how much noise he might make, for he whooped as he ran. He flung his papers aside and perched himself in a chair at the very front of the pit. He briskly rattled the loose back of the chair in front of him, and, inserting two dirty fingers at the corners of his mouth, emitted the shrill whistle by which a gallery god, since first gallery gods were created into an echoing world, has testified to his impatient longings that amusement be vouchsafed him.

As though the whistle had been a command, the daubed old curtain shivered and swayed. A dead thing was coming to life. Creaking dolefully, it rolled up and up until it had rolled up entirely out of sight.

A back drop, lowered at a point well down front, made the stage shallow. Once upon a time this back drop had been intended to represent a stretch of beach with blue rollers breaking on beyond. Faded as it was, and stained and cracked and scaly as it was now, the design of the artist who painted it was yet discernible; for he plainly had been one who held by the pigmented principle that all sea sands be very yellow and all sea waves be very blue.

Out of the far wings came a figure of a man, crossing the narrowed space to halt midway of the stage, close up to the tin gutter where the tipless prongs of many gas-jet footlights stood up like the tines in a garden rake. Verba's hand tightened on Offutt's arm, dragging him farther back into the shadows, and Verba's voice spoke, with a soft, tense caution, in Offutt's ear: "Lord! Lord!" Verba almost breathed the words out. "'Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your—' Look yonder, Offutt! It's him!"

He might have spared the urging. Offutt was looking and, without being told, knew the man at whom he looked was the man the two of them had come here to find. The lone gamin in the pit clapped his talons of hands together, making a feeble, thin sound. To this applause, as to a rousing greeting, the figure behind the footlights bowed low, then straightened. And Offutt could see, by one of the slanting bars of tarnished daylight, which stabbed downward through the dusk of the place, that the man up there on the stage was a very old man, with a heavy, leonine face and heavy brows and deep-set, big gray eyes, and a splendid massive head mopped with long, coarse white hair; and he was dressed as a fop of sixty years ago and he carried himself so.

The slash of indifferent sunshine, slicing into the gloom like a dulled sword blade, rested its lowermost tip full upon him. It brought out the bleached pallor of his skin, for his face was free from any suggestion of make-up, and it showed the tears and frays in his costume, and the misshapen shoes that were on his feet, and the high-shouldered, long-tailed coat and the soiled, collarless shirt which he wore beneath the once gorgeous velvet waistcoat.

In one hand he held, by a dainty grip on the brim, a flat-crowned derby hat, and between the fingers of the other hand twirled a slender black walking stick, with the shreds of a silken tassel adhering to it. And everything about him, barring only the shoes and the shirt, which plainly belonged to his everyday apparel, seemed fit to fall apart with age and with shabbiness.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said— and his voice filled all the empty house by reason of its strength and its toned richness— "with your kind indulgence I shall begin this entertainment with an attempt at an imitation of the elder Sothern in his famous rôle of Lord Dundreary, depicting him as he appeared in one of the scenes from that sterling and popular comedy, Our American Cousin, by Tom Taylor, Esquire."

With that, instantly stepping into character, he took a mincing, jaunty pace or two sideways. Half turning toward an imaginary confrère and addressing that mythical listener, he began a speech which, being pieced together with other speeches, at once lengthened into a kind of monologue. But he knew the lines— that was plain; and he knew the part, too, and for the moment lived and breathed it, and in all regards veritably was it. That, likewise, the watching pair of eavesdroppers could realize, though neither of them was of sufficient age to remember, even had he seen, the great craftsman whose work old Bateman now was counterfeiting.

The interlopers looked on and, under the spell of a wizardry, forgot indeed they were interlopers. For before their eyes they saw, wonderfully re-created, a most notable conception, and afterward would have sworn, both of them, that all of it— the drawl and the lisp, the exaggerated walk, the gestures, the play of leg and arm, the swing of body, the skew of head, the lift of eyebrow even— was as true and as faithful to the original as any mirrored image might be to the image itself.

How long they stood and watched neither Verba nor Offutt was subsequently able to say with any reasonable exactitude. It might have been four minutes; it might have been six, or even eight. When later, taking counsel together, they sought to reckon up the time, the estimates varied so widely they gave up trying to reconcile them.

This much, though, they were sure of— that, in his mumming, old Bateman rose magically triumphant above the abundant handicaps of his own years and his own physique, his garb and his environment. Doing the undoable, he for the moment threw aside his years as one might throw aside the weight of a worn-out garment, and for that moment, to suit his own designs of mimicry, made floods of strength and youthfulness course through those withered arteries.

The old man finished with a whimsical turn of his voice and a flirt of his cane to match it. He bowed himself off with the hand which held the hat at his breast, and promptly on the second he disappeared the ancient curtain began to descend, Blinky meanwhile clapping with all his puny might.

Offutt turned to his companion. Behind the shelter of the box Verba's lean, dark face was twitching.

"Is he there? Can he act? Was I right?" Verba asked himself each question, and himself answered each with a little earnest nod. "Gee, what a find!"

"Not a find, Verba," whispered Offutt— "a resurrection— maybe. We've seen a genius in his grave."

"And we're going to dig him up." In his intentness Verba almost panted it. "Wait! Wait!" he added warningly then, though Offutt had not offered to stir. "This is going to be a Protean stunt, I take it. Let's let him show some more of his goods; for, by everything that's holy, he's got 'em!"

Up once more the curtain lifted, seemingly by its own motive power; and now the seaside drop was raised, and they beheld that, behind it, the stage had been dressed for another scene— a room in a French house. A secrétaire, sadly battered and marred, stood at one side; a bookcase with broken doors and gaping, empty shelves stood at the other, balancing it off. Down stage was an armchair. Its tapestry upholstering was rotted through and a freed spiral of springs upcoiled like a slender snake from its cushioned seat. All three pieces were of a pattern— "Louie-the-Something stuff," Verba would have called them.

A table, placed fronting the chair but much nearer the right lower entrance than the chair was, and covered with a faded cloth that depended almost to the floor, belonged evidently to the same set. The scenery at the back showed a balcony, with a wide French window, open, in the middle. Beyond the window dangled a drop, dingy and discolored as all the rest was, but displaying dimly a jumble of painted housetops and, far away in the simulated distance, the Arc de Triomphe. The colors were almost obliterated, but the suggestion of perspective remained, testifying still to the skill of the creator.

From the wings where they had seen him vanish Bateman reappeared. The trousers and the shoes were those he had worn before; but now, thrown on over his shirt, was the melancholy wreck of what once had been a blue uniform coat, with huge epaulets upon the shoulders and gold braid upon the collar and the cuffs, and brass buttons to fasten it in double-breasted fashion down the front. Now, though, it hung open. Some of the buttons were missing, and the gold lacings were mere blackened wisps of rags.

Bateman came on slowly, with dragging feet, his arms and legs and head quivering in a violent palsy. He stared out of the window as he let himself down carefully into the ruined armchair. His first movement proved that he played a venerable, very decrepit man— a man near death from age and ailments; yet by his art he managed to project, through the fleshly and physical weaknesses of the character, a power of dignity, of dominance, and of mental authority. He rolled his head back weakly.

"'My child,'" he said, addressing a make-believe shape before him, "'I must help to receive our brave, victorious troops. See! I am fittingly dressed to do them honor.'"

His tones were pitched in the cracked cackle of senility. He paused, as though for an answer out of space. His inflection told as he, in turn, replied that this answer had been a remonstrance:

"'No, no, no!'" he said almost fiercely. "'You must not seek to dissuade me.'"

The words stung Verba's memory, raising a welt of recollection there.

"I've got it!" he said exultantly, not forgetting, though, to keep his voice down. "Siege of Berlin, by that French fellow— what's his name?— Daudet!"

"I remember the story," answered Offutt.

"I remember the play," said Verba. "Somebody dramatized it— Lord knows who— and Scudder put it on here as a curtain raiser. I saw it myself, Offutt— think of that! Sitting up yonder in the old peanut roost— a kid no bigger than that kid down there— I saw it. And now I'm seeing it again; seeing Burt Bateman play the part of the old paralytic— you know, the old French officer who was fooled by his doctor and his granddaughter into believing the French had licked the Germans, when all the time 'twas the other way and—"

"Sh-h!" counselled Offutt.

After another little wait Bateman was going on with his scene:

"'Listen! Listen!'" he cried, cupping a tremulous palm behind his ear. "'Do you not hear them far away?— the trumpets— the trumpets of victorious France! Our forces have entered Berlin! Thank God! Thank God! All Paris will celebrate. I must greet them from the balcony.'"

With a mighty effort he reared himself to his feet, straightening his slanted shoulders, erecting his lolled head. His fingers fumbled at button and buttonhole, fastening his coat at the throat. He swung one arm imperiously, warding off imaginary hands.

"'The trumpets! The trumpets! Hark! They come nearer and nearer! They sound for the victory of France— for a heroic army. I will go! Doctor or no doctor, I pay my homage this day to our glorious army. Stand back, ma chérie!'"

Offutt, fifty feet away, caught himself straining his ears to hear those trumpets too. A rat ran across his foot and Offutt never knew it.

"'They come! They come!'" chuckled Bateman.

He dragged himself up stage, mounted the two stairs to the balcony, and stood in the window, at attention, to salute the tri-colored flag. Nor did he forget to keep his face half turned to the body of the house.

He smiled; and the two unseen spies, staring at that profiled head, saw the joy that was in the smile. Then, in the same moment, the expression changed. Dumb astonishment came first— an unbelieving astonishment; then blank stupefaction; then the shock of horrified understanding; then unutterable rage.

Offutt recalled the tale from which the playlet had been evolved, and Verba, for his part, recalled the playlet; but, had neither known what they knew, the both of them, guided and informed only by the quality of Bateman's acting, still could have anticipated the climax now impending; and, lacking all prior acquaintance with the plot of it, yet would have read that the cripple, expecting to cheer his beloved French, saw advancing beneath the Arc de Triomphe the heads of the conquering Germans, and heard, above the calling bugles, not the Marseillaise, but the strains of a Teuton marching song. His back literally bristled with his hate. He spun about full face, a mortally stricken man. His clenched fists rose above his head in a command.

" 'To arms! To arms!' " he screamed impotently, with the rattle already in his throat. "'The Prussians! The Prus—' "

He choked, tottered down the steps, reeled forward and fell headlong out into the room, rolling in the death spasm behind the draped table; and as, ten seconds later, the curtain began to unroll from above and lengthen down, Offutt found himself saying over and over again, mechanically:

"Why, he's gone, isn't he?"

"He kept the table between him and the house and crawled out behind it— trust him not to spoil his picture!" explained Verba. "And trust him to know the tricks of his trade." He tugged at Offutt's elbow. "Come on, boy; I've seen enough and so have you, I guess. Let's go sign him."

He fumbled at the wall.

"Side passageway back to the stage ought to be round here somewhere. Here it is— that's lucky!"

Guiding himself by the touching of his outstretched hands upon the walls of the opening, Verba felt his way behind the box, with Offutt stumbling along in his rear. So progressing, they came to an iron-sheathed door. Verba lifted its latch and they were in a place of rancid smells and cluttering stage duffel. Roaches fled in front of them. On their left a small wooden door stood partly ajar, and through the cranny they looked, as they passed, into a dressing room, where a pallet of old hangings covered half the floor space, and all manner of dingy stock costumings and stage trappings hung upon hooks.

"Here's where he must sleep," said Verba. "What a place for a white man to be living in!"

He felt for his handkerchief to wipe his soiled hands, and then together they saw Bateman advancing toward them from out of the extreme rear of the stage. Over his shoulders was thrown a robe of heavy ragged sacking and upon his face he had hung a long, false beard of white hair. He glared at them angrily. And Offutt, in instantaneous appraisal, interpreted most surely the look out of those staring big gray eyes.

Verba extended his hand and opened his mouth to speak; but Bateman was already speaking.

"What business have you here?" he demanded. "Strangers are not permitted here during performances. How came the stage doorkeeper to admit you? He has been here too long, that doorkeeper, and he grows careless. I shall have him discharged."

"But, Mr. Bateman," began Verba, half puzzled, half insistent, "I'm in the business myself. I want to—"

"Stand aside!" ordered the old man almost violently. "You cannot have been long in the business, young sir, else you would be more mannerly than to interrupt an artist when his public calls for him. Out of my way, please!"

He strutted by them in stilted vanity and gripped the lifting ropes of the old curtain where they swung in the near angle of the wings, and pulled downward on them with an unexpected display of muscular force. The curtain rose; and as Blinky, still at his place, uplifted a little yell of approbation the old man, bending his shoulders, passed out into the center of the French drawing-room set and, extending a quivering hand, uttered sonorously the command:

"'Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!'"

"The mad scene from King Lear," said Offutt.

"Sure— Shakspere!" agreed Verba. "Old Scudder was a bug on that Bard stuff. So was Bateman. He used to know it from cover to cover— Othello, Hamlet, Lear— the whole string.... Anyhow, Offutt, I've found the only man to do the grandfather's part in that show of yours, haven't I?"

"I'm sorry to say it, Verba, but you're wrong," stated Offutt.

"How do you mean— I'm wrong?" demanded Verba irritably. Out of the corner of his mouth he aimed the protest at his companion; but his eyes, through the gap of the first entrance, were fixed on Bateman as he strode back and forth, and his ears drank in the splendid full-lunged volume and thrill of Bateman's voice as the player spoke snatches from the play. "He's not too old— if that's what you mean; he's just about old enough. And he's all there, even if he is old. Didn't you see the strength he had when he hoisted up that heavy curtain?"

"I think I know where that strength came from," said Offutt. "Just a minute, Verba— did you ever hear of the Great Auk?"

"He was in vaudeville, wasn't he?" asked Verba, still staring at Bateman. "A trick juggler or something?"

Offutt forgot to smile.

"The Great Auk was a bird," he said.

"Oh, I see; and I've been calling Bateman Old Bird," said Verba. "I get you."

"No, you don't get me," went on Offutt. "The Great Auk was a rare creature. It got rarer and rarer until they thought it had vanished. They sent an expedition to the Arctic Circle, or wherever it was the thing bred, to get one specimen for the museums; but they came back without it. And now the Great Auk is an extinct species."

"What the devil are you driving at?" snapped Verba, swinging on him.

"Listen yonder!" bade the dramatist. "That old man out yonder is telling you, himself, in better words than I could tell you."

He pointed a finger through the wings. Craning their necks, they heard the deep voice speak the lines:

" 'Pray, do not mock me:

I am a very foolish fond old man,

Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;

And, to deal plainly,

I fear I am not in my perfect mind.' "

Verba hearkened and he understood. After a little he nodded in gloomy affirmation of the younger man's belief.

"I guess you're right, Offutt," he said disappointedly. "I guess I'd have seen it, too, only I was so sort of carried away. Real acting does me that way— when I see it, which ain't often."

He paused a minute in uncertainty. Then resolution came to him.

"Well," he said, "come on; there's no use of our hanging round here any longer. I'll give Blinky his quarter— he certainly earned it ten times over— and then we'll go back uptown, and I'll telephone Grainger he can have his seventy-five more a week."

"But what are we going to do about— him?" Offutt indicated who he meant with a wave of his arm toward the stage.

It was Verba's turn. Verba knew the stage and its people and its ways as Offutt would never know them. He had been an actor, Verba had, before he turned managing director for Cohalan & Hymen.

"What are we going to do about him?" he repeated; and then, as though surprised that the other should be asking the question: "Why, nothing! Offutt, every haunted house is entitled to its ghost. This is a haunted house if ever there was one; and there's its ghost, standing out there. You mentioned an extinct species, didn't you? Well, you were dead right, son. So take your good-by look now, before we go, at the last of a great breed. There'll be no more like him, I'm thinking."

"But we can't leave him here like this!" said Offutt. "His mind is gone— you admit it yourself. They've got hospitals and asylums in this state— and homes too. It would be a mercy to take him with us."

"Mercy? It would be the dam'dest cruelty on earth!" snapped Verba. "How long do you suppose he'd live in an asylum if we tore him up by the roots and dragged him away from this place? A week? I tell you, a week would be a blamed long time. No, sir; we leave him right here. And we'll keep our mouths shut about this too. Come on!"

He tiptoed to the iron door and opened it softly. Then, with his hand on the latch, he halted.

Bateman was just finishing. He spoke the mad king's mad tag-line and got himself off the stage. He unreeled the stay rope from its chock. The curtain rumbled down. Through it the insistent smacking of Blinky's skinny paws could be heard.

Smiling proudly the old man listened to the sound. He forgot their presence behind him. He stood waiting. Blinky kept on applauding— Blinky was wise in his part too. Then, still smiling, Bateman stripped off his beard, and, putting forth a bony white hand, he plucked aside the flapping curtain and stepped forth once more.

Scrouging up behind him and holding the curtain agape, they saw him bow low to the pit where Blinky was, and to the empty boxes, and to the yawning emptiness of each balcony; and they knew that to him this was not a mangy cavern of dead memories and dead traditions and dead days, peopled only by gnawing rats and crawling vermin and one lone little one-eyed street boy, but a place of living grandeurs and living triumphs. And when he spoke, then they knew he spoke, not to one but to a worshipping, clamorous host.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, with a bearing of splendid conceit, "I thank you for the ovation you have given me. To an artist— to an artist who values his art— such moments as this are most precious—"

"Come on, Offutt!" whispered Verba huskily. "Leave him taking his call."

_______________

13: The Heiress of Glenmahowley

Arthur Conan Doyle

1859-1930

Temple Bar, Jan 1884

"BOB," said I, "this won't do; something must be done."

"It must," echoed Bob, as he puffed away from his pipe in a mouldy little sitting-room in the Shamrock Arms, at Glenmahowley.

Glenmahowley attained any importance which it possessed by being the centre of an enormous area of peat cuttings and bog land which stretched away with exasperating monotony to the horizon, unbroken by the slightest irregularity. In one place only, along the Monatsimon road, there was a single belt of thick woods, whose luxuriance only served to aggravate the hopeless waste around them. The village itself consisted of a long straggling line of thatched cottages, each with an open door, through which entered bare-legged children, gaunt pigs, cocks and hens, ragged-looking, short-piped men and slatternly women. Bob Elliott seemed rather to admire the aborigines. No doubt it tickled his vanity to hear admiring exclamations as he went down the street; such as "Look at him now; look at the illigant fut on him!" or, "Och, then an' isn't he a beautiful gintleman entoirely!" But I don't care for these things. Besides, though far more handsome than Bob, my beauty is of an intellectual type, and is lost upon those savages. My nose is pronounced, my complexion pallid, and my head denotes considerable brain power. "There's no harm in the crayter!" was the least offensive of the opinions which these idiots expressed of me.

We had been located in this barbaross place about a week. Bob and I were second cousins, and a distant mutual relation whom neither of us had seen had bequeathed us each a small property in tha West. The clearing-up of business attendant on this, and the necessity of consulting with the old lady's pragmatical country attorney, had kept us for a week in the Shamrock Arms, and promised to keep s for at least another one in that unenviabe retreat if we could survive the tedium cf our existence so long.

"What can we do?" groaned Bob again.

"Where's Pendleton? Let's get Pendleton up and take a rise out of him," I suggested, with a flickering attempt at vivacity. Pendleton was our fellow- lodger at the inn— a quiet young fellow of artistic proclivities, with a weakness for solitary rambles and seclusion. All or attempts to pump him had failed as yet to elicit any explanation of the object and aims which had led him to Glenmahowley, unless it were that its bleak morasses harmonised with his misanthropic turn of mind.

"I's no use," said my companion. "He's as dismal as a tombstone and as shy as a girl. I never saw such a fellow. I wanted him to come with me this morning when you were writing your letter and to aid and abet me in a little mild chaff with the two girls at the draper's— you need help against these Irish girls, you know— but he flushed up quite red, and wouldn't hear of such a thing."

"No, he is hardly cut out for a ladykiller," I remarked, adjusting my necktie before the fly-blown mirror and practising a certain expression which I have found extremely effective with the weaker sex— a sort of Lara-like piratical cock of the eye which gives the impression of hidden griefs and a soul which spurns the commonplaces of existence. "Perhaps he will come in, though, and play dummy whist."

"No, he never touches cards."

"Milksop!" I ejaculated. "We'll send for the landlord, Bob, and ask him if there is nothing we can see or do."

This was recognised to be the most rational proceeding under the circumstances, and a messenger was despatched in hot haste to summon Dennis O'Keefe, our worthy host. Let me remark, while he is shuffling upstairs in his slipshod carpet slippers, that I am the mortal known as John Vereker, barrister- at-law, popularly supposed to be a rising man, though the exact distance that I have risen during the four years that I have been in practice is not calculated to turn my brain. Several nice little actions have, however, during that time been taken against me in county courts and otherwise, so that I have put the machinery of the law into motion, though my personal profit in the matter must be acknowledged to have been somewhat remote.

O'Keefe was a fine specimen of the aboriginal Celt— freckle-faced and rough-haired, with shrewd grey eyes and a deep rich Milesian voice. "Good- morrow to ye, gintlemen," he began as he entered, his large flat feet and uncouth gait giving him a sort of plantigrade appearance. "What would your honours be afther today?"

"The very thing we wanted to ask you, O'Keefe," aaid Bob. "What in the world are we to do? Can't you suggest anything?"

"There's the church," remarked O'Keefe, scratching his red hair in perplexity. "'Tis a foine building. There was a gintleman came here the year before last just for to look at it. Maybe your honors— "

"Hang the church!" roared Bob, with as much vehemence as a Radical advocate for Disestablishment; "we were there five times last week— in fact, every day except Sunday. Try again, old Pict and Scot."

Our host, who was serenely indifferent to the many unintelligible epithets applied to him by Bob's exuberant fancy, pondered once more over the problem. "There's the hole in the bog," he suggested with diffidence. "The same where the boys threw Mr Lyons, of Glenmorris— bad scran to him!—  after they shot him. Maybe you'd loike to see where they found him wid his head in the mud an' his feet stickin' up. Ah, it was a glad soight, Sorrs, for the pisantry that had worked and slaved— the craturs— and then for him to step in wid a dirty foive and twinty per cint reduction in the rint and serve notices on them as wouldn't pay. Sure you could take your food— or a gossoon could carry it— and picnic by the hole."

"The prospect is alluring," I remarked "but there seems to me to be too much chance of the inoffensive tillers of the soil taking a fancy to plant a couple more Saxons upside down in the bog-hole. I negative that suggestion."

"What are those trees to the eastward?" asked Bob. "Surely there is something to be seen down there."

"It's proivate. It's the Clairmont family's ground, an' you'd be shot as loike as not if you so much as put your nose over the wall."

"Pleasant land this, Jack!" remarked my companion ruefully. "I almost wish old O'Quibble would unearth a codicil leaving the place to somebody else."

"Ah, sure you can't judge of the counthry now while it's quoiet," said our host. "Wait till the throubles come round agin— next year maybe, or the year afther. It's a loively land when the bhoys is out— sorra a taste of scenery would you think about; and bein' landlords yourselves by that toime, you'd see the cream of the diversion."

"How about these Clairmonts?" I asked at a venture. "Do they live upon their own land?"

"Begorra— you've got it there!" cried O'Keefe. "They do nothing but live on their own land. They've niver stirred off it for more'n 15 years."

"Never stirred off it!"

"Sorra a fut beyond the park gates and the great brick wall. No man's oi has ever rested upon Miss Clairmont's face bar ould Dennis the lodgekeeper — the blackmouthed spalpeen— more be token they say she's grown into the purtiest girl in the county, forbye having foive and twinty thousand in her own right."

"What!" we both roared.

"Foive and twinty thousand pound," repeated O'Keefe solemnly; "and when her ould cat of a mother dies she'll come in for the whole family estate."

"What is she?" "Where is she?" "Who is she?" "What the devil is the matter with her?" shouted Bob and I, forming a sort of strophe and antistrophe to the landlord's chorus.

O'Keefe's account of the past history of the Clairmont family was a remarkable one, and, when curtailed of his many Hibernian digressions and meanderings, amounted to this: A certain Major Clairmont had come into the County some 16 years before, bearing with him a large sum in hard cash, a showy- looking wife of rather foreign appearance, and a pretty little daughter about two years old. Having expended a portion of the first item upon the purchase of a considerable estate near Glenmahowley, he had taken up his residence there and awaited some recognition from the County families. This came soon enough in the ease of tlie Major, who, as an old Guardsman, possessed a recognised social position, which was secured by his own many admirable qualities. It was different with Madame. The men might drink the old claret of the soldier, or take a day's shooting in his pheasant preserves, but their wives made no sign. Strange rumours were in circulation as to the antecedents of Mrs C. Some said that she had been upon the stage before her marriage; some that her career had been more equivocal still. There were individuals who ventured to doubt that she possessed even now the little blue slip of paper which civilisation demands. It was this rumour which some busybody brought to the ears of the Major, coupling with it the name of a neighbouring landed proprietor. The Major was a bull-necked, choleric man. He chose out his heaviest hunting crop and galloped furiously down the avenue to interview the traducer of his wife's character. The lodgekeeper was surprised to see the veteran horseman reel in his saddle as he shot through the gates and then fall backward with a dull thud on to the dusty road. The local practitioner pronounced it to be apoplexy, while the family physician favoured heart disease— but whatever the cause, the Major's spirit had drifted far away from Glemnahowley. It was then that that fiery foreign strain which showed itself on his wife's face asserted itself in her character. She would live on the estates still because he had been fond of them, but her life should be spent in mourning her loss and in educating her daughter in her own way. Above all, never should she again exchange word or look with any living being to the County which had insulted her aud indirectly caused her husband's death. The great gates were walled up, and only small slits left through which provisions and other necessaries ordered by Dennis, the lodgekeeper, were handed. A formidable row of spikes was plantod on the brick wall which had always surrounded the estate. In this extraordinary seclusion, cut off from the whole world, Mrs Clairmont and her daughter had now passed 15 years of their lives unseen by human eyes, save those of the few English domestics who remained with them, and perhaps an occasional daring urchin who might penetrate into the wood which surrounded the great house. It was these irregular scouts no doubt who had brought word of the exceeding beauty of the young lady, though no adult male had yet had the privilege of being able to form an opinion upon it. She was at present close upon her eighteenth birthday.

Thus far O'Keefe; while Bob and I sat, with elbows upon the table and chins upon our hands, drinking in every word. Neither of ua broke the silence for some little time after he had concluded. Bob Elliott puffed furiously at his pipe, while I looked dreamily out of the window at the thatched roofs of the cottages and the long, monotonous stretch of bog land in the distance.

"She is beautiful?" asked Bob at last.

"She is that!"

"And rich?" I queried.

"Divil a doubt of it."

We relapsed into another silence, in the midst of which our worthy landlord, evidently thinking us the worst of company, stole out of the room, walking for some unknown reason upon the tips of his toes as if he were afraid of waking us.

Left to ourselves, we became even more meditative than before. Bob strolled restlessly up and down in front of the door; I whistled and continued to stare out of the window. We were both lost in our own thoughts.

"Fancy a girl who has never even seen a male fellow creature!" ejaculated Bob at last.

"Who is unfettered by the conventionalities of civilisation!" said I.

"How artless she must be and how simple!" remarked my companion, twisting his moustache.

"What a depth of pent-up affection there must be in that heart!" I exclaimed, with my corsair-like look of slumbrous passion.

"How charmingly childlike and romantic!" said Bob, smoothing his hair in the glass.

"How easy for a dashing young fellow to win!" I returned, smiling at my own reflection over Bob's shoulder.

It is a curious fact that for the remainder of the day, though nothing in the shape of a distraction turned up, neither of us complained of the ennui of a residence in Glenmahowley. We both seemed suddenly reconciled to a contemplative existence, and even became tolerant of Pendleton, whose contentment under existing circumstances had struck us hitherto as nothing less than an insult. He came in about supper-time with his sketch-book and his mud- bespattered boots, apparently as happy as if he were among the most artistic scenery in the world. If it were not for his shyness and reserve he would be rather a pleasant fellow— that is, in gentlemen's society, for his diffidence would ruin him among women. He is tall, slim, and fair-haired, rather a good-looking young man— decidedly more so than Bob.

I did not sleep very well that night; neither did my companion. He showed his tousled head round the corner of my door somewhere about two o'clock in the morning.

"Hello, Jack," he said, "are you asleep?"

"No."

