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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40454 ***
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   1. Page scan source:
+      http://books.google.com/books?id=bUAPAAAAQAAJ&dq
+      (Oxford University)
+
+   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+                             FRIVOLITIES
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+                              *   *   *
+
+                        TOM OSSINGTON'S GHOST.
+
+                     _Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d_.
+
+                 With Illustrations by Harold Piffard
+
+                              *   *   *
+
+
+_Truth_: "I read _Tom Ossington's Ghost_ the other night and was
+afraid to go upstairs In the dark after it."
+
+_To-Day_: "An entrancing book, but people with weak nerves had better
+not read it at night."
+
+_The World_: "Mr. Marsh has been Inspired by an entirely original
+idea, and has worked it out with great ingenuity. We like the weird,
+but _not_ repulsive story better than anything he has ever done."
+
+_Sketch_: "Opens with a singularly dramatic and exciting situation,
+and the interest thus at once aroused is sustained steadily to the
+close."
+
+_Star_: "A thrilling ghost story. The writing is vigorous and
+dramatic."
+
+_Weekly Times and Echo_: "A capital story. ALL sorts of readers will
+enjoy _Tom Ossington's Ghost_."
+
+_Manchester Guardian_: "A ghost to be a success must be able to leave
+an impression of indefinable terror in those whom it haunts.
+It should, in a word, 'give them the creeps,' and bad ones. _Tom
+Ossington_ was completely successful in this."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             FRIVOLITIES
+
+
+                  ESPECIALLY ADDRESSED TO THOSE WHO
+                     ARE TIRED OF BEING SERIOUS
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                            RICHARD MARSH
+
+                              AUTHOR OF
+
+      "TOM OSSINGTON'S GHOST," "CURIOS: SOME STRANGE ADVENTURES
+           OF TWO BACHELORS," "THE BEETLE: A MYSTERY," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                LONDON
+
+                             JAMES BOWDEN
+
+               10 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
+
+                                 1899
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS
+
+
+       The Purse which was Found.
+
+       For One Night Only.
+
+       Returning a Verdict.
+
+       The Chancellor's Ward.
+
+       A Honeymoon Trip.
+
+       The Burglar's Blunder.
+
+       Ninepence.
+
+       A Battlefield up-to-Date.
+
+       Mr. Harland's Pupils.
+
+       A Burglar Alarm.
+
+       A Lesson in Sculling.
+
+       Outside.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             FRIVOLITIES
+
+
+
+
+                      The purse which was found
+
+
+                                  I.
+
+The first applicant arrived just as I was sitting down to breakfast. I
+went out to him in the hall at once. He was tall, thin, and distinctly
+seedy.
+
+"I have called with reference to the advertisement of the purse which
+was found." I bowed. He seemed to hesitate. "I have lost a purse." He
+looked as if he had--long years ago. "I have reason to believe that it
+is my purse which you have found. I shall be happy to hand you the
+cost of your advertisement on your returning me my property."
+
+"When did you lose it?"
+
+My question seemed to escape his notice.
+
+"I am a clergyman in the Orders of the Church of England, and the
+inscrutable laws of the Divine Benevolence have placed me in a
+position which makes such a loss a matter of cardinal importance."
+
+"Where did you lose it?"
+
+"In town, sir--in town."
+
+"In what part of town?"
+
+"In the west, sir--in the west."
+
+"Do you mean in the western postal district?"
+
+"My topographical knowledge of this great city is scarcely sufficient
+to enable me to enter into such minutiæ." He assumed an air of candour
+which ill became him. "I will be frank with you. I do not know where I
+lost it. The shock of the loss was so great as to make of my mind a
+_tabula rasa_. I have an appointment at some distance from here in
+less than half an hour. Might I ask you to give me my property without
+any unnecessary delay?"
+
+"With pleasure, on your describing it."
+
+"Unfortunately there again you have me at a disadvantage. The purse
+was my daughter's, lent to me only for the day. I have not preserved a
+sufficiently clear mental picture to enable me to furnish you with an
+adequate description."
+
+"But your daughter can?"
+
+"Precisely, if she were in town. But she is not in town. And it is of
+paramount importance that I should at once regain possession of the
+property. If you will allow me to look at it I shall be able to tell
+at a glance if it is mine."
+
+"I am afraid that I must request you to describe the purse lost before
+I show you the one I found."
+
+He drew himself up.
+
+"I trust, sir, that your words are not intended to convey a
+reflection?"
+
+"Not at all. Only, as I have not breakfasted, and you have an
+appointment to keep, it might be as well if you were at once to
+communicate with your daughter, and request her to favour you with the
+necessary description."
+
+"Excuse me, sir, but you mistake your man. I am a gentleman, sir, like
+you--a university man, sir. I came here to regain possession of my
+property; you are in possession of that property; until you return it
+to me I do not intend to quit this house." As he had suddenly raised
+his voice, and evinced symptoms of raising it higher, I opened the
+front door by way of a hint. On the doorstep stood one of the
+unemployed, the remnant of a woollen muffler twisted round his neck.
+
+"Beg pardon, guv'nor, I've come for my purse."
+
+"What purse?"
+
+"You know very well what purse--the purse what's advertised. You hand
+it over to me, and I'm game to pay all costs. It's mine. I lost it."
+
+"Describe the one you had the misfortune to lose."
+
+"It was a leather purse."
+
+"Then that is not the purse I found."
+
+"Shammy leather, I mean."
+
+"Nor is it shammy leather."
+
+"Covered with sealskin outside."
+
+"Nor is it covered with sealskin outside."
+
+"Just you take and let me have a look at it. I'll soon tell you if
+it's mine."
+
+"Before the purse is shown to any claimant he must satisfactorily
+describe it."
+
+"Very well; that's all about it. If it ain't mine, it ain't mine. You
+needn't be nasty."
+
+"I have no intention of being nasty."
+
+"Then don't be. Because a pore feller loses his purse he don't need to
+be trampled on. You can be pore but honest."
+
+With the utterance of this trite and, possibly, admirable observation
+the man strolled off, with his hands in his pockets. My clerical
+friend, who had lingered in the hall, endeavoured to take me by the
+button-hole. He addressed me in a confidential whisper.
+
+"Pardon me, sir, but circumstances over which I have no control have
+temporarily crippled my resources. Since, from motives which I
+understand, and which I honour, sir, you prefer to continue to be the
+custodian of my family property, might I with confidence ask you to
+oblige me with a small loan till I am able to place myself in
+communication with my daughter?"
+
+"You might not."
+
+"I fear that I am already late for my appointment. The only way to
+reach it in time will be to take a cab. May I, at least, ask you to
+enable me to pay the fare?"
+
+"You may not."
+
+He sighed.
+
+"I believe you said you had not breakfasted? Neither, sir, have I. You
+will hardly believe it, but it is a positive fact that I, a clergyman,
+a master of arts of my university, have not tasted food for more than
+four-and-twenty hours. If, sir, you will suffer me, a humble stranger,
+to join you at your morning meal----"
+
+"Good-day, sir."
+
+He sighed again. Then, putting his hand up to his mouth, he asked, in
+a sepulchral whisper:
+
+"Will you lend me sixpence?"
+
+"I won't--not one farthing."
+
+Then he went, shaking his head as he passed down the steps, as if the
+burden of this world pressed on him more weightily than ever. He was
+still descending the steps when a cab dashed up, from the interior of
+which an elderly gentleman flourished an umbrella.
+
+
+                                 II.
+
+"Hi! Is this 25, Bangley Gardens, where they advertise that a purse
+was found?"
+
+I admitted that it was.
+
+"Was it found in Regent Street on Wednesday afternoon--silver monogram
+'E. L. T.'--containing between nine and ten pounds in silver and
+gold?"
+
+I said that it was not.
+
+"Sorry to have troubled you. Throgmorton Street, driver. Push along."
+
+I was closing the door when I was hailed by a woman, who remained
+standing at the foot of the steps. She was a young woman, evidently of
+the artisan class. She wore an air of depression, and carried a baby
+in her arms.
+
+"Was the purse which was found mine, sir?"
+
+"What was yours like?"
+
+"I lost it in the Mile End Road on Saturday night, sir. My husband's
+wages was in it--twenty-four and sixpence. He see the advertisement in
+the paper, and sent me round to see. Leather it was--leastways,
+imitation--red, and the clasp was broken."
+
+"I am sorry to say that your description bears no kind of resemblance
+to the one which is in my possession."
+
+She looked at me for a moment, scrutinizingly, as if desirous of
+learning if what I said was credible; then, without another word,
+moved off.
+
+I had succeeded in closing the door just as there came another rap
+upon the knocker. I reopened it, to find myself confronted by another
+of the unemployed.
+
+"I ask your pardon, guv'nor, but seeing an advertisement about a purse
+as was found, I thought I'd just come round to see if it might happen
+to be mine. Mine wasn't a leather purse, nor yet it wasn't a shammy
+leather, nor yet it wasn't one of them sealskin kind of things."
+
+As soon as he said that I suspected that this was a friend of the
+other unemployed, from whom he had recently gathered certain data.
+
+"Mine was more one of them sort of bag kind."
+
+"What bag kind?"
+
+"Well----" He fixed me with his gaze. If he had been acquainted with the
+fact that images are photographed upon our eyes, I might have
+suspected him of an intent to decipher the image of the purse in mine.
+"Was this here purse you found tied round the top?"
+
+"Was yours?"
+
+He read the answer in my eyes.
+
+"No, I can't say as how mine was; but I thought as how this here one
+you found might have been--some purses are, you know."
+
+Unless I erred he was endeavouring to consider what sort of purse that
+purse might be, his knowledge of the varieties of that article being
+limited. He taxed my patience.
+
+"If you have lost a purse, my man, be so good as to describe it
+without delay. I can't stop here all the morning."
+
+"Well, as I was a-saying, it was one of them sort of bag kind."
+
+"Then it's not the one I found."
+
+Without more ado I slammed the door in his face. I went in to
+breakfast. As I was sitting down there came a single knock. Saunders
+turned to leave the room to answer it.
+
+"One moment, Saunders. I don't know if I mentioned to you that, the
+day before yesterday, I found a purse?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Well, I did, and I'm beginning to wish that I hadn't. I've inserted
+an advertisement in to-day's papers to the effect that the owner may
+have it on applying to me. I've had five applicants within five
+minutes--three of them rank impostors. I'm rather inclined to think
+that the person who has just knocked is one of them come back again. I
+doubt if he ever had a purse in his life--he certainly never had the
+one I've found. Tell him if he doesn't take himself away at once I'll
+send for the police."
+
+Saunders vanished. There was the sound of voices--one of them
+belonging to Saunders, the other, undoubtedly, to that member of the
+unemployed. He seemed to be shouting at Saunders, and Saunders, in a
+dignified way, seemed to be shouting back at him. Presently there was
+a lull. Saunders reappeared.
+
+"Well, has the fellow gone?"
+
+"No, sir. And he says he isn't going."
+
+"Did you give him to understand that I should send for the police?"
+
+"He says he should like to see you send for the police. He says that
+the police will soon show you if you can rob a poor man of his purse.
+He's a most impudent fellow. As for the purse which you found being
+his, sir, I don't believe he knows what a purse is. He's a regular
+vagabond!"
+
+"I quite agree with you, Saunders--quite! That is my opinion of the
+man precisely."
+
+"There are five other persons who wish to see you. Three of them have
+cards, and two of them haven't."
+
+He held out three cards on a waiter, taking my breath away.
+
+"Five, Saunders! Where are these people?"
+
+"In the hall, sir."
+
+"I won't see anyone till I've had my breakfast. I'm not going to have
+all my habits disarranged simply because I happen to have found a
+purse. I ought to have stated that no applications were to be made
+till after twelve; I never dreamt that people would have come at this
+time of day. Show the people with the cards into the drawing-room, and
+leave the others in the hall. And, Saunders, it would be a little
+obvious, perhaps, to remove the hats and umbrellas from before their
+very faces, but keep a sharp eye on them!"
+
+I glanced at the trio of visiting-cards, as, once more, I made an
+attempt to continue my meal. "Mrs. Chillingby-Harkworth, Pagoda
+Mansions, S.W.," "Colonel Fitzakarley Beering," "George Parkins."
+The idea of a number of entire strangers being turned loose in my
+drawing-room was one I did not relish. I felt I ought to have stated
+that applications in writing would alone have been attended to.
+
+I had imagined that, by not taking my find to the police-station, I
+should be saving myself trouble. I perceived that my imagination had
+been at fault. I had had no notion that such a number of people had
+lost their purses. A constant fusillade was being kept up on the
+knocker. I might have been giving a fashionable assembly, and
+requested the guests to arrive in time for breakfast. All at once
+there was a violent ringing at the drawing-room bell.
+
+In came Saunders with a stack of cards on a tray and some telegrams.
+
+"Well, Saunders, many people here?"
+
+"More than twenty inside the house, and I don't know how many there
+are outside--I know the pavement's getting blocked. The drawing-room
+is full, and the hall is crammed. Queer ones some of them are; they
+don't look to me as if they were the sort to lose their purses. And
+now the lady whose card I brought up to you has rung the bell, and
+says that she insists on seeing you at once."
+
+"Show her up, and, when I ring, show her down again. Then send them up
+one after the other. I'll get rid of them as fast as I can. And,
+Saunders, if ever you find a purse lose it again directly, and don't
+breathe a word of it to anyone!"
+
+
+                                 III.
+
+In came a lady, looking every inch a Mrs. Chillingby-Harkworth--tall,
+portly, middle-aged, richly dressed. As she eyed me through a pair of
+long-handled spy-glasses her volubility was amazing.
+
+"May I inquire your name, sir?"
+
+"Burley is my name, madam."
+
+"Then, Mr. Burley, I have to inform you I was never treated with so
+much indignity before. I come here in answer to an advertisement, at
+great personal inconvenience to myself, and I am shown into a room
+with a number of most extraordinary characters; and one person, who, I
+am sure, was the worse for drink, asks me the most impertinent
+questions, and when I appeal for protection to another individual, he
+tells me that he has enough to do in attending to his own business
+without interfering with other people's, and I have positively to ring
+the bell twice before I can receive any proper attention."
+
+"I am sorry that you should have suffered any unpleasantness in my
+house. May I ask if you have lost a purse?"
+
+"I can't say I have--at least, not for years. I only lost one purse in
+my life, and that was when I was quite a child--I've always taken too
+much care of my things to lose them. But the friend of a niece of
+mine, who was staying with me a week or two ago, took her little boy
+to the Zoological Gardens, and she lost her purse. She hadn't the
+faintest notion where or how, and when I saw the advertisement I
+thought I would call and see if it was hers."
+
+"May I ask you to describe the purse which your friend lost?"
+
+"My good sir, I can't do anything of the kind. I only saw it for a
+moment in her hand as she was going out. You mustn't ask me to perform
+impossibilities."
+
+"Perhaps your friend could describe it."
+
+"Of course she could, if she were here, but she isn't; she's at the
+other end of the country. I've come to look at the purse which you
+have found, don't I tell you, and wasted a whole morning in doing so.
+I daresay I shall be able to form a pretty shrewd idea as to whether
+it is hers, as those who know me best will tell you. My sense of
+observation has always been exceedingly keen."
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"I am afraid that that is what I cannot do. According to your own
+statement you have not lost a purse. I am unable to produce the one
+which I have found until I am furnished with a satisfactory
+description by the actual loser."
+
+She stared.
+
+"Good gracious, my good man, you don't mean to say that after bringing
+me here, and after what I have gone through, you refuse to show me the
+purse which you have actually advertised?"
+
+I rang the bell.
+
+"Possibly your friend will place herself in communication with me.
+Saunders, show this lady out."
+
+I fancy she was so taken aback by my manner that for the moment she
+was speechless. Anyhow, she went, and regained the use of her tongue
+when she got outside. I heard her rating Saunders soundly as she went
+downstairs. A young man came next, with something about him which
+smacked of a provincial town.
+
+"My name's Parkins. You've got a pretty crowd downstairs. I didn't
+expect this sort of thing, or I wouldn't have come. A lot of Johnnies
+seem to be on the prowl for a purse. Was the one you found plain
+leather, with a single pocket, and three fivers inside?"
+
+"Not the least like it."
+
+"Oh! The fact is, I'm up in town for an holiday, and the night before
+last I went on the razzle, and some Johnny boned my purse, and I
+thought you might have got it."
+
+I do not know what he meant, or if he intended to insult me--he seemed
+to be a simple sort of youth--but he was gone before I had a chance of
+asking him. He was followed by an elderly gentleman, whom I had reason
+to suppose, before I had got rid of him, was either a seasoned liar,
+or more or less insane. He seated himself--uninvited by me--crossed
+his legs, and nursed his silk hat and umbrella.
+
+"I suppose it is a purse you've found?"
+
+"Of course it is. Have you lost one?"
+
+"It isn't a Gladstone bag?"
+
+"A Gladstone bag?" I was a little dazed by my efforts to grasp the
+man's meaning, and the question was such an absurd one.
+
+"I take it that if it had been a Gladstone bag I should have mentioned
+it in my advertisement. I am still able to distinguish between the one
+and the other."
+
+"Nor a silk umbrella with a silver mount and a crest on top, like
+this?"
+
+He held out the one he had been holding.
+
+I stiffened my back, suspecting him of a humorous intention.
+
+"My time is valuable, as, having just come from downstairs, you must
+be aware. May I ask if I am indebted for the pleasure of your presence
+here to the fact of your having lost a purse?"
+
+"_A_ purse? On my soul and honour, sir, in my time I've lost
+hundreds--hundreds! Positively hundreds!"
+
+I believe I gasped--he spoke with an airy indifference as if that kind
+of thing were commonplace.
+
+"As I was saying to some of those fellows downstairs, if there's a man
+in England who has lost more things than I have, I should like to meet
+him. It's a genius I have; as sure as I get a thing I lose it. And the
+more it costs, the more it's lost. As for purses, they're my strongest
+point. I suppose I lost more than a score last year, and already more
+than a dozen this. Only last week my wife bought a steel chain with a
+steel purse at the end of it. She chained it round me. If you will
+believe me, sir, the very next day I went to a Turkish bath and left
+it there--never set eyes upon it since. I take it it isn't that purse
+you've found?"
+
+"It is not."
+
+"Nor a large square trunk, iron-bound, weighing about two tons, which
+I left on the Boulogne Quay a fortnight last Thursday?"
+
+"It is not that, either. Pardon me if I appear to interrupt you, but,
+since you seem to have been unfortunate on so large a scale, I fear I
+must ask you to go home and have a list printed of the purses which
+you have lost at different times, and send it to me at your leisure. I
+shall then be able to perceive if it is one of them which I have
+found. But I beg you will not include in it any ironbound trunks.
+Good-day."
+
+I rang the bell; the man sat still.
+
+"It isn't only trunks and purses which I lose--I lose everything. The
+day before yesterday I went into the City to buy groceries; filled two
+great parcels four feet square; had them put with me into the cab so
+that I might keep them well in sight; got out on the road to have a
+drink; when I had had it got into the wrong cab; never discovered the
+mistake till I reached my own doorstep. Those groceries haven't yet
+come to hand----"
+
+"These anecdotes----"
+
+"Excuse me, I'll tell you another thing I've lost. Six months ago I
+lost my wife. Took her for a run on the Continent; on the way home
+dined at a restaurant on the Boulevards; went out to buy a cigar;
+forgot all about my wife; left her eating an ice; came over by the
+night boat; never noticed she was missing till I was between the
+sheets in bed." He paused, as if to meditate. "She wasn't a dead loss;
+turned up afterwards, as I've reason to remember."
+
+Whether the man was or was not mad, or whether he was merely amusing
+himself at my expense, is more than I can say. We had the greatest
+difficulty in getting rid of him. By the time I had interviewed
+another dozen applicants I came to the conclusion that, if I had to go
+through much more of that kind of thing, my brain would turn. One
+red-headed man came into the room with a huge portfolio under his arm.
+Before I could stop him he had unfolded it before my astonished eyes.
+
+"I have here one of the finest works ever issued from the press. It is
+a universal gazetteer and general encyclopædia of information, and
+contains 22,000 more references than any other work of the kind which
+has been previously produced. It is most superbly illustrated, in the
+most lavish manner, by the greatest artists, two or more full-page
+illustrations to each part, besides innumerable smaller illustrations,
+splendid maps, and magnificent coloured pictures, which are quite
+worthy of being framed. It is issued in monthly parts price
+sevenpence, and with the first part is presented a free gift----"
+
+It was all I could do to prevent myself kicking him downstairs. He was
+not by any means the only offender in this direction. One young woman,
+after beating about the bush in a manner which, although I was
+becoming familiar with it, was none the less maddening, explained that
+she had come to solicit contributions towards providing a day in the
+country for some ragamuffins at the other end of the town.
+
+
+                                 IV.
+
+The worst of it was that, though I scampered through the applicants as
+fast as ever they would let me, the number of them, instead of
+diminishing, increased. The clamour of their voices filled the house.
+Saunders and the maids were becoming alarmed--for the matter of that
+so was I. The people swarmed into the house like flies. The downstair
+rooms were full, the hall was blocked, the stairway choked, a
+continually increasing crowd was on the pavement. Everyone wanted to
+see me at once. Judging from the noise quarrels were frequent. I had
+heard of the astonishing number of the applications which are received
+for an advertised vacant clerkship; judging from results I might have
+advertised not for one clerk, but for half a dozen.
+
+"I think," suggested Saunders, pale, though heated, "that we had
+better send for the police."
+
+I had just disposed of a man who, after explaining that he had lost a
+purse something like twelve months ago, had assured the crowd, from
+the top of the stairs, that I was a colourable imitation of a thief,
+because I had declined to show him the one which I had found a couple
+of days before. He had been followed by an acidulated-looking female,
+who, I felt certain, was a tough morsel, and who was eyeing me, as
+Saunders spoke, as if I had been a convict at the least.
+
+"Why? Are the people misbehaving?"
+
+Saunders's face was more eloquent than his words.
+
+"I don't believe there'll be much furniture left in the drawing-room
+if something isn't done. Cook's locked herself in the kitchen, and
+some of the people have gone downstairs--a pretty sort they are! If
+they aren't in the plate cupboard, they're in the pantry."
+
+This was pleasant hearing. Before I could speak the acidulated
+lady--proving that my diagnosis of her character had not been
+unfounded--answered for me.
+
+"And serve you quite right too! I believe that the whole affair's a
+swindle. You ought to be made to suffer. I don't believe you've found
+a purse at all."
+
+"My dear madam, I assure you that I have!"
+
+"Then why don't you let any of the poor creatures who have lost their
+purses have so much as a sight of it? If you have found a purse, why
+don't you show it to them like an honest man?" I sighed--the logic of
+people who had lost their purses was wonderful. "As for me, I'm not
+going through the farce of describing the purse I lost, because I know
+very well you haven't got it; but I'll tell you this--I've come all
+the way from Hackney, and I've wasted a day, and I don't mean to leave
+this house till you've paid me my expenses. I'll teach you to play
+tricks with innocent people! And"--she suddenly raised her voice--"if
+other people take my advice they will insist upon having their
+expenses paid them too!"
+
+Before Saunders or I could interpose she had thrown the door wide
+open, and was addressing her, by now, excited audience, as if to the
+manner born.
+
+"My good people, I am Sarah Eliza Warren, of Greenbush Villa,
+Hackney, and, like yourselves, I have been brought to this house by
+what seems to me to amount to false pretences. I don't believe that a
+purse has been found at all. If you take my advice you will do as I am
+doing--you will insist on being compensated for your loss of time, and
+for your out-of-pocket expenditure!"
+
+I plainly perceived that further argument was useless. The idea of
+compensating that motley gathering for effecting a burglarious entry
+on to my premises was one which was too terrible to contemplate.
+
+I threw up the window.
+
+"Police! police!" I shouted.
+
+A solitary policeman was in sight. Considering that the street in
+front of my house was rendered practically impassable by the concourse
+of people and of vehicles, the wonder was that the whole force had not
+been on the spot an hour ago. His attention had been attracted by the
+crowd; he was hastening towards it. Some fifty to sixty persons
+endeavoured to explain the situation as he advanced. He waved them
+majestically from him as only a policeman can. As he came near the
+house I shouted to him:
+
+"I'm the owner of this house! I require your assistance, constable! I
+want you to turn these people out!"
+
+The effect of my words was spoilt by the opening of the drawing-room
+window, which was immediately under the one at which I was. Half a
+dozen men and women thrust their heads out. They simultaneously
+addressed the constable. Under the circumstances he did the best thing
+he could have done--he blew his whistle.
+
+
+                                  V.
+
+There ensued a scene of considerable excitement. Never tell me again
+that policemen do not come when they are wanted. As soon as that
+whistle was blown blue-coated officials began to appear in all
+directions. A policeman running is a sight to be seen--so the general
+public with leisure on its hands seemed to think, because each came
+attended by a tail of stragglers. What the neighbours thought of the
+proceedings Heaven only knows. People stood on the doorsteps, heads
+were thrust out of every window. Bangley Gardens had never before
+experienced such an occasion in the whole course of its history.
+
+The behaviour of the persons who had lost their purses--or wished me
+to believe that they had--was disgraceful. Judging from the sounds
+they were wandering over the house wherever their fancy led them. A
+scuffle seemed to be taking place on the stairs, another in the hall,
+and there was plainly contention in the drawing-room. Mysterious
+noises in the basement. Eight or nine excitable people had forced
+their way into my room, and, headed by "Sarah Eliza Warren," were
+addressing me in a fashion which, to say the least of it, was lacking
+in decorum. Meantime the original policeman was standing with his
+hands in his belt, waiting for the support of his colleagues before
+taking any steps whatever to save my property from being looted.
+
+"Constable!" I screamed, "I am the owner of this house, and I shall
+hold you responsible for any damage that is done to my property. Come
+inside, I tell you, and turn these people out."
+
+He apparently paid no heed to me whatever; I was not the only one who
+was screaming; The people at the drawing-room window were behaving as
+if they had just broken loose from Bedlam. From what I afterwards
+ascertained it seems as if some of them imagined that they were in for
+a colourable imitation of the original affair of the Black Hole of
+Calcutta.
+
+Suddenly I became conscious that the proceedings in my immediate
+neighbourhood had positively increased in liveliness. Turning, I
+perceived that Saunders was engaged in what looked very like a bout of
+fisticuffs with still another member of the unemployed; he had
+detected him in the act of pocketing a silver statuette. Regardless of
+who was standing in the way I rushed to his assistance. I struck out
+at somebody--somebody struck out at me. What immediately followed must
+have borne a strong family resemblance to the "divarsion" which marked
+the occasion of that immortal "Irish christenin'."
+
+"What's the meaning of all this? Who's the owner of this house?"
+
+Never was anything more welcome than the sight of the stalwart,
+blue-coated figure of the representative of law and order standing in
+the doorway. I tremble to think of what would have happened if his
+arrival had been delayed much longer.
+
+"I am--what's left of him."
+
+"Then, if you're the owner of the house, what are all these people
+doing in it?"
+
+"Perhaps you will be so good as to ask them; they have certainly not
+been invited by me."
+
+A voice was raised in explanation--the voice of "Sarah Eliza Warren."
+
+"We 've been made the victims of a scandalous hoax, policeman, and if
+there's a law in the land this person ought to be made to suffer. He's
+lured people by false pretences from all parts of the country, and I,
+for one, don't mean to leave this house till he has compensated me for
+the loss and suffering he has caused me."
+
+"More don't I," chimed in, of all persons, that felonious member of
+the unemployed.
+
+"Officer, I give that man in charge for theft; my man has just caught
+him in the act of appropriating my property."
+
+The man began to bluster.
+
+"What are you talking about? Who do you think you are? You rob a poor
+bloke like me of a whole day's work, and then won't give me so much as
+a ha'penny piece to make up for it! A nice sort you are to talk of
+robbery!"
+
+The constable raised his hand in the orthodox official manner, which
+is intended to soothe.
+
+"Now, then! now, then!" He addressed me. "Is what these persons say
+true--have you been hoaxing them?"
+
+"Most distinctly not; as, if you will be so good as to rid my house of
+their presence, I shall have much pleasure in promptly proving to
+you."
+
+The sergeant--he was a sergeant--made short work of the clearance,
+even managing, by dint of an assurance that he would listen to all she
+had to say afterwards, to dislodge "Sarah Eliza Warren." Then he
+turned to me.
+
+"Now, perhaps, you will tell me what this means. If you're the
+householder, as you say, you yourself ought to turn anyone out of your
+own house you want to turn out, as a policeman has no right to come
+into a private house unless an actual charge is to be preferred. I
+don't know what you've been doing, but you seem to be responsible for
+something very like a riot."
+
+I felt that it was hard, after what I had undergone, to be addressed
+in such a strain by a man in his position.
+
+"When you have heard the explanation which I am about to give you, you
+will yourself perceive how far you are justified in adopting towards
+me such a tone." I paused. I seated myself--the support of a chair
+having become an absolute necessity. "The day before yesterday, as I
+was turning from Knightsbridge into Sloane Street, I saw a purse lying
+on the pavement. I picked it up. I inquired of several people standing
+about, or who were passing by, if they had dropped it. No one had. I
+brought it home, and yesterday I sent an advertisement to the papers.
+Here it is, in one of them."
+
+I pointed it out to him in a newspaper of the day.
+
+
+"Found, A Purse.--Owner may have it by giving description and paying
+the cost of this advertisement.--Apply to 25, Bangley Gardens, S.W."
+
+
+"It's too vague," objected the constable.
+
+"I purposely made it as vague as I could, thinking that if I left all
+the details to be filled in I should render it certain that it could
+only be claimed by the actual owner, and, to make sure it should be
+claimed by him, I had it inserted in all the morning papers."
+
+The constable smiled the smile of superiority.
+
+"If you had let me know what you had done I'd have sent my men down in
+time to protect you. A vague advertisement like that appearing in all
+the papers is bound to attract the attention of half the riffraff of
+London, who are always ready for a little game of trying it on, not to
+speak of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, who are losing their purses
+every day."
+
+"I have discovered that fact--a day after the affair."
+
+"You ought to have taken it at once to a police-station. Everyone
+ought to take the things they find. It would save them a lot of
+bother."
+
+"That, also, I perceive too late. I was under a different impression
+at first. I know better now. Perhaps you will allow me to repair my
+error and confide it to your keeping at this, the eleventh hour. Then
+I shall have pleasure in referring all further applicants to you."
+
+As he placed the purse in the inside pocket of his tunic the sergeant
+grinned.
+
+"Don't think you'll get rid of them by giving it to me now, because
+you won't. Look at the street. There's a pretty sight for you."
+
+It was a pretty sight--of a kind. The usually deserted Bangley Gardens
+was filled with a clamorous crowd. It distinctly comprised all sorts
+and conditions of men--and women. Two or three policemen, standing at
+the foot of my steps, were doing their best to keep the people back.
+It seemed incredible that all this bother could be about a purse. If
+ever I found another I would know the reason why.
+
+"I shall have to leave some of my men to keep the people circulating,
+and to save you from annoyance. I shouldn't be surprised if you have
+them worrying you for several days to come. If you take my advice
+you'll put an advertisement in to-morrow's papers, to say that you
+have handed the purse to us."
+
+I did put an advertisement in the next day's papers, though it was not
+couched in the terms which he suggested. For the joke was that
+scarcely had the sergeant turned his back when I took up, half
+absent-mindedly, a telegram from the heap which was constantly
+arriving, and found it contained this message--a tolerably voluminous
+one:
+
+
+"To 25, Bangley Gardens.
+
+"Referring to advertisement of purse found in to-day's _Times_, Lady
+Hester Hammersmith, of Hammersmith House, Grosvenor Square, on
+Thursday afternoon, between three and four, dropped, probably outside
+Cane and Wilson's, green silk network purse, secured by two gold
+rings--emerald in one, sapphire in the other. At one end of the purse
+were four ten and one five-pound notes; at the other, about nine
+pounds in gold and silver. As Lady Hester Hammersmith values the purse
+apart from its intrinsic value, and is greatly troubled at its loss,
+if this is the purse found, please wire at once. Reply paid."
+
+
+I rushed to the door.
+
+"Saunders, where is the boy who brought this message? Run after that
+sergeant of police and bring him back again--this is the purse I
+found."
+
+It was. And so it came about that the second advertisement which I
+inserted was not worded as the sergeant had suggested, but was to the
+effect that no further applications need be made to anyone, because
+the purse which was found had been restored to its rightful owner.
+
+
+
+
+                          For One Night Only
+
+
+"Once I were a waiter. Never again. It was like this here--
+
+"At that time I was fresh from the country--ah! I was fresh--and I was
+in a situation along with old Bob Perkins, what kep' a greengrocer's
+shop in the 'Ampstead Road. One day Mr. Perkins says to me:
+
+"'Brocklebank,' he says, 'would you like to do a little job of
+waiting?' I knew as he went out acting as waiter at private parties
+and such like, so I says:
+
+"'I don't mind,' I says; 'not that I knows anything about it, if that
+don't make no odds.
+
+"'Lor', no! that don't make no odds,' he says. 'It's only the
+cloak-room you'll have to look after, and you'll get 'alf-a-crown and
+your grub for doin' it.'
+
+"'Cloak-room?' I says. 'What's that?' 'Why,' he says, 'where the gents
+puts their 'ats and coats and umbrellas.' 'I'm on,' I says. 'I
+shouldn't be surprised if I was able to keep a heye upon a humbrella;
+I should think that was about my style.' But I were wrong, as I'm
+a-goin' to tell yer.
+
+"In the evening I went up with Mr. Perkins to a house in the Camden
+Road. I had on a old dress suit of Perkins's, which wasn't no sort
+of fit, seeing as how he was fifty-two in the waist and I was
+twenty-five. Mrs. Perkins, she'd what she called 'caught the trousers
+up' in the back, and she said as no one would see me it would be all
+right, which I hoped it would be. It didn't feel all right, I tell you
+that.
+
+"When me and Mr. Perkins got up to the house they put me straight away
+into a little band-box of a cupboard sort of place, where there was
+some shelves and some 'ooks and some pieces of paper, with numbers
+on--the same number on two pieces of paper--and a box of pins.
+The servant girl as shows me in says--a saucy piece of goods she
+was!--'There you are! and I hope you're more 'andy than you looks,
+because if you mixes of the things there'll be excitement.' Mr.
+Perkins, he'd told me what I'd have to do as we was coming along, so I
+wipes my 'ot 'and upon his breeches, and I 'opes for the best.
+
+"Presently the people begins a-coming to the party. A young gent, he
+comes up to me, and he 'ands me his overcoat, and a billycock 'at, and
+a silk scarf, and a umbrella, and a pair of india-rubber shoes, and I
+was floored at once; because Mr. Perkins had told me that I was to pin
+one number to whatever a gent gave me, and I was to give him the same
+number, so that he might know it by that number when he came again. So
+when this young gent gave me all that lot of articles I began pinning
+one number to his 'at--it was a 'ard 'at and not easy to drive a pin
+in--and another to his overcoat, and another to his umbrella, and
+another to his shoes, and another to his scarf--as I'd understood Mr.
+Perkins to tell me. But this here young gent, he wouldn't have it. He
+wanted me to pin one number to the lot of them; and as I was a-arguing
+with him, and tryin' to understand how he made out as I could do that,
+seeing as how the pins was little ones, and the numbers not large ones
+neither, a lot of other gents came up, and this here young gent he got
+quite red in the face, and he snatched a number out of my hand and he
+walked off, and he left me staring.
+
+"Well I got on pretty well, considerin', so long as the people didn't
+come too fast. But I tell you, if you're not used to pins, they're
+more difficult to manage than you might think. You never know where
+you're driving of them. I know that, what with the 'eat and the 'aste,
+some being all of a flurry, I drove more of them into my 'ands than I
+quite liked. And I soon saw that that there box of pins wouldn't never
+last me long, seein' as how I bent three out of every two, so as I
+couldn't use 'em--not to speak of others I dropped and couldn't stop
+to find.
+
+"But, as I was a-sayin', I got on somehow, and I daresay I should have
+got on, somehow, to the end, if it hadn't been that I was fresh from
+the country. Of course, I didn't know what gentlefolk wear, and one
+'at was like another 'at to me--and that was where I was deceived. One
+gent fair took me aback. He came in with a 'igh top-'at on his 'ead,
+and when he took it off he put one end against his chest and he gave
+it a sort of a shove, and he squashed it as flat as my 'and. I tell
+you, I stared. I thought he'd been having a drop to drink, and had
+busted his brand new 'at for a sort of a joke. But he seemed to be
+sober enough, so far as I could see, and he didn't seem to mind
+what he'd done to his 'at, not a little bit. Presently another gent
+came alone, and he done the same to his top-'at. Then another, and
+another--in fact, a whole crowd of them. And there was me,
+a-perspiring like one o'clock, with Perkins's breeches a-coming undone
+where his old woman had caught 'em up at the back, a-standing in the
+middle of a lot of squashed 'igh 'ats, what was lying all over the
+place. So I began to see that there was more in the nature of a 'igh
+'at than I'd supposed.
+
+"Bless you! there wasn't nearly room for all the things that these
+gents kept a-handing me, and unless I took to standin' on 'em, I
+didn't see what I was to do. So when there came a sort of a lull like
+I looks round to see how I could make a bit of room. 'Alf them gents
+hadn't squashed in their 'igh 'ats, like the other gents 'ad done, and
+I sees at once as how they were takin' up more than their fair share
+of space. So I makes up my mind to squash 'em for 'em, and I sets
+about a-doin' it. I takes up a 'igh 'at what a old gent had just
+a-give me--a beautiful shiny one it was--and I sets it against my
+stomach and I starts a-'eavin'. I'd no idea it'd be so 'ard. Them
+other gents had seemed to squash theirs easy, but this 'ere one took
+some shovin'. And, when it did go, it went all lop-sided like. I had
+to sit on it before it'd lie down flat.
+
+"I had my 'and full, I tell you, squashin' all them 'igh 'ats. There
+was forty of 'em, if there was one. Fair 'ard work I found it. I
+supposed there was some knack about the thing as I 'adn't yet caught.
+And when I'd finished the lot I took a squint at 'em. If you'll
+believe me, a shiver went up and down my back. Somehow I didn't like
+the way as they was lookin'. There was a crumpled sort of look about
+'em which didn't seem like as it ought to be. I was a-perspirin' all
+over. Perkins's breeches had come undone behind, and was 'anging about
+me anyhow; my collar had come unpinned at the back of my shirt; the
+bow that Mrs. Perkins had give me for a necktie had worked loose in
+front. A lot of them articles hadn't got no numbers on, and most of
+them as had I felt certain as I'd given to the wrong parties; and,
+altogether, I began to wish as how I hadn't come.
+
+"Presently the old gent as had given me the 'igh 'at as I had
+started squashin' came up to the door. He was a tall old gent, very
+fierce-lookin', with a long white moustache--a regular toff. As he'd
+been the last to come, and it seemed as how he was goin' to be the
+first to go, it looked as if he had soon had enough of the party.
+'Give me my 'at,' he says.
+
+"I knew which was his 'at, though it 'adn't got no number. I had good
+reason to. So I routed it out from under a 'eap of others. He looks at
+it, and then he looks at me.
+
+"'That's not my 'at,' he says.
+
+"'Excuse me, sir,' I says, 'it is your 'at--leastways, it's the one as
+you gave to me.'
+
+"He looks at the 'at again, and then again he looks at me, and all of
+a sudden he went quite red in the face.
+
+"'Mine was a new 'at!'
+
+"'Yes, sir,' I says; 'so I thought, sir, when you gave it me. It
+didn't look as though it 'adn't never been worn. If you try this 'at
+on, sir, you will find, sir, as it's yours.'
+
+"Then he takes the 'at out of my 'and, lookin' at me once more,
+searchin' like, and he turns it round and round, and he squints inside
+of it.
+
+"'As I'm alive,' he says, 'I do believe it's mine!'
+
+"I says,' I'm sure, sir, as how it is. I noticed it most particular.'
+
+"'But, good 'evins!' he says, 'whatever 'ave you been a-doing to it?'
+
+"'I've only been a-squashin' of it, sir,' I says.
+
+"'Only been a-squashin' of it!' he says, and he gives a kind of gasp.
+'Are you drunk, man?'
+
+"'No, sir,' I says, 'and that I'm not. I haven't had so much as 'alf a
+pint since I've been inside this 'ouse!' Which I 'adn't, and my throat
+was gettin' regular parched.
+
+"He did flare out!
+
+"'Then if you're not drunk, man,' he says, 'what the devil do you mean
+by tellin' me that you've only been a-squashin' of a brand new 'at?'
+He gives another squint inside of it. ''Ang me if it doesn't look as
+if he'd been a-sitting down upon the thing!'
+
+"'I had to,' I says, 'to make it stay down flat.'
+
+"I thought he would have had a fit.
+
+"'My God!' he says,' what sort of a place is it that I've got into?'
+Then he uses language what I'd always been taught was most unbecomin'
+to anyone what called 'imself a gentleman. 'You damned scoundrel,
+you!' he says. 'If you was my servant I'd have you sent to gaol for
+this! I might have expected that something would come of ever entering
+such a dog-'ole of a 'ouse! Take the 'at, you 'ound, and be damned to
+you!'
+
+"And if he didn't throw his own 'at into my face with such violence as
+not only to break the skin right off my nose, where it 'appened to 'it
+me, but as to make me feel for the moment as if I had gone silly. When
+I come to myself, as it were, if he hadn't gone right into the street,
+for all I knew, and left his 'at behind him. As I was thinkin' what I
+ought to do--for I ain't accustomed to havin' 'igh 'ats chucked in my
+face as if they were brickbats, not even at a party--three other gents
+came 'astening up--young ones, they was.
