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Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches............................................................................................................1

Saki (H.H. Munro)...................................................................................................................................1

Reginald sat in a corner of the Princess's salon and tried to forgive the furniture, which started out with an

obvious intention of being Louis Quinze, but relapsed at frequent intervals into Wilhelm II.

He classified the Princess with that distinct type of woman that looks as if it habitually went out to feed hens

Her name was Olga; she kept what she hoped and believed to be a fox terrier, and professed what she

thought were Socialist opinions. It is not necessary to be called Olga if you are a Russian Princess; in fact,

Reginald knew quite a number who were called Vera; but the foxterrier and the Socialism are essential.

"The Countess Lomshen keeps a bulldog," said the Princess suddenly. "In England is it more chic to have a

Reginald threw his mind back over the canine fashions of the last ten years and gave an evasive answer.

Reginald thought the Countess's complexion suggested an exclusive diet of macaroons and pale sherry. He

"But that cannot be possible," said the Princess triumphantly; "I've seen her eating fishsoup at Donon's."

The Princess always defended a friend's complexion if it was really bad. With her, as with a great many of

her sex, charity began at homeliness and did not generally progress much farther.

Reginald withdrew his macaroon and sherry theory, and became interested in a case of miniatures.

"That?" said the Princess; "that is the old Princess Lorikoff. She lived in Millionaya Street, near the Winter

Palace, and was one of the Court ladies of the old Russian school. Her knowledge of people and events was

extremely limited; but she used to patronise every one who came in contact with her. There was a story that

when she died and left the Millionaya for Heaven she addressed St. Peter in her formal staccato French: 'Je

suis la Princesse Lorikoff. Il me donne grand plaisir a faire votre connaissance. Je vous en prie me

presenter au Bon Dieu.' St. Peter made the desired introduction, and the Princess addressed le Bon Dieu: 'Je

suis la Princesse Lor ikoff. Il me donne grand plaisir a faire votre connaissance. On a souvent parle de

"Only the old and the clergy of Established churches know how to be flippant gracefully," commented

Reginald; "which reminds me that in the Anglican Church in a certain foreign capital, which shall be

nameless, I was present the other day when one of the junior chaplains was preaching in aid of distressed

somethings or other, and he brought a really eloquent passage to a close with the remark, 'The tears of the

afflicted, to what shall I liken themto diamonds?' The other junior chaplain, who had been dozing out of

professional jealousy, awoke with a start and asked hurriedly, 'Shall I play to diamonds, partner?' It didn't

improve matters when the senior chaplain remarked dreamily but with painful distinctness, 'Double

diamonds.' Every one looked at the preacher, half expecting him to redouble, but he contented himself with

"You English are always so frivolous," said the Princess. "In Russia we have too many troubles to permit of

Reginald gave a delicate shiver, such as an Italian greyhound might give in contemplating the approach of an

ice age of which he personally disapproved, and resigned himself to the inevitable political discussion.

"Nothing that you hear about us in England is true," was the Princess's hopeful beginning.

"I always refused to learn Russian geography at school," observed Reginald; "I was certain some of the

"Everything is wrong with our system of government," continued the Princess placidly. "The Bureaucrats

think only of their pockets, and the people are exploited and plundered in every direction, and everything is

"With us," said Reginald, "a Cabinet usually gets the credit of being depraved and worthless beyond the

"But if it is a bad Government you can turn it out at the elections," argued the Princess.

"But here it is dreadful, every one goes to such extremes. In England you never go to extremes."

"There is always a seesaw with us between repression and violence," continued the Princess; "and the pity

of it is the people are really not in the least inclined to be anything but peaceable. Nowhere will you find

"There I agree with you," said Reginald. "I know a boy who lives somewhere on the French Quay who is a

case in point. His hair curls naturally, especially on Sundays, and he plays bridge well, even for a Russian,

which is saying much. I don't think he has any other accomplishments, but his family affection is really of a

very high order. When his maternal grandmother died he didn't go as far as to give up bridge altogether, but

he declared on nothing but black suits for the next three months. That, I think, was really beautiful."

"I think you must be very selfindulgent and live only for amusement," she said, "a life of pleasureseeking

and cardplaying and dissipation brings only dissatisfaction. You will find that out some day."

"Oh, I know it turns out that way sometimes," assented Reginald. "Forbidden fizz is often the sweetest."

But the remark was wasted on the Princess, who preferred champagne that had at least a suggestion of

"I hope you will come and see me again," she said, in a tone that prevented the hope from becoming too

infectious; adding as a happy afterthought, "you must come to stay with us in the country."

Her particular part of the country was a few hundred versts the other side of Tamboff, with some fifteen miles

of agrarian disturbance between her and the nearest neighbour. Reginald felt that there is some privacy which

Egbert came into the large, dimly lit drawingroom with the air of a man who is not certain whether he is

entering a dovecote or a bomb factory, and is prepared for either eventuality. The little domestic quarrel over

the luncheontable had not been fought to a definite finish, and the question was how far Lady Anne was in a

mood to renew or forgo hostilities. Her pose in the armchair by the teatable was rather elaborately rigid; in

the gloom of a December afternoon Egbert's pincenez did not materially help him to discern the expression

By way of breaking whatever ice might be floating on the surface he made a remark about a dim religious

light. He or Lady Anne were accustomed to make that remark between 4.30 and 6 on winter and late autumn

evenings; it was a part of their married life. There was no recognised rejoinder to it, and Lady Anne made

Don Tarquinio lay astretch on the Persian rug, basking in the firelight with superb indifference to the possible

illhumour of Lady Anne. His pedigree was as flawlessly Persian as the rug, and his ruff was coming into the

glory of its second winter. The page boy, who had Renaissance tendencies, had christened him Don

Tarquinio. Left to themselves, Egbert and Lady Anne would unfailingly have called him Fluff, but they were

Egbert poured himself out some tea. As the silence gave no sign of breaking on Lady Anne's initiative, he

"My remark at lunch had a purely academic application," he announced; "you seem to put an unnecessarily

Lady Anne maintained her defensive barrier of silence. The bullfinch lazily filled in the interval with an air

from Iphigenie en Tauride. Egbert recognised it immediately, because it was the only air the bullfinch

whistled, and he had come to them with the reputation for whistling it. Both Egbert and Lady Anne would

have preferred something from The Yeomen of the Guard, which was their favourite opera. In matters artistic

they had a similarity of taste. They leaned towards the honest and explicit in art, a picture, for instance, that

told its own story, with generous assistance from its title. A riderless warhorse with harness in obvious

disarray, staggering into a courtyard full of pale swooning women, and marginally noted "Bad News",

suggested to their minds a distinct interpretation of some military catastrophe. They could see what it was

The silence continued. As a rule Lady Anne's displeasure became articulate and markedly voluble after four

minutes of introductory muteness. Egbert seized the milkjug and poured some of its contents into Don

Tarquinio's saucer; as the saucer was already full to the brim an unsightly overflow was the result. Don

Tarquinio looked on with a surprised interest that evanesced into elaborate unconsciousness when he was

appealed to by Egbert to come and drink up some of the spilt matter. Don Tarquinio was prepared to play

"I dare say the fault has been partly on my side," continued Egbert, with evaporating cheerfulness. "After all,

He insisted on the point, as if there had been unfounded suggestions that he was built on Satyr lines, with

The bullfinch recommenced its air from Iphigenie en Tauride. Egbert began to feel depressed. Lady Anne

was not drinking her tea. Perhaps she was feeling unwell. But when Lady Anne felt unwell she was not wont

to be reticent on the subject. "No one knows what I suffer from indigestion" was one of her favourite

statements; but the lack of knowledge can only have been caused by defective listening; the amount of

information available on the subject would have supplied material for a monograph.

Egbert began to think he was being unreasonably dealt with; naturally he began to make concessions.

"I dare say," he observed, taking as central a position on the hearthrug as Don Tarquinio could be persuaded

to concede him, "I may have been to blame. I am willing, if I can thereby restore things to a happier

He wondered vaguely how it would be possible. Temptations came to him, in middle age, tentatively and

without insistence, like a neglected butcherboy who asks for a Christmas box in February for no more

hopeful reason that than he didn't get one in December. He had no more idea of succumbing to them than he

had of purchasing the fishknives and fur boas that ladies are impelled to sacrifice through the medium of

advertisement columns during twelve months of the year. Still, there was something impressive in this

Egbert looked at her nervously through his glasses. To get the worst of an argument with her was no new

"I shall go and dress for diner," he announced in a voice into which he intended some shade of sternness to

"A fool" was Don Tarquinio's mental comment as the door closed on Egbert's retreat. Then he lifted his

velvet forepaws in the air and leapt lightly on to a bookshelf immediately under the bullfinch's cage. It was

the first time he had seemed to notice the bird's existence, but he was carrying out a longformed theory of

action with the precision of mature deliberation. The bullfinch, who had fancied himself something of a

despot, depressed himself of a sudden into a third of his normal displacement; then he fell to a helpless

wingbeating and shrill cheeping. He had cost twentyseven shillings without the cage, but Lady Anne made

The prison Chaplain entered the condemned's cell for the last time, to give such consolation as he might.

"The only consolation I crave for," said the condemned, "is to tell my story in its entirety to some one who

"Most people will be of opinion that I am paying the penalty of my own violent deeds. In reality I am a

"Yes. If I had been known as one of the few men in England familiar with the fauna of the Outer Hebrides, or

able to repeat stanzas of Camoens' poetry in the original, I should have had no difficulty in proving my

identity in the crisis when my identity became a matter of life and death for me. But my education was

merely a moderately good one, and my temperament was of the general order that avoids specialisation. I

know a little in a general way about gardening and history and old masters, but I could never tell you

offhand whether 'Stella van der Loopen' was a chrysanthemum or a heroine of the American War of

The Chaplain shifted uneasily in his seat. Now that the alternatives had been suggested they all seemed

"I fell in love, or thought I did, with the local doctor's wife," continued the condemned. "Why I should have

done so, I cannot say, for I do not remember that she possessed any particular attractions of mind or body. On

looking back at past events if seems to me that she must have been distinctly ordinary, but I suppose the

doctor had fallen in love with her once, and what man had done man can do. She appeared to be pleased with

the attentions which I paid her, and to that extent I suppose I might say she encouraged me, but I think she

was honestly unaware that I meant anything more than a little neighbourly interest. When one is face to face

The Chaplain murmured approval. "At any rate, she was genuinely horrified when I took advantage of the

doctor's absence one evening to declare what I believed to be my passion. She begged me to pass out of her

life, and I could scarcely do otherwise than agree, though I hadn't the dimmest idea of how it was to be done.

In novels and plays I knew it was a regular occurrence, and if you mistook a lady's sentiments or intentions

you went off to India and did things on the frontier as a matter of course. As I stumbled along the doctor's

carriagedrive I had no very clear idea as to what my line of action was to be, but I had a vague feeling that I

must look at the Times Atlas before going to bed. Then, on the dark and lonely highway, I came suddenly on

"Judging by the clothes it wore, the corpse was that of a Salvation Army captain. Some shocking accident

seemed to have struck him down, and the head was crushed and battered out of all human semblance.