"What was the figure again?"

"Twenty-five," I growled.

"I thought it was twenty. Thanks! Good night!"

"Good-night!" and the head disappeared like the apparition in "Macbeth." It was evident that our thoughts were running in very much, the same groove. As for me, my plans were matured, and I could afford to smile at Bob's cogitations. While he hankered aimlessly for the prize I should swoop down and carry it off. The Verekers were always noted for their iron determination. I chuckled to myself while I dropped to sleep as I thought of the march which I should steal upon him on the morrow.

The day broke without a cloud on the sky. Both Elliott and Pendleton were somewhat silent at breakfast, and as I was engaged in planning the details of the enterprise to which I had determined to commit myself, I did not attempt to enter into conversation with them. After the meal Pendleton remarked that he would take a short stroll in search of effects, and Bob almost immediately afterward sallied out for a mouthful of fresh air. This was a most unexpected piece of luck. I had ransacked my brain for some excuse which would enable me to get rid of my companion, and here he had solved the problem of his own accord. Giving him half an hour's grace to take him well out of the way, I slipped out through the back door of the Shamrock Arms and made my way rapidly down the Morristown road in the direction of the Clairmont estate.

My sole doubt and anxiety was as to how I was to succeed in obtaining an interview with the young lady. Should fortune befriend me in that matter the rest appeared simple enough. I pictured to myself her mental condition, the sense of desolation which must oppress her young soul. Cooped up away from the world, her heart must yearn for some manly bosom upon which to rest her head, some strong arm to break her fetters. Besides, I was a man with exceptional personal advantages. Without being conceited, I have a just appreciation of my own merits. To eyes accustomed to nothing but an occasional glance of Dennis, the lodge-keeper, I should appear an Adonis. By the way, how about Dennis? Might he not resent my intrusion? Pooh! he was an old man. I remember the landlord saying so. What would I not risk for the girl whom I was prepared to adore! Perhaps he would have a gun, though! These Irishmen are hotheaded and blood-thirsty. I grew thoughtful and slackened my pace.

By this time I had come to the place where a high brick wall, with a conical coping bristling with spikes and pieces of broken bottles, ran along by the side of the road. This I recognised, from O'Keefe's description, as being the boundary line of the Clairmont estate. At the other side of the wall there was, as far as I could see, a thick forest. Should I do it, or should I not? I thought of the five and twenty thousand pounds. Besides, what would a gate- keeper be doing with a gun! What a sell for Bob Elliott— and for Pendleton, the shy Pendleton! Would they not curse their want of energy when they saw the prize which had slipped through their fingers? How the fellows would talk in London, too, even if I failed! It would make my name as a Don Juan. I could imagine Clinker or Waterhuse or some of the old set coming into the Temple wine bar and beginning: " I say, you chaps, have you heard of Vereker's latest? Very devil among women, is Vereker. He was in Ireland a few weeks ago"— and so on, and so on. "By Jove!" I cried, as I approached the wall in a paroxysm of recklessness, "I'll do it if I have to skin my knee!"

I did skin my knee; in fact, I skinned them both. I also removed portions of integument from my scalp, shoulder, elbow, hand, and ankle, besides splitting my coat and losing my hat. I was recompensed for all this, however, as I sat astride upon the top of the wall and looked down into the forbidden land beyond. I could have laughed at the thought of the march I was stealing on my two companions. I would have done so had it not been for a spike which was running into the calf of my leg.

The drop on the other side did not look very deep. I held on to tho largest projection I could see, and lowered myself until my feet were not more than a yard or so from the ground. Then I let go, but only to find that I hung suspended by a hook which had passed through my waistband. This impediment, however, gave way, and I fell with a crash for about nine feet into a sort of trench, which had been dug apparently all round the inner side of the wall, and was so artistically covered with grass and sticks that it was impossible to detect it from the top. All this I discovered after I crawled out of it, for during the few minutes that I lay at the bottom every idea was shaken out of my head beyond a general impression that I had been struck by lightning.

The trees grew so thickly together that it was impossible to see for any distance into the wood, and the brushwood was so dense that it was no easy matter to move in any direction. After emerging from the ditch I hesitated for a moment as to my next step, and then was about to keep to what appeared to be some sort of path on the left when my eye was attracted by a small I placard attached to the trunk o£ a tree. I made my way toward it eagerly, pushing aside the intervening briers and brambles. It might contain some directions which would enable me to find my way, or— romantic thought!— it might be that the lonely Beatrice I was in search of had inscribed her pinings and longings where they might meet the eye of an adventurous stranger. As I stood before the inscription and read it I felt a kind of cold flush, if the expression be permissible, pass along my spine and up to the roots of my hair, while my knees, or what was left of them, knocked together like castanets. Scrawled upon the paper in a rough bold hand were the three words, "Bloodhounds — spring-guns— mantraps;" unpleasant words at any time, but most particularly so amid the gloom of a forest with a ten-foot wall in one's rear. The announcement was a concise one, and yet I felt as I re-perused it that it contained more food for reflection than any volume which I had ever read. Was I to abandon my enterprise now that the first difficulty had been successfully overcome? Possibly the notice was a mere empty threat. Surely no one would allow such things to remain in their shrubberies. The combination of ideas was so dreadful. Suppose that I was caught in a mantrap, whatever that might be, and was then attacked by a bloodhound. The mere supposition made me shudder. But then if these frightful dogs were really roaming about over the forest, how was it that none of them were shot by the spring guns or caught in the traps? This consideration revived my drooping spirits, and I pushed on through the thick underwood.

As I advanced it opened up somewhat, so that I made better progress. A few half-overgrown paths meandered here and there, but I avoided these and kept under the concealment of the trees. Never shall I forgot that dreadful walk! Every time a twig snapped I sprang into the air under the impression that I was shot. No hero of romance ever underwent such an ordeal for his lady, and indeed no lady was ever worth it. Five and twenty thousand pounds, however, are enough to steel the heart of the most timorous, but even they would hardly recompense me for the frights which were if store for me.

I had got to one of the deepest and one of the most secluded parts of the wood, when I stopped suddenly and crouched down, trembling in every limb. Was it the sound of footsteps which had been wafted toward me on the breeze? I listened intently, and then with a long sigh of relief was about to rise, convinced that I had been mistaken, when the same sound came to my ears, but much louder than before. There could be no question that it was approaching me. I lay down upon my face among the prickly brambles, hoping to escape observation. The footsteps continued to come nearer and nearer. They were those of a man— but put down stealthily and softly as if he were also shunning observation. Could it be that some ruffian had observed me and was hunting me down as one stalks a deer? He waa coming nearer and nearer. I could hear the rustle of the leaves as he brushed past them. It seemed to me that I could even distinguish the sound of his breathing. Nearer he came and nearer still—  he was close to me, and the next moment the brambles in front of me parted and a man stepped out almost upon the top of me, and staggered back with a shout as I sprang to my feet. The voice seemed familiar— so did the figure. Could it be? Yes; there was no mistaking the identity of Mr Robert Elliott, of Lincoln's Inn!

Sed quantum mutatus ab illo! The stylish coat was torn and covered with mud. The aristocractic face was stained with dust and perspiration, and interlaced with scratches where the brambles had left their mark. His hat had been knocked in and was a hopless wreck. His watchguard and the studs in his shirt seemed to stand out as oases of respectability in a great desert of desolation.

"Bob!" I ejaculated. It was a few moments before any sign of recognition came over his face. Then gradually the ghost of a smile appeared in his astonished eyes, which deepened and deepened until he burst into an uproarious fit of laughter.

"Vereker, by Jove!" he yelled. "Whatever have you been doing to yourself?"

I looked down at my own costume and was forced to acknowledge that there was very little to choose between us. What with the wall and the ditch and the underwood and the briars, there was hardly an article of clothing which was fit to be worn again. The two of us looked more like a couple of scarecrows on tramp and in search of employment, than two prominent members of the Junior Bar.

"What are you doing here, Elliott?" I asked.

"Exploring," he answered evasively ; "what are you?"

"Explor— No, hang it, why can't we be frank to one another, Bob? You know, very well you came after thst girl."

My companion looked sheepish. "Well, I suppose you did the same." he said.

"Of course I did. What fools we were to try and bamboozle each other! If we had stuck together we might never have got into such a plight."

"I'm very sure I should never have tumbled into that infernal ditch if I had seen you go in," said Bob ruefully.

"Oh, you've been in the ditch, too, have you?" I remarked, with the first approach to satisfaction I had felt since I left O'Keefe's hospitable roof.

"Yes," groaned Bob. "I think I have been through the whole performance. Did you see any notices on the trees?"

"I did."

"Has old Dennis been round to you yet?"

"No; have you seen him?"

"Yes, he passed within ten yards of me a short time ago. At least I suppose it was him— a big gaunt fellow with a great stick."

"Heaven save us!" I ejaculated.

"However, he has passed now, and the question is what are we to do?"

"Persevere," I responded manfully. "It would be more dangerous to go back than to go on since that truculent gatekeeper is behind us."

"Right you are!" said Elliott, with a melancholy attempt at cheerfulness. "You lead on, and I'll follow."

"No, you go first," I answered, not, I am bound to say, from any innate courtesy or feeling of politeness, but with an idea that dangers from the abominations mentioned on the placard would be lessened thereby.

We threaded our way through the forest in Indian file, and after advancing for about half a mile were evidently close to the edge of it. The trees were smaller and the unplanted spaces larger. Suddenly Bob pulled up and pointed in front of him. "There's the house," he said.

There it was sure enough, a stern-looking edifice of gray stone with a large number of small, glimmering windows. There was a lawn in front of it, very tastefully laid out, which somewhat relieved the gloomy and prison-like appearance of the building. No one was to be seen either outside or at the windows. We held a council of war as to what our next step ahould be.

"We can't walk right up to the house under some excuse or other, can we?" said Bob.

"It would be too dangerous," I remarked. "There is no saying what they might do to us. They seem to be very savage people."

"Besides it would be the very last way to have any chance of saying a few words to the young lady," added my companion.

"The whole thing makes a deuced romatic situation," I observed.

"I wonder what Pendleton would think of us if he saw us?"

"Poor shy Pendleton! I think he would put us both down as madmen."

"It's a pity he is so retiring," said Bob. "But I say, Jack, what do you intend to say to the young lady when you see her?"

"Why, I propose to tell her of my love straight off, and ask her to fly with me. It must be all done to-day. I'm not coming in here again on any consideration. Besides, I think it will not be difficult to carry a romantic girl of that sort by a kind of coup de main."

"But that's exactly my plan," said Bob plaintively.

"The deuce it is!" I ejaculated. "By George! There she is!"

The last exclamation was drawn from me by the appearance upon the steps of the house of an elegantly dressed young lady. Her features were invisible, owing to the . distance, but her erect carriage and the long, graceful curves of her figure showed that report had not exaggerated her charms. She turned as she came out to address an elder woman, her mother probably, who followed her. The latter seemed, as far as we could make out, to be weeping, for she raised her handkerchief to her eyes several times, while the girl passed her arm round her neck as if to console her. In this she appeared to succeed, for the elder went back into the house, and the younger sprang down the three steps at a single bound and hurried away, with long, elastic steps, down the path which led into the shrubbery.

"We must follow her," I cried.

"Take your time," said Bob. "We must come to some agreement before we start. It would be too ridiculous for the two of us to plunge at her together and begin pouring out two confessions of love."

"It might startle her," I remarked, "especially as she has never seen either of us before."

"Who is to have the preference, then?"

"I am the elder," I observed.

"But then I left the inn first," objected Elliott.

"Well, suppose we toss for it."

"I suppose we must," said Bob gloomily, producing a penny and spinning it up in the air: " Heads, so it is. Just my luck. Of course, if after your proposal the young lady thinks fit to refuse you I am at liberty to do whatever I choose. Is that agreed?"

"Certainly," I answered, and we both pushed on rapidly through the shrubbery, gaining confidence as we saw some prospect of attaining our object.

"There she is," whispered Bob, as we saw the flutter of a pink dress among the trees in front of us.

"There's a man talking to her!"

"Impossible!"

"There is."

If there was he must have disappeared very rapidly on hearing our approach, for when he got near enough to her to see her whole figure she was alone. She turned with a start of surprise, and seemed inclined for a moment to run away from us, but then, recovering herself, she came toward us. As she advanced I saw that she was one of the most lovely girls that I had ever seen in my life— not at all the doll-like sort of beauty that I had imagined from what I knew of her training, but a splendid, well-developed young woman with a firmly set lower jaw and delicately moulded chin which would have been almost masculine in their force had they not been relieved by a pair of pensive blue eyes and a sweetly sensitive mouth. Somehow, as I found her steady gaze directed at me, all the well-turned speeches which I had rehearsed in my mind seemed to fade entirely from my memory and leave nothing but an utter blank behind. The amorous gallop with which we bore down upon her subsided into a ridiculous trot, and when eventually I pulled up a few yards in front of her I could no more have uttered a word of explanation than I could have recovered my lost hat or concealed the gaps in my clothing.

"I fancy you must have mistaken your way," she said in a low, sweet voice without the slightest appearance of heing affected by this apparition of young men. I felt Bob nudge me from behind and whisper something about "going' ahead" and "making the running," but my only inclination under the gaze of those calm, tranquil eyes was to make the running in the opposite direction at the top of my speed.

"The house is over there," she observed, pointing through the trees. "I suppose that you are the bailiff."

"Bailiffs!" I gasped.

"Excuse me if I do not give you your proper title," she continued with a melancholy smile. "It is the first time that we have ever been brought in contact with the officers of the law, and hardly know how to address them. We have expected you for two days."

Bob and I could only stare at her in silent bewilderment.

"There is one thing I should like to ask you," she went on, drawing nearer to us with her liands clasped and a beautiful pleading expression upon her face.

"Though my mother and I are almost beggars now, remember that she is a lady, delicately reared and sensitive. Above all, remember that she has no one to protect her or to take her part. Be gentle with her, therefore, and do you duty without wounding her feelings more than you can help."

"Bob," I whispered, drawing my companion aside, though he still continued to stare idiotically over my shoulder at the young lady. "Do you realise it? They expect the bailiffs. There's no money in the concern. What are we to do?"

"She's an angel!" was all Bob could evolve.

"So she is, but she's got no money."

"Then you give her up?"

"I do," said I with a sentimental twinge at my heart. Sentimentalism has always been my weak point.

"You won't propose?" asked Bob excitedly.

"No, marriage is an expensive luxury. Besides—"

"Besides what? "

"I am convinced she would not have me."

"Then, by Jove, I'll do it I" said Bob, facing round with a look of determination upon his dirty face.

Miss Clairmont had been standing looking considerably surprised and a little frightened during our hurried conclave. She drew back a few feet. Bob took a step toward her with his arms thrown out in eloquent entreaty, like an animated semaphore.

"Young lady," he began, "I am not a bailiff. I belong to another and a higher branch of the legal profession. I am a Londoner and a gentleman."

Bob paused for a moment to allow this statement to sink into his listener's mind. Miss Clairinont looked more amazed than impressed, though it was evident from her shrinking figure that she was considerably startled. "In a foreign land," cried Bob warming to his work— "a land beyond the seas — I allude to England— I heard of your charms and of your solitary existence, and I swore— that is to say, we both did, only I lost the toss— to save you and bring you out into the great world which you are so fitted to adorn. We crossed the deep— which made us both exceedingly unwell— and flew to your rescue. We have scaled this inhospitable wall of yours; if you doubt my statement you will find a large portion of the sleeve of my coat upon one of the spikes which adorn it. We also ran the gauntlet of the many unpleasant things which your amiable parent seems to have littered about for the benefit of the casual stranger. Dear girl," continued Bob, advancing with an imbecile grin upon his countenance, which he imagined no doubt to be a seductive smile, "fly with me! Be mine! Share with me the wild free life of a barrister! Say that you return the love which fills my heart — oh, say it!" Here Bob put his hand over a hole in his waistcoat and struck a dramatic attitude.

During this extraordinary address the young lady had been gradually edging away from us, and at its conclusion she burst into a merry peal of laughter.

"Edward?" she cried— "Ned! Do come out! It's really too ridiculous, but I don't know what to say to them."

At this summons a man emerged from behind a tree where he had concealed himself and flew to her side. Imagine our petrifying and all-absorbing astonishment when we recognised in him Pendleton, our retiring companion of the inn.

"Don't be frightened, darling," he said, passing his arm round her slender waist, to Bob's intense and audible disgust. "I can understand, gentlemen," he went on, "the romantic motives which have led you here, but you will see how futile they are when I tell you that this lady is my wife."

"Your what?" roared Bob and I in chorus.

"My wedded wife. You are the first that have heard our secret, though Mrs Clairmont must learn it to-day. It does not matter to you how we met or how we married— suffice it that it is so. To-day the ruin which I had long foreseen has come upon the household; Mrs Pendleton thinks it may have softened the hard heart of her mother, and we are going up now to see her together, to confess what we have done, and to offer her a home for the rest of her life at my place in Devon. You will see, gentlemen," he continued, "that a delicate matter of this sort must be done without interruption and at once; you will therefore excuse us from showing you off the grounds. I may say, however, that if you will keep to that path on the left you will soon find yourselves at the boundary— and now, gentlemen, my wife and myself must wish you a very good morning," with which he offered the young lady his arm and the two strolled off together in the direction of the house.

How long Bob and I stood there gazing after them and at each other neither of us could ever determine. Then we plodded sullenly down the path pointed out, without exchanging a word, and after sundry gymnastic exercises found ourselves in the road once more.

Bob was inclined to be sentimental all day, and perhaps I was hardly myself either. When night fell, however, and a steaming jug of hot water was brought up, flanked with a lemon on one side and the sugar on the other, while the whisky bottle towered in the rear, we began to get over our troubles, and I doubt if O'Keefe, when he joined us, could have given a guess at the stirring events which had occurred since he told us the story of the Clairmont family the night before. Certainly by next morning there were no traces left of our short matrimonial campaign.

Another week found us in our chambers in town, settling down comfortably into the old routine. I do not know where our next holiday will be spent, but I confidently predict that it will not be at Glenmahowley. I have heard nothing since of the Pendletons beyond the fact that he is the owner of a large estate on the borders of Dartmoor. Bob talks of visiting those parts in the Spring, but I think for his own peace of mind he had better steer clear of those blue eyes and sweet features which are our only pleasant recollection of the land of bogs.

________________

14: The China Bowl

E. F. Benson

1867-1940

Pearson’s Magazine Dec 1916

I HAD long been on the look-out for one of the small houses at the south end of that delectable oblong called Barrett's Square, but for many months there was never revealed to me that which I so much I desired to see--namely, a notice-board advertising that one of these charming little abodes was to be let.

At length, however, in the autumn of the current year, in one of my constant passages through the square, I saw what my eye had so long starved for, and within ten minutes I was in the office of the agent in whose hands the disposal of No. 29 had been placed.

A communicative clerk informed me that the present lessee, Sir Arthur Bassenthwaite, was anxious to get rid of the remainder of his lease as soon as possible, for the house had painful associations for him, owing to the death of his wife, which had taken place there not long before.

He was a wealthy man, so I was informed, Lady Bassenthwaite having been a considerable heiress, and was willing to take what is professionally known as a ridiculously low price, in order to get the house off his hand without delay. An order 'to view' was thereupon given me, and a single visit next morning was sufficient to show that this was precisely what I had been looking for.

Why Sir Arthur should be so suddenly anxious to get rid of it, at a price which certainly was extremely moderate, was no concern of mine, provided the drains were in good order, and within a week the necessary business connected with the transference of the lease was arranged. The house was in excellent repair, and less than a month from the time I had first seen the notice-board up, I was ecstatically established there.

I had not been in the house more than a week or two when, one afternoon, I was told that Sir Arthur had called, and would like to see me if I was disengaged. He was shown up, and I found myself in the presence of one of the most charming men I have ever had the good fortune to meet.

The motive of his call, it appeared, was of the politest nature, for he wished to be assured that I found the house comfortable and that it suited me. He intimated that it would be a pleasure to him to see round, and together we went over the whole house, with the exception of one room.

This was the front bedroom on the third floor, the largest of the two spare rooms, and at the door, as I grasped the handle, he stopped me.

'You will excuse me,' he said, 'for not coming in here. The room, I may tell you, has the most painful associations for me.'

This was sufficiently explicit; I made no doubt that it was in this room that his wife had died.

It was a lovely October afternoon, and, having made the tour of the house, we went out into the little garden with its tiled walk that lay at the back, and was one of the most attractive features of the place. Low brick walls enclosed it, separating it on each side from my neighbours, and at the bottom from the pedestrian thoroughfare that ran past the back of the row of houses.

Sir Arthur lingered here some little while, lost, I suppose, in regretful memories of the days when perhaps he and his companion planned and executed the decoration of the little plot.

Indeed, he hinted as much when, shortly after, he took his leave.

'There is so much here,' he said, 'that is very intimately bound up with me. I thank you a thousand times for letting me see the little garden again.' And once more, as he turned to go into the house, his eyes looked steadfastly and wistfully down the bright borders.

The regulations about the lighting of houses in London had some little while previously demanded a more drastic dusk, and a night or two later, as I returned home after dinner through the impenetrable obscurity of the streets, I was horrified to find a bright light streaming cheerfully from the upper windows in my house, with no blinds to obscure it.

It came from the front bedroom on the third floor, and, letting myself in, I proceeded hurriedly upstairs to quench this forbidden glow. But when I entered, I found the room in darkness, and, on turning up the lights myself, I saw that the blinds were drawn down, so that even if it had been lit, I could not have seen from outside the illumination which had made me hasten upstairs.

An explanation easily occurred to me: no doubt the light I had seen did not come from my house, but from windows of a house adjoining. I had only given one glance at it, and with this demonstration that I had been mistaken, I gave no further conscious thought to the matter. But subconsciously I felt that I knew that I had made no mistake: I had not in that hurried glance confused the windows of the house next door with my own; it was this room that had been lit.

I had moved into the house, as I have said, with extraordinary expedition, and for the next day or two I was somewhat busily engaged, after my day's work was over, in sorting out and largely destroying accumulations of old books and papers, which I had not had time to go through before my move. Among them I came across an illustrated magazine which I had kept for some forgotten reason, and turning over the pages to try to ascertain why I had preserved it, I suddenly came across a picture of my own back-garden. The title at the top of the page showed me that the article in question was an interview with Lady Bassenthwaite, and her portrait and that of her husband made a frontispiece to it.

The coincidence was a curious one, for here I read about the house which I now occupied, and saw what it had been like in the reign of its late owners. But I did not spend long over it, and added the magazine to the pile of papers destined for destruction. This grew steadily, and when I had finished turning out the cupboard which I had resolved to empty before going to bed, I found it was already an hour or more past midnight.

I had been so engrossed in my work that I had let the fire go out, and myself get hungry, and went into the dining-room, which opened into the little back-garden, to see if the fire still smouldered there, and a biscuit could be found in the cupboard. In both respects I was in luck, and whilst eating and warming myself, I suddenly thought I heard a step on the tiled walk in the garden outside.

I quickly went to the window and drew aside the thick curtain, letting all the light in the room pour out into the garden, and there, beyond doubt, was a man bending over one of the beds.

Startled by this illumination, he rose, and without looking round, ran to the end of the little yard and, with surprising agility, vaulted on to the top of the wall and disappeared.

But at the last second, as he sat silhouetted there, I saw his face in the shaded light of a gas-lamp outside, and, to my indescribable astonishment, I recognized Sir Arthur Bassenthwaite. The glimpse was instantaneous, but I was sure I was not mistaken, any more than I had been mistaken about the light which came from the bedroom that looked out on to the square.

But whatever tender associations Sir Arthur had with the garden that had once been his, it was not seemly that he should adopt such means of indulging them. Moreover, where Sir Arthur might so easily come, there, too, might others whose intentions were less concerned with sentiment than with burglary.

In any case, I did not choose that my garden should have such easy access from outside, and next morning I ordered a pretty stiff barrier of iron spikes to be erected along the outer wall. If Sir Arthur wished to muse in the garden, I should be delighted to give him permission, as, indeed, he must have known from the cordiality which I was sure I showed him when he called, but this method of his seemed to me irregular. And I observed next evening, without any regret at all, that my order had been promptly executed. At the same time I felt an invincible curiosity to know for certain if it was merely for the sake of a solitary midnight vigil that he had come.

I was expecting the arrival of my friend Hugh Grainger the next week, to stay a night or two with me, and since the front spare room, which I proposed to give him, had not at present been slept in, I gave orders that a bed should be made up there the next night for me, so that I could test with my own vile body whether a guest would be comfortable there.

This can only be proved by personal experience. Though there may be a table apparently convenient to the head of the bed, though the dressing-table may apparently be properly disposed, though it seem as if the lighting was rightly placed for reading in bed, and for the quenching of it afterwards without disturbance, yet practice and not theory is the only method of settling such questions, and next night accordingly I both dressed for dinner in this front spare room, and went to bed there.

Everything seemed to work smoothly; the room itself had a pleasant and restful air about it, and the bed exceedingly comfortable, I fell asleep almost as soon as I had put out the electric light, which I had found adequate for reading small print. To the best of my knowledge, neither the thought of the last occupant of the room nor of the light that I believed I had seen burning there one night entered my head at all.

I fell asleep, as I say, at once, but instantly that theatre of the brain, on the boards of which dreams are transacted, was brightly illuminated for me, and the curtain went up on one of those appalling nightmare-pieces which we can only vaguely remember afterwards.

There was the sense of flight--clogged, impotent flight from before some hideous spiritual force--the sense of powerlessness to keep away from the terror that gained on me, the strangling desire to scream, and soon the blessed dawning consciousness that it was but with a dream that I wrestled.

I began to know that I was lying in bed, and that my terrors were imaginary, but the trouble was not over yet, for with all my efforts I could not raise my head from the pillow nor open my eyes.

Then, as I drew nearer to the boundaries of waking, I became aware that even when the spell of my dream was altogether broken I should not be free. For through my eyelids, which I knew had closed in a darkened room, there now streamed in a vivid light, and remembering for the first time what I had seen from the square outside, I knew that when I opened them they would look out on to a lit room, peopled with who knew what phantoms of the dead or living.

I lay there for a few moments after I had recovered complete consciousness, with eyes still closed, and felt the trickle of sweat on my forehead. That horror I knew was not wholly due to the self-coined nightmare of my brain; it was the horror of expectancy more than of retrospect.

And then curiosity, sheer stark curiosity, to know what was happening on the other side of the curtain of my eyelids prevailed, and I sat and looked.

In the armchair just opposite the foot of my bed sat Lady Bassenthwaite, whose picture I had seen in the illustrated magazine. It simply was she; there could be no doubt whatever about it.

She was dressed in a bedgown, and in her hand was a small fluted china bowl with a cover and a saucer. As I looked she took the cover off, and began to feed herself with a spoon. She took some half-dozen mouthfuls, and then replaced the cover again. As she did this she turned full face towards where I lay, looking straight at me, and already the shadow of death was fallen on her.

Then she rose feebly, wearily, and took a step towards the bed. As she did this, the light in the room, from whatever source it came, suddenly faded, and I found myself looking out into impenetrable darkness.

My curiosity for the present was more than satisfied, and in a couple of minutes I had transferred myself to the room below.

Hugh Grainger, the ruling passion of whose life is crime and ghosts, arrived next day, and I poured into an eager ear the whole history of the events here narrated.

'Of course, I'll sleep in the room,' he said at the conclusion. 'Put another bed in it, can't you, and sleep there, too. A couple of simultaneous witnesses of the same phenomena are ten times more valuable than one. Or do you funk?' he added as a kind afterthought.

'I funk, but I will,' I said.

'And are you sure it wasn't all part of your dream?' he asked.

'Absolutely positive.'

Hugh's eye glowed with pleasure.

'I funk, too,' he said. 'I funk horribly. But that's part of the allurement. It's so difficult to get frightened nowadays. All but a few things are explained and accounted for. What one fears is the unknown. No one knows yet what ghosts are, or why they appear, or to whom.

He took a turn up and down the room.

'And what do you make of Sir Arthur creeping into your garden at night?' he asked. 'Is there any possible connection?'

'Not as far as I can see. What connection could there be?'

'It isn't very obvious certainly. I really don't know why I asked. And you liked him?'

