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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Right Stuff, by Ian Hay
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Right Stuff
+       Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton
+
+Author: Ian Hay
+
+Release Date: March 25, 2007 [EBook #20904]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIGHT STUFF ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by LM Bornath
+
+
+
+
+
+"The Right Stuff"
+
+
+Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton
+
+
+BY
+
+IAN HAY
+
+
+
+DR JOHNSON. Oatmeal, sir? The food of horses in England and of men in
+Scotland!
+
+BOSWELL (_roused at last_). And where, sir, will you find such
+horses--or such men?
+
+
+
+_SHILLING EDITION_
+
+
+
+William Blackwood & Sons
+Edinburgh and London
+1912
+
+
+
+
+_TO_
+
+_AN INDULGENT CRITIC_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+BOOK ONE.
+
+RAW MATERIAL.
+
+
+CHAP.
+
+      I. "OATMEAL AND THE SHORTER CATECHISM"
+     II. INTRODUCES A PILLAR OF STATE AND THE APPURTENANCES THEREOF
+    III. "ANENT"
+     IV. A TRIAL TRIP
+      V. ROBIN ON DUTY
+     VI. ROBIN OFF DUTY
+    VII. A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP
+   VIII. OF A PIT THAT WAS DIGGED, AND WHO FELL INTO IT
+     IX. THE POLICY OF THE CLOSED DOOR
+      X. ROBIN'S WAY OF DOING IT
+
+
+BOOK TWO.
+
+THE FINISHED ARTICLE.
+
+
+     XI. A MISFIRE
+    XII. THE COMPLEAT ANGLER
+   XIII. A HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE
+    XIV. "TO DIE--WILL BE AN _AWFULLY_ BIG ADVENTURE"
+     XV. TWO BATTLES
+    XVI. "_QUI PERD, GAGNE_"
+   XVII. IN WHICH ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD
+  XVIII. A PROPHET IN HIS OWN COUNTRY
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ONE.
+
+RAW MATERIAL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+OATMEAL AND THE SHORTER CATECHISM.
+
+
+The first and most-serious-but-one ordeal in the life of Robert Chalmers
+Fordyce--so Robert Chalmers himself informed me years afterwards--was
+the examination for the Bursary which he gained at Edinburgh University.
+A bursary is what an English undergraduate would call a "Schol."
+(Imagine a Scottish student talking about a "Burse"!)
+
+Robert Chalmers Fordyce arrived in Edinburgh pretty evenly divided
+between helpless stupefaction at the sight of a great city and stern
+determination not to be imposed upon by the inhabitants thereof. His
+fears were not as deep-seated as those of Tom Pinch on a similar
+occasion,--he, it will be remembered, suffered severe qualms from his
+familiarity with certain rural traditions concerning the composition of
+London pies,--but he was far from happy. He had never slept away from
+his native hillside before; he had never seen a town possessing more
+than three thousand inhabitants; and he had only once travelled in a
+train.
+
+Moreover, he was proceeding to an inquisition which would decide once
+and for all whether he was to go forth and conquer the world with a
+university education behind him, or go back to the plough and sup
+porridge for the rest of his life. To-morrow he was to have his
+opportunity, and the consideration of how that opportunity could best be
+gripped and brought to the ground blinded Robin even to the wonders of
+the Forth Bridge.
+
+He sat in the corner of the railway carriage, passing in review the
+means of conquest at his disposal. His actual stock of scholarship, he
+knew, was well up to the required standard: he was as letter perfect in
+Latin, Greek, Mathematics, and Literature as hard study and remorseless
+coaching could make him. Everything needful was in his head--but could
+he get it out again? That was the question. The roaring world in which
+he would find himself, the strange examination-room, the quizzing
+professors--would these combine with his native shyness to seal the lips
+and cramp the pen of Robert Chalmers Fordyce? No--a thousand times no!
+He would win through! Robert set his teeth, braced himself, and kicked
+the man opposite.
+
+He apologised, attributing the discourtesy to the length of his legs--he
+stood about six feet three--and smiled so largely and benignantly, that
+the Man Opposite, who had intended to be thoroughly disagreeable, melted
+at once, and said it was the fault of the Company for providing such
+restricted accommodation, and gave Robert _The Scotsman_ to read.
+
+Robert thanked him, and, effacing himself behind _The Scotsman_,--though,
+for all the instruction or edification that his present frame of mind
+permitted him to extract from that coping-stone of Scottish journalism,
+he might as well have been reading the Koran,--returned to his thoughts.
+He collated in his mind the pieces of advice which had been bestowed
+upon him by his elders and betters before his departure. In brief,
+their collective wisdom came to this:--
+
+His father had bidden him--
+
+(a) To address all professors with whom he might come in contact as
+    "Sir";
+
+(b) To arrive at the Examination each morning at least five minutes
+    before the advertised time;
+
+(c) To refrain from lending money to, or otherwise countenancing the
+    advances of, persons of insinuating address who would doubtless
+    accost him in the streets of Edinburgh.
+
+The Dominie had said--
+
+"When in doubt, mind that practically everything in an examination
+governs the subjunctive.
+
+"If there is a _viva voce_, be sure and speak up and give your answers
+as though you were sure of them. They may be wrong, but on the other
+hand they may be right. Anyway, the one thing the examiners will not
+thole is a body that dithers.
+
+"Take a last keek at that Proposition--they _may_ call them Theorems,
+though--about the Square on the Hypotenuse. It hasn't been set for four
+years.
+
+"If you are given a piece of Greek Testament to translate, for mercy's
+sake do not be too glib. Dinna translate a thing until you are sure it
+is there. They have an unholy habit of leaving out a couple of verses
+some place in the middle, and you're just the one to tumble head-first
+into the _lacuna_. (I ken ye, Robbie!)
+
+"And whatever ye do, just bear in mind it's your only chance, and _grup_
+on tae it! _Post est occasio calva_, laddie! And dinna disappoint an
+auld man that has taught ye all he kens himsel'!"
+
+Much of his mother's advice was of a kind that could not be expressed so
+concisely, but two salient items remained fixed in Robert's mind:--
+
+"If ye canna think o' the richt word, pit up a bit prayer.
+
+"For ony sake see that your collar is speckless a' the time."
+
+Robert's first impressions of Edinburgh were disappointing. Though
+extensive enough, the city was not so great or so imposing as he had
+expected. It was entirely roofed with glass,--a provision which, though
+doubtless advantageous in wet weather, militated against an adequate
+supply of sunlight and fresh air. The shops, of which Robin had heard so
+much, were few in number; and the goods displayed therein (mainly food
+and drink, newspapers and tobacco) compared unfavourably in point of
+variety with those in the window of Malcolm M'Whiston, the "merchant" at
+home. The inhabitants all appeared to be in a desperate hurry, and the
+noise of the trains, which blocked every thoroughfare, was deafening.
+Robert Chalmers was just beginning to feel thoroughly disappointed with
+the Scottish capital, when it occurred to him to mount a flight of
+stairs which presented itself to his view and gave promise of a second
+storey at least. When he reached the top he found he had judged
+Edinburgh too hastily. There was some more of it.
+
+His horizon thus suddenly enlarged, Robert Chalmers Fordyce began to
+take in his surroundings. He now found himself in a great street, with
+imposing buildings on one side and a green valley on the other. On the
+far side of the valley the ground ran steeply upward to an eminence
+crowded thickly with houses and topped by a mighty castle.
+
+The street was alive with all sorts of absorbingly interesting traffic;
+but for the present Robert was chiefly concerned with the Cable Cars. It
+was upon one of these majestic vehicles, which moved down the street
+unassisted by any apparent human or equine agency, that he had been
+bidden to ride to his destination. He was not to take the first that
+came along, nor yet the second--they went to various places, it seemed;
+and if you were taken to the wrong one you had to pay just the same--but
+was to scan them until he espied one marked "Gorgie." This would carry
+him down the Dalry Road, and would ultimately pass the residence of
+Elspeth M'Kerrow, a decent widow woman, whose late husband's brother had
+"married on" a connection of Robert's mother. Here he was to lodge.
+
+At first sight the cars appeared to be labelled with nothing but Cocoa
+and Whisky and Empire Palaces of Varieties Open Every Evening; but a
+little perseverance discovered a narrow strip of valuable information
+painted along the side of each car. The first that caught our friend's
+eye was "Pilrig and Braid Hills Road." That would not do. Then came
+another--"Murrayfield, Haymarket, and Nether Liberton." Another blank!
+Then, "Marchmont Road and Churchill." Foiled again, Robert was beginning
+to feel a little sceptical as to the actual existence of the Dalry Road,
+when a car drew up opposite to him labelled "Pilrig and Gorgie." It was
+going in the right direction too, for his father had warned him that his
+destination lay to the west of the town; and you can trust a Scotsman to
+know the points of the compass with his eyes shut. (They even talk of a
+man sitting on the north or south side of his own fireplace.)
+
+Robert clambered on to the top of this car, and presently found himself
+confronted by a gentleman--splendid in appearance but of homely
+speech--who waved bundles of tickets in his face, and inquired tersely--
+
+"Penny or tippeny? or transfair?"
+
+"I am seeking the Dalry Road," said Robert cautiously.
+
+"Which end o't?"
+
+"I couldna say."
+
+"Ca' it a penny," said the conductor.
+
+Robert, with the air of a man who has beaten down his opponent to the
+lowest possible figure, produced the coin from his pocket. (It was just
+as well that the man had not demanded a larger sum, for Robert's more
+precious currency was concealed in a place only accessible to partial
+disrobement.) The gorgeous man carelessly snapped a ticket out of one of
+the bundles, and having first punched a hole in it with an ingenious
+instrument that gave forth sounds of music, handed it to Robert in
+exchange for the penny. He was a saturnine man, but he smiled a little
+later when Robert, mindful of the fate of his railway-ticket at the last
+station but one, airily attempted to give up his car-ticket in similar
+fashion on alighting at the end of the journey.
+
+The greater part of the next four days was spent by our friend in an
+examination-room, into which we, more fortunate, need not attempt to
+follow him. Robert diligently answered every question, writing at the
+foot of each sheet of his neat manuscript, "More on the next page," in
+case the examiner should be a careless fellow and imagine that Robert
+had finished when he had not. Robert was not the man to leave anything
+to chance, or to such unsafe abbreviations as P.T.O.
+
+Outside the examination-room he devoted most of the time that he could
+spare from preparation for the next paper to a systematic exploration of
+Edinburgh. He did the thing as thoroughly as possible, for he knew well
+that he might never spend four days in a large town again.
+
+He began by climbing the Calton Hill. He remained at the summit quite a
+long time, constructing a rough bird's-eye plan of the streets and
+buildings below him; and having descended to earth, proceeded on a
+series of voyages of discovery.
+
+He regarded the exterior of Parliament House with intense interest, for
+he was a debater by instinct and upbringing. St Giles' he passed by
+without enthusiasm--he was a member of the Free Kirk--and St Mary's
+Cathedral struck him as being unduly magnificent to be the property of
+such a small and pernicious sect as the Episcopalians. The Post Office
+and other great buildings struck him dumb; and he hastened past the
+theatres with averted eyes, for he had it upon unimpeachable authority
+that the devil resided there.
+
+He knew no one in Edinburgh save Elspeth M'Kerrow. However, he made
+another friend--to wit, one Hector MacPherson, a gigantic Highland
+policeman, who controlled the traffic with incredible skill at a place
+where several ways met. The said Hector stood beneath the shadow of a
+great lamp-post, and whenever a vehicle drove past one side of him,
+Hector relentlessly called it back and made it go on the other. Their
+acquaintance began with the entire effacement of Robert's features by
+the palm of Hector's hand, which was suddenly extended across the
+thoroughfare for traffic-regulating purposes, with the result that
+Robert, who was plunged in thought at the time, ran his nose right into
+the centre of it. The ejaculation to which each gave vent at the moment
+of impact revealed to both that they were from the same part of the
+country, and thereafter Hector MacPherson became Robert's
+adviser-in-chief throughout his stay in Edinburgh. Indeed, Robert used
+Hector as the starting-point for all his excursions, and whenever he
+became hopelessly lost in the wilds of the Grassmarket or the purlieus
+of Morningside, he used to ask his way back to his mentor's pitch and
+make a fresh start. We shall hear of Hector again.
+
+The foolhardy feat of entering a shop Robert did not attempt until his
+very last day in Edinburgh, and then only because he was absolutely
+compelled to do so by the necessity of executing a commission for his
+sister Margaret--the purchase of half a yard of ribbon.
+
+It is true that the same ribbon could have been obtained at home from
+Malcolm M'Whiston or a travelling packman, but Margaret was determined
+to have it from Edinburgh; and she was particularly emphatic in her
+injunctions to Robert to see that the folk in the shop stuck a label on
+the parcel, "with their name printed on, and a picture of the shop and
+a'."
+
+On Saturday morning, then, Robert approached the establishment which he
+had chosen for the purpose. After a careful reconnaissance he discovered
+that it possessed several doors. Here was a poser. Which would be the
+ribbon door? Supposing he entered the wrong one and found himself
+compelled to purchase a roll of muslin or a wash-hand-stand? With
+natural acumen he finally selected a door flanked by windows containing
+lace and ribbon; and waiting for a moment when the surging crowd was
+thickest, attempted to slip in with them. He got safely past a hero in a
+medal-sown uniform, but immediately after this encountered an imposing
+gentleman in a frock-coat, who asked his pleasure. Robert inquired
+respectfully if the gentleman kept ribbon. The gentleman said "Surely,
+surely!" and Robert's modest requirements were thereupon sent ringing
+from a throat of brass into the uttermost recesses of the establishment,
+and he himself was passed, hot-faced, along the fairway until he reached
+the right department. Here his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth,
+and the siren behind the counter, with difficulty stifling her
+amusement, was reduced to discovering his needs by a process of
+elimination.
+
+"What will I show you?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Ladies' gloves?"
+
+A shake of the head.
+
+"Handkerchiefs?"
+
+Another shake.
+
+"Stockings?"
+
+Another shake, accompanied by a deepening of complexion.
+
+"Well--ribbon?"
+
+"Aye, that's it," replied Robert, suddenly finding his voice (which, by
+the way, rather resembled the Last Trump). "Hauf a yaird--one inch
+wide--satin--cream!" he roared mechanically.
+
+He received the small parcel, and furtively fingering the money in his
+pocket, asked the price.
+
+"Two-three, please," replied the damsel briskly.
+
+How Robert thanked his stars that he had some cash in hand! But what a
+price! All that for a scrap of ribbon! It seemed sinful; but he laid two
+shillings and threepence on the counter. Greatly to his alarm, the young
+woman behind it, who up to this point had kept her feelings under
+commendable control, suddenly collapsed like a punctured balloon on to
+the shoulder of her nearest neighbour--there being no shop-walkers
+about--and expressed a wish that she might be taken home and buried.
+Finally she recovered sufficiently to push Robert's two shillings back
+across the counter and to place his threepence in a mysterious
+receptacle which she thrust into a hole in the wall, from which it was
+ejected with much clatter a minute later; and on being opened proved to
+contain what the dazed Robert at first took for a half-sovereign, but
+which he ultimately discovered, when he had abandoned the still giggling
+maiden and groped his way out into the street, to be a bright new
+farthing.
+
+The same day he returned to his home; but he did not reach it without
+one more adventure, a slight one, it is true, but not without its effect
+upon his future.
+
+The train was over-full, and Robert ultimately found himself travelling
+in company with nine other passengers, seven of whom were suffering from
+that infirmity once poetically described by an expert in such diagnoses
+as "a wee bit drappie in their een." The exception was a gentleman in
+the far corner, accompanied by a most lovely young lady, upon whom
+Robert gazed continuously with an admiration so absorbing and profound
+that it took him some little time to realise, shortly after the
+commencement of the journey, that the rest of the company were indulging
+in a free fight all over the compartment, and that the lady was clinging
+in terror to her escort. Robert was of considerable service in restoring
+order, and found his reward in the eyes of the lady, who thanked him
+very prettily. Her husband had the sense not to offer Robert money, but
+gave him his card, and said in a curious, stiff, English way that he
+hoped he might be of service to him some day. They got out at Perth, and
+Robert travelled on alone.
+
+Hours later he was met by his brother David at a little wayside station,
+and driven over fifteen miles of hilly road to the farm where he had
+been born and brought up.
+
+Next morning he was up at daybreak, and set to work at his usual tasks
+about the yard, well knowing that such would be his lot to the end of
+his life if the examination list did not show his name at the top.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some days had to elapse before the result could be known; but Robert
+Chalmers Fordyce--by the way, I think we know him well enough now to
+call him Robin, which was the name his mother had given him on his third
+birthday--and his household, being Scottish and undemonstrative, made
+little or no reference to the subject.
+
+Robin was the scholar of his family. He was the second son, David being
+four years older. But in accordance with that simple, grand, and
+patriarchal law of Scottish peasant life, which decrees that every lad
+of parts shall be given his chance to bring credit on the family, even
+though his parents have to pinch and save and his brothers bide at the
+plough-tail all their lives in consequence--a law whose chief merit lies
+in the splendid sacrifices which its faithful fulfilment involves, and
+whose vital principle well-meaning but misguided philanthropy is now
+endeavouring to dole out of existence--he had been sent to Edinburgh to
+make the most of this, his one chance in life.
+
+Still, though the credit of the family hung upon the result of the
+examination,--if he won the Bursary, the money, together with the
+precious hoard which his father and mother had been accumulating for him
+for ten years, would just suffice to keep him at the University,--no one
+discussed the matter. It was in the hands of God, and prognostication
+could only be vain and unprofitable. His mother and sister, indeed,
+questioned him covertly when his father and brother were out of hearing;
+but that was chiefly about Edinburgh, and the shops, and the splendours
+of the Dalry Road. The Bursary was never mentioned.
+
+On the day on which the result was to be announced their father took
+Robin and David away to a distant hillside to assist at the
+sheep-dipping. The news would come by letter, which might or might not
+get as far as Strathmyrtle Post Office, seven miles away, that very
+afternoon. In the morning it would be delivered by the postman.
+
+But there are limits to human endurance, none the less definite because
+that endurance appears illimitable. When father and sons tramped back to
+the farm that evening, just in time for supper, it was discovered that
+Margaret was absent. John Fordyce, grim old martinet that he was, looked
+round the table inquiringly; but a glance at his wife's face caused him
+to go on with his meal.
+
+At nine o'clock precisely the table was cleared. The herdman and two
+farm lasses came into the kitchen from their final tasks in the yard,
+and the great Bible was put down on the table for evening "worship."
+
+John Fordyce, having looked up the "portion" which he proposed to read,
+then turned to the Metrical Psalms. These were sung night by night in
+unswerving rotation throughout the year, a custom which, while it
+offered the pleasing prospect of variety, occasionally left something to
+be desired on the score of appropriateness.
+
+All being seated, the old man, after a final fleeting glance at his
+daughter's empty chair, gave out the Psalm.
+
+"Let us worship God," he said, "by singing to His praise in the Hundred
+and Twenty-first Psalm. Psalm a Hundred and Twenty-one--
+
+   'I to the hills will lift mine eyes,
+    From whence doth come----'"
+
+The door opened, and Margaret entered. She was dusty and tired, for she
+had walked fourteen miles since milking-time; but in her hand she held a
+letter.
+
+She glanced timidly at the clock, and was for slipping quietly into her
+seat; but her father said--
+
+"You had best give it to him now. A man cannot worship God while his
+mind is distracted with other things."
+
+Robin took the letter, and after a glance in the direction of his father
+and the waiting Bible, opened and read it amidst a tense silence.
+Finally he looked up.
+
+"Well?" said the old man.
+
+"They have given me the First Bursary, father," said Robin.
+
+No one spoke, but Robin saw tears running down his mother's face. John
+Fordyce deliberately turned back several pages of the Bible.
+
+"We will sing," he said in a clear voice, "in the Twenty-third
+Psalm--the whole of it!--
+
+   'The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want----'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Psalms of David, as rendered into English verse by Nahum Tate and
+others, are not remarkable for poetic merit; neither does the old
+Scottish fashion of singing the same, seated and without accompaniment,
+conduce to a concord of sweet sounds. But there are no tunes like old
+tunes, and there are no hearts like full hearts. If ever a song went
+straight up to heaven, the Twenty-third Psalm, borne up on the wings of
+"Martyrdom," did so that night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+INTRODUCES A PILLAR OF STATE AND THE APPURTENANCES THEREOF.
+
+
+The time had undoubtedly arrived when I must have a Private Secretary.
+
+Kitty, for one, insisted on it. She said that I was ruining my health in
+the service of an ungrateful country, and added that she, personally,
+declined to be left a widow at twenty-eight-and-a-half to oblige
+anybody.
+
+"It is exactly the wrong age," she said. "If it had happened four or
+five years ago, I could have done pretty well for myself. Now, I should
+be out of the running among the _débutantes_, and a little too young and
+flighty to suit a middle-aged bachelor."
+
+I may add that my wife does not often talk in this unfeeling manner. But
+she suffers at times from a desire to live up to a sort of honorary
+reputation for sprightly humour, conferred upon her by undiscriminating
+admirers in the days before she became engaged to me. As a matter of
+fact, her solicitude on my behalf was largely due to an ambition to see
+a little paragraph in the newspapers, announcing that "Mr Adrian
+Inglethwaite, M.P., Director of the Sub-Tropical and Arctic Department
+at the Foreign Office, has appointed Mr Blankley Dash to be his Private
+Secretary."
+
+Dolly and Dilly seconded the motion. They had not the effrontery to wrap
+up their motives in specious expressions of concern for my health, but
+stated their point of view with brutal frankness, as is their wont. I
+was an old dear, they conceded, and of course Kitty was Kitty; but a
+sister and brother-in-law were, to put it quite plainly, a hopelessly
+dull couple to live with: and the visits of Mesdames Dolly and Dilly to
+our roof-tree would, it was hinted, be more frequent and enduring if the
+establishment was strengthened by the addition of a presentable young
+man.
+
+I consented. It was three to one. To any one acquainted with the trio of
+sisters arrayed against me, it will at once be apparent that "these
+odds" (as the halfpenny papers say) "but faintly represent the
+superiority of the winning side."
+
+Having thus dragged the reader without apology into the most intimate
+regions of my family circle, I had perhaps better introduce myself and
+my _entourage_ a little more formally.
+
+My name is Samuel Adrian Inglethwaite. Why I was called Samuel I do not
+know. Possibly my parents did. Samuel may have been a baptismal sprat
+set to catch a testamentary whale, but if this was so no legacy ever
+came my way. Personally, I am rather attached to the name, as I was
+called nothing else until I encountered the lady who ultimately
+consented to become Mrs Inglethwaite. Since that epoch in my career I
+have been S. Adrian Inglethwaite.
+
+I am thirty-six years of age, and hold an appointment under Government,
+which, while it does not carry with it Cabinet rank--though Kitty cannot
+see why--is sufficiently important to make the daily papers keep my
+obituary notice handily pigeon-holed, in case I fall over the Thames
+Embankment, get run over by a motor-bus, or otherwise contravene the
+by-laws of the London County Council.
+
+As no man can possibly give an unbiassed opinion of his own wife, I
+shall not attempt to describe mine at this juncture, except to mention
+that she is a woman with no fault that I can for the moment recall,
+beyond a predilection for belonging to societies which are better known
+for their aims than for their achievements, are perennially short of
+funds, and seem to possess no place of meeting except my drawing-room.
+
+Dolly and Dilly are Kitty's sisters. They are twins, and there present
+age is, I think, nineteen. Though I say it who should not, they are both
+astonishingly attractive young persons, and the more I see of them the
+more the fact is borne in upon me. Indeed, a casual remark of mine to
+that effect, uttered to my wife, by an unfortunate coincidence, on the
+very morning upon which one of the numerous Deceased Wife's Sister's
+Bills passed its Second Reading in the House, gave rise to a coldness of
+demeanour on her part which was only dispelled by an abject apology and
+a dinner for two at the Savoy on mine.
+
+To return to Dolly and Dilly. I never know them apart, and I do not
+think Kitty does either. Both are divinely tall and divinely fair; they
+are exactly like each other in form, voice, and feature; and they
+possess the irritating habit, not uncommon with twins, of endeavouring
+to exaggerate their natural resemblance by various puzzling and, I
+consider, unsportsmanlike devices. They wear each other's clothes
+indiscriminately, and are not above taking turn and turn about with the
+affections of unsuspecting young men, of whom they possess a
+considerable following. They attract admiration without effort, and, I
+honestly believe, without intention. Of the meaning of love they know
+nothing,--they are female Peter Pans, and resolutely refuse to grow up,
+except outwardly,--and the intrusion of that passion into their dealings
+with persons of the male gender is regarded by them at present as a
+contingency to be discouraged at all costs. The conditions under which
+they admit their admirers to their friendship are commendably simple and
+perfectly definite. If a man is adjudged by them to have attained all
+the complicated and inexplicable standards by which women judge the
+opposite sex, he is admitted into the ranks of the Good Sorts; and as
+such, provided that he keeps his head, has an extremely pleasant time of
+it. If, however, any obtuse and amorous youth persists in mistaking what
+Nanki-Poo once described as "customary expressions of affability" for an
+indication that his infatuation is reciprocated, the Twins act promptly.
+They have "no use" for such creatures, they once explained to me; and
+they proceed to rid themselves of the incubus in a fashion entirely
+their own.
+
+As soon as the pressure of the _affaire_ rises to danger-point--_i.e._,
+when the youth begins to pay markedly more attention to one Twin than
+the other--he is asked, say, to lunch. Here he is made much of by the
+object of his affections, who looks radiant in, let us say, white
+_batiste_; while the unemployed Twin, in (possibly) blue poplin, holds
+discreetly aloof. After lunch the Twins, leaving their victim to smoke a
+cigar, retire swiftly to their room, where they exchange costumes, and
+descend again to the drawing-room. There Dolly, now arrayed in white
+_batiste_, enters upon the path of dalliance where Dilly left off; and
+Dilly, relieved from duty, crochets in a window-recess, and silently
+enjoys her sister's impersonation.
+
+One of two things happens. Romeo either does not notice the difference,
+or else he does. If he does not, he continues to flounder heavily along
+in pursuit of the well-beloved, oblivious of the fact that he is wasting
+his efforts on an understudy. After an appropriate interval the cold
+truth is revealed to him in a hysterical duet, and he goes home, glaring
+defiantly, but feeling an entire and unmitigated ass.
+
+Or he may actually recognise that Dilly has been replaced by
+Dolly,--this is what happens when the case is a really serious one,--and
+if this occurs he is more sorrowful than angry, poor fellow, for he sees
+that he is being trifled with; and your true lover is the most
+desperately earnest person in the world. In either case the _affaire_
+terminates then and there. And that is how my sisters-in-law, with
+adroitness and despatch, return immature and undesirable suitors to
+their native element. The whole proceeding reminds me irresistibly of
+the Undersized Fish Bill, a measure whose progress I once assisted in
+its course through a Committee of the House.
+
+However, having been bidden to procure a Private Secretary, I meekly set
+about looking for one. One night at dinner we held a symposium on the
+subject, and endeavoured to evolve an outline of the kind of gentleman
+who was likely to suit us. The following is a _précis_ of the result. I
+leave the intelligent reader to trace each item to its author; also the
+various parenthetical comments on the same:--
+
+(a) He must be a 'Varsity man.
+
+(b) He must be able to keep accounts, and transact business generally.
+
+(c) He must be content with a salary of two hundred a-year, with
+    board and residence in the house. ("He can have that little
+    room off the library for a sitting-room, dear, and sleep in
+    the old night-nursery.")
+
+(d) He must not wear celluloid collars or made-up ties. ("But he'll
+    _have_ to, poor dear, if the Infant Samuel only gives him two
+    hundred a-year.")
+
+(e) He must be prepared to run through my speeches before I deliver
+    them. ("I suppose that means _write_ them!"), look up my
+    subject-matter, verify my references, and so on. ("That _will_
+    be an improvement. But what will the halfpenny papers do then,
+    poor things?")
+
+(f) He must be the sort of man that one can have in to a dinner-party
+    without any fear of accidents. ("Yes. He _must_ be all right about
+    peas, asparagus, and liqueurs. _And_ finger-bowls, dearest. You
+    remember the man who drank out of his at that queer political
+    dinner to the constituents?")
+
+(g) He must be nice to my Philly.
+
+(h) He must be dark. ("Pshaw!")
+
+(i) He must be fair. ("Ugh!")
+
+(j) He must be able to waltz and play bridge.
+
+At this point I suggested that a prepaid telegram to the Celestial
+Regions would alone procure the article we required. However, we
+ultimately descended to an advertisement in the _Morning Post_, and in
+due course I obtained a secretary. In fact, I obtained several. We had
+them _seriatim_, and none stayed longer than a month. I do not propose
+to write a detailed history of the dynasty which I now found it my
+privilege to support. A brief _résumé_ of each will suffice.
+
+_Number One_.--Cambridge Football Blue. Big and breezy. Spelling
+entirely phonetic. Spent most of his time smoking in the drawing-room,
+and laboured under the delusion that, as my amanuensis, he was at
+liberty to forge my signature to all documents, including cheques. He
+used my official note-paper to back horses on, and was finally requested
+to leave, after an unseemly brawl with a book-maker's tout on my
+doorstep.
+
+_Number Two_.--Oxford: a First in Greats. A heavy manner, usually
+beginning his observations with "Wherewithal" or "Peradventure." The
+Twins suffered severely from suppressed giggles in his presence.
+Regarded my superficial ideas of statesmanship with profound contempt,
+but left after a fortnight, having allowed a highly confidential and
+extremely personal pencil note, written in the margin of a despatch by
+the Premier himself, to blossom forth in large type in the text of a
+Blue Book.
+
+_Number Three_.--Rather elderly for the post--nearer forty than
+thirty--but highly recommended. Reduced my chaotic papers to order in
+twenty-four hours, charmed my wife and her sisters, drafted a speech
+which won me quite a little ovation in the House, suggested several
+notable improvements in the "Importation of Mad Dogs Bill," with which I
+was to be entrusted next session--and was found lying dead drunk in his
+bedroom, at eleven o'clock in the morning, on the second Sunday after
+his arrival. Half a dozen empty brandy bottles were afterwards
+discovered on the top of his wardrobe. Poor devil!
+
+_Number Four_.--(Subsequently handed down to posterity as "The Limit").
+Small, spectacled, and nervous. Came from a Welsh University, and was
+strong on "the methodical filing of State and other documents." He
+stayed two days. On the first night (after inquiring whether we were
+expecting guests that evening, and receiving an answer in the negative)
+he came down to dinner in a sort of alpaca smoking-jacket and a tartan
+tie. On the second, having evidently decided to treat us to all the
+resources of his wardrobe as soon as possible, he appeared in more or
+less ordinary evening attire. He wore a small white satin bow-tie,
+attached to his collar-stud by a brass clip. The tie fell off the stud
+into his soup almost immediately, and its owner, after furtively chasing
+it round the plate with his forefinger, finally fished it out with the
+aid of a fork; and, having squeezed as much soup as possible back into
+the plate, put the bow into his waistcoat pocket and resumed his meal
+with every appearance of enjoyment.
+
+He left next morning. As the Twins pathetically observed: "It had to be
+him or us!" I was sorry, for he was a tidy little creature away from
+table.
+
+After that I did a rash thing. I engaged a Private Secretary on the spur
+of the moment and without consulting my household.
+
+One morning I had occasion to visit the British Museum. That mausoleum
+of learning is not an habitual resort of mine, but on this occasion I
+had found it necessary to refresh my memory on the subject of a small
+principality situated somewhere in the Pacific, and reported to be in a
+state of considerable unrest, concerning which the member for Upper
+Gumbtree, an unpleasantly omniscient young man with a truculent manner,
+had been asking questions in the House. It seemed that British interests
+in that quarter were not being adequately protected by our Department,
+and this extremely pushing gentleman was now gaining much cheap applause
+in the columns of those low-priced organs which make a living by
+deriding his Majesty's Ministers, by bombarding us with fatuous
+inquiries on the subject. My Chief had only the most hazy notion about
+the place--as a matter of fact I do not believe that either he or any of
+the permanent officials had ever heard of it--and I was in a precisely
+similar condition. I was accordingly bidden to get up the subject, and
+accumulate a mass of information thereon which would not only satiate
+the appetite of the honourable member, but choke him off for all time.
+
+Finding myself in want of a particular Gazetteer which was not to be
+found in the office, and being in no mood to take a clerk, however
+uncritical, into my confidence, I called a hansom and drove straight to
+the Museum; where, having ensconced myself in the reading-room with the
+work in question, I prepared to devote a dusty and laborious morning to
+the service of State.
+
+Immediately opposite me sat a gigantic young man of a slightly
+threadbare appearance, who was copying some screed out of a bulky tome
+before him. I regarded him in a reminiscent sort of way for a few
+minutes, and presently found that my scrutiny was being returned
+fourfold. Next came an enormous hand that was suddenly thrust across the
+table towards me, and I remembered him.
+
+We had met six years ago in a railway train, under circumstances which
+made me extremely glad to make his acquaintance at any price. Kitty and
+I were on our honeymoon, and happened to be travelling on a Saturday
+afternoon from Edinburgh to Perth in a train packed to suffocation with
+the supporters of a football team of the baser sort. We were bound for
+Inchellan, the Scottish residence of my Chief, who was sending to meet
+us at Perth.
+
+As the first-class carriages were all occupied by gentlemen with
+third-class tickets, we travelled third with a company who did not seem
+to possess any tickets at all. Just before the train started the door
+was thrown open and two inebriated Scots, several degrees further gone
+than the rest of the company--which is saying a good deal--were hurled
+in. If the assemblage had all been of one way of thinking we might have
+reached Perth with nothing worse than bad headaches, but unfortunately
+some supporters of the other team were present, and in the midst of a
+heated and alcoholic debate on the rights and wrongs of the last free
+kick, two rival orators suddenly arose, clinched, and continued their
+argument at close grips on the floor. In a moment the party divided
+itself into two camps, and the conflict became general. As there were
+ten people in the compartment, of whom seven were engaged in a
+life-and-death struggle, the movements of the non-combatants--Kitty,
+myself, and a gigantic youth of gawky appearance--were, to put it
+mildly, somewhat restricted. Kitty became thoroughly frightened, and
+hampered my preparations for battle by clinging to my arm. The gigantic
+youth, seeing this, suddenly took command of the situation.
+
+"Watch you the young leddy!" he bellowed in my ear, "and I'll sort
+them."
+
+With that he hurled himself into the tumult. The exact details of his
+performance I could not see, the scientific dusting of railway cushions
+not having penetrated any further north of the Forth than it has south
+of the Thames; but the net result was that each combatant was pulled
+off, picked up, shaken until his teeth rattled, and banged down on to
+his seat with a brief admonition to mind his manners, until seven
+bewildered, partially sobered, and thoroughly demoralised patrons of
+sport sat round about in various attitudes of limp dejection, leaning
+against one another like dissipated marionettes; while our rustic
+Hector, bestriding the compartment like a Colossus, dared them to move a
+finger under penalty of being "skelped."
+
+He bundled them all out at the next stopping-place, without inquiring
+whether they desired to alight there or no, and I am bound to say that
+they all seemed as anxious to leave the carriage as he was to expel
+them. He then shut the door, pulled up the window, and turned to my wife
+with a reassuring smile.
+
+"Yon was just a storrm in a teapot," he remarked affably.
+
+He accepted my thanks with indifference, but blushed in a gratified
+manner when Kitty addressed him. He was her bond-slave by the time that
+we bade him farewell at Perth. I presented him with my card, which he
+carefully placed inside the lining of his hat; but he forbore, either
+from native caution or excessive shyness, to furnish us with any
+information as to his own identity.
+
+Well, here he was, sitting opposite to me in the Reading Room of the
+British Museum, and seemingly none too prosperous. Six years ago he had
+looked like a young and healthy farm lad. Now, fourth-rate journalism
+was stamped all over him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+"ANENT."
+
+
+We conversed awhile in whispers to avoid disturbing the other
+worshippers--I always feel like that in the British Museum--and finally
+abandoned our respective tasks and issued forth together. With a little
+persuasion I prevailed upon my companion to come and lunch with me, and
+we repaired to a rather old-fashioned and thoroughly British
+establishment close by, where the fare is solid and the "portions"
+generous.
+
+My guest, after a brief effort at self-repression, fell upon the food in
+a fashion that told me a far more vivid tale of his present
+circumstances than the most lengthy explanation could have done. When he
+was full I gave him a cigar, and he leaned back in his padded arm-chair
+and surveyed me with the nearest approach to emotion that I have ever
+observed in the countenance of a Scot.
+
+"I was wanting that," he remarked frankly, and he smiled largely upon
+me. He was looking less gaunt now, and the rugged lines of his face were
+tinged with a more healthy colour. He was a handsome youth, I noticed,
+with shrewd grey eyes and a chin that stood out like the ram of a
+battle-ship.
+
+He told me all about himself, some of which has been set down here
+already. He had done well at Edinburgh University, and, having obtained
+his Arts degree, was on the point of settling down to study for the
+ministry--the be-all and end-all of the hope of a humble Scottish
+household--when disaster came tumbling upon his family. His brother
+David fell sick in his lungs, and the doctor prescribed a sojourn in a
+drier climate for at least a year.
+
+The next part of the narrative was rather elliptical; but from the fact
+that money was immediately forthcoming to send David abroad, and that
+Robin had simultaneously given up his work in Edinburgh and returned
+home to help his father about the farm, I gathered that a life's
+ambition had been voluntarily sacrificed on the altar of family duty.
+Anyhow, when David returned, marvellously and mercifully restored to
+health, setting his younger brother free once more, two precious years
+had flown; so that Robin now found himself, at the age of twenty-three,
+faced with the alternative of making a fresh start in life or remaining
+on the farm at home, that most pathetic and forlorn of failures, a
+"stickit minister." The family exchequer had been depleted by David's
+illness, and Robin, rather than draw any further on the vanishing little
+store of pound-notes in the cupboard behind the kitchen chimney,
+determined to go to London and turn his education to some account.
+
+He had arrived three years ago, with a barrel of salt herrings and a bag
+of meal; and from that time he had earned his own living--if it could be
+called a living.
+
+"Once or twice," he said, "I have had an article taken by one of the big
+reviews; sometimes I get some odd reporting to do; and whiles I just
+have to write chatty paragraphs about celebrities for the snippety
+papers."
+
+"Uphill work that, I should think."
+
+"Uphill? Downhill! Man, it's degrading. Do you know what I was doing in
+that Museum this morning?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Have you heard tell of a man they call Dean Ramsay?"
+
+"Let me see--yes. He was a sort of Scottish Sidney Smith, wasn't he?"
+
+"That is the man. Well, he collected most of the good stories in
+Scotland and put them in a book. I was copying a few of them out; and I
+shall father them on to folk that the public wants to hear about. I get
+a guinea a column for that."
+
+"I know the sort of thing," I said. "_'A good story is at present going
+the round of the clubs, concerning----'_"
+
+"Not 'concerning'--'anent'!"
+
+"I beg your pardon--'anent a certain well-known but absent-minded Peer
+of the Realm.'"
+
+"That's the stuff. You have the trick of it. Then sometimes I do bits of
+general information--computations as to the height of a column of the
+picture postcards sold in London in a year, and all that. Nobody can
+check figures of that kind, so the work is easy--and correspondingly
+ill-paid!" (I cannot reproduce the number of contemptuous _r_'s that
+Robin threw into the adverb.)
+
+"It's a fine useful place the Museum," he continued reflectively. "You
+were busy there this morning yourself. You would be collecting _data_
+anent--I mean _about_--the Island of Caerulea."
+
+I sat up in surprise at this.
+
+"How on earth----?" I began.
+
+"Oh, I just jal--guessed it. You being the only member of his Majesty's
+Government in whom I have any personal interest, I have always followed
+your career closely. (You gave me your card, you'll mind.) Well, I saw
+you were having trouble with yon havering body Wuddiford--I once
+reported at one of his meetings: he's just a sweetie-wife in
+_pince-nez_--and when I saw you busy with an atlas and gazetteer I said
+to myself:--'He'll be getting up a few salient facts about the place, in
+order to appease the honourable member's insatiable thirst for
+knowledge--Toots, there I go again! Man, the journalese fairly soaks
+into the system. I doubt now if I could write out twenty lines of
+'Paradise Lost' without cross-heading them!"
+
+We finished our cigar over talk like this, and finally rose to go. Robin
+lingered upon the steps of the restaurant. I realised that he, being a
+Scotsman, was endeavouring to pump up the emotional gratitude which he
+felt sure that I, as an Englishman, would expect from a starving pauper
+who had lunched at my expense.
+
+"I must thank you," he said at last, rather awkwardly, "for a most
+pleasant luncheon. And I should like fine," he added suddenly and
+impetuously, "to make out a _précis_ for you on the subject of Caerulea.
+Never heed it yourself! Away home, and I'll send it to you to-morrow!"
+
+An idea which had been maturing in my slow-moving brain for some time
+suddenly took a definite shape.
+
+"It is extremely kind of you," I said. "I shall be delighted to leave
+the matter in your hands. But when you have made the _précis_, I wonder
+if you would be so good as to bring it to my house instead of sending
+it?"
+
+I gave him my address, and we parted.
+
+Robert Chalmers Fordyce arrived at my house next morning. He brought
+with him a budget of condensed but exhaustive information on the subject
+of Caerulea, the assimilation and ultimate discharge of which enabled me
+to score a signal victory over Mr Wuddiford of Upper Gumbtree,
+relegating that champion exploiter of mare's nests to a sphere of
+comparative inoffensiveness for quite a considerable time.
+
+After reading the _précis_, I offered Robin the position of my Private
+Secretary, which he accepted politely but without servility or
+effusiveness. I handed him a quarter's salary in advance, gave him two
+days' holiday wherein to "make his arrangements"--_Anglicč_, to
+replenish his wardrobe--and we sealed the bargain with a glass of sherry
+and a biscuit apiece.
+
+As he rose to go, Robin took from his pocket a folded manuscript.
+
+"I see you have a good fire there," he said.
+
+He stepped across to the hearth-rug and pitched the document into the
+heart of the flames, which began to lick it caressingly.
+
+Presently the heat caused the crackling paper to unfold itself, and some
+of the writing became visible. Robert pointed, and I read--
+
+_"Pars about Personalities. A capital story is at present going the
+round of the clubs, anent----"_
+
+Here the flimsy manuscript burst into flame, and shot with a roar up the
+chimney.
+
+I looked at Robert Chalmers Fordyce, and his face was the face of a man
+who has gone through deep waters, but feels the good solid rock beneath
+his feet at last.
+
+He turned dumbly to me, and held out his hand.
+
+The worst of these inarticulate and undemonstrative people is that they
+hurt you so.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+A TRIAL TRIP.
+
+
+Three days later I introduced Robert Chalmers Fordyce into the bosom of
+my family. I had declined to give them any previous information about
+him, beyond a brief warning that they would find him "rather Scotch."
+
+I have always found it utterly impossible to foretell from a man's
+behaviour towards his own sex how he will comport himself in the
+presence of females. I have known a raw youth, hitherto regarded as the
+hobbledehoy of the shooting-party and the pariah of the smoking-room,
+lord it among the ladies like a very lion; and I have seen the hero of a
+hundred fights, the master of men, the essence of intrepid resolution,
+stand quaking outside a drawing-room door. The _début_ of Robin, then, I
+awaited with considerable interest. I expected on the whole to see him
+tongue-tied, especially before Dolly and Dilly. On the other hand he
+might be aggressively assertive.
+
+He was neither. He proved to be that rarest of types--the man who has no
+fear of his fellow-creatures, male or female, singly or in battalions.
+Our sex is so accustomed to squaring its shoulders, pulling down its
+waistcoat, and assuming an engaging expression as a preliminary to an
+encounter with the fair, that the spectacle of a man who enters a
+strange drawing-room and shakes hands quietly and naturally all round,
+without twisting his features into an agreeable smile and mumbling
+entirely inarticulate words of rapture, always arouses in me feelings of
+envy and respect.
+
+We found Kitty and the Twins picturesquely grouped upon the drawing-room
+hearth-rug, waiting for the luncheon gong.
+
+I introduced Robin to my wife, in the indistinct and throaty tones which
+always obtrude themselves into an Englishman's utterance when he is
+called upon to say something formal but graceful. Kitty greeted the
+guest with a smile with which I am well acquainted (and which I can
+guarantee from personal experience to be absolutely irresistible on
+one's first experience of it), and welcomed him to the house very
+prettily.
+
+"You are very kind, Mrs Inglethwaite," said Robin, shaking hands. "But I
+am not quite a stranger to you. Do you mind my face?"
+
+Kitty turned scarlet.
+
+"Mind your----? Not in the--I mean--I am sure we are de----" She
+floundered hopelessly.
+
+Robin laughed pleasantly.
+
+"There is my Scots tongue running away with me already," he said. "I
+should have asked rather if you _remembered_ my face."
+
+This time Kitty ceased to look confused, but still retained a puzzled
+frown.
+
+"No," she said slowly; "I don't _think_----"
+
+"No wonder!" said Robin. "We met once, in a railway carriage, six years
+ago. Between Edinburgh and Perth--on a Saturday afternoon," he added
+expressively.
+
+Light broke in upon Kitty. "Of course!" she said. "Now I remember. That
+dreadful journey! You were the gentleman who was so kind and helpful.
+How nice and romantic meeting again! Adrian, you silly old creature, why
+didn't you tell me? Now, Mr Fordyce, let me introduce you to my
+sisters."
+
+She wheeled him round and presented him to the Twins.
+
+That pair of beauties, I saw at a glance, were out after scalps. They
+stood up side by side on the hearth-rug, absolutely and weirdly alike,
+and arrayed on this occasion in garments of identical hue and cut. This
+was a favourite device of theirs when about to meet a new young man; it
+usually startled him considerably. If he was not a person of sound nerve
+and abstemious habits, it not infrequently evoked from him some
+enjoyably regrettable expression of surprise and alarm. I knew all the
+tricks in their _répertoire_, and waited interestedly to see the effect
+of this series.
+
+On being presented, both smiled shyly and modestly, and each
+simultaneously proffered a timid hand. The average young man, already a
+little rattled by the duplicate vision of loveliness before him, could
+never make up his mind which hand to shake first; and by the time he had
+collected his faculties sufficiently to make an uncertain grab at one,
+both would be swiftly and simultaneously withdrawn.
+
+Robin, however, immediately shook hands with Dilly, who stood nearest to
+Kitty, and then with Dolly. After that he stepped back a pace and
+surveyed the pair with unconcealed interest.
+
+Then he turned to my wife.
+
+"A truly remarkable resemblance!" he observed benignantly. ("Just as if
+we had been two babies in a bassinette!" as Dolly afterwards remarked.)
+
+Then he resumed his inspection. The Twins, who were entirely unused to
+this sort of thing, were too taken aback to proceed to their second
+move--the utterance of some trivial and artless remark, delivered by
+both simultaneously, and thereby calculated to throw the victim into a
+state of uncertainty as to which he should answer first. Instead, they
+stood wide-eyed and tongue-tied before him.
+
+"I must certainly discover some point of difference between these
+ladies," continued Robin with an air of determination, "or I shall
+always be in difficulties. Do not tell me the secret, Mrs Inglethwaite.
+Perhaps I can find out for myself."
+
+He concluded a minute inspection of the indignant Dilly, and turned his
+unruffled gaze on Dolly.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I have it! You" (triumphantly to Dolly) "have a tiny
+brown spot in the blue of your left eye, while your sister has none."
+
+It was quite true: she had. But it was a fact which most young men only
+discovered after many furtive and sidelong glances. This imperturbable
+creature had taken it all in in one resolute scrutiny; and Dolly,
+blushing like Aurora--an infirmity to which I may say neither she nor
+her sister are particularly subject--dropped her long lashes over the
+orbs in question and looked uncommonly foolish.
+
+The tension of the situation was relieved by the announcement of
+luncheon, and Robin was called upon to accompany Kitty downstairs; while
+I, putting a consoling arm round the waist of each of my fermenting
+sisters-in-law, marched them down to further experiences in the
+dining-room.
+
+The Twins rapidly recovered their equanimity at lunch. They sat, as they
+always did, together on one side of the table, opposite to Robin. The
+latter conversed easily and pleasantly, though his discourse was dotted
+with homely phrases and curious little biblical turns of speech.
+
+"Have you been in London long, Mr Fordyce?" inquired Kitty as we settled
+down.
+
+"Three years," said Robin.
+
+"I suppose you have lots of friends by this time."
+
+"I have a good many acquaintances, but my friends in London are just
+three, all told," said Robin, in what Dilly afterwards described as "a
+disgustingly pawky manner."
+
+"You must be very exclusive, Mr Fordyce," chirrupped Dolly.
+
+"Far from it," said Robin; "as you will admit when I say that my three
+friends are a policeman, a surgeon, and a minister."
+
+"How quaint of you!" said Dilly.
+
+But Robin did not seem to think it quaint. He told us about the
+policeman first--a Highlander. Robin had made his acquaintance in
+Edinburgh, apparently about the same time that he made ours, and had
+renewed it some years later outside the House of Commons, when a
+rapturous mutual recognition had taken place. The policeman's name was
+Hector MacPherson.
+
+"And the surgeon?" inquired Kitty, with a certain friendly assumption of
+interest which announces (to me) that she is getting a little bored.
+
+"He is just my uncle. I go and see him, whi--now and then. He is a busy
+man."
+
+"And the--er--minister?"
+
+"He is Dr Strang. He has the Presbyterian Church in Howard Street. I
+have sat under him every Sabbath since I came to London."
+
+"Wh--what for?" asked Kitty involuntarily, and in a rather awestruck
+voice. Her acquaintance with the ritual of the Church of Scotland was
+hazy, and she was evidently determined to-day to be surprised at
+nothing; but evidently this mysterious reference could not be allowed to
+pass without some explanation. The Twins convulsively gripped each
+other's hands under the table. (They are of course perfectly bred
+girls--indeed, their self-possession at trying moments has often
+surprised me--but, like all the young of the human species, there are
+times when their feelings become too much for them. Then, if the
+occasion is too formal for unrestrained shrieks, they silently
+interdigitate.)
+
+"That is a Scottish expression," said Robin, smiling upon us. "You must
+pardon me, Mrs Inglethwaite. I should perhaps have said that I was an
+adherent of Dr Strang's church--or rather," he added with a curious
+little touch of pride, "I am a communicant now. I was just an adherent
+at first."
+
+We assented to this, politely but dizzily.
+
+Scratch a Scot and you will find a theologian. Robin was fairly started
+now; and he proceeded to enlarge upon various points of interest in the
+parallel histories (given in full) of some three or four Scottish
+denominations, interwoven with extracts from his own family archives.
+His grand-uncle, it appeared, had been a minister himself, and had
+performed the feat--to which I have occasionally heard other perfervid
+Scots refer, and never without a kindling eye--known as "coming out in
+the Forty-three."
+
+"That," added Robin in parenthesis, "is why my second name is
+Chalmers--after the great Doctor. You will have heard of him?"
+
+(Polite but insincere chorus of pleased recognition.)
+
+We were then treated to a brief _résumé_ of the events leading up to a
+religious controversy of colossal dimensions which was at that moment
+threatening to engulf Scotland. Robin was deeply interested in the
+matter, and gave us his reasons for being so. He passed some scathing
+comments on the contumacy and narrow-mindedness of the sect who had the
+misfortune to be his opponents; and after that he proceeded to say a few
+words about Free Will and Predestination.
+
+By this time lunch was over, but we sat on. I nodded gravely over my
+coffee, saying "Quite so" when occasion seemed to demand it. Kitty was
+completely out of her depth, but still maintained a brave appearance of
+interest. It was the Twins who brought the _séance_ to a close. Placing
+their hands before their mouths, they with difficulty stifled a pair of
+cavernous yawns.
+
+Next moment they were sorry. Robin stopped dead, flushed up, and said--
+
+"Mrs Inglethwaite, I am sorry. I have been most inconsiderate and rude.
+I have wearied you all. The truth is," he continued quite simply, "it is
+so long since I sat at meat with friends, that I have lost the art of
+conversation. I just run on, like--like a leading article. I have not
+conversed with a woman, except once or twice across a counter, for
+nearly three years."
+
+There was a rather tense pause. Then Dolly said--
+
+"We're awfully sorry, Mr Fordyce. It was very rude of us. We quite
+understand now, don't we, Dilly?"
+
+"Rather," said Dilly. "It was horrible of us, Mr Fordyce. But we thought
+you were just an ordinary bore."
+
+"Children!" said Kitty.
+
+"But what you have told us makes things quite different, doesn't it,
+Dolly?" continued Dilly.
+
+"Quite--absolutely," said Dolly.
+
+And they smiled upon him, quite maternally. And so the incident passed.
+
+"How queer, not talking to a woman for three years!" continued Dolly
+reflectively.
+
+"How _awful_ it would be not to talk to a man for three years!" said
+Dilly, with obvious sincerity.
+
+"There is little opportunity for social intercourse," said Robin, "to a
+man who comes to London to sink or swim."
+
+The conversation was again taking a slightly sombre turn, and I struck
+in--
+
+"Well, I hope, Mr Fordyce, that a few weeks' experience of my
+establishment won't have the effect of making you regret your previous
+celibate existence."
+
+Dolly and Dilly looked at each other.
+
+"Dolly," said Dilly, "is that an insult?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Insulting enough to be punishable?"
+
+"Rather."
+
+"All right. Come on!"
+
+They fell upon me, and the next few minutes were devoted to what I
+believe is known in pantomime circles as a Grand Rally, which
+necessitated my going upstairs afterwards and changing my collar.
+
+Robin was not present at tea, and my household took advantage of his
+absence to run over his points.
+
+Considering that a woman--especially a young woman--judges a man almost
+entirely by his manner and appearance, and dislikes him exceedingly if
+he proceeds to dominate the situation to her exclusion--unless, by the
+way, he has her permission and authority so to do, in which case he
+cannot do so too much--the verdict delivered upon my absent secretary
+was not by any means unfavourable, though, of course, there was much to
+criticise.
+
+"He'll do," said Dilly; "but you must get his hair cut, Adrian."
+
+"And tell him about not wearing that sort of tie, dear," said Dolly.
+
+"I suppose he can't help his accent," sighs Kitty.
+
+But their criticisms were limited to such trifles as these, and I felt
+that Robin had done me credit.
+
+Dilly summed up the situation.
+
+"I think on the whole that he is rather a pet," she said.
+
+A more thoroughly unsuitable description could not have been imagined,
+but Dolly agreed.
+
+"He has nice eyes, too," she added.
+
+"He was perfectly sweet with Phillis after lunch," said Kitty. "Took her
+on his knee at once, and talked to her just as if we weren't there.
+That's a good test of a man, if you like!"
+
+"True for you," I agreed. "I could not do it with other people's
+children to save my life."
+
+"Oh, you are hopeless," said Dilly. "_Far_ too self-conscious and
+dignified to climb down to the level of children, isn't he, Dolly?" She
+crinkled her nose.
+
+Dolly for once was not listening.
+
+"What was that weird stuff the Secretary Bird spouted when you showed
+Phillis to him, Kit? About her being forward, or coy, or something. It
+sounded rather cheek, to me."
+
+"Yes, I remember," said Dilly. "Can you do the way he said it?
+'Sometimes forrrwarrrd, sometimes coy, she neverrr fails to pullllease!'
+Like that! Gracious, how it hurts to talk Scotch!"
+
+"I don't know, dear," said my wife thoughtfully. "It sounded rather
+quaint. But I daresay all Scotch people are like that," she added
+charitably.
+
+"Perhaps it was a quotation," I observed mildly.
+
+"Of course, that would be it. What is it out of?"
+
+"A song called 'Phillis is my only Joy,' I think."
+
+"Ah, then you may depend upon it," said Kitty, with the air of one
+solving a mystery, "that is what the man was doing--_quoting_! Burns,
+probably, or Scott, perhaps. How clever of him to think of it! And do
+you know," she continued, "he said such a nice thing to me. While you
+were bear-fighting with the Twins after lunch, Adrian, I said to him:
+'Pity me, Mr Fordyce! My husband never ceases to express to me his
+regret that he did not marry one of my sisters.' And he answered at
+once, quite seriously, without stopping to think it out or anything:--'I
+am sure, Mrs Inglethwaite, that his regret must be shared by countless
+old admirers of yours!' Wasn't it rather sweet of him?"
+
+Further conversation was prevented by the opening of the drawing-room
+door, where the butler appeared and announced "Mr Dubberley."
+
+Dubberley is a pillar of our party. I can best describe him by saying
+that although I hold office under a Conservative Government, ten
+minutes' conversation with Dubberley leaves me a confirmed Radical, and
+anything like a protracted interview with him converts me into a
+Socialist for the next twenty-four hours. A week-end in his society, and
+I should probably buy a red shirt and send out for bombs. He is a good
+fellow at bottom, and of immense service to the party; but he is the
+most blatant ass I have ever met. There are Dubberleys on both sides of
+the House, however, which is a comfort.
+
+Robin joined us almost directly after Dubberley's entrance, just in time
+to hear that great man conclude the preamble of his discourse for the
+afternoon.
+
+There had been a good deal of talk in the papers of late about improving
+the means of transport throughout the country; and the nationalisation
+of railways and other semi-socialistic schemes had filled the air.
+Dubberley, it appeared, had out of his own gigantic intellect evolved a
+panacea for congestion of traffic, highness of rates, and railway
+mortality.
+
+He was well launched in his subject when Robin entered and was
+introduced.
+
+"As I was saying," he continued, waving an emphatic teaspoon in the
+direction of the sofa where the ladies sat, smiling but limp,--even the
+Twins knew it was useless to stem this tide,--"as I was saying, the
+solution of the problem lies in the revival of our far-reaching but
+sadly neglected system of _canals_. Yes! If we go to the very root of
+the matter"--Dubberley is one of those fortunate persons who never has
+to dig far in his researches--"we find that our whole hope of
+regeneration lies in the single, simple, homely word--Canals! Revive
+your canals, send your goods by canal, travel yourself by----"
+
+"How long, Mr Dubberley," interpolated Robin, leaning forward--"how long
+do you consider one would take to travel, say, a hundred miles by
+canal?"
+
+"Under our present antiquated system, sir,"--Dubberley rather prides
+himself on preserving the courtly fashions of address of a bygone
+age,--"an impossibly long time. The average speed of a canal-boat at the
+present day under the ministrations of that overburdened and inadequate
+quadruped, the--er--horse, is three miles per hour. Indeed--one moment!"
+
+Dubberley fished a sheaf of documents out of his pocket--he is the sort
+of man who habitually secrets statistics and blue-books about his
+person--and after stertorously perusing them closed his eyes for a
+moment, as if to work out a sum upon an internal blackboard, and said--
+
+"I see no reason why swift canal-boats should not be constructed to run
+fifteen, twenty, or even twenty-five miles per hour. Indeed, in these
+days of turbines----"
+
+Robin put down his cup rather emphatically, and said--
+
+"Mphm."
+
+(It is quite impossible to reproduce this extraordinary Caledonian
+expletive in writing, but that is as near to it as I can get.) Then he
+continued urbanely--
+
+"Then you would organise a service of fast turbine steamers running all
+over the canal systems of the country?"
+
+"Exactly. Or let us say--er--launches," said Dubberley. "I must not
+overstate my case."
+
+"Travelling twenty miles an hour?"
+
+"Say fifteen, sir," said Dubberley magnanimously.
+
+"Mr Dubberley," said Robin, in a voice which made us all jump, "have you
+a bathroom in your house?"
+
+Even the Twins, who were growing a trifle lethargic under the
+technicalities of the subject, roused themselves at this fresh turn of
+the conversation.
+
+"Ah--eh--I beg your pardon?" said Dubberley, a trifle disconcerted.
+
+"A bathroom," repeated Robin--"with a good long bath in it?"
+
+"Er--yes."
+
+"Well, Mr Dubberley, when you go home this afternoon, go upstairs and
+fill the bath with water. Then take a large bath-sponge--something
+nearly as broad as the bath--and sweep it along from end to end, about a
+foot below the surface, at a speed of fifteen miles per hour--that will
+be twenty-two feet per second--and see what happens!"
+
+Robin had unconsciously dropped into what I may call his
+debating-society manner. His chin stuck out, and his large chest heaved,
+and he scooped the air, as if it had been the water of Dubberley's bath,
+with one of Kitty's priceless Worcester teacups.
+
+Dubberley sat completely demoralised, palpitating like a stranded frog.
+
+"Then," continued Robin, "you would observe the result of placing a
+partly submerged and rapidly moving body in a shallow and restricted
+waterway. You would kick half the water right out of the canal to begin
+with, and the other half would pile itself up into a wave under your bow
+big enough to offer an almost immovable resistance to the progress of
+your vessel."
+
+He leaned back and surveyed the bemused Dubberley with complete and
+obvious satisfaction. We all sat round breathless, feeling much as
+Sidney Smith must have felt when some one spoke disrespectfully of the
+Equator. Great was the fall of Dubberley. He moved, perhaps
+instinctively, in a society where he was seldom contradicted and never
+argued with. One does not argue with a gramophone. And here this raw
+Scottish youth, with the awful thoroughness and relentless common-sense
+of his race, had taken the very words out of his mouth, torn them to
+shreds, and thrust them down his throat.
+
+I am afraid I chuckled. The Twins sat hand in hand, with dreamy eyes
+staring straight before them. They were conjuring up a joyous vision of
+Dubberley, in his shirt-sleeves, meekly refuting one of his own theories
+by means of a childish and sloppy experiment in practical hydrodynamics
+in his own bathroom.
+
+I give this incident as a fair example of Robin's point of view and
+methods of action on questions which I for one would never dream of
+debating. He was entirely lacking in an art which I am told I possess to
+perfection--that of suffering fools gladly. Its possession has raised me
+to an Under-Secretaryship. People who should know tell me that it will
+also prevent my ever rising to anything higher.
+
+"We had a taste of our friend's quality this afternoon," I remarked to
+my household when we met for dinner that evening. "He is a
+thorough-going warrior. Fancy any man taking all that trouble to lay out
+old Dubberley!"
+
+"Poor Mr Dubberley!" said tender-hearted Kitty.
+
+"Do him good!" said Dilly, in whose recollection Dubberley's past
+enormities loomed large. "I shall be nice to the Secretary Bird now."
+
+Dolly said nothing, which was unusual. Perhaps the brown spot still
+rankled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+ROBIN ON DUTY.
+
+
+Beyond the fact that they are all desperately in earnest, all know each
+other, and occupy all the most responsible and lucrative posts on the
+face of the earth, Scotsmen are a class with whose characteristics I am
+not well acquainted. But I learned a great deal from my new secretary.
+
+Robin soon settled down to work. He not only performed his duties with
+zeal and discretion, but he kept me up to mine. He hounded me through
+the routine work of my Department; he verified my references; he managed
+my correspondence; and he frequently drafted my speeches. He even
+prepared some of my impromptus. Indeed, my--or rather his--description
+of a certain member of the other side, a lesser light of the last
+Government, a worthy man, always put up to explain matters when his
+leader had decided that honesty on this occasion was the best policy, as
+"a political niblick, always employed to get his party out of bad lies,"
+won me more applause and popularity in a House of enthusiastic golfers
+than endless weeks of honest toil behind the scenes had ever done.
+
+But I learned more from Robin than that. I suppose I am a typical
+specimen of Conservative officialdom. Until Robin came into my house it
+had never occurred to me to ask myself why I was a Conservative: I had
+been born one, and it was difficult for me to understand how any man of
+ordinary intelligence could be anything else.
+
+My father and grandfather were Conservative members before me, and I
+come of a line which has always feared God, honoured the King, paid its
+tithes, and tried to do something for the poor; and which regards
+Radicals, Socialists, Nonconformists, and criminal lunatics as much the
+same class of person. The only difference between myself and my
+forebears is that I am much too pacific (or lazy) to cherish any
+animosity against people whose views differ from my own. This fact,
+coupled with certain family traditions, has brought me to my present
+position in life; and, as I have already indicated, it will probably
+keep me there. At least, so Kitty says.
+
+"You must _assert_ yourself, dear," she declares. "Be _rude_ to people,
+and go on being rude! Then they will take notice of you and give you
+nice big posts to keep you quiet. Do you know what the Premier said
+about you the other night at dinner, to Lady Bindle? (She told Dicky
+Lever, and he told the Twins.) 'Inglethwaite? A dear fellow, a sound
+party man, and runs his Department admirably. But--he strikes only on
+the box!' Pig!"
+
+It was about this time that Robin became a member of our establishment.
+I had no idea what his political views were--it was just like me not to
+have asked him, Kitty said--but felt confident that whatever side he
+supported he would do so hot and strong.
+
+But at first he gave no indication of his leanings. It was not until we
+sat one night over our wine, in company with John Champion (member for a
+big northern constituency, and regarded by many, notwithstanding various
+eccentricities, as the coming man of the party) that he first gave
+definite utterance to his views.
+
+The cigars had gone round, and we had just performed that mysterious
+national rite which, whether it owes its existence to economy or
+politeness, invariably ends in several people burning their fingers with
+the same match.
+
+"I suppose, Mr Fordyce," said Champion, who had not met Robin before,
+but obviously liked him, "that in common with all Scotsmen you are at
+heart a Radical."
+
+"Am I?" said Robin, with native caution.
+
+"Most of your countrymen are," said Champion, with a sigh. "'They think
+too much'--you know the rest of the quotation, I expect."
+
+Robin nodded.
+
+I was a little scandalised at this flagrant tribute to the enemy, and
+said so.
+
+Champion laughed.
+
+"You are a whole-hearted old war-horse, Adrian. I envy you. Sometimes, I
+wish that I----"
+
+"For mercy's sake don't go and say that you are a Radical at heart too,"
+I cried.
+
+"N-n-o. But isn't it rot, the whole business?"
+
+"What whole business?"
+
+"Ask Mr Fordyce there. He will tell you. I see it in his eye."
+
+"What is rot, Robin?" I asked. "Party government?"
+
+"Yes," said Robin, quite explosively for him. "It is such a scandalous
+waste of power and material." He laid down his cigar. "Man, it's just
+pitiful. Consider! A party is returned to office. With great care and
+discrimination a Cabinet is chosen. It is composed of men who are mainly
+honest and patriotic. They are not necessarily men of genius, but they
+are all men of undoubted ability, and they are genuinely anxious to do
+their duty by the country. Now observe." (As a matter of fact he said
+"obsairrve.") "How is this energy and ability expended? About half of
+it--fifty per cent--goes in devising means to baffle the assaults of the
+Opposition and so retain a precarious hold on office. Sir, it's just
+ludicrous! Instead of concentrating their efforts upon--upon--I want a
+metaphor, Mr Champion."
+
+"Upon steering the ship of State," said Champion, with a twinkle in his
+eye.
+
+"That'll do, fine.--Upon steering the ship of State, they have to devote
+half their time and energy to dodging the missiles of their shipmates.
+That is what I mean when I say the thing is pitiful. What should we
+think of the sanity of an ordinary ship's company, if the man at the
+wheel had to spend half his time up in the rigging because a minority of
+his messmates wanted to throw him overboard?"
+
+"I think you are putting the case too strongly," I said. "The criticism
+of a healthy public opinion is no bad thing. Besides, your Cabinet still
+have fifty per cent of their energy left. What do they do with that?"
+
+"Of that," said Champion, joining in, "about forty per cent is wasted on
+mere parade--dummy legislation--bills that never will be passed, and
+which no sensible man has any desire should be passed, except in a
+mutilated and useless condition; bills merely brought forward by the
+Government as a sop to the extreme wing of their own party. It doesn't
+matter which side is in power. If they are Liberals, they have to
+propose a few socialistic and iconoclastic measures, secretly thanking
+God for the House of Lords all the while. If they are Conservatives,
+they propitiate the Landlords and the Church by putting forward some
+outrageously retrograde proposal or other, secure in the knowledge that
+it will be knocked on the head by the halfpenny papers. Of the remaining
+ten per cent----"
+
+"About nine," resumed Robin, "is appropriated automatically to
+absolutely essential routine business, like the Budget and Supply----"
+
+"And the remaining one per cent," struck in Champion, "is devoted to
+real live Legislation."
+
+Then they both looked at me, this pair of carping pessimists, rather
+furtively, like two fags who have allowed their tongues to wag over
+freely in the presence of a monitor. It was a curious tribute to the
+power of officialdom, for they were both far bigger men, in every sense,
+than I. Finally Champion laughed.
+
+"Don't look so horrified, Adrian," he said. "Mr Fordyce and I croak too
+much. Still, you will find a grain or two of sense among the chaff, as
+Jack Point says."
+
+But I was not to be smoothed down so easily.
+
+"According to you fellows," I grumbled, as I passed the port, "there is
+practically no difference between one political party and another."
+
+"None whatever," said Champion cheerfully--"not between the _backbones_
+of the parties, that is. Of course excrescences don't count. Tell me,
+Adrian, what bill, barring one or two contentious semi-religious
+measures, has ultimately reached the Statute Book during the last twenty
+years that might not have been put there by either party without any
+violent departure from its principles? Not one! Foreign policy, again.
+Does it make any difference to our position in the world which party is
+in office nowadays? Not a scrap. The difference between the two sides is
+immaterial. There is often a far deeper line of cleavage between two
+sections of the same party than between party and party. We make faces
+at each other, it is true; and one side plumes itself on the moral
+support of Royalty and the aristocracy, while the other always bawls out
+that it has the inviolable will of the people at its back,--I daresay
+one assertion is about as true as the other--but I don't think there is
+a pennyworth of difference, really. There used to be a lot, mind you,
+when the Plebs were really struggling for a footing in the scheme of
+things; but bless you! we are all more or less in the same crowd now.
+Just a difference of label, that's all."
+
+"There was a story my dominie used to tell," said Robin, who had been
+listening to this diatribe with rapt attention, "about a visitor to a
+seaside hotel, who ordered a bottle of wine. The boy brought up the
+wrong kind, so the visitor sent for the landlord and pointed out the
+mistake, adducing the label on the bottle as evidence. 'I'm very sorry,
+sir, I'm sure,' said the landlord, 'but I'll soon put it right. Boy,
+bring another label!' An old story, I am afraid, but it seems to me to
+put Party goverment into a nutshell."
+
+I rose, and began to replace the stoppers in the decanters. I was
+feeling rather cross. I hate having my settled convictions tampered
+with. They are not elastic, and this makes them brittle, and I always
+feel nervous about their stability when the intellectual pressure of an
+argument grows intense.
+
+"When you two have abolished the British Constitution," I remarked
+tartly, "what do you propose to substitute for the present _régime_?"
+
+"'There,'" said Champion, "as the charwoman replied when asked for a
+character, 'you _'ave_ me.' Let us join the ladies."
+
+But I was still angry.
+
+"It always seems best to me," I persisted doggedly, "to take up a good
+sound line of action and stick to it, and to choose a good sound party
+and stick to that. Half a glass of sherry before we go upstairs?"
+
+"No, thanks. That is why I envy you, Adrian," said Champion. "It's a
+wearing business for us, being so--so--what shall we call it, Mr
+Fordyce?"
+
+"Detached?" suggested Robin.
+
+"That's it."
+
+"Two-faced would be a better word," I growled.
+
+Champion clapped me on the shoulder.
+
+"Adrian," said he, "in time of peace there is always a large, critical,
+neutral, and infernally irritating party, for ever philandering betwixt
+and between two extremes of opinion. But when war is declared and it
+comes to a fight, the ranks close up. There is no room for detachment,
+and there are no neutrals. When occasion calls, you'll find all your
+friends--your half-hearted, carping, Erastian friends--ranged up tight
+beside you. Shall we be trapesing about in Tom Tiddler's ground when the
+pinch comes, Mr Fordyce--eh?"
+
+"Never fear!" said Robin.
+
+And I am bound to say that we all of us lived to see John Champion's
+assertion made good.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+ROBIN OFF DUTY.
+
+
+I have yet to introduce to the indulgent reader two more members of the
+family into which I have married.
+
+The first of these is my daughter Phillis, of whom I have already made
+passing mention. She is six years old, and appears to be compounded of
+about equal parts of angelic innocence and original sin. In her dealings
+with her fellow-creatures she exhibits all the _sangfroid_ and
+self-possession that mark the modern child. She will be a "handful" some
+day, the Twins tell me, and they ought to know. However, pending the
+arrival of the time when she will begin to rend the hearts of young men,
+she contents herself for the present with practising that accomplishment
+with complete and lamentable success upon her own garments.
+
+She is the possessor of a vivid imagination, which she certainly does
+not inherit from me, and is fond of impersonating other people, either
+characters of her own creation or interesting figures from story-books.
+Consequently it is never safe to address her too suddenly. She may be a
+fairy, or a bear, or a locomotive at the moment, and will resent having
+to return to her proper self, even for a brief space, merely to listen
+to some stupid and irrelevant remark--usually something about bed-time
+or an open door--from an unintelligent adult.
+
+Kitty says that I spoil her, but that is only because Kitty is quicker
+at saying a thing than I am. She is our only child; and I sometimes
+wonder, at moments of acute mental introspection (say, in the night
+watches after an indigestible supper), what we should do without her.
+
+The other character waiting for introduction is my brother-in-law,
+Master Gerald Rubislaw. He is the solitary male member of the family of
+which my wife and the Twins form the female side. He is, I think,
+fourteen years of age, and he is at present a member of what he
+considers--very rightly, I think; and I should know, for I was there
+myself--the finest public school in the world. Having no parents, he
+resides at my house during his holidays, and refreshes me exceedingly.
+
+He is a sturdy but rather diminutive youth, with a loud voice. (He
+always addresses me as if I were standing on a distant hill-top.) He
+bears a resemblance to his sisters of which he is heartily and frankly
+ashamed, and which he endeavours at times to nullify as far as possible
+by a degree of personal uncleanliness which would be alarming to me,
+were it not that the traditions of my own extreme youth have not yet
+been entirely obliterated from my memory.
+
+His health is excellent, and his intellect is in that condition
+euphemistically described in house-master's reports as "unformed." He is
+always noisy, constitutionally lazy, and hopelessly casual. But he
+possesses the supreme merit of being absolutely and transparently
+honest. I have never known him tell a lie or do a mean thing. To such
+much is forgiven.
+
+At present he appears to possess only two ambitions in life; one, to
+gain a place in his Junior House Fifteen, and the other, to score some
+signal and lasting victory over his form-master, a Mr Sydney Mellar,
+with whom he appears to wage a sort of perpetual guerilla warfare. Every
+vacation brings him home with a fresh tale of base subterfuges, petty
+tyrannies, and childish exhibitions of spite on the part of the infamous
+Mellar, all duly frustrated, crushed, and made ridiculous by the
+ingenuity, resource, and audacity of the intrepid Rubislaw. I have never
+met Mr Mellar in the flesh, but I am conscious, as time goes on and my
+young relative's reminiscences on the subject accumulate, of an
+increasing feeling of admiration and respect for him.
+
+"He's a rotten brute," observed Gerald one day. "Do you know what he had
+the cheek to do last term?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Well, there was a clinking new desk put into our form-room, at the
+back. I sit there," he added rather _naďvely_. "As soon as I saw it, of
+course I got out my knife and started to carve my name. I made good big
+letters, as I wanted to do the thing properly on a fine new desk like
+that."
+
+"Was this during school hours?" I ventured to inquire.
+
+"Of course it was. Do you think a chap would be such a silly ass as to
+want to come in specially to carve his name during play-hours, when he's
+got the whole of his school-time to do it in?"
+
+"I had not thought of that," I said apologetically.
+
+"And don't go putting on side of that sort, Adrian, old man," roared
+Gerald, in what a stranger would have regarded as a most threatening
+voice, though I knew it was merely the one he keeps for moments of
+playful badinage. "I saw _your_ name carved in letters about four inches
+high in the Fifth Form room only the other day. I don't see how you can
+jaw a man for doing a thing you used to do yourself thirty or forty
+years ago."
+
+I allowed this reflection on my appearance to pass without protest, and
+Gerald resumed his story.
+
+"Well, I did a first-class G to begin with, and was well on with the
+Rubislaw--all in capitals: I thought it would look best that way--when
+suddenly a great hand reached over my shoulder and grabbed my knife. It
+was Stinker, of course."
+
+"St----"
+
+"Oh, I forgot to tell you that. We call him 'Stinker' now. You see, his
+name is S. Mellar, and if you say it quickly it sounds like 'Smeller.'
+So we call him 'Stinker.' It was a kid called Lane thought of it. Pretty
+smart--eh? Oh, he's a clever chap, I can tell you," yelled Gerald, with
+sincere enthusiasm.
+
+"He must be a youth of gigantic intellect," I said.
+
+"Oh, come off the roof! Well, Stinker grabbed my knife, and said,
+'Hallo, young man, what's all this? Handing down your name to
+posterity--eh?' with a silly grin on his face.
+
+"I said I was just carving my name.
+
+"'I see you have just finished it,' he said.
+
+"I didn't quite tumble to his meaning at first, because I had only got
+as far as G. RUB,--and then I saw that the whole thing as it stood
+spelled 'GRUB.' Lord, how the swine laughed! He told the form all about
+it, and of course they all laughed too, the sniggering, grovelling
+sweeps!
+
+"Then Stinker said: 'A happy thought has just occurred to me. I shall
+not have your name obliterated in the usual manner'--they cut it out and
+put in a fresh bit of wood, and charge you a bob--' this time. I have
+thought of a more excellent way.' (He always talks like that, in a sort
+of slow drawl.) 'We will leave your name exactly as you have carved it.
+But remember, young man, not another letter do you add to that name so
+long as you are a member of this school. A Grub you are,--a nasty little
+destructive Grub,--and a Grub you shall remain, so far as that desk is
+concerned, for all time. And if ever in future years you come down here
+as a distinguished Old Boy--say a K.C.B. or an Alderman,--remember to
+bring your numerous progeny'--oh, he's a sarcastic devil!--'to this
+room, and show them what their papa once was!'
+
+"Of course all the chaps roared again, at the idea of me with a lot of
+kids. But that wasn't all. He switched off _that_ tap quite suddenly,
+and said--
+
+"'Seriously, though, I am not pleased about this. Carving your name on a
+desk is not one of the seven deadly sins, but doing so when I have told
+you not to _is_. This silly street-boy business has been getting too
+prevalent lately: we shall have you chalking things up on the walls
+next. I particularly gave out last week, when this new desk was put in,
+that no one was to touch it. Come to me at twelve, and I will cane you.'
+And he _did_," concluded Gerald, with feeling.
+
+"What a shame!" said Dilly, who was sitting by. "All for carving a silly
+old desk."
+
+"He was perfectly right," said Gerald, his innate sense of justice
+rising to the surface at once. "I wasn't lammed for cutting the desk at
+all: it was for doing it after I had been told not to."
+
+"It's the same thing," said Dilly, with feminine disregard for legal
+niceties.
+
+"Same thing? Rot! Fat lot you know about it, Dilly. It's a rum thing,"
+he added to me in a reflective bawl, "but women never can understand the
+rules of any game. Stinker is a bargee, but he was quite right to lam
+me. It was for disobedience; and disobedience is cheek; and no master
+worth his salt will stand cheek. So Stinker says, and he is right for
+once."
+
+Gerald is the possessor of a bosom friend, an excessively silent and
+rather saturnine youth of about his own age. His name is Donkin, and he
+regards Gerald, so far as I can see, with a grim mixture of amusement
+and compassion. He pays frequent visits to my house, as his father is a
+soldier in India; and he is much employed by the Twins for corroborating
+or refuting the more improbable of their brother's reminiscences.
+
+Robin soon made friends with the boys. Like most of their kind, their
+tests of human probity were few and simple: and having discovered that
+Robin not only played Rugby football, but had on several occasions
+represented Edinburgh University thereat, they straightway wrote him
+down a "decent chap" and took the rest of his virtues for granted.
+
+It came upon them--and me too, as a matter of fact--as rather a shock
+one evening, when Robin, during the course of a desultory conversation
+on education in general, suddenly launched forth _more suo_ into a
+diatribe against the English Public School system.
+
+English boys, he pointed out, were passed through a great machine, which
+ground up the individual at one end and disgorged a mere type at the
+other--("Pretty good type too, Robin," from me),--they were taught to
+worship bodily strength--("Quite right too!" said my herculean
+brother-in-law),--they were herded together under a monastic system;
+they were removed from the refining influence of female society--(even
+the imperturable Donkin snorted at this),--and worst of all, little or
+nothing was done to eradicate from their minds the youthful idea that it
+is unmanly to read seriously or think deeply.
+
+I might have said a good deal in reply. I might have dwelt upon the fact
+that the English Public School system is not so hard upon the stupid
+boy--which means the average boy--as that of more strenuous
+forcing-houses of intellect abroad. I might have spoken of one or two
+moral agents which prevent our schools from being altogether despicable:
+unquestioning obedience to authority, for instance, or loyalty to
+tradition. I might have told of characters moulded and fibres stiffened
+by responsibility--our race bears more responsibility on its shoulders
+than all the rest of the world put together--or of minds trained to
+interpret laws and balance justice in the small but exacting world of
+the prefects' meeting and the games' committee. But it was Gerald, who
+is no moralist, but a youth of sound common-sense, who closed the
+argument.
+
+"Mr Fordyce," he said, "it's no use _my_ jawing to you, because you can
+knock me flat at that game; and of course old Moke there"--this was
+Master Donkin's unhappy but inevitable designation among his
+friends--"is too thick to argue with a stuffed rabbit; but you had
+better come down some time and see the place--that's all."
+
+Robin promised to suspend judgment pending a personal investigation, and
+the incident closed.
+
+Gerald's verdict on Robin's views, communicated to me privately
+afterwards, was characteristic but not unfavourable.
+
+"He seems to have perfectly putrid notions about some things, but he's a
+pretty sound chap on the whole--the best secretary you have had, anyhow,
+old man. Have you seen him do a straight-arm balance on the
+billiard-table?"
+
+But I did not fully realise how completely Robin had settled down as an
+accepted member of my household until one afternoon towards the end of
+the Christmas holidays.
+
+There is a small but snug apartment opening out of my library, through
+an arched and curtained doorway. The library is regarded as my
+workroom--impregnable, inviolable; not to be rudely attempted by
+devastating housemaids. There is a sort of tacit agreement between Kitty
+and myself as regards this apartment. Fatima-like, she may do what she
+pleases with the rest of the house. She may indulge her passion for
+drawing-room meetings to its fullest extent. She may intertain
+missionaries in the attics and hold meetings of the Dorcas Society in
+the basement. She may give reformed burglars the run of the
+silver-closet, and allow curates and chorus-girls to mingle in sweet
+companionship on the staircase. But she must leave the library alone,
+and neither she nor her following must overflow through its double doors
+during what I call business hours.
+
+On this particular afternoon I had been engaged upon the draft of a
+small bill with which I had been entrusted--we will call it the
+"Importation of Mad Dogs Bill,"--and about four o'clock I handed it to
+Robin with instructions to write out a fair copy. Robin retired into his
+inner chamber, and I sat down in an arm-chair with _Punch_. (It was a
+Wednesday, the Parliamentary half-holiday of those days, and still,
+happily, the _Punch_-day of these.)
+
+Kitty was holding a Drawing-room Meeting upstairs. I forget what
+description of body she was entertaining: it was either a Society for
+the Propagation of something which could never, in the nature of things,
+come to birth; or else an Association for the Prevention of something
+that was bound to go on so long as the world endured. I had been
+mercifully absolved from attending, and my tea had been sent in to me. I
+was enjoying an excellent caricature of my Chief in the minor cartoon of
+_Punch_, when I heard the door of the inner room open and the voice of
+my daughter inquire--
+
+"Are you _drefful_ busy, Uncle Robin?" (My secretary had been elevated
+to avuncular rank after a probation of just three hours.)
+
+There was a sound as of a chair being pushed back, and a rustle which
+suggested the hasty laying aside of a manuscript, and Robin's voice
+said--
+
+"Come away, Philly!" (This is a favourite Scoticism of Robin's, and
+appears to be a term denoting hearty welcome.)
+
+There was a delighted squeal and the sound of pattering feet. Next
+ensued a period of rather audible osculation, and then there was
+silence. Presently Phillis said--
+
+"What shall we do? Shall I sing you a hymn?"
+
+Evidently the revels were about to commence.
+
+"I have just learned a new one," she continued. "I heared it in Church
+yesterday afternoon, so I brought it home and changed it a bit. It's
+called 'Onward, Chwistian Sailors!'"
+
+"'_Soldiers_,' isn't it?"
+
+"No--'_Sailors_.' It _was_ 'Soldiers,' but I like sailors much better
+than soldiers, so I changed it. I'll sing it now."
+
+"Wait till Sunday," said Robin, with much presence of mind. "Will you
+not tell me a story?"
+
+This idea appeared so good that Phillis began forthwith.
+
+"Once there were three horses what lived in a stable. Two was wise and
+one was just a foolish young horse. There was some wolves what lived
+quite near the stable----"
+
+"Wolves?" said my secretary, in tones of mild surprise.
+
+"The stable," explained Phillis, "stood in the midst of the snowy plains
+of Muscovy. I should have telled you that before."
+
+"Just so," said Robin gravely. "Go on."
+
+"Well, one day," continued the narratress's voice through the
+curtains--I knew the story by heart, so I was able to fill up the gaps
+for myself when she dropped to a confidential whisper--"one cold, windy,
+berleak day, the old wolves said to the young ones, 'How about a meal of
+meat?' and all the young one's said, 'Oh, _let's_!'
+
+"That very morning," continued Phillis in the impressive bass which she
+reserves for the most exciting parts of her narrative, "that _very_
+morning the foolish young horse said to the old horses, 'Who is for a
+scamper to-day?' Then he began to wiggle and wiggle at his halter. The
+old horses said, 'There is wolves outside, and our master says that they
+eat all sheep an' cattle an' horses,' But the young horse just wiggled
+and wiggled,"--I could hear my daughter suiting the action to the word
+upon her audience's knee,--"and pwesently his halter was off! Then out
+he rushed, kicking up the nimble snow with his feathery heels,
+and--what?"
+
+Robin, who was automatically murmuring something about transferred
+epithets, apologised for this pedantic lapse, and the tale proceeded.
+
+"Well, just as he was goin' to have one more scamper, he felt a growl--a
+awful, fearful, deep _growl_,"--Phillis's voice sank to a bloodcurdling
+and continuous gurgle--"and he terrembled, like this! I'll show you----"
+
+She slipped off Robin's knee, and I knew that she was now on the
+hearth-rug, simulating acute palsy for his benefit.
+
+"Then he felt somefing on his back, then somefing further up his back,
+then a bite at his neck; and then he felt his head bitten off, and he
+died. Now you tell me one."
+
+"Which?"
+
+Phillis considered.
+
+"The one about the Kelpie and the Wee Bit Lassie."
+
+Robin obliged. At first he stumbled a little, and had to be prompted in
+hoarse whispers by Phillis (who apparently had heard the story several
+times before); but as the narrative progressed and the adventures of the
+wee bit lassie grew more enthralling and the Kelpie more terrifying, he
+became almost as immersed as his audience. When I peeped through the
+curtain they were both sitting on the hearth-rug pressed close together,
+Phillis gripping one of Robin's enormous hands in a pleasurable
+condition of terrified interest. The fair copy of the "Importation of
+Mad Dogs Bill," I regret to say, lay on the floor under the table. I
+retired to my arm-chair.
+
+"The Kelpie," Robin continued, "came closer and closer behind her.
+Already she could feel a hot breath on her neck." (So could Robin on
+his, for that matter.) "But she did not give in. She ran faster and
+faster until----"
+
+"You've forgotten to say she could hear its webbed feet going _pad pad_
+over the slippery stanes," interpolated Phillis anxiously.
+
+"So I did. I'm sorry. She could hear its webbed feet going _pad pad_
+over the slippery stanes. Presently though, she came to a wee bit housie
+on the moor. It was empty, but she slippit through the yard-gate and
+flew along the path and in at the door. The Kelpie came flying through
+the gate----"
+
+"No, no--it loupit ower the dyke!" screamed Phillis, who would
+countenance no tamperings with the original text.
+
+"Oh, yes. It loupit ower the dyke, but the wee lassie just slammed the
+door in its face, and turned the key. Then she felt round in the dark
+and keeked about, wondering what kind of place she was in. And at that
+very moment, through a bit window in the wall----"
+
+"She went ben first."
+
+"Oh, yes. She went ben; and at that very moment, through the bit window
+in the back-end of the house, there came a ray of light. The sun----"
+
+"The sun had risen," declaimed Phillis, triumphantly taking up the tale;
+"and with one wild sheriek of disappointed rage the Kelpie vanished
+away, and the wee lassie was _saved_!"
+
+There was a rapt pause after this exciting anecdote. Then Phillis
+remarked--
+
+"Uncle Robin, let's write that story down, and then I can get people to
+read it to me."
+
+"Why not write it down for yourself?"
+
+"I can't write--much; and it ought to be writed in ink, and I--I am only
+allowed to use pencil," explained my daughter, not without a certain
+bitterness. "But I put the lead in my mouf," she added defiantly.
+
+At this moment the door of my apartment was hurled open, and Gerald
+projected himself into the room. It was the evening before his return to
+school, and there was a predatory look in his eye. He was accompanied by
+his speechless friend.
+
+"Adrian, old son," he began, in such tones as an orator might address to
+a refractory mob, "Moke and I are going to have a study next term, and
+we want some furniture."
+
+I mildly remarked that in my day furniture was supplied by the school
+authorities.
+
+"Yes, but I mean pictures and things. Can you give us one? We shall want
+something to go on that wall opposite the window, shan't we, Moke? The
+place where young Lee missed your head with the red-ink bottle. _Have_
+you got a picture handy, Adrian?"
+
+I replied in the negative.
+
+Gerald took not the slightest notice.
+
+"It will have to be a pretty big one," he continued. "There is a good
+lot of red ink to cover. I have been taking a look round the house, and
+I must say the pictures you've got are a fairly mangy lot--aren't they,
+Moke?"
+
+The gentleman addressed coughed deprecatingly, and looked at me as much
+as to say that, whatever he thought of my taste in art, he had eaten my
+salt and would refrain from criticism.
+
+"There's one that might do, though," continued Gerald. "It's hanging in
+the billiard-room--a big steamer in a storm."
+
+By this time Phillis and Robin had joined the conclave.
+
+"I know," said Phillis, nodding her head; "a great beautiful boat in
+some waves. I should fink it was a friend of the _Great Eastern's_," she
+added, referring to an antiquated print of the early Victorian leviathan
+which hung in the nursery.
+
+"We could take it for a term or two, anyhow," continued Gerald, "until
+we get something better. I'm expecting some really decent ones after
+summer. Ainslie _major_ is leaving then, and he has promised to let me
+have some of his cheap. Then you can have yours back, Adrian. That's the
+scheme! Come on, Moke, we'll go and take it down now. Thanks very much,
+old chap" (to me). "I'll tell Kitty that you've let us. We can jab it
+off its hook with a billiard-cue, I should think, Moke. Come too, will
+you, Mr Fordyce? You can stand underneath and catch it, in case it comes
+down with a run. So long, Adrian!"
+
+The whole pack of them swept from the room, leaving the door open.
+
+When I looked in at the billiard-room on my way up to dress for dinner
+an hour later, nothing remained to mark the spot hitherto occupied by a
+signed and numbered proof of _An Ocean Greyhound_, by Michael Angelo
+Mahlstaff, A.R.A. (a wedding gift to my wife and myself from the
+artist), but the imprints of several hot hands on the wall, together
+with a series of parallel perpendicular scars, apparently inflicted by a
+full-sized harrow.
+
+From which two chapters it will be gathered that Robert Chalmers Fordyce
+was a man capable, in his ordinary working-day, of playing many parts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP.
+
+I.
+
+
+My wife and I would have been more than human if we had not occasionally
+cast a curious eye upon the relations of Robin and the Twins.
+
+Of Robin's attitude towards that pair of charmers Kitty could make
+little and I nothing. He kept his place and went his own way--rather
+ostentatiously, I thought--and appeared if anything to avoid them. If he
+found himself in their company he treated them with a certain grave
+reticence--he soon grew out of his fondness for addressing us like a
+public meeting--and made little attempt to bestow upon them the
+attentions which young maidens are accustomed to receive from young men.
+
+There was no mystery about the Twins' attitude towards Robin. "Here,"
+said they in effect, "is a fine upstanding young man, full of promise,
+but hampered in every direction by abysmal ignorance on matters of vital
+importance. His instincts are sound, but at present he is quite
+impossible. What he wants is mothering."
+
+And so they mothered him, most maternally. They exerted themselves quite
+strenuously to instil into him the fundamental principles of life--the
+correct method of tying a dress tie; the intricate ritual which governs
+such things as visiting-cards and asparagus; the exact limit of the
+domains of brown boots and dinner-jackets; the utter criminality of
+dickeys, turn-down collars, and side-whiskers; and the superiority of
+dialogue to monologue as a concomitant to afternoon tea.
+
+In many respects, they discovered with pleased surprise, their pupil
+required no instruction or surveillance. For instance, he could always
+be trusted to enter or leave a room without awkwardness, and his manner
+of address was perfect. He was neither servile nor familiar, and the
+only people to whom I ever saw him pay marked deference were the members
+of what is after all the only real and natural aristocracy in the
+world--that of old age.
+
+All their ministrations Robin received with grave wonder--he was not of
+the sort that can easily magnify a fetish into a deity--but, evidently
+struck by the intense importance attached by the Twins to their own
+doctrines, he showed himself a most amenable pupil. Probably he
+realised, in spite of hereditary preference for inward worth as opposed
+to outward show, that though a coat cannot make a man, a good man in a
+good coat often has the advantage of a good man in a bad coat. So he
+allowed the Twins to round off his corners; and, without losing any of
+his original ruggedness of character or toughness of fibre, he soon
+developed into a well-groomed and sufficiently presentable
+adjunct--quite distinguished-looking, Dilly said, when she met us one
+day on our way down to the House--to a lady's morning walk.
+
+What he really thought of it all I do not know. I have a kind of
+suspicion that deep down in his heart every Scot entertains a contempt
+for the volatile and frivolous English which is only equalled by that of
+the English for the nation to whom I once heard a Highland minister
+refer as "the giddy and godless French"; but Robin was not given to the
+revelation of his private thoughts. He seldom spoke of the Twins to
+me--he was a discusser of manners rather than men--but he once remarked
+that they were girls of widely different character. He entered into no
+further details, but I remember being struck by the observation at the
+time; for I had always regarded my sisters-in-law as being as identical
+in disposition as they were in appearance.
+
+Still it was pretty to see Robin unbending to please the two girls, and
+to hear him say "No, really?" or "My word, what rot!" when you knew that
+his tongue was itching to cry, "Is that a fact?" or "Hoots!" or
+"Havers!" as the occasion demanded.
+
+He also possessed the great and unique merit of not being ashamed to ask
+for guidance in a difficulty. I have known him pause before an
+unfamiliar dish at table and ask one of his preceptresses, in the
+frankest manner possible, whether the exigencies of the situation called
+for a spoon or a fork: and out of doors it was a perpetual joy to hear
+him whisper, on the approach of some one whom he thought might be a
+friend of ours, "Will I lift my hat?"
+
+All that year Robin was my right hand. It was a long session; and as
+my Chief sat in the Upper House, much work in the way of answering
+questions and making statements fell upon me. We had a good working
+majority, but the Opposition were a united and well-organised body
+that year, and we had to rise early and go to bed late to keep their
+assaults at bay while proceeding with the programme of the session.
+Every afternoon, before I entered the House to take my place at
+question-time, my secretary insisted on taking me through the answers
+which he had prepared for my recitation; and we also discussed the
+line of action to be pursued if I were cornered by questions of the
+"arising-out-of-that-answer" order.
+
+Personally, I loathed this part of the work--I am a departmentalist pure
+and simple--but Robin's eye used to glow with the light of battle as he
+rehearsed me in the undoubtedly telling counters with which I was to
+pulverise the foe.
+
+"I would like fine," he once said to me, "to stand up in your place and
+answer these questions for you."
+
+"I wish you could, Robin," I sighed. "And," I added, "I believe you will
+some day."
+
+Robin turned pink, for the first time in our acquaintance, and I heard
+his teeth click suddenly together.
+
+So the wind lay that way!
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+During the next year my household was furnished with three surprises,
+Dilly contributing one and Robin two.
+
+Robin's came first. One was his uncle, the other his book.
+
+One night it fell to my lot to dine in the City, as the guest of the
+Honourable Company of Tile-Glazers and Mortar-Mixers. As I swam
+forlornly through a turgid ocean of turtle-soup and clarified punch
+towards an unyielding continent of fish, irrigated by brown sherry,
+mechanically rehearsing to myself the series of sparkling yet
+statesmanlike epigrams with which I proposed to reply to the toast of
+his Majesty's Ministers I became aware that the gentleman on my left was
+addressing me in a voice that seemed vaguely familiar.
+
+"And how is my brother's second boy doing with you, Mr Inglethwaite?"
+
+I must have looked a trifle blank, for he added--
+
+"My nephew, Robin."
+
+I glanced obliquely at the card which marked his place at table, and
+read--
+
+  _Sir James Fordyce._
+
+Then I began to grasp the situation, and I realised that this great man,
+whose name was honourably known wherever the ills of childhood are
+combated, was Robin's uncle, the "doctor" to whom my secretary had
+casually referred, and whom he occasionally went to visit on Sunday
+afternoons. I had pictured an overdriven G.P., living in Bloomsbury or
+Balham, with a black bag, and a bulge in his hat where he kept his
+stethoscope. A man sufficiently distinguished to represent his
+profession at a public banquet was more than I had bargained for.
+
+We became friends at once, and supported each other, so to speak, amid
+the multitude of dinners and dishes, our respective neighbours proving
+but broken reeds so far as social intercourse was concerned. On Sir
+James's left, I remember, sat a plethoric gentleman whose burnished
+countenance gave him the appearance of a sort of incarnate Glazed Tile;
+while my right-hand neighbour, from the manner in which he manipulated
+the food upon his plate, I put down without hesitation as a Mortar Mixer
+of high standing.
+
+The old gentleman gave me a good deal of information about Robin.
+
+"He had a hard fight his first year or two in London," he said. "I could
+see by the way he fell upon his dinner when he came to my house that his
+meat and drink were not easily come by. Still, now that he has won
+through, he will not regret the experience. I had it myself. It is the
+finest training that a young man can receive. Hard, terribly hard, but
+invaluable! You will not have seen his father yet--my brother John?"
+
+I told him no.
+
+"Well, try and meet him. You, as an Englishman, would perhaps call him
+hard and narrow,--after forty years of London I sometimes find him so
+myself,--but he is a fine man, and he has a good wife. So have you," he
+added unexpectedly--"Robin has told me that."
+
+I laughed, in what the Twins call the "silly little gratified way" which
+obtrudes itself into my demeanour when any one praises Kitty.
+
+"I hope you are in the same happy situation," I said.
+
+"No, I am a bachelor. My brother John has not achieved a K.C.B., but he
+is a more fortunate man than I."
+
+The conversation dropped here, but I repeated it to my wife afterwards.
+
+"Of course, the whole thing is as clear as daylight," she said. "These
+two brothers both wanted to marry the same girl. She took the farmer
+one, so the other, poor thing, went off to London and became a famous
+doctor instead. That's all. He might have been Robin's father, but he's
+only his uncle."
+
+Happy the mind which can reconstruct a romance out of such scanty
+material.
+
+Sir James ultimately dined at my house, and became a firm friend of all
+that dwelt therein, especially Phillis.
+
+Then came Robin's second surprise--his book. It was a novel, and a very
+good novel too. He had been at it for some time, he told me, but it was
+only recently that he had contrived to finish it off. Being distrustful
+of its merits, he had decided to offer it to just one good publisher,
+who could take it or leave it. If he took it, well and good. But if the
+publisher (and possibly just one other) exhibited an attitude of
+aloofness, Robin had fully decided not to hawk his bantling about among
+other less reputable and more amenable firms, but to consign it to his
+bedroom fire.
+
+However, this inhuman but only-too-unusual sacrifice of the parental
+instinct was averted by the one good publisher, who accepted the book,
+and introduced Robin to the public.
+
+Either through shyness or indifference Robin had told us nothing of the
+approaching interesting event, and it was not until one morning in
+October, when a parcel of complimentary copies arrived from the
+publisher's, that we were apprised of the fact that we had been
+cherishing an author in our midst. Robin solemnly presented us with a
+copy apiece (which I thought handsome but extravagant), and also sent
+one to his parents, who, though I think they rather doubted the
+propriety of possessing a son who wrote novels at all, wrote back
+comparing it very favourably with _The Pilgrim's Progress_, the only
+other work of fiction with which they were acquainted.
+
+The book itself dealt with matters rather than men, and with men rather
+than women; which was characteristic of its author, but rather
+irritating for the Twins. It had a good deal to say about the under-side
+of journalism,--graphic and convincing, all this,--and contained a
+rather technical but absorbingly interesting account of some most
+exciting financial operations, winding up with a great description of a
+panic on the Stock Exchange. But there were few light and no tender
+passages, from which it will be seen that Robin as an author appealed to
+the male rather than the female intellect.
+
+The Twins, I think, were secretly rather disappointed with the book,
+less from any particular fondness for the perusal of love-passages than
+from a truly human desire to note how Robin would have handled them; for
+it is always interesting to see to what extent our friends will give
+themselves away when they commit the indiscretion of a book. On this
+occasion Robin had been exasperatingly self-contained.
+
+But life is full of compensations. There was a dedication. It read:--
+
+      THIS BOOK
+
+  OWES ITS INCEPTION,
+
+   AND IS THEREFORE
+
+      DEDICATED,
+
+         TO
+
+   A CIRCUMSTANCE
+
+        OVER
+
+        WHOM
+
+  I HAVE NO CONTROL.
+
+                  R. C. F.
+
+Now it is obvious that in nine cases out of ten there is only one
+circumstance over whom a vigorous young man has no control, and this
+circumstance wears petticoats. Hitherto I had not seriously connected
+Robin with the tender passion, and this sudden intimation that the most
+serious-minded and ambitious of young men is not immune from the same
+rather startled me.
+
+The female members of my establishment were pleasantly fluttered, though
+they were concerned less with the lady's existence than with her
+identity.
+
+"Who do you think she is?" inquired Kitty of me, the first time the
+subject cropped up between us.
+
+"Don't know, I'm sure," I murmured. I was smoking my post-prandial cigar
+at the time, at peace with all the world. "Never had the privilege of
+seeing his visiting-list."
+
+"I wonder who she can be," continued my wife. "He--he hasn't said
+anything to you, has he, dear?" she inquired, in a tentative voice.
+
+I slowly opened one of my hitherto closed eyes, and cocked it
+suspiciously at the diplomatist sitting opposite to me. (The Twins and
+Robin were out at the theatre.) Then, observing that she was stealthily
+regarding me through her eyelashes--a detestable trick which some women
+have--I solemnly agitated my eyelid some three or four times and gently
+closed it again.
+
+"Has he confided any of his love affairs to you, I mean?" continued
+Kitty, quite unabashed.
+
+"If you eat any more chocolates you will make yourself sick," I
+observed.
+
+"Yes, dear," said my wife submissively, pushing away the bon-bon dish.
+"But has he?"
+
+"Are you trying to pump me?"
+
+"Oh, gracious, no! What would be the good? I only asked a plain
+question. You men are such creatures for screening each other, though,
+that it's never any use asking a man anything about another man."
+
+"True for you. As a matter of fact, Robin has hardly said a word to me
+on the subject of women since first I met him."
+
+Kitty thoughtfully cracked a filbert with her teeth--an unladylike habit
+about which I have often spoken to her--and said--
+
+"What exciting chats you must have!" Then she added reflectively--
+
+"I expect it's a girl in Scotland. A sort of Highland lassie, in a kilt,
+or whatever female Highlanders wear."
+
+"Why should a novel about the Stock Exchange 'owe its inception' to a
+Highland lassie?"
+
+Kitty took another filbert.
+
+"That's 'vurry bright' of you, Adrian, as that American girl used to
+say. There's something in that. (Yes, I know you don't like it, dear,
+but I love doing it. I'll pour you out another glass of port. There!)
+But any idiotic excuse is good enough for a man in love. Has he ever
+been sentimental with you--quoted poetry, or anything?"
+
+"N-no. Stop, though! He did once quote Burns to me, but that was _ŕ
+propos_ of poetry in general, not of love-making."
+
+I remembered the incident well. Robin had picked up at a bookstall a
+copy of an early and quite valuable edition of Burns' poems. He had sat
+smoking with me in the library late the same night, turning over the
+pages of the tattered volume, and quoting bits, in broad vernacular,
+from "Tam o' Shanter" and "The Cottar's Saturday Night." Suddenly he
+began, almost to himself--
+
+  "O, my love is like a red, red rose,
+     That's newly sprung in June;
+   My love is like a melody
+     That's sweetly played in tune.
+   As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
+     So deep in love am I----"
+
+He broke off for a moment, and I remembered how he glowered ecstatically
+into the fire. Then he concluded--
+
+  "And I will love thee still, my dear,
+     Till a' the seas gang dry."
+
+"Man," he said, "that's fine! That's poetry. That's the real thing!"
+
+I had agreed. It is no use arguing with a Scot about Burns. (I remember
+once being nearly dirked at a Caledonian Dinner because I ventured to
+remark that "before ye" was not in my opinion a good rhyme to "Loch
+Lomond.")
+
+However, Kitty and I were unable to decide whether Robin's "bonnie lass"
+on that occasion had been a personality or an abstraction.
+
+"Mightn't it be one of the Twins?" I remarked.
+
+"Well, it _might_ be," admitted Kitty judicially, "but he has kept it
+very close if it is. No," she continued more decidedly, "I don't think
+it can be. They are quite out of his line. Besides--it would be too
+absurd!"
+
+It was not one Twin at any rate, for a fortnight later Dilly sprung upon
+us the third surprise of the series I have mentioned. She announced that
+she had decided to marry Dicky Lever.
+
+There was, I suppose, nothing very surprising in that. Dicky had been in
+constant attendance upon the Twins for nearly two years, and had long
+since graduated into the ranks of the Good Sorts. The surprise to
+us--rather unreasonably, perhaps--lay in the fact of--
+
+1. Dicky having definitely fixed upon a particular Twin to propose to;
+
+2. That Twin having definitely selected Dicky out of the assortment at
+   her command.
+
+I was so accustomed to seeing my sisters-in-law compassed about by a
+cloud of young men who appeared to admire them both equally, and to whom
+they appeared to apportion their favours with indiscriminate
+_camaraderie_, that the idea of one admirer stealing a march on all the
+others seemed a little unfair, somehow.
+
+As Dolly remarked, it would break up the firm horribly.
+
+"You see," she confided to me rather plaintively, "Dilly will have no
+use for them now, and they'll have still less use for her--an engaged
+girl beside other girls is about as exciting as a tapioca-pudding at a
+Lord Mayor's Banquet--and they will only have me. That won't be half the
+fun."
+
+"I should have thought that your fun would have been exactly doubled," I
+said.
+
+"Not a bit. How like a man! Don't you see, the fun used to be in playing
+them backwards and forwards between our two selves--like ping-pong, you
+know! It was clinking!"
+
+She sighed regretfully.
+
+"Now I shall either have to avoid men or marry them," she concluded,
+vaguely but regretfully. "Before, if they got in the way, I could always
+volley them back to Dilly. Now--one _can't_ play ping-pong all by
+oneself!"
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Dilly's engagement, as is usual under such circumstances, afforded my
+household many opportunities for airy badinage and innocent merriment.
+
+Dolly always heralded her coming into the billiard-room, where the
+affianced pair had staked out a claim, by a cough of penetrating
+severity, and usually entered the room with her features obscured by an
+open umbrella. On several occasions, too, she impersonated her sister;
+and once, when Dicky was spending a week-end in the house, was only
+prevented by the fraction of a second from robbing that incensed damosel
+of her morning salute.
+
+My share in the proceedings was limited to a single constrained
+interview with Dicky, at which, feeling extremely rude and inquisitive,
+I asked him the usual stereotyped questions about his income, prospects,
+and habits (most of which I knew only too well already), which, being
+satisfactorily answered, I rang the bell for the Tantalus, and thanked
+heaven that the Twins were not Triplets. I had indeed suggested that
+Dilly's nearest and most natural protector was her brother, Master
+Gerald, and that Dicky should apply not for my consent but his. This
+motion, however, was negatived without a division. I was sorry, for I
+think my brother-in-law would have shown himself worthy of the occasion.
+
+My wife received the news of the engagement with all the enthusiasm
+usually exhibited by a Salvation lassie when a fresh convert is hustled
+forward to the "saved" bench, and henceforth divided her time between
+ordering Dilly's trousseau and giving tea-parties, at which the
+prospective bridegroom was produced and passed round, "as if," to use
+his own expression, "he were the newest thing in accordion-pleating."
+
+As regards Robin's share in the event, I can only recall one incident.
+He had been away at Stoneleigh, the largest town in my constituency, on
+some party business, and when he returned home the engagement had been
+announced for nearly a week.
+
+"I must go and offer my good wishes to Miss Dilly," he said, after
+hearing the news. "Do you know where she is, Mrs Inglethwaite?"
+
+"I saw her upstairs a few minutes ago," said Kitty. "Come up, and we'll
+find her."
+
+We were in the library at the time, and Kitty and Robin left the room
+together. The rest of the story my wife told me later.
+
+"We went up," she said, "and looked into the drawing-room, where I had
+last seen Dilly. The room was nearly dark, but she was there, sitting
+curled up in front of the fire.
+
+"'There she is,' I said. 'Go and say something nice.'
+
+"Well, dear,"--Kitty's face assumed an air of impressive solemnity which
+makes her absurdly like her daughter--"he stood hesitating a moment, and
+then walked straight up to her and said--
+
+"'Good afternoon! Can you tell me where your sister is? I want to offer
+her my good wishes on the great event.'
+
+"It wasn't Dilly at all. It was Dolly! And he was able to distinguish
+between the two in that dim room. And _I_ couldn't!"
+
+"Oh," said I carelessly, "I expect he noticed she wasn't wearing an
+engagement-ring."
+
+My wife looked at me and sighed, as over one who would spoil a romance
+for want of a ha'porth of sentiment. And yet I know she would have been
+quite scandalised if any one had hinted at tender passages between her
+sister and my secretary. Women are curious creatures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+OF A PIT THAT WAS DIGGED, AND WHO FELL INTO IT.
+
+
+Dicky Lever was a hearty and not particularly intellectual youth of the
+What ho! type (if you know what I mean). He was employed in some
+capacity in a Government office, but his livelihood was not entirely
+dependent on his exertions therein--which was, perhaps, fortunate, as
+his sole claim to distinction in his Department lay in the fact of his
+holding the record for the highest score at small cricket in the Junior
+Secretaries' room. He was a member of the Leander Club, a more than
+usually capable amateur actor, and a very good fellow all round.
+
+The engagement was announced at the end of July, which is a busy time
+for this country's legislators. The session was drawing to a close, and
+we were passing Bills with a prodigality and despatch which provoked
+many not altogether undeserved gibes from a reptile Opposition Press
+concerning the devotion of his Majesty's Government to the worship of
+Saint Grouse.
+
+One night I brought Champion home to dinner between the afternoon and
+evening sittings. At the latter he was to move the second reading of his
+"Municipal Co-ordination Bill," a measure which was intended to grapple
+with the chaos arising from the multitude of opposing or overlapping
+interests that controlled the domestic arrangements of the Londoner. An
+effort was to be made to bring all the Gas, Electricity, Water, Paving,
+and other corporations into some sort of line, and prevent them from
+getting into each other's way and adding to the expenses and
+inconvenience of the much-enduring ratepayer. It was a useful little
+Bill; but though everybody approved of it on principle, various powerful
+interests were at work against it, and its prospects of getting through
+Committee hung in the balance.
+
+"Now, Mr Champion," said Dilly, who knew that a man always likes to be
+questioned about his work, especially by a pretty girl, "what will your
+Bill do for _us_? I have asked this person here,"--indicating her
+_fiancé_,--"but he says parish-pump politics aren't in his department.
+He licks stamps at the Foreign Office," she added in explanation.
+
+"Tell her, Champion," said Dicky. "Out of my line altogether. Takes me
+all my time to keep an eye on those Johnnies in the Concert of Europe."
+
+"I will tell you one thing the Bill will do, Miss Dilly," said Champion,
+a little heavily. (Dolly once said of him, "He's awfully clever and able
+and all that, but he hasn't got a light hand for conversational
+pastry.") "How many times have you noticed the streets up about here
+this year?"
+
+"Heaps," said Dilly.
+
+"They have hardly ever been down," corroborated Dolly.
+
+"Let me see," continued Dilly. "Our side of the Square was repaved in
+January. Directly after that they took it up again and did something to
+the drains."
+
+"In March they opened it again to lay down an electric light main," said
+I.
+
+"In April something burst," said Dolly, "and that meant more men with
+wigwams and braziers."
+
+"And last month," concluded Dilly, "they took away the wood pavement and
+relaid the whole Square with some new patent asphalte, which smelt
+simply, oh----"
+
+"Rotten!" supplied Gerald. (Have I mentioned that he had just arrived
+home for his summer holiday?)
+
+"Well," said Champion, "the Bill would regulate that sort of thing. It
+would protect the streets from being torn up at will by any Company who
+happened to have business underneath them. As things are, practically
+any one may come along and hew holes anywhere he pleases."
+
+"The police ought to stop it," said Kitty, who has a profound belief in
+the Force. (I am convinced that if Beelzebub himself were to enter the
+house at any time during my absence, Kitty would lure him into the
+dining-room with the sherry, and then telephone for a constable.)
+
+"The police have no right," said Champion. "If a gas company choose to
+give notice that they intend on a certain day to come and burrow in a
+road, all the police can do is to divert the traffic, and make the gas
+company as comfortable as possible."
+
+I was not following this conversation with any particular interest.
+Being expected to speak in favour of the Bill that night, I was
+undergoing the preliminary anguish which invariably attends my higher
+oratorical efforts. But I remember now that about this time Dilly
+suddenly turned to Dicky and whispered something in his ear. Then they
+both looked across the dinner-table at Robin, who nodded, as who should
+say, "I know fine what you whispered then." After that they all three
+laughed and looked down the table at Champion, who was still expatiating
+on the merits of his Bill.