Probably, I thought, a motorcar fatality; and then, with a sudden overmastering insistence, came another

thought, that here was a remarkable opportunity for losing my identity and passing out of the life of the

doctor's wife for ever. No tiresome and risky voyage to distant lands, but a mere exchange of clothes and

identity with the unknown victim of an unwitnessed accident. With considerable difficulty I undressed the

corpse, and clothed it anew in my own garments. Any one who has valeted a dead Salvation Army captain in

an uncertain light will appreciate the difficulty. With the idea, presumably, of inducing the doctor's wife to

leave her husband's rooftree for some habitation which would be run at my expense, I had crammed my

pockets with a store of banknotes, which represented a good deal of my immediate worldly wealth. When,

therefore, I stole away into the world in the guise of a nameless Salvationist, I was not without resources

which would easily support so humble a role for a considerable period. I tramped to a neighbouring

markettown, and, late as the hour was, the production of a few shillings procured me supper and a night's

lodging in a cheap coffeehouse. The next day I started forth on an aimless course of wandering from one

small town to another. I was already somewhat disgusted with the upshot of my sudden freak; in a few hours'

time I was considerably more so. In the contentsbill of a local news sheet I read the announcement of my

own murder at the hands of some person unknown; on buying a copy of the paper for a detailed account of

the tragedy, which at first had aroused in me a certain grim amusement, I found that the deed ascribed to a

wandering Salvationist of doubtful antecedents, who had been seen lurking in the roadway near the scene of

the crime. I was no longer amused. The matter promised to be embarrassing. What I had mistaken for a motor

accident was evidently a case of savage assault and murder, and, until the real culprit was found, I should

have much difficulty in explaining my intrusion into the affair. Of course I could establish my own identity;

but how, without disagreeably involving the doctor's wife, could I give any adequate reason for changing

clothes with the murdered man? While my brain worked feverishly at this problem, I subconsciously obeyed

a secondary instinctto get as far away as possible from the scene of the crime, and to get rid at all costs of

my incriminating uniform. There I found a difficulty. I tried two or three obscure clothes shops, but my

entrance invariably aroused an attitude of hostile suspicion in the proprietors, and on one excuse or another

they avoided serving me with the now ardently desired change of clothing. The uniform that I had so

thoughtlessly donned seemed as difficult to get out of as the fatal shirt ofYou know, I forget the creature's

"Somehow, until I could get out of those compromising garments, I felt it would not be safe to surrender

myself to the police. The thing that puzzled me was why no attempt was made to arrest me, since there was

no question as to the suspicion which followed me, like an inseparable shadow, wherever I went. Stares,

nudgings, whisperings, and even loudspoken remarks of 'that's 'im' greeted my every appearance, and the

meanest and most deserted eatinghouse that I patronised soon became filled with a crowd of furtively

watching customers. I began to sympathise with the feeling of Royal personages trying to do a little private

shopping under the unsparing scrutiny of an irrepressible public. And still, with all this inarticulate

shadowing, which weighed on my nerves almost worse than open hostility would have done, no attempt was

made to interfere with my liberty. Later on I discovered the reason. At the time of the murder on the lonely

highway a series of important bloodhound trials had been taking place in the near neighbourhood, and some

dozen and a half couples of trained animals had been put on the track of the supposed murdereron my

track. One of our most publicspirited London dailies had offered a princely prize to the owner of the pair

that should first track me down, and betting on the chances of the respective competitors became rife

throughout the land. The dogs ranged far and wide over about thirteen counties, and though my own

movements had become by this time perfectly well known to police and public alike, the sporting instincts

of the nation stepped in to prevent my premature arrest. "Give the dogs a chance," was the prevailing

sentiment, whenever some ambitious local constable wished to put an end to my drawnout evasion of

justice. My final capture by the winning pair was not a very dramatic episode, in fact, I'm not sure that they

would have taken any notice of me if I hadn't spoken to them and patted them, but the event gave rise to an

extraordinary amount of partisan excitement. The owner of the pair who were next nearest up at the finish

was an American, and he lodged a protest on the ground that an otterhound had married into the family of the

winning pair six generations ago, and that the prize had been offered to the first pair of bloodhounds to

capture the murderer, and that a dog that had 1/64th part of otterhound blood in it couldn't technically be

considered a bloodhound. I forget how the matter was ultimately settled, but it aroused a tremendous amount

of acrimonious discussion on both sides of the Atlantic. My own contribution to the controversy consisted in

pointing out that the whole dispute was beside the mark, as the actual murderer had not yet been captured; but

I soon discovered that on this point there was not the least divergence of public or expert opinion. I had

looked forward apprehensively to the proving of my identity and the establishment of my motives as a

disagreeable necessity; I speedily found out that the most disagreeable part of the business was that it couldn't

be done. When I saw in the glass the haggard and hunted expression which the experiences of the past few

weeks had stamped on my erstwhile placid countenance, I could scarcely feel surprised that the few friends

and relations I possessed refused to recognise me in my altered guise, and persisted in their obstinate but

widely shared belief that it was I who had been done to death on the highway. To make matters worse,

infinitely worse, an aunt of the really murdered man, an appalling female of an obviously low order of

intelligence, identified me as her nephew, and gave the authorities a lurid account of my depraved youth and

of her laudable but unavailing efforts to spank me into a better way. I believe it was even proposed to search

"That was just the crucial point," said the condemned; "that was where my lack of specialisation told so

fatally against me. The dead Salvationist, whose identity I had so lightly and so disastrously adopted, had

possessed a veneer of cheap modern education. It should have been easy to demonstrate that my learning was

on altogether another plane to his, but in my nervousness I bungled miserably over test after test that was put

to me. The little French I had ever known deserted me; I could not render a simple phrase about the

gooseberry of the gardener into that language, because I had forgotten the French for gooseberry."

The Chaplain again wriggled uneasily in his seat. "And then," resumed the condemned, "came the final

discomfiture. In our village we had a modest little debating club, and I remembered having promised, chiefly,

I suppose, to please and impress the doctor's wife, to give a sketchy kind of lecture on the Balkan Crisis. I had

relied on being able to get up my facts from one or two standard works, and the backnumbers of certain

periodicals. The prosecution had made a careful note of the circumstance that the man whom I claimed to

beand actually washad posed locally as some sort of secondhand authority on Balkan affairs, and, in

the midst of a string of questions on indifferent topics, the examining counsel asked me with a diabolical

suddenness if I could tell the Court the whereabouts of Novibazar. I felt the question to be a crucial one;

something told me that the answer was St. Petersburg or Baker Street. I hesitated, looked helplessly round at

the sea of tensely expectant faces, pulled myself together, and chose Baker Street. And then I knew that

everything was lost. The prosecution had no difficulty in demonstrating that an individual, even moderately

versed in the affairs of the Near East, could never have so unceremoniously dislocated Novibazar from its

accustomed corner of the map. It was an answer which the Salvation Army captain might conceivably have

madeand I made it. The circumstantial evidence connecting the Salvationist with the crime was

overwhelmingly convincing, and I had inextricably identified myself with the Salvationist. And thus it comes

to pass that in ten minutes' time I shall be hanged by the neck until I am dead in expiation of the murder of

myself, which murder never took place, and of which, in any case, I am innocent."

When the Chaplain returned to his quarters some fifteen minutes later, the black flag was floating over the

prison tower. Breakfast was waiting for him in the diningroom, but he first passed into his library, and,

taking up the Times Atlas, consulted a map of the Balkan Peninsula. "A thing like that," he observed, closing

The opening of a large new centre for West End shopping, particularly feminine shopping, suggests the

reflection, Do women ever really shop? Of course, it is a wellattested fact that they go forth shopping as

assiduously as a bee goes flowervisiting, but do they shop in the practical sense of the word? Granted the

money, time, and energy, a resolute course of shopping transactions would naturally result in having one's

ordinary domestic needs unfailingly supplied, whereas it is notorious that women servants (and housewives

of all classes) make it almost a point of honour not to be supplied with everyday necessities. "We shall be out

of starch by Thursday," they say with fatalistic foreboding, and by Thursday they are out of starch. They have

predicted almost to a minute the moment when their supply would give out and if Thursday happens to be

early closing day their triumph is complete. A shop where starch is stored for retail purposes possibly stands

at their very door, but the feminine mind has rejected such an obvious source for replenishing a dwindling

stock. "We don't deal there" places it at once beyond the pale of human resort. And it is noteworthy that, just

as a sheepworrying dog seldom molests the flocks in his near neighbourhood, so a woman rarely deals with

shops in her immediate vicinity. The more remote the source of supply the more fixed seems to be the resolve

to run short of the commodity. The Ark had probably not quitted its last moorings five minutes before some

feminine voice gloatingly recorded a shortage of birdseed. A few days ago two lady acquaintances of mine

were confessing to some mental uneasiness because a friend had called just before lunch time, and they had

been unable to ask her to stop and share their meal, as (with a touch of legitimate pride) "there was nothing in

the house." I pointed out that they lived in a street that bristled with provision shops and that it would have

been easy to mobilise a very passable luncheon in less than five minutes. "That," they said with quiet dignity,

"would not have occurred to us," and I felt that I had suggested something bordering on the indecent.

But it is in catering for her literary wants that a woman's shopping capacity breaks down most completely. If

you have perchance produced a book which has met with some little measure of success, you are certain to

get a letter from some lady whom you scarcely known to bow to, asking you "how it can be got." She knows

the name of the book, its author, and who published it, but how to get into actual contact with it is still an

unsolved problem to her. You write back pointing out that to have recourse to an ironmonger or a

corndealer will only entail delay and disappointment, and suggest an application to a bookseller as the most

hopeful thing you can think of. In a day or two she writes again: "It is all right; I have borrowed it from your

aunt." Here, of course, we have an example of the BeyondShopper, one who has learned the Better Way, but

the helplessness exists even when such bypaths of relief are closed. A lady who lives in the West End was

expressing to me the other day her interest in West Highland terriers, and her desire to know more about the

breed, so when, a few days later, I came across an exhaustive article on that subject in the current number of

one of our best known outdoorlife weeklies, I mentioned that circumstance in a letter, giving the date of that

number. "I cannot get the paper," was her telephoned response. And she couldn't. She lived in a city where

newsagents are numbered, I suppose, by the thousand, and she must have passed dozens of such shops in her

daily shopping excursions, but as far as she was concerned that article on West Highland terriers might as

well have been written in a missal stored away in some Buddhist monastery in Eastern Thibet.

The brutal directness of the masculine shopper arouses a certain combative derision in the feminine onlooker.

A cat that spreads one shrewmouse over the greater part of a long summer afternoon, and then possibly

loses him, doubtless feels the same contempt for the terrier who compresses his rat into ten seconds of the

strenuous life. I was finishing off a short list of purchases a few afternoons ago when I was discovered by a

lady of my acquaintance whom, swerving aside from the lead given us by her godparents thirty years ago, we

"You're surely not buying blottingpaper HERE?" she exclaimed in an agitated whisper, and she seemed so

"Let me take you to Winks and Pinks," she said as soon as we were out of the building: "they've got such

"Never mind. They know me at Winks and Pinks," she replied inconsequently. Agatha apparently has an idea

that blottingpaper is only sold in small quantities to persons of known reputation, who may be trusted not to

put it to dangerous or improper uses. After walking some two hundred yards she began to feel that her tea

"What do you want blottingpaper for?" she asked suddenly. I explained patiently.