'Immensely. But not enough to let him get over my garden wall at midnight,' said I.

Hugh laughed.

'That would certainly imply a considerable degree of confidence and affection,' he said.

I had caused another bed to be moved into Hugh's room, and that night, after he had put out the light, we talked awhile and then relapsed into silence. It was cold, and I watched the fire on the hearth die down from flame into glowing coal, and from glow into clinkering ash, while nothing disturbed the peaceful atmosphere of the quiet room. Then it seemed to me as if something broke in, and instead of lying tranquilly awake, I found a certain horror of expectancy, some note of nightmare begin to hum through my waking consciousness. I heard Hugh toss and turn and turn again, and at length he spoke.

'I say, I'm feeling fairly beastly,' he said, 'and yet there's nothing to see or hear.'

'Same with me,' said I.

'Do you mind if I turn up the light a minute, and have a look round?' he asked.

'Not a bit.'

He fumbled at the switch, the room leapt into light, and he sat up in bed frowning. Everything was quite as usual, the bookcase, the chairs, on one of which he had thrown his clothes; there was nothing that differentiated this room from hundreds of others where the occupants lay quietly sleeping.

'It's queer,' he said, and switched off the light again.

There is nothing harder than to measure time in the dark, but I do not think it was long that I lay there with the sense of nightmare growing momentarily on me before he spoke again in an odd, cracked voice.

'It's coming,' he said.

Almost as soon as he spoke I saw that the thick darkness of the room was sensibly thinning.

The blackness was less complete, though I could hardly say that light began to enter. Then by degrees I saw the shape of chairs, the lines of the fireplace, the end of Hugh's bed begin to outline themselves, and as I watched the darkness vanished altogether, as if a lamp had been turned up.

And in the chair at the foot of Hugh's bed sat Lady Bassenthwaite, and again putting aside the cover of her dish, she sipped the contents of the bowl, and at the end rose feebly, wearily, as in mortal sickness. She looked at Hugh, and turning, she looked at me, and through the shadow of death that lay over her face, I thought that in her eyes was a demand, or at least a statement of her case. They were not angry, they did not cry for justice, but the calm inexorable gaze of justice that must be done was there...Then the light faded and died out.

I heard a rustle from the other bed and the springs creaked.

'Good Lord,' said Hugh, 'where's the light?'

His fingers fumbled and found it, and I saw that he was already out of bed, with streaming forehead and chattering teeth.

'I know now,' he said. 'I half guessed before. Come downstairs.'

Downstairs we went, and he turned up all the passage lights as we passed. He led the way into the dining room, picking up the poker and the shovel as he went by the fireplace, and he threw open the door into the garden. I switched up the light, which threw a bright square of illumination over the garden.

'Where did you see Sir Arthur?' he said. 'Where? Exactly where?'

Still not guessing what he sought, I pointed out to him the spot, and loosening the earth with the poker, he dug into the bed. Once again he plunged the poker down, and as he removed the earth I heard the shovel grate on something hard. And then I guessed.

Already Hugh was at work with his fingers in the earth, and slowly and carefully he drew out fragments of a broken china cover. Then, delving again, he raised from the hole a fluted china bowl. And I knew I had seen it before, once and twice.

We carried this indoors and cleaned the earth from it. All over the bottom of the bowl was a layer of some thick porridge-like substance, and a portion of this I sent next day to a chemist, asking him for his analysis of it. The basis of it proved to be oatmeal, and in it was mixed a considerable quantity of arsenic.

Hugh and I were together in my little sitting room close to the front door, where on the table stood the china bowl with the fragments of its cover and saucer, when this report was brought to us, and we read it together. The afternoon was very dark and we stood close to the window to decipher the minute handwriting, when there passed the figure of Sir Arthur Bassenthwaite. He saw me, waved his hand, and a moment afterwards the front door bell rang.

'Let him come in,' said Hugh. 'Let him see that on the table.'

Next moment my servant entered, and asked if the caller might see me.

'Let him see it,' repeated Hugh. 'The chances are that we shall know if he sees it unexpectedly.'

There was a moment's pause while in the hall, I suppose, Sir Arthur was taking off his coat.

Outside, some few doors off, a traction engine, which had passed a minute before, stopped, and began slowly coming backwards again, crunching the newly-laid stones. Sir Arthur entered.

'I ventured to call,' he began, and then his glance fell on the bowl. In one second the very aspect of humanity was stripped from his face. His mouth drooped open, his eyes grew monstrous and protruding, and what had been the pleasant, neat-featured face of a man was a mask of terror, a gargoyle, a nightmare countenance. Even before the door that had been open to admit him was closed, he had turned and gone with a crouching, stumbling run from the room, and I heard him at the latch of the front door.

Whether what followed was design or accident, I shall never know, for from the window I saw him fall forward, almost as if he threw himself there, straight in front of the broad crunching wheels of the traction engine, and before the driver could stop, or even think of stopping, the iron roller had gone over his head.

_____________

15: In the Way of Business

Stacey Aumonier

1877-1928

Pictorial Review March 1917

AS THE large, thick-set man with the red face, the bushy mustache, and the very square chin swung round on his swivel chair, at the great roll-top desk with its elaborate arrangements of telephones, receivers, and electric buttons, he conveyed to the little mild-eyed man waiting on 'a chair by the door the sense of infinite power.

And surely it must be a position requiring singular gifts and remarkable capacity. For was this not Dollbones, the house famous throughout the civilized world for supplying trimmings, gimp, embroidery, buttons, and other accessories to nearly every retail furnisher in England and the colonies? and was not this Mr. Godfrey Hylam, the London manager? To hold such a position a man must have not only brains, and an infinite capacity for work and driving power, but he must have character, a genius for judging people and making quick decisions.

"Almost like a general," thought the mild-eyed man by the door. He had waited fifty minutes in the outer office for his interview, and on being at length shown in, had been told to "sit down a minute." This minute had been protracted into thirty-five minutes, but it was very interesting to watch the great man grappling with the myriad affairs that came whispering through the wires, and giving sharp instructions to the two flurried clerks who sat in the same office, or dictating to the young lady stenographer who sat furtively on a small chair by his side scribbling into a book with a fountain-pen.

"She looks ill and worried," thought the little man. He was indulging in a dreamy speculation on the girl's home life, when he was suddenly pulled up by the percussion of Mr. Hylam's voice. He realized that the great man was speaking to him. He was saying:

"Let's see, what's your name?"

"Thomas Pinwell, sir," he answered, and stood up.

"What name?" repeated the big man.

"Pinwell— Thomas Pinwell," he said in a rather louder voice.

Mr. Hylam looked irritably among some papers and sighed. He then continued dictating a letter to the stenographer. When that was finished he got up, and went out of the room. He was absent about ten minutes, and then came hurrying in with some more papers. He called out as he walked:

"Jackson, have you got that statement from Jorrocks, Musgrove & Bellwither?"

One of the clerks jumped up and said:

"I'll find it, sir."

The clerk took some time to do this, and in the meanwhile Mr. Hylam dictated another report to the young lady. Then the clerk brought the statement, and he and Mr. Hylam discussed it at some length. He gave the clerk some further instructions, which were twice interrupted by the telephone bell. When this was finished, Mr. Hylam again caught sight of the little man by the door. He looked at him with surprise, and said:

"Let's see, what's your name?"

"Pinwell— Thomas Pinwell, sir," he answered patiently.

Mr. Hylam again sighed and fingered a lot of papers in pigeon-holes. At that moment there was a knock, and a boy in buttons entered and said:

"There's Mr. Curtis, of Curtis, Tonks & Curtis, called."

"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Hylam. "Yes. All right. Er— ask him to come in. I want to see him." He turned to the telephone, and asked some one to put him on to some one else, and while waiting with the receiver to his ear, his eye once more caught sight of the little man by the door. He called out to him:

"Oh!— er— just wait outside a minute, Mr.— er— Hullo! is that you, Thomson?"

Finding himself temporarily dismissed, Mr. Pinwell took up his hat and went into the outer office. There was a tall, elderly man with a fur-lined overcoat standing there, and he was immediately shown in. He remained with Mr. Hylam just one hour. At the end of that time, one of the directors called and went out to lunch with Mr. Hylam. A clerk gave Mr. Pinwell the tip that he had better call back about four o'clock. He said he would do so. He had had thirty years' experience in the furnishing trade, and he knew that "business was business." One had to be patient, to conform to its prescripts. A gentleman like Mr. Hylam lived under continual pressure. He was acting according to his conscience in the best interests of the firm. One had to take one's chance with him. After all, it would be very nice to get the job. He had been out so long, and he was not so young as he used to be. He thought of his placid wife and the two children. They were indeed getting into a very penurious state. He understood that the salary would be thirty shillings per week,' and a small royalty on the sales. Not a princely emolument but it would make all the difference. Besides, what might not the royalties amount to? If he worked hard and energetically he might make between two and three pounds per week— who knows? He went into an aerated bread shop and had a cup of tea and a piece of seed cake, and read the morning paper. He stayed there as long as he dare, and then went for a stroll round the streets. At four o'clock precisely he presented himself at the managerial office at Dollbones once more. Mr. Hylam had not returned. They expected him every minute. There were five other people waiting to see him. At half-past four Mr. Hylam came in, smoking a cigar. He was accompanied by another gentleman. They walked right through the waiting crowd and went into the inner office and shut the door. As a matter of fact, Mr. Pinwell did not see the manager at all that day. So great was the congestion of business in the trimming, gimp, embroidery, and button business that afternoon that he was advised by one of the least aggressive clerks, at about a quarter to six, to try his luck in the morning. It was a quarterpast three on the following afternoon that he eventually obtained his interview with Mr. Hylam, and it was from his point of view entirely satisfactory. Mr. Hylam said:

"Let's see. You told me your name?"

"Yes, sir," he answered. "Thomas Pinwell."

Mr. Hylam seemed at last to find the papers he desired. He said:

"Er— just come here. Show me your references."

Mr. Pinwell approached the great desk deferentially. On it was a chart of London with one section shaded red. Mr. Hylam read the references carefully and then asked one or two searching questions. At last he said:

"Well, now, look here. This is your section. Go to Mr. Green, and he will give you the cards and samples. Then go to Bodney in the Outer London department upstairs, and he will give you a list of several hundred furnishing houses with the names of the buyers and a few particulars. Everything else you must find out. The salary is thirty shillings a week and two per cent, on sales completed. Settlement monthly. Good-day, Mr.— er—"

He turned to the telephone, and Mr. Pinwell's heart beat rapidly. He had really got a job again! As he walked to the door he had a vision of the expression of delight on his wife's face as he told her the news. He visualized a certain day in a certain month when he would bring home a lot of sovereigns and buy the children things. Two per cent.! For every hundred pounds' worth of orders, two golden sovereigns of his very own! It seemed too good to be true!

His wife indeed did share with him the comforting joys of this new vista of commercial prosperity. They occupied now two rooms in Camling Town, and Tom had been out so long there was no immediate prospect of a removal. But the rent was now secure and just the barest necessities of life, and everything depended on the two per cent, commission. He was to start on the following Monday, and the intervening days were filled with active preparations. There were shirts to mend, an overcoat to be stitched, a pair of boots to have the heels set up, and three new collars to be bought. These were vital things pertinent to the active propaganda of the bread-winner. Other things were urgent,— a new piece of oil-cloth for the bedroom, some underclothes for the girls, and several small debts— but all these things could wait, at any rate a month or two, till the commissions started coming in. For Mrs. Pinwell herself there never seemed necessities. She always managed to look somehow respectable, and, as Mr. Pinwell once remarked to a neighbor, "My wife is a marvel, sir, with a string bag. She always believes in bringing the things home herself. She goes out into the High Street, Camling Town, on a Saturday night, and I assure you, sir, it's surprising what she will bring back. She will make a shilling go further than many of them would half-a-crown. She is a remarkable woman. It surprises me how she manages to bargain, being so unassuming, so diffident, as it were, in the home."

There was nothing, then, missing in the necessary equipment of Mr. Pinwell as he set out with his leather case of samples on the following Monday. It was a cold, bright day, and he enjoyed the exercise of walking. He was not by nature a pushful man and he found the business of calling on people whom he did not know somewhat irksome. Fortunately he was by temperament patient and understanding, and he made allowances when people were rude to him, or kept him waiting indefinitely and then gave him no orders. "It's all in the way of business," he thought as he shuffled out of the shop and sought the next street.

At the end of the first week he explained to his wife:

"You see, my dear, there's a lot of spade-work to be done yet. I'm afraid Flinders, who had the round before me, must have neglected it disgracefully. It all requires working up again. One has to get to know people, the right people, of course. They seem prejudiced against one like, at first."

"Was that Mr. Flinders who used to—" began Mrs. Pinwell in a whisper.

"Yes, my dear, I'm afraid he drank. It was a very distressing story, very distressing indeed. They say he drank himself to death. A very clever salesman too— very clever! They tell me he worked this district up splendidly, and then gradually let it go to pieces."

"Dear, dear! I can't think how people do such things?" murmured Mrs. Pinwell.

"It was a great recommendation in my case," continued her husband, "that I was a teetotaler. Mr. Hylam made a great point of that. He asked me several times, and read the letter of Judkins & Co. vouching for my honesty and sobriety for a period of twenty-two years. He seemed very pleased about that."

At the end of the first month the orders that Mr. Pinwell had secured for Dollbones were of a negligible character. He felt discouraged— as though conscious of there being something fundamentally wrong in his method of doing business— but his wife cheered him by expressing her view that it would probably take months before his initial spade-work would take effect.

He started on his rounds a little earlier after that, and stayed a little later. He became more persistent and more patient. He went back again and again to see people who seemed inaccessible. He tried to be a little more assertive and plausible in his solicitations, but at the end of the second month there was little improvement in his returns, and his commissions amounted to scarcely enough to pay for the new oil-cloth in the sitting-room.

The optimism of Mrs. Pinwell was in no way affected by this failure, but a more alarming note was struck by Mr. Rodney of the "Outer London Department." He told Mr. Pinwell that Mr. Hylam was not at all satisfied with his work so far, and he would have to show greater energy and enterprise during the ensuing month, or the firm would be impelled to try a new traveler for that district, one who could show better results.

Mr. Pinwell was very alarmed. The idea of being "out" again kept him awake at night. It was a very serious thing. He put in longer hours still, and hurried more rapidly between his calls. He increased his stock of samples till they amounted to a very considerable weight. He made desperate appeals for orders, ringing the changes on various ways of expressing himself. But at the end of the next week there was still no improvement on the pages of his order-book. There was one firm in particular who caused him considerable heartburning— Messrs.. Carron and Musswell. These were quite the biggest people in the neighborhood, and had five different branches, each doing a prosperous business. Mr. Pinwell for the life of him could not find out how to get into the good graces of this firm. No one seemed to know who bought for them, and he was referred from one person to another, and sent dashing from one branch to another, all to no purpose.

He had one friend who had a small retail business of his own, a Baptist named Senner, who gave him small orders occasionally. He went into Mr. Senner's shop one Friday, and feeling thoroughly tired and discouraged, he poured out his tale of woe to Mr. Senner. Mr. Senner was a large doleful man, to whom the sorrows of others were as balm. He listened to Mr. Pinwell's misfortunes in sympathetic silence, breathing heavily. At the end of the peroration his son entered the shop. He was a white-faced, dissipated-looking young man who wore lavender ties and brushed his hair back. One might have imagined that he would have been a source of disappointment to Mr. Senner, but quite the contrary was the case. The son had a genius for concealing his vices from his father, and his father had a great opinion of the boy's intelligence and character. He certainly had a faculty of securing orders for his father's business.

On this occasion Mr. Senner turned to his son and said:

"Harry, who buys for Carron & Musswell!"

The son looked at Mr. Pinwell and fidgeted with his nails. Then he grinned weakly and said:

"Oh, you want to get hold of Clappe."

Mr. Pinwell came forward and said:

"Oh, indeed! I'm really very much obliged to you. It's very kind! Mr. Clappe, you say! Dear me! yes. Thank you very much. I'll go and ask for Mr. Clappe." And he shook the young man's hand.

The young man continued grinning in rather a superior manner, and at that moment Mr. Senner's attention was attracted by a customer who entered the shop. Mr. Pinwell picked up his bags and went out. He had not gone more than a dozen yards when he became aware of Senner junior at his side. The young man still grinned, and he said:

"I say, you know, it's no good your going to Carron & Musswell's and asking for Clappe. You'll never get hold of him in that way."

"Really!" exclaimed Mr. Pinwell. "Now tell me, what would you suggest?"

The young man sniffed and looked up and down the street, and a curiously leery expression came over his face. Then he said:

"I expect I could fix it for you all right, Pinwell. You'd better come with me into the bar of the 'Three Amazons' after lunch. I'll introduce you. Of course, you know, Mr. Pinwell,— er— you know, business is business. We always like to oblige our friends, and so on—"

He looked at Mr. Pinwell furtively and bit his nails. For the moment Mr. Pinwell could not catch the drift of these smiles and suggestions, but he had been in the upholstery line for twenty-seven years, and it suddenly dawned upon him that of course the young man was suggesting that if he introduced him, and business came out of it, he would expect a commission or a bonus. He was quite reasonable. He had a sort of ingrained repugnance to these things himself, but he knew that it was done in business. It was quite a usual thing. Some of the best firms— He took the young man's hand and said:

"Er— of course— Mr. Senner, I shall be very pleased to accommodate you. It's— er— only natural, only natural of course. Business is business. Where shall I meet you?"

The appointment was made for the corner of Mulberry Road at half-past two; and at that hour Mr. Pinwell arrived with two heavily laden bags. He walked by the side of the young man down the street, and then crossed over into the High Road. Right opposite them was a large gaudy public house called "The Three Amazons," and they crossed over to it. A feeling of diffidence and shyness came over Mr. Pinwell. He had only entered a public house on about three occasions in his life, and then under some very stringent business demands, or else to get a bottle of brandy when his wife was very ill. Nevertheless he followed the young man through a passage and entered the saloon bar, in the corner of which he deposited his bags. The bar was fairly crowded with business men, but there was one figure that by its personality immediately arrested Mr. Pinwell's attention. He was a very big man in a new shiny top-hat with a curl to it. He was leaning heavily against the center of the bar, and was surrounded by three or four other men who seemed to be hanging on his words. He had a large red face and small, dark, expressionless eyes. The skin seemed to be tight and moist, and to bind up his features in inelastic bags, except round the eyes, where it puckered up into dark yellowish layers of flesh. His hands were fat and stiff and blue like the hands of a gouty subject. His gray hair curled slightly under the brim of his hat, and his clothes were ponderously impressive from the silk reveres of his tail coat to the dark-brown spats that covered his square-toed boots. As they entered, this impressive individual looked in their direction and gave young Mr. Senner a faint nod, and then continued his conversation.

"That's Clappe," whispered Mr. Pinwell's cicerone, and dusted the knees of his trousers. He then added:

"We'd better wait a bit."

They stood there in the corner of the bar, and the young man produced a silver cigarette-case and offered its contents to Mr. Pinwell, an overt act of kindness which that gentleman appreciated but did not take advantage of. They waited there twenty minutes before an opportunity presented itself of making any approach to the great man. But in the meantime Mr. Pinwell watched the conversation with considerable interest. The four men stood very close together, smoking, and speaking in thick whispers. He was alarmed at moments by the way in which one would hold a glass of whisky-and-water at a perilous angle over the waistcoat of another, while fumbling with a cigarette in the unoccupied hand. He could not hear the conversation, but occasional sentences reached him: "It's the cheapest line there is." "Here! I tell you where you can get—" "D'you know what they paid last year!" "I 'ad 'im by the short 'airs that time." " 'E says to me—"

It occurred to Mr. Pinwell that there was something distressing about this scene, something repelling and distasteful, but he consoled himself with the reflection that after all business had to be conducted somehow. Money had to be made to pay for the streets and the lamp-posts, and the public baths and the battleships. "Business is not always pleasant," he reflected, "but it has to be done."

At the end of twenty minutes two of the men went away and left Mr. Clappe talking apathetically to the remaining man.

"Now's our chance," said Senner junior, and he walked across the bar. He seized on a lull in the conversation to step forward and touch Mr. Clappe on the arm.

"Er— excuse me, Mr. Clappe," he said. "This is my friend Mr. Pinwell, of Dollbones."

The big man glanced from Senner junior to Mr. Pinwell and gave that gentleman an almost imperceptible nod. He then sighed, breathed heavily, and took a long drink from the glass in front of him.

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Clappe," said Pinwell nervously. "I 've heard about you. I'm with Dollbones, you know, the Dollbones. We have— er— several very good lines just now."

The great Clappe fixed him with his lugubrious eyes and suddenly said in a thick voice:

"What'll you drink?"

It is curious that Mr. Pinwell with all his experience should have been taken back by this hospitable request. He stammered and said:

"Oh! thank you very much, sir. I don't think I'll— at least, I'll have— er— a lime-juice and soda."

And then Mr. Clappe behaved in a very extraordinary way. An expression of utter dejection came over his face. He puffed his cheeks out and suddenly muttered, "Oh, my God!"

And then he rolled round and deliberately turned his back on Mr. Pinwell and his friend! It was a very trying moment. Mr. Pinwell was at his wit's end how to act, and Senner junior did not help him in any way. On the contrary he seemed to be taking Mr. Clappe's side. He gave a sort of snigger of disgust, and called across the bar in a jaunty voice:

"Johnny Walker and soda, please, Miss Parritt."

Mr. Pinwell gaped ineffectually at the back of the great man, and hesitated whether to make any further advance. But he was relieved of the necessity of coming to a decision by the act of Mr. Clappe himself, who slowly drained the remnants of refreshment in his glass, and then walked heavily out of the bar, without looking round.

In the meantime young Senner had acquired his drink, and was feverishly tapping the end of a cigarette on the rail. He took a long drink and spluttered slightly, and then, turning on Mr. Pinwell, he said:

"What particular brand of blankety fool are you?"

"I beg your pardon?" exclaimed Mr. Pinwell, amazed.

"I tell you," said the young man, "you 're a particular type of blankety fool. You 've missed the chance of yer life! Don't you know when a man like Clappe asks yer to have a drink yer a blankety fool not to? D' you know that man places thousands and thousands of pounds a year for Carron & Musswell? Thousands, I tell yer! It don't matter to 'im where he places the orders. He puts it all out among 'is pals. You 'ad a chance of being a pal, and you've muffed it!"

"But— but— but—" spluttered Mr. Pinwell. "I really— I— had no idea. I said I would have a drink. It was only that I ordered a— er— non-alcoholic drink. I really can't—"

"Psaugh!"

Young Mr. Senner swirled the whisky round in his glass and drank it at a gulp. Then he muttered:

"Gawd! Asking Clappe for a limejuice and soda!"

Mr. Pinwell thought about this meditatively. He wondered whether he had been in the wrong. After all, people all had their notions of the way to conduct business. Business was a very big thing. It had "evolved"— that was the word!— evolved out of all sorts of complicated social conditions, supply and demand, and so on. A man perhaps who had been in the habit of taking alcoholic refreshment and expecting others to— it might perhaps be difficult for him to understand.

"Don't you never drink?" suddenly exclaimed Mr. Senner.

"I— er— occasionally have a glass of stout," murmured Mr. Pinwell. "Last Christmas my wife's sister brought us a bottle of canary sac. I have no particular taste for— er— things of this sort—"

"Anyway," said Mr. Senner, "you're not under any bally pledge?"

"Oh, dear me, no!" exclaimed Mr. Pinwell.

"Well, then," answered his youthful adviser. "I should advise you next time Clappe or any one like him asks you to have a drink, lap it up like a poodle and stand him a quick one in return."

Mr. Pinwell surveyed his friend over the rim of his glasses, and thought for some minutes. Then he said:

"I'm afraid Mr. Clappe is not likely to ask me to have a drink again."

But the young man of precocious experience answered:

"If you come in here to-morrer, I'll bet yer he'll have forgotten who you are."

It was all a very astounding experience, and that night in bed Mr. Pinwell gave the matter long and serious consideration. If his circumstances had been normal he would have hardly thought about it for five consecutive minutes, but his circumstances were anything but normal. They were somewhat desperate. He was on his last month's trial. If he should be out again!...Both the children wanted new clothes, and Eileen's boots were all to pieces. And then there was that bill of Batson's for three pounds seventeen shillings, for which payment was demanded by the seventeenth; there were other bills less urgent perhaps but— the little man kept turning restlessly in bed and even in his sleep he made febrile calculations.

It must be acknowledged that the result of Mr. Pinwell's nocturnal meditations tended to loosen certain moral tendencies in himself. He set out on the morrow in a peculiarly equivocal frame of mind, wavering between conflicting impulses, but already predisposed to temporize with his conscience if by so doing he could advance what he considered to be the larger issues of business considerations. These first concessions, curiously enough, were not made at the instance of the great Mr. Clappe, however, but at that of a certain Mr. Cherish whom he met during that day. He was a breezy, amiable person, and the manager of the International Hardwood Company. He was just going out to lunch as Mr. Pinwell called, and being in a particularly buoyant mood, owing to a successful business deal, he took hold of our hero's arm and drew him into the street. As they walked along he asked what it was that Pinwell wanted, and that gentleman immediately expatiated on the virtues of the goods he had at his disposal. While talking he found himself almost unconsciously led into the bar of a public-house called "The Queen of Roumania." And when asked by Mr. Cherish, "What he was going to have," a sudden desperate instinct of adventure came over him, and he called for whisky. When it was brought he drank it in little sips, and thought it the most detestable drink he had ever tasted. But he determined to see the matter through, and salved his conscience with the reflection that it was just "in the way of business." He certainly had to acknowledge that after drinking it he felt a certain elevated sense of assurance. He talked to Mr. Cherish quite unselfconsciously and listened to him with concentrated attention. This mental attitude was quickened by the discovery that Mr. Cherish was actually in need of certain embroideries that Dollbones were in a position to supply. It would be quite a big order. He promised to bring samples of the embroideries on the following day, and took his departure. During the afternoon he felt a sudden reaction from the whisky and was very tired. He went home early, complaining to his wife of "a bad headache, as though something had disagreed with him." Nevertheless the prospect of securing the order for the embroideries excited him considerably, and he went so far as to tell her that he hoped things were soon going to take a turn for the better. He arrived at his appointment the next day to the minute, carrying a very heavy valise stuffed with machine embroideries. He was kept waiting by Mr. Cherish for nearly an hour, and was then ushered into his presence. Mr. Cherish was still in a very jovial mood and had another gentleman with him. He shook Mr. Pinw ell's hand and immediately told him three obscene stories that he had just heard— Mr. Cherish was reputed to have the largest repertoire of obscene stories in the trade— and the other gentleman also told two. Pinwell laughed at them to the best of his ability, although they did not appear to him to be particularly humorous. He then felt peculiarly uncomfortable in that for the life of him he could not think of a story in reply. He never could remember these stories. So he opened his valise and displayed the tapestries. The other two gentlemen took a desultory interest in them as tapestries, but a rapacious interest in them as regards value. They were figured tapestries and the price was four pounds seventeen and sixpence a yard. Mr. Cherish mentioned casually that they would want about seventy yards. And then Mr. Pinwell made the rapidest mental calculation he had ever made in his life. Seventy yards at £4. 17s. 6d. would be £341. 5s. which, at two per cent, would mean just on seven pounds for himself! It was dazzling! Seven gold sovereigns! However, the order was not yet given. The two gentlemen talked about it at some length, and looked up other quotations. At last Mr. Cherish said:

"Well, I think we'll go and see what the 'Queen of Roumania' has got up her sleeve."

Mr. Pinwell and the other gentleman laughed, and they all went out. Mr. Pinwell dreaded the prospect of drinking more whisky, but— seven golden sovereigns! enough to pay that bill of Batson's and to buy the children all the clothes they wanted! He knew in any case the etiquette of the trade, and when they arrived in the resplendent bar it was he who insisted on ordering "three Scotch whiskies and a split soda." On the arrival of these regenerating beverages the other two gentlemen resumed their sequence of improper stories. And it was just after the glasses had been re-charged at the instance of Mr. Cherish that he suddenly recollected a story he had heard nearly twenty years ago. It was a disgusting story, and it had impressed itself on his memory for the reason that it struck him when he heard it as being so incredibly vulgar that he could not understand how any one could appreciate it. But as he neared the end of his second glass of whisky it suddenly flashed into his mind that here was the story that Mr. Cherish and his friend would like. He had by this time arrived at an enviable state of unselfconsciousness, and he told the story as well as he had ever told anything in his life. The result amazed him. The other two gentlemen roared with laughter, and Mr. Cherish tilted his hat back and slapped his leg.