+
+I suppose anybody else would have divined what was in the wind, but I
+did not.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A week later we were treated to an all-night sitting. The Irishmen had
+been quiescent of late, but on this occasion they made amends for their
+temporary relaxation of patriotism by resolutely obstructing an
+Appropriation Bill, which had to pass through Committee that night (if
+John Bull was to have any ready cash at all during the next few months),
+and kept us replying to amendments and trotting through division-lobbies
+until six o'clock next morning.
+
+Robin stayed on in attendance at the House most of the night, but about
+three o'clock I sent him home, with instructions to stay in bed till
+tea-time if he pleased. He had had a hard time lately.
+
+I was walking homeward in the early sunshine, marvelling, as people who
+accidentally find themselves up early pharisaically do, at the fatuity
+of those who waste the best hours of the whole day in bed, and revelling
+in the near prospect of a bath and my breakfast, when on turning a
+corner I walked into a hand-cart which was standing across the pavement.
+It contained workmen's tools--picks, shovels, and the like. On the near
+side of the roadway a man was erecting one of those curious wigwam
+arrangements which screen the operations of electricians and other
+subterranean burrowers from the public gaze. A dirty-faced small boy in
+corduroys was tending a brazier of live coals, upon which some breakfast
+cans were steaming. Between the wigwam and the pavement a gigantic navvy
+was hewing wooden paving-blocks out of the roadway.
+
+The spectacle did not attract my interest specially, as this particular
+piece of street had been eviscerated so often that I had grown callous
+to its sufferings. But I paused for a moment to survey the big navvy's
+muscles, and to wonder how early in the morning it would be necessary to
+rise in order to catch a small boy with a clean face. The navvy was a
+fine specimen of humanity, with a complexion tanned a dusky coffee
+colour.
+
+I was reflecting on the joys of the simple life and the futility of
+politics and other indoor pastimes in general, when the big man rose
+from his stooping posture and caught my eye. He appeared a little
+disconcerted by my scrutiny, and turned his back and renewed his
+exertions with increased vigour, favouring me hereafter with what
+architects call a "south elevation" of himself.
+
+I went home to breakfast, wondering where I had seen the big navvy's
+back before. I mentioned casually to Kitty and the Twins that Goring
+Street was up again. They wondered how the management of the Goring
+Hotel liked it, with that mess under their very windows, and agreed with
+me that it was high time Champion's Bill, due for its Third Reading
+to-morrow, became law.
+
+I stayed in bed till lunch-time, and then, rather late in the afternoon,
+set out for the House, which I knew I should find in an extremely limp
+condition after its previous night's dissipation. On the way I called in
+at the Goring Hotel in Goring Street, where Champion lived when in town.
+I found him in his room on the first floor, gazing out of the window
+into the street.
+
+I looked out too, to see what was interesting him. Directly below us lay
+the encampment of the workmen whom I had seen in the morning. They had
+hewed up a few yards of the wood pavement, and the smaller of the two
+men was now immersed up to his waist in a hole, working rather
+laboriously in the restricted space at his command with a pick-axe. The
+boy was piling wooden blocks into a neat heap, and the big man, whose
+form was only partially visible, was doing something inside the wigwam.
+
+The roadway was more than half blocked, and cabs and omnibuses, in
+charge of overheated and eloquent drivers, were being filtered through
+the narrow space left at their disposal by a phlegmatic policeman.
+
+"Look here," said Champion.
+
+I looked.
+
+"What on _earth_ are those fellows doing?" he continued.
+
+"Re-laying the road, perhaps."
+
+"One doesn't re-lay a road by making a deep hole in it."
+
+"Well--gas!"
+
+"Gas and electric light mains in this street are all led along a special
+conduit reached by manholes every eighty yards," said Champion. "There's
+no need to dig."
+
+"Well--drains!" said I vaguely. But I was a mere child in the hands of
+this expert.
+
+"The drains, as you call them," he said testily, "consist of a great
+sewer away in the depths, accessible from various appointed places.
+Besides, nobody in his senses tries to lift earth out of a hole with a
+pick-axe."
+
+"Perhaps the solution of the mystery lies inside the wigwam," I said.
+
+"No. That is just what complicates matters. When a shaft leading down to
+the electric light mains is opened, one of those canvas shelters is put
+over the top. Now there is nothing under that shelter--nothing but the
+bit of road it covers. The thing seems to be simply a stage accessory,
+planted there to give the encampment an aspect of reality. Ah, look at
+that!"
+
+"That" was a small piece of paving-wood, dexterously hurled by the
+dirty-faced boy, who seemed to be finding time hang rather heavily on
+his hands. It took a passing citizen in the small of the back, but when
+he swung round to detect the source of the missile the boy was on his
+knees again industriously blowing up the brazier.
+
+With an indignant snort the citizen passed on his way, doubtless adding
+the outrage, in his mind, to the long list of unsolved London crimes.
+But retribution awaited the youthful miscreant. The phlegmatic policeman
+who was regulating the traffic on the single-line system happened to
+notice the deed. He walked majestically across from the far side of the
+street towards our excavating friends.
+
+"Come on!" said Champion to me. "There's going to be some fun."
+
+We stepped out through one of the windows, which possessed a broad
+balcony, and took our stand behind some laurels in tubs which lined the
+balustrade. The street was comparatively quiet at the time, and we were
+able to hear most of the dialogue that ensued.
+
+"'Ere, mate," began the traffic-expert to the smaller of the two
+navvies, "just ketch that boy of yours a clip on the side of the 'ead,
+will you?"
+
+The smaller man desisted from his labours in the hole.
+
+"Wotsye, ole sport?" he inquired cheerily.
+
+The policeman was a little ruffled by this familiarity.
+
+"I'll trouble _you_," he repeated with some hauteur, "to ketch that boy
+of yours a clip on the side of the 'ead. If not, I shall 'ave to do my
+duty, according----"
+
+Here the roar of a passing dray drowned his utterance.
+
+The smaller man clambered nimbly out of the hole and proceeded to grab
+his young friend by the scruff of the neck.
+
+"Billy," he remarked dispassionately, "this gentleman says as 'ow I'm to
+give you a clip on the side of the 'ead."
+
+"Woffor," inquired Billy, simulating extreme terror.
+
+The man passed the question on to the policeman, who explained the
+nature of the offence. His statement was voluntarily corroborated by
+several members of an audience which seemed to have materialised from
+nowhere, and now formed a ring round the encampment.
+
+"Righto!" said the man with cheery acquiescence. "Billy, my lad, you've
+got to 'ave it."
+
+"Tha's right, ole son! You give 'im socks," remarked a hoarse and rather
+indistinct voice of the gin-and-fog variety, from among the spectators.
+
+Simultaneously its owner lurched his way to the front rank, the others
+making room for him with that respectful sympathy, not unmixed with
+envy, which is always accorded to a true-born Briton in his condition.
+He was obviously a member of some profession connected with coal-dust,
+and it was plain that he had been celebrating the conclusion of his
+day's labours.
+
+The smaller navvy, thus exhorted, administered the desired clip. It was
+not a particularly severe one, but it drew from its recipient the
+somewhat unexpected expostulation--
+
+"You silly ass! Not so hard!"
+
+Where had I heard that stentorian but childish voice before? Who was
+this road-breaker's acolyte, with his brazier, his dirty face, and--a
+public-school accent?
+
+I leaned over the balustrade and surveyed him and his two companions.
+Then I drew my breath sharply.
+
+Merciful heavens!
+
+The dirty-faced boy was my brother-in-law, Master Gerald Rubislaw, the
+clip-administerer was Dicky Lever, and the gigantic and taciturn navvy
+was--my Secretary!
+
+Having witnessed the carrying-out of the sentence, the policeman
+returned to his duties; none too soon; for a furniture van and a
+butcher's cart, locked in an inextricable embrace, the subject of a
+sulphurous duet between their respective proprietors, called loudly for
+his attention.
+
+Meanwhile Coaldust, who had been inspecting the result of our friends'
+united labours with some interest, suddenly echoed the question which
+had first exercised Champion's logical mind by inquiring what the blank
+dash the two adjectival criminals and the qualified nipper thought they
+were doing to the asterisked road.
+
+He received no encouragement. Robin was now engaged with a hammer and
+chisel in cutting a sort of touch-line all round the encampment, while
+Dicky did not cease manfully to delve with the pick-axe in the pit which
+he had digged for himself. For a long time they turned a deaf ear to the
+anxious inquiries of their interlocutor.
+
+But there are limits to long-suffering. Coaldust's witticisms increased
+with his audience, and at last Dicky turned to Robin and cried, with a
+really admirable maintenance of character and accent--
+
+"'Ere, Scotty, come and give this bloke one in the neck. 'E's askin' for
+it!"
+
+Robin deliberately suspended operations, rose heavily to his feet, and
+cleared his throat. Then he turned upon the alcoholic Coaldust. I
+strained my ears. Surely _he_ was not going to talk Cockney!
+
+Far from it. He stuck to his last.
+
+"See here, ma man," he roared, in a voice that made the crowd jump, "are
+ye for a ding on the side o' the heid?"
+
+Coaldust capitulated with alacrity.
+
+"No offence, 'Orace!" he remarked genially. "You an' me was always pals.
+Put it there!" He extended an ebony hand, which Robin solemnly shook and
+returned to his work.
+
+Whatever my three friends were up to, it is possible that they might now
+have been left in peace for some time; for the crowd, seeing no chance
+of further sport from Coaldust, began to melt away. But a fresh
+character entered the scene to keep alive the nagging interest of the
+drama.
+
+My first intimation that something new was afoot came from an errand-boy
+on the edge of the crowd, who, addressing a lady or ladies unseen,
+suddenly expressed a desire to be chased.
+
+All heads were now turned down the street, and there, approaching with
+rather faltering steps, carrying a red cotton bundle and a tea-can, I
+beheld--one of my sisters-in-law!
+
+Postulating Dicky, I presumed it was Dilly, and I began to piece
+together in my mind the plot of this elaborate comedy. Evidently Dicky,
+Robin, and Gerald had decided--for a bet, or because they were dared, or
+possibly with a view to giving Champion's Bill a leg-up by a practical
+demonstration of the crying need for it--to dress themselves up as
+workmen and come and "do a turn," as they say in the music halls, to the
+discomfort of his Majesty's lieges and the congestion of traffic, upon
+some sufficiently busy thoroughfare for a stated period of time.
+
+Certainly they were doing it rather well. They were admirably made
+up,--Dicky was a past-master at that sort of thing,--and their
+operations so far had been sufficiently like the genuine article to
+impose upon the public in general,--if we except Champion and
+Coaldust,--even to the point of securing the assistance of the
+traffic-directing policeman.
+
+But alas! with that one step further, which is so often fatal to great
+enterprises, they had sought to add a finishing touch of realism to
+their impersonation by the inclusion of a little feminine interest; and
+to that end Dilly had been added to the cast--or more likely had added
+herself--in the _rôle_ of a young person of humble station bringing her
+affianced his tea.
+
+And, not for the first time in the history of man, it was the woman who
+opened the door to disaster.
+
+Dilly wore a natty print dress--probably my housemaid's--with a tartan
+shawl over her head. She had on her thickest shoes, but they were
+woefully smart and thin for a girl of her class. Moreover, her hair was
+beautifully arranged under the shawl, and her hands--though she had had
+the sense to discard her ruby and sapphire engagement-ring--were too
+white and her face was too clean to lend conviction to her
+impersonation. In short, in her desire to present a pleasing _tout
+ensemble_--an object in which I must say she had succeeded to
+perfection--Dilly had utterly neglected detail and histrionic accuracy.
+
+Evidently she was not expecting a gallery. Two highly-interested
+concentric circles--one of people and one of dogs--round her _fiancé's_
+encampment was rather more than she had bargained for. She had emerged
+quite suddenly from a side street (which I knew led to a shortcut from
+home) and now paused irresolutely a few yards away, crimson to the roots
+of her hair, what time the errand-boy, with looks of undisguised
+admiration, continued to reiterate his desire to be pursued.
+
+The crowd all turned and stared at poor Dilly. Obviously they did not
+know what to make of her. Possibly she was some one from the chorus of a
+musical comedy going to be photographed, possibly she was merely "a bit
+balmy," or possibly she was an advertisement for something, and would
+begin to distribute hand-bills presently. So far, she merely looked as
+if she wanted to cry.
+
+It was Robin who saw her first. He immediately stepped over his
+newly-completed touch-line, and taking the spotted bundle and the
+tea-can from her hands, conducted her ceremoniously within the magic
+circle, saying, in a voice much more like his own than before--
+
+"Come away, lassie!"
+
+Dicky looked up from his labours at this, and beheld his _fiancée_ for
+the first time. All he said was--
+
+"By gad, you've done it after all! Bravo!"
+
+But Dilly did not appear to be at all gratified She merely sat on
+Gerald's little mountain of paving-blocks, looking as if she could not
+decide whether to throw her apron over her face and scream, or take a
+header into the wigwam. My heart bled for her in spite of her folly. The
+crowd, deeply interested and breathing hard, stood round waiting for the
+performance to begin.
+
+It was Coaldust who took the lead.
+
+"Tip us a song and dance, Clara," he said encouragingly.
+
+Robin, who had been making a show of unfastening the bundle, suddenly
+rose to his feet. Coaldust saw him.
+
+"All right, Carnegie," he remarked hurriedly. "No offence, ole pal!"
+
+But Robin turned to Dicky, and the two held a hasty conversation, whose
+nature I could guess. Dilly could not be exposed to this sort of thing
+any longer. They began to put on their coats.
+
+"They are going to give it up," I said, not without relief. "About time,
+isn't it? Do you recognise them, Champion?"
+
+But Champion, I found, was gone--probably to establish an _alibi_.
+Perhaps he was right. Questions might be asked in the House about this.
+
+When I turned again to the scene below I found that the crowd had
+thickened considerably, and that the policeman had once more left the
+traffic to congest itself, and joined in the game.
+
+"You must tell that young woman to move on," he said to Dicky, not
+unkindly. "She's causin' a crowd to collect, and that's a thing she can
+be give in charge for."
+
+"All right," said Dicky hurriedly, "we're all going."
+
+The policeman, struck by this sudden anxiety to oblige, became
+suspicious.
+
+"All of you?" he said. "'Ow about this mess in the road?"
+
+Robin came to the rescue.
+
+"We'll be back presently and sort it," he said reassuringly.
+
+"Of course," said Dicky, pulling himself together. "Back in 'arf a tick,
+governor!"
+
+"Don't you go callin' me names," said the policeman, as the spectators
+indulged in happy laughter.
+
+"Sorry!--I mean, certainly!" said Dicky, getting flustered. (I could see
+Robin glowering at him.) "We are just going down the street a minute.
+This--er--girl has brought us a bit of bad news. There's been an
+accident happened--er----"
+
+"To her puir old mither," put in Robin, whom I began to suspect of
+rather enjoying this entertainment for its own sake.
+
+This heartrending piece of intelligence touched the crowd, and Coaldust
+was instantly forward in proposing an informal vote of condolence, which
+was seconded by a bare-armed lady in a deerstalker cap. But the
+policeman, evidently roused by our friends' ill-judged and precipitate
+attempt to strike camp, suddenly produced a pocket-book from his tunic,
+and said--
+
+"It is my duty to take your names and addresses, together with the name
+of the firm employing you."
+
+This announcement obviously disconcerted Dicky and Robin; for it is one
+thing to take part in a masquerade, and another to get out of the
+consequences thereof by cold-drawn lying.
+
+However, the policeman was sucking his pencil and waiting, so Dicky
+said--
+
+"You can get all the information you want from the Borough Surveyor."
+
+It was a bold effort, but the policeman merely said--
+
+"Your name, please!"
+
+Dicky, fairly cornered, replied--
+
+"Er--Samuel"--I thought at first he was going to say "Inglethwaite," and
+was prepared to drop a flower-pot on his head if he did; but he
+continued, with the air of one offering a real bargain at the
+price--"Phillipps."
+
+"Two P's?" inquired the constable.
+
+"Three," said Dicky.
+
+The policeman rolled a threatening eye upon him.
+
+"Be careful!" he said in an awful voice.
+
+"One of them comes at the beginning," said Dicky meekly.
+
+"Haw, haw!" roared several people in the crowd, which was unfortunate
+for Dicky. He was one of those people who would risk a kingdom to raise
+a laugh.
+
+"Address?" continued the policeman.
+
+"Buck'nam Pallis!" shouted Coaldust, before any one else in the crowd
+could say it.
+
+The policeman turned and directed upon him a look that would have
+entirely obfuscated a soberer man.
+
+"I'll attend to you presently," he said in the exact tones which my
+dentist employs when he shuts me into the waiting-room. "Now then, your
+address? Come along!"
+
+Dicky gave some address which I did not catch, and the representative of
+the law turned to Robin. The latter evidently saw rocks ahead if the
+inquisition was to be extended to the whole party. He said--
+
+"Surely there is no need to take any more names."
+
+"I'll be responsible for the lot," added Dicky eagerly--too eagerly.
+"Now let's be off! Come along Di--Liza!"
+
+He took Dilly by the arm, and, preceded by Gerald, began to press
+through the crowd, which by this time extended almost right across the
+street.
+
+But the now thoroughly aroused guardian of the peace, determined not to
+be rushed like this, broke away from Robin, who was engaging him in
+pleasant conversation, and, hastening after the retreating group, laid a
+detaining and imperious hand on Dilly's arm.
+
+What happened next I was not quick enough to see. But there was a swirl
+and a heave in the crowd, and presently Dicky became visible, standing
+in a very heroic attitude with his arm round Dilly; while the policeman,
+with an awe-inspiring deliberateness which implied "Now you _have_ gone
+and done it!" extricated himself majestically but painfully from the
+chasm in the road which had recently been occupying Dicky's attention,
+and into which Dicky in defence of his beloved had apparently pushed
+him.
+
+Picking up his pocket-book and putting it back into his chest, and
+uttering the single and awful word "_Assault!_" the policeman produced a
+whistle and blew it.
+
+Things were certainly getting serious, and I had just decided to send
+out the hotel porter to the policeman to tell him to bring his captives
+inside out of the way of the crowd, when I noticed that Robin was
+ploughing his way towards the outskirts of the throng, waving his arm as
+he went. Then I saw that his objective was another policeman--an
+Inspector this time. He was a gigantic creature, and Robin and he,
+slowly forging towards each other through the surrounding sea of faces,
+looked like two liners in a tideway.
+
+Robin's conduct in deliberately attracting the notice of yet another
+representative of law and order appeared eccentric on the face of it,
+but his subsequent behaviour was more peculiar still.
+
+He seized the newly-arrived giant by the arm, and drew him apart from
+the crowd, where he told him something which appeared to amuse them both
+considerably.
+
+"Yewmorous dialogue," announced Coaldust to his neighbours, "between
+Cleopartrer's Needle and the Moniment!"
+
+But it was more than that,--it was deep calling to deep. Presently the
+explanation, or the joke, or whatever it was, came to an end, and the
+Inspector advanced threateningly upon the crowd.
+
+"Pass along, there, pass along!" he cried with a devastating sweep of
+his arm. He spoke with a Highland accent, and I realised yet once more
+the ubiquity of that great Mutual Benefit Society which has its
+headquarters north of the Tweed.
+
+The crowd politely receded about six inches, and through them,
+accompanied by Robin, the Inspector clove his way to the encampment,
+where Dicky, who seemed to be rapidly losing his head, was delivering a
+sort of recitative to every one in general, accompanied by the policeman
+on the whistle.
+
+What the Inspector said to his subordinate I do not know, but the net
+result was that in a very short time the former was escorting the entire
+party of excavators down the street, attended by a retinue of small boys
+(who were evidently determined to see if it was going to turn out a
+hanging matter); while the latter, to whom the clearing of the "house"
+had evidently been deputed, set about that task with a vigour and
+ferocity which plainly indicated a well-meaning and zealous mind
+tingling under an entirely undeserved official snub.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They told me all about it in the smoking-room that night.
+
+"The idea," began Dicky, "was----"
+
+"Whose idea was it?" I inquired sternly "It was all of our idea,"
+replied my future relative by marriage lucidly.
+
+"But who worked it out?" I asked,--"the plot, the business, the 'props'?
+It was a most elaborate production."
+
+"Never you mind that, old man," said Dicky lightly. (But I saw that
+Robin was laboriously relighting his pipe and surrounding himself with
+an impenetrable cloud of smoke.) "Listen to the yarn. The idea was to
+stake out a claim in some fairly busy road and stay there for a given
+time--say, six o'clock till tea-time--and kid the passing citizens that
+we were duly authorised to get in the way and mess up the traffic
+generally. If we succeeded we were going to write to _The Times_ or some
+such paper and tell what we had done--anonymously, of course--just to
+show how necessary Champion's Bill is."
+
+"Have you written the letter?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I wouldn't send it if I were you."
+
+"Well, that's what Robin here has been saying."
+
+"Putrid rot if we don't!" remarked Gerald, who had by this time washed
+his face, but ought to have been in bed for all that.
+
+"We can't do it," said Robin. "For one thing, we have attracted quite
+enough public attention already,--it's bound to be in the papers anyhow,
+now, and that will probably give the Bill all the advertisement it
+needs,--and if we give the authorities any more clues our names may come
+out. For another thing, it wouldn't be fair to Hector MacPherson."
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"That Inspector who came up at the critical moment. He was one of my
+first friends in London."
+
+"I remember. Go on."
+
+"I was thankful to see him, I can tell you. Well, he undertook to square
+that poor bewildered bobby, and to take steps to get the road cleared
+and the hole filled up."
+
+"How?"
+
+"There is a street being mended just round the corner, and he said he
+would get the foreman of the gang, who is a relation of his wife's, to
+send a couple of men to put things right immediately. It's probably done
+by now."
+
+"Then I suppose we may regard the incident as closed."
+
+"Yes, I suppose so."
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"It was a bit of a failure at the finish," said Dicky meditatively, "but
+it was a success on the whole--what?"
+
+"Rather!" said his fellow-conspirators.
+
+"Our chief difficulty," continued Dicky, "was to decide on the exact
+type of drama to present. I was all for our dressing up as foreigners,
+and relaying an asphalte street. It would have been top-hole to trot
+about in list slippers and pat the hot asphalte down with those things
+they use. And think of the make-up!--curly moustaches and earrings! And
+we could have jabbered spoof Italian. But then old Robin here, who I
+must say has a headpiece on him, pointed out that the scenery and props
+would be much too expensive. We should want a cart with a bonfire in it
+and a sort of witches' cauldron on top, and all kinds of sticky stuff;
+so we gave up that scheme. We did not feel inclined to mess with
+gas-pipes or electric wires either, in case we burst ourselves up; so we
+finally decided to select some street with a wooden pavement, and maul
+it about generally for as long as we could. If we got interfered with by
+anybody official, we meant to talk some rot about the Borough Surveyor,
+and skedaddle if necessary. But it all worked beautifully!"
+
+"Where did you get your tools and tent?"
+
+"Robin managed that," said Dicky admiringly.
+
+Robin looked extremely dour, and I refrained from further inquiry.
+
+"Robin's got some rum pals, I _don't_ think!" observed Gerald
+pertinently.
+
+"Didn't I make these chaps up well?" continued Dicky enthusiastically.
+"We roared when you passed us at breakfast-time without spotting us."
+
+"Very creditable impersonation," I replied, getting up and knocking my
+pipe out. "I only hope I shan't have to resign my seat over it. If I may
+venture to offer a criticism, the weak spot in the enterprise was the
+idea of inviting your lady friends to come and take tea with you."
+
+"Just what I said all along, my boy," remarked the experienced Gerald,
+wagging his head sagely. "That was what mucked up the show. Wherever
+there's a petticoat there's trouble. Oh, I _warned_ them!"
+
+On my way up to bed I flushed Dilly from a window-seat on the staircase,
+where she had evidently been lingering on the off-chance of a
+supplementary good-night from Dicky.
+
+"Well?" I said severely.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Do you know what time it is?"
+
+"I expect your wife will tell you that when you get upstairs," said
+Dilly.
+
+I tried a fresh line.
+
+"After the labours of to-day, I should have thought you would have been
+glad to go to bed," I said. "You imp!" And I laughed. There is something
+very disarming about the Twins' misdemeanours.
+
+We turned and walked upstairs together, and paused outside Dilly's door.
+
+"Good-night, Dilly," I said. "I admired your pluck."
+
+"It wasn't me," said Dilly, in a very small voice.
+
+"Not you?"
+
+"N-no. I said I would come, because Dicky said I daren't, and at the
+last moment I funked it. (Adrian, I simply couldn't!) So Dolly went
+instead."
+
+"Then that was Dolly all the time?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And she went, just to--to----"
+
+"To save my face. She's a brick," said Dilly.
+
+This, by the way, was the first occasion on which I realised the truth
+of Robin's dictum that Dilly and Dolly were girls of widely different
+character.
+
+"And didn't the others recognise her?"
+
+"No. That's the best of it!"
+
+"Not Dicky?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not even Robin? He is pretty hard to deceive, you know."
+
+"No, not even Robin. _None_ of them know Good-night!"
+
+But she was wrong.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+THE POLICY OF THE CLOSED DOOR.
+
+
+Dilly's wedding took place the following summer, just before Parliament
+rose, and the resources of our establishment were strained to the
+uttermost to give her a fitting send-off.
+
+It is true that a noble relative, the head of my wife's family, offered
+his house for the reception, but Dilly emphatically declined to be
+married from any but mine, saying prettily that she would not leave the
+roof under which she had lived so happily until the last possible
+moment.
+
+Accordingly we made immense preparations. The drawing-room on the first
+floor, accustomed though it was to accommodate congested and
+half-stifled throngs of human beings, was deemed too small for the mob
+of wedding-guests whom Kitty expected.
+
+"You see, dear," she explained, "we can squash up _good_ people as much
+as we like, because their clothes don't matter; but women in
+wedding-frocks will be furious if they don't get enough elbow-room to
+show themselves."
+
+Accordingly a marquee was erected in the garden at the back of the
+house, opening into the dining-room through the French windows, and it
+was arranged that Dicky and Dilly were to take their stand in the middle
+of the same, what time the guests, having lubricated their utterance at
+the _buffet_ in the dining-room _en route_, filed past and delivered
+their congratulations. After that the company was to overflow into the
+garden, there to be moved by a concord of sweet sounds emanating from a
+band of assassins in pseudo-Hungarian uniforms.
+
+"And if it rains," concluded Kitty desperately, "they must have an
+overflow meeting in the basement--that's all!"
+
+My library, as I had feared, was appropriated for the presents, and for
+several days I transacted the business of State at the wash-hand-stand
+in my dressing-room, while a stream of callers, ranging from the members
+of a Working Men's Club in which Dilly was fitfully interested, down to
+an organisation of Kitty's whose exact title I can never recall (but
+which Dicky, on first seeing them, immediately summed up as "The Hundred
+Worst Women"), filed solemnly past rows of filigree coffee-services,
+silver-backed hair-brushes, and art pen-wipers.
+
+Of the bride-elect I saw little, and when I did, she was usually
+standing, in a state of considerable _déshabille_, amid a kneeling group
+of myrmidons, who, with mouths filled with pins and brows seamed with
+anxiety, were remorselessly building her into some edifice of shimmering
+silk and filmy lace, oblivious of their victim's plaintive intimations
+that she was fit to drop.
+
+Dicky invited Robin to be his best man, a proceeding which, while it
+roused some surprise among those who were expecting him to fix upon a
+friend of longer standing and greater distinction, showed his good
+sense, for my secretary proved himself a model of organisation and
+helpfulness. Although born and reared up in the straitest sect of some
+Scottish denomination, about which I am unable to particularise beyond
+the fact that they regarded the use of harmoniums in churches as "the
+worship of men's feet," he betrayed a surprising knowledge of Anglican
+ritual and stage effect.
+
+On the wedding morning, having left the bridegroom securely tucked up in
+bed, under strict orders not to get up till he was called, Robin
+personally conducted a select party of those interested--Dolly, Dilly,
+another bridesmaid, and myself--to the church, where he showed us the
+exact positions of our entrances and exits; and then proceeded, with the
+assistance of Dolly, to plant hassocks about the chancel in such a
+manner as to leave us no doubts as to the whereabouts of our moorings
+(or "stances," as he called them) at the actual ceremony.
+
+The party was reinforced at this point by the arrival of no less a
+person than the bridegroom, who, having risen from his slumbers in
+defiance of Robin's injunctions, was now proceeding to infringe the laws
+of propriety by coming in search of his beloved four hours before he was
+entitled to do so.
+
+However, as Dilly rather pessimistically pointed out, it was probably
+the last time she would ever get a kind word out of him, so we gave them
+ten minutes together in the porch, while Robin interviewed vergers and
+Dolly intimidated perspiring persons with red carpets and evergreens.
+
+On our return home Dilly was snatched away by a cloud of attendant
+sprites, and we saw her no more until the time came for me to drive her
+to the church. We heard of her, though; for as we sat at luncheon,
+plying the bridegroom (who had collapsed after the complete and
+inevitable fashion of his kind about twelve o'clock) with raw brandy, a
+message came down from the upper regions, to the effect that Miss Dilly
+would take a couple of veal cutlets and a glass of Burgundy, as she
+wasn't going to be a pale bride if she could help it!
+
+However, this half-hysterical gaiety came to an end in the face of
+reality, and in the carriage on the way to church poor Dilly wept
+unrestrainedly on my shoulder. I mopped her up to the best of my
+ability, but she was still sobbing when we reached the church door, to
+find the six bridesmaids, together with Phillis (inordinately proud of
+her office of train-bearer), preening themselves in the porch.
+
+It had been arranged that the organ should break into "The March of the
+Priests," from 'Athalie'--Dicky's petition in favour of an
+ecclesiastical rendering of "The Eton Boating Song" had been thrown out
+with ignominy--as the bridal procession entered the nave. Unfortunately
+the organ-loft was out of sight of the west door, by which we were to
+enter, and the conveyance of the starting-signal to the proper quarter
+at exactly the right moment was a matter of some difficulty. However,
+Robin's gift for stage-management was sufficient to meet the emergency.
+When all was ready Dolly calmly mounting the steps of the font to an
+eminence which commanded a precarious but sufficient view of the body of
+the church, briefly fluttered a scrap of lace handkerchief, and then
+stepped demurely down into her place at the head of the bridesmaids.
+Simultaneously the organ burst into the opening strains of Mendelsohn's
+march--I suppose Robin had been waiting at some point of vantage to pass
+the signal on--and we advanced up the aisle, amid a general turning of
+heads and flutter of excitement.
+
+The church was packed. In the back pew I remember noticing three young
+men with pads of flimsy paper and well-sucked pencils. I distinctly
+caught sight of the words "Sacred edifice" in the nearest MS., and I
+have no doubt the others contained it as well.
+
+But Dilly was still quaking on my arm, and the only other spectacle
+which attracted my attention on the way up the aisle was that of my wife
+(looking very like a bride herself, I thought), sitting in a front pew
+with Master Gerald, that infant phenomenon shining resplendently in a
+white waistcoat and a "buttonhole" which almost entirely obscured his
+features. Then I caught sight of Robin's towering shoulders and the pale
+face and glassy eye of the bridegroom, and I knew that we had brought
+our horses to the water at last, and all that now remained to do was to
+make them drink.
+
+The rest of the ceremony passed off with due impressiveness, if we
+except a slight _contretemps_ arising from the behaviour of my daughter,
+who, suddenly remembering that the junior bridesmaid but one had not yet
+passed any opinion on her new shoes, suddenly sat down on the bride's
+train, and, thrusting the shoes into unmaidenly prominence, audibly
+invited that giggling damsel's approbation of the same. However, the
+ever-ready organ drowned her utterance with a timely Amen, and Dicky and
+Dilly completed the plighting of their troth with becoming shyness but
+obvious sincerity.
+
+Then came the inevitable orgy of osculation in the vestry, from which I
+escaped with nothing worse, so to speak, than a few scratches, despite
+an unprovoked and unexpected flank attack (when I was signing the
+register) from an elderly female in bugles, whom I at first took to be a
+rather giddy pew-opener, but who ultimately proved to be a maiden aunt
+of the bridegroom's.
+
+After Dicky and Dilly--the latter miraculously restored to high spirits
+and looking radiant--had passed smiling and blushing down the aisle, to
+be received outside with breathless stares by a large assemblage of that
+peculiar class of people--chiefly females of a certain age--who seem to
+spend their lives in attending the weddings of total strangers, we all
+got home, where there was much champagne, and cake-cutting, and
+bride-kissing, and melody from the aforementioned musicians in the
+garden.
+
+The presents--guarded with an air of studied aloofness by a
+wooden-jointed detective, clad in garments of such festal splendour as
+to delude several short-sighted old gentlemen into an impression that he
+was the bridegroom--played their usual invaluable part in promoting
+circulation among the guests, and supplying a topic for conversation.
+They certainly sparkled and glittered bravely in the library, where the
+blinds were drawn and the electric lamps turned on. (Kitty had seen to
+that. Silver looks so well by artificial light, and so, by a happy and
+unpremeditated coincidence, does the female sex.)
+
+The bride and bridegroom departed at last, amid a shower of rice, with
+that emblem of conjugal felicity, the satin slipper, firmly adhering to
+the back of the brougham. (Master Gerald had seen to _that_.) Then the
+guests began to make their adieux and melt away, and presently we found
+ourselves alone in the marquee, a prey to that swift and penetrating
+melancholy that descends upon those who begin to be festive too early in
+the day, and find themselves unable to keep it up till bed-time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+However, there was a recrudescence of activity and brightness in the
+evening, as the idea of a small dance had been proposed and carried, and
+the invitations issued and accepted, during the five minutes which
+witnessed the departure of the more intimate section of the guests.
+
+When I returned from the House about midnight--I had gone there chiefly
+to dine, as lobster claws and melted ices appeared to be the only fare
+in prospect at home--tired to death, and conscious of an incipient cold
+in the head, arising from forced residence in a house in which hardly a
+door had been on its hinges for three days, I became aware that I was
+once again the lessee of a cave of harmony.
+
+The pseudo-Hungarian assassins were pounding out the latest waltz, with
+a disregard for time and tune which I at first attributed to champagne,
+but which a closer survey proved to be due to the fact that the band was
+being conducted, surprising as it may seem, by my brother-in-law, who
+had kindly undertaken to wield the _bâton_, while the Chief Tormentor
+(or whatever his proper title may have been) charged himself anew at the
+refreshment counter. A popping of corks in the supper-room apprised me
+of the fact that my guests were doing their best, at my expense, to make
+the Excise Returns a more cheerful feature of next year's Budget.
+
+I went upstairs in search of a white waistcoat and one or two other
+necessary contributions to the festivity of the evening, picking my way
+with the utmost care among the greatly-engrossed couples who impeded
+every step; and finally arrived at my dressing-room, to find that that
+hallowed apartment had been turned into a ladies' cloak-room, and that
+every available article of furniture stood elbow-deep under some
+attractive combination of furs and feathers.
+
+I unearthed the things I required, but lacked the courage to stay and
+put them on. At any moment I might be invaded by a damsel who had met
+with some mishap in the heat of the fray, and was now desirous, as they
+say in the navy, of "executing repairs while under steam." I accordingly
+left the room and mounted towards the top of the house. I had in my
+mind's eye a snug little apartment, situated somewhere in the attics,
+devoted chiefly to dressmaking operations, where I knew there was a
+mirror, and I might complete my toilet in peace.
+
+With becoming modesty I penetrated to this haven by the back-stairs. I
+had just reached the top, which was opposite the door in question, when
+I heard voices. Evidently some one was coming up to this same landing by
+the front stair.
+
+A man does not look his best when found creeping up his own back-stairs
+with a white waistcoat in one hand and a pair of pumps in the other, and
+I confess I retreated downwards and backwards a couple of paces. The
+stair on which I stood was unlighted, and I had a good view of the
+landing.
+
+The voices came nearer, and I could now hear the rustling of silks and
+laces. Presently I recognised the voices, and immediately after this
+their owners came into view, with their backs almost towards me.
+
+"This is the room I mean," said the man, indicating my goal.
+
+"That! All right! Only I don't see why you should drag me all the way up
+here," said the girl. "There are much nicer sitting-out places
+downstairs. Still, anything for a rest. Come on!"
+
+She entered the room, followed by her partner. I saw his broad back for
+a moment as it filled the doorway. Then he turned in my direction with
+his hand on the handle, and it seemed to me that he hesitated a moment.
+
+Finally he shut the door firmly, and--I distinctly heard the key turned
+in the lock.
+
+I went downstairs again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was four o'clock in the morning. The last guest had gone, the
+domestics had retired to their subterranean retreat, and the musicians
+had all been booked through to Saffron Hill in one cab.
+
+The dawn was just breaking over the house-tops on the other side of the
+square, and the sky was bathed in a curious heather-coloured light--a
+sure sign of a wet day to come, said hill-bred Robin. We stood out on
+the steps,--Kitty, Dolly, Robin, and I,--and Kitty put her arm round her
+sister's waist. I knew she was thinking of the absent Dilly.
+
+Behind us, in the hall, Master Gerald, completely surfeited with about
+sixteen crowded hours of glorious life, lay fast asleep on a settee.
+
+I looked curiously at Dolly as she leaned on her sister's shoulder. She
+was half a head taller than Kitty, and as she stood there, rosily
+flushed, in the dawn of her splendid womanhood, she might have stood for
+the very goddess whose first rays were now falling on her upturned face
+and glinting hair.
+
+Then I looked at Robin, towering beside her, and suddenly I felt a
+little ashamed of myself.
+
+For to tell the truth I had been very unhappy that evening, and I had
+been looking forward in a few minutes' time to unburdening myself to
+Kitty about recent events. But as I surveyed Dolly and Robin, curiously
+alike in their upright carriage and steady gaze, I suddenly realised
+that such a pair could safely be trusted to steer their own course; and
+I decided there and then not to communicate even to Kitty--my wife and
+Dolly's sister--the knowledge of what I had seen that night.
+
+Kitty turned impulsively to her sister.
+
+"After all, I've still got _you_, Dolly," she said.
+
+I took a furtive glance at Robin's inscrutable countenance.
+
+"I--_wonder_!" I said to myself.
+
+"What, dear?" said Kitty.
+
+"Nothing. I must carry this young ruffian up to bed, I suppose."
+
+Curiosity has been most unfairly ear-marked as the exclusive monopoly of
+the female sex. But as I stumbled upstairs that night, bearing in my
+arms the limp but stertorous carcase of my esteemed relative by
+marriage, I could not help wondering (despite my efforts to put away
+from me a matter which I had decided was not my business) exactly what
+Robin _had_ said to Dolly behind that locked door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+ROBIN'S WAY OF DOING IT.
+
+
+What happened when Robin locked the door on himself and Dolly is now set
+down here. Strictly speaking it ought to come later, but there is no
+need to make a mystery about it. I have taken the account of the
+proceedings mainly from the letter which Dolly wrote to Dilly three days
+later.
+
+It would be useless to reproduce that document in full. In the first
+place, it contains a good deal that is not only irrelevant but
+absolutely incomprehensible. There is one mysterious passage, for
+instance, occurring right in the middle of the letter, beginning, _To
+turn the heel, knit to three beyond the seam-stitch, knit two together,
+purl one, turn: then knit ten, knit two together, knit one, purl one_
+... introduced by an airy, "By the way, dear, before I forget"----which
+appears to have no bearing on the context whatever.
+
+In the second place, Dolly's literary style is as breathlessly devoid of
+punctuation as that of most of her sex. Commas and notes of
+interrogation form her chief stock-in-trade, though underlining is
+freely employed. There is not a single full-stop from start to finish.
+The extracts from the letter here reproduced have been edited by me.
+Other details of the incident have been tactfully extracted by Kitty and
+myself--chiefly Kitty, I must confess--from the principals themselves,
+and the whole is now offered to the public, unabridged, with marginal
+comments, for the first time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On entering the little room on the landing Dolly dropped on to a shabby
+but comfortable old sofa behind the door, and said, with a contented
+sigh--
+
+"I'm so tired, Robin. Aren't you? Let's sit down and not talk till it's
+time to go downstairs again. It's--Robin, what _are_ you doing?"
+
+Robin was locking the door.
+
+That operation completed, he turned and looked round the little room.
+There was an arm-chair in the corner, but he came and sat down on the
+sofa beside Dolly. Dolly gazed at him dumbly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "He looked so utterly grim and determined" [says the letter], "that my
+  heart began to bump in a perfectly fatuous way. I felt like a woman
+  who is going to be murdered in a railway tunnel.
+
+  "He sat down, and one of his huge hands was suddenly stretched towards
+  me, and I thought at first he was trying to grab one of mine. I did my
+  best to edge away along the sofa, but I was up against the end
+  already.
+
+  "Then his hand opened, and something dropped into my lap. It was the
+  key of the door.
+
+  "'I have locked it,' he said, 'not with any intention of keeping you
+  in, but in the hope of keeping other people out. You are perfectly
+  free to get up and go whenever you please, if you don't wish to listen
+  to what I have to say.'
+
+  "Well, dear, I suppose I ought to have risen to my full height, and,
+  with a few superb gestures of haughty contempt, have swept
+  majestically from the room. But--I didn't! I saw I was in for another
+  proposal, and as the man couldn't eat me I decided to let him do his
+  worst.
+
+  "It was a weird proposal, though." [_Spelt 'wierd.'_] "It wasn't
+  exactly what he said, because one is never surprised at anything a
+  man may say when he is proposing; but the way he said it. All men
+  say pretty much the same thing in the end, but most of them are so
+  _horribly_ nervous that they simply don't know what they're talking
+  about for the first five minutes or so. (Do you remember poor little
+  Algy Brock? He was nearly _crying_ all the time. At least he was
+  with me, and I suppose he was with you too.) But Robin might have
+  been having a chat with his solicitor the way he behaved. I'll tell
+  you..."
+
+Robin apparently began by telling Dolly, quite simply and plainly, that
+he loved her. Then he gave a brief outline of the history of his
+affection. It had begun at the very beginning of things, he said, almost
+as soon as he discovered that he could distinguish Dolly from Dilly
+without the aid of the brown spot. "And that was after I had been in the
+house just three days," he added.
+
+For some time, it appeared, he had been content to be pleasantly in
+love. He enjoyed Dolly's society when it came his way, but with native
+caution he had taken care to avoid seeking too much of it in case he
+should gradually find himself unable to do without it.
+
+"I saw from the first," he said, "that you were entirely unconscious of
+my feelings towards you; and I would not have had it otherwise. If I was
+to succeed at all it must be as an acquired taste; and acquired tastes,
+as you know, are best formed unconsciously."
+
+Dolly nodded to show her detached appreciation of the soundness of this
+point.
+
+"I permitted myself one indulgence," Robin continued. "I dedicated a
+book to you."
+
+"O-oh!" said Dolly, genuinely interested. "Was that me? Dilly and I
+thought it must be a girl in Scotland."
+
+Then she realised that this was a step down from her pedestal of
+aloofness, and was silent again. Robin went on--
+
+"Yes, it was you. It was a sentimental thing to do, but it afforded me
+immense pleasure. Love lives more on the homage it pays than that which
+it receives. Have you noticed that?"
+
+"I have never thought about it," said Dolly distantly.
+
+"I thought not," replied Robin; "because it shows, what I have always
+been tolerably certain of, that you have never been in love. However, to
+resume." [_"Like a lecture on Greek Roots, or something equally fusty,"_
+observes Dolly at this point.] "The time came, as it was bound to come,
+when I realised that I must tell you I loved you"----
+
+  "I rather like the way he always said _'love'_ straight out," comments
+  Dolly: "most men are so frightened of it. They say 'am fond of' or
+  'care for' or something feeble like that. All except the curate with
+  pink eyes. (You remember him? Dora Claverton took him afterwards on
+  the rebound.) He said 'esteem highly' I think."
+
+----"or leave this house altogether. But before doing that I had to
+decide two things: firstly, whether I was good enough for you, and
+secondly, if not now, whether I ever should be."
+
+Dolly's half-closed eyes opened a trifle wider. This was certainly a
+methodically-minded young man.
+
+"It was difficult to decide the first question in practice," continued
+Robin. "In theory, of course, any man who is a _man_--honest, clean, and
+kind--is a fitting mate for any woman. Don't you think so?"
+
+"No," said Dolly.
+
+"I see," said Robin gently. "The theoretical is mainly the man's point
+of view: woman looks straight to practical results. She is rather
+inclined to take the virtues I have mentioned for granted, or do without
+them; and she founds her opinion of a man almost solely upon his
+capacity for boring her or stimulating her. In other words, she is
+guided by her instinct. Isn't she?"
+
+"Is she?" said Dolly, determined this time to maintain her attitude of
+indifference.
+
+"I think so," said Robin. "However, knowing how impossible it is for one
+sex to look at a matter from the point of view of another, I decided to
+stick to my own methods. So I made a summary of my points, good and bad.
+They are these: I am strong and healthy; I possess an appetite for hard
+work; I was born with brains; I have considerable capacity for
+organisation----"
+
+"Some people have a good conceit of themselves!" said Dolly.
+
+"_Every_ one should have," replied Robin with conviction. "And," he
+added, "most of us have. _I_ have--_you_ have!"
+
+"Oh!" said Dolly indignantly.
+
+"But a man may have a good conceit of himself," Robin continued
+soothingly, "without being what the world calls conceited. Modesty
+consists not in taking a low estimate of one's own worth, but in
+refraining from the expectation that the world will take a high one."
+
+Dolly nodded gravely.
+
+"I see," she said. "I didn't know you meant that. Yes, there is
+something in what you say."
+
+"I thank you," said Robin. "It is very helpful to me to get this
+courteous hearing from you; for to tell you the truth," he added rather
+explosively, "I find it a very, very great effort to speak to you like
+this at all. You see, I am talking of things that go right to the centre
+of the human heart--things that a man never speaks of to a man, and only
+once to a woman. It has to be done, but it is hard, hard!"
+
+He drew a long breath, in a manner which made the sofa tremble; and
+Dolly suddenly realised the height and depth of the barrier of reserve
+and pride that this grave and undemonstrative man had had to break down
+before he could offer her the view of his inmost soul to which he
+considered that she was entitled. She felt a sudden pang of awe, mingled
+with compassionate sympathy. She was not given to wearing her heart on
+her sleeve herself.
+
+"Well," continued Robin, evidently relieved by this little confession,
+"those are my assets. On the other hand, I have no money, no position--I
+will not say no birth, for I come of good, honest stock--and my
+prospects are at present in the clouds. But to one type of wife all that
+would not matter a scrap. There are two types, you know--two types of
+_good_ wife, that is."
+
+  "I would have given worlds," says Dolly here, "just to have said 'Oh!'
+  or something; but for the life of me I couldn't help asking what the
+  two types were."
+
+"The first," said Robin, "is the wife who loves her husband because she
+is proud of him, because he is successful and powerful, and people
+admire him; and not because she has any conception of or sympathy with
+the qualities which have made him what he is. To such a one the husband
+must come with his reputation ready made, and they will enjoy it
+together. The other type loves her husband because she sees through him,
+yet believes in him and sympathises with his aims, and intends to make a
+success of him. And she usually does."
+
+"And which am I?" inquired Dolly.
+
+"The latter, undoubtedly--the higher type. And therefore, if there had
+been nothing else in the way, I think I should have given myself the
+benefit of the doubt. But----"
+
+  "He turned and looked at me here," writes Dolly, and said--
+
+  "'But your feminine instinct is chafing against all this laborious
+  weighing of pros and cons. In your own mind you summed up the
+  situation ten minutes ago. I am--"impossible." Isn't that it?'
+
+  "My _dear_, I nearly _screamed_, for of course that is just what was
+  in my mind. But I couldn't very well say so, so I just sat there and
+  looked rather idiotic and he went on--
+
+  "'In other words, I am not quite a gentleman.'
+
+  "Then I said quite suddenly--
+
+  "'Robin, whatever else you may be, you _are_ a gentleman.'
+
+  "He got quite pink. 'Thank you,' he said. 'But for all that, I am too
+  rough a suitor for such a polished little aristocrat as yourself.'
+  (Rather cheek, that! After all, Dilly, we're five feet seven.) 'We
+  live in an artificial sort of world; and a man, in order not to jar on
+  those around him, requires certain social accomplishments. I have
+  few--at present. You have taught me a great deal, but I should still
+  rather discredit you as a husband. My want of polish would 'affront'
+  you, as we say in Scotland. I am a better beater than shot; I can
+  break a horse better than I can ride it; and I dance a reel better
+  than I waltz. I have strength, but no grace; ability, but no
+  distinction. Of course, if you and I really loved each other--you
+  being of Type Two--none of these things would matter. But for all
+  that, it would hurt you to see people smiling at your husband's little
+  _gaucheries_, wouldn't it?'
+
+  "I didn't answer, and he got up and went and leaned against the
+  mantelpiece.
+
+  "'Listen,' he said, 'and I will tell you what I have decided to do. I
+  have made up my mind not to have a try for you--badly though I want
+  it--till I consider that I have reached your standard. I fixed that
+  standard myself, so it is a very, very high one, I have been schooling
+  myself and shaping myself to attain it ever since I met you. But I
+  have not quite reached it yet, and therefore I have nothing to ask of
+  you now.'"
+
+"Then what on earth have you brought me here for?" inquired Dolly,
+feeling vaguely aggrieved.
+
+Robin surveyed her rather wistfully, and then smiled in a disarming
+fashion.
+
+"That was weakness," he said, "sheer weakness. But I think it was
+pardonable. I saw, now that your sister was married, that the days of
+your old irresponsible flirtations were over, and that you would
+henceforth regard proposals of marriage as much more serious things than
+hitherto. Consequently you might marry any day, without ever knowing
+that a little later on you would have received an offer from me. I have
+brought you here, then, to tell you that I am a prospective candidate,
+but that I do not feel qualified to put down my name at present. Ideally
+speaking, I ought to have kept silence until the moment when I
+considered that I was ready for you; but--well, there are limits to
+self-repression, and I have allowed myself this one little outbreak. All
+I ask, then, is that in considering other offers you will bear somewhere
+in the back of your mind the remembrance that you will, if you desire
+it, one day have the refusal of me. I admit that the possibility of your
+being influenced by the recollection is very remote, but I am going to
+leave nothing undone that _can_ be done to get you."
+
+  "By this time," Dolly continues elegantly, "I was getting considerably
+  flummoxed. The whole business was very absurd and uncomfortable, but I
+  couldn't help feeling rather complimented at the way he evidently
+  regarded me--as a sort of little tin goddess on a pedestal out of
+  reach, being asked to be so good as to stand still a moment while
+  Robin went to hunt for the steps--and I also felt a little bit afraid
+  of him. He was so quiet and determined over it all. He seemed to have
+  it all mapped out in a kind of time-table inside him. However, I
+  pulled myself together and decided to contribute my share to the
+  conversation. I hadn't had much of a look in, so far.
+
+  "So I settled down to talk to him like a mother. I began by saying
+  that I was very much obliged and honoured, and all that, but that he
+  had better put the idea out of his head once and for all. I liked him
+  very much, and had always regarded him as a great friend, quite one of
+  the family--you know the sort of stuff--but----
+
+  "It was no good. He held up his hand like a policeman at a crossing,
+  and said--
+
+  "'Please say nothing. I have asked you no question of any kind, so no
+  answer is required. All that I have said to-night has been in the
+  nature of an _intimation_.' (O-h! how like church!)
+
+  "Then he sat down on the sofa beside me, very gently, and said--
+
+  "'The intimation in brief is this. I love you; and some day, please
+  God, I shall ask you to marry me. But not until I feel that you would
+  lose nothing by doing so.'
+
+  "We both sat very still for a few minutes after that. I fancy we were
+  both doing a little thinking. My chief reflection was that Robin had
+  had rather the better of the interview, because he had made me listen
+  to him when I was determined not to. Suddenly Robin said--
+
+  "'Now that the business part of this conversation is over, I am going
+  to allow myself a luxury. I have been talking most of the time about
+  myself. For just five minutes I shall talk about you. I will tell you
+  what I think of you.'
+
+  "He looked at his watch and began. Dilly, I had no idea I had so many
+  good points! He put them better than any man has ever done before. But
+  then the other men were always so jumbled up, and this creature was as
+  cool and collected as if he were reading a Stores Catalogue.
+
+  "But he let himself go at last. It was my fault, though. I was in
+  rather a twitter by this time, for although the whole thing was simply
+  absurd--of course one couldn't marry a wild untamed creature like
+  that, _could_ one, Dilly?--I couldn't help seeing what a man he was,
+  and feeling sorry that things couldn't have been a bit different, if
+  only for his sake. So I gave him my hand" [I can see her do it] "and
+  said: 'Poor old Robin!'
+
+  "He _seized_ it--my child, it has waggled like a blanc-mange ever
+  since!--and kissed it. Then, quite suddenly, he broke out into a sort
+  of rhapsody-like _'The Song of Solomon,'_ only nicer--with his head
+  bowed over my hands. (He had got hold of the other one too, by this
+  time.) I felt perfectly helpless, so I let him run on. I shan't tell
+  you what he said, dear, because it wouldn't be cricket. Anyhow, a
+  perfectly idiotic tear suddenly rolled down my nose--after all, I had
+  had a _fearfully_ long day--and I tried to pull my hands away. Robin
+  let them go at once.
+
+  "'You are right. The time for such things is not yet,' he said, in a
+  queer Biblical sort of way. 'It was a sudden weakness on my part. I
+  had not meant it, you may be sure.'
+
+  "The only thing I _am_ sure about," I said, feeling thoroughly vexed
+  about the tear, "is that we have been in this room nearly an hour.
+  Please unlock the door.
+
+  "Then we went downstairs."
+
+After that follow one or two postscripts of a reflective nature, the
+general trend of which seems to indicate that Robin is rather a dear,
+but quite impossible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"A flippant and unfeeling letter," you say, sir? Perhaps. But there is
+often no reserve so deep or so delicate as that which is veiled by a
+frivolous exterior and a mocking attitude towards sentiment in general.
+Some sensitive people are so afraid of having their hearts dragged to
+light that, to escape inquisition, they pretend they do not possess any.
+Moreover, I know Dolly well enough to be certain that she was not quite
+so brutally unkind to Robin during this interview as she would have us
+believe.
+
+"The blundering creature! He went about it in _quite_ the wrong way,"
+you say, madam? Very likely. But if a woman only took a man when he went
+about it in exactly the right way, how very few marriages there would
+be!
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO.
+
+THE FINISHED ARTICLE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+A MISFIRE.
+
+I.
+
+
+There is an undefinable character and distinctiveness about Sunday
+morning which is not possessed by any other day of the week.
+
+Not that the remaining six are lacking in individuality. Monday is a
+depressed and reluctant individual; Tuesday is a full-blooded and
+energetic citizen; Wednesday a cheerful and contented gentleman who does
+not intend to overwork himself to-day,--this is probably due to the fact
+that we used to have a half-holiday on Wednesdays at school; and when I
+got into Parliament I found that the same rule held there; Thursday I
+regard as one who ploughs steadily on his way, lacking enthusiasm but
+comfortably conscious of a second wind; Friday is a debilitated but
+hopeful toiler, whose sole joy in his work lies in anticipating its
+speedy conclusion; and Saturday is a radiant fellow with a straw hat and
+a week-end bag.
+
+Still, one week-day is very like another at waking time. My mental
+vision, never pellucid, is in its most opaque condition in the early
+grey of the morning; and at Oxford, I remember, I found it necessary to
+instruct my scout to rouse me from slumber in some such fashion as this:
+"Eight o'clock on Thursday mornin', sir!" (as if I had slept since
+Monday at least), or "'Alf-past nine, slight rain, and a Toosday, sir!"
+
+However, no one was ever yet needed to inform me that it was Sunday
+morning. This is perhaps natural enough in town, where the silence of
+the streets and the sound of bells proclaim the day; but why the same
+phenomenon should occur in the middle of a Highland moor, where every
+day is one glorious open-air Sabbath, passes my comprehension.
+
+I discussed the problem after breakfast as I sat and smoked my pipe in
+the heathery garden of Strathmyrtle, a shooting-lodge at which we were
+being hospitably entertained by Kitty's uncle, Sir John Rubislaw, a
+retired Admiral of the Fleet, whose forty years' official connection
+with Britannia's realm betrayed itself in a nautical roll, syncopated by
+gout, and what I may describe as a hurricane-deck voice. My three
+companions in the debate were my host, Master Gerald, and another guest
+in the house, one Dermott, an officer in a Highland regiment.
+
+The Admiral ascribed my Sabbath intuition to the working of some inward
+and automatic monitor; while Dermott, among whose many sterling
+qualities delicate fancy was not included, put it down to the smell of
+some special dish indigenous to Sunday breakfast. My brother-in-law's
+contribution to the debate was an unseemly and irreverent parallel
+between Saturday night potations and Sunday morning "heads."
+
+To us entered Dolly and Phillis.
+
+Our hostess, together with Kitty and the other girl of the party--an
+American young lady of considerable personal attractions--had driven off
+to church in what is locally called a "machine." The duties of escort
+had been voluntarily undertaken by an undergraduate named Standish, who
+was the latest recruit to the American young lady's army of worshippers.
+The rest of us had stayed at home--the Admiral because he not
+infrequently did so; I because I was expecting Robin back by the
+"machine" (which was to pick him up at a wayside station, where he had
+been sitting on his portmanteau ever since six o'clock that morning,
+having been dropped there by the night mail from London), and was
+anticipating two or three hours' solid work with him; Gerald because he
+had succeeded in evading his eldest sister's eye during the search for
+church recruits; Dolly to look after Phillis; and Captain Dermott for
+reasons not unconnected with Dolly.
+
+It was Phillis's birthday, but out of consideration for Scottish views
+on Sabbath observance the festivities in connection with that
+anniversary had been postponed until the morrow. However, this did not
+prevent my daughter from demanding (and obtaining) various special
+privileges of an unofficial character this hot Sunday morning.
+Consequently a spiritually willing but carnally incompetent band,
+consisting of one jovial but arthritic baronet, one docile but
+self-conscious warrior, one indulgent but overheated parent, and
+Dolly--Gerald stood scornfully aloof--were compelled to devote the next
+two hours to a series of games, stage-plays, and allegories of an
+innocuous but exhausting description.
+
+We began by joining hands and walking in a circle, solemnly chanting a
+ditty of the "I-saw-a-ship-a-sailing" variety, which culminated in the
+following verse--
+
+  "Then three times round went that gallant ship,
+     Then three times round went she;
+   Then three times round went that gallant ship--
+
+(Here we were commanded by the mistress of the revels, in a hoarse and
+hurried stage whisper, to be ready to fall down)
+
+  --And sank to the bottom--of--the--sea!"
+
+"Now all fall down!" screamed Phillis.
+
+We did so, and lay on the grass in serried heaps. The remark which the
+Admiral made when my left elbow descended upon his goutiest foot was
+fortunately obscured by the fact that his face was inside his hat at the
+moment.
+
+After that we performed the "most lamentable comedy" of "The Three
+Bears." Phillis assigned the parts, reserving for herself the _rôle_ of
+Curly Locks and Stage Manager. Dolly was cast for Mother Bear, Captain
+Dermott for Father Bear, and I for Baby Bear. The Admiral, at his own
+urgent request, was allotted the comparatively unimportant part of Baby
+Bear's bed, and sat nursing his foot and observing with keen relish the
+preparations of the Bear family for their morning walk. We set out at
+last, all three on our hands and knees, Dolly and Dermott crawling
+amicably side by side, heroically regardless of white skirt and Sunday
+sporran; I, as befitted my youth and station, bringing up the rear.
+
+The Bears having vacated their domicile (the grass plot), Curly Locks,
+after much furtive peeping round bushes, entered and advanced to the
+rustic table, where she proceeded to test the contents of the various
+porridge-bowls (represented by two tobacco-pouches and an ash-tray
+respectively).
+
+"Too hot!" she said, after sampling the first bowl.
+
+"Too cold!" she continued, trying the next.
+
+"A-a-ah!" she cried, coming to the third; and swallowed its contents
+(some heather-tops) with every appearance of enjoyment.
+
+After that came the inspection of the beds (two sofa-cushions and the
+Admiral), and finally Curly Locks retired to rest on her grand-uncle's
+knee.
+
+Then the Three Bears came painfully back from the shrubbery, and Curly
+Locks' acts of spoliation were revealed one by one. My assumption of
+grief on the discovery of my empty porridge-bowl was so realistic that
+the Stage Manager sat up in bed and commended me for it. Finally we went
+the round of the furniture; Curly Locks was duly discovered; and I was
+engaged in a life-and-death struggle for her shrieking person with the
+bed itself, when there was a crunching of gravel, and the "machine"
+drove up with Robin inside it.
+
+After my secretary had greeted those of us whom he knew, and been
+interrupted in the middle of a rapturous embrace from Phillis to be
+introduced to those whom he did not, I took him off indoors for a meal,
+through the breakfast-room window, and opened the portfolio of
+correspondence which he had brought me from London.
+
+"Hallo! Here is a letter for Dermott," I said. "I'll take it to him."
+
+I stepped through the window and handed the letter to Dermott, who was
+falling into line for a fresh game just outside.
+
+"That envelope looks terribly official," said Dolly. "What does it all
+mean?"
+
+"I expect it means Aldershot," said Dermott ruefully. "However, I shan't
+open it till lunch-time." And he stuffed the offending epistle into his
+pocket, and returned to the game in hand with a zest and abandon that
+betrayed ulterior motives in every antic.
+
+We had seen a good deal of Captain Dermott that summer. Somehow he had
+been in nearly every house we had visited; and his laborious expressions
+of pleased surprise at meeting us there had now given way to specious
+and transparent explanations of his own presence. The experts at
+countless tea-tables and shooting-lunches were practically unanimous in
+the opinion that Dolly could land her fish when she chose now; and as
+the fish was a good fellow, and could offer her three thousand a-year
+and the reflected glory of a D.S.O., it was generally conceded that my
+youngest sister-in-law--have I ever mentioned that Dolly was the junior
+Twin?--was about to do extremely well for herself.
+
+I sat by Robin as he consumed his breakfast, and waded through my
+correspondence. There was a good deal to sign and a good deal to digest,
+and a good deal that was of no importance whatsoever. But the _clou_ of
+the whole budget was contained in a private letter from my Chief. I read
+it.
+
+"My word, Robin!" I said. "There's to be a Dissolution in January."
+
+There was no answer, and I looked up.
+
+Robin was not listening. His attention had wandered to the game in
+progress on the lawn. This was one of Phillis' most cherished pastimes,
+and was called "Beckoning." The players, except the person who for the
+time being filled the _rôle_ of "It," stood patiently in a row, until
+"It," after mature consideration, beckoned invitingly to one of them to
+approach. This invitation might or might not be a genuine one, for
+sometimes the player on responding was received by the beckoner with
+hisses and other symptoms of distaste, and fell back ignominiously on
+the main body. But if you were the _real_ object of the beckoner's
+affections, you were greeted with embraces and a cry of "I choose you!"
+and succeeded to the proud post of "It."
+
+It was a simple but embarrassing game, calling for the exercise of
+considerable tact when played by adults. At the present moment Phillis
+was beckoner, while Dolly, Dermott, and the Admiral stood meekly in line
+awaiting selection. Dolly and the Admiral were each called without being
+chosen, and Phillis's final selection proved to be Dermott, who, having
+received an enthusiastic salute from the retiring president, now stood
+sheepishly on one leg surveying the expectant trio before him.
+
+He began by beckoning to his host; and, having relieved that gentleman's
+apprehensions by sibilant noises, waggled a nervous finger at Dolly.
+Dolly advanced obediently.
+
+"Choose her, if you like," said Phillis magnanimously.
+
+Dermott's martial eye kindled, but he made no sign, and the game
+faltered in its stride for a moment.
+
+"Say," interpolated the prompter, "'I choose you!' and then k----"
+
+But Dermott, hastily emitting a hiss which must have cost him a
+heartrending effort, relegated the greatly relieved Dolly to the ranks,
+and smoothed over the situation by "choosing" my daughter, to that young
+person's undisguised gratification.
+
+It was at this phase in the proceedings that Robin's attention began to
+wander from the affairs of State, and I had to repeat my news of the
+impending Dissolution to him twice before he grasped its full
+significance. Even then he displayed about one-tenth of the excitement I
+should have expected of him; and finally he admitted that he was
+somewhat _dérangé_ after his night journey, and suggested a postponement
+of business in favour of a little recreation on the lawn.
+
+We accordingly added ourselves to the party, just in time to join the
+cast of Phillis' next production. This was an ambitious but complicated
+drama of an allegorical type, in which Robin appeared--not for the first
+time, evidently--as a boy called Henry, and Phillis doubled the parts of
+Henry's mother and a fairy. These two _rôles_ absorbed practically the
+whole of what is professionally known as "the fat" of the piece, and the
+other members of the company were relegated--to their ill-disguised
+relief--to parts of purely nominal importance.
+
+The curtain rose (if I may use the expression) upon Henry's humble home,
+where Henry was discovered partaking of breakfast (fir-cones). He
+complained bitterly to his mother of the hardship of _(a)_ early rising,
+_(b)_ going to school, and _(c)_ enduring chastisement when he got
+there. The next scene revealed him in class, where the schoolmaster
+(Dolly, assiduously prompted by Phillis) asked him a series of
+questions, which he answered so incorrectly as to incur the extreme
+penalty of "the muckle tawse." (Here what textual critics term "internal
+evidence of a later hand" peeped out unmistakably.) The punishment
+having been duly inflicted by Dolly with a rug-strap, Henry retired,
+suffused with tears, to "a mountain-top," where he gave vent to a series
+of bitter reflections on the hardness of his lot and the hollowness of
+life in general.
+
+He must have "gagged" unduly here, for presently he was cut short by a
+stern admonition to "wish for a fairy."
+
+"I wish for a fairy," said Henry dutifully.
+
+Phillis, given her cue at last, pirouetted before him with outstretched
+skirts.
+
+"Go on!" she whispered excitedly. "Say, 'I wish that all Pain was
+Pleasure and all Pleasure Pain.'"
+
+"Oh, sorry!" said Henry. "I wish that all Pain was Pleasure and Pleasure
+Pain."
+
+"Have then thy wish!" announced the fairy solemnly, and fluttered away.
+
+The drama thereafter pursued a remorselessly logical and improving
+course. Having got his wish, the luckless Henry found that his only
+moments of pleasure were those during which he was enduring the tawse,
+getting out of bed on a cold morning, or doing something equally
+unpleasant. On the other hand, his comfortable bed had become so painful
+that he could only obtain rest by filling it with stones; and his
+matutinal porridge was only made palatable by the addition of a handful
+of gravel.
+
+After a fruitless interview with the family physician (Captain Dermott),
+in which the patient's mother set forth her offspring's symptoms with
+embarrassing frankness, Henry was compelled, as a last resort, to pay
+one more visit to the mountain-top. The indulgent fairy kindly agreed to
+put things right, but only under penalty of an improving homily on
+contentment with one's lot and the fatuity of asking for what you do not
+really want. This was only half finished when the party returned from
+church, and Phillis, realising that the absolute despotism of the last
+few hours would now be watered down by an unsentimental mother into a
+limited monarchy at the best, retired within her shell and declared the
+revels at an end.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+"What was the church like?" I inquired at lunch.
+
+"I have witnessed more snappy entertainments," remarked Miss Buncle, the
+American girl, through her pretty nose. "Still, we smiled some. Mr
+Standish here got quite delirious when the minister prayed for 'the
+adjacent country of England, which, as Thou knowest, O Lord, lies some
+twa hundred miles to the sooth of us,'--I'm sorry I can't talk Scotch,
+Mr Fordyce,--as if he was afraid that Providence might mail the blessing
+to the wrong address and Iceland would get it."
+
+Kitty broke in upon Miss Buncle's reminiscences.
+
+"Who do you think we saw in church?" she said. "I nearly forgot to tell
+you. Your uncle, Robin--Sir James Fordyce!"
+
+Robin nodded his head in a confirmatory way.
+
+"He is often up here at this time of year," he said.
+
+"He has friends here, perhaps?" said I.
+
+"Oh yes; he has friends."
+
+I could tell from Robin's voice that he was nursing some immense joke,
+but he betrayed no inclination to share it with us. Kitty went on.
+
+"He was sitting in a pew with some farmery-looking people. There was a
+patriarchal old man, very stately and imposing, rather like--like----"
+
+"Moses?" I suggested.
+
+"No. I don't _think_ Moses was like that."
+
+I had got as far as 'Aar'--when Lady Rubislaw said--
+
+"Elijah?"
+
+"That's it," replied Kitty. "_Just_ like Elijah." (All things
+considered, I cannot imagine why Moses would not have done as well.)
+"Then beside him was a perfectly dear old lady. Not so very old either;
+say sixty. Of course they may not have belonged to Sir James at all: he
+may just have been put in their pew. Still, they kept handing him
+Bibles, and looking up places for him at singing time."
+
+"That means nothing," said I. "It's the merest courtesy here."
+
+"True," said our hostess. "I was having a most lovely little doze during
+the Second Lesson, or whatever they call it, when a most officious young
+woman three or four pews away took up an enormous Bible, found the
+place, squeaked down the aisle, and thrust it under my nose. I had to
+hold it up for fifty-seven verses," she concluded pathetically.
+
+"Did you go and speak to Sir James after the service?" I inquired.
+
+"No. That was _this_ child's fault," said Kitty, indicating Miss Buncle.
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well, there was a rather gorgeous-looking chieftain sort of person
+sitting in a front pew, and I saw Maimie twisting her head all during
+the service to look at him."
+
+"Yes," admitted the culprit frankly. "Put me in the neighbourhood of a
+kilt, and I'm a common rubberneck straight away, Mr Inglethwaite. I'm
+just mad to know all those cunning tartans by heart."
+
+"The moment the service was over," continued my wife severely, "I saw
+her edging through the crowd in the churchyard towards the chieftain.
+For a moment I thought she was going to ask him his name."
+
+"I _wasn't_!" declared Miss Buncle indignantly.
+
+"No, you did worse. She got close to the unfortunate man," continued my
+wife to us, "and suddenly I noticed that she had in her hand one of
+those little books you buy at railway book-stalls in the Highlands, with
+patterns of all the tartans in them and the name of the clan underneath.
+By the time I got up to her she had found the right tartan in the book,
+and was matching it up against the back of the poor unconscious
+creature's kilt. Then she turned to me in a triumphant sort of way and
+simply _bellowed_--'M'Farlane!'"
+
+"We shall probably be hauled up before the Kirk-session," said the
+Admiral. "But I wonder who Sir James Fordyce's friends can be. I know
+most of the people who have shootings about here, but none of them are
+friends of his that I can think of. We must get him to come and shoot
+here one day. Rather late for to-morrow's drive, but there will be
+another on Thursday. I wonder who his host is, though?"
+
+"I might help you," said Robin. "An old man, you said, with his wife?"
+
+"Yes--oldish," said Kitty.
+
+"Was there a son with them?"
+
+"N-no."
+
+"No? Well, he would be away at the lamb-sales, perhaps," said Robin
+reflectively. "Was there a daughter?"
+
+"Now you mention it," said Kitty, "there was. A nice, bonny-looking
+girl. Twenty-four, I should say."
+
+"Twenty-three," said Robin.
+
+We all turned on him.
+
+"Now then, what is all the mystery? Out with it! Who is the girl--eh?"
+
+"She would be my sister," said Robin calmly. "And the others were my
+father and mother."
+
+There was a little gasp of surprise all round the table. Robin went on--
+
+"My home is just seven miles from here. This is the first time I have
+got near my folk for six years. To-morrow I mean to go and see them. And
+they would like fine, I know," he added a little shyly, "if some of you
+would come with me."
+
+"I'll come," said Kitty promptly. "I should love to meet your mother,
+Robin."
+
+"May _I_ come, Uncle Robin?" piped Phillis. "For a birfday treat," she
+added, in extenuation.
+
+Applications for an invitation rained in. Apart from a desire to please
+a man whom we all respected--and our ready offers undoubtedly did please
+him--I think we were all a little curious to view the mould which had
+turned Robin out.
+
+"You can't _all_ go," said the Admiral at last. "There's the
+grouse-drive to-morrow, and eight butts to fill; not to mention the need
+of female society at lunch."
+
+Finally it was arranged that Robin should take Kitty and Phillis over on
+a sort of preliminary call, and they could arrange for the establishment
+of more substantial relations.
+
+But that evening, as the ladies were having their candles lit at the
+foot of the staircase, I heard Robin say to Dolly--
+
+"Will you come with us to-morrow?"
+
+Dolly seemed to consider, and was about to reply, when Dermott, who
+never seemed very far away now, cut in.
+
+"Too late, Fordyce! Miss Rubislaw has promised to come and load for me
+in my butt to-morrow afternoon."
+
+"No, I'm afraid it can't be managed this time, Robin," said Dolly. "But
+I am coming with you later in the week, if you'll take me."
+
+Robin said nothing.
+
+Now Dolly, I knew, did not approve of the inclusion of females in the
+business part of a day's shooting; and she regarded Miss Buncle and her
+twenty-eight bore with pious horror. The fact that she had consented to
+come and hold Dermott's second gun to-morrow seemed to indicate that
+that gallant sportsman had accomplished a feat which had already proved
+too much for several highly deserving young men--I was not quite sure
+that Robin was not one of them; and there seemed to be every reason to
+anticipate (especially since he was due to start for Aldershot to-morrow
+night) that when the Captain returned from the chase to-morrow
+afternoon, his bag would include one head of game of an interesting and
+unusual variety.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+At ten o'clock next morning we met the keepers, dogs, and beaters not
+far from the first line of butts on the moor. There was a hot sun, and
+the bees were bumbling in the heather. Somehow Whitehall seemed a long
+way off.
+
+The number of guns had been brought up to seven by the inclusion of a
+neighbouring laird--one Gilmerton of Nethercraigs--and his son.
+
+"All the same, we are still a man short," complained the Admiral, to
+whom a house-party was a ship's company, and a day's shooting a sort of
+terrestrial naval manoeuvre. "However, we will cut out the end butt in
+each drive and put a stop there to turn the birds farther in. Now we'll
+draw for places. Each man to take the butt whose number he draws,
+counting from the right and moving up one place after each drive. And
+Heaven help the man who draws number four now, for it means number seven
+and a climb up The Pimple for him directly after lunch!"
+
+There was a general laugh at this, which swelled to an unseemly roar
+when I drew the fatal number.
+
+However, after lunch was a long way off, and I trotted contentedly to
+number four and settled down to a pipe, while the head-keeper led off
+his mixed multitude of assistants, dogs, boys, and red flags to make a
+_détour_ and work the game up towards us.
+
+The first drive was simple. We were in a long and rather shallow glen,
+across which ran a low ridge, dividing it into two almost equal
+sections. The butts were placed along this ridge; and after the birds
+had been sent over us the beaters would work round to the other end of
+the glen and drive them back again. The shooting would be easy, for the
+ground lay flat and open in either direction.
+
+I found myself between Standish and Gerald; the former on my right, and
+the latter, together with the young keeper to whom his shooting
+education had been entrusted, in the butt on my left. Beyond Standish
+was Dermott, the crack shot of the party, and beyond Dermott, in number
+one butt, was the Admiral. The Gilmertons, _pčre et fils_, occupied the
+butts on the extreme left.
+
+The drive was moderately successful. At first the birds came along
+singly, mostly on the right, and fell an easy prey to Dermott and the
+Admiral. But presently a great pack got up comparatively near the butts,
+and fairly "rushed" us. I brought off an easy right and left straight in
+front of me, and then, snapping out my cartridges and slipping another
+in, I swung round and just managed to bring down a third bird with a
+"stern chaser"--a feat which I regretted to observe no one else noticed,
+for there was a perfect fusilade all along the line at the moment.
+Master Gerald, who had discharged his first barrel straight into the
+"brown," succeeded, in obedience to his mentor's admonitions, in
+covering an old cock-grouse with his second, and carefully following
+that flustered fowl's course with the point of his gun, pulled the
+trigger just as it skimmed, low down, with an agitated squawk, between
+his butt and mine. I heard the shot rattle through the heather, and two
+pellets hit on my left boot.
+
+The congenial task of telling Gerald, in a low but penetrating voice,
+exactly what I thought of him, occupied my attention so fully for the
+next minute that I failed to observe a blackcock which suddenly swung up
+into view and whizzed straight past my head, to the audible annoyance of
+the distant Admiral and the undisguised joy of my unrepentant relative.
+
+No more birds came after that, and presently, the line of beaters having
+advanced within range, we put down our guns and collected the slain. We
+had not done badly, considering the fact that the main body of the birds
+had swerved away to our left over the unoccupied butt, despite the
+valiant efforts of an urchin with a red flag to turn them. Dermott
+headed the list with four and a half brace, and Gerald brought up the
+rear with a mangled corpse which had received the contents of his first
+barrel point-blank at a distance of about six feet. The laird of
+Nethercraigs (a cautious and economical sportsman, who was reputed never
+to loose off his gun at anything which did not come and perch on his
+butt) had fired just three cartridges and killed just three birds, but
+his son had seven. The Admiral and Standish had also had average luck,
+and altogether we had fourteen and a half brace to show for our
+exertions.
+
+Off went the beaters again, and we changed butts and waited. The second
+drive gave us fewer birds but better sport. There were no great packs,
+but we got plenty to do in the way of sharp-shooting, and Gerald's
+keeper--a singularly ambiguous title in this case--succeeded by
+increased vigilance in preserving me from being further sniped by my
+enterprising brother-in-law.
+
+We totalled up twelve brace this time, and then made ready for a tramp
+to the next line of butts, away round the shoulder of a fairly distant
+hill.
+
+"We may as well spread out and walk 'em up this bit," said our host. "We
+can't have the dogs, though, as the keepers and beaters are going a
+different way; and each man will have to carry what he shoots. In that
+case we'll leave rabbits alone. Gerald, you had better get to the
+extreme left of the line. That will limit the risk to one man!"
+
+"I'll carry home your bag if you'll carry mine, Gerald," cried Standish
+facetiously, as my brother-in-law, a trifle offended at the Admiral's
+last pleasantry, proceeded with much dignity to his allotted place.
+
+Gerald was almost out of earshot, but he waved a defiant acquiescence.
+
+We tramped round the shoulder of the hill, keeping our distance as well
+as we could on the steep slope, and occasionally putting up something to
+shoot at. My bag this time made no great demands on my powers of
+porterage, consisting as it did of a solitary snipe. However, when
+nearly an hour later we gathered at the foot of the next line of
+butts--the last before lunch--most of us were carrying something.
+Standish gleefully displayed two hares and a brace of grouse.
+
+"There is something for Master Gerald to carry back to the
+luncheon-cart," he said. "I wonder what he has got for me. Where is he?"
+
+"I don't quite know," said Dermott, who had been Gerald's nearest
+neighbour. "He was so offended by our gibes about the danger of his
+society that he walked rather wide of me. He kept down at the very foot
+of the hill most of the time, almost out of sight."
+
+"I hope he hasn't shot himself," said the Admiral rather anxiously.
+
+"Never fear!" said I. "That will not be his end. Here he is."
+
+Sure enough, Gerald appeared at this moment. He was empty-handed.
+
+Simple and primitive jests greeted him.
+
+"Hallo, old man, what have you shot--eh? Where is your little lot?"
+
+Gerald smiled seraphically.
+
+"You'll find it down there," he said--"in that patch of bracken,
+Standish. I left it for you to bring up. Rather heavy for me."
+
+"What on earth have you shot?" we cried involuntarily.
+
+"A sheep," said Gerald calmly.
+
+Great heavens!
+
+We rushed down the hill as one man--and came up again looking not a
+little hot and uncommonly foolish. The sheep was there, it is true,
+stiff and stark in the bracken; but more senses than one apprised us of
+the fact that it had been dead for considerably more than five minutes.
+Gerald had stumbled on to the corpse, and had turned his discovery, we
+afterwards admitted, to remarkably good advantage. It was "Mr Standish's
+turn," as Miss Buncle, in the picturesque but mysterious vernacular of
+her race, remarked at luncheon, "to hold the baby this time."
+
+After the third drive we gladly put up our guns and tramped down the
+hillside to the road below, where the ladies were waiting and the feast
+was spread. After we had disposed of grouse sandwiches,
+whisky-and-water, and jammy scones, and were devoting our post-prandial
+leisure to repose or dalliance with the fair--according as we were
+married or single--Lady Rubislaw inquired--
+
+"Where are you shooting this afternoon, John?"
+
+"The Neb, first," replied the Admiral. "And that reminds me, the man who
+drew the top butt had better start now, or he'll be late."
+
+With many groans, and followed by the mingled derision and sympathy of
+the company, I picked up my _impedimenta_ and started, leaving the
+others to decide who, if any, of the shooters was to have the honour of
+entertaining a lady in his butt.
+
+The Neb was a great mountain spur, whose base ran to within two or three
+hundred yards of our resting-place. In appearance it roughly resembled a
+mighty Napoleonic nose. The butts ran right up the ridge of that organ;
+and nine hundred feet above where we sat, just below an excrescence
+locally known as "The Pimple," lay mine.
+
+I reached my eyrie at last, and having laid my flask, tobacco-pouch, and
+twelve loose cartridges where I could reach them most handily on
+projecting shelves of peat inside the butt--I love neatness and method:
+Kitty says that when (if ever) I get to heaven I will decline to enter
+until I have wiped my boots,--settled down to enjoy a superb view and
+take note of the not altogether uninteresting manner in which the other
+members of the party were disposing themselves for the drive.
+
+Just below me were Standish and Miss Buncle, the lady a conspicuous mark
+for all men (and grouse) to behold by reason of a red tam o'shanter, the
+sight of which made me regret that its wearer was not employed as a
+beater. In the butt below were Dermott and Dolly--both very workmanlike
+and inconspicuous. Below them came the Admiral, with his wife (she
+always came and sat behind him, like a remarkably smart little
+powder-monkey, during the afternoon drive): below them, the Gilmertons;
+and last of all, thank Heaven! Gerald.
+
+The shooting on this beat would not be easy, though birds were always
+plentiful. They came round the face of the hill at very short range and
+express speed. My particular butt was notoriously difficult to score
+from. There was an awkward hummock in front of it, and driven birds
+swinging into view round this were practically right over the butt
+before its occupant could get his gun up.
+
+It was a rather sleepy afternoon. Far away I could hear the sound of the
+advancing beaters--the cries of the boys, the occasional barking of a
+dog, and the shrill piping of the headkeeper's whistle. Suddenly three
+birds swung into view round the face of the hill, and made straight for
+the line of butts. They were just below me, nearer to Standish's butt
+than mine, but I put up my gun and picked off the nearest. The other
+two, instead of keeping on their course over Standish's head, suddenly
+swerved round to the left, almost at right angles--I think they had seen
+Miss Buncle's tam o' shanter and simultaneously decided that there are
+worse things than death--and flew straight down the line, followed by an
+ineffectual volley from the twelve and twenty-eight bores respectively.
+
+"Now, Dermott, my boy!" I ejaculated, as the birds skimmed past the
+third butt. "There's a chance for a really pretty right and left."
+
+But no sound--no movement even--came from our crack's lair. The birds
+flew by unharmed, only to fall later on, one to the Admiral, and one to
+young Gilmerton.
+
+"_Dormitat Homerus_," I murmured, gazing curiously towards Dermott's
+butt. "I wonder if--Jove, there they go! What a pack! Well done, Gerald!
+Oh, Gilmerton, you old _sweep_! Fire, man, _fire_! Good old Admiral!
+Dermott, man, what the devil---- Have _at_ them!"
+
+I fairly danced in the heather. A perfect cloud of birds was pouring
+over the lower part of the line. The Admiral, the Gilmertons, and Gerald
+were firing fast and furiously,--even the laird of Nethercraigs loosed
+off at birds that were neither running nor sitting,--and when the
+beaters appeared in sight five minutes later, and the drive came to an
+end, the four lower butts totalled twelve brace among them.
+
+I humbly proffered my solitary contribution.
+
+"Twelve and a half," said the Admiral. "Now, Standish?"
+
+"N.E. this time," remarked that youth philosophically.
+
+The Admiral said nothing, but I saw his choleric blue eyes slide round
+in the direction of Miss Buncle's headgear. He turned to Dermott.
+
+"How many, old man?"
+
+"Blob!"
+
+That Dermott should return empty-handed from any kind of chase was so
+surprising that we all turned round for the explanation. Dermott was
+looking very dejected. This was evidently a blow to his professional
+pride.
+
+"Didn't any of that great pack come near you?" asked the Admiral
+sympathetically.
+
+"No--don't think so," said Dermott shortly.
+
+I had counted eight birds flying straight over his butt myself, but I
+said nothing. I was beginning to comprehend. _Et ego in Arcadia vixi_.
+
+But the obtuse master-mariner persisted.
+
+"How about that brace that flew right down the line? You must have seen
+'em coming all the way. You didn't even try a shot at them, man!"
+
+Dermott, who was fastening up his gaiter, answered rather listlessly--
+
+"Sorry! It was--a misfire, I think."
+
+"What?" cried the outraged Admiral. "A _misfire_? Both barrels--of both
+guns?"
+
+I did not hear the answer to this. I was looking at Dolly. Her face
+could not be seen, for she was kneeling down a little distance away,
+assiduously fondling the silky ears of a highly-gratified red setter.
+And I realised then that some expressions are capable of a metaphorical
+as well as a literal interpretation.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+My wife and daughter returned home in the "machine" in time for dinner,
+without Robin.
+
+"His mother kept him," Kitty explained. She was favouring me with a
+summary of her day's adventures, in the garden after dinner. "Such an
+old dear, Adrian! And his father is a grand old man. Very solemn and
+scriptural-looking and all that, but so courtly and simple when once he
+gets over his shyness. (He tried to come in to tea in his shirt-sleeves,
+but his wife hustled him out of the kitchen just in time.) Sir James
+Fordyce was a shock, though. When we arrived he was chopping turnips in
+a machine, dressed in clothes like any farm-labourer's. He said it was
+fine to get back to his own people again. To look at him you would never
+guess that he was one of the best known men in London, and a favourite
+at Court, and _such_ an old dandy in Bond Street. The rest of the
+household didn't seem to set any particular store by him. They took him
+quite as a matter of course."
+
+"What a pity English people can't do the same," I mused. "If they do
+possess a distinguished relative they brag about him, and he usually
+responds by avoiding them. If he does honour them with a visit, they try
+to live up to him, and put on unnecessary frills, and summon all the
+neighbourhood to come and inspect him."
+
+"There's nothing of that kind about the Fordyces," said Kitty. "Sir
+James was just one of themselves; he even spoke like them. It was, 'Aye,
+Jeems!' and 'Aye, John!' all the time."
+
+"How about the rest of the family?" I inquired.
+
+"The mother was immensely pleased to have Robin with her again, I could
+see," said Kitty. "She made no particular fuss over him, but I'm sure
+she simply hugged him as soon as we were gone. She had a talk with me
+about him when we were alone. She seems to regard him as the least
+successful member of the family, although he has been a good son to
+them. (Do you know, Adrian, he has sent them something like two hundred
+pounds during the time he has been with us? And that must have left him
+little enough to go on with, goodness knows!) But I don't think they
+consider him a patch on the eldest son, who is a great silent man with a
+beard--a sort of Scotch John Ridd. He looks years older than Robin,
+though of course he isn't. He is a splendid farmer, his mother tells me,
+and greatly "respeckit" in the district. But the poor dear was so
+frightened of me that he simply bolted from the house the moment he had
+finished his tea. The sister is pretty, and nice too, but shy. I'm
+afraid she found my clothes rather overpowering, though I'd only a coat
+and skirt on. But we got on splendidly after that. She is going to be
+married next month, to the minister, which is considered an immense
+triumph for her by the whole community. We must send them a present. By
+the way, what's the matter with Dolly?"
+
+"What's the matter with poor old Dermott?" I retorted.
+
+At this moment the much-enduring "machine" jingled up to the door, and
+Captain Dermott's luggage, together with his gun-cases and a generous
+bundle of game for the mess-table at Aldershot, was piled in at the
+back. Their owner followed after, and seeing the glowing end of my cigar
+in the dark, advanced to say good-bye.
+
+Kitty uttered some pretty expression of regret at his departure, and
+flitted into the house. Dermott and I surveyed each other silently
+through the darkness.
+
+"Is it any use asking you to come and look us up in town?" I said at
+last rather lamely.
+
+He laughed through set teeth--not a pretty sound.
+
+"I think I'll--avoid your household for a bit, Adrian," he answered.
+
+I nodded gravely.
+
+"I see," I said. "I--I'm sorry, old man!"
+
+"I'm going to India, if I can get away," he continued, after a pause.
+
+"Good scheme!" I replied. "We shall think of you most kindly--er, _all_
+of us."
+
+He said nothing, but shook hands in a grateful sort of fashion, and
+turned away.
+
+I suppose there is a reason for everything in this world. Still, the
+spectacle of a good man fighting dumbly with a cruel disappointment--and
+disappointment is perhaps the bitterest pill in all the pharmacopeia of
+life--is certainly a severe test of one's convictions on the subject.
+
+At this moment the rest of the party--_minus_ Dolly--flowed out on to
+the doorstep to say farewell; and two minutes later Captain Dermott
+drove heavily away--back to his day's work.
+
+Well, thank God there is always that!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I thought she was going to take him," said Kitty in her subsequent
+summing-up. "It was far and away the best offer she has ever had. And he
+is such a dear, too! What does the child want, I wonder! A coronet?"
+
+"'A dinner of herbs,' perhaps," said I.
+
+Kitty eyed me thoughtfully, and gave a wise little nod.
+
+"Yes--Dolly is just that sort," she agreed. "But what makes you think
+that?"
+
+"Oh--nothing," I said.
+
+There are certain matters upon which it is almost an impertinence for a
+man to offer an opinion to a woman, and I rather shrank from rushing in
+where my wife had evidently not thought it worth while to tread. Still,
+I could not help wondering in my heart whether the arrival of one
+gentleman on Sunday may not sometimes have something to do, however
+indirectly, with the abrupt departure of another gentleman on Monday.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+THE COMPLEAT ANGLER.
+
+
+The Division of Stoneleigh, which had hitherto done me the honour of
+returning me as its Member of Parliament, is a triangular tract of
+country in the north of England.
+
+At the apex of the triangle lies Stoneleigh itself, a township whose
+chief assets are an ancient cathedral at one end, and a flourishing
+industry, proclaiming to the heavens its dependence upon Hides and
+Tallow, at the other. The base of the triangle runs along the sea-coast,
+and is dotted with fishing villages. Most of the intervening area is
+under cultivation.
+
+It will be seen, then, that the character of my constituency varied in a
+perplexing manner, and while I could usually depend upon what I may call
+the Turnip interest, I could not always count with absolute certainty on
+the whole-hearted support of the Fish or Hides-and-Tallow.
+
+To this delectable microcosm my household and I migrated one bleak day
+in February, to commence what promised to be an arduous and thoroughly
+uncomfortable electoral campaign.
+
+The Government had gone out at last, more from inanition than over any
+definite question of policy; and we were going to the country to face
+what is paradoxically termed "the music." It would be a General Election
+in every sense of the word, for there was no particular question of the
+hour--this was before the days of Passive Resistance and Tariff
+Reform--and our chief bar to success would undoubtedly be our old and
+inveterate enemy, "the pendulum." Of course we were distributing
+leaflets galore, and blazoning panegyrics on our own legislative
+achievements over every hoarding in the country--especially where our
+opponents had already posted up scathing denunciations of the same--and
+of course we declared that we were going to come again, like King
+Arthur; but I think most of us realised in our hearts that the great
+British Public, having decided in its ponderous but not altogether
+unreasonable way that any change of government must be for the better,
+was now going to pull us down from the eminence to which we had been
+precariously clinging for five years, and set up another row of
+legislative Aunt Sallies in our stead.
+
+However, we were far from admitting this. We wore our favours, waved our
+hats, and celebrated our approaching triumph with as great an appearance
+of optimism as the loss of seven consecutive by-elections would permit.
+
+Our party--Kitty, Phillis, Dolly, and myself: Dilly and Dicky were to
+follow, and Robin had preceded us by two days--was met at the station by
+an informal but influential little deputation, consisting of Mr Cash, my
+agent, a single-minded creature who would cheerfully have done his best
+to get Mephistopheles returned as member if he had been officially
+appointed to further that gentleman's interests; old Colonel Vincey, who
+would as cheerfully have voted for the same candidate provided he wore
+Conservative colours; Mr Bugsley, a leading linen-draper and ex-Mayor of
+the town, vice-chairman of our local organisation; Mr Winch--locally
+known as Beery Bill--the accredited mouthpiece of the Stoneleigh liquor
+interest; and the Dean, who came, I was uncharitable enough to suspect
+even as he wrung my hand, on business not unconnected with the
+unfortunate deficit in the fund for the restoration of the North
+Transept. There were also present one or two reporters, and a _posse_ of
+the offscourings of Stoneleigh small-boydom.
+
+We drove in state to the hotel. Previous to this I shook hands warmly
+with the Station-master, who scowled at me--he was a Home-Ruler and a
+Baptist--and gave four porters half-a-crown apiece for lifting our
+luggage on to the roof of a cab. I also handed a newsboy sixpence for a
+copy of the local bi-weekly organ which supported our cause, and
+tendered half-a-sovereign in payment for a bunch of violets and
+primroses--our party colours in this district were purple and
+gold--which were proffered me outside the station by an ancient
+flower-selling dame who, Cash hissed into my ear, happened to be the
+mother of four strapping and fully-enfranchised sons; and presented an
+unwashed stranger who was holding open the cab door for us with a token
+of affection and esteem which could readily be commuted into several
+hours' beer.
+
+On arriving at the hotel I handed the cabman a fare roughly equivalent
+to the cash value of the cab, and then proceeded to distribute largesse
+to a crowd of menials who kindly undertook the task of lifting the
+luggage from the roof and conveying it to our rooms. The horse, having
+no vote, received no pecuniary return for its labours, but was rewarded
+for its devotion to Conservative principles by a lump of sugar, which
+Phillis had been tightly holding in a moist hand ever since Cash had
+handed it to her at the station--a pretty and thoughtful act of
+disinterested kindness which was duly noted in the _Stoneleigh Herald_
+next morning, and effectually secured the votes of several elusive but
+sentimental wobblers on polling day.
+
+After this unostentatious entry into my constituency I duly established
+myself in my apartments, where I spent most of the afternoon writing
+cheques. The restoration of the North Transept proved to be in an even
+more deplorable state of backwardness than I had feared; but the Dean
+ultimately left me with the utmost expressions of goodwill, promising to
+reassure the most exacting spirits in Cathedral society as to my
+soundness on the questions of (1) Disestablishment and (2) Secular
+Education in Elementary Schools.
+
+Thereafter I received the captain of the local football team, who begged
+to remind me that my subscription of five guineas, as Honorary
+Vice-President of the club, was now due, and further requested that I
+would do himself and colleagues the honour of kicking-off in the match
+against the Scrappington Hotstuffs on Saturday week. (Saturday next, I
+heard afterwards, had been reserved for my rival.) He finally departed
+with my cheque in his pocket, and, I expect, his tongue in his cheek.
+
+Robin next let in upon me a sub-section of the General Purposes
+Committee of the Municipal Library, who begged that I would kindly
+consent to open the new wing thereof, jointly with the rival Candidate,
+at three o'clock next Wednesday; and intimated as an afterthought that
+the oak bookcase in the eastern alcove was still unpaid for. They
+departed calling down blessings upon my head. (Five pounds ten.)
+
+Next, after a brief call from a gentleman in a blue ribbon, who came to
+solicit a guinea for the Band of Hope, and who left in exchange one
+hundred copies of a picture of the interior of a drunkard's stomach,
+executed in three colours, came Beery Bill, to whom the reader has
+already been introduced. He had not come to talk Politics, he said, but
+just to have a quiet chat with one whom he hoped he could regard as a
+personal friend. (I got out my fountain pen.) The chat materialised
+presently into an intimation that the Licensed Victuallers Benevolent
+Something-or-Other was short of cash; and my visitor suggested that a
+trifle in support of the charities of that most deserving institution
+would come gracefully from my pocket. On handing me the receipt he
+informed me that the brewing trade was in a bad way, and that he looked
+to me to do something for it if he used his influence on my behalf at
+the Election.
+
+The next visitor was an eccentric but harmless old gentleman who eked
+out a precarious livelihood as a Herbalist--whatever that may be--in the
+most plebeian quarter of the town. He inhabited a small and stuffy shop
+up a discreet alley, suffered much from small boys, sold curious drugs
+and potions of his own composition, and prescribed for persons whose
+means or modesty precluded them from consulting an orthodox
+practitioner.
+
+He was threatened, it appeared, with the penalties of the law. He had
+sold a "love-philtre" (pronounced infallible for recalling errant
+_fiancés_ to a sense of duty) to an amorous kitchen-maid who was seeking
+to rekindle the sacred flame in the bosom of an unresponsive policeman.
+The damozel had mingled the potion in a plate of beefsteak pudding, and
+had handed the same out of the scullery window to her peripatetic swain;
+with the sole result that that limb of the law had been immediately and
+violently sick, and, the moment he felt sufficiently recovered to do so,
+had declared the already debilitated match at an end. The kitchen-maid,
+rendered desperate, had told him the whole truth; and consequently my
+esteemed caller was now wanted by the police.
+
+The catastrophe of the pie, he explained, was in no way to be attributed
+to the love-philtre (which was composed of sifted sugar and cinnamon),
+but was due to the fact that instead of the philtre he had inadvertently
+handed his fair client a packet out of the next drawer, which contained
+ready-made-up doses of tartaric acid for immediate use in the case of
+small boys who had swallowed sixpences. _Hinc lacrymcoe_. In spite of
+his complete consciousness of his own innocence, he now found himself
+compelled in a few days' time to defend his conduct in a court of law.
+The proceedings would cost money, of which he of course possessed little
+or none. He had called, he said, confident in the hope that I would
+assist him to defray the expense of vindicating his integrity as a
+high-class Herbalist by purchasing six bottles of his world-renowned
+specific for neuralgia, from which dread malady he had been
+informed--quite incorrectly, by the way--that I occasionally suffered.
+The thirty shillings thus subscribed, together with a few odd coins
+which he himself had contrived to scrape together during a long life of
+thrift, would secure the services of a skilled advocate, who would
+doubtless be able to prove to the satisfaction of justice that no
+high-class Herbalist would ever dream, save in the way of kindness, of
+putting tartaric acid into a policeman's beefsteak pudding.
+
+He added, rather inconsequently, that he had voted Conservative at the
+last three elections, and had moreover persuaded all the other members
+of the Royal and Ancient Brotherhood of High-class Herbalists to do the
+same. (One pound ten.)
+
+My last visitor was a seedy individual in corduroys, who asked for a
+private interview with the Candidate, and, on this favour being granted,
+informed me in a confidential and husky whisper that he knew of ten good
+men and true, fully qualified voters, who were prepared to go to the
+poll on my behalf for the trifling fee of two pound ten a-head and no
+questions asked. He was politely but firmly shown into the street. One
+has to be on the look-out against persons of this type.
+
+I concluded the afternoon by a rather unsatisfactory interview with Mr
+Cash. He was by nature a boisterous and optimistic person, but on this
+occasion I found him inclined to be reticent and gloomy. He announced
+with a shake of the head that my rival was a very strong candidate; and
+finally, after a certain amount of pressing, admitted that I was not
+altogether as universally acceptable to my own side as I might have
+been.
+
+"You are not violent enough, Mr Inglethwaite," he said. "You sympathise
+too much with the point of view of the opposite side. That's fatal."
+
+I turned to Robin.
+
+"You hear that?" I said. "Don't you ever call me a prejudiced old Tory
+again, Robin."
+
+"Then," continued the dolorous Cash, "you are too squeamish. Those
+posters that you wouldn't allow to be put up--that was simply throwing
+away good votes. Politics in this part of the country can't be played
+with kid gloves. Then there are the meetings. You don't let the other
+side have it hot enough. Call 'em robbers and liars! That's what wins an
+election!"
+
+"I suppose it is," I said mournfully. "Robin, we must put our opinions
+in our pockets and beat the party drum. Come on, let us go to the
+Committee Rooms!"
+
+For the next fortnight we worked like galley-slaves. Each morning Kitty
+and I drove round the town in an open carriage-and-pair decorated with
+our colours, bowing to such of our constituents as would look at us, and
+punctiliously returning any salutes we received. Occasionally
+whole-hearted supporters would give us a cheer, and occasionally--rather
+more frequently, it seemed to me--disagreeable persons booed at us. Once
+we were held up outside a hide-and-tallow work by a gang of workmen who
+wished to address a few questions to the Candidate. We came well out of
+that ordeal, for both Kitty and Dolly happened to be in the carriage
+that day, and they so completely captivated the spokesman of the
+deputation--no wonder! a pretty woman never looks so attractive as in
+furs--that that gentleman concluded a catechism of unpremeditated
+brevity and incoherence by proposing a vote of confidence in, coupled
+with three cheers for, Mr Inglethwaite and his young ladies!
+
+On another occasion a gnarled and fervent Radical of the bootmaking
+persuasion hobbled to the door of his establishment, and waving clenched
+and uplifted fists, called down upon us and our retreating equipage all
+the curses at the command of a rather extensive vocabulary until we were
+out of earshot.
+
+Occasionally little girls threw posies into the carriage: little boys,
+not to be outdone in politeness, threw stones: and altogether I felt
+very much as the Honourable Samuel Slumkey must have done upon the
+historic occasion on which he solicited the votes of the electors of the
+borough of Eatanswill.
+
+Talking of Eatanswill, I had already made the acquaintance of Mr Horatio
+Fizkin in the person of my opponent, Mr Alderman Stridge, Wholesale
+Provision Merchant and Italian Warehouseman. His selection as Liberal
+Candidate was a blow to us: we had hoped for nothing worse than a
+briefless carpet-bagger from the Temple, as on previous occasions.
+However, the Alderman on our introduction was extremely affable, and
+expressed a hope, with the air of one discovering the sentiment for the
+first time, that the best man might win; to which I, as in duty bound,
+replied that I hoped not; and we parted with mutual expressions of
+goodwill and esteem, to deride each other's politics and bespatter each
+other's characters on countless platforms and doorsteps until we should
+meet again, after the fray, at the counting of the votes.
+
+On returning from our morning drive (which usually included an open-air
+meeting) we took luncheon, generally in the presence of various anćmic
+young men who represented local organs of public opinion, and who
+expected the long-suffering candidate to set forth his views between
+mouthfuls of chop and sips of sherry. I usually turned these over to
+Robin, who understood their ways; and he charmed them so wisely that
+even the relentless Cash was compelled to admit that our press notices
+might have been worse.
+
+Robin was a tower of strength. Indeed he and Dolly were my two chief
+lieutenants; Dilly and Dicky, as became a pair who had only been married
+a few months, proving but broken reeds. A week's electioneering proved
+sufficient for their requirements; and, declining flatly to "grin like a
+dog and run about the city"--Dilly's pithy summary of the art of
+canvassing--any longer, they left us ten days before polling-day to pay
+a country-house visit. But Robin was everywhere. He answered my letters
+and he interviewed reporters. He could keep a meeting in hand (pending
+my arrival from another) with such success that when I finally appeared
+upon the platform to take up the wondrous tale of my party's
+perfections, the audience were loth to let Robin go. In six days he
+acquired a knowledge of the wants, peculiarities, weaknesses, and
+traditions of my constituents which had occupied all my powers of
+concentration and absorption for six arduous years. He used to drop into
+his speeches little topical allusions and local "gags" which, though
+Greek to the uninitiated, never failed to produce a roar: and a
+political speaker who can unfailingly make his audience laugh with
+him--not at him--has gone far on the road to success.
+
+Once, at a meeting, when I was half-way through a speech to an
+unmistakably bored and rather hostile audience, Robin, who was sitting
+beside me, slipped a sheet of paper on to my table. The message on the
+paper, written large for me to read, said--_Compare Stridge to the Old
+Lady of Dippleton_. What the lady had done I did not know, neither had I
+time to inquire; but I took my secretary's advice, and, after pausing
+for a brief drink of water, concluded my sentence--
+
+"--and I maintain, gentlemen, that my opponent, in advocating such a
+policy as that which he has had the--the--yes, the _effrontery_ to lay
+before a clear-thinking and broad-minded Stoneleigh audience last night,
+has shown himself to be no wiser in his generation, no better or more
+statesmanlike in character, than--than--what shall we say? than"--I
+glanced at the paper on the table--"the Old Lady of Dippleton!"
+
+There was a great roar of laughter, and I sat down. I was ultimately
+awarded a vote of thanks, which should by rights have been given to the
+heroine of my closing allusion. I may mention here that no subsequent
+inquiry of mine ever elicited from Robin or any one else what the Old
+Lady of Dippleton _had_ done. Probably it was one of those things that
+no real lady ever ought to do, and I discreetly left it at that.
+
+Dolly, too, proved a treasure. Her strong line was canvassing. She could
+ingratiate herself with short-tempered and over-driven wives apparently
+without effort; surly husbands melted before her smile; sheepish young
+men forgot the encumbering existence of their hands and feet in her
+presence; and she was absolutely infallible with babies. Her methods
+were entirely her own, and gratifyingly free from the superior and
+patronising airs usually adopted by fine ladies when they go to solicit
+the votes of that variegated and much-graded community which they
+cheerfully and indiscriminately sum up as "the lower classes."
+
+Let us follow her as she flits on her way to pay a morning call upon Mr
+Noah Gulching of Jackson's Row.
+
+Mr Gulching, she finds, is absent in search of a job, while Mrs
+Gulching, thoroughly cross and worried, is doing the housework with one
+hand and dangling a fractious teething baby from the other. The rest of
+the family are engaged in playing games of skill and chance (on the win,
+tie, or wrangle principle), in the middle of the street outside; and
+piercing screams testify to the fact that John William Gulching, aged
+two, had just been uprooted by Mary Kate Gulching, who wants to lay out
+a new Hop-Scotch court, from the flagstone upon which he has been seated
+for the last half hour and dumped down upon another, the warming of
+which, even his untutored sensations inform him, will be a matter of
+some time and trouble.
+
+Dolly, not a whit dismayed by a thoroughly ungracious reception, tucks
+up her skirt, rolls up her sleeves, finishes washing-up, makes a bed,
+and peels some potatoes. Then she takes the baby and attends to its more
+conspicuous wants, what time Mrs Gulching, thoroughly mollified,--she
+had thought at first that Dolly was "a person with tracks,"--goes round
+the corner to the "Drop Inn," at which hostelry the work of which her
+spouse is habitually in pursuit invariably goes to ground, and brings
+that gentleman home with her, to find Dolly playing with a spotless
+infant whom she gradually recognises as her own offspring.
+
+Dolly begins at once.
+
+"Good morning, Mr Gulching! I expect you think I am one of those horrid
+canvassers."
+
+Mr Gulching, a little taken aback, admits that such was his impression.
+
+"Well, I'm not," says Dolly. (_Oh, Dolly!_) "I suppose there may be some
+excuse for canvassing among people who do not take much interest in
+politics,--though _I_ shouldn't like to do it,--but it would be rather a
+waste of time for me or any one else to come and try on that sort of
+thing with _you_, wouldn't it, Mr Gulching?"
+
+Mr Gulching, outwardly frigid but inwardly liquescent, agrees that this
+is so; and adds in a truculent growl that he would like to see 'em try
+it on.
+
+"What I really want," continues Dolly, "is your _advice_. I am told that
+you are so respected here, and have such a knowledge of the requirements
+of the neighbourhood, that you might be inclined to give us a little
+help in a scheme which Mr Inglethwaite has in hand. Schemes for the
+improvement of some of the houses--not snug little cribs like this, but
+the homes of people who are not so clever and able to take care of
+themselves as you--and the supplying of more amusements in the evenings;
+entertainments, lectures----"
+
+"Teetotal?" inquires Mr Gulching hoarsely.
+
+"Oh dear, no. I am sure Mr Inglethwaite would not wish to deprive any
+one of his glass of beer. He quite agrees with your views about moderate
+drinking." (This, I may mention, is a slanderous libel on me, but it
+sounds all right as Dolly says it.) "But he knows that the success of
+his efforts will depend entirely upon whether he has the support of such
+men as yourself--men who know what they want and will see that they get
+it. We can't do without you, you see," she adds, with a bewitching
+little smile.
+
+Visible swelling on the part of Mr Gulching. Dolly gets up.
+
+"Well, I know you are a busy man, Mr Gulching, so I mustn't keep you
+listening to a woman's chatter any more. I'm afraid I haven't explained
+things very deeply, but then you men are such creatures for wanting to
+get to the root of the matter, aren't they, Mrs Gulching? However, Mr
+Inglethwaite will call shortly and discuss things with you. I know he
+wants your advice. Meanwhile, perhaps you will mention the matter to any
+friends of yours whom you think would be likely to help us, won't you?
+Good morning, and thank you so much for granting me this--er--interview.
+An Englishman's house is his castle, isn't it? That is why it was so
+good of you to let me come in. Good-bye, Mrs Gulching. He's a perfectly
+sweet little chap, and I must come and see him again, if I may." (The
+last remark is a little ambiguous, but probably refers to the baby.)
+
+And Dolly, with a friendly nod to the rest of the family (who are by
+this time drawn up _en échelon_ at the street door, under the personal
+direction of Violet Amelia Gulching), sails out, followed by a gratified
+leer from the greatly inflated Mr Gulching, having secured that free and
+independent elector's vote without even having asked for it. And yet
+some women are crying out for the right to control elections!
+
+At the street corner, with a persuasive finger in the buttonhole of an
+unconvinced Socialist (and a vigilant eye straining down the long and
+unlovely vista of Jackson's Row), Dolly usually encounters Robert
+Chalmers Fordyce.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+A HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE.
+
+
+Nomination day came, and I was duly entered by my proprietors for the
+Election Stakes, though I was painfully aware that my selection as
+Candidate was not universally popular.
+
+However, as Cash remarked, "It is canvassing from door to door that does
+the trick, and there you have the bulge on Stridge. He's not a bad old
+buffer himself, but they hate his wife like poison. She drives up to
+their doors in a silver-plated brougham with a double-breasted coachman,
+and tells 'em to vote for Stridge, not because he used to live in a
+one-roomed house himself--which he did, and her too--but because he's a
+local god-on-wheels. Of course they won't stick that."
+
+I also continued to address meetings, receive deputations, and generally
+solicit patronage in a way that would have made a cab-tout blush for
+shame. As a recreation I kicked off at football matches and laid
+foundation-stones. The most important function in which I took part was
+the opening of the new wing of the Municipal Library. The ceremony,
+which was by way of being a non-party affair, took place on a blustering
+February afternoon. The _élite_ of Stoneleigh were picturesquely grouped
+upon the steps of the main entrance of the Library, from the topmost of
+which the Mayor, the Dean, and the Candidates addressed a shivering and
+apathetic audience below.
+
+Fortunately, the company were too exclusively occupied in holding on
+their hats and blowing their blue noses to pay much attention to the
+improving harangues of Mr Stridge and myself; which was perhaps just as
+well, for men who have three or four highly critical and possibly
+hostile meetings to address later in the day are not likely to waste
+good things upon an assembly who probably cannot hear them, and will
+only say "Hear, hear!" in sepulchral tones if they do.
+
+The actual opening of the wing was accomplished quite informally (and I
+may say unexpectedly) by Kitty and Mrs Stridge--a fearsome matron, who
+looked like a sort of Nonconformist Boadicea--who were huddling together
+for warmth in the recess of the doorway. On a pedestal before them lay
+two small gold keys, with which they were presently to unlock the door
+itself, what time I, in trumpet tones, declared the Library open.
+Whether through natural modesty or a desire to escape the assaults of
+the wind, the two ladies shrank back so closely into the door that that
+accommodating portal, evidently deeming it ungallant to wait even for a
+golden key under such circumstances, incontinently flew open, and
+Mesdames Inglethwaite and Stridge subsided gracefully into the arms of a
+spectacled and embarrassed Librarian, who was formally waiting inside to
+receive the company at the proper moment.
+
+After that, the proceedings, which so far had been almost as bleak as
+the weather, went with a roar to the finish.
+
+But events like these were mere oases in a desert of ceaseless drudgery.
+The fight grew sterner and stiffer, and, as always happens on these
+occasions, the neutral and the apathetic began to bestir themselves and
+take sides. A week before the election there was not an impartial or
+unbiassed person left in Stoneleigh. Collisions between supporters of
+either party became frequent and serious. On the first occasion, when a
+Conservative sought to punctuate an argument by discharging a small
+gin-and-ginger into the face of his Liberal opponent, and the Liberal
+retaliated by felling the Conservative to the earth with a pint-pot,
+Stridge and I wrote quite effusively to one another apologising for the
+exuberance of our friends. A week later, when certain upholders of my
+cause bombarded Stridge's emporium with an assortment of Stridge's own
+eggs, hitting one of Mr Stridge's white-jacketed assistants in the eye,
+and severely damaging the frontage of Mr Stridge's Italian
+warehouse--whereupon local and immediate supporters of the cause of
+Stridge squared matters by putting three bombardiers into a
+horse-trough--Mr Stridge and I expressed no sort of regret to one
+another whatsoever, but referred scathingly, amid rapturous cheers, at
+our next meetings to the blackguardly policy of intimidation and
+hooliganism by which the other side found it necessary to bolster up a
+barren cause and hopeless future; all of which shows that things were
+tuning up to concert pitch.
+
+Results of other elections were coming in every day, and they were not
+by any means favourable to our side. Still, we kept on smiling, and
+talked largely about the swing of the pendulum--almost as useful a
+phrase as "Mesopotamia" of blessed memory--and other phenomena of
+reaction, and hoped for the best. Champion, who had been returned for
+his constituency by a thumping majority, had promised to come down and
+speak for me at a great meeting two nights before the election; and
+Dubberley, who had lost his seat, threatened to come and help me to lose
+mine.
+
+With the exception of Robin, who appeared to be made of some material
+_ćre perennius_, we were all getting the least bit "tucked up," from my
+humble self down to Phillis, who appeared at breakfast one morning
+looking flushed and rather too bright-eyed.