+
+"''Ats, waiter!' they says. 'We're in a 'urry'--which I could see they
+was.
+
+"'What is your numbers, gentlemen?' I says.
+
+"'You never give us none,' says they.
+
+"'In that case, gentlemen,' I says, 'I shall have to ask you for to be
+so good as to choose your own 'ats.'
+
+"So I takes up in both my 'ands a 'eap of squashed 'igh 'ats and I
+'olds 'em out to 'em. You should have seen their faces! First they
+looks at me, and then they looks at each other. Then one of them gives
+a sort of grin.
+
+"'Ain't you made some sort of mistake?' he says.
+
+"'As 'ow?' I says.
+
+"'Ours was 'igh 'ats,' he says.
+
+"'Well, and ain't these 'igh 'ats?' I says.
+
+"Then again they looks at me, and again they looks at each other; and
+another one, he speaks--a short, puffy young fellow he was, with curly
+'air.
+
+"'They looks to me as if they was low 'ats,' he says; 'uncommon low--I
+never saw none look lower.'
+
+"All three laughs. What at was more than I could say. I didn't know
+what to make of 'em. There was they a-starin' at me, and there was I
+a-starin' at them, with both my arms 'eaped up with them there 'ats.
+Then the third one, he has a go--a stylish-lookin' chap. He was very
+'an'some, like you sees in the barbers' shops.
+
+"'Waiter,' he says, 'are you a-'avin' a game with us?'
+
+"'A game, sir?' I says. 'Beggin' your pardon, sir, I'm not 'avin' no
+game with no one. Do I look as if I was?'
+
+"Which I didn't feel it, I can tell you that.
+
+"'Well,' he says, 'I asks you for my 'at, and you offers me my choice
+of them leavings from a rag-and-bone shop; so, if you ain't a-'avin' a
+game with me, I don't know what you are a-'avin'.'
+
+"'Come, waiter!' says the one as had spoken first; 'didn't we tell you
+as 'ow we was in a 'urry? Let us 'ave our 'ats. Don't keep on playing
+the fool with us!'
+
+"'You must excuse me, gentlemen,' I says, speaking a trifle
+warmish--because, as you'll understand, I was beginning to feel a
+little badgered like; 'if anyone's a-playin' the fool it seems to
+me--asking of your leave--as it's you as is playin' the fool with me!'
+
+"'Us as is playin' the fool with you?' they says, all together, as it
+might be.
+
+"'Eggsactly,' I says. 'That is what I says,' I says, 'and that is what
+I means,' I says. 'First, you asks me for to give you your 'ats; and
+then, when I offers you some 'ats for you to take what is your own,
+you starts a-larfin'. If, as you says, you're in a 'urry, perhaps
+you'll step inside and cast your eyes around, and point out which is
+your 'ats. You can take which ones you please for all I care; I'm sure
+you're very welcome.'
+
+"With that they stepped in. When they was in, and I was in, there
+wasn't much room left for anything but breathin', and 'ardly room
+enough for that.
+
+"'Where is the 'igh 'ats?' says the stylish-lookin' feller.
+
+"'Where is your eyes?' I says. 'Ain't they all over the place? Why,
+you're a-steppin' on one now!'
+
+"You should have seen the 'op he gave!
+
+"'These 'ats,' he says, 'from what I can see of 'em--which isn't
+much--looks to me as if they had all been squashed.'
+
+"'Of course they has!' I says. ''Ow do you suppose I was a-goin' to
+find room for them if they wasn't? This ain't the Halbit 'All, and yet
+it ain't the Crystal Pallis!'
+
+"Then they looks at each other again; and, from the way in which they
+done it, I felt as 'ow there was something which wasn't altogether
+what it ought to be. So I goes on--
+
+"'If them 'ats hasn't been squashed eggsactly as they ought to have
+been squashed, that ain't my fault,' I says. 'You ought to have
+squashed them for yourselves, as the other gents done. I don't know
+nothing about the squashin' of 'igh 'ats, and I never laid myself out
+as knowin' nothing. I just put them against my chest and I gives 'em a
+shove, and then I sits on 'em to make 'em lay down flat. That's all I
+done!'
+
+"While I was speakin' I could see them there young gents' mouths was
+gettin' wider and wider open, and when I stopped they burst out
+larfin' fit to split. What there was to larf at was more than I could
+see. All I knew was, that I wished I 'adn't never come. They staggered
+out into the 'all, and the curly-'eaded one, he cries out:
+
+"'Oh, Sheepshanks, do come 'ere!' Then a cove comes up, as I found out
+afterwards was the bloke as was a-givin' the party. 'Oh, Sheepshanks!'
+says this young feller; 'if he ain't squashed them just eggsactly as
+they ought to have been squashed, don't you blame him. He never laid
+himself out as knowin' nothing about the squashin' of 'igh 'ats, but
+he's done his best--he's sat down upon them to make them lie down
+flat! Oh, Lord! Someone put a piece of ice down my back, afore I die!'
+
+"This 'ere curly-'eaded young feller kep' on larfin' so I thought he
+would have bust. Mr. Sheepshanks, he comes up to me, lookin' a bit
+pinky. 'What's the matter? What's the meanin' of this?' he says.
+
+"'Oh!' says the curly-'eaded young feller, still a-bustin' of 'isself
+a-larfin'; 'nothing! That waiter of yours has only been a-squashin'
+the 'igh 'ats--every man-jack of 'em. For goodness sake ask him about
+them--don't ask me! My gracious! why don't someone bring that piece of
+ice?'
+
+"Mr. Sheepshanks, he came into the little band-box of a room, looking
+pinkier and pinkier. He looks at some 'ats which I was a-'oldin' in my
+'ands.
+
+"'What have you been a-doin' to those 'ats?' he says.
+
+"'I've only been a-squashin' 'em,' I says; 'that's all!'
+
+"'You've only been a-squashin' 'em?' he says--and he gives a kind of
+gasp, like as if he was taken short of breath upon a sudden. And he
+looks about the room.
+
+"'What 'ats are these?' he says.
+
+"'They is the 'ats,' I says, 'what was given to me by the gents as is
+at the party.'
+
+"He gives another sort of gasp, and there came something into his face
+what I didn't altogether like the look of.
+
+"'Who's been a-destroyin' of 'em?' he says.
+
+"'No one ain't been a-destroyin' of 'em,' I says. 'I've only been
+a-sittin' on 'em to make 'em lie down flat.'
+
+"'Oh!' he says, short and sharp like. 'Is that all you have been
+a-doin'? And what sort of a drunken idiot may you be, pray?'
+
+"'I'm not drunk,' I says, 'seein' as 'ow I haven't even seen the sight
+of liquor since I've been inside this blessed 'ouse. And, as for
+idiot, I ain't so much of a idiot, perhaps, as you are'; for I didn't
+care who he was, nor yet what he was. I'd had about enough of being
+bully-ragged.
+
+"'May I venture to ask who brought you here?' he says.
+
+"'No one brought me 'ere,' I says, 'seein' as 'ow I came along of Mr.
+Perkins, to oblige him; and now I wish I hadn't, and so I tell you
+straight.'
+
+"'I also,' he says,' am inclined to wish you hadn't.'
+
+"Very hard and stern he was. I didn't like the look of him, nor yet
+the sound of him. 'Send Perkins to me,' he says. Presently Mr.
+Perkins, he comes 'urryin' up.
+
+"'Perkins,' says Mr. Sheepshanks, 'what scoundrel is this you have
+brought into my 'ouse?'
+
+"'It's only a young man from the country, sir,' says Perkins, 'as I
+brought with me to 'elp in the cloak-room. I do 'ope he has been doin'
+of nothing wrong?'
+
+"And he gives me a glare out of his eye, like as if I had been doin'
+anything to him.
+
+"'I don't know if you're a-thinkin',' says this 'ere Mr. Sheepshanks,
+a-puffin' and a-pantin', as it seemed to me, with rage, 'that I asked
+my friends to my 'ouse to have their 'ats destroyed; because your
+young man, as you says is from the country--and I 'opes to goodness as
+'ow he'll soon go back to it!--has done for every one of 'em.'
+
+"'I denies it!' I says. 'I tells you again, as I tells you afore, that
+I've only been a-squashin' of 'em and a-sittin' on 'em to make 'em lie
+down flat!'
+
+"When I says that, the way Mr. Perkins goes on at me was what I never
+had expected. He abused me scandalous. He took me by the neck, and he
+'ustled me into the 'all. And there was all the people what was at the
+party a-crowdin' on the stairs. If you'll believe me, before I 'ardly
+knew what 'ad 'appened, I found myself a-standin'...!'
+
+"Yes, that were the first time ever I acted as a waiter--likewise, it
+was the very last.
+
+"When I goes round to put the 'orse ready for market, his missus, she
+meets me at the door. She gives me the money that was due to me, and
+she says as 'ow she didn't think as 'ow I had better stay for to have
+a talk with Perkins, because as 'ow he might be violent. So I didn't.
+And I've never set eyes on him from that day to this.
+
+"It was some time before I quite understood what it was had made the
+gents what was at that there party so excited. One day, comin' along a
+street near the Strand, I sees in a shop window a 'igh 'at what was
+a-shuttin' of itself up and a-openin' of itself out without, so far as
+I could see, no one a-doin' nothing to it. Some sort of machinery, I
+expect as 'ow it was. So I stops and I takes a look at it. There was a
+boy a-lookin' at it too. So I says to him--
+
+"'What kind of a 'at do you call that?' I says.
+
+"'It's a hopera 'at, ain't it?' he says. 'Who do you think as you're
+a-gettin' at?'
+
+"I wasn't a-gettin' at no one, and it was like that there boy's
+impudence to suppose as 'ow I was.
+
+"'Oh! a hopera 'at, is it?' I says. 'You don't 'appen to know if
+that's the same as a 'igh 'at, do you?'
+
+"'A 'igh 'at!' he says. 'Go on! Ax your grandmother! P'r'aps your
+mother 'ardly knows you're out! Go and prig the parish pump and pop it
+with a peeler!'
+
+"And that there boy, he 'ooks it. And it was well for him he did. If I
+had a-got my 'ands on him he'd have known it. But, from the way in
+which that 'at was a-goin' on in that there window, and from what that
+there boy says, I took it that there was two kinds of 'igh 'ats--the
+hopera kind and the other kind. And, in supposin' that the other kind
+could be squashed in, like the hopera kind, was just where I had made
+my error."
+
+
+
+
+                         Returning a Verdict
+
+It was in the country, at the last Quarter Sessions, a case of theft.
+James Bailey, in the employ of Samuel Nichols, a fishmonger, was
+charged with stealing certain trusses of hay and bushels of corn. The
+jury had retired to consider their verdict.
+
+"Of course," observed the foreman, who had seated himself at the head
+of the table, "we've only come out here as a matter of form. There's
+no doubt that the young scamp did it."
+
+William Baker, leaning towards him, shading his hand with his mouth,
+whispered, with the evident intention of addressing him in strictest
+confidence, "I say guilty!"
+
+Some of the jurymen were standing about the room talking to one
+another audibly on subjects which had not the slightest connection
+with the case they were supposed to be considering.
+
+"What I want," said Slater, the butcher of Offley, to old George
+Parkes of Wormald's Farm, "is a calf--a nice one--just about prime."
+
+With his heavy hand old Parkes nursed his stubbly chin.
+
+"Ah!" he reflected. "I haven't got nothing, not just now, I haven't.
+Might have in about a month."
+
+Slater shook his head. "Must have it Friday."
+
+"Ah!" Mr. Parkes paused. "I haven't got nothing." Paused again. "I
+might have, though."
+
+A. B. Timmins, secretary of the local branch of the Primrose League,
+was calling across the room to Mr. Hisgard, a well-known amateur
+vocalist, with a view of retaining his services for an approaching
+"smoker." The foreman looked about him. He raised his voice, rapped on
+the table.
+
+"Gentlemen, please--business!" Somebody laughed, as if the foreman had
+been guilty of a joke--so he improved on it. "Business first, pleasure
+afterwards." The laugher held his peace--the joke fell flat. The jury
+seated themselves--not with any air of over-anxious haste. The foreman
+continued--he was one of the most flourishing auctioneers in that
+division of the county--and now spoke with that half persuasive, half
+authoritative manner with which many of them were familiar in the
+rostrum. "We must remember, gentlemen, that the court is waiting. So,
+with your permission, we will come to the point at once. Those who are
+of opinion that the prisoner is guilty will please hold up their
+hands." Seven hands went up. "Those who are of the contrary opinion."
+One hand was raised--Jacob Longsett's. Mr. Grice, the foreman, eyed
+the three gentlemen who had made no sign on either occasion. He
+addressed himself to one of them, "Well, Mr. Tyler, which is it to
+be?"
+
+"The fact is, Mr. Grice," said Mr. Tyler, "that I've had a bad
+earache--it was the draught which must have given it me. I think I
+didn't quite catch all that was being said now and again; but I'm
+willing to say what the other gentlemen do!"
+
+"You mean that you'll vote with the majority?"
+
+"That's just what I do mean, Mr. Grice."
+
+"I ain't going to say nothing," declared George Parkes, who had also
+refrained from expressing an opinion. "I don't know no good about
+young Bailey, nor yet about Sam Nichols neither. Sam Nichols, he's
+owed me nigh on four pound these three years and more."
+
+"I don't think," observed the foreman, "that we ought to allow
+personal considerations to enter into the case. It's our duty to speak
+to the evidence, and to that only."
+
+"I don't care nothing about no evidence. The one's as big a thief as
+t'other."
+
+Old George clenched his toothless jaws and blinked.
+
+"What'll he get if we bring him in guilty?" asked Mr. Plummer, the
+third abstainer.
+
+The foreman shook his head. "That oughtn't to influence our decision."
+
+Mr. Plummer differed, and said so.
+
+"It'll influence mine. James Bailey is not yet eighteen. To send him
+to prison will do him more harm than good. If his case is to come
+under the First Offenders Act, we shall know where we are."
+
+"We might make a recommendation to that effect," suggested Captain
+Rudd.
+
+"Excuse me," interposed Mr. Moss, "but I doubt if I could agree to our
+doing that. I'm afraid that Master Bailey deserves some punishment.
+This is not the first time he has done this sort of thing. He was
+dismissed from his last two places for dishonesty."
+
+Again the foreman shook his head.
+
+"That didn't come out in the evidence. You know, gentlemen, what we
+have to do is to dismiss from our minds any knowledge of the parties
+which we may have outside the case, and confine our attention to the
+sworn testimony."
+
+Mr. Moss smiled, declining to be pooh-poohed.
+
+"That's all very well in theory, Mr. Grice, but in practice it won't
+do. Nichols, with his fish-cart, has done a daily round in this
+country of some twenty miles or so for the last twelve or fourteen
+years. I doubt if there is a person in this room who has not some
+knowledge of him. As for Bailey, his mother lives within a hundred
+yards of my house; I have known him ever since he was born. I am
+acquainted, too, with his last two employers, and with the
+circumstances under which he left them."
+
+"I know nothing of either of the parties," said Captain Rudd.
+
+"You are a new-comer. I doubt, as I say, if any other person present
+can say the same."
+
+If any other person could, he didn't. There was a pause--broken by the
+foreman.
+
+"Let us understand our position. Eight of us say guilty--Mr. Tyler
+goes with the majority; two of us have not yet made up our minds; and
+Mr. Longsett is the only one who says not guilty. May I inquire, Mr.
+Longsett, on what grounds you favour an acquittal?"
+
+"You've no right to ask me anything of the kind. This is not the first
+jury I've served on. Although you're foreman, you're only like the
+rest of us. What you've got to do is to ask me if I say guilty or not
+guilty. I say not guilty.
+
+"I believe, Mr. Longsett," insinuated Mr. Moss, "that Bailey is a
+relation of yours?"
+
+"That's no business of yours."
+
+"Then are we to understand, Mr. Longsett"--the foreman spoke with
+almost ominous suavity--"that you have arrived at a point at which you
+are impervious to argument?"
+
+"I say not guilty."
+
+"Even though it may be demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that
+the prisoner is guilty?"
+
+"It's no good talking to me, Mr. Grice. I say not guilty."
+
+The foreman, stretching out his hands in front of him, looked round
+the table with an air which was eloquent with deprecation. Old Parkes
+banged his fist upon the board.
+
+"And I say guilty, and I hope they'll give him seven years--the
+thieving varmint!"
+
+"Arrived at a state of sudden conviction--eh, George?"
+
+This was Mr. Timmins, who was middle-aged and jaunty.
+
+"Some people are easily convinced," growled Mr. Longsett.
+
+"You're not one of that sort, are you, Jacob?"
+
+This again was Mr. Timmins.
+
+"You won't convince me."
+
+Nor, judging from the expression of Jacob's visage, did there seem to
+be much probability of their being able to do anything of the kind.
+There was another interval of silence--broken this time by Captain
+Rudd.
+
+"Then because this gentleman chooses to differ from us, without
+condescending to give us his reason for so doing, are we to stultify
+ourselves, and is justice to be baulked? Is that the situation, Mr.
+Foreman?"
+
+"Excuse me, Captain Rudd, but Mr. Longsett is not alone. I also say
+not guilty. The observation of Mr. Parkes, expressing a hope that the
+prisoner will get seven years, shows to me that a spirit of malignancy
+is in the air, and to that spirit I am unable to subscribe."
+
+The speaker was Mr. Plummer. The others looked at him. The foreman
+spoke.
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Plummer, but why do you say not guilty?"
+
+"Because I decline to be a participator in the condemnation of this
+mere youth to a ruthless term of penal servitude."
+
+"But, my dear sir, he won't get penal servitude--Mr. Parkes was only
+joking. He'll get, at the outside, three months."
+
+"That would be too much. It would be sufficient punishment for one of
+his years--my views on the subject of juvenile delinquency I have
+never disguised--that he should be requested to come up for judgment
+when called upon."
+
+"But, my dear sir, if the magistrates leave us a free hand to do our
+duty, why can't we leave them a free hand to do theirs? The issue we
+have to decide upon is a very simple one; the responsibility of acting
+on that decision will be theirs."
+
+Mr. Plummer settled his spectacles on his nose and was silent. Captain
+Rudd addressed him.
+
+"I suppose you will not deny, sir, that all the evidence goes to prove
+the prisoner's guilt?"
+
+"There are degrees in guilt."
+
+"Possibly--but you admit that there is guilt, even though it may only
+be in the positive degree?"
+
+Again Mr. Plummer was still. Mr. Slater called to Mr. Longsett across
+the table:
+
+"You're a sportsman, Jacob, and I'm a sportsman. I tell you what I'll
+do. I'll toss you, guilty or not guilty. I can't stop messing about
+here all day--I've got my beasts to dress."
+
+Mr. Longsett was obviously tempted; the offer appealed to the most
+susceptible part of him. Still, he shook his head.
+
+"No," he grunted, as if the necessity of announcing such a refusal
+pained him. "I shan't."
+
+Mr. Plummer was scandalised.
+
+"Such a proposal is disgraceful--it ought not to be allowed to be
+made. Making of justice a mockery!"
+
+Mr. Slater declined to be snubbed--at least by Mr. Plummer.
+
+"Seems to me as if you don't quite know where you are. First you want
+to preach to the magistrates, then you want to preach to the jury;
+perhaps you think you're at the corner of High Street?"
+
+There were those who smiled. The reference was to Mr. Plummer's
+fondness for open-air expositions of "the Word." Mr. Grice drummed
+with his fingers on the table.
+
+"Come, gentlemen, come! we're wasting time. As business men we ought
+to know its value. Now, Mr. Longsett, I've too much faith in your
+integrity not to know that you're open to conviction. Tell us, where
+do you think the evidence for the prosecution is not sufficiently
+strong?" Mr. Longsett did not justify the foreman's faith by
+answering. "Be frank, on what point are you not satisfied?"
+
+After more than momentary hesitation Mr. Longsett replied, without,
+however, raising his eyes.
+
+"It's no use talking to me, Mr. Grice, so that's all about it. I say
+not guilty!"
+
+Mr. Moss explained.
+
+"The plain fact is, Mr. Foreman, Mr. Longsett is a relation of the
+prisoner; he ought not to have been on this jury at all."
+
+This time Mr. Longsett did raise his eyes--and his voice too.
+
+"I've as much right to be on the jury as you have--perhaps more. Who
+do you think you are? I pay my way--and I pay my servants too! They
+don't have to county-court me before they can get their wages. Only
+the other day I was on a jury when they were county-courting you. So
+it isn't the first jury I've been on, you see."
+
+Mr. Moss did not seem pleased. The allusion was to a difference which
+that gentleman had had with one of his servants, and which had been
+settled in the county court. Again the foreman drummed upon the board.
+
+"Order, gentlemen, order!"
+
+Mr. Timmins turned to Mr. Hisgard. He winked.
+
+"Have a game at crib, Bob? I knew Jacob would be here, so I came
+provided!"
+
+He produced a cribbage-board. Once more the foreman interposed.
+
+"Keep to the business we have in hand, please, gentlemen."
+
+"Oh, they can have their game, I don't mind. Perhaps I came as well
+provided as anyone else."
+
+As he replied Jacob took from his pocket a brown paper parcel of
+considerable dimensions. Tom Elliott, who was sitting by him,
+instantly snatching it, passed it on to Mr. Hisgard.
+
+"Have a sandwich, Mr. Hisgard?"
+
+"No, thank you. But perhaps Mr. Timmins will?"
+
+He passed the packet to Mr. Timmins. That gentleman made a feint of
+opening it. Mr. Longsett, rising from his chair, reached for his
+property across the table.
+
+"None of that; give it back to me." Mr. Timmins tossed the packet to
+the other end of the table.
+
+"Now, Timmins, what do you mean by that? Do you want me to wipe you
+across the head?"
+
+Mr. Timmins addressed Mr. Grice. "Now, Mr. Foreman, won't you offer
+the jury a sandwich each? It is about our dinner-time."
+
+Mr. Grice eyed the packet in front of him as if he were more than half
+disposed to act on the suggestion.
+
+"I really don't think, Mr. Longsett, that you ought to eat sandwiches
+out of a pure spirit of contradiction."
+
+"Never mind what you think; you give me back my property, or I'll give
+the whole lot of you in custody." The parcel was restored to him. He
+brandished it aloft. "There you are, you see, a lot of grown men go
+and steal another man's property, and you treat it as a joke. A mere
+lad goes and looks at a truss of mouldy hay, and you want to ruin him
+for life. And you call that justice! You ain't going to get me to take
+a hand in no such justice, so I tell you straight!"
+
+"It went a little farther than 'looks,' didn't it, Mr. Longsett?
+'Looks' won't carry even mouldy hay three miles across country."
+
+"And 'looks' won't carry my property from where I'm sitting down to
+where you are! If Jim Bailey's a thief, so's Tom Elliott--there's no
+getting over that. Why ain't we sitting on him instead of on that
+there young 'un?"
+
+"See here, Jacob." Mr. Timmins stretched out towards him his open
+palm. "Here's a sporting offer for you: if you'll bring Jim Bailey in
+guilty, I'll bring in Tom Elliott!"
+
+"I won't bring in neither; the one's no more a thief than the other."
+
+"Nice for you, Tom, eh?"
+
+"Oh, I don't mind. I know Jacob. It's not the first time a member of
+your family's been in trouble, is it, Jacob?"
+
+"By----! if you say that again I'll knock the life right out of you!"
+
+The foreman rapped upon the table.
+
+"Order, gentlemen, order! Keep to the business in hand, if you
+please."
+
+Mr. Longsett confronted him, towering over Elliott, with clenched
+fists and flashing eyes.
+
+"Keep him in order then--don't keep on at me! You make him keep a
+civil tongue in his head, or I will." He glared round the board. "I
+don't care for the whole damned lot of you. I'm as good as any one of
+you--perhaps better! I'm here to do my duty according to my conscience
+and conviction, and I'm going to do it, and I say not guilty, and if
+we stop here till Christmas you won't make me say no different!"
+
+This announcement was followed by an interval of silence; then Captain
+Rudd attempted to voice the sense of the meeting.
+
+"In that case, Mr. Foreman, we may as well intimate to the court that
+we are unable to agree."
+
+"What'll be the consequence of that?"
+
+"The prisoner'll have to stand another trial, when, should none of his
+relations happen to be upon the jury, there will be no hesitation
+about bringing in a verdict of guilty--in which case the young scamp
+will get his deserts."
+
+Stretching his body across the table, Jacob shook his clenched fist in
+the speaker's face.
+
+"Look here, Captain Rudd, you may be a captain, but you're no blooming
+gentleman, or you wouldn't talk like that. Captain or no captain, the
+next time you say anything about Jim Bailey being a relation of mine
+I'll crack you in the mouth!" Straightening himself, Jacob shook his
+fist at the eleven. "And I say the same to every one of you. It's no
+affair of yours what Jim Bailey is to me--so just you mind it."
+
+The captain curled, at the same time, his lip and his moustache, his
+bearing conveying the scorn which he doubtless felt.
+
+"If you suppose, sir, that I shall allow you to play the common bully
+with impunity, you are mistaken. You forget yourself, my man!"
+
+"Oh, no! I don't forget myself--it's you who forgot yourself. And as
+for playing the common bully, it's you began it. You're trying to
+bully me when you taunt me with Jim Bailey being my relation; you
+think if you keep it on long enough you'll frighten me into acting
+against my sense of duty."
+
+The foreman intervened sharply: "Order! Mr. Longsett, your language is
+improper and irregular; if you are not careful I shall have to report
+it to the court."
+
+"It's no more improper and irregular than theirs is. We're here to say
+guilty or not guilty, not to pry into each other's private affairs. If
+they don't make no personal remarks, I shan't."
+
+"Listen to reason, Mr. Longsett. Do I understand, Mr. Plummer, that
+you will acquiesce in a verdict of guilty if we prefer a
+recommendation to the court that the case shall be treated under the
+First Offenders Act?"
+
+"You are at liberty to so understand, Mr. Grice."
+
+"And you, Mr. Longsett? If we are unable to agree the prisoner will
+have to go back to prison, and, on his again standing his trial, I
+have no hesitation in saying that he will be found guilty, when he
+will be likely to receive much less lenient treatment than now, when
+we are ready and willing to recommend him to mercy."
+
+"We're going to agree."
+
+"That's good hearing. You agree to a verdict of guilty, coupled with a
+recommendation to mercy?"
+
+"I don't do nothing of the kind."
+
+"Then what do you agree to?"
+
+"I agree to a verdict of not guilty--that's what I agree to."
+
+"Then, in that case, we're likely to disagree. You can hardly expect
+eleven men to go against the weight of evidence for the sake of
+agreeing with you."
+
+"There's no hurry that I knows on. We'll wait a bit. I have heard of
+juries being locked up for eight-and-forty hours. I daresay before
+that time some of you'll have changed your minds. Seems to me that
+there's three or four already that can change their minds as easy as
+winking." He began, with a certain amount of ostentation, to untie the
+string which bound his brown paper parcel. "I'm getting peckish. If
+you don't mind, Mr. Foreman, we'll talk things over while I'm eating."
+
+The unfolding of the paper revealed the fact that it contained a
+comfortable number of succulent-looking sandwiches. The eleven eyed
+them--and their owner--sourly. Carefully taking the top one of the
+heap between his finger and his thumb Mr. Longsett took a bite at it.
+Seldom has the process of attacking a sandwich had a more attentive
+audience.
+
+"I say, Jacob," observed Mr. Timmins, "aren't you going to give me
+one?"
+
+"What, give you the food from between my own lips! Not if I know it.
+We may be here till this time to-morrow. I've got to think of myself,
+Mr. Timmins."
+
+"I'm not going to stop here till this time to-morrow, Jacob Longsett!"
+
+As he spoke old Parkes banged his fist upon the table.
+
+"All right, George Parkes, nobody asked you to, so far as I know.
+Seems to me you're uncommon keen to send the lad to gaol."
+
+"I don't wish the lad no harm."
+
+"Seems to me as how you do."
+
+"I say I don't!"
+
+Mr. Parkes punctuated each of his remarks with a bang upon the board.
+
+"Then why don't you do what you've sworn to do, and bring him in not
+guilty along of me?"
+
+"I don't care what I brings him in. It don't make no odds to me. It
+ain't none of my affair. I've got my own business to 'tend to, and
+when a man's got to my years he don't care to meddle in no one else's.
+I'm willing to bring him in not guilty along of you, Jacob Longsett."
+
+"That's more like it. If there was more like you and me, George
+Parkes, we'd soon be outside of this."
+
+Captain Rudd, who had listened to this short dialogue without evincing
+any signs of approbation, once more endeavoured to urge the foreman to
+action.
+
+"Don't you think, Mr. Foreman, that the time has arrived for you to
+communicate the fact of our disagreement to the court?"
+
+Mr. Longsett made haste to differ.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Foreman, but, if Captain Rudd will allow me, I don't
+think it has. We haven't been here hardly any time. There's no hurry,
+so long as we're doing our duty. I daresay we'll all agree yet before
+we've finished. All we want is a little patience."
+
+"And something to eat," said Mr. Timmins.
+
+"Then do you mean to say," exclaimed Mr. Longsett, as he commenced
+upon another sandwich, "that you'd send a young lad to gaol, and blast
+his good name for ever, just because you're hungry?"
+
+"May I be permitted to make a remark?" The inquiry came from Mr.
+Tyler. He was holding his handkerchief to his ear; his general
+expression was one of suffering. "Considering how little of the
+evidence I really heard I don't wish it to be supposed that I have any
+objection to a verdict of not guilty. And I may add that not only is
+my earache driving me nearly mad, but my health, as a whole, as some
+of you know, is bad, and I am easily exhausted. Had I supposed that
+any of this sort of thing would have taken place I should have
+procured a medical certificate excusing me. I appeal to gentlemen to
+arrive as rapidly as possible at a decision, which will enable me to
+obtain measures of relief."
+
+"Hear, hear!" Mr. Longsett rapped with his knuckles on the table.
+
+"I'd never have come," declared old Parkes, "if I'd a known I was
+going to be kep' all day without my dinner. When a man gets to my
+years he wants his victuals regular. I didn't have hardly no
+breakfast, and I ain't had nothing since."
+
+"I tell you what it is," cried Slater; "I want my dinner, and I've got
+my business to attend to--this is the busiest day of the week for me.
+So far as I can see it doesn't make much difference how we bring it
+in. You say that if you bring him in guilty you're going to get him
+off: then why shouldn't you bring him in not guilty right away? If you
+bring him in guilty I can't help thinking that he ought to be
+punished--he won't care nothing for your bringing him in guilty if he
+isn't; while, if you bring him in not guilty, he'll thank his stars
+for the narrow squeak he'll think he's had, and it'll be a lesson to
+him as long as he lives."
+
+"There is," allowed Mr. Plummer, "a good deal in what Mr. Slater
+says."
+
+"There is one thing against it," murmured Mr. Moss. His voice was
+rather squeaky, and, as if conscious of the fact, he generally
+produced it as softly as he could.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"The evidence. We are supposed to be influenced by the evidence, and
+by that only."
+
+"It struck me that the evidence was all one-sided."
+
+"Precisely--on the side of the prosecution. Since the case was
+practically undefended the presumption is that the prisoner had no
+defence to offer."
+
+"But, as practical men," persisted Mr. Plummer, "does it not occur to
+you that there is a good deal in what Mr. Slater says? If we find the
+lad not guilty we shall teach him a lesson, and, at the same time, not
+be placing on his character an ineffaceable slur. We might, for
+instance, state in open court, through the mouth of our worthy
+foreman, that we are willing to give the prisoner the benefit of the
+doubt."
+
+"But there is no doubt. Let us do justice though the heavens fall.
+Have you yourself any doubt that James Bailey stole Samuel Nichols's
+corn and hay?"
+
+"Ah, dear sir, there is only One who can say. He has no doubt. We are
+not omniscient."
+
+"That sort of talk may be all very well in a pulpit, Mr. Plummer. It
+is out of place in a court of law when we are dealing with ascertained
+facts."
+
+Mr. Plummer raised his hands and shook his head, as if he was sorry
+for Mr. Moss.
+
+"Let us show mercy, that we may be shown it," he all but whispered.
+
+"In other words," struck in Captain Rudd, "we are to do evil in order
+that good may come--even to the extent of prostituting truth."
+
+"I am afraid, in our present situation, these things are not arguable.
+Some of us, thank Heaven, see things through eyes of our own."
+
+"Precisely, and it is because they don't appear to be arguable that I
+once more suggest to the foreman that the court be informed that we
+are unable to agree."
+
+"And I again take leave to differ. Why now, there's"--Mr. Longsett
+pointed with his finger--"one--two--three--four--five of us as says
+not guilty. We're agreeing more and more every minute. I dare bet any
+money we'll all be like one family before we get outside this room. If
+the foreman ain't got no particular objection I'll have a moistener. I
+never could eat dry." Taking a black bottle out of an inner pocket in
+his overcoat he applied it to his lips. Such of the eleven as were not
+keenly observant ostentatiously turned their eyes another way. He took
+a long and hearty pull, then he smacked his lips. "Good stuff that; I
+always like a drop when I've been eating--helps digestion."
+
+"This is more than human nature can stand," groaned Mr. Timmins. "Mr.
+Foreman, I move that the magistrates be informed that we are unable to
+agree, and I request that you put that motion without further delay."
+
+"I second that motion," said Captain Rudd.
+
+"And I say no!"
+
+Jacob flourished his bottle. Mr. Timmins's visage, as he confronted
+Mr. Longsett, became slightly inflamed.
+
+"We don't care what you say. Do you think we're going to sit here,
+watching you guzzling, as long as ever you please? If you want
+to give a proper verdict you give one which is according to the
+evidence--we're not going to let you play the fool with us, Jacob, my
+boy."
+
+Extending the open palm of his left hand, Mr. Longsett marked time on
+it with the bottle which he was holding in his right.
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Foreman, but perhaps I know a bit of law as well as
+the rest of you, and I say that the law is this, that before a jury
+can tell the court anything it's got to agree upon what it's going to
+tell. And what I mean by that is this, that before any one of us--I
+don't care if it's the foreman, or who it is!--can tell the court that
+we disagree we've got to agree to disagree--and I don't agree!"
+
+Mr. Moss put a question to the foreman.
+
+"Is that really the case?"
+
+The foreman smiled a wintry smile--and temporised.
+
+"I shouldn't positively like to say."
+
+"But I do say positively. You can ask the magistrates, if you like,
+and see if I'm not right. Why, if you go into court now and say that
+we disagree I shall say we don't! I shall say that if we only have a
+little more time we shall agree yet; all we want's a chance of talking
+it over."
+
+The foreman, pressing his fingers together, addressed Mr. Longsett
+with an air that was acid.
+
+"Then, according to you, if one member of a jury chooses to make
+himself objectionable his colleagues are at his mercy?"
+
+Jacob rose from his seat in such a flame of passion that it almost
+seemed he was going to hurl his bottle at the foreman's head.
+
+"Don't you call me objectionable, Mr. Grice! I won't have it! I'm no
+more objectionable than you are! I've got as much right to an opinion
+as you, and because my opinion don't happen to be the same as yours
+you've no right to call me names. If we all start calling each other
+names a nice state of things that'll be. A pretty notion of a
+foreman's duties you seem to have!"
+
+Mr. Grice, who was not pugilistic, turned a trifle pale; he did not
+seem happy. Captain Rudd, tilting his chair backwards, and thrusting
+his hands into his trouser pockets, looked up at the ceiling.
+
+"This is the sort of thing which brings the jury system into
+contempt."
+
+"What's that, Captain Rudd?" Mr. Longsett, who was still upon his
+feet, chose his words with much deliberation, emphasising them with
+shakings of his fist. "You mean you're the sort, I suppose? You're
+quite right, you are. You've been in the army, you see, and you think
+we're soldiers, to come to heel whenever you tell us, and that's where
+you're mistaken, Captain Rudd. We're free Englishmen, and we don't
+choose to have you come the officer over us--and that's how you make
+the thing contemptible by trying."
+
+There was silence. His colleagues seemed to be arriving at the
+conclusion that Jacob was a difficult man to differ with.
+
+"It strikes me," said Mr. Timmins, when the silence was becoming
+painful, "that if the law is really such that we've got to stop here
+till our good Jacob takes it into his generous head to let us go, you
+and I, Mr. Hisgard, might have that little game of crib I was speaking
+of; it may help us forget where we are, and that we're not going to
+have any dinner till it's past supper time."
+
+"Just you wait a minute. Perhaps," replied Mr. Hisgard, "I may be
+allowed to say a word." No one appeared to have any objection. "What I
+wish to remark is this. With all deference, I think Mr. Slater spoke
+as a practical man. I don't see that there's much difference between
+saying guilty and at the same time asking the magistrate to award no
+punishment, and, as Mr. Slater puts it, bringing it in not guilty
+right away."
+
+Mr. Timmins, who had been shuffling a pack of cards, replaced them on
+the table.
+
+"All right. Let's have it that way and make an end of it. Suppose we
+all say not guilty and caution him not to do it again--what's the
+odds?"
+
+"So far as I'm concerned," observed Tom Elliott, "I'm willing to bring
+him in not guilty. It's my belief he's been led into it all along, and
+I know perhaps as much about it as anyone. There's a good deal about
+the affair what's been kept quiet by both sides. Perhaps I might have
+said a word for one."
+
+Mr. Moss interrogated the foreman with uplifted eyebrows.
+
+"Do you think it does make any difference?"
+
+The foreman shrugged his shoulders. He was still. Captain Rudd spoke
+for him.
+
+"It makes the difference between right and wrong--that's all."
+
+Mr. Plummer leaned his elbows on the table; his spectacled countenance
+wore its most benevolent smile.
+
+"Hearken to me, dear sir. We are all Christian men----"
+
+"Not necessarily at this moment; at this moment we are jurymen--only
+jurymen."
+
+Mr. Plummer sighed, as if in sorrow. He turned to the others, as if
+desiring their forgiveness for the captain.
+
+"This gentleman--I trust he will pardon me for saying so--puts a curb
+upon his natural generosity. His is what we may, perhaps, term the
+military mind--precise, and, if we may say so, just a little--the
+merest atom--hard. For my part I think, Mr. Foreman, we might, as
+Christian men, conscientiously return a negative finding, intimating
+at the same time that, owing to the prisoner's tender years, we are
+not unwilling to give him the benefit of the doubt."
+
+The captain dissented.
+
+"What sort of mind do you call yours, sir? Were we to return such a
+verdict, we should make of ourselves the laughing-stock of England."
+
+The foreman shook his head.
+
+"I hardly think England will interest itself in our proceedings to
+that extent. Similar verdicts in similar cases are, I imagine, more
+common than you may suppose. I am not advocating such a course, but I
+believe it would be logically possible for us to inform the
+magistrates that, while some of us entertain strong opinions on the
+subject of the prisoner's guilt, being desirous to arrive at a state
+of agreement, and also bearing in mind the youth of the accused, we
+are willing to acquiesce in a verdict of acquittal."
+
+"I agree to that," cried Mr. Longsett. "That's fair enough. Now, is it
+all settled?"
+
+"I'm not."
+
+The speaker was the captain. All eyes were turned on him.
+
+The foreman spoke.
+
+"Don't you think, captain, you--might swallow a gnat?"
+
+"I don't wish to set myself up as a superior person, but, under the
+circumstances, I'm afraid I can't."
+
+"Quite so. Now we know where we are." Mr. Longsett composed himself in
+his chair; planting his hands against his sides he stuck out his
+elbows; he screwed up his mouth. "It just shows you how one man can
+play skittles with eleven others."
+
+The captain was silently contemptuous.
+
+"I really doubt if it matters." It was Mr. Moss who said it; he
+whispered an addition into the captain's ear: "If the young scamp
+isn't hung to-day he'll be hung to-morrow."
+
+The captain ignored the whisper; his reply was uttered with sufficient
+clearness.
+
+"Perhaps, sir, your sense of duty is not a high one."
+
+The eleven eyed each other, and the table, and vacancy; a spirit of
+depression seemed to be settling down upon them all. Old Parkes, with
+elongated visage, addressed a melancholy inquiry to no one in
+particular. "What's us sitting here for?"
+
+Jacob responded--"That's what I should like to know, George. Perhaps
+it's because a gentleman's made up his mind to ruin a poor young lad
+for life."
+
+The captain took up the gauntlet.
+
+"I presume it is useless for me to point out to you that your
+statement is as incorrect as it is unjustified. I have heard a good
+deal about the absurdities of the jury system. I may tell you, sir,
+that you have presented me with an object-lesson which will last me
+the rest of my life. It occurs to me as just possible that the sooner
+the system is reformed the better."
+
+"Ah! I daresay it would. Then gentlemen like you would be able to
+grind poor lads under your feet whenever it suited you. Oh, dear, no!
+You think yourself somebody, don't you, captain?"
+
+Captain Rudd looked as if he would if he could; in his eyes there
+gleamed something very like a foreshadowing of assault and battery.
+The foreman made a little movement with his hands, which, possibly,
+was intended to be a counsel of peace. Anyhow, the captain allowed the
+last word to be Jacob's. Mr. Tyler, his handkerchief still pressed to
+his ear, appealed to the captain in a tone of voice which was almost
+tearful.
+
+"As man to man, sir, let me beseech you to take pity on the dreadful
+situation we are in."
+
+"To what situation do you allude, sir?"