"Gawd's truth! that's a damn good story, Pinwell!" he cried out several times.

Other people came into the bar, and Mr. Pinwell found himself something of a hero. Every one seemed to know Mr. Cherish, and he introduced him, and on several occasions said, "I say, Pinwell, tell Mr. Watson that story about the sea captain."

The story was an unqualified success, and seemed in some way to endear him to Mr. Cherish. That gentleman became more confidential and confiding, and they talked about business.

Mr. Pinwell believed he drank four whiskies-and-sodas that afternoon. In any case, he arrived home feeling very bilious and ill. He told his wife he had felt faint, and had taken some brandy—"Thank heaven," he thought, "she doesn't know the difference in smell between brandy and whisky!" He said he would go to bed at once, he thought, and he kissed her in rather a maudlin fashion, and said he knew she would be glad to hear that he had that afternoon taken an order for £341— that would mean nearly seven pounds to them! Enough to buy clothes for the children and pay Batson's bill; he laughed a little hysterically after that, and rolled into bed.

On the following day he was very unwell and unable to get up, and Mrs. Pinwell wrote to the firm and explained that her husband had got his feet wet on his rounds and had contracted a chill. She also inclosed his order-book.

It was three days before he was well enough to resume his rounds, and then he avoided the company of Mr. Cherish and set out on a pilgrimage to the meaner parts of the district. But the orders there seemed few and far between, and a feeling of depression came over him.

On the 21st of the month he was bidden to the presence of Mr. Rodney. That gentleman said that the firm was still dissatisfied with his efforts, but on the strength of the order he had secured from the International Hardwood Co. they were willing to keep him on for another month's trial. But unless at the end of that time he had secured further orders of a similar nature, he must consider his engagement at an end.

It would be tedious and extremely disconcerting to follow the precise movements of Thomas Pinwell during the ensuing four Weeks. It need only be said that, utterly discouraged by his lonely peregrinations in the paths of honest effort, he eventually once more sought the society of young Mr. Senner and Mr. Cherish. In their company he discovered what might be called "a cheering fluidity." He found that whisky made him so ill that he simply could not drink it, but he drank ale, stout, brandy, and gin. None of these things agreed with him, but he found that by drinking as little as possible and ringing the changes on them he could just manage to keep going. The direct result of this moral defection was that his circle of business acquaintances increased at an enormous rate. He gradually got to know the right place and the right hour to catch the right people. His efforts on behalf of Messrs. Dollbones during the following three months were eminently satisfactory, and his own commissions amounted to no mean sum. Neither was his conscience seriously affected by this change of habit. He considered it an inevitable development of his own active progress "in the way of business." The very word "business" had a peculiarly mesmerizing effect upon him. It was a fetish.

He looked upon it as an acolyte might look upon the dogma of some faith he blindly believed in. He believed that people were in some mysterious way pale adjuncts to the idea that, whatever happens, "Business" must go on. He would stand in the corner of the bar of "The Queen of Roumania" and look across the street at the Camling Town public wash-houses, a mid-Victorian Gothic building in stucco and red brick, and then, turning his mild, watery eyes toward Senner junior, he would say:

"It's a wonderful thing— business, you know, Mr. Senner; a very wonderful thing indeed. Now look at the wash-houses! They simply have been the result of business. No progress is made, nothing is done except through business. If it weren't for business we should all be barbarians."

And then he would take a little sip at the gin and water in front of him. After copious trials he found that gin affected him less than any of the other drinks, so he stuck to that. He did not like it, but he found that people simply would not do business with him in Camling Town unless he drank and stood drinks. It was very trying, and the most trying part was the necessity of concealing these aberrations from his wife. When he first started he was conscious that he often returned home smelling of the disgusting stuff. He tried cloves, but they were not very effective. Then one day he had a brilliant inspiration. He was unwell again. It happened very often now— at least once a week— and the doctor gave him some medicine. Then it occurred to him that the medicine might smell like anything else. He would keep up the medicine. His wife was very unsuspecting. He hated deceiving her. He had never deceived her about anything, but he thought, "Women don't understand business. It is for her benefit that I take it."

Sunday was a great joy to him. He would take the children out for a walk in the morning while his wife cooked the dinner. In the afternoon he would have a nap; but the greatest luxury of the day seemed to him that he need drink nothing except water.

At the end of six months there came a proud day when Mr. Rodney informed him that Mr. Hylam was quite satisfied with his progress, and his ordinary salary was raised to two pounds. It was summertime, and the accumulation of his commissions justified the family moving into larger rooms, one of which was to be a bathroom. But Mr. Pinwell was beginning to feel his health very much affected, and he looked forward with intense avidity to the two weeks' holiday which was his due in September. In July he achieved a great triumph. He met and got into the good graces of the great Mr. Clappe. As Senner junior predicted, that gentleman had quite forgotten their previous meeting, and it happened in the company of the good Mr. Cherish. They all met in the bar of "The Cormorant," and after several drinks Cherish said:

"I say, Pinwell, tell Mr. Clappe that story about the sea captain!"

Mr. Pinwell complied, and when he had finished he saw the shiny bags of flesh on Mr. Clappe's face shaking. He was evidently very much amused, although his eyes looked hard and tired. He said hoarsely:

"Damn good! What's yours?"

Mr. Pinwell did not fail on this occasion, and asked for some gin. And directly he noticed that the great man's glass was nearly empty, he insisted on ordering some more all round. He found Mr. Clappe an expensive client. He drank prodigiously, in a splendid nonchalant manner, hardly noticing it, or taking any interest in who paid for it. It took Mr. Pinwell several weeks, and cost him the price of several whole bottles of whisky, before he became sufficiently established in favor to solicit orders. But once having arrived there, the rest was easy, for Mr. Clappe had the reputation of being "loyal to his pals," and he had the power of placing very large orders.

There came a day when Mr. Pinwell received an order for over eight hundred pounds' worth of goods, and for the first time in his life he got very drunk. He arrived home in a cab very late at night and was just conscious enough to tell his wife that he had been taken ill, and some one had given him some brandy, and it had gone to his head. She helped him to bed, and seemed rather surprised and alarmed.

On the following day he was very ill, and a doctor was sent for. He examined him carefully, and looked stern. Out in the hall he said to Mrs. Pinwell:

"Excuse me, Mrs. Pinwell, but does your husband drink rather a lot?"

"Drink!" exclaimed the lady. "My Tom!... Why, he's practically a teetotaler."

The doctor looked at her thoughtfully and murmured, "Oh!" Then, as he turned to go, he said:

"Well, we'll pull him through this, I hope, but he must be very careful. You must advise him never to touch alcohol in any form. It's poison to him," and he left Mrs. Pinwell speechless with indignation.

Mr. Pinwell's illness proved more obstinate than was anticipated, and it was some weeks before he was well enough to get about. When he arrived at that stage the firm of Dollbones were considerate enough to suggest that he might take his holiday earlier than had been arranged, and go away at once.

Consequently, on a certain fine morning in August, Mr. and Mrs. Pinwell, with the two children, set out for a fortnight's holiday to Herne Bay. The firm paid his salary while he was away, and in addition he had now nearly thirty-five pounds in the bank, and all his debts were paid. It was many years since the family had been in such an affluent position, and everything pointed to the prospect of a joyous and beneficial time. And so indeed, to a large extent, it was. Mr. Pinwell felt very shaky when he arrived, and he spent most of his time sitting in a deck chair on the sands, watching the children, while his wife sat on the sands by his side, sewing. The fresh breezes from the Channel made him very sleepy at first, but he gradually got used to them. It was extremely pleasant sitting there listening to the waves breaking on the shore and watching the white sails of yachts gliding hither and thither; very pleasant and very refreshing. It was only after some days that when he was left alone a certain moroseness came over him. He could not explain this to himself; it seemed so unreasonable. But he felt a curious and restless desire and an irritability. These moods became more pronounced as the week advanced, in spite of the fact that his strength returned to him. He had moods when he wished to be alone and the children tired him.

On the fifth day, he and his wife were strolling up from the beach late in the afternoon, and they were nearing their lodgings when he suddenly said:

"I think I'll just stroll round and get a paper."

"Oh! Shall I come with you?" his wife asked.

"No, no, my dear. Don't. Er— I'll just stroll round by myself—"

He seemed so anxious to go by himself that she did not insist, and he sauntered round the corner. He looked back to see that she had gone in, and then he walked rather more quickly round into the High Street. He hummed to himself and glanced rather furtively at the contents of the newspaper bills, then, after looking up and down the street, he suddenly darted into the saloon bar of the principal hotel...

After his second glass of gin-and-water a feeling of comfortable security crept over him. After all, it Was a very ingratiating atmosphere this, ingratiating and sociable. He glanced round the bar and carried on a brief but formal conversation with a florid individual standing near him. He hesitated for a moment whether he would tell him the story about the sea captain, but on second thoughts decided to reserve it to a more intimate occasion. Besides, he must not be away long.

After that it became a habit with Mr. Pinwell for the rest of the holiday for him at some time during the day, and occasionally twice or three times during the day, to "go for a stroll round by himself." His wife never for one moment suspected the purpose of these wanderings, though she was informed that he was taking another bottle of the medicine.

When they returned to town Mr. Pinwell certainly seemed better and more eager about his work. It may be that he had the measure of his constitution more under control. He knew what was the least damaging drink he could take, and he knew how much he dare consume without immediately disastrous results. He gradually became a well-known habitué of all the best-known saloon bars in the neighborhood of his rounds. His character altered. He always remained mild and unassertive, but his face became pinched and thin, and he began to enjoy the reputation of being a "knowing one." He did not make a fortune in his solicitations for orders for gimp, trimmings, buttons, and embroidery, but he certainly earned a very fair competence. In two years' time he was entirely intimate with every buyer of importance in the Camling Town district and out as far as the "Teck Arms" at Highgate. The family still occupied the larger rooms (with the bathroom) that they had moved to, and both the girls attended the Camling Town Collegiate School for Girls, and showed every promise of being worthy and attractive members of society.

It was not till the end of the second year that two events following rapidly on each other's heels tended to disturb the normal conditions of the Pinwell family. A letter arrived one day from a lawyer. It appeared that a brother of Mr. Pinwell's whom he had not seen for twelve years, and who had owned a farm in Northamptonshire, had died intestate. He was not married, and Tom Pinwiell was his only living relative. Under the circumstances he inherited the whole of his brother's property. When this had been assessed it was proved to he worth £140 per year. Needless to say this news brought great joy to the traveler's family. Visions of great splendor opened out before them, wealth, comfort, security. The day after the settlement was made, Tom Pinwell entertained Mr. Cherish, Mr. Clappe, and a few others of his friends to a supper at "The Queen of Roumania," and the next day he was taken Very ill. He lay in a critical state for ten days, nursed with a sort of feline intensity by his wife. The doctor then said that he might recover— he was a different doctor to the one who had so exasperated Mrs. Pinwell with his outrageous suggestions— but that he would be an invalid all his life. He would have to live on special food and must not touch either sweets or alcohol in any form.

On a certain evening Mr. Pinwell showed traces of convalescence and was allowed to sit up in bed. His wife as usual sat by his bedside, knitting. He seemed more cheerful than he had ever been before, and Mrs. Pinwell took the opportunity of saying:

"What a blessing it is, dear, about this money!"

"Yes, dear," answered her spouse.

"Do you know, Tom," she said suddenly, "there is a thing I've wanted to do all my life. And now perhaps is the opportunity."

"What is that, my dear?"

"To go and live in the country."

"Yes, dear."

"Think of it! When you 're better, we can go and get a little cottage somewhere, with a bit of a garden, you know— grow our own vegetables and that. You can live fine in some parts of the country for £140 a year. You'll be able to give up this nasty tiring old business. It'll be lovely."

"Yes, my dear."

Mr. Pinwell's voice sounded rather faint, and she busied herself with his beef-tea. Nothing more was said about the idea that night. But gradually, as he got stronger, Mrs. Pinwell enlarged on the idea. She talked about the flowers they could grow, and the economy of having your own fowls and potatoes. It would have to be right in the country, but not too far from a village or town, so that the girls could continue their schooling and meet other girls. To all of this Mr. Pinwell agreed faintly, and he even made a suggestion that he thought Surrey was nicer than Buckinghamshire.

Mr. Pinwell was confined to his bedroom for nearly two months. And then one day a letter came from Messrs. Dollbones. It was to say that in view of the short time that Mr. Pinwell had been in their service they could not see their way to continue paying his salary after the end of the month, unless he were well enough to continue his work.

Mrs. Pinwell said:

"No, and they needn't continue to pay it at all, for all we care!"

A troubled look came over her husband's face, and he said:

"Um— they've treated me very well, Emma, very well indeed. There's many firms don't pay their employees at all when they're ill."

"Well, then, they jolly well ought to," answered Mrs. Pinwell. "People get ill through doing the firm's work."

Mr. Pinwell sniffed. It was the one subject upon which he and his wife were inclined to differ. Mrs. Pinwell did not understand business; she had no reverence for it.

By the end of the month Mr. Pinwell was up again and going for short walks up and down the street. One day he said:

"Let me see, my dear— next Thursday is the first of the new month, isn't it!"

"Yes," answered Mrs. Pinwell. "And thank goodness you haven't got to go back to that horrid old business!"

Mr. Pinwell said nothing at the time, but a few hours later he said:

"Er— I've been thinking, my dear. I rather think I ought perhaps to— er— to try and see if I could go for a little while on Thursday. You see, the firm have treated me very generously, very generously indeed— and— er— business is business."

"What does it matter?" answered his wife. "I'm sure they've got some one else doing your job by now. Besides, you 're not strong enough."

Mr. Pinwell fidgeted with his watch-chain and walked up the street. During the next two days Mrs. Pinwell could tell that he was fretting. He seemed distracted and inclined to be irritable. He gave demonstrations of his walking powers and stayed out longer and moved more quickly. He got into such a state on the Wednesday evening, that in a weak moment Mrs. Pinwell made the mistake of her life.

She agreed that he might try and go the next day just for an hour or so, but he was to come home directly he felt tired.

Tom started out on the Thursday morning, and he seemed in a great state of elation. In spite of his weakness he insisted on taking one of his bags of samples. He walked more quickly down the street than she had seen him walk for a long time. Mrs. Pinwell then turned to her household duties. She was disappointed, but not entirely surprised, that her husband did not come home to lunch, but at half-past three a sudden curious feeling of alarm came over her. She tried to reason with herself that it was all nonsense; nothing had happened, Tom was a little late— that was all. But her reason quailed before some more insidious sense of calamity. The children came home from school at a quarter-past four, and still he had not returned. She gave them their tea and somehow their gay chatter irritated her for the first time. She would not convey to them her sense of fear. She washed up the tea-things and busied herself in the house.

It was a quarter to six when Tom came home. He staggered into the hall. His eyes had a strange look she had not seen before. He was trembling violently. She did not ask any questions. She took his arm and led him into the bedroom and untied his collar and tie. He lay on the bed and his teeth chattered. She got him a hot-water bottle and gradually undressed him. Then she sent one of the girls for the doctor.

In the meantime he started talking incoherently, although he repeated on one or two occasions, "I've taken another bottle of the medicine, Emm'."

The doctor was on duty in the surgery when the child called, and he did not come round till half-past eight.

When he looked a t Pinwell and took his pulse, he said:

"What's he been doing?"

"He's been out," said Mrs. Pinwell. "He said he'd taken another bottle of the medicine."

"Medicine? what medicine?" The doctor seemed to examine the lips of the sick man very closely, then he shook his head. He turned to Mrs. Pinwell as though he were going to make a statement, then he changed his mind. It did not require any great astuteness to determine from the doctor's face that the case was critical. He gave the patient a powder, and after a few instructions to Mrs. Pinwell he went, and said he would return later in the evening. After the doctor had gone, Mr. Pinwell was delirious for an hour, and then he sank into a deep sleep. The doctor returned just after eleven. He examined him and said that nothing more could be done that night. He would return in the morning. In the meantime, if things took a more definite turn, they could send for him.

Tom Pinwell lay unconscious for nearly twenty-four hours, sometimes mumbling feverishly, at other times falling into a deep coma. But suddenly, late on the following evening, he seemed to alter. His face cleared, and he sighed peacefully. Mrs. Pinwell noticed the change and she went up close to the bed. He looked at her and said suddenly:

"I don't think it would do, my dear, to go and live in the country."

"No, no, dear; all right. We'll live where you like."

"You see," he said after a pause, "business has to be gone through...There was Judkins & Co., they treated me very fair, then they went bankrupt. It was very unfortunate, very unfortunate indeed...I wouldn't like these people— what's their name, Emma? ..."

"Dollbones."

"Ah, yes, Dollbones!...Dollbones. No, I wouldn't like them to think I'd let them in like. Just because I had a little money...It's a very serious thing— business..."

Mr. Pinwell seemed about to say something, but he smiled instead and looked up at the ceiling. He became very still after that, and Mrs. Pinwell placed a book so that the candle-light should not shine on his face. All through the night she sat there watching and doing the little things the doctor had told her to. But he was very still. Once he sighed, and on another occasion she thought he said:

"That was very amusin' about that invoice of Barrel and Beelswright, Mr. Cherish...oh, dear me!"

About dawn, thoroughly exhausted with her vigil, Mrs. Pinwell fell into a fitful sleep, sitting up in her chair. She only slept for a few minutes, and then awakened with a start. The short end of candle was spluttering in its socket, and its light was contending with the cold blue glimmer of the early day. She shivered, her frame racked by physical fatigue, and her mind benumbed by the incredible stillness of the little room.

"Consequently, ladies and gentlemen, after placing £17,500 in the reserve fund, for the reasons which I have indicated to you, I feel justified in recommending a dividend of 12½ per cent, on the ordinary shares."

The big man with the square chin dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief and took a sip of water as he resumed his seat. A faint murmur of approval and applause ran round the room; papers rustled, and people spoke in low, breathless voices. Twelve and a half per cent.! It was a good dividend, a very good dividend! A hundred different brains visualized rapidly what it meant to them personally. To some it meant a few extra luxuries, to others comforts, and to some a distinct social advance. If Dollbones could only keep this up!

Sir Arthur Schelling was seconding the adoption of this report, but it was a mere formality. No one took any interest in the white-haired financier, except to nudge each other and say, "That's Schelling. They say he's worth half a million." It was a curiously placid meeting, there was no criticism, and every one seemed on the best of terms. It broke up, and the shareholders dispersed into little knots, or scattered to spread the good news that Dollbones were paying twelve and a half per cent.

Sir Arthur took the chairman's hand and murmured:

"I must congratulate you, Hylam. An excellent report!"

The large man almost blushed with pleasure, and said:

"It's very kind of you, Sir Arthur. Are you lunching in town?"

"I was going to suggest that you lunch with me at the Carlton. I have my car here."

"Oh! thank you very much. I shall be delighted."

Mr. Hylam turned and gave a few instructions to his lawyer and his private secretary, and handed various papers to each; then he followed his host out of the Cannon Street Hotel.

They got into the great car, and each man lighted a well-merited cigar. As they drove through the city, Sir Arthur discussed a few details of the balance-sheet, and then added:

"I really think you have shown a remarkable genius of organization in conducting this business, Hylam. It is a business which I should imagine requires considerable technical knowledge and great— er— tact."

Mr. Hylam laughed deprecatingly and muttered:

"Oh, we have our little difficulties!" He puffed at his cigar and looked out of the window.

"So many— er— varieties of employees, I should imagine?" said Sir Arthur.

"Yes, you 're right, sir. There are varieties. I've had a lot of difficulty with the travelers this year." He gave a vicious puff at his cigar and stamped on the ash on the floor, and suddenly exclaimed:

"Drunken swine!"

Sir Arthur readjusted his gold-rimmed pince-nez and looked at his friend.

"Is that so indeed?"

"Yes," answered Mr. Hylam. "I don't know how it is. They nearly all drink. In one district alone, I've had two travelers practically drink themselves to death, one after the other."

"I'm very distressed to hear that," said Sir Arthur; "very distressed. It's a very great social evil. My wife, as you may know, is on a board of directorship of the Blue Riband Evangelists. They do a lot of good work. They have a branch in Camling Town. They have pleasant evenings, you know— cocoa and bagatelle, and so on; and lectures on Sunday. But, I don't know, it doesn't seem to eradicate the evil."

"No; I'm afraid it's in the blood with many of them," said the managing director.

"Yes, that's very true. I often tell my wife I'm afraid she wastes her time. It seems inexplicable. I can't see why they should do it. What satisfaction can it be to— er— drink to excess? And then it must hamper them so in the prosecution of their work. It seems in a way so— ungrateful, to the people who employ them, I mean. Ah! here we are at the Carlton! Champneys, come back for me at— er— three-thirty. Yes, it's a great social evil, a very great social evil indeed!"

_________________

16: The Ghost of Barmouth Manor

F. Frankfort Moore

1855-1931

In: The Other World, 1904

"I WOULDN'T make a fuss about it if I were you," said Charlie Craven, pursuing that search from pocket to pocket which men, having no particular reputation for tidiness to maintain, are accustomed to institute when they have filled a pipe and are anxious to light it.

"A fuss about it?" cried his sister Madge. "A fuss— good gracious! What is there to make a fuss about in all that I have told you? A dream— I ask you candidly if you think that I am the sort of girl to make a fuss over a dream?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Charlie. He had succeeded in finding in one of his pockets a match-box— an empty match-box.

"Well, you should know," said Madge severely.

"There now, you are; making a fuss over something a deal flimsier than your dream," laughed her brother. "I wonder if that palace of your dream was no better supplied than this house with matches: if it wasn't, I shouldn't care to live in it for any length of time."

"It's so like a man to keep on bothering himself and every one about him for a match, while all the time a fire is roaring on the hearth behind him, and his pockets are full of bills— the usual Christmas bills, the least of which would light all the pipes he smokes in a day, and that's saying a good deal."

"How clever you are! I never thought of the fire. Well, as I was remarking, I wouldn't bother telling my dreams to any one if I were you. Dreams— well, dreams are all rot, you know."

"I'm not quite so sure of that as you seem to be, O wisest of brothers. The wisest of people in the world— next to you, of course— have thought that there was something in dreams, haven't they?"

"They were wrong. My aunt! the rot that I have dreamt from time to time!"

"Oh, that settles the question."

"It does, so far as I am concerned. Look here, Madge; don't come to me again with the story of your dreams, hoping to find a sympathetic ear. Dreams, I say, are all— Of course, you saw that particular house and that particular staircase in some picture, and they stuck somewhere at the back of your brain. It's a rummy thing the brain, you know— a jolly rum thing!"

"It is. I am becoming more impressed every minute with the truth of that discovery of yours."

"Oh, if you are becoming sarcastic, I have nothing more to say. But please to remember that sarcasm is no argument. I tell you, my dear girl, you have seen a picture of that house at some period of your life— I don't say recently, mind you— and my theory is that the brain is like a sensitized plate: it records an impression once and for all, and stores it away, and you never know exactly when it means to bring it out again before your eyes. Oh, believe me, it plays a lot of tricks upon even the most commonplace people."

"Among whom I suppose I must count myself? Well, I daresay you are right."

"I know that I am right. Dreams! Did you ever hear the story of the old woman who won a big prize in a lottery, the ticket being No. 26? Had she chosen that number on chance or in accordance with some system? she was asked, and she replied that she had dreamt it all out. Dreamt it all out? What did she mean by that? they inquired. 'Well, a week ago I dreamt that I won the prize, and that the ticket I took was No. 9,' said she. 'The next night I dreamt exactly the same, and the ticket was No. 9. The third night the same thing happened, so, of course, I chose No. 26.' 'No. 26? Why not No. 9 as you dreamt it?' the people asked. 'Oh, you fools!' said she; 'didn't I tell you that I dreamt it three times? the number was 9, and doesn't every one know that three times 9 are 26?' Now that's the stuff that dreams are made of, as Shakespeare remarks, so don't you bother about this particular vision of yours; and if you take my advice you'll say nothing to Uncle Philip or the lot of them about it. They would only laugh at you."

"Why on earth should I go about proclaiming my dream to all our relations?" cried the girl. "Dear Charlie, I'm not suffering just yet from softening of the brain. Besides, I can recall many instances of disaster following people who bored others with the story of their dreams. There was the notable case of Joseph and his brethren, and later in history there was the case of the Duke of Clarence. You remember how swiftly retribution followed his story of his dream? Now, of course, my dream was only a little insignificant thing compared to Joseph's and Clarence's, still something might happen if I bored people with it— something proportionate— the plum-pudding might come to the table in a state of squash, or the custards might be smoked. Oh no, I'll be forewarned, and talk only of facts. I suppose a dream cannot, by even the most indulgent of people, be called a fact."

"I'm off to the stables," said her brother, after a little pause.

Then he went off to the stables. He was an excellent fellow and the best of brothers, although he was more at home in the stables than when engaged in a discussion on a subject involving some exercise of the imagination. There is not much room in a stable for a play of the imagination, especially where the corn accounts are kept on a system.

When he had left the breakfast-room on this bright Christmas morning his sister paused for a few moments in her morning duty of collecting a breakfast for the birds which were loitering about the Italian balustrade in front of the window, reminding her, in their own way, that they expected an exceptionally liberal repast on this Christmas morning: she paused and began to think once more upon this strange dream of hers, which she had been rehearsing to her brother.

After all, it was not so strange a dream, she reflected. The only queer thing about it was that it had come to her on every Christmas Eve for five consecutive years— since she was seventeen— and that its details did not differ in the least from one year to another. Perhaps it was also different from the majority of dreams in its vividness, and in the fact that, on awaking from it, she felt as exhausted as if she had just returned from a long journey. Even now it required almost an effort on her part to walk round the old oak table sweeping the crumbs on to a plate to throw to the birds; and when she had discharged this duty she seated herself with a sigh of relief in one of the arm-chairs that stood by the side of the great wood fire.

She closed her eyes and once again recalled her dream. She had no difficulty in doing so. She had fancied herself in the act of driving up to a fine old house, standing in the middle of a well-timbered park of oak and chestnut. The lawn extended across the full front of the mansion, and in the centre she noticed a beautiful old fountain, composed of a great marble basin with a splendid group of figures in the centre— Neptune with his dolphins and a Naiad or two. She passed into the house through a great hall hung with trophies of war and of the chase. In front of her was the enormous head of a moose, and at one side there was a great grey skull of some animal such as she had never seen before,— a fearful thing with huge tusks— quite the monster of a dream.

Then she seemed to go from room to room, as if she had been a member of the family living in the place, but— and this she felt to be a true dream-touch— the moment she entered a room every one who was there fled from her; but apparently this did not cause her any surprise, any more than did the strange costume of the figures who fled at her approach— costumes of the sixteenth century, mingled with those of the seventeenth and eighteenth. Thinking of the figures hurrying from every room suggested to her the family portraits of three centuries in motion. After visiting several fine rooms she found herself walking up a broad oaken staircase of shallow steps, until she came to a large lobby, where the staircase divided to right and left. There she found a curious settee of some dark wood, the long centre panel of which was carved with many figures. She saw all this by the aid of the moonlight which flowed in through the panes of coloured glass in a high window, painted with many coats of arms.

She remembered having rested in this seat for some time, feeling very lonely, and then some one had come to her, sitting by her side and taking her hand, saying—

"I have been waiting for you all these years. I am so glad that you are here at last."

She remembered that the sound of the voice and the touch of the hand had banished her loneliness, and made her feel happier than she had ever felt in all her life before. Even now she felt supremely happy, recalling this incident of her dream, though she recollected that she had not yet seen the face of the man who had come to her to banish her loneliness. She wished that her dream had been less whimsical in this one particular. She felt that she could have spared some of the other details that came before her so vividly— the skull of that strange animal that hung in the hall, for instance— if in their place she had been allowed to see what manner of man it was who had sat with her.

Still, the recollection of him gave her pleasure even when the dream had first come to her and he had come in the dream, and this pleasure had been increasing year by year, until she knew that she had actually gone asleep on the previous night, full of joy in the hope of hearing the sound of that voice and feeling the touch of that hand as she had done in the past.