"I use it to dry up the ink of wet manuscript without smudging the writing. Probably a Chinese invention of

the second century before Christ, but I'm not sure. The only other use for it that I can think of is to roll it into

"But you haven't got a kitten," said Agatha, with a feminine desire for stating the entire truth on most

The Cricks lived at ToadWater; and in the same lonely upland spot Fate had pitched the home of the

Saunderses, and for miles around these two dwellings there was never a neighbour or a chimney or even a

buryingground to bring a sense of cheerful communion or social intercourse. Nothing but fields and

spinneys and barns, lanes and wastelands. Such was ToadWater; and, even so, ToadWater had its history.

Thrust away in the benighted hinterland of a scattered market district, it might have been supposed that these

two detached items of the Great Human Family would have leaned towards one another in a fellowship

begotten of kindred circumstances and a common isolation from the outer world. And perhaps it had been so

once, but the way of things had brought it otherwise. Indeed, otherwise. Fate, which had linked the two

families in such unavoidable association of habitat, had ordained that the Crick household should nourish and

maintain among its earthly possessions sundry head of domestic fowls, while to the Saunderses was given a

disposition towards the cultivation of garden crops. Herein lay the material, ready to hand, for the coming of

feud and illblood. For the grudge between the man of herbs and the man of live stock is no new thing; you

will find traces of it in the fourth chapter of Genesis. And one sunny afternoon in late springtime the feud

camecame, as such things mostly do come, with seeming aimlessness and triviality. One of the Crick hens,

in obedience to the nomadic instincts of her kind, wearied of her legitimate scatchingground, and flew over

the low wall that divided the holdings of the neighbours. And there, on the yonder side, with a hurried

consciousness that her time and opportunities might be limited, the misguided bird scratched and scraped and

beaked and delved in the soft yielding bed that had been prepared for the solace and wellbeing of a colony

of seedling onions. Little showers of earthmould and rootfibres went spraying before the hen and behind

her, and every minute the area of her operations widened. The onions suffered considerably. Mrs. Saunders,

sauntering at this luckless moment down the garden path, in order to fill her soul with reproaches at the

iniquity of the weeds, which grew faster than she or her good man cared to remove them, stopped in mute

discomfiture before the presence of a more magnificent grievance. And then, in the hour of her calamity, she

turned instinctively to the Great Mother, and gathered in her capacious hands large clods of the hard brown

soil that lay at her feet. With a terrible sincerity of purpose, though with a contemptible inadequacy of aim,

she rained her earth bolts at the marauder, and the bursting pellets called forth a flood of cackling protest and

panic from the hastily departing fowl. Calmness under misfortune is not an attribute of either henfolk or

womenkind, and while Mrs. Saunders declaimed over her onion bed such portions of the slang dictionary as

are permitted by the Nonconformist conscience to be said or sung, the Vasco da Gama fowl was waking the

echoes of ToadWater with crescendo bursts of throat music which compelled attention to her griefs. Mrs.

Crick had a long family, and was therefore licensed, in the eyes of her world, to have a short temper, and

when some of her ubiquitous offspring had informed her, with the authority of eyewitnesses, that her

neighbour had so far forgotten herself as to heave stones at her henher best hen, the best layer in the

countrysideher thoughts clothed themselves in language "unbecoming to a Christian woman"so at least

said Mrs. Saunders, to whom most of the language was applied. Nor was she, on her part, surprised at Mrs.

Crick's conduct in letting her hens stray into other body's gardens, and then abusing of them, seeing as how

she remembered things against Mrs. Crickand the latter simultaneously had recollections of lurking

episodes in the past of Susan Saunders that were nothing to her credit. "Fond memory, when all things fade

we fly to thee," and in the paling light of an April afternoon the two women confronted each other from their

respective sides of the party wall, recalling with shuddering breath the blots and blemishes of their

neighbour's family record. There was that aunt of Mrs. Crick's who had died a pauper in Exeter workhouse

every one knew that Mrs. Saunders' uncle on her mother's side drank himself to deaththen there was that

Bristol cousin of Mrs. Crick's! From the shrill triumph with which his name was dragged in, his crime must

have been pilfering from a cathedral at least, but as both remembrancers were speaking at once it was

difficult to distinguish his infamy from the scandal which beclouded the memory of Mrs. Saunders' brother's

wife's motherwho may have been a regicide, and was certainly not a nice person as Mrs. Crick painted her.

And then, with an air of accumulating and irresistible conviction, each belligerent informed the other that she

was no ladyafter which they withdrew in a great silence, feeling that nothing further remained to be said.

The chaffinches clinked in the apple trees and the bees droned round the berberis bushes, and the waning

sunlight slanted pleasantly across the garden plots, but between the neighbour households had sprung up a

The male heads of the families were necessarily drawn into the quarrel, and the children on either side were

forbidden to have anything to do with the unhallowed offspring of the other party. As they had to travel a

good three miles along the same road to school every day, this was awkward, but such things have to be.

Thus all communication between the households was sundered. Except the cats. Much as Mrs. Saunders

might deplore it, rumour persistently pointed to the Crick hecat as the presumable father of sundry kittens of

which the Saunders shecat was indisputably the mother. Mrs. Saunders drowned the kittens, but the disgrace

Summer succeeded spring, and winter summer, but the feud outlasted the waning seasons. Once, indeed, it

seemed as though the healing influences of religion might restore to ToadWater its erstwhile peace; the

hostile families found themselves side by side in the soulkindling atmosphere of a Revival Tea, where

hymns were blended with a beverage that came of tealeaves and hot water and took after the latter parent,

and where ghostly counsel was tempered by garnishings of solidly fashioned bunsand here, wrought up by

the environment of festive piety, Mrs. Saunders so far unbent as to remark guardedly to Mrs. Crick that the

evening had been a fine one. Mrs. Crick, under the influence of her ninth cup of tea and her fourth hymn,

ventured on the hope that it might continue fine, but a maladroit allusion on the part of the Saunders good

man to the backwardness of garden crops brought the Feud stalking forth from its corner with all its old

bitterness. Mrs. Saunders joined heartily in the singing of the final hymn, which told of peace and joy and

archangels and golden glories; but her thoughts were dwelling on the pauper aunt of Exeter.

Years have rolled away, and some of the actors in this wayside drama have passed into the Unknown; other

onions have arisen, have flourished, have gone their way, and the offending hen has long since expiated her

misdeeds and lain with trussed feet and a look of ineffable peace under the arched roof of Barnstaple market.

The Minister for Fine Arts (to whose Department had been lately added the new subsection of Electoral

Engineering) paid a business visit to the Grand Vizier. According to Eastern etiquette they discoursed for a

while on indifferent subjects. The minister only checked himself in time from making a passing reference to

the Marathon Race, remembering that the Vizier had a Persian grandmother and might consider any allusion

to Marathon as somewhat tactless. Presently the Minister broached the subject of his interview.

"To have votes? Women?" exclaimed the Vizier in some astonishment. "My dear Pasha, the New Departure

has a flavour of the absurd as it is; don't let's try and make it altogether ridiculous. Women have no souls and

"I know it sounds absurd," said the Minister, "but they are seriously considering the idea in the West."

"Then they must have a larger equipment of seriousness than I gave them credit for. After a lifetime of

specialised effort in maintaining my gravity I can scarcely restrain an inclination to smile at the suggestion.

Why, out womenfolk in most cases don't know how to read or write. How could they perform the operation

"They could be shown the names of the candidates and where to make their cross."

"Their crescent, I mean," corrected the Minister. "It would be to the liking of the Young Turkish Party," he

"Oh, well," said the Vizier, "if we are to do the thing at all we may as well go the whole h " he pulled up just

as he was uttering the name of an unclean animal, and continued, "the complete camel. I will issue

The poll was drawing to a close in the Lakoumistan division. The candidate of the Young Turkish Party was

known to be three or four hundred votes ahead, and he was already drafting his address, returning thanks to

the electors. His victory had been almost a foregone conclusion, for he had set in motion all the approved

electioneering machinery of the West. He had even employed motorcars. Few of his supporters had gone to

the poll in these vehicles, but, thanks to the intelligent driving of his chauffeurs, many of his opponents had

gone to their graves or to the local hospitals, or otherwise abstained from voting. And then something

unlookedfor happened. The rival candidate, Ali the Blest, arrived on the scene with his wives and

womenfolk, who numbered, roughly, six hundred. Ali had wasted little effort on election literature, but had

been heard to remark that every vote given to his opponent meant another sack thrown into the Bosphorus.

The Young Turkish candidate, who had conformed to the Western custom of one wife and hardly any

mistresses, stood by helplessly while his adversary's poll swelled to a triumphant majority.

"Cristabel Columbus!" he exclaimed, invoking in some confusion the name of a distinguished pioneer; "who

"Strange," mused Ali, "that one who harangued so clamorously about the Secret Ballot should have

And, walking homeward with his constituents, he murmured in his beard an improvisation on the heretic poet

"One, rich in metaphors, his Cause contrives To urge with edged words, like Kabul knives; And I, who worst

A figure in an indefinite tweed suit, carrying brownpaper parcels. That is what we met suddenly, at the bend

of a muddy Dorsetshire lane, and the roan mare stared and obviously thought of a curtsey. The mare is

roadshy, with intervals of stolidity, and there is no telling what she will pass and what she won't. We call

her Redford. That was my first meeting with Judkin, and the next time the circumstances were the same; the

same muddy lane, the same rather apologetic figure in the tweed suit, the sameor very similar parcels.

Whether I asked the groom or whether he advanced the information, I forget; but someway I gradually

reconstructed the lifehistory of this trudger of the lanes. It was much the same, no doubt, as that of many

others who are from time to time pointed out to one as having been aforetime in crack cavalry regiments and

noted performers in the saddle; men who have breathed into their lungs the wonder of the East, have romped

through life as through a cotillon, have had a thrust perhaps at the Viceroy's Cup, and done fantastic

horsefleshy things around the Gulf of Aden. And then a golden stream has dried up, the sunlight has faded

suddenly out of things, and the gods have nodded "Go." And they have not gone. They have turned instead to

the muddy lanes and cheap villas and the marked down ills of life, to watch pear trees growing and to

encourage hens for their eggs. And Judkin was even as these others; the wine had been suddenly spilt from

his cup of life, and he had stayed to suck at the dregs which the wise throw away. In the days of his scorn for

most things he would have stared the roan mare and her turnout out of all pretension to smartness, as he

would have frozen a cheap claret behind its cork, or a plain woman behind her veil; and now he was walking

stoically through the mud, in a tweed suit that would eventually go on to the gardener's boy, and would

perhaps fit him. The dear gods, who know the end before the beginning, were perhaps growing a gardener's

boy somewhere to fit the garments, and Judkin was only a caretaker, inhabiting a portion of them. That is

what I like to think, and I am probably wrong. And Judkin, whose clothes had been to him once more than a

religion, scarcely less sacred than a family quarrel, would carry those parcels back to his villa and to the wife

who awaited him and thema wife who may, for all we know to the contrary, have had a figure once, and

perhaps has yet a heart of goldof ninecarat gold, let us say at the leastbut assuredly a soul of tape. And

he that has fetched and carried will explain how it has fared with him in his dealings, and if he has brought

the wrong sort of sugar or thread he will wheedle away the displeasure from that leaden face as a pastrycook

girl will drive bluebottles off a stale bun. And that man has known what it was to coax the fret of a

thoroughbred, to soothe its toss and sweat as it danced beneath him in the glee and chafe of its pulses and the

glory of its thews. He has been in the raw places of the earth, where the desert beasts have whimpered their

unthinkable psalmody, and their eyes have shone back the reflex of the midnight starsand he can immerse

himself in the tending of an incubator. It is horrible and wrong, and yet when I have met him in the lanes his

face has worn a look of tedious cheerfulness that might pass for happiness. Has Judkin of the Parcels found

something in the lees of life that I have missed in going to and fro over many waters? Is there more wisdom

I don't think I saw Judkin more than three times all told, and always the lane was our point of contact; but as

the roan mare was taking me to the station one heavy, cloudsmeared day, I passed a dulllooking villa that

the groom, or instinct, told me was Judkin's home. From beyond a hedge of ragged elderbushes could be

heard the thud, thud of a spade, with an occasional clink and pause, as if some one had picked out a stone and

thrown it to a distance, and I knew that HE was doing nameless things to the roots of a pear tree. Near by

him, I felt sure, would be lying a large and late vegetable marrow, and its largeness and lateness would be a

theme of conversation at luncheon. It would be suggested that it should grace the harvest thanksgiving

service; the harvest having been so generally unsatisfactory, it would be unfair to let the farmers supply all

And while I was speeding townwards along the rails Judkin would be plodding his way to the vicarage

bearing a vegetable marrow and a basketful of dahlias. The basket to be returned.