+
+"I am alluding, sir, to the dreadful pain which I am enduring in my
+left ear; you can have no conception of its severity. Besides which I
+have a sadly weakly constitution generally--as is well known to more
+than one gentleman who is now present. I have suffered for the last
+twenty years from chronic lumbago, together with a functional
+derangement of the liver, which, directly any irregularity occurs in
+my hours or habits, invariably reduces me to a state of collapse. I
+assure you that if this enforced confinement and prolonged abstention
+from my natural food endures much longer, in my present state of
+health the consequences may be highly serious."
+
+"I don't follow your reasoning, sir. Because you are physically
+unfitted to serve upon a jury, and culpably omitted to inform the
+court of the fact, you wish me not to do my duty, you having already
+failed to do yours?"
+
+"I wish you," sighed Mr. Tyler, "to be humane."
+
+"This is the first jury ever I was on," groaned Mr. Parkes, shaking
+his ancient head as if it had been hung on wires, "and I'll take care
+that it's the last. Such things didn't ought to be--not when a man's
+got to my years, they didn't. Who's young Jim Bailey, I'd like to
+know, that we should go losing our dinners acause of him? Hit him over
+the head and ha' done with it--that's what I say."
+
+"You must excuse me, Captain Rudd," said Mr. Timmins, "but why can't
+you strain a point as well as the rest of us? Why shouldn't we, as a
+body of practical men, take a merciful view of the position and give
+the boy another chance? He is only a boy after all."
+
+"We are not automata though we are jurymen, and surely we may, without
+shame, allow ourselves to be actuated by the dictates of our common
+humanity."
+
+Thus Mr. Plummer. Mr. Slater agreed with him in a fashion of his own.
+
+"Let the boy go and have done with it--I daresay we can trust Jacob to
+give him a good sound towelling."
+
+"He's had that already."
+
+There was a grimness in Mr. Longsett's tone which caused more than one
+of his hearers to smile.
+
+"I'll be bound his mother's crying her eyes out for him at home."
+
+This was Tom Elliott. Mr. Plummer joined his hands as if in
+supplication.
+
+"Poor woman!" he murmured.
+
+"It comes hard upon the mothers," said Mr. Hisgard.
+
+"And Jim Bailey's mother is as honest and hard-working a woman as ever
+lived--that I know as a fact. And she's seen a lot of trouble!"
+
+As he made this announcement Mr. Timmins shuffled his pack of cards,
+as if the action relieved his mind. For some moments everyone was
+still. Suddenly Mr. Tyler, who had been looking a picture of misery,
+broke into audible lamentations.
+
+"Oh dear! oh dear! I'm very ill! Won't anyone take pity on a man in
+agony?"
+
+So intense was his sympathy with his own affairs that the tears
+trickled down his cheeks. Mr. Timmins endeavoured to encourage him.
+
+"Come, Mr. Tyler, come! Bear up! It'll soon be over now!"
+
+"If anything serious comes of the cruel suffering which is being
+inflicted on me I shall look to you gentlemen for compensation. I'm a
+poor man; it's always a hard struggle, with my poor health, to make
+two ends meet. I can't afford to pay doctors' bills which have been
+incurred by the actions of others!"
+
+"That's pleasant hearing--what do you think, Mr. Hisgard?--if we've
+got to contribute to this gentleman's doctors' bills! Come, Mr. Tyler,
+don't talk like that, or soon we shall all of us be ill. I know I
+shall!"
+
+There was a further pause. Then Mr. Moss delivered himself.
+
+"I'm bound to admit that what Mr. Timmins has said of the prisoner's
+mother I know to be correct of my own knowledge. Mrs. Bailey has been
+a widow for many years; she has brought up a large family with the
+labour of her own hands; she has had many difficulties to contend
+with, and is deserving of considerable sympathy. There is that to be
+said. Come, Captain Rudd, for once in a way let us be illogical. If
+you will agree to a verdict of not guilty I will."
+
+Captain Rudd, his head thrown back, continued for some moments to
+silently regard the ceiling. The others watched him, exhibiting, in
+various degrees, unmistakable anxiety. Finally, with his eyes still
+turned ceilingwards, he capitulated.
+
+"All right. Let it be as you say. Rather than the gentleman in front
+of me should perish on his chair, and other gentlemen should suffer
+any longer from the absence of their 'natural food,' I am willing to
+be joined with the rest, and, with you, to place myself under the
+dominion of Mr. Jacob Longsett's thumb."
+
+"Hear, hear! Bravo!" There were observations expressive of
+satisfaction from different quarters; but Mr. Longsett, in particular,
+was enthusiastic in his approbation.
+
+"Your words does you honour, captain!"
+
+"You think so?--I'm sorry we differ."
+
+The foreman rapped upon the table.
+
+"Order, gentlemen, please. Then may I take it that, at present, we are
+finally agreed upon a verdict of not guilty?"
+
+"Coupled," corrected Mr. Moss, "with an intimation to the effect that,
+considering the prisoner's age, we have been willing to give him the
+benefit of the doubt."
+
+"Precisely. Does any other gentleman wish to make an observation?
+Apparently not. Then may I also take it that we are ready to return
+into court?"
+
+Acclamations in the affirmative rose from all sides. The foreman rang
+the hand-bell which was in front of him. The usher appeared.
+
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+So the prisoner was acquitted, no one in the court having the faintest
+notion why.
+
+
+
+
+                        The Chancellor's Ward
+
+
+                                  I.
+
+One really ought to write, She married him, not He married her.
+
+"The simple question is, my dear Tommy, are you going to take me or
+leave me?"
+
+This was in Hyde Park. They were seated on one of those seats which
+are in front of the police-station. Neither of them ought to have been
+there, which, of course, was one of the reasons why they were. Mr.
+Stanham turned his eye-glass full upon Miss Cullen. Perhaps he thought
+that that was sufficient answer. Anyhow, she went on:
+
+"In other words, are you going to marry me, or are you not?"
+
+"I am; gad, I should rather hope so. I say, don't be too hard upon a
+fellow, Frank."
+
+"Call me Fanny, don't call me Frank! Don't you know that my name is
+Frances, sir, which has absolutely no connection with Frank?"
+
+"That's all right, old man."
+
+That is what Mr. Stanham murmured. Extraordinary how some men do talk
+to women nowadays, even to the women whom they love!
+
+"Then, if you do intend to marry me, Mr. Thomas Stanham, you'll be so
+good as to do so on Thursday morning next, before noon."
+
+Mr. Stanham began to scratch the gravel with his stick.
+
+"And get seven years' penal."
+
+"Stuff! They don't give you penal servitude for marrying wards in
+Chancery. It's contempt of court."
+
+"Yes, I know. Have to wash out your cell at Holloway, and stand at
+'attention,' with your hat off, while the governor cuts you dead."
+
+"Then perhaps you will be so good as to tell me what it is that you do
+propose to do. Do you imagine that you are the sort of person the
+Court of Chancery will ever allow to marry me?"
+
+"Haven't so much imagination, my dear Frank."
+
+"Call me Fanny, not Frank! You are not to call me Frank. Then do you
+suppose that I'm the sort of girl who's willing to wait, and not to
+marry her sweetheart, until she's twenty-five? because if you suppose
+anything of that kind we must be perfect strangers."
+
+"It's very good of you, I'm sure."
+
+"Oh, I daresay. You don't love me that much." Miss Cullen flicked her
+parasol. "Because a horrid old uncle chooses to say that I'm to be a
+ward of the court until I'm five-and-twenty am I to be a spinster all
+my life? If you love me the least little bit you'd invite the Lord
+Chancellor to come and see you marry me in the middle of Hyde Park,
+even if, directly the deed was done, he had your head cut off on Tower
+Hill."
+
+"Thanks, dear boy."
+
+Of course he married her. On the morning of the specified Thursday she
+went out for a stroll, and he went out for a stroll, and they met at
+the registrar's, and, as she put it, the deed was done.
+
+And, when the deed was done, she went home to lunch, and he went, not
+home to lunch, but to a private place, where he could swear. Now here
+they were, both of them, at Tuttenham. They encountered each other on
+the doorstep. She said, "How do you do, Mr. Stanham?" And he said,
+"How do you do, Miss Cullen?"
+
+"Nice way in which to have to greet your own wife," he told himself,
+having reached the comparatively safe solitude of his own apartment.
+
+Then the Duke got him into his own particular smoking-room. The Duke
+was in an arm-chair. Mr. Stanham stood before the fireplace with his
+hands in his pockets. The talk wandered from Dan to Beersheba. Then, a
+good deal _à propos des bottes_, the Duke dropped what he evidently
+intended to be taken as a hint.
+
+"If you take my advice, young man, you'll keep clear of Frances
+Cullen. She's here."
+
+Mr. Stanham winced.
+
+"Is she? Yes, I know. I met her on the steps."
+
+"Did you!"
+
+The Duke eyed him. He, not improbably, had observed the wince.
+
+"Warnings are issued all along that coast. Steer clear."
+
+"What do you think they'd do to a man if he were to marry her?"
+"Do to him! Tommy! I hope you're not meditating such a crime. She's
+not an ordinary ward of the court, any more than she's an ordinary
+millionaire."
+
+"So I suppose."
+
+"You had a little run with her in town. Everybody had their eyes on
+you, as you're aware. And when the Duchess told me she was coming I'd
+half a mind to write and put you off--fact! This is not a house in
+which even tacit encouragement can be offered to a dalliance with
+crime. Not"--the Duke puffed at his pipe--"not that she's half a bad
+sort of girl. She's clever. Very pretty. And she's got a way about her
+which plays havoc with a man."
+
+"Much obliged to you, I'm sure."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"For saying a good word for my wife."
+
+"Your wife?"
+
+"Mrs. Thomas Stanham--_née_ Cullen."
+
+"Tommy! You don't mean it!"
+
+"You can bet your pile I do, and then safely go one better. I've got a
+copy of the marriage certificate in my pocket, and I rather fancy that
+she's got the original document in hers."
+
+"You--young blackguard!"
+
+"Sort of cousin of yours, ain't I, Datchet? It's all in the family,
+you know, blackguard and all."
+
+"How did you do it?--And when?--And who knows?"
+
+"Only you and me, and the lady. That's what's weighing on my mind.
+What's the good of having a wife if she ain't your wife--or, at any
+rate, if you daren't say that she's your wife, for the life of you?"
+
+The Duke suddenly rose from his seat. He seemed to be in a state of
+actual agitation.
+
+"Tommy, do you know that the Chancellor is coming here?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The Lord Chancellor. The carriage went to meet him an hour ago. I
+expect him every moment."
+
+Mr. Stanham looked a trifle blank.
+
+"I didn't know the ministry was formed."
+
+"It's formed, but it's not announced; Triggs is to be the Chancellor."
+
+"And what sort of gentleman may Triggs be when he's at home?"
+
+"Sir Tristram? Well!" The Duke was walking up and down the room. He
+appeared to be reflecting. "He's rather a queer card, Triggs is. He's
+been a bit of a wildish character in his time--and they do say that
+his time's not long gone. He has a temper of his own--a nasty one."
+Pausing, the Duke fixedly regarded Mr. Stanham. "I should say that
+when Triggs learns what you have done he will clap you into gaol, and
+keep you there, at any rate until Miss Cullen ceases to be a ward of
+the court."
+
+Mr. Stanham's countenance wore a look of dire consternation.
+
+"No! She's to be a ward until she's twenty-five, and she's not yet
+twenty-two."
+
+"Then, in that case, I should say that, at the very least, you are in
+for three good years of prison. My advice to you is----"
+
+The Duke's advice remained unuttered. Just at that moment the door was
+opened. A servant ushered in a new-comer.
+
+"Sir Tristram Triggs."
+
+The Duke, striding forward, held out both his hands. "Sir Tristram!
+And how long is it to be Sir Tristram?"
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"For a few hours, more or less, I suppose. I don't know much about
+this kind of thing. I daresay I shall know more about it when I've
+done."
+
+"When you've done? May that not be for many and many a year! Allow me
+to introduce to you a friend of mine--Mr. Thomas Stanham."
+
+Sir Tristram turned. For the first time he appeared to notice Mr.
+Stanham.
+
+Physically the new great man was short, and inclined to ponderosity.
+The entire absence of hair upon his face served to accentuate its
+peculiar characteristics. It was a square face--and, in particular,
+the jaw was square. His big eyes looked from under a penthouse formed
+by his overhanging brows. As one looked at him one instinctively felt
+that this was a man whom it would be safer to have as a friend than an
+enemy. As he turned a faint smile seemed to be struggling into
+existence about the corners of his great mouth. But directly his
+glance alighted upon Mr. Stanham that smile vanished into the
+_ewigkeit_. He looked at him very much as a bull-terrier might look at
+a rat. And he said, in a tone of voice which seemed fraught with
+curious significance--
+
+"I have had the pleasure of meeting this gentleman before."
+
+On his part Mr. Stanham regarded Sir Tristram with a supercilious air
+which, perhaps unconsciously to himself, was only too frequently seen
+upon his face--as if Sir Tristram were an inferior thing.
+
+"I'd no idea that your name was Triggs."
+
+The Duke, standing behind Sir Tristram, clenched his fists, and glared
+at Mr. Stanham as if he would like to have knocked him down.
+
+It happened, shortly afterwards, that Miss Cullen left her bedroom to
+come downstairs. As she went along the corridor she met a gentleman
+who was being conducted by a servant, probably to his own apartment.
+The gentleman was Sir Tristram Triggs. When Sir Tristram saw Miss
+Cullen, and Miss Cullen saw Sir Tristram, they both of them stopped
+short. The great man's complexion was, normally, of a ruddy hue. At
+sight of the lady he turned the colour of a beetroot, boiled. She drew
+herself up to the full capacity of her inches. And she uttered a
+single monosyllable.
+
+"You!"
+
+That was all she said--then went sweeping on.
+
+"That horrid man!--He here!--To think of it!--If I'd only known that
+he was coming I do believe, in spite of Tommy, that I'd have stayed
+away."
+
+At the foot of the stairs Miss Cullen encountered Mr. Stanham. That
+gentleman had, as he was wont to have, his hands in his pockets. Also,
+as he was not wont to have, he had a face as long as his arm.
+
+"I say, Frank, old man, isn't there somewhere where I can have a word
+or two with you on the strict Q.T.?"
+
+"Certainly--the library. There's never a soul in there."
+
+One would not like to libel Tuttenham so far as to say, with Miss
+Cullen, that the only tenants the library ever had were the books.
+But, on that occasion, it did chance that the pair had the whole place
+to themselves. Mr. Stanham perched himself on a corner of the table,
+still with his hands in his pockets.
+
+"There's going to be a pretty kettle of fish, dear boy."
+
+That was what the gentleman observed.
+
+"My dear child, what do you mean? What is the matter?"
+
+"The Lord Chancellor's here."
+
+"No!--How do you know?"
+
+"Datchet just introduced me to him."
+
+"Oh, Tommy, I say, what fun!"
+
+With a little laugh the lady clapped her hands. She appeared to be
+gifted with a keener eye for comedy than Mr. Stanham.
+
+"I don't know what you call fun. It happens that the new Lord
+Chancellor is a man who, I have good reason to believe, would give a
+tidy trifle for a chance of getting his knife into me."
+
+"Whatever for?"
+
+"I'll tell you the story. Last year, when I was at Canterstone for the
+shooting, I was placed next to a man whom I had never seen in my life,
+and whom I never wanted to see in my life again. What Charlie asked
+him for beats me. I believe, if he knew one end of a gun from the
+other, it was as much as he did know. I doubt if there ever was his
+ditto as a shot. I wiped his eye over and over again. I kept on doing
+it. I couldn't help it--I had to. He never hit a bird. But he didn't
+like it any the more for that. We had something like a row before the
+day was over. I fancy that I said something about a barber's clerk.
+Anyhow, I know I walked off there and then."
+
+"You nice, agreeable child! It's my opinion that all you men are the
+same when you are shooting--missing links. And, pray, what has this
+pleasant little sidelight on the sweetness of your disposition got to
+do with the new Lord Chancellor?"
+
+"Only this--the new Lord Chancellor's the man I called a barber's
+clerk."
+
+"Tommy! How horrible!"
+
+"It does seem pretty lively. You should have seen how he looked at me
+when Datchet just now introduced us. Unless I am mistaken in the
+gentleman, when this little affair of ours leaks out, and I'm brought
+up in front of him and he sees who I am, he'll straightway consign me
+to the deepest dungeon, and keep me there, at any rate as long as he's
+Lord Chancellor. It's only a cheerful little prophecy of mine. But you
+mark my words, and see."
+
+"My poor dear boy! Whatever shall we do?"
+
+"There's one thing I should like to do, and chance it; I should like
+to kick Sir Tristram Triggs!"
+
+"Kick who? Sir Tristram Triggs! Tommy! Why would you like to kick Sir
+Tristram Triggs?"
+
+"That's the beggar's name."
+
+"The beggar's name? Can it be that Sir Tristram Triggs is the new Lord
+Chancellor?" She threw out her arms with a gesture of burlesque
+melodrama. "Tommy! Kiss me! Quick. Before I faint!"
+
+"I never saw a chap like you for kissing."
+
+"That's a pretty thing to say! Although we may be married, sir, we
+have not yet been upon our honeymoon."
+
+"I'll kiss you, if you like."
+
+"Thank you kindly, gentle sir!" She favoured him with a sweeping
+curtsey. "Tommy, even you have no idea of the ramifications and
+complications of our peculiar situation." Mr. Stanham had removed his
+hands from his pockets. They occupied a more agreeable position round
+the lady's waist. "See if I don't snatch you from the lion's jaws."
+
+"Does that mean that you will help me to escape from Holloway?"
+
+"It means that you will never get as far as Holloway!"
+
+"Am I to die upon the road then?"
+
+"Don't talk like that, don't! You don't know what a wife you've got!
+You don't know how she loves you, worthless creature that you are!
+Tommy, do say that you love me, just a little bit! There, you needn't
+squeeze me quite so tight. I can't explain to you all about it. I will
+some day! There's going to be a duel, perhaps to the death! between
+the Lord Chancellor and yours to command; and if that august
+personage, in the figure anyhow, of Sir Tristram Triggs, is not
+worsted and overthrown, I will give you leave, sir, to say that you do
+not admire my taste in dress. Tommy, don't."
+
+
+                                 II.
+
+After dinner Miss Cullen, strolling about the great glasshouse, all
+alone, came upon Sir Tristram, also all alone. Although not, probably,
+more than half an inch taller than the gentleman, she looked,--yes,
+down at him, as if, comparatively, he were but an insect at her feet.
+
+"Well, Sir Tristram, what amends do you propose to make to me?"
+
+"Miss Cullen?"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+She gazed at him; and this famous lawyer, who had been more than a
+match for the _olla podrida_ of the law courts, and the champions of
+the political ring, quailed before a young girl's eyes.
+
+"I fear, Miss Cullen, that I fail to apprehend your meaning."
+
+"Is it possible that you are an habitual desecrater of that law which
+you have sworn to uphold, and that, therefore, the details of your
+crimes are apt to escape your memory? More than three months have
+elapsed since you committed your crime. So far as I know you have not
+sought as yet to take advantage of any occasion to offer me
+atonement."
+
+Sir Tristram faced round to her with something of the bulldog look
+which had come upon his face when he had found himself in front of Mr.
+Stanham.
+
+"May I inquire, Miss Cullen, why you go out of your way to use
+language of such extravagant exaggeration? It would be gross
+absurdity, amounting almost to prostitution of language, to call the
+offence of which I was guilty, if it was an offence, a crime."
+
+"Perhaps it is because you are a lawyer that you are unaware that not
+so very long ago a man was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for
+exactly the same thing."
+
+Sir Tristram fidgeted. He seemed not to have complete control over his
+tongue.
+
+"Miss Cullen, I trust that I may never be found lacking in respect to
+a lady. If I have been so unfortunate as to have offended you I
+proffer you my most sincere apologies, and I humbly entreat for your
+forgiveness."
+
+Miss Cullen remained, obviously, wholly unmoved.
+
+"When a criminal expresses his contrition, is he held, by so doing, to
+have sufficiently purged himself of his offence?"
+
+"What is it that you require of me?"
+
+"I am told that you are to be the new Lord Chancellor. I am a ward in
+chancery."
+
+"I learn the fact with the greatest pleasure."
+
+"Do you? Then your pleasure bears a strong resemblance to my pain. I
+am to remain a ward till I am twenty-five."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+Sir Tristram began to rub his hands.
+
+"Yes, indeed! I had an objectionable uncle who was so foolish as to
+suppose that I could not be a better judge of my own life's happiness
+than--a number of elderly gentlemen."
+
+"Hem!" Sir Tristram coughed.
+
+"If I was willing to overlook your offence"--Sir Tristram smiled--"I
+should require a _quid pro quo_."
+
+"And what, my dear Miss Cullen, would be the nature of the _quid pro
+quo?_"
+
+"I should want you to consent to my marrying."
+
+"To consent to your marrying?--Ah!--I see!--If the matter is laid
+before me in due and proper form--it is possible that you have a
+certain individual in your mind's eye whom you are willing to make the
+happiest of men--and I was satisfied that he was a fit and a proper,
+person, and every care was taken to safeguard your interests--then, my
+dear Miss Cullen, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to give
+my consent to your being happily launched on what, I fear, is too
+often the troubled sea of marriage."
+
+"That's not the sort of thing I want at all."
+
+"No? Then what is the sort of thing you want, may I inquire?"
+
+The young lady tapped her foot against the floor. For the first time
+she seemed to be not entirely at her ease.
+
+"The fact is, I'm married already."
+
+"Married--already? With the consent of the court?"
+
+"Bother the court!"
+
+"Young lady! Are you aware who it is to whom you are speaking?"
+
+"I am perfectly aware. I am speaking to the person who kissed me
+against my will."
+
+"Miss Cullen! I'm the Chancellor!"
+
+"That for the Chancellor!"
+
+She actually snapped her fingers in his face. He seemed to be
+speechless; though, perhaps, he only seemed so. When he did speak it
+was as if he were suffering positive pain.
+
+"I find myself unable to believe that you are capable of realising the
+position in which I stand, the position in which you stand too.
+Personal misusage I might endure. But, in this matter, I am
+impersonal. Take care! I represent in my poor person the majesty of
+English law."
+
+He turned as if to go. If he supposed that he had crushed her he was
+very much mistaken.
+
+"Is that your last word, Sir Tristram?"
+
+"Miss Cullen, it is my last."
+
+"Then, now, be so good as to listen to my last word. The Duke of
+Datchet is a magistrate. I will go straight to him and demand from him
+a warrant for your arrest."
+
+"A warrant for my arrest? Girl!"
+
+"I presume that it is because I am a girl that you are enough of a man
+first to assault and then to bully me."
+
+Taking out his handkerchief Sir Tristram applied it to his brow.
+
+"Am I mad, or you? Are you utterly impervious to any sort of reason?"
+
+"Not more than you are. I have yet to learn that, because you are Lord
+Chancellor, you cannot be made to answer for your crimes, exactly like
+any other criminal. Forgive my husband, forgive me, whose only crime
+has been that we love each other, and who have not offended in the
+sight either of heaven or of earth, and I will forgive you, who have
+offended in the sight of both. Decline to do so, and, unless there is
+one law for the great and another for the small, in which case the
+world shall hear of it, I promise that you shall learn, from personal
+experience, what it means to go to gaol."
+
+Sir Tristram looked about him as if he wondered why the earth did not
+open to swallow her. He seemed to gasp for breath.
+
+"Miss Cullen, I beg that you will not suppose that under any possible
+circumstances I could listen, even for a single instant, to what, to
+me, are your hideous insinuations. But one possible solution I do see
+to the painful situation in which you stand. If the person whom you
+have illicitly and improperly married----"
+
+"Not improperly married,--how dare you!"
+
+"In the eyes of the court, Miss Cullen, certainly, in the eyes of the
+court. Hear me out. If this person should prove to be a fit and a
+proper person, of good character, of due position, and so forth, then,
+taking all the circumstances into consideration, I might be moved to
+leniency. What is the person's name?"
+
+"He is of the highest lineage."
+
+"So far, so good."
+
+"He is a gentleman of the noblest character."
+
+"Still better."
+
+"He would be showing honour to any lady in the land if he made her his
+wife."
+
+"Hem! Precisely! I asked you for his name."
+
+"Thomas Stanham."
+
+"Thomas Stanham!" Sir Tristram's countenance went as black as a
+thundercloud. "Thomas Stanham!" He turned to her with a look of fury
+on his face, which took even Miss Cullen by surprise. "That vagabond!"
+
+"How dare you speak so of my husband, sir?"
+
+"Your husband? Girl, you are a fool. You, the owner of prospective
+millions, have thrown them, even before they are in your actual
+possession, into the lap of that pitiful adventurer. You ask me to
+show him leniency? I will be lenient to you at least. I will protect
+you from him in spite of yourself."
+
+He spoke with a degree of dramatic intensity which threw a lurid light
+upon the cause of his success in life. Miss Cullen was silenced after
+all. She stood and watched him as he strode away, with a degree of
+dignity in his bearing which seemed to have suddenly made him taller.
+
+"Tommy must have wiped his eye!"
+
+That was what she said to herself when she was alone.
+
+"Well, old man, have you had it out with Triggs?"
+
+Turning, Miss Cullen found that Mr. Stanham had approached from
+behind. He stood in the doorway--as usual, with his hands in his
+pockets.
+
+"Yes, young man, I've had it out with Triggs."
+
+Miss Cullen had a little flush on her cheeks and an added light in her
+eyes, which superfluities, it might be said, unjustifiably heightened
+her attractions.
+
+"Softened his adamantine breast?"
+
+"Well, hardly. Not what you might call quite. In fact, I should say
+that, if he remains in his present frame of mind, he will send you,
+for a certainty, to something much worse than penal servitude for
+life."
+
+"Is that so? Very kind of you, I'm sure. I knew you'd make a mess of
+it, my love."
+
+"Wait till the play is over. There's always a muddle in the middle.
+The third act has not begun."
+
+
+                                 III.
+
+"Triggs, this is the deuce of a nice state of things!"
+
+The latest ornament of the woolsack was seated in the privacy of his
+own apartment prior to retiring to rest. But the cares of his position
+had followed him there. He was working his way through a mass of
+papers when his host appeared at the door.
+
+"To what state of things does your Grace refer?"
+
+The Duke looked round as if to make sure that they had the room to
+themselves. He seemed to be in a state of considerable agitation;
+indeed, the abruptness of his entry had in itself suggested agitation.
+
+"Of--of course you know that I--I'm a magistrate."
+
+"Certainly I know it."
+
+Something in the other's tone seemed to have a soothing influence upon
+the Duke, possibly because it roused the spirit of mischief that was
+in him. He sat in an arm-chair. Crossing his arms upon his chest,
+stretching out his long legs in front of him, he regarded the toes of
+his evening shoes.
+
+"Triggs, I have had an application made to me for a warrant for your
+arrest."
+
+The Chancellor went a peony hue, as we have seen him do before.
+
+"Your Grace is joking."
+
+"I wish I were. I found it anything but a joke, and I am afraid that
+you are not likely to find it one either."
+
+Sir Tristram removed his glasses. He held them in his hand. His face
+became hard and stern.
+
+"May I ask your Grace to be more explicit?"
+
+The Duke turned. Placing one elbow upon the arm of his chair, he
+looked at Sir Tristram as he leaned his chin upon his hand.
+
+"Triggs, Miss Cullen has applied to me to issue a warrant against you
+for assault."
+
+"Surely such an application was irregular?"
+
+"I am not so sure of that--I am not so sure. Anyhow, I told her that
+it was. The only result of which, so far as I can judge, will be that
+she will make the application, in more regular form, either to me or
+to someone else to-morrow. But that is not the point. Triggs, did you
+do it?"
+
+"Is it necessary that your Grace should ask me?"
+
+"You didn't kiss her?"
+
+Sir Tristram took out his handkerchief. He actually gasped for breath.
+It is to be feared that at that moment the representative of English
+law almost told a lie. However, it was only almost; not quite. He
+merely temporised.
+
+"The whole affair is a pure absurdity."
+
+"How do you mean? Is the charge unfounded?"
+
+Sir Tristram drew his handkerchief across his brow.
+
+"Supposing I did kiss her?"
+
+"Supposing! Triggs? Good heavens! I remember your leading for a woman
+who brought exactly such a charge against a man. I remember how
+clearly you pointed out how, under certain circumstances, such an
+action might be, and was, an offence against good morals. Didn't
+Pickum give the man six months?"
+
+The lawyer's resemblance to a bulldog became more and more pronounced.
+He all but showed his teeth. "I don't know, Duke, if you are enjoying
+a little amusement at my expense."
+
+The Duke sprang to his feet. His bearing evinced an accession of
+dignity which, in its melodramatic suddenness, almost approached to
+farce.
+
+"It is not my habit, Sir Tristram, to regard my magisterial duties as
+offering much scope for amusement. Situated as I am--as you are--as we
+all are--our party!--in the eyes of the nation, it seems to me that
+this matter may easily become one of paramount importance. Of such
+importance that I have come to you as a friend to-night to ask you, if
+there is a chance of Miss Cullen's charge becoming so much as
+whispered abroad, to seriously consider if it would not be advisable
+for you to place your resignation in the hands of the Prime Minister
+before your appointment to the Chancellorship is publicly announced."
+
+Sir Tristram's jaw dropped open. His resemblance to a bulldog
+perceptibly decreased.
+
+"Duke!"
+
+"I am not certain, in coming to-night, that I have not allowed my
+friendship for you to carry me too far. Still, I have come."
+
+"Your Grace is more than sufficiently severe. If you will allow me to
+exactly explain my position in this matter I shall have no difficulty
+in making that evident. I fear that Miss Cullen is a dangerous young
+woman."
+
+The Duke shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"You, of all men, ought to know that, under certain circumstances,
+women are dangerous--and even girls."
+
+"Precisely. That is so. But I think that after I have made my
+explanation you will allow that Miss Cullen is an even unusually
+dangerous example of a dangerous sex." He paused--perhaps for
+reflection. When he continued it was with a hang-dog air. "Some short
+time since I did myself the honour of asking Miss Cullen to become my
+wife. I fear that--eh--circumstances induced me to take her answer too
+much for granted. So much so, indeed, that--eh--while I was waiting
+for her answer I--eh--I--eh--kissed her. I do not wish to lay stress
+upon the accident that the kiss was but the merest shadow of a kiss.
+But such, in fact, it was."
+
+"In plain language, Triggs, you kissed her against her will."
+
+"I had no idea that it was against her will, or I should certainly not
+have done it. Her behaviour after--eh--my action filled me with the
+most profound amazement. She jumped up. She addressed me in language
+which I can only describe as more pointed than elegant. And--eh--she
+walked away, leaving me, I do assure your Grace, dumbfounded."
+
+"Well?"
+
+The Duke's back was turned to Sir Tristram, possibly because there was
+something on his Grace's face which bore an amazing resemblance to a
+smile.
+
+"Well, I heard nothing more of the matter. Indeed, I have heard
+and seen nothing of the lady till I met her here to-day. This
+evening she has alluded to the matter in a manner and in terms which
+filled me with even more profound amazement than her behaviour on
+the--eh--original occasion."
+
+"But, man, didn't you apologise?"
+
+"I apologised in terms of almost abject humility. But that did not
+content her. I will be frank with your Grace. She made me a
+proposition which----"
+
+The Duke waved his hands. He cut Sir Tristram short.
+
+"I have heard too much already. Triggs, I have allowed my friendship
+for you to play havoc with my discretion; let me hear no more. My
+advice to you is compromise, compromise, at almost any cost. You don't
+want to have your career ruined by a girl, and for the mere shadow of
+a kiss. To consider nothing else, think of the laughter there would
+be. As you say, the young woman can be dangerous, and, if nothing
+happens to change her purpose, you may take my word for it that she
+means to be."
+
+Before Sir Tristram could reply the Duke was gone. The newly-appointed
+representative of the majesty of English law was left alone with his
+papers and his reflections. These latter did not seem to be pleasant
+ones. Words escaped his lips which we should not care to print--we
+fear they referred to that undutiful ward of his lordship's court.
+Inwardly, and, for the matter of that, outwardly, he cursed her with
+bell, book, and candle; certainly never was heard a more terrible
+curse. And so thoroughly did he enter into the spirit of the thing
+that he was still engaged in cursing her when the door opened, and in
+front of him was Miss Cullen with the handle in her hand.
+
+She looked charming, and by that we mean even more charming than
+usual. She had changed her dress for a _peignoir_, or a dressing-gown,
+or something of the kind. Beyond question Sir Tristram had no notion
+what the thing was called. It suited her to perfection--few men had a
+better eye for that sort of thing in a woman than he had. There is no
+fathoming feminine duplicity, but no one ever _looked_ more surprised
+than did that young woman then. She had thrown the door wide open and
+rushed into the room, and half closed it again behind her before she
+appeared to recognise in whose presence and where she really was.
+
+"I--I thought--isn't this Mary Waller's room? Oh--h!"
+
+As struck with panic she turned as if to flee. But Sir Tristram, who
+was gifted, before all else, with presence of mind, interposed. He
+rose from his chair.
+
+"Miss Cullen, may I beg you for one moment?"
+
+"Sir! Sir Tristram Triggs!" Miss Cullen's air of dignity was perfect,
+and so bewitching. "I had something which I wished to say to Lady Mary
+Waller. There has been some misunderstanding as to which was her room.
+I must ask you to accept an apology."
+
+"Unlike you, Miss Cullen, I always accept an apology."
+
+"Indeed! Then my experience in that respect has, I presume, been the
+exception which proves the rule."
+
+"May I ask when you apologised to me--and for what?"
+
+"This evening,"--the lady looked down; her voice dropped; thrusting
+the toe of her little shoe from under the hem of her skirt, she tapped
+it against the floor--"for becoming a wife."
+
+The grim man behind the table regarded her intently. Although he knew
+that the minx was worsting him with his own weapons, she appealed to,
+at any rate, one side of him so strongly that he was unable to prevent
+the corners of his mouth from wrinkling themselves into a smile.
+
+"May I ask, Mrs. Stanham----"
+
+"Sir Tristram!" She threw out her arms towards him with a pretty
+little gesture. "You have set my heart all beating! You have brought
+the tears right to my eyes! You are the first person who has called me
+by my married name."
+
+He moved his hand with a little air of deprecation--as if the thing
+were nothing.
+
+"May I ask, Mrs. Stanham, if Mr. Thomas Stanham is related to the Duke
+of Datchet?"
+
+"Related?--Of course he is!--He's his favourite cousin."
+
+"His _favourite_ cousin?" We doubt if she was justified in her use of
+the adjective, but the simple truth is, she _was_ a dangerous young
+woman. "I see. The plot unfolds. May I ask, further, if this little
+comedy was rehearsed in advance?"
+
+"And in my turn may I ask, Sir Tristram, what it is you mean?"
+
+They looked at each other, eye to eye. They understood each other
+pretty well by the time Sir Tristram's glance dropped down again to
+the papers on his table. His tone became, as it were, judicial.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Stanham, I have been considering the matter of which you
+spoke to me this evening, and, having regard to the whole bearing of
+the case, to the social position of Mr. Thomas Stanham, and so forth,
+speaking, of course, _ex parte_ and without prejudice, I may say that,
+as at present advised, if proper settlements are made, the marriage
+might be one which would not meet with the active disapprobation of
+the court."
+
+Sir Tristram raised his eyes. The lady shook her head--very decidedly.
+
+"That won't do."
+
+"Won't do? What do you mean?"
+
+"What I say. I'm not going to have Tommy bothered about settlements.
+I'm settlement enough for Tommy. What you have to do is to sit down
+and to simply write this: 'My dear Mrs. Stanham,--Speaking as Lord
+Chancellor, it gives me much pleasure in assuring you, as a ward of
+the court, that your marriage with Mr. Thomas Stanham meets with my
+entire and unreserved approval.--Yours faithfully, Tristram Triggs!'"
+Sir Tristram glowered--he might! But she was undismayed. "You will
+have to do it, sooner or later--you're a very clever man, and you know
+you will!--so why not do it at once?"
+
+He did it at once. Actually! Possibly because the whole affair
+appealed keenly to his sense of humour--one never knows! She read the
+paper, folded it, and then she said--with such a pout! and with such
+malice in her eyes!--
+
+"Now you may kiss me again, if you like."
+
+"I am obliged to you, but the costs in the suit have already been too
+heavy."
+
+"Then I'll kiss you!"
+
+And she did--with some want of precision, just over the right eye.
+Then she fled to the door. When she was half-way through it she
+turned, and waved towards him the hand which held the paper.
+
+"You are my guardian, you know."
+
+
+
+
+                           A Honeymoon Trip
+
+                   MRS. GODWIN WRITES TO HER MOTHER
+
+
+"You know, dear mamma, I was against a compartment being reserved. One
+might as well advertise the fact that one is starting on one's
+honeymoon. But I was not prepared to find the train so full as it was.
+Our carriage was crowded, and not with nice people. They played cards
+the whole way down, and, when one is just beginning one's married
+life, it was not agreeable to have to listen to some of the language
+which was used. Conrad was quite fidgety. You know he is most
+particular. But it was no use speaking. One of the men asked him if he
+would take a hand. When he observed that he objected to cards being
+played in a railway carriage, the person replied that he looked as
+though he did. And then the others smiled. This quite upset him. And,
+as we were nearing Harwich, he began to feel in his pockets in a way
+which, I must say, was annoying. I had refrained from speaking to him
+as much as possible, being unwilling to let the others have a chance
+of guessing at the situation we were in; but when he stood up and
+began to turn his pockets inside out, and altogether to upset the
+other passengers, I did ask him what it was that he was looking for.
+
+"'I can't find the tickets.'
+
+"You know how easily he becomes embarrassed, and how the blood flies
+to his head. You remember that Geraldine said she thought he must be
+apoplectic.
+
+"'You put them in your pocket-book.'
+
+"'But that is gone too.'
+
+"'You will find it when you get on board.'
+
+"All the people were staring at him, he was making such a fuss.
+
+"'I should like to find it before I get on board.'
+
+"'Perhaps,' suggested an old gentleman, who was sitting in the
+opposite corner, 'it's in your overcoat.' Conrad took his coat from
+the rack and looked to see. It was not there. 'Feel in your pockets
+again,' suggested the old gentleman.
+
+"Conrad felt. He did not find the pocketbook, but he found something
+else instead. He produced it with an exclamation. It was the first
+time I ever heard him swear.
+
+"'Good heavens! It's the key of the safe!'
+
+"His manner was so ludicrous, everybody laughed.
+
+"'My dear Conrad, do sit down!'
+
+"He sat down and stared at me like a man in a dream.
+
+"'But you don't understand. It's the key of the safe. I forgot that I
+was going to be married, and I brought it away.'
+
+"I do not think that I was ever so much annoyed in my life. After all
+the pains I had taken to conceal the fact that we were honeymooning,
+and then for him to blurt it out like that! The other passengers
+simply roared.
+
+"'This is a nice way of beginning one's honeymoon. I shall have to
+return to town at once.'
+
+"Of course they laughed again. I was really too annoyed to speak. I
+sat and tried to look as though I liked it. When he had finished
+laughing the man who sat next to him stooped and picked up something
+from the floor of the carriage.
+
+"'Anybody lost a pocket-book?' he asked.
+
+"Of course it was Conrad's.
+
+"'I--I expect I dropped it,' he explained. Then he turned to me. 'I am
+afraid we shall have to return to town at once.'
+
+"'Don't be silly. We shall do nothing of the kind. I suppose there is
+a telegraph office at Harwich.'
+
+"Before he had time to answer the train began to slow. I took the
+management of affairs into my own hands.
+
+"'If you will go and send your telegram I will go on board. But pray
+don't be long.'
+
+"But he was long. It appears, from what I have since learnt, that the
+London train was behind its time, and it was a question of missing the
+tide in the Scheldt. Anyhow, there was a great deal of hurry and
+scurry, and, as I was wondering what had become of Conrad, someone
+shouted, 'All on board!' In my agitation I lost my presence of mind.
+And at that moment I saw Conrad running along the quay in the
+direction of the boat for Rotterdam. I suppose that, owing to his
+shortsightedness, and his haste, and the darkness, he mistook one boat
+for the other. I was tongue-tied in my bewilderment. Before I
+recovered myself we were moving down the river, and the quay was out
+of sight. You may imagine my sensations, without tickets, almost
+without money, a bride without a bridegroom! I asked for the captain.
+I was told that he was navigating the ship, but I could see him later
+on. I saw him later on. He came when we had reached the open sea. As
+he advanced I thought I knew his figure. I felt as though my legs were
+giving way beneath me--it was Mr. Pearson! The recognition was mutual.
+
+"'Jennie!' he cried. 'Miss Nash!' He looked as though he were
+dumbfounded. 'This is an unexpected pleasure!'
+
+"'I--I wish to see the captain.'
+
+"'I am the captain. You wish to see me? Come this way!'
+
+"He led the way into his cabin. I followed, speechless. Events were
+crowding on me, for which I was wholly unprepared.
+
+"'Mrs. Nash is with you?'
+
+"'No, not--my mother. I--I am with my husband.'
+
+"'Your husband!' He gave a start of surprise. 'Oh, indeed, your
+husband.'
+
+"You know what a big man he is, and his huge beard? I declare that, as
+he stood and glared at me, I felt positively frightened.
+
+"'That is to say, he was with me, but he has been left behind.'
+
+"'Left behind? Might I ask you to explain?'
+
+"'He went to send a telegram and he mistook the boat, and I'm afraid
+he's gone to Rotterdam.'