+
+"Electioneering seems to be telling on you, old lady," I remarked.
+"Feeling quite well--eh?"
+
+"Just a _teeny_ headache, daddy. But"--hastily--"I can come with you to
+the meeting in the theatre to-morrow night, can't I? it will be such
+fun!"
+
+"Meeting? My little girl, it does not begin till an hour after your
+bed-time."
+
+"That's why I want to go," said my daughter frankly. "Besides, I do
+_love_ pantomimes--especially the clowns!" She wriggled ecstatically.
+
+Even the revelation of the plain truth--that the pantomime would be
+called by another name and the clowns would appear in mufti--failed to
+assuage Phillis's thirst for the dramatic sensation promised by a
+meeting in a theatre. I was, as usual, wax in her small hands; and,
+man-like, I threw the _onus negandi_ upon Eve's shoulders.
+
+"Ask your mother," I said; and flew to my day's work.
+
+Thank goodness, it was almost the last. To-morrow would be the eve of
+the poll, and at night we were to hold our monster meeting. Three
+thousand people would be present; a local magnate, Sir Thomas Wurzel (of
+Heycocks), would occupy the chair; what one of our local reporters
+insisted on calling "the _élite_ of the _bon ton_" would be ranged upon
+the platform; and the meeting would be addressed by John Champion,
+Robin,--they always wanted him now,--and the much-enduring Candidate.
+The audience would, further, be made the recipients of a few remarks
+from the Chair and (unless something providential happened) from
+Dubberley, who was to second a vote of thanks to somebody--a performance
+which might take anything up to fifty minutes. Altogether a feast of
+oratory, and a further proof, if any were needed, that the English are a
+hardy race.
+
+Phillis was decidedly unwell next morning, and Kitty prescribed bed. I
+am inclined to be an anxious parent, but there was little time for the
+exercise of any natural instincts on this occasion. Hounded on by the
+relentless Cash, I spent the day in a final house-to-house canvass,
+being fortunate enough to find at home several gentlemen who had been
+out on previous occasions, and who now graciously permitted Kitty to
+present them with a resplendent portrait of what at first sight appeared
+to be a hairdresser's assistant in gala costume, but which an obtrusive
+inscription below proclaimed to be "Inglethwaite! The Man You Know, and
+Who Knows You!"
+
+After a hasty round of the Committee Rooms I returned to our hostelry,
+the Cathedral Arms, where, after disposing of two reporters who wanted
+an advance copy of my evening's speech, and having effusively thanked a
+pompous individual for a sheaf of statistics on a subject which I cannot
+recall, but in which no one outside an asylum could have reasonably been
+expected to take any interest whatever, and which I was at liberty to
+quote (with due acknowledgments) to any extent I pleased, I sat down
+with Champion and Robin, faint yet pursuing, to fortify myself with
+roast-beef and whisky for the labours of the evening.
+
+Presently Kitty entered, with Dolly.
+
+"_Who_ do you think has just arrived?" she said.
+
+"I don't know. Not a deputation, I hope!"
+
+"No. Gerald--from school."
+
+"Great Scott! Expelled?"
+
+"Oh no. It's his half-term _exeat_. I had forgotten all about it. As it
+just falls in with the Election, he has come to see you through, he
+says."
+
+"Right! Give him some food and a bed, and we'll send him round with one
+of the brakes to-morrow, to bring people up to the poll. He has a gentle
+compelling way about him that should be useful to us. Has he brought his
+inarticulate friend?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, tell them to ask at the office for bedrooms."
+
+"They have done that already," said Dolly. "They are down in the kitchen
+now, ordering dinner. They don't propose to go to the meeting. 'Better
+fun outside,' they say."
+
+"Lucky little devils!" remarked the Candidate, with feeling.
+
+"And, Adrian," said Kitty, "I don't think I'll come either. I'm rather
+bothered about Philly."
+
+I laid down my knife and fork.
+
+"What do you mean? Is she really ill?"
+
+"N-no. I don't think so, but she is very feverish and wretched, poor
+kiddy. I tried to get hold of Dr Martin this afternoon, but he was miles
+away on an urgent case, and won't be back till to-morrow. But I got Dr
+Farquharson----"
+
+"Roaring Radical!" said I in horror-struck tones.
+
+--"Yes, dear, but such a nice old thing; and Scotch too, Robin----"
+
+"Aberdonian," said Robin dubiously.
+
+"Well," continued my wife, "he said she would need care, and must stay
+in bed. He was in a tearing hurry, as he had to go on to one of
+Stridge's meetings--horrid creature!--but he promised to come again on
+his way home. Do you think it very important that I should come with
+you?"
+
+I turned to my secretary.
+
+"What's your opinion, Robin?"
+
+"I think Mrs Inglethwaite should come. They like to see her on the
+platform, I know."
+
+"If the Candidate's wife does not appear, people say she is too grand
+for them," put in Champion.
+
+"I'll stay with Philly, Kit," said Dolly.
+
+"Will you? You dear! But I know you want to come yourself."
+
+"Never mind. It doesn't matter."
+
+And so it was arranged.
+
+We found the theatre packed to suffocation. A heated band of musicians
+(whose degrees must have been conferred _honoris causa_) had just
+concluded a set of airs whose sole excuse for existence was their
+patriotic character, and Sir Thomas Wurzel (of Heycocks) was rising to
+his feet, when our party appeared on the platform. Election fever was
+running high by this time; the critical spirit was almost entirely
+obliterated by a truly human desire to cut the preliminaries and hit
+somebody in the eye; and we were greeted with deafening cheers.
+
+Presently Champion was introduced and called upon to speak. He was
+personally unknown to the crowd before him, although his name was
+familiar to them. But in five minutes he had the entire audience in his
+grip. He made them laugh, and he made them cheer; he made them breathe
+hard, and he made them chuckle. There were moments when the vast throng
+sat in death-like silence, while Champion, with his voice dropped almost
+to a whisper, cajoled them as a woman cajoles a man. Then suddenly he
+would blare out another battle-call, and provoke a great storm of
+cheering. He made little use of gesture--occasionally he punctuated a
+remark with an impressive forefinger, but he had the most wonderful
+voice I have ever heard. I sat and watched him with whole-hearted
+admiration. It is true that he was not doing our cause any particular
+good. He had forgotten that he was there to make a party speech, to
+decry his opponents, and crack up his friends. He was soaring away into
+other regions, and--most wonderful of all--he was taking his audience
+with him. He besought them to be men, to play the game, to think
+straight, to awaken to a sense of responsibility, and to remember the
+magnitude and responsibility of their task as controllers of an Empire.
+He breathed into them for a moment a portion of his own great spirit;
+and many a small tradesman and dull-souled artisan realised that night,
+for the first (and possibly the last) time, that the summit of the
+Universe is not composed of hides and tallow, and that there are higher
+things than the loaves and fishes of party politics and the petty
+triumphs of a contested election.
+
+From a strictly tactical point of view all this was useless, and
+therefore dangerous. But for a brief twenty minutes we were gods,
+Utopians, Olympians, joyously planning out a scheme of things as they
+should be, to the entire oblivion of things as they are. That is always
+worth something.
+
+Then he sat down, and we came to earth again with a bump, recollecting
+guiltily the cause for which we were assembled and met together--namely,
+the overwhelming of an Italian warehouseman and the retention of a
+parliamentary seat in an unimportant provincial district.
+
+Once only have I heard that speech bettered, and that was in the House
+of Commons on a night in June fifteen years later, when a Prime Minister
+started up from the Treasury Bench to defend a colleague whose
+Bill--since recognised as one of the most statesmanlike measures of our
+generation--was being submitted to the narrowest and meanest canons of
+party criticism. It was another appeal for fair-play, unbiassed
+judgment, and breadth of view, and it took a hostile and captious House,
+Government and Opposition alike, by storm. The name of the Prime
+Minister on that occasion was John Champion, and the colleague whom he
+defended was Robert Chalmers Fordyce.
+
+After Champion had sat down--nominally his speech was a vote of
+confidence in my unworthy self--Robin rose to second the motion. I did
+not envy him his task. It is an ungrateful business at the best, firing
+off squibs directly after a shower of meteors. Even a second shower of
+meteors would be rather a failure under the circumstances. Robin
+realised this. He put something into his pocket and told his audience a
+couple of stories--dry, pawky, Scottish yarns--which he admitted were
+not new, not true, and not particularly relevant. The first was a
+scurrilous anecdote concerning a man from Paisley,--which illustrious
+township, by the way, appears to be the target of practically all
+Scottish humour,--and the other treated of a Highland minister who was
+delivering to a long-suffering congregation a discourse upon the Minor
+Prophets. Robin told us how the preacher worked through Obadiah,
+Ezekiel, Nahum, Malachi, "and many others whose names are doubtless
+equally familiar to you, gentlemen," he added amid chuckles, "placing
+them in a kind of ecclesiastical order of merit as he proceeded; and
+finally he came to Habakkuk.
+
+"'What place, my friends, what place will we assign to Habakkuk?' he
+roared.
+
+"That, gentlemen," said Robin, "proved to be the last straw. A man rose
+up under the gallery.
+
+"'Ye can pit him doon here in my seat,' he roared. 'I'm awa' hame!'
+
+"Gentlemen," added Robin, as the shout of laughter subsided, "I fear
+that one of you will be for offering _his_ seat to Habakkuk if I go on
+any longer, so I will just second the motion and sit down."
+
+After that I rose to my weary feet and offered my contribution. I have
+no intention of giving a _précis_ of my speech here. It was exactly the
+same as all the speeches ever delivered on such occasions. Thucydides
+could have written it down word for word without ever having heard me
+deliver it. It was not in the least a good speech, but it was the sort
+of speech they expected, and, better still, it was the sort of speech
+they wanted. Everybody was too excited to be critical, and I sat down,
+perspiring and thankful, amid enthusiasm.
+
+Then came the most trying ordeal of all--questions.
+
+I am no hand at repartee; but practice had sharpened my faculties
+in this direction, and I had, moreover, become fairly conversant
+with the type of query to which the seeker after knowledge on these
+occasions usually confines himself. The great secret is to bear in
+mind the fact that what people want in one's reply is not accurate
+information--unless, of course, you are standing for a Scottish
+constituency, and then Heaven help you!--but something smart. If you can
+answer the question, do so; but in any case answer it in such a way as
+to make the questioner feel small. Then you will have your audience with
+you.
+
+To prevent unseemly shouting (and, _entre nous_, to give the Candidate a
+little more time to polish up his impromptus), the questions were handed
+up on slips of paper and read aloud, and answered _seriatim_. They were
+sorted and arranged for me by Robin, and I not infrequently found, among
+the various slips, a question usually coming directly after a regular
+poser, in Robin's handwriting, with a brilliant and telling reply
+thoughtfully appended.
+
+This evening as usual Robin collected the slips from the stewards, and
+ultimately laid them on the table before me. I rose, and started on the
+heap. The first was a typewritten document which had been handed up by a
+thoughtful-looking gentleman in the front row. It contained a single
+line--
+
+_Are you a Liberal or a Conservative?_
+
+This was a trifle hard, I thought, coming directly after my speech; but
+fortunately the audience considered it merely funny, and roared when I
+remarked pathetically, "This gentleman is evidently deaf."
+
+Then came the question--
+
+_Are you in favour of Woman's Suffrage?_
+
+This was no novelty, and was fortunately regarded by the gallant
+electors present as a form of comic relief. I adopted my usual plan
+under the circumstances, and said--
+
+"I am in favour, sir, of giving a woman whatever she wants. It is always
+well to make a virtue of necessity."
+
+This homely and non-committal gibe satisfied most of the audience, and I
+was about to proceed to the next question when my interlocutor, a
+litigious-looking man with blue spectacles, rose in the circle and
+cried--
+
+"You are evading the question, sir! Give me an answer. Are you in favour
+of Woman's Suffrage or not?"
+
+"That's fair! Give him his answer!" came the cry from the fickle
+audience.
+
+I was quite prepared for this. I went through an oft-rehearsed and not
+uneffective piece of pantomime with Kitty, and replied--
+
+"Well, sir, I have just inquired of my wife, who is by my side----"
+
+I paused expectantly. I was not disappointed. There were loud cheers,
+during which I seized the opportunity to glance through the next few
+questions. Then, as I was not quite ready--
+
+"--As she has _always_ been, all through this arduous campaign----"
+
+_Terrific enthusiasm, while Kitty blushes and bows very prettily; after
+which the conversation proceeds on the following lines:_--
+
+_Myself_. And she tells me that she does not want any Suffrage of any
+kind whatsoever!
+
+_"Hear, hear!" But some cries of disapproval._
+
+_Myself_. I therefore recommend you, sir, to go home and follow my
+example----
+
+_(Perfect tornado of laughter. Apparently I have made a home-thrust.)_
+
+--And after that, if you will come back to me and report the result of
+your--er--investigations--(_yells_)--I shall be happy to go into the
+matter with you more fully.
+
+_Triumphant cheers, and the blue-spectacled man collapses._
+
+The unfortunate espouser of the cause of the fair having thus been
+derided out of court, I took up the next question. It concerned a
+long-standing dispute as to the rights of the clergy of various
+denominations to enter the local Board Schools,--this was in the days
+far preceding the present educational deadlock,--and I felt that I must
+walk warily. I talked at large about liberty of conscience and religious
+toleration, but realised as I rambled on that my moderate views and want
+of bigotry in one direction or the other were pleasing no one. John Bull
+is a curious creature. You may get drunk and beat your wife, and he will
+tolerate you; you may run amok through most of the Decalogue, and he
+will still be your friend; but venture to worship your Maker in a
+fashion which differs one tittle from his own, and he will put down his
+pint-pot or desist from sanding the sugar and fell you to the earth. I
+was glad to get away from this subject, leaving the audience far from
+satisfied, and turn to the next question. It said--
+
+_Is the Candidate aware that the important township of Spratling is
+entirely without a pier or jetty of any description?_
+
+"Certainly I am aware of it," I replied, trying hard to remember where
+the place was. The audience began to titter, and I felt uneasy.
+
+My questioner, a saturnine gentleman in the pit, rose to his feet and
+continued--
+
+"And if returned to Parliament, will you exert your influence to see
+that a jetty is constructed there at the earliest opportunity?"
+
+"Cer----" There was a very slight movement beside me. Robin was leaning
+back unconcernedly in his chair, but on the table under my nose lay a
+sheet of paper bearing these words in large printed capitals--
+
+SPRATLING IS TEN MILES FROM THE SEA!
+
+It had been a near thing.
+
+"Certainly," I continued. "On one condition only," I added at the top of
+my voice, above the rising tide of mocking laughter,--"on condition that
+you, sir, will personally guarantee a continuous and efficient service
+of fast steamers between Spratling and--the sea-coast!"
+
+It was not a brilliant effort. I think I could have made more of it if I
+had had more time. But it served. How they laughed!
+
+But there were breakers ahead. The next question asked if I was in
+favour of compulsory land purchase and small holdings. Of course I was
+not; but if I said so I knew I should rouse a dangerous storm, for the
+community were much bitten at the time with the "Vine and Fig-tree
+Fetish," as some one had happily described it. If, on the other hand, I
+said Yes, I should, besides telling a lie,--though, as Cash once
+remarked to me, "You can't strain at gnats on polling-day,"--be
+committing myself to a scheme, which I knew Stridge had been strongly
+urging, for dividing up some of the estate of the Lord of the Manor, the
+Earl of Carbolton (whom I knew personally for one of the wisest and most
+considerate landlords in the country) into allotments for the benefit of
+an industrial population who probably thought that turnips grew on
+trees. It would have been easy to make some easily broken promise, but I
+have my poor pride, and I never offer the most academic blessing to a
+measure that I am not prepared to go into a Lobby for. I wanted time to
+think. Perhaps Robin would slip something on to the table. I accordingly
+played my usual card, and said--
+
+"Now this, gentleman, is an important question, and I am very glad it
+has been asked." (Oh, Adrian, my _boy_!) "And when I am faced with such
+a question, I always ask myself, 'What, under the circumstances, would
+be the course of action of--our great leader?'"
+
+The device succeeded, and the theatre resounded with frenzied cheers. I
+turned to Robin. He was not there.
+
+I swung round in Kitty's direction. She had left her chair, and was
+hurriedly making her way through the group of important nobodies behind
+me in the direction of the wings. Robin was there already, in earnest
+conversation with a girl.
+
+It was Dolly.
+
+Phillis?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+"TO DIE--WILL BE AN _AWFULLY_ BIG ADVENTURE!"
+
+--_Peter Pan_.
+
+
+Two minutes later we were driving back to the Cathedral Arms. It was
+snowing heavily, but I never noticed the fact. Neither did I realise
+that I had abandoned my post at a critical and dangerous moment, and
+left my friends on the platform to explain to a puzzled and angry
+audience why the Candidate had run away without answering their
+questions. But there are deeper things than politics.
+
+Phillis, we learned from Dolly, had been attacked by violent pains early
+in the evening; and about nine o'clock there had been a sudden rise of
+temperature, with slight delirium, followed by a complete and alarming
+collapse. Dr Farquharson had been sent for, hot-foot, from Stridge's
+platform, and his first proceeding had been to summon me from mine.
+
+He was waiting for us in the hall of the hotel when we arrived, and
+Kitty and I took him into our sitting-room and, parent-like, begged to
+be told "the worst."
+
+The doctor--a dour and deliberate Scot--declined to be positive, but
+"doubted" it might be perityphlitis. "Appendicitis is a more fashionable
+term," he added. The child had rallied, but was very ill, and nothing
+more could be done at present except keep her warm and afford relief by
+means of poultices and fomentations until the malady should take a
+definite turn for the better or the worse.
+
+"In either case we shall know what to do then," he said; "but for the
+present the bairn must just fight her own battle. Has she good health,
+as a rule?"
+
+Yes, thank God! she had. Physically she was frail enough, but she
+possessed a tough little constitution. After I had taken a peep into the
+room where the poor child, a vision of tumbled hair and wide bright
+eyes, lay moaning and tossing, I left Kitty and Dolly and the doctor to
+do what they could for her, and went downstairs to take counsel with my
+friends.
+
+Now that the first shock was past, my head was clear again, and my
+course lay plain before me. Downstairs I found Robin, Champion, and Cash
+silently taking supper.
+
+"Now, gentlemen," I said, when I had answered Robin's anxious
+inquiries--I believe he loved the child almost as much as I did--"this
+misfortune has come at a bad time; but one thing is quite plain, and
+that is that I must go through with the election. I quite see that I am
+not my own master at present."
+
+Cash looked immensely relieved. Evidently he had been afraid that I
+would throw up the sponge. Robin and Champion nodded a grave assent, and
+the latter said--
+
+"You are right, Adrian. It's the only thing to do."
+
+"That's true," said Cash. "I am sure you have our deepest sympathy, Mr
+Inglethwaite, but we can't possibly let you off on any account."
+
+It was not a very happy way of putting it, but Cash was an election
+agent first and a man afterwards.
+
+"It was bad enough your running away from the meeting to-night," he
+continued, in tones which he tried vainly to keep from sounding
+reproachful. "They'd have torn the benches up if Mr Fordyce hadn't let
+'em have it straight. I'm afraid it will cost us votes to-morrow."
+
+All this grated a good deal. I could hear Robin begin to breathe through
+his nose, and I knew that sign. I broke in--
+
+"What did you say to them, Robin?"
+
+"Say? I don't really know. I assured them that you must have some good
+reason for leaving in such a hurry, and persuaded them to keep quiet for
+a bit in case you came back. We put up a few more speakers, but the
+people got more and more out of hand; and finally, after about five
+minutes of Dubberley, they grew so riotous that we ended the meeting."
+
+"They had every excuse," said I. "They considered themselves defrauded."
+
+"So they were," said Cash.
+
+"Of course, if they had _known_," said Champion, "they would have gone
+home like lambs."
+
+"Somehow," said Robin, "I wish they could have been told, Adrian. I
+should have liked fine to explain to them that you didn't leave the
+meeting just because you couldn't answer that last question."
+
+"By gum!" Cash had been striving to deliver himself for some time. "Mr
+Inglethwaite," he said excitedly, "they must be told at once! We can get
+more good out of your little girl's illness than fifty meetings would do
+us. You know what the British public are! I'll circulate the real reason
+of your departure from the meeting first thing to-morrow morning, and
+half the wobblers in the place will vote for you out of sheer
+kind-heartedness. I know 'em!"
+
+The exemplary creature almost smacked his lips.
+
+There was a tense silence all round the table. Then I said, with some
+heat--
+
+"Mr Cash, I have delivered myself into your hands, body and soul, ever
+since Nomination Day, and I have obeyed you to the letter all through
+this campaign. But--I am not going to allow a sick child's sufferings to
+be employed as a political asset to-morrow."
+
+There was a sympathetic growl from the other two.
+
+"Oh, we shouldn't do it as publicly as all that," said the unabashed
+Cash. "Trust me! No ostentation; just an explanatory report circulated
+in a subdued sort of way--and perhaps a strip of tan-bark down on the
+road outside the hotel--eh? _I_ know how to do it. It'll pay, I tell
+you. And there'll be no publicity----"
+
+I laid my head upon the table and groaned. For three weeks I had had
+perhaps four hours' sleep a-night, and I had been worked down to my last
+reserve of energy, keeping in hand just enough to meet all the probable
+contingencies of to-morrow's election. Dialectics with Cash as to the
+market value of a little girl's illness had not been included in the
+estimate. I groaned.
+
+Champion answered for me.
+
+"Mr Cash, don't you see how painful these proposals are to Mr
+Inglethwaite? Put such ideas out of your head once and for all. No man
+worthy of the name would accept votes won in such a way."
+
+There was a confirmatory rumble from Robin.
+
+"We can't have _ad misericordiam_ appeals here, Mr Cash," he said.
+
+Champion continued briskly--
+
+"Now, Mr Cash, we will get Mr Inglethwaite a drink and send him to bed.
+He has not had a decent night's rest for a fortnight. We trust to you
+not to talk of the child's illness to anybody,--that is the _only_ way
+to avoid making capital of it,--and if you will call here to-morrow
+after breakfast I will guarantee that your Candidate will be fit and
+ready to go round the polling-booths with you, and"--he put his hand on
+my shoulder--"set an example to all of us."
+
+Cash, completely pulverised, departed as bidden, desolated over this
+renunciation of eleemosynary votes; and Robin, Champion, and I finished
+our supper in peace,--if one can call it peace when there is no peace.
+
+Champion was leaving by the night mail, for he had promised to address a
+meeting two hundred miles away next day. His cab was already at the
+door, and we said good-bye to him on the hotel steps.
+
+He shook hands with me in silence, and turned to Robin.
+
+"Three fingers, and not too much soda, and then put him straight to
+bed," he commanded.
+
+Then he turned to me again.
+
+"Don't sit up and worry, old man," he said. "Go to bed, anyhow. The
+doctor and your womenfolk will do all that can be done. Your duties
+commence to-morrow. Keep your tail up, and face it out. _Noblesse
+oblige_, you know. Good-night."
+
+He drove away, and Robin and I returned to the sitting-room.
+
+Robin mixed me a stiff whisky-and-soda.
+
+"Champion's prescription," he said. "Down with it!"
+
+I obeyed listlessly.
+
+"Now come along upstairs with me. You are going to bed. I want to turn
+you out a first-class Candidate in the morning--not a boiled owl."
+
+His cheery masterfulness had its effect, and I suddenly felt a man
+again.
+
+"Never fear!" I said. "I shall go through with it right enough--the
+whole business--unless--unless--Robin, old man, supposing--supposing----"
+
+"Blethers!" said Robin hastily. "She'll be much better in the morning.
+Here's your room. Good-night!"
+
+He shepherded me into my bedroom, shut the door on me, and tiptoed away.
+
+I really made a determined effort to go to bed. I actually lay down and
+covered myself up, but sleep I could not. After an hour of conscientious
+endeavour I rose, inspired with a new idea.
+
+The doctor had straitly forbidden me to enter Phillis's room; but
+opening out of it was the apartment that was used as her nursery. There
+would be a fire there: I would spend the rest of the night on a sofa in
+front of it.
+
+I looked at my watch. It was one o'clock. I took a candle, walked softly
+down the passage, and let myself quietly into the nursery. The door
+leading into Phillis's room was ajar, and a slight smell of some drug or
+disinfectant assailed my sharpened senses.
+
+The room was in darkness, except that a good fire burned in the grate. A
+silent figure rose up from before it at my entrance.
+
+It was Robin. Somehow I was not in the least surprised to see him there.
+
+"Come along," he said softly. "I was expecting you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We sat there for the rest of the long night. The house was very still,
+but every quarter of an hour the Cathedral chimes across the Close--our
+rooms lay in a quiet wing of the hotel, which formed a hollow square
+with the Cathedral, Chapter-house, and Canonries--furnished a musical
+break in the silence. So tensely mechanical does one's brain become
+under such circumstances, that presently I found myself anticipating the
+exact moment when the next quarter would strike; and I remember feeling
+quite disappointed and irritable if, when I said to myself _"Now!"_ the
+chime did not ring out for another fifteen seconds or so. Truly, at
+three o'clock on a sleepless morning the grasshopper is a burden.
+
+Once Robin rose softly to his feet and turned towards the door of
+Phillis's room. I had not heard any one move there, but when I looked
+round Dolly was standing on the threshold. She was wrapped in a
+kimono,--I remember its exact colour and pattern to this day, and the
+curious manner in which the heraldic-looking animals embroidered upon it
+winked at me in the firelight,--and she held an incongruous-looking
+coal-scuttle in her hand. It was not by any means empty, but she handed
+it to Robin with a little nod of authority and vanished again.
+
+I looked listlessly at Robin, wondering what he was to do with the
+coal-scuttle. He began to cut a newspaper into strips, after which he
+picked suitable lumps of coal out of the scuttle and tied them up into
+neat little paper packets, half a dozen of which he presently handed
+through the door to Dolly. I suppose she placed them noiselessly on the
+fire in Phillis's room, but we heard no sound.
+
+It was a bitterly cold night, and outside the snow was lying thick; so
+Robin busied himself with preparing other little packets of coal, and at
+intervals throughout the long night he passed them through the door to
+the tireless Dolly.
+
+Various sounds came from within. Occasionally the child suffered spasms
+of pain, and we could hear her crying. Then all-wise Nature would grant
+the sorely tried little body a rest at the expense of the mind that
+ruled it, and poor Phillis would drop into a sort of rambling delirium,
+through which we perforce accompanied her. At one time she would be
+wandering through some Elysian field of her own; we heard her calling
+her mates and proposing all manner of attractive games. (Even
+"Beckoning" was included. Once I distinctly heard her "choose" me.) But
+more often she was in deadly fear. Her solitary little spirit was too
+plainly beset by those nameless ghosts that haunt the borderland
+separating the realms of Death from those of his brother Sleep. Once her
+voice rose to a scream.
+
+"Uncle Robin! It's the Kelpie! Stop it! It's coming--it's breaving on
+me! Uncle _Robin_! oh----!"
+
+I looked at Robin. He was sitting gripping the arms of his chair, with
+every muscle in his body rigid; and I knew that he, like myself, was
+praying God to strike down the cowardly devil that would torment a
+child.
+
+Then I heard, for the first time that night, the soothing murmur of
+Kitty's voice.
+
+"It's all right, dearie. Mother is holding you fast. It shan't hurt you.
+There, it's running away now, isn't it? See!"
+
+Kitty's tones would have lightened the torments of the Pit, and
+Phillis's cries presently died down to an uneasy whisper. After a sudden
+and curiously pathetic little outburst of singing,--chiefly a jumble of
+scraps from such old favourites as "Onward, Christian _Sailors_!"--there
+was silence again, and the Cathedral chimed out half-past four.
+
+Shortly after this the doctor came out of the room with a message from
+Kitty that I ought to be in bed. Evidently Dolly had told her about me.
+
+"How is she now, doctor?" I whispered, disregarding the command.
+
+"Up and down, up and down. She is making a brave fight of it, poor
+lassie, but we can do little at present except stand by and give relief
+when the bad fits come."
+
+"May I go in and see her?"
+
+"No, no! You could do no good, and she might be frightened if she caught
+sight of a large dim figure in the dark. Leave it to the women, and
+thank God for them. Hark!"
+
+Phillis was back in Elysium again.
+
+"Who's been eating my porridge?" said a gruff little voice. Then came a
+rapturous shriek. Evidently the Little Bear had caught Curly Locks in
+his bed. We sat listening, while the game ended and another followed in
+its place. Suddenly she began to sing again--
+
+   "Then three times round went that gallant ship,
+      And three times round went she;
+    Then three times round went that gallant ship,
+      And--sank--to the--bottom of the sea--ea--ee--"
+
+There was a little wailing _rallentando_, and silence.
+
+"Philly, Philly, _don't_!" It was the only time that night that Kitty
+gave any sign of breaking down. The doctor hurried back into the room.
+The clock struck five.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After that there was a very long silence. It must have lasted nearly an
+hour. Then Dolly tiptoed out to us.
+
+"She's asleep," she whispered. "He says she's a shade better. I want
+another coal-packet."
+
+She took what Robin gave her, and faded away.
+
+After that I think we dozed in our chairs. The next thing I remember was
+a knock at the outer door. I opened my heavy eyes and stirred my stiff
+joints. The Boots put his head in, and I realised it was daylight.
+
+"Half-past eight, sir. Mr Cash is waiting downstairs. Poll's been open
+half an hour, he says."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+TWO BATTLES.
+
+
+Before I left the hotel I struck a bargain with Cash. I would go
+anywhere and do anything, but he was to give me a written itinerary of
+my movements for the day, clearly stating where I should be at various
+times. This document I left in the hands of Dolly, who promised
+faithfully to send for me, if--if necessary.
+
+Then, putting my paternal instincts into my pocket, I braced myself up
+and plunged into the vortex of polling-day.
+
+Truly, if Time is the healer, Work is the anesthetic. In the turmoil of
+the crowded streets and polling-booths, I found myself almost as
+enthusiastic and whole-hearted as if no little girl of mine were
+fighting for life in a darkened room not many streets away. I shook
+hands with countless folk, I addressed meetings of the unwashed at
+street corners, and received the plaudits or execrations of the
+multitude with equal serenity.
+
+Robin hastened away to the Hide-and-Tallow Works, whence, during the
+dinner-hour, he charmed many an oleaginous elector to come and plump for
+Inglethwaite, the Man Whom He Knew and Who Knew Him. Gerald and Donkin,
+smothered in violets and primroses, were personally conducting a sort of
+tumbril, which dashed across my field of vision from time to time,
+sometimes full, sometimes empty, but always at full gallop.
+
+Election "incidents" were plentiful. I was standing in the principal
+polling-station at one time, when a gentleman called Hoppett, a cobbler
+by persuasion--I think I have already mentioned him as the benignant
+individual who used to come to the door of his establishment and pursue
+me with curses down the street--came out from recording his vote. He did
+not see me, but caught sight of Robin, who had just arrived with a
+_posse_ of electors, and was standing by the Returning Officer's table.
+Hobbling up, the cobbler shook a gnarled fist under my secretary's nose.
+
+"I've voted against your man," he shouted. "We're goin' to be rid of the
+lot of you this time. Set of reskils!... I've put my mark against
+Stridge, I have; and against Inglethwaite's name I've put a picture of a
+big boot--one of my own making, too! The big boot!" he screamed
+ecstatically--"that's what your man is a-going to get to-day. Set
+of----"
+
+Robin smiled benignantly upon him, and glanced at the Returning Officer.
+
+"You hear what this gentleman says?" he remarked.
+
+"I do," replied the official.
+
+"Is it not a fact that he has annulled his vote by making unnecessary
+marks on his voting-paper?" continued Robin solemnly.
+
+"That is so," assented the Returning Officer. "I'm afraid your vote
+won't count this time, Mr Hoppett. Good morning!"
+
+There was a roar of delighted laughter from friend and foe, and the
+fermenting Hoppett was cast forth.
+
+I succeeded in getting back to the hotel for ten minutes at
+luncheon-time. Dolly met me--pale, sleepless, but unbeaten.
+
+"The doctor is with her just now," she said. "She has been in fearful
+pain, poor kiddy; but he has given her a drug of some sort, and she is
+easier now."
+
+"Couldn't I see her, just a moment?" I said wistfully.
+
+"The answer to that question, sir," replied Dolly, "is in the negative."
+
+We both smiled resolutely at this familiar tag, and Dolly concluded--
+
+"Kitty is lying down. I made her. But she is going to get up when
+they--I mean----"
+
+I detected a curious confusion in her voice.
+
+"When what?" I asked.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+I surveyed my sister-in-law uneasily
+
+"Are they expecting--a crisis, then?"
+
+"Yes--a sort of a one."
+
+"When?"
+
+Dolly seemed to consider.
+
+"About five," she said.
+
+"Hadn't I better be near, in case----?"
+
+"Where are you to be this afternoon?"
+
+"Hunnable."
+
+Dolly nodded her head reflectively.
+
+"When can you be back?" she asked.
+
+"I can do it by five, I should think."
+
+"That will be soon enough. The doctor said that if--you were wanted, it
+would be about then. Good-bye, old gentleman!"
+
+"Good-bye, Dolly! Mind you go to bed." (We seem to have spent a large
+portion of that twenty-four hours urging each other to go to bed.)
+
+Then I went back to work.
+
+Polling had been brisk during the dinner-hour, and both Cash and Robin
+considered that we were doing fairly well. Things would be slack at
+Stoneleigh itself during the afternoon, and the obvious and politic
+course now was to drive over to the fishing village of Hunnable--I had
+only time for one, and this was the most considerable--and catch my
+marine constituents as they emerged from the ocean, Proteus-like,
+between three and four o'clock.
+
+I did so, and for the space of an hour and a half I solicited the
+patronage of innumerable tarry mariners, until their horny hands
+had filled up the voting-papers and my own smelt to heaven of fish.
+It was a quarter to five, and dark, before I escaped from the attentions
+of a small but pertinacious group of inquirers who wanted to understand
+my exact attitude on the question of trawling within the three-mile
+limit, and proceeded at a hand-gallop back to Stoneleigh. (That
+odoriferous but popular vehicle, the motor-car, was still in the
+preceded-by-a-man-ten-yards-in-front-bearing-a-red-flag stage in those
+days, and we had to rely on that antiquated but much more reliable
+medium of transport, the horse.) The snow lay very heavily in places,
+and our progress was not over-rapid. Moreover, passing the central
+Committee Rooms on my way to the hotel, I was stopped and haled within
+to conciliate various wobblers, and another twenty minutes of precious
+time sped. But I stuck to my determination to let nothing interfere with
+duty that day, and I argued with free-thinkers and pump-handled bemused
+supporters until all was settled and Cash said I might go.
+
+Still, it was nearer six than five when my panting horses drew up at the
+Cathedral Arms.
+
+There was no Dolly to receive me this time, but at the top of the stairs
+leading to our rooms I met the doctor. He was accompanied by a
+grey-haired, kind-eyed old gentleman in a frock-coat, with "London
+Specialist" written all over him. It was Sir James Fordyce.
+
+"Well?" I asked feverishly as I shook hands.
+
+The two men motioned me into the sitting-room, and Farquharson said, in
+a curiously uncertain fashion--
+
+"Mr Inglethwaite, we have done a thing which should not, properly, have
+been done without your consent. Your secretary suggested the idea, and I
+agreed. Mrs Inglethwaite made a point of our saying nothing to you, and
+volunteered to take all responsibility on herself. She said you were not
+to be worried. So I wired for Sir James----"
+
+"I see," I said, "and he operated?"
+
+"Yes, at three o'clock this afternoon. Indeed, your sister-in-law, I
+think, purposely concealed from you----"
+
+"She did." That, then, was the "crisis" that Dolly had in her mind, and
+that, too, was why she had told me to come back at five--when everything
+would be well over!
+
+I continued--
+
+"And how have you--I mean--is she----?"
+
+"The operation," said the old man, "was entirely successful, and, as it
+turned out, most necessary. But of course for so young a patient the
+strain was terrible."
+
+"How is she?"
+
+"She came through finely, but I do not conceal from you the fact that
+her life hangs by a thread."
+
+I had a premonition that something was going to be "broken" to me. I
+dropped into a chair, and waited dully. Then I felt a hand on my
+shoulder, and Sir James continued--
+
+"Just weakness, you understand! Her exhaustion when she came out of the
+chloroform was extreme, but every moment now is in our favour. Children
+have such extraordinary recuperative power."
+
+He was speaking in the usual cheery tones of the bedside optimist. I
+raised my head.
+
+"Tell me straight, Sir James--will the child live?"
+
+The old man's grip on my shoulder tightened just for a moment, and when
+he spoke it was in an entirely unprofessional voice.
+
+"Thanks to two of the bravest and most devoted of women," he said, "I
+think she will."
+
+I dropped my head into my hands.
+
+"Please God!" I murmured brokenly.
+
+"Of course," he continued, "anything may happen yet. But the way in
+which she has been cared for by my good friend here----"
+
+"No, no," said Farquharson. "Give the credit to those that deserve it. I
+just afforded ordinary professional assistance. It was your wife and her
+sister, Mr Inglethwaite, that pulled the child through. She has had
+tight hold of a hand of one of them ever since ten o'clock last night."
+
+"Yes," said Sir James; "I think it will be found that their nursing has
+just made the difference. You had better give him something,
+Farquharson."
+
+In truth I needed something, though up to this point I had not realised
+the fact. Farquharson gave me a draught out of a little glass, which
+sent a steadying glow all through me, and presently I was able to shake
+hands, dumbly and mechanically, with the great surgeon, who, I found,
+was bidding me good-bye; for the world is full of sick folk, and their
+champion may not stay to see the issue of one battle before he must
+hurry off to fight another.
+
+They left me to myself, while Farquharson went down to the door with Sir
+James. Presently he returned.
+
+"I must be getting back to the patient shortly," he said. "The next hour
+or so will be very critical. The nurse is here, and I have sent the
+ladies to bed. But you may go in for a look, if you like. I am going out
+for exactly ten minutes."
+
+"I see--a breather. You deserve it."
+
+"Not exactly. I'm going to vote--for Stridge!"
+
+He chuckled in a marvellously cheering way, and left me.
+
+As I approached Phillis's room the door opened, and I was confronted
+with that most soothing and comforting of sights to a sick man--a
+nurse's uniform. She was a pleasant-faced girl, I remember, and she was
+carrying a basin full of sponges and water, cruelly tinged.
+
+"Just a peep!" she said, with that little air of motherly sternness
+which all women, however young, adopt towards fractious children and
+helpless males.
+
+She closed the door very softly upon me, and left me alone.
+
+For a moment I stood uncertain in the shadow of the screen that guarded
+the door. There was a whiff of chloroform in the air, and through the
+doorway leading to the room where we had sat throughout the previous
+night I could see the end of a white-covered table. Thank God, that part
+of the business was over!
+
+A shaded lamp burned at Phillis's bedside. She lay deathly still, an
+attenuated little derelict amid an ocean of white bed-clothes.
+
+At first I thought I was alone with the child, and was moving softly
+forward when I became suddenly aware that some one was kneeling at the
+far side of the bed. It was Kitty. Evidently she had not obeyed the
+doctor's orders about going to bed.
+
+A single ray from the lamp fell upon her face. Her eyes were wide open,
+and she seemed to be looking straight at me. Her lips were moving, and I
+became aware that she was speaking, very earnestly and almost inaudibly.
+
+I stood still to hear her. Then I realised that her words were not
+addressed to me. Very carefully I stepped back to the door-handle,
+turned it, and slipped out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+"QUI PERD, GAGNE."
+
+
+Once more I was back in the thick of it all, and till the closing of the
+poll at eight o'clock I strove, in company with Cash, Robin, and others,
+to direct the inclinations of my constituents into the proper channels.
+
+The tumult increased as the evening advanced. More snow had fallen
+during the afternoon, and outlying electors were being conveyed to the
+scene of action with the utmost difficulty. People were voting at seven
+o'clock who had intended to get it done and be home by six; and as time
+wore on it was seen that there would be a desperate rush of business
+right up till closing time.
+
+Every one was in high spirits. That potent factor in British politics,
+the electioneering egg, had been entirely superseded by the snowball,
+and the youth of Stoneleigh, massed in the public square outside the
+Town Hall, were engaged, with a lofty indifference to party distinctions
+that would have been sublime if it had not been so painful, in an
+untrammelled bombardment of all who crossed their path.
+
+At length the Cathedral chimed out the hour of eight, and the poll
+closed. Cash hurried up to me.
+
+"It's going to be a desperately close thing," he said. "The counting
+will begin at once, in the Mayor's room on the first floor of the Town
+Hall. The outlying boxes should be in by half-past nine at the latest,
+and the result should be out by about eleven. You'll come and watch the
+counting, I suppose."
+
+But there are limits to human endurance.
+
+"Mr Cash," I said, buttoning my overcoat up to my ears as a preliminary
+to an encounter with the budding statesmen outside, "I think I have got
+to the end of my day's work. Nothing can affect the result now, and I'm
+going home--that's flat. Good-night!"
+
+"Surely you're coming to hear the result announced," wailed Cash.
+"There's the vote of thanks to the Returning Officer. You'll have to
+propose that--or second it," he added grimly.
+
+"Well, I'll see. But I think, now that the poll is closed, that my duty
+lies elsewhere," I said. "If I am really wanted, send word by Mr
+Fordyce."
+
+Five minutes later, and I was once more at the Cathedral Arms. The
+ground floor of that hostelry hummed like a hive, and the bar and
+smoking-room were filled to overflowing with supporters of both sides,
+who were prudently avoiding all risk of disappointment by celebrating
+the result of the election in advance.
+
+I pushed my way through a group of enthusiastic patriots--many of them
+in that condition once described to me by a sporting curate as "holding
+two or three firkins apiece"--who crowded round me, fired with a desire
+to drink success to the British Constitution--a rash shibboleth, by the
+way, for gentlemen in their situation to attempt to enunciate at all--at
+my expense, and hastened upstairs to our wing.
+
+In the passage I met the nurse. She greeted me with a little smile; but
+I was mistrustful of professional cheerfulness that night.
+
+"Will you tell Mrs Inglethwaite or Miss Rubislaw that I have come in,
+please?" I said, and turned into the sitting-room.
+
+The sight of a snug room or a bright fire or a colossal arm-chair is
+always comforting to a weary man, even though his thoughts admit of
+little rest. I sank down amid these comforts, and closed my eyes. Now
+that my long day's play-acting was over, and nothing mattered any more,
+I began to realise how great the strain had been. I was utterly done. I
+had no clear recollection of having tasted food since breakfast, but I
+was not hungry. All I wanted was to be left in peace. Even the sickening
+anxiety about Phillis had died down to a sort of dull ache. In a few
+minutes a too-wakeful mind struggled with an exhausted body. I wondered
+dimly when somebody would come and tell me how Philly was. Perhaps----
+
+I fell asleep.
+
+I was awakened by the consciousness of a second presence in my
+arm-chair, which was a roomy one of the saddle-bag variety. It was
+Kitty. Presently I became aware that she was crying, softly, as women
+usually do,--men gulp noisily, because they have lost control of
+themselves, and children wail, chiefly to attract attention,--but so
+softly on this occasion that I knew she was trying to avoid disturbing
+me.
+
+It had happened, then.
+
+Well, obviously, this was one of the rare occasions upon which a husband
+can be of some use to his wife. I sat up, and made a clumsy effort at a
+caress.
+
+"We've still got each other," I said, rather brokenly.
+
+Kitty positively laughed.
+
+"Adrian, you don't understand. Philly roused up for a few minutes about
+eight o'clock,--very _piano_, poor mite, but almost herself,--and then
+dropped off into a beautiful sleep, bless her! The doctor has gone home
+and left the nurse in charge. He says things should be all right now.
+Oh, Adrian, Adrian!"
+
+And my wife sobbed afresh.
+
+"Then what the--what on earth are you crying for?" I demanded.
+
+"I don't know, dear," said Kitty, without making any attempt to stop.
+"I'm so happy!"
+
+Really, women are the most extraordinary creatures. Here was I, after
+the labour and anxiety of the last twenty-four hours, ready to shout for
+joy. I was no longer tired: I felt as if my day's work had never been. I
+wanted to sing--to dance--to give three cheers in a whisper. And my
+wife, after giving me a very bad fright, was sitting celebrating our
+victory by a flood of tears and other phenomena usually attributed by
+the masculine mind to unfathomable woe. It was all very perplexing, and
+I felt a trifle ill-used; but I suppose it was one of the things that
+mark the difference between a man and a woman.
+
+After that we sat long and comfortably. Our conversation need not be set
+down here, for it has no bearing on this chronicle.
+
+Finally we looked at the clock, and then at each other.
+
+"We must have been sitting here a long time," I said. "I wonder where
+the others are."
+
+"By the way," said Kitty, "Dilly and Dicky have arrived. Robin and Dolly
+wired for them this morning. They may be upstairs any moment. They were
+having supper in the coffee-room when last I saw them." She patted her
+hair. "Do I look an awful fright?"
+
+I turned in the restricted space at my command and surveyed her.
+
+"Do my eyes look wet?" she inquired, feeling in my pocket for my
+handkerchief.
+
+Kitty has large grey eyes. Once, during the most desperate period of our
+courtship, I referred to them as "twin lakes"--an indiscretion which
+their owner, in her less generous moments, still casts up to me. But
+to-night the territory surrounding them presented a distinct appearance
+of inundation. I continued to gaze. I thought of last night's ceaseless
+vigil and to-day's long-drawn battle. My wife had borne the brunt of
+all, and I had grudged her a few tears! My heart smote me.
+
+"Kit!" I said suddenly; "poor Kit!"...
+
+We were interrupted by the opening of the door and the entrance of what
+I at first took to be a chimney-sweep's apprentice, but which proved to
+be my brother-in-law, with evidence of electoral strenuousness written
+thick upon him.
+
+"Hallo, you two!" he remarked genially. Then, noticing our
+unconventional economy of sitting-space--"Sorry! I didn't know. I
+thought you'd given up that sort of thing years ago!"
+
+I rose and shook myself.
+
+"Come in, my son," I said.
+
+"Righto!" replied Gerald. Then he addressed himself to a figure which,
+with true delicacy of feeling, had shrunk back into the passage outside.
+
+"Come in, Moke, old man. I've got them separated now!"
+
+The discreet Master Donkin sidled respectfully in at the door, and
+Gerald continued.
+
+"Moke and I would like to say how pleased we are to hear about Phillis,"
+he said, rather awkwardly for him. "We have just got to hear how really
+bad she's been."
+
+The resolution was seconded by a confirmatory mumble from Master Donkin.
+
+"We met the nurse just now," continued Gerald, "and she told us about
+the operation, and all that. It must have been a pretty thick day for
+you, Adrian. And you're looking pretty rotten, too, Kitty," he added
+with brotherly directness. "But do you people know what time it is?
+Half-past eleven, nearly. The result should be out any minute. Aren't
+you coming to the Town Hall? They'll want you to make a speech, or get
+egged, or something."
+
+I looked at my watch.
+
+"Well, there's no particular reason why I shouldn't go--_now_," I said.
+"What do you say, Kitty? Hark! What's that?"
+
+"That's the result, I expect," said my brother-in-law.
+
+We drew up the blind and opened the window. The moon was shining
+brightly, and threw the monstrous shadow of the Cathedral very blackly
+upon the untrodden snow of the peaceful Close. Through the clear night
+air came the sound of frenzied cheering.
+
+"That's it, right enough," said Gerald. "I wonder if you've got the
+chuck, my bonny boy."
+
+"Ugh! It is cold! Come in," said Kitty.
+
+We shut the window, drew down the blind, returned to the fire, and
+waited. Dolly joined us now, and Kitty vanished to sit by Phillis. We
+waited on. Somehow it never occurred to us to send downstairs for news.
+I suppose there are times when the human craving for sensation is sated.
+We sat and waited.
+
+At last the door opened, and, as I expected, Robin entered. He looked
+like a man who has not been to bed for a week. He shut the door softly
+behind him--evidently he feared he might be entering a house of
+mourning--and surveyed us for a moment without speaking. I knew what was
+in his mind. Then he said--
+
+"We have lost."
+
+I stood up.
+
+"On the contrary," I replied, "we have won."
+
+In a bound Robin was on the hearth-rug, gripping my hand with his. (His
+other had somehow got hold of one of Dolly's, and I remember wondering
+if he was hurting her as much as me.)
+
+"You mean it?" he roared.
+
+"I do. She is sleeping like a lamb."
+
+"Oh, man, I'm just glad! What does _anything_ matter after that?"
+
+Then we sat down and smiled upon each other largely and vacuously. We
+were all a little unstrung that night, I think. After all, it seems
+rather unreasonable to lavish one's time, labour, and money on an
+electoral contest, and then laugh when you lose, and say it doesn't
+matter, just because a child isn't going to die. Oh, I am glad Mr Cash
+was not there!
+
+"But I must tell you what happened when the result was read out," said
+Robin. "It was a near thing--a majority of twenty-seven. (I don't think
+it is worth while to ask for a recount: everything was done very
+carefully.) When the figures went up there was the usual hullabaloo----"
+
+"We heard it, thanks," said Gerald.
+
+"And presently Stridge stepped out on to the balcony and bowed his
+acknowledgments. There was a lot more yelling and horn-blowing, and then
+they began to cry out for Inglethwaite."
+
+"Naturally. Yes?"
+
+"They were quiet at last, and Stridge got his speech in. He talked the
+usual blethers about having struck a blow that night that would ring
+through England,--just what _you_ would have had to say if you had got
+in, in fact,--and _then_ he went on, the old sumph, to say that for
+reasons best known to himself his _honourable_ opponent had seen fit to
+withhold his presence from them that night, and he begged leave to add
+that he considered that a man, even though he knew he was going to be
+beaten, ought to have the pluck to come and face the music."
+
+"Mangy bounder!" remarked my brother-in-law dispassionately.
+
+"Oh, I was just raging!" continued Robin. "The people of course yelled
+themselves hoarse; and Stridge was going on to rub it into you, when I
+stepped on to the balcony beside him--I had been standing just inside
+the window--and I put my hand on Stridge's fat shoulder and I pulled him
+back a wee thing, and I roared--
+
+"'Gentlemen, will you not let me say a word for Mr Inglethwaite?'"
+
+Dolly's eyes began to blaze, and I saw her lips part in anticipation.
+
+"There was a tremendous uproar then," Robin went on with relish. "The
+folk howled to Stridge to put me over the balcony----"
+
+"I wish he had tried!" said Gerald with simple fervour.
+
+"And other folk cried to me to go on. They knew there must be some
+explanation of your absence. I just stood there and let them roar.
+Inside the room there was a fine commotion; and with the tail of my eye
+I could see Cash hurrying round explaining to them what I wanted to say.
+(He has his points, Cash!) Then at last, as the noise got worse and
+worse, I put my mouth to Stridge's ear and bellowed that he would regret
+it all his life if he didn't let me say what I had to say, and that he
+would be grateful to me afterwards, and all that. He is a decent old
+buffer, really, and he was evidently impressed with what I said----"
+
+"I should like to know exactly what you did say, Robin," I interpolated.
+
+"Never mind just now. Anyhow, he turned and clambered back into the
+room, and left me with the crowd. They were soon quiet, and I just told
+them."
+
+Robin leaned back in his chair.
+
+"Told them _what_?" came from all parts of the room.
+
+But Robin had become suddenly and maddeningly Caledonian again.
+
+"I just told them about Philly," he said. "What else could I do? It
+wasn't like telling them during the election. That would have been an
+appeal to the gallery for votes. This was just common justice to you.
+Anyhow, they quite quietened down after that."
+
+And that was all the report that its author ever gave us of a speech
+which, in the space of four minutes, turned a half-maddened election mob
+into a silent, a sympathetic, and (I heard afterwards) a deeply moved
+body of sober human beings.
+
+"What happened next?" asked Kitty, who had rejoined us. (Phillis was
+still sleeping sweetly, she said.)
+
+"After that I hauled old Stridge on to the balcony again and gave him a
+congratulatory hand-shake, _coram populo_, on your behalf. Then I
+retired and slipped out by a back way and came here. Stridge was in full
+eruption again when I left----"
+
+Dolly held up her hand.
+
+"What is that curious noise?" she said.
+
+"It's outside," said Kitty.
+
+Gerald went to the window and lifted the blind. Then he turned to us.
+
+"I say," he said in an unusual voice, "come here a minute."
+
+We drew up the blind and surveyed the scene before us.
+
+Two minutes before the moon had shone upon an untrodden expanse of snow.
+Now the Close was black with people. There must have been two or three
+thousand. They stood there in the gleaming moonlight, silent,
+motionless, like an army of phantoms. At their head and forefront--I
+could see the moonlight glitter on his watch-chain, which lay in a most
+favourable position for lunar reflection--stood the newly elected Member
+for Stoneleigh, Mr Alderman Stridge.
+
+Simultaneously there was a knock at the door, and the hall-porter of the
+hotel appeared.
+
+"Mr Stridge's compliments, sir, and he would like to have a word with
+you."
+
+"Go down quickly, Adrian," said Kitty anxiously. "They'll wake Philly!"
+
+I descended without a word, and passed out into the Close from a French
+window on the ground floor.
+
+I glanced up in the direction of our rooms and noticed that my party
+were standing on the balcony outside the sitting-room. I could see
+Kitty's anxious face. But she need have had no fear.
+
+Mr Stridge advanced towards me, silk hat in hand. Behind him stood a
+variety of Stoneleigh worthies, and I had time to notice that the group
+was composed of an indiscriminate mixture of friends and foes.
+
+"Mr Inglethwaite, sir," said Stridge, "I should like to shake you by the
+hand."
+
+He did so, as did a few of those immediately around us, in perfect
+silence. I wondered what was coming.
+
+"That is all, sir," said Stridge simply, and not without a certain
+dignity. "We shall move off now. We did you a wrong to-night, and we all
+of us"--he indicated the motionless multitude with a sweep of his
+hand--"agreed to come here in silence, just for a moment, as an
+indication of our sympathy and--respect."
+
+I was unable to speak, which was not altogether surprising. There was
+something overwhelming about the dumb kindness of it all,--three
+thousand excited folk holding themselves in for fear of disturbing a
+sick child,--and I merely shook Stridge's hand again.
+
+However, I found my voice at last.
+
+"Mr Stridge," I said, "there is only one thing I will say in response to
+your kindness, but I think it is the one thing most calculated to reward
+you all for it. To-night my little girl's illness took a favourable
+turn. She is now fast asleep, and practically out of danger."
+
+I saw a great ripple pass over the crowd, like a breeze over a
+cornfield, as the news sped from mouth to mouth. Both Stridge's great
+hands were on my shoulders.
+
+"Good lad!" he said. "Good lad!"
+
+He patted my shoulders again, and then, as if struck by a sudden idea,
+he turned and whispered a direction to his lieutenants. I overheard the
+words "Market Square," and "A good half mile away." Once more the wave
+passed over the cornfield, and without a sound the great concourse
+turned to the left and streamed away over the trampled snow, leaving me
+standing bareheaded on the steps of the French window, almost directly
+below the spot where the unconscious little object of all this
+consideration lay fast asleep.
+
+I returned to the group on the balcony. They had heard most of the
+conversation, and Kitty was unaffectedly dabbing her eyes.
+
+"Well, let us get in out of the cold," I said, suddenly cheerful and
+brisk. "I want my supper."
+
+"Wait a moment," said Robin, "I don't think everything is quite over
+yet. What is that? Listen!"
+
+From the direction of the Market Square came the shouts of a great
+multitude. Cheer upon cheer floated up to the starry heavens. The roars
+that had greeted the declaration of the poll were nothing to these.
+There was a united ring about them that had been lacking in the others.
+It was like one whole-hearted many-headed giant letting off steam.
+
+"A-a-h!" said Kitty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+IN WHICH ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD.
+
+
+After that we became suddenly conscious of our bodily wants, and
+clamoured for supper.
+
+It was long after midnight, and most of the hotel servants had gone to
+bed. But one waiter of political leanings, who had been an enthusiastic
+witness of the proceedings in the Close, stood by us nobly. He laid a
+table in the sitting-room. He materialised a cold turkey, a brown loaf,
+and some tomatoes; and he even achieved table-napkins. Gerald and Donkin
+on their part disappeared into the nether regions, and returned bearing
+mince-pies and cider. Some one else found champagne and opened it; and
+in a quarter of an hour we were left to ourselves by the benignant
+waiter round a comfortably loaded table, in a snug room with the fire
+burning and the curtains drawn.
+
+It was an eccentric kind of meal, for every one was overflowing with a
+sort of reactionary hilarity; and everybody called everybody else "old
+man" or "my dear," and I was compelled to manipulate my food with my
+left hand owing to the fact that my wife insisted on clinging tightly to
+my right. The only times I got a really satisfactory mouthful were when
+she slipped out of the room to see how her daughter was sleeping.
+
+As the meal progressed, I began to note the exceedingly domestic and
+intimate manner in which we were seated round the table, which was small
+and circular. Kitty and I sat together; then, on our right, came Dicky
+and Dilly, then Gerald and Donkin, each partially obscured from view by
+a bottle of cider about the size of an Indian club; and Dolly and Robin
+completed the circle.
+
+The party comported themselves variously. Kitty and I said little. We
+were utterly tired and dumbly thankful, and had no desire to contribute
+greatly to the conversation; but we turned and looked at one another in
+a contented sort of way at times. Dicky and Dilly were still
+sufficiently newly married to be more or less independent of other
+people's society, and they kept up a continuous undercurrent of
+lover-like confidences and playful nothings all the time. Gerald, upon
+whom solid food seemed to have the effect that undiluted alcohol has
+upon ordinary folk, was stentoriously engaged with Mr Donkin in what a
+student of _Paley's Evidences_ would have described as "A Contest of
+Opposite Improbabilities" concerning his election experiences.
+
+Lastly, I turned to Dolly and Robin. Dolly's splendid vitality has stood
+her in good stead during the last twenty-four hours, and this, combined
+with the present flood-tide of joyous relief, made it hard to believe
+that she had spent a day and a night of labour and anxiety. She was much
+more silent than usual, but her face was flushed and happy, and somehow
+I was reminded of the time when I had watched her greeting the dawn on
+the morning after Dilly's wedding. Robin, with the look of a man who has
+a hard day's work behind him, a full meal inside him, and a sound
+night's sleep before him--and what three greater blessings could a man
+ask for himself?--sat beside her, smiling largely and restfully on the
+company around him.
+
+Suddenly Dicky made an announcement.
+
+"There is one more bottle," he said. "Come on, let's buzz it!"
+
+He opened the champagne in a highly professional manner and filled up
+our glasses. Gerald and Donkin declined, but helped themselves to fresh
+jorums of cider.
+
+Then there was a little pause, and we all felt that some one ought to
+make a speech or propose a toast.
+
+"Shall we drink some healths?" proposed Dilly.
+
+There was a chorus of assent.
+
+"We will each propose one," I said, "right round the table in turn.
+Ladies first! Yours, Kitty? I suppose it will be Philly--eh?"
+
+Kitty nodded.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," I announced, "you are asked to drink to the
+speedy recovery of Miss Phillis Inglethwaite. This toast is proposed by
+her mother, and seconded by her father."
+
+The toast was drunk with all sincerity, but soberly, as befitted.
+
+"Now, Dilly," I said, when we were ready again.
+
+Dilly whispered something to her husband, which was received by that
+gentleman with a modest and deprecatory cough, coupled with an urgent
+request that his wife would chuck it.
+
+"He won't announce my toast for me," explained Dilly, turning to
+us--"he's too shy, poor dear!--so I'll do it myself. Ladies and
+gentlemen, the toast is--Dicky!"
+
+Dicky's health was drunk with cheers and laughter, and Dilly completed
+its subject's confusion by kissing him.
+
+"Now, Dolly!" said every one.
+
+"Not yet!" said Dolly. "Gerald and Moke are the next pair. Gerald must
+act lady, and think of a toast."
+
+Master Gerald, hastily bolting a solid mass of mince-pie--one could
+almost follow the course of its descent--cheerfully complied.
+
+"All right," he said; "I think I'll drink the health of old Moke
+himself. He's not much to look at, but he's a good sort. I shan't kiss
+him, though, Dilly. And," he added, "I think he had better drink mine
+too. He looks thirsty. Come on, sonny--no heeltaps!"
+
+He elaborately linked arms with the now comatose Donkin, and each
+thereupon absorbed, without drawing breath, about a pint of cider
+apiece. After that, with a passing admonition to his friend not to
+burst, my brother-in-law returned to his repast.
+
+So far, the toasts had all been of a most conventional and inevitable
+character. Now, automatically but a little tactlessly, we all turned to
+see what Dolly and Robin were going to do. From the standpoint of the
+last two toasts they were certainly in a rather delicate position.
+
+"Come on, you two!" commanded Gerald. "Do something! Make a spring!"
+
+Robin took up his glass of champagne and turned rather inquiringly to
+Dolly.
+
+Without a word she linked her arm in his, and they drank together.
+
+"Oh, come, I say, that's not fair! Whose health were you drinking,
+Robin, old man?" inquired the tactless Dicky.
+
+"I was drinking to the future Mrs Fordyce--whoever she may be!" said
+Robin, obviously apologetic at being unable to think of anything more
+sparkling.
+
+"Whose health were _you_ drinking, Dolly?" yelled Gerald, with much
+enjoyment.
+
+Then Dolly did a startling thing.
+
+Robin's hand lay resting on the table beside her. Into it she
+deliberately slipped, her own; and then gazed--flushed and defiant, but
+proud and smiling--round a circle composed entirely of faces belonging
+to people suffering from the gapes.
+
+I glanced at Robin. He looked perfectly dumfounded, but I saw his hand
+close automatically round Dolly's fingers, and I saw, too, her pink
+nails go white under the pressure.
+
+But Dolly seemed to feel no pain. On the contrary, she continued to
+smile upon us. Then, bowing her head quickly, before any of us realised
+what she would be at, she lightly kissed the great hand which imprisoned
+her own. Then she looked up again, with glistening eyes.
+
+"There!" she said. "_Now_ you know!"
+
+Our breath came back, and the spellbound silence was broken.
+
+"_Dolly_!" said Kitty.
+
+"My _dear_!" said Dilly.
+
+"What--_ho_!" drawled Dicky.
+
+But it was Gerald who rounded off the situation. He was standing on the
+table by this time.
+
+"Three cheers for Dolly and Robin!" he roared.
+
+We gave them, with full throats. (Fortunately we were a long way from
+Phillis's room.)
+
+After that we all sat down again, feeling a little awkward, as people do
+when they have taken the lid off their private feelings for a moment.
+Finally Kitty led off with--
+
+"But, Dolly, dear, why didn't you tell us? When was it?"
+
+"I didn't tell you before," said Dolly composedly, "because it has only
+just happened--this moment."
+
+"Only this moment? But----"
+
+"Do you mean to say he hasn't _asked_ you? Oh----"
+
+"Are you asking _him_?"
+
+The questions came simultaneously from all parts of the table; horribly
+inquisitive, some of them; but then the thing had been so frankly and
+deliberately done, that we knew Dolly wanted to explain everything to us
+there and then.
+
+"I'll tell you," said Dolly, after silence had been restored by the fact
+that Gerald had shouted us all down and then stopped himself. "Robin
+told me--well--something, six months ago, the night after Dilly's
+wedding, at the dance----"
+
+"That _was_ why you locked the door, then," I said involuntarily.
+
+Both Robin and Dolly turned upon me in real amazement. But I saw that
+this side-issue would interrupt the story.
+
+"Never mind!" I said. "Go on! I'll explain afterwards."
+
+"Well," continued Dolly, "he said to me--may I tell them, Robin?" She
+turned to the man beside her with a pretty air of deference. Robin, who
+up to this point had sat like a graven image, inclined his head, and
+Dolly proceeded--
+
+"I have never told anybody about this--except Dilly, of course."
+
+"I've got the letter still," said Dilly.
+
+"Robin told me," Dolly went on, "that he wasn't going to ask me to marry
+him at present, because he had some childish idea--it is perfectly
+_idiotic_ to think of; but--he thought he wasn't quite--well, _good_
+enough for me!"
+
+"What rot!" said Dicky.
+
+"Muck!" observed Gerald.
+
+"But he said that he would ask me properly later on, as soon as he
+considered that he was good enough," continued Dolly. "And as he still
+seems to think," she concluded with more animation, "that he is not
+quite up to standard, it occurred to me to-night, as we were all here in
+a jolly little party, to notify him that he is. So I did. That's all.
+Robin, you are hurting my hand!"
+
+Robin relaxed his grip at last, and remorsefully surveyed the bloodless
+fingers that lay in his palm. Then, with a rather shamefaced look all
+round the table, as much as to say--"I should like fine to restrain
+myself from doing this before you all, but I _can't_!"--he bent his head
+and kissed them in his turn.
+
+And that was how Robin and Dolly plighted their troth at last--openly,
+without shame, and for all to see.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Robin and I lingered at the turning of a passage, lit only by our two
+flickering bedroom candles.
+
+"Well, we can't complain of having had an uneventful day," I said.
+
+"I'm sorry we didn't scrape other twenty-eight votes," said Robin
+characteristically.
+
+"Never mind!" I said. "I shall be none the worse of a holiday for a year
+or two. If you will kindly take Dolly off our hands as quickly as
+possible"--he caught his breath at that--"Kitty and I and Phillis will
+go a trip round the world together. Then I'll come home and fight a
+by-election, perhaps."
+
+"Meanwhile," said Robin, "you will be having no further need of a
+private secretary."
+
+"I'm afraid not," I said. The fact had been tugging at my conscience for
+the last two hours. "And that raises another question. What are you two
+going to live on?"
+
+"Champion wants me," said Robin. "He has offered me the post of
+Secretary to that Royal Commission of which he has been appointed
+Chairman. It is a fine opening."
+
+"I should think it was!" I said with whole-hearted joy. "Good luck to
+you, Robin!"
+
+"Thank you!" said Robin. "Still," he added, as he turned to go, "I wish
+I could have found you twenty-eight more votes."
+
+"Between ourselves," I said, "I don't mind very much. I am not the right
+man for this constituency. It has outgrown me. I have not the knack of
+handling a big crowd. What I want is a fine old crusted unprogressive
+seat, where I shan't constantly be compelled to drop my departmental
+work and rush down to propitiate my supporters with untruthful
+harangues. I'm a square peg here. Now, if they had wanted a really fit
+and proper candidate for this Parliamentary Division, Robin, they ought
+to have approached _you_."
+
+"Och!" said Robin carelessly, "they did--a month ago! Good night!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+A PROPHET IN HIS OWN COUNTRY.
+
+
+An old woman in a white mutch stands at the door of a farmhouse in a
+Scottish glen. Her face is wrinkled, and her dim eyes are peering down
+the track which leads from the steading to the pasture. Being apparently
+unable to focus what she wants to see she adjusts a pair of spectacles.
+
+This action brings into her range of vision a distant figure which is
+engaged in shepherding a herd of passive but resisting cows through a
+gap in the dyke. It is a slow business, but the procession gradually
+nears home; and when the man at the helm succeeds in steering his
+sauntering charges safely between the Scylla of a hay-rick and the
+Charybdis of the burn, the old lady takes off her spectacles and relaxes
+her vigilance.
+
+When she looks again, though, she breaks into an exclamation of dismay.
+The leaders of the straggling procession have safely reached the door of
+the byre close by; but one frisky young cow, suddenly swerving through
+an open gate, breaks away down a sloping field of turnips at a lumbering
+gallop. The herdsman is out of sight round a bend in the road.
+
+"The feckless body!" observes the old lady bitterly. Then she raises her
+voice.
+
+"Elspeth!"
+
+A reply comes from within the dairy.
+
+"Ay, mem?"
+
+"You'll need tae leave the butter and help Master Robert. He's no hand
+with the kye. He's let Heatherbell intill the neeps. And the maister is
+away at----"
+
+With a muffled "Maircy me!" a heated young woman shoots out of a side
+door and proceeds at the double to the assistance of the incompetent
+cow-herd.
+
+At length the animals are rounded up into the byre, and Elspeth proceeds
+with the milking.
+
+Meanwhile Master Robert, "the feckless body," stands in a rather
+apprehensive attitude before the old lady. He is a huge man of about
+forty-five. He is clean-shaven, and he has humorous grey eyes and dark
+hair. Despite his homespun attire, he looks more like a leader of men
+than a driver of cattle.
+
+"Robin Fordyce," says the old lady severely, "what garred ye loose
+Heatherbell in among the neeps.
+
+"I'm sorry, mother. But I met Jean M'Taggart in the road, and--we
+stopped for a bit crack."
+
+The old lady surveys her son witheringly over her glasses.
+
+"Dandering wi' Jean M'Taggart at your time of life! I'll sort Jean
+M'Taggart when I see her. It's jist like her tae try and draw a lad from
+his duty. And you! A married man these fifteen years! 'Deed, and it's
+time yon lady wife of yours cam' here from London, tae pit a hand on
+you."
+
+The big man's penitent face lights up with sudden enthusiasm.
+
+"She is coming to-morrow!" he roars exultantly.
+
+"Aye, you may pretend tae be glad! But she shall hear aboot Jean
+M'Taggart all the same," replies the old lady.
+
+This, of course, is a tremendous joke, and the inquisition is suspended
+while mother and son chuckle deeply at the idea of Dolly's desperate
+jealousy. Suddenly Mrs Fordyce breaks off to ask a question.
+
+"Did ye mind tae shut the gate of the west field?"
+
+Robin thinks, and then raises clenched hands to heaven in an agony of
+remorse.
+
+His mother groans in a resigned sort of way.
+
+"Run!" she says, "or ye'll hae all the sheep oot in the road! Get them
+back, and I'll no' tell David on ye!"
+
+Her son bounds away down the slope, but a further command pursues him.
+
+"An' come back soon! I'll no' be getting you tae myself over much
+after--to-morrow!"
+
+She sits down again in her chair outside the door in the afternoon sun;
+for she is getting infirm now, and cannot stand up for long. With an
+indulgent sigh she surveys the flying figure of the Right Honourable Sir
+Robert Chalmers Fordyce, Privy Councillor and Secretary of State, as he
+frantically endeavours to overtake and head off three staid ewes, who,
+having strayed through the open gate, have just decided upon a walking
+excursion to London.
+
+"A good lad!" she murmurs contentedly. "A good lad, and a good son; and
+dae'n' weel. But--he's no' just David. It was always David that had the
+heid on him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A prophet, we know, has no honour in his own country. Fortunately some
+prophets prefer that this should be the case.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
+
+
+
+
+_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Crown 8vo, 6s.
+
+  A MAN'S MAN.
+
+  _Fourth Impression._
+  Popular Edition, Cloth, 1s. net.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Crown 8vo, 6s.
+
+  THE RIGHT STUFF.
+
+  _Sixth Impression._
+  Popular Edition, Cloth, 1s. net.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Crown 8vo, 6s.
+
+  PIP.
+
+  _Fourth Impression._
+  Popular Edition, Cloth, 1s. net.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Crown 8vo, 6s.
+
+  A SAFETY MATCH.
+
+  _Third Impression._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS,
+  Edinburgh and London.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Right Stuff, by Ian Hay
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Right Stuff, by Ian Hay.
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Right Stuff, by Ian Hay
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Right Stuff
+       Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton
+
+Author: Ian Hay
+
+Release Date: March 25, 2007 [EBook #20904]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIGHT STUFF ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by LM Bornath
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div>
+
+<div id="titlepage">
+<h1>"The Right Stuff"</h1>
+
+<h2>Some Episodes in the
+Career of a North Briton</h2>
+
+<div class="center">BY</div>
+<div class="author">IAN HAY</div>
+
+<div class="center"><span class="sc">Dr Johnson</span>. Oatmeal, sir? The food of horses in England and of
+men in Scotland!</div>
+
+<div class="center"><span class="sc">Boswell</span> (<i>roused at last</i>). And where, sir, will you find
+such horses&mdash;or such men?</div>
+
+<div class="center"><i>SHILLING EDITION</i></div>
+
+<div class="center">William Blackwood &amp; Sons<br />
+Edinburgh and London<br />
+1912</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="center"><i>TO</i><br />
+<i>AN INDULGENT CRITIC</i></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+<hr class="tiny" />
+
+<table summary="Table of contents.">
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" class="center">BOOK ONE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" class="center">RAW MATERIAL.</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>CHAP.</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td class="right">PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">I.</td><td><a href="#chapter01">"OATMEAL AND THE SHORTER CATECHISM"</a></td><td class="right">3</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">II.</td><td><a href="#chapter02">INTRODUCES A PILLAR OF STATE AND THE APPURTENANCES THEREOF</a></td><td class="right">22</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">III.</td><td><a href="#chapter03">"ANENT"</a></td><td class="right">38</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">IV.</td><td><a href="#chapter04">A TRIAL TRIP</a></td><td class="right">46</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">V.</td><td><a href="#chapter05">ROBIN ON DUTY</a></td><td class="right">66</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">VI.</td><td><a href="#chapter06">ROBIN OFF DUTY</a></td><td class="right">76</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">VII.</td><td><a href="#chapter07">A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP</a></td><td class="right">96</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">VIII.</td><td><a href="#chapter08">OF A PIT THAT WAS DIGGED, AND WHO FELL INTO IT</a></td><td class="right">117</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">IX.</td><td><a href="#chapter09">THE POLICY OF THE CLOSED DOOR</a></td><td class="right">147</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">X.</td><td><a href="#chapter10">ROBIN'S WAY OF DOING IT</a></td><td class="right">161</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" class="center">BOOK TWO.</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3" class="center">THE FINISHED ARTICLE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XI.</td><td><a href="#chapter11">A MISFIRE</a></td><td class="right">179</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XII.</td><td><a href="#chapter12">THE COMPLEAT ANGLER</a></td><td class="right">216</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XIII.</td><td><a href="#chapter13">A HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE</a></td><td class="right">236</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XIV.</td><td><a href="#chapter14">"TO DIE&mdash;WILL BE AN <i>AWFULLY</i> BIG ADVENTURE"</a></td><td class="right">257</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XV.</td><td><a href="#chapter15">TWO BATTLES</a></td><td class="right">271</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XVI.</td><td><a href="#chapter16">"<i>QUI PERD, GAGNE</i>"</a></td><td class="right">282</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XVII.</td><td><a href="#chapter17">IN WHICH ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD</a></td><td class="right">299</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="right">XVIII.</td><td><a href="#chapter18">A PROPHET IN HIS OWN COUNTRY</a></td><td class="right">310</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>BOOK ONE.</h2>
+
+<h3>RAW MATERIAL.</h3>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter01" id="chapter01">CHAPTER ONE.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>OATMEAL AND THE SHORTER CATECHISM.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The first and most-serious-but-one ordeal in the life of Robert Chalmers
+Fordyce&mdash;so Robert Chalmers himself informed me years afterwards&mdash;was
+the examination for the Bursary which he gained at Edinburgh University.
+A bursary is what an English undergraduate would call a "Schol."
+(Imagine a Scottish student talking about a "Burse"!)</p>
+
+<p>Robert Chalmers Fordyce arrived in Edinburgh pretty evenly divided
+between helpless stupefaction at the sight of a great city and stern
+determination not to be imposed upon by the inhabitants thereof. His
+fears were not as deep-seated as those of Tom Pinch on a similar
+occasion,&mdash;he, it will be remembered, suffered severe qualms from his
+familiarity with certain rural traditions concerning the composition of
+London pies,&mdash;but he was far from happy. He had never slept away from
+his native hillside before; he had never seen a town possessing more
+than three thousand inhabitants; and he had only once travelled in a
+train.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, he was proceeding to an inquisition which would decide once
+and for all whether he was to go forth and conquer the world with a
+university education behind him, or go back to the plough and sup
+porridge for the rest of his life. To-morrow he was to have his
+opportunity, and the consideration of how that opportunity could best be
+gripped and brought to the ground blinded Robin even to the wonders of
+the Forth Bridge.</p>
+
+<p>He sat in the corner of the railway carriage, passing in review the
+means of conquest at his disposal. His actual stock of scholarship, he
+knew, was well up to the required standard: he was as letter perfect in
+Latin, Greek, Mathematics, and Literature as hard study and remorseless
+coaching could make him. Everything needful was in his head&mdash;but
+could he get it out again? That was the question. The roaring world in
+which he would find himself, the strange examination-room, the quizzing
+professors&mdash;would these combine with his native shyness to seal the
+lips and cramp the pen of Robert Chalmers Fordyce? No&mdash;a thousand
+times no! He would win through! Robert set his teeth, braced himself,
+and kicked the man opposite.</p>
+
+<p>He apologised, attributing the discourtesy to the length of his
+legs&mdash;he stood about six feet three&mdash;and smiled so largely and
+benignantly, that the Man Opposite, who had intended to be thoroughly
+disagreeable, melted at once, and said it was the fault of the Company
+for providing such restricted accommodation, and gave Robert <i>The
+ Scotsman</i> to read.</p>
+
+<p>Robert thanked him, and, effacing himself behind <i>The
+ Scotsman</i>,&mdash;though, for all the instruction or edification that
+his present frame of mind permitted him to extract from that
+coping-stone of Scottish journalism, he might as well have been reading
+the Koran,&mdash;returned to his thoughts. He collated in his mind the
+pieces of advice which had been bestowed upon him by his elders and
+betters before his departure. In brief, their collective wisdom came to
+this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>His father had bidden him&mdash;</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>(a) To address all professors with whom he might come in contact as
+    "Sir";</li>
+
+<li>(b) To arrive at the Examination each morning at least five minutes
+    before the advertised time;</li>
+
+<li>(c) To refrain from lending money to, or otherwise countenancing the
+    advances of, persons of insinuating address who would doubtless
+    accost him in the streets of Edinburgh.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>The Dominie had said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"When in doubt, mind that practically everything in an examination
+governs the subjunctive.</p>
+
+<p>"If there is a <i>viva voce</i>, be sure and speak up and give your
+answers as though you were sure of them. They may be wrong, but on the
+other hand they may be right. Anyway, the one thing the examiners will
+not thole is a body that dithers.</p>
+
+<p>"Take a last keek at that Proposition&mdash;they <i>may</i> call them
+Theorems, though&mdash;about the Square on the Hypotenuse. It hasn't
+been set for four years.</p>
+
+<p>"If you are given a piece of Greek Testament to translate, for
+mercy's sake do not be too glib. Dinna translate a thing until you are
+sure it is there. They have an unholy habit of leaving out a couple of
+verses some place in the middle, and you're just the one to tumble
+head-first into the <i>lacuna</i>. (I ken ye, Robbie!)</p>
+
+<p>"And whatever ye do, just bear in mind it's your only chance, and
+<i>grup</i> on tae it! <i>Post est occasio calva</i>, laddie! And dinna
+disappoint an auld man that has taught ye all he kens himsel'!"</p>
+
+<p>Much of his mother's advice was of a kind that could not be expressed
+so concisely, but two salient items remained fixed in Robert's
+mind:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If ye canna think o' the richt word, pit up a bit prayer.</p>
+
+<p>"For ony sake see that your collar is speckless a' the time."</p>
+
+<p>Robert's first impressions of Edinburgh were disappointing. Though
+extensive enough, the city was not so great or so imposing as he had
+expected. It was entirely roofed with glass,&mdash;a provision which,
+though doubtless advantageous in wet weather, militated against an
+adequate supply of sunlight and fresh air. The shops, of which Robin had
+heard so much, were few in number; and the goods displayed therein
+(mainly food and drink, newspapers and tobacco) compared unfavourably in
+point of variety with those in the window of Malcolm M'Whiston, the
+"merchant" at home. The inhabitants all appeared to be in a desperate
+hurry, and the noise of the trains, which blocked every thoroughfare,
+was deafening. Robert Chalmers was just beginning to feel thoroughly
+disappointed with the Scottish capital, when it occurred to him to mount
+a flight of stairs which presented itself to his view and gave promise
+of a second storey at least. When he reached the top he found he had
+judged Edinburgh too hastily. There was some more of it.</p>
+
+<p>His horizon thus suddenly enlarged, Robert Chalmers Fordyce began to
+take in his surroundings. He now found himself in a great street, with
+imposing buildings on one side and a green valley on the other. On the
+far side of the valley the ground ran steeply upward to an eminence
+crowded thickly with houses and topped by a mighty castle.</p>
+
+<p>The street was alive with all sorts of absorbingly interesting
+traffic; but for the present Robert was chiefly concerned with the Cable
+Cars. It was upon one of these majestic vehicles, which moved down the
+street unassisted by any apparent human or equine agency, that he had
+been bidden to ride to his destination. He was not to take the first
+that came along, nor yet the second&mdash;they went to various places,
+it seemed; and if you were taken to the wrong one you had to pay just
+the same&mdash;but was to scan them until he espied one marked "Gorgie."
+This would carry him down the Dalry Road, and would ultimately pass the
+residence of Elspeth M'Kerrow, a decent widow woman, whose late
+husband's brother had "married on" a connection of Robert's mother. Here
+he was to lodge.</p>
+
+<p>At first sight the cars appeared to be labelled with nothing but
+Cocoa and Whisky and Empire Palaces of Varieties Open Every Evening; but
+a little perseverance discovered a narrow strip of valuable information
+painted along the side of each car. The first that caught our friend's
+eye was "Pilrig and Braid Hills Road." That would not do. Then came
+another&mdash;"Murrayfield, Haymarket, and Nether Liberton." Another
+blank! Then, "Marchmont Road and Churchill." Foiled again, Robert was
+beginning to feel a little sceptical as to the actual existence of the
+Dalry Road, when a car drew up opposite to him labelled "Pilrig and
+Gorgie." It was going in the right direction too, for his father had
+warned him that his destination lay to the west of the town; and you can
+trust a Scotsman to know the points of the compass with his eyes shut.
+(They even talk of a man sitting on the north or south side of his own
+fireplace.)</p>
+
+<p>Robert clambered on to the top of this car, and presently found
+himself confronted by a gentleman&mdash;splendid in appearance but of
+homely speech&mdash;who waved bundles of tickets in his face, and
+inquired tersely&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Penny or tippeny? or transfair?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am seeking the Dalry Road," said Robert cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Which end o't?"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldna say."</p>
+
+<p>"Ca' it a penny," said the conductor.</p>
+
+<p>Robert, with the air of a man who has beaten down his opponent to the
+lowest possible figure, produced the coin from his pocket. (It was just
+as well that the man had not demanded a larger sum, for Robert's more
+precious currency was concealed in a place only accessible to partial
+disrobement.) The gorgeous man carelessly snapped a ticket out of one of
+the bundles, and having first punched a hole in it with an ingenious
+instrument that gave forth sounds of music, handed it to Robert in
+exchange for the penny. He was a saturnine man, but he smiled a little
+later when Robert, mindful of the fate of his railway-ticket at the last
+station but one, airily attempted to give up his car-ticket in similar
+fashion on alighting at the end of the journey.</p>
+
+<p>The greater part of the next four days was spent by our friend in an
+examination-room, into which we, more fortunate, need not attempt to
+follow him. Robert diligently answered every question, writing at the
+foot of each sheet of his neat manuscript, "More on the next page," in
+case the examiner should be a careless fellow and imagine that Robert
+had finished when he had not. Robert was not the man to leave anything
+to chance, or to such unsafe abbreviations as P.T.O.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the examination-room he devoted most of the time that he
+could spare from preparation for the next paper to a systematic
+exploration of Edinburgh. He did the thing as thoroughly as possible,
+for he knew well that he might never spend four days in a large town
+again.</p>
+
+<p>He began by climbing the Calton Hill. He remained at the summit quite
+a long time, constructing a rough bird's-eye plan of the streets and
+buildings below him; and having descended to earth, proceeded on a
+series of voyages of discovery.</p>
+
+<p>He regarded the exterior of Parliament House with intense interest,
+for he was a debater by instinct and upbringing. St Giles' he passed by
+without enthusiasm&mdash;he was a member of the Free Kirk&mdash;and St
+Mary's Cathedral struck him as being unduly magnificent to be the
+property of such a small and pernicious sect as the Episcopalians. The
+Post Office and other great buildings struck him dumb; and he hastened
+past the theatres with averted eyes, for he had it upon unimpeachable
+authority that the devil resided there.</p>
+
+<p>He knew no one in Edinburgh save Elspeth M'Kerrow. However, he made
+another friend&mdash;to wit, one Hector MacPherson, a gigantic Highland
+policeman, who controlled the traffic with incredible skill at a place
+where several ways met. The said Hector stood beneath the shadow of a
+great lamp-post, and whenever a vehicle drove past one side of him,
+Hector relentlessly called it back and made it go on the other. Their
+acquaintance began with the entire effacement of Robert's features by
+the palm of Hector's hand, which was suddenly extended across the
+thoroughfare for traffic-regulating purposes, with the result that
+Robert, who was plunged in thought at the time, ran his nose right into
+the centre of it. The ejaculation to which each gave vent at the moment
+of impact revealed to both that they were from the same part of the
+country, and thereafter Hector MacPherson became Robert's
+adviser-in-chief throughout his stay in Edinburgh. Indeed, Robert used
+Hector as the starting-point for all his excursions, and whenever he
+became hopelessly lost in the wilds of the Grassmarket or the purlieus
+of Morningside, he used to ask his way back to his mentor's pitch and
+make a fresh start. We shall hear of Hector again.</p>
+
+<p>The foolhardy feat of entering a shop Robert did not attempt until
+his very last day in Edinburgh, and then only because he was absolutely
+compelled to do so by the necessity of executing a commission for his
+sister Margaret&mdash;the purchase of half a yard of ribbon.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that the same ribbon could have been obtained at home from
+Malcolm M'Whiston or a travelling packman, but Margaret was determined
+to have it from Edinburgh; and she was particularly emphatic in her
+injunctions to Robert to see that the folk in the shop stuck a label on
+the parcel, "with their name printed on, and a picture of the shop and
+a'."</p>
+
+<p>On Saturday morning, then, Robert approached the establishment which
+he had chosen for the purpose. After a careful reconnaissance he
+discovered that it possessed several doors. Here was a poser. Which
+would be the ribbon door? Supposing he entered the wrong one and found
+himself compelled to purchase a roll of muslin or a wash-hand-stand?
+With natural acumen he finally selected a door flanked by windows
+containing lace and ribbon; and waiting for a moment when the surging
+crowd was thickest, attempted to slip in with them. He got safely past a
+hero in a medal-sown uniform, but immediately after this encountered an
+imposing gentleman in a frock-coat, who asked his pleasure. Robert
+inquired respectfully if the gentleman kept ribbon. The gentleman said
+"Surely, surely!" and Robert's modest requirements were thereupon sent
+ringing from a throat of brass into the uttermost recesses of the
+establishment, and he himself was passed, hot-faced, along the fairway
+until he reached the right department. Here his tongue clove to the roof
+of his mouth, and the siren behind the counter, with difficulty stifling
+her amusement, was reduced to discovering his needs by a process of
+elimination.</p>
+
+<p>"What will I show you?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies' gloves?"</p>
+
+<p>A shake of the head.</p>
+
+<p>"Handkerchiefs?"</p>
+
+<p>Another shake.</p>
+
+<p>"Stockings?"</p>
+
+<p>Another shake, accompanied by a deepening of complexion.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;ribbon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, that's it," replied Robert, suddenly finding his voice (which,
+by the way, rather resembled the Last Trump). "Hauf a yaird&mdash;one
+inch wide&mdash;satin&mdash;cream!" he roared mechanically.</p>
+
+<p>He received the small parcel, and furtively fingering the money in
+his pocket, asked the price.</p>
+
+<p>"Two-three, please," replied the damsel briskly.</p>
+
+<p>How Robert thanked his stars that he had some cash in hand! But what
+a price! All that for a scrap of ribbon! It seemed sinful; but he laid
+two shillings and threepence on the counter. Greatly to his alarm, the
+young woman behind it, who up to this point had kept her feelings under
+commendable control, suddenly collapsed like a punctured balloon on to
+the shoulder of her nearest neighbour&mdash;there being no shop-walkers
+about&mdash;and expressed a wish that she might be taken home and
+buried. Finally she recovered sufficiently to push Robert's two
+shillings back across the counter and to place his threepence in a
+mysterious receptacle which she thrust into a hole in the wall, from
+which it was ejected with much clatter a minute later; and on being
+opened proved to contain what the dazed Robert at first took for a
+half-sovereign, but which he ultimately discovered, when he had
+abandoned the still giggling maiden and groped his way out into the
+street, to be a bright new farthing.</p>
+
+<p>The same day he returned to his home; but he did not reach it without
+one more adventure, a slight one, it is true, but not without its effect
+upon his future.</p>
+
+<p>The train was over-full, and Robert ultimately found himself
+travelling in company with nine other passengers, seven of whom were
+suffering from that infirmity once poetically described by an expert in
+such diagnoses as "a wee bit drappie in their een." The exception was a
+gentleman in the far corner, accompanied by a most lovely young lady,
+upon whom Robert gazed continuously with an admiration so absorbing and
+profound that it took him some little time to realise, shortly after the
+commencement of the journey, that the rest of the company were indulging
+in a free fight all over the compartment, and that the lady was clinging
+in terror to her escort. Robert was of considerable service in restoring
+order, and found his reward in the eyes of the lady, who thanked him
+very prettily. Her husband had the sense not to offer Robert money, but
+gave him his card, and said in a curious, stiff, English way that he
+hoped he might be of service to him some day. They got out at Perth, and
+Robert travelled on alone.</p>
+
+<p>Hours later he was met by his brother David at a little wayside
+station, and driven over fifteen miles of hilly road to the farm where
+he had been born and brought up.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning he was up at daybreak, and set to work at his usual
+tasks about the yard, well knowing that such would be his lot to the end
+of his life if the examination list did not show his name at the
+top.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>Some days had to elapse before the result could be known; but Robert
+Chalmers Fordyce&mdash;by the way, I think we know him well enough now
+to call him Robin, which was the name his mother had given him on his
+third birthday&mdash;and his household, being Scottish and
+undemonstrative, made little or no reference to the subject.</p>
+
+<p>Robin was the scholar of his family. He was the second son, David
+being four years older. But in accordance with that simple, grand, and
+patriarchal law of Scottish peasant life, which decrees that every lad
+of parts shall be given his chance to bring credit on the family, even
+though his parents have to pinch and save and his brothers bide at the
+plough-tail all their lives in consequence&mdash;a law whose chief merit
+lies in the splendid sacrifices which its faithful fulfilment involves,
+and whose vital principle well-meaning but misguided philanthropy is now
+endeavouring to dole out of existence&mdash;he had been sent to
+Edinburgh to make the most of this, his one chance in life.</p>
+
+<p>Still, though the credit of the family hung upon the result of the
+examination,&mdash;if he won the Bursary, the money, together with the
+precious hoard which his father and mother had been accumulating for him
+for ten years, would just suffice to keep him at the
+University,&mdash;no one discussed the matter. It was in the hands of
+God, and prognostication could only be vain and unprofitable. His mother
+and sister, indeed, questioned him covertly when his father and brother
+were out of hearing; but that was chiefly about Edinburgh, and the
+shops, and the splendours of the Dalry Road. The Bursary was never
+mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>On the day on which the result was to be announced their father took
+Robin and David away to a distant hillside to assist at the
+sheep-dipping. The news would come by letter, which might or might not
+get as far as Strathmyrtle Post Office, seven miles away, that very
+afternoon. In the morning it would be delivered by the postman.</p>
+
+<p>But there are limits to human endurance, none the less definite
+because that endurance appears illimitable. When father and sons tramped
+back to the farm that evening, just in time for supper, it was
+discovered that Margaret was absent. John Fordyce, grim old martinet
+that he was, looked round the table inquiringly; but a glance at his
+wife's face caused him to go on with his meal.</p>
+
+<p>At nine o'clock precisely the table was cleared. The herdman and two
+farm lasses came into the kitchen from their final tasks in the yard,
+and the great Bible was put down on the table for evening "worship."</p>
+
+<p>John Fordyce, having looked up the "portion" which he proposed to
+read, then turned to the Metrical Psalms. These were sung night by night
+in unswerving rotation throughout the year, a custom which, while it
+offered the pleasing prospect of variety, occasionally left something to
+be desired on the score of appropriateness.</p>
+
+<p>All being seated, the old man, after a final fleeting glance at his
+daughter's empty chair, gave out the Psalm.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us worship God," he said, "by singing to His praise in the
+Hundred and Twenty-first Psalm. Psalm a Hundred and
+Twenty-one&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div>'I to the hills will lift mine eyes,</div>
+    <div>From whence doth come&mdash;&mdash;'"</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The door opened, and Margaret entered. She was dusty and tired, for
+she had walked fourteen miles since milking-time; but in her hand she
+held a letter.</p>
+
+<p>She glanced timidly at the clock, and was for slipping quietly into
+her seat; but her father said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You had best give it to him now. A man cannot worship God while his
+mind is distracted with other things."</p>
+
+<p>Robin took the letter, and after a glance in the direction of his
+father and the waiting Bible, opened and read it amidst a tense silence.
+Finally he looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said the old man.</p>
+
+<p>"They have given me the First Bursary, father," said Robin.</p>
+
+<p>No one spoke, but Robin saw tears running down his mother's face.
+John Fordyce deliberately turned back several pages of the Bible.</p>
+
+<p>"We will sing," he said in a clear voice, "in the Twenty-third
+Psalm&mdash;the whole of it!&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div>'The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want&mdash;&mdash;'"</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>The Psalms of David, as rendered into English verse by Nahum Tate and
+others, are not remarkable for poetic merit; neither does the old
+Scottish fashion of singing the same, seated and without accompaniment,
+conduce to a concord of sweet sounds. But there are no tunes like old
+tunes, and there are no hearts like full hearts. If ever a song went
+straight up to heaven, the Twenty-third Psalm, borne up on the wings of
+"Martyrdom," did so that night.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="chapter02" id="chapter02">CHAPTER TWO.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>INTRODUCES A PILLAR OF STATE AND THE APPURTENANCES THEREOF.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The time had undoubtedly arrived when I must have a Private
+Secretary.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty, for one, insisted on it. She said that I was ruining my health
+in the service of an ungrateful country, and added that she, personally,
+declined to be left a widow at twenty-eight-and-a-half to oblige
+anybody.</p>
+
+<p>"It is exactly the wrong age," she said. "If it had happened four or
+five years ago, I could have done pretty well for myself. Now, I should
+be out of the running among the <i>débutantes</i>, and a little too
+young and flighty to suit a middle-aged bachelor."</p>
+
+<p>I may add that my wife does not often talk in this unfeeling manner.
+But she suffers at times from a desire to live up to a sort of honorary
+reputation for sprightly humour, conferred upon her by undiscriminating
+admirers in the days before she became engaged to me. As a matter of
+fact, her solicitude on my behalf was largely due to an ambition to see
+a little paragraph in the newspapers, announcing that "Mr Adrian
+Inglethwaite, M.P., Director of the Sub-Tropical and Arctic Department
+at the Foreign Office, has appointed Mr Blankley Dash to be his Private
+Secretary."</p>
+
+<p>Dolly and Dilly seconded the motion. They had not the effrontery to
+wrap up their motives in specious expressions of concern for my health,
+but stated their point of view with brutal frankness, as is their wont.
+I was an old dear, they conceded, and of course Kitty was Kitty; but a
+sister and brother-in-law were, to put it quite plainly, a hopelessly
+dull couple to live with: and the visits of Mesdames Dolly and Dilly to
+our roof-tree would, it was hinted, be more frequent and enduring if the
+establishment was strengthened by the addition of a presentable young
+man.</p>
+
+<p>I consented. It was three to one. To any one acquainted with the trio
+of sisters arrayed against me, it will at once be apparent that "these
+odds" (as the halfpenny papers say) "but faintly represent the
+superiority of the winning side."</p>
+
+<p>Having thus dragged the reader without apology into the most intimate
+regions of my family circle, I had perhaps better introduce myself and
+my <i>entourage</i> a little more formally.</p>
+
+<p>My name is Samuel Adrian Inglethwaite. Why I was called Samuel I do
+not know. Possibly my parents did. Samuel may have been a baptismal
+sprat set to catch a testamentary whale, but if this was so no legacy
+ever came my way. Personally, I am rather attached to the name, as I was
+called nothing else until I encountered the lady who ultimately
+consented to become Mrs Inglethwaite. Since that epoch in my career I
+have been S. Adrian Inglethwaite.</p>
+
+<p>I am thirty-six years of age, and hold an appointment under
+Government, which, while it does not carry with it Cabinet
+rank&mdash;though Kitty cannot see why&mdash;is sufficiently important
+to make the daily papers keep my obituary notice handily pigeon-holed,
+in case I fall over the Thames Embankment, get run over by a motor-bus,
+or otherwise contravene the by-laws of the London County Council.</p>
+
+<p>As no man can possibly give an unbiassed opinion of his own wife, I
+shall not attempt to describe mine at this juncture, except to mention
+that she is a woman with no fault that I can for the moment recall,
+beyond a predilection for belonging to societies which are better known
+for their aims than for their achievements, are perennially short of
+funds, and seem to possess no place of meeting except my
+drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>Dolly and Dilly are Kitty's sisters. They are twins, and there
+present age is, I think, nineteen. Though I say it who should not, they
+are both astonishingly attractive young persons, and the more I see of
+them the more the fact is borne in upon me. Indeed, a casual remark of
+mine to that effect, uttered to my wife, by an unfortunate coincidence,
+on the very morning upon which one of the numerous Deceased Wife's
+Sister's Bills passed its Second Reading in the House, gave rise to a
+coldness of demeanour on her part which was only dispelled by an abject
+apology and a dinner for two at the Savoy on mine.</p>
+
+<p>To return to Dolly and Dilly. I never know them apart, and I do not
+think Kitty does either. Both are divinely tall and divinely fair; they
+are exactly like each other in form, voice, and feature; and they
+possess the irritating habit, not uncommon with twins, of endeavouring
+to exaggerate their natural resemblance by various puzzling and, I
+consider, unsportsmanlike devices. They wear each other's clothes
+indiscriminately, and are not above taking turn and turn about with the
+affections of unsuspecting young men, of whom they possess a
+considerable following. They attract admiration without effort, and, I
+honestly believe, without intention. Of the meaning of love they know
+nothing,&mdash;they are female Peter Pans, and resolutely refuse to grow
+up, except outwardly,&mdash;and the intrusion of that passion into their
+dealings with persons of the male gender is regarded by them at present
+as a contingency to be discouraged at all costs. The conditions under
+which they admit their admirers to their friendship are commendably
+simple and perfectly definite. If a man is adjudged by them to have
+attained all the complicated and inexplicable standards by which women
+judge the opposite sex, he is admitted into the ranks of the Good Sorts;
+and as such, provided that he keeps his head, has an extremely pleasant
+time of it. If, however, any obtuse and amorous youth persists in
+mistaking what Nanki-Poo once described as "customary expressions of
+affability" for an indication that his infatuation is reciprocated, the
+Twins act promptly. They have "no use" for such creatures, they once
+explained to me; and they proceed to rid themselves of the incubus in a
+fashion entirely their own.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the pressure of the <i>affaire</i> rises to
+danger-point&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, when the youth begins to pay markedly
+more attention to one Twin than the other&mdash;he is asked, say, to
+lunch. Here he is made much of by the object of his affections, who
+looks radiant in, let us say, white <i>batiste</i>; while the unemployed
+Twin, in (possibly) blue poplin, holds discreetly aloof. After lunch the
+Twins, leaving their victim to smoke a cigar, retire swiftly to their
+room, where they exchange costumes, and descend again to the
+drawing-room. There Dolly, now arrayed in white <i>batiste</i>, enters
+upon the path of dalliance where Dilly left off; and Dilly, relieved
+from duty, crochets in a window-recess, and silently enjoys her sister's
+impersonation.</p>
+
+<p>One of two things happens. Romeo either does not notice the
+difference, or else he does. If he does not, he continues to flounder
+heavily along in pursuit of the well-beloved, oblivious of the fact that
+he is wasting his efforts on an understudy. After an appropriate
+interval the cold truth is revealed to him in a hysterical duet, and he
+goes home, glaring defiantly, but feeling an entire and unmitigated
+ass.</p>
+
+<p>Or he may actually recognise that Dilly has been replaced by
+Dolly,&mdash;this is what happens when the case is a really serious
+one,&mdash;and if this occurs he is more sorrowful than angry, poor
+fellow, for he sees that he is being trifled with; and your true lover
+is the most desperately earnest person in the world. In either case the
+<i>affaire</i> terminates then and there. And that is how my
+sisters-in-law, with adroitness and despatch, return immature and
+undesirable suitors to their native element. The whole proceeding
+reminds me irresistibly of the Undersized Fish Bill, a measure whose
+progress I once assisted in its course through a Committee of the
+House.</p>
+
+<p>However, having been bidden to procure a Private Secretary, I meekly
+set about looking for one. One night at dinner we held a symposium on
+the subject, and endeavoured to evolve an outline of the kind of
+gentleman who was likely to suit us. The following is a <i>précis</i> of
+the result. I leave the intelligent reader to trace each item to its
+author; also the various parenthetical comments on the same:&mdash;</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>(a) He must be a 'Varsity man.</li>
+
+<li>(b) He must be able to keep accounts, and
+    transact business generally.</li>
+
+<li>(c) He must be content with a salary of two
+    hundred a-year, with board and residence
+    in the house. ("He can have
+    that little room off the library for a
+    sitting-room, dear, and sleep in the old
+    night-nursery.")</li>
+
+<li>(d) He must not wear celluloid collars or
+    made-up ties. ("But he'll <i>have</i> to,
+    poor dear, if the Infant Samuel only
+    gives him two hundred a-year.")</li>
+
+<li>(e) He must be prepared to run through my
+    speeches before I deliver them. ("I
+    suppose that means <i>write</i> them!"),
+    look up my subject-matter, verify my
+    references, and so on. ("That <i>will</i>
+    be an improvement. But what will
+    the halfpenny papers do then, poor
+    things?")</li>
+
+<li>(f) He must be the sort of man that one can
+    have in to a dinner-party without any
+    fear of accidents. ("Yes. He <i>must</i> be
+    all right about peas, asparagus, and
+    liqueurs. <i>And</i> finger-bowls, dearest.
+    You remember the man who drank out
+    of his at that queer political dinner to
+    the constituents?")</li>
+
+<li>(g) He must be nice to my Philly.</li>
+
+<li>(h) He must be dark. ("Pshaw!")</li>
+
+<li>(i) He must be fair. ("Ugh!")</li>
+
+<li>(j) He must be able to waltz and play bridge.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>At this point I suggested that a prepaid telegram to the Celestial
+Regions would alone procure the article we required. However, we
+ultimately descended to an advertisement in the <i>Morning Post</i>, and
+in due course I obtained a secretary. In fact, I obtained several. We
+had them <i>seriatim</i>, and none stayed longer than a month. I do not
+propose to write a detailed history of the dynasty which I now found it
+my privilege to support. A brief <i>résumé</i> of each will suffice.</p>
+
+<p><i>Number One</i>.&mdash;Cambridge Football Blue. Big and breezy.
+Spelling entirely phonetic. Spent most of his time smoking in the
+drawing-room, and laboured under the delusion that, as my amanuensis, he
+was at liberty to forge my signature to all documents, including
+cheques. He used my official note-paper to back horses on, and was
+finally requested to leave, after an unseemly brawl with a book-maker's
+tout on my doorstep.</p>
+
+<p><i>Number Two</i>.&mdash;Oxford: a First in Greats. A heavy manner,
+usually beginning his observations with "Wherewithal" or "Peradventure."
+The Twins suffered severely from suppressed giggles in his presence.
+Regarded my superficial ideas of statesmanship with profound contempt,
+but left after a fortnight, having allowed a highly confidential and
+extremely personal pencil note, written in the margin of a despatch by
+the Premier himself, to blossom forth in large type in the text of a
+Blue Book.</p>
+
+<p><i>Number Three</i>.&mdash;Rather elderly for the post&mdash;nearer
+forty than thirty&mdash;but highly recommended. Reduced my chaotic
+papers to order in twenty-four hours, charmed my wife and her sisters,
+drafted a speech which won me quite a little ovation in the House,
+suggested several notable improvements in the "Importation of Mad Dogs
+Bill," with which I was to be entrusted next session&mdash;and was found
+lying dead drunk in his bedroom, at eleven o'clock in the morning, on
+the second Sunday after his arrival. Half a dozen empty brandy bottles
+were afterwards discovered on the top of his wardrobe. Poor devil!</p>
+
+<p><i>Number Four</i>.&mdash;(Subsequently handed down to posterity as
+"The Limit"). Small, spectacled, and nervous. Came from a Welsh
+University, and was strong on "the methodical filing of State and other
+documents." He stayed two days. On the first night (after inquiring
+whether we were expecting guests that evening, and receiving an answer
+in the negative) he came down to dinner in a sort of alpaca
+smoking-jacket and a tartan tie. On the second, having evidently decided
+to treat us to all the resources of his wardrobe as soon as possible, he
+appeared in more or less ordinary evening attire. He wore a small white
+satin bow-tie, attached to his collar-stud by a brass clip. The tie fell
+off the stud into his soup almost immediately, and its owner, after
+furtively chasing it round the plate with his forefinger, finally fished
+it out with the aid of a fork; and, having squeezed as much soup as
+possible back into the plate, put the bow into his waistcoat pocket and
+resumed his meal with every appearance of enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>He left next morning. As the Twins pathetically observed: "It had to
+be him or us!" I was sorry, for he was a tidy little creature away from
+table.</p>
+
+<p>After that I did a rash thing. I engaged a Private Secretary on the
+spur of the moment and without consulting my household.</p>
+
+<p>One morning I had occasion to visit the British Museum. That
+mausoleum of learning is not an habitual resort of mine, but on this
+occasion I had found it necessary to refresh my memory on the subject of
+a small principality situated somewhere in the Pacific, and reported to
+be in a state of considerable unrest, concerning which the member for
+Upper Gumbtree, an unpleasantly omniscient young man with a truculent
+manner, had been asking questions in the House. It seemed that British
+interests in that quarter were not being adequately protected by our
+Department, and this extremely pushing gentleman was now gaining much
+cheap applause in the columns of those low-priced organs which make a
+living by deriding his Majesty's Ministers, by bombarding us with
+fatuous inquiries on the subject. My Chief had only the most hazy notion
+about the place&mdash;as a matter of fact I do not believe that either
+he or any of the permanent officials had ever heard of it&mdash;and I
+was in a precisely similar condition. I was accordingly bidden to get up
+the subject, and accumulate a mass of information thereon which would
+not only satiate the appetite of the honourable member, but choke him
+off for all time.</p>
+
+<p>Finding myself in want of a particular Gazetteer which was not to be
+found in the office, and being in no mood to take a clerk, however
+uncritical, into my confidence, I called a hansom and drove straight to
+the Museum; where, having ensconced myself in the reading-room with the
+work in question, I prepared to devote a dusty and laborious morning to
+the service of State.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately opposite me sat a gigantic young man of a slightly
+threadbare appearance, who was copying some screed out of a bulky tome
+before him. I regarded him in a reminiscent sort of way for a few
+minutes, and presently found that my scrutiny was being returned
+fourfold. Next came an enormous hand that was suddenly thrust across the
+table towards me, and I remembered him.</p>
+
+<p>We had met six years ago in a railway train, under circumstances
+which made me extremely glad to make his acquaintance at any price.
+Kitty and I were on our honeymoon, and happened to be travelling on a
+Saturday afternoon from Edinburgh to Perth in a train packed to
+suffocation with the supporters of a football team of the baser sort. We
+were bound for Inchellan, the Scottish residence of my Chief, who was
+sending to meet us at Perth.</p>
+
+<p>As the first-class carriages were all occupied by gentlemen with
+third-class tickets, we travelled third with a company who did not seem
+to possess any tickets at all. Just before the train started the door
+was thrown open and two inebriated Scots, several degrees further gone
+than the rest of the company&mdash;which is saying a good
+deal&mdash;were hurled in. If the assemblage had all been of one way of
+thinking we might have reached Perth with nothing worse than bad
+headaches, but unfortunately some supporters of the other team were
+present, and in the midst of a heated and alcoholic debate on the rights
+and wrongs of the last free kick, two rival orators suddenly arose,
+clinched, and continued their argument at close grips on the floor. In a
+moment the party divided itself into two camps, and the conflict became
+general. As there were ten people in the compartment, of whom seven were
+engaged in a life-and-death struggle, the movements of the
+non-combatants&mdash;Kitty, myself, and a gigantic youth of gawky
+appearance&mdash;were, to put it mildly, somewhat restricted. Kitty
+became thoroughly frightened, and hampered my preparations for battle by
+clinging to my arm. The gigantic youth, seeing this, suddenly took
+command of the situation.</p>
+
+<p>"Watch you the young leddy!" he bellowed in my ear, "and I'll sort
+them."</p>
+
+<p>With that he hurled himself into the tumult. The exact details of his
+performance I could not see, the scientific dusting of railway cushions
+not having penetrated any further north of the Forth than it has south
+of the Thames; but the net result was that each combatant was pulled
+off, picked up, shaken until his teeth rattled, and banged down on to
+his seat with a brief admonition to mind his manners, until seven
+bewildered, partially sobered, and thoroughly demoralised patrons of
+sport sat round about in various attitudes of limp dejection, leaning
+against one another like dissipated marionettes; while our rustic
+Hector, bestriding the compartment like a Colossus, dared them to move a
+finger under penalty of being "skelped."</p>
+
+<p>He bundled them all out at the next stopping-place, without inquiring
+whether they desired to alight there or no, and I am bound to say that
+they all seemed as anxious to leave the carriage as he was to expel
+them. He then shut the door, pulled up the window, and turned to my wife
+with a reassuring smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Yon was just a storrm in a teapot," he remarked affably.</p>
+
+<p>He accepted my thanks with indifference, but blushed in a gratified
+manner when Kitty addressed him. He was her bond-slave by the time that
+we bade him farewell at Perth. I presented him with my card, which he
+carefully placed inside the lining of his hat; but he forbore, either
+from native caution or excessive shyness, to furnish us with any
+information as to his own identity.</p>
+
+<p>Well, here he was, sitting opposite to me in the Reading Room of the
+British Museum, and seemingly none too prosperous. Six years ago he had
+looked like a young and healthy farm lad. Now, fourth-rate journalism
+was stamped all over him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter03" id="chapter03">CHAPTER THREE.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>"ANENT."</h3>
+
+
+<p>We conversed awhile in whispers to avoid disturbing the other
+worshippers&mdash;I always feel like that in the British
+Museum&mdash;and finally abandoned our respective tasks and issued forth
+together. With a little persuasion I prevailed upon my companion to come
+and lunch with me, and we repaired to a rather old-fashioned and
+thoroughly British establishment close by, where the fare is solid and
+the "portions" generous.</p>
+
+<p>My guest, after a brief effort at self-repression, fell upon the food
+in a fashion that told me a far more vivid tale of his present
+circumstances than the most lengthy explanation could have done. When he
+was full I gave him a cigar, and he leaned back in his padded arm-chair
+and surveyed me with the nearest approach to emotion that I have ever
+observed in the countenance of a Scot.</p>
+
+<p>"I was wanting that," he remarked frankly, and he smiled largely upon
+me. He was looking less gaunt now, and the rugged lines of his face were
+tinged with a more healthy colour. He was a handsome youth, I noticed,
+with shrewd grey eyes and a chin that stood out like the ram of a
+battle-ship.</p>
+
+<p>He told me all about himself, some of which has been set down here
+already. He had done well at Edinburgh University, and, having obtained
+his Arts degree, was on the point of settling down to study for the
+ministry&mdash;the be-all and end-all of the hope of a humble Scottish
+household&mdash;when disaster came tumbling upon his family. His brother
+David fell sick in his lungs, and the doctor prescribed a sojourn in a
+drier climate for at least a year.</p>
+
+<p>The next part of the narrative was rather elliptical; but from the
+fact that money was immediately forthcoming to send David abroad, and
+that Robin had simultaneously given up his work in Edinburgh and
+returned home to help his father about the farm, I gathered that a
+life's ambition had been voluntarily sacrificed on the altar of family
+duty. Anyhow, when David returned, marvellously and mercifully restored
+to health, setting his younger brother free once more, two precious
+years had flown; so that Robin now found himself, at the age of
+twenty-three, faced with the alternative of making a fresh start in life
+or remaining on the farm at home, that most pathetic and forlorn of
+failures, a "stickit minister." The family exchequer had been depleted
+by David's illness, and Robin, rather than draw any further on the
+vanishing little store of pound-notes in the cupboard behind the kitchen
+chimney, determined to go to London and turn his education to some
+account.</p>
+
+<p>He had arrived three years ago, with a barrel of salt herrings and a
+bag of meal; and from that time he had earned his own living&mdash;if it
+could be called a living.</p>
+
+<p>"Once or twice," he said, "I have had an article taken by one of the
+big reviews; sometimes I get some odd reporting to do; and whiles I just
+have to write chatty paragraphs about celebrities for the snippety
+papers."</p>
+
+<p>"Uphill work that, I should think."</p>
+
+<p>"Uphill? Downhill! Man, it's degrading. Do you know what I was doing
+in that Museum this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you heard tell of a man they call Dean Ramsay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see&mdash;yes. He was a sort of Scottish Sidney Smith, wasn't
+he?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is the man. Well, he collected most of the good stories in
+Scotland and put them in a book. I was copying a few of them out; and I
+shall father them on to folk that the public wants to hear about. I get
+a guinea a column for that."</p>
+
+<p>"I know the sort of thing," I said. "<i>'A good story is at present
+ going the round of the clubs, concerning&mdash;&mdash;'</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Not 'concerning'&mdash;'anent'!"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon&mdash;'anent a certain well-known but
+absent-minded Peer of the Realm.'"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the stuff. You have the trick of it. Then sometimes I do bits
+of general information&mdash;computations as to the height of a column
+of the picture postcards sold in London in a year, and all that. Nobody
+can check figures of that kind, so the work is easy&mdash;and
+correspondingly ill-paid!" (I cannot reproduce the number of
+contemptuous <i>r</i>'s that Robin threw into the adverb.)</p>
+
+<p>"It's a fine useful place the Museum," he continued reflectively.