And that was the end of her dream, unless the feeling of happiness— happiness mingled with a certain sadness— of which she was conscious while she recalled its details should be accounted part of the dream. Her pleasure was the same as one experiences in recalling the incidents of a visit to a dear friend; her sadness was the same as one experiences on thinking that a long time must elapse before one can see that friend again.

Madge actually found herself reflecting that a year must pass before she could once more find herself wandering through the strange mansion of her dream— find herself once more seated on that carved seat in the lobby beneath the painted window.

She kept on thinking, and wondering as she thought, over the strange features of this experience of hers. She knew that she was what people would call a commonplace, practical girl— a girl without fads or fancies of any sort. Since her mother's death, three years before, she had managed all the household affairs of Craven Court for her brother, who had inherited the property before she had left the schoolroom. Every one was bound to acknowledge that her management of the household had been admirable, though only her brother knew exactly how admirable it was.

"There are no frills about Madge; she is the best woman of business in the county, and we have none of the bothers of other people with our servants," he had frequently said.

And yet here was this embodiment of all that is practical in life, dreaming upon a dream upon this bright and frosty Christmas morning, and actually feeling sad at the thought that a whole year must elapse before the same vision should return to her.

The chiming of the church bells startled her out of her reverie.

"Pshaw!" she cried, jumping up from her chair; "I am quite as great a goose as Charlie believes me to be— quite! or I should not have told him that that dream had come to me again. I should have had the sense to know that he would have the sense to know that dreams are, one and all, the utterest folly!"

She knew that she was trying to convince herself that there was nothing more in this particular dream than in the many casual dreams that came to her as well as to other people; but before she had reached the door of the dining-room she knew that she had failed in her attempt. The curious fatigue of which she was conscious, quickly told her that this oft-recurring vision was not as others were.

She went to church with her brother, and in the afternoon their uncle, Colonel Craven, and his wife duly arrived at the Court to spend their annual week at the family mansion, and Madge took her brother's advice and refrained from saying a word to either of them on the subject of her dream. Indeed, she had so much to think of and so much to do during the week, she had no time to give to anything so immaterial as a dream, however interesting it might be to herself.

On the last morning of the stay of Colonel and Mrs Craven at Craven Court, the former received a letter which he tossed across the breakfast-table to Charlie.

"Funny, isn't it?" he said. "We were talking about wild-duck-shooting no later than last night, and here's a letter from Jack Tremaine telling me that he is taking over his cousin's place for six months and promising me some good sport if I go to him for a week in January. You will see that he suggests that you should be of the party: he asks if you are here. See what he says about the ducks."

"Who is his cousin?" inquired Charlie, "and where is his place?"

"His cousin is a chap named Clifford, and his place is in Dorsetshire— on the coast— Barmouth Manor it is called, and I know that it's famous for its duck-shooting. Tremaine will no doubt write to you."

"Where has the cousin gone, that the place is available for Jack Tremaine?" asked Charlie.

"Turn over the page and you'll see what he says about the Cliffords," replied Colonel Craven.

Charlie found on the last leaf half a dozen lines on the point in question. Jack Tremaine said that Mrs Clifford was not satisfied as to the health of her son, and was going abroad with him during the first week in January.

"I should like to have a go at the ducks," said Charlie Craven, handing back the letter. "I suppose there is a duck-punt or two at the place?"

"You may be sure of that," said his uncle. "Young Clifford is a good sportsman, I believe, but I have never met him. I'll write to Tremaine to-day telling him that you are at home. I'm sure he means to invite you."

All doubt on this point was removed by the arrival two days later of an invitation from Mr Tremaine to Charlie Craven for a fortnight's duck-shooting at Barmouth Manor, and he enclosed a letter from his wife to Madge expressing the hope that she would be able to accompany her brother.

Madge was delighted at the prospect of the visit, for she and Mrs Tremaine were close friends.

The frost which had set in a few days before Christmas had not gone when she and her brother were due at Barmouth Manor, so that there was a likelihood of her having some skating on the lake. Mrs Tremaine had, in her invitation, laid some stress upon the possibility of a week's skating on the lake which, she said, was within the Manor Park.

A carriage met them at Barmouth Station, for the Manor was quite five miles from the picturesque little town; and it was late in the afternoon before they passed through the spacious entrance gates to the Manor Park. There was, however, quite enough light to enable Madge to see every detail of the place, and it was observing some of the details that caused her to make a rather startling exclamation of surprise.

"Hallo!" said her brother, "what has startled you?"

There was a little pause before she had recovered herself sufficiently to be able to make an excuse that would sound plausible. She pointed to a group of deer looking over the barrier of their enclosure.

"One of the stags," she said; "it seemed for a moment as if it were about to jump the rail."

"What matter if it did? They are as tame as cats at this time of the year," said Charlie.

"Of course, I should have remembered," she said. "I wonder in what direction is the pond. Does the sunset look promising?"

"There may be no thaw before the end of the month," said he.

That was the end of their conversation, and she flattered herself that he had no notion how excited she was as the carriage reached that part of the drive which was beside the lawn, and the red level rays of the sun streaming through the naked trees stained the marble basin of an Italian fountain, the central group of which was in every detail the same as the figures in the fountain of her dream. In another minute the front of the house was disclosed, and she saw that it was the house of her dream. She would have been greatly disappointed had it been otherwise.

She entered the great hall, and could scarcely reply to the cordial greeting of her aunt and Mrs Tremaine, for she found herself stared at by the sleepy eyes that looked out from the head of a moose just as they had stared at her in her sleep. She turned to the wall on her right. Yes, there was the curious skull with the mighty tusks.

"Oh yes, we had a delightful journey," she managed to say in reply to Mrs Tremaine's inquiry. "Thank you; I should like a cup of tea immensely. Do you have it in the hall or in the tapestry room beyond?"

"What; you have been here before? I had no idea of that," said Mrs Tremaine.

For more than a moment Madge was confused.

Luckily for her, however, the lamps had not been lighted in the hall, and the sudden flush that came over her face was unobserved by her friends.

She gave a laugh.

"What a good shot I made!" she cried. "Isn't this just the sort of house to have an old-panelled dining-room and a tapestry chamber beside it? I think we should have tea here. What sort of prehistoric creature is that on the wall?"

"I believe it is a skull that was found when they were digging the foundations of one of the lodges," said Mrs Tremaine.

"I seem to have read some description of this very place," said Charlie, standing in front of the great skull.

Madge wondered if he would remember enough of her account of the house of her dreams to enable him to recognise the details before him.

"It is fully described in Hall's History, and in every guide-book of the district. The animal that that skull belonged to lived some thousands of years before the Flood, I understand."

"What is the exact date b.c. carved on it?" laughed Charlie. "Yes, I daresay I came upon a paragraph or an illustration of the place. No house is safe from the depredations of the magazines nowadays."

Tea was served in the hall to give Madge's maid time to unpack; and then the girl was shown to her room. She ran up the broad, shallow staircase to the lobby; she had made up her mind to sit, if only for a moment, on the carved settee; but a surprise awaited her,— no carved settee was there. The painted window was there, but no settee was beneath it.

She was so surprised that she stood for some moments gazing at the vacant place.

"That lobby looks quite bare without the settee, Miss Craven," said the housekeeper, who was beside her. "It's a fine bit of carving— all ebony."

"Was there a settee here?" asked Madge innocently.

"It was only taken away to-day to be in a better light for Mrs Tremaine to photograph it," said the housekeeper. "Mrs Tremaine has done most of the rare pieces in the house. This is your room, Miss Craven. It's called the Dauphin's chamber, for it was here he slept fifty years ago when he was in Dorsetshire."

Madge entered the room, remarking that it was beautifully furnished and that it seemed extremely comfortable. When the door was closed she threw herself into a chair and had a good think.

What could it all mean? she asked herself. Why should this house become so associated with her life? Was she going to die here? Was something going to happen to her? Was she to meet here the man who had upon five different occasions come to her side, telling her that he had been waiting for her?

For ten days she remained in the house, looking forward day by day to some occurrence that would cause her to realise what her dream meant; but she returned with her brother to Craven Court in disappointment. Nothing particular happened all the time, and she came to the conclusion that her dream was as meaningless as her brother had said it was.

Madge Craven and her brother were staying with the Tremaines at their own place during the pheasant shooting the following October, and one morning their hostess mentioned that her husband's cousin, Mrs Clifford, had returned to England from South America and was expected to join their party that day.

She arrived before the shooters had come back from their day's sport, and she and Mrs Tremaine had a long chat in front of the fire before tea. Mrs Clifford was a handsome old lady of the grande dame type; and being a close observer and an admirable describer of all that she observed, she was able to entertain Mrs Tremaine with an account of the adventures of her son and herself in South America.

"I hope Rawdon's health is more satisfactory now than it was," said Mrs Tremaine when her guest had declared that there was no more to be told.

"I can only hope for the best," said Mrs Clifford, becoming grave. "Rawdon is gone across the mountains to Chili, and will not be at home until the middle of January."

"He must be pretty robust to be able to undertake such a journey," said Mrs Tremaine.

"He is not wanting in strength," said Mrs Clifford. "Only— poor boy!"

" 'Poor boy!'  Why 'poor boy'?" asked the other.

There was a pause before the elder lady said—

"It is rather difficult to explain. By the way, did any of your party at the Manor House see the ghost?"

"Heavens! I did not know that your family was blessed with a ghost," laughed Mrs Tremaine. "No, I can assure you, we were not so lucky. What sort of a ghost is it? A ghastly figure with rattling chains? Have you seen it?"

"Yes, I have seen it," said Mrs Clifford in a low voice.

"How interesting! Do tell me what it is like!" cried the other.

"Like? What is it like?" Mrs Clifford rose slowly from her chair, and walked to another chair. She only remained seated for a moment, however: with a sigh she began pacing the room slowly.

"I fear I have touched upon a forbidden topic," said Mrs Tremaine. "I had no idea that you were serious."

"Serious— serious," said Mrs Clifford. She was still pacing the room, and had just reached the window when she spoke. The next moment she had uttered a cry. Mrs Tremaine saw that she was staring out of the window, her hands grasping the back of a chair.

She was by her side in a moment.

"Pray, what is the matter?" she said.

"You are weak— overcome by— Let me ring for brandy."

Mrs Clifford clutched her suddenly by the arm.

"Who is that— that— on the terrace?" she said in a fearful whisper.

"Who? Why, that is our cousin, Madge Craven," replied Mrs Tremaine.

Madge was standing on the terrace bareheaded, tossing grain to the peacocks.

"She was with you when you were at the Manor House," said Mrs Clifford. "She was there, and yet you did not see the 'ghost'?"

"What on earth do you mean?" said Mrs Tremaine.

"I mean this: that girl out there is the ghost that appears at the Manor House every Christmas Eve, and it is because my poor boy, as well as I myself, saw it, that his mind has become unhinged."

"Heavens! You mean to say—"

"The poor boy has fallen in love with a shadow— a phantom! It comes every Christmas Eve and walks from room to room. It comes up the stairs— I tell you that I have seen it— and sits on the old carved settee, and then suddenly vanishes into the air whence it came.... And that ghost is as surely that girl as I am I."

"This is terrible— quite uncanny! Are you quite sure?"

"Sure— sure!"

"It is awful to think upon. But— but— listen to me— I have an idea. If Madge is the ghost, why not ask her down again to your place, and give Rawdon a thing of flesh and blood to transfer his affections to?"

"What do you say?"

"Madge is the best girl in the world. Every eligible man in her county, and quite as many ineligible, have wanted to marry her. You will find out how nice she is."

Mrs Clifford sank into the chair.

"Oh that it were possible!" she whispered. "He is everything to me, my dearest boy, and until this fancy— Oh, if it were only possible!"

And at this point Madge entered the room, and was duly presented to Mrs Clifford.

IF Madge was at first under the impression that the manner of Mrs Clifford in regard to her was somewhat formal and constrained, before a week had passed she had good reason to change her opinion on this point. The fact was that Mrs Clifford had formed an attachment for her which she could sincerely return; and that was why the girl was delighted to accept her invitation to spend Christmas in Dorsetshire. It suited her brother's arrangements for her to do so, for he was anxious to join a big-game expedition which was starting for India early in December.

Mrs Clifford said she was delighted to be able to have Madge all to herself for at least a fortnight.

"My son cannot possibly be home until the middle of January," said she, "and then we shall probably have a large party at the Manor. But meantime you and I shall be together."

"I do not think that we shall quarrel," said Madge.

"Alas! alas!" said Mrs Clifford to Mrs Tremaine, after one of the many whispered colloquies which they had together during the week. "Alas! Rawdon cannot be home for Christmas. It was I who took the greatest pains to arrange matters to prevent his spending another Christmas Eve at home until he should have completely recovered from the effects of his strange attachment, and yet now I would give worlds to be able to have him with us on Christmas Eve."

"Could you not send a cable?" suggested Mrs Tremaine.

"I might send a dozen without being able to find him. Besides, it would be impossible for me to tell him what has occurred."

"I suppose you could hardly cable him 'Come home at once. Ghost found,' " laughed Mrs Tremaine. "Never mind. He should be all the better pleased when the Ghost of Christmas Eve becomes a creature of flesh and blood by the middle of January."

IT was Christmas Eve at the Manor House. Madge's maid had just left her for the night, but the girl showed no inclination to go to bed. She remained sitting by her fire thinking how strange it was that she should be on this Christmas Eve in the flesh at the house which she had visited in her dreams. And while she sat thinking over this, she found herself overcome by that strange longing which she had had just a year ago, to be again by the side of the man who had come to her side in her dream.

She clasped her hands, saying in a whisper— "Come to me. Come to me again and tell me that you have been waiting for me."

She began to undress with feverish haste, when suddenly her hands dropped by her sides, for the terrible thought occurred to her—

"What if my dream will not come to me this year because I happen to be in the midst of the real scene where it took place?"

The thought that it might be as capricious as other dreams oppressed her. She now felt sorry that she had agreed to visit the place. She should have remained at Craven Court, where her dream had always been faithful to her.

A sudden idea occurred to her: she would leave her room and sit in reality on the carved settee under the painted window, and then, going to bed immediately after, she might sink unconsciously into the kind embrace of her dream.

She opened her door very gently and went along the silent corridor until she reached the head of the staircase, and saw the moonlight streaming through the coloured glass to the lobby beneath. She stole down, and in another instant she was in the seat, the moonlight streaming over her and throwing the coloured pattern of the glass upon her white dress. She closed her eyes, feeling that perhaps she might fall asleep and find herself in the midst of her dream.

Suddenly she opened her eyes. She fancied that she heard the sound of a footstep in the hall below. Yes, there could be no doubt about it. Some one was in the hall— some one was coming up the stairs. She sprang to her feet, and was about to rush up to her room, when she heard a voice— the voice that she had heard so often in that dream of hers, saying—

"Ah, do not go now. You cannot go now that I have come to you— now that I have been waiting for you for five years."

She could not move from where she was standing. She saw a tall man with a bronzed face coming up the stairs. She somehow had never seen his face in her dream, but she recognised it from the photograph which his mother had shown her: she knew that the man was Rawdon Clifford.

He stood before her on the lobby.

"They thought to separate us," he said. "They thought that my love for you was a form of madness. But I tell you, as I told them, I would rather stand by your side for a few minutes once a year than be for ever by the side of another— a more real creature. That is why I have come over land and sea to be here in time for your visit this Christmas Eve. I promised my mother to stay away; but I could not— I could not keep my promise, and I came to England a fortnight sooner than I expected, and entered the house only this moment— like a burglar. But I am rewarded."

"I do not understand. I am Mrs Clifford's guest. Madge Craven is my name," said Madge.

The man sprang back and raised his hands in surprise.

"Great heavens! She is flesh and blood— at last— at last!" he cried.

He put out his hand slowly— doubtfully. Madge put out hers to it. A cry of delight came from him as he felt her warm hand, and he made it still warmer by his kisses. She could not stop him. She made no attempt to do so.

"Tell me that I was not mad— that I am not mad now," he said in a loving whisper.

"Oh no— only— is it not strange?— For five years I have this dream— this very dream— and yet I never was in this house until last January," said Madge.

"You have been with me every Christmas Eve for five years, and you will remain here for ever," said he. "Do not tell me that we have not met before— do not tell me that you have not loved me as I have loved you all these years. What did that dream of yours mean?"

"I think I know now— now," whispered the girl.

MRS TREMAINE considers herself the only survivor of the people who professed to exorcise the ghosts in whom our grandfathers were foolish enough to believe.

________________

17: Blanchard's Passenger

Morley Roberts

1857-1942

The Popular Magazine, 15 Apr 1912

Morley Charles Roberts

KID CLARKE sat on the fence at Beuhlasberg and watched the two remaining aeroplanes making ready for the flight to Nelson. Beatson's machine had been scrapped at Henderson Creek. Simcox was a wreck at Biglow's Siding. Only Chinnery on his old hay wagon of a biplane, and Lieutenant Blanchard on his Hawk No. 2, a monoplane with a Gnome engine, had got as far as Beulahsberg.

"I've half a mind to speak to the lieutenant," said the Kid, who knew nearly everybody in sight. "I'd like to do a fly, and I ain't seen him since he took to the game."

Both of them came from Raynesborough, and he and Blanchard, fifteen years before, had robbed orchards together, though the Kid was the offspring of a wandering railroad man and Blanchard the son of a judge.

"And both of us sot on Raynesborough gals," said the Kid, almost mournfully to his neighbor on the fence.

"Aye, he's some intimate with Senator Curtiss' daughter, ain't he?" asked his partner in the easy job of being out of work and not caring much whether he found it.

"Yep," nodded the Kid; "an' he's a sight more likely to get her than I am to rope in Mary Dexter, the way I'm shapin'."

"You're sure shapin' bad," said his friend candidly. "The manner you get fired time arter time is surprisin'. It's that gay tongue of yours does it, Kid. Work makes me sulky, and I get my walkin' ticket for that, and.you for bein' too fresh. But I've no opinion of this flyin' game. It's a fool's game. I don't hanker none to fall outer the sky, and I don't aim none to be shoveled up lookin' like ras'b'ry pie. Hello! Whats that?"

"Gosh!" said the Kid, jumping from the fence.

Being as quick as any chipmunk, he was one of the first to pick up Edward Winter, Blanchard's mechanic, who had come to sudden and surprising grief, He ought to have known better— for he had been monkeying with planes all summer— than to step backward into the sphere of influence of Chinnery's propeller, then buzzing like a big Hoe in a Western sawmill. A blade caught him a chip on the left deltoid and cut him to the bone, and they picked him up all blood, dust, and blasphemy, and took him to the hospital.

And there was Blanchard stuck without his passenger to complete the last stage to Nelson, one hundred and twenty miles east by south from Beulahsburg. Even Chinnery, when he found that by some miracle his propeller was not damaged, could hardly help smiling to think that this disposed of his only competitor. They were due to start in a few minutes, and according to Chinnery, who knew the boys, they were not likely toxcrowd Blanchard in their eagerness to take Winter's place.

"It takes a bull to make one run here," said Chinnery, "and it's long odds they won't fly. Bet you ten dollars to a quarter you don't rope one in, Blanchard."

The lieutenant took the bet, and asked one of the crowd to volunteer. His suggestion of a fifty-dollar fee was received in solemn silence, and he rose to a hundred for the hero who would board the Hawk and go to Nelson. Even at that rate, there were no takers, and one half-drunk hayseed who began to consider the question was led away indignantly by two shrill-voiced women, who denounced Blanchard as a murderer. Then the fence adorners owned they did not care for the job.

"We ain't zackly in it," they murmured, in reply to Blanchard's enticements, and then Kid Clarke touched him on the arm. The lieutenant turned and faced some one of whom it was not easy to say whether he was a man or a boy. But the Kid looked hard and earnest; and, in spite of his wild and rackety disposition, he had a good mouth and jaw, which the aviator noticed at once.

"I'll go," said the Kid.

"What are you?" asked Blanchard.

"Been railroadin' all my life," said Kid Clarke, as if he was sixty. "Now I'm an operator lookin' for a job."

"And you think you can stand this, eh?" asked the lieutenant.

"I reckon," said the Kid simply.

"Don't you go, Kid," urged one of the crowd.

"Cayn't be worse than brakin' on the M. T. & W.," said the Kid; and such of them as knew the roadbed of that celebrated bad railroad might have agreed with him.

"Haven't I seen you before?" asked Blanchard.

"Sure pop, lieutenant," said the Kid blandly. "I'm Kid Clarke, of Raynesborough."

And Blanchard laughed and held out his hand.

"Shake, Kid," he said genially. "I felt sure I'd seen you. Well, we shan't steal apples together any more, but if you like to come—"

"Oh, I'm comin'," said the Kid. "Last time I seen you was over to Senator Curtiss'; but I didn't like to speak, Miss Curtiss bein' with you."

By the twinkle in Clarke's eye, Blanchard saw that he knew how things stood between him and Adelaide Curtiss. And he remembered that Adelaide had told him something about Mary Dexter and Kid Clarke.

"Why, she always liked you, Clarke," said the lieutenant.

"Yep," replied Clarke, rather dryly, "but she didn't encourage me around lately on account of Mary Dexter. Old Dexter's down on me, you know."

"Because Mary liked you?"

"That's so," said the Kid. " 'Twas Dexter got me fired from the dispatcher's office at Raynesborough. And Miss Curtiss, bein' awful set on my workin' steady, was kind of discouraged."

"And you are working steadily?" asked Blanchard. :

"I reckon to begin soon," Clarke. "TIl have to. Mary said so."

"If you come with me, you'll most likely see her to-day," said the lieutenant. "She and Miss Curtiss are coming to Nelson on the ten-forty."

"Gosh, you don't say so!" said Clarke. "Oh, I'm on, you bet, sir!"

"Let it go at that, then," said Blanchard. "And you're not scared to tackle this?"

"With you?" asked Clarke carelessly. "Oh, no, not with you, sir! Mary told me what Miss Curtiss thinks of you. That's all hunky."

But Blanchard laid his hand on his shoulder.

"Its a lot different from anything else, Clarke."

"I always was one for experience," said the Kid, "that's why Dexter said I was no account. You tell me what to do, and I'll do it."

"You'll sit tight and do nothing," said Blanchard, walking toward his machine, that looked like a big dragon fly with a greasy tail. And, as the Kid followed him, he was the recipient of encouragement, advice, and last good-bys from the earth-loving inhabitants of Beulahsberg.

Till that day he had never seen an aeroplane, but he had something of the engineer's eye, and he recognized instinctively that the Hawk was adequate to her task. Engineers on the Q. & N. said he ought to be one; and as a boy he had often made a trip with them on a locomotive, feeling mighty set up when they had let him monkey with things under their eyes. He was generally loved all over the road, though he held the record for the number of times he had been fired and taken on again. He knew the Q. & N. from end to end; though, for the matter of that, it was a very short road, and only had two divisions. However, both division superintendents had fired him a score of times, and the chief dispatcher had bounced him' and taken him on pretty nearly as often. He had been a call boy in the dispatcher's offices at Quinton and Raynesborough, a brakeman and a fireman, and had worked in the roundhouse at Nelson.

As he said, he was a railroad man from A to Z, and ought to be manager if he could only run steady. He had a heavenly and ingratiating smile, and a natural gift for discovering the soft places in the hearts of men; but that gift was counterbalanced by another, that of getting every one mad in the shortest order by doing other people's work and neglecting his own.

The last thing he did was to fall in love with Mary Dexter, the daughter of the chief dispatcher at Raynesborough; and, although Dexter couldn't exactly fire him because Mary responded to the Kid's advances, he did fire him when Clarke coolly robbed the division superintendent's garden to send his sweetheart flowers.

He was at the moment operator to the second-trick dispatcher, and begged hard to be allowed to stay, offering to work in Mr. Taylor's garden to make up for what he had taken. Indeed, among his many gifts, he was a pretty fair gardener. But Dexter didn't want him.

"Find another road, young feller, and run steady, or you'll be in the pen before you know it," said the chief dispatcher; and, after one tearful interview with Mary, the Kid got as far as Beulahsberg. And now he was going to Nelson with Lieutenant Blanchard. "Seem's if I cayn't get away from the old road," said the Kid, with a happy smile. He took every disaster smiling, and, if it led to anything new, he was perfectly happy. And, after all, there was nothing quite so new in the world as flying. He looked at the Hawk almost joyfully; and though he knew no more of it than Choctaw, when the devilish and surprising little Gnome engine started he was ready to believe he could fly to New York.

"Holy Mackinaw!" said Kid Clarke. Railroaders are a wandering race, and oaths bred in the woods of Michigan are to be found as linguistic erratics whereever a track runs. "She's a daisy, lieutenant!"

And Blanchard showed him where he was to Sit.

"All you have to do is to lay hold, sit tight, and not get scared," said the aviator. "Sure you won't, Clarke?"

Clarke shook his head.

"No, I ain't sure; but I won't squeal even if I am," he replied. Under his tan, he was, perhaps, a little pale, but Blanchard was a soldier, and knew men.

"You're set on going?" asked Blanchard.

"Why, Mary couldn't stop me now," said Clarke. And some of the women on the other side of the fence said it was a shame. They even desired some of Beulahsberg's prime loafers to. take the Kid's place, urging them on with cheerful and compelling arguments such as that no one would miss them. But suddenly the roar of Chinnery's motor drowned their cackle, and in another minute his biplane bumped along the grass, raised her tail, lowered it again, and seemed to float.

"Dern my hide!" said Clarke, "it looks as easy as falling off a log!"

At Blanchard's nod he climbed into his place, and the aviator gave him some goggles, saying that he would want them preset Then Blanchard followed im.

"All right, Clarke?" he asked.

"Sure pop, lieutenant," said the Kid, and he muttered to himself: "Ain't I an old railroader? The darned old thing shan't scare me worth a cent."

Then the men behind let go, the Hawk leaped forward on the grass, and as the Kid said "Hello!" she rose lightly.

"Gosh!" said Clarke when the earth moved beneath him. The sight of it sliding away made him catch his breath. But the higher the Hawk rose, the less its speed seemed to be. Yet, the little, running men beneath them with uplifted white faces disappeared rapidly, though he heard their shouts. With their cries there came up to him the "hoot-hoothoot!" of half a dozen locomotives in the yard. And suddenly he wished he was by the side of one of the engineers down below. He became curiously angry with Blanchard, and was much surprised to find that he felt so.

"Oh, thunder, fetchin' me up here! What did I come for? What'll poor Mary say when I land somewhere lookin' like pie?"

His mind worked, oddly. He saw himself in the old" railroad boardin house eating pie.

"Oh, let her rip! Mebbe I'll chew no more pie," he said sadly. And then the cheerful and fantastic devil of a Gnome motor, after the wasteful and extravagant manner of her kind, spat a nice little bubble of lubricating-oil in his teeth.

"Ugh," said Clarke, "that's her way, is it? I like pie better."

The blast of air from the propeller and the hot fumes of the Gnome's exhaust came full in his face. It seemed strange to him, as his mind cleared, that he could not see the propeller. It was not even a vagtie mist, like an electric fan. And yet the blurred, racing Gnome seemed wonderfully alive, and communicated its energy strangely to every spar and stay of the machine. It was intense, vibrant, urgent, much more a creature of breathing energy than any locomotive.

"I'm every sort and size of derned fool, I am," said the Kid. "If I ever get there safe, I don't reckon to hanker after being a bird any more."

Nevertheless, though he said so, he began to feel the adequacy of the Hawk. Curiously enough, the higher they went the safer he felt, for the whole earth seemed something less and less relevant. He could not judge the height; but everything below him was curiously little and very flat. Roads were like little footpaths; a dust-raising car on one of them looked like a child's toy. It appeared that some one far below them was flying a big box kite. And suddenly he recognized that what he thought a kite was Chinnery's biplane, which they were fast overtaking.

"Crazy old hay wagon," said the Kid. Then he added: "Looks safer than this, though."

And again he loathed Blanchard, and wished he had never been born. His mind swung between a sense of safety and panic, of hatred and admiration of the figure in front of him.

"Chilled-steel galoot!" said Clarke. "He'll kill me, sure pop."