"There is a wild beast in your woods," said the artist Cunningham, as he was being driven to the station. It

was the only remark he had made during the drive, but as Van Cheele had talked incessantly his companion's

"A stray fox or two and some resident weasels. Nothing more formidable," said Van Cheele. The artist said

"What did you mean about a wild beast?" said Van Cheele later, when they were on the platform.

That afternoon Van Cheele went for one of his frequent rambles through his woodland property. He had a

stuffed bittern in his study, and knew the names of quite a number of wild flowers, so his aunt had possibly

some justification in describing him as a great naturalist. At any rate, he was a great walker. It was his custom

to take mental notes of everything he saw during his walks, not so much for the purpose of assisting

contemporary science as to provide topics for conversation afterwards. When the bluebells began to show

themselves in flower he made a point of informing every one of the fact; the season of the year might have

warned his hearers of the likelihood of such an occurrence, but at least they felt that he was being absolutely

What Van Cheele saw on this particular afternoon was, however, something far removed from his ordinary

range of experience. On a shelf of smooth stone overhanging a deep pool in the hollow of an oak coppice a

boy of about sixteen lay asprawl, drying his wet brown limbs luxuriously in the sun. His wet hair, parted by a

recent dive, lay close to his head, and his lightbrown eyes, so light that there was an almost tigerish gleam in

them, were turned towards Van Cheele with a certain lazy watchfulness. It was an unexpected apparition, and

Van Cheele found himself engaged in the novel process of thinking before he spoke. Where on earth could

this wildlooking boy hail from? The miller's wife had lost a child some two months ago, supposed to have

been swept away by the millrace, but that had been a mere baby, not a halfgrown lad.

"They are very nice woods," said the boy, with a touch of patronage in his voice.

Van Cheele began to have an irritated feeling that he was grappling with a problem that was eluding him.

"Flesh," said the boy, and he pronounced the word with slow relish, as though he were tasting it.

"Since it interests you, rabbits, wildfowl, hares, poultry, lambs in their season, children when I can get any;

they're usually too well locked in at night, when I do most of my hunting. It's quite two months since I tasted

Ignoring the chaffing nature of the last remark Van Cheele tried to draw the boy on the subject of possible

"You're talking rather through your hat when you speak of feeding on hares." (Considering the nature of the

boy's toilet the simile was hardly an apt one.) "Our hillside hares aren't easily caught."

The boy rolled slowly over on to his back, and laughed a weird low laugh, that was pleasantly like a chuckle

"I don't fancy any dog would be very anxious for my company, especially at night."

Van Cheele began to feel that there was something positively uncanny about the strangeeyed,

The prospect of this wild, nude animal in Van Cheele's primly ordered house was certainly an alarming one.

The boy turned like a flash, plunged into the pool, and in a moment had flung his wet and glistening body

halfway up the bank where Van Cheele was standing. In an otter the movement would not have been

remarkable; in a boy Van Cheele found it sufficiently startling. His foot slipped as he made an involuntarily

backward movement, and he found himself almost prostrate on the slippery weedgrown bank, with those

tigerish yellow eyes not very far from his own. Almost instinctively he half raised his hand to his throat. They

boy laughed again, a laugh in which the snarl had nearly driven out the chuckle, and then, with another of his

astonishing lightning movements, plunged out of view into a yielding tangle of weed and fern.

"What an extraordinary wild animal!" said Van Cheele as he picked himself up. And then he recalled

Walking slowly homeward, Van Cheele began to turn over in his mind various local occurrences which might

Something had been thinning the game in the woods lately, poultry had been missing from the farms, hares

were growing unaccountably scarcer, and complaints had reached him of lambs being carried off bodily from

the hills. Was it possible that this wild boy was really hunting the countryside in company with some clever

poacher dogs? He had spoken of hunting "fourfooted" by night, but then, again, he had hinted strangely at

no dog caring to come near him, "especially at night." It was certainly puzzling. And then, as Van Cheele ran

his mind over the various depredations that had been committed during the last month or two, he came

suddenly to a dead stop, alike in his walk and his speculations. The child missing from the mill two months

agothe accepted theory was that it had tumbled into the millrace and been swept away; but the mother

had always declared she had heard a shriek on the hill side of the house, in the opposite direction from the

water. It was unthinkable, of course, but he wished that the boy had not made that uncanny remark about

childflesh eaten two months ago. Such dreadful things should not be said even in fun.

Van Cheele, contrary to his usual wont, did not feel disposed to be communicative about his discovery in the

wood. His position as a parish councillor and justice of the peace seemed somehow compromised by the fact

that he was harbouring a personality of such doubtful repute on his property; there was even a possibility that

a heavy bill of damages for raided lambs and poultry might be laid at his door. At dinner that night he was

"Where's your voice gone to?" said his aunt. "One would think you had seen a wolf."

Van Cheele, who was not familiar with the old saying, thought the remark rather foolish; if he HAD seen a

wolf on his property his tongue would have been extraordinarily busy with the subject.

At breakfast next morning Van Cheele was conscious that his feeling of uneasiness regarding yesterday's

episode had not wholly disappeared, and he resolved to go by train to the neighbouring cathedral town, hunt

up Cunningham, and learn from him what he had really seen that had prompted the remark about a wild beast

in the woods. With this resolution taken, his usual cheerfulness partially returned, and he hummed a bright

little melody as he sauntered to the morningroom for his customary cigarette. As he entered the room the

melody made way abruptly for a pious invocation. Gracefully asprawl on the ottoman, in an attitude of almost

exaggerated repose, was the boy of the woods. He was drier than when Van Cheele had last seen him, but no

And with a view to minimising that catastrophe, Van Cheele hastily obscured as much of his unwelcome

guest as possible under the folds of a Morning Post. At that moment his aunt entered the room.

"This is a poor boy who has lost his wayand lost his memory. He doesn't know who he is or where he

comes from," explained Van Cheele desperately, glancing apprehensively at the waif's face to see whether he

"He seems to have lost most of that, too," said Van Cheele, making frantic little grabs at the Morning Post to

A naked homeless child appealed to Miss Van Cheele as warmly as a stray kitten or derelict puppy would

"We must do all we can for him," she decided, and in a very short time a messenger, dispatched to the

rectory, where a pageboy was kept, had returned with a suit of pantry clothes, and the necessary accessories

of shirt, shoes, collar, etc. Clothed, clean, and groomed, the boy lost none of his uncanniness in Van Cheele's

"We must call him something till we know who he really is," she said. "GabrielErnest, I think; those are

Van Cheele agreed, but he privately doubted whether they were being grafted on to a nice suitable child. His

misgivings were not diminished by the fact that his staid and elderly spaniel had bolted out of the house at the

first incoming of the boy, and now obstinately remained shivering and yapping at the farther end of the

orchard, while the canary, usually as vocally industrious as Van Cheele himself, had put itself on an

allowance of frightened cheeps. More than ever he was resolved to consult Cunningham without loss of time.

As he drove off to the station his aunt was arranging that Gabriel Ernest should help her to entertain the

"My mother died of some brain trouble," he explained, "so you will understand why I am averse to dwelling

on anything of an impossibly fantastic nature that I may see or think that I have seen."

"What I thought I saw was something so extraordinary that no really sane man could dignify it with the credit

of having actually happened. I was standing, the last evening I was with you, half hidden in the

hedgegrowth by the orchard gate, watching the dying glow of the sunset. Suddenly I became aware of a

naked boy, a bather from some neighbouring pool, I took him to be, who was standing out on the bare hillside

also watching the sunset. His pose was so suggestive of some wild faun of Pagan myth that I instantly wanted

to engage him as a model, and in another moment I think I should have hailed him. But just then the sun

dipped out of view, and all the orange and pink slid out of the landscape, leaving it cold and grey. And at the

"No; that is the dreadful part of it," answered the artist; "on the open hillside where the boy had been standing

a second ago, stood a large wolf, blackish in colour, with gleaming fangs and cruel, yellow eyes. You may

But Van Cheele did not stop for anything as futile as thought. Already he was tearing at top speed towards the

station. He dismissed the idea of a telegram. "GabrielErnest is a werewolf" was a hopelessly inadequate

effort at conveying the situation, and his aunt would think it was a code message to which he had omitted to

give her the key. His one hope was that he might reach home before sundown. The cab which he chartered at

the other end of the railway journey bore him with what seemed exasperating slowness along the country

roads, which were pink and mauve with the flush of the sinking sun. His aunt was putting away some

"He is taking the little Toop child home," said his aunt. "It was getting so late, I thought it wasn't safe to let it

But Van Cheele, although not oblivious of the glow in the western sky, did not stay to discuss its beauties. At

a speed for which he was scarcely geared he raced along the narrow lane that led to the home of the Toops.

On one side ran the swift current of the mill stream, on the other rose the stretch of bare hillside. A

dwindling rim of red sun showed still on the skyline, and the next turning must bring him in view of the

illassorted couple he was pursuing. Then the colour went suddenly out of things, and a grey light settled

itself with a quick shiver over the landscape. Van Cheele heard a shrill wail of fear, and stopped running.

Nothing was ever seen again of the Toop child or GabrielErnest, but the latter's discarded garments were

found lying in the road so it was assumed that the child had fallen into the water, and that the boy had

stripped and jumped in, in a vain endeavour to save it. Van Cheele and some workmen who were near by at

the time testified to having heard a child scream loudly just near the spot where the clothes were found. Mrs.

Toop, who had eleven other children, was decently resigned to her bereavement, but Miss Van Cheele

sincerely mourned her lost foundling. It was on her initiative that a memorial brass was put up in the parish

church to "GabrielErnest, an unknown boy, who bravely sacrificed his life for another."

Van Cheele gave way to his aunt in most things, but he flatly refused to subscribe to the GabrielErnest

The little stone Saint occupied a retired niche in a side aisle of the old cathedral. No one quite remembered

who he had been, but that in a way was a guarantee of respectability. At least so the Goblin said. The Goblin

was a very fine specimen of quaint stone carving, and lived up in the corbel on the wall opposite the niche of

the little Saint. He was connected with some of the best cathedral folk, such as the queer carvings in the choir

stalls and chancel screen, and even the gargoyles high up on the roof. All the fantastic beasts and manikins

that sprawled and twisted in wood or stone or lead overhead in the arches or away down in the crypt were in

some way akin to him; consequently he was a person of recognised importance in the cathedral world.

