Idler - Volume 1 (1892)

THE IDLER MAGAZINE.
FEBRUARY TO JULY, 1892.

Ma Tw
rk ai
n
THE IDLER
MAGAZINE .
AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY.
EDITED BY
JEROME K. JEROME & ROBERT BARR .
VOL. I.
FEBRUARY TO JULY, 1892 .
LONDON :
CHATTO & WINDUS , 214, PICCADILLY .
1892.
INDEX.
PAGE
AMERICAN CLAIMANT, THE. BY MARK TWAIN . I , 137 , 255, 460, 572 , 697
(Illustrations by HAL HURST. )
ART AND THE KING . By J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE .. 28
(Illustrations by the AUTHOR.)
ARTIST UP TO DATE, THE. By J. BErnard Partridge .. 510
BRET HARTE .. .. .. 301
FIRST-THE IDEAL INTERVIEW. By LUKE SHARP.
(Illustrations by A. S. BOYD.)
SECOND-THE REAL INTERVIEW. By G. B. BURGIN.
(Illustrations by GEO. HUTCHINSON.)
CONSPIRACY OF MRS. BUNKER, THE. BY BRET HARTE 92 , 206, 314
COSTER SONG, A. By ALbert Chevalier .. 549
(Illustrations by J. F. SULLIVAN.)
CONNEMARA MIRACLE, A. By FRANK Mathew .. 666
CHOICE BLENDS . By W. A. DUNKERLEY. 41 , 42, 43, 45 , 46, 166, 167 , 168,
169, 433 , 435 , 537 , 538 , 539 , 540
DEAD LEAVES WHISPER. By the late PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON .. 20
(Illustrations by CYNICUS.)
DEAD MEMORIES. By I. ZANGWILL 147 ..
DE PROFUNDIS. By A. Conan Doyle .. 148
(Illustrations by DUDLEY HARDY.)
DETECTIVE STORIES GONE WRONG-THE ADVENTURES OF
SHERLAW KOMBS. By LUKE SHARP .. 413
DR. SMYLE. By J. F. SULLIVAN 512
DIFFICULTIES OF LEADERSHIP. By J. F. SULLIVAN 536
(Illustration by the AUTHOR.)
ENCHANTED CIGARETTES. BY ANDREW Lang .. 21
(Illustrations by LASCELLES.)
ENGLISH SHAKESPEARE, THE . By I. ZANGWILL .. •• 61
(Illustrations by A. J. FINBERG.)
vi. INDEX .
PAGE
FEBRUARY. By J. H. GORING .. 19
:
(Illustrations by Miss E. S. HARDY. )
FATAL SMILE, THE. BY CYNICUS ·· 74
FAMOUS IDLING PLACES -HYÈRES . By Robert Barr 329
(Illustrations by PERCY SMALL .)
FRIAR LAWRENCE . By EDEN PHILLPOTTS 565
(Illustrations by ERNEST M. JEssop .)
GLAMOUR OF THE ARCTIC, THE. By A. CONAN DOYLE 624
(Illustrations by A. WEBB.)
HER FIRST SMILE. By JAMES PAYN 32
HOPE. By CYNICUS 136
IDLERS ' CLUB , THE. By W. L. ALDEN, ROBERT BARR, G. B. BURGIN,
CAPTAIN DAVID GRAY, JOSEPHI HATTON , JEROME K. JEROME , H. A.
KENNEDY, COULSON KERNAHAN, CLEMENT R. MARKHAM, ADMIRAL
MARKHAM , BARRY PAIN, EDEN PHILLPOTTS , G. R. SIMS , J. F. SULLIVAN,
I. ZANGWILL 106, 222, 348, 474, 592, 712
KINDNESS OF THE CELESTIAL , THE. BY BARRY PAIN 552
(Illustrations by SYDNEY COWELL.)
MR. PRESTERTON . By J. F. SULLIVAN .. 170
MARK TWAIN, A CONGLOMERATE INTERVIEW WITH. By
LUKE SHARP 79
(Illustrations from Photographs, &c.)
MARCH . By J. H. GORING 221
(Illustrations by MISS HAMMOND .)
MAGIC WAND, THE. By CYNICUS .. . 445
MY FIRST BOOK-
I. READY MONEY MORTIBOY. By WALTER BESANT 524
II. THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE. By JAMES PAYN 648
MEMORY CLEARING HOUSE, THE. By I. ZANGWILL.. 672
(Illustrations by A. J. FINBERG.)
MUSIC WITH A " K." By JOSEPH HATTON 239
NEW SHOP, THE. By J. F. SULLIVAN 57
NOVEL NOTES . BY JEROME K. JEROME 363, 488, 607
(Illustrations by J. GÜLICH, GEO. HUTCHINSON, MISS HAMMOND,
AND A. S. BOYD .)
NONSENSE VERSES. By M. K. H. .. 535
(Illustrations by E. GRISET.)
INDEX. vii.
PAGE
ODE TO SPRING. By B. ROEL .. 312
:
:
(Illustrations By ERNEST M. Jessop.)
OVERWORKED . By CYNICUS 509
OLD LETTER, AN. By ZEIMBURG .. 686
PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER MET (J. M. BARRIE) . By SCOTT RANKIN 711
QUEST, THE (From LESSING) . By W. COURTHOPE FORMAN 487
(Illustrations by Gertrude DEMAIN HAMMOND . )
ROMANCE OF SERGEANT CLANCY, THE. By E. W. HORNUNG 334
(Illustrations by H. C. SEPPINGS Wright.)
RUTHERFORD THE TWICEBORN . By EDWIN LESTER ARNOLD 387
(Illustrations by L. M. KILPIN.)
SILHOUETTES. BY JEROME K. JEROME 47
(Illustrations by LASCELLES.)
SECRET OF THE HIDDEN ROOM, THE. By SPENCER JEROME ·· 292
(Illustrations by MISS G. DEMAIN HAMMOND. )
SPECTRE'S DILEMMA, THE. By EDEN PHILLPOTTS 194
(Illustrations by IRVING MONTAGU .)
STUMP ORATOR, THE. By L. D. Powles 398
(Illustrations by J. F. SULLIVAN.)
SUICIDE, A. By MABEL E. WOTTON .. 436
(Illustrations by the MISSES HAMMOND .)
TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE OF PLODKINS, THE . By ROBERT BARR 159
(Illustrations by GEO. HUTCHINSON .)
TWO OF A TRADE. By F. W. ROBINSON 181
THREE TO ONE. By " Do BAHIN. " 275
TIME AND THE WORLD. By CYNICUS .. 291
TOLD BY THE COLONEL. By W. L. ALDEN.
I. AN ORNITHOLOGICAL ROMANCE 425
(Illustrations by RICHARD JACK.)
II. -JEWSEPPY .. 54I
(Illustrations by HAL HURST.)
III. THAT LITTLE FRENCHMAN... 658
(Illustrations by RICHARD JACK.)
TWO IN A GONDOLA. By ARCHIE FAIRBAIRN 639
(Illustrations by G. H. SYDNEY COWELL AND CYRIL HALLWARD.)
UNCLE LOCK'S LEGACY. By JAMES PAYN 405
(Illustrations by SYDNEY COWell.)
"VARIETY PATTER." BY JEROME K. JEROME 121
WHAT FOLLOWED A KNOCK. By HUGH COLEMAN DAVIDSON .. 447
THE IDLER.
FEBRUARY, 1892 .
The American Claimant.

BY MARK TWAIN.
EXPLANATORY.
HE Colonel Mulberry Sellers here re-introduced

to the public is the same person who appeared
as Eschol Sellers in the first edition of the
tale, entitled " The Gilded Age, " years ago , and as
Beriah Sellers in the subsequent editions of the same
book, and finally as Mulberry Sellers in the drama
played afterward by John T. Raymond.
The name was changed from Eschol to Beriah to accom-

modate an Eschol Sellers who rose up out of the vasty deeps
of uncharted space, and preferred his request-backed by threat
of a libel suitthen went his way appeased , and came no more.
In the play Beriah had to be dropped to satisfy another member of
the race, and Mulberry was substituted in the hope that the
objectors v. Juld be tired by that time and let it pass unchallenged.
So far it has occupied the field in peace ; therefore , we chance it
again, feeling reasonably safe this time, under shelter of the
Statute of Limitations .
MARK TWAIN .
HARTFORD, 1891 .
THE ATHER
IN THIS BOOK
O weather will be found in this book.
12 This is an attempt to pull a book
through without weather. It being the
first attempt of the kind in fictitious
literature, it may prove a failure, but it
seemed worth the while of some dare-
devil person to try it, and the author was in just
the mood. Many a reader who wanted to read a
tale through was not able to do it be-
cause of the delays on account of the
weather. Nothing breaks up an author's
progress like having to stop every
few pages to fuss up the weather.
Thus, it is plain that persistent in-
trusions of weather are bad for both
reader and author. Of course ,
weather is necessary to a narra-
tive of human experience . That
is conceded . But it ought to
be put where it will not be
in the way; where it will not
interrupt the flow of the narrative. And it
ought to be the ablest weather that can be
had, not ignorant, poor- quality , amateur
weather. Weather is a literary speciality,
and no untrained hand can turn out a good
article of it . The present author can do
onlya fewtrifling ordinary kinds of weather,
and he can not do those very good. So it
has seemed.L wisest to borrow such weather as is necessary for the
book from qualified and recognised experts -giving credit, of
course. This weather will be found over in the back part of the
book, out of the way. (See Appendix.) The reader is requested
to turn over and help himself from time to time as he goes along.
APPENDIX.
WEATHER FOR USE IN THIS BOOK.

SELECTED FROM THE BEST AUTHORITIES .
A brief though violent thunderstorm which had raged over the

city was passing away ; but still , though the rain had ceased more
than an hour before, wild piles of dark and coppery clouds, in
which a fierce and rayless glow was labouring, gigantically over-
hung the grotesque and huddled vista of dwarf houses, while in
the distance, sheeting high over the low misty confusion of gables
and chimneys , spread a pall of dead leprous blue, suffused with
blotches of dull glistening yellow, and with black plague- spots
of vapour floating, and faint lightenings crinkling on its surface.
Thunder, still muttering in the close and sultry air, kept the
scired dwellers in the street within , behind their closed shutters ;
and all deserted, cowed, dejected, squalid , like poor, stupid, top-
heavy things that had felt the wrath of the summer tempest, stood
the drenched structures on either side of the narrow and crooked
way, ghastly and picturesque under the giant canopy. Rain
dripped wretchedly in slow drops of melancholy sound from their
projecting eaves upon the broken flagging, lay there in pools or
trickled into the swollen drains, where the fallen torrent sullenly
gurgled on its way to the river.
"The Brazen Android ." -W. D. O'Connor.
The fiery mid- March sun a moment hung
Above the bleak Judean wilderness ;
Then darkness swept upon us, and ' twas night.
" Easter Eve at Kerak- Moab. " -Clinton Scollard .
The quick-coming winter twilight was already at hand . Snow
was again falling, sifting delicately down , incidentally as it were .
" Felicia. " -Fanny N. D. Murfree.
Merciful heavens ! The whole west, from right to left, blazes
up with a fierce light, and next instant the earth reels and quivers
with the awful shock of ten thousand batteries of artillery. It is
the signal for the fury to spring-for a thousand demons to scream
and shriek-for innumerable serpents of fire to writhe and light up
the blackness .
4 THE IDLER .
Now the rain falls, now the wind is let loose with a terrible
shriek, now the lightning is so constant that the eyes burn , and
the thunder-claps merge into an awful roar, as did the 800 cannon
at Gettysburg. Crash ! Crash ! Crash ! It is the cotton -wood
trees falling to earth. Shriek ! Shriek ! Shriek ! It is the demon
racing along the plain and uprooting even the blades of grass.
Shock ! Shock ! Shock ! It is the fury flinging his fiery bolts into
the bosom of the earth .
" The Demon and the Fury."-M. Quad.
Away up the gorge all diurnal fancies trooped into the wide
liberties of endless luminous vistas of azure sunlit mountains
beneath the shining azure heavens. The sky, looking down in
deep blue placidities , only here and there smote the water to
azure emulations of its tint.
" In the Stranger's Country. "-Charles Egbert Craddock.
There was every indication of a dust-storm , though the sun

still shone brilliantly. The hot wind had become wild and
rampant. It was whipping up the sandy coating of the plain in
every direction. High in the air were seen whirling spires and
cones of sand-—a curious effect against the deep blue sky. Below ,
puffs of sand were breaking out of the plain in every direction , as
though the plain were alive with invisible horsemen . These
sandy cloudlets were instantly dissipated by the wind ; it was the
larger clouds that were lifted whole into the air, and the larger
clouds of sand were becoming more and more the rule .
Alfred's eyes, quickly scanning the horizon , descried the roor
of the boundary-rider's hut still gleaming in the sunlight. He
remembered the hut well. It could not be farther than four miles,
if as much as that, from this point of the track. He also knew
these dust- storms of old ; Bindarra was notorious for them.
Without thinking twice, Alfred put spurs to his horse , and headed
for the hut. Before he had ridden half the distance , the detached
clouds of sand banded together in one dense whirlwind , and it was
only owing to his horse's instinct that he did not ride wide of the
hut altogether, for during the last half-mile he never saw the hut
until its outline loomed suddenly over his horse's ears, and by then
the sun was invisible.
"A Bride from the Bush ."
It rained forty days and forty nights . -Genesis .

CHAPTER I.
IS a matchless morning in rural England.

On a fair hill we see a majestic pile, the
ivied walls and towers of Cholmondeley
Castle, huge relic and witness of the baronial
grandeurs of the Middle Ages . This is one
of the seats of the Earl of Rossmore, K.G. ,
G.C.B. , K.C.M.G. , etc. , etc. , etc. , etc. , etc.,
who possesses twenty-two thousand acres of
English lands, owns a parish in London with
two thousand houses on its lease-roll, and
struggles comfortably along on an income of
two hundred thousand pounds a year. The
father and founder of this proud old line was
William the Conqueror his very self ; the
mother of it was not inventoried in history by
name, she being merely a random episode
and inconsequential, like the tanner's daugh-
ter of Falaise.
In a breakfast room of the castle on this
breezy fine morning there are two persons
and the cooling remains of a deserted meal .
One of these persons is the old lord , tall ,
erect, squared - shouldered , white-haired , stern-
browed, a man who shows character in every
feature, attitude, and movement, and carries
his seventy years as easily as most men carry
forty. The other person is his only son and
heir, a dreamy-eyed young fellow,"who looks
about twenty- six, but is
nearer thirty. Candor,
kindliness, honesty, sin-
cerity,simplicity, modesty
-it is easy to see that
these are cardinal traits
of his character ; and so
when you have clothed
him in the formidable
components of his name,
6 THE IDLER .
you somehow seem to be contemplating a lamb in armour ; his

name and style being the Honourable Kirkcudbright Llanover
Marjoribanks Sellers Viscount Berkeley, of Cholmondeley Castle ,
Warwickshire. (Pronounced K'koobry Thlanover Marshbanks
Sellers Vycount Barkly, of Chumly Castle, Warrikshr.) He is
standing by a great window, in an attitude suggestive of respectful
attention to what his father is saying, and equally respectful
dissent from the positions and arguments offered . The father
walks the floor as he talks , and his talk shows that his temper is
away up toward summer heat.
" Soft- spirited as you are , Berkeley, I am quite aware that
when you have once made up your mind to do a thing which your
ideas of honor and justice require you to do, argument and
reason are, for the time being, wasted upon you—yes , and ridicule ,
persuasion, supplication , and command as well. To my
99
mind-
66
Father, if you will look at it without prejudice, without
passion, you must concede that I am not doing a rash thing, a
thoughtless, wilful thing, with nothing substantial behind it to
justify it. I did not create the American claimant to the earldom
of Rossmore ; I did not hunt for him, did not find him , did not
obtrude him upon your notice. He found himself ; injected him-
self into our lives "
" And has made mine a purgatory for ten years with his
tiresome letters , his wordy reasonings, his acres of tedious evi-
99
dence-
" Which you would never read ; would never consent to read .
Yet, in common fairness, he was entitled to a hearing. That
hearing would either prove he was the rightful earl- in which case
our course would be plain-or it would prove that he wasn't—in
which case our course would be equally plain . I have read
his evidences , my lord. I have conned them well ; studied them
patiently and thoroughly. The chain seems to be complete ; no
important link wanting. I believe he is the rightful earl."
“ And I a usurper—a hameless pauper, a tramp ! Consider
what you are saying, sir."
" Father, if he is the rightful earl, would you, could you-that
you that
fact being established-consent to keep his titles and his properties
""
from him a day, an hour, a minute ? '
" You are talking nonsense- nonsense-lurid idiotcy ! Now,
listen to me. I will make a confession- if you wish to call it by
that name. I did not read those evidences because I had no
THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT. 7
occasion to-I was made familiar with them in the time of this
claimant's father and of my own father, forty years ago. This
fellow's predecessors have kept mine more or less familiar with
them for close upon a hundred and fifty years . The truth is ,
the rightful heir did go to America with the Fairfax heir, or
about the same time- but disappeared somewhere in the wilds
of Virginia, got married, and began to breed savages for the
claimant market ; wrote no letters home ; was supposed to be
dead ; his younger brother softly took possession ; presently the
American did die, and straightway his eldest product put in his
claim-by letter-letter still in existence-and died before the
uncle in possession found time-or, maybe, inclination - to answer.
The infant son of that eldest product grew up-long interval, you
see—and he took to writing letters and furnishing evidences.
Well, successor after successor has done the same down to the
present idiot. It was a succession of paupers ; not one of them
was ever able to pay his passage to England , or institute suit.
The Fairfaxes kept their lordship alive, and so they have never
lost it to this day, although they live in Maryland ; their friend
lost his by his own neglect . You perceive now that the facts in
this case bring us to precisely this result ; morally the American
tramp is rightful earl of Rossmore ; legally he has no more right
""
than his dog. There now-are you satisfied ? '
There was a pause ; then the son glanced at the crest carved in
the great oaken mantel, and said, with a regretful note in his voice-
" Since the introduction of heraldic symbols, the motto of this
house has been Suum cuique-to every man his own . By your
own intrepidly frank confession , my lord, it is become a sarcasm .
If Simon Lathers 99
" Keep that exasperating name to yourself ! For ten years it

has pestered my eye and tortured my ear, till at last my very
foot-falls time themselves to the brain-racking rhythm of Simon
Lathers, Simon Lathers, Simon Lathers ! And now, to make its
presence in my soul eternal , immortal , imperishable , you have
resolved to- to-what is it you have resolved to do ? "
" To go to Simon Lathers , in America , and change places
with him ."
" What ? Deliver the reversion of the earldom into his
hands ? "
" That is my purpose."
"Make this tremendous surrender without even trying the
fantastic case in the lords ? "
THE IDLER.
" Ye-s," with hesitation and some embarrassment.