+
+"'To Rotterdam? And you are bound for Antwerp? Ha, ha, ha!'
+
+"He actually laughed, which was a brutal thing to do.
+
+"'And the worst of it is that he has my ticket.'
+
+"'That would be the worst part of it--to you.'
+
+"I knew very well what he meant, though I took care not to let him
+suspect that I knew it. I did not know what else to do, so I took out
+my handkerchief and began to cry.
+
+"'Madame la Baronne will excuse me, but I have still some little
+matters to which I must attend. Doubtless Madame la Baronne will have
+ceased to weep by the time that I return.'
+
+"He left the cabin. I distinctly heard him bolt the door on the other
+side. My first impulse was to fasten it upon my side too. But I
+refrained. He had entirely upset me--what little there was of me left
+to upset--by addressing me as Madame la Baronne! He evidently took it
+for granted that I had married the Belgian. I do not suppose that
+Geraldine will pay the slightest heed to anything I say, but I would
+earnestly advise her to be exceedingly careful in avoiding
+complications with men. I know that, as I sat there waiting for Mr.
+Pearson's return, I wished with all my heart that I had never met any
+man until I met Conrad--some of them never will understand.
+
+"When he came back I had calmed myself to the best of my ability.
+There was a tolerable glass in the cabin. I took advantage of it to
+put myself a little to rights. He entered while I was engaged in doing
+so. He came in so quietly that the first intimation I had of his
+presence was seeing his face beside mine in the glass. It gave me
+quite a shock.
+
+"'Mr. Pearson!'
+
+"I turned. He bowed.
+
+"'Always the same!' he said.
+
+"'I was just looking to see if there was any of me left.'
+
+"'Let me beg of you to take a seat.'
+
+"I sat down. He went to a desk which was at one side of the cabin and
+sat down too, his back to me. His manners did not strike me as
+particularly polite. Unlocking the desk, he took something out of it.
+I tried to make a little conversation.
+
+"'I had no idea, Mr. Pearson, that you had become a captain.'
+
+"He bowed, but said nothing. I tried again:
+
+"'If it is not giving you too much trouble, Mr. Pearson--I am tired,
+you know--might I ask you to show me to a berth?"
+
+"This time he condescended to face me.
+
+"'Our encounter is of so unexpected a nature that I am sure you will
+excuse me if for a few minutes I detain you. I can scarcely hope to
+have so excellent an opportunity again.'
+
+"'I can only say that I am tired.'
+
+"'There are a few matters here in which you cannot fail to take an
+interest.'
+
+"He turned to the things which he had placed upon his desk.
+
+"'Here is a revolver.'
+
+"He took one in his hand and held it out to me. You know, dear mamma,
+I am not nervous as a rule, but when he did that a creepy, crawly
+feeling went all over me.
+
+"'I purchased it to shoot the Baron. It is perhaps as well that he is
+left behind. I might have used it yet.'
+
+"There was something in his eyes I did not like. In an ordinary case I
+should have said his language was absurd. But my position was
+peculiar.
+
+"'You are under a misapprehension, Mr. Pearson. The Baron d'Ardigny is
+not my husband.'
+
+"'Not your husband!'
+
+"He sprang up with a shout. The revolver clattered to the floor. If it
+was loaded it was a miracle that it did not go off. 'Not D'Ardigny! Is
+it possible that you duped him too?'
+
+"'I am at your mercy, Mr. Pearson, and you are, of course, free to use
+towards me any language which, as a gentleman, may be consistent with
+your code of honour.'
+
+"'My code of honour! Such words from you! You ruined me--is that not
+so? You tempted me to desert my ship. When I did so all that you had
+to say was that the whole affair had been a little joke of yours. They
+court-martialled me. I was broken. Surely you cannot expect my honour
+to be more than yours?'
+
+"You know, dear mamma, when I had that scrape with Charlie Pearson I
+never meant any harm--you know I never did. When he was goose enough
+to suppose I was in earnest, and actually left his ship to come to me,
+you remember how annoyed I was? But really, when, on board his own
+boat, he talked to me in that style I was without a word.
+
+"'May I--it seems absurd when I remember that I used, with your
+consent, to hold you to my bosom and press your lips to mine!--but may
+I ask your name?'
+
+"'I am Mrs. Godwin.'
+
+"'So, since the Baron's little affair and mine there has been another.
+What a quantity of bad language I have wasted on D'Ardigny! Do you
+know, Mrs. Godwin, when I look at you and think of all that is past, I
+wonder how I could ever have been such a fool?'
+
+"I tried to smile.
+
+"'You must own that you were a little foolish.'
+
+"'Oh, I was! Undoubtedly I was! Ever to have believed in you!'
+
+"'May I ask if you intend to continue to insult me till we get to
+Antwerp?'
+
+"'I scarcely know what I intend as yet. I belong to the prehistoric
+race of man. When I see a woman who deserves to be drowned, I want to
+drown her.'
+
+"'Holding the position which you do on board, to drown me would be the
+easiest thing in the world.'
+
+"He merely shrugged his shoulders--and laughed.
+
+"'Do you know what this is?' He took up a piece of paper from his
+desk. 'This is a lock of your hair. Has Godwin, I wonder, got a lock
+as well? Possibly, like the pieces of the true cross, it is to be
+found all over the world. This is a flower which you wore in your
+bosom at the Yacht Club ball. Before you gave it me you kissed it, so
+I kissed it too--ah, many a time! You have no conception of what a
+prize I thought it was. Now I am quite aware that there was not a man
+in the room who might not have had a similar one for the asking. Do
+you see this? This was once your shoe. You would scarcely believe that
+I bribed your maid to give it to me. I flattered myself that on our
+wedding night I would surprise you with a request to put it on the
+foot I loved. I suppose I may not presume to put it on to-night?'
+
+"'I imagine, Mr. Pearson, that you are forgetting that I am married.'
+
+"'That doesn't make any difference, does it? I should not have thought
+it would--to you.'
+
+"You know, dear mamma, that I have the sweetest temper in the world. I
+never felt inclined to box anybody's ears before, except Geraldine's,
+and she is sometimes too provoking! but I did feel inclined to box his
+then. However, I told myself that if he forgot he was a gentleman I
+would not forget I was a lady.
+
+"'Possibly, Mr. Pearson, it will cause you to keep your remarks
+somewhat within bounds when I tell you that this is my wedding night.'
+
+"'Your--wedding night!'
+
+"'Yes, my wedding night. I was married to-day.'
+
+"As I thought of it, and of how different was the reality to the
+anticipation, the tears gushed to my eyes. Some men would have been
+touched by such a spectacle, but he was not. He began to pace about
+the cabin, running his fingers through his beard. All at once he began
+to laugh so violently that I thought he would never stop.
+
+"'This is the best joke I ever heard,' he gasped in the middle of his
+mirth. 'Do you mean to say that you are starting on your honeymoon?'
+
+"'Yes, I do.'
+
+"'Poor devil of a Godwin! Then there is every prospect of your
+spending it with me. Never in my wildest dreams did I look forward to
+such happiness as this. Is there nothing I can offer you in the shape
+of consolation?'
+
+"'The only consolation you can offer me is to show me to my berth. I
+am miserable; you know I am! I should have thought that no man, to
+whatever depths he may have sunk, would have taken advantage of a
+woman in my situation.'
+
+"By this time my tears were flowing quite profusely. But they made no
+impression upon him. He recommenced pacing round and round the cabin.
+He was large, and it was small. His tramp, tramp, tramping, and the
+general callousness of his demeanour, agitated me to such an extent
+that I almost feared that I should become hysterical. Just as I began
+to think that I could not hold out any longer he went to the door and
+shouted 'Spooner!'
+
+"I supposed he was shouting for the steward. I congratulated myself
+that after all he had been touched, and that I was to be shown to a
+berth at last. I was beginning to dry my tears when a hairy object
+appeared in the doorway. He was so broad in proportion to his height
+that I at first thought he was deformed.
+
+"'Come in, Spooner.' The man came in. A more unlikely-looking Spooner
+I never saw. Really, he reminded me of nothing so much as Quasimodo.
+His face was all covered with hair; even his great hands were hairy.
+He had a pair of big black eyes, which, added to his other
+attractions, made him look the perfect picture of ferocity. 'This is
+my first officer.' Even in my grief I smiled. What could be expected
+of a crew which had such officers? 'You recollect, Spooner, my telling
+you about that old sweetheart of mine who broke me?'
+
+"'I do.'
+
+"You know how basses seem to produce their voices from their boots.
+Mr. Spooner's voice seemed to come from much lower than his boots.
+
+"'You remember my telling you what a jade she was?'
+
+"'I do.'
+
+"'Well, here she is.'
+
+"Mr. Spooner stared at me, as well he might do. For my part I was
+dumb. Charlie Pearson always had a graceful way of introducing a lady.
+
+"'You remember my telling you about that Baron she jilted me for?'
+
+"'I do.'
+
+"'And how I used to carry a revolver about with me in my breeches
+pocket so that it might be handy to get a shot at him?' Mr. Spooner
+nodded his head. 'I used to say that if she married I'd make her a
+widow within a week. Well, she is married. But it's not to the Baron.
+It seems that she sent him to the deuce after me. She's married a
+man named Godwin. I suppose she thinks she can use her husbands like
+her sweethearts, so she has given him the slip and left him ashore.
+Think she's got tired of him, eh? Well, she must be pretty smart at
+tiring--she only married him to-day. She's starting on her honeymoon.
+This is her wedding night, and she's left the man ashore.'
+
+"Mr. Spooner listened to this without even so much as blinking an eye.
+He stood staring at me like a great stolid bear.
+
+"'Spooner, I've laid awake of nights wondering when she and I would
+meet again. I've gone half mad racking my brains, thinking what
+vengeance I would take. I've asked myself over and over again what I'd
+do to her if ever I got her in my power. Now I've got her. And I ask
+you what you would do if you were I?'
+
+"'I'd forgive her.'
+
+"'Forgive her!'
+
+"Mr. Pearson drew a long breath. He looked at Mr. Spooner and then he
+looked at me.
+
+"'That's a wrinkle. Hang me, I will forgive her! I'll treat her with
+contempt and let her go. What shall I do with these gimcracks? I've
+kept them as though they were the richest treasures from Ali Baba's
+cave. Here's a lock of her hair, here's a rose from her bosom, here's
+a shoe from her foot, here's a bundle of her letters. You know what's
+in them, because I've read them to you many a time.'
+
+"These were pleasant things for me to hear.
+
+"'Spooner, what shall I do with these?'
+
+"'Burn 'em.'
+
+"'So I will. Here's the lot. Give 'em to the cook, and tell him to use
+them in the morning to light his galley fire.'
+
+"He thrust the various articles into Mr. Spooner's hands. You may
+imagine my sensations.
+
+"Then he turned to me.
+
+"'Now, madam, if you wish it, I will show you to your cabin.'
+
+"I was quite unable to speak. I had never supposed it was possible
+that I could have been so cowed by two mere men. The truth is, that I
+was in such a passion that I really was beside myself. I would have
+given anything to have been a man to have been able to knock him down.
+He showed me to the cabin, and without a word he left me at the door.
+When I was inside I clenched my fists and stamped my foot and
+screamed.
+
+"'My dear child, aren't you well?'
+
+"I looked up. There was an old woman, sitting up in her berth, and
+looking at me through her spectacles.
+
+"'Stewardess,' she cried. Then to me, 'I wish you'd go and find my
+husband. My name is Maunders-Griffin. Oh, I am so ill! And tell him
+that those anti-sea-sick lozenges have not had the least effect. I've
+eaten them all, and I want some more. Oh!'
+
+"The reaction was so sudden, so extreme, that I was seized with a fit
+of laughter. It was impossible for me to control myself. I daresay the
+old woman thought that I was mad. It so exhausted me that I had to
+drop into a chair to save myself from falling.
+
+"The stewardess advanced.
+
+"'Would madam like a berth?'
+
+"'A berth! No. I--I will go on deck.'
+
+"The atmosphere of the cabin was unbearable; you know what a cabin is
+at night when it is full of women who are ill. I felt that if I stayed
+there long I should be ill myself. Besides, under the best conditions,
+I felt that in the excited state of my brain it would be impossible
+for me to sleep, so I went on deck.
+
+"It was a glorious night. There was a full moon and cloudless sky. But
+a stiff breeze was blowing, and one soon became conscious that it bore
+with it a strong solution of salt spray.
+
+"I paced up and down, trying to calm myself sufficiently to enable me
+to realise my situation. I suppose that never was a woman more
+unfortunate. What a wedding night!--that night which is supposed to be
+the most sacred of a woman's life. To whom was I to turn for advice,
+with such a captain and such a chief officer? Dear mamma, I am not
+ashamed to confess that I cried, really and truly cried. I sat down by
+the side of the ship and quite gave in.
+
+"While I was still crying someone came behind and touched me on the
+shoulder.
+
+"'If you are not well, don't you think you had better go downstairs?'
+
+"I looked round. An old gentleman was standing behind me. He actually
+thought that I was sick. I was indignant.
+
+"'Thank you. I am quite well.'
+
+"'I--I beg your pardon. I--I thought you were affected by the motion
+of the sea.'
+
+"'I am obliged to you. I am never ill on board ship. Never.'
+
+"I think my manner rather startled him. He took off his hat and moved
+away. You know how I object to people who think they have a right to
+interfere because they happen to be old--and, generally, silly. It is
+such stuff. The consciousness that I had crushed him made me feel
+distinctly better. I sat up and looked at the sea. But as I watched
+the gleaming waters the old thoughts came back, and, before I knew it,
+again my eyes filled with tears. It was foolish, but I could not help
+it. I do not often cry, but I did cry then.
+
+"I daresay I had been making rather a goose of myself--I had been
+crying a good long time, when again someone touched me on the
+shoulder. It was once more that absurd old man.
+
+"'If you will take my advice, my dear, you will go downstairs. I am an
+old man, and take the liberty of addressing you.'
+
+"Fancy calling me 'my dear,' as though I were a child! I stood up and
+faced him.
+
+"'My good sir, _will_ you leave me alone?'
+
+"He looked at me as though he were trying to find an excuse to begin a
+conversation. I daresay he would have liked me to make a confidant of
+him.
+
+"'I am afraid you are in trouble. I don't like to see a young lady
+crying alone on deck all night, especially such a young lady as you.'
+
+"I looked at him--you know how I can look if I like--and I walked
+away. I walked up and down the deck, and each time I passed him I
+looked him full in the face--such a look! He crossed to the other
+side. The scent of battle was in my nostrils. I crossed too. Then he
+went downstairs instead of me.
+
+"Dear mamma, I stayed on deck all night. I saw the night gradually
+brighten. I saw the sun rise. I saw the birth of day. And, dear mamma,
+you have no idea how cold it was. You remember how cold it was when we
+saw the sun rise on the Righi? I declare I felt it quite as cold that
+morning on the boat. It was bitter. I was chilled to the bone. I went
+downstairs and routed out the steward, and made him get me a cup of
+coffee. I never enjoyed anything so much. And the state I was in when
+I looked at the glass! I went to the ladies' cabin and put myself to
+rights. And there I stayed. It was not nice. But I felt that it would
+be still less nice to have to return to the deck and meet a crowd of
+men and encounter Mr. Pearson. I had quite made up my mind what I
+would do. I resolved that when I reached Antwerp I would first of all
+wire to you, then go straight to Brussels, and return by the shorter
+route to England. I would do it if I only had enough money to take me
+the whole of the way third class. If Conrad wanted me he would find me
+where he found me first of all--at home. _My_ home, not his.
+
+"I was aware, from the motion of the ship, that we had entered the
+Scheldt. For some time we proceeded up the river. Then, all at once,
+we stopped. I supposed the stoppage to be for the purpose of taking up
+a pilot. After a delay the boat went on again. I was thinking about
+all sorts of things, and was telling myself that, perhaps, after all,
+I had not been so good a girl as I might have been, and that sometimes
+I had been to blame in those little flirtations which had chequered my
+career--and I wonder who would not have been sentimental in such a
+plight as mine--when someone came to the cabin door and said:
+
+"'Is there anyone here of the name of Godwin?'
+
+"I sprang up, my heart in my mouth.
+
+"'I am Mrs. Godwin!'
+
+"'Would you mind coming up on deck?'
+
+"Without a moment's hesitation I followed the man upstairs. I imagined
+that, in some mysterious way, a message had reached me from Conrad, or
+that perhaps he had come himself--though, unless he possessed the
+seven-leagued boots, how he was to spring from the Rotterdam boat to
+the Scheldt I never paused to reflect.
+
+"I was in quite a tremor when I got on deck. I noticed that all the
+passengers were gathered together in a crowd, and that in their midst
+were three or four foreigners in some kind of uniform.
+
+"One, in particular, was resplendent. On him my eyes fell. And as they
+did so--dear mamma, I did not disgrace you by positively fainting, but
+a cold chill went down my back and penetrated to the marrow of my
+bones. It was the Baron! Hector d'Ardigny! At his side stood Mr.
+Pearson. Even at that trying moment I was struck by the ludicrous
+contrast the one presented to the other--the Baron four feet six, Mr.
+Pearson six feet four. Geraldine will remember how it used to tickle
+me in days gone by. It tickled me then.
+
+"As I was becoming conscious that I was the centre of attraction Mr.
+Pearson motioned towards me with his hand.
+
+"'This is Mrs. Godwin.'
+
+"I do not think that the Baron had hitherto noticed me. He noticed me
+then! It strikes me that up to that moment he had been engaged in
+glancing at Mr. Pearson. To say that at sight of me the colour of his
+countenance was that of a boiled beetroot is to use a trite and coarse
+comparison. But I do not know to what else I could compare it, unless
+it be to a lobster newly boiled.
+
+"'Jennie!' he gasped. 'Miss Nash!'
+
+"'This,' repeated Mr. Pearson, 'is Mrs. Godwin.'
+
+"The Baron glared at Mr. Pearson. Then he glared at me. Then he
+_sprang_ at Mr. Pearson.
+
+"'Villain!' he cried. 'This is a trick you play on me!'
+
+"Before the eyes of all the passengers he slapped the captain's face.
+Of course, it would have been quite easy for Mr. Pearson to have
+picked him up and dropped him into the water. I fancy public
+expectation took it for granted that the Baron would be summarily
+disposed of in some such fashion. If so, public expectation was wrong.
+Mr. Pearson did nothing of the kind. He stood quite still. He looked
+at the Baron. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his cheek. Then
+he looked at his handkerchief. Then he turned to me.
+
+"'Be so good as to come this way.'
+
+"Docile as a child I went that way. Mr. Pearson came after me,
+leading, unless I am mistaken, the Baron by his epaulette. We all
+three entered the captain's cabin--that apartment in which I had
+already spent such an agreeable twenty minutes. Mr. Pearson addressed
+the Baron in language which was eminently adapted to tickle the ears
+of a lady.
+
+"'I've half a mind, you little brute, to choke the life right out of
+you. But I'll give you another chance for your skin. The fun's too
+good to lose. You said you wanted someone of the name of Godwin, and
+here is someone.'
+
+"The Baron took off his _képi_. He wiped his brow. The dear little man
+was damp with perspiration.
+
+"'It is someone of the name of Conrad Godwin that I want.'
+
+"'I am Mrs. Conrad Godwin,' I observed.
+
+"I supposed that, in some mysterious way, he had become possessed of a
+message either for Conrad or for me. I was not prepared for his
+behaviour. He dropped into a seat with an exclamation which sounded
+very like an execration.
+
+"'You see, my dear Baron,' said Mr. Pearson, 'our dear Jennie has
+married--and she hasn't married you. She hasn't showed herself
+possessed of many virtues, but she has had sense enough for that. I
+took it for granted that you were something in the hairdressing line,
+from the moment I first set eyes on you.'
+
+"The Baron paid no attention to Mr. Pearson--it was as well he didn't.
+
+"He sat, huddled up on a chair, looking at me with gaping eyes.
+
+"'But it is impossible that you are Mrs. Conrad Godwin!'
+
+"'I fail to see the impossibility, for, in fact, I am. If you have a
+message for me, may I ask you to deliver it?'
+
+"'Message! I have no message! I have instructions to arrest you.'
+
+"I was startled then.
+
+"'To arrest me!'
+
+"'A telegram has come to detain anyone arriving by this boat of the
+name of Conrad Godwin. I am the chief of the police'--the Baron
+d'Ardigny, with his large property in the Ardennes, had sunk to a
+policeman--'and I am afraid that, with your husband, Mr. Conrad
+Godwin, you must be my prisoner.'
+
+"'My husband, as I cannot help suspecting that you are possibly aware,
+does not happen to be on board.'
+
+"'Your husband is not on board? You are travelling alone?'
+
+"'Owing'--dear mamma, I did almost break down then,--'owing to an
+unfortunate accident, my husband lost the boat. But, Baron, you must
+be under some delusion. Surely you are not having a jest at my
+expense?'
+
+"'It is no jest! It is the truth! I am an officer.' He slapped his
+chest: you know the way he had when he said anything particularly
+absurd. 'My duty is my duty! Before that all other things must fade.
+If, as you say, you are Mrs. Conrad Godwin; if your husband is on
+board, or no matter where he is, I must proceed to your arrest.'
+
+"'Mr. Pearson, you will not suffer this?'
+
+"'Mrs. Godwin, I am helpless. We are in Belgium, and in Belgium we
+must do as the Belgians do.'
+
+"'But the thing is monstrous! You will surely insist on this person's
+exhibiting the authority on which he pretends to act?'
+
+"Mr. Pearson shrugged his shoulders. He turned to the Baron with a
+smile--and once he said he loved me! Man's falseness is incredible.
+
+"'Baron, have you got the warrant in your pocket?'
+
+"'No warrant is required. I will show madame my instructions when we
+reach the _bureau_. We are in Belgium, not in England. I would advise
+madame, as a friend, not to give me any trouble.'
+
+"He arrested me! Yes, dear mamma, I spent my wedding night crying,
+alone, on the deck of a steamer, and at the break of day I was taken
+into custody. Arrested by one old lover in the presence of another. It
+was in this way I commenced my married life.
+
+"I sat in the cabin on one chair, and the Baron sat on another chair
+in front of me, on guard! I will do him the justice to allow that he
+seemed quite as much at a loss as I was.
+
+"When we reached the quay I got into an open fly; the Baron sat on the
+seat beside me, two policemen sat on the seat in front of me, and two
+more policemen kept the driver in countenance upon the box. In this
+way we drove through the streets of Antwerp. We arrived at the
+_bureau_. I was shown into what seemed to be a kind of office; the
+Baron followed me, closed the door behind him; we were alone. Directly
+we were alone he threw his _képi_ on the floor. I thought the man was
+mad.
+
+"'Jennie!' he cried. 'Mees Nash! What is the meaning of all this?
+Unfold this mystery.'
+
+"'It is you who must do that. It is I who require an explanation from
+you.'
+
+"'You have not married Monsieur Pearson?'
+
+"'Baron d'Ardigny!'
+
+"'How came you then to be with him on his ship?'
+
+"'You might as well ask how I came to be the passenger of a train of
+which a man named Brown was guard.'
+
+"'Oh, if you only knew what I have suffered. Your image is where it
+always was.' He slapped his hand against his right side, where,
+probably, he supposed his heart to be. 'You have treated me--ah, how
+you have treated me! But no matter. The past is past. It is for the
+future that we live. Tell me, what is it you have done?"
+
+"'It occurs to me that I have done one thing, lost my senses.'
+
+"'I am your friend; do not be afraid. No matter for the past. I say it
+is for the future that we live. Is it murder?'
+
+"'Murder!'
+
+"'We will say then it is not murder. Thank goodness, it is not that!
+But there are other things besides. Is it forgery?'
+
+"'Forgery!'
+
+"'Is it something you have stolen? Perhaps a little money, or some
+jewellery, or something of value from your friends.'
+
+"'Baron d'Ardigny, during your acquaintance with me did I strike you
+as being of the material of which thieves are made?'
+
+"'Ah, who shall say! No man can tell! There was one woman I loved
+before I was in love with you. She did not use me so bad as you; she
+was an angel! She was what you call shoplifter. One day I went to see
+her; she was not there. I did not see her for a long time. I thought
+that she was dead. One day I was in a prison; she was among the
+prisoners. When she saw me she laughed; she put out her tongue and
+winked her eye. The anguish is still here.'
+
+"'Putting aside the question of what I have done, or left undone,
+perhaps you will tell me of what it is I am accused?'
+
+"'How should I know?'
+
+"'If you don't know, I don't know who should.'
+
+"'It is they who are coming who shall know.'
+
+"'And pray who is coming?' A thought occurred to me. 'Is it Conrad?'
+
+"'Conrad! Who is Conrad? Ah! I forgot there was a Conrad.' His manner
+changed. Crossing his arms upon his chest he glared at me, as the bad
+characters sometimes glare at the Adelphi. 'Miserable! You wish to
+play again with me the fool!'
+
+"Dear mamma, if you can imagine the Baron d'Ardigny as being madder
+than he used to be--do!
+
+"'Baron d'Ardigny, there are one or two questions which I should like
+you to answer. First of all, am I to regard myself as a prisoner?'
+
+"'Did you not use to tell me that you would be for ever mine?'
+
+"'Never, Baron, never!--You have not favoured me with an answer to my
+question.'
+
+"'Was there not a moment when I was your star of love?'
+
+"'Not a moment, Baron.--You have not answered me. Am I, or am I not,
+to regard myself as a prisoner?'
+
+"'You are a prisoner! It is as a prisoner you are here! It is as a
+prisoner you must treat me!'
+
+"'I should be delighted to treat you as a prisoner. Unfortunately it
+appears that it is as a prisoner you are treating me.'
+
+"'Your crimes, I do not doubt, they are as black as ink! A woman who
+can be as false as you--to such a woman nothing is impossible.'
+
+"'Baron d'Ardigny, I do not know how this sort of thing is done in
+Belgium, but in England when they lock a person up they tell him what
+they lock him up for. With you, has a policeman the power of taking a
+person to the stationhouse for the sole purpose and pleasure of
+calling them names?'
+
+"'Mees Nash----'
+
+"'I have already informed you that I am Mrs. Godwin.'
+
+"'So you are Mrs. Godwin! You insist! Well! At last we have arrived!
+Meez-sers Godwin, I tell you this. Mark carefully; I meet your husband
+once--for a moment. A second time--for ever--upon the field of
+honour.'
+
+"I do not know if abroad policemen always speak to their prisoners as
+the Baron spoke to me. The inhabitants of those countries must enjoy
+themselves if they do. For my part, although my situation was
+sufficiently critical, it was all I could do to refrain from laughter.
+If you could only have seen how funny he looked! I do not know if he
+mistook my silence for admiration, but on a sudden his madness assumed
+a dreadful phase. He threw himself into an attitude--ask Geraldine if
+she has forgotten his attitudes--and apostrophised me thus: 'When I
+look upon that lovely face, upon those eyes of perfect blue, upon that
+hair of gold, upon that figure exquisite, I say to myself, "Hector,
+Hector d'Ardigny! you who has not been without his fortunate
+experience, is it possible that you cannot win the love of a creature
+so divine?" I answer to myself, "It is impossible."'
+
+"I hesitated for a moment what, under the circumstances, I had better
+do. I saw plainly that it was no use to talk to the man. I arrived at
+a sudden resolution. I decided that I would try--as they say in the
+cookery-books--another way. As he stood with his eyes and hands raised
+towards the ceiling I went and I took him by the thing inside the
+collar of his coat--stock, I think they call it--and I shook him.
+I do not think he ever had a better shaking in his life. I kept at it
+till the thing inside the collar of his coat came loose in my hand.
+Then--you know he is _such_ a little man--I lifted him off his feet
+and seated him on the edge of the table. The rest was silence. He
+looked at me, and I, for my part, looked at him.
+
+"'Now,' I said, when I began to feel a little cooler, 'perhaps you
+will tell me what I am here for?'
+
+"'Apparently,' he gasped--the little man was breathless--'to murder
+me.'
+
+"'My good man, you shouldn't provoke me.'
+
+"In a sort of unconscious soliloquy I heard him murmur:
+
+"'_Mon Dieu! Ces Anglaises!_' Then with a visible shudder, '_Si elle
+etait ma femme!_'
+
+"'Baron d'Ardigny, if you do not wish me to shake you again you will
+tell me what I am here for.'
+
+"'Inquire of Philippe.'
+
+"'I will not inquire of Philippe--whoever Philippe may happen to be. I
+inquire of you. And I intend you to answer my inquiry. I suppose that
+I am here for something."
+
+"'For a great deal, it seems.' His hand stole towards his neck.
+'_Bonne chance! Elle a cassé mon col_.'
+
+"'Answer me.'
+
+"Dear mamma, I shook him up a little.
+
+"'I will answer you! _Par exemple! Quel hercule!_'
+
+"'Then do so.'
+
+"'If you will permit me to stand upon my feet I will answer you at
+once.'
+
+"'Answer me where you are.'
+
+"But, mademoiselle, I am an officer. It is impossible that an officer
+can sit upon a table.'
+
+"'Answer--me--at--once!' Dear mamma, I shook him again.
+
+"'_Ah, sacré nom! C'est embêtant!_ Will you destroy my clothing? Look
+into that drawer.'
+
+"I pulled out the drawer. The first thing I saw was a telegram. I took
+it up.
+
+"'Is this it?'
+
+"'That is it! You have said! Now, perhaps, you will permit me to
+descend.'
+
+"'I think, Baron, that you had better stay for a moment where you
+are.'
+
+"I opened the telegram.
+
+"'Detain Conrad Godwin coming by boat from Harwich.'
+
+"'I fancy, M. le Baron, someone has been hoaxing you.'
+
+"'Hoaxing me! What you mean?'
+
+"'It strikes me that if I make public the usage to which you have
+subjected me, you are a ruined man.'
+
+"'_Une jolie femme! Elle marche!_ And if I make public the treatment
+which you have accorded to the chief of the police, how is that for
+you--eh?'
+
+"'Very good. We will leave it so. I will communicate with our
+ambassador, our ambassador will communicate with your Government, your
+Government will communicate with you.'
+
+"'Mees Nash, I do not understand.'
+
+"'Baron d'Ardigny, if you call me "Mees Nash" again I shall box your
+ears. I was married yesterday, and, as I have already told you, I am
+Mrs. Conrad Godwin.'
+
+"Dear mamma, I think I _should_ have boxed them. He was _so_
+provoking. But while we were staring at one another--the little man
+looked thunderstruck!--the door of the room opened and--Conrad
+entered.
+
+"'Jennie!' he cried.
+
+"I had intended, when we did meet again, to assume towards him a
+dignified deportment, and to treat him with the just resentment which
+his conduct merited. But before I knew it I found that I was in his
+arms.
+
+"I believe he kissed me--before the Baron. And I am afraid that we
+both of us behaved in rather a foolish way. Which is the more strange
+because, you know, dear mamma, I am a stickler for decorum.
+
+"'Conrad, I thought that you had left your wife for ever?'
+
+"'Jennie, I reached Rotterdam at 9.0 and I left by the train at 9.15,
+_viâ_ Zevenbergen, for Antwerp. When I reached Antwerp they told me
+you were arrested.'
+
+"'I have been arrested. This is the chief of police, who arrested me.
+Baron d'Ardigny, this is my husband, Mr. Conrad Godwin.'
+
+"I suspect that the Baron, from his perch upon the table, had been
+edified by our proceedings.
+
+"When I said this he sprang to the ground.
+
+"'So!--this is Conrad Godwin! Sir, I will pull your nose.'
+
+"Conrad was puzzled.
+
+"'I beg your pardon?'
+
+"'Sir, I tell you are _canaille_, _cochon_--pig! You understand?'
+
+"Conrad turned to me.
+
+"'Is he mad?'
+
+"'Mad!' The Baron went mad at the bare suggestion. 'Mr. Conrad Godwin,
+I treat you as a gentleman. As a gentleman I tell you I will cut your
+throat.'
+
+"I think he would have 'gone' for Conrad. But just then the door
+opened again, and a strange gentleman came in.
+
+"'Godwin!' he cried.
+
+"'Haynes!'
+
+"'You have the key of the safe.'
+
+"'I know it. I wired you that I had.'
+
+"'Wired me! When?'
+
+"'I wired you last night from Harwich.'
+
+"'The deuce you have! And I have been chasing you through Ostend and
+Brussels! A nice muddle you have made of it. All the locksmiths and
+burglars in London have been retained to effect an entrance to the
+safe. I thought I would be even with you, so I sent them a wire to
+detain you.'
+
+"'They have not detained me, but they have my wife. They have arrested
+her.'
+
+"'Mrs. Godwin!--I beg ten thousand pardons!'
+
+"He was most apologetic--really nice, mamma!" ...
+
+
+"P.S.--Dear mamma, the Baron lunched with us at the Hotel St. Antoine.
+There were four of us. I did not ask Mr. Pearson. I thought that
+perhaps he would not come. _The Baron was charming!_"
+
+
+
+
+                        The Burglar's Blunder
+
+
+"That's done the trick! Now for the swag!"
+
+As Mr. Bennett made this observation to himself he slipped the window
+up and stepped into the room. He stood for a moment listening. Within,
+all was still; without, not a sound disturbed the silence of the
+night.
+
+"I think it's all serene."
+
+It is probable that Mr. Bennett smiled. He was engaged in the exercise
+of his profession, and it consoled him to perceive that, on this
+occasion, the stars seemed to be fighting on his side. He drew down
+the window softly and replaced the blind. It was a principle of his
+never to leave anything which might give a hint to the outside public
+of what was going on within. The room, with the blind down, was
+intensely dark. He put his hand into his pocket and drew out a little
+shaded lantern. Cautiously removing the shutter about half an inch a
+pencil of light gleamed across the room. He was apparently content
+with this illumination. By its aid he carefully examined floor, walls,
+and ceiling.
+
+"Early English. I thought so."
+
+This remark referred to the upholstering of the room, which was in the
+Early English style. Stooping down he drew a pair of list slippers
+over his indiarubber shoes. With swift, cat-like steps he strode
+across the floor and left the room. He was evidently familiar with his
+ground. The burglar's profession, to be profitably practised, entails
+no inconsiderable labour. It is quite an error to suppose that the
+burglar has only to stroll along the street and break into the first
+house which catches his eye. Not at all. Such a course is altogether
+unprofessional. Persons who do that kind of thing get what they
+deserve--"stir," and plenty of it. A really professional man, an
+artist--such, for example, as Mr. Bennett--works on entirely different
+lines. He had had this little job in his mind's eye for the last three
+months. Acacia Villa presented an almost ideal illustration of _the_
+promising crib to crack. Did he rush at it on that account? Quite the
+other way. He prepared his ground. He discovered, what all the
+world--in that neighbourhood--knew already, that it was occupied by a
+single lady and a solitary maid. That fact alone would have induced
+some men to make a dash at it before unscrupulous competitors had had
+an opportunity to take the bread out of their mouths. But Mr. Bennett
+was made of other stuff.
+
+It was situated in a lonely suburb, and in a lonely portion of the
+lonely suburb. It stood in its own grounds. There was not a dog about
+the place. There was not a shutter to a window. There was no basement
+to the house--you had only to step from the ground to the window-sill,
+and from the window-sill into the house. These facts would have been
+so many extra inducements to the average burglar to "put up" the place
+at once.
+
+But Mr. Bennett looked at the matter from a different standpoint. He
+did not ask if he could crack the crib--he had never yet encountered
+one which had mastered him--but whether the crib was really worth the
+cracking. The very defencelessness of the place was against it--in his
+eyes, at any rate--at first. People who have anything very well worth
+stealing do not, as a rule, leave it at the mercy of the first
+individual who passes by--though there are exceptions to the rule. Mr.
+Bennett discovered that there was one, and the discovery revealed the
+_artist_ in the man.
+
+The occupant of Acacia Villa was a Miss Cecilia Jones. Mr. Bennett had
+never seen Miss Cecilia Jones. Nobody--or hardly anybody--ever had.
+There appeared to be a mystery about Miss Cecilia Jones. But Mr.
+Bennett had seen the maid, and not only seen her, but promised to
+marry her as well. This was a promise which he never made to any woman
+unless actually compelled: the present had been a case of actual
+compulsion.
+
+The maid's name was Hannah--Miss Hannah Welsh. She was not young, and
+she was not good-looking. Mr. Bennett was partial to both youth and
+beauty. It went against the grain to court Miss Welsh. But he found
+that courtship was an absolutely indispensable preliminary. After he
+had encircled her waist a few times with his arm, and tasted the
+nectar of her lips--also a few times--Miss Welsh began gradually to
+unbend. But the process was very gradual. She was the most reticent of
+maids. He had not only to present her with several presents--the
+proceeds of the exercise of his profession--he had not only to promise
+to marry her, he had not only to name the day, but he had even to
+buy--or steal: the words were synonymous with him--the wedding-ring,
+before all the tale was told. When he had actually tried the ring on
+Miss Welsh's finger--to see if it would fit--then, and only then, he
+heard all there was to hear.
+
+Miss Jones was queer--not mad exactly, but peculiar. She had
+quarrelled with all her relatives. She was rich. She was full of
+crotchets. She distrusted all the world, particularly bankers. To such
+a length had she carried her want of confidence that she had realised
+all her fortune, turned it into specie, and kept it in the house. It
+was at this point that Miss Welsh's conversation became interesting to
+Mr. Bennett.
+
+"Keeps it in the house, does she? In notes, I suppose?"
+
+"Then you suppose wrong. She won't have nothing to do with
+notes--trust her. It's all in gold and diamonds."
+
+"Diamonds! How do you know they're diamonds?"
+
+Miss Welsh glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes. The
+conversation was carried on in the back garden at Acacia Villa, which
+was extensive and secluded. The time was evening, that season which is
+popularly supposed to be conducive to sentimental intercourse.
+
+"Perhaps I know as much about diamonds as here and there a few."
+
+Her tone was peculiar, almost suggestive. For an instant Mr. Bennett
+meditated making a clean breast of it, and asking Miss Welsh to come
+in on sharing terms. But he had an incurable objection to
+collaboration. Besides, in this case sharing terms would probably mean
+that he would have to go through the form, at any rate, of making her
+his wife.
+
+"Where does she keep them? In a safe, I hope."
+
+He did not hope so, though he said he did. At the very best, a safe,
+to a professional man, means the wasting of valuable time.
+
+"She keeps them in her bedroom, in the chest of drawers, in a red
+leather box, in the little top drawer on the left-hand side."
+
+Mr. Bennett felt a glow steal all over him. He began to conceive quite
+a respect for Miss Cecilia Jones.
+
+"And the gold--where does she keep that?"
+
+"In tin boxes. There are ten of them. There are a thousand sovereigns
+in each. There are five boxes on each side of the chest of drawers."
+Mr. Bennett possessed considerable presence of mind, but he almost
+lost it then. Ten thousand pounds in sovereigns! He would never regret
+the affection he had lavished on Miss Welsh--never, to his dying day.
+_Would_ it be a bad speculation to marry her? But no; the thought was
+rash. He would reward her, but in quite a different way. He made a
+rapid calculation. Ten thousand sovereigns would weigh, roughly, about
+130 pounds avoirdupois. He might turn them into a sack--fancy, a
+sackful of money! But 130 pounds was no light weight to carry far. He
+must have a vehicle at hand. What a convenience a "pal" would be! But
+he had worked single-handed so far, and he would work single-handed to
+the end.
+
+When he had ascertained his facts he acted on them at once, thus
+revealing the artist again. Spare no pains in making sure that the
+crib is worth the cracking, _then_ crack it at once. On the night
+following this conversation the crib was cracked: he had arranged for
+the marriage to take place on the next day but one--or Miss Welsh
+thought he had--so that if he wished to avoid a scandal he really had
+no time to lose. We have seen him enter the house. Now we understand
+how it was he knew his ground.
+
+He paused for an instant outside the drawing-room door: it was through
+the drawing-room window he had effected an entrance. All was still. He
+moved up the staircase two steps at a time. There was not a stair that
+creaked. At the top he paused again. From information received, to
+adopt a phrase popular in an antagonistic profession, he was aware
+that Miss Jones slept in the front bedroom.
+
+"There's three bedrooms on the first floor. When you gets to the top
+of the stairs you turns to the left, and if you goes straight on you
+walks right into Miss Jones's room."
+
+Mr. Bennett turned to the left. He went straight on. Outside Miss
+Jones's door he paused again. The critical moment had arrived. He felt
+that all his properties were in order--a bottle and a sponge in his
+right-hand pocket, a revolver in his left, a stout canvas bag fastened
+round his body beneath his coat. The lantern was shut. He opened it
+sufficiently to enable him to see what sort of handle there was on the
+door. Having satisfied himself on that point he closed it again.
+
+Then he proceeded to effect an entrance into Miss Jones's bedroom.
+
+He took the handle firmly in his hand. It turned without the slightest
+sound. The door yielded at once.
+
+"Not locked," said Mr. Bennett beneath his breath. "What a stroke of
+luck!"
+
+Noiselessly the door moved on its hinges. He opened it just wide
+enough to enable him to slip inside. When he was in he released the
+handle. Instantly the door moved back and closed itself without a
+sound.
+
+"Got a spring upon the door," Mr. Bennett told himself--always beneath
+his breath. "Uncommonly well oiled they must keep it too."
+
+The room was pitchy dark. He listened acutely. All was still as the
+grave. He strained his ears to catch Miss Jones's breathing.
+
+"A light sleeper!"