+"You were busy there this morning yourself. You would be collecting
+<i>data</i> anent&mdash;I mean <i>about</i>&mdash;the Island of
+Caerulea."</p>
+
+<p>I sat up in surprise at this.</p>
+
+<p>"How on earth&mdash;&mdash;?" I began.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I just jal&mdash;guessed it. You being the only member of his
+Majesty's Government in whom I have any personal interest, I have always
+followed your career closely. (You gave me your card, you'll mind.)
+Well, I saw you were having trouble with yon havering body
+Wuddiford&mdash;I once reported at one of his meetings: he's just a
+sweetie-wife in <i>pince-nez</i>&mdash;and when I saw you busy with an
+atlas and gazetteer I said to myself:&mdash;'He'll be getting up a few
+salient facts about the place, in order to appease the honourable
+member's insatiable thirst for knowledge&mdash;Toots, there I go again!
+Man, the journalese fairly soaks into the system. I doubt now if I could
+write out twenty lines of 'Paradise Lost' without cross-heading
+them!"</p>
+
+<p>We finished our cigar over talk like this, and finally rose to go.
+Robin lingered upon the steps of the restaurant. I realised that he,
+being  a  Scotsman, was endeavouring to pump up the emotional gratitude
+which he felt sure that I, as an Englishman, would expect from a
+starving pauper who had lunched at my expense.</p>
+
+<p>"I must thank you," he said at last, rather awkwardly, "for a most
+pleasant luncheon. And I should like fine," he added suddenly and
+impetuously, "to make out a <i>précis</i> for you on the subject of
+Caerulea. Never heed it yourself! Away home, and I'll send it to you
+to-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>An idea which had been maturing in my slow-moving brain for some time
+suddenly took a definite shape.</p>
+
+<p>"It is extremely kind of you," I said. "I shall be delighted to leave
+the matter in your hands. But when you have made the <i>précis</i>, I
+wonder if you would be so good as to bring it to my house instead of
+sending it?"</p>
+
+<p>I gave him my address, and we parted.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Chalmers Fordyce arrived at my house next morning. He brought
+with him a budget of condensed but exhaustive information on the subject
+of Caerulea, the assimilation and ultimate discharge of which enabled me
+to score a signal victory over Mr Wuddiford of Upper Gumbtree,
+relegating that champion exploiter of mare's nests to a sphere of
+comparative inoffensiveness for quite a considerable time.</p>
+
+<p>After reading the <i>précis</i>, I offered Robin the position of my
+Private Secretary, which he accepted politely but without servility or
+effusiveness. I handed him a quarter's salary in advance, gave him two
+days' holiday wherein to "make his arrangements"&mdash;<i>Anglicč</i>,
+to replenish his wardrobe&mdash;and we sealed the bargain with a glass
+of sherry and a biscuit apiece.</p>
+
+<p>As he rose to go, Robin took from his pocket a folded manuscript.</p>
+
+<p>"I see you have a good fire there," he said.</p>
+
+<p>He stepped across to the hearth-rug and pitched the document into the
+heart of the flames, which began to lick it caressingly.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the heat caused the crackling paper to unfold itself, and
+some of the writing became visible. Robert pointed, and I
+read&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>"Pars about Personalities. A capital story is at present going the
+ round of the clubs, anent&mdash;&mdash;"</i></p>
+
+<p>Here the flimsy manuscript burst into flame, and shot with a roar up
+the chimney.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Robert Chalmers Fordyce, and his face was the face of a
+man who has gone through deep waters, but feels the good solid rock
+beneath his feet at last.</p>
+
+<p>He turned dumbly to me, and held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>The worst of these inarticulate and undemonstrative people is that
+they hurt you so.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter04" id="chapter04">CHAPTER FOUR.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A TRIAL TRIP.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Three days later I introduced Robert Chalmers Fordyce into the bosom
+of my family. I had declined to give them any previous information about
+him, beyond a brief warning that they would find him "rather
+Scotch."</p>
+
+<p>I have always found it utterly impossible to foretell from a man's
+behaviour towards his own sex how he will comport himself in the
+presence of females. I have known a raw youth, hitherto regarded as the
+hobbledehoy of the shooting-party and the pariah of the smoking-room,
+lord it among the ladies like a very lion; and I have seen the hero of a
+hundred fights, the master of men, the essence of intrepid resolution,
+stand quaking outside a drawing-room door. The <i>début</i> of Robin,
+then, I awaited with considerable interest. I expected on the whole to
+see him tongue-tied, especially before Dolly and Dilly. On the other
+hand he might be aggressively assertive.</p>
+
+<p>He was neither. He proved to be that rarest of types&mdash;the man
+who has no fear of his fellow-creatures, male or female, singly or in
+battalions. Our sex is so accustomed to squaring its shoulders, pulling
+down its waistcoat, and assuming an engaging expression as a preliminary
+to an encounter with the fair, that the spectacle of a man who enters a
+strange drawing-room and shakes hands quietly and naturally all round,
+without twisting his features into an agreeable smile and mumbling
+entirely inarticulate words of rapture, always arouses in me feelings of
+envy and respect.</p>
+
+<p>We found Kitty and the Twins picturesquely grouped upon the
+drawing-room hearth-rug, waiting for the luncheon gong.</p>
+
+<p>I introduced Robin to my wife, in the indistinct and throaty tones
+which always obtrude themselves into an Englishman's utterance when he
+is called upon to say something formal but graceful. Kitty greeted the
+guest with a smile with which I am well acquainted (and which I can
+guarantee from personal experience to be absolutely irresistible on
+one's first experience of it), and welcomed him to the house very
+prettily.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very kind, Mrs Inglethwaite," said Robin, shaking hands.
+"But I am not quite a stranger to you. Do you mind my face?"</p>
+
+<p>Kitty turned scarlet.</p>
+
+<p>"Mind your&mdash;&mdash;? Not in the&mdash;I mean&mdash;I am sure we
+are de&mdash;&mdash;" She floundered hopelessly.</p>
+
+<p>Robin laughed pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>"There is my Scots tongue running away with me already," he said. "I
+should have asked rather if you <i>remembered</i> my face."</p>
+
+<p>This time Kitty ceased to look confused, but still retained a puzzled
+frown.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said slowly; "I don't <i>think</i>&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder!" said Robin. "We met once, in a railway carriage, six
+years ago. Between Edinburgh and Perth&mdash;on a Saturday afternoon,"
+he added expressively.</p>
+
+<p>Light broke in upon Kitty. "Of course!" she said. "Now I remember.
+That dreadful journey! You were the gentleman who was so kind and
+helpful. How nice and romantic meeting again! Adrian, you silly old
+creature, why didn't you tell me? Now, Mr Fordyce, let me introduce you
+to my sisters."</p>
+
+<p>She wheeled him round and presented him to the Twins.</p>
+
+<p>That pair of beauties, I saw at a glance, were out after scalps. They
+stood up side by side on the hearth-rug, absolutely and weirdly alike,
+and arrayed on this occasion in garments of identical hue and cut. This
+was a favourite device of theirs when about to meet a new young man; it
+usually startled him considerably. If he was not a person of sound nerve
+and abstemious habits, it not infrequently evoked from him some
+enjoyably regrettable expression of surprise and alarm. I knew all the
+tricks in their <i>répertoire</i>, and waited interestedly to see the
+effect of this series.</p>
+
+<p>On being presented, both smiled shyly and modestly, and each
+simultaneously proffered a timid hand. The average young man, already a
+little rattled by the duplicate vision of loveliness before him, could
+never make up his mind which hand to shake first; and by the time he had
+collected his faculties sufficiently to make an uncertain grab at one,
+both would be swiftly and simultaneously withdrawn.</p>
+
+<p>Robin, however, immediately shook hands with Dilly, who stood nearest
+to Kitty, and then with Dolly. After that he stepped back a pace and
+surveyed the pair with unconcealed interest.</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned to my wife.</p>
+
+<p>"A truly remarkable resemblance!" he observed benignantly. ("Just as
+if we had been two babies in a bassinette!" as Dolly afterwards
+remarked.)</p>
+
+<p>Then he resumed his inspection. The Twins, who were entirely unused
+to this sort of thing, were too taken aback to proceed to their second
+move&mdash;the utterance of some trivial and artless remark, delivered
+by both simultaneously, and thereby calculated to throw the victim into
+a state of uncertainty as to which he should answer first. Instead, they
+stood wide-eyed and tongue-tied before him.</p>
+
+<p>"I must certainly discover some point of difference between these
+ladies," continued Robin with an air of determination, "or I shall
+always be in difficulties. Do not tell me the secret, Mrs Inglethwaite.
+Perhaps I can find out for myself."</p>
+
+<p>He concluded a minute inspection of the indignant Dilly, and turned
+his unruffled gaze on Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I have it! You" (triumphantly to Dolly) "have a tiny
+brown spot in the blue of your left eye, while your sister has
+none."</p>
+
+<p>It was quite true: she had. But it was a fact which most young men
+only discovered after many furtive and sidelong glances. This
+imperturbable creature had taken it all in in one resolute scrutiny; and
+Dolly, blushing like Aurora&mdash;an infirmity to which I may say
+neither she nor her sister are particularly subject&mdash;dropped her
+long lashes over the orbs in question and looked uncommonly foolish.</p>
+
+<p>The tension of the situation was relieved by the announcement of
+luncheon, and Robin was called upon to accompany Kitty downstairs; while
+I, putting a consoling arm round the waist of each of my fermenting
+sisters-in-law, marched them down to further experiences in the
+dining-room.</p>
+
+<p>The Twins rapidly recovered their equanimity at lunch. They sat, as
+they always did, together on one side of the table, opposite to Robin.
+The latter conversed easily and pleasantly, though his discourse was
+dotted with homely phrases and curious little biblical turns of
+speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you been in London long, Mr Fordyce?" inquired Kitty as we
+settled down.</p>
+
+<p>"Three years," said Robin.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you have lots of friends by this time."</p>
+
+<p>"I have a good many acquaintances, but my friends in London are just
+three, all told," said Robin, in what Dilly afterwards described as "a
+disgustingly pawky manner."</p>
+
+<p>"You must be very exclusive, Mr Fordyce," chirrupped Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>"Far from it," said Robin; "as you will admit when I say that my
+three friends are a policeman, a surgeon, and a minister."</p>
+
+<p>"How quaint of you!" said Dilly.</p>
+
+<p>But Robin did not seem to think it quaint. He told us about the
+policeman first&mdash;a Highlander. Robin had made his acquaintance in
+Edinburgh, apparently about the same time that he made ours, and had
+renewed it some years later outside the House of Commons, when a
+rapturous mutual recognition had taken place. The policeman's name was
+Hector MacPherson.</p>
+
+<p>"And the surgeon?" inquired Kitty, with a certain friendly assumption
+of interest which announces (to me) that she is getting a little
+bored.</p>
+
+<p>"He is just my uncle. I go and see him, whi&mdash;now and then. He is
+a busy man."</p>
+
+<p>"And the&mdash;er&mdash;minister?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is Dr Strang. He has the Presbyterian Church in Howard Street. I
+have sat under him every Sabbath since I came to London."</p>
+
+<p>"Wh&mdash;what for?" asked Kitty involuntarily, and in a rather
+awestruck voice. Her acquaintance with the ritual of the Church of
+Scotland was hazy, and she was evidently determined to-day to be
+surprised at nothing; but evidently this mysterious reference could not
+be allowed to pass without some explanation. The Twins convulsively
+gripped each other's hands under the table. (They are of course
+perfectly bred girls&mdash;indeed, their self-possession at trying
+moments has often surprised me&mdash;but, like all the young of the
+human species, there are times when their feelings become too much for
+them. Then, if the occasion is too formal for unrestrained shrieks, they
+silently interdigitate.)</p>
+
+<p>"That is a Scottish expression," said Robin, smiling upon us. "You
+must pardon me, Mrs Inglethwaite. I should perhaps have said that I was
+an adherent of Dr Strang's church&mdash;or rather," he added with a
+curious little touch of pride, "I am a communicant now. I was just an
+adherent at first."</p>
+
+<p>We assented to this, politely but dizzily.</p>
+
+<p>Scratch a Scot and you will find a theologian. Robin was fairly
+started now; and he proceeded to enlarge upon various points of interest
+in the parallel histories (given in full) of some three or four Scottish
+denominations, interwoven with extracts from his own family archives.
+His grand-uncle, it appeared, had been a minister himself, and had
+performed the feat&mdash;to which I have occasionally heard other
+perfervid Scots refer, and never without a kindling eye&mdash;known as
+"coming out in the Forty-three."</p>
+
+<p>"That," added Robin in parenthesis, "is why my second name is
+Chalmers&mdash;after the great Doctor. You will have heard of him?"</p>
+
+<p>(Polite but insincere chorus of pleased recognition.)</p>
+
+<p>We were then treated to a brief <i>résumé</i> of the events leading
+up to a religious controversy of colossal dimensions which was at that
+moment threatening to engulf Scotland. Robin was deeply interested in
+the matter, and gave us his reasons for being so. He passed some
+scathing comments on the contumacy and narrow-mindedness of the sect who
+had the misfortune to be his opponents; and after that he proceeded to
+say a few words about Free Will and Predestination.</p>
+
+<p>By this time lunch was over, but we sat on. I nodded gravely over my
+coffee, saying "Quite so" when occasion seemed to demand it. Kitty was
+completely out of her depth, but still maintained a brave appearance of
+interest. It was the Twins who brought the <i>séance</i> to a close.
+Placing their hands before their mouths, they with difficulty stifled a
+pair of cavernous yawns.</p>
+
+<p>Next moment they were sorry. Robin stopped dead, flushed up, and
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs Inglethwaite, I am sorry. I have been most inconsiderate and
+rude. I have wearied you all. The truth is," he continued quite simply,
+"it is so long since I sat at meat with friends, that I have lost the
+art of conversation. I just run on, like&mdash;like a leading article. I
+have not conversed with a woman, except once or twice across a counter,
+for nearly three years."</p>
+
+<p>There was a rather tense pause. Then Dolly said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We're awfully sorry, Mr Fordyce. It was very rude of us. We quite
+understand now, don't we, Dilly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather," said Dilly. "It was horrible of us, Mr Fordyce. But we
+thought you were just an ordinary bore."</p>
+
+<p>"Children!" said Kitty.</p>
+
+<p>"But what you have told us makes things quite different, doesn't it,
+Dolly?" continued Dilly.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite&mdash;absolutely," said Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>And they smiled upon him, quite maternally. And so the incident
+passed.</p>
+
+<p>"How queer, not talking to a woman for three years!" continued Dolly
+reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>"How <i>awful</i> it would be not to talk to a man for three years!"
+said Dilly, with obvious sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>"There is little opportunity for social intercourse," said Robin, "to
+a man who comes to London to sink or swim."</p>
+
+<p>The conversation was again taking a slightly sombre turn, and I
+struck in&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I hope, Mr Fordyce, that a few weeks' experience of my
+establishment won't have the effect of making you regret your previous
+celibate existence."</p>
+
+<p>Dolly and Dilly looked at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Dolly," said Dilly, "is that an insult?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"Insulting enough to be punishable?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Come on!"</p>
+
+<p>They fell upon me, and the next few minutes were devoted to what I
+believe is known in pantomime circles as a Grand Rally, which
+necessitated my going upstairs afterwards and changing my collar.</p>
+
+<p>Robin was not present at tea, and my household took advantage of his
+absence to run over his points.</p>
+
+<p>Considering that a woman&mdash;especially a young woman&mdash;judges
+a man almost entirely by his manner and appearance, and dislikes him
+exceedingly if he proceeds to dominate the situation to her
+exclusion&mdash;unless, by the way, he has her permission and authority
+so to do, in which case he cannot do so too much&mdash;the verdict
+delivered upon my absent secretary was not by any means unfavourable,
+though, of course, there was much to criticise.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll do," said Dilly; "but you must get his hair cut, Adrian."</p>
+
+<p>"And tell him about not wearing that sort of tie, dear," said
+Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he can't help his accent," sighs Kitty.</p>
+
+<p>But their criticisms were limited to such trifles as these, and I
+felt that Robin had done me credit.</p>
+
+<p>Dilly summed up the situation.</p>
+
+<p>"I think on the whole that he is rather a pet," she said.</p>
+
+<p>A more thoroughly unsuitable description could not have been
+imagined, but Dolly agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"He has nice eyes, too," she added.</p>
+
+<p>"He was perfectly sweet with Phillis after lunch," said Kitty. "Took
+her on his knee at once, and talked to her just as if we weren't there.
+That's a good test of a man, if you like!"</p>
+
+<p>"True for you," I agreed. "I could not do it with other people's
+children to save my life."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you are hopeless," said Dilly. "<i>Far</i> too self-conscious
+and dignified to climb down to the level of children, isn't he, Dolly?"
+She crinkled her nose.</p>
+
+<p>Dolly for once was not listening.</p>
+
+<p>"What was that weird stuff the Secretary Bird spouted when you showed
+Phillis to him, Kit? About her being forward, or coy, or something. It
+sounded rather cheek, to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I remember," said Dilly. "Can you do the way he said it?
+'Sometimes forrrwarrrd, sometimes coy, she neverrr fails to pullllease!'
+Like that! Gracious, how it hurts to talk Scotch!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, dear," said my wife thoughtfully. "It sounded rather
+quaint. But I daresay all Scotch people are like that," she added
+charitably.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it was a quotation," I observed mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, that would be it. What is it out of?"</p>
+
+<p>"A song called 'Phillis is my only Joy,' I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, then you may depend upon it," said Kitty, with the air of one
+solving a mystery, "that is what the man was doing&mdash;<i>quoting</i>!
+Burns, probably, or Scott, perhaps. How clever of him to think of it!
+And do you know," she continued, "he said such a nice thing to me. While
+you were bear-fighting with the Twins after lunch, Adrian, I said to
+him: 'Pity me, Mr Fordyce! My husband never ceases to express to me his
+regret that he did not marry one of my sisters.' And he answered at
+once, quite seriously, without stopping to think it out or
+anything:&mdash;'I am sure, Mrs Inglethwaite, that his regret must be
+shared by countless old admirers of yours!' Wasn't it rather sweet of
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>Further conversation was prevented by the opening of the drawing-room
+door, where the butler appeared and announced "Mr Dubberley."</p>
+
+<p>Dubberley is a pillar of our party. I can best describe him by saying
+that although I hold office under a Conservative Government, ten
+minutes' conversation with Dubberley leaves me a confirmed Radical, and
+anything like a protracted interview with him converts me into a
+Socialist for the next twenty-four hours. A week-end in his society, and
+I should probably buy a red shirt and send out for bombs. He is a good
+fellow at bottom, and of immense service to the party; but he is the
+most blatant ass I have ever met. There are Dubberleys on both sides of
+the House, however, which is a comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Robin joined us almost directly after Dubberley's entrance, just in
+time to hear that great man conclude the preamble of his discourse for
+the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>There had been a good deal of talk in the papers of late about
+improving the means of transport throughout the country; and the
+nationalisation of railways and other semi-socialistic schemes had
+filled the air. Dubberley, it appeared, had out of his own gigantic
+intellect evolved a panacea for congestion of traffic, highness of
+rates, and railway mortality.</p>
+
+<p>He was well launched in his subject when Robin entered and was
+introduced.</p>
+
+<p>"As I was saying," he continued, waving an emphatic teaspoon in the
+direction of the sofa where the ladies sat, smiling but limp,&mdash;even
+the Twins knew it was useless to stem this tide,&mdash;"as I was saying,
+the solution of the problem lies in the revival of our far-reaching but
+sadly neglected system of <i>canals</i>. Yes! If we go to the very root
+of the matter"&mdash;Dubberley is one of those fortunate persons who
+never has to dig far in his researches&mdash;"we find that our whole
+hope of regeneration lies in the single, simple, homely
+word&mdash;Canals! Revive your canals, send your goods by canal, travel
+yourself by&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How long, Mr Dubberley," interpolated Robin, leaning
+forward&mdash;"how long do you consider one would take to travel, say, a
+hundred miles by canal?"</p>
+
+<p>"Under our present antiquated system, sir,"&mdash;Dubberley rather
+prides himself on preserving the courtly fashions of address of a bygone
+age,&mdash;"an impossibly long time. The average speed of a canal-boat
+at the present day under the ministrations of that overburdened and
+inadequate quadruped, the&mdash;er&mdash;horse, is three miles per hour.
+Indeed&mdash;one moment!"</p>
+
+<p>Dubberley fished a sheaf of documents out of his pocket&mdash;he is
+the sort of man who habitually secrets statistics and blue-books about
+his person&mdash;and after stertorously perusing them closed his eyes
+for a moment, as if to work out a sum upon an internal blackboard, and
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I see no reason why swift canal-boats should not be constructed to
+run fifteen, twenty, or even twenty-five miles per hour. Indeed, in
+these days of turbines&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Robin put down his cup rather emphatically, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mphm."</p>
+
+<p>(It is quite impossible to reproduce this extraordinary Caledonian
+expletive in writing, but that is as near to it as I can get.) Then he
+continued urbanely&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Then you would organise a service of fast turbine steamers running
+all over the canal systems of the country?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. Or let us say&mdash;er&mdash;launches," said Dubberley. "I
+must not overstate my case."</p>
+
+<p>"Travelling twenty miles an hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say fifteen, sir," said Dubberley magnanimously.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Dubberley," said Robin, in a voice which made us all jump, "have
+you a bathroom in your house?"</p>
+
+<p>Even the Twins, who were growing a trifle lethargic under the
+technicalities of the subject, roused themselves at this fresh turn of
+the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;eh&mdash;I beg your pardon?" said Dubberley, a trifle
+disconcerted.</p>
+
+<p>"A bathroom," repeated Robin&mdash;"with a good long bath in it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr Dubberley, when you go home this afternoon, go upstairs and
+fill the bath with water. Then take a large bath-sponge&mdash;something
+nearly as broad as the bath&mdash;and sweep it along from end to end,
+about a foot below the surface, at a speed of fifteen miles per
+hour&mdash;that will be twenty-two feet per second&mdash;and see what
+happens!"</p>
+
+<p>Robin had unconsciously dropped into what I may call his
+debating-society manner. His chin stuck out, and his large chest heaved,
+and he scooped the air, as if it had been the water of Dubberley's bath,
+with one of Kitty's priceless Worcester teacups.</p>
+
+<p>Dubberley sat completely demoralised, palpitating like a stranded
+frog.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," continued Robin, "you would observe the result of placing a
+partly submerged and rapidly moving body in a shallow and restricted
+waterway. You would kick half the water right out of the canal to begin
+with, and the other half would pile itself up into a wave under your bow
+big enough to offer an almost immovable resistance to the progress of
+your vessel."</p>
+
+<p>He leaned back and surveyed the bemused Dubberley with complete and
+obvious satisfaction. We all sat round breathless, feeling much as
+Sidney Smith must have felt when some one spoke disrespectfully of the
+Equator. Great was the fall of Dubberley. He moved, perhaps
+instinctively, in a society where he was seldom contradicted and never
+argued with. One does not argue with a gramophone. And here this raw
+Scottish youth, with the awful thoroughness and relentless common-sense
+of his race, had taken the very words out of his mouth, torn them to
+shreds, and thrust them down his throat.</p>
+
+<p>I am afraid I chuckled. The Twins sat hand in hand, with dreamy eyes
+staring straight before them. They were conjuring up a joyous vision of
+Dubberley, in his shirt-sleeves, meekly refuting one of his own theories
+by means of a childish and sloppy experiment in practical hydrodynamics
+in his own bathroom.</p>
+
+<p>I give this incident as a fair example of Robin's point of view and
+methods of action on questions which I for one would never dream of
+debating. He was entirely lacking in an art which I am told I possess to
+perfection&mdash;that of suffering fools gladly. Its possession has
+raised me to an Under-Secretaryship. People who should know tell me that
+it will also prevent my ever rising to anything higher.</p>
+
+<p>"We had a taste of our friend's quality this afternoon," I remarked
+to my household when we met for dinner that evening. "He is a
+thorough-going warrior. Fancy any man taking all that trouble to lay out
+old Dubberley!"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Mr Dubberley!" said tender-hearted Kitty.</p>
+
+<p>"Do him good!" said Dilly, in whose recollection Dubberley's past
+enormities loomed large. "I shall be nice to the Secretary Bird
+now."</p>
+
+<p>Dolly said nothing, which was unusual. Perhaps the brown spot still
+rankled.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="chapter05" id="chapter05">CHAPTER FIVE.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>ROBIN ON DUTY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Beyond the fact that they are all desperately in earnest, all know
+each other, and occupy all the most responsible and lucrative posts on
+the face of the earth, Scotsmen are a class with whose characteristics I
+am not well acquainted. But I learned a great deal from my new
+secretary.</p>
+
+<p>Robin soon settled down to work. He not only performed his duties
+with zeal and discretion, but he kept me up to mine. He hounded me
+through the routine work of my Department; he verified my references; he
+managed my correspondence; and he frequently drafted my speeches. He
+even prepared some of my impromptus. Indeed, my&mdash;or rather
+his&mdash;description of a certain member of the other side, a lesser
+light of the last Government, a worthy man, always put up to explain
+matters when his leader had decided that honesty on this occasion was
+the best policy, as "a political niblick, always employed to get his
+party out of bad lies," won me more applause and popularity in a House
+of enthusiastic golfers than endless weeks of honest toil behind the
+scenes had ever done.</p>
+
+<p>But I learned more from Robin than that. I suppose I am a typical
+specimen of Conservative officialdom. Until Robin came into my house it
+had never occurred to me to ask myself why I was a Conservative: I had
+been born one, and it was difficult for me to understand how any man of
+ordinary intelligence could be anything else.</p>
+
+<p>My father and grandfather were Conservative members before me, and I
+come of a line which has always feared God, honoured the King, paid its
+tithes, and tried to do something for the poor; and which regards
+Radicals, Socialists, Nonconformists, and criminal lunatics as much the
+same class of person. The only difference between myself and my
+forebears is that I am much too pacific (or lazy) to cherish any
+animosity against people whose views differ from my own. This fact,
+coupled with certain family traditions, has brought me to my present
+position in life; and, as I have already indicated, it will probably
+keep me there. At least, so Kitty says.</p>
+
+<p>"You must <i>assert</i> yourself, dear," she declares. "Be
+<i>rude</i> to people, and go on being rude! Then they will take notice
+of you and give you nice big posts to keep you quiet. Do you know what
+the Premier said about you the other night at dinner, to Lady Bindle?
+(She told Dicky Lever, and he told the Twins.) 'Inglethwaite? A dear
+fellow, a sound party man, and runs his Department admirably.
+But&mdash;he strikes only on the box!' Pig!"</p>
+
+<p>It was about this time that Robin became a member of our
+establishment. I had no idea what his political views were&mdash;it was
+just like me not to have asked him, Kitty said&mdash;but felt confident
+that whatever side he supported he would do so hot and strong.</p>
+
+<p>But at first he gave no indication of his leanings. It was not until
+we sat one night over our wine, in company with John Champion (member
+for a big northern constituency, and regarded by many, notwithstanding
+various eccentricities, as the coming man of the party) that he first
+gave definite utterance to his views.</p>
+
+<p>The cigars had gone round, and we had just performed that mysterious
+national rite which, whether it owes its existence to economy or
+politeness, invariably ends in several people burning their fingers with
+the same match.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose, Mr Fordyce," said Champion, who had not met Robin before,
+but obviously liked him, "that in common with all Scotsmen you are at
+heart a Radical."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I?" said Robin, with native caution.</p>
+
+<p>"Most of your countrymen are," said Champion, with a sigh. "'They
+think too much'&mdash;you know the rest of the quotation, I expect."</p>
+
+<p>Robin nodded.</p>
+
+<p>I was a little scandalised at this flagrant tribute to the enemy, and
+said so.</p>
+
+<p>Champion laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a whole-hearted old war-horse, Adrian. I envy you.
+Sometimes, I wish that I&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"For mercy's sake don't go and say that you are a Radical at heart
+too," I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"N-n-o. But isn't it rot, the whole business?"</p>
+
+<p>"What whole business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ask Mr Fordyce there. He will tell you. I see it in his eye."</p>
+
+<p>"What is rot, Robin?" I asked. "Party government?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Robin, quite explosively for him. "It is such a
+scandalous waste of power and material." He laid down his cigar. "Man,
+it's just pitiful. Consider! A party is returned to office. With great
+care and discrimination a Cabinet is chosen. It is composed of men who
+are mainly honest and patriotic. They are not necessarily men of genius,
+but they are all men of undoubted ability, and they are genuinely
+anxious to do their duty by the country. Now observe." (As a matter of
+fact he said "obsairrve.") "How is this energy and ability expended?
+About half of it&mdash;fifty per cent&mdash;goes in devising means to
+baffle the assaults of the Opposition and so retain a precarious hold on
+office. Sir, it's just ludicrous! Instead of concentrating their efforts
+upon&mdash;upon&mdash;I want a metaphor, Mr Champion."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon steering the ship of State," said Champion, with a twinkle in
+his eye.</p>
+
+<p>"That'll do, fine.&mdash;Upon steering the ship of State, they have
+to devote half their time and energy to dodging the missiles of their
+shipmates. That is what I mean when I say the thing is pitiful. What
+should we think of the sanity of an ordinary ship's company, if the man
+at the wheel had to spend half his time up in the rigging because a
+minority of his messmates wanted to throw him overboard?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you are putting the case too strongly," I said. "The
+criticism of a healthy public opinion is no bad thing. Besides, your
+Cabinet still have fifty per cent of their energy left. What do they do
+with that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of that," said Champion, joining in, "about forty per cent is wasted
+on mere parade&mdash;dummy legislation&mdash;bills that never will be
+passed, and which no sensible man has any desire should be passed,
+except in a mutilated and useless condition; bills merely brought
+forward by the Government as a sop to the extreme wing of their own
+party. It doesn't matter which side is in power. If they are Liberals,
+they have to propose a few socialistic and iconoclastic measures,
+secretly thanking God for the House of Lords all the while. If they are
+Conservatives, they propitiate the Landlords and the Church by putting
+forward some outrageously retrograde proposal or other, secure in the
+knowledge that it will be knocked on the head by the halfpenny papers.
+Of the remaining ten per cent&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"About nine," resumed Robin, "is appropriated automatically to
+absolutely essential routine business, like the Budget and
+Supply&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And the remaining one per cent," struck in Champion, "is devoted to
+real live Legislation."</p>
+
+<p>Then they both looked at me, this pair of carping pessimists, rather
+furtively, like two fags who have allowed their tongues to wag over
+freely in the presence of a monitor. It was a curious tribute to the
+power of officialdom, for they were both far bigger men, in every sense,
+than I. Finally Champion laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look so horrified, Adrian," he said. "Mr Fordyce and I croak
+too much. Still, you will find a grain or two of sense among the chaff,
+as Jack Point says."</p>
+
+<p>But I was not to be smoothed down so easily.</p>
+
+<p>"According to you fellows," I grumbled, as I passed the port, "there
+is practically no difference between one political party and
+another."</p>
+
+<p>"None whatever," said Champion cheerfully&mdash;"not between the
+<i>backbones</i> of the parties, that is. Of course excrescences don't
+count. Tell me, Adrian, what bill, barring one or two contentious
+semi-religious measures, has ultimately reached the Statute Book during
+the last twenty years that might not have been put there by either party
+without any violent departure from its principles? Not one! Foreign
+policy, again. Does it make any difference to our position in the world
+which party is in office nowadays? Not a scrap. The difference between
+the two sides is immaterial. There is often a far deeper line of
+cleavage between two sections of the same party than between party and
+party. We make faces at each other, it is true; and one side plumes
+itself on the moral support of Royalty and the aristocracy, while the
+other always bawls out that it has the inviolable will of the people at
+its back,&mdash;I daresay one assertion is about as true as the
+other&mdash;but I don't think there is a pennyworth of difference,
+really. There used to be a lot, mind you, when the Plebs were really
+struggling for a footing in the scheme of things; but bless you! we are
+all more or less in the same crowd now. Just a difference of label,
+that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"There was a story my dominie used to tell," said Robin, who had been
+listening to this diatribe with rapt attention, "about a visitor to a
+seaside hotel, who ordered a bottle of wine. The boy brought up the
+wrong kind, so the visitor sent for the landlord and pointed out the
+mistake, adducing the label on the bottle as evidence. 'I'm very sorry,
+sir, I'm sure,' said the landlord, 'but I'll soon put it right. Boy,
+bring another label!' An old story, I am afraid, but it seems to me to
+put Party goverment into a nutshell."</p>
+
+<p>I rose, and began to replace the stoppers in the decanters. I was
+feeling rather cross. I hate having my settled convictions tampered
+with. They are not elastic, and this makes them brittle, and I always
+feel nervous about their stability when the intellectual pressure of an
+argument grows intense.</p>
+
+<p>"When you two have abolished the British Constitution," I remarked
+tartly, "what do you propose to substitute for the present
+<i>régime</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"'There,'" said Champion, "as the charwoman replied when asked for a
+character, 'you <i>'ave</i> me.' Let us join the ladies."</p>
+
+<p>But I was still angry.</p>
+
+<p>"It always seems best to me," I persisted doggedly, "to take up a
+good sound line of action and stick to it, and to choose a good sound
+party and stick to that. Half a glass of sherry before we go
+upstairs?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, thanks. That is why I envy you, Adrian," said Champion. "It's a
+wearing business for us, being so&mdash;so&mdash;what shall we call it,
+Mr Fordyce?"</p>
+
+<p>"Detached?" suggested Robin.</p>
+
+<p>"That's it."</p>
+
+<p>"Two-faced would be a better word," I growled.</p>
+
+<p>Champion clapped me on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Adrian," said he, "in time of peace there is always a large,
+critical, neutral, and infernally irritating party, for ever
+philandering betwixt and between two extremes of opinion. But when war
+is declared and it comes to a fight, the ranks close up. There is no
+room for detachment, and there are no neutrals. When occasion calls,
+you'll find all your friends&mdash;your half-hearted, carping, Erastian
+friends&mdash;ranged up tight beside you. Shall we be trapesing about in
+Tom Tiddler's ground when the pinch comes, Mr Fordyce&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never fear!" said Robin.</p>
+
+<p>And I am bound to say that we all of us lived to see John Champion's
+assertion made good.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter06" id="chapter06">CHAPTER SIX.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>ROBIN OFF DUTY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>I have yet to introduce to the indulgent reader two more members of
+the family into which I have married.</p>
+
+<p>The first of these is my daughter Phillis, of whom I have already
+made passing mention. She is six years old, and appears to be compounded
+of about equal parts of angelic innocence and original sin. In her
+dealings with her fellow-creatures she exhibits all the <i>sangfroid</i>
+and self-possession that mark the modern child. She will be a "handful"
+some day, the Twins tell me, and they ought to know. However, pending
+the arrival of the time when she will begin to rend the hearts of young
+men, she contents herself for the present with practising that
+accomplishment with complete and lamentable success upon her own
+garments.</p>
+
+<p>She is the possessor of a vivid imagination, which she certainly does
+not inherit from me, and is fond of impersonating other people, either
+characters of her own creation or interesting figures from story-books.
+Consequently it is never safe to address her too suddenly. She may be a
+fairy, or a bear, or a locomotive at the moment, and will resent having
+to return to her proper self, even for a brief space, merely to listen
+to some stupid and irrelevant remark&mdash;usually something about
+bed-time or an open door&mdash;from an unintelligent adult.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty says that I spoil her, but that is only because Kitty is
+quicker at saying a thing than I am. She is our only child; and I
+sometimes wonder, at moments of acute mental introspection (say, in the
+night watches after an indigestible supper), what we should do without
+her.</p>
+
+<p>The other character waiting for introduction is my brother-in-law,
+Master Gerald Rubislaw. He is the solitary male member of the family of
+which my wife and the Twins form the female side. He is, I think,
+fourteen years of age, and he is at present a member of what he
+considers&mdash;very rightly, I think; and I should know, for I was
+there myself&mdash;the finest public school in the world. Having no
+parents, he resides at my house during his holidays, and refreshes me
+exceedingly.</p>
+
+<p>He is a sturdy but rather diminutive youth, with a loud voice. (He
+always addresses me as if I were standing on a distant hill-top.) He
+bears a resemblance to his sisters of which he is heartily and frankly
+ashamed, and which he endeavours at times to nullify as far as possible
+by a degree of personal uncleanliness which would be alarming to me,
+were it not that the traditions of my own extreme youth have not yet
+been entirely obliterated from my memory.</p>
+
+<p>His health is excellent, and his intellect is in that condition
+euphemistically described in house-master's reports as "unformed." He is
+always noisy, constitutionally lazy, and hopelessly casual. But he
+possesses the supreme merit of being absolutely and transparently
+honest. I have never known him tell a lie or do a mean thing. To such
+much is forgiven.</p>
+
+<p>At present he appears to possess only two ambitions in life; one, to
+gain a place in his Junior House Fifteen, and the other, to score some
+signal and lasting victory over his form-master, a Mr Sydney Mellar,
+with whom he appears to wage a sort of perpetual guerilla warfare. Every
+vacation brings him home with a fresh tale of base subterfuges, petty
+tyrannies, and childish exhibitions of spite on the part of the infamous
+Mellar, all duly frustrated, crushed, and made ridiculous by the
+ingenuity, resource, and audacity of the intrepid Rubislaw. I have never
+met Mr Mellar in the flesh, but I am conscious, as time goes on and my
+young relative's reminiscences on the subject accumulate, of an
+increasing feeling of admiration and respect for him.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a rotten brute," observed Gerald one day. "Do you know what he
+had the cheek to do last term?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there was a clinking new desk put into our form-room, at the
+back. I sit there," he added rather <i>naďvely</i>. "As soon as I saw
+it, of course I got out my knife and started to carve my name. I made
+good big letters, as I wanted to do the thing properly on a fine new
+desk like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Was this during school hours?" I ventured to inquire.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it was. Do you think a chap would be such a silly ass as
+to want to come in specially to carve his name during play-hours, when
+he's got the whole of his school-time to do it in?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had not thought of that," I said apologetically.</p>
+
+<p>"And don't go putting on side of that sort, Adrian, old man," roared
+Gerald, in what a stranger would have regarded as a most threatening
+voice, though I knew it was merely the one he keeps for moments of
+playful badinage. "I saw <i>your</i> name carved in letters about four
+inches high in the Fifth Form room only the other day. I don't see how
+you can jaw a man for doing a thing you used to do yourself thirty or
+forty years ago."</p>
+
+<p>I allowed this reflection on my appearance to pass without protest,
+and Gerald resumed his story.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I did a first-class G to begin with, and was well on with the
+Rubislaw&mdash;all in capitals: I thought it would look best that
+way&mdash;when suddenly a great hand reached over my shoulder and
+grabbed my knife. It was Stinker, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"St&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I forgot to tell you that. We call him 'Stinker' now. You see,
+his name is S. Mellar, and if you say it quickly it sounds like
+'Smeller.' So we call him 'Stinker.' It was a kid called Lane thought of
+it. Pretty smart&mdash;eh? Oh, he's a clever chap, I can tell you,"
+yelled Gerald, with sincere enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"He must be a youth of gigantic intellect," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come off the roof! Well, Stinker grabbed my knife, and said,
+'Hallo, young man, what's all this? Handing down your name to
+posterity&mdash;eh?' with a silly grin on his face.</p>
+
+<p>"I said I was just carving my name.</p>
+
+<p>"'I see you have just finished it,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't quite tumble to his meaning at first, because I had only
+got as far as G. RUB,&mdash;and then I saw that the whole thing as it
+stood spelled 'GRUB.' Lord, how the swine laughed! He told the form all
+about it, and of course they all laughed too, the sniggering, grovelling
+sweeps!</p>
+
+<p>"Then Stinker said: 'A happy thought has just occurred to me. I shall
+not have your name obliterated in the usual manner'&mdash;they cut it
+out and put in a fresh bit of wood, and charge you a bob&mdash;' this
+time. I have thought of a more excellent way.' (He always talks like
+that, in a sort of slow drawl.) 'We will leave your name exactly as you
+have carved it. But remember, young man, not another letter do you add
+to that name so long as you are a member of this school. A Grub you
+are,&mdash;a nasty little destructive Grub,&mdash;and a Grub you shall
+remain, so far as that desk is concerned, for all time. And if ever in
+future years you come down here as a distinguished Old Boy&mdash;say a
+K.C.B. or an Alderman,&mdash;remember to bring your numerous
+progeny'&mdash;oh, he's a sarcastic devil!&mdash;'to this room, and show
+them what their papa once was!'</p>
+
+<p>"Of course all the chaps roared again, at the idea of me with a lot
+of kids. But that wasn't all. He switched off <i>that</i> tap quite
+suddenly, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Seriously, though, I am not pleased about this. Carving your name
+on a desk is not one of the seven deadly sins, but doing so when I have
+told you not to <i>is</i>. This silly street-boy business has been
+getting too prevalent lately: we shall have you chalking things up on
+the walls next. I particularly gave out last week, when this new desk
+was put in, that no one was to touch it. Come to me at twelve, and I
+will cane you.' And he <i>did</i>," concluded Gerald, with feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"What a shame!" said Dilly, who was sitting by. "All for carving a
+silly old desk."</p>
+
+<p>"He was perfectly right," said Gerald, his innate sense of justice
+rising to the surface at once. "I wasn't lammed for cutting the desk at
+all: it was for doing it after I had been told not to."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the same thing," said Dilly, with feminine disregard for legal
+niceties.</p>
+
+<p>"Same thing? Rot! Fat lot you know about it, Dilly. It's a rum
+thing," he added to me in a reflective bawl, "but women never can
+understand the rules of any game. Stinker is a bargee, but he was quite
+right to lam me. It was for disobedience; and disobedience is cheek; and
+no master worth his salt will stand cheek. So Stinker says, and he is
+right for once."</p>
+
+<p>Gerald is the possessor of a bosom friend, an excessively silent and
+rather saturnine youth of about his own age. His name is Donkin, and he
+regards Gerald, so far as I can see, with a grim mixture of amusement
+and compassion. He pays frequent visits to my house, as his father is a
+soldier in India; and he is much employed by the Twins for corroborating
+or refuting the more improbable of their brother's reminiscences.</p>
+
+<p>Robin soon made friends with the boys. Like most of their kind, their
+tests of human probity were few and simple: and having discovered that
+Robin not only played Rugby football, but had on several occasions
+represented Edinburgh University thereat, they straightway wrote him
+down a "decent chap" and took the rest of his virtues for granted.</p>
+
+<p>It came upon them&mdash;and me too, as a matter of fact&mdash;as
+rather a shock one evening, when Robin, during the course of a desultory
+conversation on education in general, suddenly launched forth <i>more
+ suo</i> into a diatribe against the English Public School system.</p>
+
+<p>English boys, he pointed out, were passed through a great machine,
+which ground up the individual at one end and disgorged a mere type at
+the other&mdash;("Pretty good type too, Robin," from me),&mdash;they
+were taught to worship bodily strength&mdash;("Quite right too!" said my
+herculean brother-in-law),&mdash;they were herded together under a
+monastic system; they were removed from the refining influence of female
+society&mdash;(even the imperturable Donkin snorted at this),&mdash;and
+worst of all, little or nothing was done to eradicate from their minds
+the youthful idea that it is unmanly to read seriously or think
+deeply.</p>
+
+<p>I might have said a good deal in reply. I might have dwelt upon the
+fact that the English Public School system is not so hard upon the
+stupid boy&mdash;which means the average boy&mdash;as that of more
+strenuous forcing-houses of intellect abroad. I might have spoken of one
+or two moral agents which prevent our schools from being altogether
+despicable: unquestioning obedience to authority, for instance, or
+loyalty to tradition. I might have told of characters moulded and fibres
+stiffened by responsibility&mdash;our race bears more responsibility on
+its shoulders than all the rest of the world put together&mdash;or of
+minds trained to interpret laws and balance justice in the small but
+exacting world of the prefects' meeting and the games' committee. But it
+was Gerald, who is no moralist, but a youth of sound common-sense, who
+closed the argument.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Fordyce," he said, "it's no use <i>my</i> jawing to you, because
+you can knock me flat at that game; and of course old Moke
+there"&mdash;this was Master Donkin's unhappy but inevitable designation
+among his friends&mdash;"is too thick to argue with a stuffed rabbit;
+but you had better come down some time and see the place&mdash;that's
+all."</p>
+
+<p>Robin promised to suspend judgment pending a personal investigation,
+and the incident closed.</p>
+
+<p>Gerald's verdict on Robin's views, communicated to me privately
+afterwards, was characteristic but not unfavourable.</p>
+
+<p>"He seems to have perfectly putrid notions about some things, but
+he's a pretty sound chap on the whole&mdash;the best secretary you have
+had, anyhow, old man. Have you seen him do a straight-arm balance on the
+billiard-table?"</p>
+
+<p>But I did not fully realise how completely Robin had settled down as
+an accepted member of my household until one afternoon towards the end
+of the Christmas holidays.</p>
+
+<p>There is a small but snug apartment opening out of my library,
+through an arched and curtained doorway. The library is regarded as my
+workroom&mdash;impregnable, inviolable; not to be rudely attempted by
+devastating housemaids. There is a sort of tacit agreement between Kitty
+and myself as regards this apartment. Fatima-like, she may do what she
+pleases with the rest of the house. She may indulge her passion for
+drawing-room meetings to its fullest extent. She may intertain
+missionaries in the attics and hold meetings of the Dorcas Society in
+the basement. She may give reformed burglars the run of the
+silver-closet, and allow curates and chorus-girls to mingle in sweet
+companionship on the staircase. But she must leave the library alone,
+and neither she nor her following must overflow through its double doors
+during what I call business hours.</p>
+
+<p>On this particular afternoon I had been engaged upon the draft of a
+small bill with which I had been entrusted&mdash;we will call it the
+"Importation of Mad Dogs Bill,"&mdash;and about four o'clock I handed it
+to Robin with instructions to write out a fair copy. Robin retired into
+his inner chamber, and I sat down in an arm-chair with <i>Punch</i>. (It
+was a Wednesday, the Parliamentary half-holiday of those days, and
+still, happily, the <i>Punch</i>-day of these.)</p>
+
+<p>Kitty was holding a Drawing-room Meeting upstairs. I forget what
+description of body she was entertaining: it was either a Society for
+the Propagation of something which could never, in the nature of things,
+come to birth; or else an Association for the Prevention of something
+that was bound to go on so long as the world endured. I had been
+mercifully absolved from attending, and my tea had been sent in to me. I
+was enjoying an excellent caricature of my Chief in the minor cartoon of
+<i>Punch</i>, when I heard the door of the inner room open and the voice
+of my daughter inquire&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Are you <i>drefful</i> busy, Uncle Robin?" (My secretary had been
+elevated to avuncular rank after a probation of just three hours.)</p>
+
+<p>There was a sound as of a chair being pushed back, and a rustle which
+suggested the hasty laying aside of a manuscript, and Robin's voice
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Come away, Philly!" (This is a favourite Scoticism of Robin's, and
+appears to be a term denoting hearty welcome.)</p>
+
+<p>There was a delighted squeal and the sound of pattering feet. Next
+ensued a period of rather audible osculation, and then there was
+silence. Presently Phillis said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What shall we do? Shall I sing you a hymn?"</p>
+
+<p>Evidently the revels were about to commence.</p>
+
+<p>"I have just learned a new one," she continued. "I heared it in
+Church yesterday afternoon, so I brought it home and changed it a bit.
+It's called 'Onward, Chwistian Sailors!'"</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Soldiers</i>,' isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;'<i>Sailors</i>.' It <i>was</i> 'Soldiers,' but I like
+sailors much better than soldiers, so I changed it. I'll sing it
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till Sunday," said Robin, with much presence of mind. "Will you
+not tell me a story?"</p>
+
+<p>This idea appeared so good that Phillis began forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>"Once there were three horses what lived in a stable. Two was wise
+and one was just a foolish young horse. There was some wolves what lived
+quite near the stable&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wolves?" said my secretary, in tones of mild surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"The stable," explained Phillis, "stood in the midst of the snowy
+plains of Muscovy. I should have telled you that before."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," said Robin gravely. "Go on."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, one day," continued the narratress's voice through the
+curtains&mdash;I knew the story by heart, so I was able to fill up the
+gaps for myself when she dropped to a confidential whisper&mdash;"one
+cold, windy, berleak day, the old wolves said to the young ones, 'How
+about a meal of meat?' and all the young one's said, 'Oh,
+<i>let's</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>"That very morning," continued Phillis in the impressive bass which
+she reserves for the most exciting parts of her narrative, "that
+<i>very</i> morning the foolish young horse said to the old horses, 'Who
+is for a scamper to-day?' Then he began to wiggle and wiggle at his
+halter. The old horses said, 'There is wolves outside, and our master
+says that they eat all sheep an' cattle an' horses,' But the young horse
+just wiggled and wiggled,"&mdash;I could hear my daughter suiting the
+action to the word upon her audience's knee,&mdash;"and pwesently his
+halter was off! Then out he rushed, kicking up the nimble snow with his
+feathery heels, and&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>Robin, who was automatically murmuring something about transferred
+epithets, apologised for this pedantic lapse, and the tale
+proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, just as he was goin' to have one more scamper, he felt a
+growl&mdash;a awful, fearful, deep <i>growl</i>,"&mdash;Phillis's voice
+sank to a bloodcurdling and continuous gurgle&mdash;"and he terrembled,
+like this! I'll show you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She slipped off Robin's knee, and I knew that she was now on the
+hearth-rug, simulating acute palsy for his benefit.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he felt somefing on his back, then somefing further up his
+back, then a bite at his neck; and then he felt his head bitten off, and
+he died. Now you tell me one."</p>
+
+<p>"Which?"</p>
+
+<p>Phillis considered.</p>
+
+<p>"The one about the Kelpie and the Wee Bit Lassie."</p>
+
+<p>Robin obliged. At first he stumbled a little, and had to be prompted
+in hoarse whispers by Phillis (who apparently had heard the story
+several times before); but as the narrative progressed and the
+adventures of the wee bit lassie grew more enthralling and the Kelpie
+more terrifying, he became almost as immersed as his audience. When I
+peeped through the curtain they were both sitting on the hearth-rug
+pressed close together, Phillis gripping one of Robin's enormous hands
+in a pleasurable condition of terrified interest. The fair copy of the
+"Importation of Mad Dogs Bill," I regret to say, lay on the floor under
+the table. I retired to my arm-chair.</p>
+
+<p>"The Kelpie," Robin continued, "came closer and closer behind her.
+Already she could feel a hot breath on her neck." (So could Robin on
+his, for that matter.) "But she did not give in. She ran faster and
+faster until&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You've forgotten to say she could hear its webbed feet going <i>pad
+ pad</i> over the slippery stanes," interpolated Phillis anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"So I did. I'm sorry. She could hear its webbed feet going <i>pad
+ pad</i> over the slippery stanes. Presently though, she came to a wee
+bit housie on the moor. It was empty, but she slippit through the
+yard-gate and flew along the path and in at the door. The Kelpie came
+flying through the gate&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no&mdash;it loupit ower the dyke!" screamed Phillis, who would
+countenance no tamperings with the original text.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. It loupit ower the dyke, but the wee lassie just slammed
+the door in its face, and turned the key. Then she felt round in the
+dark and keeked about, wondering what kind of place she was in. And at
+that very moment, through a bit window in the wall&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She went ben first."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. She went ben; and at that very moment, through the bit
+window in the back-end of the house, there came a ray of light. The
+sun&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The sun had risen," declaimed Phillis, triumphantly taking up the
+tale; "and with one wild sheriek of disappointed rage the Kelpie
+vanished away, and the wee lassie was <i>saved</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a rapt pause after this exciting anecdote. Then Phillis
+remarked&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Robin, let's write that story down, and then I can get people
+to read it to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not write it down for yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't write&mdash;much; and it ought to be writed in ink, and
+I&mdash;I am only allowed to use pencil," explained my daughter, not
+without a certain bitterness. "But I put the lead in my mouf," she added
+defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the door of my apartment was hurled open, and Gerald
+projected himself into the room. It was the evening before his return to
+school, and there was a predatory look in his eye. He was accompanied by
+his speechless friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Adrian, old son," he began, in such tones as an orator might address
+to a refractory mob, "Moke and I are going to have a study next term,
+and we want some furniture."</p>
+
+<p>I mildly remarked that in my day furniture was supplied by the school
+authorities.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but I mean pictures and things. Can you give us one? We shall
+want something to go on that wall opposite the window, shan't we, Moke?
+The place where young Lee missed your head with the red-ink bottle.
+<i>Have</i> you got a picture handy, Adrian?"</p>
+
+<p>I replied in the negative.</p>
+
+<p>Gerald took not the slightest notice.</p>
+
+<p>"It will have to be a pretty big one," he continued. "There is a good
+lot of red ink to cover. I have been taking a look round the house, and
+I must say the pictures you've got are a fairly mangy lot&mdash;aren't
+they, Moke?"</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman addressed coughed deprecatingly, and looked at me as
+much as to say that, whatever he thought of my taste in art, he had
+eaten my salt and would refrain from criticism.</p>
+
+<p>"There's one that might do, though," continued Gerald. "It's hanging
+in the billiard-room&mdash;a big steamer in a storm."</p>
+
+<p>By this time Phillis and Robin had joined the conclave.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said Phillis, nodding her head; "a great beautiful boat in
+some waves. I should fink it was a friend of the <i>Great
+ Eastern's</i>," she added, referring to an antiquated print of the
+early Victorian leviathan which hung in the nursery.</p>
+
+<p>"We could take it for a term or two, anyhow," continued Gerald,
+"until we get something better. I'm expecting some really decent ones
+after summer. Ainslie <i>major</i> is leaving then, and he has promised
+to let me have some of his cheap. Then you can have yours back, Adrian.
+That's the scheme! Come on, Moke, we'll go and take it down now. Thanks
+very much, old chap" (to me). "I'll tell Kitty that you've let us. We
+can jab it off its hook with a billiard-cue, I should think, Moke. Come
+too, will you, Mr Fordyce? You can stand underneath and catch it, in
+case it comes down with a run. So long, Adrian!"</p>
+
+<p>The whole pack of them swept from the room, leaving the door
+open.</p>
+
+<p>When I looked in at the billiard-room on my way up to dress for
+dinner an hour later, nothing remained to mark the spot hitherto
+occupied by a signed and numbered proof of <i>An Ocean Greyhound</i>, by
+Michael Angelo Mahlstaff, A.R.A. (a wedding gift to my wife and myself
+from the artist), but the imprints of several hot hands on the wall,
+together with a series of parallel perpendicular scars, apparently
+inflicted by a full-sized harrow.</p>
+
+<p>From which two chapters it will be gathered that Robert Chalmers
+Fordyce was a man capable, in his ordinary working-day, of playing many
+parts.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="chapter07" id="chapter07">CHAPTER SEVEN.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP.</h3>
+
+<h4>I.</h4>
+
+
+<p>My wife and I would have been more than human if we had not
+occasionally cast a curious eye upon the relations of Robin and the
+Twins.</p>
+
+<p>Of Robin's attitude towards that pair of charmers Kitty could make
+little and I nothing. He kept his place and went his own
+way&mdash;rather ostentatiously, I thought&mdash;and appeared if
+anything to avoid them. If he found himself in their company he treated
+them with a certain grave reticence&mdash;he soon grew out of his
+fondness for addressing us like a public meeting&mdash;and made little
+attempt to bestow upon them the attentions which young maidens are
+accustomed to receive from young men.</p>
+
+<p>There was no mystery about the Twins' attitude towards Robin. "Here,"
+said they in effect, "is a fine upstanding young man, full of promise,
+but hampered in every direction by abysmal ignorance on matters of vital
+importance. His instincts are sound, but at present he is quite
+impossible. What he wants is mothering."</p>
+
+<p>And so they mothered him, most maternally. They exerted themselves
+quite strenuously to instil into him the fundamental principles of
+life&mdash;the correct method of tying a dress tie; the intricate ritual
+which governs such things as visiting-cards and asparagus; the exact
+limit of the domains of brown boots and dinner-jackets; the utter
+criminality of dickeys, turn-down collars, and side-whiskers; and the
+superiority of dialogue to monologue as a concomitant to afternoon
+tea.</p>
+
+<p>In many respects, they discovered with pleased surprise, their pupil
+required no instruction or surveillance. For instance, he could always
+be trusted to enter or leave a room without awkwardness, and his manner
+of address was perfect. He was neither servile nor familiar, and the
+only people to whom I ever saw him pay marked deference were the members
+of what is after all the only real and natural aristocracy in the
+world&mdash;that of old age.</p>
+
+<p>All their ministrations Robin received with grave wonder&mdash;he was
+not of the sort that can easily magnify a fetish into a deity&mdash;but,
+evidently struck by the intense importance attached by the Twins to
+their own doctrines, he showed himself a most amenable pupil. Probably
+he realised, in spite of hereditary preference for inward worth as
+opposed to outward show, that though a coat cannot make a man, a good
+man in a good coat often has the advantage of a good man in a bad coat.
+So he allowed the Twins to round off his corners; and, without losing
+any of his original ruggedness of character or toughness of fibre, he
+soon developed into a well-groomed and sufficiently presentable
+adjunct&mdash;quite distinguished-looking, Dilly said, when she met us
+one day on our way down to the House&mdash;to a lady's morning walk.</p>
+
+<p>What he really thought of it all I do not know. I have a kind of
+suspicion that deep down in his heart every Scot entertains a contempt
+for the volatile and frivolous English which is only equalled by that of
+the English for the nation to whom I once heard a Highland minister
+refer as "the giddy and godless French"; but Robin was not given to the
+revelation of his private thoughts. He seldom spoke of the Twins to
+me&mdash;he was a discusser of manners rather than men&mdash;but he once
+remarked that they were girls of widely different character. He entered
+into no further details, but I remember being struck by the observation
+at the time; for I had always regarded my sisters-in-law as being as
+identical in disposition as they were in appearance.</p>
+
+<p>Still it was pretty to see Robin unbending to please the two girls,
+and to hear him say "No, really?" or "My word, what rot!" when you knew
+that his tongue was itching to cry, "Is that a fact?" or "Hoots!" or
+"Havers!" as the occasion demanded.</p>
+
+<p>He also possessed the great and unique merit of not being ashamed to
+ask for guidance in a difficulty. I have known him pause before an
+unfamiliar dish at table and ask one of his preceptresses, in the
+frankest manner possible, whether the exigencies of the situation called
+for a spoon or a fork: and out of doors it was a perpetual joy to hear
+him whisper, on the approach of some one whom he thought might be a
+friend of ours, "Will I lift my hat?"</p>
+
+<p>All that year Robin was my right hand. It was a long session; and as
+my Chief sat in the Upper House, much work in the way of answering
+questions and making statements fell upon me. We had a good working
+majority, but the Opposition were a united and well-organised body that
+year, and we had to rise early and go to bed late to keep their assaults
+at bay while proceeding with the programme of the session. Every
+afternoon, before I entered the House to take my place at question-time,
+my secretary insisted on taking me through the answers which he had
+prepared for my recitation; and we also discussed the line of action to
+be pursued if I were cornered by questions of the
+"arising-out-of-that-answer" order.</p>
+
+<p>Personally, I loathed this part of the work&mdash;I am a
+departmentalist pure and simple&mdash;but Robin's eye used to glow with
+the light of battle as he rehearsed me in the undoubtedly telling
+counters with which I was to pulverise the foe.</p>
+
+<p>"I would like fine," he once said to me, "to stand up in your place
+and answer these questions for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you could, Robin," I sighed. "And," I added, "I believe you
+will some day."</p>
+
+<p>Robin turned pink, for the first time in our acquaintance, and I
+heard his teeth click suddenly together.</p>
+
+<p>So the wind lay that way!</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h4>II.</h4>
+
+
+<p>During the next year my household was furnished with three surprises,
+Dilly contributing one and Robin two.</p>
+
+<p>Robin's came first. One was his uncle, the other his book.</p>
+
+<p>One night it fell to my lot to dine in the City, as the guest of the
+Honourable Company of Tile-Glazers and Mortar-Mixers. As I swam
+forlornly through a turgid ocean of turtle-soup and clarified punch
+towards an unyielding continent of fish, irrigated by brown sherry,
+mechanically rehearsing to myself the series of sparkling yet
+statesmanlike epigrams with which I proposed to reply to the toast of
+his Majesty's Ministers I became aware that the gentleman on my left was
+addressing me in a voice that seemed vaguely familiar.</p>
+
+<p>"And how is my brother's second boy doing with you, Mr
+Inglethwaite?"</p>
+
+<p>I must have looked a trifle blank, for he added&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My nephew, Robin."</p>
+
+<p>I glanced obliquely at the card which marked his place at table, and
+read&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Sir James Fordyce.</i></p>
+
+<p>Then I began to grasp the situation, and I realised that this great
+man, whose name was honourably known wherever the ills of childhood are
+combated, was Robin's uncle, the "doctor" to whom my secretary had
+casually referred, and whom he occasionally went to visit on Sunday
+afternoons. I had pictured an overdriven G.P., living in Bloomsbury or
+Balham, with a black bag, and a bulge in his hat where he kept his
+stethoscope. A man sufficiently distinguished to represent his
+profession at a public banquet was more than I had bargained for.</p>
+
+<p>We became friends at once, and supported each other, so to speak,
+amid the multitude of dinners and dishes, our respective neighbours
+proving but broken reeds so far as social intercourse was concerned. On
+Sir James's left, I remember, sat a plethoric gentleman whose burnished
+countenance gave him the appearance of a sort of incarnate Glazed Tile;
+while my right-hand neighbour, from the manner in which he manipulated
+the food upon his plate, I put down without hesitation as a Mortar Mixer
+of high standing.</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman gave me a good deal of information about Robin.</p>
+
+<p>"He had a hard fight his first year or two in London," he said. "I
+could see by the way he fell upon his dinner when he came to my house
+that his meat and drink were not easily come by. Still, now that he has
+won through, he will not regret the experience. I had it myself. It is
+the finest training that a young man can receive. Hard, terribly hard,
+but invaluable! You will not have seen his father yet&mdash;my brother
+John?"</p>
+
+<p>I told him no.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, try and meet him. You, as an Englishman, would perhaps call
+him hard and narrow,&mdash;after forty years of London I sometimes find
+him so myself,&mdash;but he is a fine man, and he has a good wife. So
+have you," he added unexpectedly&mdash;"Robin has told me that."</p>
+
+<p>I laughed, in what the Twins call the "silly little gratified way"
+which obtrudes itself into my demeanour when any one praises Kitty.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you are in the same happy situation," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am a bachelor. My brother John has not achieved a K.C.B., but
+he is a more fortunate man than I."</p>
+
+<p>The conversation dropped here, but I repeated it to my wife
+afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, the whole thing is as clear as daylight," she said.
+"These two brothers both wanted to marry the same girl. She took the
+farmer one, so the other, poor thing, went off to London and became a
+famous doctor instead. That's all. He might have been Robin's father,
+but he's only his uncle."</p>
+
+<p>Happy the mind which can reconstruct a romance out of such scanty
+material.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James ultimately dined at my house, and became a firm friend of
+all that dwelt therein, especially Phillis.</p>
+
+<p>Then came Robin's second surprise&mdash;his book. It was a novel, and
+a very good novel too. He had been at it for some time, he told me, but
+it was only recently that he had contrived to finish it off. Being
+distrustful of its merits, he had decided to offer it to just one good
+publisher, who could take it or leave it. If he took it, well and good.
+But if the publisher (and possibly just one other) exhibited an attitude
+of aloofness, Robin had fully decided not to hawk his bantling about
+among other less reputable and more amenable firms, but to consign it to
+his bedroom fire.</p>
+
+<p>However, this inhuman but only-too-unusual sacrifice of the parental
+instinct was averted by the one good publisher, who accepted the book,
+and introduced Robin to the public.</p>
+
+<p>Either through shyness or indifference Robin had told us nothing of
+the approaching interesting event, and it was not until one morning in
+October, when a parcel of complimentary copies arrived from the
+publisher's, that we were apprised of the fact that we had been
+cherishing an author in our midst. Robin solemnly presented us with a
+copy apiece (which I thought handsome but extravagant), and also sent
+one to his parents, who, though I think they rather doubted the
+propriety of possessing a son who wrote novels at all, wrote back
+comparing it very favourably with <i>The Pilgrim's Progress</i>, the
+only other work of fiction with which they were acquainted.</p>
+
+<p>The book itself dealt with matters rather than men, and with men
+rather than women; which was characteristic of its author, but rather
+irritating for the Twins. It had a good deal to say about the under-side
+of journalism,&mdash;graphic and convincing, all this,&mdash;and
+contained a rather technical but absorbingly interesting account of some
+most exciting financial operations, winding up with a great description
+of a panic on the Stock Exchange. But there were few light and no tender
+passages, from which it will be seen that Robin as an author appealed to
+the male rather than the female intellect.</p>
+
+<p>The Twins, I think, were secretly rather disappointed with the book,
+less from any particular fondness for the perusal of love-passages than
+from a truly human desire to note how Robin would have handled them; for
+it is always interesting to see to what extent our friends will give
+themselves away when they commit the indiscretion of a book. On this
+occasion Robin had been exasperatingly self-contained.</p>
+
+<p>But life is full of compensations. There was a dedication. It
+read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="center">THIS BOOK<br /><br />
+
+OWES ITS INCEPTION,<br /><br />
+
+AND IS THEREFORE<br /><br />
+
+DEDICATED,<br /><br />
+
+ TO<br /><br />
+
+A CIRCUMSTANCE<br /><br />
+
+OVER<br /><br />
+
+WHOM<br /><br />
+
+I HAVE NO CONTROL.<br /><br />
+
+R. C. F.</div>
+
+<p>Now it is obvious that in nine cases out of ten there is only one
+circumstance over whom a vigorous young man has no control, and this
+circumstance wears petticoats. Hitherto I had not seriously connected
+Robin with the tender passion, and this sudden intimation that the most
+serious-minded and ambitious of young men is not immune from the same
+rather startled me.</p>
+
+<p>The female members of my establishment were pleasantly fluttered,
+though they were concerned less with the lady's existence than with her
+identity.</p>
+
+<p>"Who do you think she is?" inquired Kitty of me, the first time the
+subject cropped up between us.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know, I'm sure," I murmured. I was smoking my post-prandial
+cigar at the time, at peace with all the world. "Never had the privilege
+of seeing his visiting-list."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder who she can be," continued my wife. "He&mdash;he hasn't
+said anything to you, has he, dear?" she inquired, in a tentative
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>I slowly opened one of my hitherto closed eyes, and cocked it
+suspiciously at the diplomatist sitting opposite to me. (The Twins and
+Robin were out at the theatre.) Then, observing that she was stealthily
+regarding me through her eyelashes&mdash;a detestable trick which some
+women have&mdash;I solemnly agitated my eyelid some three or four times
+and gently closed it again.</p>
+
+<p>"Has he confided any of his love affairs to you, I mean?" continued
+Kitty, quite unabashed.</p>
+
+<p>"If you eat any more chocolates you will make yourself sick," I
+observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear," said my wife submissively, pushing away the bon-bon
+dish. "But has he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you trying to pump me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, gracious, no! What would be the good? I only asked a plain
+question. You men are such creatures for screening each other, though,
+that it's never any use asking a man anything about another man."</p>
+
+<p>"True for you. As a matter of fact, Robin has hardly said a word to
+me on the subject of women since first I met him."</p>
+
+<p>Kitty thoughtfully cracked a filbert with her teeth&mdash;an
+unladylike habit about which I have often spoken to her&mdash;and
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What exciting chats you must have!" Then she added
+reflectively&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I expect it's a girl in Scotland. A sort of Highland lassie, in a
+kilt, or whatever female Highlanders wear."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should a novel about the Stock Exchange 'owe its inception' to a
+Highland lassie?"</p>
+
+<p>Kitty took another filbert.</p>
+
+<p>"That's 'vurry bright' of you, Adrian, as that American girl used to
+say. There's something in that. (Yes, I know you don't like it, dear,
+but I love doing it. I'll pour you out another glass of port. There!)
+But any idiotic excuse is good enough for a man in love. Has he ever
+been sentimental with you&mdash;quoted poetry, or anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"N-no. Stop, though! He did once quote Burns to me, but that was <i>ŕ
+ propos</i> of poetry in general, not of love-making."</p>
+
+<p>I remembered the incident well. Robin had picked up at a bookstall a
+copy of an early and quite valuable edition of Burns' poems. He had sat
+smoking with me in the library late the same night, turning over the
+pages of the tattered volume, and quoting bits, in broad vernacular,
+from "Tam o' Shanter" and "The Cottar's Saturday Night." Suddenly he
+began, almost to himself&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div class="quote">"O, my love is like a red, red rose,</div>
+    <div class="in1">That's newly sprung in June;</div>
+    <div>My love is like a melody</div>
+    <div class="in1">That's sweetly played in tune.</div>
+    <div>As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,</div>
+    <div class="in1">So deep in love am I&mdash;&mdash;"</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>He broke off for a moment, and I remembered how he glowered
+ecstatically into the fire. Then he concluded&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div class="quote">"And I will love thee still, my dear,</div>
+    <div class="in1">Till a' the seas gang dry."</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Man," he said, "that's fine! That's poetry. That's the real
+thing!"</p>
+
+<p>I had agreed. It is no use arguing with a Scot about Burns. (I
+remember once being nearly dirked at a Caledonian Dinner because I
+ventured to remark that "before ye" was not in my opinion a good rhyme
+to "Loch Lomond.")</p>
+
+<p>However, Kitty and I were unable to decide whether Robin's "bonnie
+lass" on that occasion had been a personality or an abstraction.</p>
+
+<p>"Mightn't it be one of the Twins?" I remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it <i>might</i> be," admitted Kitty judicially, "but he has
+kept it very close if it is. No," she continued more decidedly, "I don't
+think it can be. They are quite out of his line. Besides&mdash;it would
+be too absurd!"</p>
+
+<p>It was not one Twin at any rate, for a fortnight later Dilly sprung
+upon us the third surprise of the series I have mentioned. She announced
+that she had decided to marry Dicky Lever.</p>
+
+<p>There was, I suppose, nothing very surprising in that. Dicky had been
+in constant attendance upon the Twins for nearly two years, and had long
+since graduated into the ranks of the Good Sorts. The surprise to
+us&mdash;rather unreasonably, perhaps&mdash;lay in the fact
+of&mdash;</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>1. Dicky having definitely fixed upon a
+   particular Twin to propose to;</li>
+
+<li>2. That Twin having definitely selected Dicky
+   out of the assortment at her command.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>I was so accustomed to seeing my sisters-in-law compassed about by a
+cloud of young men who appeared to admire them both equally, and to whom
+they appeared to apportion their favours with indiscriminate
+<i>camaraderie</i>, that the idea of one admirer stealing a march on all
+the others seemed a little unfair, somehow.</p>
+
+<p>As Dolly remarked, it would break up the firm horribly.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," she confided to me rather plaintively, "Dilly will have no
+use for them now, and they'll have still less use for her&mdash;an
+engaged girl beside other girls is about as exciting as a
+tapioca-pudding at a Lord Mayor's Banquet&mdash;and they will only have
+me. That won't be half the fun."</p>
+
+<p>"I should have thought that your fun would have been exactly
+doubled," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit. How like a man! Don't you see, the fun used to be in
+playing them backwards and forwards between our two selves&mdash;like
+ping-pong, you know! It was clinking!"</p>
+
+<p>She sighed regretfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I shall either have to avoid men or marry them," she concluded,
+vaguely but regretfully. "Before, if they got in the way, I could always
+volley them back to Dilly. Now&mdash;one <i>can't</i> play ping-pong all
+by oneself!"</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h4>III.</h4>
+
+<p>Dilly's engagement, as is usual under such circumstances, afforded my
+household many opportunities for airy badinage and innocent
+merriment.</p>
+
+<p>Dolly always heralded her coming into the billiard-room, where the
+affianced pair had staked out a claim, by a cough of penetrating
+severity, and usually entered the room with her features obscured by an
+open umbrella. On several occasions, too, she impersonated her sister;
+and once, when Dicky was spending a week-end in the house, was only
+prevented by the fraction of a second from robbing that incensed damosel
+of her morning salute.</p>
+
+<p>My share in the proceedings was limited to a single constrained
+interview with Dicky, at which, feeling extremely rude and inquisitive,
+I asked him the usual stereotyped questions about his income, prospects,
+and habits (most of which I knew only too well already), which, being
+satisfactorily answered, I rang the bell for the Tantalus, and thanked
+heaven that the Twins were not Triplets. I had indeed suggested that
+Dilly's nearest and most natural protector was her brother, Master
+Gerald, and that Dicky should apply not for my consent but his. This
+motion, however, was negatived without a division. I was sorry, for I
+think my brother-in-law would have shown himself worthy of the
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>My wife received the news of the engagement with all the enthusiasm
+usually exhibited by a Salvation lassie when a fresh convert is hustled
+forward to the "saved" bench, and henceforth divided her time between
+ordering Dilly's trousseau and giving tea-parties, at which the
+prospective bridegroom was produced and passed round, "as if," to use
+his own expression, "he were the newest thing in
+accordion-pleating."</p>
+
+<p>As regards Robin's share in the event, I can only recall one
+incident. He had been away at Stoneleigh, the largest town in my
+constituency, on some party business, and when he returned home the
+engagement had been announced for nearly a week.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go and offer my good wishes to Miss Dilly," he said, after
+hearing the news. "Do you know where she is, Mrs Inglethwaite?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw her upstairs a few minutes ago," said Kitty. "Come up, and
+we'll find her."</p>
+
+<p>We were in the library at the time, and Kitty and Robin left the room
+together. The rest of the story my wife told me later.</p>
+
+<p>"We went up," she said, "and looked into the drawing-room, where I
+had last seen Dilly. The room was nearly dark, but she was there,
+sitting curled up in front of the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"'There she is,' I said. 'Go and say something nice.'</p>
+
+<p>"Well, dear,"&mdash;Kitty's face assumed an air of impressive
+solemnity which makes her absurdly like her daughter&mdash;"he stood
+hesitating a moment, and then walked straight up to her and
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Good afternoon! Can you tell me where your sister is? I want to
+offer her my good wishes on the great event.'</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't Dilly at all. It was Dolly! And he was able to distinguish
+between the two in that dim room. And <i>I</i> couldn't!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said I carelessly, "I expect he noticed she wasn't wearing an
+engagement-ring."</p>
+
+<p>My wife looked at me and sighed, as over one who would spoil a
+romance for want of a ha'porth of sentiment. And yet I know she would
+have been quite scandalised if any one had hinted at tender passages
+between her sister and my secretary. Women are curious creatures.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter08" id="chapter08">CHAPTER  EIGHT.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>OF A PIT THAT WAS DIGGED, AND WHO FELL INTO IT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Dicky Lever was a hearty and not particularly intellectual youth of
+the What ho! type (if you know what I mean). He was employed in some
+capacity in a Government office, but his livelihood was not entirely
+dependent on his exertions therein&mdash;which was, perhaps, fortunate,
+as his sole claim to distinction in his Department lay in the fact of
+his holding the record for the highest score at small cricket in the
+Junior Secretaries' room. He was a member of the Leander Club, a more
+than usually capable amateur actor, and a very good fellow all
+round.</p>
+
+<p>The engagement was announced at the end of July, which is a busy time
+for this country's legislators. The session was drawing to a close, and
+we were passing Bills with a prodigality and despatch which provoked
+many not altogether undeserved gibes from a reptile Opposition Press
+concerning the devotion of his Majesty's Government to the worship of
+Saint Grouse.</p>
+
+<p>One night I brought Champion home to dinner between the afternoon and
+evening sittings. At the latter he was to move the second reading of his
+"Municipal Co-ordination Bill," a measure which was intended to grapple
+with the chaos arising from the multitude of opposing or overlapping
+interests that controlled the domestic arrangements of the Londoner. An
+effort was to be made to bring all the Gas, Electricity, Water, Paving,
+and other corporations into some sort of line, and prevent them from
+getting into each other's way and adding to the expenses and
+inconvenience of the much-enduring ratepayer. It was a useful little
+Bill; but though everybody approved of it on principle, various powerful
+interests were at work against it, and its prospects of getting through
+Committee hung in the balance.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mr Champion," said Dilly, who knew that a man always likes to
+be questioned about his work, especially by a pretty girl, "what will
+your Bill do for <i>us</i>? I have asked this person
+here,"&mdash;indicating her <i>fiancé</i>,&mdash;"but he says
+parish-pump politics aren't in his department. He licks stamps at the
+Foreign Office," she added in explanation.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her, Champion," said Dicky. "Out of my line altogether. Takes
+me all my time to keep an eye on those Johnnies in the Concert of
+Europe."</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you one thing the Bill will do, Miss Dilly," said
+Champion, a little heavily. (Dolly once said of him, "He's awfully
+clever and able and all that, but he hasn't got a light hand for
+conversational pastry.") "How many times have you noticed the streets up
+about here this year?"</p>
+
+<p>"Heaps," said Dilly.</p>
+
+<p>"They have hardly ever been down," corroborated Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see," continued Dilly. "Our side of the Square was repaved in
+January. Directly after that they took it up again and did something to
+the drains."</p>
+
+<p>"In March they opened it again to lay down an electric light main,"
+said I.</p>
+
+<p>"In April something burst," said Dolly, "and that meant more men with
+wigwams and braziers."</p>
+
+<p>"And last month," concluded Dilly, "they took away the wood pavement
+and relaid the whole Square with some new patent asphalte, which smelt
+simply, oh&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Rotten!" supplied Gerald. (Have I mentioned that he had just arrived
+home for his summer holiday?)</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Champion, "the Bill would regulate that sort of thing.
+It would protect the streets from being torn up at will by any Company
+who happened to have business underneath them. As things are,
+practically any one may come along and hew holes anywhere he
+pleases."</p>
+
+<p>"The police ought to stop it," said Kitty, who has a profound belief
+in the Force. (I am convinced that if Beelzebub himself were to enter
+the house at any time during my absence, Kitty would lure him into the
+dining-room with the sherry, and then telephone for a constable.)</p>
+
+<p>"The police have no right," said Champion. "If a gas company choose
+to give notice that they intend on a certain day to come and burrow in a
+road, all the police can do is to divert the traffic, and make the gas
+company as comfortable as possible."</p>
+
+<p>I was not following this conversation with any particular interest.
+Being expected to speak in favour of the Bill that night, I was
+undergoing the preliminary anguish which invariably attends my higher
+oratorical efforts. But I remember now that about this time Dilly
+suddenly turned to Dicky and whispered something in his ear. Then they
+both looked across the dinner-table at Robin, who nodded, as who should
+say, "I know fine what you whispered then." After that they all three
+laughed and looked down the table at Champion, who was still expatiating
+on the merits of his Bill.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose anybody else would have divined what was in the wind, but I
+did not.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>A week later we were treated to an all-night sitting. The Irishmen
+had been quiescent of late, but on this occasion they made amends for
+their temporary relaxation of patriotism by resolutely obstructing an
+Appropriation Bill, which had to pass through Committee that night (if
+John Bull was to have any ready cash at all during the next few months),
+and kept us replying to amendments and trotting through division-lobbies
+until six o'clock next morning.</p>
+
+<p>Robin stayed on in attendance at the House most of the night, but
+about three o'clock I sent him home, with instructions to stay in bed
+till tea-time if he pleased. He had had a hard time lately.</p>
+
+<p>I was walking homeward in the early sunshine, marvelling, as people
+who accidentally find themselves up early pharisaically do, at the
+fatuity of those who waste the best hours of the whole day in bed, and
+revelling in the near prospect of a bath and my breakfast, when on
+turning a corner I walked into a hand-cart which was standing across the
+pavement. It contained workmen's tools&mdash;picks, shovels, and the
+like. On the near side of the roadway a man was erecting one of those
+curious wigwam arrangements which screen the operations of electricians
+and other subterranean burrowers from the public gaze. A dirty-faced
+small boy in corduroys was tending a brazier of live coals, upon which
+some breakfast cans were steaming. Between the wigwam and the pavement a
+gigantic navvy was hewing wooden paving-blocks out of the roadway.</p>
+
+<p>The spectacle did not attract my interest specially, as this
+particular piece of street had been eviscerated so often that I had
+grown callous to its sufferings. But I paused for a moment to survey the
+big navvy's muscles, and to wonder how early in the morning it would be
+necessary to rise in order to catch a small boy with a clean face. The
+navvy was a fine specimen of humanity, with a complexion tanned a dusky
+coffee colour.</p>
+
+<p>I was reflecting on the joys of the simple life and the futility of
+politics and other indoor pastimes in general, when the big man rose
+from his stooping posture and caught my eye. He appeared a little
+disconcerted by my scrutiny, and turned his back and renewed his
+exertions with increased vigour, favouring me hereafter with what
+architects call a "south elevation" of himself.</p>
+
+<p>I went home to breakfast, wondering where I had seen the big navvy's
+back before. I mentioned casually to Kitty and the Twins that Goring
+Street was up again. They wondered how the management of the Goring
+Hotel liked it, with that mess under their very windows, and agreed with
+me that it was high time Champion's Bill, due for its Third Reading
+to-morrow, became law.</p>
+
+<p>I stayed in bed till lunch-time, and then, rather late in the
+afternoon, set out for the House, which I knew I should find in an
+extremely limp condition after its previous night's dissipation. On the
+way I called in at the Goring Hotel in Goring Street, where Champion
+lived when in town. I found him in his room on the first floor, gazing
+out of the window into the street.</p>
+
+<p>I looked out too, to see what was interesting him. Directly below us
+lay the encampment of the workmen whom I had seen in the morning. They
+had hewed up a few yards of the wood pavement, and the smaller of the
+two men was now immersed up to his waist in a hole, working rather
+laboriously in the restricted space at his command with a pick-axe. The
+boy was piling wooden blocks into a neat heap, and the big man, whose
+form was only partially visible, was doing something inside the
+wigwam.</p>
+
+<p>The roadway was more than half blocked, and cabs and omnibuses, in
+charge of overheated and eloquent drivers, were being filtered through
+the narrow space left at their disposal by a phlegmatic policeman.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," said Champion.</p>
+
+<p>I looked.</p>
+
+<p>"What on <i>earth</i> are those fellows doing?" he continued.</p>
+
+<p>"Re-laying the road, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"One doesn't re-lay a road by making a deep hole in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;gas!"</p>
+
+<p>"Gas and electric light mains in this street are all led along a
+special conduit reached by manholes every eighty yards," said Champion.
+"There's no need to dig."</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;drains!" said I vaguely. But I was a mere child in the
+hands of this expert.</p>
+
+<p>"The drains, as you call them," he said testily, "consist of a great
+sewer away in the depths, accessible from various appointed places.
+Besides, nobody in his senses tries to lift earth out of a hole with a
+pick-axe."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps the solution of the mystery lies inside the wigwam," I
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"No. That is just what complicates matters. When a shaft leading down
+to the electric light mains is opened, one of those canvas shelters is
+put over the top. Now there is nothing under that shelter&mdash;nothing
+but the bit of road it covers. The thing seems to be simply a stage
+accessory, planted there to give the encampment an aspect of reality.
+Ah, look at that!"</p>
+
+<p>"That" was a small piece of paving-wood, dexterously hurled by the
+dirty-faced boy, who seemed to be finding time hang rather heavily on
+his hands. It took a passing citizen in the small of the back, but when
+he swung round to detect the source of the missile the boy was on his
+knees again industriously blowing up the brazier.</p>
+
+<p>With an indignant snort the citizen passed on his way, doubtless
+adding the outrage, in his mind, to the long list of unsolved London
+crimes. But retribution awaited the youthful miscreant. The phlegmatic
+policeman who was regulating the traffic on the single-line system
+happened to notice the deed. He walked majestically across from the far
+side of the street towards our excavating friends.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on!" said Champion to me. "There's going to be some fun."</p>
+
+<p>We stepped out through one of the windows, which possessed a broad
+balcony, and took our stand behind some laurels in tubs which lined the
+balustrade. The street was comparatively quiet at the time, and we were
+able to hear most of the dialogue that ensued.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ere, mate," began the traffic-expert to the smaller of the two
+navvies, "just ketch that boy of yours a clip on the side of the 'ead,
+will you?"</p>
+
+<p>The smaller man desisted from his labours in the hole.</p>
+
+<p>"Wotsye, ole sport?" he inquired cheerily.</p>
+
+<p>The policeman was a little ruffled by this familiarity.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll trouble <i>you</i>," he repeated with some hauteur, "to ketch
+that boy of yours a clip on the side of the 'ead. If not, I shall 'ave
+to do my duty, according&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Here the roar of a passing dray drowned his utterance.</p>
+
+<p>The smaller man clambered nimbly out of the hole and proceeded to
+grab his young friend by the scruff of the neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Billy," he remarked dispassionately, "this gentleman says as 'ow I'm
+to give you a clip on the side of the 'ead."</p>
+
+<p>"Woffor," inquired Billy, simulating extreme terror.</p>
+
+<p>The man passed the question on to the policeman, who explained the
+nature of the offence. His statement was voluntarily corroborated by
+several members of an audience which seemed to have materialised from
+nowhere, and now formed a ring round the encampment.</p>
+
+<p>"Righto!" said the man with cheery acquiescence. "Billy, my lad,
+you've got to 'ave it."</p>
+
+<p>"Tha's right, ole son! You give 'im socks," remarked a hoarse and
+rather indistinct voice of the gin-and-fog variety, from among the
+spectators.</p>
+
+<p>Simultaneously its owner lurched his way to the front rank, the
+others making room for him with that respectful sympathy, not unmixed
+with envy, which is always accorded to a true-born Briton in his
+condition. He was obviously a member of some profession connected with
+coal-dust, and it was plain that he had been celebrating the conclusion
+of his day's labours.</p>
+
+<p>The smaller navvy, thus exhorted, administered the desired clip. It
+was not a particularly severe one, but it drew from its recipient the
+somewhat unexpected expostulation&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You silly ass! Not so hard!"</p>
+
+<p>Where had I heard that stentorian but childish voice before? Who was
+this road-breaker's acolyte, with his brazier, his dirty face,
+and&mdash;a public-school accent?</p>
+
+<p>I leaned over the balustrade and surveyed him and his two companions.
+Then I drew my breath sharply.</p>
+
+<p>Merciful heavens!</p>
+
+<p>The dirty-faced boy was my brother-in-law, Master Gerald Rubislaw,
+the clip-administerer was Dicky Lever, and the gigantic and taciturn
+navvy was&mdash;my Secretary!</p>
+
+<p>Having witnessed the carrying-out of the sentence, the policeman
+returned to his duties; none too soon; for a furniture van and a
+butcher's cart, locked in an inextricable embrace, the subject of a
+sulphurous duet between their respective proprietors, called loudly for
+his attention.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Coaldust, who had been inspecting the result of our
+friends' united labours with some interest, suddenly echoed the question
+which had first exercised Champion's logical mind by inquiring what the
+blank dash the two adjectival criminals and the qualified nipper thought
+they were doing to the asterisked road.</p>
+
+<p>He received no encouragement. Robin was now engaged with a hammer and
+chisel in cutting a sort of touch-line all round the encampment, while
+Dicky did not cease manfully to delve with the pick-axe in the pit which
+he had digged for himself. For a long time they turned a deaf ear to the
+anxious inquiries of their interlocutor.</p>
+
+<p>But there are limits to long-suffering. Coaldust's witticisms
+increased with his audience, and at last Dicky turned to Robin and
+cried, with a really admirable maintenance of character and
+accent&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Ere, Scotty, come and give this bloke one in the neck. 'E's askin'
+for it!"</p>
+
+<p>Robin deliberately suspended operations, rose heavily to his feet,
+and cleared his throat. Then he turned upon the alcoholic Coaldust. I
+strained my ears. Surely <i>he</i> was not going to talk Cockney!</p>
+
+<p>Far from it. He stuck to his last.</p>
+
+<p>"See here, ma man," he roared, in a voice that made the crowd jump,
+"are ye for a ding on the side o' the heid?"</p>
+
+<p>Coaldust capitulated with alacrity.</p>
+
+<p>"No offence, 'Orace!" he remarked genially. "You an' me was always
+pals. Put it there!" He extended an ebony hand, which Robin solemnly
+shook and returned to his work.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever my three friends were up to, it is possible that they might
+now have been left in peace for some time; for the crowd, seeing no
+chance of further sport from Coaldust, began to melt away. But a fresh
+character entered the scene to keep alive the nagging interest of the
+drama.</p>
+
+<p>My first intimation that something new was afoot came from an
+errand-boy on the edge of the crowd, who, addressing a lady or ladies
+unseen, suddenly expressed a desire to be chased.</p>
+
+<p>All heads were now turned down the street, and there, approaching
+with rather faltering steps, carrying a red cotton bundle and a tea-can,
+I beheld&mdash;one of my sisters-in-law!</p>
+
+<p>Postulating Dicky, I presumed it was Dilly, and I began to piece
+together in my mind the plot of this elaborate comedy. Evidently Dicky,
+Robin, and Gerald had decided&mdash;for a bet, or because they were
+dared, or possibly with a view to giving Champion's Bill a leg-up by a
+practical demonstration of the crying need for it&mdash;to dress
+themselves up as workmen and come and "do a turn," as they say in the
+music halls, to the discomfort of his Majesty's lieges and the
+congestion of traffic, upon some sufficiently busy thoroughfare for a
+stated period of time.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly they were doing it rather well. They were admirably made
+up,&mdash;Dicky was a past-master at that sort of thing,&mdash;and their
+operations so far had been sufficiently like the genuine article to
+impose upon the public in general,&mdash;if we except Champion and
+Coaldust,&mdash;even to the point of securing the assistance of the
+traffic-directing policeman.</p>
+
+<p>But alas! with that one step further, which is so often fatal to
+great enterprises, they had sought to add a finishing touch of realism
+to their impersonation by the inclusion of a little feminine interest;
+and to that end Dilly had been added to the cast&mdash;or more likely
+had added herself&mdash;in the <i>rôle</i> of a young person of humble
+station bringing her affianced his tea.</p>
+
+<p>And, not for the first time in the history of man, it was the woman
+who opened the door to disaster.</p>
+
+<p>Dilly wore a natty print dress&mdash;probably my
+housemaid's&mdash;with a tartan shawl over her head. She had on her
+thickest shoes, but they were woefully smart and thin for a girl of her
+class. Moreover, her hair was beautifully arranged under the shawl, and
+her hands&mdash;though she had had the sense to discard her ruby and
+sapphire engagement-ring&mdash;were too white and her face was too clean
+to lend conviction to her impersonation. In short, in her desire to
+present a pleasing <i>tout ensemble</i>&mdash;an object in which I must
+say she had succeeded to perfection&mdash;Dilly had utterly neglected
+detail and histrionic accuracy.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently she was not expecting a gallery. Two highly-interested
+concentric circles&mdash;one of people and one of dogs&mdash;round her
+<i>fiancé's</i> encampment was rather more than she had bargained for.
+She had emerged quite suddenly from a side street (which I knew led to a
+shortcut from home) and now paused irresolutely a few yards away,
+crimson to the roots of her hair, what time the errand-boy, with looks
+of undisguised admiration, continued to reiterate his desire to be
+pursued.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd all turned and stared at poor Dilly. Obviously they did not
+know what to make of her. Possibly she was some one from the chorus of a
+musical comedy going to be photographed, possibly she was merely "a bit
+balmy," or possibly she was an advertisement for something, and would
+begin to distribute hand-bills presently. So far, she merely looked as
+if she wanted to cry.</p>
+
+<p>It was Robin who saw her first. He immediately stepped over his
+newly-completed touch-line, and taking the spotted bundle and the
+tea-can from her hands, conducted her ceremoniously within the magic
+circle, saying, in a voice much more like his own than before&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Come away, lassie!"</p>
+
+<p>Dicky looked up from his labours at this, and beheld his
+<i>fiancée</i> for the first time. All he said was&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"By gad, you've done it after all! Bravo!"</p>
+
+<p>But Dilly did not appear to be at all gratified She merely sat on
+Gerald's little mountain of paving-blocks, looking as if she could not
+decide whether to throw her apron over her face and scream, or take a
+header into the wigwam. My heart bled for her in spite of her folly. The
+crowd, deeply interested and breathing hard, stood round waiting for the
+performance to begin.</p>
+
+<p>It was Coaldust who took the lead.</p>
+
+<p>"Tip us a song and dance, Clara," he said encouragingly.</p>
+
+<p>Robin, who had been making a show of unfastening the bundle, suddenly
+rose to his feet. Coaldust saw him.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Carnegie," he remarked hurriedly. "No offence, ole
+pal!"</p>
+
+<p>But Robin turned to Dicky, and the two held a hasty conversation,
+whose nature I could guess. Dilly could not be exposed to this sort of
+thing any longer. They began to put on their coats.</p>
+
+<p>"They are going to give it up," I said, not without relief. "About
+time, isn't it? Do you recognise them, Champion?"</p>
+
+<p>But Champion, I found, was gone&mdash;probably to establish an
+<i>alibi</i>. Perhaps he was right. Questions might be asked in the
+House about this.</p>
+
+<p>When I turned again to the scene below I found that the crowd had
+thickened considerably, and that the policeman had once more left the
+traffic to congest itself, and joined in the game.</p>
+
+<p>"You must tell that young woman to move on," he said to Dicky, not
+unkindly. "She's causin' a crowd to collect, and that's a thing she can
+be give in charge for."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Dicky hurriedly, "we're all going."</p>
+
+<p>The policeman, struck by this sudden anxiety to oblige, became
+suspicious.</p>
+
+<p>"All of you?" he said. "'Ow about this mess in the road?"</p>
+
+<p>Robin came to the rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll be back presently and sort it," he said reassuringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Dicky, pulling himself together. "Back in 'arf a
+tick, governor!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you go callin' me names," said the policeman, as the
+spectators indulged in happy laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry!&mdash;I mean, certainly!" said Dicky, getting flustered. (I
+could see Robin glowering at him.) "We are just going down the street a
+minute. This&mdash;er&mdash;girl has brought us a bit of bad news.
+There's been an accident happened&mdash;er&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To her puir old mither," put in Robin, whom I began to suspect of
+rather enjoying this entertainment for its own sake.</p>
+
+<p>This heartrending piece of intelligence touched the crowd, and
+Coaldust was instantly forward in proposing an informal vote of
+condolence, which was seconded by a bare-armed lady in a deerstalker
+cap. But the policeman, evidently roused by our friends' ill-judged and
+precipitate attempt to strike camp, suddenly produced a pocket-book from
+his tunic, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is my duty to take your names and addresses, together with the
+name of the firm employing you."</p>
+
+<p>This announcement obviously disconcerted Dicky and Robin; for it is
+one thing to take part in a masquerade, and another to get out of the
+consequences thereof by cold-drawn lying.</p>
+
+<p>However, the policeman was sucking his pencil and waiting, so Dicky
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You can get all the information you want from the Borough
+Surveyor."</p>
+
+<p>It was a bold effort, but the policeman merely said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Your name, please!"</p>
+
+<p>Dicky, fairly cornered, replied&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Er&mdash;Samuel"&mdash;I thought at first he was going to say
+"Inglethwaite," and was prepared to drop a flower-pot on his head if he
+did; but he continued, with the air of one offering a real bargain at
+the price&mdash;"Phillipps."</p>
+
+<p>"Two P's?" inquired the constable.</p>
+
+<p>"Three," said Dicky.</p>
+
+<p>The policeman rolled a threatening eye upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Be careful!" he said in an awful voice.</p>
+
+<p>"One of them comes at the beginning," said Dicky meekly.</p>
+
+<p>"Haw, haw!" roared several people in the crowd, which was unfortunate
+for Dicky. He was one of those people who would risk a kingdom to raise
+a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Address?" continued the policeman.</p>
+
+<p>"Buck'nam Pallis!" shouted Coaldust, before any one else in the crowd
+could say it.</p>
+
+<p>The policeman turned and directed upon him a look that would have
+entirely obfuscated a soberer man.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll attend to you presently," he said in the exact tones which my
+dentist employs when he shuts me into the waiting-room. "Now then, your
+address? Come along!"</p>
+
+<p>Dicky gave some address which I did not catch, and the representative
+of the law turned to Robin. The latter evidently saw rocks ahead if the
+inquisition was to be extended to the whole party. He said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Surely there is no need to take any more names."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be responsible for the lot," added Dicky eagerly&mdash;too
+eagerly. "Now let's be off! Come along Di&mdash;Liza!"</p>
+
+<p>He took Dilly by the arm, and, preceded by Gerald, began to press
+through the crowd, which by this time extended almost right across the
+street.</p>
+
+<p>But the now thoroughly aroused guardian of the peace, determined not
+to be rushed like this, broke away from Robin, who was engaging him in
+pleasant conversation, and, hastening after the retreating group, laid a
+detaining and imperious hand on Dilly's arm.</p>
+
+<p>What happened next I was not quick enough to see. But there was a
+swirl and a heave in the crowd, and presently Dicky became visible,
+standing in a very heroic attitude with his arm round Dilly; while the
+policeman, with an awe-inspiring deliberateness which implied "Now you
+<i>have</i> gone and done it!" extricated himself majestically but
+painfully from the chasm in the road which had recently been occupying
+Dicky's attention, and into which Dicky in defence of his beloved had
+apparently pushed him.</p>
+
+<p>Picking up his pocket-book and putting it back into his chest, and
+uttering the single and awful word "<i>Assault!</i>" the policeman
+produced a whistle and blew it.</p>
+
+<p>Things were certainly getting serious, and I had just decided to send
+out the hotel porter to the policeman to tell him to bring his captives
+inside out of the way of the crowd, when I noticed that Robin was
+ploughing his way towards the outskirts of the throng, waving his arm as
+he went. Then I saw that his objective was another policeman&mdash;an
+Inspector this time. He was a gigantic creature, and Robin and he,
+slowly forging towards each other through the surrounding sea of faces,
+looked like two liners in a tideway.</p>
+
+<p>Robin's conduct in deliberately attracting the notice of yet another
+representative of law and order appeared eccentric on the face of it,
+but his subsequent behaviour was more peculiar still.</p>
+
+<p>He seized the newly-arrived giant by the arm, and drew him apart from
+the crowd, where he told him something which appeared to amuse them both
+considerably.</p>
+
+<p>"Yewmorous dialogue," announced Coaldust to his neighbours, "between
+Cleopartrer's Needle and the Moniment!"</p>
+
+<p>But it was more than that,&mdash;it was deep calling to deep.
+Presently the explanation, or the joke, or whatever it was, came to an
+end, and the Inspector advanced threateningly upon the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"Pass along, there, pass along!" he cried with a devastating sweep of
+his arm. He spoke with a Highland accent, and I realised yet once more
+the ubiquity of that great Mutual Benefit Society which has its
+headquarters north of the Tweed.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd politely receded about six inches, and through them,
+accompanied by Robin, the Inspector clove his way to the encampment,
+where Dicky, who seemed to be rapidly losing his head, was delivering a
+sort of recitative to every one in general, accompanied by the policeman
+on the whistle.</p>
+
+<p>What the Inspector said to his subordinate I do not know, but the net
+result was that in a very short time the former was escorting the entire
+party of excavators down the street, attended by a retinue of small boys
+(who were evidently determined to see if it was going to turn out a
+hanging matter); while the latter, to whom the clearing of the "house"
+had evidently been deputed, set about that task with a vigour and
+ferocity which plainly indicated a well-meaning and zealous mind
+tingling under an entirely undeserved official snub.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>They told me all about it in the smoking-room that night.</p>
+
+<p>"The idea," began Dicky, "was&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Whose idea was it?" I inquired sternly "It was all of our idea,"
+replied my future relative by marriage lucidly.</p>
+
+<p>"But who worked it out?" I asked,&mdash;"the plot, the business, the
+'props'? It was a most elaborate production."</p>
+
+<p>"Never you mind that, old man," said Dicky lightly. (But I saw that
+Robin was laboriously relighting his pipe and surrounding himself with
+an impenetrable cloud of smoke.) "Listen to the yarn. The idea was to
+stake out a claim in some fairly busy road and stay there for a given
+time&mdash;say, six o'clock till tea-time&mdash;and kid the passing
+citizens that we were duly authorised to get in the way and mess up the
+traffic generally. If we succeeded we were going to write to <i>The
+ Times</i> or some such paper and tell what we had
+done&mdash;anonymously, of course&mdash;just to show how necessary
+Champion's Bill is."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you written the letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't send it if I were you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's what Robin here has been saying."</p>
+
+<p>"Putrid rot if we don't!" remarked Gerald, who had by this time
+washed his face, but ought to have been in bed for all that.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't do it," said Robin. "For one thing, we have attracted quite
+enough public attention already,&mdash;it's bound to be in the papers
+anyhow, now, and that will probably give the Bill all the advertisement
+it needs,&mdash;and if we give the authorities any more clues our names
+may come out. For another thing, it wouldn't be fair to Hector
+MacPherson."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"That Inspector who came up at the critical moment. He was one of my
+first friends in London."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember. Go on."</p>
+
+<p>"I was thankful to see him, I can tell you. Well, he undertook to
+square that poor bewildered bobby, and to take steps to get the road
+cleared and the hole filled up."</p>
+
+<p>"How?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is a street being mended just round the corner, and he said he
+would get the foreman of the gang, who is a relation of his wife's, to
+send a couple of men to put things right immediately. It's probably done
+by now."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I suppose we may regard the incident as closed."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a bit of a failure at the finish," said Dicky meditatively,
+"but it was a success on the whole&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather!" said his fellow-conspirators.</p>
+
+<p>"Our chief difficulty," continued Dicky, "was to decide on the exact
+type of drama to present. I was all for our dressing up as foreigners,
+and relaying an asphalte street. It would have been top-hole to trot
+about in list slippers and pat the hot asphalte down with those things
+they use. And think of the make-up!&mdash;curly moustaches and earrings!
+And we could have jabbered spoof Italian. But then old Robin here, who I
+must say has a headpiece on him, pointed out that the scenery and props
+would be much too expensive. We should want a cart with a bonfire in it
+and a sort of witches' cauldron on top, and all kinds of sticky stuff;
+so we gave up that scheme. We did not feel inclined to mess with
+gas-pipes or electric wires either, in case we burst ourselves up; so we
+finally decided to select some street with a wooden pavement, and maul
+it about generally for as long as we could. If we got interfered with by
+anybody official, we meant to talk some rot about the Borough Surveyor,
+and skedaddle if necessary. But it all worked beautifully!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you get your tools and tent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Robin managed that," said Dicky admiringly.</p>
+
+<p>Robin looked extremely dour, and I refrained from further
+inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>"Robin's got some rum pals, I <i>don't</i> think!" observed Gerald
+pertinently.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't I make these chaps up well?" continued Dicky
+enthusiastically. "We roared when you passed us at breakfast-time
+without spotting us."</p>
+
+<p>"Very creditable impersonation," I replied, getting up and knocking
+my pipe out. "I only hope I shan't have to resign my seat over it. If I
+may venture to offer a criticism, the weak spot in the enterprise was
+the idea of inviting your lady friends to come and take tea with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Just what I said all along, my boy," remarked the experienced
+Gerald, wagging his head sagely. "That was what mucked up the show.
+Wherever there's a petticoat there's trouble. Oh, I <i>warned</i>
+them!"</p>
+
+<p>On my way up to bed I flushed Dilly from a window-seat on the
+staircase, where she had evidently been lingering on the off-chance of a
+supplementary good-night from Dicky.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" I said severely.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what time it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"I expect your wife will tell you that when you get upstairs," said
+Dilly.</p>
+
+<p>I tried a fresh line.</p>
+
+<p>"After the labours of to-day, I should have thought you would have
+been glad to go to bed," I said. "You imp!" And I laughed. There is
+something very disarming about the Twins' misdemeanours.</p>
+
+<p>We turned and walked upstairs together, and paused outside Dilly's
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Dilly," I said. "I admired your pluck."</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't me," said Dilly, in a very small voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Not you?"</p>
+
+<p>"N-no. I said I would come, because Dicky said I daren't, and at the
+last moment I funked it. (Adrian, I simply couldn't!) So Dolly went
+instead."</p>
+
+<p>"Then that was Dolly all the time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And she went, just to&mdash;to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To save my face. She's a brick," said Dilly.</p>
+
+<p>This, by the way, was the first occasion on which I realised the
+truth of Robin's dictum that Dilly and Dolly were girls of widely
+different character.</p>
+
+<p>"And didn't the others recognise her?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. That's the best of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not Dicky?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Not even Robin? He is pretty hard to deceive, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"No, not even Robin. <i>None</i> of them know Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>But she was wrong.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter09" id="chapter09">CHAPTER NINE.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE POLICY OF THE CLOSED DOOR.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Dilly's wedding took place the following summer, just before
+Parliament rose, and the resources of our establishment were strained to
+the uttermost to give her a fitting send-off.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that a noble relative, the head of my wife's family,
+offered his house for the reception, but Dilly emphatically declined to
+be married from any but mine, saying prettily that she would not leave
+the roof under which she had lived so happily until the last possible
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly we made immense preparations. The drawing-room on the
+first floor, accustomed though it was to accommodate congested and
+half-stifled throngs of human beings, was deemed too small for the mob
+of wedding-guests whom Kitty expected.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, dear," she explained, "we can squash up <i>good</i> people
+as much as we like, because their clothes don't matter; but women in
+wedding-frocks will be furious if they don't get enough elbow-room to
+show themselves."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly a marquee was erected in the garden at the back of the
+house, opening into the dining-room through the French windows, and it
+was arranged that Dicky and Dilly were to take their stand in the middle
+of the same, what time the guests, having lubricated their utterance at
+the <i>buffet</i> in the dining-room <i>en route</i>, filed past and
+delivered their congratulations. After that the company was to overflow
+into the garden, there to be moved by a concord of sweet sounds
+emanating from a band of assassins in pseudo-Hungarian uniforms.</p>
+
+<p>"And if it rains," concluded Kitty desperately, "they must have an
+overflow meeting in the basement&mdash;that's all!"</p>
+
+<p>My library, as I had feared, was appropriated for the presents, and
+for several days I transacted the business of State at the
+wash-hand-stand in my dressing-room, while a stream of callers, ranging
+from the members of a Working Men's Club in which Dilly was fitfully
+interested, down to an organisation of Kitty's whose exact title I can
+never recall (but which Dicky, on first seeing them, immediately summed
+up as "The Hundred Worst Women"), filed solemnly past rows of filigree
+coffee-services, silver-backed hair-brushes, and art pen-wipers.</p>
+
+<p>Of the bride-elect I saw little, and when I did, she was usually
+standing, in a state of considerable <i>déshabille</i>, amid a kneeling
+group of myrmidons, who, with mouths filled with pins and brows seamed
+with anxiety, were remorselessly building her into some edifice of
+shimmering silk and filmy lace, oblivious of their victim's plaintive
+intimations that she was fit to drop.</p>
+
+<p>Dicky invited Robin to be his best man, a proceeding which, while it
+roused some surprise among those who were expecting him to fix upon a
+friend of longer standing and greater distinction, showed his good
+sense, for my secretary proved himself a model of organisation and
+helpfulness. Although born and reared up in the straitest sect of some
+Scottish denomination, about which I am unable to particularise beyond
+the fact that they regarded the use of harmoniums in churches as "the
+worship of men's feet," he betrayed a surprising knowledge of Anglican
+ritual and stage effect.</p>
+
+<p>On the wedding morning, having left the bridegroom securely tucked up
+in bed, under strict orders not to get up till he was called, Robin
+personally conducted a select party of those interested&mdash;Dolly,
+Dilly, another bridesmaid, and myself&mdash;to the church, where he
+showed us the exact positions of our entrances and exits; and then
+proceeded, with the assistance of Dolly, to plant hassocks about the
+chancel in such a manner as to leave us no doubts as to the whereabouts
+of our moorings (or "stances," as he called them) at the actual
+ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>The party was reinforced at this point by the arrival of no less a
+person than the bridegroom, who, having risen from his slumbers in
+defiance of Robin's injunctions, was now proceeding to infringe the laws
+of propriety by coming in search of his beloved four hours before he was
+entitled to do so.</p>
+
+<p>However, as Dilly rather pessimistically pointed out, it was probably
+the last time she would ever get a kind word out of him, so we gave them
+ten minutes together in the porch, while Robin interviewed vergers and
+Dolly intimidated perspiring persons with red carpets and
+evergreens.</p>
+
+<p>On our return home Dilly was snatched away by a cloud of attendant
+sprites, and we saw her no more until the time came for me to drive her
+to the church. We heard of her, though; for as we sat at luncheon,
+plying the bridegroom (who had collapsed after the complete and
+inevitable fashion of his kind about twelve o'clock) with raw brandy, a
+message came down from the upper regions, to the effect that Miss Dilly
+would take a couple of veal cutlets and a glass of Burgundy, as she
+wasn't going to be a pale bride if she could help it!</p>
+
+<p>However, this half-hysterical gaiety came to an end in the face of
+reality, and in the carriage on the way to church poor Dilly wept
+unrestrainedly on my shoulder. I mopped her up to the best of my
+ability, but she was still sobbing when we reached the church door, to
+find the six bridesmaids, together with Phillis (inordinately proud of
+her office of train-bearer), preening themselves in the porch.</p>
+
+<p>It had been arranged that the organ should break into "The March of
+the Priests," from 'Athalie'&mdash;Dicky's petition in favour of an
+ecclesiastical rendering of "The Eton Boating Song" had been thrown out
+with ignominy&mdash;as the bridal procession entered the nave.
+Unfortunately the organ-loft was out of sight of the west door, by which
+we were to enter, and the conveyance of the starting-signal to the
+proper quarter at exactly the right moment was a matter of some
+difficulty. However, Robin's gift for stage-management was sufficient to
+meet the emergency. When all was ready Dolly calmly mounting the steps
+of the font to an eminence which commanded a precarious but sufficient
+view of the body of the church, briefly fluttered a scrap of lace
+handkerchief, and then stepped demurely down into her place at the head
+of the bridesmaids. Simultaneously the organ burst into the opening
+strains of Mendelsohn's march&mdash;I suppose Robin had been waiting at
+some point of vantage to pass the signal on&mdash;and we advanced up the
+aisle, amid a general turning of heads and flutter of excitement.</p>
+
+<p>The church was packed. In the back pew I remember noticing three
+young men with pads of flimsy paper and well-sucked pencils. I
+distinctly caught sight of the words "Sacred edifice" in the nearest
+MS., and I have no doubt the others contained it as well.</p>
+
+<p>But Dilly was still quaking on my arm, and the only other spectacle
+which attracted my attention on the way up the aisle was that of my wife
+(looking very like a bride herself, I thought), sitting in a front pew
+with Master Gerald, that infant phenomenon shining resplendently in a
+white waistcoat and a "buttonhole" which almost entirely obscured his
+features. Then I caught sight of Robin's towering shoulders and the pale
+face and glassy eye of the bridegroom, and I knew that we had brought
+our horses to the water at last, and all that now remained to do was to
+make them drink.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the ceremony passed off with due impressiveness, if we
+except a slight <i>contretemps</i> arising from the behaviour of my
+daughter, who, suddenly remembering that the junior bridesmaid but one
+had not yet passed any opinion on her new shoes, suddenly sat down on
+the bride's train, and, thrusting the shoes into unmaidenly prominence,
+audibly invited that giggling damsel's approbation of the same. However,
+the ever-ready organ drowned her utterance with a timely Amen, and Dicky
+and Dilly completed the plighting of their troth with becoming shyness
+but obvious sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the inevitable orgy of osculation in the vestry, from which
+I escaped with nothing worse, so to speak, than a few scratches, despite
+an unprovoked and unexpected flank attack (when I was signing the
+register) from an elderly female in bugles, whom I at first took to be a
+rather giddy pew-opener, but who ultimately proved to be a maiden aunt
+of the bridegroom's.</p>
+
+<p>After Dicky and Dilly&mdash;the latter miraculously restored to high
+spirits and looking radiant&mdash;had passed smiling and blushing down
+the aisle, to be received outside with breathless stares by a large
+assemblage of that peculiar class of people&mdash;chiefly females of a
+certain age&mdash;who seem to spend their lives in attending the
+weddings of total strangers, we all got home, where there was much
+champagne, and cake-cutting, and bride-kissing, and melody from the
+aforementioned musicians in the garden.</p>
+
+<p>The presents&mdash;guarded with an air of studied aloofness by a
+wooden-jointed detective, clad in garments of such festal splendour as
+to delude several short-sighted old gentlemen into an impression that he
+was the bridegroom&mdash;played their usual invaluable part in promoting
+circulation among the guests, and supplying a topic for conversation.
+They certainly sparkled and glittered bravely in the library, where the
+blinds were drawn and the electric lamps turned on. (Kitty had seen to
+that. Silver looks so well by artificial light, and so, by a happy and
+unpremeditated coincidence, does the female sex.)</p>
+
+<p>The bride and bridegroom departed at last, amid a shower of rice,
+with that emblem of conjugal felicity, the satin slipper, firmly
+adhering to the back of the brougham. (Master Gerald had seen to
+<i>that</i>.) Then the guests began to make their adieux and melt away,
+and presently we found ourselves alone in the marquee, a prey to that
+swift and penetrating melancholy that descends upon those who begin to
+be festive too early in the day, and find themselves unable to keep it
+up till bed-time.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>However, there was a recrudescence of activity and brightness in the
+evening, as the idea of a small dance had been proposed and carried, and
+the invitations issued and accepted, during the five minutes which
+witnessed the departure of the more intimate section of the guests.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned from the House about midnight&mdash;I had gone there
+chiefly to dine, as lobster claws and melted ices appeared to be the
+only fare in prospect at home&mdash;tired to death, and conscious of an
+incipient cold in the head, arising from forced residence in a house in
+which hardly a door had been on its hinges for three days, I became
+aware that I was once again the lessee of a cave of harmony.</p>
+
+<p>The pseudo-Hungarian assassins were pounding out the latest waltz,
+with a disregard for time and tune which I at first attributed to
+champagne, but which a closer survey proved to be due to the fact that
+the band was being conducted, surprising as it may seem, by my
+brother-in-law, who had kindly undertaken to wield the <i>bâton</i>,
+while the Chief Tormentor (or whatever his proper title may have been)
+charged himself anew at the refreshment counter. A popping of corks in
+the supper-room apprised me of the fact that my guests were doing their
+best, at my expense, to make the Excise Returns a more cheerful feature
+of next year's Budget.</p>
+
+<p>I went upstairs in search of a white waistcoat and one or two other
+necessary contributions to the festivity of the evening, picking my way
+with the utmost care among the greatly-engrossed couples who impeded
+every step; and finally arrived at my dressing-room, to find that that
+hallowed apartment had been turned into a ladies' cloak-room, and that
+every available article of furniture stood elbow-deep under some
+attractive combination of furs and feathers.</p>
+
+<p>I unearthed the things I required, but lacked the courage to stay and
+put them on. At any moment I might be invaded by a damsel who had met
+with some mishap in the heat of the fray, and was now desirous, as they
+say in the navy, of "executing repairs while under steam." I accordingly
+left the room and mounted towards the top of the house. I had in my
+mind's eye a snug little apartment, situated somewhere in the attics,
+devoted chiefly to dressmaking operations, where I knew there was a
+mirror, and I might complete my toilet in peace.</p>
+
+<p>With becoming modesty I penetrated to this haven by the back-stairs.