And yet he loved Blanchard. He would have followed him into battle or into any of the common dangers of life without a quiver. Blanchard was made, it seemed, of bronze and whipcord. There was that in him which men will die for. Blanchard's blue eyes and courageous voice would have drawn them on to any high encounter. They knew, and Clarke knew, that he had a fine record in Cuba and the Philippines, and now he sprang to the front in another order of combat, and rose high.

"Too blamed high, I'm thinkin'!" said the Kid, almost weeping, and yet with a grin. "Where's the old earth?"

He knew now that the wind from the northeast was very strong. It drifted them to leeward away from the double railroad track which pointed straight to Nelson. The Hawk kept pointing up into the wind, but sagged away toward Raynesborough, lying beyond green hills which looked like rounded grass hummocks. Clarke wiped away a tear. He knew that it was the rush of air that brought it to his cheek; but he was ashamed, all the same. But he wanted to speak to Blanchard. The aviator's back irritated him in some extraordinary way. He bent forward, holding on with a powerful grip. By now he had lost the feeling that any motion of his would destroy the balance of the machine and send it headlongdike a wounded bird.

"Say, boss," said Clarke.

His high-pitched voice came like a whisper to Blanchard.

"Well?"

Blanchard's voice comforted Clarke a little.

"Ain't we sorta high?" asked Clarke.

And Blanchard laughed. His laugh angered the Kid, and then comforted him.

"Huh! He's got a life of his own, I guess," said the Kid. "Spose he knows his business."

Now he saw Raynesborough far ahead, and to the right. Mary Dexter was there, thinking of starting for Nelson. If she only knew where he was! He began to feel mighty proud.

"Wish I was with her, though," he said between his teeth. "Gimme railroadin' every time! A black, howlin' night, a humpy track, an hour behind time, and a gale blowin', ain't a circumstance to this game. I'd sooner be a hobo and batter castles for a handout!"

But he knew he wouldn't. It was a mighty fine game, and as easy as going to sleep. An odd feeling of sleepiness came over him, and he shook himself clear of it with difficulty.

Chinnery's biplane was far behind them. The world below was like a map in color. It was misty green, dark and light. The dark patches were forests; the light ones pasture. Then there were wheat paddocks shining. The wind rippled them; they shone like silk. A long belt of tasseling corn bowed and stood up again. The farmhouse looked like a toy.

"White's farm, I reckon," said the Kid. "Never thought I'd fly over it. Old man Curtiss owns it." Blanchard recognized it, too, or thought he did. He saw now that owing to the wind they would come right over Raynesborough.

"Wonder if they'll see us," thought Blanchard. He looked at the watch on his wrist, and saw that it was past ten o'clock. "Adelaide wants me on the earth. This is a great game, though. The poor Kid don't like it a bit. If his girl is at Nelson when we land, she'll have something to say to me."

Both the girls would be at Nelson sure enough; for, though one was the senator's daughter and the other only the child of a dispatcher on the Q. & N. road, they had been nursed by the same mother, and were like sisters. Adelaide's father was in California then and her brother in Europe. It was an odd chance that Blanchard should have picked up the Kid.

"Mary will give me a curtain lecture," prophesied Blanchard. "But we're all right."

He had uncommon faith in the Hawk. He had tried and tested every spar and wire in her. In France he had seen Gnome engines made. He knew the song of the Gnome; its song of easy work or its complaint of wearing parts, as every engineer must. It went splendidly, and so his heart went. And if Death was beneath them always, to ride over Death was great. The touch of the great wind was a tonic. It braced him, till he vibrated like a wire and sang. The Kid heard him whistle.

"Good old Blanchard," said Clarke. "Wonder if Mary would let me do this sort of thing."

That was the way his mind worked now. Fear went out of him as they topped the hill and ravines which lay between them and Raynesborough. The Kid looked down on them and shook his head solemnly.

"Climbed 'em, I did, when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and reckoned them next to Heaven's throne," he said. "That's old Blady, king of the outfit, and I'm here, here!"

The round-topped, bareheaded hill showed beneath them like a metal boss to a huge green shield. And now, on the right, he saw the single-line track from Quinton to Raynesborough, and  on to Nelson, where the road joined the M. T. & W. The smoke and smoláer of Raynesborough showed in a green space. Glass glittered in the southing sun and jeweled the smoky haze of the town. He looked away to the railroad track, and remembered every cut and culvert, every curve and tangent of it from Quinton to Nelson,

"And more'n once I actu'ly quit the dear old road because Mary said brakin' was too risky a game," said Clarke. He laughed, and wanted to tell Blanchard about it.

"And the lieutenant lifts his finger, and says, 'Come, Kid,' and here I am outragin' the circumambient air and atmosphere! By the great horn spoon and the tail of the sacred bull, I'm a wonderful jackass!"

He felt— what he had never felt before in any risk— that life was a wonder and a miracle, a sparkling dewdrop gemming a swinging bough. He had no words for his thought; but life's strange rapidity and eyanescence came to him, and made him thrill. He trembled, yet rejoiced, over the abyss, and a sense of power grew in him. He found very odd words for what he felt.

"Wouldn't have missed it for a nail keg of dollars," said the Kid. But he was a poet, all the same, for one big instant, as most men are when their hour comes.

Now, swiftly coming toward them in the green and molded flat of the world below, Raynesborough glowed and glittered. It held the eyes like a big star among clouds, a dusky rose among cypresses. ‚It was an opal, ruddy and miraculous, secret, deep, as any city is, seen from a height. Kid Clarke loved it. His heart opened to it. He saw great beauty for the first time. And some never see it, and never offer thanks to the lucid air or the wrinkled sea, or the secret forests and the stars.

A tear ran down Clarke's cheek. He wiped it away, and said it came of the wind, the swiftness of the Hawk sliding in the miracle path of air. But he knew better as the green and gold and silver earth moved beneath them.

Then he looked at his watch. They were but an hour from Beulahsberg, and Raynesborough opened out to his eyes like a big gem under a glass. One hour!

Why, it was a lifetime, for time is but the register of man's fullness; the table where he writes his passionate life. The sun and stars stay, it seems, and move no more in death's vast moment of eternity.

The town crept and crawled toward them; it and the world slid and ran. Beneath them woods grew and died; ravines opened and shut like great crevasses; rivers were scrolls of silver. That was Homing Creek; that the St. John River. They dried up and passed away as the definition of the town came out like the picture on a plate in the developer. From far off it shone like a jewel with sparks of fire and flame in it and dull macule of smoke; but now it became a strange incrustation of the earth.

The Kid had no speculative mind. He held on to what he called reality in the evanescent world, and a town to him was bricks and mortar, stone and steel, Yet the sight below him hurt him; things seemed so little. For a moment they were mean. Yet he himself was prodigious. A gust of triumph came to him; it was as if a floodgate opened; as if a jam in a river broke at last. He saw all things with amazing clearness.

He knew every street in the town and every house.  There was the boarding house where he had lived. Mary Dexter's home was yonder, Could she live in that brown speck with little plants of trees about? The trees were moss, the house a toy one. That was the courthouse! Men judged other men there; flies were judging flies. Death was there, and liberty and the loss of liberty.

"Death's very little,' said Kid Clarke as he looked down on the railroad depot and its shining pattern of interlacing rails. Now he could see, as he had never seen before, its large and powerful complexity, beginning to outgrow the single line of rails. They would double-track it soon if Raynesborough grew and flourished. He thought of Dexter, Mary's father, and of Thompson, the chief dispatcher.

"I'd have liked to stay by the road and be one myself," said Clarke.

A dispatcher is a player, a player of a mighty game, and the penalty of failure is the death of others. There's no other game like it— it's a great solitaire, where the cards are trains, and where there is but a single track the test. is high, the strain tremendous. Kid Clarke knew it, for he had copied orders for Dexter, and seen the weight come on the man opposite him as difficulties grew in a tangle, as they will at times.

The Kid knew the line well; but knew how much better Dexter and the other dispatchers knew it. He knew where each train should be when things went easy, but if one dropped out through some accident or mere slackness in making steam, the aspect of the game changed, and one mistake might be wild confusion. The failure of a brain cell to make its due connection spelled disaster, for a man's brain is like a dispatcher's office. And in any game that's the highest possible error.

In the great railroad game of dispatching there's the lap order. That's the player's nightmare, for some day it may come to him, and in one moment of brain lapse he may send an order for death. At night he sometimes wakes sweating to think of it; wakes out of a dream in which two trains speed to meet each other on a single track, when they should have passed at some wayside station, one sidetracked to let the other by. The thought of it is a terror to the dispatcher's friends. But he will not often talk of it. They know he thinks.

"Better being here,' said the Kid. "And yet it's a great game." He looked down through the lucid air on the puzzle of the rails in the yard, an etched drawing spread out clearly. Smoke and steam rose; a toy came out of the round-house; he saw where he had worked with Dexter when he was learning the game.

Now they swept a little lower. The wind was not so powerful. But the sun was strong. He saw it shine upon the polished rails where they curved at the base of the hills and pointed straight for Nelson. The Kid felt a kind of condescending kindness for the old road. At one moment he felt superior to Dexter and the operators pounding a brass key for all they were worth. He felt very proud of himself, of Blanchard, of the strenuous Hawk, so keen, so adequate, and forgot that he himself was but a necessary deadhead, needed merely to fulfill a condition that the Hawk should carry a passenger. Then he remembered it, and shook his head.

"At this identical moment, I don't believe the lieutenant so much as knows I am," said Clarke. "That's a big, fourcornered fact. He's plumb forgot me. I'm nothin' to speak of."

He grunted to think of it. So a man's mind works. It comes up from its underworld in spirits; like a gushing, intermittent spring in a big river. He lost himself again, and looked down, taking in everything and consciously noting nothing. Dexter was down there; and Thompson buzzed about with the road on his shoulders, and here he was, high in the air. They were safe.

But suddenly he remembered that some one had said of Dexter: "If he ever makes a bad break, he'll not survive it." Some dispatchers didn't. Some went mad, and made an end of things before the horror they had caused cried up to Heaven. The Kid hoped old Dexter never would make that "bad break." After all, he was a good sort, and Mary's father.

No one saw them from below, but the Kid could see everything, Raynesborough now behind them and Barton five miles out. The rails ran to a vanishing point away beyond Neville's Siding. From Barton to Neville's Siding was fifteen miles.. There was a train, looking like a brown centipede, just coming up to Barton, where a slow freight. was tracked to let the passenger pass.

"Jerusalem, their train!" said the Kid, "Mary and Miss Curtiss will be in it."

He knew Blanchard wouldn't notice it; and the fact that he himself saw everything below and understood it gave him, for a moment, a feeling of compensation for all Blanchard did know. He bent forward and spoke loudly.

"That's the ten-forty out of Raynesborough, sir," he shouted. And Blanchard heard him. He nodded. But Adelaide Curtiss was not then in the forefront of his mind, It worked at a point, on an edge, as if spread out to cover the planes of the Hawk and went no farther. He had to attend to the matter in hand; its immediate urgency. So long as he was balanced, so long the machine kept its equilibrium. The sense of power in him was sweet; but he was no more than adequate to the big call on him. He almost resented the Kid recalling her to his mind.

"Oh, shut up!" said Blanchard, meaning that all things were irrelevant but the fine, immediate issue. That was what made him a flyer, one who would shine at the game. Adelaide would come back to her own when he touched earth and withdrew his very soul from the spars and wings of his machine.

"The boss is a wonder," said Kid Clarke. He sighed, and, clutching the stays, looked down again upon the track of the old road, and stared along the line as if he were hypnotized, like a hen made rigid by a chalk mark. He heard the train out of Raynesborough salute them. The engineer had looked up. Faint yet sharp cries came through the air; then the whistle screamed joyously. But the Kid shook his head, and looked down the track toward Neville's Siding.

The train below them wasn't quite on time. There should be the fast freight from Nelson sidetracked at Neville's.

This was the fast freight from Chicago through to Quinton, for the A. C. road had running powers over the Q. & N. He looked for the freight, and didn't see her. One part of his mind said she was late. He settled that she was at Neison still. Something had gone wrong. "Old Dexter would be cursing a little.

Yet in the Kid's mind trouble grew; a fine, thin thought he could not yet grasp. For thoughts lie in the soil, and crack and break it before they peep out, white or green or*red. He was aware of an acute sense of discomfort, of sudden worry before he knew why. And then he knew. Above the woods, far in front of him, there came a puff of steam.

Had Blanchard seen this his mind would have signaled nothing to him. His knowledge of railroads was little more than that of any citizen who uses them. But Clarke had been bred on them, and knew the place of everything and its nature. Blanchard heard him call out suddenly behind him.

It was a cry to Heaven— a scream.

Blanchard had seen panic, and had touched it near enough to comprehend its strange workings. He had had a passenger who screamed and cried to be set down again. His mechanic, left behind at Beulahsberg, had once turned white and become deathly sick. Other men had told him such tales. He knew how delicately the mind was balanced. And all the time the Kid spoke incompiehensively.

"A lap order, a lap order! Oh, Dexter's done it!" cried Clarke lamentably.

The words meant nothing to Blanchard, though he seemed to have heard them. What was a lap order? And what had Dexter done? And then Blanchard heard Clarke speak at his very ear. His voice was suddenly cold and clear and urgent.

"Listen! Listen!" said Clarke.

"I hear you," replied Blanchard.

"The fast freight has left Neville's Siding," said Clarke rapidly. "You understand, it should have stayed side-tracked there to let the passenger pass. Dexter's given a lap order. In ten minutes there will be a bad collision!"

It was a wrench for Blanchard to get his mind away from the machine he   drove. Not yet was his control automatic, unreasoned, and subconscious. But he grasped the urgency of all Clarke said; the meaning of a lap order was clear to him. Looking down, he saw the little train in which Adelaide sat, thinking of his risks and unconscious of her own. He glanced round, and saw Clarke's face, white where the goggles did not hide the skin, white and yellow and pasty. The young fellow looked awful; his mouth opened and shut. He said: "Quick! Quick! Get down to 'em! Get down to 'em!"

Two thousand feet below lay the scene of the drama, a map of hills'and woods and clearings with toy farms in them. Nelson, on the far horizon with its first great skyscraper, shone and shivered in refracting air currents. Its windows glittered and went out again, like working heliographs. Where the Hawk sailed the wind was solid, favorable, and easy. Down below there were air holes, sudden wind slides, crevasses, boiling squalls, irregular and fierce. That's the nature of the air; it's like diving into a maelstrom, the tormented waters of a rapid, the swirling whirlpools of a narrow cañon. And again below this it may be easy.

A thousand feet of danger lay below them, and Blanchard knew it. He gathered his mind together with what seemed amazing slowness. As he did so, he lived through long-passed hours, and saw Adelaide come into his life, smiling. It was yesterday! It was a thousand years ago! It was a dream, a vision!

"Oh, sir, sir!" screamed Clarke. He swung forward, and saw the horizon tilt up. For Blanchard shut off the engine, and the roar of the Gnome's exhaust ceased; the tail plane dipped, and the Hawk dived. The vast, caryen hollow of the earth seemed to swing. Nelson's tower stood on the edge of it, and the Kid cursed Blanchard suddenly with white lips.

He wanted to get hold of Blanchard, but couldn't release the hold of his hands. He hung on with a grip that hurt his flesh. For the imminent fear of death was on him. He remembered Mary no more. Then he heard Blanchard's voice in the hiss of the parted air.

"Hold fast!" said Blanchard, and Clarke shut his eyes. His brain swam. There was a feeling of sickness in him, a sense of dire emptiness. And then the Hawk seemed to strike a solid layer of wind. She groaned, the spars and stays twanged. He felt that Blanchard struggled hard; knew he had overcome. Opening his eyes, he saw the green earth again, rising to them like a lifting sea. He saw the freight ahead running down a steepish bit of grade he knew.

He had worked in a section there. Behind them was the passenger. He seemed to see the dispatcher's room, and Dexter there sitting at his table white as paper and shaking.

"He'll kill himself," said Kid Clarke.

Then the aéroplane fell into an air hole and struck a whirlwind. He shut his eyes again and lost the vision. The Hawk was pulled here and there; it tilted and was nearly lost. But Blanchard was a master, and knew the game.

"We're dead, we're dead," said Clarke.

His mind seemed to reach out and feel the hard earth beneath him. The time was a century ; it was a second. He went blind and sat in strange darkness, clutching hard at Time. He lost Mary in the drift of terror; she was but the dead dream of a lost life; she went like a leaf in a great wind. And even yet hope was in him, for Blanchard seemed strong. One little voice in him said "Never again!" meaning that if he got down safe he would stay there. And then Blanchard shouted to himself in triumph. He wrenched the plane level till the Kid heard the stays twang like harp strings and the strong wood complain. The machine, suddenly arrested in its downward flight, seemed to rise up and strike him. He sat hunched up, wondering, as the engine started again.

"Oh!" said Clarke. And not two hundred feet below him were the woods, the grade cutting through them; the polished, shining rails. Sickness went away from him; he seemed no longer empty. And at that level in the shelter of the hills the air was nearly still. They had come through the storm into shelter.

"In time, in time," shouted Clarke. And at that very moment he saw the freight train coming fast down the steepest part of the grade on the whole road. She, too, saw them, and the engineer greeted them with his whistle. The Kid saw the man's uplifted face and that of his left-side companion, with a full shovel in his grip. Then she passed beneath them, and the brakemen on the box cars shouted.

"Oh, sir!" said Clarke. And Blanchard, making a short, left-hand turn, sailed again over the freight. Those in it wondered, and were to wonder more.

"Look out, Clarke!" said Blanchard. "Hold on! I'm going to land ahead of her."

He played on the minds of those in the freight, and he knew it, _

"Now, what's doin'?" said the engineer to the fireman. "Here's that crazy air shoot comin' again. Good Lord, she'll be on the track!"

He pulled over the lever and whistled for brakes. And the brakemen ran and set them, so that the shoes ground hard and the wheels made sparks, as the train slid forward. And the Hawk rose a little, and then came down as lightly, it seemed, as a thistledown. But she tilted, and Clarke, jumping, missed his footing, and struck his head, and lay insensible as the freight stopped with less than ten yards between it and the Hawk, just as Blanchard got his feet upon the earth. When the engineer of the freight looked out, he saw Blanchard turn and look at him with a white face. Then the strangest thing happened, for, just as the engineer called to him, Blanchard turned and ran from him, ran hard along the track.

"He's gone plumb crazy!" pronounced the fireman. He leaped to the ground and went to Clarke, and knew him, for there was no one on the Q. & N. who did not. But the Kid lay quietly, with his scalp bleeding a little.

And still Blanchard ran along the straight tangent of the line. And as he came to where the next curve began, he heard the vibration of the passenger train on the rails; for that on a still day can be heard very far off. As he ran, he stripped off his coat, and at the curve he came on her, and she on him. He stopped and waved his coat, and shouted like a madman, and knew the trainmen saw him. Then he leaped aside, shouting madly as he heard the brake shoes grinding and saw sparks from-the rails. The whole world wavered for a moment, and he fell and rose again, walking after the train soberly. It pulled up within ten yards of the white-winged Hawk lying upon the rails like a wounded bird.

The passengers, alarmed by the sudden application of the brakes, looked out of the car windows. Many jumped hastily from the train. They saw the Hawk, and wondered, and then, seeing the freight train the other side of it, knew that some miracle had happened. Some ran to where the trainmen of the freight stood about Kid Clarke, and others looked where Blanchard came along the ties. Dan Fisher, the conductor of the passenger, ran to him and took him by the arm. Blanchard looked at him and took off his goggles.

"You saved a wreck, sir," said Dan.

"Is Miss Curtiss aboard?" asked Blanchard. "And is Clarke all right?"

Fisher hadn't seen the Kid, but he knew Miss Curtiss. He saw her, then, coming toward them. There were passengers and trainmen all about them, but Blanchard took her in his arms and kissed her.

"How did it happen?" she asked, and he told her rapidly what the Kid had seen. The others listened, and they cheered him. Some looked white and sick, and trembled. It had been a close call; the very closest. Dan Fisher could hardly speak. But he kept his head, and sent brakemen out to stop the wrecking outfit if it came too fast.

"I want to see Clarke," said Blanchard. Adelaide went with him. They found Mary Dexter on her knees by the Kid, who was still dazed. Mary cried as she held him, and he said half foolishly:

"Don't cry, Mary, I'm all right! There's nothing the matter with me."

But suddenly he sprang to his feet, and cried out:

"Mary— Mary— your father!"

The trainmen understood, and some turned away. Old Dexter would know by this time what he had done. He was not the man to endure it.

"He always said when he gave a lap order it would be his last," said Dan Fisher.

But Kid Clarke broke from Mary and ran to the tool box of the Hawk. They wondered what he was doing, what he meant to do, He took wire nippers and wire from the box, and came back, running.

"Dan, you've got a pocket instrument aboard, haven't you?" he cried.

"I— I can't use it," said Dan.

"I can!" said the Kid. "Get it, Dan, get it!"

By now they all understood; and when the Kid started to climb a telegraph pole they cheered hith. He cut in on the dispatcher's wire, and, hanging with a leg over the cross-arm, called "D. S." "D. S." on his instrument for all he was worth. Mary Dexter sat on the ground, crying, with Adelaide's arm about her. The others stood in absolute silence. They knew he was calling the dispatcher's office, and wondered if Dexter was still there. But the moment the wire opened, the Kid knew that Dexter wasn't sending, nor was the operator, but Thompson the chief dispatcher. He knew his touch upon the key. Down below in the crowd an operator from Quinton heard part of what the Kid sent.

"Theres no wreck, no wreck," said the Kid. "Tell Dexter right away! Is he dead?"

"He's asking if the dispatcher is dead," said the man from Quinton.

"Hurrah, he's all right, Mary," said the Kid suddenly. And Mary fainted as the crowd cheered. The Kid held a conversation with Thompson, and got orders for the trains, Then he came down.

"The freight will back to Neville's Siding," he said to the conductors. "The passenger will follow. The wrecking outfit is countermanded. They'll send a special to take us into Raynesborough."

They shook hands with the Kid, and with Blanchard.

"All aboard!" said the conductor to the passengers. But, before they did so, the passengers shook hands with both the men who had saved them. The trains went at last, cheering. But Mary and Adelaide stayed where they were.

"What did Thompson say to you?" asked Blanchard.

"He said I could ask him or any one else on the road for what I derned pleased," said Clarke, grinning.

"And you said—"

"I said: 'Tell Mr. Dexter I'll take Mary, to begin with,' " said Kid Clarke.

_____________

18: The Celestial Bulletin

Arthur H. Adams

1872-1936

The Bulletin, 13 Dec 1919

Arthur Henry Adams

Australian poet, much published in The Bulletin, (the weekly News and general interest magazine) gives us a wistful Christmas fantasy.

WHEN the poet discovered he was dead he had a momentary pang of bitterness. There was 17s. 3d. To collect for his last poem accepted by The Bulletin,  and now he would never be able to collect it. However, he supposed his landlady would see to that. So he philosophically rolled his swag and took the track to Eternity. It was a heavy Maria that he humped. Inside it, wrapped up in an old Bulletin cover, he had carefully packed all his sins, and, as an afterthought, had flung in a few volumes of his verse. Then he set out.

There was no difficulty about keeping to the track, for a barbed-wire fence stretched interminably over an illimitable plain, and the going was easy, since the track had been made through star-dust country. For several millions of miles, or years, or eternities, or fourth dimensions, he trudged along beside that barbed-wire fence. There was nothing else to be seen, not even a Halfway House. Sometimes he began counting the posts, for the sake of something to do; but every time he reached a billion he had a smoke, boiled his billy and started counting again. Occasionally he wrote poems in an exercise-book, not because he thought there was any chance of selling them in the hot place he was bound for, but just because he couldn't help it.

He had just finished his 1,759,782,410th poem when in the distance he saw a high paling fence across the track and stretching out of sight both ways. A year or so later he noticed a gate in the fence— an ordinary suburban back gate. He was rather surprised at the wooden fence. He had expected something less inflammable. However, he came to the conclusion that the palings might be really made of asbestos.

The poet knocked at the gate. An old bloke, rather like a retired sundowner, looked wearily at the newcomer through his whiskers.

"Morning!" said the poet.

"Mornin'!" said the old bloke. "Come far?"

"Mile or so. Last camp was the Earth."

"Wot's the news down there?" the stranger asked. "Anythink doin'?"

"Nothing much. They're still sub-editing my verses at the Bully, and beer's still the same price, and there's a bit of a scrap over in Europe, and our boys ait doing their little bit, as I always told 'em they would."

"Em!" the ancient bloke remarked in a non-committal way. He had rather lost interest in the Earth.

"Any room inside?" asked the poet.

"We're rather full up," the old bloke replied. He looked the poet over with a hopeless eye. "Wot yer got in that there buey?"

The poet unrolled his sins. The old man gingerly picked some of them up, felt them in a non-committal way, smelt one rather ancient sin, and held another to the light. Then he put them down.

"I've seen a better lot," he said; "but then I've seen worse."

The poet began to roll up his swag.

"No luck!' he muttered. "By the way, is this pub Hell?"

"You're not the first as 'as made that mistake," sighed the old man. "No it ain't Hell. You take the first turn to the right and keep straight on for 26 eternities, if you're goin' as far as Hell. This 'ere place is Heaven."

The poet's amazement did not surprise him.

"Not much ter look at from the outside," he admitted; "but it gets better further on. Just 'ere," he added gloomily, "Heaven wouldn't run one angel to the acre."

"So this is Heaven," said the poet. "Then I s'pose your name is Peter? I had a father once, down there, named Peter. Ever come across him?"

Peter shook his head. "I can't remember every bloke who drops in."

"Better be getting along," the poet muttered. rolling his swag. One of his volumes of verse fell out. The poet picked it up and showed it to Peter. "Any use to you, Pete?" he remarked. "They're a bit awkward to pack in my swag."

Peter took the book and wearily glanced at it. Suddenly he began to read eagerly.

"Who wrote this?" he asked. "You?" The old bloke gripped the poet's hand. "Chuck them sins away," he exclaimed, "and come right inside!"

"But why?"

"You wrote these?" Peter said. "Well, that's you the real you. Your sins don't matter; they were committed by your body. But these books are you— the real you. All the rest don't count. Me— that is, me and 'lm in there," he pointed with his thumb over the paling fence— "we don t care a damn what the body part of a man does as long as the real man done somethink. Yer sins was part of you— once, on earth. They ain't part of you now, because all you've got now is a soul—and that's as innocent as an Egyptian girl I once knoo down on earth before I got con—  However," he broke off confusedly, "That don t matter. You've shed them sins of the body, same as I done. And when a bloke sheds his sins of the body usually he ain't got nothink else to put in their place. So we passes 'im out. But you've got somethink else ter show. I ain't no judge of poetry, but I knows wot I likes. Come on in."

And he opened the suburban back gate and led the poet into Paradise.

"I'LL show you round," said Peter, as he carefully locked the gate behind them.

"Not half bad!" was the poet's enthusiastic but Australian comment, as they descended at the end of the tram section in the centre of the celestial Canberra.

They stopped in front of a marvellous and towering palace— a thing of jasper, black opal and malachite, inlaid with pearls. It reminded the poet of Mark Foy's.

''What's this place, Pete?" he asked. "Post office or a pub?"

"No." said Peter, "this is the celestial Bulletin."

The poet was amazed. "You mean to say, he gasped, "there's a Bulletin in Paradise?"

Of course. The seraphim want somethink ter read, don't they? Can't be singing anthems all the time."

"And do they pay for contributions?" asked the poet, feeling for the black exercise-book in his swag.

"Yes, an' pay well. Even at space rates, "Bellerive" gets a diamond a word. You see, Jimmy—"

"Jimmy!" echoed the poet. "Is old Jimmy—?"

"Of course! The office was built for him to his own design. You see, when he arrived he felt lonely. We all do, at first, but we get used to it. We asked him what he'd like to do to feel comfortable, and he said that all he wanted was to sit down in some back room and write 328,601 editorials per week, and in his spare time generally potter about, suggesting cartoons, interviewing poets, correcting proofs, and reading manuscripts say about 25 hours a day. So we ran this 'ere little 'umpy up that night, and at eight o'clock next mornin' Jimmy arrived and started writin' Plain Englishes. 'E's bin writin' ever since. Lives on the premises. We offered 'im the whole of the South floor as a flat, but 'e said any old corner would do for 'im. 'E preferred a room that looked out into a back lane, with a gas-engine exhaust goin' on all the time under 'im and two tanks filled with rubbish in the back lane, and a lot of carters discussin' politics all the afternoons below 'im. He said it would feel more homely. So we built a back lane and a gas-engine and hired a mob of out-of-work angels and taught 'em some Australian politics ter give 'im inspiration."