The little stone Saint and the Goblin got on very well together, though they looked at most things from

different points of view. The Saint was a philanthropist in an old fashioned way; he thought the world, as he

saw it, was good, but might be improved. In particular he pitied the church mice, who were miserably poor.

The Goblin, on the other hand, was of opinion that the world, as he knew it, was bad, but had better be let

"Of course you do," said the Goblin; "it's YOUR function to feel sorry for them. If they were to leave off

He rather hoped that the Saint would ask him what a sinecure meant, but the latter took refuge in a stony

silence. The Goblin might be right, but still, he thought, he would like to do something for the church mice

Whilst he was thinking the matter over he was startled by something falling between his feet with a hard

metallic clatter. It was a bright new thaler; one of the cathedral jackdaws, who collected such things, had

flown in with it to a stone cornice just above his niche, and the banging of the sacristy door had startled him

into dropping it. Since the invention of gunpowder the family nerves were not what they had been.

"A silver thaler," said the Saint. "Really," he continued, "it is most fortunate; now I can do something for the

"I will appear in a vision to the vergeress who sweeps the floors. I will tell her that she will find a silver thaler

between my feet, and that she must take it and buy a measure of corn and put it on my shrine. When she finds

the money she will know that it was a true dream, and she will take care to follow my directions. Then the

"Of course YOU can do that," observed the Goblin. "Now, I can only appear to people after they have had a

heavy supper of indigestible things. My opportunities with the vergeress would be limited. There is some

All this while the coin was lying at the Saint's feet. It was clean and glittering and had the Elector's arms

beautifully stamped upon it. The Saint began to reflect that such an opportunity was too rare to be hastily

disposed of. Perhaps indiscriminate charity might be harmful to the church mice. After all, it was their

function to be poor; the Goblin had said so, and the Goblin was generally right.

"I've been thinking," he said to that personage, "that perhaps it would be really better if I ordered a thaler's

He often wished, for the look of the thing, that people would sometimes burn candles at his shrine; but as

they had forgotten who he was it was not considered a profitable speculation to pay him that attention.

"More orthodox, certainly," agreed the Saint, "and the mice could have the ends to eat; candleends are most

The Goblin was too well bred to wink; besides, being a stone goblin, it was out of the question.

"Well, if it ain't there, sure enough!" said the vergeress next morning. She took the shining coin down from

the dusty niche and turned it over and over in her grimy hands. Then she put it to her mouth and bit it.

"She can't be going to eat it," thought the Saint, and fixed her with his stoniest stare.

"Well," said the woman, in a somewhat shriller key, "who'd have thought it! A saint, too!"

Then she did an unaccountable thing. She hunted an old piece of tape out of her pocket, and tied to crosswise,

with a big loop, round the thaler, and hung it round the neck of the little Saint.

"What is that decoration your neighbour is wearing?" asked a wyvern that was wrought into the capital of an

The Saint was ready to cry with mortification, only, being of stone, he couldn't.

And the news went round the Cathedral that the shrine of the little stone Saint had been enriched by a

"After all, it's something to have the conscience of a goblin," said the Saint to himself.

Laploshka was one of the meanest men I have ever met, and quite one of the most entertaining. He said

horrid things about other people in such a charming way that one forgave him for the equally horrid things he

said about oneself behind one's back. Hating anything in the way of illnatured gossip ourselves, we are

always grateful to those who do it for us and do it well. And Laploshka did it really well.

Naturally Laploshka had a large circle of acquaintances, and as he exercised some care in their selection it

followed that an appreciable proportion were men whose bank balances enabled them to acquiesce

indulgently in his rather onesided views on hospitality. Thus, although possessed of only moderate means,

he was able to live comfortably within his income, and still more comfortably within those of various

But towards the poor or to those of the same limited resources as himself his attitude was one of watchful

anxiety; he seemed to be haunted by a besetting fear lest some fraction of a shilling or franc, or whatever the

prevailing coinage might be, should be diverted from his pocket or service into that of a hardup companion.

A twofranc cigar would be cheerfully offered to a wealthy patron, on the principle of doing evil that good

may come, but I have known him indulge in agonies of perjury rather than admit the incriminating possession

of a copper coin when change was needed to tip a waiter. The coin would have been duly returned at the

earliest opportunityhe would have taken means to insure against forgetfulness on the part of the

borrowerbut accidents might happen, and even the temporary estrangement from his penny or sou was a

The knowledge of this amiable weakness offered a perpetual temptation to play upon Laploshka's fears of

involuntary generosity. To offer him a lift in a cab and pretend not to have enough money to pay the fair, to

fluster him with a request for a sixpence when his hand was full of silver just received in change, these were a

few of the petty torments that ingenuity prompted as occasion afforded. To do justice to Laploshka's

resourcefulness it must be admitted that he always emerged somehow or other from the most embarrassing

dilemma without in any way compromising his reputation for saying "No." But the gods send opportunities at

some time to most men, and mine came one evening when Laploshka and I were supping together in a cheap

boulevard restaurant. (Except when he was the bidden guest of some one with an irreproachable income,

Laploshka was wont to curb his appetite for high living; on such fortunate occasions he let it go on an easy

snaffle.) At the conclusion of the meal a somewhat urgent message called me away, and without heeding my

companion's agitated protest, I called back cruelly, "Pay my share; I'll settle with you tomorrow." Early on

the morrow Laploshka hunted me down by instinct as I walked along a side street that I hardly ever

I spoke evasively of the situation in Portugal, where more trouble seemed brewing. But Laploshka listened

with the abstraction of the deaf adder, and quickly returned to the subject of the two francs.

"I'm afraid I must owe it to you," I said lightly and brutally. "I haven't a sou in the world," and I added

Laploshka said nothing, but his eyes bulged a little and his cheeks took on the mottled hues of an

ethnographical map of the Balkan Peninsula. That same day, at sundown, he died. "Failure of the heart's

action," was the doctor's verdict; but I, who knew better, knew that he died of grief.

There arose the problem of what to do with his two francs. To have killed Laploshka was one thing; to have

kept his beloved money would have argued a callousness of feeling of which I am not capable. The ordinary

solution, of giving it to the poor, would by no means fit the present situation, for nothing would have

distressed the dead man more than such a misuse of his property. On the other hand, the bestowal of two

francs on the rich was an operation which called for some tact. An easy way out of the difficulty seemed,

however, to present itself the following Sunday, as I was wedged into the cosmopolitan crowd which filled

the sideaisle of one of the most popular Paris churches. A collectingbag, for "the poor of Monsieur le

Cure," was buffeting its tortuous way across the seemingly impenetrable human sea, and a German in front of

me, who evidently did not wish his appreciation of the magnificent music to be marred by a suggestion of

payment, made audible criticisms to his companion on the claims of the said charity.

"They do not want money," he said; "they have too much money. They have no poor. They are all

If that were really the case my way seemed clear. I dropped Laploshka's two francs into the bag with a

Some three weeks later chance had taken me to Vienna, and I sat one evening regaling myself in a humble

but excellent little Gasthaus up in the Wahringer quarter. The appointments were primitive, but the Schnitzel,

the beer, and the cheese could not have been improved on. Good cheer brought good custom, and with the

exception of one small table near the door every place was occupied. Halfway through my meal I happened

to glance in the direction of that empty seat, and saw that it was no longer empty. Poring over the bill of fare

with the absorbed scrutiny of one who seeks the cheapest among the cheap was Laploshka. Once he looked

across at me, with a comprehensive glance at my repast, as though to say, "It is my two francs you are

eating," and then looked swiftly away. Evidently the poor of Monsieur le Cure had been genuine poor. The

Schnitzel turned to leather in my mouth, the beer seemed tepid; I left the Emmenthaler untasted. My one idea

was to get away from the room, away from the table where THAT was seated; and as I fled I felt Laploshka's

reproachful eyes watching the amount that I gave to the piccoloout of his two francs. I lunched next day at

an expensive restaurant which I felt sure that the living Laploshka would never have entered on his own

account, and I hoped that the dead Laploshka would observe the same barriers. I was not mistaken, but as I

came out I found him miserably studying the bill of fare stuck up on the portals. Then he slowly made his

way over to a milkhall. For the first time in my experience I missed the charm and gaiety of Vienna life.

After that, in Paris or London or wherever I happened to be, I continued to see a good deal of Laploshka. If I

had a seat in a box at a theatre I was always conscious of his eyes furtively watching me from the dim

recesses of the gallery. As I turned into my club on a rainy afternoon I would see him taking inadequate

shelter in a doorway opposite. Even if I indulged in the modest luxury of a penny chair in the Park he

generally confronted me from one of the free benches, never staring at me, but always elaborately conscious

of my presence. My friends began to comment on my changed looks, and advised me to leave off heaps of

On a certain Sundayit was probably Easter, for the crush was worse than everI was again wedged into

the crowd listening to the music in the fashionable Paris church, and again the collectionbag was buffeting

its way across the human sea. An English lady behind me was making ineffectual efforts to convey a coin

into the still distant bag, so I took the money at her request and helped it forward to its destination. It was a

twofranc piece. A swift inspiration came to me, and I merely dropped my own sou into the bag and slid the

silver coin into my pocket. I had withdrawn Laploshka's two francs from the poor, who should never have

had the legacy. As I backed away from the crowd I heard a woman's voice say, "I don't believe he put my

money in the bag. There are swarms of people in Paris like that!" But my mind was lighter that it had been

The delicate mission of bestowing the retrieved sum on the deserving rich still confronted me. Again I trusted

to the inspiration of accident, and again fortune favoured me. A shower drove me, two days later, into one of

the historic churches on the left bank of the Seine, and there I found, peering at the old woodcarvings, the

Baron R., one of the wealthiest and most shabbily dressed men in Paris. It was now or never. Putting a strong

American inflection into the French which I usually talked with an unmistakable British accent, I catechised

the Baron as to the date of the church's building, its dimensions, and other details which an American tourist

would be certain to want to know. Having acquired such information as the Baron was able to impart on short

notice, I solemnly placed the twofranc piece in his hand, with the hearty assurance that it was "pour vous,"

and turned to go. The Baron was slightly taken aback, but accepted the situation with a good grace. Walking

over to a small box fixed in the wall, he dropped Laploshka's two francs into the slot. Over the box was the

That evening, at the crowded corner by the Cafe de la Paix, I caught a fleeting glimpse of Laploshka. He

smiled, slightly raised his hat, and vanished. I never saw him again. After all, the money had been GIVEN to

"The Major is coming in to tea," said Mrs. Hoopington to her niece. "He's just gone round to the stables with

his horse. Be as bright and lively as you can; the poor man's got a fit of the glooms."

Major Pallaby was a victim of circumstances, over which he had no control, and of his temper, over which he

had very little. He had taken on the Mastership of the Pexdale Hounds in succession to a highly popular man

who had fallen foul of his committee, and the Major found himself confronted with the overt hostility of at

least half the hunt, while his lack of tact and amiability had done much to alienate the remainder. Hence

subscriptions were beginning to fall off, foxes grew provokingly scarcer, and wire obtruded itself with

increasing frequency. The Major could plead reasonable excuse for his fit of the glooms.

In ranging herself as a partisan on the side of Major Pallaby Mrs. Hoopington had been largely influenced by

the fact that she had made up her mind to marry him at an early date. Against his notorious bad temper she set

his three thousand a year, and his prospective succession to a baronetcy gave a casting vote in his favour. The

Major's plans on the subject of matrimony were not at present in such an advanced stage as Mrs.