+I had just reached the top, which was opposite the door in question,
+when I heard voices. Evidently some one was coming up to this same
+landing by the front stair.</p>
+
+<p>A man does not look his best when found creeping up his own
+back-stairs with a white waistcoat in one hand and a pair of pumps in
+the other, and I confess I retreated downwards and backwards a couple of
+paces. The stair on which I stood was unlighted, and I had a good view
+of the landing.</p>
+
+<p>The voices came nearer, and I could now hear the rustling of silks
+and laces. Presently I recognised the voices, and immediately after this
+their owners came into view, with their backs almost towards me.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the room I mean," said the man, indicating my goal.</p>
+
+<p>"That! All right! Only I don't see why you should drag me all the way
+up here," said the girl. "There are much nicer sitting-out places
+downstairs. Still, anything for a rest. Come on!"</p>
+
+<p>She entered the room, followed by her partner. I saw his broad back
+for a moment as it filled the doorway. Then he turned in my direction
+with his hand on the handle, and it seemed to me that he hesitated a
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>Finally he shut the door firmly, and&mdash;I distinctly heard the key
+turned in the lock.</p>
+
+<p>I went downstairs again.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>It was four o'clock in the morning. The last guest had gone, the
+domestics had retired to their subterranean retreat, and the musicians
+had all been booked through to Saffron Hill in one cab.</p>
+
+<p>The dawn was just breaking over the house-tops on the other side of
+the square, and the sky was bathed in a curious heather-coloured
+light&mdash;a sure sign of a wet day to come, said hill-bred Robin. We
+stood out on the steps,&mdash;Kitty, Dolly, Robin, and I,&mdash;and
+Kitty put her arm round her sister's waist. I knew she was thinking of
+the absent Dilly.</p>
+
+<p>Behind us, in the hall, Master Gerald, completely surfeited with
+about sixteen crowded hours of glorious life, lay fast asleep on a
+settee.</p>
+
+<p>I looked curiously at Dolly as she leaned on her sister's shoulder.
+She was half a head taller than Kitty, and as she stood there, rosily
+flushed, in the dawn of her splendid womanhood, she might have stood for
+the very goddess whose first rays were now falling on her upturned face
+and glinting hair.</p>
+
+<p>Then I looked at Robin, towering beside her, and suddenly I felt a
+little ashamed of myself.</p>
+
+<p>For to tell the truth I had been very unhappy that evening, and I had
+been looking forward in a few minutes' time to unburdening myself to
+Kitty about recent events. But as I surveyed Dolly and Robin, curiously
+alike in their upright carriage and steady gaze, I suddenly realised
+that such a pair could safely be trusted to steer their own course; and
+I decided there and then not to communicate even to Kitty&mdash;my wife
+and Dolly's sister&mdash;the knowledge of what I had seen that
+night.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty turned impulsively to her sister.</p>
+
+<p>"After all, I've still got <i>you</i>, Dolly," she said.</p>
+
+<p>I took a furtive glance at Robin's inscrutable countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;<i>wonder</i>!" I said to myself.</p>
+
+<p>"What, dear?" said Kitty.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. I must carry this young ruffian up to bed, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>Curiosity has been most unfairly ear-marked as the exclusive monopoly
+of the female sex. But as I stumbled upstairs that night, bearing in my
+arms the limp but stertorous carcase of my esteemed relative by
+marriage, I could not help wondering (despite my efforts to put away
+from me a matter which I had decided was not my business) exactly what
+Robin <i>had</i> said to Dolly behind that locked door.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter10" id="chapter10">CHAPTER TEN.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>ROBIN'S WAY OF DOING IT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>What happened when Robin locked the door on himself and Dolly is now
+set down here. Strictly speaking it ought to come later, but there is no
+need to make a mystery about it. I have taken the account of the
+proceedings mainly from the letter which Dolly wrote to Dilly three days
+later.</p>
+
+<p>It would be useless to reproduce that document in full. In the first
+place, it contains a good deal that is not only irrelevant but
+absolutely incomprehensible. There is one mysterious passage, for
+instance, occurring right in the middle of the letter, beginning, <i>To
+ turn the heel, knit to three beyond the seam-stitch, knit two together,
+ purl one, turn: then knit ten, knit two together, knit one, purl
+ one</i> ... introduced by an airy, "By the way, dear, before I
+forget"&mdash;&mdash;which appears to have no bearing on the context
+whatever.</p>
+
+<p>In the second place, Dolly's literary style is as breathlessly devoid
+of punctuation as that of most of her sex. Commas and notes of
+interrogation form her chief stock-in-trade, though underlining is
+freely employed. There is not a single full-stop from start to finish.
+The extracts from the letter here reproduced have been edited by me.
+Other details of the incident have been tactfully extracted by Kitty and
+myself&mdash;chiefly Kitty, I must confess&mdash;from the principals
+themselves, and the whole is now offered to the public, unabridged, with
+marginal comments, for the first time.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>On entering the little room on the landing Dolly dropped on to a
+shabby but comfortable old sofa behind the door, and said, with a
+contented sigh&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so tired, Robin. Aren't you? Let's sit down and not talk till
+it's time to go downstairs again. It's&mdash;Robin, what <i>are</i> you
+doing?"</p>
+
+<p>Robin was locking the door.</p>
+
+<p>That operation completed, he turned and looked round the little room.
+There was an arm-chair in the corner, but he came and sat down on the
+sofa beside Dolly. Dolly gazed at him dumbly.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+ <p>"He looked so utterly grim and determined" [says the
+ letter], "that my heart began to bump in a perfectly fatuous way. I
+ felt like a woman who is going to be murdered in a railway tunnel.</p>
+
+  <p>"He sat down, and one of his huge hands was suddenly stretched
+  towards me, and I thought at first he was trying to grab one of mine.
+  I did my best to edge away along the sofa, but I was up against the
+  end already.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then his hand opened, and something dropped into my lap. It was
+  the key of the door.</p>
+
+  <p>"'I have locked it,' he said, 'not with any intention of keeping
+  you in, but in the hope of keeping other people out. You are perfectly
+  free to get up and go whenever you please, if you don't wish to listen
+  to what I have to say.'</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, dear, I suppose I ought to have risen to my full height,
+  and, with a few superb gestures of haughty contempt, have swept
+  majestically from the room. But&mdash;I didn't! I saw I was in for
+  another proposal, and as the man couldn't eat me I decided to let him
+  do his worst.</p>
+
+  <p>"It was a weird proposal, though." [<i>Spelt 'wierd.'</i>] "It
+  wasn't exactly what he said, because one is never surprised at
+  anything a man may say when he is proposing; but the way he said it.
+  All men say pretty much the same thing in the end, but most of them
+  are so <i>horribly</i> nervous that they simply don't know what
+  they're talking about for the first five minutes or so. (Do you
+  remember poor little Algy Brock? He was nearly <i>crying</i> all the
+  time. At least he was with me, and I suppose he was with you too.) But
+  Robin might have been having a chat with his solicitor the way he
+  behaved. I'll tell you ..."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Robin apparently began by telling Dolly, quite simply and plainly,
+that he loved her. Then he gave a brief outline of the history of his
+affection. It had begun at the very beginning of things, he said, almost
+as soon as he discovered that he could distinguish Dolly from Dilly
+without the aid of the brown spot. "And that was after I had been in the
+house just three days," he added.</p>
+
+<p>For some time, it appeared, he had been content to be pleasantly in
+love. He enjoyed Dolly's society when it came his way, but with native
+caution he had taken care to avoid seeking too much of it in case he
+should gradually find himself unable to do without it.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw from the first," he said, "that you were entirely unconscious
+of my feelings towards you; and I would not have had it otherwise. If I
+was to succeed at all it must be as an acquired taste; and acquired
+tastes, as you know, are best formed unconsciously."</p>
+
+<p>Dolly nodded to show her detached appreciation of the soundness of
+this point.</p>
+
+<p>"I permitted myself one indulgence," Robin continued. "I dedicated a
+book to you."</p>
+
+<p>"O-oh!" said Dolly, genuinely interested. "Was that me? Dilly and I
+thought it must be a girl in Scotland."</p>
+
+<p>Then she realised that this was a step down from her pedestal of
+aloofness, and was silent again. Robin went on&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it was you. It was a sentimental thing to do, but it afforded
+me immense pleasure. Love lives more on the homage it pays than that
+which it receives. Have you noticed that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have never thought about it," said Dolly distantly.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought not," replied Robin; "because it shows, what I have always
+been tolerably certain of, that you have never been in love. However, to
+resume." [<i>"Like a lecture on Greek Roots, or something equally
+ fusty,"</i> observes Dolly at this point.] "The time came, as it was
+bound to come, when I realised that I must tell you I loved
+you"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+  <p>"I rather like the way he always said <i>'love'</i> straight
+  out," comments Dolly: "most men are so frightened of it.
+  They say 'am fond of' or 'care for' or something feeble
+  like that. All except the curate with pink eyes. (You
+  remember him? Dora Claverton took him afterwards on
+  the rebound.) He said 'esteem highly' I think."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="noindent">&mdash;&mdash;"or leave this house altogether. But
+before doing that I had to decide two things: firstly, whether I was
+good enough for you, and secondly, if not now, whether I ever should
+be."</p>
+
+<p>Dolly's half-closed eyes opened a trifle wider. This was certainly a
+methodically-minded young man.</p>
+
+<p>"It was difficult to decide the first question in practice,"
+continued Robin. "In theory, of course, any man who is a
+<i>man</i>&mdash;honest, clean, and kind&mdash;is a fitting mate for any
+woman. Don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Robin gently. "The theoretical is mainly the man's
+point of view: woman looks straight to practical results. She is rather
+inclined to take the virtues I have mentioned for granted, or do without
+them; and she founds her opinion of a man almost solely upon his
+capacity for boring her or stimulating her. In other words, she is
+guided by her instinct. Isn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is she?" said Dolly, determined this time to maintain her attitude
+of indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"I think so," said Robin. "However, knowing how impossible it is for
+one sex to look at a matter from the point of view of another, I decided
+to stick to my own methods. So I made a summary of my points, good and
+bad. They are these: I am strong and healthy; I possess an appetite for
+hard work; I was born with brains; I have considerable capacity for
+organisation&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Some people have a good conceit of themselves!" said Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Every</i> one should have," replied Robin with conviction. "And,"
+he added, "most of us have. <i>I</i> have&mdash;<i>you</i> have!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Dolly indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"But a man may have a good conceit of himself," Robin continued
+soothingly, "without being what the world calls conceited. Modesty
+consists not in taking a low estimate of one's own worth, but in
+refraining from the expectation that the world will take a high
+one."</p>
+
+<p>Dolly nodded gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," she said. "I didn't know you meant that. Yes, there is
+something in what you say."</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you," said Robin. "It is very helpful to me to get this
+courteous hearing from you; for to tell you the truth," he added rather
+explosively, "I find it a very, very great effort to speak to you like
+this at all. You see, I am talking of things that go right to the centre
+of the human heart&mdash;things that a man never speaks of to a man, and
+only once to a woman. It has to be done, but it is hard, hard!"</p>
+
+<p>He drew a long breath, in a manner which made the sofa tremble; and
+Dolly suddenly realised the height and depth of the barrier of reserve
+and pride that this grave and undemonstrative man had had to break down
+before he could offer her the view of his inmost soul to which he
+considered that she was entitled. She felt a sudden pang of awe, mingled
+with compassionate sympathy. She was not given to wearing her heart on
+her sleeve herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," continued Robin, evidently relieved by this little
+confession, "those are my assets. On the other hand, I have no money, no
+position&mdash;I will not say no birth, for I come of good, honest
+stock&mdash;and my prospects are at present in the clouds. But to one
+type of wife all that would not matter a scrap. There are two types, you
+know&mdash;two types of <i>good</i> wife, that is."</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+  <p>"I would have given worlds," says Dolly here, "just
+  to have said 'Oh!' or something; but for the life of
+  me I couldn't help asking what the two types were."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>"The  first," said Robin, "is the wife who loves her husband because
+she is proud of him, because he is successful and powerful, and people
+admire him; and not because she has any conception of or sympathy with
+the qualities which have made him what he is. To such a one the husband
+must come with his reputation ready made, and they will enjoy it
+together. The other type loves her husband because she sees through him,
+yet believes in him and sympathises with his aims, and intends to make a
+success of him. And she usually does."</p>
+
+<p>"And which am I?" inquired Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>"The latter, undoubtedly&mdash;the higher type. And therefore, if
+there had been nothing else in the way, I think I should have given
+myself the benefit of the doubt. But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+  <p>"He turned and looked at me here," writes Dolly,
+  and said&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"'But your feminine instinct is chafing against all this laborious
+  weighing of pros and cons. In your own mind you summed up the
+  situation ten minutes ago. I am&mdash;"impossible." Isn't that
+  it?'</p>
+
+  <p>"My <i>dear</i>, I nearly <i>screamed</i>, for of course that is
+  just what was in my mind. But I couldn't very well say so, so I just
+  sat there and looked rather idiotic and he went on&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"'In other words, I am not quite a gentleman.'</p>
+
+  <p>"Then I said quite suddenly&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"'Robin, whatever else you may be, you <i>are</i> a gentleman.'</p>
+
+  <p>"He got quite pink. 'Thank you,' he said. 'But for all that, I am
+  too rough a suitor for such a polished little aristocrat as yourself.'
+  (Rather cheek, that! After all, Dilly, we're five feet seven.) 'We
+  live in an artificial sort of world; and a man, in order not to jar on
+  those around him, requires certain social accomplishments. I have
+  few&mdash;at present. You have taught me a great deal, but I should
+  still rather discredit you as a husband. My want of polish would
+  'affront' you, as we say in Scotland. I am a better beater than shot;
+  I can break a horse better than I can ride it; and I dance a reel
+  better than I waltz. I have strength, but no grace; ability, but no
+  distinction. Of course, if you and I really loved each other&mdash;you
+  being of Type Two&mdash;none of these things would matter. But for all
+  that, it would hurt you to see people smiling at your husband's little
+  <i>gaucheries</i>, wouldn't it?'</p>
+
+  <p>"I didn't answer, and he got up and went and leaned against the
+  mantelpiece.</p>
+
+  <p>"'Listen,' he said, 'and I will tell you what I have decided to do.
+  I have made up my mind not to have a try for you&mdash;badly though I
+  want it&mdash;till I consider that I have reached your standard. I
+  fixed that standard myself, so it is a very, very high one, I have
+  been schooling myself and shaping myself to attain it ever since I met
+  you. But I have not quite reached it yet, and therefore I have nothing
+  to ask of you now.'"</p>
+ </blockquote>
+
+<p>"Then what on earth have you brought me here for?" inquired Dolly,
+feeling vaguely aggrieved.</p>
+
+<p>Robin surveyed her rather wistfully, and then smiled in a disarming
+fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"That was weakness," he said, "sheer weakness. But I think it was
+pardonable. I saw, now that your sister was married, that the days of
+your old irresponsible flirtations were over, and that you would
+henceforth regard proposals of marriage as much more serious things than
+hitherto. Consequently you might marry any day, without ever knowing
+that a little later on you would have received an offer from me. I have
+brought you here, then, to tell you that I am a prospective candidate,
+but that I do not feel qualified to put down my name at present. Ideally
+speaking, I ought to have kept silence until the moment when I
+considered that I was ready for you; but&mdash;well, there are limits to
+self-repression, and I have allowed myself this one little outbreak. All
+I ask, then, is that in considering other offers you will bear somewhere
+in the back of your mind the remembrance that you will, if you desire
+it, one day have the refusal of me. I admit that the possibility of your
+being influenced by the recollection is very remote, but I am going to
+leave nothing undone that <i>can</i> be done to get you."</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+  <p>"By this time," Dolly continues elegantly, "I was getting
+  considerably flummoxed. The whole business was
+  very absurd and uncomfortable, but I couldn't help feeling
+  rather complimented at the way he evidently regarded
+  me&mdash;as a sort of little tin goddess on a pedestal out of
+  reach, being asked to be so good as to stand still a
+  moment while Robin went to hunt for the steps&mdash;and I
+  also felt a little bit afraid of him. He was so quiet and
+  determined over it all. He seemed to have it all mapped
+  out in a kind of time-table inside him. However, I
+  pulled myself together and decided to contribute my
+  share to the conversation. I hadn't had much of a look
+  in, so far.</p>
+
+  <p>"So I settled down to talk to him like a mother. I
+  began by saying that I was very much obliged and
+  honoured, and all that, but that he had better put the
+  idea out of his head once and for all. I liked him very
+  much, and had always regarded him as a great friend, quite
+  one of the family&mdash;you know the sort of stuff&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"It was no good. He held up his hand like a policeman
+  at a crossing, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"'Please say nothing. I have asked you no question
+  of any kind, so no answer is required. All that I have
+  said to-night has been in the nature of an <i>intimation</i>.'
+  (O-h! how like church!)</p>
+
+  <p>"Then he sat down on the sofa beside me, very gently,
+  and said&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"'The intimation in brief is this. I love you; and
+  some day, please God, I shall ask you to marry me.
+  But not until I feel that you would lose nothing by
+  doing so.'</p>
+
+  <p>"We both sat very still for a few minutes after that.
+  I fancy we were both doing a little thinking. My chief
+  reflection was that Robin had had rather the better of the
+  interview, because he had made me listen to him when
+  I was determined not to. Suddenly Robin said&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"'Now that the business part of this conversation is
+  over, I am going to allow myself a luxury. I have been
+  talking most of the time about myself. For just five
+  minutes I shall talk about you. I will tell you what I
+  think of you.'</p>
+
+  <p>"He looked at his watch and began. Dilly, I had no
+  idea I had so many good points! He put them better
+  than any man has ever done before. But then the other
+  men were always so jumbled up, and this creature was as
+  cool and collected as if he were reading a Stores Catalogue.</p>
+
+  <p>"But he let himself go at last. It was my fault, though.
+  I was in rather a twitter by this time, for although the
+  whole thing was simply absurd&mdash;of course one couldn't
+  marry a wild untamed creature like that, <i>could</i> one, Dilly?&mdash;I
+  couldn't help seeing what a man he was, and feeling
+  sorry that things couldn't have been a bit different, if
+  only for his sake. So I gave him my hand" [I can
+  see her do it] "and said: 'Poor old Robin!'</p>
+
+  <p>"He <i>seized</i> it&mdash;my child, it has waggled like a blanc-mange
+  ever since!&mdash;and kissed it. Then, quite suddenly,
+  he broke out into a sort of rhapsody-like <i>'The Song of
+  Solomon,'</i> only nicer&mdash;with his head bowed over my hands.
+  (He had got hold of the other one too, by this time.) I
+  felt perfectly helpless, so I let him run on. I shan't tell
+  you what he said, dear, because it wouldn't be cricket.
+  Anyhow, a perfectly idiotic tear suddenly rolled down my
+  nose&mdash;after all, I had had a <i>fearfully</i> long day&mdash;and I
+  tried to pull my hands away. Robin let them go at once.</p>
+
+  <p>"'You are right. The time for such things is not yet,'
+  he said, in a queer Biblical sort of way. 'It was a sudden
+  weakness on my part. I had not meant it, you may be
+  sure.'</p>
+
+  <p>"The only thing I <i>am</i> sure about," I said, feeling
+  thoroughly vexed about the tear, "is that we have been
+  in this room nearly an hour. Please unlock the door.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then we went downstairs."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>After that follow one or two postscripts of a reflective nature, the
+general trend of which seems to indicate that Robin is rather a dear,
+but quite impossible.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>"A flippant and unfeeling letter," you say, sir? Perhaps. But there
+is often no reserve so deep or so delicate as that which is veiled by a
+frivolous exterior and a mocking attitude towards sentiment in general.
+Some sensitive people are so afraid of having their hearts dragged to
+light that, to escape inquisition, they pretend they do not possess any.
+Moreover, I know Dolly well enough to be certain that she was not quite
+so brutally unkind to Robin during this interview as she would have us
+believe.</p>
+
+<p>"The blundering creature! He went about it in <i>quite</i> the wrong
+way," you say, madam? Very likely. But if a woman only took a man when
+he went about it in exactly the right way, how very few marriages there
+would be!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2>BOOK  TWO.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FINISHED ARTICLE</h3>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter11" id="chapter11">CHAPTER ELEVEN.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A MISFIRE.</h3>
+
+<h4>I.</h4>
+
+
+<p>There is an undefinable character and distinctiveness about Sunday
+morning which is not possessed by any other day of the week.</p>
+
+<p>Not that the remaining six are lacking in individuality. Monday is a
+depressed and reluctant individual; Tuesday is a full-blooded and
+energetic citizen; Wednesday a cheerful and contented gentleman who does
+not intend to overwork himself to-day,&mdash;this is probably due to the
+fact that we used to have a half-holiday on Wednesdays at school; and
+when I got into Parliament I found that the same rule held there;
+Thursday I regard as one who ploughs steadily on his way, lacking
+enthusiasm but comfortably conscious of a second wind; Friday is a
+debilitated but hopeful toiler, whose sole joy in his work lies in
+anticipating its speedy conclusion; and Saturday is a radiant fellow
+with a straw hat and a week-end bag.</p>
+
+<p>Still, one week-day is very like another at waking time. My mental
+vision, never pellucid, is in its most opaque condition in the early
+grey of the morning; and at Oxford, I remember, I found it necessary to
+instruct my scout to rouse me from slumber in some such fashion as this:
+"Eight o'clock on Thursday mornin', sir!" (as if I had slept since
+Monday at least), or "'Alf-past nine, slight rain, and a Toosday,
+sir!"</p>
+
+<p>However, no one was ever yet needed to inform me that it was Sunday
+morning. This is perhaps natural enough in town, where the silence of
+the streets and the sound of bells proclaim the day; but why the same
+phenomenon should occur in the middle of a Highland moor, where every
+day is one glorious open-air Sabbath, passes my comprehension.</p>
+
+<p>I discussed the problem after breakfast as I sat and smoked my pipe
+in the heathery garden of Strathmyrtle, a shooting-lodge at which we
+were being hospitably entertained by Kitty's uncle, Sir John Rubislaw, a
+retired Admiral of the Fleet, whose forty years' official connection
+with Britannia's realm betrayed itself in a nautical roll, syncopated by
+gout, and what I may describe as a hurricane-deck voice. My three
+companions in the debate were my host, Master Gerald, and another guest
+in the house, one Dermott, an officer in a Highland regiment.</p>
+
+<p>The Admiral ascribed my Sabbath intuition to the working of some
+inward and automatic monitor; while Dermott, among whose many sterling
+qualities delicate fancy was not included, put it down to the smell of
+some special dish indigenous to Sunday breakfast. My brother-in-law's
+contribution to the debate was an unseemly and irreverent parallel
+between Saturday night potations and Sunday morning "heads."</p>
+
+<p>To us entered Dolly and Phillis.</p>
+
+<p>Our hostess, together with Kitty and the other girl of the
+party&mdash;an American young lady of considerable personal
+attractions&mdash;had driven off to church in what is locally called a
+"machine." The duties of escort had been voluntarily undertaken by an
+undergraduate named Standish, who was the latest recruit to the American
+young lady's army of worshippers. The rest of us had stayed at
+home&mdash;the Admiral because he not infrequently did so; I because I
+was expecting Robin back by the "machine" (which was to pick him up at a
+wayside station, where he had been sitting on his portmanteau ever since
+six o'clock that morning, having been dropped there by the night mail
+from London), and was anticipating two or three hours' solid work with
+him; Gerald because he had succeeded in evading his eldest sister's eye
+during the search for church recruits; Dolly to look after Phillis; and
+Captain Dermott for reasons not unconnected with Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>It was Phillis's birthday, but out of consideration for Scottish
+views on Sabbath observance the festivities in connection with that
+anniversary had been postponed until the morrow. However, this did not
+prevent my daughter from demanding (and obtaining) various special
+privileges of an unofficial character this hot Sunday morning.
+Consequently a spiritually willing but carnally incompetent band,
+consisting of one jovial but arthritic baronet, one docile but
+self-conscious warrior, one indulgent but overheated parent, and
+Dolly&mdash;Gerald stood scornfully aloof&mdash;were compelled to devote
+the next two hours to a series of games, stage-plays, and allegories of
+an innocuous but exhausting description.</p>
+
+<p>We began by joining hands and walking in a circle, solemnly chanting
+a ditty of the "I-saw-a-ship-a-sailing" variety, which culminated in the
+following verse&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div class="quote">"Then three times round went that gallant ship,</div>
+    <div class="in1">Then three times round went she;</div>
+    <div>Then three times round went that gallant ship&mdash;</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noindent">(Here we were commanded by the mistress of the
+revels, in a hoarse and hurried stage whisper, to be ready to fall
+down)</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div>&mdash;And sank to the bottom&mdash;of&mdash;the&mdash;sea!"</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Now all fall down!" screamed Phillis.</p>
+
+<p>We did so, and lay on the grass in serried heaps. The remark which
+the Admiral made when my left elbow descended upon his goutiest foot was
+fortunately obscured by the fact that his face was inside his hat at the
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>After that we performed the "most lamentable comedy" of "The Three
+Bears." Phillis assigned the parts, reserving for herself the
+<i>rôle</i> of Curly Locks and Stage Manager. Dolly was cast for Mother
+Bear, Captain Dermott for Father Bear, and I for Baby Bear. The Admiral,
+at his own urgent request, was allotted the comparatively unimportant
+part of Baby Bear's bed, and sat nursing his foot and observing with
+keen relish the preparations of the Bear family for their morning walk.
+We set out at last, all three on our hands and knees, Dolly and Dermott
+crawling amicably side by side, heroically regardless of white skirt and
+Sunday sporran; I, as befitted my youth and station, bringing up the
+rear.</p>
+
+<p>The Bears having vacated their domicile (the grass plot), Curly
+Locks, after much furtive peeping round bushes, entered and advanced to
+the rustic table, where she proceeded to test the contents of the
+various porridge-bowls (represented by two tobacco-pouches and an
+ash-tray respectively).</p>
+
+<p>"Too hot!" she said, after sampling the first bowl.</p>
+
+<p>"Too cold!" she continued, trying the next.</p>
+
+<p>"A-a-ah!" she cried, coming to the third; and swallowed its contents
+(some heather-tops) with every appearance of enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>After that came the inspection of the beds (two sofa-cushions and the
+Admiral), and finally Curly Locks retired to rest on her grand-uncle's
+knee.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Three Bears came painfully back from the shrubbery, and
+Curly Locks' acts of spoliation were revealed one by one. My assumption
+of grief on the discovery of my empty porridge-bowl was so realistic
+that the Stage Manager sat up in bed and commended me for it. Finally we
+went the round of the furniture; Curly Locks was duly discovered; and I
+was engaged in a life-and-death struggle for her shrieking person with
+the bed itself, when there was a crunching of gravel, and the "machine"
+drove up with Robin inside it.</p>
+
+<p>After my secretary had greeted those of us whom he knew, and been
+interrupted in the middle of a rapturous embrace from Phillis to be
+introduced to those whom he did not, I took him off indoors for a meal,
+through the breakfast-room window, and opened the portfolio of
+correspondence which he had brought me from London.</p>
+
+<p>"Hallo! Here is a letter for Dermott," I said. "I'll take it to
+him."</p>
+
+<p>I stepped through the window and handed the letter to Dermott, who
+was falling into line for a fresh game just outside.</p>
+
+<p>"That envelope looks terribly official," said Dolly. "What does it
+all mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I expect it means Aldershot," said Dermott ruefully. "However, I
+shan't open it till lunch-time." And he stuffed the offending epistle
+into his pocket, and returned to the game in hand with a zest and
+abandon that betrayed ulterior motives in every antic.</p>
+
+<p>We had seen a good deal of Captain Dermott that summer. Somehow he
+had been in nearly every house we had visited; and his laborious
+expressions of pleased surprise at meeting us there had now given way to
+specious and transparent explanations of his own presence. The experts
+at countless tea-tables and shooting-lunches were practically unanimous
+in the opinion that Dolly could land her fish when she chose now; and as
+the fish was a good fellow, and could offer her three thousand a-year
+and the reflected glory of a D.S.O., it was generally conceded that my
+youngest sister-in-law&mdash;have I ever mentioned that Dolly was the
+junior Twin?&mdash;was about to do extremely well for herself.</p>
+
+<p>I sat by Robin as he consumed his breakfast, and waded through my
+correspondence. There was a good deal to sign and a good deal to digest,
+and a good deal that was of no importance whatsoever. But the
+<i>clou</i> of the whole budget was contained in a private letter from
+my Chief. I read it.</p>
+
+<p>"My word, Robin!" I said. "There's to be a Dissolution in
+January."</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer, and I looked up.</p>
+
+<p>Robin was not listening. His attention had wandered to the game in
+progress on the lawn. This was one of Phillis' most cherished pastimes,
+and was called "Beckoning." The players, except the person who for the
+time being filled the <i>rôle</i> of "It," stood patiently in a row,
+until "It," after mature consideration, beckoned invitingly to one of
+them to approach. This invitation might or might not be a genuine one,
+for sometimes the player on responding was received by the beckoner with
+hisses and other symptoms of distaste, and fell back ignominiously on
+the main body. But if you were the <i>real</i> object of the beckoner's
+affections, you were greeted with embraces and a cry of "I choose you!"
+and succeeded to the proud post of "It."</p>
+
+<p>It was a simple but embarrassing game, calling for the exercise of
+considerable tact when played by adults. At the present moment Phillis
+was beckoner, while Dolly, Dermott, and the Admiral stood meekly in line
+awaiting selection. Dolly and the Admiral were each called without being
+chosen, and Phillis's final selection proved to be Dermott, who, having
+received an enthusiastic salute from the retiring president, now stood
+sheepishly on one leg surveying the expectant trio before him.</p>
+
+<p>He began by beckoning to his host; and, having relieved that
+gentleman's apprehensions by sibilant noises, waggled a nervous finger
+at Dolly. Dolly advanced obediently.</p>
+
+<p>"Choose her, if you like," said Phillis magnanimously.</p>
+
+<p>Dermott's martial eye kindled, but he made no sign, and the game
+faltered in its stride for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Say," interpolated the prompter, "'I choose you!' and then
+k&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Dermott, hastily emitting a hiss which must have cost him a
+heartrending effort, relegated the greatly relieved Dolly to the ranks,
+and smoothed over the situation by "choosing" my daughter, to that young
+person's undisguised gratification.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this phase in the proceedings that Robin's attention began
+to wander from the affairs of State, and I had to repeat my news of the
+impending Dissolution to him twice before he grasped its full
+significance. Even then he displayed about one-tenth of the excitement I
+should have expected of him; and finally he admitted that he was
+somewhat <i>dérangé</i> after his night journey, and suggested a
+postponement of business in favour of a little recreation on the
+lawn.</p>
+
+<p>We accordingly added ourselves to the party, just in time to join the
+cast of Phillis' next production. This was an ambitious but complicated
+drama of an allegorical type, in which Robin appeared&mdash;not for the
+first time, evidently&mdash;as a boy called Henry, and Phillis doubled
+the parts of Henry's mother and a fairy. These two <i>rôles</i> absorbed
+practically the whole of what is professionally known as "the fat" of
+the piece, and the other members of the company were relegated&mdash;to
+their ill-disguised relief&mdash;to parts of purely nominal
+importance.</p>
+
+<p>The curtain rose (if I may use the expression) upon Henry's humble
+home, where Henry was discovered partaking of breakfast (fir-cones). He
+complained bitterly to his mother of the hardship of <i>(a)</i> early
+rising, <i>(b)</i> going to school, and <i>(c)</i> enduring chastisement
+when he got there. The next scene revealed him in class, where the
+schoolmaster  (Dolly, assiduously prompted by Phillis) asked him a
+series of questions, which he answered so incorrectly as to incur the
+extreme penalty of "the muckle tawse." (Here what textual critics term
+"internal evidence of a later hand" peeped out unmistakably.) The
+punishment having been duly inflicted by Dolly with a rug-strap, Henry
+retired, suffused with tears, to "a mountain-top," where he gave vent to
+a series of bitter reflections on the hardness of his lot and the
+hollowness of life in general.</p>
+
+<p>He must have "gagged" unduly here, for presently he was cut short by
+a stern admonition to "wish for a fairy."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish for a fairy," said Henry dutifully.</p>
+
+<p>Phillis, given her cue at last, pirouetted before him with
+outstretched skirts.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on!" she whispered excitedly. "Say, 'I wish that all Pain was
+Pleasure and all Pleasure Pain.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sorry!" said Henry. "I wish that all Pain was Pleasure and
+Pleasure Pain."</p>
+
+<p>"Have then thy wish!" announced the fairy solemnly, and fluttered
+away.</p>
+
+<p>The drama thereafter pursued a remorselessly logical and improving
+course. Having got his wish, the luckless Henry found that his only
+moments of pleasure were those during which he was enduring the tawse,
+getting out of bed on a cold morning, or doing something equally
+unpleasant. On the other hand, his comfortable bed had become so painful
+that he could only obtain rest by filling it with stones; and his
+matutinal porridge was only made palatable by the addition of a handful
+of gravel.</p>
+
+<p>After a fruitless interview with the family physician (Captain
+Dermott), in which the patient's mother set forth her offspring's
+symptoms with embarrassing frankness, Henry was compelled, as a last
+resort, to pay one more visit to the mountain-top. The indulgent fairy
+kindly agreed to put things right, but only under penalty of an
+improving homily on contentment with one's lot and the fatuity of asking
+for what you do not really want. This was only half finished when the
+party returned from church, and Phillis, realising that the absolute
+despotism of the last few hours would now be watered down by an
+unsentimental mother into a limited monarchy at the best, retired within
+her shell and declared the revels at an end.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h4>II.</h4>
+
+
+<p>"What was the church like?" I inquired at lunch.</p>
+
+<p>"I have witnessed more snappy entertainments," remarked Miss Buncle,
+the American girl, through her pretty nose. "Still, we smiled some. Mr
+Standish here got quite delirious when the minister prayed for 'the
+adjacent country of England, which, as Thou knowest, O Lord, lies some
+twa hundred miles to the sooth of us,'&mdash;I'm sorry I can't talk
+Scotch, Mr Fordyce,&mdash;as if he was afraid that Providence might mail
+the blessing to the wrong address and Iceland would get it."</p>
+
+<p>Kitty broke in upon Miss Buncle's reminiscences.</p>
+
+<p>"Who do you think we saw in church?" she said. "I nearly forgot to
+tell you. Your uncle, Robin&mdash;Sir James Fordyce!"</p>
+
+<p>Robin nodded his head in a confirmatory way.</p>
+
+<p>"He is often up here at this time of year," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"He has friends here, perhaps?" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes; he has friends."</p>
+
+<p>I could tell from Robin's voice that he was nursing some immense
+joke, but he betrayed no inclination to share it with us. Kitty went
+on.</p>
+
+<p>"He was sitting in a pew with some farmery-looking people. There was
+a patriarchal old man, very stately and imposing, rather
+like&mdash;like&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Moses?" I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I don't <i>think</i> Moses was like that."</p>
+
+<p>I had got as far as 'Aar'&mdash;when Lady Rubislaw said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Elijah?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's it," replied Kitty. "<i>Just</i> like Elijah." (All things
+considered, I cannot imagine why Moses would not have done as well.)
+"Then beside him was a perfectly dear old lady. Not so very old either;
+say sixty. Of course they may not have belonged to Sir James at all: he
+may just have been put in their pew. Still, they kept handing him
+Bibles, and looking up places for him at singing time."</p>
+
+<p>"That means nothing," said I. "It's the merest courtesy here."</p>
+
+<p>"True," said our hostess. "I was having a most lovely little doze
+during the Second Lesson, or whatever they call it, when a most
+officious young woman three or four pews away took up an enormous Bible,
+found the place, squeaked down the aisle, and thrust it under my nose. I
+had to hold it up for fifty-seven verses," she concluded
+pathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you go and speak to Sir James after the service?" I
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"No. That was <i>this</i> child's fault," said Kitty, indicating Miss
+Buncle.</p>
+
+<p>"How?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there was a rather gorgeous-looking chieftain sort of person
+sitting in a front pew, and I saw Maimie twisting her head all during
+the service to look at him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," admitted the culprit frankly. "Put me in the neighbourhood of
+a kilt, and I'm a common rubberneck straight away, Mr Inglethwaite. I'm
+just mad to know all those cunning tartans by heart."</p>
+
+<p>"The moment the service was over," continued my wife severely, "I saw
+her edging through the crowd in the churchyard towards the chieftain.
+For a moment I thought she was going to ask him his name."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>wasn't</i>!" declared Miss Buncle indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, you did worse. She got close to the unfortunate man," continued
+my wife to us, "and suddenly I noticed that she had in her hand one of
+those little books you buy at railway book-stalls in the Highlands, with
+patterns of all the tartans in them and the name of the clan underneath.
+By the time I got up to her she had found the right tartan in the book,
+and was matching it up against the back of the poor unconscious
+creature's kilt. Then she turned to me in a triumphant sort of way and
+simply <i>bellowed</i>&mdash;'M'Farlane!'"</p>
+
+<p>"We shall probably be hauled up before the Kirk-session," said the
+Admiral. "But I wonder who Sir James Fordyce's friends can be. I know
+most of the people who have shootings about here, but none of them are
+friends of his that I can think of. We must get him to come and shoot
+here one day. Rather late for to-morrow's drive, but there will be
+another on Thursday. I wonder who his host is, though?"</p>
+
+<p>"I might help you," said Robin. "An old man, you said, with his
+wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;oldish," said Kitty.</p>
+
+<p>"Was there a son with them?"</p>
+
+<p>"N-no."</p>
+
+<p>"No? Well, he would be away at the lamb-sales, perhaps," said Robin
+reflectively. "Was there a daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now you mention it," said Kitty, "there was. A nice, bonny-looking
+girl. Twenty-four, I should say."</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty-three," said Robin.</p>
+
+<p>We all turned on him.</p>
+
+<p>"Now then, what is all the mystery? Out with it! Who is the
+girl&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"She would be my sister," said Robin calmly. "And the others were my
+father and mother."</p>
+
+<p>There was a little gasp of surprise all round the table. Robin went
+on&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My home is just seven miles from here. This is the first time I have
+got near my folk for six years. To-morrow I mean to go and see them. And
+they would like fine, I know," he added a little shyly, "if some of you
+would come with me."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come," said Kitty promptly. "I should love to meet your mother,
+Robin."</p>
+
+<p>"May <i>I</i> come, Uncle Robin?" piped Phillis. "For a birfday
+treat," she added, in extenuation.</p>
+
+<p>Applications for an invitation rained in. Apart from a desire to
+please a man whom we all respected&mdash;and our ready offers
+undoubtedly did please him&mdash;I think we were all a little curious to
+view the mould which had turned Robin out.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't <i>all</i> go," said the Admiral at last. "There's the
+grouse-drive to-morrow, and eight butts to fill; not to mention the need
+of female society at lunch."</p>
+
+<p>Finally it was arranged that Robin should take Kitty and Phillis over
+on a sort of preliminary call, and they could arrange for the
+establishment of more substantial relations.</p>
+
+<p>But that evening, as the ladies were having their candles lit at the
+foot of the staircase, I heard Robin say to Dolly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come with us to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>Dolly seemed to consider, and was about to reply, when Dermott, who
+never seemed very far away now, cut in.</p>
+
+<p>"Too late, Fordyce! Miss Rubislaw has promised to come and load for
+me in my butt to-morrow afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm afraid it can't be managed this time, Robin," said Dolly.
+"But I am coming with you later in the week, if you'll take me."</p>
+
+<p>Robin said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Now Dolly, I knew, did not approve of the inclusion of females in the
+business part of a day's shooting; and she regarded Miss Buncle and her
+twenty-eight bore with pious horror. The fact that she had consented to
+come and hold Dermott's second gun to-morrow seemed to indicate that
+that gallant sportsman had accomplished a feat which had already proved
+too much for several highly deserving young men&mdash;I was not quite
+sure that Robin was not one of them; and there seemed to be every reason
+to anticipate (especially since he was due to start for Aldershot
+to-morrow night) that when the Captain returned from the chase to-morrow
+afternoon, his bag would include one head of game of an interesting and
+unusual variety.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h4>III.</h4>
+
+
+<p>At ten o'clock next morning we met the keepers, dogs, and beaters not
+far from the first line of butts on the moor. There was a hot sun, and
+the bees were bumbling in the heather. Somehow Whitehall seemed a long
+way off.</p>
+
+<p>The number of guns had been brought up to seven by the inclusion of a
+neighbouring laird&mdash;one Gilmerton of Nethercraigs&mdash;and his
+son.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same, we are still a man short," complained the Admiral, to
+whom a house-party was a ship's company, and a day's shooting a sort of
+terrestrial naval manoeuvre. "However, we will cut out the end butt in
+each drive and put a stop there to turn the birds farther in. Now we'll
+draw for places. Each man to take the butt whose number he draws,
+counting from the right and moving up one place after each drive. And
+Heaven help the man who draws number four now, for it means number seven
+and a climb up The Pimple for him directly after lunch!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a general laugh at this, which swelled to an unseemly roar
+when I drew the fatal number.</p>
+
+<p>However, after lunch was a long way off, and I trotted contentedly to
+number four and settled down to a pipe, while the head-keeper led off
+his mixed multitude of assistants, dogs, boys, and red flags to make a
+<i>détour</i> and work the game up towards us.</p>
+
+<p>The first drive was simple. We were in a long and rather shallow
+glen, across which ran a low ridge, dividing it into two almost equal
+sections. The butts were placed along this ridge; and after the birds
+had been sent over us the beaters would work round to the other end of
+the glen and drive them back again. The shooting would be easy, for the
+ground lay flat and open in either direction.</p>
+
+<p>I found myself between Standish and Gerald; the former on my right,
+and the latter, together with the young keeper to whom his shooting
+education had been entrusted, in the butt on my left. Beyond Standish
+was Dermott, the crack shot of the party, and beyond Dermott, in number
+one butt, was the Admiral. The Gilmertons, <i>pčre et fils</i>, occupied
+the butts on the extreme left.</p>
+
+<p>The drive was moderately successful. At first the birds came along
+singly, mostly on the right, and fell an easy prey to Dermott and the
+Admiral. But presently a great pack got up comparatively near the butts,
+and fairly "rushed" us. I brought off an easy right and left straight in
+front of me, and then, snapping out my cartridges and slipping another
+in, I swung round and just managed to bring down a third bird with a
+"stern chaser"&mdash;a feat which I regretted to observe no one else
+noticed, for there was a perfect fusilade all along the line at the
+moment. Master Gerald, who had discharged his first barrel straight into
+the "brown," succeeded, in obedience to his mentor's admonitions, in
+covering an old cock-grouse with his second, and carefully following
+that flustered fowl's course with the point of his gun, pulled the
+trigger just as it skimmed, low down, with an agitated squawk, between
+his butt and mine. I heard the shot rattle through the heather, and two
+pellets hit on my left boot.</p>
+
+<p>The congenial task of telling Gerald, in a low but penetrating voice,
+exactly what I thought of him, occupied my attention so fully for the
+next minute that I failed to observe a blackcock which suddenly swung up
+into view and whizzed straight past my head, to the audible annoyance of
+the distant Admiral and the undisguised joy of my unrepentant
+relative.</p>
+
+<p>No more birds came after that, and presently, the line of beaters
+having advanced within range, we put down our guns and collected the
+slain. We had not done badly, considering the fact that the main body of
+the birds had swerved away to our left over the unoccupied butt, despite
+the valiant efforts of an urchin with a red flag to turn them. Dermott
+headed the list with four and a half brace, and Gerald brought up the
+rear with a mangled corpse which had received the contents of his first
+barrel point-blank at a distance of about six feet. The laird of
+Nethercraigs (a cautious and economical sportsman, who was reputed never
+to loose off his gun at anything which did not come and perch on his
+butt) had fired just three cartridges and killed just three birds, but
+his son had seven. The Admiral and Standish had also had average luck,
+and altogether we had fourteen and a half brace to show for our
+exertions.</p>
+
+<p>Off went the beaters again, and we changed butts and waited. The
+second drive gave us fewer birds but better sport. There were no great
+packs, but we got plenty to do in the way of sharp-shooting, and
+Gerald's keeper&mdash;a singularly ambiguous title in this
+case&mdash;succeeded by increased vigilance in preserving me from being
+further sniped by my enterprising brother-in-law.</p>
+
+<p>We totalled up twelve brace this time, and then made ready for a
+tramp to the next line of butts, away round the shoulder of a fairly
+distant hill.</p>
+
+<p>"We may as well spread out and walk 'em up this bit," said our host.
+"We can't have the dogs, though, as the keepers and beaters are going a
+different way; and each man will have to carry what he shoots. In that
+case we'll leave rabbits alone. Gerald, you had better get to the
+extreme left of the line. That will limit the risk to one man!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll carry home your bag if you'll carry mine, Gerald," cried
+Standish facetiously, as my brother-in-law, a trifle offended at the
+Admiral's last pleasantry, proceeded with much dignity to his allotted
+place.</p>
+
+<p>Gerald was almost out of earshot, but he waved a defiant
+acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p>We tramped round the shoulder of the hill, keeping our distance as
+well as we could on the steep slope, and occasionally putting up
+something to shoot at. My bag this time made no great demands on my
+powers of porterage, consisting as it did of a solitary snipe. However,
+when nearly an hour later we gathered at the foot of the next line of
+butts&mdash;the last before lunch&mdash;most of us were carrying
+something. Standish gleefully displayed two hares and a brace of
+grouse.</p>
+
+<p>"There is something for Master Gerald to carry back to the
+luncheon-cart," he said. "I wonder what he has got for me. Where is
+he?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't quite know," said Dermott, who had been Gerald's nearest
+neighbour. "He was so offended by our gibes about the danger of his
+society that he walked rather wide of me. He kept down at the very foot
+of the hill most of the time, almost out of sight."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope he hasn't shot himself," said the Admiral rather
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Never fear!" said I. "That will not be his end. Here he is."</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough, Gerald appeared at this moment. He was empty-handed.</p>
+
+<p>Simple and primitive jests greeted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Hallo, old man, what have you shot&mdash;eh? Where is your little
+lot?"</p>
+
+<p>Gerald smiled seraphically.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll find it down there," he said&mdash;"in that patch of bracken,
+Standish. I left it for you to bring up. Rather heavy for me."</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth have you shot?" we cried involuntarily.</p>
+
+<p>"A sheep," said Gerald calmly.</p>
+
+<p>Great heavens!</p>
+
+<p>We rushed down the hill as one man&mdash;and came up again looking
+not a little hot and uncommonly foolish. The sheep was there, it is
+true, stiff and stark in the bracken; but more senses than one apprised
+us of the fact that it had been dead for considerably more than five
+minutes. Gerald had stumbled on to the corpse, and had turned his
+discovery, we afterwards admitted, to remarkably good advantage. It was
+"Mr Standish's turn," as Miss Buncle, in the picturesque but mysterious
+vernacular of her race, remarked at luncheon, "to hold the baby this
+time."</p>
+
+<p>After the third drive we gladly put up our guns and tramped down the
+hillside to the road below, where the ladies were waiting and the feast
+was spread. After we had disposed of grouse sandwiches,
+whisky-and-water, and jammy scones, and were devoting our post-prandial
+leisure to repose or dalliance with the fair&mdash;according as we were
+married or single&mdash;Lady Rubislaw inquired&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you shooting this afternoon, John?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Neb, first," replied the Admiral. "And that reminds me, the man
+who drew the top butt had better start now, or he'll be late."</p>
+
+<p>With many groans, and followed by the mingled derision and sympathy
+of the company, I picked up my <i>impedimenta</i> and started, leaving
+the others to decide who, if any, of the shooters was to have the honour
+of entertaining a lady in his butt.</p>
+
+<p>The Neb was a great mountain spur, whose base ran to within two or
+three hundred yards of our resting-place. In appearance it roughly
+resembled a mighty Napoleonic nose. The butts ran right up the ridge of
+that organ; and nine hundred feet above where we sat, just below an
+excrescence locally known as "The Pimple," lay mine.</p>
+
+<p>I reached my eyrie at last, and having laid my flask, tobacco-pouch,
+and twelve loose cartridges where I could reach them most handily on
+projecting shelves of peat inside the butt&mdash;I love neatness and
+method: Kitty says that when (if ever) I get to heaven I will decline to
+enter until I have wiped my boots,&mdash;settled down to enjoy a superb
+view and take note of the not altogether uninteresting manner in which
+the other members of the party were disposing themselves for the
+drive.</p>
+
+<p>Just below me were Standish and Miss Buncle, the lady a conspicuous
+mark for all men (and grouse) to behold by reason of a red tam
+o'shanter, the sight of which made me regret that its wearer was not
+employed as a beater. In the butt below were Dermott and
+Dolly&mdash;both very workmanlike and inconspicuous. Below them came the
+Admiral, with his wife (she always came and sat behind him, like a
+remarkably smart little powder-monkey, during the afternoon drive):
+below them, the Gilmertons; and last of all, thank Heaven! Gerald.</p>
+
+<p>The shooting on this beat would not be easy, though birds were always
+plentiful. They came round the face of the hill at very short range and
+express speed. My particular butt was notoriously difficult to score
+from. There was an awkward hummock in front of it, and driven birds
+swinging into view round this were practically right over the butt
+before its occupant could get his gun up.</p>
+
+<p>It was a rather sleepy afternoon. Far away I could hear the sound of
+the advancing beaters&mdash;the cries of the boys, the occasional
+barking of a dog, and the shrill piping of the headkeeper's whistle.
+Suddenly three birds swung into view round the face of the hill, and
+made straight for the line of butts. They were just below me, nearer to
+Standish's butt than mine, but I put up my gun and picked off the
+nearest. The other two, instead of keeping on their course over
+Standish's head, suddenly swerved round to the left, almost at right
+angles&mdash;I think they had seen Miss Buncle's tam o' shanter and
+simultaneously decided that there are worse things than death&mdash;and
+flew straight down the line, followed by an ineffectual volley from the
+twelve and twenty-eight bores respectively.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Dermott, my boy!" I ejaculated, as the birds skimmed past the
+third butt. "There's a chance for a really pretty right and left."</p>
+
+<p>But no sound&mdash;no movement even&mdash;came from our crack's lair.
+The birds flew by unharmed, only to fall later on, one to the Admiral,
+and one to young Gilmerton.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Dormitat Homerus</i>," I murmured, gazing curiously towards
+Dermott's butt. "I wonder if&mdash;Jove, there they go! What a pack!
+Well done, Gerald! Oh, Gilmerton, you old <i>sweep</i>! Fire, man,
+<i>fire</i>! Good old Admiral! Dermott, man, what the
+devil&mdash;&mdash; Have <i>at</i> them!"</p>
+
+<p>I fairly danced in the heather. A perfect cloud of birds was pouring
+over the lower part of the line. The Admiral, the Gilmertons, and Gerald
+were firing fast and furiously,&mdash;even the laird of Nethercraigs
+loosed off at birds that were neither running nor sitting,&mdash;and
+when the beaters appeared in sight five minutes later, and the drive
+came to an end, the four lower butts totalled twelve brace among
+them.</p>
+
+<p>I humbly proffered my solitary contribution.</p>
+
+<p>"Twelve and a half," said the Admiral. "Now, Standish?"</p>
+
+<p>"N.E. this time," remarked that youth philosophically.</p>
+
+<p>The Admiral said nothing, but I saw his choleric blue eyes slide
+round in the direction of Miss Buncle's headgear. He turned to
+Dermott.</p>
+
+<p>"How many, old man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Blob!"</p>
+
+<p>That Dermott should return empty-handed from any kind of chase was so
+surprising that we all turned round for the explanation. Dermott was
+looking very dejected. This was evidently a blow to his professional
+pride.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't any of that great pack come near you?" asked the Admiral
+sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;don't think so," said Dermott shortly.</p>
+
+<p>I had counted eight birds flying straight over his butt myself, but I
+said nothing. I was beginning to comprehend. <i>Et ego in Arcadia
+ vixi</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But the obtuse master-mariner persisted.</p>
+
+<p>"How about that brace that flew right down the line? You must have
+seen 'em coming all the way. You didn't even try a shot at them,
+man!"</p>
+
+<p>Dermott, who was fastening up his gaiter, answered rather
+listlessly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry! It was&mdash;a misfire, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" cried the outraged Admiral. "A <i>misfire</i>? Both
+barrels&mdash;of both guns?"</p>
+
+<p>I did not hear the answer to this. I was looking at Dolly. Her face
+could not be seen, for she was kneeling down a little distance away,
+assiduously fondling the silky ears of a highly-gratified red setter.
+And I realised then that some expressions are capable of a metaphorical
+as well as a literal interpretation.</p>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h4>IV.</h4>
+
+
+<p>My wife and daughter returned home in the "machine" in time for
+dinner, without Robin.</p>
+
+<p>"His mother kept him," Kitty explained. She was favouring me with a
+summary of her day's adventures, in the garden after dinner. "Such an
+old dear, Adrian! And his father is a grand old man. Very solemn and
+scriptural-looking and all that, but so courtly and simple when once he
+gets over his shyness. (He tried to come in to tea in his shirt-sleeves,
+but his wife hustled him out of the kitchen just in time.) Sir James
+Fordyce was a shock, though. When we arrived he was chopping turnips in
+a machine, dressed in clothes like any farm-labourer's. He said it was
+fine to get back to his own people again. To look at him you would never
+guess that he was one of the best known men in London, and a favourite
+at Court, and <i>such</i> an old dandy in Bond Street. The rest of the
+household didn't seem to set any particular store by him. They took him
+quite as a matter of course."</p>
+
+<p>"What a pity English people can't do the same," I mused. "If they do
+possess a distinguished relative they brag about him, and he usually
+responds by avoiding them. If he does honour them with a visit, they try
+to live up to him, and put on unnecessary frills, and summon all the
+neighbourhood to come and inspect him."</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing of that kind about the Fordyces," said Kitty. "Sir
+James was just one of themselves; he even spoke like them. It was, 'Aye,
+Jeems!' and 'Aye, John!' all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"How about the rest of the family?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"The mother was immensely pleased to have Robin with her again, I
+could see," said Kitty. "She made no particular fuss over him, but I'm
+sure she simply hugged him as soon as we were gone. She had a talk with
+me about him when we were alone. She seems to regard him as the least
+successful member of the family, although he has been a good son to
+them. (Do you know, Adrian, he has sent them something like two hundred
+pounds during the time he has been with us? And that must have left him
+little enough to go on with, goodness knows!) But I don't think they
+consider him a patch on the eldest son, who is a great silent man with a
+beard&mdash;a sort of Scotch John Ridd. He looks years older than Robin,
+though of course he isn't. He is a splendid farmer, his mother tells me,
+and greatly "respeckit" in the district. But the poor dear was so
+frightened of me that he simply bolted from the house the moment he had
+finished his tea. The sister is pretty, and nice too, but shy. I'm
+afraid she found my clothes rather overpowering, though I'd only a coat
+and skirt on. But we got on splendidly after that. She is going to be
+married next month, to the minister, which is considered an immense
+triumph for her by the whole community. We must send them a present. By
+the way, what's the matter with Dolly?"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with poor old Dermott?" I retorted.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the much-enduring "machine" jingled up to the door,
+and Captain Dermott's luggage, together with his gun-cases and a
+generous bundle of game for the mess-table at Aldershot, was piled in at
+the back. Their owner followed after, and seeing the glowing end of my
+cigar in the dark, advanced to say good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty uttered some pretty expression of regret at his departure, and
+flitted into the house. Dermott and I surveyed each other silently
+through the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it any use asking you to come and look us up in town?" I said at
+last rather lamely.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed through set teeth&mdash;not a pretty sound.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'll&mdash;avoid your household for a bit, Adrian," he
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>I nodded gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," I said. "I&mdash;I'm sorry, old man!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to India, if I can get away," he continued, after a
+pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Good scheme!" I replied. "We shall think of you most
+kindly&mdash;er, <i>all</i> of us."</p>
+
+<p>He said nothing, but shook hands in a grateful sort of fashion, and
+turned away.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose there is a reason for everything in this world. Still, the
+spectacle of a good man fighting dumbly with a cruel
+disappointment&mdash;and disappointment is perhaps the bitterest pill in
+all the pharmacopeia of life&mdash;is certainly a severe test of one's
+convictions on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the rest of the party&mdash;<i>minus</i>
+Dolly&mdash;flowed out on to the doorstep to say farewell; and two
+minutes later Captain Dermott drove heavily away&mdash;back to his day's
+work.</p>
+
+<p>Well, thank God there is always that!</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>"I thought she was going to take him," said Kitty in her subsequent
+summing-up. "It was far and away the best offer she has ever had. And he
+is such a dear, too! What does the child want, I wonder! A coronet?"</p>
+
+<p>"'A dinner of herbs,' perhaps," said I.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty eyed me thoughtfully, and gave a wise little nod.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;Dolly is just that sort," she agreed. "But what makes you
+think that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;nothing," I said.</p>
+
+<p>There are certain matters upon which it is almost an impertinence for
+a man to offer an opinion to a woman, and I rather shrank from rushing
+in where my wife had evidently not thought it worth while to tread.
+Still, I could not help wondering in my heart whether the arrival of one
+gentleman on Sunday may not sometimes have something to do, however
+indirectly, with the abrupt departure of another gentleman on
+Monday.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter12" id="chapter12">CHAPTER TWELVE.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>THE COMPLEAT ANGLER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Division of Stoneleigh, which had hitherto done me the honour of
+returning me as its Member of Parliament, is a triangular tract of
+country in the north of England.</p>
+
+<p>At the apex of the triangle lies Stoneleigh itself, a township whose
+chief assets are an ancient cathedral at one end, and a flourishing
+industry, proclaiming to the heavens its dependence upon Hides and
+Tallow, at the other. The base of the triangle runs along the sea-coast,
+and is dotted with fishing villages. Most of the intervening area is
+under cultivation.</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen, then, that the character of my constituency varied
+in a perplexing manner, and while I could usually depend upon what I may
+call the Turnip interest, I could not always count with absolute
+certainty on the whole-hearted support of the Fish or
+Hides-and-Tallow.</p>
+
+<p>To this delectable microcosm my household and I migrated one bleak
+day in February, to commence what promised to be an arduous and
+thoroughly uncomfortable electoral campaign.</p>
+
+<p>The Government had gone out at last, more from inanition than over
+any definite question of policy; and we were going to the country to
+face what is paradoxically termed "the music." It would be a General
+Election in every sense of the word, for there was no particular
+question of the hour&mdash;this was before the days of Passive
+Resistance and Tariff Reform&mdash;and our chief bar to success would
+undoubtedly be our old and inveterate enemy, "the pendulum." Of course
+we were distributing leaflets galore, and blazoning panegyrics on our
+own legislative achievements over every hoarding in the
+country&mdash;especially where our opponents had already posted up
+scathing denunciations of the same&mdash;and of course we declared that
+we were going to come again, like King Arthur; but I think most of us
+realised in our hearts that the great British Public, having decided in
+its ponderous but not altogether unreasonable way that any change of
+government must be for the better, was now going to pull us down from
+the eminence to which we had been precariously clinging for five years,
+and set up another row of legislative Aunt Sallies in our stead.</p>
+
+<p>However, we were far from admitting this. We wore our favours, waved
+our hats, and celebrated our approaching triumph with as great an
+appearance of optimism as the loss of seven consecutive by-elections
+would permit.</p>
+
+<p>Our party&mdash;Kitty, Phillis, Dolly, and myself: Dilly and Dicky
+were to follow, and Robin had preceded us by two days&mdash;was met at
+the station by an informal but influential little deputation, consisting
+of Mr Cash, my agent, a single-minded creature who would cheerfully have
+done his best to get Mephistopheles returned as member if he had been
+officially appointed to further that gentleman's interests; old Colonel
+Vincey, who would as cheerfully have voted for the same candidate
+provided he wore Conservative colours; Mr Bugsley, a leading
+linen-draper and ex-Mayor of the town, vice-chairman of our local
+organisation; Mr Winch&mdash;locally known as Beery Bill&mdash;the
+accredited mouthpiece of the Stoneleigh liquor interest; and the Dean,
+who came, I was uncharitable enough to suspect even as he wrung my hand,
+on business not unconnected with the unfortunate deficit in the fund for
+the restoration of the North Transept. There were also present one or
+two reporters, and a <i>posse</i> of the offscourings of Stoneleigh
+small-boydom.</p>
+
+<p>We drove in state to the hotel. Previous to this I shook hands warmly
+with the Station-master, who scowled at me&mdash;he was a Home-Ruler and
+a Baptist&mdash;and gave four porters half-a-crown apiece for lifting
+our luggage on to the roof of a cab. I also handed a newsboy sixpence
+for a copy of the local bi-weekly organ which supported our cause, and
+tendered half-a-sovereign in payment for a bunch of violets and
+primroses&mdash;our party colours in this district were purple and
+gold&mdash;which were proffered me outside the station by an ancient
+flower-selling dame who, Cash hissed into my ear, happened to be the
+mother of four strapping and fully-enfranchised sons; and presented an
+unwashed stranger who was holding open the cab door for us with a token
+of affection and esteem which could readily be commuted into several
+hours' beer.</p>
+
+<p>On arriving at the hotel I handed the cabman a fare roughly
+equivalent to the cash value of the cab, and then proceeded to
+distribute largesse to a crowd of menials who kindly undertook the task
+of lifting the luggage from the roof and conveying it to our rooms. The
+horse, having no vote, received no pecuniary return for its labours, but
+was rewarded for its devotion to Conservative principles by a lump of
+sugar, which Phillis had been tightly holding in a moist hand ever since
+Cash had handed it to her at the station&mdash;a pretty and thoughtful
+act of disinterested kindness which was duly noted in the <i>Stoneleigh
+ Herald</i> next morning, and effectually secured the votes of several
+elusive but sentimental wobblers on polling day.</p>
+
+<p>After this unostentatious entry into my constituency I duly
+established myself in my apartments, where I spent most of the afternoon
+writing cheques. The restoration of the North Transept proved to be in
+an even more deplorable state of backwardness than I had feared; but the
+Dean ultimately left me with the utmost expressions of goodwill,
+promising to reassure the most exacting spirits in Cathedral society as
+to my soundness on the questions of (1) Disestablishment and (2) Secular
+Education in Elementary Schools.</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter I received the captain of the local football team, who
+begged to remind me that my subscription of five guineas, as Honorary
+Vice-President of the club, was now due, and further requested that I
+would do himself and colleagues the honour of kicking-off in the match
+against the Scrappington Hotstuffs on Saturday week. (Saturday next, I
+heard afterwards, had been reserved for my rival.) He finally departed
+with my cheque in his pocket, and, I expect, his tongue in his
+cheek.</p>
+
+<p>Robin next let in upon me a sub-section of the General Purposes
+Committee of the Municipal Library, who begged that I would kindly
+consent to open the new wing thereof, jointly with the rival Candidate,
+at three o'clock next Wednesday; and intimated as an afterthought that
+the oak bookcase in the eastern alcove was still unpaid for. They
+departed calling down blessings upon my head. (Five pounds ten.)</p>
+
+<p>Next, after a brief call from a gentleman in a blue ribbon, who came
+to solicit a guinea for the Band of Hope, and who left in exchange one
+hundred copies of a picture of the interior of a drunkard's stomach,
+executed in three colours, came Beery Bill, to whom the reader has
+already been introduced. He had not come to talk Politics, he said, but
+just to have a quiet chat with one whom he hoped he could regard as a
+personal friend. (I got out my fountain pen.) The chat materialised
+presently into an intimation that the Licensed Victuallers Benevolent
+Something-or-Other was short of cash; and my visitor suggested that a
+trifle in support of the charities of that most deserving institution
+would come gracefully from my pocket. On handing me the receipt he
+informed me that the brewing trade was in a bad way, and that he looked
+to me to do something for it if he used his influence on my behalf at
+the Election.</p>
+
+<p>The next visitor was an eccentric but harmless old gentleman who eked
+out a precarious livelihood as a Herbalist&mdash;whatever that may
+be&mdash;in the most plebeian quarter of the town. He inhabited a small
+and stuffy shop up a discreet alley, suffered much from small boys, sold
+curious drugs and potions of his own composition, and prescribed for
+persons whose means or modesty precluded them from consulting an
+orthodox practitioner.</p>
+
+<p>He was threatened, it appeared, with the penalties of the law. He had
+sold a "love-philtre" (pronounced infallible for recalling errant
+<i>fiancés</i> to a sense of duty) to an amorous kitchen-maid who was
+seeking to rekindle the sacred flame in the bosom of an unresponsive
+policeman. The damozel had mingled the potion in a plate of beefsteak
+pudding, and had handed the same out of the scullery window to her
+peripatetic swain; with the sole result that that limb of the law had
+been immediately and violently sick, and, the moment he felt
+sufficiently recovered to do so, had declared the already debilitated
+match at an end. The kitchen-maid, rendered desperate, had told him the
+whole truth; and consequently my esteemed caller was now wanted by the
+police.</p>
+
+<p>The catastrophe of the pie, he explained, was in no way to be
+attributed to the love-philtre (which was composed of sifted sugar and
+cinnamon), but was due to the fact that instead of the philtre he had
+inadvertently handed his fair client a packet out of the next drawer,
+which contained ready-made-up doses of tartaric acid for immediate use
+in the case of small boys who had swallowed sixpences. <i>Hinc
+ lacrymcoe</i>. In spite of his complete consciousness of his own
+innocence, he now found himself compelled in a few days' time to defend
+his conduct in a court of law. The proceedings would cost money, of
+which he of course possessed little or none. He had called, he said,
+confident in the hope that I would assist him to defray the expense of
+vindicating his integrity as a high-class Herbalist by purchasing six
+bottles of his world-renowned specific for neuralgia, from which dread
+malady he had been informed&mdash;quite incorrectly, by the
+way&mdash;that I occasionally suffered. The thirty shillings thus
+subscribed, together with a few odd coins which he himself had contrived
+to scrape together during a long life of thrift, would secure the
+services of a skilled advocate, who would doubtless be able to prove to
+the satisfaction of justice that no high-class Herbalist would ever
+dream, save in the way of kindness, of putting tartaric acid into a
+policeman's beefsteak pudding.</p>
+
+<p>He added, rather inconsequently, that he had voted Conservative at
+the last three elections, and had moreover persuaded all the other
+members of the Royal and Ancient Brotherhood of High-class Herbalists to
+do the same. (One pound ten.)</p>
+
+<p>My last visitor was a seedy individual in corduroys, who asked for a
+private interview with the Candidate, and, on this favour being granted,
+informed me in a confidential and husky whisper that he knew of ten good
+men and true, fully qualified voters, who were prepared to go to the
+poll on my behalf for the trifling fee of two pound ten a-head and no
+questions asked. He was politely but firmly shown into the street. One
+has to be on the look-out against persons of this type.</p>
+
+<p>I concluded the afternoon by a rather unsatisfactory interview with
+Mr Cash. He was by nature a boisterous and optimistic person, but on
+this occasion I found him inclined to be reticent and gloomy. He
+announced with a shake of the head that my rival was a very strong
+candidate; and finally, after a certain amount of pressing, admitted
+that I was not altogether as universally acceptable to my own side as I
+might have been.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not violent enough, Mr Inglethwaite," he said. "You
+sympathise too much with the point of view of the opposite side. That's
+fatal."</p>
+
+<p>I turned to Robin.</p>
+
+<p>"You hear that?" I said. "Don't you ever call me a prejudiced old
+Tory again, Robin."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," continued the dolorous Cash, "you are too squeamish. Those
+posters that you wouldn't allow to be put up&mdash;that was simply
+throwing away good votes. Politics in this part of the country can't be
+played with kid gloves. Then there are the meetings. You don't let the
+other side have it hot enough. Call 'em robbers and liars! That's what
+wins an election!"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it is," I said mournfully. "Robin, we must put our
+opinions in our pockets and beat the party drum. Come on, let us go to
+the Committee Rooms!"</p>
+
+<p>For the next fortnight we worked like galley-slaves. Each morning
+Kitty and I drove round the town in an open carriage-and-pair decorated
+with our colours, bowing to such of our constituents as would look at
+us, and punctiliously returning any salutes we received. Occasionally
+whole-hearted supporters would give us a cheer, and
+occasionally&mdash;rather more frequently, it seemed to
+me&mdash;disagreeable persons booed at us. Once we were held up outside
+a hide-and-tallow work by a gang of workmen who wished to address a few
+questions to the Candidate. We came well out of that ordeal, for both
+Kitty and Dolly happened to be in the carriage that day, and they so
+completely captivated the spokesman of the deputation&mdash;no wonder! a
+pretty woman never looks so attractive as in furs&mdash;that that
+gentleman concluded a catechism of unpremeditated brevity and
+incoherence by proposing a vote of confidence in, coupled with three
+cheers for, Mr Inglethwaite and his young ladies!</p>
+
+<p>On another occasion a gnarled and fervent Radical of the bootmaking
+persuasion hobbled to the door of his establishment, and waving clenched
+and uplifted fists, called down upon us and our retreating equipage all
+the curses at the command of a rather extensive vocabulary until we were
+out of earshot.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally little girls threw posies into the carriage: little
+boys, not to be outdone in politeness, threw stones: and altogether I
+felt very much as the Honourable Samuel Slumkey must have done upon the
+historic occasion on which he solicited the votes of the electors of the
+borough of Eatanswill.</p>
+
+<p>Talking of Eatanswill, I had already made the acquaintance of Mr
+Horatio Fizkin in the person of my opponent, Mr Alderman Stridge,
+Wholesale Provision Merchant and Italian Warehouseman. His selection as
+Liberal Candidate was a blow to us: we had hoped for nothing worse than
+a briefless carpet-bagger from the Temple, as on previous occasions.
+However, the Alderman on our introduction was extremely affable, and
+expressed a hope, with the air of one discovering the sentiment for the
+first time, that the best man might win; to which I, as in duty bound,
+replied that I hoped not; and we parted with mutual expressions of
+goodwill and esteem, to deride each other's politics and bespatter each
+other's characters on countless platforms and doorsteps until we should
+meet again, after the fray, at the counting of the votes.</p>
+
+<p>On returning from our morning drive (which usually included an
+open-air meeting) we took luncheon, generally in the presence of various
+anćmic young men who represented local organs of public opinion, and who
+expected the long-suffering candidate to set forth his views between
+mouthfuls of chop and sips of sherry. I usually turned these over to
+Robin, who understood their ways; and he charmed them so wisely that
+even the relentless Cash was compelled to admit that our press notices
+might have been worse.</p>
+
+<p>Robin was a tower of strength. Indeed he and Dolly were my two chief
+lieutenants; Dilly and Dicky, as became a pair who had only been married
+a few months, proving but broken reeds. A week's electioneering proved
+sufficient for their requirements; and, declining flatly to "grin like a
+dog and run about the city"&mdash;Dilly's pithy summary of the art of
+canvassing&mdash;any longer, they left us ten days before polling-day to
+pay a country-house visit. But Robin was everywhere. He answered my
+letters and he interviewed reporters. He could keep a meeting in hand
+(pending my arrival from another) with such success that when I finally
+appeared upon the platform to take up the wondrous tale of my party's
+perfections, the audience were loth to let Robin go. In six days he
+acquired a knowledge of the wants, peculiarities, weaknesses, and
+traditions of my constituents which had occupied all my powers of
+concentration and absorption for six arduous years. He used to drop into
+his speeches little topical allusions and local "gags" which, though
+Greek to the uninitiated, never failed to produce a roar: and a
+political speaker who can unfailingly make his audience laugh with
+him&mdash;not at him&mdash;has gone far on the road to success.</p>
+
+<p>Once, at a meeting, when I was half-way through a speech to an
+unmistakably bored and rather hostile audience, Robin, who was sitting
+beside me, slipped a sheet of paper on to my table. The message on the
+paper, written large for me to read, said&mdash;<i>Compare Stridge to
+ the Old Lady of Dippleton</i>. What the lady had done I did not know,
+neither had I time to inquire; but I took my secretary's advice, and,
+after pausing for a brief drink of water, concluded my
+sentence&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;and I maintain, gentlemen, that my opponent, in advocating
+such a policy as that which he has had the&mdash;the&mdash;yes, the
+<i>effrontery</i> to lay before a clear-thinking and broad-minded
+Stoneleigh audience last night, has shown himself to be no wiser in his
+generation, no better or more statesmanlike in character,
+than&mdash;than&mdash;what shall we say? than"&mdash;I glanced at the
+paper on the table&mdash;"the Old Lady of Dippleton!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a great roar of laughter, and I sat down. I was ultimately
+awarded a vote of thanks, which should by rights have been given to the
+heroine of my closing allusion. I may mention here that no subsequent
+inquiry of mine ever elicited from Robin or any one else what the Old
+Lady of Dippleton <i>had</i> done. Probably it was one of those things
+that no real lady ever ought to do, and I discreetly left it at
+that.</p>
+
+<p>Dolly, too, proved a treasure. Her strong line was canvassing. She
+could ingratiate herself with short-tempered and over-driven wives
+apparently without effort; surly husbands melted before her smile;
+sheepish young men forgot the encumbering existence of their hands and
+feet in her presence; and she was absolutely infallible with babies. Her
+methods were entirely her own, and gratifyingly free from the superior
+and patronising airs usually adopted by fine ladies when they go to
+solicit the votes of that variegated and much-graded community which
+they cheerfully and indiscriminately sum up as "the lower classes."</p>
+
+<p>Let us follow her as she flits on her way to pay a morning call upon
+Mr Noah Gulching of Jackson's Row.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Gulching, she finds, is absent in search of a job, while Mrs
+Gulching, thoroughly cross and worried, is doing the housework with one
+hand and dangling a fractious teething baby from the other. The rest of
+the family are engaged in playing games of skill and chance (on the win,
+tie, or wrangle principle), in the middle of the street outside; and
+piercing screams testify to the fact that John William Gulching, aged
+two, had just been uprooted by Mary Kate Gulching, who wants to lay out
+a new Hop-Scotch court, from the flagstone upon which he has been seated
+for the last half hour and dumped down upon another, the warming of
+which, even his untutored sensations inform him, will be a matter of
+some time and trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Dolly, not a whit dismayed by a thoroughly ungracious reception,
+tucks up her skirt, rolls up her sleeves, finishes washing-up, makes a
+bed, and peels some potatoes. Then she takes the baby and attends to its
+more conspicuous wants, what time Mrs Gulching, thoroughly
+mollified,&mdash;she had thought at first that Dolly was "a person with
+tracks,"&mdash;goes round the corner to the "Drop Inn," at which
+hostelry the work of which her spouse is habitually in pursuit
+invariably goes to ground, and brings that gentleman home with her, to
+find Dolly playing with a spotless infant whom she gradually recognises
+as her own offspring.</p>
+
+<p>Dolly begins at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, Mr Gulching! I expect you think I am one of those
+horrid canvassers."</p>
+
+<p>Mr Gulching, a little taken aback, admits that such was his
+impression.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm not," says Dolly. (<i>Oh, Dolly!</i>) "I suppose there may
+be some excuse for canvassing among people who do not take much interest
+in politics,&mdash;though <i>I</i> shouldn't like to do it,&mdash;but it
+would be rather a waste of time for me or any one else to come and try
+on that sort of thing with <i>you</i>, wouldn't it, Mr Gulching?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr Gulching, outwardly frigid but inwardly liquescent, agrees that
+this is so; and adds in a truculent growl that he would like to see 'em
+try it on.</p>
+
+<p>"What I really want," continues Dolly, "is your <i>advice</i>. I am
+told that you are so respected here, and have such a knowledge of the
+requirements of the neighbourhood, that you might be inclined to give us
+a little help in a scheme which Mr Inglethwaite has in hand. Schemes for
+the improvement of some of the houses&mdash;not snug little cribs like
+this, but the homes of people who are not so clever and able to take
+care of themselves as you&mdash;and the supplying of more amusements in
+the evenings;  entertainments, lectures&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Teetotal?" inquires Mr Gulching hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear, no. I am sure Mr Inglethwaite would not wish to deprive any
+one of his glass of beer. He quite agrees with your views about moderate
+drinking." (This, I may mention, is a slanderous libel on me, but it
+sounds all right as Dolly says it.) "But he knows that the success of
+his efforts will depend entirely upon whether he has the support of such
+men as yourself&mdash;men who know what they want and will see that they
+get it. We can't do without you, you see," she adds, with a bewitching
+little smile.</p>
+
+<p>Visible swelling on the part of Mr Gulching. Dolly gets up.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I know you are a busy man, Mr Gulching, so I mustn't keep you
+listening to a woman's chatter any more. I'm afraid I haven't explained
+things very deeply, but then you men are such creatures for wanting to
+get to the root of the matter, aren't they, Mrs Gulching? However, Mr
+Inglethwaite will call shortly and discuss things with you. I know he
+wants your advice. Meanwhile, perhaps you will mention the matter to any
+friends of yours whom you think would be likely to help us, won't you?
+Good morning, and thank you so much for granting me
+this&mdash;er&mdash;interview. An Englishman's house is his castle,
+isn't it? That is why it was so good of you to let me come in. Good-bye,
+Mrs Gulching. He's a perfectly sweet little chap, and I must come and
+see him again, if I may." (The last remark is a little ambiguous, but
+probably refers to the baby.)</p>
+
+<p>And Dolly, with a friendly nod to the rest of the family (who are by
+this time drawn up <i>en échelon</i> at the street door, under the
+personal direction of Violet Amelia Gulching), sails out, followed by a
+gratified leer from the greatly inflated Mr Gulching, having secured
+that free and independent elector's vote without even having asked for
+it. And yet some women are crying out for the right to control
+elections!</p>
+
+<p>At the street corner, with a persuasive finger in the buttonhole of
+an unconvinced Socialist (and a vigilant eye straining down the long and
+unlovely vista of Jackson's Row), Dolly usually encounters Robert
+Chalmers Fordyce.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter13" id="chapter13">CHAPTER THIRTEEN.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Nomination day came, and I was duly entered by my proprietors for the
+Election Stakes, though I was painfully aware that my selection as
+Candidate was not universally popular.</p>
+
+<p>However, as Cash remarked, "It is canvassing from door to door that
+does the trick, and there you have the bulge on Stridge. He's not a bad
+old buffer himself, but they hate his wife like poison. She drives up to
+their doors in a silver-plated brougham with a double-breasted coachman,
+and tells 'em to vote for Stridge, not because he used to live in a
+one-roomed house himself&mdash;which he did, and her too&mdash;but
+because he's a local god-on-wheels. Of course they won't stick
+that."</p>
+
+<p>I also continued to address meetings, receive deputations, and
+generally solicit patronage in a way that would have made a cab-tout
+blush for shame. As a recreation I kicked off at football matches and
+laid foundation-stones. The most important function in which I took part
+was the opening of the new wing of the Municipal Library. The ceremony,
+which was by way of being a non-party affair, took place on a blustering
+February afternoon. The <i>élite</i> of Stoneleigh were picturesquely
+grouped upon the steps of the main entrance of the Library, from the
+topmost of which the Mayor, the Dean, and the Candidates addressed a
+shivering and apathetic audience below.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, the company were too exclusively occupied in holding on
+their hats and blowing their blue noses to pay much attention to the
+improving harangues of Mr Stridge and myself; which was perhaps just as
+well, for men who have three or four highly critical and possibly
+hostile meetings to address later in the day are not likely to waste
+good things upon an assembly who probably cannot hear them, and will
+only say "Hear, hear!" in sepulchral tones if they do.</p>
+
+<p>The actual opening of the wing was accomplished quite informally (and
+I may say unexpectedly) by Kitty and Mrs Stridge&mdash;a fearsome
+matron, who looked like a sort of Nonconformist Boadicea&mdash;who were
+huddling together for warmth in the recess of the doorway. On a pedestal
+before them lay two small gold keys, with which they were presently to
+unlock the door itself, what time I, in trumpet tones, declared the
+Library open. Whether through natural modesty or a desire to escape the
+assaults of the wind, the two ladies shrank back so closely into the
+door that that accommodating portal, evidently deeming it ungallant to
+wait even for a golden key under such circumstances, incontinently flew
+open, and Mesdames Inglethwaite and Stridge subsided gracefully into the
+arms of a spectacled and embarrassed Librarian, who was formally waiting
+inside to receive the company at the proper moment.</p>
+
+<p>After that, the proceedings, which so far had been almost as bleak as
+the weather, went with a roar to the finish.</p>
+
+<p>But events like these were mere oases in a desert of ceaseless
+drudgery. The fight grew sterner and stiffer, and, as always happens on
+these occasions, the neutral and the apathetic began to bestir
+themselves and take sides. A week before the election there was not an
+impartial or unbiassed person left in Stoneleigh. Collisions between
+supporters of either party became frequent and serious. On the first
+occasion, when a Conservative sought to punctuate an argument by
+discharging a small gin-and-ginger into the face of his Liberal
+opponent, and the Liberal retaliated by felling the Conservative to the
+earth with a pint-pot, Stridge and I wrote quite effusively to one
+another apologising for the exuberance of our friends. A week later,
+when certain upholders of my cause bombarded Stridge's emporium with an
+assortment of Stridge's own eggs, hitting one of Mr Stridge's
+white-jacketed assistants in the eye, and severely damaging the frontage
+of Mr Stridge's Italian warehouse&mdash;whereupon local and immediate
+supporters of the cause of Stridge squared matters by putting three
+bombardiers into a horse-trough&mdash;Mr Stridge and I expressed no sort
+of regret to one another whatsoever, but referred scathingly, amid
+rapturous cheers, at our next meetings to the blackguardly policy of
+intimidation and hooliganism by which the other side found it necessary
+to bolster up a barren cause and hopeless future; all of which shows
+that things were tuning up to concert pitch.</p>
+
+<p>Results of other elections were coming in every day, and they were
+not by any means favourable to our side. Still, we kept on smiling, and
+talked largely about the swing of the pendulum&mdash;almost as useful a
+phrase as "Mesopotamia" of blessed memory&mdash;and other phenomena of
+reaction, and hoped for the best. Champion, who had been returned for
+his constituency by a thumping majority, had promised to come down and
+speak for me at a great meeting two nights before the election; and
+Dubberley, who had lost his seat, threatened to come and help me to lose
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>With the exception of Robin, who appeared to be made of some material
+<i>ćre perennius</i>, we were all getting the least bit "tucked up,"
+from my humble self down to Phillis, who appeared at breakfast one
+morning looking flushed and rather too bright-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Electioneering seems to be telling on you, old lady," I remarked.
+"Feeling quite well&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just a <i>teeny</i> headache, daddy. But"&mdash;hastily&mdash;"I can
+come with you to the meeting in the theatre to-morrow night, can't I? it
+will be such fun!"</p>
+
+<p>"Meeting? My little girl, it does not begin till an hour after your
+bed-time."</p>
+
+<p>"That's why I want to go," said my daughter frankly. "Besides, I do
+<i>love</i> pantomimes&mdash;especially the clowns!" She wriggled
+ecstatically.</p>
+
+<p>Even the revelation of the plain truth&mdash;that the pantomime would
+be called by another name and the clowns would appear in
+mufti&mdash;failed to assuage Phillis's thirst for the dramatic
+sensation promised by a meeting in a theatre. I was, as usual, wax in
+her small hands; and, man-like, I threw the <i>onus negandi</i> upon
+Eve's shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask your mother," I said; and flew to my day's work.</p>
+
+<p>Thank goodness, it was almost the last. To-morrow would be the eve of
+the poll, and at night we were to hold our monster meeting. Three
+thousand people would be present; a local magnate, Sir Thomas Wurzel (of
+Heycocks), would occupy the chair; what one of our local reporters
+insisted on calling "the <i>élite</i> of the <i>bon ton</i>" would be
+ranged upon the platform; and the meeting would be addressed by John
+Champion, Robin,&mdash;they always wanted him now,&mdash;and the
+much-enduring Candidate. The audience would, further, be made the
+recipients of a few remarks from the Chair and (unless something
+providential happened) from Dubberley, who was to second a vote of
+thanks to somebody&mdash;a performance which might take anything up to
+fifty minutes. Altogether a feast of oratory, and a further proof, if
+any were needed, that the English are a hardy race.</p>
+
+<p>Phillis was decidedly unwell next morning, and Kitty prescribed bed.
+I am inclined to be an anxious parent, but there was little time for the
+exercise of any natural instincts on this occasion. Hounded on by the
+relentless Cash, I spent the day in a final house-to-house canvass,
+being fortunate enough to find at home several gentlemen who had been
+out on previous occasions, and who now graciously permitted Kitty to
+present them with a resplendent portrait of what at first sight appeared
+to be a hairdresser's assistant in gala costume, but which an obtrusive
+inscription below proclaimed to be "Inglethwaite! The Man You Know, and
+Who Knows You!"</p>
+
+<p>After a hasty round of the Committee Rooms I returned to our
+hostelry, the Cathedral Arms, where, after disposing of two reporters
+who wanted an advance copy of my evening's speech, and having effusively
+thanked a pompous individual for a sheaf of statistics on a subject
+which I cannot recall, but in which no one outside an asylum could have
+reasonably been expected to take any interest whatever, and which I was
+at liberty to quote (with due acknowledgments) to any extent I pleased,
+I sat down with Champion and Robin, faint yet pursuing, to fortify
+myself with roast-beef and whisky for the labours of the evening.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Kitty entered, with Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Who</i> do you think has just arrived?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Not a deputation, I hope!"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Gerald&mdash;from school."</p>
+
+<p>"Great Scott! Expelled?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no. It's his half-term <i>exeat</i>. I had forgotten all about
+it. As it just falls in with the Election, he has come to see you
+through, he says."</p>
+
+<p>"Right! Give him some food and a bed, and we'll send him round with
+one of the brakes to-morrow, to bring people up to the poll. He has a
+gentle compelling way about him that should be useful to us. Has he
+brought his inarticulate friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, tell them to ask at the office for bedrooms."</p>
+
+<p>"They have done that already," said Dolly. "They are down in the
+kitchen now, ordering dinner. They don't propose to go to the meeting.
+'Better fun outside,' they say."</p>
+
+<p>"Lucky little devils!" remarked the Candidate, with feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"And, Adrian," said Kitty, "I don't think I'll come either. I'm
+rather bothered about Philly."</p>
+
+<p>I laid down my knife and fork.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean? Is she really ill?"</p>
+
+<p>"N-no. I don't think so, but she is very feverish and wretched, poor
+kiddy. I tried to get hold of Dr Martin this afternoon, but he was miles
+away on an urgent case, and won't be back till to-morrow. But I got Dr
+Farquharson&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Roaring Radical!" said I in horror-struck tones.</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;"Yes, dear, but such a nice old thing; and Scotch too,
+Robin&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Aberdonian," said Robin dubiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," continued my wife, "he said she would need care, and must
+stay in bed. He was in a tearing hurry, as he had to go on to one of
+Stridge's meetings&mdash;horrid creature!&mdash;but he promised to come
+again on his way home. Do you think it very important that I should come
+with you?"</p>
+
+<p>I turned to my secretary.</p>
+
+<p>"What's your opinion, Robin?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think Mrs Inglethwaite should come. They like to see her on the
+platform, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"If the Candidate's wife does not appear, people say she is too grand
+for them," put in Champion.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll stay with Philly, Kit," said Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you? You dear! But I know you want to come yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind. It doesn't matter."</p>
+
+<p>And so it was arranged.</p>
+
+<p>We found the theatre packed to suffocation. A heated band of
+musicians (whose degrees must have been conferred <i>honoris causa</i>)
+had just concluded a set of airs whose sole excuse for existence was
+their patriotic character, and Sir Thomas Wurzel (of Heycocks) was
+rising to his feet, when our party appeared on the platform. Election
+fever was running high by this time; the critical spirit was almost
+entirely obliterated by a truly human desire to cut the preliminaries
+and hit somebody in the eye; and we were greeted with deafening
+cheers.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Champion was introduced and called upon to speak. He was
+personally unknown to the crowd before him, although his name was
+familiar to them. But in five minutes he had the entire audience in his
+grip. He made them laugh, and he made them cheer; he made them breathe
+hard, and he made them chuckle. There were moments when the vast throng
+sat in death-like silence, while Champion, with his voice dropped almost
+to a whisper, cajoled them as a woman cajoles a man. Then suddenly he
+would blare out another battle-call, and provoke a great storm of
+cheering. He made little use of gesture&mdash;occasionally he punctuated
+a remark with an impressive forefinger, but he had the most wonderful
+voice I have ever heard. I sat and watched him with whole-hearted
+admiration. It is true that he was not doing our cause any particular
+good. He had forgotten that he was there to make a party speech, to
+decry his opponents, and crack up his friends. He was soaring away into
+other regions, and&mdash;most wonderful of all&mdash;he was taking his
+audience with him. He besought them to be men, to play the game, to
+think straight, to awaken to a sense of responsibility, and to remember
+the magnitude and responsibility of their task as controllers of an
+Empire. He breathed into them for a moment a portion of his own great
+spirit; and many a small tradesman and dull-souled artisan realised that
+night, for the first (and possibly the last) time, that the summit of
+the Universe is not composed of hides and tallow, and that there are
+higher things than the loaves and fishes of party politics and the petty
+triumphs of a contested election.</p>
+
+<p>From a strictly tactical point of view all this was useless, and
+therefore dangerous. But for a brief twenty minutes we were gods,
+Utopians, Olympians, joyously planning out a scheme of things as they
+should be, to the entire oblivion of things as they are. That is always
+worth something.</p>
+
+<p>Then he sat down, and we came to earth again with a bump,
+recollecting guiltily the cause for which we were assembled and met
+together&mdash;namely, the overwhelming of an Italian warehouseman and
+the retention of a parliamentary seat in an unimportant provincial
+district.</p>
+
+<p>Once only have I heard that speech bettered, and that was in the
+House of Commons on a night in June fifteen years later, when a Prime
+Minister started up from the Treasury Bench to defend a colleague whose
+Bill&mdash;since recognised as one of the most statesmanlike measures of
+our generation&mdash;was being submitted to the narrowest and meanest
+canons of party criticism. It was another appeal for fair-play,
+unbiassed judgment, and breadth of view, and it took a hostile and
+captious House, Government and Opposition alike, by storm. The name of
+the Prime Minister on that occasion was John Champion, and the colleague
+whom he defended was Robert Chalmers Fordyce.</p>
+
+<p>After Champion had sat down&mdash;nominally his speech was a vote of
+confidence in my unworthy self&mdash;Robin rose to second the motion. I
+did not envy him his task. It is an ungrateful business at the best,
+firing off squibs directly after a shower of meteors. Even a second
+shower of meteors would be rather a failure under the circumstances.
+Robin realised this. He put something into his pocket and told his
+audience a couple of stories&mdash;dry, pawky, Scottish
+yarns&mdash;which he admitted were not new, not true, and not
+particularly relevant. The first was a scurrilous anecdote concerning a
+man from Paisley,&mdash;which illustrious township, by the way, appears
+to be the target of practically all Scottish humour,&mdash;and the other
+treated of a Highland minister who was delivering to a long-suffering
+congregation a discourse upon the Minor Prophets. Robin told us how the
+preacher worked through Obadiah, Ezekiel, Nahum, Malachi, "and many
+others whose names are doubtless equally familiar to you, gentlemen," he
+added amid chuckles, "placing them in a kind of ecclesiastical order of
+merit as he proceeded; and finally he came to Habakkuk.</p>
+
+<p>"'What place, my friends, what place will we assign to Habakkuk?' he
+roared.</p>
+
+<p>"That, gentlemen," said Robin, "proved to be the last straw. A man
+rose up under the gallery.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ye can pit him doon here in my seat,' he roared. 'I'm awa'
+hame!'</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," added Robin, as the shout of laughter subsided, "I fear
+that one of you will be for offering <i>his</i> seat to Habakkuk if I go
+on any longer, so I will just second the motion and sit down."</p>
+
+<p>After that I rose to my weary feet and offered my contribution. I
+have no intention of giving a <i>précis</i> of my speech here. It was
+exactly the same as all the speeches ever delivered on such occasions.
+Thucydides could have written it down word for word without ever having
+heard me deliver it. It was not in the least a good speech, but it was
+the sort of speech they expected, and, better still, it was the sort of
+speech they wanted. Everybody was too excited to be critical, and I sat
+down, perspiring and thankful, amid enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the most trying ordeal of all&mdash;questions.</p>
+
+<p>I am no hand at repartee; but practice had sharpened my faculties in
+this direction, and I had, moreover, become fairly conversant with the
+type of query to which the seeker after knowledge on these occasions
+usually confines himself. The great secret is to bear in mind the fact
+that what people want in one's reply is not accurate
+information&mdash;unless, of course, you are standing for a Scottish
+constituency, and then Heaven help you!&mdash;but something smart. If
+you can answer the question, do so; but in any case answer it in such a
+way as to make the questioner feel small. Then you will have your
+audience with you.</p>
+
+<p>To prevent unseemly shouting (and, <i>entre nous</i>, to give the
+Candidate a little more time to polish up his impromptus), the questions
+were handed up on slips of paper and read aloud, and answered
+<i>seriatim</i>. They were sorted and arranged for me by Robin, and I
+not infrequently found, among the various slips, a question usually
+coming directly after a regular poser, in Robin's handwriting, with a
+brilliant and telling reply thoughtfully appended.</p>
+
+<p>This evening as usual Robin collected the slips from the stewards,
+and ultimately laid them on the table before me. I rose, and started on
+the heap. The first was a typewritten document which had been handed up
+by a thoughtful-looking gentleman in the front row. It contained a
+single line&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Are you a Liberal or a Conservative?</i></p>
+
+<p>This was a trifle hard, I thought, coming directly after my speech;
+but fortunately the audience considered it merely funny, and roared when
+I remarked pathetically, "This gentleman is evidently deaf."</p>
+
+<p>Then came the question&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Are you in favour of Woman's Suffrage?</i></p>
+
+<p>This was no novelty, and was fortunately regarded by the gallant
+electors present as a form of comic relief. I adopted my usual plan
+under the circumstances, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am in favour, sir, of giving a woman whatever she wants. It is
+always well to make a virtue of necessity."</p>
+
+<p>This homely and non-committal gibe satisfied most of the audience,
+and I was about to proceed to the next question when my interlocutor, a
+litigious-looking man with blue spectacles, rose in the circle and
+cried&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You are evading the question, sir! Give me an answer. Are you in
+favour of Woman's Suffrage or not?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's fair! Give him his answer!" came the cry from the fickle
+audience.</p>
+
+<p>I was quite prepared for this. I went through an oft-rehearsed and
+not uneffective piece of pantomime with Kitty, and replied&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, I have just inquired of my wife, who is by my
+side&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I paused expectantly. I was not disappointed. There were loud cheers,
+during which I seized the opportunity to glance through the next few
+questions. Then, as I was not quite ready&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;As she has <i>always</i> been, all through this arduous
+campaign&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><i>Terrific enthusiasm, while Kitty blushes and bows very prettily;
+ after which the conversation proceeds on the following
+ lines:</i>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Myself</i>. And she tells me that she does not want any Suffrage
+of any kind whatsoever!</p>
+
+<p><i>"Hear, hear!" But some cries of disapproval.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Myself</i>. I therefore recommend you, sir, to go home and follow
+my example&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>(Perfect tornado of laughter. Apparently I have made a
+ home-thrust.)</i></p>
+
+<p>&mdash;And after that, if you will come back to me and report the
+result of
+your&mdash;er&mdash;investigations&mdash;(<i>yells</i>)&mdash;I shall be
+happy to go into the matter with you more fully.</p>
+
+<p><i>Triumphant cheers, and the blue-spectacled man collapses.</i></p>
+
+<p>The unfortunate espouser of the cause of the fair having thus been
+derided out of court, I took up the next question. It concerned a
+long-standing dispute as to the rights of the clergy of various
+denominations to enter the local Board Schools,&mdash;this was in the
+days far preceding the present educational deadlock,&mdash;and I felt
+that I must walk warily. I talked at large about liberty of conscience
+and religious toleration, but realised as I rambled on that my moderate
+views and want of bigotry in one direction or the other were pleasing no
+one. John Bull is a curious creature. You may get drunk and beat your
+wife, and he will tolerate you; you may run amok through most of the
+Decalogue, and he will still be your friend; but venture to worship your
+Maker in a fashion which differs one tittle from his own, and he will
+put down his pint-pot or desist from sanding the sugar and fell you to
+the earth. I was glad to get away from this subject, leaving the
+audience far from satisfied, and turn to the next question. It
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>Is the Candidate aware that the important township of Spratling is
+ entirely without a pier or jetty of any description?</i></p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I am aware of it," I replied, trying hard to remember
+where the place was. The audience began to titter, and I felt
+uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>My questioner, a saturnine gentleman in the pit, rose to his feet and
+continued&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And if returned to Parliament, will you exert your influence to see
+that a jetty is constructed there at the earliest opportunity?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cer&mdash;&mdash;" There was a very slight movement beside me. Robin
+was leaning back unconcernedly in his chair, but on the table under my
+nose lay a sheet of paper bearing these words in large printed
+capitals&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">SPRATLING IS TEN MILES FROM THE SEA!</p>
+
+<p>It had been a near thing.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," I continued. "On one condition only," I added at the top
+of my voice, above the rising tide of mocking laughter,&mdash;"on
+condition that you, sir, will personally guarantee a continuous and
+efficient service of fast steamers between Spratling and&mdash;the
+sea-coast!"</p>
+
+<p>It was not a brilliant effort. I think I could have made more of it
+if I had had more time. But it served. How they laughed!</p>
+
+<p>But there were breakers ahead. The next question asked if I was in
+favour of compulsory land purchase and small holdings. Of course I was
+not; but if I said so I knew I should rouse a dangerous storm, for the
+community were much bitten at the time with the "Vine and Fig-tree
+Fetish," as some one had happily described it. If, on the other hand, I
+said Yes, I should, besides telling a lie,&mdash;though, as Cash once
+remarked to me, "You can't strain at gnats on polling-day,"&mdash;be
+committing myself to a scheme, which I knew Stridge had been strongly
+urging, for dividing up some of the estate of the Lord of the Manor, the
+Earl of Carbolton (whom I knew personally for one of the wisest and most
+considerate landlords in the country) into allotments for the benefit of
+an industrial population who probably thought that turnips grew on
+trees. It would have been easy to make some easily broken promise, but I
+have my poor pride, and I never offer the most academic blessing to a
+measure that I am not prepared to go into a Lobby for. I wanted time to
+think. Perhaps Robin would slip something on to the table. I accordingly
+played my usual card, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now this, gentleman, is an important question, and I am very glad it
+has been asked." (Oh, Adrian, my <i>boy</i>!) "And when I am faced with
+such a question, I always ask myself, 'What, under the circumstances,
+would be the course of action of&mdash;our great leader?'"</p>
+
+<p>The device succeeded, and the theatre resounded with frenzied cheers.
+I turned to Robin. He was not there.</p>
+
+<p>I swung round in Kitty's direction. She had left her chair, and was
+hurriedly making her way through the group of important nobodies behind
+me in the direction of the wings. Robin was there already, in earnest
+conversation with a girl.</p>
+
+<p>It was Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>Phillis?</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter14" id="chapter14">CHAPTER FOURTEEN.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>"TO DIE&mdash;WILL BE AN <i>AWFULLY</i> BIG ADVENTURE!"<br />
+
+&mdash;<i>Peter Pan</i>.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Two minutes later we were driving back to the Cathedral Arms. It was
+snowing heavily, but I never noticed the fact. Neither did I realise
+that I had abandoned my post at a critical and dangerous moment, and
+left my friends on the platform to explain to a puzzled and angry
+audience why the Candidate had run away without answering their
+questions. But there are deeper things than politics.</p>
+
+<p>Phillis, we learned from Dolly, had been attacked by violent pains
+early in the evening; and about nine o'clock there had been a sudden
+rise of temperature, with slight delirium, followed by a complete and
+alarming collapse. Dr Farquharson had been sent for, hot-foot, from
+Stridge's platform, and his first proceeding had been to summon me from
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>He was waiting for us in the hall of the hotel when we arrived, and
+Kitty and I took him into our sitting-room and, parent-like, begged to
+be told "the worst."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor&mdash;a dour and deliberate Scot&mdash;declined to be
+positive, but "doubted" it might be perityphlitis. "Appendicitis is a
+more fashionable term," he added. The child had rallied, but was very
+ill, and nothing more could be done at present except keep her warm and
+afford relief by means of poultices and fomentations until the malady
+should take a definite turn for the better or the worse.</p>
+
+<p>"In either case we shall know what to do then," he said; "but for the
+present the bairn must just fight her own battle. Has she good health,
+as a rule?"</p>
+
+<p>Yes, thank God! she had. Physically she was frail enough, but she
+possessed a tough little constitution. After I had taken a peep into the
+room where the poor child, a vision of tumbled hair and wide bright
+eyes, lay moaning and tossing, I left Kitty and Dolly and the doctor to
+do what they could for her, and went downstairs to take counsel with my
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>Now that the first shock was past, my head was clear again, and my
+course lay plain before me. Downstairs I found Robin, Champion, and Cash
+silently taking supper.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, gentlemen," I said, when I had answered Robin's anxious
+inquiries&mdash;I believe he loved the child almost as much as I
+did&mdash;"this misfortune has come at a bad time; but one thing is
+quite plain, and that is that I must go through with the election. I
+quite see that I am not my own master at present."</p>
+
+<p>Cash looked immensely relieved. Evidently he had been afraid that I
+would throw up the sponge. Robin and Champion nodded a grave assent, and
+the latter said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Adrian. It's the only thing to do."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," said Cash. "I am sure you have our deepest sympathy,
+Mr Inglethwaite, but we can't possibly let you off on any account."</p>
+
+<p>It was not a very happy way of putting it, but Cash was an election
+agent first and a man afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>"It was bad enough your running away from the meeting to-night," he
+continued, in tones which he tried vainly to keep from sounding
+reproachful. "They'd have torn the benches up if Mr Fordyce hadn't let
+'em have it straight. I'm afraid it will cost us votes to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>All this grated a good deal. I could hear Robin begin to breathe
+through his nose, and I knew that sign. I broke in&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say to them, Robin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say? I don't really know. I assured them that you must have some
+good reason for leaving in such a hurry, and persuaded them to keep
+quiet for a bit in case you came back. We put up a few more speakers,
+but the people got more and more out of hand; and finally, after about
+five minutes of Dubberley, they grew so riotous that we ended the
+meeting."</p>
+
+<p>"They had every excuse," said I. "They considered themselves
+defrauded."</p>
+
+<p>"So they were," said Cash.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, if they had <i>known</i>," said Champion, "they would
+have gone home like lambs."</p>
+
+<p>"Somehow," said Robin, "I wish they could have been told, Adrian. I
+should have liked fine to explain to them that you didn't leave the
+meeting just because you couldn't answer that last question."</p>
+
+<p>"By gum!" Cash had been striving to deliver himself for some time.
+"Mr Inglethwaite," he said excitedly, "they must be told at once! We can
+get more good out of your little girl's illness than fifty meetings
+would do us. You know what the British public are! I'll circulate the
+real reason of your departure from the meeting first thing to-morrow
+morning, and half the wobblers in the place will vote for you out of
+sheer kind-heartedness. I know 'em!"</p>
+
+<p>The exemplary creature almost smacked his lips.</p>
+
+<p>There was a tense silence all round the table. Then I said, with some
+heat&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Cash, I have delivered myself into your hands, body and soul,
+ever since Nomination Day, and I have obeyed you to the letter all
+through this campaign. But&mdash;I am not going to allow a sick child's
+sufferings to be employed as a political asset to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>There was a sympathetic growl from the other two.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we shouldn't do it as publicly as all that," said the unabashed
+Cash. "Trust me! No ostentation; just an explanatory report circulated
+in a subdued sort of way&mdash;and perhaps a strip of tan-bark down on
+the road outside the hotel&mdash;eh? <i>I</i> know how to do it. It'll
+pay, I tell you. And there'll be no publicity&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I laid my head upon the table and groaned. For three weeks I had had
+perhaps four hours' sleep a-night, and I had been worked down to my last
+reserve of energy, keeping in hand just enough to meet all the probable
+contingencies of to-morrow's election. Dialectics with Cash as to the
+market value of a little girl's illness had not been included in the
+estimate. I groaned.</p>
+
+<p>Champion answered for me.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Cash, don't you see how painful these proposals are to Mr
+Inglethwaite? Put such ideas out of your head once and for all. No man
+worthy of the name would accept votes won in such a way."</p>
+
+<p>There was a confirmatory rumble from Robin.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't have <i>ad misericordiam</i> appeals here, Mr Cash," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Champion continued briskly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mr Cash, we will get Mr Inglethwaite a drink and send him to
+bed. He has not had a decent night's rest for a fortnight. We trust to
+you not to talk of the child's illness to anybody,&mdash;that is the
+<i>only</i> way to avoid making capital of it,&mdash;and if you will
+call here to-morrow after breakfast I will guarantee that your Candidate
+will be fit and ready to go round the polling-booths with you,
+and"&mdash;he put his hand on my shoulder&mdash;"set an example to all
+of us."</p>
+
+<p>Cash, completely pulverised, departed as bidden, desolated over this
+renunciation of eleemosynary votes; and Robin, Champion, and I finished
+our supper in peace,&mdash;if one can call it peace when there is no
+peace.</p>
+
+<p>Champion was leaving by the night mail, for he had promised to
+address a meeting two hundred miles away next day. His cab was already
+at the door, and we said good-bye to him on the hotel steps.</p>
+
+<p>He shook hands with me in silence, and turned to Robin.</p>
+
+<p>"Three fingers, and not too much soda, and then put him straight to
+bed," he commanded.</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned to me again.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't sit up and worry, old man," he said. "Go to bed, anyhow. The
+doctor and your womenfolk will do all that can be done. Your duties
+commence to-morrow. Keep your tail up, and face it out. <i>Noblesse
+ oblige</i>, you know. Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>He drove away, and Robin and I returned to the sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>Robin mixed me a stiff whisky-and-soda.</p>
+
+<p>"Champion's prescription," he said. "Down with it!"</p>
+
+<p>I obeyed listlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now come along upstairs with me. You are going to bed. I want to
+turn you out a first-class Candidate in the morning&mdash;not a boiled
+owl."</p>
+
+<p>His cheery masterfulness had its effect, and I suddenly felt a man
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Never fear!" I said. "I shall go through with it right
+enough&mdash;the whole business&mdash;unless&mdash;unless&mdash;Robin,
+old man, supposing&mdash;supposing&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Blethers!" said Robin hastily. "She'll be much better in the
+morning. Here's your room. Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>He shepherded me into my bedroom, shut the door on me, and tiptoed
+away.</p>
+
+<p>I really made a determined effort to go to bed. I actually lay down
+and covered myself up, but sleep I could not. After an hour of
+conscientious endeavour I rose, inspired with a new idea.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had straitly forbidden me to enter Phillis's room; but
+opening out of it was the apartment that was used as her nursery. There
+would be a fire there: I would spend the rest of the night on a sofa in
+front of it.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at my watch. It was one o'clock. I took a candle, walked
+softly down the passage, and let myself quietly into the nursery. The
+door leading into Phillis's room was ajar, and a slight smell of some
+drug or disinfectant assailed my sharpened senses.</p>
+
+<p>The room was in darkness, except that a good fire burned in the
+grate. A silent figure rose up from before it at my entrance.</p>
+
+<p>It was Robin. Somehow I was not in the least surprised to see him
+there.</p>
+
+<p>"Come along," he said softly. "I was expecting you."</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>We sat there for the rest of the long night. The house was very
+still, but every quarter of an hour the Cathedral chimes across the
+Close&mdash;our rooms lay in a quiet wing of the hotel, which formed a
+hollow square with the Cathedral, Chapter-house, and
+Canonries&mdash;furnished a musical break in the silence. So tensely
+mechanical does one's brain become under such circumstances, that
+presently I found myself anticipating the exact moment when the next
+quarter would strike; and I remember feeling quite disappointed and
+irritable if, when I said to myself <i>"Now!"</i> the chime did not ring
+out for another fifteen seconds or so. Truly, at three o'clock on a
+sleepless morning the grasshopper is a burden.</p>
+
+<p>Once Robin rose softly to his feet and turned towards the door of
+Phillis's room. I had not heard any one move there, but when I looked
+round Dolly was standing on the threshold. She was wrapped in a
+kimono,&mdash;I remember its exact colour and pattern to this day, and
+the curious manner in which the heraldic-looking animals embroidered
+upon it winked at me in the firelight,&mdash;and she held an
+incongruous-looking coal-scuttle in her hand. It was not by any means
+empty, but she handed it to Robin with a little nod of authority and
+vanished again.</p>
+
+<p>I looked listlessly at Robin, wondering what he was to do with the
+coal-scuttle. He began to cut a newspaper into strips, after which he
+picked suitable lumps of coal out of the scuttle and tied them up into
+neat little paper packets, half a dozen of which he presently handed
+through the door to Dolly. I suppose she placed them noiselessly on the
+fire in Phillis's room, but we heard no sound.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bitterly cold night, and outside the snow was lying thick;
+so Robin busied himself with preparing other little packets of coal, and
+at intervals throughout the long night he passed them through the door
+to the tireless Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>Various sounds came from within. Occasionally the child suffered
+spasms of pain, and we could hear her crying. Then all-wise Nature would
+grant the sorely tried little body a rest at the expense of the mind
+that ruled it, and poor Phillis would drop into a sort of rambling
+delirium, through which we perforce accompanied her. At one time she
+would be wandering through some Elysian field of her own; we heard her
+calling her mates and proposing all manner of attractive games. (Even
+"Beckoning" was included. Once I distinctly heard her "choose" me.) But
+more often she was in deadly fear. Her solitary little spirit was too
+plainly beset by those nameless ghosts that haunt the borderland
+separating the realms of Death from those of his brother Sleep. Once her
+voice rose to a scream.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Robin! It's the Kelpie! Stop it! It's coming&mdash;it's
+breaving on me! Uncle <i>Robin</i>! oh&mdash;&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Robin. He was sitting gripping the arms of his chair,
+with every muscle in his body rigid; and I knew that he, like myself,
+was praying God to strike down the cowardly devil that would torment a
+child.</p>
+
+<p>Then I heard, for the first time that night, the soothing murmur of
+Kitty's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right, dearie. Mother is holding you fast. It shan't hurt
+you. There, it's running away now, isn't it? See!"</p>
+
+<p>Kitty's tones would have lightened the torments of the Pit, and
+Phillis's cries presently died down to an uneasy whisper. After a sudden
+and curiously pathetic little outburst of singing,&mdash;chiefly a
+jumble of scraps from such old favourites as "Onward, Christian
+<i>Sailors</i>!"&mdash;there was silence again, and the Cathedral chimed
+out half-past four.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after this the doctor came out of the room with a message
+from Kitty that I ought to be in bed. Evidently Dolly had told her about
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"How is she now, doctor?" I whispered, disregarding the command.</p>
+
+<p>"Up and down, up and down. She is making a brave fight of it, poor
+lassie, but we can do little at present except stand by and give relief
+when the bad fits come."</p>
+
+<p>"May I go in and see her?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! You could do no good, and she might be frightened if she
+caught sight of a large dim figure in the dark. Leave it to the women,
+and thank God for them. Hark!"</p>
+
+<p>Phillis was back in Elysium again.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's been eating my porridge?" said a gruff little voice. Then came
+a rapturous shriek. Evidently the Little Bear had caught Curly Locks in
+his bed. We sat listening, while the game ended and another followed in
+its place. Suddenly she began to sing again&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+    <div class="quote">"Then three times round went that gallant ship,</div>
+    <div class="in1">And three times round went she;</div>
+    <div>Then three times round went that gallant ship,</div>
+    <div class="in1">And&mdash;sank&mdash;to the&mdash;bottom of the sea&mdash;ea&mdash;ee&mdash;"</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>There was a little wailing <i>rallentando</i>, and silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Philly, Philly, <i>don't</i>!" It was the only time that night that
+Kitty gave any sign of breaking down. The doctor hurried back into the
+room. The clock struck five.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>After that there was a very long silence. It must have lasted nearly
+an hour. Then Dolly tiptoed out to us.</p>
+
+<p>"She's asleep," she whispered. "He says she's a shade better. I want
+another coal-packet."</p>
+
+<p>She took what Robin gave her, and faded away.</p>
+
+<p>After that I think we dozed in our chairs. The next thing I remember
+was a knock at the outer door. I opened my heavy eyes and stirred my
+stiff joints. The Boots put his head in, and I realised it was
+daylight.</p>
+
+<p>"Half-past eight, sir. Mr Cash is waiting downstairs. Poll's been
+open half an hour, he says."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter15" id="chapter15">CHAPTER FIFTEEN.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>TWO BATTLES.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Before I left the hotel I struck a bargain with Cash. I would go
+anywhere and do anything, but he was to give me a written itinerary of
+my movements for the day, clearly stating where I should be at various
+times. This document I left in the hands of Dolly, who promised
+faithfully to send for me, if&mdash;if necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Then, putting my paternal instincts into my pocket, I braced myself
+up and plunged into the vortex of polling-day.</p>
+
+<p>Truly, if Time is the healer, Work is the anesthetic. In the turmoil
+of the crowded streets and polling-booths, I found myself almost as
+enthusiastic and whole-hearted as if no little girl of mine were
+fighting for life in a darkened room not many streets away. I shook
+hands with countless folk, I addressed meetings of the unwashed at
+street corners, and received the plaudits or execrations of the
+multitude with equal serenity.</p>
+
+<p>Robin hastened away to the Hide-and-Tallow Works, whence, during the
+dinner-hour, he charmed many an oleaginous elector to come and plump for
+Inglethwaite, the Man Whom He Knew and Who Knew Him. Gerald and Donkin,
+smothered in violets and primroses, were personally conducting a sort of
+tumbril, which dashed across my field of vision from time to time,
+sometimes full, sometimes empty, but always at full gallop.</p>
+
+<p>Election "incidents" were plentiful. I was standing in the principal
+polling-station at one time, when a gentleman called Hoppett, a cobbler
+by persuasion&mdash;I think I have already mentioned him as the
+benignant individual who used to come to the door of his establishment
+and pursue me with curses down the street&mdash;came out from recording
+his vote. He did not see me, but caught sight of Robin, who had just
+arrived with a <i>posse</i> of electors, and was standing by the
+Returning Officer's table. Hobbling up, the cobbler shook a gnarled fist
+under my secretary's nose.</p>
+
+<p>"I've voted against your man," he shouted. "We're goin' to be rid of
+the lot of you this time. Set of reskils!... I've put my mark against
+Stridge, I have; and against Inglethwaite's name I've put a picture of a
+big boot&mdash;one of my own making, too! The big boot!" he screamed
+ecstatically&mdash;"that's what your man is a-going to get to-day. Set
+of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Robin smiled benignantly upon him, and glanced at the Returning
+Officer.</p>
+
+<p>"You hear what this gentleman says?" he remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"I do," replied the official.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it not a fact that he has annulled his vote by making unnecessary
+marks on his voting-paper?" continued Robin solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"That is so," assented the Returning Officer. "I'm afraid your vote
+won't count this time, Mr Hoppett. Good morning!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a roar of delighted laughter from friend and foe, and the
+fermenting Hoppett was cast forth.</p>
+
+<p>I succeeded in getting back to the hotel for ten minutes at
+luncheon-time. Dolly met me&mdash;pale, sleepless, but unbeaten.</p>
+
+<p>"The doctor is with her just now," she said. "She has been in fearful
+pain, poor kiddy; but he has given her a drug of some sort, and she is
+easier now."</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't I see her, just a moment?" I said wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"The answer to that question, sir," replied Dolly, "is in the
+negative."</p>
+
+<p>We both smiled resolutely at this familiar tag, and Dolly
+concluded&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Kitty is lying down. I made her. But she is going to get up when
+they&mdash;I mean&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I detected a curious confusion in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"When what?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>I surveyed my sister-in-law uneasily</p>
+
+<p>"Are they expecting&mdash;a crisis, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;a sort of a one."</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>Dolly seemed to consider.</p>
+
+<p>"About five," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Hadn't I better be near, in case&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you to be this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hunnable."</p>
+
+<p>Dolly nodded her head reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>"When can you be back?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I can do it by five, I should think."</p>
+
+<p>"That will be soon enough. The doctor said that if&mdash;you were
+wanted, it would be about then. Good-bye, old gentleman!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, Dolly! Mind you go to bed." (We seem to have spent a large
+portion of that twenty-four hours urging each other to go to bed.)</p>
+
+<p>Then I went back to work.</p>
+
+<p>Polling had been brisk during the dinner-hour, and both Cash and
+Robin considered that we were doing fairly well. Things would be slack
+at Stoneleigh itself during the afternoon, and the obvious and politic
+course now was to drive over to the fishing village of Hunnable&mdash;I
+had only time for one, and this was the most considerable&mdash;and
+catch my marine constituents as they emerged from the ocean,
+Proteus-like, between three and four o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>I did so, and for the space of an hour and a half I solicited the
+patronage of innumerable tarry mariners, until their horny hands had
+filled up the voting-papers and my own smelt to heaven of fish. It was a
+quarter to five, and dark, before I escaped from the attentions of a
+small but pertinacious group of inquirers who wanted to understand my
+exact attitude on the question of trawling within the three-mile limit,
+and proceeded at a hand-gallop back to Stoneleigh. (That odoriferous but
+popular vehicle, the motor-car, was still in the
+preceded-by-a-man-ten-yards-in-front-bearing-a-red-flag stage in those
+days, and we had to rely on that antiquated but much more reliable
+medium of transport, the horse.) The snow lay very heavily in places,
+and our progress was not over-rapid. Moreover, passing the central
+Committee Rooms on my way to the hotel, I was stopped and haled within
+to conciliate various wobblers, and another twenty minutes of precious
+time sped. But I stuck to my determination to let nothing interfere with
+duty that day, and I argued with free-thinkers and pump-handled bemused
+supporters until all was settled and Cash said I might go.</p>
+
+<p>Still, it was nearer six than five when my panting horses drew up at
+the Cathedral Arms.</p>
+
+<p>There was no Dolly to receive me this time, but at the top of the
+stairs leading to our rooms I met the doctor. He was accompanied by a
+grey-haired, kind-eyed old gentleman in a frock-coat, with "London
+Specialist" written all over him. It was Sir James Fordyce.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" I asked feverishly as I shook hands.</p>
+
+<p>The two men motioned me into the sitting-room, and Farquharson said,
+in a curiously uncertain fashion&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Inglethwaite, we have done a thing which should not, properly,
+have been done without your consent. Your secretary suggested the idea,
+and I agreed. Mrs Inglethwaite made a point of our saying nothing to
+you, and volunteered to take all responsibility on herself. She said you
+were not to be worried. So I wired for Sir James&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I see," I said, "and he operated?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, at three o'clock this afternoon. Indeed, your sister-in-law, I
+think, purposely concealed from you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She did." That, then, was the "crisis" that Dolly had in her mind,
+and that, too, was why she had told me to come back at five&mdash;when
+everything would be well over!</p>
+
+<p>I continued&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And how have you&mdash;I mean&mdash;is she&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"The operation," said the old man, "was entirely successful, and, as
+it turned out, most necessary. But of course for so young a patient the
+strain was terrible."</p>
+
+<p>"How is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"She came through finely, but I do not conceal from you the fact that
+her life hangs by a thread."</p>
+
+<p>I had a premonition that something was going to be "broken" to me. I
+dropped into a chair, and waited dully. Then I felt a hand on my
+shoulder, and Sir James continued&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Just weakness, you understand! Her exhaustion when she came out of
+the chloroform was extreme, but every moment now is in our favour.