"I say," asked the poet, "I don't suppose I could see him?"

"Certainly; come on in."

Exteriorly and interiorly the building was quite unlike the earthly Bulletin office. The golden walls panelled and inlaid with platinum and copper, for instance: the broadly-curving staircases of pink marble, the electric lift, a dazzling jewel of translucent porphyry and chalcedony, the wide palm courts, the silver fountains— all these gave a baffling, unfamiliar air to the building. But when he came to a small door, made of mere wood, marked "Editor." and Peter opened it without knocking— it was not even locked— the poet found himself back among more home-like surroundings. A single electric light dispelled the pervading gloom, for one ot the specifications insisted upon by the editor was tnat there was to be no sunshine admitted.

The editor was hard at work, attended by a resplendent cherub named Frank. He looked up and recognised Peter with delight.

Peter was an old friend of his. Jimmy knew more about Peter than Peter did about himself, especially about Peter's career on earth. And Peter was his most valuable contributor of Abo. pars. He wrote in ancient Egyptian, but that made no difference. The editor knew hieroglyphics and the baked-brick language of Babylon. As it happened, too, Rameses was his leading lino-operator; and the editor often used to write his Plain Celestials in hieroglyphics on bricks. He was using one scorching effort now as a paper-weight.

The poet was naturally diffident. He thought that Jimmy might be pleased to see him; but then he wasn't sure. He hung back while the editor discussed Peter's latest Abo. par. His halo was hooked on a convenient nail just over his desk, so that, in moments when he wanted inspiration, he could take it down and scratch it.

Suddenly he saw the poet. He leapt from his chair and gripped his hand. It was many years since anybody had gripped the poet's hand: the poet always used to do the gripping.

"Hullo!" the editor happily exclaimed. "Been waiting for you. Hand over that exercise book."

The poet hurriedly produced it, and the editor rapidly scanned the 1,759,752,410 poems.

"I'll take the lot," he said heartily. "It's time we got a more genuine Australian touch in the paper. The treasurer will pay you as you go out. His office is just opposite that titanic statue in gold of 'Bellerive.' It's at the far end of the great gallery of statues. See you to-morrow early, and I hope you'll have some more poems."

And he wrung the poet's hand again, and hurried back to his desk.

Peter led the poet down the gorgeous staircase into the private bar. It was unlike any private bar that he, or anybody else, had ever dreamed of. Beautiful attendants ministered to his liquid desires. They hadn't any beer— apparently they had never heard of the stuff: but on Peter's advice the poet called for two pints of nectar. It proved much more interesting than beer. The poet had only one fear— that it might turn out to be non-alcoholic.

But he needn't have worried. It was much more potent than Tooth's.

Peter wiped his whiskers and suddenly discovered that he had better be getting back to the gate. He handed the poet over to a copy-boy cherub, and departed.

The printer's angel asked the poet if he would like to see the composing-rooms. The poet politely expressed the opinion that this brand of nectar interested him more than any inspection of celestial linotypes.

The cherub smilingly replied that he wasn't referring to linotypes, but to the composing-rooms for poets— the rooms specially furnished for the composition of poetry. The poet thought that after another pint he would rather like to see the composing-rooms. So, after a visit to the treasurer, who tilled his pockets with diamonds, rose-leaves, Australian banknotes and green coupons, the poet followed his guide into a spacious library. At a noble desk sat an Australian poet writing immortal poetry.

As he flung each sheet of copy to the marble floor, a deft cherub caught it, whisked it away, and in a moment returned with a galley-slip for the poet's revision.

The next room was fitted up with a stage, whereon a competent company of angelic actors, with a villain specially engaged, at an enormous salary, from Hell (by special permission of Satan, as the play-bill announced), was performing melodramas of the deepest dye. Earnestly watching them was "Bellerive." At the conclusion of each scene he hurriedly scribbled a complete poem, which, as the cherub informed the poet, was immediately set up in letters of silver upon the pediment of his titanic statue.

In the next room, labelled "Letters to the Editor," A. G. Huie was happily dictating to a sweet young typist, whose halo was the peroxide color of her luxuriant tresses, those column-long letters of his that, on earth, had made so many a sub-editor happy. At other tables were "Mother of 37" and "Pro Bono Publico" similarly engaged.

The poet just glanced into the horse-poet department, where wild pegasuses were engaged bucking off hilarious horse-poets. But the surfing-poet department, where enormous billows swept syrens into the arms of their waiting bards, hardly interested him.

"This," said the printer's angel, "is more interesting. It is the department for Spring poets."

He opened a door of carved jade, and suddenly they found themselves in a tropical garden, lit by real sunlight, and with celestial birds singing (to order) amid the wattle blossom.

"It is always Spring here," the copy cherub explained, "and we provide lovers for the inspiration of Spring poets."

Dotted about the grass were numbers of Spring poets kissing large quantities of Spring girls, and, in the infrequent intervals between kisses, singing delicious Spring songs. These were recorded by innumerable gramophones, and in the infrequent intervals referred to the Spring poets corrected the galley-proofs that fluttered, like falling petals, from the branches of the trees. There was another room, marked "Red Page," where a grey-haired celestial critic was busily engaged writing in letters of platinum upon marble tablets paeans of enthusiastic praise of minor Australian poets. And there was another in which a radiant seraph of gentle mien wearing an apron, and with his collar and his halo on backwards, was answering correspondents in terms of almost fulsome eulogy.

"Perhaps you'd like to meet some of our Muses?" the printer's angel suggested.

The poet nodded, and they entered another palace. Here he met every conceivable species of muse, whose sole function was to inspire every conceivable species of poet. Some muses were in fashionable summer costume, showing just a hint of silk-stockinged ankle. These were for the benefit of topical society poets. Others were in surfing costume; and others wore practically nothing but their pink haloes, They wore these round their waists or as garters. This species of muse was in great demand.

All this was mildly interesting; but the poet declined the cherub's offer of a private blonde muse to take home with him. "I think," he remarked politely, "I'd rather have another pint of that nectar."

"Certainly, sir," said the cherub, "come this way."

But to the poet's surprise he did not lead him back to the nectar bar. Instead, he conducted him, per wing (he found that he had sprouted wings), to a distant palace set in a lovely park, but surrounded by barbed-wire entanglements. These, of course, they flew easily over. The palace looked very like a pub, magnified six million times. At one of the innumerable bars a pink-haloed bar-angel handed the poet a pint of foaming nectar and informed him that it was her shout. He ordered the bar-angel to fill it up again. She smiled, and pointed to the pint-pot. It was already full. He drained it— only to find that again it was brimming. He lost count of the number of times that this happened.

Then he began to notice fantods. These did not look at all like the fantods he had met on earth : they were the most delicious and delectable fantods he had ever drunk. After a bit he began to lose count of the fantods.

It was just then that the poet felt an irresistible longing to see The Bulletin editor again. He desired to clasp that kindly man's hand, to hold it in a tenacious grip while he discoursed gloriously and interminably about noble and radiant matters concerning a poet's soul. He decided to fly thither at once. But on leaving the bar lie found that he couldn't control his wings. He flopped clumsily down inside the front gate, above which the barbed wire entanglements towered a thousand miles. To the gatekeeper, who wore two haloes, he explained his intense desire to pour comfort into the soul of his soul-mate, The Bulletin editor.

"It's this way. ' that phlegmatic individual replied, as he refused to open the door.

"This 'ere pub is kept for poet-blokes. They can get drunk as long and as much as they likes ere. That's what this 'ere place is for."

Absently he spat on his two brown haloes and polished them on his trouser leg.

"The authorities reco'nise that Australian poets like occasional spell from writin' potery. Not that I ever read the stuff meself. And the best way to take a 'oliday is to fill yerself up with nectar. Well, so long as you're drunk you've got ter stav 'ere. Very pleasant place, sir, to get drunk in, as you'll find. And when you're sober again, and only see one halo on my head, and start writin' pomes again, off you can fly— the editor doesn't want you—all 'e wants is yer pomes. And we find that with Australian poets this is the only way we can keep up the supply of potery.

"Yer writes yer pomes when you're recovering from yer jag, and then you sobers up, cleans up yer halo and combs yer wing-feathers, and flies away with yer pomes to tge editor And he's glad ter see yer sober, with them pomes. And then, naehurally. you feel ready fer another drink, and back yer comes. Thats ow it's arranged 'ere, sir."

"Right-o!" said the poet, as he turned back, "and that's how it should have been arranged on earth."

___________________

19: Garibaldi Hogan, Detective

Ernest Francis O'Ferrall

1881-1925

The Bulletin, 13 Dec 1919

A journalist and sub-Editor on "The Bulletin", O'Ferrall wrote many comic sketches, humorous stories, and poetry, all under the pseudonym "Kodak".

BLITHERTON was overjoyed when the popular weekly publication known as Slush of The Earth offered him £100 for a really exciting serial detective story to run through about ten issues. He said he had discovered a splendid name and title for the Central figure— Garibaldi Hogan, Detective.

"You know he's got to be a sort of super-Sherlock Holmes. Old Boomer, the editor wants the yarn to be full of surprises, and, as I've got to do it in a hurry, I struck a splendid scheme, I'm going to start without any definite plot and pile up a lot of mystery full of the most hopeless-looking tangles. Then when I think it has developed sufficiently I'll set to and worry out some sort of explanation. You see, Old man, it's no good trying to surprise your readers if you don't surprise yourself first. I have never tried writing a mystery story before; but most of the ones I have read give themselves away long before the end. Why? Simply because the author has it all outlined in his mind. Now I'm going to get over that by not knowing myself what the next development of the story is going to be. I've got the first instalment written, and it reads well. Look out for it in to-morrow's Slush, and let me know what you think of it. Good-bye, old man."

SLUSH OF THE EARTH arrived next morning, and I turned over the leaves till I found Blitherton's great experiment:—

OUR GRAND NEW SERIAL

THE MISSING BODY

By Horatio Blitherton

Chapter 1

A HATLESS man running at top speed is always bound to attract attention; but when the runner is elderly and fat, and wears odd boots and waves an evening paper he can't help but create a sensation. One Tuesday evening (it was overcast, and the thermometer had been steadily dropping for two days), just as the early crowds of clerks and typists were streaming towards the Quay, Pitt-street was violently agitated by the sight of a little man running along like a rabbit. He threaded his way rapidly through the opposing stream of foot traffic and took no notice of the excitement created by his passing. Without once pausing for breath, he sped along, his short legs twinkling like the spokes of a wheel. At sight of him cabmen whipped up their horses or tuned up their taxis, and, running in as close as they dared to the kerb, shouted offers of transportation. But the little man did not seem to hear them; with gaze fixed straight ahead, he breathed hard through his nose and spurned the pavement with his odd boots, thereby propelling himself through the atmosphere at a hio-h rate of speed for nothing. The spectacle of a man economising in this manner seemed to annoy the pursuing cabmen, each of whom shouted some insult appropriate to the occasion before pulling up in a huff. The whole street was now ablaze with interest; the excitement engendered by the little man's wonderful performance— if indeed it was intended as a performance— had run ahead of him, so to speak, and the people above King-street were awaiting him on tiptoe, though as yet he had not reached Martin-place By this time two policemen were pounding heaviiy at his heeels and another just ahead was waiting with arms outstretched in a fowl-catching attitude, when the fugitive doubled into the corridor of the G.P.O., dashed to the slot marked City, and shot something into it. As he turned, the three policemen and the following crowd poured like a breaking wave into Martin-place and swirled angrily about him.

"What's the matter?" demanded the stoutest and most important policeman. "What did you run like that for?"

The little man looked about him like a startled child.

"I— l was only running to catch the post!" he mumbled.

The fattest policeman looked at him wildly. "It must have been an important letter?"

"It was," faltered the little man. "It was for a free sample bottle of hair-restorer. The special offer closes to-night."

While the fat policeman was thinking it over the little man wriggled away through the crowd and hurried across to a taxi, which he engaged, and then buzzed away.

"That's a curious old pot!" said the fattest constable, staring after him.

"Wonder who he wanted the hair-restorer for?" said the next-fattest constable. "Got a good head of hair already himself."

The fattest constable jumped. "You sure?"

"Yes, certain!"

"That's rum! I could have sworn he was bald!"

"Partly bald," corrected the third constable.

"That's an example of the power of suggestion," said the second-fattest, condescendingly. "When he said hair-restorer you naturally thought he wanted it for himself."

"No, I didn't!"

"How did you come to think he was bald, then?"

"I know he was bald!"

"But he wasn't bald, I tell you!"

The fattest constable swelled up slowly with rage and doubt.

"Well, all I can say is that if he wasn't bald, it ought to be reported to headquarters!"

"That's just what I was going to suggest."

So it was formally reported to headquarters, with all due solemnity and respect, that the little man (name unknown) who had posted a letter at 5.47 in the City box of the G.P.O. on the evening of September 24, 1914, for a sample of hair-restorer (brand unknown), wasn't bald at all, and that the circumstances must be regarded as highly suspicious. A police-clerk, with red hair and a wart on his right ear, marked the report "Y—L 498." and put it carefully in a pigeonhole, where it was subsequently eaten by rats (names unknown).

One stormy night, three months later, the above facts were carefully detailed to Garibaldi Hogan, private detective, by a little old woman in a black bonnet and other fittings of woe. The little old woman looked trustfully at Hogan through her gold-rimmed glasses, for Hogan seemed big and strong, and his head continued on into his collar in a manner most pleasing to witness. Hogan did not speak; it was not his custom to speak immediately after the facts of a case had been dropped into him; he liked to melt things down in his brain-crucible and present at his leisure the minted coin of thought.

It was long— perhaps half an hour before he opened his lips. Then it was only to ask, in a deep, sad voice like the far-off baying of bloodhounds:

"How was the body Iying when you discovered it?"

The old lady opened her face, deftly removed her teeth with one sweeping gesture, and screamed shrilly like a parrot.

"Calm yourself!" boomed the Great Detective in his grandest manner. "Calm yourself and tell me—"

"There wasn't any body!" shrieked the old lady, replacing her teeth. "I never said anything about a body!"

Garibaldi rose from his chair. "Just what I feared!" he muttered. Then, to the amazed old  woman: "There is more in this than I thought. We must act at once. Leave it in my hands."

He opened the door and bowed in his courteous, old-world way. The old lady moved out reluctantly. On the threshold she turned and remarked in a warning voice: "There wasn't any body, mind!"

"No body was found!" replied Hogan swiftly, and watched her descend the stairs. When he was quite satisfied she had gone, he closed the door carefully and turned to me— the humble narrator of this terrible story.

"You have heard the facts. What do you make of it?"

"Nothing, my dear Hogan— absolutely nothing!"

He looked at me quizzically. "You really mean to say—?"

"I do! It's just a foolish jumble to me.

"Extraordinary! Why, it's as plain as day!"

"What is?"

[To be continued]

I  HAD HARDLY FINISHED reading the first instalment of the serial when Blitherton himself arrived and dropped on the sofa. He nodded at my copy of Slush of the Earth.

"What d'ye think of it?"

"It's good as far as it goes."

"Yes, it doesn't seem too bad to me. How does Garibaldi Hogan strike you— think he's an arresting sort of figure?"

"Yes, he looks a likely one."

Blitherton didn't seem to be very elated.

"I wish I knew what was going to happen next," he sighed.

"Good Lord ! You don't mean to say your surprise system has broken down already?"

That seemed to nettle him.

"Oh, no, of course not! But to tell you the honest truth, I feel a bit dull to-day, and old Boomer has just told me he must have next week's 'copy' early. I had nothing by me, and didn't feel up to writing on to the first chapter, so I gave him this. It's a bit of an old story I never finished, with a sentence or two added. As I have to start a second chapter in the second issue it seems to go well enough. Just run your eye over a bit of it, will you? I'd like to know what you think of it."

I had to oblige him by sampling it, so I took the "copy" and started to read:

THE MISSING BODY

By Horatio Blitherton

Chapter 2

"A LETTER for you, Missus," said the dirty-faced and half-witted maid, opening the dining-room door without warning and causing the Hon. Mrs. Decree to start violently from her lover's side.

Flushed and furious, the girl's mistress snatched the note from the girl's grimy hand, while Mr. Nisi, secretary to the Japanese Ambassador, caught up a Bradshaw's Guide and made a feeble pretence of looking through it.

"Marion!" said Mrs. Decree angrily, "in future please remember to knock before you enter. Do you hear?"

" 'Ow was I ter know you was smoogin'?" shrilled the maid.

"You are mistaken, Marion— completely mistaken! When you opened the door just now you saw nothing! If anyone asks you anything you know nothing! You won't lose anything by it! That will do."

As the door closed Nisi threw the Bradshaw down on the table, and taking his smiling mistress in his arms started again to tell her the arrangements he had made for their flight. The letter lay unheeded on the floor amidst a pile of unopened mail matter.

And meanwhile, many miles away, in a dismal country house which hadn't been painted for years and was surrounded by a sombre pine forest, a little bald man sat in his shirt-sleeves writing letter after letter at high speed, and throwing them into a basket marked "Post." But the most remarkable thing was that all the letters were for hair-restorer.

Let us now get back to the house of the clandestine lovers. The dirty-faced maid went slowly downstairs giggling to herself and saying: "Wouldn't th' boss go orf if he knoo!"

As she turned to go towards the kitchen the front door bell rang sharply. The maid gave a startled jump and scampered excitedly to see what it was. She loved excitement even if it didn't immediately concern her.

When the door swung open a perspiring postman was revealed. The practised eye of Garibaldi Hogan would have seen at once that here was a bigoted atheist with a criminal history and corns. But, alas! Garibaldi Hogan was not present, the maid saw only a postman.

"The usual one for the Missus," sighed the man of letters, thrusting an envelope at the girl. "What do you think of this weather?"

The half-witted maid was instantly on her guard.

Snatching the letter from him she retorted: "Look 'ere! ! know nothin'— but I'm not goin' ter lose anythin' by it!"

The door slammed. The postman tore an old locket from his breast pocket  and devoured the face within with hungry eyes. "What did she mean by that?" he chattered. "Who has paid her to know nothing?" He replaced the locket in his pocket with a guilty glance and went hobbling down file path like a man in a panic.

In the hall the maid turned the letter over in her hands. "Another o' these," she sighed. "One comes be every post. I wonder wot's in 'em, an' w'y she never answers 'em?" Then she plodded upstairs.

HAVING GOT that far, I passed the manuscript back to the gifted author.

"How did Boomer receive that lot?"

"Well, to be honest, he didn't seem to be too pleased. First of all, he looked up the file and showed me that the first instalment ended with an unanswered question. (I haven't thought of an answer to that question yet, by the way. If you think of a likely one you might let me know, like a good chap.) When I'd got him off that he wanted to know what connection the people in this lot had with the characters in the first instalment, and a hell of a lot of other things. I had to tell him to leave it to me, as I was writing the thing. I'm afraid the old fool has no confidence in my work. Why, he even seemed to be impatient about the murder— said the best thrillers always got the murder in early."

"Have you thought out the murder yet?"

"No, I haven't! I'd be awfully obliged if you could give me any points about the murder. In fact, old chap, I'd be glad of any hints you could give me!"

He left shortly afterwards, and I saw and heard no more of him for a week. Then arrived a scared, speechless boy with a note written in a shaky hand. It was from Blitherton: —

My Dear Kodak—

I've been on the scoot, and am here without a penny. Serial's been worrying me frightfully, and Boomer's singing out for the third instalment which, he insists, must have some coherency in it. Please give the bearer half a sov. for me and answer the following questions like a good fellow. (P.S.— My head's splitting, but I must get the job done.)

(1) What was "as plain as day" to Hogan in first instalment? I can't think of anything worth a curse.

(2) Do you think the little man who ran for the hair-restorer in first chapter would make a good murderer? If so, whom could be murder?

(3) What relation to the hair-restorer man was the old ladv who took out her teeth to scream at Garibaldi Hogan? She must have some interest in him.

(4) Do you think I was wise to make the little hair-restorer man the letter-writer of Part 2.

(5) Can you suggest a reason for him writing letters for hair-restorer to Mrs. Decree, and for Mrs. D. leaving them unopened?

(6) If she did so, she must have known what hidden significance was in them. IVhat was in them?

(7) Why was the postman terrified at what the dirty-faced maid said?

Please answer these at once,, and I will be able to get on with the third instalment. Will send some more urgent queries this afternoon. (P.S.— make it £2 if you can.)

Yours hastily, H. Blitherton.

I put a 10s. note in an envelope and wrote:—

Dear Blitherton,

I am very sorry, but I've got my own living to make. Try and worry those points out yourself. Enclosing 10s.

Yours, Kodak.

The scared lad took my answer and threw himself down the stairs at top speed. The need for extreme haste had evidently been impressed on him by my poor misguided friend. But he was back inside an hour.

"Ole Boomer's waitin' for 'is 'copy,' sir," he said. "'E wants to know when you can let 'im 'ave it?"

"Well, what's that to do with me? Mr. Blitherton is writing that story!"

He shook his head doggedly. "Mr. Blitherton tole ole Boomer you'd send th' third 'stalment along. Mr. Blitherton jus' give me this for you.''

I took the spidery despatch and read it:—

Godssake send something to Boomer! I'm too drunk. Told him you'd do it this week.— T.B.

And then the telephone bell went. I lifted the receiver off the hook and an angry little ant-like voice buzzed at me: "That Mr. Kodak?"

"Yes, speaking."

"When are you going to let me have the next instalment of that story? I don't want to be humbugged about any longer!"

"Who is speaking?"

"It's Mr. Boomer speaking ! When am I to expect that 'copy'?"

"But, hang it! Isn't Mr. Blitherton supplying you with the 'copy'?"

"No, he isn't. And you know very well that it is your chapter now. Mr. Blitherton has explained to me that you are writing alternate chapters. It is up to you to pull yourself together and supply this 'copy.' Mr. Blitherton is suffering tortures from neuritis in the head and cannot shoulder any more of your work No ! I won't listen to any more excuses! You let me have that 'copy' before dinner, or there will be serious trouble!" The infernal machine rang in my ear.

I hung up the receiver with a crash and turned to the waiting boy to curse him for pursuing me with Blitherton's notes. But I hesitated when I noticed what was protrud- ing from his pocket— a folded Deadwood Dick. "Give me that book you've got in your pocket," I said and held out my hand.

The fool clapped his hand over his prize and drew back mumbling.

"Give it to me!" I shouted.

He handed it over.

I unrolled the thing and found the title was "The Murder in Haunted Gulch." The atmosphere was very Wild West, but there were three corpses in the first paragraph and some lurking avenger called "Old Sleuth" was fairly on the trail of the murderers in the second. "This will do," I said, and, despite the youth's protests, I tore out the first five pages, altered the name of Old Sleuth to Garibaldi Hogan wherever it appeared, and sent the rubbish down to the typiste on the second floor with instructions to make it a rush job. She sent the typed MS. and the printed "copy" back to me within half an hour. I restored the torn pages to the owner, gave him a shilling and the MS. in an addressed envelope, and sent him off to Boomer at the Slush of the Earth office.

Some twenty minutes after my messenger and Blitherton's had gone I was called up on the 'phone by Boomer. He was very bitter about the number of new characters I had introduced into the story, and wanted to know why Garibaldi Hogan had gone to the Rockies. I told him that I was trying to fill his demand for movement and cornses.

''You have it to us," I advised. "We know what we're doing!"

"I hope you do!" he screamed at the other end of the town. I rang him off, and there was a heavenly peace for three days.

Blitherton himself supplied the next diversion. The miserable shirker hadn't the nerve to come and say what was in his besotted mind— he sat afar off in some obscure lodging and wrote it like a coward:

Dear Kodak, —What sort of a mess have you made of my serial! I could hardly believe my eyes when I got this week's Slush and saw what you had done. What made you take Garibaldi Hogan to America and pile up a lot more mystery for me to explain? I had the thing decently planned in my mind, and now you've gone and ruined it. I have been dreadfully ill, and don't know what I am to do next. (P.S. —Why didn't you answer those questions I sent you instead of returning them? If you've got a spare half-sovereign about you I could make good use of it.) —H. Blitherton.

I made my reply as brief as possible. It ran:—

Dear Blitherton, —I have tried to keep your rotten serial going for you by stealing and revising part of a very decently-written Deadwood Dick I got from your messenger. If you have any sense you will get hold of the rest of the book and adapt it. I think you will do better that way than by fooling about yourself. I doubt whether you could write a decent detective story sober; you certainly can't do it drunk. (P.S. —Sorry, but I'm very short of cash just now). — Kodak.

Of course, I couldn't get rid of a limpet like Blitherton as easily as all that. He had me on the 'phone before the day was out. I listened to him with what patience I could muster:

"Look here, you've made a horrible hash of this thing of mine ; but I will do my best with it if you will let me have the rest of that book. What was the name of the thing?"

"That messenger of yours has it. It's called 'The Murder in Haunted Gulch.' "

I heard him swear terribly.

"Good God! Do you mean to say you didn't keep the book?"

"No, I didn't! Haven't I just told you your messenger owned it?"

"Yes." he howled. "But he's gone to the war! What the h—l am I to do now?"

"Do! Why, sit down and write, of course!"

"But I can't write that stuff! There wouldn't have been any necessity to write it if you had had sense enough to keep the book !"

"Look here, Blitherton ! Are you writing a serial or are you stealing one?"

"Well, that's pretty rich coming from you ! I din't start the stealing, you know!"

"Why, did you expect me to write your rotten instalment?"

"That's what most mates would have done!"

"Well, you ought to know that I haven't got the time to do your work as well as my own. Old Boomer tackled me for the stuff just when I was choked up, and I only kept him going for your sake. Now you take my advice and keep sober, and you'll be all right. Good-bye."

I rang him off sharply and thought I had thrown him off for good. Blitherton's hard-working little sister had  the next shift. She waited on me personally and told me with tears in her eyes that Horry was drinking again, although she had warned him not to. She wouldn't have troubled me only Mr. Boomer, of the Slush of the Earth, had been sending for the next instalment of Garibaldi Hogan, and she didn't know what to do. Poor Horry had locked himself in his room, and kept on repeating that I was to supply the next chapter. There was nothing else for it. I asked her to go and pacify Boomer while I ran up the next chapter of Garibaldi.

I sent a boy out for an assortment of Deadwoods. made a selection, and proceeded as before, merely altering the name of the inevitable detective to Garibaldi tlogam

Then I sent the typed MS. to Boomer. It enraged him so much that he had to see me personally about it.

He burst into my office looking like an enraged plum pudding. Slamming the MS. down on the table, he began without any introduction or preamble: "Look here ! Do
you know 'ow many characters you got in this damn thing?"

"I couldn't tell you offhand, Mr. Boomer."

"I thort not! Would you be surprised if I was to tell you there's a hundred an' seventy-three principal characters?"

"Yes, that's about it. It lends interest to a story to have a lot of characters."

"Maybe it does. But I'm damned if I can foller the thing, an' I've read every word of it! What does this Garibaldi Hogan shift round for? He hasn't unravelled anything yet. What about that little man that ran to the Sydney G.P.O. in the first chapter? What's happened to him?"

"Oh, he'll reappear later on!"

"Then there's that old lady that took out her teeth to scream at Hogan— l been gettin' letters about her!"

"There you are, you see! Your readers have become so interested that"

"Oh, they're not those sort of letters! Don't you run away with that ideer! My readers say she's a rotten character— too comic for a detective story— want to know why she's there at all."

"An author can't please everybody, Mr. Boomer!"

"P'raps he carn't! But if he's got any gumption he can let intelligent people know what's he driving at. I tell you what, I'm damn sorry I ever started this serial without readin' it right through first. But I was goin' on Mr. Blitherton's name. Now if he'd only been able to keep well he wouldn't have had, to farm it out to you. Course I know you're only a young writer, an' all that, an' you've done your best. But you won't mind me sayin' that you've made a horrible mess of this job."

If I said nothing it was for the sake of Blitherton's pathetic little sister.