+
+A very light sleeper. Strain his ears as he might he could not catch
+the slightest sound. Mr. Bennett hesitated. As an artist he was averse
+to violence. In cases of necessity he was quite equal to the occasion,
+but in cases where it was not necessary he preferred the gentler way.
+And where a woman was in question, under hardly any provocation would
+he wish to cut her throat. He had chloroform in his pocket. If Miss
+Jones was disagreeable he could make his peace with that. But if she
+left him unmolested should he stupefy her still? He decided that while
+she continued to sleep she should be allowed to sleep, only it would
+be well for her not to wake up too soon.
+
+He moved across the room. Instinctively, even in the thick darkness,
+he knew the position of the chest of drawers. He reached it. He
+quickly discovered the little top drawer on the left-hand side.
+
+In a remarkably short space of time he had it open. Then he began to
+search for the red leather box. He gleamed the lantern into the drawer
+so that its light might assist his search.
+
+While he was still engaged in the work of discovery, suddenly the room
+was all ablaze with light.
+
+"Thank you. I thought it was you."
+
+A voice, quite a musical voice, spoke these words behind his back. Mr.
+Bennett was, not unnaturally, amazed. The sudden blaze of light
+dazzled his eyes. He turned to see who the speaker was.
+
+"Don't move, or I fire. You will find I am a first-rate shot."
+
+He stared. Indeed, he had cause to stare. A young lady--a distinctly
+pretty young lady--was sitting up in bed holding a revolver in her
+hand, which she was pointing straight at him.
+
+"This room is lighted by electricity. I have only to press a button,
+it all goes out." And, in fact, it all went out; again the room was
+dark as pitch. "Another, it is alight again." As it was--and that with
+the rapidity of a flash of lightning.
+
+Mr. Bennett stood motionless. For the first time in his professional
+career he was at a loss, not only as to what he ought to say, but as
+to what he ought to do. The young lady was so pretty. She had long,
+fair hair, which ranged loose upon her shoulders; a pair of great big
+eyes, which had a very curious effect on Mr. Bennett as they looked at
+him; a sweet mouth; through her rosy lips gleamed little pearl-like
+teeth; and a very pretty--and equally determined--nose and chin. She
+had on the orthodox nightdress, which, in her case, was a gorgeous
+piece of feminine millinery, laced all down the front with the
+daintiest pink bows. Mr. Bennett had never seen such a picture in his
+life.
+
+"I am Miss Cecilia Jones. You are Mr. Bennett, I presume--George
+Bennett--'My George,' as Hannah says. Hannah is a hypnotic subject.
+When I am experimenting on her the poor dear creature tells me
+everything, you know. I wonder if I could hypnotise you."
+
+Mr. Bennett did not know what she meant. He was only conscious of the
+most singular sensation he had ever experienced. To assist his
+understanding, possibly, Miss Jones gave a practical demonstration of
+her meaning. With her disengaged hand she made some slight movements
+in the air, keeping her eyes fixed on Mr. Bennett all the while. Mr.
+Bennett in vain struggled to escape her gaze. Suddenly he was
+conscious that, as it were, something had gone from him--his
+resolution--his freedom of will--he knew not what.
+
+Miss Jones put down her hand.
+
+"I think that you will do. How do you feel?"
+
+"Very queer."
+
+Mr. Bennett's utterance was peculiar. He spoke as a man
+might speak who is under the influence of a drug, or as one who
+dreams--unconsciously, without intention, as it were.
+
+"Oh, they always do feel like that at first. Are you considered a good
+burglar as a rule?"
+
+"As a rule."
+
+Mr. Bennett hesitatingly put up his hand and drew it across his brow.
+It was the hand which held the lantern. When the lantern touched his
+skin he found that it was hot. He let it fall from his hand with a
+clatter to the floor. Miss Jones eyed him keenly all the time.
+
+"I see you are not quite subjective yet, but I think that you will do.
+And of course I can always complete the influence if I will. It only
+illustrates what I have continually said--that it is not necessarily
+the lowest mental organisations that traffic in crime. I should say
+that yours was above rather than below the average. Have you yourself
+any ideas upon that point?"
+
+As he answered Mr. Bennett faintly sighed.
+
+"None!"
+
+Miss Jones smiled, and as she smiled he smiled too, though there was
+this feature about Mr. Bennett's smile--there was not in it any sense
+of mirth. Miss Jones seemed to notice this, for she smiled still more.
+Immediately Mr. Bennett's smile expanded into a hideous grin. Then she
+burst into laughter. Mr. Bennett laughed out too.
+
+"After all, you are more subjective than I thought you were. I don't
+think I ever had a subject laugh quite so sympathetically before."
+
+As Miss Jones said this--which she did when she had done laughing--she
+turned and adjusted the pillows so as to form a support to her back.
+Against this she reclined at ease. She placed the revolver on the
+bolster at her side. From a receptacle in the nature of a tidy, which
+was fastened to the wall above her head, she drew a small leather
+case. From this she took a cigarette and a match. With the most
+charming air imaginable she proceeded to light the cigarette and
+smoke.
+
+Mr. Bennett watched all her movements, feeling that he must be playing
+a part in a dream. It was a perceptible relief when she removed her
+eyes from his face, though they were such pretty eyes. Yet, although
+she was not looking at him, he felt that she saw him all the time--he
+had a hideous impression that she even saw what was passing in his
+mind.
+
+"I wouldn't think about my revolver. You won't be able to fire it, you
+know."
+
+He had been thinking about his revolver: a faint notion had been
+growing up in his mind that he would like to have just one shot at
+her. Miss Jones made this remark in the most tranquil tone of voice,
+as she was engaged in extinguishing the match with which she had
+lighted her cigarette.
+
+"And I wouldn't worry about that chloroform--it is chloroform, isn't
+it?--in the right-hand pocket of your coat."
+
+As she said this Miss Jones threw the extinguished match from her
+on to the bedroom floor. A great cloud of horror was settling down on
+Mr. Bennett's brain. Was this fair creature a thing of earth at
+all? Was she a witch or a fairy queen? Mr. Bennett was a tolerably
+well-educated man, and he had read of fairy queens. He gave a sudden
+start. Miss Jones had lighted the cigarette to her satisfaction, and
+had fixed her eyes upon his face again.
+
+"I suppose you were hardly prepared for this sort of thing?"
+
+"Hardly."
+
+The word came from Mr. Bennett's stammering lips.
+
+"When you heard about the defencelessness of Acacia Villa, and about
+Miss Jones--who was peculiar--and that sort of thing, you doubtless
+took it for granted that it was to be all plain sailing?"
+
+"Something of the kind."
+
+Not the least odd part of the affair was that Mr. Bennett found
+himself answering Miss Jones without the least intention of doing
+anything of the sort.
+
+"Those diamonds you were looking for are at the bottom of the
+drawer--at the back. Just get them out and bring them here. In a red
+leather case--you know."
+
+Mechanically Mr. Bennett did as he was told. When his back was turned
+to the lady, and he ceased to be compelled to meet her eyes, quite a
+spasm of relief went over him. A faint desire was again born within
+his breast to assert his manhood. The lady's quiet voice immediately
+interposed.
+
+"I wouldn't worry myself with such thoughts if I were you. You are
+quite subjective."
+
+He was subjective, though still Mr. Bennett had not the faintest
+notion what she meant. He found the red leather box. He brought it to
+her on the bed. He came so close to her that she puffed the smoke
+between her rosy lips up into his face.
+
+"It is not locked. It opens with a spring, like this."
+
+She stretched out her hand. As she did so she grazed slightly one of
+his. He trembled at her touch. She pressed some hidden spring in the
+box and the lid flew open. It was full of diamonds, which gleamed and
+sparkled like liquid light.
+
+"Not bad stones, are they? There's a hundred thousand pounds' worth at
+the least. There are the tin boxes, you see. Five on either side the
+chest of drawers." Mr. Bennett followed the direction of Miss Jones's
+hand--he saw them plainly enough. "A hundred thousand pounds' worth of
+diamonds in your hand, ten thousand pounds in front of you--not bad
+plunder for a single night's work. And only a young woman to reckon
+with--it is not twelve months since I turned twenty-one. Yet I don't
+think you will get much out of this little job--do you?"
+
+The tears actually stood in Mr. Bennett's eyes.
+
+"I don't think I shall," he moaned.
+
+"And yet there is no magic about it--not the least. It is simply an
+illustration of the latest phase in scientific development." Miss
+Jones leaned back against the pillows, enjoying her cigarette with the
+etherealised satisfaction of the true lover of the weed. With her left
+hand--what a little white and dainty hand it was!--she toyed with her
+long, fair hair. "At an extremely early age I discovered that I could
+exercise at will remarkable powers over my fellow-creatures. I lost no
+opportunity to develop those powers. At twenty-one I became my own
+mistress. I realised my fortune--as Hannah told you--and retired to
+Acacia Villa. You understand I had ideas of my own. I was peculiar, if
+you choose to have it so. I continued to develop my powers. I
+experimented upon Hannah. Now I am experimenting upon you. I am
+enjoying this experiment very much indeed. I hope you are enjoying it
+a quarter as much as I am--are you?" Some slightly inarticulate remark
+dropped from Mr. Bennett, which was apparently to the effect that he
+was not.
+
+"I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps you will enjoy it more a little
+later on. Now, what shall I do with you? I know."
+
+Miss Jones pressed a little ivory button, which was one of a row set
+in a frame of wood against the wall.
+
+"That rings an electric bell in Hannah's room. I often ring her down
+in the middle of the night to be experimented on. She comes directly.
+Here she is, you see."
+
+There was a slight tapping against the bedroom door.
+
+"Come in!" exclaimed Miss Jones.
+
+The door opened and Miss Welsh came in. She was not exactly in full
+dress. Mr. Bennett, who through it all was conscious in a horrid,
+nightmare sort of way, thought that he had never seen anyone look so
+extremely unprepossessing as Miss Welsh looked in disarray. The
+instant she was inside the room Miss Jones raised her hand. Miss Welsh
+stood still. Miss Jones turned to Mr. Bennett.
+
+"I have her entirely under control. Some of the results I have
+obtained with her are really quite remarkable. But you shall see for
+yourself and judge." The young lady addressed Miss Welsh.
+
+"Well, Hannah, here is Mr. Bennett, you see."
+
+It was evident that Miss Welsh did see. She seemed struggling to give
+expression to her feelings in speech. Miss Jones went calmly on--
+
+"He is here on business--he is committing burglary, in fact. You were
+right in supposing that was his profession. The mistake you made was
+in imagining that he would have shared the spoil with you. I think,
+Mr. Bennett, I am right in saying that you would not have given Hannah
+much?"
+
+"Not a sou."
+
+"Probably you did not even intend to marry her?"
+
+"I would have seen her hung first."
+
+Mr. Bennett made this plain statement with quite curious ferocity.
+Miss Welsh rubbed her eyes with the sleeve of what we will suppose,
+for courtesy's sake, was her nightdress.
+
+"That makes nine of 'em," she said.
+
+"That makes nine of them, as Hannah says. Hannah, Mr. Bennett, is a
+woman of experience. She has had nine promises of marriage, but not
+one of them came off. But I don't think, Hannah, that you ever had a
+promise from a burglar before?"
+
+"Never before."
+
+"Then, at least, that is a new experience, and a new experience is so
+precious. Is there any remark you would like to make, Hannah,
+appropriate to the occasion?"
+
+For a moment it did not appear as though there were. Then it seemed
+that there at least was one.
+
+"I should like to scratch his eyes out," observed the damsel--ætat
+forty-five or so.
+
+Miss Cecilia smiled. Mr. Bennett immediately smiled too. But there was
+this difference--that while the lady's smile was a thing of beauty,
+the gentleman's was a peculiar ghastly grin.
+
+Miss Jones remarked Mr. Bennett's facial contortions with an
+appearance of considerable interest.
+
+"I never had them smile _quite_ so sympathetically before. In that
+respect, Mr. Bennett, you are unique. Charmed to have met you, I am
+sure." The young lady knocked the ash off her cigarette with her
+dainty finger and turned her attention to Miss Welsh. "I don't think,
+Hannah, that we will have any scratching out of eyes."
+
+When she had thus delivered herself Miss Jones reclined in silence for
+some moments on her pillows, discharging the smoke of her cigarette
+through her delicate pink nostrils. When she spoke again it was to the
+gentleman she addressed herself.
+
+"Mr. Bennett, would you mind closing that box of diamonds and
+replacing them in the drawer?"
+
+Mr. Bennett shut the box with a little snap and carried it across the
+room. There was something odd about his demeanour as he did this--an
+appearance as though he were not engaged in the sort of labour which
+physics pain. Miss Welsh, standing as though rooted to the ground,
+followed him with her eyes. The expression of her countenance was one
+of undisguised amazement. Her face was eloquent with a yearning to
+relieve herself with words. When Mr. Bennett put the box back where he
+had found it and shut the drawer she gave a kind of gasp. From Mr.
+Bennett there came a distinctly audible groan. "Turn round, Mr.
+Bennett, and look at me." Mr. Bennett did as he was bidden. He was not
+altogether a bad-looking young man--his chief fault, from the
+physiognomist's point of view, lay in the steely tint of his clear
+blue eyes. Miss Jones's great big orbs seemed to rest upon him with a
+certain degree of pleasure. "I need scarcely point out to you that the
+burglary is a failure. The principal cause of failure is that you are
+too subjective. You have quite one of the most subjective
+organisations I have yet encountered. The ideal criminal must keep
+himself abreast with the advance of science. In failing to do so, Mr.
+Bennett, you have been guilty of a blunder which, in your case, is
+certainly worse than crime. You are a dreadful example of the
+burglar's blunder. I might label you, preserve you in your hypnotic
+state, and use you as an illustration of a lecture I am now preparing.
+But I have other views, and it is not impossible I may encounter you
+again. Go to my writing-table. You will find a sheet of foolscap
+paper. Write what I dictate."
+
+Mr. Bennett went to the writing-table. He found the sheet of foolscap
+paper. "Write, in good, bold characters:--
+
+
+                       "_I am George Bennett_,
+                            _The Burglar_.
+          _For further particulars apply at Acacia Villa_."
+
+
+Mr. Bennett wrote as she dictated, displaying the above legend in a
+striking round hand right across the sheet of paper. Miss Jones
+addressed Miss Welsh:
+
+"Hannah, in my workbasket you will find a needle and some good stout
+thread. Get it out." Miss Welsh got it out. "Mr. Bennett, take off
+that sack which you have wound round your body beneath your coat." Mr.
+Bennett took it off. "Button up your coat again." Mr. Bennett buttoned
+it up. "Hannah, take that sheet of foolscap paper, on which Mr.
+Bennett has written at my dictation, and sew it firmly to the front of
+his buttoned-up coat."
+
+Miss Welsh took the sheet of foolscap paper. She approached Mr.
+Bennett, holding it in her hand. Mr. Bennett's hands dropped to his
+sides. He regarded her with a look which was the reverse of amiable.
+She eyed him with what were doubtless intended to be soft, pleading
+glances. When she reached him she placed her hand timidly against his
+chest. Mr. Bennett looked particularly glum. She raised the other hand
+which held the sheet of foolscap paper and spread it out upon his
+breast. It was legible at quite a considerable distance:
+
+
+                       "_I am George Bennett_,
+                            _The Burglar_.
+          _For further particulars apply at Acacia Villa_."
+
+
+It was hardly the sort of inscription a chivalrous spirit would wish
+to have displayed upon his breast by the object of his heart's desire,
+or even by the woman he had promised to marry in the course of the
+following morning. Miss Welsh, who seemed to feel the truth of this,
+looked at him with sad, beseeching eyes. But Mr. Bennett's glumness
+perceptibly increased. Then Miss Welsh proceeded to sew the
+inscription on. It must be owned that it was a conscientious piece of
+sewing. She first tacked it round the edges, then she sewed it up and
+down and across, from corner to corner, with a hundred careful
+stitches, in such a way that he would have had to tear it to
+fragments, piecemeal, in order to get it off. It would have been quite
+impossible to unbutton his coat while he had that inscription on. The
+process seemed to make Miss Welsh extremely sad. It made Mr. Bennett
+sadder still. When she had finished her conscientious piece of work
+she crossed her hands meekly in front of her and looked up at him with
+a rapturous gaze. Mr. Bennett did not seem to feel rapturous at all.
+
+"Now, Hannah, take the sack which Mr. Bennett wore beneath his coat
+and hold it open for him, and enable him to step inside."
+
+The sack was lying on the floor. Miss Welsh, with a half-uttered sigh,
+picked it up, and held the mouth wide open. Mr. Bennett scowled first
+at the lady, then at the bag. He raised his left foot gingerly, and
+placed it in the opening. Miss Welsh assisted him in thrusting his leg
+well home. Then there was a pause.
+
+"Perhaps, Mr. Bennett, you had better put you arms round Hannah's
+neck," observed Miss Jones.
+
+She was engaged in lighting a second cigarette at the ashes of the
+first.
+
+Mr. Bennett put his arms about Miss Welsh's neck and thrust his other
+leg into the sack.
+
+"Draw it up about his waist," remarked Miss Jones. By now the second
+cigarette was well alight.
+
+Miss Welsh drew it up about his waist. It was a good-sized sack, so
+that, although a man of at least the average height, being drawn up it
+reached his loins.
+
+"Mr. Bennett, hold the sack in that position with both your hands."
+Mr. Bennett held the sack in that position with both his hands.
+"Hannah, in the bottom of the hanging cupboard you will find some
+cord. Get it out."
+
+In a mechanically melancholy way Miss Welsh did as she was told. The
+cord, being produced, took the shape of a coil of rope, about the
+thickness of one's middle finger.
+
+"Make two holes in the front of the sack and pass the cord through
+them." With the same sad air Miss Welsh acted on Miss Jones's fresh
+instructions. She made two holes in the front of the sack and passed
+the two ends of the cord through them.
+
+"Now pass the cord over his shoulders, make two holes in the back of
+the sack, pass the cord through them, then draw it tight."
+
+Again Miss Welsh obeyed, dolefully, yet conscientiously withal. The
+result was that when the rope was tightened--and Miss Welsh, in the
+most conscientious manner, drew it as tight as she possibly could--Mr.
+Bennett's lower portions were imprisoned in the sack in a manner
+which was hardly dignified. He might have been about to engage in a
+sack-race, only he did not appear to be in a sack-racing frame of
+mind. Miss Welsh seemed to feel that she was hardly treating him in
+the way in which one would wish to treat one's best young man. It was
+evident that Mr. Bennett had not the slightest doubt but that he was
+being used very badly indeed.
+
+"Take the bottle and sponge, which you will find in his right-hand
+pocket, and the revolver, which you will find in his left, and place
+them on the bed." Miss Welsh did as her mistress told her. "Now tie
+him up with the cord so as to render him incapable of moving a limb.
+There are thirty-two yards of it. With that quantity, and the exercise
+of a little skill, you should be able to make him tolerably secure."
+
+As Miss Jones said this it almost seemed that Miss Welsh started. Mr.
+Bennett certainly did. Miss Welsh looked at him with such piteous
+eyes; Mr. Bennett favoured her with an unmistakable scowl--a scowl,
+indeed, of singular malignity. Then she proceeded to tie him up. In
+doing so she showed considerable skill and conscientiousness to boot.
+She first passed the rope two or three times right round him, so as to
+pinion his arms to his sides. Then, putting her foot up against his
+side, so as to enable her to use it as a lever, she hauled the rope as
+tight as she could. She did not seem to enjoy the hauling part of
+it--nor did Mr. Bennett, for the matter of that. She was a woman of
+undeniable strength; it was a wonder that she did not cut in two the
+man she had promised to marry. When the rope was at its utmost tension
+she made a most dexterous knot. He would have been tolerably secure
+had she done no more. But she did a great deal more; in that
+conscientious way she had she ran the rope about his legs, hauling it
+fast with the same ingenuity of method--with such energy, in fact,
+that she hauled him off his legs, and both he and she fell flat upon
+the floor.
+
+"Pick yourself up, Hannah; and you had better continue to tie Mr.
+Bennett where he lies--you will find it more convenient, perhaps."
+
+Miss Welsh acted on Miss Jones's hint. But, however it may have added
+to her convenience, so far as Mr. Bennett was concerned it made the
+matter worse. She performed her task in such a very conscientious way;
+she rolled him over and over, she knelt on him--to give her leverage
+in hauling she even stood on him--she stood him on his feet and on his
+head. It certainly was _not_ a favourable example of the way in which
+a young woman should use her best young man.
+
+"Now, Hannah, you can stand Mr. Bennett on his feet," remarked Miss
+Jones, when she saw that Miss Welsh had completed her task. "If Mr.
+Bennett is unable to stand you had better prop him up with his back
+against the wall."
+
+Miss Welsh propped Mr. Bennett up with his back against the wall: he
+would have certainly been unable to stand alone. Miss Jones addressed
+herself to him:
+
+"You see, Mr. Bennett, how entirely I have Hannah under my control.
+She is beautifully subjective. As I pointed out to you before, I
+assure you I have obtained some really remarkable results with Hannah.
+I hope that you have enjoyed all that you have seen--have you?"
+
+Mr. Bennett feebly shook his head. He did not seem to have sufficient
+energy left to enable him to say he hadn't. He was too much tied up.
+Miss Jones went on--
+
+"Before we part--and we are about to part, for the present, at
+least--I should like to address to you a few appropriate remarks.
+Burglary, I need not point out to you, Mr. Bennett, is criminal, and
+not only criminal, but cowardly. You select, as a rule, the night. You
+choose, preferentially, a house in which the inhabitants are helpless.
+You steal upon them unawares, prepared, if necessary, to take their
+lives at the moment when they are least able to defend them. You
+yourself are a coward of the most despicable sort, or you would never
+have come, in the dead of the night, certainly to rob, and perhaps to
+kill, an unprotected woman. I cannot describe to you the satisfaction
+which I feel when I consider that this is a case of the biter bit.
+When I think how conscious you yourself must be of how completely the
+tables have been turned, I assure you that I am ready to dance about
+the room with joy. I trust, Mr. Bennett, that you will perceive and
+allow that these few remarks point a moral and adorn a tale. What I am
+now about to do with you is this. You brought that chloroform to
+stupefy me. On the contrary, with it Hannah shall stupefy you. When
+you are stupefied she will open the window, she will drag you to it,
+and she will drop you out. There is only a drop of about twelve feet.
+There is a flower-bed beneath. I hope you will not fall hard. You will
+damage the flowers, I am afraid; but, under the circumstances, I will
+excuse you that. You will lie there through the night. In the morning
+I will take care that a policeman finds you there. He will see the
+inscription written by yourself, and sewn on your breast by Hannah. He
+will see that you are George Bennett, the burglar, and he will act on
+the hint contained in the last line--he will make further inquiries at
+Acacia Villa. I assure you I will answer them. I will prosecute you
+with the utmost rigour of the law. You have doubtless, in the course
+of your career, been guilty of multitudinous crimes. I think I know a
+means of bringing every one of them home to you. You will be sentenced
+to a long term of penal servitude. For a considerable time to come I
+shall know where to find you should I desire to subject you to further
+experiment."
+
+As Miss Jones made these observations, which she did in the sweetest
+and most musical of voices, she continued to enjoy her cigarette. A
+fairer picture of feminine indulgence in the nicotian weed, it is not
+improbable, was never seen. But neither Mr. Bennett nor Miss Welsh
+seemed to appreciate the opportunity they had of observing the fair
+picture under circumstances of such exceptional advantage--the
+gentleman even less than the lady. After a short pause the beautiful
+young smoker gave a few instructions to Miss Welsh:
+
+"Hannah, take that bottle of chloroform and that sponge. Empty the
+contents of the bottle on to the sponge; then press the sponge against
+Mr. Bennett's mouth and nose, and hold it there."
+
+As Miss Jones said this an expression of great agony struggled through
+the stupor which was the prevailing characteristic of Mr. Bennett's
+face. It seemed as though he struggled to speak. But his tongue was
+mute. Miss Welsh, too, seemed unutterably sad. At the same time she
+did as her mistress bade. She drew the cork out of the bottle and
+emptied the contents on to the sponge. As she did so Mr. Bennett's
+eyes passed from Miss Welsh to Miss Jones, and from Miss Jones to Miss
+Welsh, with something of that look of dumb agony which it is so
+painful to see at times upon the face of a dog. Miss Welsh emptied the
+bottle to its latest drop. She advanced towards Mr. Bennett, labelled,
+tied, and propped up against the wall. He made a perceptible effort to
+give expression to his agony in speech. But Miss Welsh gave him no
+time. She clapped the sponge upon his mouth and nose, pressing his
+head with all her force against the wall. He shivered, gave a sort of
+sigh, and fell, lying where he had fallen. Under Miss Welsh's forcible
+manipulation the anæsthetic had quickly done its work.
+
+"Open the window wide!" Miss Welsh opened the window wide. "Pick Mr.
+Bennett up!" Miss Welsh picked him up. "Carry him to the window!" She
+carried him to the window. It was a curious spectacle to see her
+bearing all that was near and dear to her to his ignominious doom.
+"Throw him out!" She threw him out. There was a momentary silence.
+Then came the sound of a thud. Mr. Bennett had fallen on the
+flower-bed beneath. "Shut the window down!" Miss Welsh shut the window
+down. "Go to the door, turn round, and look at me!" Miss Welsh did as
+she was bidden. She shuddered when her eyes encountered her mistress's
+glorious orbs.
+
+The young smoker, raising her exquisitely-shaped hand, made a slight
+movement with it in the air.
+
+"Leave the room and go to bed!" she said. Miss Welsh left the room and
+disappeared.
+
+When she was left alone Miss Cecilia Jones carefully extinguished her
+cigarette, putting the unconsumed fragment in a little ash-tray which
+was fastened to the wall above her head. She replaced the pillows in
+their former position; under one of them she placed her revolver, on
+it she placed her head. Touching one of the ivory buttons, which she
+could easily do from where she lay, instantly the room was dark. In
+the darkness, having made herself comfortable between the sheets, she
+set herself to woo sweet sleep.
+
+
+
+
+                              Ninepence!
+
+
+I had gone in to get a glass of ale--into the four-ale bar. The place
+was pretty full. Scarcely had I begun to absorb my liquid when a
+gentleman of the nondescript sort, having a remnant of a red
+handkerchief tied about his neck, favoured me with this inquiry:
+
+"If a party what you knew nothink at all about, and never seed afore
+in all your dyes, was to ask you to lend 'im ninepence, would you lend
+it 'im?"
+
+As I thought it possible that the party in question might be himself,
+I lost no time whatever in replying, "Certainly not."
+
+He turned to a friend with sandy hair and a suit of clothes which,
+unless he had decreased to half his size since first he had them, must
+originally have been somebody else's.
+
+"That is what I says. Isn't that what I says? I says I wouldn't. No
+more I wouldn't."
+
+The friend tilted his cap over his eyes, and he dug the knuckles of
+his right hand into the back of his head. I have not the faintest
+notion why. And he held forth thus:
+
+"It was like this here. I was in the bar, yer know, along with some
+other parties, yer know, as it might be me and you in 'ere, when 'e
+comes in."
+
+"Who come in?"
+
+"Why this 'ere bloke. He says to me, 'If this ain't a pretty start,
+what is?' I says, 'What's up now?' He says, 'Just cast your eyes round
+me.' And he lifts up the tails of 'is coat--'e 'ad a tail-coat on,
+leastways it 'ad been a tail-coat once--and 'e says, 'Them's
+trousers.' I says, 'They don't look it.' 'E says, 'They don't. And
+that's 'ow I'll lose a fortune.' I says, ''Ow do you make that out?' 'E
+says, 'I'll tell yer, seeing as 'ow you're a friend.'"
+
+"Was 'e a friend of yourn? I thought yer said yer'd never seed 'im
+afore?"
+
+"More I 'adn't. 'E draws the back of 'is 'and acrost 'is mug, and 'e
+says, 'I suppose you couldn't spare a sup?' Well, I let 'im 'ave a
+drop, and 'e pretty nearly drained me. 'I'll tell you all about it,'
+'e says. 'It's like this--like this 'ere. I'm a hartist, that's
+what I am--a profeshunal--yes. And I've got a hingagement to-night
+at one of the fust music-'alls in London--the very fust. I'm going
+to do my hextra speshul turn. It'll be worth to me every farden of
+'arf-a-quid--yes. And now it's orf.' I says, ''Ow do yer make that
+out?' 'E pulls up the tails of 'is coat, ''Cause of them. Speaking, as
+it might be, as one hartist to another hartist, as a hartist, 'ow
+would you like to go on to do a hextra speshul turn in one of the fust
+music-'alls in London in them for trousers? And, mind you, mine's a
+drawin'-room entertainment, and no lies--that's what mine is. Yes,
+straight.' 'Well,' I says, 'I shouldn't.' 'E says, 'Of course you
+wouldn't; you couldn't. Why, they'd 'oot at yer. Yes. So I've got to
+chuck it.' I says, 'That's 'ard.' 'E says,' It is 'ard; it's bitter
+'ard--cruel 'ard.' 'E leans agin the counter, and he takes 'old,
+casual like, of a pewter what belonged to a chap as was be'ind 'im,
+and 'e lifts it to 'is lips, as if 'e didn't know what 'e was a-doing
+of. But the chap as the pewter belonged to, 'e grabs 'old of it, and
+'e says, 'Excuse me, who's a-payin'?' And this bloke says, seemin'
+quite took aback-like, 'I beg your pardon, sir. It was a haccident.'
+And the chap, 'e says, 'We'll call it a haccident,' and he drains the
+pewter right off, so as to make sure. And this 'ere bloke what I'm
+a-telling you of, he wipes his mouth agin, and he looks at me. But I
+wasn't a-taking any. So 'e says, 'And what makes it all the 'arder is
+what I'm going to tell yer--you bein' a friend o' mine.'"
+
+"I thought you says 'e wasn't a friend o' yourn."
+
+"More 'e wasn't. 'Ow could he be? Don't I tell yer I never saw 'im
+afore?"
+
+"Well, 'e 'ad got a nerve, 'e 'ad. Some of 'em does 'ave."
+
+"It was only 'is kid, you know. 'E says, 'I've got one of the finest
+pair of trousers there is in all England--straight, I have. 'Well,' I
+says, 'if I was you I'd put 'em on.' 'E says, 'They're spouted. I was
+just a-going to get 'em out when I come in 'ere.' 'Why don't you
+'urry,' I says, 'and get 'em out?' 'I can't.' 'Why can't you?' 'Sold
+the ticket.' 'What for?' 'Tuppence.' 'Can't yer buy it agin?' ''Aven't
+got the tuppence.' 'I can't make you out,' I says. 'Fust yer say
+you're going to get your trousers out o' pawn, then yer say you've
+sold the ticket, then yer say you haven't got the tuppence to buy it
+back agin. Where do you think you're going to get the tuppence from?'
+'E says, 'That's what I want to know. Where am I?' I says, ''Ow much
+is there on the trousers?' 'E says, 'Sevenpence.' 'What,' I says,
+'sevenpence on the finest pair of trousers there is in all England!
+They must be odd 'uns.' 'I might 'ave 'ad an 'eap o' money,' 'e says,
+'an 'eap, but I didn't want it. That's where it was.' 'Was you in
+funds when you pawned your trousers?' 'Of course I was.' I says, 'I
+don't see no of course about it.' 'E says, 'Where else was I to put
+'em?'
+
+"I says,' Wasn't there your legs? Was yer legs in pawn?' 'E says,
+'That's different. I wasn't speakin' about that.' I says,' Well, then,
+I am.' 'E leans back agin the counter, and 'e looks up at the ceiling,
+and 'e says, 'Ninepence between me and fortune. Every farden of
+'arfa-quid. Perhaps several 'arf-a-quids. If any lady or
+gentleman'--'e spoke like a reading book--'was to advance me the loan
+of ninepence for to enable me to clothe my legs with a pair of
+trousers as was suited to one of the fust music-'alls in London, and
+as would do credit to any hartist on the boards, I shall not cease for
+to remember the haction while the breath remains within my body. That
+is hall I 'ave to say. I say no more.' But 'e'd said enough. You
+should 'ave 'eard 'im--done yer good. Of course, that 'ushed the
+patter. No one wasn't going to say nothing after that. Not 'ardly.
+Presently one woman says, 'I'll give a penny if anyone else will.'
+This 'ere bloke took off 'is 'at. 'Madam, I thank you; as a hartist I
+thank you.' Then a lady what was with this other lady says, 'Susan, if
+you'll give a penny, I'll give a penny too.' Then this 'ere bloke's
+'at come off again. Then there was a whip round. But it hung fire a
+bit. Nobody didn't quite ketch on. So this 'ere other lady, she says,
+'It seems 'ard that a man can't earn 'is daily bread 'cause he ain't
+got no trousers to earn it in, don't it, Susan?' And Susan says, 'It
+do seem hard.' And this 'ere bloke, 'e says, 'It's cruel 'ard.' Then
+one chap says, 'I'll give a pennyworth.' And another chap give a
+pennyworth. And presently there was the ninepence."
+
+"Did you give a pennyworth?"
+
+"Not me."
+
+"Why didn't yer?"
+
+"'Cause I hadn't got it."
+
+"Would yer if yer 'ad?"
+
+"Not me."
+
+"Why wouldn't yer?"
+
+"'Cause 'e was only a kiddin'."
+
+"'Ow d'ye know 'e was only a kiddin'?"
+
+"Anyone could tell 'e was."
+
+"Them other parties couldn't tell 'e was."
+
+"That's their look out."
+
+"'Ere's a bloke what's going to earn 'arfa-quid----"
+
+"'E warn't going to earn no 'arf-a-quid no more than you are."
+
+"If I wanted yer to lend me ninepence, would yer lend it me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why wouldn't yer?"
+
+"'Cause I 'aven't got it."
+
+"You never don't seem to 'ave nothink."
+
+"I 'ave as much as you, perhaps, once in a while."
+
+"I've just stood yer 'arf a pint."
+
+"And I've stood you 'arf a pint more than once, and more than twice."
+
+"I don't say you 'aven't." The original speaker turned to me. "If a
+friend was to ask you to lend 'im ninepence, wouldn't you lend it 'im?
+
+"That would depend on whether I had it."
+
+"You, being a gentleman, of course you would have it."
+
+I had finished my ale. I sidled towards the door.
+
+"I fear that does not necessarily follow."
+
+The man advanced.
+
+"Look 'ere, if I was to ask you to lend me ninepence----"
+
+"Excuse me. I'm afraid I must be off."
+
+And I was off.
+
+I have a moral conviction that if I had stayed much longer that man
+would have tried to wriggle ninepence out of me.
+
+
+
+
+                       A Battlefield Up-to-Date
+
+
+I said to Nowell at the time that I didn't altogether like the notion.
+He seemed astonished.
+
+"I thought you stipulated for something both novel and surprising?"
+
+"Yes," I admitted, "I did. But I do not want the roof blown off. I
+don't want either the novelty or the surprise to go so far as that.
+This is an evening party, Nowell. The persons present will be friends
+of mine."
+
+Nowell was sarcastic--almost rude. He appeared to be of opinion that
+"A Battlefield Up-to-Date, with Realistic Illustrations and
+Experiments," was just the theme for a drawing-room lecture.
+
+"Steingard," he observed, "is an enthusiast--a man in a million. Think
+of the kudos it will bring you to have the ideas of a man like that
+first given to the world upon your premises--your party'll be
+immortal. Steingard's theories will revolutionise the art of
+warfare--they'll amaze you."
+
+Steingard was the individual who was going to lecture. I never saw him
+before that fatal night--and I've never seen him since. He had better
+let me catch him.
+
+I did not mention to my wife what was to be the lecturer's theme until
+the actual morning of the appointed day--I had had my qualms all
+through. She at once remarked that the party would have to be
+postponed--or the lecture. She was not going to have cannons let off
+in her drawing-room--nor dynamite either. Was I insane? or was I
+merely a senseless idiot? Did I not know that the mere explosion of a
+pistol at the theatre brought her to the verge of hysterics? Did I or
+did anyone else suppose that machine-guns discharging two thousand
+shots a minute could be fired with impunity at her guests? Was that my
+notion of an evening party? If so, perhaps I had better let the people
+know before they came.
+
+I assured her that there would not be any machine-guns nor
+dynamite--nor, indeed, anything of the kind. Nowell had given me his
+word of honour that there would be no explosives of any sort. What
+there would be I did not know, but I had obtained a distinct guarantee
+that there would be nothing to "go off." Still, I went to Nowell to
+tell him I thought that perhaps after all the lecture had better be
+put off. Only as he turned out to be out of town, and I didn't know
+Steingard's address, I felt that all I could do would be to hope for
+the best.
+
+If I had had the faintest shadow of a notion of what that best would
+be!
+
+As soon as the guests began to arrive I perceived that the little
+programme I had arranged to open the evening with was not altogether
+relished.
+
+"Well, Mr. Parker," asked Mrs. Griffin, as I met her at the door,
+"what are you going to give us this time to amuse us till the dancing
+begins? Your ideas are always so original. Last year you gave us that
+beautiful little play."
+
+"And this year I am going to give you something novel and surprising.
+The distinguished scientist, Steingard, will give you a vivid
+impressionistic picture of a battle up-to-date, as it will exist under
+conditions created by himself."
+
+"Oh!" She looked a trifle blank. "And where is he going to give it
+us--in here?"
+
+She glanced round the room, as if she felt that, for an exhibition of
+that particular kind, space was a little restricted. I admitted to
+myself that the apartment was getting filled. My wife's mother became
+quite excited directly she heard what was about to take place.
+
+"My goodness gracious, Henry," she exclaimed, "whatever do you mean?
+You know I am so sensitive that I cannot bear the slightest allusion
+to war and bloodshed. I shall insist on remaining in Louisa's bedroom
+till all is over."
+
+And she did insist--showing herself to be wiser than she supposed. As
+I gradually became conscious that others would have insisted had they
+not feared the appearance of rudeness, I felt that Nowell had been an
+ass in supposing that such a subject would fitly usher in a little
+dance, and that I had been another in not snubbing him upon the spot.
+So, as Steingard was behind his time, I decided that when he did come
+I would ask him to stop and join the party and have a bit of supper,
+and just casually as it were put off the lecture to some future
+occasion.
+
+But I was not prepared for the kind of man Steingard proved himself to
+be.
+
+Directly he arrived I ran out into the street and found him getting
+out of a four-wheeled cab, the top of which was covered with large
+wooden cases.
+
+"You are Mr. Steingard? Delighted to meet you. You are a little
+late; so, as we're just beginning dancing, I think we'll have the
+lecture some time next week. But of course you'll stop and join
+the--eh--festive throng?"
+
+"Your name is Barker?"
+
+I explained that my name was Parker. He spoke with a strong foreign
+accent, and in a tone of voice which I instinctively disliked. He was
+about six and a half feet high, and had a moustache which stood out
+three inches on either side of his face; not at all the sort of
+looking person with whom one would care to quarrel.
+
+"I have not come to be made a fool of," he remarked. "I have come to
+give a lecture, and that lecture I will give!"
+
+And he gave it. It is all very well to say that when I saw what sort
+of man he was I ought not to have let him into the house. But he was
+invited, and I have the instincts of a gentleman. So they hauled four
+great wooden cases up the stairs. It took six strong men to do it;
+they broke the banisters and knocked pieces out of the wall as they
+went. When the cases were opened they proved to be full of bottles of
+all sorts, shapes, sizes, and colours.
+
+"Reminds you of the old Polytechnic. Do you remember the Leyden jars
+they used to have?"
+
+When George Foster said that in a sort of whisper I thought of
+Edison's ideas of the dreadful part which electricity might be made to
+play in modern warfare. I did not require any illustrations of
+electrocution in my house, so I asked the lecturer a question.
+
+"I suppose it has nothing to do with electricity?"
+
+"Electricity? It is not electricity which kills men like flies, do not
+believe it. It is what I have in here."
+
+He waved his hand towards his bottles. His manner was not reassuring.
+
+"And of course there's nothing explosive?"
+
+"Explosive? What have I to do with explosives?--ask of yourself. It is
+not dynamite, it is not melinite, it is not cordite which destroys
+millions. It is noding of the kind. The Great Death is in these
+bottles."
+
+He said this in a way which made me quite uncomfortable--it was most
+unsuited to an evening party. Every moment I liked the fellow less and
+less, towards his bottles I felt an absolute aversion. I own that my
+impulse would have been to have sneaked out into the street and
+strolled round the square till the lecture was finished. But as I
+occupied the position of host I was in duty bound to see it through.
+And I did. Shall I ever forget it? Anything more monstrous than
+Nowell's idea of what was a fitting prelude to a little party I never
+yet encountered.
+
+The lecturer commenced. He was as grave as a judge. It gave you the
+creeps to hear him. There was nothing humorous about him; he was a
+dreadful man. His accent was peculiar.
+
+"In modern warfare de battle is not to de soldier, it is to de
+ghemist. I will prove it to you very easily. I have here dree bottles.
+They are little bottles"--they were, quite small--"yet I have only to
+take de stoppers out and you will know it as certainly as if I had
+exploded dree dynamite bombs."
+
+I am sure the people paled, it was enough to make them.
+
+"De first bottle will make you cough, de second will affect your
+eyesight, and de dird bottle will make you ill. I will soon show to
+you dat I am not lying. From de first bottle I will now take de
+stopper."