+Children have such extraordinary recuperative power."</p>
+
+<p>He was speaking in the usual cheery tones of the bedside optimist. I
+raised my head.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me straight, Sir James&mdash;will the child live?"</p>
+
+<p>The old man's grip on my shoulder tightened just for a moment, and
+when he spoke it was in an entirely unprofessional voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks to two of the bravest and most devoted of women," he said, "I
+think she will."</p>
+
+<p>I dropped my head into my hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Please God!" I murmured brokenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," he continued, "anything may happen yet. But the way in
+which she has been cared for by my good friend here&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," said Farquharson. "Give the credit to those that deserve
+it. I just afforded ordinary professional assistance. It was your wife
+and her sister, Mr Inglethwaite, that pulled the child through. She has
+had tight hold of a hand of one of them ever since ten o'clock last
+night."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Sir James; "I think it will be found that their nursing
+has just made the difference. You had better give him something,
+Farquharson."</p>
+
+<p>In truth I needed something, though up to this point I had not
+realised the fact. Farquharson gave me a draught out of a little glass,
+which sent a steadying glow all through me, and presently I was able to
+shake hands, dumbly and mechanically, with the great surgeon, who, I
+found, was bidding me good-bye; for the world is full of sick folk, and
+their champion may not stay to see the issue of one battle before he
+must hurry off to fight another.</p>
+
+<p>They left me to myself, while Farquharson went down to the door with
+Sir James. Presently he returned.</p>
+
+<p>"I must be getting back to the patient shortly," he said. "The next
+hour or so will be very critical. The nurse is here, and I have sent the
+ladies to bed. But you may go in for a look, if you like. I am going out
+for exactly ten minutes."</p>
+
+<p>"I see&mdash;a breather. You deserve it."</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly. I'm going to vote&mdash;for Stridge!"</p>
+
+<p>He chuckled in a marvellously cheering way, and left me.</p>
+
+<p>As I approached Phillis's room the door opened, and I was confronted
+with that most soothing and comforting of sights to a sick man&mdash;a
+nurse's uniform. She was a pleasant-faced girl, I remember, and she was
+carrying a basin full of sponges and water, cruelly tinged.</p>
+
+<p>"Just a peep!" she said, with that little air of motherly sternness
+which all women, however young, adopt towards fractious children and
+helpless males.</p>
+
+<p>She closed the door very softly upon me, and left me alone.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment I stood uncertain in the shadow of the screen that
+guarded the door. There was a whiff of chloroform in the air, and
+through the doorway leading to the room where we had sat throughout the
+previous night I could see the end of a white-covered table. Thank God,
+that part of the business was over!</p>
+
+<p>A shaded lamp burned at Phillis's bedside. She lay deathly still, an
+attenuated little derelict amid an ocean of white bed-clothes.</p>
+
+<p>At first I thought I was alone with the child, and was moving softly
+forward when I became suddenly aware that some one was kneeling at the
+far side of the bed. It was Kitty. Evidently she had not obeyed the
+doctor's orders about going to bed.</p>
+
+<p>A single ray from the lamp fell upon her face. Her eyes were wide
+open, and she seemed to be looking straight at me. Her lips were moving,
+and I became aware that she was speaking, very earnestly and almost
+inaudibly.</p>
+
+<p>I stood still to hear her. Then I realised that her words were not
+addressed to me. Very carefully I stepped back to the door-handle,
+turned it, and slipped out.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter16" id="chapter16">CHAPTER SIXTEEN.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>"QUI PERD, GAGNE."</h3>
+
+
+<p>Once more I was back in the thick of it all, and till the closing of
+the poll at eight o'clock I strove, in company with Cash, Robin, and
+others, to direct the inclinations of my constituents into the proper
+channels.</p>
+
+<p>The tumult increased as the evening advanced. More snow had fallen
+during the afternoon, and outlying electors were being conveyed to the
+scene of action with the utmost difficulty. People were voting at seven
+o'clock who had intended to get it done and be home by six; and as time
+wore on it was seen that there would be a desperate rush of business
+right up till closing time.</p>
+
+<p>Every one was in high spirits. That potent factor in British
+politics, the electioneering egg, had been entirely superseded by the
+snowball, and the youth of Stoneleigh, massed in the public square
+outside the Town Hall, were engaged, with a lofty indifference to party
+distinctions that would have been sublime if it had not been so painful,
+in an untrammelled bombardment of all who crossed their path.</p>
+
+<p>At length the Cathedral chimed out the hour of eight, and the poll
+closed. Cash hurried up to me.</p>
+
+<p>"It's going to be a desperately close thing," he said. "The counting
+will begin at once, in the Mayor's room on the first floor of the Town
+Hall. The outlying boxes should be in by half-past nine at the latest,
+and the result should be out by about eleven. You'll come and watch the
+counting, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>But there are limits to human endurance.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Cash," I said, buttoning my overcoat up to my ears as a
+preliminary to an encounter with the budding statesmen outside, "I think
+I have got to the end of my day's work. Nothing can affect the result
+now, and I'm going home&mdash;that's flat. Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely you're coming to hear the result announced," wailed Cash.
+"There's the vote of thanks to the Returning Officer. You'll have to
+propose that&mdash;or second it," he added grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll see. But I think, now that the poll is closed, that my
+duty lies elsewhere," I said. "If I am really wanted, send word by Mr
+Fordyce."</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later, and I was once more at the Cathedral Arms. The
+ground floor of that hostelry hummed like a hive, and the bar and
+smoking-room were filled to overflowing with supporters of both sides,
+who were prudently avoiding all risk of disappointment by celebrating
+the result of the election in advance.</p>
+
+<p>I pushed my way through a group of enthusiastic patriots&mdash;many
+of them in that condition once described to me by a sporting curate as
+"holding two or three firkins apiece"&mdash;who crowded round me, fired
+with a desire to drink success to the British Constitution&mdash;a rash
+shibboleth, by the way, for gentlemen in their situation to attempt to
+enunciate at all&mdash;at my expense, and hastened upstairs to our
+wing.</p>
+
+<p>In the passage I met the nurse. She greeted me with a little smile;
+but I was mistrustful of professional cheerfulness that night.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you tell Mrs Inglethwaite or Miss Rubislaw that I have come in,
+please?" I said, and turned into the sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of a snug room or a bright fire or a colossal arm-chair is
+always comforting to a weary man, even though his thoughts admit of
+little rest. I sank down amid these comforts, and closed my eyes. Now
+that my long day's play-acting was over, and nothing mattered any more,
+I began to realise how great the strain had been. I was utterly done. I
+had no clear recollection of having tasted food since breakfast, but I
+was not hungry. All I wanted was to be left in peace. Even the sickening
+anxiety about Phillis had died down to a sort of dull ache. In a few
+minutes a too-wakeful mind struggled with an exhausted body. I wondered
+dimly when somebody would come and tell me how Philly was.
+Perhaps&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>I was awakened by the consciousness of a second presence in my
+arm-chair, which was a roomy one of the saddle-bag variety. It was
+Kitty. Presently I became aware that she was crying, softly, as women
+usually do,&mdash;men gulp noisily, because they have lost control of
+themselves, and children wail, chiefly to attract attention,&mdash;but
+so softly on this occasion that I knew she was trying to avoid
+disturbing me.</p>
+
+<p>It had happened, then.</p>
+
+<p>Well, obviously, this was one of the rare occasions upon which a
+husband can be of some use to his wife. I sat up, and made a clumsy
+effort at a caress.</p>
+
+<p>"We've still got each other," I said, rather brokenly.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty positively laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Adrian, you don't understand. Philly roused up for a few minutes
+about eight o'clock,&mdash;very <i>piano</i>, poor mite, but almost
+herself,&mdash;and then dropped off into a beautiful sleep, bless her!
+The doctor has gone home and left the nurse in charge. He says things
+should be all right now. Oh, Adrian, Adrian!"</p>
+
+<p>And my wife sobbed afresh.</p>
+
+<p>"Then what the&mdash;what on earth are you crying for?" I
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, dear," said Kitty, without making any attempt to stop.
+"I'm so happy!"</p>
+
+<p>Really, women are the most extraordinary creatures. Here was I, after
+the labour and anxiety of the last twenty-four hours, ready to shout for
+joy. I was no longer tired: I felt as if my day's work had never been. I
+wanted to sing&mdash;to dance&mdash;to give three cheers in a whisper.
+And my wife, after giving me a very bad fright, was sitting celebrating
+our victory by a flood of tears and other phenomena usually attributed
+by the masculine mind to unfathomable woe. It was all very perplexing,
+and I felt a trifle ill-used; but I suppose it was one of the things
+that mark the difference between a man and a woman.</p>
+
+<p>After that we sat long and comfortably. Our conversation need not be
+set down here, for it has no bearing on this chronicle.</p>
+
+<p>Finally we looked at the clock, and then at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"We must have been sitting here a long time," I said. "I wonder where
+the others are."</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," said Kitty, "Dilly and Dicky have arrived. Robin and
+Dolly wired for them this morning. They may be upstairs any moment. They
+were having supper in the coffee-room when last I saw them." She patted
+her hair. "Do I look an awful fright?"</p>
+
+<p>I turned in the restricted space at my command and surveyed her.</p>
+
+<p>"Do my eyes look wet?" she inquired, feeling in my pocket for my
+handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>Kitty has large grey eyes. Once, during the most desperate period of
+our courtship, I referred to them as "twin lakes"&mdash;an indiscretion
+which their owner, in her less generous moments, still casts up to me.
+But to-night the territory surrounding them presented a distinct
+appearance of inundation. I continued to gaze. I thought of last night's
+ceaseless vigil and to-day's long-drawn battle. My wife had borne the
+brunt of all, and I had grudged her a few tears! My heart smote me.</p>
+
+<p>"Kit!" I said suddenly; "poor Kit!"...</p>
+
+<p>We were interrupted by the opening of the door and the entrance of
+what I at first took to be a chimney-sweep's apprentice, but which
+proved to be my brother-in-law, with evidence of electoral strenuousness
+written thick upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Hallo, you two!" he remarked genially. Then, noticing our
+unconventional economy of sitting-space&mdash;"Sorry! I didn't know. I
+thought you'd given up that sort of thing years ago!"</p>
+
+<p>I rose and shook myself.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, my son," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Righto!" replied Gerald. Then he addressed himself to a figure
+which, with true delicacy of feeling, had shrunk back into the passage
+outside.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, Moke, old man. I've got them separated now!"</p>
+
+<p>The discreet Master Donkin sidled respectfully in at the door, and
+Gerald continued.</p>
+
+<p>"Moke and I would like to say how pleased we are to hear about
+Phillis," he said, rather awkwardly for him. "We have just got to hear
+how really bad she's been."</p>
+
+<p>The resolution was seconded by a confirmatory mumble from Master
+Donkin.</p>
+
+<p>"We met the nurse just now," continued Gerald, "and she told us about
+the operation, and all that. It must have been a pretty thick day for
+you, Adrian. And you're looking pretty rotten, too, Kitty," he added
+with brotherly directness. "But do you people know what time it is?
+Half-past eleven, nearly. The result should be out any minute. Aren't
+you coming to the Town Hall? They'll want you to make a speech, or get
+egged, or something."</p>
+
+<p>I looked at my watch.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's no particular reason why I shouldn't
+go&mdash;<i>now</i>," I said. "What do you say, Kitty? Hark! What's
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the result, I expect," said my brother-in-law.</p>
+
+<p>We drew up the blind and opened the window. The moon was shining
+brightly, and threw the monstrous shadow of the Cathedral very blackly
+upon the untrodden snow of the peaceful Close. Through the clear night
+air came the sound of frenzied cheering.</p>
+
+<p>"That's it, right enough," said Gerald. "I wonder if you've got the
+chuck, my bonny boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh! It is cold! Come in," said Kitty.</p>
+
+<p>We shut the window, drew down the blind, returned to the fire, and
+waited. Dolly joined us now, and Kitty vanished to sit by Phillis. We
+waited on. Somehow it never occurred to us to send downstairs for news.
+I suppose there are times when the human craving for sensation is sated.
+We sat and waited.</p>
+
+<p>At last the door opened, and, as I expected, Robin entered. He looked
+like a man who has not been to bed for a week. He shut the door softly
+behind him&mdash;evidently he feared he might be entering a house of
+mourning&mdash;and surveyed us for a moment without speaking. I knew
+what was in his mind. Then he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We have lost."</p>
+
+<p>I stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary," I replied, "we have won."</p>
+
+<p>In a bound Robin was on the hearth-rug, gripping my hand with his.
+(His other had somehow got hold of one of Dolly's, and I remember
+wondering if he was hurting her as much as me.)</p>
+
+<p>"You mean it?" he roared.</p>
+
+<p>"I do. She is sleeping like a lamb."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, man, I'm just glad! What does <i>anything</i> matter after
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>Then we sat down and smiled upon each other largely and vacuously. We
+were all a little unstrung that night, I think. After all, it seems
+rather unreasonable to lavish one's time, labour, and money on an
+electoral contest, and then laugh when you lose, and say it doesn't
+matter, just because a child isn't going to die. Oh, I am glad Mr Cash
+was not there!</p>
+
+<p>"But I must tell you what happened when the result was read out,"
+said Robin. "It was a near thing&mdash;a majority of twenty-seven. (I
+don't think it is worth while to ask for a recount: everything was done
+very carefully.) When the figures went up there was the usual
+hullabaloo&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We heard it, thanks," said Gerald.</p>
+
+<p>"And presently Stridge stepped out on to the balcony and bowed his
+acknowledgments. There was a lot more yelling and horn-blowing, and then
+they began to cry out for Inglethwaite."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally. Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"They were quiet at last, and Stridge got his speech in. He talked
+the usual blethers about having struck a blow that night that would ring
+through England,&mdash;just what <i>you</i> would have had to say if you
+had got in, in fact,&mdash;and <i>then</i> he went on, the old sumph, to
+say that for reasons best known to himself his <i>honourable</i>
+opponent had seen fit to withhold his presence from them that night, and
+he begged leave to add that he considered that a man, even though he
+knew he was going to be beaten, ought to have the pluck to come and face
+the music."</p>
+
+<p>"Mangy bounder!" remarked my brother-in-law dispassionately.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I was just raging!" continued Robin. "The people of course
+yelled themselves hoarse; and Stridge was going on to rub it into you,
+when I stepped on to the balcony beside him&mdash;I had been standing
+just inside the window&mdash;and I put my hand on Stridge's fat shoulder
+and I pulled him back a wee thing, and I roared&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Gentlemen, will you not let me say a word for Mr
+Inglethwaite?'"</p>
+
+<p>Dolly's eyes began to blaze, and I saw her lips part in
+anticipation.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a tremendous uproar then," Robin went on with relish. "The
+folk howled to Stridge to put me over the balcony&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish he had tried!" said Gerald with simple fervour.</p>
+
+<p>"And other folk cried to me to go on. They knew there must be some
+explanation of your absence. I just stood there and let them roar.
+Inside the room there was a fine commotion; and with the tail of my eye
+I could see Cash hurrying round explaining to them what I wanted to say.
+(He has his points, Cash!) Then at last, as the noise got worse and
+worse, I put my mouth to Stridge's ear and bellowed that he would regret
+it all his life if he didn't let me say what I had to say, and that he
+would be grateful to me afterwards, and all that. He is a decent old
+buffer, really, and he was evidently impressed with what I
+said&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to know exactly what you did say, Robin," I
+interpolated.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind just now. Anyhow, he turned and clambered back into the
+room, and left me with the crowd. They were soon quiet, and I just told
+them."</p>
+
+<p>Robin leaned back in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Told them <i>what</i>?" came from all parts of the room.</p>
+
+<p>But Robin had become suddenly and maddeningly Caledonian again.</p>
+
+<p>"I just told them about Philly," he said. "What else could I do? It
+wasn't like telling them during the election. That would have been an
+appeal to the gallery for votes. This was just common justice to you.
+Anyhow, they quite quietened down after that."</p>
+
+<p>And that was all the report that its author ever gave us of a speech
+which, in the space of four minutes, turned a half-maddened election mob
+into a silent, a sympathetic, and (I heard afterwards) a deeply moved
+body of sober human beings.</p>
+
+<p>"What happened next?" asked Kitty, who had rejoined us. (Phillis was
+still sleeping sweetly, she said.)</p>
+
+<p>"After that I hauled old Stridge on to the balcony again and gave him
+a congratulatory hand-shake, <i>coram populo</i>, on your behalf. Then I
+retired and slipped out by a back way and came here. Stridge was in full
+eruption again when I left&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dolly held up her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that curious noise?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"It's outside," said Kitty.</p>
+
+<p>Gerald went to the window and lifted the blind. Then he turned to
+us.</p>
+
+<p>"I say," he said in an unusual voice, "come here a minute."</p>
+
+<p>We drew up the blind and surveyed the scene before us.</p>
+
+<p>Two minutes before the moon had shone upon an untrodden expanse of
+snow. Now the Close was black with people. There must have been two or
+three thousand. They stood there in the gleaming moonlight, silent,
+motionless, like an army of phantoms. At their head and
+forefront&mdash;I could see the moonlight glitter on his watch-chain,
+which lay in a most favourable position for lunar reflection&mdash;stood
+the newly elected Member for Stoneleigh, Mr Alderman Stridge.</p>
+
+<p>Simultaneously there was a knock at the door, and the hall-porter of
+the hotel appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Stridge's compliments, sir, and he would like to have a word with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Go down quickly, Adrian," said Kitty anxiously. "They'll wake
+Philly!"</p>
+
+<p>I descended without a word, and passed out into the Close from a
+French window on the ground floor.</p>
+
+<p>I glanced up in the direction of our rooms and noticed that my party
+were standing on the balcony outside the sitting-room. I could see
+Kitty's anxious face. But she need have had no fear.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Stridge advanced towards me, silk hat in hand. Behind him stood a
+variety of Stoneleigh worthies, and I had time to notice that the group
+was composed of an indiscriminate mixture of friends and foes.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Inglethwaite, sir," said Stridge, "I should like to shake you by
+the hand."</p>
+
+<p>He did so, as did a few of those immediately around us, in perfect
+silence. I wondered what was coming.</p>
+
+<p>"That is all, sir," said Stridge simply, and not without a certain
+dignity. "We shall move off now. We did you a wrong to-night, and we all
+of us"&mdash;he indicated the motionless multitude with a sweep of his
+hand&mdash;"agreed to come here in silence, just for a moment, as an
+indication of our sympathy and&mdash;respect."</p>
+
+<p>I was unable to speak, which was not altogether surprising. There was
+something overwhelming about the dumb kindness of it all,&mdash;three
+thousand excited folk holding themselves in for fear of disturbing a
+sick child,&mdash;and I merely shook Stridge's hand again.</p>
+
+<p>However, I found my voice at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr Stridge," I said, "there is only one thing I will say in response
+to your kindness, but I think it is the one thing most calculated to
+reward you all for it. To-night my little girl's illness took a
+favourable turn. She is now fast asleep, and practically out of
+danger."</p>
+
+<p>I saw a great ripple pass over the crowd, like a breeze over a
+cornfield, as the news sped from mouth to mouth. Both Stridge's great
+hands were on my shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Good lad!" he said. "Good lad!"</p>
+
+<p>He patted my shoulders again, and then, as if struck by a sudden
+idea, he turned and whispered a direction to his lieutenants. I
+overheard the words "Market Square," and "A good half mile away." Once
+more the wave passed over the cornfield, and without a sound the great
+concourse turned to the left and streamed away over the trampled snow,
+leaving me standing bareheaded on the steps of the French window, almost
+directly below the spot where the unconscious little object of all this
+consideration lay fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>I returned to the group on the balcony. They had heard most of the
+conversation, and Kitty was unaffectedly dabbing her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let us get in out of the cold," I said, suddenly cheerful and
+brisk. "I want my supper."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment," said Robin, "I don't think everything is quite over
+yet. What is that? Listen!"</p>
+
+<p>From the direction of the Market Square came the shouts of a great
+multitude. Cheer upon cheer floated up to the starry heavens. The roars
+that had greeted the declaration of the poll were nothing to these.
+There was a united ring about them that had been lacking in the others.
+It was like one whole-hearted many-headed giant letting off steam.</p>
+
+<p>"A-a-h!" said Kitty.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter17" id="chapter17">CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>IN WHICH ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD.</h3>
+
+
+<p>After  that  we  became  suddenly  conscious  of our bodily wants,
+and clamoured for supper.</p>
+
+<p>It was long after midnight, and most of the hotel servants had gone
+to bed. But one waiter of political leanings, who had been an
+enthusiastic witness of the proceedings in the Close, stood by us nobly.
+He laid a table in the sitting-room. He materialised a cold turkey, a
+brown loaf, and some tomatoes; and he even achieved table-napkins.
+Gerald and Donkin on their part disappeared into the nether regions, and
+returned bearing mince-pies and cider. Some one else found champagne and
+opened it; and in a quarter of an hour we were left to ourselves by the
+benignant waiter round a comfortably loaded table, in a snug room with
+the fire burning and the curtains drawn.</p>
+
+<p>It was an eccentric kind of meal, for every one was overflowing with
+a sort of reactionary hilarity; and everybody called everybody else "old
+man" or "my dear," and I was compelled to manipulate my food with my
+left hand owing to the fact that my wife insisted on clinging tightly to
+my right. The only times I got a really satisfactory mouthful were when
+she slipped out of the room to see how her daughter was sleeping.</p>
+
+<p>As the meal progressed, I began to note the exceedingly domestic and
+intimate manner in which we were seated round the table, which was small
+and circular. Kitty and I sat together; then, on our right, came Dicky
+and Dilly, then Gerald and Donkin, each partially obscured from view by
+a bottle of cider about the size of an Indian club; and Dolly and Robin
+completed the circle.</p>
+
+<p>The party comported themselves variously. Kitty and I said little. We
+were utterly tired and dumbly thankful, and had no desire to contribute
+greatly to the conversation; but we turned and looked at one another in
+a contented sort of way at times. Dicky and Dilly were still
+sufficiently newly married to be more or less independent of other
+people's society, and they kept up a continuous undercurrent of
+lover-like confidences and playful nothings all the time. Gerald, upon
+whom solid food seemed to have the effect that undiluted alcohol has
+upon ordinary folk, was stentoriously engaged with Mr Donkin in what a
+student of <i>Paley's Evidences</i> would have described as "A Contest
+of Opposite Improbabilities" concerning his election experiences.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, I turned to Dolly and Robin. Dolly's splendid vitality has
+stood her in good stead during the last twenty-four hours, and this,
+combined with the present flood-tide of joyous relief, made it hard to
+believe that she had spent a day and a night of labour and anxiety. She
+was much more silent than usual, but her face was flushed and happy, and
+somehow I was reminded of the time when I had watched her greeting the
+dawn on the morning after Dilly's wedding. Robin, with the look of a man
+who has a hard day's work behind him, a full meal inside him, and a
+sound night's sleep before him&mdash;and what three greater blessings
+could a man ask for himself?&mdash;sat beside her, smiling largely and
+restfully on the company around him.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Dicky made an announcement.</p>
+
+<p>"There is one more bottle," he said. "Come on, let's buzz it!"</p>
+
+<p>He opened the champagne in a highly professional manner and filled up
+our glasses. Gerald and Donkin declined, but helped themselves to fresh
+jorums of cider.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a little pause, and we all felt that some one ought to
+make a speech or propose a toast.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we drink some healths?" proposed Dilly.</p>
+
+<p>There was a chorus of assent.</p>
+
+<p>"We will each propose one," I said, "right round the table in turn.
+Ladies first! Yours, Kitty? I suppose it will be Philly&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Kitty nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies and gentlemen," I announced, "you are asked to drink to the
+speedy recovery of Miss Phillis Inglethwaite. This toast is proposed by
+her mother, and seconded by her father."</p>
+
+<p>The toast was drunk with all sincerity, but soberly, as befitted.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Dilly," I said, when we were ready again.</p>
+
+<p>Dilly whispered something to her husband, which was received by that
+gentleman with a modest and deprecatory cough, coupled with an urgent
+request that his wife would chuck it.</p>
+
+<p>"He won't announce my toast for me," explained Dilly, turning to
+us&mdash;"he's too shy, poor dear!&mdash;so I'll do it myself. Ladies
+and gentlemen, the toast is&mdash;Dicky!"</p>
+
+<p>Dicky's health was drunk with cheers and laughter, and Dilly
+completed its subject's confusion by kissing him.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Dolly!" said every one.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet!" said Dolly. "Gerald and Moke are the next pair. Gerald
+must act lady, and think of a toast."</p>
+
+<p>Master Gerald, hastily bolting a solid mass of mince-pie&mdash;one
+could almost follow the course of its descent&mdash;cheerfully
+complied.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," he said; "I think I'll drink the health of old Moke
+himself. He's not much to look at, but he's a good sort. I shan't kiss
+him, though, Dilly. And," he added, "I think he had better drink mine
+too. He looks thirsty. Come on, sonny&mdash;no heeltaps!"</p>
+
+<p>He elaborately linked arms with the now comatose Donkin, and each
+thereupon absorbed, without drawing breath, about a pint of cider
+apiece. After that, with a passing admonition to his friend not to
+burst, my brother-in-law returned to his repast.</p>
+
+<p>So far, the toasts had all been of a most conventional and inevitable
+character. Now, automatically but a little tactlessly, we all turned to
+see what Dolly and Robin were going to do. From the standpoint of the
+last two toasts they were certainly in a rather delicate position.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, you two!" commanded Gerald. "Do something! Make a
+spring!"</p>
+
+<p>Robin took up his glass of champagne and turned rather inquiringly to
+Dolly.</p>
+
+<p>Without a word she linked her arm in his, and they drank
+together.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, I say, that's not fair! Whose health were you drinking,
+Robin, old man?" inquired the tactless Dicky.</p>
+
+<p>"I was drinking to the future Mrs Fordyce&mdash;whoever she may be!"
+said Robin, obviously apologetic at being unable to think of anything
+more sparkling.</p>
+
+<p>"Whose health were <i>you</i> drinking, Dolly?" yelled Gerald, with
+much enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>Then Dolly did a startling thing.</p>
+
+<p>Robin's hand lay resting on the table beside her. Into it she
+deliberately slipped, her own; and then gazed&mdash;flushed and defiant,
+but proud and smiling&mdash;round a circle composed entirely of faces
+belonging to people suffering from the gapes.</p>
+
+<p>I glanced at Robin. He looked perfectly dumfounded, but I saw his
+hand close automatically round Dolly's fingers, and I saw, too, her pink
+nails go white under the pressure.</p>
+
+<p>But Dolly seemed to feel no pain. On the contrary, she continued to
+smile upon us. Then, bowing her head quickly, before any of us realised
+what she would be at, she lightly kissed the great hand which imprisoned
+her own. Then she looked up again, with glistening eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" she said. "<i>Now</i> you know!"</p>
+
+<p>Our breath came back, and the spellbound silence was broken.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Dolly</i>!" said Kitty.</p>
+
+<p>"My <i>dear</i>!" said Dilly.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;<i>ho</i>!" drawled Dicky.</p>
+
+<p>But it was Gerald who rounded off the situation. He was standing on
+the table by this time.</p>
+
+<p>"Three cheers for Dolly and Robin!" he roared.</p>
+
+<p>We gave them, with full throats. (Fortunately we were a long way from
+Phillis's room.)</p>
+
+<p>After that we all sat down again, feeling a little awkward, as people
+do when they have taken the lid off their private feelings for a moment.
+Finally Kitty led off with&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But, Dolly, dear, why didn't you tell us? When was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't tell you before," said Dolly composedly, "because it has
+only just happened&mdash;this moment."</p>
+
+<p>"Only this moment? But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say he hasn't <i>asked</i> you? Oh&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you asking <i>him</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>The questions came simultaneously from all parts of the table;
+horribly inquisitive, some of them; but then the thing had been so
+frankly and deliberately done, that we knew Dolly wanted to explain
+everything to us there and then.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you," said Dolly, after silence had been restored by the
+fact that Gerald had shouted us all down and then stopped himself.
+"Robin told me&mdash;well&mdash;something, six months ago, the night
+after Dilly's wedding, at the dance&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That <i>was</i> why you locked the door, then," I said
+involuntarily.</p>
+
+<p>Both Robin and Dolly turned upon me in real amazement. But I saw that
+this side-issue would interrupt the story.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind!" I said. "Go on! I'll explain afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," continued Dolly, "he said to me&mdash;may I tell them,
+Robin?" She turned to the man beside her with a pretty air of deference.
+Robin, who up to this point had sat like a graven image, inclined his
+head, and Dolly proceeded&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have never told anybody about this&mdash;except Dilly, of
+course."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got the letter still," said Dilly.</p>
+
+<p>"Robin told me," Dolly went on, "that he wasn't going to ask me to
+marry him at present, because he had some childish idea&mdash;it is
+perfectly <i>idiotic</i> to think of; but&mdash;he thought he wasn't
+quite&mdash;well, <i>good</i> enough for me!"</p>
+
+<p>"What rot!" said Dicky.</p>
+
+<p>"Muck!" observed Gerald.</p>
+
+<p>"But he said that he would ask me properly later on, as soon as he
+considered that he was good enough," continued Dolly. "And as he still
+seems to think," she concluded with more animation, "that he is not
+quite up to standard, it occurred to me to-night, as we were all here in
+a jolly little party, to notify him that he is. So I did. That's all.
+Robin, you are hurting my hand!"</p>
+
+<p>Robin relaxed his grip at last, and remorsefully surveyed the
+bloodless fingers that lay in his palm. Then, with a rather shamefaced
+look all round the table, as much as to say&mdash;"I should like fine to
+restrain myself from doing this before you all, but I
+<i>can't</i>!"&mdash;he bent his head and kissed them in his turn.</p>
+
+<p>And that was how Robin and Dolly plighted their troth at
+last&mdash;openly, without shame, and for all to see.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>Robin and I lingered at the turning of a passage, lit only by our two
+flickering bedroom candles.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we can't complain of having had an uneventful day," I
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry we didn't scrape other twenty-eight votes," said Robin
+characteristically.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind!" I said. "I shall be none the worse of a holiday for a
+year or two. If you will kindly take Dolly off our hands as quickly as
+possible"&mdash;he caught his breath at that&mdash;"Kitty and I and
+Phillis will go a trip round the world together. Then I'll come home and
+fight a by-election, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Meanwhile," said Robin, "you will be having no further need of a
+private secretary."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid not," I said. The fact had been tugging at my conscience
+for the last two hours. "And that raises another question. What are you
+two going to live on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Champion wants me," said Robin. "He has offered me the post of
+Secretary to that Royal Commission of which he has been appointed
+Chairman. It is a fine opening."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think it was!" I said with whole-hearted joy. "Good luck to
+you, Robin!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you!" said Robin. "Still," he added, as he turned to go, "I
+wish I could have found you twenty-eight more votes."</p>
+
+<p>"Between ourselves," I said, "I don't mind very much. I am not the
+right man for this constituency. It has outgrown me. I have not the
+knack of handling a big crowd. What I want is a fine old crusted
+unprogressive seat, where I shan't constantly be compelled to drop my
+departmental work and rush down to propitiate my supporters with
+untruthful harangues. I'm a square peg here. Now, if they had wanted a
+really fit and proper candidate for this Parliamentary Division, Robin,
+they ought to have approached <i>you</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Och!" said Robin carelessly, "they did&mdash;a month ago! Good
+night!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="chapter18" id="chapter18">CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.</a></h2>
+
+<h3>A PROPHET IN HIS OWN COUNTRY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>An old woman in a white mutch stands at the door of a farmhouse in a
+Scottish glen. Her face is wrinkled, and her dim eyes are peering down
+the track which leads from the steading to the pasture. Being apparently
+unable to focus what she wants to see she adjusts a pair of
+spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>This action brings into her range of vision a distant figure which is
+engaged in shepherding a herd of passive but resisting cows through a
+gap in the dyke. It is a slow business, but the procession gradually
+nears home; and when the man at the helm succeeds in steering his
+sauntering charges safely between the Scylla of a hay-rick and the
+Charybdis of the burn, the old lady takes off her spectacles and relaxes
+her vigilance.</p>
+
+<p>When she looks again, though, she breaks into an exclamation of
+dismay. The leaders of the straggling procession have safely reached the
+door of the byre close by; but one frisky young cow, suddenly swerving
+through an open gate, breaks away down a sloping field of turnips at a
+lumbering gallop. The herdsman is out of sight round a bend in the
+road.</p>
+
+<p>"The feckless body!" observes the old lady bitterly. Then she raises
+her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Elspeth!"</p>
+
+<p>A reply comes from within the dairy.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, mem?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll need tae leave the butter and help Master Robert. He's no
+hand with the kye. He's let Heatherbell intill the neeps. And the
+maister is away at&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>With a muffled "Maircy me!" a heated young woman shoots out of a side
+door and proceeds at the double to the assistance of the incompetent
+cow-herd.</p>
+
+<p>At length the animals are rounded up into the byre, and Elspeth
+proceeds with the milking.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Master Robert, "the feckless body," stands in a rather
+apprehensive attitude before the old lady. He is a huge man of about
+forty-five. He is clean-shaven, and he has humorous grey eyes and dark
+hair. Despite his homespun attire, he looks more like a leader of men
+than a driver of cattle.</p>
+
+<p>"Robin Fordyce," says the old lady severely, "what garred ye loose
+Heatherbell in among the neeps.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, mother. But I met Jean M'Taggart in the road,
+and&mdash;we stopped for a bit crack."</p>
+
+<p>The old lady surveys her son witheringly over her glasses.</p>
+
+<p>"Dandering wi' Jean M'Taggart at your time of life! I'll sort Jean
+M'Taggart when I see her. It's jist like her tae try and draw a lad from
+his duty. And you! A married man these fifteen years! 'Deed, and it's
+time yon lady wife of yours cam' here from London, tae pit a hand on
+you."</p>
+
+<p>The big man's penitent face lights up with sudden enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"She is coming to-morrow!" he roars exultantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, you may pretend tae be glad! But she shall hear aboot Jean
+M'Taggart all the same," replies the old lady.</p>
+
+<p>This, of course, is a tremendous joke, and the inquisition is
+suspended while mother and son chuckle deeply at the idea of Dolly's
+desperate jealousy. Suddenly Mrs Fordyce breaks off to ask a
+question.</p>
+
+<p>"Did ye mind tae shut the gate of the west field?"</p>
+
+<p>Robin thinks, and then raises clenched hands to heaven in an agony of
+remorse.</p>
+
+<p>His mother groans in a resigned sort of way.</p>
+
+<p>"Run!" she says, "or ye'll hae all the sheep oot in the road! Get
+them back, and I'll no' tell David on ye!"</p>
+
+<p>Her son bounds away down the slope, but a further command pursues
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"An' come back soon! I'll no' be getting you tae myself over much
+after&mdash;to-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>She sits down again in her chair outside the door in the afternoon
+sun; for she is getting infirm now, and cannot stand up for long. With
+an indulgent sigh she surveys the flying figure of the Right Honourable
+Sir Robert Chalmers Fordyce, Privy Councillor and Secretary of State, as
+he frantically endeavours to overtake and head off three staid ewes,
+who, having strayed through the open gate, have just decided upon a
+walking excursion to London.</p>
+
+<p>"A good lad!" she murmurs contentedly. "A good lad, and a good son;
+and dae'n' weel. But&mdash;he's no' just David. It was always David that
+had the heid on him."</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>A prophet, we know, has no honour in his own country. Fortunately
+some prophets prefer that this should be the case.</p>
+
+<br />
+<div class="center">THE END.</div>
+
+<br /><br />
+<div class="center">PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<div class="center"><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</i></div>
+
+<hr class="tiny" />
+
+<div class="center">Crown 8vo, 6s.<br /><br />
+
+A MAN'S MAN.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Fourth Impression.</i><br />
+Popular Edition, Cloth, 1s. net.</div>
+
+<hr class="tiny" />
+
+<div class="center">Crown 8vo, 6s.<br /><br />
+
+THE RIGHT STUFF.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Sixth Impression.</i><br />
+Popular Edition, Cloth, 1s. net.</div>
+
+<hr class="tiny" />
+
+<div class="center">Crown 8vo, 6s.<br /><br />
+
+PIP.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Fourth Impression.</i><br />
+Popular Edition, Cloth, 1s. net.</div>
+
+<hr class="tiny" />
+
+<div class="center">Crown 8vo, 6s.<br /><br />
+
+A SAFETY MATCH.<br /><br />
+
+<i>Third Impression.</i></div>
+
+<hr class="tiny" />
+
+<div class="center">WILLIAM BLACKWOOD &amp; SONS,<br />
+Edinburgh and London.</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Right Stuff, by Ian Hay
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/20904.txt b/20904.txt
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/20904.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7678 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Right Stuff, by Ian Hay
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Right Stuff
+       Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton
+
+Author: Ian Hay
+
+Release Date: March 25, 2007 [EBook #20904]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIGHT STUFF ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by LM Bornath
+
+
+
+
+
+"The Right Stuff"
+
+
+Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton
+
+
+BY
+
+IAN HAY
+
+
+
+DR JOHNSON. Oatmeal, sir? The food of horses in England and of men in
+Scotland!
+
+BOSWELL (_roused at last_). And where, sir, will you find such
+horses--or such men?
+
+
+
+_SHILLING EDITION_
+
+
+
+William Blackwood & Sons
+Edinburgh and London
+1912
+
+
+
+
+_TO_
+
+_AN INDULGENT CRITIC_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+BOOK ONE.
+
+RAW MATERIAL.
+
+
+CHAP.
+
+      I. "OATMEAL AND THE SHORTER CATECHISM"
+     II. INTRODUCES A PILLAR OF STATE AND THE APPURTENANCES THEREOF
+    III. "ANENT"
+     IV. A TRIAL TRIP
+      V. ROBIN ON DUTY
+     VI. ROBIN OFF DUTY
+    VII. A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP
+   VIII. OF A PIT THAT WAS DIGGED, AND WHO FELL INTO IT
+     IX. THE POLICY OF THE CLOSED DOOR
+      X. ROBIN'S WAY OF DOING IT
+
+
+BOOK TWO.
+
+THE FINISHED ARTICLE.
+
+
+     XI. A MISFIRE
+    XII. THE COMPLEAT ANGLER
+   XIII. A HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE
+    XIV. "TO DIE--WILL BE AN _AWFULLY_ BIG ADVENTURE"
+     XV. TWO BATTLES
+    XVI. "_QUI PERD, GAGNE_"
+   XVII. IN WHICH ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD
+  XVIII. A PROPHET IN HIS OWN COUNTRY
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ONE.
+
+RAW MATERIAL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+OATMEAL AND THE SHORTER CATECHISM.
+
+
+The first and most-serious-but-one ordeal in the life of Robert Chalmers
+Fordyce--so Robert Chalmers himself informed me years afterwards--was
+the examination for the Bursary which he gained at Edinburgh University.
+A bursary is what an English undergraduate would call a "Schol."
+(Imagine a Scottish student talking about a "Burse"!)
+
+Robert Chalmers Fordyce arrived in Edinburgh pretty evenly divided
+between helpless stupefaction at the sight of a great city and stern
+determination not to be imposed upon by the inhabitants thereof. His
+fears were not as deep-seated as those of Tom Pinch on a similar
+occasion,--he, it will be remembered, suffered severe qualms from his
+familiarity with certain rural traditions concerning the composition of
+London pies,--but he was far from happy. He had never slept away from
+his native hillside before; he had never seen a town possessing more
+than three thousand inhabitants; and he had only once travelled in a
+train.
+
+Moreover, he was proceeding to an inquisition which would decide once
+and for all whether he was to go forth and conquer the world with a
+university education behind him, or go back to the plough and sup
+porridge for the rest of his life. To-morrow he was to have his
+opportunity, and the consideration of how that opportunity could best be
+gripped and brought to the ground blinded Robin even to the wonders of
+the Forth Bridge.
+
+He sat in the corner of the railway carriage, passing in review the
+means of conquest at his disposal. His actual stock of scholarship, he
+knew, was well up to the required standard: he was as letter perfect in
+Latin, Greek, Mathematics, and Literature as hard study and remorseless
+coaching could make him. Everything needful was in his head--but could
+he get it out again? That was the question. The roaring world in which
+he would find himself, the strange examination-room, the quizzing
+professors--would these combine with his native shyness to seal the lips
+and cramp the pen of Robert Chalmers Fordyce? No--a thousand times no!
+He would win through! Robert set his teeth, braced himself, and kicked
+the man opposite.
+
+He apologised, attributing the discourtesy to the length of his legs--he
+stood about six feet three--and smiled so largely and benignantly, that
+the Man Opposite, who had intended to be thoroughly disagreeable, melted
+at once, and said it was the fault of the Company for providing such
+restricted accommodation, and gave Robert _The Scotsman_ to read.
+
+Robert thanked him, and, effacing himself behind _The Scotsman_,--though,
+for all the instruction or edification that his present frame of mind
+permitted him to extract from that coping-stone of Scottish journalism,
+he might as well have been reading the Koran,--returned to his thoughts.
+He collated in his mind the pieces of advice which had been bestowed
+upon him by his elders and betters before his departure. In brief,
+their collective wisdom came to this:--
+
+His father had bidden him--
+
+(a) To address all professors with whom he might come in contact as
+    "Sir";
+
+(b) To arrive at the Examination each morning at least five minutes
+    before the advertised time;
+
+(c) To refrain from lending money to, or otherwise countenancing the
+    advances of, persons of insinuating address who would doubtless
+    accost him in the streets of Edinburgh.
+
+The Dominie had said--
+
+"When in doubt, mind that practically everything in an examination
+governs the subjunctive.
+
+"If there is a _viva voce_, be sure and speak up and give your answers
+as though you were sure of them. They may be wrong, but on the other
+hand they may be right. Anyway, the one thing the examiners will not
+thole is a body that dithers.
+
+"Take a last keek at that Proposition--they _may_ call them Theorems,
+though--about the Square on the Hypotenuse. It hasn't been set for four
+years.
+
+"If you are given a piece of Greek Testament to translate, for mercy's
+sake do not be too glib. Dinna translate a thing until you are sure it
+is there. They have an unholy habit of leaving out a couple of verses
+some place in the middle, and you're just the one to tumble head-first
+into the _lacuna_. (I ken ye, Robbie!)
+
+"And whatever ye do, just bear in mind it's your only chance, and _grup_
+on tae it! _Post est occasio calva_, laddie! And dinna disappoint an
+auld man that has taught ye all he kens himsel'!"
+
+Much of his mother's advice was of a kind that could not be expressed so
+concisely, but two salient items remained fixed in Robert's mind:--
+
+"If ye canna think o' the richt word, pit up a bit prayer.
+
+"For ony sake see that your collar is speckless a' the time."
+
+Robert's first impressions of Edinburgh were disappointing. Though
+extensive enough, the city was not so great or so imposing as he had
+expected. It was entirely roofed with glass,--a provision which, though
+doubtless advantageous in wet weather, militated against an adequate
+supply of sunlight and fresh air. The shops, of which Robin had heard so
+much, were few in number; and the goods displayed therein (mainly food
+and drink, newspapers and tobacco) compared unfavourably in point of
+variety with those in the window of Malcolm M'Whiston, the "merchant" at
+home. The inhabitants all appeared to be in a desperate hurry, and the
+noise of the trains, which blocked every thoroughfare, was deafening.
+Robert Chalmers was just beginning to feel thoroughly disappointed with
+the Scottish capital, when it occurred to him to mount a flight of
+stairs which presented itself to his view and gave promise of a second
+storey at least. When he reached the top he found he had judged
+Edinburgh too hastily. There was some more of it.
+
+His horizon thus suddenly enlarged, Robert Chalmers Fordyce began to
+take in his surroundings. He now found himself in a great street, with
+imposing buildings on one side and a green valley on the other. On the
+far side of the valley the ground ran steeply upward to an eminence
+crowded thickly with houses and topped by a mighty castle.
+
+The street was alive with all sorts of absorbingly interesting traffic;
+but for the present Robert was chiefly concerned with the Cable Cars. It
+was upon one of these majestic vehicles, which moved down the street
+unassisted by any apparent human or equine agency, that he had been
+bidden to ride to his destination. He was not to take the first that
+came along, nor yet the second--they went to various places, it seemed;
+and if you were taken to the wrong one you had to pay just the same--but
+was to scan them until he espied one marked "Gorgie." This would carry
+him down the Dalry Road, and would ultimately pass the residence of
+Elspeth M'Kerrow, a decent widow woman, whose late husband's brother had
+"married on" a connection of Robert's mother. Here he was to lodge.
+
+At first sight the cars appeared to be labelled with nothing but Cocoa
+and Whisky and Empire Palaces of Varieties Open Every Evening; but a
+little perseverance discovered a narrow strip of valuable information
+painted along the side of each car. The first that caught our friend's
+eye was "Pilrig and Braid Hills Road." That would not do. Then came
+another--"Murrayfield, Haymarket, and Nether Liberton." Another blank!
+Then, "Marchmont Road and Churchill." Foiled again, Robert was beginning
+to feel a little sceptical as to the actual existence of the Dalry Road,
+when a car drew up opposite to him labelled "Pilrig and Gorgie." It was
+going in the right direction too, for his father had warned him that his
+destination lay to the west of the town; and you can trust a Scotsman to
+know the points of the compass with his eyes shut. (They even talk of a
+man sitting on the north or south side of his own fireplace.)
+
+Robert clambered on to the top of this car, and presently found himself
+confronted by a gentleman--splendid in appearance but of homely
+speech--who waved bundles of tickets in his face, and inquired tersely--
+
+"Penny or tippeny? or transfair?"
+
+"I am seeking the Dalry Road," said Robert cautiously.
+
+"Which end o't?"
+
+"I couldna say."
+
+"Ca' it a penny," said the conductor.
+
+Robert, with the air of a man who has beaten down his opponent to the
+lowest possible figure, produced the coin from his pocket. (It was just
+as well that the man had not demanded a larger sum, for Robert's more
+precious currency was concealed in a place only accessible to partial
+disrobement.) The gorgeous man carelessly snapped a ticket out of one of
+the bundles, and having first punched a hole in it with an ingenious
+instrument that gave forth sounds of music, handed it to Robert in
+exchange for the penny. He was a saturnine man, but he smiled a little
+later when Robert, mindful of the fate of his railway-ticket at the last
+station but one, airily attempted to give up his car-ticket in similar
+fashion on alighting at the end of the journey.
+
+The greater part of the next four days was spent by our friend in an
+examination-room, into which we, more fortunate, need not attempt to
+follow him. Robert diligently answered every question, writing at the
+foot of each sheet of his neat manuscript, "More on the next page," in
+case the examiner should be a careless fellow and imagine that Robert
+had finished when he had not. Robert was not the man to leave anything
+to chance, or to such unsafe abbreviations as P.T.O.
+
+Outside the examination-room he devoted most of the time that he could
+spare from preparation for the next paper to a systematic exploration of
+Edinburgh. He did the thing as thoroughly as possible, for he knew well
+that he might never spend four days in a large town again.
+
+He began by climbing the Calton Hill. He remained at the summit quite a
+long time, constructing a rough bird's-eye plan of the streets and
+buildings below him; and having descended to earth, proceeded on a
+series of voyages of discovery.
+
+He regarded the exterior of Parliament House with intense interest, for
+he was a debater by instinct and upbringing. St Giles' he passed by
+without enthusiasm--he was a member of the Free Kirk--and St Mary's
+Cathedral struck him as being unduly magnificent to be the property of
+such a small and pernicious sect as the Episcopalians. The Post Office
+and other great buildings struck him dumb; and he hastened past the
+theatres with averted eyes, for he had it upon unimpeachable authority
+that the devil resided there.
+
+He knew no one in Edinburgh save Elspeth M'Kerrow. However, he made
+another friend--to wit, one Hector MacPherson, a gigantic Highland
+policeman, who controlled the traffic with incredible skill at a place
+where several ways met. The said Hector stood beneath the shadow of a
+great lamp-post, and whenever a vehicle drove past one side of him,
+Hector relentlessly called it back and made it go on the other. Their
+acquaintance began with the entire effacement of Robert's features by
+the palm of Hector's hand, which was suddenly extended across the
+thoroughfare for traffic-regulating purposes, with the result that
+Robert, who was plunged in thought at the time, ran his nose right into
+the centre of it. The ejaculation to which each gave vent at the moment
+of impact revealed to both that they were from the same part of the
+country, and thereafter Hector MacPherson became Robert's
+adviser-in-chief throughout his stay in Edinburgh. Indeed, Robert used
+Hector as the starting-point for all his excursions, and whenever he
+became hopelessly lost in the wilds of the Grassmarket or the purlieus
+of Morningside, he used to ask his way back to his mentor's pitch and
+make a fresh start. We shall hear of Hector again.
+
+The foolhardy feat of entering a shop Robert did not attempt until his
+very last day in Edinburgh, and then only because he was absolutely
+compelled to do so by the necessity of executing a commission for his
+sister Margaret--the purchase of half a yard of ribbon.
+
+It is true that the same ribbon could have been obtained at home from
+Malcolm M'Whiston or a travelling packman, but Margaret was determined
+to have it from Edinburgh; and she was particularly emphatic in her
+injunctions to Robert to see that the folk in the shop stuck a label on
+the parcel, "with their name printed on, and a picture of the shop and
+a'."
+
+On Saturday morning, then, Robert approached the establishment which he
+had chosen for the purpose. After a careful reconnaissance he discovered
+that it possessed several doors. Here was a poser. Which would be the
+ribbon door? Supposing he entered the wrong one and found himself
+compelled to purchase a roll of muslin or a wash-hand-stand? With
+natural acumen he finally selected a door flanked by windows containing
+lace and ribbon; and waiting for a moment when the surging crowd was
+thickest, attempted to slip in with them. He got safely past a hero in a
+medal-sown uniform, but immediately after this encountered an imposing
+gentleman in a frock-coat, who asked his pleasure. Robert inquired
+respectfully if the gentleman kept ribbon. The gentleman said "Surely,
+surely!" and Robert's modest requirements were thereupon sent ringing
+from a throat of brass into the uttermost recesses of the establishment,
+and he himself was passed, hot-faced, along the fairway until he reached
+the right department. Here his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth,
+and the siren behind the counter, with difficulty stifling her
+amusement, was reduced to discovering his needs by a process of
+elimination.
+
+"What will I show you?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Ladies' gloves?"
+
+A shake of the head.
+
+"Handkerchiefs?"
+
+Another shake.
+
+"Stockings?"
+
+Another shake, accompanied by a deepening of complexion.
+
+"Well--ribbon?"
+
+"Aye, that's it," replied Robert, suddenly finding his voice (which, by
+the way, rather resembled the Last Trump). "Hauf a yaird--one inch
+wide--satin--cream!" he roared mechanically.
+
+He received the small parcel, and furtively fingering the money in his
+pocket, asked the price.
+
+"Two-three, please," replied the damsel briskly.
+
+How Robert thanked his stars that he had some cash in hand! But what a
+price! All that for a scrap of ribbon! It seemed sinful; but he laid two
+shillings and threepence on the counter. Greatly to his alarm, the young
+woman behind it, who up to this point had kept her feelings under
+commendable control, suddenly collapsed like a punctured balloon on to
+the shoulder of her nearest neighbour--there being no shop-walkers
+about--and expressed a wish that she might be taken home and buried.
+Finally she recovered sufficiently to push Robert's two shillings back
+across the counter and to place his threepence in a mysterious
+receptacle which she thrust into a hole in the wall, from which it was
+ejected with much clatter a minute later; and on being opened proved to
+contain what the dazed Robert at first took for a half-sovereign, but
+which he ultimately discovered, when he had abandoned the still giggling
+maiden and groped his way out into the street, to be a bright new
+farthing.
+
+The same day he returned to his home; but he did not reach it without
+one more adventure, a slight one, it is true, but not without its effect
+upon his future.
+
+The train was over-full, and Robert ultimately found himself travelling
+in company with nine other passengers, seven of whom were suffering from
+that infirmity once poetically described by an expert in such diagnoses
+as "a wee bit drappie in their een." The exception was a gentleman in
+the far corner, accompanied by a most lovely young lady, upon whom
+Robert gazed continuously with an admiration so absorbing and profound
+that it took him some little time to realise, shortly after the
+commencement of the journey, that the rest of the company were indulging
+in a free fight all over the compartment, and that the lady was clinging
+in terror to her escort. Robert was of considerable service in restoring
+order, and found his reward in the eyes of the lady, who thanked him
+very prettily. Her husband had the sense not to offer Robert money, but
+gave him his card, and said in a curious, stiff, English way that he
+hoped he might be of service to him some day. They got out at Perth, and
+Robert travelled on alone.
+
+Hours later he was met by his brother David at a little wayside station,
+and driven over fifteen miles of hilly road to the farm where he had
+been born and brought up.
+
+Next morning he was up at daybreak, and set to work at his usual tasks
+about the yard, well knowing that such would be his lot to the end of
+his life if the examination list did not show his name at the top.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some days had to elapse before the result could be known; but Robert
+Chalmers Fordyce--by the way, I think we know him well enough now to
+call him Robin, which was the name his mother had given him on his third
+birthday--and his household, being Scottish and undemonstrative, made
+little or no reference to the subject.
+
+Robin was the scholar of his family. He was the second son, David being
+four years older. But in accordance with that simple, grand, and
+patriarchal law of Scottish peasant life, which decrees that every lad
+of parts shall be given his chance to bring credit on the family, even
+though his parents have to pinch and save and his brothers bide at the
+plough-tail all their lives in consequence--a law whose chief merit lies
+in the splendid sacrifices which its faithful fulfilment involves, and
+whose vital principle well-meaning but misguided philanthropy is now
+endeavouring to dole out of existence--he had been sent to Edinburgh to
+make the most of this, his one chance in life.
+
+Still, though the credit of the family hung upon the result of the
+examination,--if he won the Bursary, the money, together with the
+precious hoard which his father and mother had been accumulating for him
+for ten years, would just suffice to keep him at the University,--no one
+discussed the matter. It was in the hands of God, and prognostication
+could only be vain and unprofitable. His mother and sister, indeed,
+questioned him covertly when his father and brother were out of hearing;
+but that was chiefly about Edinburgh, and the shops, and the splendours
+of the Dalry Road. The Bursary was never mentioned.
+
+On the day on which the result was to be announced their father took
+Robin and David away to a distant hillside to assist at the
+sheep-dipping. The news would come by letter, which might or might not
+get as far as Strathmyrtle Post Office, seven miles away, that very
+afternoon. In the morning it would be delivered by the postman.
+
+But there are limits to human endurance, none the less definite because
+that endurance appears illimitable. When father and sons tramped back to
+the farm that evening, just in time for supper, it was discovered that
+Margaret was absent. John Fordyce, grim old martinet that he was, looked
+round the table inquiringly; but a glance at his wife's face caused him
+to go on with his meal.
+
+At nine o'clock precisely the table was cleared. The herdman and two
+farm lasses came into the kitchen from their final tasks in the yard,
+and the great Bible was put down on the table for evening "worship."
+
+John Fordyce, having looked up the "portion" which he proposed to read,
+then turned to the Metrical Psalms. These were sung night by night in
+unswerving rotation throughout the year, a custom which, while it
+offered the pleasing prospect of variety, occasionally left something to
+be desired on the score of appropriateness.
+
+All being seated, the old man, after a final fleeting glance at his
+daughter's empty chair, gave out the Psalm.
+
+"Let us worship God," he said, "by singing to His praise in the Hundred
+and Twenty-first Psalm. Psalm a Hundred and Twenty-one--
+
+   'I to the hills will lift mine eyes,
+    From whence doth come----'"
+
+The door opened, and Margaret entered. She was dusty and tired, for she
+had walked fourteen miles since milking-time; but in her hand she held a
+letter.
+
+She glanced timidly at the clock, and was for slipping quietly into her
+seat; but her father said--
+
+"You had best give it to him now. A man cannot worship God while his
+mind is distracted with other things."
+
+Robin took the letter, and after a glance in the direction of his father
+and the waiting Bible, opened and read it amidst a tense silence.
+Finally he looked up.
+
+"Well?" said the old man.
+
+"They have given me the First Bursary, father," said Robin.
+
+No one spoke, but Robin saw tears running down his mother's face. John
+Fordyce deliberately turned back several pages of the Bible.
+
+"We will sing," he said in a clear voice, "in the Twenty-third
+Psalm--the whole of it!--
+
+   'The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want----'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Psalms of David, as rendered into English verse by Nahum Tate and
+others, are not remarkable for poetic merit; neither does the old
+Scottish fashion of singing the same, seated and without accompaniment,
+conduce to a concord of sweet sounds. But there are no tunes like old
+tunes, and there are no hearts like full hearts. If ever a song went
+straight up to heaven, the Twenty-third Psalm, borne up on the wings of
+"Martyrdom," did so that night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+INTRODUCES A PILLAR OF STATE AND THE APPURTENANCES THEREOF.
+
+
+The time had undoubtedly arrived when I must have a Private Secretary.
+
+Kitty, for one, insisted on it. She said that I was ruining my health in
+the service of an ungrateful country, and added that she, personally,
+declined to be left a widow at twenty-eight-and-a-half to oblige
+anybody.
+
+"It is exactly the wrong age," she said. "If it had happened four or
+five years ago, I could have done pretty well for myself. Now, I should
+be out of the running among the _debutantes_, and a little too young and
+flighty to suit a middle-aged bachelor."
+
+I may add that my wife does not often talk in this unfeeling manner. But
+she suffers at times from a desire to live up to a sort of honorary
+reputation for sprightly humour, conferred upon her by undiscriminating
+admirers in the days before she became engaged to me. As a matter of
+fact, her solicitude on my behalf was largely due to an ambition to see
+a little paragraph in the newspapers, announcing that "Mr Adrian
+Inglethwaite, M.P., Director of the Sub-Tropical and Arctic Department
+at the Foreign Office, has appointed Mr Blankley Dash to be his Private
+Secretary."
+
+Dolly and Dilly seconded the motion. They had not the effrontery to wrap
+up their motives in specious expressions of concern for my health, but
+stated their point of view with brutal frankness, as is their wont. I
+was an old dear, they conceded, and of course Kitty was Kitty; but a
+sister and brother-in-law were, to put it quite plainly, a hopelessly
+dull couple to live with: and the visits of Mesdames Dolly and Dilly to
+our roof-tree would, it was hinted, be more frequent and enduring if the
+establishment was strengthened by the addition of a presentable young
+man.
+
+I consented. It was three to one. To any one acquainted with the trio of
+sisters arrayed against me, it will at once be apparent that "these
+odds" (as the halfpenny papers say) "but faintly represent the
+superiority of the winning side."
+
+Having thus dragged the reader without apology into the most intimate
+regions of my family circle, I had perhaps better introduce myself and
+my _entourage_ a little more formally.
+
+My name is Samuel Adrian Inglethwaite. Why I was called Samuel I do not
+know. Possibly my parents did. Samuel may have been a baptismal sprat
+set to catch a testamentary whale, but if this was so no legacy ever
+came my way. Personally, I am rather attached to the name, as I was
+called nothing else until I encountered the lady who ultimately
+consented to become Mrs Inglethwaite. Since that epoch in my career I
+have been S. Adrian Inglethwaite.
+
+I am thirty-six years of age, and hold an appointment under Government,
+which, while it does not carry with it Cabinet rank--though Kitty cannot
+see why--is sufficiently important to make the daily papers keep my
+obituary notice handily pigeon-holed, in case I fall over the Thames
+Embankment, get run over by a motor-bus, or otherwise contravene the
+by-laws of the London County Council.
+
+As no man can possibly give an unbiassed opinion of his own wife, I
+shall not attempt to describe mine at this juncture, except to mention
+that she is a woman with no fault that I can for the moment recall,
+beyond a predilection for belonging to societies which are better known
+for their aims than for their achievements, are perennially short of
+funds, and seem to possess no place of meeting except my drawing-room.
+
+Dolly and Dilly are Kitty's sisters. They are twins, and there present
+age is, I think, nineteen. Though I say it who should not, they are both
+astonishingly attractive young persons, and the more I see of them the
+more the fact is borne in upon me. Indeed, a casual remark of mine to
+that effect, uttered to my wife, by an unfortunate coincidence, on the
+very morning upon which one of the numerous Deceased Wife's Sister's
+Bills passed its Second Reading in the House, gave rise to a coldness of
+demeanour on her part which was only dispelled by an abject apology and
+a dinner for two at the Savoy on mine.
+
+To return to Dolly and Dilly. I never know them apart, and I do not
+think Kitty does either. Both are divinely tall and divinely fair; they
+are exactly like each other in form, voice, and feature; and they
+possess the irritating habit, not uncommon with twins, of endeavouring
+to exaggerate their natural resemblance by various puzzling and, I
+consider, unsportsmanlike devices. They wear each other's clothes
+indiscriminately, and are not above taking turn and turn about with the
+affections of unsuspecting young men, of whom they possess a
+considerable following. They attract admiration without effort, and, I
+honestly believe, without intention. Of the meaning of love they know
+nothing,--they are female Peter Pans, and resolutely refuse to grow up,
+except outwardly,--and the intrusion of that passion into their dealings
+with persons of the male gender is regarded by them at present as a
+contingency to be discouraged at all costs. The conditions under which
+they admit their admirers to their friendship are commendably simple and
+perfectly definite. If a man is adjudged by them to have attained all
+the complicated and inexplicable standards by which women judge the
+opposite sex, he is admitted into the ranks of the Good Sorts; and as
+such, provided that he keeps his head, has an extremely pleasant time of
+it. If, however, any obtuse and amorous youth persists in mistaking what
+Nanki-Poo once described as "customary expressions of affability" for an
+indication that his infatuation is reciprocated, the Twins act promptly.
+They have "no use" for such creatures, they once explained to me; and
+they proceed to rid themselves of the incubus in a fashion entirely
+their own.
+
+As soon as the pressure of the _affaire_ rises to danger-point--_i.e._,
+when the youth begins to pay markedly more attention to one Twin than
+the other--he is asked, say, to lunch. Here he is made much of by the
+object of his affections, who looks radiant in, let us say, white
+_batiste_; while the unemployed Twin, in (possibly) blue poplin, holds
+discreetly aloof. After lunch the Twins, leaving their victim to smoke a
+cigar, retire swiftly to their room, where they exchange costumes, and
+descend again to the drawing-room. There Dolly, now arrayed in white
+_batiste_, enters upon the path of dalliance where Dilly left off; and
+Dilly, relieved from duty, crochets in a window-recess, and silently
+enjoys her sister's impersonation.
+
+One of two things happens. Romeo either does not notice the difference,
+or else he does. If he does not, he continues to flounder heavily along
+in pursuit of the well-beloved, oblivious of the fact that he is wasting
+his efforts on an understudy. After an appropriate interval the cold
+truth is revealed to him in a hysterical duet, and he goes home, glaring
+defiantly, but feeling an entire and unmitigated ass.
+
+Or he may actually recognise that Dilly has been replaced by
+Dolly,--this is what happens when the case is a really serious one,--and
+if this occurs he is more sorrowful than angry, poor fellow, for he sees
+that he is being trifled with; and your true lover is the most
+desperately earnest person in the world. In either case the _affaire_
+terminates then and there. And that is how my sisters-in-law, with
+adroitness and despatch, return immature and undesirable suitors to
+their native element. The whole proceeding reminds me irresistibly of
+the Undersized Fish Bill, a measure whose progress I once assisted in
+its course through a Committee of the House.
+
+However, having been bidden to procure a Private Secretary, I meekly set
+about looking for one. One night at dinner we held a symposium on the
+subject, and endeavoured to evolve an outline of the kind of gentleman
+who was likely to suit us. The following is a _precis_ of the result. I
+leave the intelligent reader to trace each item to its author; also the
+various parenthetical comments on the same:--
+
+(a) He must be a 'Varsity man.
+
+(b) He must be able to keep accounts, and transact business generally.
+
+(c) He must be content with a salary of two hundred a-year, with
+    board and residence in the house. ("He can have that little
+    room off the library for a sitting-room, dear, and sleep in
+    the old night-nursery.")
+
+(d) He must not wear celluloid collars or made-up ties. ("But he'll
+    _have_ to, poor dear, if the Infant Samuel only gives him two
+    hundred a-year.")
+
+(e) He must be prepared to run through my speeches before I deliver
+    them. ("I suppose that means _write_ them!"), look up my
+    subject-matter, verify my references, and so on. ("That _will_
+    be an improvement. But what will the halfpenny papers do then,
+    poor things?")
+
+(f) He must be the sort of man that one can have in to a dinner-party
+    without any fear of accidents. ("Yes. He _must_ be all right about
+    peas, asparagus, and liqueurs. _And_ finger-bowls, dearest. You
+    remember the man who drank out of his at that queer political
+    dinner to the constituents?")
+
+(g) He must be nice to my Philly.
+
+(h) He must be dark. ("Pshaw!")
+
+(i) He must be fair. ("Ugh!")
+
+(j) He must be able to waltz and play bridge.
+
+At this point I suggested that a prepaid telegram to the Celestial
+Regions would alone procure the article we required. However, we
+ultimately descended to an advertisement in the _Morning Post_, and in
+due course I obtained a secretary. In fact, I obtained several. We had
+them _seriatim_, and none stayed longer than a month. I do not propose
+to write a detailed history of the dynasty which I now found it my
+privilege to support. A brief _resume_ of each will suffice.
+
+_Number One_.--Cambridge Football Blue. Big and breezy. Spelling
+entirely phonetic. Spent most of his time smoking in the drawing-room,
+and laboured under the delusion that, as my amanuensis, he was at
+liberty to forge my signature to all documents, including cheques. He
+used my official note-paper to back horses on, and was finally requested
+to leave, after an unseemly brawl with a book-maker's tout on my
+doorstep.
+
+_Number Two_.--Oxford: a First in Greats. A heavy manner, usually
+beginning his observations with "Wherewithal" or "Peradventure." The
+Twins suffered severely from suppressed giggles in his presence.
+Regarded my superficial ideas of statesmanship with profound contempt,
+but left after a fortnight, having allowed a highly confidential and
+extremely personal pencil note, written in the margin of a despatch by
+the Premier himself, to blossom forth in large type in the text of a
+Blue Book.
+
+_Number Three_.--Rather elderly for the post--nearer forty than
+thirty--but highly recommended. Reduced my chaotic papers to order in
+twenty-four hours, charmed my wife and her sisters, drafted a speech
+which won me quite a little ovation in the House, suggested several
+notable improvements in the "Importation of Mad Dogs Bill," with which I
+was to be entrusted next session--and was found lying dead drunk in his
+bedroom, at eleven o'clock in the morning, on the second Sunday after
+his arrival. Half a dozen empty brandy bottles were afterwards
+discovered on the top of his wardrobe. Poor devil!
+
+_Number Four_.--(Subsequently handed down to posterity as "The Limit").
+Small, spectacled, and nervous. Came from a Welsh University, and was
+strong on "the methodical filing of State and other documents." He
+stayed two days. On the first night (after inquiring whether we were
+expecting guests that evening, and receiving an answer in the negative)
+he came down to dinner in a sort of alpaca smoking-jacket and a tartan
+tie. On the second, having evidently decided to treat us to all the
+resources of his wardrobe as soon as possible, he appeared in more or
+less ordinary evening attire. He wore a small white satin bow-tie,
+attached to his collar-stud by a brass clip. The tie fell off the stud
+into his soup almost immediately, and its owner, after furtively chasing
+it round the plate with his forefinger, finally fished it out with the
+aid of a fork; and, having squeezed as much soup as possible back into
+the plate, put the bow into his waistcoat pocket and resumed his meal
+with every appearance of enjoyment.
+
+He left next morning. As the Twins pathetically observed: "It had to be
+him or us!" I was sorry, for he was a tidy little creature away from
+table.
+
+After that I did a rash thing. I engaged a Private Secretary on the spur
+of the moment and without consulting my household.
+
+One morning I had occasion to visit the British Museum. That mausoleum
+of learning is not an habitual resort of mine, but on this occasion I
+had found it necessary to refresh my memory on the subject of a small
+principality situated somewhere in the Pacific, and reported to be in a
+state of considerable unrest, concerning which the member for Upper
+Gumbtree, an unpleasantly omniscient young man with a truculent manner,
+had been asking questions in the House. It seemed that British interests
+in that quarter were not being adequately protected by our Department,
+and this extremely pushing gentleman was now gaining much cheap applause
+in the columns of those low-priced organs which make a living by
+deriding his Majesty's Ministers, by bombarding us with fatuous
+inquiries on the subject. My Chief had only the most hazy notion about
+the place--as a matter of fact I do not believe that either he or any of
+the permanent officials had ever heard of it--and I was in a precisely
+similar condition. I was accordingly bidden to get up the subject, and
+accumulate a mass of information thereon which would not only satiate
+the appetite of the honourable member, but choke him off for all time.
+
+Finding myself in want of a particular Gazetteer which was not to be
+found in the office, and being in no mood to take a clerk, however
+uncritical, into my confidence, I called a hansom and drove straight to
+the Museum; where, having ensconced myself in the reading-room with the
+work in question, I prepared to devote a dusty and laborious morning to
+the service of State.
+
+Immediately opposite me sat a gigantic young man of a slightly
+threadbare appearance, who was copying some screed out of a bulky tome
+before him. I regarded him in a reminiscent sort of way for a few
+minutes, and presently found that my scrutiny was being returned
+fourfold. Next came an enormous hand that was suddenly thrust across the
+table towards me, and I remembered him.
+
+We had met six years ago in a railway train, under circumstances which
+made me extremely glad to make his acquaintance at any price. Kitty and
+I were on our honeymoon, and happened to be travelling on a Saturday
+afternoon from Edinburgh to Perth in a train packed to suffocation with
+the supporters of a football team of the baser sort. We were bound for
+Inchellan, the Scottish residence of my Chief, who was sending to meet
+us at Perth.
+
+As the first-class carriages were all occupied by gentlemen with
+third-class tickets, we travelled third with a company who did not seem
+to possess any tickets at all. Just before the train started the door
+was thrown open and two inebriated Scots, several degrees further gone
+than the rest of the company--which is saying a good deal--were hurled
+in. If the assemblage had all been of one way of thinking we might have
+reached Perth with nothing worse than bad headaches, but unfortunately
+some supporters of the other team were present, and in the midst of a
+heated and alcoholic debate on the rights and wrongs of the last free
+kick, two rival orators suddenly arose, clinched, and continued their
+argument at close grips on the floor. In a moment the party divided
+itself into two camps, and the conflict became general. As there were
+ten people in the compartment, of whom seven were engaged in a
+life-and-death struggle, the movements of the non-combatants--Kitty,
+myself, and a gigantic youth of gawky appearance--were, to put it
+mildly, somewhat restricted. Kitty became thoroughly frightened, and
+hampered my preparations for battle by clinging to my arm. The gigantic
+youth, seeing this, suddenly took command of the situation.
+
+"Watch you the young leddy!" he bellowed in my ear, "and I'll sort
+them."
+
+With that he hurled himself into the tumult. The exact details of his
+performance I could not see, the scientific dusting of railway cushions
+not having penetrated any further north of the Forth than it has south
+of the Thames; but the net result was that each combatant was pulled
+off, picked up, shaken until his teeth rattled, and banged down on to
+his seat with a brief admonition to mind his manners, until seven
+bewildered, partially sobered, and thoroughly demoralised patrons of
+sport sat round about in various attitudes of limp dejection, leaning
+against one another like dissipated marionettes; while our rustic
+Hector, bestriding the compartment like a Colossus, dared them to move a
+finger under penalty of being "skelped."
+
+He bundled them all out at the next stopping-place, without inquiring
+whether they desired to alight there or no, and I am bound to say that
+they all seemed as anxious to leave the carriage as he was to expel
+them. He then shut the door, pulled up the window, and turned to my wife
+with a reassuring smile.
+
+"Yon was just a storrm in a teapot," he remarked affably.
+
+He accepted my thanks with indifference, but blushed in a gratified
+manner when Kitty addressed him. He was her bond-slave by the time that
+we bade him farewell at Perth. I presented him with my card, which he
+carefully placed inside the lining of his hat; but he forbore, either
+from native caution or excessive shyness, to furnish us with any
+information as to his own identity.
+
+Well, here he was, sitting opposite to me in the Reading Room of the
+British Museum, and seemingly none too prosperous. Six years ago he had
+looked like a young and healthy farm lad. Now, fourth-rate journalism
+was stamped all over him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+"ANENT."
+
+
+We conversed awhile in whispers to avoid disturbing the other
+worshippers--I always feel like that in the British Museum--and finally
+abandoned our respective tasks and issued forth together. With a little
+persuasion I prevailed upon my companion to come and lunch with me, and
+we repaired to a rather old-fashioned and thoroughly British
+establishment close by, where the fare is solid and the "portions"
+generous.
+
+My guest, after a brief effort at self-repression, fell upon the food in
+a fashion that told me a far more vivid tale of his present
+circumstances than the most lengthy explanation could have done. When he
+was full I gave him a cigar, and he leaned back in his padded arm-chair
+and surveyed me with the nearest approach to emotion that I have ever
+observed in the countenance of a Scot.
+
+"I was wanting that," he remarked frankly, and he smiled largely upon
+me. He was looking less gaunt now, and the rugged lines of his face were
+tinged with a more healthy colour. He was a handsome youth, I noticed,
+with shrewd grey eyes and a chin that stood out like the ram of a
+battle-ship.
+
+He told me all about himself, some of which has been set down here
+already. He had done well at Edinburgh University, and, having obtained
+his Arts degree, was on the point of settling down to study for the
+ministry--the be-all and end-all of the hope of a humble Scottish
+household--when disaster came tumbling upon his family. His brother
+David fell sick in his lungs, and the doctor prescribed a sojourn in a
+drier climate for at least a year.
+
+The next part of the narrative was rather elliptical; but from the fact
+that money was immediately forthcoming to send David abroad, and that
+Robin had simultaneously given up his work in Edinburgh and returned
+home to help his father about the farm, I gathered that a life's
+ambition had been voluntarily sacrificed on the altar of family duty.
+Anyhow, when David returned, marvellously and mercifully restored to
+health, setting his younger brother free once more, two precious years
+had flown; so that Robin now found himself, at the age of twenty-three,
+faced with the alternative of making a fresh start in life or remaining
+on the farm at home, that most pathetic and forlorn of failures, a
+"stickit minister." The family exchequer had been depleted by David's
+illness, and Robin, rather than draw any further on the vanishing little
+store of pound-notes in the cupboard behind the kitchen chimney,
+determined to go to London and turn his education to some account.
+
+He had arrived three years ago, with a barrel of salt herrings and a bag
+of meal; and from that time he had earned his own living--if it could be
+called a living.
+
+"Once or twice," he said, "I have had an article taken by one of the big
+reviews; sometimes I get some odd reporting to do; and whiles I just
+have to write chatty paragraphs about celebrities for the snippety
+papers."
+
+"Uphill work that, I should think."
+
+"Uphill? Downhill! Man, it's degrading. Do you know what I was doing in
+that Museum this morning?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Have you heard tell of a man they call Dean Ramsay?"
+
+"Let me see--yes. He was a sort of Scottish Sidney Smith, wasn't he?"
+
+"That is the man. Well, he collected most of the good stories in
+Scotland and put them in a book. I was copying a few of them out; and I
+shall father them on to folk that the public wants to hear about. I get
+a guinea a column for that."
+
+"I know the sort of thing," I said. "_'A good story is at present going
+the round of the clubs, concerning----'_"
+
+"Not 'concerning'--'anent'!"
+
+"I beg your pardon--'anent a certain well-known but absent-minded Peer
+of the Realm.'"
+
+"That's the stuff. You have the trick of it. Then sometimes I do bits of
+general information--computations as to the height of a column of the
+picture postcards sold in London in a year, and all that. Nobody can
+check figures of that kind, so the work is easy--and correspondingly
+ill-paid!" (I cannot reproduce the number of contemptuous _r_'s that
+Robin threw into the adverb.)
+
+"It's a fine useful place the Museum," he continued reflectively. "You
+were busy there this morning yourself. You would be collecting _data_
+anent--I mean _about_--the Island of Caerulea."
+
+I sat up in surprise at this.
+
+"How on earth----?" I began.
+
+"Oh, I just jal--guessed it. You being the only member of his Majesty's
+Government in whom I have any personal interest, I have always followed
+your career closely. (You gave me your card, you'll mind.) Well, I saw
+you were having trouble with yon havering body Wuddiford--I once
+reported at one of his meetings: he's just a sweetie-wife in
+_pince-nez_--and when I saw you busy with an atlas and gazetteer I said
+to myself:--'He'll be getting up a few salient facts about the place, in
+order to appease the honourable member's insatiable thirst for
+knowledge--Toots, there I go again! Man, the journalese fairly soaks
+into the system. I doubt now if I could write out twenty lines of
+'Paradise Lost' without cross-heading them!"
+
+We finished our cigar over talk like this, and finally rose to go. Robin
+lingered upon the steps of the restaurant. I realised that he, being a
+Scotsman, was endeavouring to pump up the emotional gratitude which he
+felt sure that I, as an Englishman, would expect from a starving pauper
+who had lunched at my expense.
+
+"I must thank you," he said at last, rather awkwardly, "for a most
+pleasant luncheon. And I should like fine," he added suddenly and
+impetuously, "to make out a _precis_ for you on the subject of Caerulea.
+Never heed it yourself! Away home, and I'll send it to you to-morrow!"
+
+An idea which had been maturing in my slow-moving brain for some time
+suddenly took a definite shape.
+
+"It is extremely kind of you," I said. "I shall be delighted to leave
+the matter in your hands. But when you have made the _precis_, I wonder
+if you would be so good as to bring it to my house instead of sending
+it?"
+
+I gave him my address, and we parted.
+
+Robert Chalmers Fordyce arrived at my house next morning. He brought
+with him a budget of condensed but exhaustive information on the subject
+of Caerulea, the assimilation and ultimate discharge of which enabled me
+to score a signal victory over Mr Wuddiford of Upper Gumbtree,
+relegating that champion exploiter of mare's nests to a sphere of
+comparative inoffensiveness for quite a considerable time.
+
+After reading the _precis_, I offered Robin the position of my Private
+Secretary, which he accepted politely but without servility or
+effusiveness. I handed him a quarter's salary in advance, gave him two
+days' holiday wherein to "make his arrangements"--_Anglice_, to
+replenish his wardrobe--and we sealed the bargain with a glass of sherry
+and a biscuit apiece.
+
+As he rose to go, Robin took from his pocket a folded manuscript.
+
+"I see you have a good fire there," he said.
+
+He stepped across to the hearth-rug and pitched the document into the
+heart of the flames, which began to lick it caressingly.
+
+Presently the heat caused the crackling paper to unfold itself, and some
+of the writing became visible. Robert pointed, and I read--
+
+_"Pars about Personalities. A capital story is at present going the
+round of the clubs, anent----"_
+
+Here the flimsy manuscript burst into flame, and shot with a roar up the
+chimney.
+
+I looked at Robert Chalmers Fordyce, and his face was the face of a man
+who has gone through deep waters, but feels the good solid rock beneath
+his feet at last.
+
+He turned dumbly to me, and held out his hand.
+
+The worst of these inarticulate and undemonstrative people is that they
+hurt you so.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+A TRIAL TRIP.
+
+
+Three days later I introduced Robert Chalmers Fordyce into the bosom of
+my family. I had declined to give them any previous information about
+him, beyond a brief warning that they would find him "rather Scotch."
+
+I have always found it utterly impossible to foretell from a man's
+behaviour towards his own sex how he will comport himself in the
+presence of females. I have known a raw youth, hitherto regarded as the
+hobbledehoy of the shooting-party and the pariah of the smoking-room,
+lord it among the ladies like a very lion; and I have seen the hero of a
+hundred fights, the master of men, the essence of intrepid resolution,
+stand quaking outside a drawing-room door. The _debut_ of Robin, then, I
+awaited with considerable interest. I expected on the whole to see him
+tongue-tied, especially before Dolly and Dilly. On the other hand he
+might be aggressively assertive.
+
+He was neither. He proved to be that rarest of types--the man who has no
+fear of his fellow-creatures, male or female, singly or in battalions.
+Our sex is so accustomed to squaring its shoulders, pulling down its
+waistcoat, and assuming an engaging expression as a preliminary to an
+encounter with the fair, that the spectacle of a man who enters a
+strange drawing-room and shakes hands quietly and naturally all round,
+without twisting his features into an agreeable smile and mumbling
+entirely inarticulate words of rapture, always arouses in me feelings of
+envy and respect.
+
+We found Kitty and the Twins picturesquely grouped upon the drawing-room
+hearth-rug, waiting for the luncheon gong.
+
+I introduced Robin to my wife, in the indistinct and throaty tones which
+always obtrude themselves into an Englishman's utterance when he is
+called upon to say something formal but graceful. Kitty greeted the
+guest with a smile with which I am well acquainted (and which I can
+guarantee from personal experience to be absolutely irresistible on
+one's first experience of it), and welcomed him to the house very
+prettily.
+
+"You are very kind, Mrs Inglethwaite," said Robin, shaking hands. "But I
+am not quite a stranger to you. Do you mind my face?"
+
+Kitty turned scarlet.
+
+"Mind your----? Not in the--I mean--I am sure we are de----" She
+floundered hopelessly.
+
+Robin laughed pleasantly.
+
+"There is my Scots tongue running away with me already," he said. "I
+should have asked rather if you _remembered_ my face."
+
+This time Kitty ceased to look confused, but still retained a puzzled
+frown.
+
+"No," she said slowly; "I don't _think_----"
+
+"No wonder!" said Robin. "We met once, in a railway carriage, six years
+ago. Between Edinburgh and Perth--on a Saturday afternoon," he added
+expressively.
+
+Light broke in upon Kitty. "Of course!" she said. "Now I remember. That
+dreadful journey! You were the gentleman who was so kind and helpful.
+How nice and romantic meeting again! Adrian, you silly old creature, why
+didn't you tell me? Now, Mr Fordyce, let me introduce you to my
+sisters."
+
+She wheeled him round and presented him to the Twins.
+
+That pair of beauties, I saw at a glance, were out after scalps. They
+stood up side by side on the hearth-rug, absolutely and weirdly alike,
+and arrayed on this occasion in garments of identical hue and cut. This
+was a favourite device of theirs when about to meet a new young man; it
+usually startled him considerably. If he was not a person of sound nerve
+and abstemious habits, it not infrequently evoked from him some
+enjoyably regrettable expression of surprise and alarm. I knew all the
+tricks in their _repertoire_, and waited interestedly to see the effect
+of this series.
+
+On being presented, both smiled shyly and modestly, and each
+simultaneously proffered a timid hand. The average young man, already a
+little rattled by the duplicate vision of loveliness before him, could
+never make up his mind which hand to shake first; and by the time he had
+collected his faculties sufficiently to make an uncertain grab at one,
+both would be swiftly and simultaneously withdrawn.
+
+Robin, however, immediately shook hands with Dilly, who stood nearest to
+Kitty, and then with Dolly. After that he stepped back a pace and
+surveyed the pair with unconcealed interest.
+
+Then he turned to my wife.
+
+"A truly remarkable resemblance!" he observed benignantly. ("Just as if
+we had been two babies in a bassinette!" as Dolly afterwards remarked.)
+
+Then he resumed his inspection. The Twins, who were entirely unused to
+this sort of thing, were too taken aback to proceed to their second
+move--the utterance of some trivial and artless remark, delivered by
+both simultaneously, and thereby calculated to throw the victim into a
+state of uncertainty as to which he should answer first. Instead, they
+stood wide-eyed and tongue-tied before him.
+
+"I must certainly discover some point of difference between these
+ladies," continued Robin with an air of determination, "or I shall
+always be in difficulties. Do not tell me the secret, Mrs Inglethwaite.
+Perhaps I can find out for myself."
+
+He concluded a minute inspection of the indignant Dilly, and turned his
+unruffled gaze on Dolly.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I have it! You" (triumphantly to Dolly) "have a tiny
+brown spot in the blue of your left eye, while your sister has none."
+
+It was quite true: she had. But it was a fact which most young men only
+discovered after many furtive and sidelong glances. This imperturbable
+creature had taken it all in in one resolute scrutiny; and Dolly,
+blushing like Aurora--an infirmity to which I may say neither she nor
+her sister are particularly subject--dropped her long lashes over the
+orbs in question and looked uncommonly foolish.
+
+The tension of the situation was relieved by the announcement of
+luncheon, and Robin was called upon to accompany Kitty downstairs; while
+I, putting a consoling arm round the waist of each of my fermenting
+sisters-in-law, marched them down to further experiences in the
+dining-room.
+
+The Twins rapidly recovered their equanimity at lunch. They sat, as they
+always did, together on one side of the table, opposite to Robin. The
+latter conversed easily and pleasantly, though his discourse was dotted
+with homely phrases and curious little biblical turns of speech.
+
+"Have you been in London long, Mr Fordyce?" inquired Kitty as we settled
+down.
+
+"Three years," said Robin.
+
+"I suppose you have lots of friends by this time."
+
+"I have a good many acquaintances, but my friends in London are just
+three, all told," said Robin, in what Dilly afterwards described as "a
+disgustingly pawky manner."
+
+"You must be very exclusive, Mr Fordyce," chirrupped Dolly.
+
+"Far from it," said Robin; "as you will admit when I say that my three
+friends are a policeman, a surgeon, and a minister."
+
+"How quaint of you!" said Dilly.
+
+But Robin did not seem to think it quaint. He told us about the
+policeman first--a Highlander. Robin had made his acquaintance in
+Edinburgh, apparently about the same time that he made ours, and had
+renewed it some years later outside the House of Commons, when a
+rapturous mutual recognition had taken place. The policeman's name was
+Hector MacPherson.
+
+"And the surgeon?" inquired Kitty, with a certain friendly assumption of
+interest which announces (to me) that she is getting a little bored.
+
+"He is just my uncle. I go and see him, whi--now and then. He is a busy
+man."
+
+"And the--er--minister?"
+
+"He is Dr Strang. He has the Presbyterian Church in Howard Street. I
+have sat under him every Sabbath since I came to London."
+
+"Wh--what for?" asked Kitty involuntarily, and in a rather awestruck
+voice. Her acquaintance with the ritual of the Church of Scotland was
+hazy, and she was evidently determined to-day to be surprised at
+nothing; but evidently this mysterious reference could not be allowed to
+pass without some explanation. The Twins convulsively gripped each
+other's hands under the table. (They are of course perfectly bred
+girls--indeed, their self-possession at trying moments has often
+surprised me--but, like all the young of the human species, there are
+times when their feelings become too much for them. Then, if the
+occasion is too formal for unrestrained shrieks, they silently
+interdigitate.)
+
+"That is a Scottish expression," said Robin, smiling upon us. "You must
+pardon me, Mrs Inglethwaite. I should perhaps have said that I was an
+adherent of Dr Strang's church--or rather," he added with a curious
+little touch of pride, "I am a communicant now. I was just an adherent
+at first."
+
+We assented to this, politely but dizzily.
+
+Scratch a Scot and you will find a theologian. Robin was fairly started
+now; and he proceeded to enlarge upon various points of interest in the
+parallel histories (given in full) of some three or four Scottish
+denominations, interwoven with extracts from his own family archives.
+His grand-uncle, it appeared, had been a minister himself, and had
+performed the feat--to which I have occasionally heard other perfervid
+Scots refer, and never without a kindling eye--known as "coming out in
+the Forty-three."
+
+"That," added Robin in parenthesis, "is why my second name is
+Chalmers--after the great Doctor. You will have heard of him?"
+
+(Polite but insincere chorus of pleased recognition.)
+
+We were then treated to a brief _resume_ of the events leading up to a
+religious controversy of colossal dimensions which was at that moment
+threatening to engulf Scotland. Robin was deeply interested in the
+matter, and gave us his reasons for being so. He passed some scathing
+comments on the contumacy and narrow-mindedness of the sect who had the
+misfortune to be his opponents; and after that he proceeded to say a few
+words about Free Will and Predestination.
+
+By this time lunch was over, but we sat on. I nodded gravely over my
+coffee, saying "Quite so" when occasion seemed to demand it. Kitty was
+completely out of her depth, but still maintained a brave appearance of
+interest. It was the Twins who brought the _seance_ to a close. Placing
+their hands before their mouths, they with difficulty stifled a pair of
+cavernous yawns.
+
+Next moment they were sorry. Robin stopped dead, flushed up, and said--
+
+"Mrs Inglethwaite, I am sorry. I have been most inconsiderate and rude.
+I have wearied you all. The truth is," he continued quite simply, "it is
+so long since I sat at meat with friends, that I have lost the art of
+conversation. I just run on, like--like a leading article. I have not
+conversed with a woman, except once or twice across a counter, for
+nearly three years."
+
+There was a rather tense pause. Then Dolly said--
+
+"We're awfully sorry, Mr Fordyce. It was very rude of us. We quite
+understand now, don't we, Dilly?"
+
+"Rather," said Dilly. "It was horrible of us, Mr Fordyce. But we thought
+you were just an ordinary bore."
+
+"Children!" said Kitty.
+
+"But what you have told us makes things quite different, doesn't it,
+Dolly?" continued Dilly.
+
+"Quite--absolutely," said Dolly.
+
+And they smiled upon him, quite maternally. And so the incident passed.
+
+"How queer, not talking to a woman for three years!" continued Dolly
+reflectively.
+
+"How _awful_ it would be not to talk to a man for three years!" said
+Dilly, with obvious sincerity.
+
+"There is little opportunity for social intercourse," said Robin, "to a
+man who comes to London to sink or swim."
+
+The conversation was again taking a slightly sombre turn, and I struck
+in--
+
+"Well, I hope, Mr Fordyce, that a few weeks' experience of my
+establishment won't have the effect of making you regret your previous
+celibate existence."
+
+Dolly and Dilly looked at each other.
+
+"Dolly," said Dilly, "is that an insult?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Insulting enough to be punishable?"
+
+"Rather."
+
+"All right. Come on!"
+
+They fell upon me, and the next few minutes were devoted to what I
+believe is known in pantomime circles as a Grand Rally, which
+necessitated my going upstairs afterwards and changing my collar.
+
+Robin was not present at tea, and my household took advantage of his
+absence to run over his points.
+
+Considering that a woman--especially a young woman--judges a man almost
+entirely by his manner and appearance, and dislikes him exceedingly if
+he proceeds to dominate the situation to her exclusion--unless, by the
+way, he has her permission and authority so to do, in which case he
+cannot do so too much--the verdict delivered upon my absent secretary
+was not by any means unfavourable, though, of course, there was much to
+criticise.
+
+"He'll do," said Dilly; "but you must get his hair cut, Adrian."
+
+"And tell him about not wearing that sort of tie, dear," said Dolly.
+
+"I suppose he can't help his accent," sighs Kitty.
+
+But their criticisms were limited to such trifles as these, and I felt
+that Robin had done me credit.
+
+Dilly summed up the situation.
+
+"I think on the whole that he is rather a pet," she said.
+
+A more thoroughly unsuitable description could not have been imagined,
+but Dolly agreed.
+
+"He has nice eyes, too," she added.
+
+"He was perfectly sweet with Phillis after lunch," said Kitty. "Took her
+on his knee at once, and talked to her just as if we weren't there.
+That's a good test of a man, if you like!"
+
+"True for you," I agreed. "I could not do it with other people's
+children to save my life."
+
+"Oh, you are hopeless," said Dilly. "_Far_ too self-conscious and
+dignified to climb down to the level of children, isn't he, Dolly?" She
+crinkled her nose.
+
+Dolly for once was not listening.
+
+"What was that weird stuff the Secretary Bird spouted when you showed
+Phillis to him, Kit? About her being forward, or coy, or something. It
+sounded rather cheek, to me."
+
+"Yes, I remember," said Dilly. "Can you do the way he said it?
+'Sometimes forrrwarrrd, sometimes coy, she neverrr fails to pullllease!'
+Like that! Gracious, how it hurts to talk Scotch!"
+
+"I don't know, dear," said my wife thoughtfully. "It sounded rather
+quaint. But I daresay all Scotch people are like that," she added
+charitably.
+
+"Perhaps it was a quotation," I observed mildly.
+
+"Of course, that would be it. What is it out of?"
+
+"A song called 'Phillis is my only Joy,' I think."
+
+"Ah, then you may depend upon it," said Kitty, with the air of one
+solving a mystery, "that is what the man was doing--_quoting_! Burns,
+probably, or Scott, perhaps. How clever of him to think of it! And do
+you know," she continued, "he said such a nice thing to me. While you
+were bear-fighting with the Twins after lunch, Adrian, I said to him:
+'Pity me, Mr Fordyce! My husband never ceases to express to me his
+regret that he did not marry one of my sisters.' And he answered at
+once, quite seriously, without stopping to think it out or anything:--'I
+am sure, Mrs Inglethwaite, that his regret must be shared by countless
+old admirers of yours!' Wasn't it rather sweet of him?"
+
+Further conversation was prevented by the opening of the drawing-room
+door, where the butler appeared and announced "Mr Dubberley."
+
+Dubberley is a pillar of our party. I can best describe him by saying
+that although I hold office under a Conservative Government, ten
+minutes' conversation with Dubberley leaves me a confirmed Radical, and
+anything like a protracted interview with him converts me into a
+Socialist for the next twenty-four hours. A week-end in his society, and
+I should probably buy a red shirt and send out for bombs. He is a good
+fellow at bottom, and of immense service to the party; but he is the
+most blatant ass I have ever met. There are Dubberleys on both sides of
+the House, however, which is a comfort.
+
+Robin joined us almost directly after Dubberley's entrance, just in time
+to hear that great man conclude the preamble of his discourse for the
+afternoon.
+
+There had been a good deal of talk in the papers of late about improving
+the means of transport throughout the country; and the nationalisation
+of railways and other semi-socialistic schemes had filled the air.
+Dubberley, it appeared, had out of his own gigantic intellect evolved a
+panacea for congestion of traffic, highness of rates, and railway
+mortality.
+
+He was well launched in his subject when Robin entered and was
+introduced.
+
+"As I was saying," he continued, waving an emphatic teaspoon in the
+direction of the sofa where the ladies sat, smiling but limp,--even the
+Twins knew it was useless to stem this tide,--"as I was saying, the
+solution of the problem lies in the revival of our far-reaching but
+sadly neglected system of _canals_. Yes! If we go to the very root of
+the matter"--Dubberley is one of those fortunate persons who never has
+to dig far in his researches--"we find that our whole hope of
+regeneration lies in the single, simple, homely word--Canals! Revive
+your canals, send your goods by canal, travel yourself by----"
+
+"How long, Mr Dubberley," interpolated Robin, leaning forward--"how long
+do you consider one would take to travel, say, a hundred miles by
+canal?"
+
+"Under our present antiquated system, sir,"--Dubberley rather prides
+himself on preserving the courtly fashions of address of a bygone
+age,--"an impossibly long time. The average speed of a canal-boat at the
+present day under the ministrations of that overburdened and inadequate
+quadruped, the--er--horse, is three miles per hour. Indeed--one moment!"
+
+Dubberley fished a sheaf of documents out of his pocket--he is the sort
+of man who habitually secrets statistics and blue-books about his
+person--and after stertorously perusing them closed his eyes for a
+moment, as if to work out a sum upon an internal blackboard, and said--
+
+"I see no reason why swift canal-boats should not be constructed to run
+fifteen, twenty, or even twenty-five miles per hour. Indeed, in these
+days of turbines----"
+
+Robin put down his cup rather emphatically, and said--
+
+"Mphm."
+
+(It is quite impossible to reproduce this extraordinary Caledonian
+expletive in writing, but that is as near to it as I can get.) Then he
+continued urbanely--
+
+"Then you would organise a service of fast turbine steamers running all
+over the canal systems of the country?"
+
+"Exactly. Or let us say--er--launches," said Dubberley. "I must not
+overstate my case."
+
+"Travelling twenty miles an hour?"
+
+"Say fifteen, sir," said Dubberley magnanimously.
+
+"Mr Dubberley," said Robin, in a voice which made us all jump, "have you
+a bathroom in your house?"
+
+Even the Twins, who were growing a trifle lethargic under the
+technicalities of the subject, roused themselves at this fresh turn of
+the conversation.
+
+"Ah--eh--I beg your pardon?" said Dubberley, a trifle disconcerted.
+
+"A bathroom," repeated Robin--"with a good long bath in it?"
+
+"Er--yes."
+
+"Well, Mr Dubberley, when you go home this afternoon, go upstairs and
+fill the bath with water. Then take a large bath-sponge--something
+nearly as broad as the bath--and sweep it along from end to end, about a
+foot below the surface, at a speed of fifteen miles per hour--that will
+be twenty-two feet per second--and see what happens!"
+
+Robin had unconsciously dropped into what I may call his
+debating-society manner. His chin stuck out, and his large chest heaved,
+and he scooped the air, as if it had been the water of Dubberley's bath,
+with one of Kitty's priceless Worcester teacups.
+
+Dubberley sat completely demoralised, palpitating like a stranded frog.
+
+"Then," continued Robin, "you would observe the result of placing a
+partly submerged and rapidly moving body in a shallow and restricted
+waterway. You would kick half the water right out of the canal to begin
+with, and the other half would pile itself up into a wave under your bow
+big enough to offer an almost immovable resistance to the progress of
+your vessel."
+
+He leaned back and surveyed the bemused Dubberley with complete and
+obvious satisfaction. We all sat round breathless, feeling much as
+Sidney Smith must have felt when some one spoke disrespectfully of the
+Equator. Great was the fall of Dubberley. He moved, perhaps
+instinctively, in a society where he was seldom contradicted and never
+argued with. One does not argue with a gramophone. And here this raw
+Scottish youth, with the awful thoroughness and relentless common-sense
+of his race, had taken the very words out of his mouth, torn them to
+shreds, and thrust them down his throat.
+
+I am afraid I chuckled. The Twins sat hand in hand, with dreamy eyes
+staring straight before them. They were conjuring up a joyous vision of
+Dubberley, in his shirt-sleeves, meekly refuting one of his own theories
+by means of a childish and sloppy experiment in practical hydrodynamics
+in his own bathroom.
+
+I give this incident as a fair example of Robin's point of view and
+methods of action on questions which I for one would never dream of
+debating. He was entirely lacking in an art which I am told I possess to
+perfection--that of suffering fools gladly. Its possession has raised me
+to an Under-Secretaryship. People who should know tell me that it will
+also prevent my ever rising to anything higher.
+
+"We had a taste of our friend's quality this afternoon," I remarked to
+my household when we met for dinner that evening. "He is a
+thorough-going warrior. Fancy any man taking all that trouble to lay out
+old Dubberley!"
+
+"Poor Mr Dubberley!" said tender-hearted Kitty.
+
+"Do him good!" said Dilly, in whose recollection Dubberley's past
+enormities loomed large. "I shall be nice to the Secretary Bird now."
+
+Dolly said nothing, which was unusual. Perhaps the brown spot still
+rankled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+ROBIN ON DUTY.
+
+
+Beyond the fact that they are all desperately in earnest, all know each
+other, and occupy all the most responsible and lucrative posts on the
+face of the earth, Scotsmen are a class with whose characteristics I am
+not well acquainted. But I learned a great deal from my new secretary.
+
+Robin soon settled down to work. He not only performed his duties with
+zeal and discretion, but he kept me up to mine. He hounded me through
+the routine work of my Department; he verified my references; he managed
+my correspondence; and he frequently drafted my speeches. He even
+prepared some of my impromptus. Indeed, my--or rather his--description
+of a certain member of the other side, a lesser light of the last
+Government, a worthy man, always put up to explain matters when his
+leader had decided that honesty on this occasion was the best policy, as
+"a political niblick, always employed to get his party out of bad lies,"
+won me more applause and popularity in a House of enthusiastic golfers
+than endless weeks of honest toil behind the scenes had ever done.
+
+But I learned more from Robin than that. I suppose I am a typical
+specimen of Conservative officialdom. Until Robin came into my house it
+had never occurred to me to ask myself why I was a Conservative: I had
+been born one, and it was difficult for me to understand how any man of
+ordinary intelligence could be anything else.
+
+My father and grandfather were Conservative members before me, and I
+come of a line which has always feared God, honoured the King, paid its
+tithes, and tried to do something for the poor; and which regards
+Radicals, Socialists, Nonconformists, and criminal lunatics as much the
+same class of person. The only difference between myself and my
+forebears is that I am much too pacific (or lazy) to cherish any
+animosity against people whose views differ from my own. This fact,
+coupled with certain family traditions, has brought me to my present
+position in life; and, as I have already indicated, it will probably
+keep me there. At least, so Kitty says.
+
+"You must _assert_ yourself, dear," she declares. "Be _rude_ to people,
+and go on being rude! Then they will take notice of you and give you
+nice big posts to keep you quiet. Do you know what the Premier said
+about you the other night at dinner, to Lady Bindle? (She told Dicky
+Lever, and he told the Twins.) 'Inglethwaite? A dear fellow, a sound
+party man, and runs his Department admirably. But--he strikes only on
+the box!' Pig!"
+
+It was about this time that Robin became a member of our establishment.
+I had no idea what his political views were--it was just like me not to
+have asked him, Kitty said--but felt confident that whatever side he
+supported he would do so hot and strong.
+
+But at first he gave no indication of his leanings. It was not until we
+sat one night over our wine, in company with John Champion (member for a
+big northern constituency, and regarded by many, notwithstanding various
+eccentricities, as the coming man of the party) that he first gave
+definite utterance to his views.
+
+The cigars had gone round, and we had just performed that mysterious
+national rite which, whether it owes its existence to economy or
+politeness, invariably ends in several people burning their fingers with
+the same match.
+
+"I suppose, Mr Fordyce," said Champion, who had not met Robin before,
+but obviously liked him, "that in common with all Scotsmen you are at
+heart a Radical."
+
+"Am I?" said Robin, with native caution.
+
+"Most of your countrymen are," said Champion, with a sigh. "'They think
+too much'--you know the rest of the quotation, I expect."
+
+Robin nodded.
+
+I was a little scandalised at this flagrant tribute to the enemy, and
+said so.
+
+Champion laughed.
+
+"You are a whole-hearted old war-horse, Adrian. I envy you. Sometimes, I
+wish that I----"
+
+"For mercy's sake don't go and say that you are a Radical at heart too,"
+I cried.
+
+"N-n-o. But isn't it rot, the whole business?"
+
+"What whole business?"
+
+"Ask Mr Fordyce there. He will tell you. I see it in his eye."
+
+"What is rot, Robin?" I asked. "Party government?"
+
+"Yes," said Robin, quite explosively for him. "It is such a scandalous
+waste of power and material." He laid down his cigar. "Man, it's just
+pitiful. Consider! A party is returned to office. With great care and
+discrimination a Cabinet is chosen. It is composed of men who are mainly
+honest and patriotic. They are not necessarily men of genius, but they
+are all men of undoubted ability, and they are genuinely anxious to do
+their duty by the country. Now observe." (As a matter of fact he said
+"obsairrve.") "How is this energy and ability expended? About half of
+it--fifty per cent--goes in devising means to baffle the assaults of the
+Opposition and so retain a precarious hold on office. Sir, it's just
+ludicrous! Instead of concentrating their efforts upon--upon--I want a
+metaphor, Mr Champion."
+
+"Upon steering the ship of State," said Champion, with a twinkle in his
+eye.
+
+"That'll do, fine.--Upon steering the ship of State, they have to devote
+half their time and energy to dodging the missiles of their shipmates.
+That is what I mean when I say the thing is pitiful. What should we
+think of the sanity of an ordinary ship's company, if the man at the
+wheel had to spend half his time up in the rigging because a minority of
+his messmates wanted to throw him overboard?"
+
+"I think you are putting the case too strongly," I said. "The criticism
+of a healthy public opinion is no bad thing. Besides, your Cabinet still
+have fifty per cent of their energy left. What do they do with that?"
+
+"Of that," said Champion, joining in, "about forty per cent is wasted on
+mere parade--dummy legislation--bills that never will be passed, and
+which no sensible man has any desire should be passed, except in a
+mutilated and useless condition; bills merely brought forward by the
+Government as a sop to the extreme wing of their own party. It doesn't
+matter which side is in power. If they are Liberals, they have to
+propose a few socialistic and iconoclastic measures, secretly thanking
+God for the House of Lords all the while. If they are Conservatives,
+they propitiate the Landlords and the Church by putting forward some
+outrageously retrograde proposal or other, secure in the knowledge that
+it will be knocked on the head by the halfpenny papers. Of the remaining
+ten per cent----"
+
+"About nine," resumed Robin, "is appropriated automatically to
+absolutely essential routine business, like the Budget and Supply----"
+
+"And the remaining one per cent," struck in Champion, "is devoted to
+real live Legislation."
+
+Then they both looked at me, this pair of carping pessimists, rather
+furtively, like two fags who have allowed their tongues to wag over
+freely in the presence of a monitor. It was a curious tribute to the
+power of officialdom, for they were both far bigger men, in every sense,
+than I. Finally Champion laughed.
+
+"Don't look so horrified, Adrian," he said. "Mr Fordyce and I croak too
+much. Still, you will find a grain or two of sense among the chaff, as
+Jack Point says."
+
+But I was not to be smoothed down so easily.
+
+"According to you fellows," I grumbled, as I passed the port, "there is
+practically no difference between one political party and another."
+
+"None whatever," said Champion cheerfully--"not between the _backbones_
+of the parties, that is. Of course excrescences don't count. Tell me,
+Adrian, what bill, barring one or two contentious semi-religious
+measures, has ultimately reached the Statute Book during the last twenty
+years that might not have been put there by either party without any
+violent departure from its principles? Not one! Foreign policy, again.
+Does it make any difference to our position in the world which party is
+in office nowadays? Not a scrap. The difference between the two sides is
+immaterial. There is often a far deeper line of cleavage between two
+sections of the same party than between party and party. We make faces
+at each other, it is true; and one side plumes itself on the moral
+support of Royalty and the aristocracy, while the other always bawls out
+that it has the inviolable will of the people at its back,--I daresay
+one assertion is about as true as the other--but I don't think there is
+a pennyworth of difference, really. There used to be a lot, mind you,
+when the Plebs were really struggling for a footing in the scheme of
+things; but bless you! we are all more or less in the same crowd now.
+Just a difference of label, that's all."
+
+"There was a story my dominie used to tell," said Robin, who had been
+listening to this diatribe with rapt attention, "about a visitor to a
+seaside hotel, who ordered a bottle of wine. The boy brought up the
+wrong kind, so the visitor sent for the landlord and pointed out the
+mistake, adducing the label on the bottle as evidence. 'I'm very sorry,
+sir, I'm sure,' said the landlord, 'but I'll soon put it right. Boy,
+bring another label!' An old story, I am afraid, but it seems to me to
+put Party goverment into a nutshell."
+
+I rose, and began to replace the stoppers in the decanters. I was
+feeling rather cross. I hate having my settled convictions tampered
+with. They are not elastic, and this makes them brittle, and I always
+feel nervous about their stability when the intellectual pressure of an
+argument grows intense.
+
+"When you two have abolished the British Constitution," I remarked
+tartly, "what do you propose to substitute for the present _regime_?"
+
+"'There,'" said Champion, "as the charwoman replied when asked for a
+character, 'you _'ave_ me.' Let us join the ladies."
+
+But I was still angry.
+
+"It always seems best to me," I persisted doggedly, "to take up a good
+sound line of action and stick to it, and to choose a good sound party
+and stick to that. Half a glass of sherry before we go upstairs?"
+
+"No, thanks. That is why I envy you, Adrian," said Champion. "It's a
+wearing business for us, being so--so--what shall we call it, Mr
+Fordyce?"
+
+"Detached?" suggested Robin.
+
+"That's it."