Boomer started buzzing again.

"I'm inclined to get the whole thing finished up by a realy good man; but I'll give you one more chance! Now if you get busy and write me an outline of the next seven instalments, showin' the development of the plot, an all that, I'll have it looked over and tell you if it'll spit. To tell you the truth, I Mould take it right out of your 'ands now only I have a great respec' for Mr. Blitherton, an don't want to worry him when he's so sick. I'll print this stuff I got here as it stands, an' risk it comm' out right; but you hurry up an' let me have that outline by ter-morrer. Good-day."

For twenty-four hours I tried to forget Garibaldi Hogan. I was succeeding fairly well when I got a frenzied note from Blitherton's sister. Blitherton had stolen out of his room and fled to parts unknown, leaving an unaddressed note which liis sister thought could only be meant for me:—

Good-bye all. Can't stand it any more. That devil Garibaldi has been grinning at me for two days and dragging bodies round the room asking me to explain them.

There was a pencilled footnote in feminine handwriting:—

My poor Horry seems to have had something on his mind. I hope he doesn't come to any harm. Would you mind explaining to Mr. Boomer?

And just about then my inspiration ran out. In my despair I was idly fingering a copy of Poe's "Tales of Mystery and Imagination' with feionioiig intent when a most insulting note was handed me by special messenger. It was from Boomer, and was to the effect that his most junior office boy had just informed him that he could show him a Deadwood Dick, part of which exactly duplicated one of the instalments supplied by me.

I saw my way of escape at once. Seizing a pad I scribbled as follows:

Dear Boomer, —Get hold of that Deadwood at once and print the rest of it. Pay the boy any price for it; it is a better story than Blitherton or I could ever supply.—Yours faithfully, K.

Boomer was an editor in a right place; he took my advice, and the serial was such a success that the advertising rates for Slush of the Earth are now three times what they were before Garibaldi Hogan was invented.

Blitherton returned shamefacedly some time afterwards and commenced to trade in a feeble, fitful way on the reputation I had made for him with the Deadwood; but his kindest critics regretfully admit that he has never done anything to equal Hogan. It is now available in a three-and-sixpenny library edition, and I recently overheard a Supreme Court judge tell a very expensive legal friend it was one of the best bits of holiday reading matter he had struck.

__________________

20: The Golden Ingot

Fitz James O'Brien

1828-1862

The Knickerbocker, Oct 1858

Fitz James O'Brien

I HAD JUST retired to rest, with my eyes almost blind with the study of a new work on physiology by M. Brown-Sequard, when the night bell was pulled violently.

It was winter, and I confess I grumbled as I rose and went downstairs to open the door. Twice that week I had been aroused long after midnight for the most trivial causes. Once, to attend upon the son and heir of a wealthy family, who had cut his thumb with a penknife, which, it seems, he insisted on taking to bed with him; and once, to restore a young gentleman to consciousness, who had been found by his horrified parent stretched insensible on the staircase. Diachylon in the one case and ammonia in the other were all that my patients required; and I had a faint suspicion that the present summons was perhaps occasioned by no case more necessitous than those I have quoted. I was too young in my profession, however, to neglect opportunities. It is only when a physician rises to a very large practice that he can afford to be inconsiderate. I was on the first step of the ladder, so I humbly opened my door.

A woman was standing ankle deep in the snow that lay upon the stoop. I caught but a dim glimpse of her form, for the night was cloudy; but I could hear her teeth rattling like castanets, and, as the sharp wind blew her clothes close to her form, I could discern from the sharpness of the outlines that she was very scantily supplied with raiment.

"Come in, come in, my good woman," I said hastily, for the wind seemed to catch eagerly at the opportunity of making itself at home in my hall, and was rapidly forcing an entrance through the half-open door. "Come in, you can tell me all you have to communicate inside."

She slipped in like a ghost, and I closed the door. While I was striking a light in my office, I could hear her teeth still clicking out in the dark hall, till it seemed as if some skeleton was chattering. As soon as I obtained a light I begged her to enter the room, and, without occupying myself particularly about her appearance, asked her abruptly what her business was.

"My father has met with a severe accident," she said, "and requires instant surgical aid. I entreat you to come to him immediately."

The freshness and the melody of her voice startled me. Such voices rarely, if ever, issue from any but beautiful forms. I looked at her attentively, but, owing to a nondescript species of shawl in which her head was wrapped, I could discern nothing beyond what seemed to be a pale, thin face and large eyes. Her dress was lamentable. An old silk, of a color now unrecognizable, clung to her figure in those limp folds which are so eloquent of misery. The creases where it had been folded were worn nearly through, and the edges of the skirt had decayed into a species of irregular fringe, which was clotted and discolored with mud. Her shoes— which were but half concealed by this scanty garment— were shapeless and soft with moisture. Her hands were hidden under the ends of the shawl which covered her head and hung down over a bust, the outlines of which, although angular, seemed to possess grace. Poverty, when partially shrouded, seldom fails to interest: witness the statue of the Veiled Beggar, by Monti.

"In what manner was your father hurt?" I asked, in a tone considerably softened from the one in which I put my first question.

"He blew himself up, sir, and is terribly wounded."

"Ah! He is in some factory, then?"

"No, sir, he is a chemist."

"A chemist? Why, he is a brother professional. Wait an instant, and I will slip on my coat and go with you. Do you live far from here?"

"In the Seventh Avenue, not more than two blocks from the end of this street."

"So much the better. We will be with him in a few minutes. Did you leave anyone in attendance on him?"

"No, sir. He will allow no one but myself to enter his laboratory. And, injured as he is, I could not induce him to quit it."

"Indeed! He is engaged in some great research, perhaps? I have known such cases."

We were passing under a lamp-post, and the woman suddenly turned and glared at me with a look of such wild terror that for an instant I involuntarily glanced round me under the impression that some terrible peril, unseen by me, was menacing us both.

"Don't— don't ask me any questions," she said breathlessly. "He will tell you all. But do, oh, do hasten! Good God! he may be dead by this time!"

I made no reply, but allowed her to grasp my hand, which she did with a bony, nervous clutch, and endeavored with some difficulty to keep pace with the long strides— I might well call them bounds, for they seemed the springs of a wild animal rather than the paces of a young girl— with which she covered the ground. Not a word more was uttered until we stopped before a shabby, old-fashioned tenement house in the Seventh Avenue, not far above Twenty-third Street. She pushed the door open with a convulsive pressure, and, still retaining hold of my hand, literally dragged me upstairs to what seemed to be a back offshoot from the main building, as high, perhaps, as the fourth story. In a moment more I found myself in a moderate-sized chamber, lit by a single lamp. In one corner, stretched motionless on a wretched pallet bed, I beheld what I supposed to be the figure of my patient.

"He is there," said the girl; "go to him. See if he is dead— I dare not look."

I made my way as well as I could through the numberless dilapidated chemical instruments with which the room was littered. A French chafing dish supported on an iron tripod had been overturned, and was lying across the floor, while the charcoal, still warm, was scattered around in various directions. Crucibles, alembics, and retorts were confusedly piled in various corners, and on a small table I saw distributed in separate bottles a number of mineral and metallic substances, which I recognized as antimony, mercury, plumbago, arsenic, borax, etc. It was veritably the apartment of a poor chemist. All the apparatus had the air of being second-hand. There was no luster of exquisitely annealed glass and highly polished metals, such as dazzles one in the laboratory of the prosperous analyst. The makeshifts of poverty were everywhere visible. The crucibles were broken, or gallipots were used instead of crucibles. The colored tests were not in the usual transparent vials, but were placed in ordinary black bottles. There is nothing more melancholy than to behold science or art in distress. A threadbare scholar, a tattered book, or a battered violin is a mute appeal to our sympathy.

I approached the wretched pallet bed on which the victim of chemistry was lying. He breathed heavily, and had his head turned toward the wall. I lifted his arm gently to arouse his attention. "How goes it, my poor friend?" I asked him. "Where are you hurt?"

In a moment, as if startled by the sound of my voice, he sprang up in his bed, and cowered against the wall like a wild animal driven to bay. "Who are you? I don't know you. Who brought you here? You are a stranger. How dare you come into my private rooms to spy upon me?"

And as he uttered this rapidly with a frightful nervous energy, I beheld a pale distorted face, draped with long gray hair, glaring at me with a mingled expression of fury and terror.

"I am no spy," I answered mildly. "I heard that you had met with an accident, and have come to cure you. I am Dr. Luxor, and here is my card."

The old man took the card, and scanned it eagerly. "You are a physician?" he inquired distrustfully.

"And surgeon also."

"You are bound by oath not to reveal the secrets of your patients."

"Undoubtedly."

"I am afraid that I am hurt," he continued faintly, half sinking back in the bed.

I seized the opportunity to make a brief examination of his body. I found that the arms, a part of the chest, and a part of the face were terribly scorched; but it seemed to me that there was nothing to be apprehended but pain.

"You will not reveal anything that you may learn here?" said the old man, feebly fixing his eyes on my face while I was applying a soothing ointment to the burns. "You will promise me."

I nodded assent.

"Then I will trust you. Cure me— I will pay you well."

I could scarce help smiling. If Lorenzo de Medici, conscious of millions of ducats in his coffers, had been addressing some leech of the period, he could not have spoken with a loftier air than this inhabitant of the fourth story of a tenement house in the Seventh Avenue.

"You must keep quiet," I answered. "Let nothing irritate you. I will leave a composing draught with your daughter, which she will give you immediately. I will see you in the morning. You will be well in a week."

"Thank God!" came in a murmur from a dusk corner near the door. I turned, and beheld the dim outline of the girl, standing with clasped hands in the gloom of the dim chamber.

"My daughter!" screamed the old man, once more leaping up in the bed with renewed vitality. "You have seen her, then? When? Where? Oh, may a thousand cur—"

"Father! father! Anything— anything but that. Don't, don't curse me!" And the poor girl, rushing in, flung herself sobbing on her knees beside his pallet.

"Ah, brigand! You are there, are you? Sir," said he, turning to me, "I am the most unhappy man in the world. Talk of Sisyphus rolling the ever-recoiling stone— of Prometheus gnawed by the vulture since the birth of time. The fables yet live. There is my rock, forever crushing me back! there is my eternal vulture, feeding upon my heart! There! there! there!" And, with an awful gesture of malediction and hatred, he pointed with his wounded hand, swathed and shapeless with bandages, at the cowering, sobbing, wordless woman by his side.

I was too much horror-stricken to attempt even to soothe him. The anger of blood against blood has an electric power which paralyzes bystanders.

"Listen to me, sir," he continued, "while I skin this painted viper. I have your oath; you will not reveal. I am an alchemist, sir. Since I was twenty-two years old, I have pursued the wonderful and subtle secret. Yes, to unfold the mysterious Rose guarded with such terrible thorns; to decipher the wondrous Table of Emerald; to accomplish the mystic nuptials of the Red King and the White Queen; to marry them soul to soul and body to body, forever and ever, in the exact proportions of land and water— such has been my sublime aim, such has been the splendid feat that I have accomplished."

I recognized at a glance, in this incomprehensible farrago, the argot of the true alchemist. Ripley, Flamel, and others have supplied the world, in their works, with the melancholy spectacle of a scientific bedlam.

"Two years since," continued the poor man, growing more and more excited with every word that he uttered— "two years since, I succeeded in solving the great problem— in transmuting the baser metals into gold. None but myself, that girl, and God knows the privations I had suffered up to that time. Food, clothing, air, exercise, everything but shelter, was sacrificed toward the one great end. Success at last crowned my labors. That which Nicholas Flamel did in 1382, that which George Ripley did at Rhodes in 1460, that which Alexander Sethon and Michael Scudivogius did in the seventeenth century, I did in 1856. I made gold! I said to myself, 'I will astonish New York more than Flamel did Paris.' He was a poor copyist, and suddenly launched into magnificence. I had scarce a rag to my back: I would rival the Medicis. I made gold every day. I toiled night and morning; for I must tell you that I never was able to make more than a certain quantity at a time, and that by a process almost entirely dissimilar to those hinted at in those books of alchemy I had hitherto consulted. But I had no doubt that facility would come with experience, and that ere long I should be able to eclipse in wealth the richest sovereigns of the earth.

"So I toiled on. Day after day I gave to this girl here what gold I succeeded in fabricating, telling her to store it away after supplying our necessities. I was astonished to perceive that we lived as poorly as ever. I reflected, however, that it was perhaps a commendable piece of prudence on the part of my daughter. Doubtless, I said, she argues that the less we spend the sooner we shall accumulate a capital wherewith to live at ease; so, thinking her course a wise one, I did not reproach her with her niggardliness, but toiled on, amid want, with closed lips.

"The gold which I fabricated was, as I said before, of an invariable size, namely, a little ingot worth perhaps thirty or forty-five dollars. In two years I calculated that I had made five hundred of these ingots, which, rated at an average of thirty dollars apiece, would amount to the gross sum of fifteen thousand dollars. After deducting our slight expenses for two years, we ought to have had nearly fourteen thousand dollars left. It was time, I thought, to indemnify myself for my years of suffering, and surround my child and myself with such moderate comforts as our means allowed. I went to my daughter and explained to her that I desired to make an encroachment upon our little hoard. To my utter amazement, she burst into tears, and told me that she had not got a dollar— that all of our wealth had been stolen from her. Almost overwhelmed by this new misfortune, I in vain endeavored to discover from her in what manner our savings had been plundered. She could afford me no explanation beyond what I might gather from an abundance of sobs and a copious flow of tears.

"It was a bitter blow, doctor, but nil desperandum was my motto, so I went to work at my crucible again, with redoubled energy, and made an ingot nearly every second day. I determined this time to put them in some secure place myself; but the very first day I set my apparatus in order for the projection, the girl Marion— that is my daughter's name— came weeping to me and implored me to allow her to take care of our treasure. I refused decisively, saying that, having found her already incapable of filling the trust, I could place no faith in her again. But she persisted, clung to my neck, threatened to abandon me; in short, used so many of the bad but irresistible arguments known to women that I had not the heart to refuse her. She has since that time continued to take the ingots.

"Yet you behold," continued the old alchemist, casting an inexpressibly mournful glance around the wretched apartment, "the way we live. Our food is insufficient and of bad quality; we never buy clothes; the rent of this hole is a mere nothing. What am I to think of the wretched girl who plunges me into this misery? Is she a miser, think you?— or a female gamester?— or— or— does she squander it riotously in places I know not of? O Doctor, Doctor! do not blame me if I heap imprecations on her head, for I have suffered bitterly!" The poor man here closed his eyes and sank back groaning on his bed.

This singular narrative excited in me the strangest emotions. I glanced at the girl Marion, who had been a patient listener to these horrible accusations of cupidity, and never did I behold a more angelic air of resignation than beamed over her countenance. It was impossible that anyone with those pure, limpid eyes; that calm, broad forehead; that childlike mouth, could be such a monster of avarice or deceit as the old man represented. The truth was plain enough: the alchemist was mad— what alchemist was there ever who was not?— and his insanity had taken this terrible shape. I felt an inexpressible pity move my heart for this poor girl, whose youth was burdened with such an awful sorrow.

"What is your name?" I asked the old man, taking his tremulous, fevered hand in mine.

"William Blakelock," he answered. "I come of an old Saxon stock, sir, that bred true men and women in former days. God! how did it ever come to pass that such a one as that girl ever sprung from our line?" The glance of loathing and contempt that he cast at her made me shudder.

"May you not be mistaken in your daughter?" I said, very mildly. "Delusions with regard to alchemy are, or have been, very common—"

"What, sir?" cried the old man, bounding in his bed. "What? Do you doubt that gold can be made? Do you know, sir, that M. C. Theodore Tiffereau made gold at Paris in the year 1854 in the presence of M. Levol, the assayer of the Imperial Mint, and the result of the experiments was read before the Academy of Sciences on the sixteenth of October of the same year? But stay; you shall have better proof yet. I will pay you with one of my ingots, and you shall attend me until I am well. Get me an ingot!"

This last command was addressed to Marion, who was still kneeling close to her father's bedside. I observed her with some curiosity as this mandate was issued. She became very pale, clasped her hands convulsively, but neither moved nor made any reply.

"Get me an ingot, I say!" reiterated the alchemist passionately.

She fixed her large eyes imploringly upon him. Her lips quivered, and two huge tears rolled slowly down her white cheeks.

"Obey me, wretched girl," cried the old man in an agitated voice, "or I swear, by all that I reverence in heaven and earth, that I will lay my curse upon you forever!"

I felt for an instant that I ought perhaps to interfere, and spare the girl the anguish that she was so evidently suffering; but a powerful curiosity to see how this strange scene would terminate withheld me.

The last threat of her father, uttered as it was with a terrible vehemence, seemed to appall Marion. She rose with a sudden leap, as if a serpent had stung her, and, rushing into an inner apartment, returned with a small object which she placed in my hand, and then flung herself in a chair in a distant corner of the room, weeping bitterly.

"You see— you see," said the old man sarcastically, "how reluctantly she parts with it. Take it, sir; it is yours."

It was a small bar of metal. I examined it carefully, poised it in my hand— the color, weight, everything, announced that it really was gold.

"You doubt its genuineness, perhaps," continued the alchemist. "There are acids on yonder table— test it."

I confess that I DID doubt its genuineness; but after I had acted upon the old man's suggestion, all further suspicion was rendered impossible. It was gold of the highest purity. I was astounded. Was then, after all, this man's tale a truth? Was his daughter, that fair, angelic-looking creature, a demon of avarice, or a slave to worse passions? I felt bewildered. I had never met with anything so incomprehensible. I looked from father to daughter in the blankest amazement. I suppose that my countenance betrayed my astonishment, for the old man said: "I perceive that you are surprised. Well, that is natural. You had a right to think me mad until I proved myself sane."

"But, Mr. Blakelock," I said, "I really cannot take this gold. I have no right to it. I cannot in justice charge so large a fee."

"Take it— take it," he answered impatiently; "your fee will amount to that before I am well. Besides," he added mysteriously, "I wish to secure your friendship. I wish that you should protect me from her," and he pointed his poor, bandaged hand at Marion.

My eyes followed his gesture, and I caught the glance that replied— -a glance of horror, distrust, despair. The beautiful face was distorted into positive ugliness.

"It's all true," I thought; "she is the demon that her father represents her."

I now rose to go. This domestic tragedy sickened me. This treachery of blood against blood was too horrible to witness. I wrote a prescription for the old man, left directions as to the renewal of the dressings upon his burns, and, bidding him good night, hastened toward the door.

While I was fumbling on the dark, crazy landing for the staircase, I felt a hand laid on my arm.

"Doctor," whispered a voice that I recognized as Marion Blakelock's, "Doctor, have you any compassion in your heart?"

"I hope so," I answered shortly, shaking off her hand; her touch filled me with loathing.

"Hush! don't talk so loud. If you have any pity in your nature, give me back, I entreat of you, that gold ingot which my father gave you this evening."

"Great heaven!" said I, "can it be possible that so fair a woman can be such a mercenary, shameless wretch?"

"Ah! you know not— I cannot tell you! Do not judge me harshly. I call God to witness that I am not what you deem me. Some day or other you will know. But," she added, interrupting herself, "the ingot— where is it? I must have it. My life depends on your giving it to me."

"Take it, impostor!" I cried, placing it in her hand, that closed on it with a horrible eagerness. "I never intended to keep it. Gold made under the same roof that covers such as you must be accursed."

So saying, heedless of the nervous effort she made to detain me, I stumbled down the stairs and walked hastily home.

The next morning, while I was in my office, smoking my matutinal cigar, and speculating over the singular character of my acquaintances of last night, the door opened, and Marion Blakelock entered. She had the same look of terror that I had observed the evening before, and she panted as if she had been running fast.

"Father has got out of bed," she gasped out, "and insists on going on with his alchemy. Will it kill him?"

"Not exactly," I answered coldly. "It were better that he kept quiet, so as to avoid the chance of inflammation. However, you need not be alarmed; his burns are not at all dangerous, although painful."

"Thank God! thank God!" she cried, in the most impassioned accents; and, before I was aware of what she was doing, she seized my hand and kissed it.

"There, that will do," I said, withdrawing my hand; "you are under no obligations to me. You had better go back to your father."

"I can't go," she answered. "You despise me— is it not so?"

I made no reply.

"You think me a monster— a criminal. When you went home last night, you were wonderstruck that so vile a creature as I should have so fair a face."

"You embarrass me, madam," I said, in a most chilling tone. "Pray relieve me from this unpleasant position."

"Wait. I cannot bear that you should think ill of me. You are good and kind, and I desire to possess your esteem. You little know how I love my father."

I could not restrain a bitter smile.

"You do not believe that? Well, I will convince you. I have had a hard struggle all last night with myself, but am now resolved. This life of deceit must continue no longer. Will you hear my vindication?"

I assented. The wonderful melody of her voice and the purity of her features were charming me once more. I half believed in her innocence already.

"My father has told you a portion of his history. But he did not tell you that his continued failures in his search after the secret of metallic transmutation nearly killed him. Two years ago he was on the verge of the grave, working every day at his mad pursuit, and every day growing weaker and more emaciated. I saw that if his mind was not relieved in some way he would die. The thought was madness to me, for I loved him— I love him still, as a daughter never loved a father before. During all these years of poverty I had supported the house with my needle; it was hard work, but I did it— I do it still!"

"What?" I cried, startled, "does not—"

"Patience. Hear me out. My father was dying of disappointment. I must save him. By incredible exertions, working night and day, I saved about thirty-five dollars in notes. These I exchanged for gold, and one day, when my father was not looking, I cast them into the crucible in which he was making one of his vain attempts at transmutation. God, I am sure, will pardon the deception. I never anticipated the misery it would lead to.

"I never beheld anything like the joy of my poor father, when, after emptying his crucible, he found a deposit of pure gold at the bottom. He wept, and danced, and sang, and built such castles in the air, that my brain was dizzy to hear him. He gave me the ingot to keep, and went to work at his alchemy with renewed vigor. The same thing occurred. He always found the same quantity of gold in his crucible. I alone knew the secret. He was happy, poor man, for nearly two years, in the belief that he was amassing a fortune. I all the while plied my needle for our daily bread. When he asked me for the savings, the first stroke fell upon me. Then it was that I recognized the folly of my conduct. I could give him no money. I never had any— while he believed that I had fourteen thousand dollars. My heart was nearly broken when I found that he had conceived the most injurious suspicions against me. Yet I could not blame him. I could give no account of the treasure I had permitted him to believe was in my possession. I must suffer the penalty of my fault, for to undeceive him would be, I felt, to kill him. I remained silent then, and suffered.

"You know the rest. You now know why it was that I was reluctant to give you that ingot— why it was that I degraded myself so far as to ask it back. It was the only means I had of continuing a deception on which I believed my father's life depended. But that delusion has been dispelled. I can live this life of hypocrisy no longer. I cannot exist and hear my father, whom I love so, wither me daily with his curses. I will undeceive him this very day. Will you come with me, for I fear the effect on his enfeebled frame?"

"Willingly," I answered, taking her by the hand; "and I think that no absolute danger need be apprehended. Now, Marion," I added, "let me ask forgiveness for having even for a moment wounded so noble a heart. You are truly as great a martyr as any of those whose sufferings the Church perpetuates in altar-pieces."

"I knew you would do me justice when you knew all," she sobbed, pressing my hand; "but come. I am on fire. Let us hasten to my father, and break this terror to him."

When we reached the old alchemist's room, we found him busily engaged over a crucible which was placed on a small furnace, and in which some indescribable mixture was boiling. He looked up as we entered.

"No fear of me, doctor," he said, with a ghastly smile, "no fear; I must not allow a little physical pain to interrupt my great work, you know. By the way, you are just in time. In a few moments the marriage of the Red King and White Queen will be accomplished, as George Ripley calls the great act, in his book entitled 'The Twelve Gates.' Yes, doctor, in less than ten minutes you will see me make pure, red, shining gold!" And the poor old man smiled triumphantly, and stirred his foolish mixture with a long rod, which he held with difficulty in his bandaged hands. It was a grievous sight for a man of any feeling to witness.

"Father," said Marion, in a low, broken voice, advancing a little toward the poor old dupe, "I want your forgiveness."

"Ah, hypocrite! for what? Are you going to give me back my gold?"

"No, father, but for the deception that I have been practicing on you for two years— "

"I knew it! I knew it!" shouted the old man, with a radiant countenance. "She has concealed my fourteen thousand dollars all this time, and now comes to restore them. I will forgive her. Where are they, Marion?"

"Father— it must come out. You never made any gold. It was I who saved up thirty-five dollars, and I used to slip them into your crucible when your back was turned— and I did it only because I saw that you were dying of disappointment. It was wrong, I know— but, father, I meant well. You'll forgive me, won't you?" And the poor girl advanced a step toward the alchemist.

He grew deathly pale, and staggered as if about to fall. The next instant, though, he recovered himself, and burst into a horrible sardonic laugh. Then he said, in tones full of the bitterest irony: "A conspiracy, is it? Well done, doctor! You think to reconcile me with this wretched girl by trumping up this story that I have been for two years a dupe of her filial piety. It's clumsy, doctor, and is a total failure. Try again."

"But I assure you, Mr. Blakelock," I said as earnestly as I could, "I believe your daughter's statement to be perfectly true. You will find it to be so, as she has got the ingot in her possession which so often deceived you into the belief that you made gold, and you will certainly find that no transmutation has taken place in your crucible."

"Doctor," said the old man, in tones of the most settled conviction, "you are a fool. The girl has wheedled you. In less than a minute I will turn you out a piece of gold purer than any the earth produces. Will that convince you?"

"That will convince me," I answered. By a gesture I imposed silence on Marion, who was about to speak. I thought it better to allow the old man to be his own undeceiver— and we awaited the coming crisis.

The old man, still smiling with anticipated triumph, kept bending eagerly over his crucible, stirring the mixture with his rod, and muttering to himself all the time. "Now," I heard him say, "it changes. There— there's the scum. And now the green and bronze shades flit across it. Oh, the beautiful green! the precursor of the golden-red hue that tells of the end attained! Ah! now the golden-red is coming— slowly— slowly! It deepens, it shines, it is dazzling! Ah, I have it!" So saying, he caught up his crucible in a chemist's tongs, and bore it slowly toward the table on which stood a brass vessel.

"Now, incredulous doctor!" he cried, "come and be convinced," and immediately began carefully pouring the contents of the crucible into the brass vessel. When the crucible was quite empty he turned it up and called me again. "Come, doctor, come and be convinced. See for yourself."

"See first if there is any gold in your crucible," I answered, without moving.

He laughed, shook his head derisively, and looked into the crucible. In a moment he grew pale as death.

"Nothing!" he cried. "Oh, a jest, a jest! There must be gold somewhere. Marion!"

"The gold is here, father," said Marion, drawing the ingot from her pocket; "it is all we ever had."

"Ah!" shrieked the poor old man, as he let the empty crucible fall, and staggered toward the ingot which Marion held out to him. He made three steps, and then fell on his face. Marion rushed toward him, and tried to lift him, but could not. I put her aside gently, and placed my hand on his heart.

"Marion," said I, "it is perhaps better as it is. He is dead!"

End

Table of Contents

- 1: It Happened at Christmas / Anonymous
- 2:  Lanfranc / Alexander Vindex Vennard
- 3: The Bend of the Road / Capel Boake
- 4: Long Distance / Frances Noyes Hart

- 5: The Last Boat In the Lock / Edith Stewart Drewry

- 6: On the Plains / Ernest Favenc
- 7: Problem of Footgear / Bertram Atkey
- 8: The End of the Search / Bertram Atkey
- 9: Poison / Katherine Mansfield

- 10: The Story of Richard Lavender / Roderic Quinn

- 11: The Creeping Shadow / Morris Price Williams

- 12: The Great Auk / Irvin S. Cobb

- 13: The Heiress of Glenmahowley / Arthur Conan Doyle

- 14: The China Bowl / E. F. Benson

- 15: In the Way of Business / Stacey Aumonier

- 16: The Ghost of Barmouth Manor / F. Frankfort Moore

- 17: Blanchard's Passenger / Morley Roberts

- 18: The Celestial Bulletin / Arthur H. Adams

- 19: Garibaldi Hogan, Detective / Ernest Francis O'Ferrall

- 20: The Golden Ingot / Fitz James O'Brien