" By all that is amazing, I believe you are insane, my son.
See here ; have you been training with that ass again- that
radical , if you prefer the term, though the words are synonymous
-Lord Tanzy of Tollmache ? "
The son did not reply, and the old lord continued-
" Yes, you confess. That puppy, that
shame to his birth and caste,
who holds all here-
ditary lordships and
privilege to be
usurpation , all
nobility a tin-
sel sham , all
aristocratic
institutions a
fraud, all in-
equalities in
rank a legal-
ised crime and
an infamy,
and no bread ,
honest bread ,
that a man
doesn't earn
by his own
work - work,
pah ! " and
A BLACK-BORDERED ENVELOP .
the old patrician brushed imaginary
labor - dust from his white hands . " You have come to hold just
those opinions yourself, I suppose, " he added, with a sneer.
A faint flush in the younger man's cheek told that the shot
had hit and hurt, but he answered with dignity—
" I have. I say it without shame-I feel none . And now my
reason for resolving to renounce my heirship without resistance is

explained. I wish to retire from what to me is a false existence,
a false position, and begin my life over again—-begin it right—
begin it on the level of mere manhood , unassisted by factitious
aids, and succeed or fail by pure merit or the want of it. I will
go to America, where all men are equal , and all have an equal
chance ; I will live or die , sink or swim , win or lose, as just a man
-that alone, and not a single helping gaud or fiction back of it."
" Hear, hear ! " The two men looked at each other steadily in
the eye a moment or two , then the elder one added , musingly, " Ab- so-
lutely crazy-abso-lutely." After another silence, he said , as one
who long troubled by clouds detects a ray of sunshine, " Well, there
will be one satisfaction ; Simon Lathers will come here to enter
into his own, and I will drown him in the horse- pond. That poor
devil ! always so humble in his letters , so pitiful, so deferential ;
so steeped in reverence for our great line and lofty station ; so
anxious to placate us , so prayerful for recognition as a relative , a
bearer in his veins of our sacred blood-and withal so poor, so
needy, so threadbare and paupershod as to raiment, so despised ,
so laughed at for his silly claimantship by the lewd American scum
around him-ach ! the vulgar, crawling, insuf-
ferable tramp ! To read one of his cringing,
nauseating letters- well ? "
This to a splendid flunkey, all in inflamed
plush and buttons and knee- breeches as to his
trunk, and a glinting white frost work of ground
glass paste as to his head, who stood with his
heels together and the upper half of
him bent forward ,a salver in his hands .
" The letters, my lord."
My lord took them , and the servant
disappeared .
" Among the rest, an American letter. From the
tramp, of course . Jove, but here's a change. No brown
paper envelop this time , filched from a shop and carry-
ing the shop's advertisement in the corner. Oh, no, a
proper enough envelop - with a most ostentatiously
broad mourning border-for his cat, perhaps , since he
was a bachelor-and fastened with red wax-a batch
of it as big as a half-crown-and-and- our crest
for a seal ! motto and all . And the ignorant
sprawling hand is gone ; he sports a secretary,
ΙΟ THE IDLER.
evidently a secretary with a most confident swing and florish to

his pen. Oh, indeed , our fortunes are improving over there-—our
meek tramp has undergone a metamorphosis."
"Read it my lord , please ."
" Yes, this time I will . For the sake of the cat ! "
14,042, Sixteenth Street,
Washington, May 2nd.
My Lord,
It is my painful duty to announce to you that the head of our illustrious
house is no more-The Right Honourable, The Most Noble, The Most
Puissant Simon Lathers, Lord Rossmore, having departed this life—( “ Gone at
last this is unspeakably precious news, my son ")-at his seat in the environs
of the hamlet of Duffy's Corners in the grand old State of Arkansas, and his
twin brother with him, both being crushed by a log at a smoke-house raising,
owing to carelessness on the part of all present, referable to over confidence
and gaiety induced by overplus of sour-mash-(" Extolled be sour-mash,
whatever that may be, eh, Berkeley ? " )- five days ago, with no scion of our
ancient race present to close his eyes and inter him with the honors due
his historic name and lofty rank-in fact, he is on the ice yet, him and his
brother-friends took up a collection for it. But I shall take immediate
occasion to have their noble remains shipped to you— (" Great heavens ! ")—
for interment, with due ceremonies and solemnities, in the family vault or
mausoleum of our house. Meantime I shall put up a pair of hatchments on
my house front, and you will of course do the same at your several seats.
I have also to remind you that by this sad disaster I, as sole heir, inherit
and become seized of all the titles, honors, lands and goods of our lamented
relative, and must of necessity, painful as the duty is, shortly require at the
bar of the Lords restitution of these dignities and properties, now illegally
enjoyed by your titular lordship.
With assurance of my distinguished consideration and warm cousinly
regard, I remain ,
Your titular lordship's
Most obedient servant ,
MULBERRY SELLERS EARL ROSSMORE .
" Im-mense ! Come, this one's interesting. Why, Berkeley,
his breezy impudence is-is-why, it's colossal, it's sublime. "
" No, this one doesn't seem to cringe much."
" Cringe-why, he doesn't know the meaning of the word .
Hatchments ! To commemorate that sniveling tramp and his
fraternal duplicate . And he is going to send me the remains .
The late Claimant was a fool , but plainly this new one's a maniac .
What a name ! Mulberry Sellers-there's music for you . Simon
Lathers , Mulberry Sellers- Mulberry Sellers, Simon Lathers .
Sounds like machinery workings and churning. Simon Lathers,
Mulberry Sel Are you going ? "
“ If I have your leave , father."
THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT. II
The old gentleman stood musing some time, after his son was
gone.
This was his thought-
" He is a good boy, and lovable. Let him take his own course
-as it would profit nothing to oppose him—make things worse,
in fact. My arguments and his aunt's persuasions have failed ;
let us see what America can do for us. Let us see what equality
and hard times can effect for the mental health of a brain - sick
British lord . Going to renounce his lordship and be a man !
Yes ! "
CHAPTER II .
OLONEL Mulberry Sellers-this was some days before

he wrote his letter to Lord Rossmore- was in his
" library," which was his " drawing- room, " and was also
his " picture gallery," and likewise his " workshop. " Sometimes
he called it by one of these names, sometimes by another,
according to occasion and circumstance. He was constructing
what seemed to be some kind of a frail mechanical toy , and was
apparently very much interested in his work. He was a white-
headed man , now, but otherwise he was as young , alert, buoyant,
visionary, and enterprising as ever. His loving old wife sat near
by, contentedly knitting and thinking, with a cat asleep in her lap.
The room was large, light, and had a comfortable look—in fact, a
home-like look-though the furniture was of a humble sort, and
not over-abundant, and the knick- knacks and things that go to adorn
a living-room not plenty and not costly. But there were natural
flowers, and there was an abstract and unclassifiable something
about the place which betrayed the presence in the house of some-
body with a happy taste and an effective touch .
Even the deadly chromos on the walls were somehow without
offence ; in fact, they seemed to belong there, and to add an attraction
to the room—a fascination , anyway ; for whoever got his eye on
one of them was like to gaze and suffer till he died-you have
seen that kind of pictures. Some of these terrors were land-
scapes, some libeled the sea , some were ostensible portraits,
all were crimes. All the portraits were recognizable as dead
Americans of distinction , and yet, through labeling, added
12 THE IDLER.
by a daring hand, they were all doing duty here as " Earls of
Rossmore." The newest one had left the works as Andrew
FUTURE A
SIBERI
LIKEWISE HIS WORKSHOP.

Jackson, but was doing its best now as " Simon Lathers Lord
Rossmore, Present Earl." On one wall was a cheap old rail-
road map of Warwickshire. This had been newly labeled " The
Rossmore Estates." On the opposite wall was another map, and
this was the most imposing decoration of the establishment, and
the first to catch a stranger's attention , because of its great size.
It had once borne simply the title SIBERIA ; but now the word
" FUTURE " had been written in front of that word . There
were other additions, in red ink-many cities, with great
populations set down , scattered over the vast country at points
where neither cities nor populations exist to-day. One of these
cities , with population placed at 1,500,000, bore the name
" Libertyorloffskoizalinski , " and there was a still more populous
one, centrally located and marked " Capitol ," which bore the
name " Freedomslovnaivenovich ."
The mansion-the Colonel's usual name for the house-was a
rickety old two-story frame of considerable size, which had been
painted, some time or other, but had nearly forgotten it. It was
away out in the ragged edge of Washington , and had once been
somebody's country place. It had a neglected yard around it,
with a paling fence that needed straightening up, in places, and a
gate that would stay shut. By the door- post were several modest
tin signs. " Col. Mulberry Sellers, Attorney-at-Law and Claim
Agent," was the principal one. One learned from the others that
the Colonel was a Materializer , a Hypnotizer, a Mind - cure dabbler,
and so on. For he was a man who could always find things to do .
A white-headed negro man, with spectacles and
damaged white cotton gloves, appeared in the presence,
made a stately obeisance, and announced-
" Marse Washington Hawkins ,
suh."
" Great Scott ! Show
him in, Dan'l,
show him in."
The Colonel and his wife were on their feet in a moment, and
the next moment were joyfully wringing the hands of a stoutish,
discouraged-looking man, whose general aspect suggested that he
was fifty years old, but whose hair swore to a hundred .
14 THE IDLER .
66
Well, well, well, Washington , my boy, it is good to look at
you again. Sit down, sit down, and make yourself at home.
There now-why you look perfectly natural ; ageing a little, just a
little, but you'd have known him anywhere, wouldn't you, Polly ?"
"Oh, yes, Berry,
he's just like his
pa would have
looked if he'd
lived . Dear, dear,
where have you
dropped from ?
Let me see, how
long is it since-"
" I should say
it's all of fifteen
years , Mrs. Sel-
lers."
"Well, well ,
howtime does get
away with us .
Yes , and oh, the
changes that--"
There was a
sudden catch of
her voice and a
trembling of the
lip, the men wait-
ing reverently for
her to get com-
mand of herself
and go on ; but ,
after a little strug-
gle, she turned
away with her
apron to her eyes, and softly dis-
appeared.
66 Seeing you made her think of
the children, poor thing-dear, dear,
they're all dead but the youngest.
But banish care, it's no time for
it now-on with the dance, let joy
be unconfined, is my motto-whether there's any dance to dance or
any joy to unconfine, you'll be the healthier for it every time-

every time, Washington-it's my experience , and I've seen a good
deal ofthis world. Come, where have you disappeared to all these
years, and are you from there now, or where are you from ? "
" I don't quite think you would ever guess, Colonel . Cherokee
Strip."
66 ""
' My land !
" Sure as you live. "
" You can't mean it. Actually living out there ? "
F. "Well, yes, if a body may call it that ; though it's a pretty
strong term for ' dobies and jackass rabbits , boiled beans and slap-
99
jacks, depression , withered hopes , poverty in all its varieties-
" Louise out there ? "
" Yes, and the children . "
" Out there now ? "
" Yes, I couldn't afford to bring them with me. "
" Oh, I see you had to come-claim against the Govern-
ment. Make yourself perfectly easy-I'll take care of that."
" But it isn't a claim against the Government. "
"No ? Want to be a postmaster ? That's all right. Leave
it to me . I'll fix it."
"But it isn't postmaster-you're all astray yet."
" Well , good gracious, Washington , why don't you come out
and tell me what it is ? What do you want to be so reserved and
distrustful with an old friend like me, for ? Don't you reckon I
99
can keep a se-
" There's no secret about it-you merely don't give me a
chance to- 29
" Now look here , old friend , I know the human race ; and I know
that when a man comes to Washington , I don't care if it's from
heaven, let alone Cherokee Strip, it's because he wants something.
And I know that as a rule he's not going to get it ; that he'll stay
and try for another thing and won't get that ; the same luck with
the next and the next and the next ; and keeps on till he strikes
bottom , and is too poor and ashamed to go back, even to Cherokee
Strip ; and at last his heart breaks and they take up a collection
and bury him. There-don't interrupt me, I know what I'm
talking about. Happy and prosperous in the Far West, wasn't
I? You know that. Principal citizen of Hawkeye , looked up to
by everybody, kind of an autocrat , actually a kind of an autocrat,
Washington. Well , nothing would do but I must go as Minister
to St. James's, the Governor and everybody insisting , you know,
16 THE IDLER .
and so at last I consented- no getting out of it , had to do it, so

here I came. A day too late, Washington . Think of that— what
little things change the world's history-yes, sir, the place had
been filled . Well, there I was, you see . I offered to compromise
and go to Paris. The President was very sorry and all that, but
that place, you see, didn't belong to the West, so there I was
again. There was no help for it, so I had to stoop a little —we all
reach the day some time or other when we've got to do that,
Washington, and it's not a bad thing for us, either, take it by and
large all around- I had to stoop a little and offer to take Constan-
tinople, Washington , consider this- for it's perfectly true- within
a month I asked for China ; within another month I begged
for Japan ; one year later I was away down , down, down ,
supplicating with tears and anguish for the bottom office in
the gift of the Government of the United States-Flint- picker
in the cellars of the War Department . And by George I
didn't get it."
"Flint-picker ? "
" Yes. Office established in the time ofthe Revolution , last
century. The musket-flints for the military posts were supplied
from the capitol . They do it yet ; for although the flint-
arm has gone out and the forts have tumbled down , the decree
hasn't been repealed-been overlooked and forgotten , you see
-and so the vacancies where old Ticonderoga and others
used to stand, still get their six quarts of gun- flints a year
just the same. "
Washington said musingly after a pause :
" How strange it seems-to start for Minister to England at
twenty thousand a year and fail for flint- picker at― "
" Three dollars a week. It's human life, Washington -just an
epitome of human ambition , and struggle and the outcome ; you
aim for the palace and get drowned in the sewer."
There was another meditative silence . Then Washington
said, with earnest compassion in his voice-
" And so , after coming here, against your inclination , to satisfy
your sense of patriotic duty and appease a selfish public ' clamor,
you get absolutely nothing for it."
" Nothing ? " The Colonel had to get up and stand, to get
room for his amazement to expand. " Nothing, Washington ? I
ask you this to be a Perpetual Member and the only Perpetual
Member of a Diplomatic Body accredited.

to the greatest country on earth -do you
99
call that nothing ? '
It was Washington's turn to be amazed .
He was stricken dumb ; but the wide- eyed
wonder, the reverent admiration ex-
pressed in his face were more eloquent
than any words could have been.
TheColonel's wounded spirit was
healed and he resumed his seat,
pleased and content. He leaned
forward and said, impressively :
" What was due to a man
who had become for ever con-
spicuous by an experience with-
out precedent in the history of
the world ?—a man made per-
manently and diplomatically
sacred, so to speak, by having
been connected, temporarily
through solicitation , with every
single diplomatic post in the
roster of this government, from
Envoy Extraordinary and Minis-
ter Plenipotentiary to the Court
of St. James all the way down
to Consul to a guano rock in
the Straits of Sunda - salary
payable in guano-which dis-
appeared by volcanic convulsion
the day before they got down
to my name in the list of
applicants. Certainly something.
august enough to be answerable THE COLONEL.
to the size of this unique and memorable experience was my due,
and I got it. By the common voice of this community, by
acclamation of the people, that mighty utterance which brushes
aside laws and legislation , and from whose decrees there is no
appeal, I was named Perpetual Member of the Diplomatic Body,
representing the multifarious sovereignties and civilizations of the
globe near the republican court of the United States of America .
And they brought me home with a torchlight procession .'
B
18 THE IDLER .
" It is wonderful, Colonel- simply wonderful . "