Hoopington's, but he was beginning to find his way over to Hoopington Hall with a frequency that was

"He had a wretchedly thin field out again yesterday," said Mrs. Hoopington. "Why you didn't bring one or

two hunting men down with you, instead of that stupid Russian boy, I can't think."

"Vladimir isn't stupid," protested her niece; "he's one of the most amusing boys I ever met. Just compare him

"Yes; and what does he shoot? Yesterday he brought home a woodpecker in his gamebag."

"Foreigners go in for mixed bags more than we do. A Grand Duke pots a vulture just as seriously as we

should stalk a bustard. Anyhow, I've explained to Vladimir that certain birds are beneath his dignity as a

sportsman. And as he's only nineteen, of course, his dignity is a sure thing to appeal to."

Mrs. Hoopington sniffed. Most people with whom Vladimir came in contact found his high spirits infectious,

"I hear him coming in now," she observed. "I shall go and get ready for tea. We're going to have it here in the

hall. Entertain the Major if he comes in before I'm down, and, above all, be bright."

Norah was dependent on her aunt's good graces for many little things that made life worth living, and she was

conscious of a feeling of discomfiture because the Russian youth whom she had brought down as a welcome

element of change in the countryhouse routine was not making a good impression. That young gentleman,

however, was supremely unconscious of any shortcomings, and burst into the hall, tired, and less sprucely

groomed than usual, but distinctly radiant. His gamebag looked comfortably full.

"No; a large beast; I don't know what you call it in English. Brown, with a darkish tail." Norah changed

"Does it live in a tree and eat nuts?" she asked, hoping that the use of the adjective "large" might be an

"Does it swim and eat fish?" asked Norah, with a fervent prayer in her heart that it might turn out to be an

"No," said Vladimir, busy with the straps of his gamebag; "it lives in the woods, and eats rabbits and

Vladimir looked up at her in consternation. In a torrent of agitated words she tried to explain the horror of the

"Hide it, hide it!" said Norah frantically, pointing to the still unopened bag. "My aunt and the Major will be

Vladimir swung the bag with fair aim; but the strap caught in its flight on the outstanding point of an antler

fixed in the wall, and the bag, with its terrible burden, remained suspended just above the alcove where tea

would presently be laid. At that moment Mrs. Hoopington and the Major entered the hall.

"The Major is going to draw our covers tomorrow," announced the lady, with a certain heavy satisfaction.

"Smithers is confident that we'll be able to show him some sport; he swears he's seen a fox in the nut copse

"I'm sure I hope so; I hope so," said the Major moodily. "I must break this sequence of blank days. One hears

so often that a fox has settled down as a tenant for life in certain covers, and then when you go to turn him out

there isn't a trace of him. I'm certain a fox was shot or trapped in Lady Widden's woods the very day before

"Major, if any one tried that game on in my woods they'd get short shrift," said Mrs. Hoopington.

Norah found her way mechanically to the teatable and made her fingers frantically busy in rearranging the

parsley round the sandwich dish. On one side of her loomed the morose countenance of the Major, on the

other she was conscious of the scared, miserable eyes of Vladimir. And above it all hung THAT. She dared

not raise her eyes above the level of the teatable, and she almost expected to see a spot of accusing vulpine

blood drip down and stain the whiteness of the cloth. Her aunt's manner signalled to her the repeated message

to "be bright"; for the present she was fully occupied in keeping her teeth from chattering.

"What did you shoot today?" asked Mrs. Hoopington suddenly of the unusually silent Vladimir.

Norah's heart, which had stood still for a space, made up for lost time with a most disturbing bound.

"I wish you'd find something that was worth speaking about," said the hostess; "every one seems to have lost

"Yesterday morning; a fine dogfox, with a dark brush," confided Mrs. Hoopington.

"Aha, we'll have a good gallop after that brush tomorrow," said the Major, with a transient gleam of good

humour. And then gloomy silence settled again round the teatable, a silence broken only by despondent

munchings and the occasional feverish rattle of a teaspoon in its saucer. A diversion was at last afforded by

Mrs. Hoopington's foxterrier, which had jumped on to a vacant chair, the better to survey the delicacies of

the table, and was now sniffing in an upward direction at something apparently more interesting than cold

"What is exciting him?" asked his mistress, as the dog suddenly broke into short angry barks, with a running

"By Gad," said the Major, who was now standing up; "there's a pretty warm scent!"

And then a simultaneous idea flashed on himself and Mrs. Hoopington. Their faces flushed to distinct but

harmonious tones of purple, and with one accusing voice they screamed, "You've shot the fox!"

Norah tried hastily to palliate Vladimir's misdeed in their eyes, but it is doubtful whether they heard her. The

Major's fury clothed and reclothed itself in words as frantically as a woman up in town for one day's shopping

tries on a succession of garments. He reviled and railed at fate and the general scheme of things, he pitied

himself with a strong, deep pity too poignent for tears, he condemned every one with whom he had ever come

in contact to endless and abnormal punishments. In fact, he conveyed the impression that if a destroying

angel had been lent to him for a week it would have had very little time for private study. In the lulls of his

outcry could be heard the querulous monotone of Mrs. Hoopington and the sharp staccato barking of the

foxterrier. Vladimir, who did not understand a tithe of what was being said, sat fondling a cigarette and

repeating under his breath from time to time a vigorous English adjective which he had long ago taken

affectionately into his vocabulary. His mind strayed back to the youth in the old Russian folktale who shot

an enchanted bird with dramatic results. Meanwhile, the Major, roaming round the hall like an imprisoned

cyclone, had caught sight of and joyfully pounced on the telephone apparatus, and lost no time in ringing up

the hunt secretary and announcing his resignation of the Mastership. A servant had by this time brought his

horse round to the door, and in a few seconds Mrs. Hoopington's shrill monotone had the field to itself. But

after the Major's display her best efforts at vocal violence missed their full effect; it was as though one had

come straight out from a Wagner opera into a rather tame thunderstorm. Realising, perhaps, that her tirades

were something of an anticlimax, Mrs. Hoopington broke suddenly into some rather necessary tears and

marched out of the room, leaving behind her a silence almost as terrible as the turmoil which had preceded it.

"Just plain burial?" said Vladimir, rather relieved. He had almost expected that some of the local clergy

would have insisted on being present, or that a salute might have to be fired over the grave.

And thus it came to pass that in the dusk of a November evening the Russian boy, murmuring a few of the

prayers of his Church for luck, gave hasty but decent burial to a large polecat under the lilac trees at

Mrs. Jallatt's young people's parties were severely exclusive; it came cheaper that way, because you could ask

fewer to them. Mrs. Jallatt didn't study cheapness, but somehow she generally attained it.

"There'll be about ten girls," speculated Rollo, as he drove to the function, "and I suppose four fellows, unless

the Wrotsleys bring their cousin, which Heaven forbid. That would mean Jack and me against three of them."

Rollo and the Wrotsley brethren had maintained an undying feud almost from nursery days. They only met

now and then in the holidays, and the meeting was usually tragic for whichever happened to have the fewest

backers on hand. Rollo was counting tonight on the presence of a devoted and muscular partisan to hold an

even balance. As he arrived he heard his prospective champion's sister apologising to the hostess for the

unavoidable absence of her brother; a moment later he noted that the Wrotsleys HAD brought their cousin.

Two against three would have been exciting and possibly unpleasant; one against three promised to be about

as amusing as a visit to the dentist. Rollo ordered his carriage for as early as was decently possible, and faced

the company with a smile that he imagined the better sort of aristocrat would have worn when mounting to

"Now, you children will like to play games, I suppose," said Mrs. Jallatt, by way of giving things a start, and

as they were too well bred to contradict her there only remained the question of what they were to play at.

"I know of a good game," said the elder Wrotsley innocently. "The fellows leave the room and think of a

word; then they come back again, and the girls have to find out what the word is."

Rollo knew the game. He would have suggested it himself if his faction had been in the majority.

"It doesn't promise to be very exciting," sniffed the superior Dolores Sneep as the boys filed out of the room.

Rollo thought differently. He trusted to Providence that Wrotsley had nothing worse than knotted

The wordchoosers locked themselves in the library to ensure that their deliberations should not be

interrupted. Providence turned out to be not even decently neutral; on a rack on the library wall were a

dogwhip and a whalebone ridingswitch. Rollo thought it criminal negligence to leave such weapons of

precision lying about. He was given a choice of evils, and chose the dogwhip; the next minute or so he spent

in wondering how he could have made such a stupid selection. Then they went back to the languidly

"You stupid!" screamed the girls, "we've got to GUESS the word. Now you'll have to go back and think of

"Not for worlds," said Rollo; "I mean, the word isn't really camel; we were rotting. Pretend it's dromedary!"

"I heard them say 'dromedary'! I heard them. I don't care what you say; I heard them," squealed the odious

Dolores. "With ears as long as hers one would hear anything," thought Rollo savagely.

The conclave locked itself once more into the library. "Look here, I'm not going through that dogwhip

"Certainly not, dear," said the elder Wrotsley; "we'll try the whalebone switch this time, and you'll know

which hurts most. It's only by personal experience that one finds out these things."

It was swiftly borne in upon Rollo that his earlier selection of the dogwhip had been a really sound one. The

conclave gave his under lip time to steady itself while it debated the choice of the necessary word.

"Mustang" was no good, as half the girls wouldn't know what it meant; finally "quagga" was pitched on.

"You must come and sit down over here," chorused the investigating committee on their return; but Rollo

was obdurate in insisting that the questioned person always stood up. On the whole, it was a relief when the

Mrs. Jallatt did not stint her young guests, but the more expensive delicacies of her suppertable were never

unnecessarily duplicated, and it was usually good policy to take what you wanted while it was still there. On

this occasion she had provided sixteen peaches to "go round" among fourteen children; it was really not her

fault that the two Wrotsleys and their cousin, foreseeing the long foodless drive home, had each quietly

pocketed an extra peach, but it was distinctly trying for Dolores and the fat and goodnatured Agnes Blaik to

But Agnes was fat first and goodnatured afterwards; those were her guiding principles in life. She was

profuse in her sympathy for Dolores, but she hastily devoured the peach, explaining that it would spoil it to

"Now what would you all like to do?" demanded Mrs. Jallatt by way of diversion. "The professional conjurer

There were symptoms of a general panic. Dolores was known to recite "Locksley Hall" on the least

provocation. There had been occasions when her opening line, "Comrades, leave me here a little," had been

taken as a literal injunction by a large section of her hearers. There was a murmur of relief when Rollo hastily

declared that he could do a few conjuring tricks. He had never done one in his life, but those two visits to the

"You've seen conjuring chaps take coins and cards out of people," he announced; "well, I'm going to take

Without more ado Rollo made straight for his trio of enemies, plunged his hand successively into their

breastpockets, and produced three peaches. There was no applause, but no amount of handclapping would

have given the performer as much pleasure as the silence which greeted his coup.

"If they HAD been confederates they would have sworn they knew nothing about it," said Dolores, with

Rollo did not. He hinted that he might have changed the three peaches into something else, but Agnes had

already converted one into girlfood, so nothing more could be done in that direction.

"I know a game," said the elder Wrotsley heavily, "where the fellows go out of the room, and think of some

character in history; then they come back and act him, and the girls have to guess who it's meant for."