+
+"Two-faced would be a better word," I growled.
+
+Champion clapped me on the shoulder.
+
+"Adrian," said he, "in time of peace there is always a large, critical,
+neutral, and infernally irritating party, for ever philandering betwixt
+and between two extremes of opinion. But when war is declared and it
+comes to a fight, the ranks close up. There is no room for detachment,
+and there are no neutrals. When occasion calls, you'll find all your
+friends--your half-hearted, carping, Erastian friends--ranged up tight
+beside you. Shall we be trapesing about in Tom Tiddler's ground when the
+pinch comes, Mr Fordyce--eh?"
+
+"Never fear!" said Robin.
+
+And I am bound to say that we all of us lived to see John Champion's
+assertion made good.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+ROBIN OFF DUTY.
+
+
+I have yet to introduce to the indulgent reader two more members of the
+family into which I have married.
+
+The first of these is my daughter Phillis, of whom I have already made
+passing mention. She is six years old, and appears to be compounded of
+about equal parts of angelic innocence and original sin. In her dealings
+with her fellow-creatures she exhibits all the _sangfroid_ and
+self-possession that mark the modern child. She will be a "handful" some
+day, the Twins tell me, and they ought to know. However, pending the
+arrival of the time when she will begin to rend the hearts of young men,
+she contents herself for the present with practising that accomplishment
+with complete and lamentable success upon her own garments.
+
+She is the possessor of a vivid imagination, which she certainly does
+not inherit from me, and is fond of impersonating other people, either
+characters of her own creation or interesting figures from story-books.
+Consequently it is never safe to address her too suddenly. She may be a
+fairy, or a bear, or a locomotive at the moment, and will resent having
+to return to her proper self, even for a brief space, merely to listen
+to some stupid and irrelevant remark--usually something about bed-time
+or an open door--from an unintelligent adult.
+
+Kitty says that I spoil her, but that is only because Kitty is quicker
+at saying a thing than I am. She is our only child; and I sometimes
+wonder, at moments of acute mental introspection (say, in the night
+watches after an indigestible supper), what we should do without her.
+
+The other character waiting for introduction is my brother-in-law,
+Master Gerald Rubislaw. He is the solitary male member of the family of
+which my wife and the Twins form the female side. He is, I think,
+fourteen years of age, and he is at present a member of what he
+considers--very rightly, I think; and I should know, for I was there
+myself--the finest public school in the world. Having no parents, he
+resides at my house during his holidays, and refreshes me exceedingly.
+
+He is a sturdy but rather diminutive youth, with a loud voice. (He
+always addresses me as if I were standing on a distant hill-top.) He
+bears a resemblance to his sisters of which he is heartily and frankly
+ashamed, and which he endeavours at times to nullify as far as possible
+by a degree of personal uncleanliness which would be alarming to me,
+were it not that the traditions of my own extreme youth have not yet
+been entirely obliterated from my memory.
+
+His health is excellent, and his intellect is in that condition
+euphemistically described in house-master's reports as "unformed." He is
+always noisy, constitutionally lazy, and hopelessly casual. But he
+possesses the supreme merit of being absolutely and transparently
+honest. I have never known him tell a lie or do a mean thing. To such
+much is forgiven.
+
+At present he appears to possess only two ambitions in life; one, to
+gain a place in his Junior House Fifteen, and the other, to score some
+signal and lasting victory over his form-master, a Mr Sydney Mellar,
+with whom he appears to wage a sort of perpetual guerilla warfare. Every
+vacation brings him home with a fresh tale of base subterfuges, petty
+tyrannies, and childish exhibitions of spite on the part of the infamous
+Mellar, all duly frustrated, crushed, and made ridiculous by the
+ingenuity, resource, and audacity of the intrepid Rubislaw. I have never
+met Mr Mellar in the flesh, but I am conscious, as time goes on and my
+young relative's reminiscences on the subject accumulate, of an
+increasing feeling of admiration and respect for him.
+
+"He's a rotten brute," observed Gerald one day. "Do you know what he had
+the cheek to do last term?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Well, there was a clinking new desk put into our form-room, at the
+back. I sit there," he added rather _naively_. "As soon as I saw it, of
+course I got out my knife and started to carve my name. I made good big
+letters, as I wanted to do the thing properly on a fine new desk like
+that."
+
+"Was this during school hours?" I ventured to inquire.
+
+"Of course it was. Do you think a chap would be such a silly ass as to
+want to come in specially to carve his name during play-hours, when he's
+got the whole of his school-time to do it in?"
+
+"I had not thought of that," I said apologetically.
+
+"And don't go putting on side of that sort, Adrian, old man," roared
+Gerald, in what a stranger would have regarded as a most threatening
+voice, though I knew it was merely the one he keeps for moments of
+playful badinage. "I saw _your_ name carved in letters about four inches
+high in the Fifth Form room only the other day. I don't see how you can
+jaw a man for doing a thing you used to do yourself thirty or forty
+years ago."
+
+I allowed this reflection on my appearance to pass without protest, and
+Gerald resumed his story.
+
+"Well, I did a first-class G to begin with, and was well on with the
+Rubislaw--all in capitals: I thought it would look best that way--when
+suddenly a great hand reached over my shoulder and grabbed my knife. It
+was Stinker, of course."
+
+"St----"
+
+"Oh, I forgot to tell you that. We call him 'Stinker' now. You see, his
+name is S. Mellar, and if you say it quickly it sounds like 'Smeller.'
+So we call him 'Stinker.' It was a kid called Lane thought of it. Pretty
+smart--eh? Oh, he's a clever chap, I can tell you," yelled Gerald, with
+sincere enthusiasm.
+
+"He must be a youth of gigantic intellect," I said.
+
+"Oh, come off the roof! Well, Stinker grabbed my knife, and said,
+'Hallo, young man, what's all this? Handing down your name to
+posterity--eh?' with a silly grin on his face.
+
+"I said I was just carving my name.
+
+"'I see you have just finished it,' he said.
+
+"I didn't quite tumble to his meaning at first, because I had only got
+as far as G. RUB,--and then I saw that the whole thing as it stood
+spelled 'GRUB.' Lord, how the swine laughed! He told the form all about
+it, and of course they all laughed too, the sniggering, grovelling
+sweeps!
+
+"Then Stinker said: 'A happy thought has just occurred to me. I shall
+not have your name obliterated in the usual manner'--they cut it out and
+put in a fresh bit of wood, and charge you a bob--' this time. I have
+thought of a more excellent way.' (He always talks like that, in a sort
+of slow drawl.) 'We will leave your name exactly as you have carved it.
+But remember, young man, not another letter do you add to that name so
+long as you are a member of this school. A Grub you are,--a nasty little
+destructive Grub,--and a Grub you shall remain, so far as that desk is
+concerned, for all time. And if ever in future years you come down here
+as a distinguished Old Boy--say a K.C.B. or an Alderman,--remember to
+bring your numerous progeny'--oh, he's a sarcastic devil!--'to this
+room, and show them what their papa once was!'
+
+"Of course all the chaps roared again, at the idea of me with a lot of
+kids. But that wasn't all. He switched off _that_ tap quite suddenly,
+and said--
+
+"'Seriously, though, I am not pleased about this. Carving your name on a
+desk is not one of the seven deadly sins, but doing so when I have told
+you not to _is_. This silly street-boy business has been getting too
+prevalent lately: we shall have you chalking things up on the walls
+next. I particularly gave out last week, when this new desk was put in,
+that no one was to touch it. Come to me at twelve, and I will cane you.'
+And he _did_," concluded Gerald, with feeling.
+
+"What a shame!" said Dilly, who was sitting by. "All for carving a silly
+old desk."
+
+"He was perfectly right," said Gerald, his innate sense of justice
+rising to the surface at once. "I wasn't lammed for cutting the desk at
+all: it was for doing it after I had been told not to."
+
+"It's the same thing," said Dilly, with feminine disregard for legal
+niceties.
+
+"Same thing? Rot! Fat lot you know about it, Dilly. It's a rum thing,"
+he added to me in a reflective bawl, "but women never can understand the
+rules of any game. Stinker is a bargee, but he was quite right to lam
+me. It was for disobedience; and disobedience is cheek; and no master
+worth his salt will stand cheek. So Stinker says, and he is right for
+once."
+
+Gerald is the possessor of a bosom friend, an excessively silent and
+rather saturnine youth of about his own age. His name is Donkin, and he
+regards Gerald, so far as I can see, with a grim mixture of amusement
+and compassion. He pays frequent visits to my house, as his father is a
+soldier in India; and he is much employed by the Twins for corroborating
+or refuting the more improbable of their brother's reminiscences.
+
+Robin soon made friends with the boys. Like most of their kind, their
+tests of human probity were few and simple: and having discovered that
+Robin not only played Rugby football, but had on several occasions
+represented Edinburgh University thereat, they straightway wrote him
+down a "decent chap" and took the rest of his virtues for granted.
+
+It came upon them--and me too, as a matter of fact--as rather a shock
+one evening, when Robin, during the course of a desultory conversation
+on education in general, suddenly launched forth _more suo_ into a
+diatribe against the English Public School system.
+
+English boys, he pointed out, were passed through a great machine, which
+ground up the individual at one end and disgorged a mere type at the
+other--("Pretty good type too, Robin," from me),--they were taught to
+worship bodily strength--("Quite right too!" said my herculean
+brother-in-law),--they were herded together under a monastic system;
+they were removed from the refining influence of female society--(even
+the imperturable Donkin snorted at this),--and worst of all, little or
+nothing was done to eradicate from their minds the youthful idea that it
+is unmanly to read seriously or think deeply.
+
+I might have said a good deal in reply. I might have dwelt upon the fact
+that the English Public School system is not so hard upon the stupid
+boy--which means the average boy--as that of more strenuous
+forcing-houses of intellect abroad. I might have spoken of one or two
+moral agents which prevent our schools from being altogether despicable:
+unquestioning obedience to authority, for instance, or loyalty to
+tradition. I might have told of characters moulded and fibres stiffened
+by responsibility--our race bears more responsibility on its shoulders
+than all the rest of the world put together--or of minds trained to
+interpret laws and balance justice in the small but exacting world of
+the prefects' meeting and the games' committee. But it was Gerald, who
+is no moralist, but a youth of sound common-sense, who closed the
+argument.
+
+"Mr Fordyce," he said, "it's no use _my_ jawing to you, because you can
+knock me flat at that game; and of course old Moke there"--this was
+Master Donkin's unhappy but inevitable designation among his
+friends--"is too thick to argue with a stuffed rabbit; but you had
+better come down some time and see the place--that's all."
+
+Robin promised to suspend judgment pending a personal investigation, and
+the incident closed.
+
+Gerald's verdict on Robin's views, communicated to me privately
+afterwards, was characteristic but not unfavourable.
+
+"He seems to have perfectly putrid notions about some things, but he's a
+pretty sound chap on the whole--the best secretary you have had, anyhow,
+old man. Have you seen him do a straight-arm balance on the
+billiard-table?"
+
+But I did not fully realise how completely Robin had settled down as an
+accepted member of my household until one afternoon towards the end of
+the Christmas holidays.
+
+There is a small but snug apartment opening out of my library, through
+an arched and curtained doorway. The library is regarded as my
+workroom--impregnable, inviolable; not to be rudely attempted by
+devastating housemaids. There is a sort of tacit agreement between Kitty
+and myself as regards this apartment. Fatima-like, she may do what she
+pleases with the rest of the house. She may indulge her passion for
+drawing-room meetings to its fullest extent. She may intertain
+missionaries in the attics and hold meetings of the Dorcas Society in
+the basement. She may give reformed burglars the run of the
+silver-closet, and allow curates and chorus-girls to mingle in sweet
+companionship on the staircase. But she must leave the library alone,
+and neither she nor her following must overflow through its double doors
+during what I call business hours.
+
+On this particular afternoon I had been engaged upon the draft of a
+small bill with which I had been entrusted--we will call it the
+"Importation of Mad Dogs Bill,"--and about four o'clock I handed it to
+Robin with instructions to write out a fair copy. Robin retired into his
+inner chamber, and I sat down in an arm-chair with _Punch_. (It was a
+Wednesday, the Parliamentary half-holiday of those days, and still,
+happily, the _Punch_-day of these.)
+
+Kitty was holding a Drawing-room Meeting upstairs. I forget what
+description of body she was entertaining: it was either a Society for
+the Propagation of something which could never, in the nature of things,
+come to birth; or else an Association for the Prevention of something
+that was bound to go on so long as the world endured. I had been
+mercifully absolved from attending, and my tea had been sent in to me. I
+was enjoying an excellent caricature of my Chief in the minor cartoon of
+_Punch_, when I heard the door of the inner room open and the voice of
+my daughter inquire--
+
+"Are you _drefful_ busy, Uncle Robin?" (My secretary had been elevated
+to avuncular rank after a probation of just three hours.)
+
+There was a sound as of a chair being pushed back, and a rustle which
+suggested the hasty laying aside of a manuscript, and Robin's voice
+said--
+
+"Come away, Philly!" (This is a favourite Scoticism of Robin's, and
+appears to be a term denoting hearty welcome.)
+
+There was a delighted squeal and the sound of pattering feet. Next
+ensued a period of rather audible osculation, and then there was
+silence. Presently Phillis said--
+
+"What shall we do? Shall I sing you a hymn?"
+
+Evidently the revels were about to commence.
+
+"I have just learned a new one," she continued. "I heared it in Church
+yesterday afternoon, so I brought it home and changed it a bit. It's
+called 'Onward, Chwistian Sailors!'"
+
+"'_Soldiers_,' isn't it?"
+
+"No--'_Sailors_.' It _was_ 'Soldiers,' but I like sailors much better
+than soldiers, so I changed it. I'll sing it now."
+
+"Wait till Sunday," said Robin, with much presence of mind. "Will you
+not tell me a story?"
+
+This idea appeared so good that Phillis began forthwith.
+
+"Once there were three horses what lived in a stable. Two was wise and
+one was just a foolish young horse. There was some wolves what lived
+quite near the stable----"
+
+"Wolves?" said my secretary, in tones of mild surprise.
+
+"The stable," explained Phillis, "stood in the midst of the snowy plains
+of Muscovy. I should have telled you that before."
+
+"Just so," said Robin gravely. "Go on."
+
+"Well, one day," continued the narratress's voice through the
+curtains--I knew the story by heart, so I was able to fill up the gaps
+for myself when she dropped to a confidential whisper--"one cold, windy,
+berleak day, the old wolves said to the young ones, 'How about a meal of
+meat?' and all the young one's said, 'Oh, _let's_!'
+
+"That very morning," continued Phillis in the impressive bass which she
+reserves for the most exciting parts of her narrative, "that _very_
+morning the foolish young horse said to the old horses, 'Who is for a
+scamper to-day?' Then he began to wiggle and wiggle at his halter. The
+old horses said, 'There is wolves outside, and our master says that they
+eat all sheep an' cattle an' horses,' But the young horse just wiggled
+and wiggled,"--I could hear my daughter suiting the action to the word
+upon her audience's knee,--"and pwesently his halter was off! Then out
+he rushed, kicking up the nimble snow with his feathery heels,
+and--what?"
+
+Robin, who was automatically murmuring something about transferred
+epithets, apologised for this pedantic lapse, and the tale proceeded.
+
+"Well, just as he was goin' to have one more scamper, he felt a growl--a
+awful, fearful, deep _growl_,"--Phillis's voice sank to a bloodcurdling
+and continuous gurgle--"and he terrembled, like this! I'll show you----"
+
+She slipped off Robin's knee, and I knew that she was now on the
+hearth-rug, simulating acute palsy for his benefit.
+
+"Then he felt somefing on his back, then somefing further up his back,
+then a bite at his neck; and then he felt his head bitten off, and he
+died. Now you tell me one."
+
+"Which?"
+
+Phillis considered.
+
+"The one about the Kelpie and the Wee Bit Lassie."
+
+Robin obliged. At first he stumbled a little, and had to be prompted in
+hoarse whispers by Phillis (who apparently had heard the story several
+times before); but as the narrative progressed and the adventures of the
+wee bit lassie grew more enthralling and the Kelpie more terrifying, he
+became almost as immersed as his audience. When I peeped through the
+curtain they were both sitting on the hearth-rug pressed close together,
+Phillis gripping one of Robin's enormous hands in a pleasurable
+condition of terrified interest. The fair copy of the "Importation of
+Mad Dogs Bill," I regret to say, lay on the floor under the table. I
+retired to my arm-chair.
+
+"The Kelpie," Robin continued, "came closer and closer behind her.
+Already she could feel a hot breath on her neck." (So could Robin on
+his, for that matter.) "But she did not give in. She ran faster and
+faster until----"
+
+"You've forgotten to say she could hear its webbed feet going _pad pad_
+over the slippery stanes," interpolated Phillis anxiously.
+
+"So I did. I'm sorry. She could hear its webbed feet going _pad pad_
+over the slippery stanes. Presently though, she came to a wee bit housie
+on the moor. It was empty, but she slippit through the yard-gate and
+flew along the path and in at the door. The Kelpie came flying through
+the gate----"
+
+"No, no--it loupit ower the dyke!" screamed Phillis, who would
+countenance no tamperings with the original text.
+
+"Oh, yes. It loupit ower the dyke, but the wee lassie just slammed the
+door in its face, and turned the key. Then she felt round in the dark
+and keeked about, wondering what kind of place she was in. And at that
+very moment, through a bit window in the wall----"
+
+"She went ben first."
+
+"Oh, yes. She went ben; and at that very moment, through the bit window
+in the back-end of the house, there came a ray of light. The sun----"
+
+"The sun had risen," declaimed Phillis, triumphantly taking up the tale;
+"and with one wild sheriek of disappointed rage the Kelpie vanished
+away, and the wee lassie was _saved_!"
+
+There was a rapt pause after this exciting anecdote. Then Phillis
+remarked--
+
+"Uncle Robin, let's write that story down, and then I can get people to
+read it to me."
+
+"Why not write it down for yourself?"
+
+"I can't write--much; and it ought to be writed in ink, and I--I am only
+allowed to use pencil," explained my daughter, not without a certain
+bitterness. "But I put the lead in my mouf," she added defiantly.
+
+At this moment the door of my apartment was hurled open, and Gerald
+projected himself into the room. It was the evening before his return to
+school, and there was a predatory look in his eye. He was accompanied by
+his speechless friend.
+
+"Adrian, old son," he began, in such tones as an orator might address to
+a refractory mob, "Moke and I are going to have a study next term, and
+we want some furniture."
+
+I mildly remarked that in my day furniture was supplied by the school
+authorities.
+
+"Yes, but I mean pictures and things. Can you give us one? We shall want
+something to go on that wall opposite the window, shan't we, Moke? The
+place where young Lee missed your head with the red-ink bottle. _Have_
+you got a picture handy, Adrian?"
+
+I replied in the negative.
+
+Gerald took not the slightest notice.
+
+"It will have to be a pretty big one," he continued. "There is a good
+lot of red ink to cover. I have been taking a look round the house, and
+I must say the pictures you've got are a fairly mangy lot--aren't they,
+Moke?"
+
+The gentleman addressed coughed deprecatingly, and looked at me as much
+as to say that, whatever he thought of my taste in art, he had eaten my
+salt and would refrain from criticism.
+
+"There's one that might do, though," continued Gerald. "It's hanging in
+the billiard-room--a big steamer in a storm."
+
+By this time Phillis and Robin had joined the conclave.
+
+"I know," said Phillis, nodding her head; "a great beautiful boat in
+some waves. I should fink it was a friend of the _Great Eastern's_," she
+added, referring to an antiquated print of the early Victorian leviathan
+which hung in the nursery.
+
+"We could take it for a term or two, anyhow," continued Gerald, "until
+we get something better. I'm expecting some really decent ones after
+summer. Ainslie _major_ is leaving then, and he has promised to let me
+have some of his cheap. Then you can have yours back, Adrian. That's the
+scheme! Come on, Moke, we'll go and take it down now. Thanks very much,
+old chap" (to me). "I'll tell Kitty that you've let us. We can jab it
+off its hook with a billiard-cue, I should think, Moke. Come too, will
+you, Mr Fordyce? You can stand underneath and catch it, in case it comes
+down with a run. So long, Adrian!"
+
+The whole pack of them swept from the room, leaving the door open.
+
+When I looked in at the billiard-room on my way up to dress for dinner
+an hour later, nothing remained to mark the spot hitherto occupied by a
+signed and numbered proof of _An Ocean Greyhound_, by Michael Angelo
+Mahlstaff, A.R.A. (a wedding gift to my wife and myself from the
+artist), but the imprints of several hot hands on the wall, together
+with a series of parallel perpendicular scars, apparently inflicted by a
+full-sized harrow.
+
+From which two chapters it will be gathered that Robert Chalmers Fordyce
+was a man capable, in his ordinary working-day, of playing many parts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP.
+
+I.
+
+
+My wife and I would have been more than human if we had not occasionally
+cast a curious eye upon the relations of Robin and the Twins.
+
+Of Robin's attitude towards that pair of charmers Kitty could make
+little and I nothing. He kept his place and went his own way--rather
+ostentatiously, I thought--and appeared if anything to avoid them. If he
+found himself in their company he treated them with a certain grave
+reticence--he soon grew out of his fondness for addressing us like a
+public meeting--and made little attempt to bestow upon them the
+attentions which young maidens are accustomed to receive from young men.
+
+There was no mystery about the Twins' attitude towards Robin. "Here,"
+said they in effect, "is a fine upstanding young man, full of promise,
+but hampered in every direction by abysmal ignorance on matters of vital
+importance. His instincts are sound, but at present he is quite
+impossible. What he wants is mothering."
+
+And so they mothered him, most maternally. They exerted themselves quite
+strenuously to instil into him the fundamental principles of life--the
+correct method of tying a dress tie; the intricate ritual which governs
+such things as visiting-cards and asparagus; the exact limit of the
+domains of brown boots and dinner-jackets; the utter criminality of
+dickeys, turn-down collars, and side-whiskers; and the superiority of
+dialogue to monologue as a concomitant to afternoon tea.
+
+In many respects, they discovered with pleased surprise, their pupil
+required no instruction or surveillance. For instance, he could always
+be trusted to enter or leave a room without awkwardness, and his manner
+of address was perfect. He was neither servile nor familiar, and the
+only people to whom I ever saw him pay marked deference were the members
+of what is after all the only real and natural aristocracy in the
+world--that of old age.
+
+All their ministrations Robin received with grave wonder--he was not of
+the sort that can easily magnify a fetish into a deity--but, evidently
+struck by the intense importance attached by the Twins to their own
+doctrines, he showed himself a most amenable pupil. Probably he
+realised, in spite of hereditary preference for inward worth as opposed
+to outward show, that though a coat cannot make a man, a good man in a
+good coat often has the advantage of a good man in a bad coat. So he
+allowed the Twins to round off his corners; and, without losing any of
+his original ruggedness of character or toughness of fibre, he soon
+developed into a well-groomed and sufficiently presentable
+adjunct--quite distinguished-looking, Dilly said, when she met us one
+day on our way down to the House--to a lady's morning walk.
+
+What he really thought of it all I do not know. I have a kind of
+suspicion that deep down in his heart every Scot entertains a contempt
+for the volatile and frivolous English which is only equalled by that of
+the English for the nation to whom I once heard a Highland minister
+refer as "the giddy and godless French"; but Robin was not given to the
+revelation of his private thoughts. He seldom spoke of the Twins to
+me--he was a discusser of manners rather than men--but he once remarked
+that they were girls of widely different character. He entered into no
+further details, but I remember being struck by the observation at the
+time; for I had always regarded my sisters-in-law as being as identical
+in disposition as they were in appearance.
+
+Still it was pretty to see Robin unbending to please the two girls, and
+to hear him say "No, really?" or "My word, what rot!" when you knew that
+his tongue was itching to cry, "Is that a fact?" or "Hoots!" or
+"Havers!" as the occasion demanded.
+
+He also possessed the great and unique merit of not being ashamed to ask
+for guidance in a difficulty. I have known him pause before an
+unfamiliar dish at table and ask one of his preceptresses, in the
+frankest manner possible, whether the exigencies of the situation called
+for a spoon or a fork: and out of doors it was a perpetual joy to hear
+him whisper, on the approach of some one whom he thought might be a
+friend of ours, "Will I lift my hat?"
+
+All that year Robin was my right hand. It was a long session; and as
+my Chief sat in the Upper House, much work in the way of answering
+questions and making statements fell upon me. We had a good working
+majority, but the Opposition were a united and well-organised body
+that year, and we had to rise early and go to bed late to keep their
+assaults at bay while proceeding with the programme of the session.
+Every afternoon, before I entered the House to take my place at
+question-time, my secretary insisted on taking me through the answers
+which he had prepared for my recitation; and we also discussed the
+line of action to be pursued if I were cornered by questions of the
+"arising-out-of-that-answer" order.
+
+Personally, I loathed this part of the work--I am a departmentalist pure
+and simple--but Robin's eye used to glow with the light of battle as he
+rehearsed me in the undoubtedly telling counters with which I was to
+pulverise the foe.
+
+"I would like fine," he once said to me, "to stand up in your place and
+answer these questions for you."
+
+"I wish you could, Robin," I sighed. "And," I added, "I believe you will
+some day."
+
+Robin turned pink, for the first time in our acquaintance, and I heard
+his teeth click suddenly together.
+
+So the wind lay that way!
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+During the next year my household was furnished with three surprises,
+Dilly contributing one and Robin two.
+
+Robin's came first. One was his uncle, the other his book.
+
+One night it fell to my lot to dine in the City, as the guest of the
+Honourable Company of Tile-Glazers and Mortar-Mixers. As I swam
+forlornly through a turgid ocean of turtle-soup and clarified punch
+towards an unyielding continent of fish, irrigated by brown sherry,
+mechanically rehearsing to myself the series of sparkling yet
+statesmanlike epigrams with which I proposed to reply to the toast of
+his Majesty's Ministers I became aware that the gentleman on my left was
+addressing me in a voice that seemed vaguely familiar.
+
+"And how is my brother's second boy doing with you, Mr Inglethwaite?"
+
+I must have looked a trifle blank, for he added--
+
+"My nephew, Robin."
+
+I glanced obliquely at the card which marked his place at table, and
+read--
+
+  _Sir James Fordyce._
+
+Then I began to grasp the situation, and I realised that this great man,
+whose name was honourably known wherever the ills of childhood are
+combated, was Robin's uncle, the "doctor" to whom my secretary had
+casually referred, and whom he occasionally went to visit on Sunday
+afternoons. I had pictured an overdriven G.P., living in Bloomsbury or
+Balham, with a black bag, and a bulge in his hat where he kept his
+stethoscope. A man sufficiently distinguished to represent his
+profession at a public banquet was more than I had bargained for.
+
+We became friends at once, and supported each other, so to speak, amid
+the multitude of dinners and dishes, our respective neighbours proving
+but broken reeds so far as social intercourse was concerned. On Sir
+James's left, I remember, sat a plethoric gentleman whose burnished
+countenance gave him the appearance of a sort of incarnate Glazed Tile;
+while my right-hand neighbour, from the manner in which he manipulated
+the food upon his plate, I put down without hesitation as a Mortar Mixer
+of high standing.
+
+The old gentleman gave me a good deal of information about Robin.
+
+"He had a hard fight his first year or two in London," he said. "I could
+see by the way he fell upon his dinner when he came to my house that his
+meat and drink were not easily come by. Still, now that he has won
+through, he will not regret the experience. I had it myself. It is the
+finest training that a young man can receive. Hard, terribly hard, but
+invaluable! You will not have seen his father yet--my brother John?"
+
+I told him no.
+
+"Well, try and meet him. You, as an Englishman, would perhaps call him
+hard and narrow,--after forty years of London I sometimes find him so
+myself,--but he is a fine man, and he has a good wife. So have you," he
+added unexpectedly--"Robin has told me that."
+
+I laughed, in what the Twins call the "silly little gratified way" which
+obtrudes itself into my demeanour when any one praises Kitty.
+
+"I hope you are in the same happy situation," I said.
+
+"No, I am a bachelor. My brother John has not achieved a K.C.B., but he
+is a more fortunate man than I."
+
+The conversation dropped here, but I repeated it to my wife afterwards.
+
+"Of course, the whole thing is as clear as daylight," she said. "These
+two brothers both wanted to marry the same girl. She took the farmer
+one, so the other, poor thing, went off to London and became a famous
+doctor instead. That's all. He might have been Robin's father, but he's
+only his uncle."
+
+Happy the mind which can reconstruct a romance out of such scanty
+material.
+
+Sir James ultimately dined at my house, and became a firm friend of all
+that dwelt therein, especially Phillis.
+
+Then came Robin's second surprise--his book. It was a novel, and a very
+good novel too. He had been at it for some time, he told me, but it was
+only recently that he had contrived to finish it off. Being distrustful
+of its merits, he had decided to offer it to just one good publisher,
+who could take it or leave it. If he took it, well and good. But if the
+publisher (and possibly just one other) exhibited an attitude of
+aloofness, Robin had fully decided not to hawk his bantling about among
+other less reputable and more amenable firms, but to consign it to his
+bedroom fire.
+
+However, this inhuman but only-too-unusual sacrifice of the parental
+instinct was averted by the one good publisher, who accepted the book,
+and introduced Robin to the public.
+
+Either through shyness or indifference Robin had told us nothing of the
+approaching interesting event, and it was not until one morning in
+October, when a parcel of complimentary copies arrived from the
+publisher's, that we were apprised of the fact that we had been
+cherishing an author in our midst. Robin solemnly presented us with a
+copy apiece (which I thought handsome but extravagant), and also sent
+one to his parents, who, though I think they rather doubted the
+propriety of possessing a son who wrote novels at all, wrote back
+comparing it very favourably with _The Pilgrim's Progress_, the only
+other work of fiction with which they were acquainted.
+
+The book itself dealt with matters rather than men, and with men rather
+than women; which was characteristic of its author, but rather
+irritating for the Twins. It had a good deal to say about the under-side
+of journalism,--graphic and convincing, all this,--and contained a
+rather technical but absorbingly interesting account of some most
+exciting financial operations, winding up with a great description of a
+panic on the Stock Exchange. But there were few light and no tender
+passages, from which it will be seen that Robin as an author appealed to
+the male rather than the female intellect.
+
+The Twins, I think, were secretly rather disappointed with the book,
+less from any particular fondness for the perusal of love-passages than
+from a truly human desire to note how Robin would have handled them; for
+it is always interesting to see to what extent our friends will give
+themselves away when they commit the indiscretion of a book. On this
+occasion Robin had been exasperatingly self-contained.
+
+But life is full of compensations. There was a dedication. It read:--
+
+      THIS BOOK
+
+  OWES ITS INCEPTION,
+
+   AND IS THEREFORE
+
+      DEDICATED,
+
+         TO
+
+   A CIRCUMSTANCE
+
+        OVER
+
+        WHOM
+
+  I HAVE NO CONTROL.
+
+                  R. C. F.
+
+Now it is obvious that in nine cases out of ten there is only one
+circumstance over whom a vigorous young man has no control, and this
+circumstance wears petticoats. Hitherto I had not seriously connected
+Robin with the tender passion, and this sudden intimation that the most
+serious-minded and ambitious of young men is not immune from the same
+rather startled me.
+
+The female members of my establishment were pleasantly fluttered, though
+they were concerned less with the lady's existence than with her
+identity.
+
+"Who do you think she is?" inquired Kitty of me, the first time the
+subject cropped up between us.
+
+"Don't know, I'm sure," I murmured. I was smoking my post-prandial cigar
+at the time, at peace with all the world. "Never had the privilege of
+seeing his visiting-list."
+
+"I wonder who she can be," continued my wife. "He--he hasn't said
+anything to you, has he, dear?" she inquired, in a tentative voice.
+
+I slowly opened one of my hitherto closed eyes, and cocked it
+suspiciously at the diplomatist sitting opposite to me. (The Twins and
+Robin were out at the theatre.) Then, observing that she was stealthily
+regarding me through her eyelashes--a detestable trick which some women
+have--I solemnly agitated my eyelid some three or four times and gently
+closed it again.
+
+"Has he confided any of his love affairs to you, I mean?" continued
+Kitty, quite unabashed.
+
+"If you eat any more chocolates you will make yourself sick," I
+observed.
+
+"Yes, dear," said my wife submissively, pushing away the bon-bon dish.
+"But has he?"
+
+"Are you trying to pump me?"
+
+"Oh, gracious, no! What would be the good? I only asked a plain
+question. You men are such creatures for screening each other, though,
+that it's never any use asking a man anything about another man."
+
+"True for you. As a matter of fact, Robin has hardly said a word to me
+on the subject of women since first I met him."
+
+Kitty thoughtfully cracked a filbert with her teeth--an unladylike habit
+about which I have often spoken to her--and said--
+
+"What exciting chats you must have!" Then she added reflectively--
+
+"I expect it's a girl in Scotland. A sort of Highland lassie, in a kilt,
+or whatever female Highlanders wear."
+
+"Why should a novel about the Stock Exchange 'owe its inception' to a
+Highland lassie?"
+
+Kitty took another filbert.
+
+"That's 'vurry bright' of you, Adrian, as that American girl used to
+say. There's something in that. (Yes, I know you don't like it, dear,
+but I love doing it. I'll pour you out another glass of port. There!)
+But any idiotic excuse is good enough for a man in love. Has he ever
+been sentimental with you--quoted poetry, or anything?"
+
+"N-no. Stop, though! He did once quote Burns to me, but that was _a
+propos_ of poetry in general, not of love-making."
+
+I remembered the incident well. Robin had picked up at a bookstall a
+copy of an early and quite valuable edition of Burns' poems. He had sat
+smoking with me in the library late the same night, turning over the
+pages of the tattered volume, and quoting bits, in broad vernacular,
+from "Tam o' Shanter" and "The Cottar's Saturday Night." Suddenly he
+began, almost to himself--
+
+  "O, my love is like a red, red rose,
+     That's newly sprung in June;
+   My love is like a melody
+     That's sweetly played in tune.
+   As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
+     So deep in love am I----"
+
+He broke off for a moment, and I remembered how he glowered ecstatically
+into the fire. Then he concluded--
+
+  "And I will love thee still, my dear,
+     Till a' the seas gang dry."
+
+"Man," he said, "that's fine! That's poetry. That's the real thing!"
+
+I had agreed. It is no use arguing with a Scot about Burns. (I remember
+once being nearly dirked at a Caledonian Dinner because I ventured to
+remark that "before ye" was not in my opinion a good rhyme to "Loch
+Lomond.")
+
+However, Kitty and I were unable to decide whether Robin's "bonnie lass"
+on that occasion had been a personality or an abstraction.
+
+"Mightn't it be one of the Twins?" I remarked.
+
+"Well, it _might_ be," admitted Kitty judicially, "but he has kept it
+very close if it is. No," she continued more decidedly, "I don't think
+it can be. They are quite out of his line. Besides--it would be too
+absurd!"
+
+It was not one Twin at any rate, for a fortnight later Dilly sprung upon
+us the third surprise of the series I have mentioned. She announced that
+she had decided to marry Dicky Lever.
+
+There was, I suppose, nothing very surprising in that. Dicky had been in
+constant attendance upon the Twins for nearly two years, and had long
+since graduated into the ranks of the Good Sorts. The surprise to
+us--rather unreasonably, perhaps--lay in the fact of--
+
+1. Dicky having definitely fixed upon a particular Twin to propose to;
+
+2. That Twin having definitely selected Dicky out of the assortment at
+   her command.
+
+I was so accustomed to seeing my sisters-in-law compassed about by a
+cloud of young men who appeared to admire them both equally, and to whom
+they appeared to apportion their favours with indiscriminate
+_camaraderie_, that the idea of one admirer stealing a march on all the
+others seemed a little unfair, somehow.
+
+As Dolly remarked, it would break up the firm horribly.
+
+"You see," she confided to me rather plaintively, "Dilly will have no
+use for them now, and they'll have still less use for her--an engaged
+girl beside other girls is about as exciting as a tapioca-pudding at a
+Lord Mayor's Banquet--and they will only have me. That won't be half the
+fun."
+
+"I should have thought that your fun would have been exactly doubled," I
+said.
+
+"Not a bit. How like a man! Don't you see, the fun used to be in playing
+them backwards and forwards between our two selves--like ping-pong, you
+know! It was clinking!"
+
+She sighed regretfully.
+
+"Now I shall either have to avoid men or marry them," she concluded,
+vaguely but regretfully. "Before, if they got in the way, I could always
+volley them back to Dilly. Now--one _can't_ play ping-pong all by
+oneself!"
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Dilly's engagement, as is usual under such circumstances, afforded my
+household many opportunities for airy badinage and innocent merriment.
+
+Dolly always heralded her coming into the billiard-room, where the
+affianced pair had staked out a claim, by a cough of penetrating
+severity, and usually entered the room with her features obscured by an
+open umbrella. On several occasions, too, she impersonated her sister;
+and once, when Dicky was spending a week-end in the house, was only
+prevented by the fraction of a second from robbing that incensed damosel
+of her morning salute.
+
+My share in the proceedings was limited to a single constrained
+interview with Dicky, at which, feeling extremely rude and inquisitive,
+I asked him the usual stereotyped questions about his income, prospects,
+and habits (most of which I knew only too well already), which, being
+satisfactorily answered, I rang the bell for the Tantalus, and thanked
+heaven that the Twins were not Triplets. I had indeed suggested that
+Dilly's nearest and most natural protector was her brother, Master
+Gerald, and that Dicky should apply not for my consent but his. This
+motion, however, was negatived without a division. I was sorry, for I
+think my brother-in-law would have shown himself worthy of the occasion.
+
+My wife received the news of the engagement with all the enthusiasm
+usually exhibited by a Salvation lassie when a fresh convert is hustled
+forward to the "saved" bench, and henceforth divided her time between
+ordering Dilly's trousseau and giving tea-parties, at which the
+prospective bridegroom was produced and passed round, "as if," to use
+his own expression, "he were the newest thing in accordion-pleating."
+
+As regards Robin's share in the event, I can only recall one incident.
+He had been away at Stoneleigh, the largest town in my constituency, on
+some party business, and when he returned home the engagement had been
+announced for nearly a week.
+
+"I must go and offer my good wishes to Miss Dilly," he said, after
+hearing the news. "Do you know where she is, Mrs Inglethwaite?"
+
+"I saw her upstairs a few minutes ago," said Kitty. "Come up, and we'll
+find her."
+
+We were in the library at the time, and Kitty and Robin left the room
+together. The rest of the story my wife told me later.
+
+"We went up," she said, "and looked into the drawing-room, where I had
+last seen Dilly. The room was nearly dark, but she was there, sitting
+curled up in front of the fire.
+
+"'There she is,' I said. 'Go and say something nice.'
+
+"Well, dear,"--Kitty's face assumed an air of impressive solemnity which
+makes her absurdly like her daughter--"he stood hesitating a moment, and
+then walked straight up to her and said--
+
+"'Good afternoon! Can you tell me where your sister is? I want to offer
+her my good wishes on the great event.'
+
+"It wasn't Dilly at all. It was Dolly! And he was able to distinguish
+between the two in that dim room. And _I_ couldn't!"
+
+"Oh," said I carelessly, "I expect he noticed she wasn't wearing an
+engagement-ring."
+
+My wife looked at me and sighed, as over one who would spoil a romance
+for want of a ha'porth of sentiment. And yet I know she would have been
+quite scandalised if any one had hinted at tender passages between her
+sister and my secretary. Women are curious creatures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+OF A PIT THAT WAS DIGGED, AND WHO FELL INTO IT.
+
+
+Dicky Lever was a hearty and not particularly intellectual youth of the
+What ho! type (if you know what I mean). He was employed in some
+capacity in a Government office, but his livelihood was not entirely
+dependent on his exertions therein--which was, perhaps, fortunate, as
+his sole claim to distinction in his Department lay in the fact of his
+holding the record for the highest score at small cricket in the Junior
+Secretaries' room. He was a member of the Leander Club, a more than
+usually capable amateur actor, and a very good fellow all round.
+
+The engagement was announced at the end of July, which is a busy time
+for this country's legislators. The session was drawing to a close, and
+we were passing Bills with a prodigality and despatch which provoked
+many not altogether undeserved gibes from a reptile Opposition Press
+concerning the devotion of his Majesty's Government to the worship of
+Saint Grouse.
+
+One night I brought Champion home to dinner between the afternoon and
+evening sittings. At the latter he was to move the second reading of his
+"Municipal Co-ordination Bill," a measure which was intended to grapple
+with the chaos arising from the multitude of opposing or overlapping
+interests that controlled the domestic arrangements of the Londoner. An
+effort was to be made to bring all the Gas, Electricity, Water, Paving,
+and other corporations into some sort of line, and prevent them from
+getting into each other's way and adding to the expenses and
+inconvenience of the much-enduring ratepayer. It was a useful little
+Bill; but though everybody approved of it on principle, various powerful
+interests were at work against it, and its prospects of getting through
+Committee hung in the balance.
+
+"Now, Mr Champion," said Dilly, who knew that a man always likes to be
+questioned about his work, especially by a pretty girl, "what will your
+Bill do for _us_? I have asked this person here,"--indicating her
+_fiance_,--"but he says parish-pump politics aren't in his department.
+He licks stamps at the Foreign Office," she added in explanation.
+
+"Tell her, Champion," said Dicky. "Out of my line altogether. Takes me
+all my time to keep an eye on those Johnnies in the Concert of Europe."
+
+"I will tell you one thing the Bill will do, Miss Dilly," said Champion,
+a little heavily. (Dolly once said of him, "He's awfully clever and able
+and all that, but he hasn't got a light hand for conversational
+pastry.") "How many times have you noticed the streets up about here
+this year?"
+
+"Heaps," said Dilly.
+
+"They have hardly ever been down," corroborated Dolly.
+
+"Let me see," continued Dilly. "Our side of the Square was repaved in
+January. Directly after that they took it up again and did something to
+the drains."
+
+"In March they opened it again to lay down an electric light main," said
+I.
+
+"In April something burst," said Dolly, "and that meant more men with
+wigwams and braziers."
+
+"And last month," concluded Dilly, "they took away the wood pavement and
+relaid the whole Square with some new patent asphalte, which smelt
+simply, oh----"
+
+"Rotten!" supplied Gerald. (Have I mentioned that he had just arrived
+home for his summer holiday?)
+
+"Well," said Champion, "the Bill would regulate that sort of thing. It
+would protect the streets from being torn up at will by any Company who
+happened to have business underneath them. As things are, practically
+any one may come along and hew holes anywhere he pleases."
+
+"The police ought to stop it," said Kitty, who has a profound belief in
+the Force. (I am convinced that if Beelzebub himself were to enter the
+house at any time during my absence, Kitty would lure him into the
+dining-room with the sherry, and then telephone for a constable.)
+
+"The police have no right," said Champion. "If a gas company choose to
+give notice that they intend on a certain day to come and burrow in a
+road, all the police can do is to divert the traffic, and make the gas
+company as comfortable as possible."
+
+I was not following this conversation with any particular interest.
+Being expected to speak in favour of the Bill that night, I was
+undergoing the preliminary anguish which invariably attends my higher
+oratorical efforts. But I remember now that about this time Dilly
+suddenly turned to Dicky and whispered something in his ear. Then they
+both looked across the dinner-table at Robin, who nodded, as who should
+say, "I know fine what you whispered then." After that they all three
+laughed and looked down the table at Champion, who was still expatiating
+on the merits of his Bill.
+
+I suppose anybody else would have divined what was in the wind, but I
+did not.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A week later we were treated to an all-night sitting. The Irishmen had
+been quiescent of late, but on this occasion they made amends for their
+temporary relaxation of patriotism by resolutely obstructing an
+Appropriation Bill, which had to pass through Committee that night (if
+John Bull was to have any ready cash at all during the next few months),
+and kept us replying to amendments and trotting through division-lobbies
+until six o'clock next morning.
+
+Robin stayed on in attendance at the House most of the night, but about
+three o'clock I sent him home, with instructions to stay in bed till
+tea-time if he pleased. He had had a hard time lately.
+
+I was walking homeward in the early sunshine, marvelling, as people who
+accidentally find themselves up early pharisaically do, at the fatuity
+of those who waste the best hours of the whole day in bed, and revelling
+in the near prospect of a bath and my breakfast, when on turning a
+corner I walked into a hand-cart which was standing across the pavement.
+It contained workmen's tools--picks, shovels, and the like. On the near
+side of the roadway a man was erecting one of those curious wigwam
+arrangements which screen the operations of electricians and other
+subterranean burrowers from the public gaze. A dirty-faced small boy in
+corduroys was tending a brazier of live coals, upon which some breakfast
+cans were steaming. Between the wigwam and the pavement a gigantic navvy
+was hewing wooden paving-blocks out of the roadway.
+
+The spectacle did not attract my interest specially, as this particular
+piece of street had been eviscerated so often that I had grown callous
+to its sufferings. But I paused for a moment to survey the big navvy's
+muscles, and to wonder how early in the morning it would be necessary to
+rise in order to catch a small boy with a clean face. The navvy was a
+fine specimen of humanity, with a complexion tanned a dusky coffee
+colour.
+
+I was reflecting on the joys of the simple life and the futility of
+politics and other indoor pastimes in general, when the big man rose
+from his stooping posture and caught my eye. He appeared a little
+disconcerted by my scrutiny, and turned his back and renewed his
+exertions with increased vigour, favouring me hereafter with what
+architects call a "south elevation" of himself.
+
+I went home to breakfast, wondering where I had seen the big navvy's
+back before. I mentioned casually to Kitty and the Twins that Goring
+Street was up again. They wondered how the management of the Goring
+Hotel liked it, with that mess under their very windows, and agreed with
+me that it was high time Champion's Bill, due for its Third Reading
+to-morrow, became law.
+
+I stayed in bed till lunch-time, and then, rather late in the afternoon,
+set out for the House, which I knew I should find in an extremely limp
+condition after its previous night's dissipation. On the way I called in
+at the Goring Hotel in Goring Street, where Champion lived when in town.
+I found him in his room on the first floor, gazing out of the window
+into the street.
+
+I looked out too, to see what was interesting him. Directly below us lay
+the encampment of the workmen whom I had seen in the morning. They had
+hewed up a few yards of the wood pavement, and the smaller of the two
+men was now immersed up to his waist in a hole, working rather
+laboriously in the restricted space at his command with a pick-axe. The
+boy was piling wooden blocks into a neat heap, and the big man, whose
+form was only partially visible, was doing something inside the wigwam.
+
+The roadway was more than half blocked, and cabs and omnibuses, in
+charge of overheated and eloquent drivers, were being filtered through
+the narrow space left at their disposal by a phlegmatic policeman.
+
+"Look here," said Champion.
+
+I looked.
+
+"What on _earth_ are those fellows doing?" he continued.
+
+"Re-laying the road, perhaps."
+
+"One doesn't re-lay a road by making a deep hole in it."
+
+"Well--gas!"
+
+"Gas and electric light mains in this street are all led along a special
+conduit reached by manholes every eighty yards," said Champion. "There's
+no need to dig."
+
+"Well--drains!" said I vaguely. But I was a mere child in the hands of
+this expert.
+
+"The drains, as you call them," he said testily, "consist of a great
+sewer away in the depths, accessible from various appointed places.
+Besides, nobody in his senses tries to lift earth out of a hole with a
+pick-axe."
+
+"Perhaps the solution of the mystery lies inside the wigwam," I said.
+
+"No. That is just what complicates matters. When a shaft leading down to
+the electric light mains is opened, one of those canvas shelters is put
+over the top. Now there is nothing under that shelter--nothing but the
+bit of road it covers. The thing seems to be simply a stage accessory,
+planted there to give the encampment an aspect of reality. Ah, look at
+that!"
+
+"That" was a small piece of paving-wood, dexterously hurled by the
+dirty-faced boy, who seemed to be finding time hang rather heavily on
+his hands. It took a passing citizen in the small of the back, but when
+he swung round to detect the source of the missile the boy was on his
+knees again industriously blowing up the brazier.
+
+With an indignant snort the citizen passed on his way, doubtless adding
+the outrage, in his mind, to the long list of unsolved London crimes.
+But retribution awaited the youthful miscreant. The phlegmatic policeman
+who was regulating the traffic on the single-line system happened to
+notice the deed. He walked majestically across from the far side of the
+street towards our excavating friends.
+
+"Come on!" said Champion to me. "There's going to be some fun."
+
+We stepped out through one of the windows, which possessed a broad
+balcony, and took our stand behind some laurels in tubs which lined the
+balustrade. The street was comparatively quiet at the time, and we were
+able to hear most of the dialogue that ensued.
+
+"'Ere, mate," began the traffic-expert to the smaller of the two
+navvies, "just ketch that boy of yours a clip on the side of the 'ead,
+will you?"
+
+The smaller man desisted from his labours in the hole.
+
+"Wotsye, ole sport?" he inquired cheerily.
+
+The policeman was a little ruffled by this familiarity.
+
+"I'll trouble _you_," he repeated with some hauteur, "to ketch that boy
+of yours a clip on the side of the 'ead. If not, I shall 'ave to do my
+duty, according----"
+
+Here the roar of a passing dray drowned his utterance.
+
+The smaller man clambered nimbly out of the hole and proceeded to grab
+his young friend by the scruff of the neck.
+
+"Billy," he remarked dispassionately, "this gentleman says as 'ow I'm to
+give you a clip on the side of the 'ead."
+
+"Woffor," inquired Billy, simulating extreme terror.
+
+The man passed the question on to the policeman, who explained the
+nature of the offence. His statement was voluntarily corroborated by
+several members of an audience which seemed to have materialised from
+nowhere, and now formed a ring round the encampment.
+
+"Righto!" said the man with cheery acquiescence. "Billy, my lad, you've
+got to 'ave it."
+
+"Tha's right, ole son! You give 'im socks," remarked a hoarse and rather
+indistinct voice of the gin-and-fog variety, from among the spectators.
+
+Simultaneously its owner lurched his way to the front rank, the others
+making room for him with that respectful sympathy, not unmixed with
+envy, which is always accorded to a true-born Briton in his condition.
+He was obviously a member of some profession connected with coal-dust,
+and it was plain that he had been celebrating the conclusion of his
+day's labours.
+
+The smaller navvy, thus exhorted, administered the desired clip. It was
+not a particularly severe one, but it drew from its recipient the
+somewhat unexpected expostulation--
+
+"You silly ass! Not so hard!"
+
+Where had I heard that stentorian but childish voice before? Who was
+this road-breaker's acolyte, with his brazier, his dirty face, and--a
+public-school accent?
+
+I leaned over the balustrade and surveyed him and his two companions.
+Then I drew my breath sharply.
+
+Merciful heavens!
+
+The dirty-faced boy was my brother-in-law, Master Gerald Rubislaw, the
+clip-administerer was Dicky Lever, and the gigantic and taciturn navvy
+was--my Secretary!
+
+Having witnessed the carrying-out of the sentence, the policeman
+returned to his duties; none too soon; for a furniture van and a
+butcher's cart, locked in an inextricable embrace, the subject of a
+sulphurous duet between their respective proprietors, called loudly for
+his attention.
+
+Meanwhile Coaldust, who had been inspecting the result of our friends'
+united labours with some interest, suddenly echoed the question which
+had first exercised Champion's logical mind by inquiring what the blank
+dash the two adjectival criminals and the qualified nipper thought they
+were doing to the asterisked road.
+
+He received no encouragement. Robin was now engaged with a hammer and
+chisel in cutting a sort of touch-line all round the encampment, while
+Dicky did not cease manfully to delve with the pick-axe in the pit which
+he had digged for himself. For a long time they turned a deaf ear to the
+anxious inquiries of their interlocutor.
+
+But there are limits to long-suffering. Coaldust's witticisms increased
+with his audience, and at last Dicky turned to Robin and cried, with a
+really admirable maintenance of character and accent--
+
+"'Ere, Scotty, come and give this bloke one in the neck. 'E's askin' for
+it!"
+
+Robin deliberately suspended operations, rose heavily to his feet, and
+cleared his throat. Then he turned upon the alcoholic Coaldust. I
+strained my ears. Surely _he_ was not going to talk Cockney!
+
+Far from it. He stuck to his last.
+
+"See here, ma man," he roared, in a voice that made the crowd jump, "are
+ye for a ding on the side o' the heid?"
+
+Coaldust capitulated with alacrity.
+
+"No offence, 'Orace!" he remarked genially. "You an' me was always pals.
+Put it there!" He extended an ebony hand, which Robin solemnly shook and
+returned to his work.
+
+Whatever my three friends were up to, it is possible that they might now
+have been left in peace for some time; for the crowd, seeing no chance
+of further sport from Coaldust, began to melt away. But a fresh
+character entered the scene to keep alive the nagging interest of the
+drama.
+
+My first intimation that something new was afoot came from an errand-boy
+on the edge of the crowd, who, addressing a lady or ladies unseen,
+suddenly expressed a desire to be chased.
+
+All heads were now turned down the street, and there, approaching with
+rather faltering steps, carrying a red cotton bundle and a tea-can, I
+beheld--one of my sisters-in-law!
+
+Postulating Dicky, I presumed it was Dilly, and I began to piece
+together in my mind the plot of this elaborate comedy. Evidently Dicky,
+Robin, and Gerald had decided--for a bet, or because they were dared, or
+possibly with a view to giving Champion's Bill a leg-up by a practical
+demonstration of the crying need for it--to dress themselves up as
+workmen and come and "do a turn," as they say in the music halls, to the
+discomfort of his Majesty's lieges and the congestion of traffic, upon
+some sufficiently busy thoroughfare for a stated period of time.
+
+Certainly they were doing it rather well. They were admirably made
+up,--Dicky was a past-master at that sort of thing,--and their
+operations so far had been sufficiently like the genuine article to
+impose upon the public in general,--if we except Champion and
+Coaldust,--even to the point of securing the assistance of the
+traffic-directing policeman.
+
+But alas! with that one step further, which is so often fatal to great
+enterprises, they had sought to add a finishing touch of realism to
+their impersonation by the inclusion of a little feminine interest; and
+to that end Dilly had been added to the cast--or more likely had added
+herself--in the _role_ of a young person of humble station bringing her
+affianced his tea.
+
+And, not for the first time in the history of man, it was the woman who
+opened the door to disaster.
+
+Dilly wore a natty print dress--probably my housemaid's--with a tartan
+shawl over her head. She had on her thickest shoes, but they were
+woefully smart and thin for a girl of her class. Moreover, her hair was
+beautifully arranged under the shawl, and her hands--though she had had
+the sense to discard her ruby and sapphire engagement-ring--were too
+white and her face was too clean to lend conviction to her
+impersonation. In short, in her desire to present a pleasing _tout
+ensemble_--an object in which I must say she had succeeded to
+perfection--Dilly had utterly neglected detail and histrionic accuracy.
+
+Evidently she was not expecting a gallery. Two highly-interested
+concentric circles--one of people and one of dogs--round her _fiance's_
+encampment was rather more than she had bargained for. She had emerged
+quite suddenly from a side street (which I knew led to a shortcut from
+home) and now paused irresolutely a few yards away, crimson to the roots
+of her hair, what time the errand-boy, with looks of undisguised
+admiration, continued to reiterate his desire to be pursued.
+
+The crowd all turned and stared at poor Dilly. Obviously they did not
+know what to make of her. Possibly she was some one from the chorus of a
+musical comedy going to be photographed, possibly she was merely "a bit
+balmy," or possibly she was an advertisement for something, and would
+begin to distribute hand-bills presently. So far, she merely looked as
+if she wanted to cry.
+
+It was Robin who saw her first. He immediately stepped over his
+newly-completed touch-line, and taking the spotted bundle and the
+tea-can from her hands, conducted her ceremoniously within the magic
+circle, saying, in a voice much more like his own than before--
+
+"Come away, lassie!"
+
+Dicky looked up from his labours at this, and beheld his _fiancee_ for
+the first time. All he said was--
+
+"By gad, you've done it after all! Bravo!"
+
+But Dilly did not appear to be at all gratified She merely sat on
+Gerald's little mountain of paving-blocks, looking as if she could not
+decide whether to throw her apron over her face and scream, or take a
+header into the wigwam. My heart bled for her in spite of her folly. The
+crowd, deeply interested and breathing hard, stood round waiting for the
+performance to begin.
+
+It was Coaldust who took the lead.
+
+"Tip us a song and dance, Clara," he said encouragingly.
+
+Robin, who had been making a show of unfastening the bundle, suddenly
+rose to his feet. Coaldust saw him.
+
+"All right, Carnegie," he remarked hurriedly. "No offence, ole pal!"
+
+But Robin turned to Dicky, and the two held a hasty conversation, whose
+nature I could guess. Dilly could not be exposed to this sort of thing
+any longer. They began to put on their coats.
+
+"They are going to give it up," I said, not without relief. "About time,
+isn't it? Do you recognise them, Champion?"
+
+But Champion, I found, was gone--probably to establish an _alibi_.
+Perhaps he was right. Questions might be asked in the House about this.
+
+When I turned again to the scene below I found that the crowd had
+thickened considerably, and that the policeman had once more left the
+traffic to congest itself, and joined in the game.
+
+"You must tell that young woman to move on," he said to Dicky, not
+unkindly. "She's causin' a crowd to collect, and that's a thing she can
+be give in charge for."
+
+"All right," said Dicky hurriedly, "we're all going."
+
+The policeman, struck by this sudden anxiety to oblige, became
+suspicious.
+
+"All of you?" he said. "'Ow about this mess in the road?"
+
+Robin came to the rescue.
+
+"We'll be back presently and sort it," he said reassuringly.
+
+"Of course," said Dicky, pulling himself together. "Back in 'arf a tick,
+governor!"
+
+"Don't you go callin' me names," said the policeman, as the spectators
+indulged in happy laughter.
+
+"Sorry!--I mean, certainly!" said Dicky, getting flustered. (I could see
+Robin glowering at him.) "We are just going down the street a minute.
+This--er--girl has brought us a bit of bad news. There's been an
+accident happened--er----"
+
+"To her puir old mither," put in Robin, whom I began to suspect of
+rather enjoying this entertainment for its own sake.
+
+This heartrending piece of intelligence touched the crowd, and Coaldust
+was instantly forward in proposing an informal vote of condolence, which
+was seconded by a bare-armed lady in a deerstalker cap. But the
+policeman, evidently roused by our friends' ill-judged and precipitate
+attempt to strike camp, suddenly produced a pocket-book from his tunic,
+and said--
+
+"It is my duty to take your names and addresses, together with the name
+of the firm employing you."
+
+This announcement obviously disconcerted Dicky and Robin; for it is one
+thing to take part in a masquerade, and another to get out of the
+consequences thereof by cold-drawn lying.
+
+However, the policeman was sucking his pencil and waiting, so Dicky
+said--
+
+"You can get all the information you want from the Borough Surveyor."
+
+It was a bold effort, but the policeman merely said--
+
+"Your name, please!"
+
+Dicky, fairly cornered, replied--
+
+"Er--Samuel"--I thought at first he was going to say "Inglethwaite," and
+was prepared to drop a flower-pot on his head if he did; but he
+continued, with the air of one offering a real bargain at the
+price--"Phillipps."
+
+"Two P's?" inquired the constable.
+
+"Three," said Dicky.
+
+The policeman rolled a threatening eye upon him.
+
+"Be careful!" he said in an awful voice.
+
+"One of them comes at the beginning," said Dicky meekly.
+
+"Haw, haw!" roared several people in the crowd, which was unfortunate
+for Dicky. He was one of those people who would risk a kingdom to raise
+a laugh.
+
+"Address?" continued the policeman.
+
+"Buck'nam Pallis!" shouted Coaldust, before any one else in the crowd
+could say it.
+
+The policeman turned and directed upon him a look that would have
+entirely obfuscated a soberer man.
+
+"I'll attend to you presently," he said in the exact tones which my
+dentist employs when he shuts me into the waiting-room. "Now then, your
+address? Come along!"
+
+Dicky gave some address which I did not catch, and the representative of
+the law turned to Robin. The latter evidently saw rocks ahead if the
+inquisition was to be extended to the whole party. He said--
+
+"Surely there is no need to take any more names."
+
+"I'll be responsible for the lot," added Dicky eagerly--too eagerly.
+"Now let's be off! Come along Di--Liza!"
+
+He took Dilly by the arm, and, preceded by Gerald, began to press
+through the crowd, which by this time extended almost right across the
+street.
+
+But the now thoroughly aroused guardian of the peace, determined not to
+be rushed like this, broke away from Robin, who was engaging him in
+pleasant conversation, and, hastening after the retreating group, laid a
+detaining and imperious hand on Dilly's arm.
+
+What happened next I was not quick enough to see. But there was a swirl
+and a heave in the crowd, and presently Dicky became visible, standing
+in a very heroic attitude with his arm round Dilly; while the policeman,
+with an awe-inspiring deliberateness which implied "Now you _have_ gone
+and done it!" extricated himself majestically but painfully from the
+chasm in the road which had recently been occupying Dicky's attention,
+and into which Dicky in defence of his beloved had apparently pushed
+him.
+
+Picking up his pocket-book and putting it back into his chest, and
+uttering the single and awful word "_Assault!_" the policeman produced a
+whistle and blew it.
+
+Things were certainly getting serious, and I had just decided to send
+out the hotel porter to the policeman to tell him to bring his captives
+inside out of the way of the crowd, when I noticed that Robin was
+ploughing his way towards the outskirts of the throng, waving his arm as
+he went. Then I saw that his objective was another policeman--an
+Inspector this time. He was a gigantic creature, and Robin and he,
+slowly forging towards each other through the surrounding sea of faces,
+looked like two liners in a tideway.
+
+Robin's conduct in deliberately attracting the notice of yet another
+representative of law and order appeared eccentric on the face of it,
+but his subsequent behaviour was more peculiar still.
+
+He seized the newly-arrived giant by the arm, and drew him apart from
+the crowd, where he told him something which appeared to amuse them both
+considerably.
+
+"Yewmorous dialogue," announced Coaldust to his neighbours, "between
+Cleopartrer's Needle and the Moniment!"
+
+But it was more than that,--it was deep calling to deep. Presently the
+explanation, or the joke, or whatever it was, came to an end, and the
+Inspector advanced threateningly upon the crowd.
+
+"Pass along, there, pass along!" he cried with a devastating sweep of
+his arm. He spoke with a Highland accent, and I realised yet once more
+the ubiquity of that great Mutual Benefit Society which has its
+headquarters north of the Tweed.
+
+The crowd politely receded about six inches, and through them,
+accompanied by Robin, the Inspector clove his way to the encampment,
+where Dicky, who seemed to be rapidly losing his head, was delivering a
+sort of recitative to every one in general, accompanied by the policeman
+on the whistle.
+
+What the Inspector said to his subordinate I do not know, but the net
+result was that in a very short time the former was escorting the entire
+party of excavators down the street, attended by a retinue of small boys
+(who were evidently determined to see if it was going to turn out a
+hanging matter); while the latter, to whom the clearing of the "house"
+had evidently been deputed, set about that task with a vigour and
+ferocity which plainly indicated a well-meaning and zealous mind
+tingling under an entirely undeserved official snub.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They told me all about it in the smoking-room that night.
+
+"The idea," began Dicky, "was----"
+
+"Whose idea was it?" I inquired sternly "It was all of our idea,"
+replied my future relative by marriage lucidly.
+
+"But who worked it out?" I asked,--"the plot, the business, the 'props'?
+It was a most elaborate production."
+
+"Never you mind that, old man," said Dicky lightly. (But I saw that
+Robin was laboriously relighting his pipe and surrounding himself with
+an impenetrable cloud of smoke.) "Listen to the yarn. The idea was to
+stake out a claim in some fairly busy road and stay there for a given
+time--say, six o'clock till tea-time--and kid the passing citizens that
+we were duly authorised to get in the way and mess up the traffic
+generally. If we succeeded we were going to write to _The Times_ or some
+such paper and tell what we had done--anonymously, of course--just to
+show how necessary Champion's Bill is."
+
+"Have you written the letter?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I wouldn't send it if I were you."
+
+"Well, that's what Robin here has been saying."
+
+"Putrid rot if we don't!" remarked Gerald, who had by this time washed
+his face, but ought to have been in bed for all that.
+
+"We can't do it," said Robin. "For one thing, we have attracted quite
+enough public attention already,--it's bound to be in the papers anyhow,
+now, and that will probably give the Bill all the advertisement it
+needs,--and if we give the authorities any more clues our names may come
+out. For another thing, it wouldn't be fair to Hector MacPherson."
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"That Inspector who came up at the critical moment. He was one of my
+first friends in London."
+
+"I remember. Go on."
+
+"I was thankful to see him, I can tell you. Well, he undertook to square
+that poor bewildered bobby, and to take steps to get the road cleared
+and the hole filled up."
+
+"How?"
+
+"There is a street being mended just round the corner, and he said he
+would get the foreman of the gang, who is a relation of his wife's, to
+send a couple of men to put things right immediately. It's probably done
+by now."
+
+"Then I suppose we may regard the incident as closed."
+
+"Yes, I suppose so."
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"It was a bit of a failure at the finish," said Dicky meditatively, "but
+it was a success on the whole--what?"
+
+"Rather!" said his fellow-conspirators.
+
+"Our chief difficulty," continued Dicky, "was to decide on the exact
+type of drama to present. I was all for our dressing up as foreigners,
+and relaying an asphalte street. It would have been top-hole to trot
+about in list slippers and pat the hot asphalte down with those things
+they use. And think of the make-up!--curly moustaches and earrings! And
+we could have jabbered spoof Italian. But then old Robin here, who I
+must say has a headpiece on him, pointed out that the scenery and props
+would be much too expensive. We should want a cart with a bonfire in it
+and a sort of witches' cauldron on top, and all kinds of sticky stuff;
+so we gave up that scheme. We did not feel inclined to mess with
+gas-pipes or electric wires either, in case we burst ourselves up; so we
+finally decided to select some street with a wooden pavement, and maul
+it about generally for as long as we could. If we got interfered with by
+anybody official, we meant to talk some rot about the Borough Surveyor,
+and skedaddle if necessary. But it all worked beautifully!"
+
+"Where did you get your tools and tent?"
+
+"Robin managed that," said Dicky admiringly.
+
+Robin looked extremely dour, and I refrained from further inquiry.
+
+"Robin's got some rum pals, I _don't_ think!" observed Gerald
+pertinently.
+
+"Didn't I make these chaps up well?" continued Dicky enthusiastically.
+"We roared when you passed us at breakfast-time without spotting us."
+
+"Very creditable impersonation," I replied, getting up and knocking my
+pipe out. "I only hope I shan't have to resign my seat over it. If I may
+venture to offer a criticism, the weak spot in the enterprise was the
+idea of inviting your lady friends to come and take tea with you."
+
+"Just what I said all along, my boy," remarked the experienced Gerald,
+wagging his head sagely. "That was what mucked up the show. Wherever
+there's a petticoat there's trouble. Oh, I _warned_ them!"
+
+On my way up to bed I flushed Dilly from a window-seat on the staircase,
+where she had evidently been lingering on the off-chance of a
+supplementary good-night from Dicky.
+
+"Well?" I said severely.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Do you know what time it is?"
+
+"I expect your wife will tell you that when you get upstairs," said
+Dilly.
+
+I tried a fresh line.
+
+"After the labours of to-day, I should have thought you would have been
+glad to go to bed," I said. "You imp!" And I laughed. There is something
+very disarming about the Twins' misdemeanours.
+
+We turned and walked upstairs together, and paused outside Dilly's door.
+
+"Good-night, Dilly," I said. "I admired your pluck."
+
+"It wasn't me," said Dilly, in a very small voice.
+
+"Not you?"
+
+"N-no. I said I would come, because Dicky said I daren't, and at the
+last moment I funked it. (Adrian, I simply couldn't!) So Dolly went
+instead."
+
+"Then that was Dolly all the time?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And she went, just to--to----"
+
+"To save my face. She's a brick," said Dilly.
+
+This, by the way, was the first occasion on which I realised the truth
+of Robin's dictum that Dilly and Dolly were girls of widely different
+character.
+
+"And didn't the others recognise her?"
+
+"No. That's the best of it!"
+
+"Not Dicky?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not even Robin? He is pretty hard to deceive, you know."
+
+"No, not even Robin. _None_ of them know Good-night!"
+
+But she was wrong.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+THE POLICY OF THE CLOSED DOOR.
+
+
+Dilly's wedding took place the following summer, just before Parliament
+rose, and the resources of our establishment were strained to the
+uttermost to give her a fitting send-off.
+
+It is true that a noble relative, the head of my wife's family, offered
+his house for the reception, but Dilly emphatically declined to be
+married from any but mine, saying prettily that she would not leave the
+roof under which she had lived so happily until the last possible
+moment.
+
+Accordingly we made immense preparations. The drawing-room on the first
+floor, accustomed though it was to accommodate congested and
+half-stifled throngs of human beings, was deemed too small for the mob
+of wedding-guests whom Kitty expected.
+
+"You see, dear," she explained, "we can squash up _good_ people as much
+as we like, because their clothes don't matter; but women in
+wedding-frocks will be furious if they don't get enough elbow-room to
+show themselves."
+
+Accordingly a marquee was erected in the garden at the back of the
+house, opening into the dining-room through the French windows, and it
+was arranged that Dicky and Dilly were to take their stand in the middle
+of the same, what time the guests, having lubricated their utterance at
+the _buffet_ in the dining-room _en route_, filed past and delivered
+their congratulations. After that the company was to overflow into the
+garden, there to be moved by a concord of sweet sounds emanating from a
+band of assassins in pseudo-Hungarian uniforms.
+
+"And if it rains," concluded Kitty desperately, "they must have an
+overflow meeting in the basement--that's all!"
+
+My library, as I had feared, was appropriated for the presents, and for
+several days I transacted the business of State at the wash-hand-stand
+in my dressing-room, while a stream of callers, ranging from the members
+of a Working Men's Club in which Dilly was fitfully interested, down to
+an organisation of Kitty's whose exact title I can never recall (but
+which Dicky, on first seeing them, immediately summed up as "The Hundred
+Worst Women"), filed solemnly past rows of filigree coffee-services,
+silver-backed hair-brushes, and art pen-wipers.
+
+Of the bride-elect I saw little, and when I did, she was usually
+standing, in a state of considerable _deshabille_, amid a kneeling group
+of myrmidons, who, with mouths filled with pins and brows seamed with
+anxiety, were remorselessly building her into some edifice of shimmering
+silk and filmy lace, oblivious of their victim's plaintive intimations
+that she was fit to drop.
+
+Dicky invited Robin to be his best man, a proceeding which, while it
+roused some surprise among those who were expecting him to fix upon a
+friend of longer standing and greater distinction, showed his good
+sense, for my secretary proved himself a model of organisation and
+helpfulness. Although born and reared up in the straitest sect of some
+Scottish denomination, about which I am unable to particularise beyond
+the fact that they regarded the use of harmoniums in churches as "the
+worship of men's feet," he betrayed a surprising knowledge of Anglican
+ritual and stage effect.
+
+On the wedding morning, having left the bridegroom securely tucked up in
+bed, under strict orders not to get up till he was called, Robin
+personally conducted a select party of those interested--Dolly, Dilly,
+another bridesmaid, and myself--to the church, where he showed us the
+exact positions of our entrances and exits; and then proceeded, with the
+assistance of Dolly, to plant hassocks about the chancel in such a
+manner as to leave us no doubts as to the whereabouts of our moorings
+(or "stances," as he called them) at the actual ceremony.
+
+The party was reinforced at this point by the arrival of no less a
+person than the bridegroom, who, having risen from his slumbers in
+defiance of Robin's injunctions, was now proceeding to infringe the laws
+of propriety by coming in search of his beloved four hours before he was
+entitled to do so.
+
+However, as Dilly rather pessimistically pointed out, it was probably
+the last time she would ever get a kind word out of him, so we gave them
+ten minutes together in the porch, while Robin interviewed vergers and
+Dolly intimidated perspiring persons with red carpets and evergreens.
+
+On our return home Dilly was snatched away by a cloud of attendant
+sprites, and we saw her no more until the time came for me to drive her
+to the church. We heard of her, though; for as we sat at luncheon,
+plying the bridegroom (who had collapsed after the complete and
+inevitable fashion of his kind about twelve o'clock) with raw brandy, a
+message came down from the upper regions, to the effect that Miss Dilly
+would take a couple of veal cutlets and a glass of Burgundy, as she
+wasn't going to be a pale bride if she could help it!
+
+However, this half-hysterical gaiety came to an end in the face of
+reality, and in the carriage on the way to church poor Dilly wept
+unrestrainedly on my shoulder. I mopped her up to the best of my
+ability, but she was still sobbing when we reached the church door, to
+find the six bridesmaids, together with Phillis (inordinately proud of
+her office of train-bearer), preening themselves in the porch.
+
+It had been arranged that the organ should break into "The March of the
+Priests," from 'Athalie'--Dicky's petition in favour of an
+ecclesiastical rendering of "The Eton Boating Song" had been thrown out
+with ignominy--as the bridal procession entered the nave. Unfortunately
+the organ-loft was out of sight of the west door, by which we were to
+enter, and the conveyance of the starting-signal to the proper quarter
+at exactly the right moment was a matter of some difficulty. However,
+Robin's gift for stage-management was sufficient to meet the emergency.
+When all was ready Dolly calmly mounting the steps of the font to an
+eminence which commanded a precarious but sufficient view of the body of
+the church, briefly fluttered a scrap of lace handkerchief, and then
+stepped demurely down into her place at the head of the bridesmaids.
+Simultaneously the organ burst into the opening strains of Mendelsohn's
+march--I suppose Robin had been waiting at some point of vantage to pass
+the signal on--and we advanced up the aisle, amid a general turning of
+heads and flutter of excitement.
+
+The church was packed. In the back pew I remember noticing three young
+men with pads of flimsy paper and well-sucked pencils. I distinctly
+caught sight of the words "Sacred edifice" in the nearest MS., and I
+have no doubt the others contained it as well.
+
+But Dilly was still quaking on my arm, and the only other spectacle
+which attracted my attention on the way up the aisle was that of my wife
+(looking very like a bride herself, I thought), sitting in a front pew
+with Master Gerald, that infant phenomenon shining resplendently in a
+white waistcoat and a "buttonhole" which almost entirely obscured his
+features. Then I caught sight of Robin's towering shoulders and the pale
+face and glassy eye of the bridegroom, and I knew that we had brought
+our horses to the water at last, and all that now remained to do was to
+make them drink.
+
+The rest of the ceremony passed off with due impressiveness, if we
+except a slight _contretemps_ arising from the behaviour of my daughter,
+who, suddenly remembering that the junior bridesmaid but one had not yet
+passed any opinion on her new shoes, suddenly sat down on the bride's
+train, and, thrusting the shoes into unmaidenly prominence, audibly
+invited that giggling damsel's approbation of the same. However, the
+ever-ready organ drowned her utterance with a timely Amen, and Dicky and
+Dilly completed the plighting of their troth with becoming shyness but
+obvious sincerity.
+
+Then came the inevitable orgy of osculation in the vestry, from which I
+escaped with nothing worse, so to speak, than a few scratches, despite
+an unprovoked and unexpected flank attack (when I was signing the
+register) from an elderly female in bugles, whom I at first took to be a
+rather giddy pew-opener, but who ultimately proved to be a maiden aunt
+of the bridegroom's.
+
+After Dicky and Dilly--the latter miraculously restored to high spirits
+and looking radiant--had passed smiling and blushing down the aisle, to
+be received outside with breathless stares by a large assemblage of that
+peculiar class of people--chiefly females of a certain age--who seem to
+spend their lives in attending the weddings of total strangers, we all
+got home, where there was much champagne, and cake-cutting, and
+bride-kissing, and melody from the aforementioned musicians in the
+garden.
+
+The presents--guarded with an air of studied aloofness by a
+wooden-jointed detective, clad in garments of such festal splendour as
+to delude several short-sighted old gentlemen into an impression that he
+was the bridegroom--played their usual invaluable part in promoting
+circulation among the guests, and supplying a topic for conversation.
+They certainly sparkled and glittered bravely in the library, where the
+blinds were drawn and the electric lamps turned on. (Kitty had seen to
+that. Silver looks so well by artificial light, and so, by a happy and
+unpremeditated coincidence, does the female sex.)
+
+The bride and bridegroom departed at last, amid a shower of rice, with
+that emblem of conjugal felicity, the satin slipper, firmly adhering to
+the back of the brougham. (Master Gerald had seen to _that_.) Then the
+guests began to make their adieux and melt away, and presently we found
+ourselves alone in the marquee, a prey to that swift and penetrating
+melancholy that descends upon those who begin to be festive too early in
+the day, and find themselves unable to keep it up till bed-time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+However, there was a recrudescence of activity and brightness in the
+evening, as the idea of a small dance had been proposed and carried, and
+the invitations issued and accepted, during the five minutes which
+witnessed the departure of the more intimate section of the guests.
+
+When I returned from the House about midnight--I had gone there chiefly
+to dine, as lobster claws and melted ices appeared to be the only fare
+in prospect at home--tired to death, and conscious of an incipient cold
+in the head, arising from forced residence in a house in which hardly a
+door had been on its hinges for three days, I became aware that I was
+once again the lessee of a cave of harmony.
+
+The pseudo-Hungarian assassins were pounding out the latest waltz, with
+a disregard for time and tune which I at first attributed to champagne,
+but which a closer survey proved to be due to the fact that the band was
+being conducted, surprising as it may seem, by my brother-in-law, who
+had kindly undertaken to wield the _baton_, while the Chief Tormentor
+(or whatever his proper title may have been) charged himself anew at the
+refreshment counter. A popping of corks in the supper-room apprised me
+of the fact that my guests were doing their best, at my expense, to make
+the Excise Returns a more cheerful feature of next year's Budget.
+
+I went upstairs in search of a white waistcoat and one or two other
+necessary contributions to the festivity of the evening, picking my way
+with the utmost care among the greatly-engrossed couples who impeded
+every step; and finally arrived at my dressing-room, to find that that
+hallowed apartment had been turned into a ladies' cloak-room, and that
+every available article of furniture stood elbow-deep under some
+attractive combination of furs and feathers.
+
+I unearthed the things I required, but lacked the courage to stay and
+put them on. At any moment I might be invaded by a damsel who had met
+with some mishap in the heat of the fray, and was now desirous, as they
+say in the navy, of "executing repairs while under steam." I accordingly
+left the room and mounted towards the top of the house. I had in my
+mind's eye a snug little apartment, situated somewhere in the attics,
+devoted chiefly to dressmaking operations, where I knew there was a
+mirror, and I might complete my toilet in peace.
+
+With becoming modesty I penetrated to this haven by the back-stairs. I
+had just reached the top, which was opposite the door in question, when
+I heard voices. Evidently some one was coming up to this same landing by
+the front stair.
+
+A man does not look his best when found creeping up his own back-stairs
+with a white waistcoat in one hand and a pair of pumps in the other, and
+I confess I retreated downwards and backwards a couple of paces. The
+stair on which I stood was unlighted, and I had a good view of the
+landing.
+
+The voices came nearer, and I could now hear the rustling of silks and
+laces. Presently I recognised the voices, and immediately after this
+their owners came into view, with their backs almost towards me.
+
+"This is the room I mean," said the man, indicating my goal.
+
+"That! All right! Only I don't see why you should drag me all the way up
+here," said the girl. "There are much nicer sitting-out places
+downstairs. Still, anything for a rest. Come on!"
+
+She entered the room, followed by her partner. I saw his broad back for
+a moment as it filled the doorway. Then he turned in my direction with
+his hand on the handle, and it seemed to me that he hesitated a moment.
+
+Finally he shut the door firmly, and--I distinctly heard the key turned
+in the lock.
+
+I went downstairs again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was four o'clock in the morning. The last guest had gone, the
+domestics had retired to their subterranean retreat, and the musicians
+had all been booked through to Saffron Hill in one cab.
+
+The dawn was just breaking over the house-tops on the other side of the
+square, and the sky was bathed in a curious heather-coloured light--a
+sure sign of a wet day to come, said hill-bred Robin. We stood out on
+the steps,--Kitty, Dolly, Robin, and I,--and Kitty put her arm round her
+sister's waist. I knew she was thinking of the absent Dilly.
+
+Behind us, in the hall, Master Gerald, completely surfeited with about
+sixteen crowded hours of glorious life, lay fast asleep on a settee.
+
+I looked curiously at Dolly as she leaned on her sister's shoulder. She
+was half a head taller than Kitty, and as she stood there, rosily
+flushed, in the dawn of her splendid womanhood, she might have stood for
+the very goddess whose first rays were now falling on her upturned face
+and glinting hair.
+
+Then I looked at Robin, towering beside her, and suddenly I felt a
+little ashamed of myself.
+
+For to tell the truth I had been very unhappy that evening, and I had
+been looking forward in a few minutes' time to unburdening myself to
+Kitty about recent events. But as I surveyed Dolly and Robin, curiously
+alike in their upright carriage and steady gaze, I suddenly realised
+that such a pair could safely be trusted to steer their own course; and
+I decided there and then not to communicate even to Kitty--my wife and
+Dolly's sister--the knowledge of what I had seen that night.
+
+Kitty turned impulsively to her sister.
+
+"After all, I've still got _you_, Dolly," she said.
+
+I took a furtive glance at Robin's inscrutable countenance.
+
+"I--_wonder_!" I said to myself.
+
+"What, dear?" said Kitty.
+
+"Nothing. I must carry this young ruffian up to bed, I suppose."
+
+Curiosity has been most unfairly ear-marked as the exclusive monopoly of
+the female sex. But as I stumbled upstairs that night, bearing in my
+arms the limp but stertorous carcase of my esteemed relative by
+marriage, I could not help wondering (despite my efforts to put away
+from me a matter which I had decided was not my business) exactly what
+Robin _had_ said to Dolly behind that locked door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+ROBIN'S WAY OF DOING IT.
+
+
+What happened when Robin locked the door on himself and Dolly is now set
+down here. Strictly speaking it ought to come later, but there is no
+need to make a mystery about it. I have taken the account of the
+proceedings mainly from the letter which Dolly wrote to Dilly three days
+later.
+
+It would be useless to reproduce that document in full. In the first
+place, it contains a good deal that is not only irrelevant but
+absolutely incomprehensible. There is one mysterious passage, for
+instance, occurring right in the middle of the letter, beginning, _To
+turn the heel, knit to three beyond the seam-stitch, knit two together,
+purl one, turn: then knit ten, knit two together, knit one, purl one_
+... introduced by an airy, "By the way, dear, before I forget"----which
+appears to have no bearing on the context whatever.
+
+In the second place, Dolly's literary style is as breathlessly devoid of
+punctuation as that of most of her sex. Commas and notes of
+interrogation form her chief stock-in-trade, though underlining is
+freely employed. There is not a single full-stop from start to finish.
+The extracts from the letter here reproduced have been edited by me.
+Other details of the incident have been tactfully extracted by Kitty and
+myself--chiefly Kitty, I must confess--from the principals themselves,
+and the whole is now offered to the public, unabridged, with marginal
+comments, for the first time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On entering the little room on the landing Dolly dropped on to a shabby
+but comfortable old sofa behind the door, and said, with a contented
+sigh--
+
+"I'm so tired, Robin. Aren't you? Let's sit down and not talk till it's
+time to go downstairs again. It's--Robin, what _are_ you doing?"
+
+Robin was locking the door.
+
+That operation completed, he turned and looked round the little room.
+There was an arm-chair in the corner, but he came and sat down on the
+sofa beside Dolly. Dolly gazed at him dumbly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "He looked so utterly grim and determined" [says the letter], "that my
+  heart began to bump in a perfectly fatuous way. I felt like a woman
+  who is going to be murdered in a railway tunnel.
+
+  "He sat down, and one of his huge hands was suddenly stretched towards
+  me, and I thought at first he was trying to grab one of mine. I did my
+  best to edge away along the sofa, but I was up against the end
+  already.
+
+  "Then his hand opened, and something dropped into my lap. It was the
+  key of the door.
+
+  "'I have locked it,' he said, 'not with any intention of keeping you
+  in, but in the hope of keeping other people out. You are perfectly
+  free to get up and go whenever you please, if you don't wish to listen
+  to what I have to say.'
+
+  "Well, dear, I suppose I ought to have risen to my full height, and,
+  with a few superb gestures of haughty contempt, have swept
+  majestically from the room. But--I didn't! I saw I was in for another
+  proposal, and as the man couldn't eat me I decided to let him do his
+  worst.
+
+  "It was a weird proposal, though." [_Spelt 'wierd.'_] "It wasn't
+  exactly what he said, because one is never surprised at anything a
+  man may say when he is proposing; but the way he said it. All men
+  say pretty much the same thing in the end, but most of them are so
+  _horribly_ nervous that they simply don't know what they're talking
+  about for the first five minutes or so. (Do you remember poor little
+  Algy Brock? He was nearly _crying_ all the time. At least he was
+  with me, and I suppose he was with you too.) But Robin might have
+  been having a chat with his solicitor the way he behaved. I'll tell
+  you..."
+
+Robin apparently began by telling Dolly, quite simply and plainly, that
+he loved her. Then he gave a brief outline of the history of his
+affection. It had begun at the very beginning of things, he said, almost
+as soon as he discovered that he could distinguish Dolly from Dilly
+without the aid of the brown spot. "And that was after I had been in the
+house just three days," he added.
+
+For some time, it appeared, he had been content to be pleasantly in
+love. He enjoyed Dolly's society when it came his way, but with native
+caution he had taken care to avoid seeking too much of it in case he
+should gradually find himself unable to do without it.
+
+"I saw from the first," he said, "that you were entirely unconscious of
+my feelings towards you; and I would not have had it otherwise. If I was
+to succeed at all it must be as an acquired taste; and acquired tastes,
+as you know, are best formed unconsciously."
+
+Dolly nodded to show her detached appreciation of the soundness of this
+point.
+
+"I permitted myself one indulgence," Robin continued. "I dedicated a
+book to you."
+
+"O-oh!" said Dolly, genuinely interested. "Was that me? Dilly and I
+thought it must be a girl in Scotland."
+
+Then she realised that this was a step down from her pedestal of
+aloofness, and was silent again. Robin went on--
+
+"Yes, it was you. It was a sentimental thing to do, but it afforded me
+immense pleasure. Love lives more on the homage it pays than that which
+it receives. Have you noticed that?"
+
+"I have never thought about it," said Dolly distantly.
+
+"I thought not," replied Robin; "because it shows, what I have always
+been tolerably certain of, that you have never been in love. However, to
+resume." [_"Like a lecture on Greek Roots, or something equally fusty,"_
+observes Dolly at this point.] "The time came, as it was bound to come,
+when I realised that I must tell you I loved you"----
+
+  "I rather like the way he always said _'love'_ straight out," comments
+  Dolly: "most men are so frightened of it. They say 'am fond of' or
+  'care for' or something feeble like that. All except the curate with
+  pink eyes. (You remember him? Dora Claverton took him afterwards on
+  the rebound.) He said 'esteem highly' I think."
+
+----"or leave this house altogether. But before doing that I had to
+decide two things: firstly, whether I was good enough for you, and
+secondly, if not now, whether I ever should be."
+
+Dolly's half-closed eyes opened a trifle wider. This was certainly a
+methodically-minded young man.
+
+"It was difficult to decide the first question in practice," continued
+Robin. "In theory, of course, any man who is a _man_--honest, clean, and
+kind--is a fitting mate for any woman. Don't you think so?"
+
+"No," said Dolly.
+
+"I see," said Robin gently. "The theoretical is mainly the man's point
+of view: woman looks straight to practical results. She is rather
+inclined to take the virtues I have mentioned for granted, or do without
+them; and she founds her opinion of a man almost solely upon his
+capacity for boring her or stimulating her. In other words, she is
+guided by her instinct. Isn't she?"
+
+"Is she?" said Dolly, determined this time to maintain her attitude of
+indifference.
+
+"I think so," said Robin. "However, knowing how impossible it is for one
+sex to look at a matter from the point of view of another, I decided to
+stick to my own methods. So I made a summary of my points, good and bad.
+They are these: I am strong and healthy; I possess an appetite for hard
+work; I was born with brains; I have considerable capacity for
+organisation----"
+
+"Some people have a good conceit of themselves!" said Dolly.
+
+"_Every_ one should have," replied Robin with conviction. "And," he
+added, "most of us have. _I_ have--_you_ have!"
+
+"Oh!" said Dolly indignantly.
+
+"But a man may have a good conceit of himself," Robin continued
+soothingly, "without being what the world calls conceited. Modesty
+consists not in taking a low estimate of one's own worth, but in
+refraining from the expectation that the world will take a high one."
+
+Dolly nodded gravely.
+
+"I see," she said. "I didn't know you meant that. Yes, there is
+something in what you say."
+
+"I thank you," said Robin. "It is very helpful to me to get this
+courteous hearing from you; for to tell you the truth," he added rather
+explosively, "I find it a very, very great effort to speak to you like
+this at all. You see, I am talking of things that go right to the centre
+of the human heart--things that a man never speaks of to a man, and only
+once to a woman. It has to be done, but it is hard, hard!"
+
+He drew a long breath, in a manner which made the sofa tremble; and
+Dolly suddenly realised the height and depth of the barrier of reserve
+and pride that this grave and undemonstrative man had had to break down
+before he could offer her the view of his inmost soul to which he
+considered that she was entitled. She felt a sudden pang of awe, mingled
+with compassionate sympathy. She was not given to wearing her heart on
+her sleeve herself.
+
+"Well," continued Robin, evidently relieved by this little confession,
+"those are my assets. On the other hand, I have no money, no position--I
+will not say no birth, for I come of good, honest stock--and my
+prospects are at present in the clouds. But to one type of wife all that
+would not matter a scrap. There are two types, you know--two types of
+_good_ wife, that is."
+
+  "I would have given worlds," says Dolly here, "just to have said 'Oh!'
+  or something; but for the life of me I couldn't help asking what the
+  two types were."
+
+"The first," said Robin, "is the wife who loves her husband because she
+is proud of him, because he is successful and powerful, and people
+admire him; and not because she has any conception of or sympathy with
+the qualities which have made him what he is. To such a one the husband
+must come with his reputation ready made, and they will enjoy it
+together. The other type loves her husband because she sees through him,
+yet believes in him and sympathises with his aims, and intends to make a
+success of him. And she usually does."
+
+"And which am I?" inquired Dolly.
+
+"The latter, undoubtedly--the higher type. And therefore, if there had
+been nothing else in the way, I think I should have given myself the
+benefit of the doubt. But----"
+
+  "He turned and looked at me here," writes Dolly, and said--
+
+  "'But your feminine instinct is chafing against all this laborious
+  weighing of pros and cons. In your own mind you summed up the
+  situation ten minutes ago. I am--"impossible." Isn't that it?'
+
+  "My _dear_, I nearly _screamed_, for of course that is just what was
+  in my mind. But I couldn't very well say so, so I just sat there and
+  looked rather idiotic and he went on--
+
+  "'In other words, I am not quite a gentleman.'
+
+  "Then I said quite suddenly--
+
+  "'Robin, whatever else you may be, you _are_ a gentleman.'
+
+  "He got quite pink. 'Thank you,' he said. 'But for all that, I am too
+  rough a suitor for such a polished little aristocrat as yourself.'
+  (Rather cheek, that! After all, Dilly, we're five feet seven.) 'We
+  live in an artificial sort of world; and a man, in order not to jar on
+  those around him, requires certain social accomplishments. I have
+  few--at present. You have taught me a great deal, but I should still
+  rather discredit you as a husband. My want of polish would 'affront'
+  you, as we say in Scotland. I am a better beater than shot; I can
+  break a horse better than I can ride it; and I dance a reel better
+  than I waltz. I have strength, but no grace; ability, but no
+  distinction. Of course, if you and I really loved each other--you
+  being of Type Two--none of these things would matter. But for all
+  that, it would hurt you to see people smiling at your husband's little
+  _gaucheries_, wouldn't it?'
+
+  "I didn't answer, and he got up and went and leaned against the
+  mantelpiece.
+
+  "'Listen,' he said, 'and I will tell you what I have decided to do. I
+  have made up my mind not to have a try for you--badly though I want
+  it--till I consider that I have reached your standard. I fixed that
+  standard myself, so it is a very, very high one, I have been schooling
+  myself and shaping myself to attain it ever since I met you. But I
+  have not quite reached it yet, and therefore I have nothing to ask of
+  you now.'"
+
+"Then what on earth have you brought me here for?" inquired Dolly,
+feeling vaguely aggrieved.
+
+Robin surveyed her rather wistfully, and then smiled in a disarming
+fashion.
+
+"That was weakness," he said, "sheer weakness. But I think it was
+pardonable. I saw, now that your sister was married, that the days of
+your old irresponsible flirtations were over, and that you would
+henceforth regard proposals of marriage as much more serious things than
+hitherto. Consequently you might marry any day, without ever knowing
+that a little later on you would have received an offer from me. I have
+brought you here, then, to tell you that I am a prospective candidate,
+but that I do not feel qualified to put down my name at present. Ideally
+speaking, I ought to have kept silence until the moment when I
+considered that I was ready for you; but--well, there are limits to
+self-repression, and I have allowed myself this one little outbreak. All
+I ask, then, is that in considering other offers you will bear somewhere
+in the back of your mind the remembrance that you will, if you desire
+it, one day have the refusal of me. I admit that the possibility of your
+being influenced by the recollection is very remote, but I am going to
+leave nothing undone that _can_ be done to get you."
+
+  "By this time," Dolly continues elegantly, "I was getting considerably
+  flummoxed. The whole business was very absurd and uncomfortable, but I
+  couldn't help feeling rather complimented at the way he evidently
+  regarded me--as a sort of little tin goddess on a pedestal out of
+  reach, being asked to be so good as to stand still a moment while
+  Robin went to hunt for the steps--and I also felt a little bit afraid
+  of him. He was so quiet and determined over it all. He seemed to have
+  it all mapped out in a kind of time-table inside him. However, I
+  pulled myself together and decided to contribute my share to the
+  conversation. I hadn't had much of a look in, so far.
+
+  "So I settled down to talk to him like a mother. I began by saying
+  that I was very much obliged and honoured, and all that, but that he
+  had better put the idea out of his head once and for all. I liked him
+  very much, and had always regarded him as a great friend, quite one of
+  the family--you know the sort of stuff--but----
+
+  "It was no good. He held up his hand like a policeman at a crossing,
+  and said--
+
+  "'Please say nothing. I have asked you no question of any kind, so no
+  answer is required. All that I have said to-night has been in the
+  nature of an _intimation_.' (O-h! how like church!)
+
+  "Then he sat down on the sofa beside me, very gently, and said--
+
+  "'The intimation in brief is this. I love you; and some day, please
+  God, I shall ask you to marry me. But not until I feel that you would
+  lose nothing by doing so.'
+
+  "We both sat very still for a few minutes after that. I fancy we were
+  both doing a little thinking. My chief reflection was that Robin had
+  had rather the better of the interview, because he had made me listen
+  to him when I was determined not to. Suddenly Robin said--
+
+  "'Now that the business part of this conversation is over, I am going
+  to allow myself a luxury. I have been talking most of the time about
+  myself. For just five minutes I shall talk about you. I will tell you
+  what I think of you.'
+
+  "He looked at his watch and began. Dilly, I had no idea I had so many
+  good points! He put them better than any man has ever done before. But
+  then the other men were always so jumbled up, and this creature was as
+  cool and collected as if he were reading a Stores Catalogue.
+
+  "But he let himself go at last. It was my fault, though. I was in
+  rather a twitter by this time, for although the whole thing was simply
+  absurd--of course one couldn't marry a wild untamed creature like
+  that, _could_ one, Dilly?--I couldn't help seeing what a man he was,
+  and feeling sorry that things couldn't have been a bit different, if
+  only for his sake. So I gave him my hand" [I can see her do it] "and
+  said: 'Poor old Robin!'
+
+  "He _seized_ it--my child, it has waggled like a blanc-mange ever
+  since!--and kissed it. Then, quite suddenly, he broke out into a sort
+  of rhapsody-like _'The Song of Solomon,'_ only nicer--with his head
+  bowed over my hands. (He had got hold of the other one too, by this
+  time.) I felt perfectly helpless, so I let him run on. I shan't tell
+  you what he said, dear, because it wouldn't be cricket. Anyhow, a
+  perfectly idiotic tear suddenly rolled down my nose--after all, I had
+  had a _fearfully_ long day--and I tried to pull my hands away. Robin
+  let them go at once.
+
+  "'You are right. The time for such things is not yet,' he said, in a
+  queer Biblical sort of way. 'It was a sudden weakness on my part. I
+  had not meant it, you may be sure.'
+
+  "The only thing I _am_ sure about," I said, feeling thoroughly vexed
+  about the tear, "is that we have been in this room nearly an hour.
+  Please unlock the door.
+
+  "Then we went downstairs."
+
+After that follow one or two postscripts of a reflective nature, the
+general trend of which seems to indicate that Robin is rather a dear,
+but quite impossible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"A flippant and unfeeling letter," you say, sir? Perhaps. But there is
+often no reserve so deep or so delicate as that which is veiled by a
+frivolous exterior and a mocking attitude towards sentiment in general.
+Some sensitive people are so afraid of having their hearts dragged to
+light that, to escape inquisition, they pretend they do not possess any.
+Moreover, I know Dolly well enough to be certain that she was not quite
+so brutally unkind to Robin during this interview as she would have us
+believe.
+
+"The blundering creature! He went about it in _quite_ the wrong way,"
+you say, madam? Very likely. But if a woman only took a man when he went
+about it in exactly the right way, how very few marriages there would
+be!
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO.
+
+THE FINISHED ARTICLE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+A MISFIRE.
+
+I.
+
+
+There is an undefinable character and distinctiveness about Sunday
+morning which is not possessed by any other day of the week.
+
+Not that the remaining six are lacking in individuality. Monday is a
+depressed and reluctant individual; Tuesday is a full-blooded and
+energetic citizen; Wednesday a cheerful and contented gentleman who does
+not intend to overwork himself to-day,--this is probably due to the fact
+that we used to have a half-holiday on Wednesdays at school; and when I
+got into Parliament I found that the same rule held there; Thursday I
+regard as one who ploughs steadily on his way, lacking enthusiasm but
+comfortably conscious of a second wind; Friday is a debilitated but
+hopeful toiler, whose sole joy in his work lies in anticipating its
+speedy conclusion; and Saturday is a radiant fellow with a straw hat and
+a week-end bag.
+
+Still, one week-day is very like another at waking time. My mental
+vision, never pellucid, is in its most opaque condition in the early
+grey of the morning; and at Oxford, I remember, I found it necessary to
+instruct my scout to rouse me from slumber in some such fashion as this:
+"Eight o'clock on Thursday mornin', sir!" (as if I had slept since
+Monday at least), or "'Alf-past nine, slight rain, and a Toosday, sir!"
+
+However, no one was ever yet needed to inform me that it was Sunday
+morning. This is perhaps natural enough in town, where the silence of
+the streets and the sound of bells proclaim the day; but why the same
+phenomenon should occur in the middle of a Highland moor, where every
+day is one glorious open-air Sabbath, passes my comprehension.
+
+I discussed the problem after breakfast as I sat and smoked my pipe in
+the heathery garden of Strathmyrtle, a shooting-lodge at which we were
+being hospitably entertained by Kitty's uncle, Sir John Rubislaw, a
+retired Admiral of the Fleet, whose forty years' official connection
+with Britannia's realm betrayed itself in a nautical roll, syncopated by
+gout, and what I may describe as a hurricane-deck voice. My three
+companions in the debate were my host, Master Gerald, and another guest
+in the house, one Dermott, an officer in a Highland regiment.
+
+The Admiral ascribed my Sabbath intuition to the working of some inward
+and automatic monitor; while Dermott, among whose many sterling
+qualities delicate fancy was not included, put it down to the smell of
+some special dish indigenous to Sunday breakfast. My brother-in-law's
+contribution to the debate was an unseemly and irreverent parallel
+between Saturday night potations and Sunday morning "heads."
+
+To us entered Dolly and Phillis.
+
+Our hostess, together with Kitty and the other girl of the party--an
+American young lady of considerable personal attractions--had driven off
+to church in what is locally called a "machine." The duties of escort
+had been voluntarily undertaken by an undergraduate named Standish, who
+was the latest recruit to the American young lady's army of worshippers.
+The rest of us had stayed at home--the Admiral because he not
+infrequently did so; I because I was expecting Robin back by the
+"machine" (which was to pick him up at a wayside station, where he had
+been sitting on his portmanteau ever since six o'clock that morning,
+having been dropped there by the night mail from London), and was
+anticipating two or three hours' solid work with him; Gerald because he
+had succeeded in evading his eldest sister's eye during the search for
+church recruits; Dolly to look after Phillis; and Captain Dermott for
+reasons not unconnected with Dolly.
+
+It was Phillis's birthday, but out of consideration for Scottish views
+on Sabbath observance the festivities in connection with that
+anniversary had been postponed until the morrow. However, this did not
+prevent my daughter from demanding (and obtaining) various special
+privileges of an unofficial character this hot Sunday morning.
+Consequently a spiritually willing but carnally incompetent band,
+consisting of one jovial but arthritic baronet, one docile but
+self-conscious warrior, one indulgent but overheated parent, and
+Dolly--Gerald stood scornfully aloof--were compelled to devote the next
+two hours to a series of games, stage-plays, and allegories of an
+innocuous but exhausting description.
+
+We began by joining hands and walking in a circle, solemnly chanting a
+ditty of the "I-saw-a-ship-a-sailing" variety, which culminated in the
+following verse--
+
+  "Then three times round went that gallant ship,
+     Then three times round went she;
+   Then three times round went that gallant ship--
+
+(Here we were commanded by the mistress of the revels, in a hoarse and
+hurried stage whisper, to be ready to fall down)
+
+  --And sank to the bottom--of--the--sea!"
+
+"Now all fall down!" screamed Phillis.
+
+We did so, and lay on the grass in serried heaps. The remark which the
+Admiral made when my left elbow descended upon his goutiest foot was
+fortunately obscured by the fact that his face was inside his hat at the
+moment.
+
+After that we performed the "most lamentable comedy" of "The Three
+Bears." Phillis assigned the parts, reserving for herself the _role_ of
+Curly Locks and Stage Manager. Dolly was cast for Mother Bear, Captain
+Dermott for Father Bear, and I for Baby Bear. The Admiral, at his own
+urgent request, was allotted the comparatively unimportant part of Baby
+Bear's bed, and sat nursing his foot and observing with keen relish the
+preparations of the Bear family for their morning walk. We set out at
+last, all three on our hands and knees, Dolly and Dermott crawling
+amicably side by side, heroically regardless of white skirt and Sunday
+sporran; I, as befitted my youth and station, bringing up the rear.
+
+The Bears having vacated their domicile (the grass plot), Curly Locks,
+after much furtive peeping round bushes, entered and advanced to the
+rustic table, where she proceeded to test the contents of the various
+porridge-bowls (represented by two tobacco-pouches and an ash-tray
+respectively).
+
+"Too hot!" she said, after sampling the first bowl.
+
+"Too cold!" she continued, trying the next.
+
+"A-a-ah!" she cried, coming to the third; and swallowed its contents
+(some heather-tops) with every appearance of enjoyment.
+
+After that came the inspection of the beds (two sofa-cushions and the
+Admiral), and finally Curly Locks retired to rest on her grand-uncle's
+knee.
+
+Then the Three Bears came painfully back from the shrubbery, and Curly
+Locks' acts of spoliation were revealed one by one. My assumption of
+grief on the discovery of my empty porridge-bowl was so realistic that
+the Stage Manager sat up in bed and commended me for it. Finally we went
+the round of the furniture; Curly Locks was duly discovered; and I was
+engaged in a life-and-death struggle for her shrieking person with the
+bed itself, when there was a crunching of gravel, and the "machine"
+drove up with Robin inside it.
+
+After my secretary had greeted those of us whom he knew, and been
+interrupted in the middle of a rapturous embrace from Phillis to be
+introduced to those whom he did not, I took him off indoors for a meal,
+through the breakfast-room window, and opened the portfolio of
+correspondence which he had brought me from London.
+
+"Hallo! Here is a letter for Dermott," I said. "I'll take it to him."
+
+I stepped through the window and handed the letter to Dermott, who was
+falling into line for a fresh game just outside.
+
+"That envelope looks terribly official," said Dolly. "What does it all
+mean?"
+
+"I expect it means Aldershot," said Dermott ruefully. "However, I shan't
+open it till lunch-time." And he stuffed the offending epistle into his
+pocket, and returned to the game in hand with a zest and abandon that
+betrayed ulterior motives in every antic.
+
+We had seen a good deal of Captain Dermott that summer. Somehow he had
+been in nearly every house we had visited; and his laborious expressions
+of pleased surprise at meeting us there had now given way to specious
+and transparent explanations of his own presence. The experts at
+countless tea-tables and shooting-lunches were practically unanimous in
+the opinion that Dolly could land her fish when she chose now; and as
+the fish was a good fellow, and could offer her three thousand a-year
+and the reflected glory of a D.S.O., it was generally conceded that my
+youngest sister-in-law--have I ever mentioned that Dolly was the junior
+Twin?--was about to do extremely well for herself.
+
+I sat by Robin as he consumed his breakfast, and waded through my
+correspondence. There was a good deal to sign and a good deal to digest,
+and a good deal that was of no importance whatsoever. But the _clou_ of
+the whole budget was contained in a private letter from my Chief. I read
+it.
+
+"My word, Robin!" I said. "There's to be a Dissolution in January."
+
+There was no answer, and I looked up.
+
+Robin was not listening. His attention had wandered to the game in
+progress on the lawn. This was one of Phillis' most cherished pastimes,
+and was called "Beckoning." The players, except the person who for the
+time being filled the _role_ of "It," stood patiently in a row, until
+"It," after mature consideration, beckoned invitingly to one of them to
+approach. This invitation might or might not be a genuine one, for
+sometimes the player on responding was received by the beckoner with
+hisses and other symptoms of distaste, and fell back ignominiously on
+the main body. But if you were the _real_ object of the beckoner's
+affections, you were greeted with embraces and a cry of "I choose you!"
+and succeeded to the proud post of "It."
+
+It was a simple but embarrassing game, calling for the exercise of
+considerable tact when played by adults. At the present moment Phillis
+was beckoner, while Dolly, Dermott, and the Admiral stood meekly in line
+awaiting selection. Dolly and the Admiral were each called without being
+chosen, and Phillis's final selection proved to be Dermott, who, having
+received an enthusiastic salute from the retiring president, now stood
+sheepishly on one leg surveying the expectant trio before him.
+
+He began by beckoning to his host; and, having relieved that gentleman's
+apprehensions by sibilant noises, waggled a nervous finger at Dolly.
+Dolly advanced obediently.
+
+"Choose her, if you like," said Phillis magnanimously.
+
+Dermott's martial eye kindled, but he made no sign, and the game
+faltered in its stride for a moment.
+
+"Say," interpolated the prompter, "'I choose you!' and then k----"
+
+But Dermott, hastily emitting a hiss which must have cost him a
+heartrending effort, relegated the greatly relieved Dolly to the ranks,
+and smoothed over the situation by "choosing" my daughter, to that young
+person's undisguised gratification.
+
+It was at this phase in the proceedings that Robin's attention began to
+wander from the affairs of State, and I had to repeat my news of the
+impending Dissolution to him twice before he grasped its full
+significance. Even then he displayed about one-tenth of the excitement I
+should have expected of him; and finally he admitted that he was
+somewhat _derange_ after his night journey, and suggested a postponement
+of business in favour of a little recreation on the lawn.
+
+We accordingly added ourselves to the party, just in time to join the
+cast of Phillis' next production. This was an ambitious but complicated
+drama of an allegorical type, in which Robin appeared--not for the first
+time, evidently--as a boy called Henry, and Phillis doubled the parts of
+Henry's mother and a fairy. These two _roles_ absorbed practically the
+whole of what is professionally known as "the fat" of the piece, and the
+other members of the company were relegated--to their ill-disguised
+relief--to parts of purely nominal importance.
+
+The curtain rose (if I may use the expression) upon Henry's humble home,
+where Henry was discovered partaking of breakfast (fir-cones). He
+complained bitterly to his mother of the hardship of _(a)_ early rising,
+_(b)_ going to school, and _(c)_ enduring chastisement when he got
+there. The next scene revealed him in class, where the schoolmaster
+(Dolly, assiduously prompted by Phillis) asked him a series of
+questions, which he answered so incorrectly as to incur the extreme
+penalty of "the muckle tawse." (Here what textual critics term "internal
+evidence of a later hand" peeped out unmistakably.) The punishment
+having been duly inflicted by Dolly with a rug-strap, Henry retired,
+suffused with tears, to "a mountain-top," where he gave vent to a series
+of bitter reflections on the hardness of his lot and the hollowness of
+life in general.
+
+He must have "gagged" unduly here, for presently he was cut short by a
+stern admonition to "wish for a fairy."
+
+"I wish for a fairy," said Henry dutifully.
+
+Phillis, given her cue at last, pirouetted before him with outstretched
+skirts.
+
+"Go on!" she whispered excitedly. "Say, 'I wish that all Pain was
+Pleasure and all Pleasure Pain.'"
+
+"Oh, sorry!" said Henry. "I wish that all Pain was Pleasure and Pleasure
+Pain."
+
+"Have then thy wish!" announced the fairy solemnly, and fluttered away.
+
+The drama thereafter pursued a remorselessly logical and improving
+course. Having got his wish, the luckless Henry found that his only
+moments of pleasure were those during which he was enduring the tawse,
+getting out of bed on a cold morning, or doing something equally
+unpleasant. On the other hand, his comfortable bed had become so painful
+that he could only obtain rest by filling it with stones; and his
+matutinal porridge was only made palatable by the addition of a handful
+of gravel.
+
+After a fruitless interview with the family physician (Captain Dermott),
+in which the patient's mother set forth her offspring's symptoms with
+embarrassing frankness, Henry was compelled, as a last resort, to pay
+one more visit to the mountain-top. The indulgent fairy kindly agreed to
+put things right, but only under penalty of an improving homily on
+contentment with one's lot and the fatuity of asking for what you do not
+really want. This was only half finished when the party returned from
+church, and Phillis, realising that the absolute despotism of the last
+few hours would now be watered down by an unsentimental mother into a
+limited monarchy at the best, retired within her shell and declared the
+revels at an end.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+"What was the church like?" I inquired at lunch.
+
+"I have witnessed more snappy entertainments," remarked Miss Buncle, the
+American girl, through her pretty nose. "Still, we smiled some. Mr
+Standish here got quite delirious when the minister prayed for 'the
+adjacent country of England, which, as Thou knowest, O Lord, lies some
+twa hundred miles to the sooth of us,'--I'm sorry I can't talk Scotch,
+Mr Fordyce,--as if he was afraid that Providence might mail the blessing
+to the wrong address and Iceland would get it."
+
+Kitty broke in upon Miss Buncle's reminiscences.
+
+"Who do you think we saw in church?" she said. "I nearly forgot to tell
+you. Your uncle, Robin--Sir James Fordyce!"
+
+Robin nodded his head in a confirmatory way.
+
+"He is often up here at this time of year," he said.
+
+"He has friends here, perhaps?" said I.
+
+"Oh yes; he has friends."
+
+I could tell from Robin's voice that he was nursing some immense joke,
+but he betrayed no inclination to share it with us. Kitty went on.
+
+"He was sitting in a pew with some farmery-looking people. There was a
+patriarchal old man, very stately and imposing, rather like--like----"
+
+"Moses?" I suggested.
+
+"No. I don't _think_ Moses was like that."
+
+I had got as far as 'Aar'--when Lady Rubislaw said--
+
+"Elijah?"
+
+"That's it," replied Kitty. "_Just_ like Elijah." (All things
+considered, I cannot imagine why Moses would not have done as well.)
+"Then beside him was a perfectly dear old lady. Not so very old either;
+say sixty. Of course they may not have belonged to Sir James at all: he
+may just have been put in their pew. Still, they kept handing him
+Bibles, and looking up places for him at singing time."
+
+"That means nothing," said I. "It's the merest courtesy here."
+
+"True," said our hostess. "I was having a most lovely little doze during
+the Second Lesson, or whatever they call it, when a most officious young
+woman three or four pews away took up an enormous Bible, found the
+place, squeaked down the aisle, and thrust it under my nose. I had to
+hold it up for fifty-seven verses," she concluded pathetically.
+
+"Did you go and speak to Sir James after the service?" I inquired.
+
+"No. That was _this_ child's fault," said Kitty, indicating Miss Buncle.
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well, there was a rather gorgeous-looking chieftain sort of person
+sitting in a front pew, and I saw Maimie twisting her head all during
+the service to look at him."
+
+"Yes," admitted the culprit frankly. "Put me in the neighbourhood of a
+kilt, and I'm a common rubberneck straight away, Mr Inglethwaite. I'm
+just mad to know all those cunning tartans by heart."
+
+"The moment the service was over," continued my wife severely, "I saw
+her edging through the crowd in the churchyard towards the chieftain.
+For a moment I thought she was going to ask him his name."
+
+"I _wasn't_!" declared Miss Buncle indignantly.
+
+"No, you did worse. She got close to the unfortunate man," continued my
+wife to us, "and suddenly I noticed that she had in her hand one of
+those little books you buy at railway book-stalls in the Highlands, with
+patterns of all the tartans in them and the name of the clan underneath.
+By the time I got up to her she had found the right tartan in the book,
+and was matching it up against the back of the poor unconscious
+creature's kilt. Then she turned to me in a triumphant sort of way and
+simply _bellowed_--'M'Farlane!'"
+
+"We shall probably be hauled up before the Kirk-session," said the
+Admiral. "But I wonder who Sir James Fordyce's friends can be. I know
+most of the people who have shootings about here, but none of them are
+friends of his that I can think of. We must get him to come and shoot
+here one day. Rather late for to-morrow's drive, but there will be
+another on Thursday. I wonder who his host is, though?"
+
+"I might help you," said Robin. "An old man, you said, with his wife?"
+
+"Yes--oldish," said Kitty.
+
+"Was there a son with them?"
+
+"N-no."
+
+"No? Well, he would be away at the lamb-sales, perhaps," said Robin
+reflectively. "Was there a daughter?"