" It's the loftiest official position in the whole earth ."
" I should think so- and the most commanding."
" You have named the word . Think of it. I frown , and there
is war ; I smile, and contending nations lay down their arms . "
" It is awful. The responsibility, I mean ."
" It is nothing. Responsibility is no burden to me ; I am
used to it ; have always been used to it."
" And the work- the work ! Do you have to attend all the
sittings ? "
"Who, I ? Does the emperor of Russia attend the conclaves
of the governors of the provinces ? He sits at home, and
indicates his pleasure."
Washington was silent a moment, then a deep sigh escaped
him .
" How proud I was an hour ago ; how paltry seems my little
promotion now ! Colonel , the reason I came to Washington is—
I am Congressional Delegate from Cherokee Strip ! "
The Colonel sprang to his feet and broke out with prodigious
enthusiasm :
" Give me your hand , my boy-this is immense news ! I
congratulate you with all my heart. My prophecies stand con-
firmed . I always said it was in you . I always said you were
born for high distinction and would achieve it . You ask Polly if I
didn't."
Washington was dazed by this most unexpected demonstration.
Why, Colonel, there's nothing to it . That little, narrow ,
desolate, unpeopled , oblong streak of grass and gravel , lost in the
remote wastes of the vast continent- why, it's like representing a
billiard table-a discarded one."
"Tut-tut, it's a great, it's a staving preferment, and just
opulent with influence here."
Shucks , Colonel, I haven't even a vote."
" That's nothing , you can make speeches ."
" No, I can't. The population only two hundred——"
" That's all right, that's all right— "
" And they hadn't any right to elect me ; we're not even a
territory, there's no Organic Act, the government hasn't any
official knowledge of us whatever ."
" Never mind about that ; I'll fix that. I'll rush the thing
through, I'll get you organized in no time."
Will you, Colonel ?-it's too good of you ; but it's just your
FEBRUARY. 19
old sterling self, the same old, ever-faithful friend," and the grate-
ful tears welled up in Washington's eyes.
" It's just as good as done, my boy, just as good as done.
Shake hands. We'll hitch teams together, you and I, and we'll
make things hum !"
(TO BE CONTINUED).
FEBRUARY
THE IDEAL .
Lovers' pairing time is this,
And the air is sweet with
love.
What though summer skies we
"n miss ?
Lovers' pairing time is this.
Love makes summer with a
kiss ,
Though the clouds be thick

above :
Lovers ' pairing time is this,
And the air is sweet with
love.
THE REAL.
The bards are all raving, of
course,
Of billing and cooing, and
such.
Though the rain beats with
pitiless force ,
course .
While I'm chained to my
bedroom, and hoarse,
And Catarrh has me close
in his clutch ,
course,
Of billing and cooing , and Sivat
such. Hawto
H. GORING .
y
d e st OR
T
e
e ar IS
D fe R
VA
Philin BourkMearston
EAD leaves whisper, " so they show it,

Chalked upon a London wall .
O my unknown friend and poet,
If we could but know it all.
Know, say, from what tree they showered ,

On what garden path beneath ,
Of its beauty then disflowered
In the days of mist and death.
Yes, and you yourself to-day, friend,

Have you ceased that sound to hear ;
Or still pressing on your way, friend,
Is it yet within your ear ?
" Dead leaves whisper " in strange places,

Whisper in a city square,
Whisper where no faintest trace is
Of the summer once so fair.
And we listen, and we ponder

Of the days before they fell ,
When the world by summer's wonder
Was more fair than man could tell.
Dead leaves in the twilight glistening,

Dead leaves shivering in the breeze-
What pale ghost- souls may be listening
'Neath the desolated trees !
" Dead leaves whisper." Right, my brother !

Whisper down life's tragic ways.
Will they whisper in some other
Life of unconjectured days ?
PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON .
S
E
T
T
D E
R
E A
T G
N I
A C
H
C
N
E
BY ANDREW LANG .
O dream over literary projects, Balzac says , is like " smoking

enchanted cigarettes," but when we try to tackle our projects,
to make them real, the enchantment disappears . We have
to till the soil, to sow the seed, to gather the leaves, and then
the cigarettes must be manufactured , while there may be no market
for them after all . Probably most people have enjoyed the
fragrance of these enchanted cigarettes, and have brooded over
much which they will never put on paper. Here are some of
"the ashes of the weeds of my
delight " — memories of romances
whereofno single line is written ,
or is likely to be written.
Of my earliest novel I re-
member but little . I know
there had been a wreck, and
that the villain, who was be-
lieved to be drowned , came home
and made himself disagreeable.
I know that the heroine's mouth
was not " too large for regular
beauty." In that respect she
was original. All heroines are
" muckle-mou'd." I know not why. Lascelles
It is expected of them. I know she THERE HAD BEEN A WRECK.
was melancholy and merry ; it would
not surprise me to learn that she drowned herself in a canoe.
But the villain never descended to crime, the first lover would
22 THE IDLER.
not fall in love, the heroine's

own affections were provok-
ingly disengaged, and the
whole affair came to a dead
stop for want of a plot. Per-
haps, considering modern
canons of fiction , this might
have been a very successful
novel. It was entirely devoid
of incident or interest, and,
consequently,
was a good deal
like real life, as
real life appears
to many culti-
vated authors.
On the other
hand, all the
characters were
flippant. This would never have done, and I do not regret novel
No. 1 , which had not even a name.
The second story had a plot , quantities of plot, nothing but
plot. It was to have been written in collaboration with a very
great novelist, who , as far as we went, confined himself to
making objections . This novel was stopped (not that my friend
would ever have gone on) by Called Back, which anticipated part
of the idea. The story was entitled Where is Rose ? and the
motto was
Rosa quo locorum
Sera moratur.
The characters were-(1 . ) Rose, a young lady of quality. (2.)
The Russian Princess, her friend (need I add that, to meet a public
demand, her name was Vera ?) (3.) Young man engaged to Rose.
(4. ) Charles, his friend . (5.) An enterprising person named " The
Whiteley of Crime." The rest were detectives, old ladies, mob, and
a wealthy young Colonial larrikin . Neither my friend nor I was
fond of describing love scenes, so we made the heroine disappear
in the second chapter, and she never turned up again till chapter
ENCHANTED CIGARETTES . 23
the last. After playing in a comedy at the house of an Earl , Rose

and Vera entered her brougham . Immediately afterwards , the
brougham drew up, empty, at the Earl's door. Where was Rose ?
Traces of her were found, of all places, in the Haunted House in
Berkeley Square, which is not haunted any longer. Beyond that ,
Rose was long sought in vain.
This, briefly, is what had occurred . A Russian detective
•
' wanted
" Vera, who, to be sure, was a Nihilist. To catch Vera
he made an alliance with " The Whiteley of Crime." This gentle-
man was the Universal Provider of iniquity. He would destroy
a Parish Register, or forge a will, or crack a crib, or break
up a meeting, or burn a house, or kidnap a rightful heir, or
manage a personation , or issue amateur bank notes, or what
you please. Thinking to kill two birds with one stone, he
carried off Rose for her diamonds and Vera for his friend , the
Moscovite official, lodging them both in the Haunted House. But
there he and the Russian came to blows, and, in the confusion ,
Vera made her escape, while Rose was conveyed , as Vera , to
Siberia. Not knowing how to dispose of her, the Russian police
consigned her to a nunnery at the mouth of the Obi . Her lover
found her hiding place, and got a friendly nun to give her some
narcotic known to the Samoyeds . It was the old truc of the Friar
in Romeo and Juliet. At the mouth of the
Obi they do not bury the dead , but lay
them down on platforms in the open air.
Rose was picked up there by her lover
(accompanied by a chaperon, of course) ,
and was got on board a steam yacht, and
all went well. I forget what happened
to The Whiteley of Crime: After him I
still rather hanker-he was a humorous
ruffian . Something could be made of The
Whiteley of Crime. "What offers ? " as
the people say in the Exchange and Mart.
In yet another romance, a gentleman
takes his friend, in a country place, to see
his betrothed . The friend , who had only
come into the neighbourhood that day, is
found dead, next morning, hanging to a
tree. Gipsies and others are suspected .
But the lover was the murderer. He had
been a priest, in South America , and the
IS FOUND DEAD.
24 THE IDLER.
lady was a Catholic. Now the friend fell in love with the lady at
first sight, on being introduced to her by the lover. As the two
men walked home, the friend threatened to reveal the lover's secret,
his tonsure, which would be fatal to his hopes . They quarrelled ,
parted, and the ex-priest lassoed his friend . The motive, I think,
is an original one, and not likely to occur to the first comer. The
inventor is open to offers.
The next novel , based on a dream , was called In Search of
Qrart.
What is Qrart ? I decline to divulge
this secret beyond saying that Qrart was
a product of the civilisation which now
sleeps under the snows of the pole. It
was an article of the utmost value to
humanity. Farther I do not intend to
commit myself. The Bride of a God was
one ofthe characters .
The next novel is , at present, my
favourite cigarette. The scene is partly
in Greece, partly at the Parthian Court,
about 80-60 B.C. Crassus is the villain .
The heroine was an actress in one of the
wandering Greek companies , splendid
strollers, who played at the Indian and
Asiatic Courts . The story ends with the
representation of the Baccha, in Parthia.
The head of Pentheus is carried by one of
the Bacchæ in that drama. Behold , it is
not a mask, but the head of Crassus , and
thus conveys the first news of the Roman
THE BRIDE OF A GOD.
defeat. Obviously, this is a novel that
needs a great deal of preliminary study, as much, indeed , as
Salammbo.
Another story will deal with the Icelandic discoverers of
America . Mr. Kipling, however, has taken the wind out of its
sails with his sketch , " The Finest Story in the World ." There
are all the marvels and portents of the Eyrbyggja Saga to draw
upon, there are Skraelings to fight, and why should not Karlsefni's
son kill the last Mastodon, and, as Quetzalcoatl, be the white-
bearded god of the Aztecs ? After that a romance on the intrigues
to make Charles Edward King of Poland sounds commonplace.
But much might be made of that, too, if the right man took it in
ENCHANTED CIGARETTES . 25
hand. Believe me, there are plenty of stories left, waiting for the
man who can tell them . Thus, what became of the 20,000 golden
BURIED AFTER CULLODEN.
louis that Murray of Broughton buried after Culloden ? Mr. Louis

Stevenson, where is that mass of bullion ? Did Allan Breck
know where it was hidden ? I have said it before, but I say it
again, if I were king I would keep court officials , Mr. Stevenson ,
Mr. Kipling, and others, to tell me my own stories . I know the
kind of thing which I like, from the discovery of Qrart to that of
the French gold in the burn , or in " the wood by the loch side "
that Murray of Broughton mentions .
Another cigarette I have, the adventures of a Poet, a Poet born
in a Puritan village of Massachusetts about 1670. Hawthorne
.could have told me my story, and how my friend was driven into
the wilderness and lived among the Red Men . I think he was
killed in an attempt to warn his countrymen of an Indian raid ;
I think his MSS. stories have a bullet-hole through them, and
blood on the leaves . They were in Carew's best manner, these
poems.
26 THE IDLER .
Another tale Hawthorne

might have told me, the tale of
an excellent man , whose very
virtues, by some baneful moral
chemistry, corrupt and ruin
the people with whom he comes
in contact . I do not mean by
goading them into the opposite
extremes, but rather something
like a moral jettatura . This
needs a great deal of subtlety,
and what is to become of the
hero ? Is he to plunge into
vice till everybody is virtuous
again ? It wants working out.
I have omitted, after all, a
schoolboy historical romance,
KILLED IN AN INDIAN RAID. explaining why Queen Eliza-
beth was never Married. A
Scotch paper offered a prize for a story of Queen Mary
Stuart's reign. I did not get the prize-perhaps, did not deserve
it. You must know that Queen Elizabeth was singularly
like Darnley in personal appearance . What SO natural as
that, disguised as a knight, her Majesty should come spying
about the Court of Holyrood . Darnley sees her walking
out of Queen Mary's room , he thinks her an hallucination ,
discovers that she is real, challenges her, and they fight at
Faldonside, by the Tweed , Shakespeare holding Elizabeth's horse .
Elizabeth is wounded , and is carried to the Kirk of Field, and
laid in Darnley's chamber, while Darnley makes love to my rural
heroine, the lady of Fernilee , a Kerr. That night Bothwell
blows up the Kirk of Field , Elizabeth and all . Darnley has only
one resource . In the riding habit of the rural heroine he flees
across the Border, and , for the rest of hislife, personates Queen
Elizabeth . That is why Elizabeth hated Mary so bitterly (on
account of the Kirk of Field affair) , and that is why Queen
Elizabeth was never married. Side-lights on Shakespeare's
Sonnets were obviously cast. The young man whom Shakespeare
admired so, and urged to marry, was- Darnley. This romance
did not get the prize, but I am conceited enough to think it
deserved an honourable mention . Enough of my own cigarettes .
But there are others of a more fragrant weed. Who will end
ENCHANTED CIGARETTES. 27
for me the novel of which Byron only wrote a chapter ; who, as

Bulwer Lytton is dead ? A finer opening , one more mysteriously
stirring, you shall nowhere read . And the novel in letters, which
Scott began in 1819 , who shall finish it, or tell us what he did with
his fair Venetian courtezan, a character so much out of Sir Walter's
way ? He tossed it aside, it was but an enchanted cigarette, and
gave us The Fortunes of Nigel in its place. I want both. We
cannot call up those who " left half told" these stories . In a
happier world we shall listen to their endings , and all our dreams
shall be coherent and concluded . Meanwhile, without trouble ,
and expense, and disappointment, and reviews, we can all smoke
our cigarettes of fairyland . Would that many people were content
to smoke them peacefully, and did not rush on pen, paper and ink !
The
King
ART & theKING
Beinga Deplorable Trushset forthind

the Pleasant Difiguize ofa Parabole,
Withmany Conovs Obferuations which maybenot
unworthie Pervfall, eitherfor Reflechon orEntertainment.
certaine
N'ovv there rvl'd in a
Lande a mightie King (or Tyrant) ,
who was call'd Mammon ; & he had
Swaye ouer a vaft King-dom both far
& wide ; and hys Power was as the Power of the Gods, or(to ſpeak it more
jvftly),of the Diuels . And in the Capital of hys King-dom hee fet vp
great Idol , the wh hee nam'd Demos , (which is to ſay, the Publick) , &
the Image of it was fear- full to look vpon,
fafhion'd in hard Stone , but the Head was
The Dool.
of Wood . This the King put vp in the
Temple of the Gods ; euen in the Holie
Shrine Then ftraight-waie he made
Proclamation thorough hys whole Country,
with great Shew & Circumftance , that
all hys Svbiects ſhoulde worship the Im
age he had fet up, if they wolde fcape hys
Choler. So from euerie part of the Lande,
both neer & a far , a great Trovpe of People
affembled , as the King had inioyn'd ; there was
euerie fort , Bishop. & Marchant, & Tudg,
DEMOS P
& Souldier, & Clerk , & States-Man, &
Scho-
ART AND THE KING . 29
Scholer, & euerie Kind of Ingeniovs Men ; & each , whether be-cavſe he feard
the King hys Maieftie , or that the awe- full Vilage of the Idol made hym to quake,
bended hys Knee before it, & worshipt ; the most part willinglye, of theirowne
chufing , but fome few with an ill Relifh ; & onely for their fafetie fake wereper
fwaded. And the Painters of Pictures The Painter's
al -focame, & lay'd Offerings before Demos, Offering

which were Tablets, paynted , bearing the de-
uife ofa Girl childe & a littel Dogge , for
thefe were eſteem'd to be pleafingtothe I-
dol . And(be -like) it was fo in-deed; for
here -vpon did the Figure nod its Head up
& down , &the Portent was inter preted P
for a happie Token. Then came they
that comptrolled the Play-Hovfes & Publick Spectacles of the Citie , & all the
Practicers ofthe Drammatick or Theatral & ScenickArts in whatfoeuer waye;
makinga braue Parade , with mvch Imbellishment & Pageantrye . Bvt ' twas a cur-
iovs thinge to mark , how that vpon the Backe of euerye Intendant (orManager)
of a Theatre, there rode (fitting a -ftride
Comfye of hys Neck), a kinde of Familiar or Damon,
Councillor of verie grim & auftere haviour, who held hym
that hee be -ftrode in Toyls or Chaines , & goad-
ed hym with Pricks, & did not ceafe to plie hym
all-whyles with tædiovs Difcovrfe . Andthefe
Daemons bore eachvpon hys breft the legende,
Member oftheCouncill of the Comtye;
So the Intendants of the Play- Hovfes came &did
Hommage to the Idol , crawling prone before
it & praying a lowde to it , & killing it's Feet;
& fvrther-more they anoincted it with mvch
ftore of Butyrum, or Bytter, & a fort of foft
Soape , according to the Cuftome & Rvbrick
The Direct of their kinde , & Demos (the Idol) agen nodded
or of the it's Head, wmark you) was of VVoode , for a
Play foufe fign of Complayfavnce . And with them
came the Actours, reading with lovde cryes.
certaine imprynted writings call'd Pars and
Not-
30 THE IDLER .
Notices,each one concerning hym-felf&the Vertves of hys Prefentment of this Part