"It's raining rather steadily at present. You've just time to play that historical game."

"We haven't heard Dolores recite," said Rollo desperately; as soon as he had said it he realised his mistake.

Confronted with the alternative of "Locksley Hall," public opinion declared unanimously for the history

Rollo played his last card. In an undertone meant apparently for the Wrotsley boy, but carefully pitched to

"All right, old man; we'll go and finish those chocolates we left in the library."

"I think it's only fair that the girls should take their turn in going out," exclaimed Agnes briskly. She was

Rollo sank into a chair and smiled ever so faintly at the Wrotsleys, just a momentary baring of the teeth; an

otter, escaping from the fangs of the hounds into the safety of a deep pool, might have given a similar

From the library came the sound of moving furniture. Agnes was leaving nothing unturned in her quest for

the mythical chocolates. And then came a more blessed sound, wheels crunching wet gravel.

Vanessa Pennington had a husband who was poor, with few extenuating circumstances, and an admirer who,

though comfortably rich, was cumbered with a sense of honour. His wealth made him welcome in Vanessa's

eyes, but his code of what was right impelled him to go away and forget her, or at the most to think of her in

the intervals of doing a great many other things. And although Alaric Clyde loved Vanessa, and thought he

should always go on loving her, he gradually and unconsciously allowed himself to be wooed and won by a

more alluring mistress; he fancied that his continued shunning of the haunts of men was a selfimposed exile,

but his heart was caught in the spell of the Wilderness, and the Wilderness was kind and beautiful to him.

When one is young and strong and unfettered the wild earth can be very kind and very beautiful. Witness the

legion of men who were once young and unfettered and now eat out their souls in dustbins, because, having

erstwhile known and loved the Wilderness, they broke from her thrall and turned aside into beaten paths.

In the high waste places of the world Clyde roamed and hunted and dreamed, deathdealing and gracious as

some god of Hellas, moving with his horses and servants and fourfooted camp followers from one dwelling

ground to another, a welcome guest among wild primitive village folk and nomads, a friend and slayer of the

fleet, shy beasts around him. By the shores of misty upland lakes he shot the wild fowl that had winged their

way to him across half the old world; beyond Bokhara he watched the wild Aryan horsemen at their gambols;

watched, too, in some dimlit teahouse one of those beautiful uncouth dances that one can never wholly

forget; or, making a wide cast down to the valley of the Tigris, swam and rolled in its snowcooled racing

waters. Vanessa, meanwhile, in a Bayswater back street, was making out the weekly laundry list, attending

bargain sales, and, in her more adventurous moments, trying new ways of cooking whiting. Occasionally she

went to bridge parties, where, if the play was not illuminating, at least one learned a great deal about the

private life of some of the Royal and Imperial Houses. Vanessa, in a way, was glad that Clyde had done the

proper thing. She had a strong natural bias towards respectability, though she would have preferred to have

been respectable in smarter surroundings, where her example would have done more good. To be beyond

reproach was one thing, but it would have been nicer to have been nearer to the Park.

And then of a sudden her regard for respectability and Clyde's sense of what was right were thrown on the

scrapheap of unnecessary things. They had been useful and highly important in their time, but the death of

The news of the altered condition of things followed Clyde with leisurely persistence from one place of call

to another, and at last ran him to a standstill somewhere in the Orenburg Steppe. He would have found it

exceedingly difficult to analyse his feelings on receipt of the tidings. The Fates had unexpectedly (and

perhaps just a little officiously) removed an obstacle from his path. He supposed he was overjoyed, but he

missed the feeling of elation which he had experienced some four months ago when he had bagged a

snowleopard with a lucky shot after a day's fruitless stalking. Of course he would go back and ask Vanessa

to marry him, but he was determined on enforcing a condition; on no account would he desert his newer love.

The lady hailed the return of her lover with even more relief than had been occasioned by his departure. The

death of John Pennington had left his widow in circumstances which were more straitened than ever, and the

Park had receded even from her notepaper, where it had long been retained as a courtesy title on the principle

that addresses are given to us to conceal our whereabouts. Certainly she was more independent now than

heretofore, but independence, which means so much to many women, was of little account to Vanessa, who

came under the heading of the mere female. She made little ado about accepting Clyde's condition, and

announced herself ready to follow him to the end of the world; as the world was round she nourished a

complacent idea that in the ordinary course of things one would find oneself in the neighbourhood of Hyde

East of Budapest her complacency began to filter away, and when she saw her husband treating the Black Sea

with a familiarity which she had never been able to assume towards the English Channel, misgivings began to

crowd in upon her. Adventures which would have presented an amusing and enticing aspect to a betterbred

woman aroused in Vanessa only the twin sensations of fright and discomfort. Flies bit her, and she was

persuaded that it was only sheer boredom that prevented camels from doing the same. Clyde did his best, and

a very good best it was, to infuse something of the banquet into their prolonged desert picnics, but even

snowcooled Heidsieck lost its flavour when you were convinced that the dusky cupbearer who served it

with such reverent elegance was only waiting a convenient opportunity to cut your throat. It was useless for

Clyde to give Yussuf a character for devotion such as is rarely found in any Western servant. Vanessa was

well enough educated to know that all duskyskinned people take human life as unconcernedly as Bayswater

And with a growing irritation and querulousness on her part came a further disenchantment, born of the

inability of husband and wife to find a common ground of interest. The habits and migrations of the sand

grouse, the folklore and customs of Tartars and Turkomans, the points of a Cossack ponythese were matter

which evoked only a bored indifference in Vanessa. On the other hand, Clyde was not thrilled on being

informed that the Queen of Spain detested mauve, or that a certain Royal duchess, for whose tastes he was

never likely to be called on to cater, nursed a violent but perfectly respectable passion for beef olives.

Vanessa began to arrive at the conclusion that a husband who added a roving disposition to a settled income

was a mixed blessing. It was one thing to go to the end of the world; it was quite another thing to make

oneself at home there. Even respectability seemed to lose some of its virtue when one practised it in a tent.

Bored and disillusioned with the drift of her new life, Vanessa was undisguisedly glad when distraction

offered itself in the person of Mr. Dobrinton, a chance acquaintance whom they had first run against in the

primitive hostelry of a benighted Caucasian town. Dobrinton was elaborately British, in deference perhaps to

the memory of his mother, who was said to have derived part of her origin from an English governess who

had come to Lemberg a long way back in the last century. If you had called him Dobrinski when off his guard

he would probably have responded readily enough; holding, no doubt, that the end crowns all, he had taken a

slight liberty with the family patronymic. To look at, Mr. Dobrinton was not a very attractive specimen of

masculine humanity, but in Vanessa's eyes he was a link with that civilisation which Clyde seemed so ready

to ignore and forgo. He could sing "YipIAddy" and spoke of several duchesses as if he knew themin his

more inspired moments almost as if they knew him. He even pointed out blemishes in the cuisine or cellar

departments of some of the more august London restaurants, a species of Higher Criticism which was listened

to by Vanessa in awe stricken admiration. And, above all, he sympathised, at first discreetly, afterwards

with more latitude, with her fretful discontent at Clyde's nomadic instincts. Business connected with

oilwells had brought Dobrinton to the neighbourhood of Baku; the pleasure of appealing to an appreciative

female audience induced him to deflect his return journey so as to coincide a good deal with his new

aquaintances' line of march. And while Clyde trafficked with Persian horsedealers or hunted the wild grey

pigs in their lairs and added to his notes on Central Asian gamefowl, Dobrinton and the lady discussed the

ethics of desert respectability from points of view that showed a daily tendency to converge. And one evening

Clyde dined alone, reading between the courses a long letter from Vanessa, justifying her action in flitting to

It was distinctly evil luck for Vanessa, who really was thoroughly respectable at heart, that she and her lover

should run into the hands of Kurdish brigands on the first day of their flight. To be mewed up in a squalid

Kurdish village in close companionship with a man who was only your husband by adoption, and to have the

attention of all Europe drawn to your plight, was about the least respectable thing that could happen. And

there were international complications, which made things worse. "English lady and her husband, of foreign

nationality, held by Kurdish brigands who demand ransom" had been the report of the nearest Consul.

Although Dobrinton was British at heart, the other portions of him belonged to the Habsburgs, and though the

Habsburgs took no great pride or pleasure in this particular unit of their wide and varied possessions, and

would gladly have exchanged him for some interesting bird or mammal for the Schoenbrunn Park, the code

of international dignity demanded that they should display a decent solicitude for his restoration. And while

the Foreign Offices of the two countries were taking the usual steps to secure the release of their respective

subjects a further horrible complication ensued. Clyde, following on the track of the fugitives, not with any

special desire to overtake them, but with a dim feeling that it was expected of him, fell into the hands of the

same community of brigands. Diplomacy, while anxious to do its best for a lady in misfortune, showed signs

of becoming restive at this expansion of its task; as a frivolous young gentleman in Downing Street remarked,

"Any husband of Mrs. Dobrinton's we shall be glad to extricate, but let us know how many there are of

Meanwhile the situation of the captives was not free from embarrassment. When Clyde explained to the

Kurdish headmen the nature of his relationship with the runaway couple they were gravely sympathetic, but

vetoed any idea of summary vengeance, since the Habsburgs would be sure to insist on the delivery of

Dobrinton alive, and in a reasonably undamaged condition. They did not object to Clyde administering a

beating to his rival for half an hour every Monday and Thursday, but Dobrinton turned such a sickly green

when he heard of this arrangement that the chief was obliged to withdraw the concession.

And so, in the cramped quarters of a mountain hut, the illassorted trio watched the insufferable hours crawl

slowly by. Dobrinton was too frightened to be conversational, Vanessa was too mortified to open her lips,

and Clyde was moodily silent. The little Limberg negociant plucked up heart once to give a quavering

rendering of "YipIAddy," but when he reached the statement "home was never like this" Vanessa tearfully

begged him to stop. And silence fastened itself with growing insistence on the three captives who were so

tragically herded together; thrice a day they drew near to one another to swallow the meal that had been

prepared for them, like desert beasts meeting in mute suspended hostility at the drinking pool, and then drew

Clyde was less carefully watched than the others. "Jealousy will keep him to the woman's side," thought his

Kurdish captors. They did not know that his wilder, truer love was calling to him with a hundred voices from

beyond the village bounds. And one evening, finding that he was not getting the attention to which he was

entitled, Clyde slipped away down the mountain side and resumed his study of Central Asian gamefowl.

The remaining captives were guarded henceforth with greater rigour, but Dobrinton at any rate scarcely

The long arm, or perhaps one might better say the long purse, of diplomacy at last effected the release of the

prisoners, but the Habsburgs were never to enjoy the guerdon of their outlay. On the quay of the little Black

Sea port, where the rescued pair came once more into contact with civilisation, Dobrinton was bitten by a dog

which was assumed to be mad, though it may only have been indiscriminating. The victim did not wait for

symptoms of rabies to declare themselves, but died forthwith of fright, and Vanessa made the homeward

journey alone, conscious somehow of a sense of slightly restored respectability. Clyde, in the intervals of

correcting the proofs of his book on the gamefowl of Central Asia, found time to press a divorce suit

through the Courts, and as soon as possible hied him away to the congenial solitudes of the Gobi Desert to

collect material for a work on the fauna of that region. Vanessa, by virtue perhaps of her earlier intimacy with

the cooking rites of the whiting, obtained a place on the kitchen staff of a West End club. It was not brilliant,

SceneDeck of eastwardbound steamer. Major Dumbarton seated on deckchair, another chair by his side,

(Enter R. Mrs. Carewe, seats herself leisurely in her deckchair, the Major affecting to ignore her presence.)