+
+"Now you mention it," said Kitty, "there was. A nice, bonny-looking
+girl. Twenty-four, I should say."
+
+"Twenty-three," said Robin.
+
+We all turned on him.
+
+"Now then, what is all the mystery? Out with it! Who is the girl--eh?"
+
+"She would be my sister," said Robin calmly. "And the others were my
+father and mother."
+
+There was a little gasp of surprise all round the table. Robin went on--
+
+"My home is just seven miles from here. This is the first time I have
+got near my folk for six years. To-morrow I mean to go and see them. And
+they would like fine, I know," he added a little shyly, "if some of you
+would come with me."
+
+"I'll come," said Kitty promptly. "I should love to meet your mother,
+Robin."
+
+"May _I_ come, Uncle Robin?" piped Phillis. "For a birfday treat," she
+added, in extenuation.
+
+Applications for an invitation rained in. Apart from a desire to please
+a man whom we all respected--and our ready offers undoubtedly did please
+him--I think we were all a little curious to view the mould which had
+turned Robin out.
+
+"You can't _all_ go," said the Admiral at last. "There's the
+grouse-drive to-morrow, and eight butts to fill; not to mention the need
+of female society at lunch."
+
+Finally it was arranged that Robin should take Kitty and Phillis over on
+a sort of preliminary call, and they could arrange for the establishment
+of more substantial relations.
+
+But that evening, as the ladies were having their candles lit at the
+foot of the staircase, I heard Robin say to Dolly--
+
+"Will you come with us to-morrow?"
+
+Dolly seemed to consider, and was about to reply, when Dermott, who
+never seemed very far away now, cut in.
+
+"Too late, Fordyce! Miss Rubislaw has promised to come and load for me
+in my butt to-morrow afternoon."
+
+"No, I'm afraid it can't be managed this time, Robin," said Dolly. "But
+I am coming with you later in the week, if you'll take me."
+
+Robin said nothing.
+
+Now Dolly, I knew, did not approve of the inclusion of females in the
+business part of a day's shooting; and she regarded Miss Buncle and her
+twenty-eight bore with pious horror. The fact that she had consented to
+come and hold Dermott's second gun to-morrow seemed to indicate that
+that gallant sportsman had accomplished a feat which had already proved
+too much for several highly deserving young men--I was not quite sure
+that Robin was not one of them; and there seemed to be every reason to
+anticipate (especially since he was due to start for Aldershot to-morrow
+night) that when the Captain returned from the chase to-morrow
+afternoon, his bag would include one head of game of an interesting and
+unusual variety.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+At ten o'clock next morning we met the keepers, dogs, and beaters not
+far from the first line of butts on the moor. There was a hot sun, and
+the bees were bumbling in the heather. Somehow Whitehall seemed a long
+way off.
+
+The number of guns had been brought up to seven by the inclusion of a
+neighbouring laird--one Gilmerton of Nethercraigs--and his son.
+
+"All the same, we are still a man short," complained the Admiral, to
+whom a house-party was a ship's company, and a day's shooting a sort of
+terrestrial naval manoeuvre. "However, we will cut out the end butt in
+each drive and put a stop there to turn the birds farther in. Now we'll
+draw for places. Each man to take the butt whose number he draws,
+counting from the right and moving up one place after each drive. And
+Heaven help the man who draws number four now, for it means number seven
+and a climb up The Pimple for him directly after lunch!"
+
+There was a general laugh at this, which swelled to an unseemly roar
+when I drew the fatal number.
+
+However, after lunch was a long way off, and I trotted contentedly to
+number four and settled down to a pipe, while the head-keeper led off
+his mixed multitude of assistants, dogs, boys, and red flags to make a
+_detour_ and work the game up towards us.
+
+The first drive was simple. We were in a long and rather shallow glen,
+across which ran a low ridge, dividing it into two almost equal
+sections. The butts were placed along this ridge; and after the birds
+had been sent over us the beaters would work round to the other end of
+the glen and drive them back again. The shooting would be easy, for the
+ground lay flat and open in either direction.
+
+I found myself between Standish and Gerald; the former on my right, and
+the latter, together with the young keeper to whom his shooting
+education had been entrusted, in the butt on my left. Beyond Standish
+was Dermott, the crack shot of the party, and beyond Dermott, in number
+one butt, was the Admiral. The Gilmertons, _pere et fils_, occupied the
+butts on the extreme left.
+
+The drive was moderately successful. At first the birds came along
+singly, mostly on the right, and fell an easy prey to Dermott and the
+Admiral. But presently a great pack got up comparatively near the butts,
+and fairly "rushed" us. I brought off an easy right and left straight in
+front of me, and then, snapping out my cartridges and slipping another
+in, I swung round and just managed to bring down a third bird with a
+"stern chaser"--a feat which I regretted to observe no one else noticed,
+for there was a perfect fusilade all along the line at the moment.
+Master Gerald, who had discharged his first barrel straight into the
+"brown," succeeded, in obedience to his mentor's admonitions, in
+covering an old cock-grouse with his second, and carefully following
+that flustered fowl's course with the point of his gun, pulled the
+trigger just as it skimmed, low down, with an agitated squawk, between
+his butt and mine. I heard the shot rattle through the heather, and two
+pellets hit on my left boot.
+
+The congenial task of telling Gerald, in a low but penetrating voice,
+exactly what I thought of him, occupied my attention so fully for the
+next minute that I failed to observe a blackcock which suddenly swung up
+into view and whizzed straight past my head, to the audible annoyance of
+the distant Admiral and the undisguised joy of my unrepentant relative.
+
+No more birds came after that, and presently, the line of beaters having
+advanced within range, we put down our guns and collected the slain. We
+had not done badly, considering the fact that the main body of the birds
+had swerved away to our left over the unoccupied butt, despite the
+valiant efforts of an urchin with a red flag to turn them. Dermott
+headed the list with four and a half brace, and Gerald brought up the
+rear with a mangled corpse which had received the contents of his first
+barrel point-blank at a distance of about six feet. The laird of
+Nethercraigs (a cautious and economical sportsman, who was reputed never
+to loose off his gun at anything which did not come and perch on his
+butt) had fired just three cartridges and killed just three birds, but
+his son had seven. The Admiral and Standish had also had average luck,
+and altogether we had fourteen and a half brace to show for our
+exertions.
+
+Off went the beaters again, and we changed butts and waited. The second
+drive gave us fewer birds but better sport. There were no great packs,
+but we got plenty to do in the way of sharp-shooting, and Gerald's
+keeper--a singularly ambiguous title in this case--succeeded by
+increased vigilance in preserving me from being further sniped by my
+enterprising brother-in-law.
+
+We totalled up twelve brace this time, and then made ready for a tramp
+to the next line of butts, away round the shoulder of a fairly distant
+hill.
+
+"We may as well spread out and walk 'em up this bit," said our host. "We
+can't have the dogs, though, as the keepers and beaters are going a
+different way; and each man will have to carry what he shoots. In that
+case we'll leave rabbits alone. Gerald, you had better get to the
+extreme left of the line. That will limit the risk to one man!"
+
+"I'll carry home your bag if you'll carry mine, Gerald," cried Standish
+facetiously, as my brother-in-law, a trifle offended at the Admiral's
+last pleasantry, proceeded with much dignity to his allotted place.
+
+Gerald was almost out of earshot, but he waved a defiant acquiescence.
+
+We tramped round the shoulder of the hill, keeping our distance as well
+as we could on the steep slope, and occasionally putting up something to
+shoot at. My bag this time made no great demands on my powers of
+porterage, consisting as it did of a solitary snipe. However, when
+nearly an hour later we gathered at the foot of the next line of
+butts--the last before lunch--most of us were carrying something.
+Standish gleefully displayed two hares and a brace of grouse.
+
+"There is something for Master Gerald to carry back to the
+luncheon-cart," he said. "I wonder what he has got for me. Where is he?"
+
+"I don't quite know," said Dermott, who had been Gerald's nearest
+neighbour. "He was so offended by our gibes about the danger of his
+society that he walked rather wide of me. He kept down at the very foot
+of the hill most of the time, almost out of sight."
+
+"I hope he hasn't shot himself," said the Admiral rather anxiously.
+
+"Never fear!" said I. "That will not be his end. Here he is."
+
+Sure enough, Gerald appeared at this moment. He was empty-handed.
+
+Simple and primitive jests greeted him.
+
+"Hallo, old man, what have you shot--eh? Where is your little lot?"
+
+Gerald smiled seraphically.
+
+"You'll find it down there," he said--"in that patch of bracken,
+Standish. I left it for you to bring up. Rather heavy for me."
+
+"What on earth have you shot?" we cried involuntarily.
+
+"A sheep," said Gerald calmly.
+
+Great heavens!
+
+We rushed down the hill as one man--and came up again looking not a
+little hot and uncommonly foolish. The sheep was there, it is true,
+stiff and stark in the bracken; but more senses than one apprised us of
+the fact that it had been dead for considerably more than five minutes.
+Gerald had stumbled on to the corpse, and had turned his discovery, we
+afterwards admitted, to remarkably good advantage. It was "Mr Standish's
+turn," as Miss Buncle, in the picturesque but mysterious vernacular of
+her race, remarked at luncheon, "to hold the baby this time."
+
+After the third drive we gladly put up our guns and tramped down the
+hillside to the road below, where the ladies were waiting and the feast
+was spread. After we had disposed of grouse sandwiches,
+whisky-and-water, and jammy scones, and were devoting our post-prandial
+leisure to repose or dalliance with the fair--according as we were
+married or single--Lady Rubislaw inquired--
+
+"Where are you shooting this afternoon, John?"
+
+"The Neb, first," replied the Admiral. "And that reminds me, the man who
+drew the top butt had better start now, or he'll be late."
+
+With many groans, and followed by the mingled derision and sympathy of
+the company, I picked up my _impedimenta_ and started, leaving the
+others to decide who, if any, of the shooters was to have the honour of
+entertaining a lady in his butt.
+
+The Neb was a great mountain spur, whose base ran to within two or three
+hundred yards of our resting-place. In appearance it roughly resembled a
+mighty Napoleonic nose. The butts ran right up the ridge of that organ;
+and nine hundred feet above where we sat, just below an excrescence
+locally known as "The Pimple," lay mine.
+
+I reached my eyrie at last, and having laid my flask, tobacco-pouch, and
+twelve loose cartridges where I could reach them most handily on
+projecting shelves of peat inside the butt--I love neatness and method:
+Kitty says that when (if ever) I get to heaven I will decline to enter
+until I have wiped my boots,--settled down to enjoy a superb view and
+take note of the not altogether uninteresting manner in which the other
+members of the party were disposing themselves for the drive.
+
+Just below me were Standish and Miss Buncle, the lady a conspicuous mark
+for all men (and grouse) to behold by reason of a red tam o'shanter, the
+sight of which made me regret that its wearer was not employed as a
+beater. In the butt below were Dermott and Dolly--both very workmanlike
+and inconspicuous. Below them came the Admiral, with his wife (she
+always came and sat behind him, like a remarkably smart little
+powder-monkey, during the afternoon drive): below them, the Gilmertons;
+and last of all, thank Heaven! Gerald.
+
+The shooting on this beat would not be easy, though birds were always
+plentiful. They came round the face of the hill at very short range and
+express speed. My particular butt was notoriously difficult to score
+from. There was an awkward hummock in front of it, and driven birds
+swinging into view round this were practically right over the butt
+before its occupant could get his gun up.
+
+It was a rather sleepy afternoon. Far away I could hear the sound of the
+advancing beaters--the cries of the boys, the occasional barking of a
+dog, and the shrill piping of the headkeeper's whistle. Suddenly three
+birds swung into view round the face of the hill, and made straight for
+the line of butts. They were just below me, nearer to Standish's butt
+than mine, but I put up my gun and picked off the nearest. The other
+two, instead of keeping on their course over Standish's head, suddenly
+swerved round to the left, almost at right angles--I think they had seen
+Miss Buncle's tam o' shanter and simultaneously decided that there are
+worse things than death--and flew straight down the line, followed by an
+ineffectual volley from the twelve and twenty-eight bores respectively.
+
+"Now, Dermott, my boy!" I ejaculated, as the birds skimmed past the
+third butt. "There's a chance for a really pretty right and left."
+
+But no sound--no movement even--came from our crack's lair. The birds
+flew by unharmed, only to fall later on, one to the Admiral, and one to
+young Gilmerton.
+
+"_Dormitat Homerus_," I murmured, gazing curiously towards Dermott's
+butt. "I wonder if--Jove, there they go! What a pack! Well done, Gerald!
+Oh, Gilmerton, you old _sweep_! Fire, man, _fire_! Good old Admiral!
+Dermott, man, what the devil---- Have _at_ them!"
+
+I fairly danced in the heather. A perfect cloud of birds was pouring
+over the lower part of the line. The Admiral, the Gilmertons, and Gerald
+were firing fast and furiously,--even the laird of Nethercraigs loosed
+off at birds that were neither running nor sitting,--and when the
+beaters appeared in sight five minutes later, and the drive came to an
+end, the four lower butts totalled twelve brace among them.
+
+I humbly proffered my solitary contribution.
+
+"Twelve and a half," said the Admiral. "Now, Standish?"
+
+"N.E. this time," remarked that youth philosophically.
+
+The Admiral said nothing, but I saw his choleric blue eyes slide round
+in the direction of Miss Buncle's headgear. He turned to Dermott.
+
+"How many, old man?"
+
+"Blob!"
+
+That Dermott should return empty-handed from any kind of chase was so
+surprising that we all turned round for the explanation. Dermott was
+looking very dejected. This was evidently a blow to his professional
+pride.
+
+"Didn't any of that great pack come near you?" asked the Admiral
+sympathetically.
+
+"No--don't think so," said Dermott shortly.
+
+I had counted eight birds flying straight over his butt myself, but I
+said nothing. I was beginning to comprehend. _Et ego in Arcadia vixi_.
+
+But the obtuse master-mariner persisted.
+
+"How about that brace that flew right down the line? You must have seen
+'em coming all the way. You didn't even try a shot at them, man!"
+
+Dermott, who was fastening up his gaiter, answered rather listlessly--
+
+"Sorry! It was--a misfire, I think."
+
+"What?" cried the outraged Admiral. "A _misfire_? Both barrels--of both
+guns?"
+
+I did not hear the answer to this. I was looking at Dolly. Her face
+could not be seen, for she was kneeling down a little distance away,
+assiduously fondling the silky ears of a highly-gratified red setter.
+And I realised then that some expressions are capable of a metaphorical
+as well as a literal interpretation.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+My wife and daughter returned home in the "machine" in time for dinner,
+without Robin.
+
+"His mother kept him," Kitty explained. She was favouring me with a
+summary of her day's adventures, in the garden after dinner. "Such an
+old dear, Adrian! And his father is a grand old man. Very solemn and
+scriptural-looking and all that, but so courtly and simple when once he
+gets over his shyness. (He tried to come in to tea in his shirt-sleeves,
+but his wife hustled him out of the kitchen just in time.) Sir James
+Fordyce was a shock, though. When we arrived he was chopping turnips in
+a machine, dressed in clothes like any farm-labourer's. He said it was
+fine to get back to his own people again. To look at him you would never
+guess that he was one of the best known men in London, and a favourite
+at Court, and _such_ an old dandy in Bond Street. The rest of the
+household didn't seem to set any particular store by him. They took him
+quite as a matter of course."
+
+"What a pity English people can't do the same," I mused. "If they do
+possess a distinguished relative they brag about him, and he usually
+responds by avoiding them. If he does honour them with a visit, they try
+to live up to him, and put on unnecessary frills, and summon all the
+neighbourhood to come and inspect him."
+
+"There's nothing of that kind about the Fordyces," said Kitty. "Sir
+James was just one of themselves; he even spoke like them. It was, 'Aye,
+Jeems!' and 'Aye, John!' all the time."
+
+"How about the rest of the family?" I inquired.
+
+"The mother was immensely pleased to have Robin with her again, I could
+see," said Kitty. "She made no particular fuss over him, but I'm sure
+she simply hugged him as soon as we were gone. She had a talk with me
+about him when we were alone. She seems to regard him as the least
+successful member of the family, although he has been a good son to
+them. (Do you know, Adrian, he has sent them something like two hundred
+pounds during the time he has been with us? And that must have left him
+little enough to go on with, goodness knows!) But I don't think they
+consider him a patch on the eldest son, who is a great silent man with a
+beard--a sort of Scotch John Ridd. He looks years older than Robin,
+though of course he isn't. He is a splendid farmer, his mother tells me,
+and greatly "respeckit" in the district. But the poor dear was so
+frightened of me that he simply bolted from the house the moment he had
+finished his tea. The sister is pretty, and nice too, but shy. I'm
+afraid she found my clothes rather overpowering, though I'd only a coat
+and skirt on. But we got on splendidly after that. She is going to be
+married next month, to the minister, which is considered an immense
+triumph for her by the whole community. We must send them a present. By
+the way, what's the matter with Dolly?"
+
+"What's the matter with poor old Dermott?" I retorted.
+
+At this moment the much-enduring "machine" jingled up to the door, and
+Captain Dermott's luggage, together with his gun-cases and a generous
+bundle of game for the mess-table at Aldershot, was piled in at the
+back. Their owner followed after, and seeing the glowing end of my cigar
+in the dark, advanced to say good-bye.
+
+Kitty uttered some pretty expression of regret at his departure, and
+flitted into the house. Dermott and I surveyed each other silently
+through the darkness.
+
+"Is it any use asking you to come and look us up in town?" I said at
+last rather lamely.
+
+He laughed through set teeth--not a pretty sound.
+
+"I think I'll--avoid your household for a bit, Adrian," he answered.
+
+I nodded gravely.
+
+"I see," I said. "I--I'm sorry, old man!"
+
+"I'm going to India, if I can get away," he continued, after a pause.
+
+"Good scheme!" I replied. "We shall think of you most kindly--er, _all_
+of us."
+
+He said nothing, but shook hands in a grateful sort of fashion, and
+turned away.
+
+I suppose there is a reason for everything in this world. Still, the
+spectacle of a good man fighting dumbly with a cruel disappointment--and
+disappointment is perhaps the bitterest pill in all the pharmacopeia of
+life--is certainly a severe test of one's convictions on the subject.
+
+At this moment the rest of the party--_minus_ Dolly--flowed out on to
+the doorstep to say farewell; and two minutes later Captain Dermott
+drove heavily away--back to his day's work.
+
+Well, thank God there is always that!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I thought she was going to take him," said Kitty in her subsequent
+summing-up. "It was far and away the best offer she has ever had. And he
+is such a dear, too! What does the child want, I wonder! A coronet?"
+
+"'A dinner of herbs,' perhaps," said I.
+
+Kitty eyed me thoughtfully, and gave a wise little nod.
+
+"Yes--Dolly is just that sort," she agreed. "But what makes you think
+that?"
+
+"Oh--nothing," I said.
+
+There are certain matters upon which it is almost an impertinence for a
+man to offer an opinion to a woman, and I rather shrank from rushing in
+where my wife had evidently not thought it worth while to tread. Still,
+I could not help wondering in my heart whether the arrival of one
+gentleman on Sunday may not sometimes have something to do, however
+indirectly, with the abrupt departure of another gentleman on Monday.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+THE COMPLEAT ANGLER.
+
+
+The Division of Stoneleigh, which had hitherto done me the honour of
+returning me as its Member of Parliament, is a triangular tract of
+country in the north of England.
+
+At the apex of the triangle lies Stoneleigh itself, a township whose
+chief assets are an ancient cathedral at one end, and a flourishing
+industry, proclaiming to the heavens its dependence upon Hides and
+Tallow, at the other. The base of the triangle runs along the sea-coast,
+and is dotted with fishing villages. Most of the intervening area is
+under cultivation.
+
+It will be seen, then, that the character of my constituency varied in a
+perplexing manner, and while I could usually depend upon what I may call
+the Turnip interest, I could not always count with absolute certainty on
+the whole-hearted support of the Fish or Hides-and-Tallow.
+
+To this delectable microcosm my household and I migrated one bleak day
+in February, to commence what promised to be an arduous and thoroughly
+uncomfortable electoral campaign.
+
+The Government had gone out at last, more from inanition than over any
+definite question of policy; and we were going to the country to face
+what is paradoxically termed "the music." It would be a General Election
+in every sense of the word, for there was no particular question of the
+hour--this was before the days of Passive Resistance and Tariff
+Reform--and our chief bar to success would undoubtedly be our old and
+inveterate enemy, "the pendulum." Of course we were distributing
+leaflets galore, and blazoning panegyrics on our own legislative
+achievements over every hoarding in the country--especially where our
+opponents had already posted up scathing denunciations of the same--and
+of course we declared that we were going to come again, like King
+Arthur; but I think most of us realised in our hearts that the great
+British Public, having decided in its ponderous but not altogether
+unreasonable way that any change of government must be for the better,
+was now going to pull us down from the eminence to which we had been
+precariously clinging for five years, and set up another row of
+legislative Aunt Sallies in our stead.
+
+However, we were far from admitting this. We wore our favours, waved our
+hats, and celebrated our approaching triumph with as great an appearance
+of optimism as the loss of seven consecutive by-elections would permit.
+
+Our party--Kitty, Phillis, Dolly, and myself: Dilly and Dicky were to
+follow, and Robin had preceded us by two days--was met at the station by
+an informal but influential little deputation, consisting of Mr Cash, my
+agent, a single-minded creature who would cheerfully have done his best
+to get Mephistopheles returned as member if he had been officially
+appointed to further that gentleman's interests; old Colonel Vincey, who
+would as cheerfully have voted for the same candidate provided he wore
+Conservative colours; Mr Bugsley, a leading linen-draper and ex-Mayor of
+the town, vice-chairman of our local organisation; Mr Winch--locally
+known as Beery Bill--the accredited mouthpiece of the Stoneleigh liquor
+interest; and the Dean, who came, I was uncharitable enough to suspect
+even as he wrung my hand, on business not unconnected with the
+unfortunate deficit in the fund for the restoration of the North
+Transept. There were also present one or two reporters, and a _posse_ of
+the offscourings of Stoneleigh small-boydom.
+
+We drove in state to the hotel. Previous to this I shook hands warmly
+with the Station-master, who scowled at me--he was a Home-Ruler and a
+Baptist--and gave four porters half-a-crown apiece for lifting our
+luggage on to the roof of a cab. I also handed a newsboy sixpence for a
+copy of the local bi-weekly organ which supported our cause, and
+tendered half-a-sovereign in payment for a bunch of violets and
+primroses--our party colours in this district were purple and
+gold--which were proffered me outside the station by an ancient
+flower-selling dame who, Cash hissed into my ear, happened to be the
+mother of four strapping and fully-enfranchised sons; and presented an
+unwashed stranger who was holding open the cab door for us with a token
+of affection and esteem which could readily be commuted into several
+hours' beer.
+
+On arriving at the hotel I handed the cabman a fare roughly equivalent
+to the cash value of the cab, and then proceeded to distribute largesse
+to a crowd of menials who kindly undertook the task of lifting the
+luggage from the roof and conveying it to our rooms. The horse, having
+no vote, received no pecuniary return for its labours, but was rewarded
+for its devotion to Conservative principles by a lump of sugar, which
+Phillis had been tightly holding in a moist hand ever since Cash had
+handed it to her at the station--a pretty and thoughtful act of
+disinterested kindness which was duly noted in the _Stoneleigh Herald_
+next morning, and effectually secured the votes of several elusive but
+sentimental wobblers on polling day.
+
+After this unostentatious entry into my constituency I duly established
+myself in my apartments, where I spent most of the afternoon writing
+cheques. The restoration of the North Transept proved to be in an even
+more deplorable state of backwardness than I had feared; but the Dean
+ultimately left me with the utmost expressions of goodwill, promising to
+reassure the most exacting spirits in Cathedral society as to my
+soundness on the questions of (1) Disestablishment and (2) Secular
+Education in Elementary Schools.
+
+Thereafter I received the captain of the local football team, who begged
+to remind me that my subscription of five guineas, as Honorary
+Vice-President of the club, was now due, and further requested that I
+would do himself and colleagues the honour of kicking-off in the match
+against the Scrappington Hotstuffs on Saturday week. (Saturday next, I
+heard afterwards, had been reserved for my rival.) He finally departed
+with my cheque in his pocket, and, I expect, his tongue in his cheek.
+
+Robin next let in upon me a sub-section of the General Purposes
+Committee of the Municipal Library, who begged that I would kindly
+consent to open the new wing thereof, jointly with the rival Candidate,
+at three o'clock next Wednesday; and intimated as an afterthought that
+the oak bookcase in the eastern alcove was still unpaid for. They
+departed calling down blessings upon my head. (Five pounds ten.)
+
+Next, after a brief call from a gentleman in a blue ribbon, who came to
+solicit a guinea for the Band of Hope, and who left in exchange one
+hundred copies of a picture of the interior of a drunkard's stomach,
+executed in three colours, came Beery Bill, to whom the reader has
+already been introduced. He had not come to talk Politics, he said, but
+just to have a quiet chat with one whom he hoped he could regard as a
+personal friend. (I got out my fountain pen.) The chat materialised
+presently into an intimation that the Licensed Victuallers Benevolent
+Something-or-Other was short of cash; and my visitor suggested that a
+trifle in support of the charities of that most deserving institution
+would come gracefully from my pocket. On handing me the receipt he
+informed me that the brewing trade was in a bad way, and that he looked
+to me to do something for it if he used his influence on my behalf at
+the Election.
+
+The next visitor was an eccentric but harmless old gentleman who eked
+out a precarious livelihood as a Herbalist--whatever that may be--in the
+most plebeian quarter of the town. He inhabited a small and stuffy shop
+up a discreet alley, suffered much from small boys, sold curious drugs
+and potions of his own composition, and prescribed for persons whose
+means or modesty precluded them from consulting an orthodox
+practitioner.
+
+He was threatened, it appeared, with the penalties of the law. He had
+sold a "love-philtre" (pronounced infallible for recalling errant
+_fiances_ to a sense of duty) to an amorous kitchen-maid who was seeking
+to rekindle the sacred flame in the bosom of an unresponsive policeman.
+The damozel had mingled the potion in a plate of beefsteak pudding, and
+had handed the same out of the scullery window to her peripatetic swain;
+with the sole result that that limb of the law had been immediately and
+violently sick, and, the moment he felt sufficiently recovered to do so,
+had declared the already debilitated match at an end. The kitchen-maid,
+rendered desperate, had told him the whole truth; and consequently my
+esteemed caller was now wanted by the police.
+
+The catastrophe of the pie, he explained, was in no way to be attributed
+to the love-philtre (which was composed of sifted sugar and cinnamon),
+but was due to the fact that instead of the philtre he had inadvertently
+handed his fair client a packet out of the next drawer, which contained
+ready-made-up doses of tartaric acid for immediate use in the case of
+small boys who had swallowed sixpences. _Hinc lacrymcoe_. In spite of
+his complete consciousness of his own innocence, he now found himself
+compelled in a few days' time to defend his conduct in a court of law.
+The proceedings would cost money, of which he of course possessed little
+or none. He had called, he said, confident in the hope that I would
+assist him to defray the expense of vindicating his integrity as a
+high-class Herbalist by purchasing six bottles of his world-renowned
+specific for neuralgia, from which dread malady he had been
+informed--quite incorrectly, by the way--that I occasionally suffered.
+The thirty shillings thus subscribed, together with a few odd coins
+which he himself had contrived to scrape together during a long life of
+thrift, would secure the services of a skilled advocate, who would
+doubtless be able to prove to the satisfaction of justice that no
+high-class Herbalist would ever dream, save in the way of kindness, of
+putting tartaric acid into a policeman's beefsteak pudding.
+
+He added, rather inconsequently, that he had voted Conservative at the
+last three elections, and had moreover persuaded all the other members
+of the Royal and Ancient Brotherhood of High-class Herbalists to do the
+same. (One pound ten.)
+
+My last visitor was a seedy individual in corduroys, who asked for a
+private interview with the Candidate, and, on this favour being granted,
+informed me in a confidential and husky whisper that he knew of ten good
+men and true, fully qualified voters, who were prepared to go to the
+poll on my behalf for the trifling fee of two pound ten a-head and no
+questions asked. He was politely but firmly shown into the street. One
+has to be on the look-out against persons of this type.
+
+I concluded the afternoon by a rather unsatisfactory interview with Mr
+Cash. He was by nature a boisterous and optimistic person, but on this
+occasion I found him inclined to be reticent and gloomy. He announced
+with a shake of the head that my rival was a very strong candidate; and
+finally, after a certain amount of pressing, admitted that I was not
+altogether as universally acceptable to my own side as I might have
+been.
+
+"You are not violent enough, Mr Inglethwaite," he said. "You sympathise
+too much with the point of view of the opposite side. That's fatal."
+
+I turned to Robin.
+
+"You hear that?" I said. "Don't you ever call me a prejudiced old Tory
+again, Robin."
+
+"Then," continued the dolorous Cash, "you are too squeamish. Those
+posters that you wouldn't allow to be put up--that was simply throwing
+away good votes. Politics in this part of the country can't be played
+with kid gloves. Then there are the meetings. You don't let the other
+side have it hot enough. Call 'em robbers and liars! That's what wins an
+election!"
+
+"I suppose it is," I said mournfully. "Robin, we must put our opinions
+in our pockets and beat the party drum. Come on, let us go to the
+Committee Rooms!"
+
+For the next fortnight we worked like galley-slaves. Each morning Kitty
+and I drove round the town in an open carriage-and-pair decorated with
+our colours, bowing to such of our constituents as would look at us, and
+punctiliously returning any salutes we received. Occasionally
+whole-hearted supporters would give us a cheer, and occasionally--rather
+more frequently, it seemed to me--disagreeable persons booed at us. Once
+we were held up outside a hide-and-tallow work by a gang of workmen who
+wished to address a few questions to the Candidate. We came well out of
+that ordeal, for both Kitty and Dolly happened to be in the carriage
+that day, and they so completely captivated the spokesman of the
+deputation--no wonder! a pretty woman never looks so attractive as in
+furs--that that gentleman concluded a catechism of unpremeditated
+brevity and incoherence by proposing a vote of confidence in, coupled
+with three cheers for, Mr Inglethwaite and his young ladies!
+
+On another occasion a gnarled and fervent Radical of the bootmaking
+persuasion hobbled to the door of his establishment, and waving clenched
+and uplifted fists, called down upon us and our retreating equipage all
+the curses at the command of a rather extensive vocabulary until we were
+out of earshot.
+
+Occasionally little girls threw posies into the carriage: little boys,
+not to be outdone in politeness, threw stones: and altogether I felt
+very much as the Honourable Samuel Slumkey must have done upon the
+historic occasion on which he solicited the votes of the electors of the
+borough of Eatanswill.
+
+Talking of Eatanswill, I had already made the acquaintance of Mr Horatio
+Fizkin in the person of my opponent, Mr Alderman Stridge, Wholesale
+Provision Merchant and Italian Warehouseman. His selection as Liberal
+Candidate was a blow to us: we had hoped for nothing worse than a
+briefless carpet-bagger from the Temple, as on previous occasions.
+However, the Alderman on our introduction was extremely affable, and
+expressed a hope, with the air of one discovering the sentiment for the
+first time, that the best man might win; to which I, as in duty bound,
+replied that I hoped not; and we parted with mutual expressions of
+goodwill and esteem, to deride each other's politics and bespatter each
+other's characters on countless platforms and doorsteps until we should
+meet again, after the fray, at the counting of the votes.
+
+On returning from our morning drive (which usually included an open-air
+meeting) we took luncheon, generally in the presence of various anaemic
+young men who represented local organs of public opinion, and who
+expected the long-suffering candidate to set forth his views between
+mouthfuls of chop and sips of sherry. I usually turned these over to
+Robin, who understood their ways; and he charmed them so wisely that
+even the relentless Cash was compelled to admit that our press notices
+might have been worse.
+
+Robin was a tower of strength. Indeed he and Dolly were my two chief
+lieutenants; Dilly and Dicky, as became a pair who had only been married
+a few months, proving but broken reeds. A week's electioneering proved
+sufficient for their requirements; and, declining flatly to "grin like a
+dog and run about the city"--Dilly's pithy summary of the art of
+canvassing--any longer, they left us ten days before polling-day to pay
+a country-house visit. But Robin was everywhere. He answered my letters
+and he interviewed reporters. He could keep a meeting in hand (pending
+my arrival from another) with such success that when I finally appeared
+upon the platform to take up the wondrous tale of my party's
+perfections, the audience were loth to let Robin go. In six days he
+acquired a knowledge of the wants, peculiarities, weaknesses, and
+traditions of my constituents which had occupied all my powers of
+concentration and absorption for six arduous years. He used to drop into
+his speeches little topical allusions and local "gags" which, though
+Greek to the uninitiated, never failed to produce a roar: and a
+political speaker who can unfailingly make his audience laugh with
+him--not at him--has gone far on the road to success.
+
+Once, at a meeting, when I was half-way through a speech to an
+unmistakably bored and rather hostile audience, Robin, who was sitting
+beside me, slipped a sheet of paper on to my table. The message on the
+paper, written large for me to read, said--_Compare Stridge to the Old
+Lady of Dippleton_. What the lady had done I did not know, neither had I
+time to inquire; but I took my secretary's advice, and, after pausing
+for a brief drink of water, concluded my sentence--
+
+"--and I maintain, gentlemen, that my opponent, in advocating such a
+policy as that which he has had the--the--yes, the _effrontery_ to lay
+before a clear-thinking and broad-minded Stoneleigh audience last night,
+has shown himself to be no wiser in his generation, no better or more
+statesmanlike in character, than--than--what shall we say? than"--I
+glanced at the paper on the table--"the Old Lady of Dippleton!"
+
+There was a great roar of laughter, and I sat down. I was ultimately
+awarded a vote of thanks, which should by rights have been given to the
+heroine of my closing allusion. I may mention here that no subsequent
+inquiry of mine ever elicited from Robin or any one else what the Old
+Lady of Dippleton _had_ done. Probably it was one of those things that
+no real lady ever ought to do, and I discreetly left it at that.
+
+Dolly, too, proved a treasure. Her strong line was canvassing. She could
+ingratiate herself with short-tempered and over-driven wives apparently
+without effort; surly husbands melted before her smile; sheepish young
+men forgot the encumbering existence of their hands and feet in her
+presence; and she was absolutely infallible with babies. Her methods
+were entirely her own, and gratifyingly free from the superior and
+patronising airs usually adopted by fine ladies when they go to solicit
+the votes of that variegated and much-graded community which they
+cheerfully and indiscriminately sum up as "the lower classes."
+
+Let us follow her as she flits on her way to pay a morning call upon Mr
+Noah Gulching of Jackson's Row.
+
+Mr Gulching, she finds, is absent in search of a job, while Mrs
+Gulching, thoroughly cross and worried, is doing the housework with one
+hand and dangling a fractious teething baby from the other. The rest of
+the family are engaged in playing games of skill and chance (on the win,
+tie, or wrangle principle), in the middle of the street outside; and
+piercing screams testify to the fact that John William Gulching, aged
+two, had just been uprooted by Mary Kate Gulching, who wants to lay out
+a new Hop-Scotch court, from the flagstone upon which he has been seated
+for the last half hour and dumped down upon another, the warming of
+which, even his untutored sensations inform him, will be a matter of
+some time and trouble.
+
+Dolly, not a whit dismayed by a thoroughly ungracious reception, tucks
+up her skirt, rolls up her sleeves, finishes washing-up, makes a bed,
+and peels some potatoes. Then she takes the baby and attends to its more
+conspicuous wants, what time Mrs Gulching, thoroughly mollified,--she
+had thought at first that Dolly was "a person with tracks,"--goes round
+the corner to the "Drop Inn," at which hostelry the work of which her
+spouse is habitually in pursuit invariably goes to ground, and brings
+that gentleman home with her, to find Dolly playing with a spotless
+infant whom she gradually recognises as her own offspring.
+
+Dolly begins at once.
+
+"Good morning, Mr Gulching! I expect you think I am one of those horrid
+canvassers."
+
+Mr Gulching, a little taken aback, admits that such was his impression.
+
+"Well, I'm not," says Dolly. (_Oh, Dolly!_) "I suppose there may be some
+excuse for canvassing among people who do not take much interest in
+politics,--though _I_ shouldn't like to do it,--but it would be rather a
+waste of time for me or any one else to come and try on that sort of
+thing with _you_, wouldn't it, Mr Gulching?"
+
+Mr Gulching, outwardly frigid but inwardly liquescent, agrees that this
+is so; and adds in a truculent growl that he would like to see 'em try
+it on.
+
+"What I really want," continues Dolly, "is your _advice_. I am told that
+you are so respected here, and have such a knowledge of the requirements
+of the neighbourhood, that you might be inclined to give us a little
+help in a scheme which Mr Inglethwaite has in hand. Schemes for the
+improvement of some of the houses--not snug little cribs like this, but
+the homes of people who are not so clever and able to take care of
+themselves as you--and the supplying of more amusements in the evenings;
+entertainments, lectures----"
+
+"Teetotal?" inquires Mr Gulching hoarsely.
+
+"Oh dear, no. I am sure Mr Inglethwaite would not wish to deprive any
+one of his glass of beer. He quite agrees with your views about moderate
+drinking." (This, I may mention, is a slanderous libel on me, but it
+sounds all right as Dolly says it.) "But he knows that the success of
+his efforts will depend entirely upon whether he has the support of such
+men as yourself--men who know what they want and will see that they get
+it. We can't do without you, you see," she adds, with a bewitching
+little smile.
+
+Visible swelling on the part of Mr Gulching. Dolly gets up.
+
+"Well, I know you are a busy man, Mr Gulching, so I mustn't keep you
+listening to a woman's chatter any more. I'm afraid I haven't explained
+things very deeply, but then you men are such creatures for wanting to
+get to the root of the matter, aren't they, Mrs Gulching? However, Mr
+Inglethwaite will call shortly and discuss things with you. I know he
+wants your advice. Meanwhile, perhaps you will mention the matter to any
+friends of yours whom you think would be likely to help us, won't you?
+Good morning, and thank you so much for granting me this--er--interview.
+An Englishman's house is his castle, isn't it? That is why it was so
+good of you to let me come in. Good-bye, Mrs Gulching. He's a perfectly
+sweet little chap, and I must come and see him again, if I may." (The
+last remark is a little ambiguous, but probably refers to the baby.)
+
+And Dolly, with a friendly nod to the rest of the family (who are by
+this time drawn up _en echelon_ at the street door, under the personal
+direction of Violet Amelia Gulching), sails out, followed by a gratified
+leer from the greatly inflated Mr Gulching, having secured that free and
+independent elector's vote without even having asked for it. And yet
+some women are crying out for the right to control elections!
+
+At the street corner, with a persuasive finger in the buttonhole of an
+unconvinced Socialist (and a vigilant eye straining down the long and
+unlovely vista of Jackson's Row), Dolly usually encounters Robert
+Chalmers Fordyce.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+A HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE.
+
+
+Nomination day came, and I was duly entered by my proprietors for the
+Election Stakes, though I was painfully aware that my selection as
+Candidate was not universally popular.
+
+However, as Cash remarked, "It is canvassing from door to door that does
+the trick, and there you have the bulge on Stridge. He's not a bad old
+buffer himself, but they hate his wife like poison. She drives up to
+their doors in a silver-plated brougham with a double-breasted coachman,
+and tells 'em to vote for Stridge, not because he used to live in a
+one-roomed house himself--which he did, and her too--but because he's a
+local god-on-wheels. Of course they won't stick that."
+
+I also continued to address meetings, receive deputations, and generally
+solicit patronage in a way that would have made a cab-tout blush for
+shame. As a recreation I kicked off at football matches and laid
+foundation-stones. The most important function in which I took part was
+the opening of the new wing of the Municipal Library. The ceremony,
+which was by way of being a non-party affair, took place on a blustering
+February afternoon. The _elite_ of Stoneleigh were picturesquely grouped
+upon the steps of the main entrance of the Library, from the topmost of
+which the Mayor, the Dean, and the Candidates addressed a shivering and
+apathetic audience below.
+
+Fortunately, the company were too exclusively occupied in holding on
+their hats and blowing their blue noses to pay much attention to the
+improving harangues of Mr Stridge and myself; which was perhaps just as
+well, for men who have three or four highly critical and possibly
+hostile meetings to address later in the day are not likely to waste
+good things upon an assembly who probably cannot hear them, and will
+only say "Hear, hear!" in sepulchral tones if they do.
+
+The actual opening of the wing was accomplished quite informally (and I
+may say unexpectedly) by Kitty and Mrs Stridge--a fearsome matron, who
+looked like a sort of Nonconformist Boadicea--who were huddling together
+for warmth in the recess of the doorway. On a pedestal before them lay
+two small gold keys, with which they were presently to unlock the door
+itself, what time I, in trumpet tones, declared the Library open.
+Whether through natural modesty or a desire to escape the assaults of
+the wind, the two ladies shrank back so closely into the door that that
+accommodating portal, evidently deeming it ungallant to wait even for a
+golden key under such circumstances, incontinently flew open, and
+Mesdames Inglethwaite and Stridge subsided gracefully into the arms of a
+spectacled and embarrassed Librarian, who was formally waiting inside to
+receive the company at the proper moment.
+
+After that, the proceedings, which so far had been almost as bleak as
+the weather, went with a roar to the finish.
+
+But events like these were mere oases in a desert of ceaseless drudgery.
+The fight grew sterner and stiffer, and, as always happens on these
+occasions, the neutral and the apathetic began to bestir themselves and
+take sides. A week before the election there was not an impartial or
+unbiassed person left in Stoneleigh. Collisions between supporters of
+either party became frequent and serious. On the first occasion, when a
+Conservative sought to punctuate an argument by discharging a small
+gin-and-ginger into the face of his Liberal opponent, and the Liberal
+retaliated by felling the Conservative to the earth with a pint-pot,
+Stridge and I wrote quite effusively to one another apologising for the
+exuberance of our friends. A week later, when certain upholders of my
+cause bombarded Stridge's emporium with an assortment of Stridge's own
+eggs, hitting one of Mr Stridge's white-jacketed assistants in the eye,
+and severely damaging the frontage of Mr Stridge's Italian
+warehouse--whereupon local and immediate supporters of the cause of
+Stridge squared matters by putting three bombardiers into a
+horse-trough--Mr Stridge and I expressed no sort of regret to one
+another whatsoever, but referred scathingly, amid rapturous cheers, at
+our next meetings to the blackguardly policy of intimidation and
+hooliganism by which the other side found it necessary to bolster up a
+barren cause and hopeless future; all of which shows that things were
+tuning up to concert pitch.
+
+Results of other elections were coming in every day, and they were not
+by any means favourable to our side. Still, we kept on smiling, and
+talked largely about the swing of the pendulum--almost as useful a
+phrase as "Mesopotamia" of blessed memory--and other phenomena of
+reaction, and hoped for the best. Champion, who had been returned for
+his constituency by a thumping majority, had promised to come down and
+speak for me at a great meeting two nights before the election; and
+Dubberley, who had lost his seat, threatened to come and help me to lose
+mine.
+
+With the exception of Robin, who appeared to be made of some material
+_aere perennius_, we were all getting the least bit "tucked up," from my
+humble self down to Phillis, who appeared at breakfast one morning
+looking flushed and rather too bright-eyed.
+
+"Electioneering seems to be telling on you, old lady," I remarked.
+"Feeling quite well--eh?"
+
+"Just a _teeny_ headache, daddy. But"--hastily--"I can come with you to
+the meeting in the theatre to-morrow night, can't I? it will be such
+fun!"
+
+"Meeting? My little girl, it does not begin till an hour after your
+bed-time."
+
+"That's why I want to go," said my daughter frankly. "Besides, I do
+_love_ pantomimes--especially the clowns!" She wriggled ecstatically.
+
+Even the revelation of the plain truth--that the pantomime would be
+called by another name and the clowns would appear in mufti--failed to
+assuage Phillis's thirst for the dramatic sensation promised by a
+meeting in a theatre. I was, as usual, wax in her small hands; and,
+man-like, I threw the _onus negandi_ upon Eve's shoulders.
+
+"Ask your mother," I said; and flew to my day's work.
+
+Thank goodness, it was almost the last. To-morrow would be the eve of
+the poll, and at night we were to hold our monster meeting. Three
+thousand people would be present; a local magnate, Sir Thomas Wurzel (of
+Heycocks), would occupy the chair; what one of our local reporters
+insisted on calling "the _elite_ of the _bon ton_" would be ranged upon
+the platform; and the meeting would be addressed by John Champion,
+Robin,--they always wanted him now,--and the much-enduring Candidate.
+The audience would, further, be made the recipients of a few remarks
+from the Chair and (unless something providential happened) from
+Dubberley, who was to second a vote of thanks to somebody--a performance
+which might take anything up to fifty minutes. Altogether a feast of
+oratory, and a further proof, if any were needed, that the English are a
+hardy race.
+
+Phillis was decidedly unwell next morning, and Kitty prescribed bed. I
+am inclined to be an anxious parent, but there was little time for the
+exercise of any natural instincts on this occasion. Hounded on by the
+relentless Cash, I spent the day in a final house-to-house canvass,
+being fortunate enough to find at home several gentlemen who had been
+out on previous occasions, and who now graciously permitted Kitty to
+present them with a resplendent portrait of what at first sight appeared
+to be a hairdresser's assistant in gala costume, but which an obtrusive
+inscription below proclaimed to be "Inglethwaite! The Man You Know, and
+Who Knows You!"
+
+After a hasty round of the Committee Rooms I returned to our hostelry,
+the Cathedral Arms, where, after disposing of two reporters who wanted
+an advance copy of my evening's speech, and having effusively thanked a
+pompous individual for a sheaf of statistics on a subject which I cannot
+recall, but in which no one outside an asylum could have reasonably been
+expected to take any interest whatever, and which I was at liberty to
+quote (with due acknowledgments) to any extent I pleased, I sat down
+with Champion and Robin, faint yet pursuing, to fortify myself with
+roast-beef and whisky for the labours of the evening.
+
+Presently Kitty entered, with Dolly.
+
+"_Who_ do you think has just arrived?" she said.
+
+"I don't know. Not a deputation, I hope!"
+
+"No. Gerald--from school."
+
+"Great Scott! Expelled?"
+
+"Oh no. It's his half-term _exeat_. I had forgotten all about it. As it
+just falls in with the Election, he has come to see you through, he
+says."
+
+"Right! Give him some food and a bed, and we'll send him round with one
+of the brakes to-morrow, to bring people up to the poll. He has a gentle
+compelling way about him that should be useful to us. Has he brought his
+inarticulate friend?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, tell them to ask at the office for bedrooms."
+
+"They have done that already," said Dolly. "They are down in the kitchen
+now, ordering dinner. They don't propose to go to the meeting. 'Better
+fun outside,' they say."
+
+"Lucky little devils!" remarked the Candidate, with feeling.
+
+"And, Adrian," said Kitty, "I don't think I'll come either. I'm rather
+bothered about Philly."
+
+I laid down my knife and fork.
+
+"What do you mean? Is she really ill?"
+
+"N-no. I don't think so, but she is very feverish and wretched, poor
+kiddy. I tried to get hold of Dr Martin this afternoon, but he was miles
+away on an urgent case, and won't be back till to-morrow. But I got Dr
+Farquharson----"
+
+"Roaring Radical!" said I in horror-struck tones.
+
+--"Yes, dear, but such a nice old thing; and Scotch too, Robin----"
+
+"Aberdonian," said Robin dubiously.
+
+"Well," continued my wife, "he said she would need care, and must stay
+in bed. He was in a tearing hurry, as he had to go on to one of
+Stridge's meetings--horrid creature!--but he promised to come again on
+his way home. Do you think it very important that I should come with
+you?"
+
+I turned to my secretary.
+
+"What's your opinion, Robin?"
+
+"I think Mrs Inglethwaite should come. They like to see her on the
+platform, I know."
+
+"If the Candidate's wife does not appear, people say she is too grand
+for them," put in Champion.
+
+"I'll stay with Philly, Kit," said Dolly.
+
+"Will you? You dear! But I know you want to come yourself."
+
+"Never mind. It doesn't matter."
+
+And so it was arranged.
+
+We found the theatre packed to suffocation. A heated band of musicians
+(whose degrees must have been conferred _honoris causa_) had just
+concluded a set of airs whose sole excuse for existence was their
+patriotic character, and Sir Thomas Wurzel (of Heycocks) was rising to
+his feet, when our party appeared on the platform. Election fever was
+running high by this time; the critical spirit was almost entirely
+obliterated by a truly human desire to cut the preliminaries and hit
+somebody in the eye; and we were greeted with deafening cheers.
+
+Presently Champion was introduced and called upon to speak. He was
+personally unknown to the crowd before him, although his name was
+familiar to them. But in five minutes he had the entire audience in his
+grip. He made them laugh, and he made them cheer; he made them breathe
+hard, and he made them chuckle. There were moments when the vast throng
+sat in death-like silence, while Champion, with his voice dropped almost
+to a whisper, cajoled them as a woman cajoles a man. Then suddenly he
+would blare out another battle-call, and provoke a great storm of
+cheering. He made little use of gesture--occasionally he punctuated a
+remark with an impressive forefinger, but he had the most wonderful
+voice I have ever heard. I sat and watched him with whole-hearted
+admiration. It is true that he was not doing our cause any particular
+good. He had forgotten that he was there to make a party speech, to
+decry his opponents, and crack up his friends. He was soaring away into
+other regions, and--most wonderful of all--he was taking his audience
+with him. He besought them to be men, to play the game, to think
+straight, to awaken to a sense of responsibility, and to remember the
+magnitude and responsibility of their task as controllers of an Empire.
+He breathed into them for a moment a portion of his own great spirit;
+and many a small tradesman and dull-souled artisan realised that night,
+for the first (and possibly the last) time, that the summit of the
+Universe is not composed of hides and tallow, and that there are higher
+things than the loaves and fishes of party politics and the petty
+triumphs of a contested election.
+
+From a strictly tactical point of view all this was useless, and
+therefore dangerous. But for a brief twenty minutes we were gods,
+Utopians, Olympians, joyously planning out a scheme of things as they
+should be, to the entire oblivion of things as they are. That is always
+worth something.
+
+Then he sat down, and we came to earth again with a bump, recollecting
+guiltily the cause for which we were assembled and met together--namely,
+the overwhelming of an Italian warehouseman and the retention of a
+parliamentary seat in an unimportant provincial district.
+
+Once only have I heard that speech bettered, and that was in the House
+of Commons on a night in June fifteen years later, when a Prime Minister
+started up from the Treasury Bench to defend a colleague whose
+Bill--since recognised as one of the most statesmanlike measures of our
+generation--was being submitted to the narrowest and meanest canons of
+party criticism. It was another appeal for fair-play, unbiassed
+judgment, and breadth of view, and it took a hostile and captious House,
+Government and Opposition alike, by storm. The name of the Prime
+Minister on that occasion was John Champion, and the colleague whom he
+defended was Robert Chalmers Fordyce.
+
+After Champion had sat down--nominally his speech was a vote of
+confidence in my unworthy self--Robin rose to second the motion. I did
+not envy him his task. It is an ungrateful business at the best, firing
+off squibs directly after a shower of meteors. Even a second shower of
+meteors would be rather a failure under the circumstances. Robin
+realised this. He put something into his pocket and told his audience a
+couple of stories--dry, pawky, Scottish yarns--which he admitted were
+not new, not true, and not particularly relevant. The first was a
+scurrilous anecdote concerning a man from Paisley,--which illustrious
+township, by the way, appears to be the target of practically all
+Scottish humour,--and the other treated of a Highland minister who was
+delivering to a long-suffering congregation a discourse upon the Minor
+Prophets. Robin told us how the preacher worked through Obadiah,
+Ezekiel, Nahum, Malachi, "and many others whose names are doubtless
+equally familiar to you, gentlemen," he added amid chuckles, "placing
+them in a kind of ecclesiastical order of merit as he proceeded; and
+finally he came to Habakkuk.
+
+"'What place, my friends, what place will we assign to Habakkuk?' he
+roared.
+
+"That, gentlemen," said Robin, "proved to be the last straw. A man rose
+up under the gallery.
+
+"'Ye can pit him doon here in my seat,' he roared. 'I'm awa' hame!'
+
+"Gentlemen," added Robin, as the shout of laughter subsided, "I fear
+that one of you will be for offering _his_ seat to Habakkuk if I go on
+any longer, so I will just second the motion and sit down."
+
+After that I rose to my weary feet and offered my contribution. I have
+no intention of giving a _precis_ of my speech here. It was exactly the
+same as all the speeches ever delivered on such occasions. Thucydides
+could have written it down word for word without ever having heard me
+deliver it. It was not in the least a good speech, but it was the sort
+of speech they expected, and, better still, it was the sort of speech
+they wanted. Everybody was too excited to be critical, and I sat down,
+perspiring and thankful, amid enthusiasm.
+
+Then came the most trying ordeal of all--questions.
+
+I am no hand at repartee; but practice had sharpened my faculties
+in this direction, and I had, moreover, become fairly conversant
+with the type of query to which the seeker after knowledge on these
+occasions usually confines himself. The great secret is to bear in
+mind the fact that what people want in one's reply is not accurate
+information--unless, of course, you are standing for a Scottish
+constituency, and then Heaven help you!--but something smart. If you can
+answer the question, do so; but in any case answer it in such a way as
+to make the questioner feel small. Then you will have your audience with
+you.
+
+To prevent unseemly shouting (and, _entre nous_, to give the Candidate a
+little more time to polish up his impromptus), the questions were handed
+up on slips of paper and read aloud, and answered _seriatim_. They were
+sorted and arranged for me by Robin, and I not infrequently found, among
+the various slips, a question usually coming directly after a regular
+poser, in Robin's handwriting, with a brilliant and telling reply
+thoughtfully appended.
+
+This evening as usual Robin collected the slips from the stewards, and
+ultimately laid them on the table before me. I rose, and started on the
+heap. The first was a typewritten document which had been handed up by a
+thoughtful-looking gentleman in the front row. It contained a single
+line--
+
+_Are you a Liberal or a Conservative?_
+
+This was a trifle hard, I thought, coming directly after my speech; but
+fortunately the audience considered it merely funny, and roared when I
+remarked pathetically, "This gentleman is evidently deaf."
+
+Then came the question--
+
+_Are you in favour of Woman's Suffrage?_
+
+This was no novelty, and was fortunately regarded by the gallant
+electors present as a form of comic relief. I adopted my usual plan
+under the circumstances, and said--
+
+"I am in favour, sir, of giving a woman whatever she wants. It is always
+well to make a virtue of necessity."
+
+This homely and non-committal gibe satisfied most of the audience, and I
+was about to proceed to the next question when my interlocutor, a
+litigious-looking man with blue spectacles, rose in the circle and
+cried--
+
+"You are evading the question, sir! Give me an answer. Are you in favour
+of Woman's Suffrage or not?"
+
+"That's fair! Give him his answer!" came the cry from the fickle
+audience.
+
+I was quite prepared for this. I went through an oft-rehearsed and not
+uneffective piece of pantomime with Kitty, and replied--
+
+"Well, sir, I have just inquired of my wife, who is by my side----"
+
+I paused expectantly. I was not disappointed. There were loud cheers,
+during which I seized the opportunity to glance through the next few
+questions. Then, as I was not quite ready--
+
+"--As she has _always_ been, all through this arduous campaign----"
+
+_Terrific enthusiasm, while Kitty blushes and bows very prettily; after
+which the conversation proceeds on the following lines:_--
+
+_Myself_. And she tells me that she does not want any Suffrage of any
+kind whatsoever!
+
+_"Hear, hear!" But some cries of disapproval._
+
+_Myself_. I therefore recommend you, sir, to go home and follow my
+example----
+
+_(Perfect tornado of laughter. Apparently I have made a home-thrust.)_
+
+--And after that, if you will come back to me and report the result of
+your--er--investigations--(_yells_)--I shall be happy to go into the
+matter with you more fully.
+
+_Triumphant cheers, and the blue-spectacled man collapses._
+
+The unfortunate espouser of the cause of the fair having thus been
+derided out of court, I took up the next question. It concerned a
+long-standing dispute as to the rights of the clergy of various
+denominations to enter the local Board Schools,--this was in the days
+far preceding the present educational deadlock,--and I felt that I must
+walk warily. I talked at large about liberty of conscience and religious
+toleration, but realised as I rambled on that my moderate views and want
+of bigotry in one direction or the other were pleasing no one. John Bull
+is a curious creature. You may get drunk and beat your wife, and he will
+tolerate you; you may run amok through most of the Decalogue, and he
+will still be your friend; but venture to worship your Maker in a
+fashion which differs one tittle from his own, and he will put down his
+pint-pot or desist from sanding the sugar and fell you to the earth. I
+was glad to get away from this subject, leaving the audience far from
+satisfied, and turn to the next question. It said--
+
+_Is the Candidate aware that the important township of Spratling is
+entirely without a pier or jetty of any description?_
+
+"Certainly I am aware of it," I replied, trying hard to remember where
+the place was. The audience began to titter, and I felt uneasy.
+
+My questioner, a saturnine gentleman in the pit, rose to his feet and
+continued--
+
+"And if returned to Parliament, will you exert your influence to see
+that a jetty is constructed there at the earliest opportunity?"
+
+"Cer----" There was a very slight movement beside me. Robin was leaning
+back unconcernedly in his chair, but on the table under my nose lay a
+sheet of paper bearing these words in large printed capitals--
+
+SPRATLING IS TEN MILES FROM THE SEA!
+
+It had been a near thing.
+
+"Certainly," I continued. "On one condition only," I added at the top of
+my voice, above the rising tide of mocking laughter,--"on condition that
+you, sir, will personally guarantee a continuous and efficient service
+of fast steamers between Spratling and--the sea-coast!"
+
+It was not a brilliant effort. I think I could have made more of it if I
+had had more time. But it served. How they laughed!
+
+But there were breakers ahead. The next question asked if I was in
+favour of compulsory land purchase and small holdings. Of course I was
+not; but if I said so I knew I should rouse a dangerous storm, for the
+community were much bitten at the time with the "Vine and Fig-tree
+Fetish," as some one had happily described it. If, on the other hand, I
+said Yes, I should, besides telling a lie,--though, as Cash once
+remarked to me, "You can't strain at gnats on polling-day,"--be
+committing myself to a scheme, which I knew Stridge had been strongly
+urging, for dividing up some of the estate of the Lord of the Manor, the
+Earl of Carbolton (whom I knew personally for one of the wisest and most
+considerate landlords in the country) into allotments for the benefit of
+an industrial population who probably thought that turnips grew on
+trees. It would have been easy to make some easily broken promise, but I
+have my poor pride, and I never offer the most academic blessing to a
+measure that I am not prepared to go into a Lobby for. I wanted time to
+think. Perhaps Robin would slip something on to the table. I accordingly
+played my usual card, and said--
+
+"Now this, gentleman, is an important question, and I am very glad it
+has been asked." (Oh, Adrian, my _boy_!) "And when I am faced with such
+a question, I always ask myself, 'What, under the circumstances, would
+be the course of action of--our great leader?'"
+
+The device succeeded, and the theatre resounded with frenzied cheers. I
+turned to Robin. He was not there.
+
+I swung round in Kitty's direction. She had left her chair, and was
+hurriedly making her way through the group of important nobodies behind
+me in the direction of the wings. Robin was there already, in earnest
+conversation with a girl.
+
+It was Dolly.
+
+Phillis?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+"TO DIE--WILL BE AN _AWFULLY_ BIG ADVENTURE!"
+
+--_Peter Pan_.
+
+
+Two minutes later we were driving back to the Cathedral Arms. It was
+snowing heavily, but I never noticed the fact. Neither did I realise
+that I had abandoned my post at a critical and dangerous moment, and
+left my friends on the platform to explain to a puzzled and angry
+audience why the Candidate had run away without answering their
+questions. But there are deeper things than politics.
+
+Phillis, we learned from Dolly, had been attacked by violent pains early
+in the evening; and about nine o'clock there had been a sudden rise of
+temperature, with slight delirium, followed by a complete and alarming
+collapse. Dr Farquharson had been sent for, hot-foot, from Stridge's
+platform, and his first proceeding had been to summon me from mine.
+
+He was waiting for us in the hall of the hotel when we arrived, and
+Kitty and I took him into our sitting-room and, parent-like, begged to
+be told "the worst."
+
+The doctor--a dour and deliberate Scot--declined to be positive, but
+"doubted" it might be perityphlitis. "Appendicitis is a more fashionable
+term," he added. The child had rallied, but was very ill, and nothing
+more could be done at present except keep her warm and afford relief by
+means of poultices and fomentations until the malady should take a
+definite turn for the better or the worse.
+
+"In either case we shall know what to do then," he said; "but for the
+present the bairn must just fight her own battle. Has she good health,
+as a rule?"
+
+Yes, thank God! she had. Physically she was frail enough, but she
+possessed a tough little constitution. After I had taken a peep into the
+room where the poor child, a vision of tumbled hair and wide bright
+eyes, lay moaning and tossing, I left Kitty and Dolly and the doctor to
+do what they could for her, and went downstairs to take counsel with my
+friends.
+
+Now that the first shock was past, my head was clear again, and my
+course lay plain before me. Downstairs I found Robin, Champion, and Cash
+silently taking supper.
+
+"Now, gentlemen," I said, when I had answered Robin's anxious
+inquiries--I believe he loved the child almost as much as I did--"this
+misfortune has come at a bad time; but one thing is quite plain, and
+that is that I must go through with the election. I quite see that I am
+not my own master at present."
+
+Cash looked immensely relieved. Evidently he had been afraid that I
+would throw up the sponge. Robin and Champion nodded a grave assent, and
+the latter said--
+
+"You are right, Adrian. It's the only thing to do."
+
+"That's true," said Cash. "I am sure you have our deepest sympathy, Mr
+Inglethwaite, but we can't possibly let you off on any account."
+
+It was not a very happy way of putting it, but Cash was an election
+agent first and a man afterwards.
+
+"It was bad enough your running away from the meeting to-night," he
+continued, in tones which he tried vainly to keep from sounding
+reproachful. "They'd have torn the benches up if Mr Fordyce hadn't let
+'em have it straight. I'm afraid it will cost us votes to-morrow."
+
+All this grated a good deal. I could hear Robin begin to breathe through
+his nose, and I knew that sign. I broke in--
+
+"What did you say to them, Robin?"
+
+"Say? I don't really know. I assured them that you must have some good
+reason for leaving in such a hurry, and persuaded them to keep quiet for
+a bit in case you came back. We put up a few more speakers, but the
+people got more and more out of hand; and finally, after about five
+minutes of Dubberley, they grew so riotous that we ended the meeting."
+
+"They had every excuse," said I. "They considered themselves defrauded."
+
+"So they were," said Cash.
+
+"Of course, if they had _known_," said Champion, "they would have gone
+home like lambs."
+
+"Somehow," said Robin, "I wish they could have been told, Adrian. I
+should have liked fine to explain to them that you didn't leave the
+meeting just because you couldn't answer that last question."
+
+"By gum!" Cash had been striving to deliver himself for some time. "Mr
+Inglethwaite," he said excitedly, "they must be told at once! We can get
+more good out of your little girl's illness than fifty meetings would do
+us. You know what the British public are! I'll circulate the real reason
+of your departure from the meeting first thing to-morrow morning, and
+half the wobblers in the place will vote for you out of sheer
+kind-heartedness. I know 'em!"
+
+The exemplary creature almost smacked his lips.
+
+There was a tense silence all round the table. Then I said, with some
+heat--
+
+"Mr Cash, I have delivered myself into your hands, body and soul, ever
+since Nomination Day, and I have obeyed you to the letter all through
+this campaign. But--I am not going to allow a sick child's sufferings to
+be employed as a political asset to-morrow."
+
+There was a sympathetic growl from the other two.
+
+"Oh, we shouldn't do it as publicly as all that," said the unabashed
+Cash. "Trust me! No ostentation; just an explanatory report circulated
+in a subdued sort of way--and perhaps a strip of tan-bark down on the
+road outside the hotel--eh? _I_ know how to do it. It'll pay, I tell
+you. And there'll be no publicity----"
+
+I laid my head upon the table and groaned. For three weeks I had had
+perhaps four hours' sleep a-night, and I had been worked down to my last
+reserve of energy, keeping in hand just enough to meet all the probable
+contingencies of to-morrow's election. Dialectics with Cash as to the
+market value of a little girl's illness had not been included in the
+estimate. I groaned.
+
+Champion answered for me.
+
+"Mr Cash, don't you see how painful these proposals are to Mr
+Inglethwaite? Put such ideas out of your head once and for all. No man
+worthy of the name would accept votes won in such a way."
+
+There was a confirmatory rumble from Robin.
+
+"We can't have _ad misericordiam_ appeals here, Mr Cash," he said.
+
+Champion continued briskly--
+
+"Now, Mr Cash, we will get Mr Inglethwaite a drink and send him to bed.
+He has not had a decent night's rest for a fortnight. We trust to you
+not to talk of the child's illness to anybody,--that is the _only_ way
+to avoid making capital of it,--and if you will call here to-morrow
+after breakfast I will guarantee that your Candidate will be fit and
+ready to go round the polling-booths with you, and"--he put his hand on
+my shoulder--"set an example to all of us."
+
+Cash, completely pulverised, departed as bidden, desolated over this
+renunciation of eleemosynary votes; and Robin, Champion, and I finished
+our supper in peace,--if one can call it peace when there is no peace.
+
+Champion was leaving by the night mail, for he had promised to address a
+meeting two hundred miles away next day. His cab was already at the
+door, and we said good-bye to him on the hotel steps.
+
+He shook hands with me in silence, and turned to Robin.
+
+"Three fingers, and not too much soda, and then put him straight to
+bed," he commanded.
+
+Then he turned to me again.
+
+"Don't sit up and worry, old man," he said. "Go to bed, anyhow. The
+doctor and your womenfolk will do all that can be done. Your duties
+commence to-morrow. Keep your tail up, and face it out. _Noblesse
+oblige_, you know. Good-night."
+
+He drove away, and Robin and I returned to the sitting-room.
+
+Robin mixed me a stiff whisky-and-soda.
+
+"Champion's prescription," he said. "Down with it!"
+
+I obeyed listlessly.
+
+"Now come along upstairs with me. You are going to bed. I want to turn
+you out a first-class Candidate in the morning--not a boiled owl."
+
+His cheery masterfulness had its effect, and I suddenly felt a man
+again.
+
+"Never fear!" I said. "I shall go through with it right enough--the
+whole business--unless--unless--Robin, old man, supposing--supposing----"
+
+"Blethers!" said Robin hastily. "She'll be much better in the morning.
+Here's your room. Good-night!"
+
+He shepherded me into my bedroom, shut the door on me, and tiptoed away.
+
+I really made a determined effort to go to bed. I actually lay down and
+covered myself up, but sleep I could not. After an hour of conscientious
+endeavour I rose, inspired with a new idea.
+
+The doctor had straitly forbidden me to enter Phillis's room; but
+opening out of it was the apartment that was used as her nursery. There
+would be a fire there: I would spend the rest of the night on a sofa in
+front of it.
+
+I looked at my watch. It was one o'clock. I took a candle, walked softly
+down the passage, and let myself quietly into the nursery. The door
+leading into Phillis's room was ajar, and a slight smell of some drug or
+disinfectant assailed my sharpened senses.
+
+The room was in darkness, except that a good fire burned in the grate. A
+silent figure rose up from before it at my entrance.
+
+It was Robin. Somehow I was not in the least surprised to see him there.
+
+"Come along," he said softly. "I was expecting you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We sat there for the rest of the long night. The house was very still,
+but every quarter of an hour the Cathedral chimes across the Close--our
+rooms lay in a quiet wing of the hotel, which formed a hollow square
+with the Cathedral, Chapter-house, and Canonries--furnished a musical
+break in the silence. So tensely mechanical does one's brain become
+under such circumstances, that presently I found myself anticipating the
+exact moment when the next quarter would strike; and I remember feeling
+quite disappointed and irritable if, when I said to myself _"Now!"_ the
+chime did not ring out for another fifteen seconds or so. Truly, at
+three o'clock on a sleepless morning the grasshopper is a burden.
+
+Once Robin rose softly to his feet and turned towards the door of
+Phillis's room. I had not heard any one move there, but when I looked
+round Dolly was standing on the threshold. She was wrapped in a
+kimono,--I remember its exact colour and pattern to this day, and the
+curious manner in which the heraldic-looking animals embroidered upon it
+winked at me in the firelight,--and she held an incongruous-looking
+coal-scuttle in her hand. It was not by any means empty, but she handed
+it to Robin with a little nod of authority and vanished again.
+
+I looked listlessly at Robin, wondering what he was to do with the
+coal-scuttle. He began to cut a newspaper into strips, after which he
+picked suitable lumps of coal out of the scuttle and tied them up into
+neat little paper packets, half a dozen of which he presently handed
+through the door to Dolly. I suppose she placed them noiselessly on the
+fire in Phillis's room, but we heard no sound.
+
+It was a bitterly cold night, and outside the snow was lying thick; so
+Robin busied himself with preparing other little packets of coal, and at
+intervals throughout the long night he passed them through the door to
+the tireless Dolly.
+
+Various sounds came from within. Occasionally the child suffered spasms
+of pain, and we could hear her crying. Then all-wise Nature would grant
+the sorely tried little body a rest at the expense of the mind that
+ruled it, and poor Phillis would drop into a sort of rambling delirium,
+through which we perforce accompanied her. At one time she would be
+wandering through some Elysian field of her own; we heard her calling
+her mates and proposing all manner of attractive games. (Even
+"Beckoning" was included. Once I distinctly heard her "choose" me.) But
+more often she was in deadly fear. Her solitary little spirit was too
+plainly beset by those nameless ghosts that haunt the borderland
+separating the realms of Death from those of his brother Sleep. Once her
+voice rose to a scream.
+
+"Uncle Robin! It's the Kelpie! Stop it! It's coming--it's breaving on
+me! Uncle _Robin_! oh----!"
+
+I looked at Robin. He was sitting gripping the arms of his chair, with
+every muscle in his body rigid; and I knew that he, like myself, was
+praying God to strike down the cowardly devil that would torment a
+child.
+
+Then I heard, for the first time that night, the soothing murmur of
+Kitty's voice.
+
+"It's all right, dearie. Mother is holding you fast. It shan't hurt you.
+There, it's running away now, isn't it? See!"
+
+Kitty's tones would have lightened the torments of the Pit, and
+Phillis's cries presently died down to an uneasy whisper. After a sudden
+and curiously pathetic little outburst of singing,--chiefly a jumble of
+scraps from such old favourites as "Onward, Christian _Sailors_!"--there
+was silence again, and the Cathedral chimed out half-past four.
+
+Shortly after this the doctor came out of the room with a message from
+Kitty that I ought to be in bed. Evidently Dolly had told her about me.
+
+"How is she now, doctor?" I whispered, disregarding the command.
+
+"Up and down, up and down. She is making a brave fight of it, poor
+lassie, but we can do little at present except stand by and give relief
+when the bad fits come."
+
+"May I go in and see her?"
+
+"No, no! You could do no good, and she might be frightened if she caught
+sight of a large dim figure in the dark. Leave it to the women, and
+thank God for them. Hark!"
+
+Phillis was back in Elysium again.
+
+"Who's been eating my porridge?" said a gruff little voice. Then came a
+rapturous shriek. Evidently the Little Bear had caught Curly Locks in
+his bed. We sat listening, while the game ended and another followed in
+its place. Suddenly she began to sing again--
+
+   "Then three times round went that gallant ship,
+      And three times round went she;
+    Then three times round went that gallant ship,
+      And--sank--to the--bottom of the sea--ea--ee--"
+
+There was a little wailing _rallentando_, and silence.
+
+"Philly, Philly, _don't_!" It was the only time that night that Kitty
+gave any sign of breaking down. The doctor hurried back into the room.
+The clock struck five.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After that there was a very long silence. It must have lasted nearly an
+hour. Then Dolly tiptoed out to us.
+
+"She's asleep," she whispered. "He says she's a shade better. I want
+another coal-packet."
+
+She took what Robin gave her, and faded away.
+
+After that I think we dozed in our chairs. The next thing I remember was
+a knock at the outer door. I opened my heavy eyes and stirred my stiff
+joints. The Boots put his head in, and I realised it was daylight.
+
+"Half-past eight, sir. Mr Cash is waiting downstairs. Poll's been open
+half an hour, he says."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+TWO BATTLES.
+
+
+Before I left the hotel I struck a bargain with Cash. I would go
+anywhere and do anything, but he was to give me a written itinerary of
+my movements for the day, clearly stating where I should be at various
+times. This document I left in the hands of Dolly, who promised
+faithfully to send for me, if--if necessary.
+
+Then, putting my paternal instincts into my pocket, I braced myself up
+and plunged into the vortex of polling-day.
+
+Truly, if Time is the healer, Work is the anesthetic. In the turmoil of
+the crowded streets and polling-booths, I found myself almost as
+enthusiastic and whole-hearted as if no little girl of mine were
+fighting for life in a darkened room not many streets away. I shook
+hands with countless folk, I addressed meetings of the unwashed at
+street corners, and received the plaudits or execrations of the
+multitude with equal serenity.
+
+Robin hastened away to the Hide-and-Tallow Works, whence, during the
+dinner-hour, he charmed many an oleaginous elector to come and plump for
+Inglethwaite, the Man Whom He Knew and Who Knew Him. Gerald and Donkin,
+smothered in violets and primroses, were personally conducting a sort of
+tumbril, which dashed across my field of vision from time to time,
+sometimes full, sometimes empty, but always at full gallop.
+
+Election "incidents" were plentiful. I was standing in the principal
+polling-station at one time, when a gentleman called Hoppett, a cobbler
+by persuasion--I think I have already mentioned him as the benignant
+individual who used to come to the door of his establishment and pursue
+me with curses down the street--came out from recording his vote. He did
+not see me, but caught sight of Robin, who had just arrived with a
+_posse_ of electors, and was standing by the Returning Officer's table.
+Hobbling up, the cobbler shook a gnarled fist under my secretary's nose.
+
+"I've voted against your man," he shouted. "We're goin' to be rid of the
+lot of you this time. Set of reskils!... I've put my mark against
+Stridge, I have; and against Inglethwaite's name I've put a picture of a
+big boot--one of my own making, too! The big boot!" he screamed
+ecstatically--"that's what your man is a-going to get to-day. Set
+of----"
+
+Robin smiled benignantly upon him, and glanced at the Returning Officer.
+
+"You hear what this gentleman says?" he remarked.
+
+"I do," replied the official.
+
+"Is it not a fact that he has annulled his vote by making unnecessary
+marks on his voting-paper?" continued Robin solemnly.
+
+"That is so," assented the Returning Officer. "I'm afraid your vote
+won't count this time, Mr Hoppett. Good morning!"
+
+There was a roar of delighted laughter from friend and foe, and the
+fermenting Hoppett was cast forth.
+
+I succeeded in getting back to the hotel for ten minutes at
+luncheon-time. Dolly met me--pale, sleepless, but unbeaten.
+
+"The doctor is with her just now," she said. "She has been in fearful
+pain, poor kiddy; but he has given her a drug of some sort, and she is
+easier now."
+
+"Couldn't I see her, just a moment?" I said wistfully.
+
+"The answer to that question, sir," replied Dolly, "is in the negative."
+
+We both smiled resolutely at this familiar tag, and Dolly concluded--
+
+"Kitty is lying down. I made her. But she is going to get up when
+they--I mean----"
+
+I detected a curious confusion in her voice.
+
+"When what?" I asked.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+I surveyed my sister-in-law uneasily
+
+"Are they expecting--a crisis, then?"
+
+"Yes--a sort of a one."
+
+"When?"
+
+Dolly seemed to consider.
+
+"About five," she said.
+
+"Hadn't I better be near, in case----?"
+
+"Where are you to be this afternoon?"
+
+"Hunnable."
+
+Dolly nodded her head reflectively.
+
+"When can you be back?" she asked.
+
+"I can do it by five, I should think."
+
+"That will be soon enough. The doctor said that if--you were wanted, it
+would be about then. Good-bye, old gentleman!"
+
+"Good-bye, Dolly! Mind you go to bed." (We seem to have spent a large
+portion of that twenty-four hours urging each other to go to bed.)
+
+Then I went back to work.
+
+Polling had been brisk during the dinner-hour, and both Cash and Robin
+considered that we were doing fairly well. Things would be slack at
+Stoneleigh itself during the afternoon, and the obvious and politic
+course now was to drive over to the fishing village of Hunnable--I had
+only time for one, and this was the most considerable--and catch my
+marine constituents as they emerged from the ocean, Proteus-like,
+between three and four o'clock.
+
+I did so, and for the space of an hour and a half I solicited the
+patronage of innumerable tarry mariners, until their horny hands
+had filled up the voting-papers and my own smelt to heaven of fish.
+It was a quarter to five, and dark, before I escaped from the attentions
+of a small but pertinacious group of inquirers who wanted to understand
+my exact attitude on the question of trawling within the three-mile
+limit, and proceeded at a hand-gallop back to Stoneleigh. (That
+odoriferous but popular vehicle, the motor-car, was still in the
+preceded-by-a-man-ten-yards-in-front-bearing-a-red-flag stage in those
+days, and we had to rely on that antiquated but much more reliable
+medium of transport, the horse.) The snow lay very heavily in places,
+and our progress was not over-rapid. Moreover, passing the central
+Committee Rooms on my way to the hotel, I was stopped and haled within
+to conciliate various wobblers, and another twenty minutes of precious
+time sped. But I stuck to my determination to let nothing interfere with
+duty that day, and I argued with free-thinkers and pump-handled bemused
+supporters until all was settled and Cash said I might go.
+
+Still, it was nearer six than five when my panting horses drew up at the
+Cathedral Arms.
+
+There was no Dolly to receive me this time, but at the top of the stairs
+leading to our rooms I met the doctor. He was accompanied by a
+grey-haired, kind-eyed old gentleman in a frock-coat, with "London
+Specialist" written all over him. It was Sir James Fordyce.
+
+"Well?" I asked feverishly as I shook hands.
+
+The two men motioned me into the sitting-room, and Farquharson said, in
+a curiously uncertain fashion--
+
+"Mr Inglethwaite, we have done a thing which should not, properly, have
+been done without your consent. Your secretary suggested the idea, and I
+agreed. Mrs Inglethwaite made a point of our saying nothing to you, and
+volunteered to take all responsibility on herself. She said you were not
+to be worried. So I wired for Sir James----"
+
+"I see," I said, "and he operated?"
+
+"Yes, at three o'clock this afternoon. Indeed, your sister-in-law, I
+think, purposely concealed from you----"
+
+"She did." That, then, was the "crisis" that Dolly had in her mind, and
+that, too, was why she had told me to come back at five--when everything
+would be well over!
+
+I continued--
+
+"And how have you--I mean--is she----?"
+
+"The operation," said the old man, "was entirely successful, and, as it
+turned out, most necessary. But of course for so young a patient the
+strain was terrible."
+
+"How is she?"
+
+"She came through finely, but I do not conceal from you the fact that
+her life hangs by a thread."
+
+I had a premonition that something was going to be "broken" to me. I
+dropped into a chair, and waited dully. Then I felt a hand on my
+shoulder, and Sir James continued--
+
+"Just weakness, you understand! Her exhaustion when she came out of the
+chloroform was extreme, but every moment now is in our favour. Children
+have such extraordinary recuperative power."
+
+He was speaking in the usual cheery tones of the bedside optimist. I
+raised my head.
+
+"Tell me straight, Sir James--will the child live?"
+
+The old man's grip on my shoulder tightened just for a moment, and when
+he spoke it was in an entirely unprofessional voice.
+
+"Thanks to two of the bravest and most devoted of women," he said, "I
+think she will."
+
+I dropped my head into my hands.
+
+"Please God!" I murmured brokenly.
+
+"Of course," he continued, "anything may happen yet. But the way in
+which she has been cared for by my good friend here----"
+
+"No, no," said Farquharson. "Give the credit to those that deserve it. I
+just afforded ordinary professional assistance. It was your wife and her
+sister, Mr Inglethwaite, that pulled the child through. She has had
+tight hold of a hand of one of them ever since ten o'clock last night."
+
+"Yes," said Sir James; "I think it will be found that their nursing has
+just made the difference. You had better give him something,
+Farquharson."
+
+In truth I needed something, though up to this point I had not realised
+the fact. Farquharson gave me a draught out of a little glass, which
+sent a steadying glow all through me, and presently I was able to shake
+hands, dumbly and mechanically, with the great surgeon, who, I found,
+was bidding me good-bye; for the world is full of sick folk, and their
+champion may not stay to see the issue of one battle before he must
+hurry off to fight another.
+
+They left me to myself, while Farquharson went down to the door with Sir
+James. Presently he returned.
+
+"I must be getting back to the patient shortly," he said. "The next hour
+or so will be very critical. The nurse is here, and I have sent the
+ladies to bed. But you may go in for a look, if you like. I am going out
+for exactly ten minutes."
+
+"I see--a breather. You deserve it."
+
+"Not exactly. I'm going to vote--for Stridge!"
+
+He chuckled in a marvellously cheering way, and left me.
+
+As I approached Phillis's room the door opened, and I was confronted
+with that most soothing and comforting of sights to a sick man--a
+nurse's uniform. She was a pleasant-faced girl, I remember, and she was
+carrying a basin full of sponges and water, cruelly tinged.
+
+"Just a peep!" she said, with that little air of motherly sternness
+which all women, however young, adopt towards fractious children and
+helpless males.
+
+She closed the door very softly upon me, and left me alone.
+
+For a moment I stood uncertain in the shadow of the screen that guarded
+the door. There was a whiff of chloroform in the air, and through the
+doorway leading to the room where we had sat throughout the previous
+night I could see the end of a white-covered table. Thank God, that part
+of the business was over!
+
+A shaded lamp burned at Phillis's bedside. She lay deathly still, an
+attenuated little derelict amid an ocean of white bed-clothes.
+
+At first I thought I was alone with the child, and was moving softly
+forward when I became suddenly aware that some one was kneeling at the
+far side of the bed. It was Kitty. Evidently she had not obeyed the
+doctor's orders about going to bed.
+
+A single ray from the lamp fell upon her face. Her eyes were wide open,
+and she seemed to be looking straight at me. Her lips were moving, and I
+became aware that she was speaking, very earnestly and almost inaudibly.
+
+I stood still to hear her. Then I realised that her words were not
+addressed to me. Very carefully I stepped back to the door-handle,
+turned it, and slipped out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+"QUI PERD, GAGNE."
+
+
+Once more I was back in the thick of it all, and till the closing of the
+poll at eight o'clock I strove, in company with Cash, Robin, and others,
+to direct the inclinations of my constituents into the proper channels.
+
+The tumult increased as the evening advanced. More snow had fallen
+during the afternoon, and outlying electors were being conveyed to the
+scene of action with the utmost difficulty. People were voting at seven
+o'clock who had intended to get it done and be home by six; and as time
+wore on it was seen that there would be a desperate rush of business
+right up till closing time.
+
+Every one was in high spirits. That potent factor in British politics,
+the electioneering egg, had been entirely superseded by the snowball,
+and the youth of Stoneleigh, massed in the public square outside the
+Town Hall, were engaged, with a lofty indifference to party distinctions
+that would have been sublime if it had not been so painful, in an
+untrammelled bombardment of all who crossed their path.
+
+At length the Cathedral chimed out the hour of eight, and the poll
+closed. Cash hurried up to me.
+
+"It's going to be a desperately close thing," he said. "The counting
+will begin at once, in the Mayor's room on the first floor of the Town
+Hall. The outlying boxes should be in by half-past nine at the latest,
+and the result should be out by about eleven. You'll come and watch the
+counting, I suppose."
+
+But there are limits to human endurance.
+
+"Mr Cash," I said, buttoning my overcoat up to my ears as a preliminary
+to an encounter with the budding statesmen outside, "I think I have got
+to the end of my day's work. Nothing can affect the result now, and I'm
+going home--that's flat. Good-night!"
+
+"Surely you're coming to hear the result announced," wailed Cash.
+"There's the vote of thanks to the Returning Officer. You'll have to
+propose that--or second it," he added grimly.
+
+"Well, I'll see. But I think, now that the poll is closed, that my duty
+lies elsewhere," I said. "If I am really wanted, send word by Mr
+Fordyce."
+
+Five minutes later, and I was once more at the Cathedral Arms. The
+ground floor of that hostelry hummed like a hive, and the bar and
+smoking-room were filled to overflowing with supporters of both sides,
+who were prudently avoiding all risk of disappointment by celebrating
+the result of the election in advance.
+
+I pushed my way through a group of enthusiastic patriots--many of them
+in that condition once described to me by a sporting curate as "holding
+two or three firkins apiece"--who crowded round me, fired with a desire
+to drink success to the British Constitution--a rash shibboleth, by the
+way, for gentlemen in their situation to attempt to enunciate at all--at
+my expense, and hastened upstairs to our wing.
+
+In the passage I met the nurse. She greeted me with a little smile; but
+I was mistrustful of professional cheerfulness that night.
+
+"Will you tell Mrs Inglethwaite or Miss Rubislaw that I have come in,
+please?" I said, and turned into the sitting-room.
+
+The sight of a snug room or a bright fire or a colossal arm-chair is
+always comforting to a weary man, even though his thoughts admit of
+little rest. I sank down amid these comforts, and closed my eyes. Now
+that my long day's play-acting was over, and nothing mattered any more,
+I began to realise how great the strain had been. I was utterly done. I
+had no clear recollection of having tasted food since breakfast, but I
+was not hungry. All I wanted was to be left in peace. Even the sickening
+anxiety about Phillis had died down to a sort of dull ache. In a few
+minutes a too-wakeful mind struggled with an exhausted body. I wondered
+dimly when somebody would come and tell me how Philly was. Perhaps----
+
+I fell asleep.
+
+I was awakened by the consciousness of a second presence in my
+arm-chair, which was a roomy one of the saddle-bag variety. It was
+Kitty. Presently I became aware that she was crying, softly, as women
+usually do,--men gulp noisily, because they have lost control of
+themselves, and children wail, chiefly to attract attention,--but so
+softly on this occasion that I knew she was trying to avoid disturbing
+me.
+
+It had happened, then.
+
+Well, obviously, this was one of the rare occasions upon which a husband
+can be of some use to his wife. I sat up, and made a clumsy effort at a
+caress.
+
+"We've still got each other," I said, rather brokenly.
+
+Kitty positively laughed.
+
+"Adrian, you don't understand. Philly roused up for a few minutes about
+eight o'clock,--very _piano_, poor mite, but almost herself,--and then
+dropped off into a beautiful sleep, bless her! The doctor has gone home
+and left the nurse in charge. He says things should be all right now.
+Oh, Adrian, Adrian!"
+
+And my wife sobbed afresh.
+
+"Then what the--what on earth are you crying for?" I demanded.
+
+"I don't know, dear," said Kitty, without making any attempt to stop.
+"I'm so happy!"
+
+Really, women are the most extraordinary creatures. Here was I, after
+the labour and anxiety of the last twenty-four hours, ready to shout for
+joy. I was no longer tired: I felt as if my day's work had never been. I
+wanted to sing--to dance--to give three cheers in a whisper. And my
+wife, after giving me a very bad fright, was sitting celebrating our
+victory by a flood of tears and other phenomena usually attributed by
+the masculine mind to unfathomable woe. It was all very perplexing, and
+I felt a trifle ill-used; but I suppose it was one of the things that
+mark the difference between a man and a woman.
+
+After that we sat long and comfortably. Our conversation need not be set
+down here, for it has no bearing on this chronicle.
+
+Finally we looked at the clock, and then at each other.
+
+"We must have been sitting here a long time," I said. "I wonder where
+the others are."
+
+"By the way," said Kitty, "Dilly and Dicky have arrived. Robin and Dolly
+wired for them this morning. They may be upstairs any moment. They were
+having supper in the coffee-room when last I saw them." She patted her
+hair. "Do I look an awful fright?"
+
+I turned in the restricted space at my command and surveyed her.
+
+"Do my eyes look wet?" she inquired, feeling in my pocket for my
+handkerchief.
+
+Kitty has large grey eyes. Once, during the most desperate period of our
+courtship, I referred to them as "twin lakes"--an indiscretion which
+their owner, in her less generous moments, still casts up to me. But
+to-night the territory surrounding them presented a distinct appearance
+of inundation. I continued to gaze. I thought of last night's ceaseless
+vigil and to-day's long-drawn battle. My wife had borne the brunt of
+all, and I had grudged her a few tears! My heart smote me.
+
+"Kit!" I said suddenly; "poor Kit!"...
+
+We were interrupted by the opening of the door and the entrance of what
+I at first took to be a chimney-sweep's apprentice, but which proved to
+be my brother-in-law, with evidence of electoral strenuousness written
+thick upon him.
+
+"Hallo, you two!" he remarked genially. Then, noticing our
+unconventional economy of sitting-space--"Sorry! I didn't know. I
+thought you'd given up that sort of thing years ago!"
+
+I rose and shook myself.
+
+"Come in, my son," I said.
+
+"Righto!" replied Gerald. Then he addressed himself to a figure which,
+with true delicacy of feeling, had shrunk back into the passage outside.
+
+"Come in, Moke, old man. I've got them separated now!"
+
+The discreet Master Donkin sidled respectfully in at the door, and
+Gerald continued.
+
+"Moke and I would like to say how pleased we are to hear about Phillis,"
+he said, rather awkwardly for him. "We have just got to hear how really
+bad she's been."
+
+The resolution was seconded by a confirmatory mumble from Master Donkin.
+
+"We met the nurse just now," continued Gerald, "and she told us about
+the operation, and all that. It must have been a pretty thick day for
+you, Adrian. And you're looking pretty rotten, too, Kitty," he added
+with brotherly directness. "But do you people know what time it is?
+Half-past eleven, nearly. The result should be out any minute. Aren't
+you coming to the Town Hall? They'll want you to make a speech, or get
+egged, or something."
+
+I looked at my watch.
+
+"Well, there's no particular reason why I shouldn't go--_now_," I said.
+"What do you say, Kitty? Hark! What's that?"
+
+"That's the result, I expect," said my brother-in-law.
+
+We drew up the blind and opened the window. The moon was shining
+brightly, and threw the monstrous shadow of the Cathedral very blackly
+upon the untrodden snow of the peaceful Close. Through the clear night
+air came the sound of frenzied cheering.
+
+"That's it, right enough," said Gerald. "I wonder if you've got the
+chuck, my bonny boy."
+
+"Ugh! It is cold! Come in," said Kitty.
+
+We shut the window, drew down the blind, returned to the fire, and
+waited. Dolly joined us now, and Kitty vanished to sit by Phillis. We
+waited on. Somehow it never occurred to us to send downstairs for news.
+I suppose there are times when the human craving for sensation is sated.
+We sat and waited.
+
+At last the door opened, and, as I expected, Robin entered. He looked
+like a man who has not been to bed for a week. He shut the door softly
+behind him--evidently he feared he might be entering a house of
+mourning--and surveyed us for a moment without speaking. I knew what was
+in his mind. Then he said--
+
+"We have lost."
+
+I stood up.
+
+"On the contrary," I replied, "we have won."
+
+In a bound Robin was on the hearth-rug, gripping my hand with his. (His
+other had somehow got hold of one of Dolly's, and I remember wondering
+if he was hurting her as much as me.)
+
+"You mean it?" he roared.
+
+"I do. She is sleeping like a lamb."
+
+"Oh, man, I'm just glad! What does _anything_ matter after that?"
+
+Then we sat down and smiled upon each other largely and vacuously. We
+were all a little unstrung that night, I think. After all, it seems
+rather unreasonable to lavish one's time, labour, and money on an
+electoral contest, and then laugh when you lose, and say it doesn't
+matter, just because a child isn't going to die. Oh, I am glad Mr Cash
+was not there!
+
+"But I must tell you what happened when the result was read out," said
+Robin. "It was a near thing--a majority of twenty-seven. (I don't think
+it is worth while to ask for a recount: everything was done very
+carefully.) When the figures went up there was the usual hullabaloo----"
+
+"We heard it, thanks," said Gerald.
+
+"And presently Stridge stepped out on to the balcony and bowed his
+acknowledgments. There was a lot more yelling and horn-blowing, and then
+they began to cry out for Inglethwaite."
+
+"Naturally. Yes?"
+
+"They were quiet at last, and Stridge got his speech in. He talked the
+usual blethers about having struck a blow that night that would ring
+through England,--just what _you_ would have had to say if you had got
+in, in fact,--and _then_ he went on, the old sumph, to say that for
+reasons best known to himself his _honourable_ opponent had seen fit to
+withhold his presence from them that night, and he begged leave to add
+that he considered that a man, even though he knew he was going to be
+beaten, ought to have the pluck to come and face the music."
+
+"Mangy bounder!" remarked my brother-in-law dispassionately.
+
+"Oh, I was just raging!" continued Robin. "The people of course yelled
+themselves hoarse; and Stridge was going on to rub it into you, when I
+stepped on to the balcony beside him--I had been standing just inside
+the window--and I put my hand on Stridge's fat shoulder and I pulled him
+back a wee thing, and I roared--
+
+"'Gentlemen, will you not let me say a word for Mr Inglethwaite?'"
+
+Dolly's eyes began to blaze, and I saw her lips part in anticipation.
+
+"There was a tremendous uproar then," Robin went on with relish. "The
+folk howled to Stridge to put me over the balcony----"
+
+"I wish he had tried!" said Gerald with simple fervour.
+
+"And other folk cried to me to go on. They knew there must be some
+explanation of your absence. I just stood there and let them roar.
+Inside the room there was a fine commotion; and with the tail of my eye
+I could see Cash hurrying round explaining to them what I wanted to say.
+(He has his points, Cash!) Then at last, as the noise got worse and
+worse, I put my mouth to Stridge's ear and bellowed that he would regret
+it all his life if he didn't let me say what I had to say, and that he
+would be grateful to me afterwards, and all that. He is a decent old
+buffer, really, and he was evidently impressed with what I said----"
+
+"I should like to know exactly what you did say, Robin," I interpolated.
+
+"Never mind just now. Anyhow, he turned and clambered back into the
+room, and left me with the crowd. They were soon quiet, and I just told
+them."
+
+Robin leaned back in his chair.
+
+"Told them _what_?" came from all parts of the room.
+
+But Robin had become suddenly and maddeningly Caledonian again.
+
+"I just told them about Philly," he said. "What else could I do? It
+wasn't like telling them during the election. That would have been an
+appeal to the gallery for votes. This was just common justice to you.
+Anyhow, they quite quietened down after that."
+
+And that was all the report that its author ever gave us of a speech
+which, in the space of four minutes, turned a half-maddened election mob
+into a silent, a sympathetic, and (I heard afterwards) a deeply moved
+body of sober human beings.
+
+"What happened next?" asked Kitty, who had rejoined us. (Phillis was
+still sleeping sweetly, she said.)
+
+"After that I hauled old Stridge on to the balcony again and gave him a
+congratulatory hand-shake, _coram populo_, on your behalf. Then I
+retired and slipped out by a back way and came here. Stridge was in full
+eruption again when I left----"
+
+Dolly held up her hand.
+
+"What is that curious noise?" she said.
+
+"It's outside," said Kitty.
+
+Gerald went to the window and lifted the blind. Then he turned to us.
+
+"I say," he said in an unusual voice, "come here a minute."
+
+We drew up the blind and surveyed the scene before us.
+
+Two minutes before the moon had shone upon an untrodden expanse of snow.
+Now the Close was black with people. There must have been two or three
+thousand. They stood there in the gleaming moonlight, silent,
+motionless, like an army of phantoms. At their head and forefront--I
+could see the moonlight glitter on his watch-chain, which lay in a most
+favourable position for lunar reflection--stood the newly elected Member
+for Stoneleigh, Mr Alderman Stridge.
+
+Simultaneously there was a knock at the door, and the hall-porter of the
+hotel appeared.
+
+"Mr Stridge's compliments, sir, and he would like to have a word with
+you."
+
+"Go down quickly, Adrian," said Kitty anxiously. "They'll wake Philly!"
+
+I descended without a word, and passed out into the Close from a French
+window on the ground floor.
+
+I glanced up in the direction of our rooms and noticed that my party
+were standing on the balcony outside the sitting-room. I could see
+Kitty's anxious face. But she need have had no fear.
+
+Mr Stridge advanced towards me, silk hat in hand. Behind him stood a
+variety of Stoneleigh worthies, and I had time to notice that the group
+was composed of an indiscriminate mixture of friends and foes.
+
+"Mr Inglethwaite, sir," said Stridge, "I should like to shake you by the
+hand."
+
+He did so, as did a few of those immediately around us, in perfect
+silence. I wondered what was coming.
+
+"That is all, sir," said Stridge simply, and not without a certain
+dignity. "We shall move off now. We did you a wrong to-night, and we all
+of us"--he indicated the motionless multitude with a sweep of his
+hand--"agreed to come here in silence, just for a moment, as an
+indication of our sympathy and--respect."
+
+I was unable to speak, which was not altogether surprising. There was
+something overwhelming about the dumb kindness of it all,--three
+thousand excited folk holding themselves in for fear of disturbing a
+sick child,--and I merely shook Stridge's hand again.
+
+However, I found my voice at last.
+
+"Mr Stridge," I said, "there is only one thing I will say in response to
+your kindness, but I think it is the one thing most calculated to reward
+you all for it. To-night my little girl's illness took a favourable
+turn. She is now fast asleep, and practically out of danger."
+
+I saw a great ripple pass over the crowd, like a breeze over a
+cornfield, as the news sped from mouth to mouth. Both Stridge's great
+hands were on my shoulders.
+
+"Good lad!" he said. "Good lad!"
+
+He patted my shoulders again, and then, as if struck by a sudden idea,
+he turned and whispered a direction to his lieutenants. I overheard the
+words "Market Square," and "A good half mile away." Once more the wave
+passed over the cornfield, and without a sound the great concourse
+turned to the left and streamed away over the trampled snow, leaving me
+standing bareheaded on the steps of the French window, almost directly
+below the spot where the unconscious little object of all this
+consideration lay fast asleep.
+
+I returned to the group on the balcony. They had heard most of the
+conversation, and Kitty was unaffectedly dabbing her eyes.
+
+"Well, let us get in out of the cold," I said, suddenly cheerful and
+brisk. "I want my supper."
+
+"Wait a moment," said Robin, "I don't think everything is quite over
+yet. What is that? Listen!"
+
+From the direction of the Market Square came the shouts of a great
+multitude. Cheer upon cheer floated up to the starry heavens. The roars
+that had greeted the declaration of the poll were nothing to these.
+There was a united ring about them that had been lacking in the others.
+It was like one whole-hearted many-headed giant letting off steam.
+
+"A-a-h!" said Kitty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+IN WHICH ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD.
+
+
+After that we became suddenly conscious of our bodily wants, and
+clamoured for supper.
+
+It was long after midnight, and most of the hotel servants had gone to
+bed. But one waiter of political leanings, who had been an enthusiastic
+witness of the proceedings in the Close, stood by us nobly. He laid a
+table in the sitting-room. He materialised a cold turkey, a brown loaf,
+and some tomatoes; and he even achieved table-napkins. Gerald and Donkin
+on their part disappeared into the nether regions, and returned bearing
+mince-pies and cider. Some one else found champagne and opened it; and
+in a quarter of an hour we were left to ourselves by the benignant
+waiter round a comfortably loaded table, in a snug room with the fire
+burning and the curtains drawn.
+
+It was an eccentric kind of meal, for every one was overflowing with a
+sort of reactionary hilarity; and everybody called everybody else "old
+man" or "my dear," and I was compelled to manipulate my food with my
+left hand owing to the fact that my wife insisted on clinging tightly to
+my right. The only times I got a really satisfactory mouthful were when
+she slipped out of the room to see how her daughter was sleeping.
+
+As the meal progressed, I began to note the exceedingly domestic and
+intimate manner in which we were seated round the table, which was small
+and circular. Kitty and I sat together; then, on our right, came Dicky
+and Dilly, then Gerald and Donkin, each partially obscured from view by
+a bottle of cider about the size of an Indian club; and Dolly and Robin
+completed the circle.
+
+The party comported themselves variously. Kitty and I said little. We
+were utterly tired and dumbly thankful, and had no desire to contribute
+greatly to the conversation; but we turned and looked at one another in
+a contented sort of way at times. Dicky and Dilly were still
+sufficiently newly married to be more or less independent of other
+people's society, and they kept up a continuous undercurrent of
+lover-like confidences and playful nothings all the time. Gerald, upon
+whom solid food seemed to have the effect that undiluted alcohol has
+upon ordinary folk, was stentoriously engaged with Mr Donkin in what a
+student of _Paley's Evidences_ would have described as "A Contest of
+Opposite Improbabilities" concerning his election experiences.
+
+Lastly, I turned to Dolly and Robin. Dolly's splendid vitality has stood
+her in good stead during the last twenty-four hours, and this, combined
+with the present flood-tide of joyous relief, made it hard to believe
+that she had spent a day and a night of labour and anxiety. She was much
+more silent than usual, but her face was flushed and happy, and somehow
+I was reminded of the time when I had watched her greeting the dawn on
+the morning after Dilly's wedding. Robin, with the look of a man who has
+a hard day's work behind him, a full meal inside him, and a sound
+night's sleep before him--and what three greater blessings could a man
+ask for himself?--sat beside her, smiling largely and restfully on the
+company around him.
+
+Suddenly Dicky made an announcement.
+
+"There is one more bottle," he said. "Come on, let's buzz it!"
+
+He opened the champagne in a highly professional manner and filled up
+our glasses. Gerald and Donkin declined, but helped themselves to fresh
+jorums of cider.
+
+Then there was a little pause, and we all felt that some one ought to
+make a speech or propose a toast.
+
+"Shall we drink some healths?" proposed Dilly.
+
+There was a chorus of assent.
+
+"We will each propose one," I said, "right round the table in turn.
+Ladies first! Yours, Kitty? I suppose it will be Philly--eh?"
+
+Kitty nodded.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," I announced, "you are asked to drink to the
+speedy recovery of Miss Phillis Inglethwaite. This toast is proposed by
+her mother, and seconded by her father."
+
+The toast was drunk with all sincerity, but soberly, as befitted.
+
+"Now, Dilly," I said, when we were ready again.
+
+Dilly whispered something to her husband, which was received by that
+gentleman with a modest and deprecatory cough, coupled with an urgent
+request that his wife would chuck it.
+
+"He won't announce my toast for me," explained Dilly, turning to
+us--"he's too shy, poor dear!--so I'll do it myself. Ladies and
+gentlemen, the toast is--Dicky!"
+
+Dicky's health was drunk with cheers and laughter, and Dilly completed
+its subject's confusion by kissing him.
+
+"Now, Dolly!" said every one.
+
+"Not yet!" said Dolly. "Gerald and Moke are the next pair. Gerald must
+act lady, and think of a toast."
+
+Master Gerald, hastily bolting a solid mass of mince-pie--one could
+almost follow the course of its descent--cheerfully complied.
+
+"All right," he said; "I think I'll drink the health of old Moke
+himself. He's not much to look at, but he's a good sort. I shan't kiss
+him, though, Dilly. And," he added, "I think he had better drink mine
+too. He looks thirsty. Come on, sonny--no heeltaps!"
+
+He elaborately linked arms with the now comatose Donkin, and each
+thereupon absorbed, without drawing breath, about a pint of cider
+apiece. After that, with a passing admonition to his friend not to
+burst, my brother-in-law returned to his repast.
+
+So far, the toasts had all been of a most conventional and inevitable
+character. Now, automatically but a little tactlessly, we all turned to
+see what Dolly and Robin were going to do. From the standpoint of the
+last two toasts they were certainly in a rather delicate position.
+
+"Come on, you two!" commanded Gerald. "Do something! Make a spring!"
+
+Robin took up his glass of champagne and turned rather inquiringly to
+Dolly.
+
+Without a word she linked her arm in his, and they drank together.
+
+"Oh, come, I say, that's not fair! Whose health were you drinking,
+Robin, old man?" inquired the tactless Dicky.
+
+"I was drinking to the future Mrs Fordyce--whoever she may be!" said
+Robin, obviously apologetic at being unable to think of anything more
+sparkling.
+
+"Whose health were _you_ drinking, Dolly?" yelled Gerald, with much
+enjoyment.
+
+Then Dolly did a startling thing.
+
+Robin's hand lay resting on the table beside her. Into it she
+deliberately slipped, her own; and then gazed--flushed and defiant, but
+proud and smiling--round a circle composed entirely of faces belonging
+to people suffering from the gapes.
+
+I glanced at Robin. He looked perfectly dumfounded, but I saw his hand
+close automatically round Dolly's fingers, and I saw, too, her pink
+nails go white under the pressure.
+
+But Dolly seemed to feel no pain. On the contrary, she continued to
+smile upon us. Then, bowing her head quickly, before any of us realised
+what she would be at, she lightly kissed the great hand which imprisoned
+her own. Then she looked up again, with glistening eyes.
+
+"There!" she said. "_Now_ you know!"
+
+Our breath came back, and the spellbound silence was broken.
+
+"_Dolly_!" said Kitty.
+
+"My _dear_!" said Dilly.
+
+"What--_ho_!" drawled Dicky.
+
+But it was Gerald who rounded off the situation. He was standing on the
+table by this time.
+
+"Three cheers for Dolly and Robin!" he roared.
+
+We gave them, with full throats. (Fortunately we were a long way from
+Phillis's room.)
+
+After that we all sat down again, feeling a little awkward, as people do
+when they have taken the lid off their private feelings for a moment.
+Finally Kitty led off with--
+
+"But, Dolly, dear, why didn't you tell us? When was it?"
+
+"I didn't tell you before," said Dolly composedly, "because it has only
+just happened--this moment."
+
+"Only this moment? But----"
+
+"Do you mean to say he hasn't _asked_ you? Oh----"
+
+"Are you asking _him_?"
+
+The questions came simultaneously from all parts of the table; horribly
+inquisitive, some of them; but then the thing had been so frankly and
+deliberately done, that we knew Dolly wanted to explain everything to us
+there and then.
+
+"I'll tell you," said Dolly, after silence had been restored by the fact
+that Gerald had shouted us all down and then stopped himself. "Robin
+told me--well--something, six months ago, the night after Dilly's
+wedding, at the dance----"
+
+"That _was_ why you locked the door, then," I said involuntarily.
+
+Both Robin and Dolly turned upon me in real amazement. But I saw that
+this side-issue would interrupt the story.
+
+"Never mind!" I said. "Go on! I'll explain afterwards."
+
+"Well," continued Dolly, "he said to me--may I tell them, Robin?" She
+turned to the man beside her with a pretty air of deference. Robin, who
+up to this point had sat like a graven image, inclined his head, and
+Dolly proceeded--
+
+"I have never told anybody about this--except Dilly, of course."
+
+"I've got the letter still," said Dilly.
+
+"Robin told me," Dolly went on, "that he wasn't going to ask me to marry
+him at present, because he had some childish idea--it is perfectly
+_idiotic_ to think of; but--he thought he wasn't quite--well, _good_
+enough for me!"
+
+"What rot!" said Dicky.
+
+"Muck!" observed Gerald.
+
+"But he said that he would ask me properly later on, as soon as he
+considered that he was good enough," continued Dolly. "And as he still
+seems to think," she concluded with more animation, "that he is not
+quite up to standard, it occurred to me to-night, as we were all here in
+a jolly little party, to notify him that he is. So I did. That's all.
+Robin, you are hurting my hand!"
+
+Robin relaxed his grip at last, and remorsefully surveyed the bloodless
+fingers that lay in his palm. Then, with a rather shamefaced look all
+round the table, as much as to say--"I should like fine to restrain
+myself from doing this before you all, but I _can't_!"--he bent his head
+and kissed them in his turn.
+
+And that was how Robin and Dolly plighted their troth at last--openly,
+without shame, and for all to see.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Robin and I lingered at the turning of a passage, lit only by our two
+flickering bedroom candles.
+
+"Well, we can't complain of having had an uneventful day," I said.
+
+"I'm sorry we didn't scrape other twenty-eight votes," said Robin
+characteristically.
+
+"Never mind!" I said. "I shall be none the worse of a holiday for a year
+or two. If you will kindly take Dolly off our hands as quickly as
+possible"--he caught his breath at that--"Kitty and I and Phillis will
+go a trip round the world together. Then I'll come home and fight a
+by-election, perhaps."
+
+"Meanwhile," said Robin, "you will be having no further need of a
+private secretary."
+
+"I'm afraid not," I said. The fact had been tugging at my conscience for
+the last two hours. "And that raises another question. What are you two
+going to live on?"
+
+"Champion wants me," said Robin. "He has offered me the post of
+Secretary to that Royal Commission of which he has been appointed
+Chairman. It is a fine opening."
+
+"I should think it was!" I said with whole-hearted joy. "Good luck to
+you, Robin!"
+
+"Thank you!" said Robin. "Still," he added, as he turned to go, "I wish
+I could have found you twenty-eight more votes."
+
+"Between ourselves," I said, "I don't mind very much. I am not the right
+man for this constituency. It has outgrown me. I have not the knack of
+handling a big crowd. What I want is a fine old crusted unprogressive
+seat, where I shan't constantly be compelled to drop my departmental
+work and rush down to propitiate my supporters with untruthful
+harangues. I'm a square peg here. Now, if they had wanted a really fit
+and proper candidate for this Parliamentary Division, Robin, they ought
+to have approached _you_."
+
+"Och!" said Robin carelessly, "they did--a month ago! Good night!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+A PROPHET IN HIS OWN COUNTRY.
+
+
+An old woman in a white mutch stands at the door of a farmhouse in a
+Scottish glen. Her face is wrinkled, and her dim eyes are peering down
+the track which leads from the steading to the pasture. Being apparently
+unable to focus what she wants to see she adjusts a pair of spectacles.
+
+This action brings into her range of vision a distant figure which is
+engaged in shepherding a herd of passive but resisting cows through a
+gap in the dyke. It is a slow business, but the procession gradually
+nears home; and when the man at the helm succeeds in steering his
+sauntering charges safely between the Scylla of a hay-rick and the
+Charybdis of the burn, the old lady takes off her spectacles and relaxes
+her vigilance.
+
+When she looks again, though, she breaks into an exclamation of dismay.
+The leaders of the straggling procession have safely reached the door of
+the byre close by; but one frisky young cow, suddenly swerving through
+an open gate, breaks away down a sloping field of turnips at a lumbering
+gallop. The herdsman is out of sight round a bend in the road.
+
+"The feckless body!" observes the old lady bitterly. Then she raises her
+voice.
+
+"Elspeth!"
+
+A reply comes from within the dairy.
+
+"Ay, mem?"
+
+"You'll need tae leave the butter and help Master Robert. He's no hand
+with the kye. He's let Heatherbell intill the neeps. And the maister is
+away at----"
+
+With a muffled "Maircy me!" a heated young woman shoots out of a side
+door and proceeds at the double to the assistance of the incompetent
+cow-herd.
+
+At length the animals are rounded up into the byre, and Elspeth proceeds
+with the milking.
+
+Meanwhile Master Robert, "the feckless body," stands in a rather
+apprehensive attitude before the old lady. He is a huge man of about
+forty-five. He is clean-shaven, and he has humorous grey eyes and dark
+hair. Despite his homespun attire, he looks more like a leader of men
+than a driver of cattle.
+
+"Robin Fordyce," says the old lady severely, "what garred ye loose
+Heatherbell in among the neeps.
+
+"I'm sorry, mother. But I met Jean M'Taggart in the road, and--we
+stopped for a bit crack."
+
+The old lady surveys her son witheringly over her glasses.
+
+"Dandering wi' Jean M'Taggart at your time of life! I'll sort Jean
+M'Taggart when I see her. It's jist like her tae try and draw a lad from
+his duty. And you! A married man these fifteen years! 'Deed, and it's
+time yon lady wife of yours cam' here from London, tae pit a hand on
+you."
+
+The big man's penitent face lights up with sudden enthusiasm.
+
+"She is coming to-morrow!" he roars exultantly.
+
+"Aye, you may pretend tae be glad! But she shall hear aboot Jean
+M'Taggart all the same," replies the old lady.
+
+This, of course, is a tremendous joke, and the inquisition is suspended
+while mother and son chuckle deeply at the idea of Dolly's desperate
+jealousy. Suddenly Mrs Fordyce breaks off to ask a question.
+
+"Did ye mind tae shut the gate of the west field?"
+
+Robin thinks, and then raises clenched hands to heaven in an agony of
+remorse.
+
+His mother groans in a resigned sort of way.
+
+"Run!" she says, "or ye'll hae all the sheep oot in the road! Get them
+back, and I'll no' tell David on ye!"
+
+Her son bounds away down the slope, but a further command pursues him.
+
+"An' come back soon! I'll no' be getting you tae myself over much
+after--to-morrow!"
+
+She sits down again in her chair outside the door in the afternoon sun;
+for she is getting infirm now, and cannot stand up for long. With an
+indulgent sigh she surveys the flying figure of the Right Honourable Sir
+Robert Chalmers Fordyce, Privy Councillor and Secretary of State, as he
+frantically endeavours to overtake and head off three staid ewes, who,
+having strayed through the open gate, have just decided upon a walking
+excursion to London.
+
+"A good lad!" she murmurs contentedly. "A good lad, and a good son; and
+dae'n' weel. But--he's no' just David. It was always David that had the
+heid on him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A prophet, we know, has no honour in his own country. Fortunately some
+prophets prefer that this should be the case.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
+
+
+
+
+_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Crown 8vo, 6s.
+
+  A MAN'S MAN.
+
+  _Fourth Impression._
+  Popular Edition, Cloth, 1s. net.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Crown 8vo, 6s.
+
+  THE RIGHT STUFF.
+
+  _Sixth Impression._
+  Popular Edition, Cloth, 1s. net.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Crown 8vo, 6s.
+
+  PIP.
+
+  _Fourth Impression._
+  Popular Edition, Cloth, 1s. net.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Crown 8vo, 6s.
+
+  A SAFETY MATCH.
+
+  _Third Impression._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS,
+  Edinburgh and London.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Right Stuff, by Ian Hay
+
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