or that , Andothers came too , that gaue Spectacles in
in a
a ftrange kindof Theaters call'd
The Halls , but there were not nam'd Actovrs norMimes , bvt Artiſtes (wis ch a verye
deteſtable word , tranſlated ovt of France.) They were of many &diuers forts fomthing
The Gym:
nastick
The Black-
moor
Minstrel The
Seno
Comick
The
The Comick
Dancer of Singer.
Balets
the Artiftes from the Halls
lefs graue then the Actovrs , &array'd in more fantaftickal ftile ; fome there were that
fang ftrange Ketches or Songes (the moſt part- exprefft in iefte , bvt fome emptie ofavght
faue Dvinelle), & others thatdanc'd Balets , or enacted Scenes of Burlesk ; with Tom-
blers, & Clownes , & Buffoons, & lo . And to thefe more then the others the Image
nodded its Head for token offauovr. With them were alfothe Intendants of thofe
Halls I fpoke of, euerie one loaden on hys. Backe with a Comtye Covncillovr of yet
morefowr complexion then they who haraffe the Play- Hovfe Directors : fo that the
Intendants intreated them faying Leaue to goad vs a whyle,Mafters , that wee
may the eaſilyer do reuerence to the God that ovr King has fet vp , for loe wee are
tyrd & ake ; & ovr Backes are fore . But the Covn-
cillours anfwer'd Nay wee will keep yov fait bound, The Stranger
left youfa i e
ll nto rrovr & vnleeml wch fhal chock Weepeth.
inelle
ovr God Demas ; bvt for yovr. Backe ,w e wil exami
s ne
them ,to fee if in-deed they be fore .
¶ Now it befel that among the Concovrse there
ftode one a -part, weeping , whiles the worthip of
the Image went forward , whofe Beavtie was aboue
all the Beavties of that lande , though her face was
vail'd from fight . And when it was her turn to
pafs before the Idol to make obeillance , thee
tay'd erect, as one in anger , & look'd vpon the
Monster, which did not nod it's Head , but thook
it fide waies , like one that does not vnderſtand ..
Nei-
ART AND THE KING. 31
Neither woulde thee bend the knee nor worſhip , bvt ftrode neer to it, & ſtrook it
vpon the Head , fo that it fellfrom it's throne; & fet
her heel vpon it's throat Then went up a mightye buzz
ofangerfrom them that ſtode around , & each man afk'd
hys neighbour ,Who is this that flovts the God that
has bin giuen vs to adore ? Lets bind her & bring
her before the King. But the Woman ftept ovt be
fore them, & fayd I wil go before your King; who
is he ?Andthey told her, Mammon ; bvt her voice
was ftrange to them , nor wolde thee difcouer her
face And when fhee ftode before the King, &
the Chiefs had told hym the euyl thing thee had
done ,how the wovlde no-wyfe bend before the I-
dol, but had contemned &fmitten it, fo thatithad
falh & was a Wrack , he was verie wroth , & de-
manded her name , that hee might punish her And
ſhe anſwer'd hym , I am a ftranger, &a Trauailer
in this Lande ; but I too am a Rvler , & myKing-
dom isgreater then your's . Some call me Beav- TheStranger & the fal'n Idol .
ye, & fome Truth, & fomeArt I fawyour Idol,
nor dant mee ;
that it was falſe & vain , & Iouer-threw it. Bvt pvnish mee yov can-not,
neither wil I reueal my face toyou. And the King was more then euer cholerick, &
fay'd Ido not know you, bvtyoufhal fmart wel for this defiance & fcoffing, thoughyour
be a Queen And he commanded hys feruants to teare theVail from herface . And
manie tryed todo foe , & bind her captiue, & make her bow before the King, yet covlde
not. And the past through the midft of them like aFlame , & fpredde winges for
her owne Movntaines . And the People didnot understand; bvt fel abovta-mak
Reftavration of Demos the Idol . And fo fare wel.
ing
Parabolam iftam veridicus narrauitJohannesBernardi's

Perdiz et imaginesquafdamexfcriptas lineauit.
LONDON, Emprinted for Chatto and Windvs, &

areto be fold bythem at their hovle in Piccadilly,
hard by S. James hys Church. MDcccxc1.
ST E
R L
HE FIR M
I
S
BY JAMES PAYN.
T is better to be born lucky than rich," says the proverb,

IT and though what is certainly best is to be born both, the
aphorism is indisputable : for you may be born with a silver
spoon in your mouth, and lose it ; whereas if you have luck you may
find and appropriate it, with a whole service of plate beside. Now
Lorry, as we always called him-and if his friends only used his
Christian name abbreviated, what possible reason can the public
have for demanding his surname was and is the luckiest of men.
He has no need to " shake the pagoda tree" because the wind does
it for him ; he has only to hold out his hand for the golden
fruitage. His case is peculiar and I don't know any ante-type
which precisely prefigures him-but if you take Sisera , and picture
his exact opposite you get something like him ; for " the stars in
their courses," you remember, " fought against Sisera," whereas
they have always been in favour of Lorry. Wordsworth used to
have such luck that De Quincey says of him : " If I was in the
enjoyment of any post or pension which Wordsworth wanted, I
should hasten to give it up at once," feeling sure that if he didn't
he would be carried off by flood or fire, or some other immediate
catastrophe in order that the poet might get it. Similarly, if
Lawrence wanted anything-but, fortunately for the rest of us, he
doesn't ; he has got everything that man can wish for its pro-
prietor would be doubtless " removed ," if not to a higher, at all
events to another sphere instanter. Yet there was a time, it is
whispered, when Lorry wanted a good many things. Indeed, in
moments of genial confidence, when he is not patronising universal
nature, or expressing his high opinion of the judiciousness of
Fortune (for having befriended him), he will confess as much.
HER FIRST SMILE. 33
" I admit, my dear fellow," he will say, with a very charming

condescension, putting one hand upon our shoulder, and pointing
with the other to the splendid surroundings of his establishment,
" that these things-that picture of Meissonier, that bust by
Canova , and I need not say that noble malachite table voted to me
(as you well know) by the Committee of my Company- were not
inherited ; my enemies for all men in my great position must
have such-are accustomed depreciatingly to remark that they
' dropped from the clouds ' ; I accept the observation as a correct
(though undesigned) description of how they came into my
possession ; they did drop- let me say it with reverence and grati-
tude-from the quarter to which they allude. I have always been
the favorite-well, you are a man of the world, and (forgive me)
[ incapable of understanding the sublimer emotions, let me say then
DidleyHardy
IN MOMENTS OF GENIAL CONFIDENCE
-of Fortune. Yes , there is no question about it "-and here the
more spiritual expression would vanish from his noble features,
and he would wink his eye-" I've been deuced lucky. How it
began was curious. It wasn't so just at first, you know you
didn't know ; oh yes, you did " ; and then Lorry would laugh in a
rich and mellow manner, tickled with the notion of anyone on the
earth's surface attempting to deceive him at that time of day.
C.
34 THE IDLER.
"Well, I'll tell you, though you don't deserve it (trying to hum-
bug me ! What an idea !) , how my first stroke of luck befell me.
" It was all through Symonds, the City man . He is still a
power in it ; his name is good, doubtless, for six figures ; but
commercial prosperity " —and here Lorry rolled his cigar in his
mouth, like a " sweet morsel under the tongue "-" is a matter
of comparison. Still " (here there seemed to be an ellipsis of some
kind) " I can remember the day when Symonds appeared to me
the very type of financial success . Humanly speaking and I
purposely adopt that method to render myself intelligible to you-
Symonds has been my good angel. Difficult as it may be to
picture him in that capacity, it is still more so, perhaps, to do so
as taking the person who now stands before you," and here Lorry
looked several sizes larger than before, " by the hand . But he did
So. I acknowledge it ; and if Symonds ever comes to grief he will
never find me an opposing creditor to his passing through the
bankruptcy court."
The magnanimity of this sentiment was as nothing compared
with the magnificent- nay, the imperial-air with which it was
expressed .
"Well, at the time I am speaking of (such are the changes and
chances of human life) , Symonds's house was good for five large
figures, and mine, perhaps, for one ; but it would have to
be a modest digit-say, a fiver. I lived in very unambitious
lodgings at Ealing, where I knew nobody. Symonds lived there
in splendid style, and was cock of the walk. Still, as my intelli-
gence was very far in advance of my means , I had a first- class
season-ticket, and went to town and back every day in his com-
pany. Everything comes to him who
waits, and one morning I found myself in
possession of the last copy of the Times
and Symonds without one. I need not
say what happened , nor repeat the honeyed
phrase in which I expressed
my conviction that the City
article was of much more
consequence to him than to
me. The old fellow-for he
autyHardy was not young, even then - asked me to
dinner. I made no pretence, as a fool would have done, of taking
out my pocket-book to see if I had a previous engagement ; and
flatter myself that my manner implied that if I had had one I
HER FIRST SMILE. 35
would have dined with him all the same. Unfortunately, the
invitation was for the Derby day, a race about which Symonds
knew nothing, though he had a son who was better informed ;
still there was plenty of time to get to Epsom, and back for a
seven o'clock dinner at Ealing. I scarcely know which entertain-
ment I would have been most unwilling , at that date, to miss .
"I went to the Derby, and met young Symonds , and we lunched
together, not wisely but too well. Before he got very bad he said,
' You are dining with the governor to- night, be sure you don't let
out that you met me here. I am hard at work as usual at my
office.' He did not ask me to tell a lie , of course ; but merely to
make a 6 mental reservation ' such as has found approval with
the greatest theologians.
" I am hard at work at my office, myself, ' I said , a repartee
which he failed to understand , not because he was drunk, but be-
cause he was a donkey . He had not the sagacity (though a good
deal more vivacity) of his respected father. I lunched after that
with some other people, and though far from intoxicated (a condi-
tion most deleterious to any person who dreams of distinction ) I
felt myself very unfitted to meet with a possible patron upon equal
or indeed on any terms . I had (just) the sense to dodge my future
host at the Paddington Station and to get out after him at Ealing .
" As I watched him depart in his carriage for his palatial resi-
dence at 5.25 the question occurred to me, 'How is it possible
with my head going round like this that I shall be fit to dine with
so highly respectable an individual at 7 p.m. ?' As there was some
objection, arising from the same cause, to my being seen by the
eagle eye of my landlady, I thought I would see if a little walk,
and perhaps forty winks of sleep in some secluded spot, might
6
recuperate me. At that time Ealing was a truly rural ' spot
(though I could not have described it in those words just at that
moment) , and you stepped from the station into country lanes and
meadows. Presently I came to a field with large and luxurious
hedgerows ; I climbed over the gate, and throwing myself on the
soft grass in the shade-for the afternoon , though it was so early
in the summer, was hot, and I was hotter-was fast asleep in a
moment. My slumber was heavy, but perturbed with visions . I
thought that I had not only been to the Derby but ridden in the
race : I thought that the excellent Symonds , about to take me into
partnership, was introducing me to his commercial friends when
he suddenly exclaimed, ' Why do you dress in red and yellow, like
a vulgar woman ? ' I could not well explain that they were my
R
36 THE IDLE .
IndyCard
" DON'T LET OUT THAT YOU MET ME HERE."

riding colours , and with a movement of not inexcusable irritation
he pushed me down the steps of the Chamber of Commerce .
" Sad as was the denouement of my dream, it was nothing
compared with the horror of those waking moments when I
beheld the moon high in the heavens, and on reference to my
watch (a silver one, now worn by my valet) I found it to be
twelve o'clock at night ! Imagine my feelings, five hours late for
Mr. Symonds's dinner, and without a vestige of excuse for my
non-appearance ! As for Luck, it occurred to me that I was just
the most unlucky man in the world, nor was it the least satisfac-
tion to reflect that my misfortune was owing to my own fault, if
taking two luncheons instead of one could be called so. In the
6
City surplusage is no error, ' and why should things be different
on Epsom Downs ? Socially speaking, I felt I was done for.
The dinner that would undoubtedly have been the prelude to a
hundred feasts, and the acquaintance of all that was respectable
6
in Ealing the polite circles of Paisley '-could never now
come off. I had always been an outsider, but now I should be
an outcast. Thus, to use a phrase that was then unfamiliar to
me, I speculated for the Fall.' I never dreamed that this
HER FIRST SMILE . 37
astounding misfortune was to prove a blessing in disguise, that

Fortune had at last recognised (let me say) my modest worth, and
that this was Her First Smile. Since then we have known one
another better . Like Napoleon - between whom and myself
partial friends fondly trace some resemblance-I now trust to
My Star. But where was I ? Lying under a hedge in the
vicinity of Ealing , drenched with dew, and feeling like the Peri in
the poem , only worse, for I had closed the gates of Paradise-
Symonds's door-against me with my own hands. An ordinary
person would have gone home and written him a letter, telling
him some lie or other about sudden indisposition having prevented
my taking advantage of his much-appreciated invitation ; but
duplicity is foreign to my character, and, besides, I was well
persuaded that my landlady could not be trusted to corroborate
such a statement . She was a weak creature, and under the least
6
cross - examination on the part of Squire ' Symonds (as she
fulsomely entitled him) would break down . I simply did nothing ;
let matters drift, so some would say, but in reality left them in
other and (as it turned out) far wiser hands . It would be un-
grateful of me indeed , whatever my humble merits may have
been, to deny that Fortune favoured me.
"I presented myself at the station as usual the next morning ;
and Symonds was there ; I felt his presence in the air , or what
there was of it (for it was precious foggy) , though I had stationed
myself at the extreme end of the platform , in order to avoid him .
I heard a heavy step upon the boards, I felt a huge hand laid
upon my shoulder, and then came those never- to - be-forgotten
words : ' Young man, I honour you . Your conduct does you
credit indeed . It gives me a higher opinion of you than even
that which I had already entertained. It not only shows tact but
good feeling.' I really thought old Symonds was going to cry,
but what about ? That was my difficulty. I kept my eyes fixed
on the platform , and mustered up a melancholy smile, indicative
(I flatter myself) of sympathy and conscious worth. The position
was embarrassing, for I did not know the nature of the obligation
under which I had evidently laid old Symonds. " You are
naturally unwilling,' he went on, ' to speak of the generous
motives that caused you to absent yourself from my table.'
" I bowed my head in assent, for what he had said was quite
true ; I was not only unwilling but quite resolved not to speak of
it-till I knew what it was.
666
008. I admit with gratitude, ' he went on in a voice broken with
R
E LE
38 TH ID .
emotion, that the painful spectacle which my son exhibited to

his family circle last night would have been much intensified had
a stranger been present. It was kind of you to spare us that.
But, my dear sir, we are strangers no longer. You have gained
a friend.'
"With that he hurried into his railway carriage, into which I,
for my part- still full of delicacy and good feeling-took good
care not to follow him.
" From that moment old Symonds stuck to me like wax, and
at that period of my career proved extremely useful .
"The story is slight," said Lucky Lawrence, in conclusion,
" but I venture to think interesting as exemplifying the special
protection which Fortune extends to those who (despite, perhaps,
some shortcomings) are not undeserving of her favours. She
has shone upon me ever since, but I have always looked upon
that little incident as Her First Smile."
Choice Blends.
HE idea has doubtless occurred to many that if it were

possible to treat our statesmen in the same way as our
gardeners treat their fruit trees , and by some simple
operation of brain -grafting or blood-transmission to infuse into
the several good qualities of A. some of the good qualities which B.
possesses in superabundance , and in which A. is universally
acknowledged to be deficient, and vice versâ, we might ultimately
arrive at a very choice blend of politicians indeed .
Thus, if to Mr. Gladstone's vast experience we could add some

of Lord Rosebery's stiffness of backbone in foreign affairs , and
could dower Rosebery with Gladstone's accumulated experience ;
if to the late Mr. W. H. Smith's simple straightforward devotion
to Duty could have been added just a tincture of Mr. Arthur
Balfour's caustic sprightliness ; —in time, and with patience, both
on the part of the experimenters and the experimentees, we might
surely hope to arrive at the ideal statesman .
What we cannot at present do with their minds we fortunately

can do with our statesmen's faces, as the following pages show.
These are no ideal touched-up portraits, but the actual results

of the various blends exactly as the camera reproduced them.
In several cases the combinations work out so curiously that

experiments have been carefully made to see what variations
might be obtained under different conditions as to time of exposure,
&c. , but the results come out practically the same,
40 THE IDLER .
LORD SALISBURY. RIGHT HON W. H SMITH .