Em.: Fate! Nothing of the sort; it's only me. You men are always such fatalists. I deferred my departure three

whole weeks, in order to come out in the same boat that I saw you were travelling by. I bribed the steward to

put out chairs side by side in an unfrequented corner, and I took enormous pains to be looking particularly

attractive this morning, and then you say "This is fate." I AM looking particularly attractive, am I not?

Em.: I knew you'd put it exactly in those words. The phraseology of lovemaking is awfully limited, isn't it?

After all, the chief charm is in the fact of being made love to. You ARE making love to me, aren't you?

Maj.: Emily dearest, I had already begun making advances, even before you sat down here. I also bribed the

steward to put our seats together in a secluded corner. "You may consider it done, sir," was his reply. That

Em.: How like a man to have his breakfast first. I attended to the seat business as soon as I left my cabin.

Maj.: Don't be unreasonable. It was only at breakfast that I discovered your blessed presence on the boat. I

paid violent and unusual attention to a flapper all through the meal in order to make you jealous. She's

probably in her cabin writing reams about me to a fellowflapper at this very moment.

Em.: You needn't have taken all that trouble to make me jealous, Dickie. You did that years ago, when you

Em.: Well, there's no particular harm in marrying a widower, I suppose. I'm ready to do it again, if I meet a

Maj.: Look here, Emily, it's not fair to go at that rate. You're a lap ahead of me the whole time. It's my place

Em.: Well, I've practically said it already, so we needn't dawdle over that part.

Maj.: We deadheated it that time. (Suddenly jumping to his feet) Oh, d I'd forgotten!

Em.: Only four were my own. The other four were by my husband's first marriage. Still, that practically

Maj.: And eight and five make thirteen. We can't start our married life with thirteen children; it would be

most unlucky. (Walks up and down in agitation.) Some way must be found out of this. If we could only bring

Em.: Isn't there some way by which we could part with one or two? Don't the French want more children?

Em.: There's always a chance that one of them might turn out depraved and vicious, and then you could

Maj.: But, good gracious, you've got to educate him first. You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to

Maj.: Only when they inherit it from depraved parents. You don't suppose there's any depravity in me, do

Maj.: But one can't build too much on that. In midVictorian days they labelled all sorts of things as

unspeakable that we should speak about quite tolerantly. I dare say this particular aunt had only married a

Unitarian, or rode to hounds on both sides of her horse, or something of that sort. Anyhow, we can't wait

indefinitely for one of the children to take after a doubtfully depraved greataunt. Something else must be

Maj.: I've heard of it being done by childless couples, and those sort of people

Ah, good morning. Mrs. PalyPaget. I was just wondering at breakfast where did we meet last?

Mrs. P.P.: I was dining with Lord and Lady Slugford. Charming people, but so mean. They took us

afterwards to the Velodrome, to see some dancer interpreting Mendelssohn's "song without clothes." We

were all packed up in a little box near the roof, and you may imagine how hot it was. It was like a Turkish

Em.: Oh dear, no! It's too early on the voyage for that sort of thing. We were feeling rather sorry for you.

Mrs. P.P.: Major! How dare you? I've got my little girl, I suppose you know. Her feet can patter as well as

Mrs. P.P.: Certainly. My child isn't a centipede. Considering the way they move us about in those horrid

jungle stations, without a decent bungalow to set one's foot in, I consider I've got a hearthless child, rather

than a childless hearth. Thank you for your sympathy all the same. I dare say it was well meant. Impertinence

Em.: Dear Mrs. PalyPaget, we were only feeling sorry for your sweet little girl when she grows older, you

Mrs. P.P.: Mrs. Carewe, this conversation strikes me as being indelicate, to say the least of it. I've only been

Maj.: Isn't it rather an exaggeration to talk of one little female child as a family? A family suggests numbers.

Mrs. P.P.: Really, Major, you language is extraordinary. I dare say I've only got a little female child, as you

Maj.: Oh, it won't change into a boy later on, if that's what you're counting on. Take our word for it; we've

had so much more experience in these affairs than you have. Once a female, always a female. Nature is not

Mrs. P.P. (rising): Major Dumbarton, these boats are uncomfortably small, but I trust we shall find ample

accommodation for avoiding each other's society during the rest of the voyage. The same wish applies to you,

Em.: I wouldn't trust a child with any one who had a temper like hers. Oh, Dickie, why did you go and have

such a large family? You always said you wanted me to be the mother of your children.

Maj.: I wasn't going to wait while you were founding and fostering dynasties in other directions. Why you

couldn't be content to have children of your own, without collecting them like batches of postage stamps I

Maj.: Oh, Emily, supposing I've miscounted them! Listen now, keep count with me. Richardthat's after me,

Theodoric Voler had been brought up, from infancy to the confines of middle age, by a fond mother whose

chief solicitude had been to keep him screened from what she called the coarser realities of life. When she

died she left Theodoric alone in a world that was as real as ever, and a good deal coarser than he considered it

had any need to be. To a man of his temperament and upbringing even a simple railway journey was

crammed with petty annoyances and minor discords, and as he settled himself down in a secondclass

compartment one September morning he was conscious of ruffled feelings and general mental discomposure.

He had been staying at a country vicarage, the inmates of which had been certainly neither brutal nor

bacchanalian, but their supervision of the domestic establishment had been of that lax order which invites

disaster. The pony carriage that was to take him to the station had never been properly ordered, and when the

moment for his departure drew near the handyman who should have produced the required article was

nowhere to be found. In this emergency Theodoric, to his mute but very intense disgust, found himself

obliged to collaborate with the vicar's daughter in the task of harnessing the pony, which necessitated groping

about in an illlighted outhouse called a stable, and smelling very like oneexcept in patches where it smelt

of mice. Without being actually afraid of mice, Theodoric classed them among the coarser incidents of life,

and considered that Providence, with a little exercise of moral courage, might long ago have recognised that

they were not indispensable, and have withdrawn them from circulation. As the train glided out of the station

Theodoric's nervous imagination accused himself of exhaling a weak odour of stableyard, and possibly of

displaying a mouldy straw or two on his usually wellbrushed garments. Fortunately the only other occupant

of the compartment, a lady of about the same age as himself, seemed inclined for slumber rather than

scrutiny; the train was not due to stop till the terminus was reached, in about an hour's time, and the carriage

was of the oldfashioned sort, that held no communication with a corridor, therefore no further travelling

companions were likely to intrude on Theodoric's semi privacy. And yet the train had scarcely attained its

normal speed before he became reluctantly but vividly aware that he was not alone with the slumbering lady;

he was not even alone in his own clothes. A warm, creeping movement over his flesh betrayed the

unwelcome and highly resented presence, unseen but poignant, of a strayed mouse, that had evidently dashed

into its present retreat during the episode of the pony harnessing. Furtive stamps and shakes and wildly

directed pinches failed to dislodge the intruder, whose motto, indeed, seemed to be Excelsior; and the lawful

occupant of the clothes lay back against the cushions and endeavoured rapidly to evolve some means for

putting an end to the dual ownership. It was unthinkable that he should continue for the space of a whole hour

in the horrible position of a Rowton House for vagrant mice (already his imagination had at least doubled the

numbers of the alien invasion). On the other hand, nothing less drastic than partial disrobing would ease him

of his tormentor, and to undress in the presence of a lady, even for so laudable a purpose, was an idea that

made his eartips tingle in a blush of abject shame. He had never been able to bring himself even to the mild

exposure of openwork socks in the presence of the fair sex. And yetthe lady in this case was to all

appearances soundly and securely asleep; the mouse, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to crowd a

Wanderjahr into a few strenuous minutes. If there is any truth in the theory of transmigration, this particular

mouse must certainly have been in a former state a member of the Alpine Club. Sometimes in its eagerness it

lost its footing and slipped for half an inch or so; and then, in fright, or more probably temper, it bit.

Theodoric was goaded into the most audacious undertaking of his life. Crimsoning to the hue of a beetroot

and keeping an agonised watch on his slumbering fellowtraveller, he swiftly and noiselessly secured the

ends of his railwayrug to the racks on either side of the carriage, so that a substantial curtain hung athwart

the compartment. In the narrow dressingroom that he had thus improvised he proceeded with violent haste

to extricate himself partially and the mouse entirely from the surrounding casings of tweed and halfwool. As

the unravelled mouse gave a wild leap to the floor, the rug, slipping its fastening at either end, also came

down with a heartcurdling flop, and almost simultaneously the awakened sleeper opened her eyes. With a

movement almost quicker than the mouse's, Theodoric pounced on the rug, and hauled its ample folds

chinhigh over his dismantled person as he collapsed into the further corner of the carriage. The blood raced

and beat in the veins of his neck and forehead, while he waited dumbly for the communicationcord to be

pulled. The lady, however, contented herself with a silent stare at her strangely muffled companion. How

much had she seen, Theodoric queried to himself, and in any case what on earth must she think of his present

"Really, I'm sorry," she replied. "I was just going to ask you if you would open this window."

"I fancy it's malaria," he added, his teeth chattering slightly, as much from fright as from a desire to support

"I've got some brandy in my holdall, if you'll kindly reach it down for me," said his companion.

Theodoric, whose acquaintance with the Tropics was limited to an annual present of a chest of tea from an

uncle in Ceylon, felt that even the malaria was slipping from him. Would it be possible, he wondered, to

"Are you afraid of mice?" he ventured, growing, if possible, more scarlet in the face.

"Not unless they came in quantities, like those that ate up Bishop Hatto. Why do you ask?"

"I had one crawling inside my clothes just now," said Theodoric in a voice that hardly seemed his own. "It

"It must have been, if you wear your clothes at all tight," she observed; "but mice have strange ideas of

"I had to get rid of it while you were asleep," he continued; then, with a gulp, he added, "it was getting rid of

"Surely leaving off one small mouse wouldn't bring on a chill," she exclaimed, with a levity that Theodoric

Evidently she had detected something of his predicament, and was enjoying his confusion. All the blood in

his body seemed to have mobilised in one concentrated blush, and an agony of abasement, worse than a

myriad mice, crept up and down over his soul. And the, as reflection began to assert itself, sheer terror took

the place of humiliation. With every minute that passed the train was rushing nearer to the crowded and

bustling terminus where dozens of prying eyes would be exchanged for the one paralysing pair that watched

him from the further corner of the carriage. There was one slender despairing chance, which the next few

minutes must decide. His fellowtraveller might relapse into a blessed slumber. But as the minutes throbbed

by that chance ebbed away. The furtive glance which Theodoric stole at her from time to time disclosed only

Theodoric had already noted with growing terror the recurring stacks of small, ugly dwellings that heralded

the journey's end. The words acted as a signal. Like a hunted beast breaking cover and dashing madly

towards some other haven of momentary safety he threw aside his rug, and struggled frantically into his

dishevelled garments. He was conscious of dull surburban stations racing past the window, of a choking,

hammering sensation in his throat and heart, and of an icy silence in that corner towards which he dared not

look. Then as he sank back in his seat, clothed and almost delirious, the train slowed down to a final crawl,

"Would you be so kind," she asked, "as to get me a porter to put me into a cab? It's a shame to trouble you

when you're feeling unwell, but being blind makes one so helpless at a railway station."