+
+He did, before anyone could stop him; in fact, before I, for one, had
+any idea of what it was that he was driving at. Directly he did so the
+atmosphere of the room became impregnated with an acrid odour which
+had a most irritating effect on the tonsils of the throat. Whether the
+man was a maniac or not, to this hour I have not certainly decided;
+but there he stood, the stopper in his hand, the atmosphere growing
+worse and worse, my guests staring at him with scared faces, every
+second increasing their sense of discomfort. One person began to
+cough, then another, then another, until presently everyone was
+coughing as I doubt if they had ever coughed before. It was a horrid
+spectacle. As for me--my throat is uncomfortably sensitive--I expected
+every moment I should choke.
+
+"Did I not say," observed the scoundrel Steingard, "dat de first
+bottle would make you cough? I will now replace de stopper."
+
+He replaced it. By degrees that peculiar acrid quality in the air
+became less prominent. People began to recover--just in time. It is my
+belief that if they had continued to cough much longer something
+serious would have happened. As it was several of them were too
+exhausted to be able to give expression to their feelings in audible
+speech.
+
+"I will now remove de stopper from de second bottle."
+
+Had I been able to do so I should have prevented him, even at the risk
+of a scene--I am sure I should, I don't care who denies it. But the
+truth is I was so shaken that it was all I could do to stand, and
+before I was sufficiently recovered to allow of my interference the
+miscreant had worked his wicked will. He had unstoppered bottle No. 2,
+and for the former acrid odour there was substituted a pungent
+something which affected one like an unusual kind of smelling-salts.
+One's eyes not only began to water, they continued to water. They
+watered more and more. The tears trickled down our noses. We had to
+use our pocket-handkerchiefs to mop them up with. The more we mopped
+the more they flowed. It was ludicrous. We were literally blinded by
+our tears. Nothing could have been more out of place in a jovial
+gathering. For my part my lachrymal ducts were acted on to such an
+extraordinary extent that I could see nothing. I endured the acme of
+discomfort.
+
+"Did I not say," remarked the experimental Steingard--he spoke as if
+he were uttering the merest commonplace!--"dat de second bottle would
+affect de eyesight? Did I choose, de mere continuation of de stopper
+out of de bottle in de end would make you blind. But for our purpose
+to-night it is not necessary to go so far as dat. We will now pass on
+to de dird bottle."
+
+"Pardon me, sir--excuse me for one moment!" The interruption came from
+General Wheeler, and evinced considerable presence of mind. Steingard
+paused with his hand upon the stopper. The General went on. "Did I
+understand you to say that the effect of unstoppering that other
+bottle will be to make us ill?"
+
+"Yes, my friend, dat is so. I am now about to show it to you."
+
+"You needn't, it is unnecessary. I'm ill already. So ill, indeed, that
+I shall send for a physician the instant I reach home. And I'm going
+home at once. If this is a party it's the first I've ever been to, and
+I'll take my oath it shall be the last. Now, Mrs. Wheeler! Now,
+Augusta! Philippa! Mary! Matilda! Lucy! you girls! George! Frederic!
+Ferdinand! you boys, put your things on and come away with me at once.
+We're not going to stop here to be slaughtered by way of illustrating
+a murderous lecture on warfare up-to-date."
+
+And the General began to collect his numerous progeny with what was,
+undoubtedly, a considerable show of heat. That he should have been
+moved to such behaviour in my house was most distressing. My wife
+regards the Wheelers as being among the most distinguished of her
+acquaintance--though an uglier lot of girls I never saw. But the
+General was not the only person who felt himself outraged--I wish he
+had been.
+
+"Oh!--oh!--oh! Take me out of this dreadful house before I faint!"
+
+That's what my wife's aunt, Mrs. Merridew, said before the whole
+assemblage--and from that particular aunt my wife has always had the
+most sanguine expectations. Of course, when she went on like that, my
+wife began at me--there are occasions on which Louisa has no sense of
+propriety, nor of justice either.
+
+"This is Mr. Parker's idea of a little surprise! You can always rely
+on Mr. Parker doing anything to please his friends! When Mr. Parker's
+in sight you never need look far for a fool!"
+
+That was the sort of remark she kept making--out loud; it was most
+annoying. I endeavoured to calm her, and the General, and Mrs.
+Merridew, and others--for I was pained to see that a general feeling
+of unrest was making itself unpleasantly obvious. While I was
+striving, as it were, to spread oil upon the troubled waters, the
+voice of the miscreant Steingard was heard to observe:
+
+"I will now remove de stopper from de dird bottle. If de ladies and
+gentlemen will keep deir seats dey will be de better able to
+abbreciate de success of dis exberiment."
+
+In a moment the room was filled with a perfume--I use the word
+advisedly!--of a kind which no pen could adequately describe. Never
+did I come across anything of the sort before--it was astounding.
+Most of the people had been standing up; there and then they most of
+them sat down again--they had to. I noticed the General drop back on
+to his chair with a kind of gasp. Folks looked at each other with
+startled faces; they looked at me; they looked at the lecturer--that
+bottle fiend; they looked about them dumbly, as if in search of
+something--speech was impossible while that bottle remained
+unstoppered. Their countenances were transfigured--it is really no
+exaggeration to say that they turned most of the colours of the
+rainbow. Some crammed their handkerchiefs into their mouths; some
+pinched their nostrils between their fingers; some clapped their hands
+to the pits of their stomachs. Nothing they could do was the slightest
+protection against the mephitic vapours which issued from that
+unstoppered bottle. It was a moving spectacle to see those people all
+bent double--especially if you regarded it from the point of view of
+the host, and remembered that you had invited them to an evening
+party.
+
+At last--it seemed a long at last to me, but I suppose, after all, it
+could only have been a second or two--at last those against the door
+began to shuffle through it--when they were once through they never
+stopped till they had rushed downstairs and were out into the street.
+Others followed, a tottering crew, so that by degrees the room was
+emptied, and finally--a happy finally!--my guests, my wife, and I
+stood, a shivering crowd, on the windblown pavement.
+
+At this point the demon Steingard came out on the landing and shouted
+to us, so that we heard him in the street.
+
+"Did I not say de dird bottle would make you ill? Very well den--is it
+not true? Has it not routed you--like a flock of sheep? Just so would
+it rout an army. Not all de armies of all de nations would stand
+against dat bottle when it was unstobbered. Now, ladies and gentlemen,
+if you will return I will bass on to a fresh branch of my subject--or,
+rather, I will commence my subject brober, and I will show you dings
+combared to which that bottle is as noding--noding at all. You shall
+see if I am lying."
+
+That frightful threat finished it; settled the affair out of hand;
+concluded it at once. Nothing thereafter could have persuaded my
+guests to stand upon the order of their going. They went at
+once--before the party had had a chance of starting. It was worse than
+a catastrophe--it was a cataclysm. I can only trust that such a
+disaster is unparalleled in the history of festive gatherings. I had
+not the heart to attempt to stay their going. I was too demoralised,
+both physically and mentally. The impression made upon me by that
+third bottle was an enduring one.
+
+When I returned into the house the creature who was the cause of all
+the trouble was still standing on the landing. He appeared unconscious
+of the deeds which he had done.
+
+"I am waiting. Do not de ladies and gentlemen return?"
+
+"Mr. Steingard," I said, with as much firmness as at that moment I had
+it in my power to display, "come downstairs and bring your bottles
+with you."
+
+He seemed at a loss to understand my meaning.
+
+"My friend, what do you mean? My lecture is hardly begun--my lecture
+brober not at all."
+
+"Begun!" I screamed. "Begun!--It's finished!--So's the party!"
+
+He actually betrayed symptoms of irritation.
+
+"Noding of de kind--what you know of it? I have still sixty-seven
+bottles with which I wish to try my little experiments."
+
+That was enough for me. Still sixty-seven bottles! And, for all I
+knew, or for anything I could do to prevent him, he might unstopper
+them, not only one by one, but all together, and at any moment. Half a
+dozen policemen were outside--they had gathered together under the
+apparent impression that in my establishment a riotous assemblage was
+taking place. I called three or four of them into the house. I pointed
+to Mr. Steingard on the landing.
+
+"Put that man outside--with his bottles!"
+
+A painful and, I may add, an expensive scene ensued. But at last there
+was an end of Steingard, and of the party.
+
+The next day I called on Nowell. He had returned to town.
+
+"Nowell," I asked, more in sorrow than in anger, "what induced you to
+suppose that 'A Battlefield Up-to-Date, with Realistic Illustrations
+and Experiments,' would be a suitable subject for an evening party?"
+
+He put his feet on the table and his hands in his pockets, and he
+rattled his coppers--and he smiled.
+
+"Well, you see, my dear Parker, I wasn't invited. I am aware that it
+was an oversight--the purest oversight. But, of course, if I had been
+invited I should not have recommended Steingard's lecture."
+
+I was aware he had not been invited--perfectly aware. There had been
+no oversight about it. The man is not a member of our social circle.
+We had never meant to invite him. But to think that merely on that
+account he should have played us such a trick!
+
+It just shows what an amount of malevolence is hidden away in the
+depths of human nature.
+
+At the present moment I am scarcely on speaking terms with a single
+one of my old friends. They all seem to think that I did it on
+purpose.
+
+
+
+
+                         Mr. Harland's Pupils
+
+
+                                  I.
+
+Mr. Harland's first pupil from America made his appearance at Mulberry
+House School under rather peculiar circumstances. Mr. Harland received
+one morning this tersely-worded note:--
+
+
+                              "219, Twentieth Street, New York.
+
+"Sir,--I have the honour to inform you that I am shipping my son, John
+F. Ernest, to your academy. He will arrive per s.s. _Germanic_. I have
+decided to educate him in England. Please acknowledge enclosed bank
+draft, value two hundred and fifty dollars ($250), in payment of six
+months' fees. Any sum in excess, to the amount of one hundred dollars
+($100), will be paid, on demand, by my agents, Messrs. Rödenheim, of
+London.
+
+                           "Yours faithfully,
+
+                                         "J. Bindon.
+
+"P.S.--John F. Ernest to stay the holidays."
+
+
+Mr. Harland received this communication by the morning post, and on
+the afternoon of the same day there appeared at Mulberry House the
+John F. Ernest thus alluded to. He was a slender, fair-haired boy,
+about twelve or thirteen years of age. He was self-possessed enough
+for thirty. He had come quite alone, he explained to the schoolmaster
+and the schoolmaster's wife. Apparently he, a tender child just in his
+teens, thought no more of travelling from America to England than the
+lady thought of travelling from her own village to the next. It is
+generally understood that at least the elementary education to be
+obtained in the United States is not to be despised. When asked why
+his father had sent him to England to get what he would have got
+equally well at home:
+
+"I rather guess," replied John F. Ernest, "that my pa, he was raised
+at Duddenham."
+
+Mulberry House School was situated on the outskirts of the delightful
+village of Duddenham. Mr. and Mrs. Harland glanced at one another. It
+almost seemed that it was as they feared. A J. Bindon, otherwise
+"Jolly Jack," had been known at Duddenham, not wisely, nor in any way
+pleasantly, but far too well. Although he had removed himself, for
+the good of Duddenham, some fourteen or fifteen years before, his
+memory--which had a strong savour--lingered still. However, Mr. and
+Mrs. Harland allowed no hint to escape them that that J. Bindon might
+be in any way connected with the father of John F. Ernest.
+
+The term passed away. During the holidays the Harlands went to enjoy
+the ozone-laden breezes at Bielsham-by-the-Sea. While they were
+staying there Mr. Harland received a second letter from America, a
+communication which was, in some respects, a colourable imitation of
+the first.
+
+
+                              "219, Twentieth Street, New York.
+
+"Sir,--I have the honour to inform you that I am shipping my son, John
+F. Stanley, to your academy. He will arrive per s.s. _Aurania_. I have
+decided to educate him in England. Please acknowledge enclosed bank
+draft for two hundred and fifty dollars ($250) in payment of six
+months' fees. Any sum in excess, to the amount of one hundred dollars
+($100), will be paid, on demand, by my agents, Messrs. Rödenheim, of
+London.
+
+                                  "Yours faithfully,
+
+                                                "J. Bindon.
+
+"P.S.--You will also receive, per same ship, my son, John R. Stephen.
+Enclosed find second draft ($250). For balance, apply Messrs.
+Rödenheim."
+
+
+"Mr. Bindon," observed Mr. Harland when he had finished reading this
+epistle, "appears to be rather a curious man."
+
+"What is the matter?" inquired his wife. "Is he going to withdraw that
+son of his?"
+
+"Not exactly. He has 'shipped'--the word is his own--two more. The
+second, who is 'shipped' in a postscript, is, apparently, a sort of
+afterthought."
+
+When the lady and gentleman returned to Mulberry House the new-comers
+had arrived. The three Masters Bindon were interviewed together. One
+thing about them was noticeable--that they were all about the same
+age.
+
+"How old are you?" asked the lady, addressing one of the strangers.
+
+"Twelve."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I'm twelve."
+
+"Then," said the lady, "I suppose you are twins."
+
+They did not look as though they were twins. One was big, and black,
+and bony; the other was short, and fat, and red. Still, as they both
+were twelve, and they were brothers--
+
+"Twins?" said the red-haired lad. "I'm no twin. He's not my brother."
+He turned upon the two other Masters Bindon with scorn in his eyes.
+"They're neither of them my brothers. I disown them."
+
+"John R. Stephen," remarked John F. Ernest, slipping his hand into
+that of the black-haired Master Bindon, "is my brother. John F.
+Stanley has disowned us from the first."
+
+"Yes," said Rufus, "and I'll disown you to the last."
+
+"You wait," observed the black-haired Master Bindon, whose claim to
+fraternity was thus denied, "till we get outside. I'll rub you down
+with a rail."
+
+"I hope," said Mrs. Harland, when the Masters Bindon had withdrawn, "I
+do hope, Andrew, that there is nothing wrong."
+
+"Pooh!" replied her husband. But when he was alone he rubbed his chin
+and murmured _sotto voce_, "It strikes me that there's not much
+difference between J. Bindon and 'Jolly Jack.'"
+
+He thought that there might be even less than he had imagined when one
+day, before the term was half-way through, he received a cablegram
+from New York:
+
+
+"Son coming _Batavia_, Forgot to write. Draw Rödenheim. BINDON."
+
+The son came. He proved to be John G. William. He, too, had just
+turned twelve. He did not seem pleased to see his brothers. Nor, to
+tell the truth, did they appear overjoyed at sight of him. He was a
+lad with a round bullet-shaped head, and was extraordinarily broad
+across the shoulders. He had not been twenty-four hours in the house
+before he had fought and thrashed the three other Masters Bindon. It
+was not surprising, when it was seen how he had damaged them, that his
+relatives, knowing his tastes and his capacity, had not welcomed him
+with open arms.
+
+At tea Mrs. Harland, who had observant eyes, noticed that John F.
+Ernest was minus one of his front teeth. She inquired how he had lost
+it.
+
+"John G. William, ma'am, has knocked it out."
+
+"John G. William! Do you mean your brother who arrived to-day?"
+
+John F. Ernest explained that he did.
+
+Mrs. Harland, looking down the table, observed another Master Bindon
+whose eye looked queer. "How, my boy, did you manage to get that black
+eye?"
+
+"John G. William," replied the black-haired--and black-eyed--youth.
+
+"John G. William!" The lady, still allowing her glances to wander,
+lighted on a third Master Bindon, whose face was so dreadfully
+disfigured that it really made recognition difficult. "Good gracious!"
+she exclaimed. "What has happened to the child?"
+
+This Master Bindon was the red-haired youth. He looked at the lady as
+well as the damaged state of his "optics" would permit. He uttered the
+ubiquitous name, "John G. William." Then he added, "He's been fighting
+us. And, d----n him! he always is."
+
+John G. William volunteered a statement on his own account.
+
+"I told father I should lick 'em. He said he shouldn't be surprised
+but what they wanted it, and so I might."
+
+It seemed curious for a father to give his son permission to "lick"
+his brothers, whom he was travelling 4000 miles to meet. Such conduct
+on the part of a father was scarcely in accordance with the traditions
+of Mulberry House. But the behaviour of the Masters Bindon one towards
+the other, not only now and then but as an invariable rule, was in
+itself a curiosity.
+
+"Those Bindons," Mr. Harland told himself, some short time after the
+arrival of the latest comer, "are certainly the most remarkable boys I
+ever remember to have met, especially John G. William."
+
+But Mr. Harland had not become acquainted with all the peculiarities
+of the Bindon family yet.
+
+One morning, perhaps six weeks after the advent of John G. William,
+Mr. Harland, coming in to breakfast, noticed, seated at table with his
+pupils, a boy who was to him a stranger. On that occasion Mr. Harland
+happened to be a couple of minutes late. The meal had been begun
+before he entered the room. As he came in, seated at the other side of
+the table, facing him, placidly eating his bread and butter, was this
+boy. He was a very thin boy, with high projecting cheek-bones and
+light hair, cut very close. He wore a pair of spectacles, or rather,
+they would have been a pair if one of the glasses had not happened to
+be broken. Altogether there was something about him which suggested
+that he had quite recently been engaged in a discussion of an animated
+character.
+
+"Hollo!" cried Mr. Harland. "Who are you?"
+
+"I am John P. Arthur Bindon."
+
+His accent was nasal, undoubtedly the product of the land of the stars
+and stripes.
+
+"Who?" repeated Mr. Harland, seeming a little puzzled.
+
+"John P. Arthur Bindon." The boy took off his spectacles. "John G.
+William's broken one of my glasses. He's been licking me."
+
+Mr. Harland looked about him, plainly at a loss. Mr. Moore, the usher,
+took his glance as containing an inquiry.
+
+"I found him with the rest of the pupils in the playground."
+
+"Oh," repeated Mr. Harland, "you found him with the rest of the pupils
+in the playground."
+
+"I rather reckoned to find the others here," drawled the short-sighted
+youth, as, very carefully, he replaced the broken spectacles upon his
+nose. "We didn't agree. I guess they're on the road."
+
+"Is this"--Mr. Harland addressed his question to one of the other
+Masters Bindon--"is this your brother?"
+
+"I disown him," answered Rufus, on whom the principal's glance
+happened to fall. "I disown 'em all."
+
+"He is my brother," struck in the shrill piping treble of John F.
+Ernest, "though he is the meanest-minded boy that ever put on shoes."
+
+"I am not ashamed to admit," remarked John P. Arthur, still adjusting
+his broken spectacles, "that I appreciate the value of money. I have
+walked from Liverpool to save the charges."
+
+"You have walked from Liverpool?"
+
+"I understand it is a distance in the neighbourhood of one hundred and
+fifty miles. I have worn out a pair of boots. Still, I reckon I have
+saved better than half a dollar, net."
+
+Mr. Harland took John P. Arthur up into his study. There the young
+gentleman explained.
+
+"There was another row, so father decided to ship off three more of
+us. I rather think he must have forgotten to write, owing to the
+pressure of his business."
+
+"Does your father keep an orphanage?"
+
+John P. Arthur stared. "I never heard of it."
+
+"Did you say he had shipped off three more of you? May I ask, then,
+where are the other two?"
+
+"I left them at Liverpool. We didn't agree. I should calculate they're
+gone upon the burst. We each had twenty-five dollars and our fares."
+John P. Arthur slapped the inner pocket of his coat. "I've still got
+my twenty-five, besides half a dollar saved out of my fare."
+
+"May I ask the names of your two missing brothers?"
+
+"One is John A. Francis, and the other--I forget the other's name."
+
+It was Mr. Harland's turn to stare.
+
+"You forget your brother's name?"
+
+"There are such a lot of them that one gets mixed."
+
+"I quite concede that there do appear to be a lot of them, and that
+one may get mixed, but still--your brother's name! May I ask the ages
+of the young gentlemen whom you presume have gone upon the burst?
+About your own?"
+
+"I should say John A. Francis is younger than me. I fought him three
+times as we were crossing. I licked each time. He must be younger."
+
+"And the young gentleman whose name you don't happen to remember?"
+
+"He's older. He bangs me easy. Just picks me up and knocks me down. I
+reckon John G. William will find him pretty tough."
+
+While Mr. Harland had been talking to John P. Arthur he had been
+paying no attention to his letters. When he turned to them he found
+that among them there were two which threw some light upon the
+proceedings of the missing Masters Bindon. Here is the first:
+
+
+                                      "The Barracks, Liverpool.
+
+"Sir,--At our Holiness Meeting on Tuesday--Alleluia!--there came in a
+new recruit. He gave his name as Thompson Symes, and said that he was
+seventeen. He now says that his name is John A. Francis Bindon, and
+that his age is twelve. He originally stated that he was a pickpocket,
+and had been nine times in jail. He now says that he has never been in
+jail, but that he has been sent by his father in America to be a pupil
+in your school. We shall be obliged if you will inform us if you know
+anything of a boy named John A. Francis Bindon. We fear that his
+present statement is as false as the others he has made. Alleluia!--G.
+Smith, _Major_."
+
+
+Here is the second:
+
+
+     "Office Of The Society For The
+        Reclamation Of Juvenile Beggars,
+
+                                 "Liverpool.
+
+"Sir,--A boy who was charged this afternoon at the Liverpool Police
+Court with the offence of begging tells a somewhat remarkable story.
+He has been remanded to the workhouse for a week to enable us to
+inquire into the truth of what he says.
+
+"He is four feet seven inches in height, dark hair, pale face, and he
+has a deep scar upon his left cheek. Speaks with a decided American
+accent.
+
+"He states that his name is John B. David Bindon, that he left New
+York on board the steamship _Ocean Star_, in company with his two
+brothers. The names of these two brothers he declares that he forgets,
+alleging that he has so many brothers that he cannot remember all
+their names. He says that they were coming from New York to be pupils
+in your school. On board ship they disagreed, and at Liverpool they
+parted. He does not know what became of his two brothers. He says that
+he himself had twenty-five dollars in his pockets in American
+currency. Part of this he spent upon confectionery and sweets, until
+he made some acquaintances in the street, who took him to what appears
+to have been a disreputable house. There they robbed him, not only of
+his money, but also of his clothes. They kept him, so he states,
+locked up for three days, only releasing him on his promising to
+appeal for alms, and on his undertaking to bring back the proceeds of
+his appeal. No sooner, according to his statement, did he commence to
+beg than he was given into custody.
+
+"If you know anything, whether for good or ill, of a boy named John B.
+David Bindon, I should be obliged by your communicating at once with
+me at these offices. I have had much experience in these cases, and I
+think myself that the boy's story, strange though it seems, contains
+at least some portion of truth. Awaiting your early favour,
+
+                    "I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
+
+                             "Edward Everest, _Secretary_."
+
+
+When Mr. Harland showed these letters to his wife, and told her John
+P. Arthur's story, the lady was, not unnaturally, surprised.
+
+"Andrew, I am sure there is something wrong about those Bindons! There
+will be a scandal if you don't take care! I never heard of such a
+thing! Don't tell me that any man can have seven sons, all of an age!
+It's incredible on the face of the thing!"
+
+Mr. Harland communicated with Mr. Smith and Mr. Everest. The two
+missing Masters Bindon appeared at Duddenham. They were given into the
+charge of the guard at Liverpool; the schoolmaster himself met them at
+the village station.
+
+"Them boys," observed the guard, as he handed over his charges to the
+principal of Mulberry House, "them boys is nice ones."
+
+Ten minutes after their appearance in the playground John G. William
+was having it out with John B. David.
+
+"Andrew," called Mrs. Harland from an upper room, "those Bindons are
+fighting again."
+
+"I see they are."
+
+As a matter of fact the uproar had attracted her husband to his study
+window.
+
+"They are an interesting family."
+
+He stood at the window for a second or two observing the fray.
+
+"I fancy that in John B. David John G. William has met his match. It
+is perhaps as well that he should."
+
+He was aware, from previous experience, that if he interfered in one
+of the family discussions it would only be renewed at the earliest
+opportunity. As he was wondering whether it would not be as well to
+let them fight it out and have done with it, at any rate for the time,
+a servant entered the room with a letter in her hand. The principal
+opened it. It was a cablegram:
+
+
+"Forgot to advise last shipment. Three. Draw Rödenheim.--Bindon."
+
+
+"'What sort of a family can that be," inquired the schoolmaster of
+himself, "which is so large that the father overlooks such a trifling
+detail as the sending of three of his sons, all of tender years,
+unescorted, across the Atlantic Ocean? And when, a month after their
+departure, the incident does occur to his mind, he contents himself
+with sending nine words--and nine such words--in a telegram. I think I
+will go up in person to Messrs. Rödenheim, and make a few inquiries."
+
+He made them, but he received little information in return. Messrs.
+Rödenheim received him with courtesy. They informed him that, up to a
+certain amount, they were instructed to honour his calls; that Mr.
+Bindon was a client of theirs, financially, of the highest standing.
+But as to his family affairs: they were simply bankers, and as such
+Mr. Harland could not suppose that they concerned themselves with the
+family affairs of their customers.
+
+"One thing seems pretty clear," said Mr. Harland to his wife, when he
+returned to Mulberry House. "There appears, in the case of the
+prolific parent of the Bindons, to be plenty of money, and that is
+more than can be said in the case of the parents of all my boys. I
+don't see myself, Maria, why I should object to there being seven, or
+even seventy brothers in a family, especially if the father of the
+seventy is a good paymaster, and all the seventy come to me."
+
+"Of course there's that to be said."
+
+"There's very much that to be said. The terms in my prospectus are
+thirty guineas per annum for boys of twelve, a reduction to be made
+for brothers. I have to make a reduction sometimes when there are no
+brothers. In this case there are actually _seven_ brothers, and,
+instead of being called upon to make a reduction--some fathers would
+want you to take the seven as though they were four!--I receive one
+hundred pounds a year with each, besides extras."
+
+Mr. Harland smiled as he thought of the sum which he had drawn that
+day from Messrs. Rödenheim.
+
+"No doubt that's nice enough."
+
+"I don't know if you're aware that I receive more from those seven
+Bindons than from all the rest of my pupils put together. Under those
+circumstances I don't see how it concerns me if their father has a
+peculiar habit of shipping his offspring as though they were barrels
+of pork, and then forgetting to 'advise' me, as he calls it, of his
+'shipments'!"
+
+"But will it last?"
+
+"Will what last? The Bindons? Are you afraid that John G. William will
+knock the rest of the family all to pieces? I don't think there is
+much fear of that now that John B. David has appeared upon the scene.
+It strikes me from what I have heard and seen that he will perform
+upon John G. William. I noticed at tea that John G. William's
+countenance seemed to be a little the worse for wear."
+
+"But suppose tales got about, and the parents of the other boys
+objected to the presence of the Bindons--they certainly are the most
+remarkable children, for brothers too, I ever saw--and the other boys
+were taken away, and then the Bindons went, the school would have lost
+its character."
+
+Mr. Harland reflected for a moment.
+
+"I think I'll take the risk, Maria. So far as I am myself concerned I
+only hope that Mr. Bindon may 'ship' another seven."
+
+The wish was father to the thought. Mr. Bindon shipped them. Not a
+fortnight after that discussion Mr. Harland had this letter:
+
+
+                              "219, Twentieth Street, New York.
+
+"Sir,--I am shipping, per s.s. _City of Thay_, an assorted lot of five
+sons. My final selection not being yet made I am unable to advise you
+as to their names. For fees please draw, on their arrival, on Messrs.
+Rödenheim.
+
+                                  "Yours faithfully,
+
+                                            "J. Bindon.
+
+"P.S.--Probably the lot may consist of seven."
+
+
+"Maria," said Mr. Harland, when he handed this epistle to his wife,
+"Mr. Bindon is a truly remarkable man."
+
+The lady read the letter.
+
+"Andrew, what does he mean? 'An assorted lot of five sons. Probably
+the lot may consist of seven.' I take my stand, Andrew, and I
+insist upon an explanation. I will not have this man shooting his
+children--or what he calls his children--into my house as though they
+were coals. Seven sons all of an age were hard to swallow, but at
+fourteen I draw the line."
+
+"You're not a philosopher, Maria. At the rate of a hundred pounds a
+head I shouldn't draw the line at forty."
+
+"Andrew, don't talk to me like that. Who is this man? And what is the
+mystery connected with his children? Did I tell you that the other
+morning I asked John P. Arthur how many brothers he had, and he said
+that he didn't know, there were always such a lot of fresh ones
+turning up?"
+
+Mr. Harland rubbed his chin.
+
+"I don't know, Maria, what difference it makes to us whether the boys
+we receive as pupils are the sons of Brown or Jones. It is not as
+though we went in for anything special in the way of birth and family.
+It isn't even as though we confined ourselves to the sons of so-called
+gentlemen. Mine is a middle-class school. In these days of competition
+with the Board Schools one cannot choose one's pupils. I always
+welcome the sons of tradesmen, and I am quite sure I shall be always
+glad to receive any number of pupils at a hundred pounds a head, no
+matter who they are."
+
+Probably, on reflection, Mrs. Harland fell into her husband's views.
+At dinner the principal of Mulberry House School made an announcement
+which, while it was of an interesting, was, at the same time, of a
+curious kind. It was when the pudding had been served.
+
+"Boys, you will be glad to hear that I expect to receive, either
+to-day or to-morrow, five new pupils, and probably seven, but of the
+seven I am not quite sure. This piece of news should be specially
+interesting to the Masters Bindon, since the new pupils are their
+brothers." The headmaster's words were received with silence--possibly
+the silence of surprise. "I don't think that there is any other school
+in Europe which can claim to have had under its roof, at one and the
+same time, twelve brothers, and perhaps fourteen."
+
+Up spake Rufus--John F. Stanley:
+
+"I disown 'em," he observed; "I disown 'em all."
+
+Mr. Harland smiled.
+
+"But it does not follow because you disown them--which I am sorry to
+hear, because perhaps one of these days they may turn the tables and
+disown you--that therefore they are not your brothers."
+
+"But they're not my brothers, not one of all the lot of them. I'm the
+only son."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Harland with gentle sarcasm, as his eyes, wandering
+round the table, rested on the other six; "I should say you were the
+only son."
+
+Two days passed. There were still no signs of the latest "shipment."
+On previous occasions the Masters Bindon had appeared at Mulberry
+House within a few hours of the receipt of the "advice."
+
+"I hope," suggested the principal to his wife when, on the evening of
+the second day, there was still no news, "that this is not another
+case of 'going on the burst.'"
+
+On the afternoon of the following day Mrs. Harland was working in her
+own apartment, when the servant came rushing in. There was in the
+maid's bearing a suggestion of suppressed excitement.
+
+"If you please, ma'am, there are a lot of little girls downstairs."
+
+"A lot of little girls! What do they want?"
+
+"If you please, ma'am, I don't know. I think they're foreigners. They
+say they've come to school."
+
+The servant giggled. Mrs. Harland rose.
+
+"Come to school! There must be some mistake. Where are they?"
+
+"They're in the hall. And if you please, ma'am, there are three flies
+full of luggage."
+
+Mrs. Harland went downstairs. A crowd of small girls were grouped
+together in the hall, varying in ages perhaps from six to fourteen.
+
+The lady addressed herself to the largest.
+
+"What is it you want?"
+
+"We've come to school."
+
+Mrs. Harland smiled.
+
+"But this is a school for young gentlemen. No doubt you are looking
+for Miss Simpson's, Burlington House Academy. The flyman ought to have
+known."
+
+"He said Mulberry House. He wrote it down."
+
+The young lady held a piece of paper. She handed it to Mrs. Harland.
+On it were some words, inscribed in a handwriting which was becoming
+almost too familiar. At sight of it the lady felt an inward qualm.
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Clara Mary Dixon."
+
+Unconsciously the lady gave a sigh of relief. It was not the name
+which she had dreaded.
+
+"I'm sure there's some mistake."
+
+"There's no mistake." Suddenly the young lady put her handkerchief up
+to her eyes. Immediately all the other young ladies followed suit.
+"You're trying to play it off on us. He wrote it down himself, he did.
+We never thought he was going to ship us off to Europe just 'cause
+he'd married ma."
+
+The young ladies' voices' were raised in lamentation. The servants
+stood giggling by. The flymen grinned upon the doorstep. Mrs. Harland
+deemed it inadvisable to continue the interview in public.
+
+"Come this way." She led the way into the drawing-room. The weeping
+maidens followed. "Pray don't cry. The mistake, however it may have
+arisen, will soon be cleared up. Now tell me, where do you come from?"
+
+"New--York--City!"
+
+Mrs. Harland, when she received that answer, was conscious of another
+inward qualm.
+
+"Who sent you to England?"
+
+"Mr.--Bindon."
+
+The lady sat down on a chair. She stared in speechless silence at the
+new arrivals. Then, rising, she rang the bell. The servant appeared.
+
+"Tell your master I wish to speak to him in the drawing-room."
+
+Scarcely had the housemaid turned her back than there came a loud
+ringing at the front-door bell. Another servant entered--the cook--in
+her hand a cablegram. Mrs. Harland was conscious that the envelope was
+addressed to Mr. Harland. As a rule enclosures addressed to him she
+held inviolate, but on this occasion she broke the rule. She tore the
+envelope open with a hand which slightly trembled. With her eyes she
+devoured the words which were written on the sheet of paper it had
+contained:
+
+
+"Girls shipped by mistake. Boys following.--Bindon."
+
+
+Those were the words which had been flashed across the seas. She read
+them over and over again. It seemed as though she could not grasp
+their meaning. She still held the telegram extended in her hand when
+her husband entered the room. That gentleman paused upon the
+threshold. Retaining the handle of the door in his hand, he appeared
+to be making an effort to comprehend the meaning of the scene within.
+
+"What is it you want, Maria?"
+
+"I--I want nothing." The lady put her hand to her brow with a gesture
+which was almost tragic. "This is Mr. Bindon's latest shipment."
+
+She stretched out her hands towards the strangers in a manner which
+really was dramatic. The girls had dried their eyes to enable them,
+perhaps, to study Mr. Harland to better advantage. They stood in a
+row, the tallest at one end and the shortest at the other. The line of
+height descended in an agreeably graduated scale. Mr. Harland stared
+at the girls. Then he stared at his wife. "I don't understand," he
+said.
+
+"Read that!"
+
+The lady thrust the cablegram into his hand. He read it. He read it
+once, he read it twice, he read it even thrice. Then crumpling it up
+he thrust both hands into his trouser pockets and he whistled.
+
+"This is a pleasant state of things," he said.
+
+"Is that all you have to say?" inquired his wife.
+
+"Well, my dear, I may have a little more to say if you will give me a
+little time to reflect upon the situation. It is a situation which
+requires reflection." He stared at the row of girls in front of him.
+He reflected. "This is a truly pleasant state of things. Your father,
+young ladies----"
+
+"He is not our father," interposed the tallest of the row, Clara Mary.
+
+"Not your father? Mr. Bindon is not your father?" Mr. Harland referred
+to the crumpled cablegram. "I am afraid that again I do not
+understand."
+
+"We're the Miss Dixons. Ma's a widow. Mr. Bindon shipped us off to
+Europe the very day he married her. We never knew that we were going
+till just before we started, and I don't believe Ma knew it either."
+
+Again the handkerchiefs were raised in a simultaneous row to tearful
+eyes.
+
+"J. Bindon," murmured Mr. Harland, "_must_ be Jolly Jack. You will be
+pleased to learn, young ladies," he added in a louder key, "that you
+have been shipped to Europe by mistake. I don't at this moment
+understand altogether how the mistake arose. There are eight of you--I
+perceive that there are eight--and one would think that a mistake to
+that extent would be one which it would be rather difficult to make.
+Still, you will be gratified to learn, it has been made. Mr. Bindon
+has telegraphed to tell me so. We expected a shipment to consist of an
+assorted lot of sons, possibly five--possibly seven. I am informed in
+the telegram that that shipment is following. But whether we are to
+return at once the shipment which consists of you, or whether, so to
+speak, we are to give it warehouse room, there are no instructions yet
+to hand."
+
+The row of girls stared at Mr. Harland, dry-eyed and open-mouthed.
+
+He spoke in a tongue which was strange to them.
+
+"Andrew," cried his wife, "I am ashamed of you! How can you talk like
+that!"
+
+Mr. Harland continued, almost as if he were speaking to himself. "It
+occurs to me that I have read somewhere, it was perhaps in some old
+book, that in American schools they run--I believe the term is a
+correct one--the boys and girls together. I hope Mr. Bindon is not
+under the impression that such a system obtains in Duddenham."
+
+"Andrew, it is shocking! Upon my word, I feel inclined to cry."
+
+"Do not cry, Maria; do not cry. Suppose, instead of crying, you come
+with me to the study, and let me say a word to you alone."
+
+"Andrew," cried the lady, as she closed the study door, "I really am
+ashamed of you. How can you say such things--a man in your position?"
+
+"A man in my position, Maria, is justified in saying anything, even
+damn. It is because my tongue inclines to adjectives, strong and pithy
+adjectives, that I endeavour to let off the steam in another way."
+
+"What are you going to do with those poor girls?"
+
+"What are you going to do, Maria? Girls are more in your line than
+mine."
+
+"I believe he's done it on purpose, that Bindon man. I don't believe
+it's possible to make such a mistake; shipping girls in mistake for
+boys, indeed!"
+
+"Not in the case of an ordinary family, Maria. But it is not an
+ordinary family, Mr. Bindon's." There was a pause. The lady walked
+excitedly up and down the room. The gentleman sat back in an
+arm-chair, his hands in his trouser pockets, his legs stretched out in
+front of him. "You will have to provide them with bed and with board,
+Maria, till we have turned the matter over in our minds, or till we
+have heard further from Mr. Bindon."
+
+They had to.
+
+They provided the young ladies with bed and board.
+
+"As," remarked Mr. Harland, when the days went by, and there still
+came no further instructions from America, "these young ladies bid
+fair to remain with us an indefinite length of time, I think, in order
+to do something which will entitle me to the proper fees, I will lay
+on something in the shape of a daily governess. They shall receive
+their education in the parlour. If Mr. Bindon could only see his way
+to making a few more errors in the 'shipment' line I might, on my
+part, see my way to running a school for young ladies in connection
+with my establishment for boys."
+
+The eight Misses Dixon arrived on a Tuesday. Nothing--that is, nothing
+unusual--happened during the whole of the ensuing week. But on the
+Wednesday week, eight days after their arrival, an incident, slightly
+out of the common way, did vary the monotony. A fly drove up to
+Mulberry House, and in it, on the back seat, sat a solitary boy. Mr.
+Harland happened to be leaving the house just as the fly drove up. He
+eyed the boy, the boy eyed him. The flyman touched his hat.
+
+"If you please, sir, seems as how this here boy's for you. Leastways,
+it says so on his ticket." Turning round on his box the driver
+addressed his fare. "This here's the schoolmaster, and this here's
+Mulberry House."
+
+The boy opened his mouth. Sounds issued forth. But they were sounds
+without form, and void. He appeared, judging from the grimaces he was
+making, to be suffering from an attack of facial convulsion. The
+flyman descended from his box.
+
+"Seems, sir, as how this here boy's got a stutter. It is a stutter
+too. I never see nothing like it. They've been and stuck a lot of
+tickets all over him, so that people might know where he was going to.
+He'd never have made them understand."
+
+When the boy came out of the fly Mr. Harland perceived that what the
+coachman said was correct. A square, white card was sewed on his coat,
+another on his waistcoat, and a third in a most prominent situation on
+his breeches. The writing on this latter, by dint of constant
+friction, had become so worn as to be unintelligible. On the other two
+was written, in a bold round hand, so that he that ran might read:
+
+
+                       "Frank J. Samuel Bindon,
+              Mulberry House School, Duddenham, England.
+                      Note.--This Boy Stutters."
+
+
+"I suppose," said Mr. Harland, as he eyed the youth, "that you are one
+of the assorted lot."
+
+The boy opened his mouth.
+
+"B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b--"
+
+"I wouldn't speak to him much if I was you, sir," said the flyman.
+"Every time he opens his mouth I expect to see him have a fit. I've
+seen some stutters, but I never see one which came within a hundred
+mile of his."
+
+"I think," said Mr. Harland, when he introduced Frank J. Samuel Bindon
+to his wife, "that I begin to understand what Mr. Bindon meant when he
+wrote that he was shipping an assorted lot of sons. In his family he
+appears to have samples of every kind."
+
+"Hollo!" cried John F. Ernest, as Frank J. Samuel put in an appearance
+in the playground, "here's Stammering Sam!"
+
+"Maria," said Mr. Harland, about an hour later, to his wife,
+"Stammering Sam can fight. He has polished off John G. William. He is
+taking on John B. David for a change. What an interesting family those
+Bindons are."
+
+On the Friday the fly which had conveyed Stammering Sam again drove up
+to the doors of Mulberry House. The same flyman was on the box.
+
+"Sarah," he observed to the servant who opened the door, "I've been
+bringing you a queer lot of young gentlemen of late. Wednesday I
+brought you up one with a stutter, now I've brought you one what's
+only got one leg, and another what's only got one arm. You'll soon be
+able to keep a museum of living curiosities."
+
+As he was speaking the flyman stood at the door of his fly, his back
+turned to his fares. Suddenly the servant gave an exclamation.
+
+"Look out, Mr. Stubbs," she cried.
+
+The flyman moved aside, just in time to avoid the full force of a
+blow, which although it missed his head, at which it was aimed, and
+only shaved his shoulder, made him roar with pain. A boy, one of the
+fares, was standing up in the fly, grasping, with both his hands, a
+curious weapon of offence--a wooden leg.
+
+"You young murdering villain!" shouted the flyman, clapping his hand
+to his injured shoulder. "I've half a mind to break every bone in your
+body."
+
+"I would if I were you," retorted the lad "Try it on. You've been
+saucing me all the way. I may only have one leg, but yours wouldn't be
+the first head which I've splintered with a wooden one. Then _you'd_
+be a living curiosity, I guess."