From a photo by Elliott and Fry, From a photo by Russell and Sons,
Baker Street, W. Baker Street, W.
RIGHT HON. A. J BALFOUR. RIGHT HON. G. J. GOSCHEN :

From photo by Russell and Sons, From a photo by Russell and Sons,
4 Baker Street, W. Baker Street, W.
CHOICE BLENDS 41
SALISBURY- SMITH . SALISBURY- BALFOUR.
SALISBURY- GOSCHEN. SMITH- BALFOUR- GOSCHEN .

Composite photos by Boning and Small, 22 Baker, Street London, W
42 THE IDLER..
SALISBURY- SMITH- BALFOUR- GOSCHEN.

Composite photo by Boning and Small, 22, Baker Street, London, W
CHOICE BLENDS. 43
Meisenbach
GLADSTONE- HARCOURT- ROSEBERY- MORLEY.

Composite photo by Poning and Small, 22, B..ker Street, W.
44 THE IDLER.
RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. SIR W. V. HARCOURT.

From a photo by Elliott and Fry, From photo by Elliott and Fry
LORD ROSEBERY. RIGHT HON. JOHN MORLEY.

From a photo by Elliott (and Fry, From a hoto by Elliott and Fry,
Baker Street, W. Faker Street, W.
CHOICE BLENDS. 45 .
GLADSTONE-HARCOURT. GLADSTONE- ROSEBERY.
GLADSTONE- MORLEY. GLADSTONE-HARCOURT-ROSEBERY.
Composite photos by Boning and Small, 22, Baker Street, W.

R
E LE
46 TH ID .
SALISBURY-GLADSTONE-SMITH -HARCOURT-BALFOUR-ROSEBERY-
GOSCHEN- MORLEY.
Composite photo by Boning and Small, 22, Baker Street, W.

SILHOUETTES .
BY JEROME K. JEROME .
IKE most men who have the reputa-
tion ofbeing funny-or of " trying to be
funny," as the genial pressman would
put it I am myself a somewhat gloomily-
inclined personage . My own favourite
reading is pessimistic poetry and stories of
a pathetic or tragic tendency. The dis-
covery that I was a humourist surprised
me even more, I think, than it did my
relations-even more, I think, than it did you ,
my dear cultured critic. While in the mood for
confessing, I will acknowledge that I always
fancied myself possessed of a pretty wit, together with humour
in a mild and inoffensive degree ; but my real strength, I told
myself, lay in the direction of the tearful and the terrible. Had
circumstances left me free to follow my natural bent, I should
now be engaged in writing realistic novels, and plays almost
gruesome enough for acceptance at the Independent Theatre.
I mention this in charity, hoping it may alleviate the sufferings
of those who grieve because I write as I now do. They will be
well advised not to stir me too deeply with their complainings. I
do not like to seem to threaten , but, perhaps , it is only fair to
them to state that I have, sketched out and stowed away in my
desk, a six-act tragedy, and that it would not take very much to
make me hunt it out and finish it.
My sympathies are always with the melancholy side of life
and nature . I love the chill October days, when the brown leaves
lie thick and sodden underneath your feet, and a low sound as of
stifled sobbing is heard in the damp woods -the evenings in late
autumn time, when the white mist creeps across the fields ,
making it seem as though old Earth , feeling the night air cold to
its poor bones, were drawing ghostly bedclothes round its withered
limbs. I like the twilight of the long grey street, sad with the
' wailing cry of the distant muffin man . One thinks of him , as
strangely mitred, he glides by through the gloom, jangling his
harsh bell, as the High Priest of the pale spirit of Indigestion,
summoning the devout to come forth and worship . I find a
R
E LE
48 TH ID .
sweetness in the aching dreariness of Sabbath afternoons in

genteel suburbs-in the evil -laden desolateness of waste places by
the river, when the yellow fog is stealing inland across the ooze
and mud, and the black tide gurgles softly round worm-eaten piles .
I love the
bleak moor,
when the
thin long line
of the wind-
ing road lies
white on the
darkening
heath, while
overhead
some belated
bird, vexed
with itselffor
being out so late, scurries across the dusky sky, screaming angrily.
I love the lonely, sullen lake, hidden away in mountain solitudes .
I suppose it was my childhood's surroundings that instilled in
me this affection for sombre hues. One of my earliest recollections
is of a dreary marshland by the sea. By day, the water stood
there in wide, shallow pools. But when one looked in the evening
they were pools of blood that lay there.
It was a wild, dismal stretch of coast. One day, I found my-
self there all alone-I forget how I managed it-and, oh, how
small I felt amid the sky and the sea and the sandhills. I ran ,
and ran , and ran , but I never seemed to move ; and then I cried ,
and screamed , louder and louder, and the circling sea - gulls screamed
back mockingly at me. It was an "unken" spot, as they say upNorth.
In the far back days of the building of the world, a long, high
ridge of stones had been reared up by the sea, dividing the swampy
grassland from the sand. Some of these stones-" pebbles," so
they called them round about -were as big as a man , and many as
big as a fair- sized house ; and when the sea was angry-and very
prone he was to anger by that lonely shore, and very quick to
wrath ; often have I known him sink to sleep with a peaceful
smile on his rippling waves, to wake in fierce fury before the night
was spent he would snatch up giant handsful of these pebbles ,
and fling and toss them here and there, till the noise of their roll-
ing and crashing could be heard by the watchers in the village
afar off.
SILHOUETTES. 49
" Old Nick's playing at marbles to -night," they would say to one
another, pausing to listen. And then the women would close tight
their doors, and try not to hear the sound.
Far out to sea, by where the muddy mouth of the river yawned
wide, there rose ever a thin white line of surf, and underneath
those crested waves there dwelt a very fearsome thing, called the
Bar. I grew to hate and be afraid of this mysterious Bar, for I
heard it spoken of always with bated breath, and I knew that it
was very cruel to fisher folk, and hurt them so sometimes that
they would cry whole days and nights together with the pain, or
would sit with white scared faces, rocking themselves to and fro.
Once when I was playing among the sandhills , there came by
a tall, grey woman, bending beneath a load of driftwood. She
paused when nearly opposite to me, and, facing seaward, fixed her
eyes upon the breaking surf above the Bar. " Ah, how I hate the
sight ofyourwhite teeth," she muttered ; then turned and passed on .
Another morning, walking through the village, I heard a low
wailing come from one of the cottages, while a little further on a
group of women were gathered in the roadway, talking. " Ay," said
one of them , " I thought the Bar was looking hungry last night."
So, putting one and the other together, I concluded that the
" Bar " must be an ogre, such as a body reads of in books, who lived
in a coral castle deep below the river's mouth, and fed upon the
fishermen as he caught them going down tothe sea or coming home.
From my bed-
room window, on
moonlight nights , I
could watch the
silvery foam, mark-
ing the spot beneath
where he lay hid ;
and I would stand
on tip-toe, peering
out, until at length
I would come to
fancy I could see his hideous form floating below the waters.
Then, as the little white- sailed boats stole by him, tremblingly,
I used to tremble too, lest he should suddenly open his grim
jaws and gulp them down ; and when they had all safely reached
the dark, soft sea beyond, I would steal back to the bedside , and
pray to God to make the Bar good, so that he would give up killing
and eating the poor fi: he men .
50 THE IDLER.
Another incident connected with that coast lives in my mind.

It was the morning after a great storm-great even for that
stormy coast-and the passion-worn waters were still heaving
with the memory of a fury that was dead . Old Nick had
scattered his marbles far and wide, and there were rents and
fissures in the pebbly wall such as the oldest fisherman had never
known before. Some of the hugest stones lay tossed a hundred
yards away, and the waters had dug pits here and there along the
ridge so deep that a tall man might stand in some of them , and
yet his head not reach the level of the sand .
Round one of these holes a small crowd was pressing
eagerly, while one man, standing in the hollow, was lifting the
few remaining stones off something that lay there at the bottom .
I pushed my way between the straggling legs of a big fisher lad,
and peered over with the rest . A ray of sunlight streamed down
into the pit, and the thing at the bottom gleamed white. Sprawl-
ing there among the black pebbles it looked like a huge spider.
One by one the last stones were lifted away, and the thing was
left bare, and then the crowd looked at one another and shivered .
" Wonder how he got there, " said a woman at length ; 66 some-
body must ha' helped him. "
" Some foreign chap , no doubt, " said the man who had lifted
off the stones ; " washed ashore and buried here by the sea."
"What, six foot below the water-mark, with all they stones
a' top of him ? " said another.
" That's no foreign chap," cried a grizzled old woman, pressing
forward . " What's that that's aside him ? "
Some one jumped down and took it from the stone where it
lay glistening, and handed it up to her, and she clutched it in her
skinny hand. It was a gold earring , such as fishermen some-
times wear. But this was a somewhat large one, and of rather
unusual shape .
" That's young Abram Parsons , I tell you , as lies down there,"
cried the old creature, wildly. " I ought to know. I gave him
the pair o' these forty year ago."
It may be only an idea of mine, born of after brooding upon
the scene . I am inclined to think it must be so, for I was only
a child at the time, and would hardly have noticed such a thing.
But it seems to my remembrance that as the old crone ceased ,
another woman in the crowd raised her eyes slowly, and fixed
them on a withered , ancient man , who leant upon a stick, and that
for a moment, unnoticed by the rest, these two stood looking
strangely at each other.
SILHOUETTES. 51
From these sea- scented scenes , my memory travels to a weary

land where dead ashes lie, and there is blackness -blackness
everywhere. Black rivers flow between black banks ; black, stunted
trees grow in black fields ; black withered flowers by black wayside.
Black roads lead from blackness past blackness to blackness ; and
along them trudge black, savage-looking men and women ; and
by them black, old -looking children play grim, unchildish games .
When the sun shines on this black land, it glitters black and
hard ; and when the rain falls a black mist rises towards heaven ,
like the hopeless prayer of a hopeless soul.
By night it is less dreary, for then the sky gleams with a lurid
light, and out of the darkness the red flames leap, and high up in
the air they gambol and writhe-the demon spawn of that evil
land , they seem .
Visitors who came to our house would tell strange tales of
this black land, and some of the stories I am inclined to think
were true. One man said he saw a young bull -dog fly at a boy
and pin him by the throat. The lad jumped about with much
sprightliness , and tried to knock the dog away. Whereupon the
boy's father rushed out of the house, hard by, and caught his son
and heir roughly by the shoulder. "Keep still, thee young
can't ' ee," shouted the man angrily ; " let 'un taste blood."
Another time, I heard a lady tell how she had visited a
cottage during a strike, to find the baby, together with the other
children, almost dying for want of food . " Dear, dear me," she
cried, taking the wee wizened mite from the mother's arms, " but
I sent you down a quart of milk, yesterday. Hasn't the child had
it ? "
" Theer weer a little coom, thank ' ee kindly, ma'am," the
father took upon himself to answer ; " but thee see it weer only
just enow for the poops."
52 THE IDLER.
We lived in a big lonely house on the edge of a wide common .

One night, I remember, just as I was reluctantly preparing to
climb into bed, there came a wild ringing at the gate, followed by
a hoarse, shrieking cry, and then a frenzied shaking of the iron
bars.
Then hurrying footsteps sounded through the house, and the
swift opening and closing of doors ; and I slipped back hastily
into my knickerbockers and ran out. The women folk were
gathered on the stairs, while my father stood in the hall , calling
to them to be quiet. And still the wild ringing of the bell con-
tinued, and, above it, the hoarse, shrieking cry.
My father opened the door and went out, and we could hear
him striding down the gravel path, and we clung to one another
and waited.
After what seemed an endless time, we heard the heavy gate
unbarred, and quickly clanged -to , and footsteps returning on the
gravel. Then the door opened again, and my father entered,
and behind him a crouching figure that felt its way with its hands
as it crept along, like a blind man might. The figure stood up
435
when it reached the middle of the hall, and mopped its eyes with
a dirty rag that it carried in its hand ; after which it held the rag
over the umbrella stand and wrung it out, as washerwomen wring
out clothes, and the dark drippings fell into the tray with a dull,
heavy splut.
SILHOUETTES. 53
My father whispered something to my mother, and she went

out towards the back ; and, in a little while, we heard the stamp-
ing of hoofs-the angry plunge of a spur- startled horse-the
rhythmic throb of the long, straight gallop, dying away into the
distance.
My mother returned and spoke some reassuring words to the
servants. My father, having made fast the door and extinguished
all but one or two of the lights, had gone into a small room on
the right of the hall ; the crouching figure, still mopping that
moisture from its eyes, following him . We could hear them talk-
ing there in low tones, my father questioning, the other voice thick
and interspersed with short panting grunts.
We on the stairs huddled closer together, and , in the darkness,
I felt my mother's arm steal round me and encompass me, so that
I was not afraid . Then we waited, while the silence round our
frightened whispers thickened and grew heavy till the weight of it
seemed to hurt us.
At length, out of its depths , there crept to our ears a faint
murmur. It gathered strength like the sound of the oncoming of
a wave upon a stony shore, until it broke in a Babel of vehement
voices just outside. After a few moments, the hubbub ceased,
and there came a furious ringing-then angry shouts demanding
admittance.
Some of the women began to cry. My father came out into
the hall, closing the room door behind him , and ordered them to
be quiet, so sternly that they were stunned into silence. The
furious ringing was repeated ; and, this time, threats mingled
among the hoarse shouts. My mother's arm tightened around
me, and I could hear the beating of her heart.
The voices outside the gate sank into a low confused mumbling.
Soon they died away altogether , and the silence flowed back.
My father turned up the hall lamp, and stood listening.
Suddenly, from the back of the house, rose the noise of a great
crashing, followed by oaths and savage laughter.
My father rushed forward, but was borne back ; and, in an
instant, the hall was full of grim, ferocious faces. My father,
trembling a little (or else it was the shadow cast by the flickering
lamp) , and with lips tight pressed, stood confronting them ; while
we women and children, too scared to even cry, shrunk back up
the stairs.
What followed during the next few moments is, in my memory,
only a confused tumult, above which my father's high, clear tones
54 THE IDLER .
rise every now and again, entreating, arguing, commanding. I

see nothing distinctly until one of the grimmest of the faces
thrusts itself before the others, and a voice which , like Aaron's rod,
swallows up all its fellows, says in deep, determined bass, " Coom,
we've had enow chatter, master. Thee mun give ' un up, or thee
mun get out o' th' way an' we'll search th' house for oursel' ."
Then a light flashed into my father's eyes that kindled some-
thing inside me, so that the fear went out of me, and I struggled
to free myself from my mother's arm, for the desire stirred me to
fling myself down upon the grimy faces below, and beat and
stamp upon them with my fists. Springing across the hall , he
snatched from the wall where it hung an ancient club, part of a
trophy of old armour, and planting his back against the 'door
through which they would have to pass, he shouted, " Then be
damned to you all , he's in this room . Come and fetch him out."
(I recollect that speech well . I puzzled over it, even at that
time, excited though I was. I had always been told that only
low, wicked people ever used the word " damn," and I tried to
reconcile things , and failed.)
The men drew back and muttered among themselves . It was
an ugly-looking weapon, studded with iron spikes. My father
held it secured to his hand by a chain, and there was an ugly look
about him also, now, that gave his face a strange likeness to the
dark faces round him.
But my mother grew very white and cold, and underneath her
breath she kept crying, " Oh, will they never come will they never
come ?" and a cricket somewhere about the house began to chirp.
SILHOUETTES. 55
Then all at once, without a word, my mother flew down the

stairs, and passed like a flash of light through the crowd of dusky.
figures. How she did it I could never understand, for the two
heavy bolts had both been drawn, but the next moment the door
stood wide open ; and a hum of voices, cheery with the antici-
pation of a period of perfect bliss, was borne in upon the cool
night air.
My mother was always very quick of hearing .
Again , I see a wild crowd of grim faces, and my father's, very
pale, amongst them. But this time the faces are very many, and
they come and go like faces in a dream. The ground beneath my
feet is wet and sloppy, and a black rain is falling. There are
women's faces in the crowd, wild and haggard, and long skinny arms
stretch out threateningly towards my father, and shrill, frenzied
voices call out curses on him. Boys' faces also pass me in the
grey light, and on some of them there is an impish grin.
I seem to be in everybody's way, and to get out of it, I crawl
into a dark, draughty corner and crouch there among cinders.
Around me, great engines fiercely strain and pant like living things
fighting beyond their strength . Their gaunt arms whirl madly
above me, and the ground rocks with their throbbing. Dark
figures flit to and fro, pausing from time to time to wipe the black
sweat from their faces.
The pale light fades, and the flame-lit night lies red upon the
land . The flitting figures take strange shapes. I hear the
hissing of wheels, the furious clanking of iron chains, the hoarse
shouting of many voices, the hurrying tread of many feet ; and

through all, the wailing and weeping and cursing that never seem
56 THE IDLER.
to cease. I drop into a restless sleep, and dream that I have

broken a chapel window, stone-throwing, and have died and
gone to hell.
At length, a cold hand is laid upon my shoulder and I awake.
The wild faces have vanished , and all is silent now, and I wonder
if the whole thing has been a dream. My father lifts me into
the dog-cart, and we drive home through the chill dawn.
My mother opens the door softly as we alight. She does not
speak, only looks her question. " It's all over, Maggie," answers
my father very quietly, as he takes off his coat and lays it across a
chair ; " we've got to begin the world afresh."
My mother's arms steal up about his neck ; and I , feeling heavy
with a trouble I do not understand, creep off to bed.
386
EDIAK
"What on earth do you have that telegraph machine on your

mantelshelf for ? It quite makes one giddy to see that needle
incessantly dodging about like that ! "
"My dear boy, it isn't a telegraph machine-it's a barometer. "
THE
SHOP
JAS . F. SULLIVAN.
E'VE seen the new shop ? Just a wonderful place,

Chock full of all manner-ye wouldn't believe-
As couldn't be counted or mentioned !
I tell'ee they'd think it a mighty disgrace,
And say they was backing to Adam and Eve,
To have any article showing its face
As wasn't just newly inventioned.
Why folks was as sleepy and foolish and slow

Away in our parts, till they opened that shop
And knowledge was able to reach ' em !
Such thousands o' things we was wanting to know ;
Our minds and our manners was all at a stop ;
It's a wonder the breezes was able to blow
Till SCIENCE came forward to teach ' em !
ER
58 TH
E IDL .
For that is the name written over the front-

" MR . LATTERDAY SCIENCE , REMOVER OF ILL ,
AND GENERAL Worker of Wonders ."
It told in a jiffy, to senses as blunt
As the side of a stack, " ye may try as ye will
Your old-fashioned manners is out o' the hunt :
But now for an end to the blunders ! "
RAIN-MACHINER TELEPHONES
RAIN MADEWHILE PHOTOPHONES
YOUWAIT, PHONOGRAPHS
PSYCHESCOPES.
FLYING MACHINES
To see the machineries ! One, if you please,

As a party could talk wi' his natural voice,
And, bless you, as soon as he's started
He's heard by acquaintances over the seas :
And one as I wouldn't be hearing for choice,
As gives to you, like it was borne on the breeze,
The voice of the=dead and departed .
59
THE NEW SHOP. 59
"All done by electric, " says SCIENCE to me ;

A-changing vibrations to currents instead ,
And back again into vibrations.
By changing of things into others ," says he,
66
' (As light into motion) our wonders are bred :
Turn this into that, and you get at the key
Of Science's grand operations."
Ah, then I was thankful ! I knew as I'd found

A thing as I'd wanted for many a year-
A thing as some others was seeking-
A engine to change all the sorrow around ,
Before you could whistle, to joy and good cheer :
And here it was springing up out o' the ground
And all to be had for the speaking !
I fancied old Margaret, fresh

wi' the news
Of Billy, her boy, being

drownded at sea ,
Might call it a likely invention ;
And Joe, as is paralysed ,

mightn't refuse
GO74
To see the contrivance ;

AK
-.
and Charity Leigh ,
Who's blind and deserted,

might give us her views ;
And others a party could

mention .
60 THE IDLER.
So " Mister," I answers : " I'll take one o' they."

66 But," says Mr. Science, " it ain't in our line :
It ain't in our catalog's pages :
You'd better enquire for it over the way."
And points to a shop with a dingy old sign-
A shop as was there in my grandmother's day,
And then was as old as the ages !
It didn't sell nothing but patience, and trust,

And hope, and the like of ' em-old-fashioned stock,
Which most o' the customers flout it :
A dowdy old shop ; but we saw as we must
Continue to deal at it after the shock
Of our hopes in the new ' un all down in the dust-
And never no choosing about it !
THE
SHOP
The English Shakespeare.
By I. ZANGWILL.
VERYTHING comes to
him who will not wait,
and by working shame-
lessly shoulder to shoulder, and
by undertaking to write even
on subjects with which they
were acquainted , the members
of the Mutual Depreciation
Society had captured the town
with all its magazines . They
believed in human nature , did
Tom Brown, Dick Jones,
Harry Robinson, Taffy Owen ,
ery Andrew Mackay, and Patrick
Find
Boyle, and their success justi-
THE DRAMATIC CRITIC. fied their faith . For if it had
not been for the rule binding
each member to sneer in private at the work he extolled in
public, their campaign would have been a failure .
Men cannot work together for a common object without dis-
covering they do not deserve to get it, and it is the tension of
mutual admiration that kills the cliques and sows discord where
all should be amiable contempt. Having slanged one another
savagely at the monthly symposia , the Mutual Depreciators were
able to write one another up with a clear conscience. And the
more they succeeded, the more they depreciated one another. For
you can get tired even of hearing your own dispraises, and the
jaded appetite must needs be pampered if it is to experience any-
thing of that relish which a natural healthy hunger for adverse
criticism can command so easily. This was the sort of thing that
went on at the dinners.
" I say, Tom," said Andrew Mackay, " what in Heaven's
name made you publish your waste-paper basket under the name
6
of Stray Thoughts ' ? For utter and incomprehensible idiocy
they are only surpassed by Dick's last volume of poems . I
62 THE IDLER.
shouldn't have thought such things could have come out of a

lunatic asylum, at least not without a keeper . Really you fellows
ought to consider me a little . It isn't fair to throw all the work
on me. How can I go on saying that Tom Brown is the deepest
thinker since Hegel with a gift of style that recalls Berkeley's , if
you go on turning out twaddle that a copy-book would boggle at ?
It's not sticking to the bargain to expose me to the danger
of being found out. You ought at least to have the decency to
wrap up your fatuousness in longer words or more abstruse
themes. You're both so beastly intelligible that a child can under-
stand you're asses. "
" Tut, tut, Andrew," said Taffy Owen , " it's all very well of
you to talk who've only got to do the criticism . And I think it's
deuced ungrateful of you after we've written you up into the
position of leading English critic to want us to give you straw for
your bricks ! Do we ever complain when you call us cataclysmic,
creative, esemplastic, or even epicene ? We know it's rot, but we
put up with it. When you said that Robinson's last novel had all
the glow and genius of Dickens without his humour, all the ripe
wisdom of Thackeray without his social knowingness, all the
imaginativeness of Shakespeare without his definiteness of
characterization, we all saw at once that you were incautiously
allowing the donkey's ears to protrude too obviously from beneath
the lion's skin . But did anyone grumble ? Did Robinson ,
though the edition was sold out the day after ? Did I, though
you had just called me a modern Buddhist with the soul of an
ancient Greek and the radiant fragrance of a Cingalese tea- planter ?
I know these phrases take the public and I try to be patient . ”
" Owen is right, " Harry Robinson put in emphatically.
"When you said I was a cross between a Scandinavian skald
and a Dutch painter, I bore my cross in silence."
" You others have out and away the best of it, " retorted
Andrew . " It's much easier to write bad books than to eulogize
their merits in an adequately plausible manner . I think it's
playing it too low upon a chap. It's taking a mean advantage of
my position."
" And who put you into that position I should like to know ? "
yelled Dick Jones, becoming poetically excited. " Didn't we lift
you up into it on the points of our pens ?
" Fortunately they were not very pointed," ejaculated the great
critic, wriggling uncomfortably at the suggestion . " I don't deny
that of course . All I say is, you're giving me away now."
THE ENGLISH SHAKESPEARE. 63
"You give yourself away," shrieked Owen vehemently, " with

a pound of that Cingalese tea. Don't you agree with me, Boyle ?
You manage to crack up our plays without being driven to any of
this new-fangled nonsense."
"Plays ! " said Patrick, looking up moodily. "Anything is
good enough for plays. You see I can always fall back on the
acting and crack up that. I had to do that with Owen's thing at
the Lymarket. My notice read like a gushing account of the play,
in reality it was all devoted to the players. The trick of it is not
easy. The only time, Owen , I dare say
that your plays are literature is when they
are a frost, for that both explains the failure
and justifies you. But, an you love me,
Taffy, or if you have any care for my reputa-
tion, do not, I beg of you, be enticed into
this new folly of printing your plays."
In this wise things would have gone on
-from bad to worse-had Heaven not
created Cecilia nineteen years before.
Cecilia was a tall, fair girl, with dreamy
eyes and unpronounced opinions, who longed
for the ineffable with an unspeakable
yearning.
Frank Grey loved her. He was a young
lawyer, with a fondness for manly sports
and a wealth of blonde moustache.
"Cecilia," he said, " I love you. Will
you be mine ? "
He had a habit of using unconventional
phrases.
" No, Frank," she said gently, and there
was a world and several satellites of tender-
ness in her tremulous tones.
"Ah, do not decide so quickly," he
pleaded. " I will not press you for an answer. " ROBINSON.
" I would press you for an answer, if I could," replied Cecilia ,
" but I do not love you."
"Why not ? " he demanded desperately.
"Because you are not what I should like you to be ?'
" And what would you like me to be ? " he demanded eagerly.
" If I told you, you would try to become it ? "
" I would," he said, enthusiastically. " Be it what it may, I
64 THE ENGL SHAK .
IS H ESPE
ARE
would leave no stone unturned . I would work, strive, study,
reform-anything, everything."
" I feared so," she said despondently. " That is why I will
not tell you . Don't you understand that your charm to me is
your being just yourself—your simple, honest, manly self ?
No , Frank, let us be true to ourselves , not to each other.
I shall always remain your friend, looking up to you as to something
staunch, sturdy, stalwart ; coming to consult you (unprofes-
sionally) in all my difficulties . I will tell you all my secrets ,
Frank, so that you will know more of me than if I married you.
Dear friend, let it remain as I say. It is for the best."
So Frank went away broken-hearted, and joined the Mutual
•
Depreciation Society. He did not care what became of him.
How they came to let him in was this. He was the one man in
the world outside who knew all about them, having been engaged
as the Society's legal adviser. It was he who made their
publishers and managers sit in an erect position . In applying for
a more intimate connection , he stated that he had met with a
misfortune, and a little monthly abuse would enliven him . The
Society decided that, as he was already half one of themselves,
and as he had never written a line in his life , and so could not
diminish their takings, nothing but good could ensue from the
infusion of new blood. In fact, they wanted it badly. Their
mutual recriminations had degenerated into mere platitudes . The
wisdom of the policy was early seen , for the first fruit of it was
the English Shakespeare, who for a whole year daily opened out
new and exciting perspectives of sensation and amusement to a
blasé Society. Andrew Mackay had written an enthusiastic
article in the so -called Nineteenth Century on " The Cochin-
Chinese Shakespeare, " and set all tongues wagging about the new
literary phenomenon with whose verses the boatmen of the
Irrawady rocked their children to sleep on the cradle of the river,
and whose dramas were played in eight hour slices in the
strolling-booths of Shanghai. Andrew had already arranged with
Anyman and Son to bring out a translation from the original
Cochin-Chinese, for there was no language he could not translate
from , provided it were sufficiently unknown.
" Cochin-Chinese Shakespeare , indeed ! " said Dick Jones, at
the next symposium. " Why, judging from the little extracts you
gave from his greatest drama, Baby Bantam , it is the blankest
rot. You might have written it yourself."
" Don't you think it a shame," broke in Frank Grey, " that we
English are debarred from having a Shakespeare. There's been

one discovered lately in Belgium, and we have several
American Shakespeares . English is the only language in which
we can't get a nineteenth -century one. It seems cruel."
" Peace. I would willingly look out for one," said Andrew
Mackay, thoughtfully. " But I cannot venture to insinuate yet
that Shakespeare did not write English. The time is scarcely
ripe, though it is maturing fast. Otherwise the idea is tempting. "
" But why take the words in their natural
meaning ?" demanded Tom Brown, the philo-
sopher, in astonishment. " Is it not un-
apparent that an English Shakespeare would
be a great writer more saturated with Anglo-
Saxon spirit than Shakespeare, who
was cosmic and for all time and for
every place ? Hamlet, Othello, Lady
Macbeth-these are world-types , not
English characters. Our English
Shakespeare must be more auto-
chthonic."
" Excellent ! " said Andrew. " He
must be found. It will be the greatest
boom of the century . But whom can
g we discover ? "
in
cr " There is Henry Arthur Smith ,"
said Tom Brown.
THE PHILOSOPHER. " No, why Henry Arthur Smith ?
He has merit," objected Taffy Owen .
" And then he has never been in our set."
" And besides he would not be satisfied," said Patrick Boyle,
66 any more than Running Brookonon . "
"That is true," said Andrew Mackay reflectively. " I know,

Owen, you would like to be the subject of the discovery. But I
am afraid it is too late. I have taken your measurements and
laid down the chart of your genius too definitely to alter now.
You are permanently established in business as the dainty neo-
Hellenic Buddhist who has chosen to express himself through
farcical comedy. If you were just starting life, I could work you
into this English Shakespeardom- I am always happy to put a
good thing in the way of a friend-but at your age it is not easy
to go into a new line."
"Well, but," put in Harry Robinson, " it none of us is to be
E
66 THE IDLER.
the English Shakespeare, why should we give over the appoint-

ment to an outsider ? Charity begins at home."
" That is a difficulty," admitted Andrew, puckering his brow.
They sat in thoughtful silence. Then suddenly Frank Grey
flashed in with a suggestion that took their breath away for a
moment and restored it to them, charged with " Bravos," the
moment after.
" But why should he exist at all ? ”
Why indeed ? The more they pondered the matter, the less
necessity they saw for it.
" Pon my word , Grey, you are right," said Andrew. " Right as
Talleyrand when he told the beggar who insisted that he must live :
Mais, monsieur, je n'en vois pas la nécessité."
" It's an inspiration ! " said Tom Brown, moved out of his
usual apathy. " We all remember how Whately proved that the
Emperor Napoleon never existed—and the plausible way he did it .
How few persons actually saw the Emperor ! Conversely, it
should be as easy as possible for us six to put a non - existent
English Shakespeare on the market. You remember what Voltaire
said of God- that if there were none it would be necessary to
invent Him . In like manner patriotism calls upon us to invent
the English Shakespeare."
"Yes, won't it be awful fun ? " said Patrick Boyle.
The idea was taken up eagerly-the modus operandi was dis-
cussed , and the members parted , effervescing with enthusiasm
and anxious to start the campaign immediately . The English
Shakespeare was to be named Fladpick, a cognomen which once
seen would hook itself on to the memory.
The very next day a leading article in the Daily Herald
casually quoted Fladpick's famous line :
" Coffined in English yew, he sleeps in peace."
And throughout the next month , in the most out- of-the-way and
unlikely quarters , the word Fladpick lurked and sprang upon the
reader. Lines and phrases from Fladpick were quoted . Gradually
the thing worked up, gathering momentum on its way, and going
more and more of itself, like an ever - swelling snowball which
needs but the first push down the mountain side. Soon a leprosy
of Fladpick broke out over the journalism of the day. The very
office- boys caught the infection , and in their book reviews they
dragged in Fladpick with an air of antediluvian acquaintance .
Writers were said not to possess Fladpick's imagination though
THE ENGLISH SHAKESPEARE . 67
they might have more sense of style, or they were said not to
possess Fladpick's sense of style though they might have more
imagination. Certain epithets and tricks of manner were des-
cribed as quite Fladpickian , while others were mentioned as ex-
travagant and as disdained by writers like, say, Fladpick. Young
authors were paternally invited to mould themselves on Fladpick,
while others were contemptuously dismissed as mere imitators of
Fladpick. By this time Fladpick's poetic dramas began to be asked
for at the libraries, and the libraries said that they were all out .
This increased the demand so much that the libraries told their
subscribers they must wait till the new edition, which was being
hurried through the press, was published . When things had reached
this stage, queries about Fladpick appeared in the literary and
professionally inquisitive papers, and answers were given, with
reference to the editions of Fladpick's book. It began to leak out
that he was a young Englishman who hadlived all his life in
Tartary, and that his book had been published by a local firm and
795 enjoyed no inconsiderable re-
putation among the English
Tartars there, but that the
copies which had found their
way to England were extremely
scarce and had come into the
hands ofonly a few cognoscenti ,
who being such were enabled I
to create for him the reputa-
tion he so thoroughly deserved .
The next step was to contradict
this, and the press teemed with
biographies and counter-bio-
graphies . Dazzle also wired
numerous interviews, but an
authoritative statement was
inserted in the Acadæum ,
signed by Andrew Mackay,
stating that they were un-
g founded , and paragraphs began