+
+This young gentleman entered Mulberry House hopping upon one leg. The
+wooden limb he carried in his hands. After him followed a second young
+gentleman, who, since one of his sleeves was pinned up to his coat,
+was apparently possessed of but a single arm.
+
+"There's a armless young gentleman in the drawing-room," announced
+Sarah to her master, "and another what's got his leg tucked under his
+arm."
+
+The announcement did not appear to take the principal of Mulberry
+House by surprise.
+
+"Further samples of the assorted lot," he murmured.
+
+He was right. The strangers were two more examples of the fecundity
+and the versatility of Mr. Bindon. The young gentleman with "his leg
+tucked under his arm" declared his name to be Oscar J. Oswald Bindon.
+The young gentleman with only one arm under which a leg could possibly
+be "tucked" was another John T. Jasper Bindon.
+
+"I understood from your father," said Mr. Harland, "that this lot
+would consist of five, or possibly seven. May I ask if there are any
+more of you to follow? This dropping in unexpectedly, by ones and
+twos, Mrs. Harland and I find a little inconvenient."
+
+"There's two more coming. But we wouldn't have anything to do with
+them because they stutter."
+
+This repudiation comes from Oscar J. Oswald. As he spoke he was
+fastening on his wooden leg.
+
+Two or three hours afterwards the fly--the same fly--drove up again to
+Mulberry House. The same flyman was on the box.
+
+"Sarah," he whispered from behind his hand, probably taught prudence
+by experience, "here's two more stutters."
+
+
+                                 II.
+
+Mrs. Harland was superintending the putting out of the "clean things."
+It was Saturday. On Sundays, at Mulberry House, all the pupils
+"changed."
+
+"If you please, ma'am, there's a person in the drawing-room who says
+she's Mrs. Bindon."
+
+"Mrs. Bindon!" Mrs. Harland was lifting a pile of clean linen. It fell
+from her hands. Day-shirts and night-shirts were scattered on the
+floor. The lady eyed the maid standing in the doorway as though she
+were some creature of strange and fearful import. "Whom did she ask to
+see?"
+
+"She asked to see the schoolmaster."
+
+"The schoolmaster?"
+
+Mrs. Harland pursed her lips.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. She didn't mention any name. And master's out."
+
+The lady, to the best of her ability, supplied her husband's place.
+She interviewed the visitor. As she laid her hand on the handle of the
+drawing-room door her attentive ear detected a curious sound within.
+
+"I do believe the woman's crying."
+
+She turned the handle. She entered the room. A woman was seated on the
+extreme edge of a chair. She was indulging in a series of audible
+sniffs. In the palm of her hand, compressed into a knot which had
+something of the consistency of a cricket ball, was her handkerchief.
+This she bobbed first at one eye, then at the other. When Mrs. Harland
+appeared she rose to her feet. The lady stared at her as if she were a
+spectre.
+
+"Jane Cooper!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+The woman dropped a curtsey.
+
+"You brazen hussey! How dare you come into my house!"
+
+"If you please, ma'am, I'm come after that boy of mine."
+
+She was a nervous, shrinking, little woman. She had fair hair and a
+washed-out complexion. Her pale blue eyes were blurred with weeping.
+She looked as though she had been crying for years. She wore a black
+silk dress, which was of primitive make, and the seams of which were
+slightly rusty. Her hands, which were gloveless, were large and red.
+Her shapeless bonnet had strayed on to the side of her head.
+Altogether she looked draggled and woebegone.
+
+"You've come after that boy of yours! What do you mean?"
+
+"My Neddy, ma'am."
+
+Mrs. Harland gave an indignant twitch to her skimpy skirts. She moved
+across the room in the direction of the bell. The woman, perceiving
+her intention, gave an appealing cry.
+
+"Don't be hard upon me. I've come all the way from America to see my
+Neddy, ma'am."
+
+Mrs. Harland hesitated, her hand upon the bell-rope. This woman, when
+a child, had been her own pupil in the Sunday-school. Later she had
+been her servant. While in her service she had "gone wrong." The same
+day on which she had been turned adrift she had disappeared from
+Duddenham. Her former mistress had heard nothing of her from that hour
+unto the present one.
+
+"Jane Cooper, my servant told me that you gave your name as Mrs.
+Bindon. Are you Mrs. Bindon? Is that true?"
+
+"It's gospel truth."
+
+"Then"--Mrs. Harland released her hold of the bell-rope--"it _was_
+Jolly Jack."
+
+"That it was."
+
+Mrs. Harland moved a step nearer to the woman.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that all those boys are yours?"
+
+"No, ma'am, only Neddy. His father had him called Edward J. Phillip,
+but he's always been Neddy to me. The rest are Mr. Bindon's."
+
+"The rest are Mr. Bindon's! Jane! what do you mean?"
+
+There was a ring, a good loud ring, at the front door bell. The woman
+clasped her hands.
+
+"There's the rest of them," she cried. "Oh, don't let them come in
+here."
+
+"The rest of them?"
+
+"The other Mrs. Bindons."
+
+Mrs. Harland clutched at the back of a chair.
+
+"The other Mrs. Bindons?"
+
+"They're always going on at me, and making fun of me, and pinching me.
+Oh! don't let them come in here."
+
+The little woman's distress appeared to be genuine. She wrung her
+hands. Her tears fell unheeded to the floor. Mrs. Harland gazed at her
+both open-mouthed and open-eyed. Before she had recovered her presence
+of mind sufficiently to enable her to understand the cause of her
+visitor's emotion the door opened, and there entered unannounced--a
+magnificent woman! She was very tall, and very stately, and very fat.
+She weighed seventeen stone if she weighed an ounce. Her costume was
+very different to that of the dowdy Jane. She was attired from head to
+foot in red. She had on a red stuff dress with a train. A scarlet
+mantle accentuated with its splendours the upper portion of her
+person. She wore a red hat, adorned with a red feather. And her
+face--as far as hue was concerned, her face matched her attire. She
+surveyed Mrs. Harland through a pair of _pince-nez_. "Mrs. Harland! So
+it is! How delightful! I should have known you anywhere--you haven't
+altered hardly a bit."
+
+The lady, her hand stretched out, advanced in the most condescending
+fashion. Mrs. Harland shrank away.
+
+"Louisa Brown!" she cried.
+
+"Louisa Brown--that was; Mrs. Bindon--that is! Let me give you my
+card. I had some printed just before I came away."
+
+After some fumbling the lady produced from her pocket a gorgeous
+mother-of-pearl card-case. Out of it she took a piece of pasteboard,
+resplendent in all the colours of the rainbow, about four inches
+square. This she offered Mrs. Harland. That lady declined it with a
+gesture.
+
+"Won't you have it? Well, I'll put it on the mantelpiece; it'll be
+just the same. Dear old-fashioned mantelpieces! We don't have them out
+our way--we're in advance, you know--but I remember them so well."
+
+The lady suited the action to the word. She placed the piece of
+cardboard on the mantelpiece in the most conspicuous place, on top of
+the clock. Apparently unconscious that in Mrs. Harland's demeanour
+there was anything peculiar, she carefully selected the largest
+armchair the room contained. In it she placed her ample person. As she
+arranged her skirts she remarked:
+
+"I've come all this way to see them boys of mine. The dear lads! How
+are they? I hope you haven't made them _too_ English. A little English
+I don't mind, being English as it were myself; but too much English I
+can't abide."
+
+"You--impudent--creature!"
+
+The lady put up her _pince-nez_.
+
+"My stars! Here's goings on! May I ask if that remark was addressed to
+me?"
+
+"I never heard of such impudence in my life."
+
+"Nor me. But some people have manners of their own. Is that the way in
+which to treat a lady who comes to visit you--standing there and
+staring?"
+
+"A lady!" Mrs. Harland gasped. "Do you think I don't remember you?"
+
+Mrs. Harland's form absolutely swelled as she glared at the big woman
+seated in the easy-chair.
+
+"You, Louisa Brown, whose name is to this day a byword in the village,
+to dare to come into my drawing-room--and in those clothes!"
+
+The big woman was not taken at all aback.
+
+"What is the matter with my clothes?" she asked.
+
+"You, whom your own father turned into the streets, to dare to place
+yourself upon an equality with me!"
+
+The big woman turned with an affable smile to the little one, who
+stood trembling and sniffing in the centre of the room.
+
+"Queer old-fashioned folk they are this side. Now, to my thinking, one
+lady oughtn't to remind another lady of things she wishes to be
+forgotten."
+
+The little woman bobbed her knotted handkerchief into her eyes.
+
+"Oh, Louisa, how can you now!"
+
+Mrs. Harland raised her arm, semaphore fashion.
+
+"Leave the room!" she said.
+
+The big woman settled herself more comfortably in the easy-chair.
+
+"Not me. Not unless I take my sons along with me. You have received
+their father's money, which is mine; if you receive my money you'll
+receive me too--we go together."
+
+"_I_ have received your money--yours! Who are you?"
+
+"There's my card." The big woman waved her hand in the direction of
+the mantelshelf. "I've another in my pocket, and I've told you who I
+am besides; but, to oblige you, I don't mind telling you who I am
+again. I'm Mrs. Bindon."
+
+Mrs. Harland turned upon the little woman. There was frenzy in her
+air.
+
+"Then who are you?"
+
+Said the little woman, between her sniffs:
+
+"I am Mrs. Bindon too."
+
+"You are Mrs. Bindon too! Is the man a bigamist?"
+
+The big woman smiled.
+
+"There is no bigamy in Utah."
+
+"Utah!" Mrs. Harland staggered back. "Utah!" She looked wildly round
+the room. "Isn't Utah where the Mormons are?"
+
+The big woman, taking out a large white handkerchief, proceeded, at
+one and the same time, to fan herself, and to diffuse a strong odour
+of patchouli.
+
+"Utah is, upon earth, the abiding place of the saints," she said.
+
+Mrs. Harland echoed her words.
+
+"The abiding place of the saints."
+
+A vehicle was approaching the house. It could be seen through the
+window.
+
+"I think," observed the big woman, as she raised her _pince-nez_,
+"that here are some of the other Mrs. Bindons."
+
+Rising from her seat she opened the drawing-room door.
+
+"Come in, my dears," she said, addressing some person or persons
+without; "I am here, and Mrs. Jane."
+
+As she held the door wide open a procession began to enter the room--a
+procession of women. They were of all styles and shapes and sizes.
+There were fat and there were thin. They were attired in all the
+colours of the rainbow. Mrs. Harland, who began to think that her
+senses must be leaving her, distinctly counted seven. The seven, with
+the two already arrived, made nine--nine Mrs. Bindons. How the seven
+had journeyed in a single fly is one of the mysteries which are not
+yet unfolded. The big woman acted as mistress of the ceremonies.
+
+"Sit down, my dears, there are seats for you all. I am sure you will
+excuse a little crowding."
+
+"Where's the teacher?" asked a short, thick-set woman, who had seated
+herself with her legs apart, and her hands set squarely on her knees.
+
+"That is more than I can tell you. But here's his wife."
+
+The big woman waved her handkerchief and an odour of patchouli towards
+Mrs. Harland.
+
+"Oh, you're the schoolmarm?" The thickset woman eyed Mrs. Harland as
+though she were taking her mental measurement "Where's them boys of
+mine?"
+
+"These," explained the big woman, in the condescending way which
+seemed to be a peculiarity of hers, "are some of the other Mrs.
+Bindons. I have not," she added, "been treated quite with the civility
+I should like, and have a right to expect, but on this side they're so
+old-fashioned."
+
+"None of your old fashions for me, and none of your new ones neither.
+Give me the ways I'm used to. Where's them boys of mine?"
+
+The thick-set woman stared at Mrs. Harland in a manner which suggested
+combat. The lady pressed her hand to her side. She felt at a loss for
+breath. Mechanically she crossed the room and rang the bell. The
+servant appeared.
+
+"Tell the Masters Bindon that they are wanted in the drawing-room."
+
+The servant gazed in amazement at the assembled congregation. The
+order had to be repeated before her faculties returned.
+
+"Is that the hired gal?" inquired the thick-set woman directly the
+housemaid's back was turned.
+
+"Servant, they call them here," explained the big woman in her
+patronising way.
+
+The thick-set woman snorted. She glared at the big woman as though she
+were not grateful for the explanation. Silence prevailed. The nine
+ladies stared at Mrs. Harland. They seemed to be mentally appraising
+her. She herself appeared to be stricken with a sort of mental
+paralysis, as though the invasion had stricken her dumb.
+
+At last--it seemed a very long at last--the door reopened, and there
+appeared the red-haired Master Bindon--John F. Stanley. His appearance
+was followed by another interval of silence. The ladies stared at him.
+He stared at the ladies. No enthusiasm was shown on either side. The
+thick-set woman broke the silence.
+
+"So it's you?"
+
+"It's me." He edged away. "Don't you hit me!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Here you are in England, and your mother's looking for you in Canada.
+I guess your father's got you mixed."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," struck in a thin, acidulated-looking woman, "if
+Mr. Bindon's took you for my George, and sent my George to Canada. I
+never knew such a head for children as that man has got. Is my George
+here?"
+
+"No," said Rufus. He grinned.
+
+"Then," exclaimed the acidulated-looking woman, "I'm clean done."
+
+The nervous little woman came forward. She laid her hand on Rufus's
+arm. "My Neddy's here! I'm sure my Neddy's here!"
+
+Although she said that she was sure, her tone was by no means one of
+certainty. Her voice trembled--the little woman trembled too.
+
+"He's not," said Rufus. He grinned again.
+
+"He's not!" The little woman started back. "Not here! Mr. Bindon told
+me himself that he'd sent my Neddy to school at the old place at
+Duddenham. He wouldn't let me come all this way for nothing. And I've
+spent all my money on my fare."
+
+The rest of the Masters Bindon began to enter the room. They came in a
+long unbroken line. The little woman looked, with eager eyes, for the
+face she sought. The line ceased. She turned to Mrs. Harland.
+
+"That's not all?" she cried.
+
+"I think it is," said Mrs. Harland, with a sort of gasp.
+
+"Neddy! Neddy!"
+
+Crying, the little woman sank on her knees upon the floor.
+
+There was a goodly company of the Masters Bindon. There were some
+among them the sight of whom gladdened their mothers' hearts.
+
+"So it _is_ you?" observed the thick-set woman to John G. William.
+"You've not gone to Canada--no such luck! Where's your brother?" The
+wooden-legged hero, Oscar J. Oswald, stumped in sight. "When I get you
+home I'll give you a good sound hiding, the pair of you. Didn't I tell
+you to write to me each week? You haven't so much as sent me a line to
+say if you was living or dead. When I get you home I'll make you wish
+that you was dead."
+
+The big woman--Louisa Brown, that was--had three young gentlemen
+standing in a line in front of her. They were the three "stutters."
+
+"Now, boys, I hope you've got cured of your stammerings. You can't
+kiss me, you'll mess my things. Do you hear what I say? I do hope
+you've got cured of your stammering."
+
+"B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b--"
+
+There arose a chaos of sounds. The three young gentlemen opened their
+mouths. Judging from their contortions they appeared to be suffering
+agonies.
+
+"For goodness gracious stop that noise!" The fond mother clapped her
+hands to her ears. "I declare I feel inclined to knock your heads
+together. Why, your stammer's worse than before. I must say"--she
+glanced towards Mrs. Harland--"I must say that you've been shamefully
+neglected."
+
+
+                                 III.
+
+As Mr. Harland returned along the lane which led towards home he saw,
+standing in the middle of the road in front of him, a couple of
+ladies, who, judging from their man[oe]uvres, appeared to be spying
+out the land. As he came up one of them hailed him. A tall, angular
+lady, who wore spectacles and low shoes and skirts which did not reach
+to her ankles, and who spoke in a loud, shrill, rasping voice, which
+might have been audible on the other side the meadow.
+
+"Say, stranger, can you hitch us on to Mulberry House Academy, where
+they lams young byes?"
+
+"I know Mulberry House School. I'm the headmaster, Mr. Harland."
+
+The lady turned to her companion.
+
+"Bashemath, I guess we're solid." She returned to the gentleman.
+"You're the man we're after; we're Mrs. Bindon."
+
+"You--I presume you mean that you are Mrs. Bindon?"
+
+"Me and her are Mrs. Bindon."
+
+"I--I suppose there's some joke intended. Or, perhaps, this lady is
+your daughter?"
+
+"Sakes alive! Between Bashemath and me there are not twelve months."
+
+"No, Deborah," said the other lady, "nor yet eleven."
+
+"And as for joking, stranger, I'd have you know that I'm no jokist.
+Bashemath and me have had to walk up from the depôt. The driver said
+his carriage wouldn't hold no more than seven. We didn't see the use
+of a carriage just for Bashemath and me, being both of a saving mind."
+
+"You will be glad to hear," remarked Mr. Harland, as he led the way to
+Mulberry House, a lady on either side of him, "that your sons all
+enjoy good health."
+
+"Lord save the man!" cried the lady with the glasses, "you don't
+suppose all them byes is mine. I've one of 'em, and he's enough--the
+limb! I've seven daughters, but they're Samuel Newton's, who is dead.
+The rest of them byes are Mr. Bindon's."
+
+"Are there"--Mr. Harland slightly coughed--"are there several Mr.
+Bindons?"
+
+The lady pulled up short. She turned and faced the gentleman.
+
+"Stranger, are you just sarsing?"
+
+"Madam! Only by inadvertence could a word escape my lips which would
+in any way cause annoyance to a lady."
+
+When they reached Mulberry House a couple of flys were standing at the
+front door.
+
+"I guess," observed the angular lady, "there's more of them come up
+than seven."
+
+As Mr. Harland and his companions ascended the steps two gentlemen
+came rushing down them. They were the drivers of the flys. Unless
+circumstances belied them they had been whiling away the interval of
+waiting by listening at the drawing-room door. In the hall were the
+cook, housemaid, and the small girl who acted as general help. Their
+presence in that particular spot required explanation. Their
+countenances, when they perceived their master, showed that it did.
+
+"What is the meaning of this?" inquired Mr. Harland. "Where's your
+mistress?"
+
+"If you please, sir, she's in the drawing-room."
+
+"Is she engaged?"
+
+"There are----" The girl choked back a giggle. "There are some ladies
+with her."
+
+"I guess," remarked the angular lady, "they're some of the other Mrs.
+Bindons."
+
+Three distinct and undeniable titters came from the servants.
+
+"Sarah," said Mr. Harland, sternly checking the disconcerted damsel as
+she was about to seek refuge with her colleagues in flight, "show
+these ladies into the drawing-room, and tell your mistress that I wish
+to speak to her in the study."
+
+"What--what on earth, Maria, is the meaning of this?" demanded Mr.
+Harland, as his wife made her appearance in his sanctum.
+
+The lady dropped into a chair.
+
+"Thank goodness, Andrew, you have come home. I don't know what I
+should have done if I had been left alone with them much longer."
+
+"Who are these women?"
+
+"They're the Mrs. Bindons."
+
+"The Mrs. Bindons! How many of them are there?"
+
+"There were nine. The two you brought make eleven."
+
+"Eleven! Eleven Mrs. Bindons! Maria!"
+
+"Andrew!"
+
+"Is--is the man a Mormon?"
+
+"Yes, he--he's a Mormon."
+
+"Maria! You don't mean that?"
+
+"I do. You remember Jane Cooper?"
+
+"The slut that you sent packing?"
+
+"She's here. She's one of the Mrs. Bindons. And Louisa Brown, she's
+another."
+
+"Not the Louisa Brown?"
+
+"And there are two or three more whose faces I know quite well, but I
+can't think who they are."
+
+Mr. Harland drew a long breath. He whistled.
+
+"I knew J. Bindon _must_ be Jolly Jack."
+
+"But, Andrew, what can we do? There's all those boys in there, and
+some of them have found their mothers and some of them haven't. And
+there's Jane Cooper come all this way to see her son, and it appears
+he's been sent by mistake to Canada. And there's Louisa Brown been
+knocking those three poor stammering creatures' heads together, and
+she says that you've been neglecting them shamefully because you
+haven't cured their stutter. And there's a woman been thrashing John
+G. William with her umbrella. And they're all going on at one another,
+and at their children, and at me. Oh, Andrew, they've made me feel
+quite ill. That Mr. Bindon must be an awful man!"
+
+"He appears to be, in his way, a character. A character, so far as
+Duddenham is concerned, almost of an original kind."
+
+"Oh, Andrew, don't talk like that--don't. Think of it. Eleven wives!
+And I don't know how many more there are at home. To hear those women
+speak you would think that there were hundreds, and not one of them
+seems in the least ashamed. There are some of them in Canada looking
+for their children--for all I know eleven more are coming here.
+Andrew!" The lady rose. She laid her hand, with a solemn gesture, upon
+her husband's arm. "I will not have those women and their children in
+my house. I will not have a Bindon, now that I know all, under my
+roof, not for a hundred thousand pounds."
+
+Mr. Harland rubbed his chin.
+
+"I think that I had better go and see these ladies, Maria, or they may
+feel that they are being slighted."
+
+"No half measures! You will turn them out of my house, the mothers and
+their children, stick and stone, never to return--or else I leave it."
+
+"You're quite right, Maria. I think, if I were you, I'd go upstairs
+and wash my face and brush my hair. You seem to be excited."
+
+"You'd be excited if you'd gone through what I have."
+
+"Now," said Mr. Harland to himself when his wife had gone, "to
+interview that very compound noun--the wife of Mr. Bindon." He went
+out into the passage. "They appear to be employing the shining hour.
+Unless I am mistaken that is John G. William's howl, and _that_ is
+John B. David's. The ladies are either thrashing the young gentlemen
+upon their own account, or else they are setting them on, in what is
+possibly Salt Lake City style, to thrash each other." Then arose a
+hubbub of women's voices. "What a peaceful household Jolly Jack's must
+be." He stood and listened. The din grew greater. "They're at it. Are
+they scratching each other's eyes out, or are they merely giving their
+lungs free play? Perhaps on the whole I had better go and see."
+
+He had hardly taken two steps in the direction of the drawing-room
+when someone twitched his coat-sleeve from behind.
+
+"Mr. 'arland! Mr. 'arland!"
+
+There came the twitch at his sleeve again. Someone addressed him in a
+very muffled voice, which in force scarcely amounted to a whisper,
+from the rear. Mr. Harland wheeled round.
+
+"Who's that?" he cried.
+
+"Ssh!" Close behind him, so close that Mr. Harland by his sudden
+movement almost knocked him down, stood a man. He had his finger
+pressed against his lips. "Ssh! I came round by the back; I knew that
+they was in the front."
+
+He spoke in a low and tremulous whisper. Beads of perspiration stood
+on his face. Agitation was on every line. Mr. Harland stared at him,
+astonished. He had approached from behind so noiselessly that the
+schoolmaster had been taken unawares.
+
+"May I ask, sir, who you are?"
+
+"I'll tell you in 'arf a minute. Just step this way."
+
+The stranger, taking Mr. Harland by the arm, led him in the direction
+of the study which he had just now quitted. Mr. Harland allowed
+himself to be led. At the study door the stranger paused. He jerked
+his thumb in the direction of the drawing-room. His voice dropped to a
+whisper: "How many of 'em are there?"
+
+"How many are there, sir, of what?"
+
+Mr. Harland put the counter-question in his ordinary tones. This
+seemed to disconcert the stranger. "Never mind. Just step inside."
+
+With a hurried movement he drew Mr. Harland within the study.
+
+"You don't mind my just turning the key?"
+
+"If you mean do I object to your locking the door, I do very strongly.
+What are you doing? What do you mean, sir, by your impertinence?"
+
+The stranger had not only locked the door, he had withdrawn the key
+from the lock.
+
+"Softly! softly! I don't mean no 'arm. I only want to be a little
+private. Don't you know me, Mr. 'arland?"
+
+"Know you?" The schoolmaster looked the stranger up and down. He was a
+man of medium height, of a fleshy habit. His face, which was fat and
+broad, and pasty hued, suggested a curious mixture of shrewdness and
+of folly. His eyes were small and bright. He wore carefully-trimmed
+mutton-chop whiskers, adjuncts which lent him an air of flashy
+imbecility. When he removed his glossy silk hat, which he did to
+enable him to mop his brow with his pink silk pocket-handkerchief, it
+was seen that he was almost bald, and that what little hair he had was
+straw-coloured, parted in the middle, and curled close to his head. He
+was dressed from head to foot in shiny black broadcloth. His hands
+were large and fat, and the fingers were loaded with rings. A thick
+gold chain passed from pocket to pocket of his waistcoat, and in his
+light-blue necktie was an enormous diamond pin.
+
+"Know you?" repeated Mr. Harland, continuing his examination of the
+man. "I've seen you somewhere before, and yet"--then came a sudden
+burst of recollection. "Why, you're Jolly Jack!" The stranger
+simpered. He carefully wiped the lining of his hat.
+
+"Ah, Mr. 'arland, I used to be. But that's a many years ago. There's
+not much jollity about me now. I'm just J. Bindon."
+
+"Oh, you're just J. Bindon. The Mr. Bindon, I presume, with whose
+correspondence I've been honoured?"
+
+"That's the chap."
+
+"And whose 'shipments' from time to time have come to hand?"
+
+"Ah, them shipments!"
+
+"As you say, Mr. Bindon, 'Ah, them shipments.' I don't know if you are
+aware, Mr. Bindon, that your wife is in my drawing-room?"
+
+"Ssh!" Mr. Bindon put his ringer to his lips. He approached Mr.
+Harland with a mysterious air, "Might I ask you not to speak so loud,
+Mr. 'arland, and not to pronounce my name. If you must call me
+something, I'd sooner you was to call me Jack."
+
+"Is your name, Mr. Bindon, not one of which you have reason to be
+proud?"
+
+"Don't you, Mr. 'arland, don't you now." He put a question from behind
+the cover of his hand. "How many of 'em are there?"
+
+"How many are there--of Mrs. Bindon?"
+
+The husband and the father sighed.
+
+"If you like to put it that way."
+
+"I understand that in my drawing-room at present there are eleven."
+
+Mr. Bindon placed his silk hat on a chair.
+
+He began again to mop his brow. "That's all, is it? Then there's some
+more of 'em about. I suppose you couldn't tell me which of 'em is
+there?"
+
+"I'm afraid not. I have not myself been introduced to the whole of
+Mrs. Bindon--only to two of her. And in the case of that two I have
+not been honoured with a formal introduction. But if you like I will
+ring the bell, and the servant shall make inquiries."
+
+"Not for worlds, Mr. 'arland, not for worlds! I wouldn't ave 'em know
+that I was 'ere not for a thousand dollars. Mr. 'arland, you look upon
+a man who's in a remarkable situation."
+
+"I can easily believe, Mr. Bindon, that I look upon a man who, upon
+more than one occasion, has been in a remarkable situation."
+
+"It's easy to laugh, Mr. 'arland, but circumstances is stronger than
+us. Do you remember when I left Duddenham?"
+
+"For the benefit of your health, was it not?"
+
+"Just--just so. For the benefit of my 'ealth. By the way, I suppose I
+ain't running no risk in coming back?"
+
+"You should be a better judge than I."
+
+"Some--someone had been knocking a gamekeeper on the 'ead, but I'll
+swear it wasn't me. I was very much misjudged in them days, Mr.
+'arland. 'Owsomever, I suppose all that is forgotten years ago, and
+when I left Duddenham, Mr. 'arland, I went to America, and then I
+found myself in the City of the Saints."
+
+"The City of the Saints?"
+
+"In Salt Lake City, Mr. 'arland. I got on in my modest way; I
+certainly got on. But I soon saw that there was one way of getting on
+which was better than any other."
+
+"And that was?"
+
+"Marrying. Not as you understand it over here, marrying one young
+woman and getting done with it; but marrying in the wholesale line. In
+them days no man came to much in Salt Lake City who 'adn't got at
+least a dozen wives. I always 'ad 'ad an eye for a female. I'd got no
+objection to a dozen, nor yet a score. So I looked about to see 'ow I
+could get 'em."
+
+Mr. Bindon coughed modestly behind his handkerchief. He took a chair.
+He continued to tell his tale with the aid of his fingers.
+
+"First of all I looked at 'ome. There was Jane Cooper; I knew she was
+in a little trouble; I asked 'er to come. There was Louisa Brown; she
+was in a little trouble too, so I asked 'er. Then there was Susan
+Baxter over at Basingthorpe. I always 'ad been sweet on Susan; I asked
+'er too. There was one or two other gals about the countryside for
+whom I'd 'ad a liking, so I asked 'em all."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Bindon, that all these young women came
+to you, each knowing that the other one was coming?"
+
+"Well--not exactly. They didn't know that they all was coming till
+they all was there."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Well, there was little differences just at first. But they settled
+down; they settled down. They 'ad a way in Salt Lake City, in them
+days, of getting the women to settle down. Well, Mr. 'arland, I got
+on! I got on! I got wives and children, and then more wives and more
+children. Some of the wives was widdies, and they brought children of
+their own. So we grew and multiplied, and all went well--till
+persecution came."
+
+"Persecution?"
+
+"You know, Mr. 'arland, we always 'ad 'ad enemies--the Saints! They
+was against the Peculiar Institootion."
+
+"Wholesale marrying?"
+
+Mr. Bindon only sighed.
+
+"By degrees things got warm for us, especially for me. I was a
+prominent member of the Church, and they went for me special because
+they said I had so many wives."
+
+"May I ask, Mr. Bindon, how many wives you had?"
+
+"That's more than I can say, Mr. 'arland, more than I can say. It's a
+little complicated. There's some you're married to, and some you're
+sealed to, and some you're on the point of being sealed to, and there
+you are. When I first went out, marrying was the surest way of getting
+on. But, by degrees, marrying didn't pay. There was a talk of bigamy.
+There was threats of bringing me before the Gentile courts."
+
+Mr. Bindon paused. He drew his silk handkerchief two or three times
+across his brow. Again he sighed.
+
+"Ah, Mr. 'arland, there 'adn't never been in my 'ousehold that perfect
+peace there ought to have been. There was complications. It's a long
+story, and it's no use going into it now, but there they was. I kep'
+'em under--with great care, I kep' 'em under until persecution came.
+Then keep 'em under I could not, try 'ow I might. There was, Mr.
+'arland, I tell you plainly, there was ructions. I've been struck, Mr.
+'arland, struck! by my own wives. They knocked me down one day, some
+on 'em, and stamped on me. It ain't all beer and skittles, married
+life, especially when you don't know 'ow many wives you 'as, and most
+of 'em 'as tempers."
+
+Again Mr. Bindon paused to wipe his brow. It needed it. As he
+continued to unfold his narrative he was in a constant state of
+perspiration.
+
+"What with Gentile persecution, and what with family ructions, I got
+desprit. Them byes and gals was at the bottom of the shindies, so I
+made up my mind to ship 'em off, and I ships 'em."
+
+"Without their mothers' knowledge?"
+
+"There was bound to be little deceptions, Mr. 'arland, there was bound
+to be--or I couldn't 'ave lived. I daresay I should have managed"--Mr.
+Bindon sighed--"if it 'adn't been for another little marriage what I
+made."
+
+"Another!"
+
+"It was this way, Mr. 'arland. My partner, he died, J. B. G. Dixon. He
+left three wives. These 'ere three wives, they wanted to withdraw his
+capital. I couldn't stand that, anyhow. So I married 'em, just to give
+'em satisfaction. Three more or less didn't seem to make no odds. So I
+took 'em for a little wedding trip. My managing clerk--'e was a
+regular villain--I knows it now, but I didn't then. 'E 'ad a eye on
+Dixon's wives 'imself, 'e 'ad. So when I married 'em 'e thought 'e'd
+take it out of me. That very day I married 'em I was going to ship off
+an assorted lot of sons to your academy. That there villain of a clerk
+'e pretended 'e'd misunderstood my instructions. 'E went and shipped
+off them eight gals of J. B. G. Dixon's, instead of my assorted lot of
+sons. My crikey! when them wives of Dixon's found it out, wasn't there
+a shindy! They made out it was a regular plot of mine to rob 'em of
+their gals. I couldn't stand it, I tell you straight. So I've come
+over 'ere to fetch 'em back again--nothing else would suit them women
+but that I should. If you'll 'and 'em over, Mr. 'arland, I'll pay you
+what is doo, and I'll take 'em away with me round by the back if you
+don't mind."
+
+"About the ladies in the drawing-room, Mr. Bindon?"
+
+"There's been a little family difference, Mr. 'arland. When they 'eard
+that I'd taken on with Dixon's wives they didn't seem to like it, some
+of 'em. They'd found out where their byes 'ad gone to, or they thought
+they 'ad, so they came over 'ere to look for 'em--mind you, without
+saying a word to their 'usband, which was me. They came by one
+steamer, I came by another, and if they was to know that I was 'ere
+they'd want to take my life, some of 'em--I give you my word they
+would."
+
+"Give me the key of the door."
+
+"Mr. 'arland."
+
+"I wish to give instructions for the Misses Dixon to be sent to the
+study."
+
+"That's all? No games! It's serious, you know."
+
+"Don't be absurd, sir. Give me the key."
+
+"Mr. 'arland!"
+
+Mr. Bindon yielded the key. His demeanour betokened agitation. He
+stood trembling as Mr. Harland unlocked the door. When the
+schoolmaster threw it open he gave a positive start. Mr. Harland
+stepped into the passage.
+
+"Sarah!" He called for the housemaid in a tone of voice which must
+have been audible at some considerable distance.
+
+"Not so loud, Mr. 'arland! You don't know what ears them women's got."
+
+Mr. Harland rather raised his voice than otherwise. "Tell your
+mistress that Mr. Bindon's here. You understand--Mr. Bindon."
+
+"Mr. 'arland!"
+
+"And send the Misses Dixon into the study."
+
+"You've done it, Mr. 'arland!"
+
+"Done what, sir?"
+
+"They've 'eard you--I'll bet my boots they 'ave."
+
+Mr. Harland turned again and shouted, "Tell your mistress at once that
+Mr. Bindon's here!"
+
+"They're coming!"
+
+"How dare you, sir, try to shut the door in my face!"
+
+"They're coming, Mr. 'arland! They'll murder me! You've spilt the
+cart!"
+
+Mr. Bindon's agitation was extreme. There was a rush of feet along the
+passage, a sound of many skirts. A whirlwind of excited women dashed
+through the study door.
+
+"Where's Mr. Bindon?" cried Louisa Brown--that was.
+
+"I see him! He's underneath the table!"
+
+"Fetch him out!" exclaimed the thick-set woman. They fetched him.
+
+
+                                 IV.
+
+The procession left Mulberry House in the following order: the first
+fly contained all that was left of Mr. Bindon. The seats were occupied
+by four ladies--excited ladies. Mr. Bindon--all, we repeat, that was
+left of him--stood up between the four. He had not much standing room.
+
+Around the first fly circled a crowd of boys. The crowd consisted of
+twelve--twelve sons! They hurrahed and shouted, they jumped and ran.
+Their proceedings gave to the procession an air of triumph. Eight
+young ladies walked beside the fly, the driver of which had received
+instructions not to proceed above a walking pace. These young ladies
+wept.
+
+The second fly contained seven ladies, five inside and two upon the
+box. The language of these ladies was both fluent and fervid. They
+beguiled the tedium of the way by making personal remarks which must
+have been distinctly audible to at least one person in the fly in
+front. This person was kept in a perpendicular position by the points
+of four umbrellas.
+
+"I hope," observed Mrs. Harland, when the procession had started,
+"that they won't murder him."
+
+"I don't think you need be afraid of that, my love. They will merely
+escort him back, in the bosom of his family, to the City of the
+Saints."
+
+Mr. Harland examined a cheque, which was written in a trembling hand,
+and the ink on which was scarcely dry. And the procession passed from
+sight.
+
+
+
+
+                           A Burglar Alarm
+
+I must confess that the idea appealed to Leila more strongly than it
+did to me. I do not deny that it struck me as original. But it does
+not follow that because an idea is original it is of much practical
+value. Leila thought that it was just the thing which was wanted to
+calm her condition of nervous disquietude. So, of course, I said
+nothing.
+
+At that time we were living at The Larches, and had only just
+discovered what a striking difference there is in a house, which is
+nine miles away from anywhere, in the summer and in the winter. In the
+summer the place was a perfect paradise. The house was embowered in
+trees. Within a stone's-throw was a little stream, which murmured as
+it meandered, singing, as it were, songs of Arcady. But as the nights
+grew longer, and the mornings further off, it was even painful to
+observe what a different aspect The Larches began to wear. The winds
+howled through the leafless corpses of the trees like souls in agony.
+The stream rose till it flooded all the neighbourhood. During the long
+evenings the feeling of solitude was really most depressing. As Leila
+justly remarked, if anything happened in the dead of the night, and we
+were in need of assistance, where should we be? The nearest doctor was
+thirteen miles off. A policeman seven. The only servants we could
+induce to stay with us were an old woman, who was so old that she had
+to choose between us and the workhouse, and a young girl who had come
+to us out of the workhouse, and who was undoubtedly meditating
+returning whence she came. She said that it was livelier at the
+workhouse than at The Larches. Of that, personally, I have not the
+slightest doubt.
+
+One day in November I was reading a paper. We did get a paper, now and
+then, though I trust that not many people have realised what it means
+to drive, in English November weather, in an open basket-carriage,
+perhaps eighteen miles to get one. In this paper a paragraph caught my
+eye, which was headed, "A Burglar Alarm." I read it. The idea of the
+thing was this. You were to cover the hall, and the stairs, and the
+banisters, and any other place where anybody was likely to tread, with
+open newspapers. Then, if a burglar came into the house in the middle
+of the night, he would step on the newspapers, and you would hear them
+rustle, and would know that he was there. The idea rather struck me. I
+mentioned it to Leila. Indeed, I read the paragraph to her there and
+then. She was quite ecstatic.
+
+"We'll try it to-night," she said.
+
+I did not see the exact _sequitur_. Nor why we should lay traps for
+burglars because paragraphs appeared in papers. I told her so.
+
+"If a burglar did break in, where should we be?" she asked.
+
+That was her favourite form of inquiry. I really could not tell her,
+though I strongly suspected that I, for one, should be in bed. Nor did
+I see how, in that respect, the situation would be altered, although
+the house was covered with newspapers, both within and without.
+
+"My dear Frederic, how dense you are! Don't you understand that we
+should at least know that the man was there, and that would be some
+relief at any rate."
+
+I was not so sure of this myself, although I did not care to interrupt
+her flow of eloquence to tell her so.
+
+"I'll hunt up all the newspapers I can find, and, to-night, we'll
+cover the stairs."
+
+We did. Leila is of a sanguine temperament. When she has made up her
+mind on a subject I generally acquiesce. I acquiesced then.
+
+Shortly before nine, which hour, as a rule, was our bedtime at The
+Larches, except on those occasions when we retired earlier, we
+commenced our operations.
+
+We endeavoured to enlist the servants' sympathy and assistance; but
+Mrs. Perkins evidently regarded the whole affair as savouring of
+lunacy, and Eliza did nothing else but giggle. So Leila and I had,
+practically, to do it all. I think that we made a very fair job of it,
+on the whole. We laid between a dozen and twenty newspapers down in
+the hall. We covered the stairs.
+
+By the way, it was only after we had covered the stairs that we
+discovered that it would be difficult, not to say impossible, for
+anyone to ascend them without disarranging all that we had done; so as
+we ourselves, and Mrs. Perkins and Eliza were all below, the stairs
+had to be done over again. The servants went up first. We followed.
+And, as we followed, we covered the treads with the papers as we went.
+We even hung newspapers over the banisters, so that if a burglar,
+alarmed at the noise which he found he made by stepping on the stairs,
+caught hold of the banisters, he would not find that there was safety
+there.
+
+I rather fancy that the preparations which we had made for an enemy
+who might or might not come acted on our own nervous systems.
+
+Anyhow, hardly had we got into our bedroom and locked the door, than
+there came a noise as if all the newspapers we had just laid down were
+being stepped upon at once. And not only stepped but jumped on. Leila
+was immediately in an almost painful state of agitation. I, of course,
+was not so much affected. Still, I own that, even to me, the thing
+seemed curious.
+
+"Did you lock the door?" she gasped.
+
+"Certainly. Didn't you see me lock it?"
+
+"Don't let him come in!"
+
+"Don't let who come in, my dear?"
+
+Leila did not say. She stood listening, trembling like a leaf. All was
+still.
+
+"Frederic, who can it be?"
+
+"I think, my dear, that perhaps I had better go and inquire."
+
+Scarcely had I spoken than there came the noise again. This time it
+was louder than before, and more prolonged. Leila threw her arms about
+my neck. She was almost in hysterics.
+
+"Frederic, it's a burglar!"
+
+I did not see very well how it could be. If it was, then the fellow
+must have been secreted in the house. He must have watched us to our
+bedrooms, and then have instantaneously taken advantage of the fact of
+our backs being turned to indulge in acrobatic performances which were
+scarcely in accordance with received burglarious traditions.
+
+"Nonsense, my dear, it is nothing of the kind."