er
ANDREW MACKAY mb to appear detailing how Flad-
COLLABORATING. Fi .
pick spent his life in dodging
the interviewers . Anecdotes of Fladpick were highly valued
by editors of newspapers, and very plenteous they were,
for Fladpick was known to be a cosmopolitan, always sailing from
68 THE IDLER .
pole to pole and caring little for residence in the country of which
he yet bade fair to be the laureate. These anecdotes girdled the
globe even more quickly than their hero, and they returned from
foreign parts bronzed and almost unrecognizable, to set out
immediately on fresh journeys in their new guise.
A parody of one of his plays was inserted in a comic paper,
and it was bruited abroad that Andrew Mackay was collaborating
with him in preparing one of his dramas for representation at the
Independent Theatre. This set the older critics by the ears , and
they protested vehemently in their theatrical columns against the
infamous ethics propagated by the new writer, quoting largely
from the specimens of his work given in Mackay's article in the
Fortnightly Review . Patrick, who wrote the dramatic criticism
for seven papers , led the attack upon the audacious iconoclast.
Journalesia was convulsed by the quarrel , and even young ladies
asked their partners in the giddy waltz whether they were Flad-
pickites or Anti - Fladpickites . You could never be certain of
escaping Fladpick at dinner, for the lady you took down was apt
to take you down by her contempt of your ignorance of Fladpick's
awfully sweet writings. Any amount of people promised one
another introductions to Fladpick, and those who had met him
enjoyed quite a reflected reputation in Belgravian circles. As to the
Fladpickian parties, which brother geniuses like Dick Jones and
Harry Robinson gave to the great writer, it was next to impossible
to secure an invitation to them, and comparatively few boasted
of the privilege. Fladpick reaped a good deal of kudos from
refusing to be lionised and preferring the society of men of letters
like himself, during his rare halting moments in England.
Long before this stage Mackay had seen his way to introducing
the catch-word of the conspiracy, " The English Shakespeare. ”
He defended vehemently the ethics of the great writer, claiming
they were at core essentially at one with those of the great nation
from whence he sprang and whose very life- blood had passed into his
work. This brought about a reaction , and all over the country
the scribblers hastened to do justice to the maligned writer, and
an elaborate analysis of his most subtle characters was announced
as having been undertaken by Mr. Patrick Boyle. And when it was
stated that he was to be included in the Contemporary Men of
Letters Series , the advance orders for the work were far in advance
of the demand for Fladpick's actual writings. " Shakespearean,'
" The English Shakespeare," was now constantly used in
connection with his work, and even the most hard-worked
reviewers promised themselves to skim his book in their next

summer holidays. About this time, too, Dazzle unconsciously
helped the Society by announcing that Fladpick was dying of
consumption in a snow-hut in Greenland, and it was felt that he
must either die or go to a warmer climate, if not both . The news
of his phthisic weakness put the seal upon his genius, and the great
heart of the nation went out to him in his lonely snow- hut, but
returned on learning that the report was a canard. Still, the
danger he had passed through endeared him to his country, and
within a few months Fladpick, the English Shakespeare, was
definitely added to the glories of the national literature, founding
a whole school of writers in his own country, attracting consider-
able attention on the Continent, and being universally regarded as
the centre of the Victorian Renaissance.
But this was the final stage. A little before it was reached
Cecilia came to Frank Grey to pour her latest trouble into his ear,
for she had carefully kept her promise of bothering him with her
most intimate details , and the love- sick young lawyer had listened
to her petty psychology with a patience which would have brought
him in considerable fees if invested in the usual way. But this
time the worry was genuine.
y 19/
leay
innd
FFu
" Frank," she said, " I am in love."

70 THE IDLER .
The young man turned as white as an evening sheet (early

editions) . The sword of Damocles had fallen at last, sundering
them for ever.
"With whom ? " he gasped.
“ With Mr. Fladpick ! "
" The English Shakespeare ! "
" The same ! "
99
" But you have never seen him ? '
" I have seen his soul. I have divined him from his writings. I
have studied Andrew Mackay's essays on him. I feel that he and
I are in rapport."
99
" But this is madness !'
" Madness ! Why ? why may I not cherish the hope that he
will return my love ? Am I not worthy of it ? "
" Yes, Cecilia, you are worthy of an archangel's love . I do
not mean that. But are you sure it is love you feel, not admira-
99
tion ?
"No, it is love. At first I thought it was admiration , and pro-
bably it was, for I was not likely to be mistaken in the analysis of
my feelings, in which I have had much practice . But gradually
I felt it efflorescing and sending forth tender shoots clad in delicate
green buds , and a sweet wonder came upon me and I knew that
love was struggling to get itself born in my soul. Then suddenly
the news came that he I loved was ill, dying in that lonely snow-
hut in grim Greenland, and then in the tempest of grief that shook
me I knew that my life was bound up with his. Watered by my
hot tears, the love in my heart bourgeoned and blossomed like
some strange tropical passion -flower, and when the reassuring
message that he was strong and well flashed through the world, I
felt that if he lived not for me , the universe were a blank and next
year's daisies would grow over my early grave."
She burst into tears. " A great writer has always been the
ideal which I would not tell you of. It is the one thing I have
kept from you. But, O Frank, how am I to get him to love me ?”
A paroxysm of hopeless sobs punctuated her remarks .
It was a terrible position . Frank groaned inwardly.
How was he to explain to this fair young thing that she loved
nobody and could never hope to marry him ? There was no doubt
that with her intense nature and her dreamy blue eyes she would
pine away and die. He made an effort to laugh it off.
" Tush ! " he said. " All this is mere imagination . I don't
believe you really love anybody ! "
" Frank ! " She drew herself up, stony and rigid, the warm
tears on her poor white face frozen to ice. " Have you nothing
better than this to say to me, after I have shown you my inmost
soul ? "
The wretched young lawyer's face turned to the fifth edition
and back again into the second . He could have faced a football
team in open combat, but these complex psychical positions were
beyond the healthy young Philistine.
" For-or-give me," he stammered . " I—I am— I—that is to
99
say, Fladpick- oh how can I explain what I mean ?
Cecilia sobbed on . Every sob seemed
to stick in Frank's own throat. His im-
potence maddened him. Was he to let the
woman he loved fret herself to death for a
shadow ? And yet to undeceive her were
scarcely less fatal. He could have cut out
the tongue that first invented Fladpick.
Verily, his sin was finding him out .
66 Why can you not explain what you
mean ? " wept Cecilia.
" Because I- oh hang it all-
because I am the cause of your
grief." vol
" You ?' she said. Atv adi
strange wonderful look came
into her eyes. The thought
shot from her eyes to his and
dazzled them .
Yes ! why not ? why
should he not sacrifice him-
self to save this delicate
creature from a premature howgo
tomb ? Why should he not CECILIA SOBBED ON.
become "the English Shakespeare ? " True, it was a heavy
burden to sustain, but what will a man not dare or suffer for the
woman he loves ? Moreover, was he not responsible for Fladpick's
being, and thus for all the evil done by his Frankenstein ? He had
employed Fladpick for his own amusement and the Employers'
Liability Act was heavy upon him . The path of abnegation , of
duty, was clear. He saw it and he went for it then and there-
went, like a brave young Englishman , to meet his marriage.
" Yes, I," he said, " I am glad you love Mr. Fladpick."
72 THE IDLER.
"
"Why ? she murmured breathlessly.
" Because I love you ."
" But-I-do- not-love -you," she said slowly.
"You will, when I tell you it is I who have provoked your
love."
99
" Frank, is this true ?'
" On my word of honour as an Englishman ."
""
" You are Fladpick ?
" If I am not, he does not exist. There is no such person. "
66
' Oh, Frank, this is no cruel jest ? "
" Cecilia, it is the sacred truth. Fladpick is nobody, if he is
not Frank Grey."
99
"But you never lived in Tartary ?'
" Of course not. All that about Fladpick is the veriest false-
hood . But I did not mind it , for nobody suspected me."
"My noble, modest boy! So this was why you were so
embarrassed before ! But why not have told me that you were
""
Fladpick ?
" Because I wanted you to love me for myself alone."
She fell into his arms.
" Frank—Frank-Fladpick, my own , my English Shakes-
peare, " she sobbed ecstatically.
At the next meeting of the Mutual Depreciation Society, a
bombshell in a stamped envelope was handed to Mr. Andrew
Mackay. He tore open the envelope and the explosion followed—
as follows :
Gentlemen,
I hereby beg to tender the resignation of my membership in your valued
Society, as well as to anticipate your objections to my retaining the post of
· legal adviser I have the honour to hold. I am about to marry—the cynic
will say I am laying the foundation of a Mutual Depreciation Society of my
own. But this is not the reason of my retirement. That is to be sought
in my having accepted the position of the English Shakespeare which
you were good enough to open up for me. It would be a pity to let
the pedestal stand empty. From the various excerpts you were kind
enough to invent, especially from the copious extracts in Mr. Mackay's
articles, I have been able to piece together a considerable body of poetic
work, and by carefully collecting every existing fragment, and studying the
most authoritative expositions of my aims and methods , I have constructed
several dramas, much as Professor Owen re-constructed the mastodon from
the bones that were extant. As you know, I had never written a line in my
life before, but by the copious aid of your excellent and genuinely helpful
criticism I was enabled to get along without much difficulty. I find that
to write blank verse you have only to invert the order of the words and
keep on your guard against rhyme. You may be interested to know that the
last line in the last tragedy is :
" Coffined in English yew, he sleeps in peace."
When written, I got my dramas privately printed with a Tartary trade-
mark, after which I smudged the book and sold the copyright to Make-
million & Co. for ten thousand pounds. Needless to say I shall never
write another book. In taking leave of you I cannot help feeling that,
if I owe you some gratitude for the lofty pinnacle to which you have raised
me, you are also not unindebted to me for finally removing the shadow of
apprehension that must have dogged you in your sober moments—I mean
the fear of being found out. Mr. Andrew Mackay, in particular, as the
most deeply committed, I feel owes me what he can never hope to repay for
my gallantry in filling the mantle designed by him, whose emptiness might
one day have been exposed , to his immediate downfall.
I am, gentlemen,
Your most sincere and humble Depreciator,
THE ENGLISH SHAKESPEARE.
ey
Finl
we pub
A FAIR TALE
6s
Gynicus
nce on a time,
So stories shew.
There roved this world longlong ago
malevolent Sprite
Whose wicked delight
D
Was to vex and affright poor mortals below
By acts of the most malignant spile

And every sort of conceivable woe
Whose only endeavour

Seemned how to dissever
From than every source of enjoyment whatever.
And even still;

When we think of the ill
And sorrow and grief which the world doth fill
This imp even yet,seems to wander at will.

Be this as it may-
The Fatal Smile 75
One Christmas day ,

Whe
Whennthe
the weatherwas bright and the world was gay ,
It entered a house,
How, nobody knew

And quiet as a mouse,
Without any ado
I found its way to a room where reposing

In innocent slumber a baby lay dozing.
And all the while
Unconscious of guile.
Its little face beamed with a heavenly smile

*
The imp drew near

With an ominous sneer
And said, with a most diabolical leer
"At every time,

"In every place .
Still wear this smile upon your face.
" Should Fortune frown , or foe beguile
"Stillwear this verlasting smile
Hethen withdrew
From mortal view
Find swiftly out by the chimney flew,

And whathad happ'd.
While in slumber wrapt
The baby napp'd

No one. not even its mother knew.
* * * 柒
Soon, a terrible ache
Caused the child to awake
It had eaten too much of the Christmas cake)
r
76 The Idle
And mother and nurse
Not knowing the curse.

But being beguiled , as the little chap smiled,
Gave him more cake and pudding
which made him worse.
And all were deceived
For no one believed
That a child while it smiled,could be sickly or grieved.
淑 ** *
Find as infancy passed
Into boyhood at last,
No one had detected nor even suspected
The shadow which over his life had been cast,
When at school, with his curious smile-haunted face
Amongst his companions he takes his place.

But the boys can't make out
What he's laughing about.
And indignant surprise
Is expressed intheir eyes

As they whisper forbodingly" Wait till we're out !"
Eva his teachers will like indignation , resent
Such unseemly, indecorous merriment.
So the poor little duffer
Has only to suffer
His pathway through life growing rougher and rougher
*. 柒
But how may I tell

What further befell
For what happened at school happened elsewhere as well
find wherever he went
They mistook what he meant
And even at church misdivined his intent
For though really godfearing
The FatalSinile 77
They thought he was jeering

And said . It must be at the Church he is sneering ! ”
So with noses in air.
And a horrified stare
Athe impious boldness of one who could dare
Their Fail to deride
LLLL
In sanctified pride
The godly passed by on the other side .
His odious impiety
Shocked their propriety,
And they one and all scouted him out of society.
( Of course this all happened quite long ago
This sort of thing is'nt done now,you know
And who could object,
To their scorn and neglect
fone who had shewed such a wantof respect ?
But alas ! forthe victim (whoever he be)
Of the pharisees' pride and malignity

* • * *
Bristmas morn breaks clear and fair

Christmas bells ring through the air
The snowlies white
In the morning light
And mirth and gladness are everywhere
Within the great cathedralpile
The anthemswells through the vaulted aisle
As the people raise their songs ofpraise

And the pealing organ is heard the while
*
* 柒 *
Who is he ? Stretched in the snow
On the marble steps at the western door
Who can hebe ? Does nobody know ?"
r
The Idle
78
The sound of the anthem sweet and clear

Faintly falls on his dying ear
" Peace on earth, good will to men
Joy has come to earth again "
And while the people kneel to pray

A broken spirit has passed away .
The service ver
"
Through the great church door.
Theyflock on their way throughthe world once more
When lo ! in the shade
Of the portal, laid
On the spotless bier which the snow had made
" Now who can it possibly be ? ” they said
On his white drawn face
There is still the trace
Of a smile, so gruesome , so out of place —
And see ! they said

He smiles tho he's dead
What a happy life he must have led

*
Ah! often we make
A sorry mistake
讲
When we think we can trace
By a tear or grimace
The thoughts of the heart, by the looks of the face
*
MARK TWAIN.
A CONGLOMERATE INTERVIEW, PERSONALLY CONDUCTED BY

LUKE SHARP.
I. SHOWING REASONS FOR NOT INTERVIEWING .
HAVE been asked to interview

Mark Twain for The Idler.
I have refused to do so , and I
think it only fair to the public
to state my reason for the
refusal , before beginning the
interview. It is simply be-
cause I am afraid of Mark
Twain. When we were talk-
ing about interviewers a short
time since, he said to me in slow
and solemn tones that would
h have impressed a much braver man
than I am :
" If anyone ever interviews me again, I will send him a bill
for five times what I would charge for an article the length ofthe
interview." Now such a threat means financial ruin to an
ordinary man . However modest Mark Twain himself may be, his
prices do not share that virtue with him. Baron Rothschild
might be able to write a few words on a cheque which would cause
that piece of penmanship to be of more value in the commercial
world than a bit of Mark Twain's manuscript, but few men have
the gift of making their " copy " as costly as the Baron and Mark
Twain. I saw that if I ventured to interview Mark Twain I
should very likely spend the rest of my natural life in eluding that
gentleman and the bailiffs he employed . I have no desire to incur
such a liability as would be represented by five times the amount
of Twain's inflated prices . I have, therefore, invited several
estimable gentlemen to assist me in this hazardous adventure. In
80 THE IDLER.
union there is strength, and while Mark Twain might run one of
us down, he will find his hands full if he attempts to deal with us
all together.
The pictures which illustrate this interview with Mark Twain
were taken by a small but industrious Kodak, which
" Held him with its glittering eye,"
on board the French liner, " La Gascogne," at that moment
approaching Havre. The anecdotes in the second section of this
interview have been written for The Idler by Mr. Joseph
Hatton.
II. GOOD STORIES OF MARK IN LONDON.
HAT do I know about Mark

UHA Twain ? Not much . Nothing
that is not pleasant. I would
stick to that even if I were
under cross -examination . No
amount of bullying should in-
duce me to try and remember
anything that is not to his
credit, as a man, an author,
and a champion prevarica-
tor. I don't know when I have
liked him most-when he has been
telling the truth, and when he has
not. What a pleasant, tantalising little
kind of stammer it is ! Charles Lamb's
was a real stutter- it must have been very delightful ; and
Travers , of New York, how captivating was his impediment !
66
Why, Mr. Travers," said a lady, 66 you stammer more in
New York than you did in Baltimore. "
" B-b- bigger place, " stammered Travers.
A chestnut you say ? Well , what of that ? There are chest-
nuts and chestnuts . Some men's chestnuts are better worth
having than other men's newest stories . But as I was saying,
Mark Twain's is not exactly a stutter ; it is a drawl ; not perhaps
a drawl. Is it simply that he pauses in the right place ? Or has
he a dialect ? It is quite clear he knows the value of his peculiarity
MARK TWAIN. 81
of speech whatever it is . Did you hear him lecture in London ?