+
+As a matter of fact, it was not. It was the cat. Or rather, to be
+quite accurate, the kitten. Our cat, whose name, although the animal
+was of the feminine persuasion, was Simon, had recently had an
+addition to her family. In fact, five additions. Four of them, within
+a very short time of their birth, had passed from life--and into a
+pail of water. One of them remained alive. I really cannot say why. I
+imagine that a white eye had something to do with the matter. The
+small creature was like a lump of soot, except about the region of one
+eye. There it was as white as the driven, or the undriven--I don't
+know which it is, but I know it is one or the other--snow. Leila had
+announced that the creature was to be named Macgregor. I can only
+repeat that, again, I cannot say why. Leila has a somewhat peculiar
+habit of naming, or, perhaps, it would be more correct to write,
+misnaming, the animals which come into her possession. She called the
+pony we had at The Larches the Duke of Liverpool. She said she did so
+because there was not a Duke of Liverpool. That seemed to me an
+insufficient reason why the title should have been conferred upon a
+spavined, ill-groomed little brute, with a nasty temper, and only
+three sound legs to move, or, as was more frequently the case, to
+stand upon.
+
+It seems that Macgregor had mistaken us. He seems to have supposed
+that Leila and I had occupied the better part of an hour, and taken
+the stiffening out of our backs, in order to provide him with a novel
+form of amusement, by means of which he might while away, to his own
+satisfaction, the witching hours of the stilly night. It appears, too,
+that Simon, his masculinely-named female parent, had shared in his
+delusion. At any rate, when Leila was beginning to think that all the
+burglars in England were dancing breakdowns on those newspapers, and I
+went out to see what really was the matter, with a revolver which was
+not loaded, and which never had been loaded, in one hand, and a
+hairbrush in the other, I found Macgregor dashing up and down the
+stairs in a perfect ecstasy of enjoyment, while his wretched parent,
+forgetting the respect which she owed to herself, and the example
+which she owed to him, was rushing and raging after him. I threw the
+revolver at Simon and the hairbrush at Macgregor.
+
+Of course Macgregor had to be captured. Also Simon, his mother. It was
+absurd to suppose that we had covered the house from the top to the
+bottom with newspapers in order that these two animals might render
+life not worth the living. But Macgregor was not easy to catch. Leila
+and I had to hunt him single-handed; though, perhaps, double-handed
+would have been the better expression. We endeavoured to summon the
+servants to our assistance. But Mrs. Perkins, who was more than a
+little deaf when wide awake, was stone deaf when fast asleep. We never
+entertained any hopes of being able to make her hear. Our idea was to
+rouse Eliza, then to induce Eliza to prod Mrs. Perkins with her elbow
+in the side, and so to establish a chain of communication.
+
+However, directly we began to rap at the bedroom door, Eliza seemed to
+be developing strong symptoms of hysterics, apparently under the
+impression that we were burglars. So, since the girl was always more
+or less of an idiot, and we thought it would, perhaps, not be worth
+our while to send her into fits, we resolved, as has been said, to
+hunt Macgregor single-handed.
+
+A kitten is a lively animal. One has an object-lesson on this
+interesting fact in natural history, when, with the aid of a single
+candle, two persons endeavour to catch a kitten in a large, rambling,
+old-fashioned house in the darkness of the night. We almost had
+Macgregor several times. Never quite. We followed him all over the
+house with untiring and, one might almost write, increasing zeal. Up
+the stairs and down the stairs. Then up again, then down again. I
+doubt if, in his short life, Macgregor had ever enjoyed himself so
+much before. For my part I vowed that never again should a _lusus
+naturæ_, in the shape of a white eye, keep a kitten out of a pail.
+
+Finally, in the back kitchen, while making a frenzied dash at him, I
+missed Macgregor, and knocked the candle over. In endeavouring to
+save it I cannoned into Leila. I had not previously been aware that
+she was in my near neighbourhood. With such force did I strike her
+that I sent her flying backwards, until, reaching the floor, she found
+a resting-place amidst the pots and the pans. She fell with such a
+clatter, and with such a din, that, in the darkness, my blood ran
+cold. And, having fallen, she began to scream in a manner which
+deprived me of the little self-possession I had left.
+
+"Is that you, Leila?" I inquired.
+
+I felt morally persuaded that it was. I did not see who else it could
+be. Still, I imagined that I might as well make sure. She did not tell
+me in so many words. But the voice which screamed was the voice of
+Leila.
+
+"Are you hurt?" I asked.
+
+Again she did not answer. She only screamed. I was in darkness. I had
+not saved the candle. I could not see her. I could not feel, because
+every time I moved I seemed to hit her with another saucepan. I had no
+matches. I knew of none nearer than the bedroom. I had to leave Leila
+screaming there. I had to find my way out of that back kitchen,
+stumbling, as it seemed to me, over all the contents of an
+ironmonger's shop, and almost knocking out my brains against the
+partly-opened door. I had to grope my way along the newspaper-covered
+passages, across the newspaper-covered hall, up the newspaper-covered
+stairs. I had to hang on to the newspaper-covered banisters.
+
+If ever there was a burglar alarm I sounded it. I heard Macgregor and
+Simon, his mother, indulging in their little playful pranks, above and
+below me, and everywhere at once. But the servants did not seem to
+hear anything. No, nothing. I had no means of knowing if Eliza had
+frightened herself into a fit, and if Mrs. Perkins was dead. As I
+entered the bedroom I swept a jug and basin off the wash-hand-stand.
+It sounded as if I had broken the contents of a china shop. But no one
+seemed to notice it--not even Simon and Macgregor. Such was my state
+of agitation, and such the confusion of my mind, that I floundered
+into the middle cupboard of the wardrobe, which, in some mysterious
+manner, must have opened of its own accord. I had dragged all Leila's
+dresses off the hooks and half smothered myself beneath them before I
+discovered where I was. But I found the matches. Oh, yes, I found them
+after all.
+
+I also found Leila. She was sitting up on the kitchen floor, in the
+midst of the pots and pans, in a frame of mind which, by me, was
+unexpected. She seemed to be under the impression that my conduct had
+been base, not to say heartless. She appeared to be under the, to me,
+extraordinary delusion that I had scrambled in the darkness up the
+newspaper-covered stairs, and fallen over everything which I could
+fall over, because I hated her. She wept. It was all I myself could do
+to refrain from tears.
+
+However, we managed to secure Macgregor and his mother in the
+drawing-room, in which apartment we felt morally persuaded that they
+would break everything that was worth the breaking. Then Leila
+insisted upon me rearranging the ingenious little trap which we had
+laid to catch a burglar.
+
+"What," she remarked, as she wiped away a final tear, "was the use of
+doing a thing at all if we didn't do it properly?"
+
+There was wisdom in her unanswerable inquiry, though I could not but
+feel thankful as I reflected that there were no more cats in the house
+who could mistake our intentions, and, under an entire misapprehension,
+turn them topsy-turvy once again.
+
+Leila seemed to think that it was all owing to me that the newspapers
+had become disarranged. I do not know what could have put such an idea
+into her head. But it was obviously because she thought so that she
+insisted upon my doing all the work, while she stood three stairs
+above me and issued her instructions.
+
+I am of a plethoric habit, and by the time I had done all the stooping
+which Leila thought was indispensable if the burglar alarm was to be
+all that a burglar alarm ought to be, I was, I am convinced, within a
+measurable distance of apoplexy. Indeed, I hinted to Leila that
+burglars might take up their permanent residence at The Larches before
+I should ever again be persuaded to make such arrangements for their
+reception. As for that paragraph in the paper, the stuff which some of
+the papers do contain is really monstrous. If I ever do encounter the
+editor of that particular journal in private life, I care not where
+nor when, I shall have to be bound over by the magistrates in at least
+two sureties, I know I shall.
+
+When Leila, on entering the bedroom, stepped on the handle of the
+broken jug and perceived the rest of the remains, and that there was
+about half an inch of water on the floor, I must say that I found her
+behaviour not a little trying. I had not informed her of the accident
+which, when I was searching for the matches, I had had, because, such
+was my state of agitation, it had slipped my mind--though, I know, she
+doubts it to this hour.
+
+I was aware that she was bound to discover what had happened,
+therefore why should I have attempted to conceal it? Under the
+circumstances it is a mere absurdity to imagine that I could have
+proposed to myself to do anything of the kind; nor was it necessary
+for her to inform me, especially in the way in which she did inform
+me, that that toilet set had been one of her wedding presents. If a
+wedding present is to be regarded as a fetish in a family, and made a
+sort of little god of, then all I can say is that I wish she had had
+fewer wedding presents even than she did have.
+
+I regret to have to write that Leila did not hesitate to suggest that
+I had broken that toilet set on purpose. According to her it was all
+part of my heartlessness and the hatred which I bore her. That I had
+almost killed myself while hunting for the matches was nothing to her.
+Nor did she pause to consider how I could have done it on purpose,
+when, such was the Egyptian nature of the darkness, I did not even
+know that the toilet set was there. We mopped the water up with the
+towels. Then Leila knelt down and pieced the fragments of the toilet
+set together as best she could, and continued to address me as if I
+had been guilty, at the very least, of treason felony. When she
+discovered that during my unfortunate search for those mislaid and
+miserable matches I had also accidentally and quite unintentionally
+visited the wardrobe, I thought that she would have thrown something
+at me, even though she would have had to use as missiles pieces of the
+broken ware.
+
+It appeared that in dragging Leila's dresses off the hooks I had had
+what one is bound to confess was the singular ill-fortune to tear
+holes in most, if not in all of them. Insignificant holes they were
+for the most part. Really hardly worth the mentioning, though you
+would not have thought they were hardly worth the mentioning if you
+had heard Leila. True, I had made rather a lengthy incision in the
+back of her best silk, and ripped the waistband off her tailor-made;
+but the rest of the garments were scarcely, that is to say, from my
+point of view, not appreciably damaged. And when you consider that in
+my agitation I had struggled as for my life in that death-trap of a
+wardrobe, surely an allowance might have been made. Leila, however,
+made absolutely none.
+
+That was not upon the whole a restful night. Neither Leila nor I wooed
+sweet sleep in that equable, at-peace-with-all-the-world frame of mind
+in which she should be wooed. It was some time before I ventured into
+bed at all. When at last I insinuated myself between the sheets
+Leila's observations followed me. Indeed, if I may be allowed to say
+so, they more than followed me. I had to coax her with all the power
+of coaxing that was in me before she could be induced to even think of
+slumber. Seating herself upon a chair, she announced her unalterable
+determination to spend the night there rather than consent to share
+her couch with the being who had torn her dresses. I perceived quite
+plainly that that burglar alarm was not going to prove an economical
+contrivance. The little mishaps which I had had were likely to prove a
+more serious matter than any injury which mere burglars might have
+caused. But no matter. Leila protests that upon that fateful night I
+promised, as some slight solatium to her injured feelings, not to
+speak of her damaged vestments, to present her with six new dresses.
+This sounds to me almost incredible. I scarcely think that under any
+circumstances I can have gone so far as that. And when she adds, as
+she does add, that I gave her my solemn assurance that she should be
+allowed to select and to purchase at my expense any toilet set which
+she might see, and which might take her fancy when she next went up
+with me to town, I can only declare that if I did give such an
+undertaking it was only because I had firmly and finally resolved, in
+my own mind, that while such a prospect stared me in the face she
+never should go up with me to town again. But, as I have said already,
+no matter. I daresay that I did promise something. Now, I do not care
+what I promised. Whatever it was, the promise was extracted from me
+under pressure. I never meant to keep it. That I earnestly affirm.
+
+When finally, having for all I know promised to present her with the
+contents of half the shops in Regent Street and of all the shops in
+Piccadilly, I had succeeded in persuading her to come to bed, the
+excitement she had undergone told upon her slight and fragile frame,
+and ere long my Leila was asleep. I, too, slept at her side. Nor
+during the remaining silent watches of the night did aught disturb our
+rest.
+
+We were roused by someone knocking at our bedroom door. I awoke with
+the immediate consciousness that we had overslept ourselves. As a
+matter of fact we had, by about two hours.
+
+"Frederic!" exclaimed Leila, in that nervous way of hers which is apt
+to convey to those who do not know her the impression that the last
+trump has sounded. "There's someone at the door!"
+
+"Who's there?" I asked.
+
+The voice which answered was the voice of Eliza.
+
+"If you please, sir, there's been robbers in the house!"
+
+"Robbers! Don't talk such nonsense!"
+
+"If you please, sir, it ain't nonsense. Mrs. Perkins says there have!"
+
+And what Mrs. Perkins said was true. There had been robbers in the
+house; or, at any rate, a robber; a midnight felon; a rifler of the
+homes of honest men. He had made his entry by way of the back kitchen
+window. He had had his supper in the front kitchen. A hearty meal it
+must have been. There were the remains of the feast still on the
+board. He seemed to have eaten all that there was worth eating. He had
+drunk all that there was worth drinking. He had certainly taken away
+with him on his departure all that there was worth taking. He had
+stripped the house of all its valuables. True, they were not many; but
+they were our all. And they were gone.
+
+I imagine that few burglaries have been better carried through. He was
+a conscientious and observant workman of his kind. The ruthless
+villain! I hope one day to lay hands upon him somewhere. The county
+constabulary, I am certain, never will.
+
+As for the burglar alarm--the burglar alarm was arranged in a neat
+heap in a corner of the hall. It had not fulfilled the purpose it had
+been intended to fulfil. Like Macgregor and Simon, his mother, the
+burglar had misunderstood the intentions which had actuated our
+bosoms, Leila's and mine, when we had placed it there. He cannot have
+read the paragraph we had noticed in the paper.
+
+I suspect that that burglar must have been, in his way--his own way--a
+humorist. He had seen those newspapers apparently; and, if you
+reflect, it was not strange: he had wondered what they meant by being
+there. Possibly he had supposed that they had been placed there to
+save the oilcloth and the carpets from being stepped upon. Anyhow,
+being certain that at any rate his boots were clean, and that he
+stepped lightly, he picked up the newspapers carefully one by one,
+folded them neatly into four, and placed them, as I have said, in a
+little heap in a corner of the hall.
+
+
+
+
+                         A Lesson in Sculling
+
+                   MISS WHITBY WRITES TO HER MOTHER
+
+
+"My Dearest Mamma,--I have had the most delightful time you can
+possibly think of. Everybody and everything has been so nice! And Jack
+has been teaching me sculling. And--oh, what do you think?--he drowned
+me! Yes--completely! Only, of course, it was all my fault. And he
+pulled me out of the water by the hair of my head--or something; I
+don't know what, or how. Wasn't it noble of him? I never enjoyed
+anything so much in all my life!
+
+"But I will tell you all about it. I know you must feel anxious. Only
+don't think I'm dead, because I'm not. I haven't even caught a cold.
+All owing to Charlie. He says I wasn't in the water long enough;
+that's what he says. I assure you I was in the water quite long enough
+for me!
+
+"You know, ever since we've been down here we've been on the river
+every day, Charlie and I. His mother--Mrs. Mason, you know--doesn't
+care for the water; she says it's damp. But I think that's because she
+knows that two are company, and is tender-hearted--like you, my
+dearest Momkins! Besides, she likes fussing about and paying visits,
+and she is so good--I hope that I shall be as good as she is one of
+these fine days! But you can never tell!
+
+"Of course it was very nice being pulled about. Only Charlie was so
+aggravating! He wouldn't do in the least bit what you told him. I
+would say to him before we started:
+
+"'Charlie, do take me for a long row--now, promise me!' And he would
+say:
+
+"'Certainly. Fourteen miles out and fifteen in."
+
+"'Don't be silly! I wish you would--I do so like to be pulled.'
+
+"He would be standing on the bank with his back to the water, and with
+me just in front of him. He would stretch out his arm.
+
+"'Tip us your flipper!' He meant, 'Give me your hand.' When he chooses
+Charlie can be slangy. 'I'll pull you into the river.'
+
+"It was not the slightest use my talking. I would sigh, and get into
+the boat and hope for the best. But I never got it. No!
+
+"As soon as we had gone three or four hundred yards Charlie would pull
+towards a little island, which is just beyond the bend in the river--I
+don't know who put it there; I know that I often wished that it was
+further--and row right round it into a sort of little creek which was
+on the other side, which was just large enough to hold the boat, and
+where no one could see us because of the trees. So far as privacy was
+concerned we might as well have been in the heart of a virgin forest.
+And there Charlie would stop, and do nothing else but talk; though I'm
+bound to confess that he chose interesting subjects of conversation as
+a rule, because generally, when he wasn't talking of himself, he was
+talking of me. And it is such a help to conversation when one is well
+acquainted with the topic under discussion. But he did so annoy me,
+because he would never do what I told him. I wanted him to row me to
+Oxford, or somewhere. But he said it was so hot--I didn't feel
+hot!--and Oxford was twenty miles away, and more. That was nonsense,
+because quite little electric launches go there and back in a day. At
+least, I am nearly sure they do.
+
+"But what irritated me more than anything else was because he kept on
+asking me why, if I was so fond of rowing, with the thermometer four
+hundred degrees above bursting point--I don't believe it was anything
+like so hot as that, but that is what he said--I didn't row myself. He
+knew I couldn't. But I made up my mind that I would learn, and, what
+is more, I would teach myself: I would show him what I could do.
+
+"So one morning I got up, all alone, quite early, without breathing a
+single word to anyone. I don't know how early it was, but I know it
+was early, because, when I let myself through the dining-room
+window--French window--into the garden, there was not a creature in
+sight. The garden runs right down to the river. The boat is kept tied
+to the bank. I pulled it close and got into it--and directly I got
+into it it wobbled.
+
+"Dearest mamma, even at that last moment--or at that first moment,
+whichever it was--I almost wished I hadn't come. Suppose I should
+upset! I do believe I should have gone straight back again to bed,
+only I couldn't. The boat had drifted to the end of the string and was
+ever so far from the land, and how to get it back again I didn't know.
+So I sat still, and scarcely dared to breathe. But it did seem so
+silly to sit still like that. If anybody saw me what should I say? I
+had a pair of nail-scissors in my pocket, and with them I cut the
+string. They were a very small pair, and the string was thick and it
+was wet. It took me a long time to cut it. But I succeeded at last. I
+was adrift on the waters!
+
+"Dearest mamma, have you ever felt what it is like to be adrift, all
+alone by yourself, in a dinghy?--you know what that is, I am sure. I
+think that is how it is spelt. I hope you never have, for your own
+sake. It is awful! I could have screamed, only I dared not, for
+fear of upsetting the boat. I had never thought of the oars until
+I was adrift. And when I did think of them my heart went into my
+mouth--between ourselves, I believe it was there already. They were
+generally taken out of the boat at night. But, fortunately, Charlie
+had been too lazy the evening before and had left them in. And there
+they were, staring me in the face. I took hold of one very gently,
+but directly I began to lift it the boat began again to wobble. I
+tried to think I didn't care. I clenched my teeth and I kept on
+lifting the oar, and at last I got it straight up in the air--like a
+scaffold-pole. I had had no idea it was so heavy. It was all I could
+do to hold it; in fact, I couldn't hold it. To my horror it slipped
+out of my grasp and fell into the stream with a splash. It drenched me
+with water from head to foot. And there it was, floating about by
+itself, ever so far away.
+
+"I quite abandoned hope. I gave myself up for lost. I tried to collect
+my presence of mind and to think of the Royal Humane Society's
+directions for drowning--which are printed on the board in Hyde Park,
+you know. Judged by the light of after events, losing that oar was the
+most fortunate thing which could have happened to me. If I had not
+lost it I should have drowned myself. My body might have been lying at
+the bottom of the river even now. But I did not know that at the time.
+And after I had abandoned hope it was all I could do to keep from
+crying.
+
+"Suddenly someone called to me from the bank. It was Charlie. He was
+not very well dressed; he had his towel over his arm; he was going for
+his morning bathe. But I don't think I ever had loved him so much as
+when I heard his voice and saw him standing there--no, not even in
+that glad moment when first he told me that he loved me and asked me
+to be his wife.
+
+"'Oh, Charlie!' I cried. 'I'm drowning!'
+
+"'That's all right!' It sounded unfeeling, but I knew what he meant.
+'I'll swim out to you.'
+
+"He leaped head foremost into the river as if it had been nothing at
+all, and swam out to me as if he had been a dog. He swam first of all
+to the oar, and then he swam to the boat.
+
+"'Sit still!' he said.
+
+"But it was not the slightest use my sitting still when he himself
+nearly pulled the boat right over. Almost before I knew it he was
+sitting on the seat in front of me, sopping wet and laughing.
+
+"'What's the meaning of this?' he asked.
+
+"'I'm learning to row.'
+
+"'You looked as if you were learning to row! Well, have you learnt?'
+
+"'Charlie, you're not to laugh at me! It isn't right. Some girls have
+people to teach them rowing--people who care for them, that is. But I
+haven't, so of course I have to teach myself. And I have to get up in
+the small hours of the morning to do it too.' I sighed--or I chose to
+let him think I did--'I might have been drowned.'
+
+"'That's true--you might.' He looked at me hard, and I believe there
+was a twinkle in his eyes. But as I looked right past him, far across
+the water, and he saw that I was serious, I think that it went no
+further. 'Look here, Miss Whitby----'
+
+"'You're not to call me Miss Whitby, Charlie!'
+
+"'Very well, I won't. Look here, young person----'
+
+"'And you're not to call me young person either. I'm not a young
+person.'
+
+"'Then look here, old chap----'
+
+"'Charlie Mason, if you call me old chap I'll get out of the boat this
+instant!'
+
+"'That's right. Do.' He pretended to wait for me to get out. I was not
+so absurd. He went on: 'I don't know if you're aware that it's easier
+to learn rowing with one scull than with two?'
+
+"'How was I to know that? No one ever told me. Nobody takes sufficient
+interest in me to tell me anything.'
+
+"'If you had betrayed the slightest sign of desiring the information I
+would have taken sufficient interest in you to tell you that. I came
+out here to have a dip. I have had half of it. During the interval,
+before I have the other half, I shall have pleasure in imparting to
+you that instruction for which your soul professes to yearn.' I had
+said nothing about my soul, or about yearning either; I am not so
+profane. He pointed to the seat behind me. 'Get on to that seat and
+sit in the middle.'
+
+"'You must take the boat to shore first. You know how strongly I
+object to changing places while the boat is in the middle of the
+river; it does make it wobble so.'
+
+"'Is the teacher to obey or to be obeyed? Execute my commands!'
+
+"I 'executed his commands,' and the boat did not turn over. Charlie
+moved on to the seat which I had occupied. He showed me his back.
+
+"'Do as I do.'
+
+"I did as he did, or I tried to. He put one of the oars in its place
+in the water without the slightest difficulty. I did not find it by
+any means so easy.
+
+"'May I ask, before we proceed any further, if it is your intention to
+knock me overboard?' He said that simply because I happened to hit him
+with my oar as I was lifting it. The thing would not go right. I
+daresay that I did knock him two or three times, but there was really
+no necessity why he should make a fuss, as he did do. 'Is your scull
+having a row with you, or are you having a row with it? What is the
+matter?'
+
+"Thank you, nothing is the matter."
+
+"I scorned to complain.
+
+"'I'm glad to learn it; I hate to hear of people falling out. Now, are
+you all right?'
+
+"'I am perfectly right.'
+
+"He glanced round to inspect me.
+
+"'Yes, you look perfectly right. You've got your scull the wrong way
+round.' I turned the thing. 'Now you've got it upside down.'
+
+"'What do you mean? You don't mean to tell me that the other end ought
+to be in the water?'
+
+"'No, I don't mean to tell you quite that, but I do mean to tell you
+that you ought to hold it so that the hollow part of the blade looks
+in front of you. It's an elementary fact, but it is a fact.' I turned
+the thing again. 'Suppose you put three or four feet more of it out of
+the boat. As you're holding it at present a good part of your scull
+seems to run to handle.' I pushed some more of the thing through the
+place they call the rowlock. 'I didn't tell you to put the whole of it
+out of the boat; it's just as well to keep something to catch hold of,
+if only for the look of the thing. If you observe, there's a strip of
+leather round the scull. That strip of leather marks the point where
+the scull is supposed to rest in the rowlock. That's better. Your
+hands are wrong; shift them. Hold your scull as I am holding mine.'
+
+"It was all very well of him to talk like that, but it was most
+unfair, besides being ridiculous. His hands are, at least, twice as
+large as mine; he could get right hold of his oar, while I could
+scarcely get hold of mine at all. But I declined to argue.
+
+"'Now, when I say "pull," pull. And it's about time that somebody did
+begin to pull, or very shortly we shall be aground. Now, pull!'
+
+"For some reason, I don't know what, the boat began to turn right
+round. Charlie immediately stopped rowing. I had never begun. Of
+course, at once Charlie tried to be funny.
+
+"'I see the progress of this boat is going to be conducted on the
+tee-to-tum principle. May I ask why you didn't pull?'
+
+"'Because I couldn't.'
+
+"'Why couldn't you?'
+
+"'Because I couldn't get my oar out of the water.'
+
+"'So I should imagine. There appears to be six feet more of it in the
+water than there ought to be. This is not intended to be a lesson in
+punting. In punting one desires to feel the bed of the river; you and
+I do not want to get quite so deep.'
+
+"'I wish you wouldn't laugh at me.'
+
+"'My dear May, nothing can be further from my thoughts. How could I
+dare? Let us try again. Before making our second effort I should,
+perhaps, tell you that it is advisable to put your scull in just deep
+enough to cover the blade, and then to pull it steadily out again.
+There's no hurry. Take your time; there's no fear of our going ashore
+just yet. At present we look more like crossing the river. Now, are
+you ready. When I say the word--pull!'
+
+"Again the boat began to turn.
+
+"'Charlie, I cannot get my oar out of the water. I'm not as strong as
+a horse.'
+
+"He looked at me and laughed. I could have laughed, only I was afraid
+of crying; it was so vexing to feel one was so stupid.
+
+"'When I was a small boy and I first started to row I couldn't get my
+oar out of the water, except when I didn't want to, and then it came
+out too easily. See, May, I'll keep the boat straight, and you have
+one or two shots at paddling.'
+
+"I had what he called 'one or two shots at paddling,' that is, I just
+dipped my oar into the water and pulled. I began to feel that I was
+getting the hang of the thing--Charlie's own words. I saw that it was
+going to be much harder than I had ever imagined, but I did not mind
+that, because, as I say, I did feel that I was getting on.
+
+"'Now,' said Charlie, 'I'll paddle.'
+
+"Directly he began to paddle the boat began to turn.
+
+"'What makes the boat go round?'
+
+"'It's because you don't pull strong enough. If two persons don't pull
+equally--that is, together, and with equal strength--the boat is bound
+to turn.'
+
+"When he said that I made up my mind that I would pull stronger; the
+boat should not go round. So I shut my eyes and clenched my teeth and
+I pulled with all my might, and before I knew what had happened, I was
+in the water!
+
+"Charlie says that I caught a crab. He says, in my haste and my
+excitement--I didn't know I was excited, but I suppose I must have
+been--I did not put the oar into the water at all; I pulled with all
+my might at the vacant air. I know that I fell backwards off my seat,
+and that I made a wild grab at anything and everything, and that the
+boat went over.
+
+"I never shall forget it. The water got into my ears and eyes and nose
+and mouth, and I thought that I never should stop going down. Then,
+all of a sudden, I found myself on the surface again, with the sky
+above me and Charlie's arm about my waist.
+
+"Keep still," he said.
+
+I did keep still; he says I did keep still. He says himself that I
+behaved like a regular trump. I do declare to you, mamma, that I never
+felt the least bit uneasy directly I felt Charlie's arm round my
+waist. Wasn't it strange?
+
+"'You won't let me drown, Charlie, will you?'
+
+"That was all I said.
+
+"'Not if I know it. It's all right, May; we're going shares in the
+other half of my dip, that's all. I'll take you ashore as easy as
+winking.'
+
+"I don't know exactly what it was I said, but I believe that I said
+some absurd thing about that, if I was drowned, he would know that I
+loved him. But I do know that he kissed me, then and there, while he
+was holding me up for dear life, in the middle of the river.
+
+"I never fainted till we got ashore, and then I only just dropped off.
+Charlie carried me right off to my bedroom, and there was a fine
+to-do. But I wasn't going to stop in bed--not I. I just changed my
+clothes and went straight downstairs to breakfast, and, after
+breakfast, I went for another row. And I went for another after lunch,
+and I got on first rate. Charlie declares that, with practice, I shall
+make as good an oarswoman as you would care to see; and, after we are
+married, he's going to teach me swimming--so he says.
+
+"But we're not married yet."
+
+
+
+
+                               Outside!
+
+Stacey-Lumpton wanted to go in a cab. I said that a 'bus was good
+enough for me. He looked me up and down as if I were some inferior
+kind of animal.
+
+"I'll pay for the cab."
+
+That settled it. I told him that I could not think of allowing such a
+thing. He brushed a speck of dust off the silk facings of his
+frockcoat. Then, with his pocket-handkerchief, he brushed the top of
+one of the fingers of his lemon-coloured kid gloves--where it had
+touched his coat.
+
+"But I've never travelled in an omnibus."
+
+"In that case it'll be a new sensation, and a new sensation's
+everything! Read the daily paper--it's the salt of life."
+
+"But all sorts of extraordinary people travel in an omnibus!"
+
+"I should rather think they do. Why, the very last time I was on one
+the Archbishop of Canterbury sat on the seat in front of me, the Duke
+of Devonshire was on my right, a person high in favour at Marlborough
+House was just behind, while there was no one below the rank of a
+baronet in sight."
+
+He looked at me, as he fumbled for his eyeglass, as if he thought
+I might be getting at him. Before he could make up his mind a
+"Walham Green" came lumbering towards us. Stopping it, I hustled
+Stacey-Lumpton into the road before he in the least understood what
+was happening.
+
+"Now then, look alive! Here's the very 'bus we want! Jump up!"
+
+I assisted him on to the step. He made as if to go inside. I twisted
+him towards the stairs. He remonstrated.
+
+"My dear fellow, I really must beg of you to allow me to get inside
+this omnibus."
+
+"Nonsense. You'll be crushed to death, besides being suffocated alive.
+There's plenty of room outside. Up you toddle."
+
+I don't know about toddling, but urged, no doubt, to an appreciable
+degree by the pressure which I exercised from behind, he did begin to
+mount the stairs gingerly one by one. I followed him. When he was near
+the top I sang out to the conductor.
+
+"All right!" The conductor stamped his foot. The 'bus started. Then,
+to Stacey-Lumpton, "Hold tight!"
+
+He held tight just in time. He seemed surprised. "Good gracious! I
+almost tumbled! The omnibus has started! Tell him to stop at once, I'm
+falling!"
+
+"Not you. The police won't allow them to stop more than a certain
+time. They're bound to keep on moving. Shove along."
+
+"This is most dangerous. I'm not used to this kind of thing. And the
+roof seems full."
+
+"There are two empty seats in front there, just behind the
+driver--move on."
+
+He moved on after a fashion of his own. He seemed to find the task of
+preserving his equilibrium, and at the same time of steering his way
+between the two rows of occupied garden seats, a little difficult. He
+struck one man upon the head. He seized a lady by her bonnet. He all
+but thrust the point of his umbrella into another person's eye. He
+grabbed an old gentleman by the collar of his coat. This method of
+proceeding tended to make him popular.
+
+"Driver!" exclaimed the old gentleman whom Stacey-Lumpton had grabbed,
+slightly mistaking the situation, "This person is drunk. He ought not
+to be allowed in such a condition on an omnibus."
+
+Stacey-Lumpton was too confused to remonstrate. He went floundering
+on. Presently he kicked against a box which a gentleman of the coster
+class had placed beside himself on the roof. In trying to recover
+himself he brought his hand down pretty heavily on its owner's hat.
+Said owner lost no time in calling his attention to the thing which he
+had done.
+
+"Where do you think you're a-coming to? I shouldn't be surprised but
+what you thought this 'bus was made for you. You do that again and
+I'll send you travelling, and don't you seem to forget it neither."
+
+Stacey-Lumpton had reached a vacant seat at last. I sat beside him.
+Immediately behind us was the coster. He had taken off his hat and was
+lovingly examining it. It was an ancient billycock, which had been in
+somebody's family for several generations. A friend accompanied him.
+
+"If I was you, Jimmy," observed his friend, "I should make that cove
+pay for your 'at."
+
+"Make 'im pay for it? He ain't got no money. Do 'e look as though 'e
+'ad?"
+
+"Well, I should make 'im give yer 'is 'at for yourn. He's bashed your
+'at in, ain't 'e?"
+
+Jimmy acted on the hint. Leaning forward, he thrust his reminiscence
+of a head-covering under Stacey-Lumpton's nose.
+
+"I say, I don't know if you know that you've bashed my 'at in,
+guv'nor?"
+
+Stacey-Lumpton raised his fingers to his nostrils.
+
+"Take it away, sir--horribly smelling thing."
+
+"Wot are you calling a 'orribly smelling thing? Wot would you say if I
+was to bash your 'at in?"
+
+"I should bash it in if I was you, Jimmy."
+
+"So I will if 'e don't look out, and so I tell 'im."
+
+The gentleman whose coat had been grabbed still seemed unappeased, and
+still seemed labouring under a misapprehension.
+
+"Persons who are in an intoxicated condition ought not to be allowed
+on public conveyances." I turned to Stacey-Lumpton.
+
+"I don't know if you are aware that you almost pulled that gentleman's
+coat off his back?"
+
+The old gentleman's observations, although addressed to no one in
+particular, had been audible to all. Twisting himself round in his
+seat, Stacey-Lumpton proceeded to explain.
+
+"I hope, sir, I didn't hurt you."
+
+The coster chose to take this remark as being addressed to him.
+
+"But you 'urt my 'at! I give fourpence for that 'at not three months
+ago. 'Ow d'yer suppose I'm going to keep myself in 'ats?"
+
+"If I have been so unfortunate as to damage your hat, sir, I shall be
+happy to present you with the sum of fourpence with which to provide
+yourself with another."
+
+Jimmy's friend highly approved of this suggestion. He immediately
+proceeded to embellish it with an addition of his own.
+
+"That's right. You give 'im fourpence and you give me fourpence.
+That's what I call be'aving like a gentleman."
+
+Stacey-Lumpton failed quite to follow the line of reasoning.
+
+"Why should I give you fourpence?"
+
+"Why? Because I asks for it. I suppose you can 'ear me. You bashes in
+my friend's 'at, and I'm 'is friend, and we shares and shares alike.
+As you treats 'im you treats me. Ain't that right, Jimmy?" Jimmy said
+it was.
+
+"Quite right, 'Enery--it's quite right. If the gentleman is a
+gentleman 'e'll give us fourpence apiece--both the two of us. 'E looks
+a gentleman, don't 'e? 'Is 'at wasn't never bought for fourpence--no,
+nor for three fourpences neither."
+
+A feminine voice was heard in the rear. It was the lady Stacey-Lumpton
+had seized by the bonnet; she seemed to have been nursing a grievance.
+
+"And what about me? I suppose it doesn't matter anything at all about
+me. Oh dear no! I have had my bonnet tore almost off my head, and my
+hair too, but, of course, I am nobody. If a drunken wretch was to
+handle some wives some husbands would want to know the reason why. But
+if I was to be thrown right off the omnibust, and trampled under foot,
+my husband would sit still and never say a word--oh dear no!"
+
+The husband in question appeared to be a stout individual who, seated
+by the lady's side, leaned his chin on the handle of an umbrella. He
+seemed to consider that the remark was, at least, partially addressed
+to him.
+
+"It was only an accident, Eliza."
+
+"Oh, of course, it was only an accident. Whenever anyone insults me it
+always is an accident. Some husbands wouldn't say it was an accident,
+but I have to look after myself, I have." She immediately proceeded to
+do it. Raising her voice she addressed herself to Stacey-Lumpton.
+"Young man, I don't know if you happen to be aware that you've
+scrunched my new bonnet out of shape, and drove a hairpin through my
+head. Is that the way you always get on omnibuses?"
+
+Stacey-Lumpton was all apologies.
+
+"I beg ten thousand pardons, madam, but the fact is I am not
+accustomed to travelling on an omnibus, and I'm afraid----"
+
+"Fares, please." The conductor came along cutting the apologies short.
+"Your fare if you please, sir."
+
+"What is the fare?"
+
+"Arf a crown."
+
+This was Jimmy's friend.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+This was the conductor. I explained.
+
+"We want a pennyworth." I turned to Stacey-Lumpton. "I have no
+coppers. Have you got twopence?"
+
+He produced a sovereign purse.
+
+"Have you change for a sovereign?"
+
+This to the conductor, and the conductor was contemptuous.
+
+"Change for a sovereign! I haven't got change for no sovereign, unless
+you like to take it all in coppers."
+
+"Take change for a sovereign in coppers? What do you suppose I should
+do with a sovereign's worth of coppers?"
+
+"I don't know nothing at all about it. I've got to do with 'em,
+haven't I? Twopence, please!"
+
+Jimmy's friend interposed.
+
+"You 'and me over the sovering. I'll change it. I got
+sevenpence-'apenny,"
+
+Jimmy chorussed.
+
+"And I dessay I could make it up to a bob, and then we'll take our two
+'ats out of it, and then we'll give yer wot's left next time we sees
+yer--eh, 'Enery?"
+
+The driver, turning his head, nodded to his colleague.
+
+"That's all right, Tom. You give the gentlemen their tickets. I'll see
+you get your twopence. The gentlemen can owe it me." He gave his whip
+an artistic twirl. "I've known myself what it's like to have a
+sovereign and no change to be had--ah, and more than a sovereign,
+though you mightn't think it to see me here."
+
+Not feeling inclined to be indebted to an omnibus driver for the loan
+of twopence, I suddenly discovered that I had two coppers. The
+conductor retired. There was an interval of silence--spent, I imagine,
+by Stacey-Lumpton in endeavouring to smooth his ruffled plumage.
+Presently Jimmy's friend began again:
+
+"I say, Jimmy, how about our fourpences?"
+
+"That's what I say. Guv'nor, 'ow about our fourpences? I ain't seen no
+fourpence."
+
+I tendered Stacey-Lumpton a word of advice.
+
+"If you are wise you will give them nothing."
+
+"I don't intend to."
+
+"Oh, you don't, don't you? Well, that's 'andsome! Now, supposing I
+bash in your 'at?" All at once he made a fresh discovery. "If 'e ain't
+smashed the blooming box!" He picked up from beside him the box which
+Stacey-Lumpton had kicked against. "Smashed it right in--straight, 'e
+'as! Well, there's a thing to do!" He thrust the box in question
+between Stacey-Lumpton and myself. "Look 'ere there's bloaters in
+that box." We did not need his word to make us conscious of that fact.
+The perfume was enough. Stacey-Lumpton recognised that this was so
+with, on his face, an expression of speechless horror. "You've busted
+in the box and spiled the lot of 'em. Who's going to buy bruised
+bloaters, I'd like to know? I don't mind my 'at so much, but when it
+comes to bloaters--they're my living."
+
+An interposition from the lady whose bonnet had been "scrunched."
+
+"Parties like him think no more of taking the bread out of the mouths
+of the struggling poor than if they was insecks!"
+
+Her husband seemed to think the remark slightly uncalled for.
+
+"That's you, Eliza, all over. You must put your spoke in everybody's
+wheel. You can't keep quiet, can you?"
+
+"It's as well some of us are like that. Some of us would keep quiet
+till we was dead. I'm not that sort, I thank goodness."
+
+A gentleman on the seat on the other side of the driver, leaning
+towards me, proffered a suggestion--his accent was distinctly nasal.
+
+"If I vas your vriend I vould gif him a gopper or two to keep him
+quiet."
+
+At last Stacey-Lumpton found his voice.
+
+"Take that horrible thing away, man."
+
+"'Orrible thing! Wot are you calling a 'orrible thing? Everythink's a
+'orrible thing accordink to you. Don't you come trying no toffs over
+me, my funny bloke, or you'll soon know."
+
+Thereupon something happened which I had not expected, and which, I am
+pretty sure, Jimmy had not expected either. Stacey-Lumpton took that
+box of bloaters in his kid-gloved hands, and in another moment it was
+lying in the road. He had thrown it overboard. What immediately ensued
+may be described as larks. I had not anticipated anything of that kind
+when I had suggested that we should ride outside. Jimmy "went for"
+Stacey-Lumpton with a full-mouthed imprecation.
+
+"He's took my bloaters ... his eyes!!!"
+
+The driver pulled up. "Now then! now then! what's all this? Might I
+just inquire? Some of you'll get hurt, you know."
+
+Stacey-Lumpton rose from his seat. He turned. He lifted Jimmy off his
+feet. Jimmy was one of those half-grown coster lads who in London may
+be regarded as common objects of the sea-shore. His opponent was twice
+his size and he was an athlete, although he was a "toff." Lowering
+Jimmy, in spite of his frantic struggles, over the side of the
+omnibus, he dropped him on to the street. 'Enery, who also evinced
+symptoms of violence, went by the same route after his friend.
+Stacey-Lumpton tossed a sovereign after them.
+
+"Provide yourselves with another box of bloaters and a new hat out of
+that, my men."
+
+But Jimmy was not to be appeased. His honour had been wounded in its
+most tender place. Tossing his injured billycock into the mud, he
+began to tear his coat off his back.
+
+"Come down! Meet me like a man!"
+
+The driver played the part of peacemaker.
+
+"Don't be silly, my lad! The gentleman could swallow you! Pick up your
+sovereign. You'll never see as much money in your life again." He
+started his horses. "Good-bye, my little dears. If I was you I'd have
+a bloater each for tea."
+
+When, having arrived at the end of his first 'bus drive,
+Stacey-Lumpton found himself on solid ground again, he delivered
+himself of a sententious observation:
+
+"I fancy that some of the passengers on that omnibus were beneath the
+rank of a baronet."
+
+I agreed with him. I thought it possible that they were.
+
+Not that I think much of a baronet either.
+
+
+
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+              _W. Brendon and Son, Printers, Plymouth_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Frivolities, by Richard Marsh
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40454 ***