The point that broke the general titter into a hearty laugh was
when he talked about that very cold mountain out in Fiji or
somewhere ; " it is so cold up there that people can't speak the
truth-I know, because I have been there."
When Mark Twain paid his earliest visit to London, he did
me the honour once or twice to sit under my mahogany. The
first time he came to my house it was to meet some thirty pleasant
people at supper. It was his first entertainment in town. He
was very desirous of observing the customs of the country. He
came in a dress coat. That was all right. He was very glad he
had put on his dress coat. He took the late Mrs. Howard Paul , a
very clever, charming woman, down to supper. He consulted her
touching certain social customs . She was in her way quite a
humorist, and in those days a bright and lively woman . Know-
ing that on no account did I ever permit speech-making at my
table ; knowing, indeed, that even in artistic society this kind
of thing is never resorted to, she explained to Mark Twain that
quite the contrary was the case ; that if he desired really to show
that he was up to all the little tricks of the great world of London ,
he would, as the greatest stranger, if not the most important
guest, rise and propose the host's health ; that everybody would
expect it from him , and so on. Presently, to the astonishment of
everybody, Mark Twain arose, tall and gaunt, and began to drawl
out in his odd if fascinating manner a series of complimentary
comments upon the host, at the same time apologising for not
being quite prepared with a speech, for the reason that the lady on
his right had been instructing him all the night with personal
stories of everybody at the table. The table squirmed a little at
this. It had " no call " to squirm . It was above reproach . Genius ,
beauty, wealth, and even the nobility (he was a real lord if he
was but a little one) were well represented ; i but you might have
thought from his manner that Mark Twain had heard some very
strange stories of his fellow-guests . It was a happy, clever, odd
little speech ; and both he and Mrs. Paul were forgiven- he for
making it, she for misleading him as to the manners and customs
of the world of Upper Bohemia.
If you are a humorist you can make mistakes that are con-
doned as witticisms ; you can even be stupid , and someone will
find fun in your very stupidity. People have always half a grin
on their faces ready for the professed humorist before he begins to
speak. I am not a humorist. One night at Kensington Gore,
F
82 THE IDLER.
when the late Mr. Bateman, the Lyceum manager, lived there,
Irving told to Mark Twain and half a dozen others a very good
story about a sheep . It was a very racy story, racy of the soil , I
said, the soil being Scotland . Irving told it well , dramatising
some of the incidents as he went along. He was encouraged to
do so by the deep interest Twain took in it. I suggested to
Twain that he should make a note of it ; it seemed to me that it
was one of those nationally characteristic anecdotes that was
worth remembering, because it was characteristic, and national.
Twain said, " Yes , he thought it a good idea to make a note or
two of English humour-of national anecdotes in particular."
He took out a small book, and quite won my heart by the modest,
quiet way in which he made his memoranda about this story ; I
even gave him one or two points about it, fresh points . We were
sitting in a corner of the room by this time, chatting in a friendly
way, and Mark Twain seemed more than necessarily grateful for
my suggestions . I had reason afterwards to wonder whether he
thought I was chaffing him , or whether he was chaffing me. I did
not know any more than Irving did that the story about the sheep
was really one of Mark Twain's own stories .
I was innocent enough about it anyway, and Irving had never
heard , I'll be bound , of the Hotten volume in which the narrative
of the sheep and the good Samaritan had been set forth in Twain's
best manner. It is quite possible that to this day Mark Twain
is under the impression that I was engaged in a pleasant piece
of fooling at Bateman's that night, and believed himselfto be just
as pleasantly checkmating me. Of course, he saw through the
whole business . He pretended to fall into my little trap, which
was not a trap at all . Perhaps he thought I was a humorist.
Do you know that he smokes three hundred cigars a year- or
a month, I forget which—and that he once tried to break off the
habit against which King James uttered his great but ineffective
blast, and that after a fair test of life with and without tobacco he
came to the conclusion that a weedless life would be too utter a
failure even for an accidental humorist. He was no doubt right.
I wonder if he consulted his conscience about it ? Do you remem-
ber, how his conscience once visited him ? It was his conscience,
was it not ? A little wizened, pinched thing that hopped about
his study and talked to him . I don't remember a more weird bit
of satire than his account of that strange visit . Such an egotisti-
cal, deformed little chap ! And with such wise, strange, cutting
words ! I think I liked our friend the better for his story of that
MARK TWAIN. 83
graphically narrated meeting with his conscience. Mark Twain

told an interviewer the other day that he disliked humorous books ;
that he was only himself a humorist by accident. But what
has he not told interviewers ?
III . FLIRTING WITH THE LADY NICOTINE .
R. HATTON appears to be in
PR doubt whether Mark Twain
smokes three hundred cigars a
year—or a month. There is
a slight difference both to to-
bacconist and consumer . I
have been told that his annual
allowance is three thousand
cigars . But it must not be
thought that his devotion to
tobacco stops at this trivial
quantity. The cigars merely re-
present his dessert in the way of
smoking. The solid repast of nico-
tine is taken by means of a corn- cob
pipe. The bowl of this pipe is made from the hollowed- out
cob of an ear of Indian corn . It is a very light pipe, and it
colours brown as you use it, and ultimately black, so they
call it in America " The Missouri Meerschaum ." I was much
impressed by the ingenuity with which Mark Twain fills his corn-
cob pipe. The humorist is an inspired Idler . He is a lazy
man, and likes to do things with the least trouble to himself. He
smokes a granulated tobacco which he keeps in a long check bag
made of silk and rubber. When he has finished smoking, he
knocks the residue from the bowl of the pipe, takes out the stem,
places it in his vest pocket, like a pencil or a stylographic pen ,
and throws the bowl into the bag containing the granulated
tobacco. When he wishes to smoke again (this is usually five
minutes later) he fishes out the bowl, which is now filled with
tobacco, inserts the stem, and strikes a light. Noticing that his
pipe was very aged and black, and knowing that he was about to
enter a country where corn-cob pipes are not, I asked him it he
had brought a supply of pipes with him.
84 THE IDLER .
" Oh, no," he answered, " I never smoke a new corn-cob pipe.
A new pipe irritates the throat . No corn -cob pipe is fit for any-
thing until it has been used at least a fortnight."
" How do you manage then ? " I asked . " Do you follow the
example of the man with the tight boots ;-wear them a couple of
weeks before they can be put on ?"
" No, " said Mark Twain , " I always hire a cheap man—a
man who doesn't amount to much, anyhow-who would be as
well-or better-dead , and let him break in the pipe for me. I
get him to smoke the pipe for a couple of weeks, then put in a
new stem , and continue operations as long as the pipe holds
together."
Mark Twain brought into France with him a huge package of
boxes of cigars and tobacco which he took personal charge of
When he placed it on the deck while helit a fresh cigar he put
his foot on this package so as to be sure of its safety. He didn't
appear to care what became of the rest of his luggage as long
as the tobacco was safe.
" Going to smuggle that in ?" I asked .
" No , sir. I'm the only man on board this steamer who has
any tobacco. I will say to the Customs officer, ' Tax me what
you like, but don't meddle with the tobacco . ' They don't know
what tobacco is in France."
Another devotee of the corn-cob pipe is Mr. Rudyard Kipling ,
who is even more of a connoisseur in pipes than is Mark Twain ,
which reminds me that Mr. Kipling interviewed Mr. Clemens , and ,
although the interview has been published before, I take the liberty
of incorporating part of it in this symposium .
1
MARK TWAIN. 85
IV. RUDYARD KIPLING ON MARK TWAIN .
E re- curled himself into the

chair and talked of other
things.
" I spend nine months or
the year at Hartford . I have
long ago satisfied myself that
there is no hope of doing
much work during those nine
months. People come in and
call. They call at all hours ,
about everything in the world.
One day I thought I would keep
a list of interruptions . It began
this way. A man came but would
see no one but Mr. Clemens . He was an agent for photo-
gravure reproductions of Salon pictures . I very seldom use
Salon pictures in my books . After that man another man ,
who refused to see anyone but Mr. Clemens, came to make me
write to Washington about something. I saw him. I saw a third
man . Then a fourth . By this time it was noon . I had grown
tired of keeping the list . I wished to rest. But the fifth man
was the only one of the crowd with a card of his own. Ben
Koontz, Hannibal, Missouri. I was raised in Hannibal . Ben
was an old schoolmate of mine. Consequently I threw the house
wide open and rushed with both hands out at a big, fat, heavy
man, who was not the Ben I had ever known-nor anything of
him . ' But is it you, Ben ? ' I said . 'You've altered in the last
thousand years. ' The fat man said, ' Well , I'm not Koontz,
exactly, but I met him down in Missouri, an ' he told me to be
sure and call on you , an ' he gave me his card and '-(here he acted
"
the little scene for my benefit)- if you'll wait a minute till I can
get out the circulars-I'm not Koontz, exactly, but I'm travelling
999
with the fullest line of rods you ever saw.'
" And what happened ?" I asked breathlessly.
" I shut the door. He was not Ben Koontz, exactly, not my
old schoolfellow, but I had shaken him by both hands in love,
and I had been boarded by a lightning- rod man in my own house.
86 THE IDLER.
As I was saying, I do very little work in Hartford . I come here

for three months every year, and I work four or five hours a day in a
study down the garden of that little house on the hill . Of course
I do not object to two or three interruptions. When a man is in
the full swing of his works these little things do not affect him.
Eight or ten or twenty interruptions retard composition."
I was burning to ask him all manner of impertinent questions,
as to which of his works he himself preferred , and so forth, but
standing in awe of his eyes I dared not . He spoke on and I
listened.
It was a question of mental equipment that was on the carpet,
and I am still wondering whether he meant what he said .
66 Personally I never care for fiction or story books . What I
like to read about are facts and statistics of any kind . If they are
only facts about the raising of radishes they interest me. Just
now, for instance, before you came in "--he pointed to an Encyclo-
pædia on the shelves-" I was reading an article about
mathematics-perfectly pure mathematics . My own knowledge
of mathematics stops at twelve times twelve, but I enjoyed that
article immensely. I didn't understand a word of it, but facts-
or what a man believes to be facts are always delightful. That
mathematical fellow believed in his facts . So do I. Get your
facts first, and " —the voice died away to an almost inaudible drone—
" then you can distort ' em as much as you please."
Bearing this precious advice in my bosom I left, the great man
assuring me with gentle kindness that I had not interrupted him
in the least . Once outside the door I yearned to go back and ask
some questions- it was easy enough to think of them now- but
his time was his own , though his books belonged to me.
I should have ample time to look back to that meeting across
the graves of the days. But it was sad to think of the things he
had not spoken about . In San Francisco the men of the Call told
me many legends of Mark's apprenticeship in their paper five and
twenty years ago- how he was a reporter, delightfully incapable
of reporting according to the needs of the day. He preferred , so
they said , to coil himself into a heap and meditate till the last
minute. Then he would produce copy bearing no sort of relation-
ship to his legitimate work-copy that made the editor swear
horribly and the readers of the Call ask for more. I should like
to have heard Mark's version of that and some stories of his
joyous and renegated past. He has been journeyman printer (in
those days he wandered from the banks of the Missouri even to
MARK TWAIN. 87
Philadelphia) , pilot cub, and full- blown pilot, soldier of the South
(that was for three weeks only) , private secretary to a Lieutenant-
Governor of Nevada (that displeased him) , miner, editor, special
correspondent in the Sandwich Islands, and the Lord only knows
what else.
V.-MARK TWAIN ON RUDYARD KIPLING .
ASKED Mark Twain if he re-

membered Kipling's visit to him
at Elmira He said he did . He
was apparently much im-
pressed by the young Anglo-
Indian, and thought the young
man would be heard from ,
although, at the time, he was
entirely unknown . Twain kept
Kipling's card, and when the
latter became famous he looked
up the card, and found that the
writer who had caused such a sen-
sation in the literary world of London
was the man who had visited him .
This gave Mark Twain the opportunity of remarking, " I told
you so," which he generously refrained from saying. He thinks
that young writers might profitably study the works of Kipling if
they wish to see how a story can be tersely, vigorously, humorously,
and dramatically told.
Mark Twain has not a very high opinion of interviewers in
general. He said, " I have, in my time, succeeded in writing
some very poor stuff, which I have put in pigeon-holes until I
realised how bad it was, and then destroyed it. But I think the
poorest article I ever wrote and destroyed was better worth reading
than any interview with me that ever was published. I would
like," he added, " just once to interview myself in order to show
the possibilities of the interview." He partly promised to do this,
and let me have the result, so that it might be published in The
Idler, but up to the hour of going to press the " copy " has not
been received. I tried to show him the vast opportunities that lie
before the man who interviews himself. I told him that if he did
88 THE IDLER.
it truthfully and faithfully there was every chance of his being

arrested the moment he set foot in any civilised country. A man
knows his own weak points, and can, therefore, cross-examine
himself with an effectiveness that a stranger could not hope to
emulate. If he has committed any crimes he can lay them bare,
and although he can escape the inquisitiveness of an outside
interviewer, he cannot escape from himself.
We were leaning over the rail of the steamer as I pictured to
him the advantages of self-interviewing, and I fancied that his
bronzed cheek became paler as he fully realised the possibilities.
I do not wish to accuse the humorist of anything indictable, but
merely want to point out that up to date he has not attempted
that interview with himself.
I give now an extract from an interview which Mark Twain
did not like. He says that the man who interviewed him did so
for the purpose of publishing the interview in England, but sold it
instead to a New York paper. " They come," says Mark Twain ,
66
to me on the social tack, and visit my house with a letter of
introduction. I try to treat them well , and then the next thing I
know the conversation appears in some paper. "
VI.-MARK TWAIN HAS " NO GREAT TASTE FOR HUMOUR ."
HOLD that T. B. Aldrich is

the wittiest man I ever met.
I don't believe his match ever
existed on this earth .
It is not guesswork, this
estimate of mine as regards
the limits of my humour and
my power of appreciating
humour generally, because
with my book- shelf full of
books before me I should
certainly read all the biography
and history first, then all the diaries
and personal memoirs, and then the
dictionaries and the cyclopædias . Then, if still alive, I should
read what humorist books might be there. That is an absolutely
perfect test and proof that I have no great taste for humour . I
hive friends to whom you cannot mention a humorous book they
MARK TWAIN. · 89
have not read. I was asked several years ago to write such a
paper as that you suggest on Humour, and the comparative
merits of different national humour, and I began it, but I got tired
of it very soon . I have written humorous books by pure accident
in the beginning , and but for that accident I should not have
written anything .
At the same time that leaning towards the humorous, for I
do not deny that I have a certain tendency towards humour,
would have manifested itself in the pulpit or on the platform, but
it would have been only the embroidery, it would not have been
the staple of the work. My theory is that you tumble by accident
into anything. The public then puts a trademark on to your
work, and after that you can't introduce anything into commerce
without the trademark. I never have wanted to write literature ;
it is not my calling. Bret Harte, for instance, by one of those
accidents of which I speak, published the ' Heathen Chinee, '
which he had written for his own amusement. He threw it aside,
but being one day suddenly called upon for copy he sent that very
piece in. It put a trademark on him, at once , and he had to
avoid all approaches to that standard for many a long day in order
that he might get rid of that mark. If he had added three or
four things of a similar nature within twelve months, he would
never have got away from the consequences during his lifetime.
But he made a purposely determined stand ; he abolished the
trademark and conquered."
Whether Mark Twain liked the above interview or not , it is
certainly true in one respect- that he thinks Mr. T. B. Aldrich
the most humorous man in America . Mr. Clemens looks upon him-
self as, in reality, a serious man , and a glance at the excellent por-
trait published as a frontispiece to this magazine will show that his
looks carry out the idea . He said that he and Aldrich were stay-
ing together at an hotel in Rome. Aldrich came in and said to
him , " Clemens, you think you're famous ! You have conceit
enough for anything. Now, you don't know what real popularity
is. I have just been asking that man on the Piazza di Spagna
for my books . He hasn't one , -not one . They're all sold . He
simply can't supply the demand. It's the same all over Europe.
I've never seen one of my books anywhere. They're gone. Now,
look at your books . Why, that unfortunate man on the Piazza
has 1,600 of them. He's ruined , Clemens . He'll never sell ' em.
The people are reading mine. That's genuine popularity."
90 THE IDLER.
VII. THE EVIDENT FOUNDATION OF " THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT ."
N this number of The Idler, Mark

Twain begins his new story,
" The American Claimant." Al-
though the novelist does not
say so, it is evident that the
story was suggested to him
by his own family history.
This fact comes out incident-
ally in Mark Twain's article,
entitled " Mental Telegraphy,"
which appeared in Harper's
Magazine for December, 1890.
In relating the extraordinary ex-
periences he has had in mental
telegraphy, Mark Twain says :-
66
My mother is descended from the younger of two English
brothers , named Lambton , who settled in America a few genera-
tions ago. The tradition goes that the elder of the two eventually
fell heir to a certain estate in England (now an earldom) , and died
right away. This has always been the way with our family, they
always die when they could make anything by not doing it. The
two Lambtons left plenty of Lambtons behind them ; and when,
at last, about fifty years ago, the English baronetcy was exalted
to an earldom , the great tribe of American Lambtons began to
bestir themselves-that is, those descended from the elder branch .
Ever since that day, one or another of these has been fretting his
life uselessly away with schemes to get at his ' rights .' The
present rightful earl '-I mean the American one-used to write
me occasionally, and try to interest me in his projected raids upon
the title and estates by offering me a share in the latter portion of
the spoil ; but I have always managed to resist his temptations.
Well, one day last summer, I was lying under a tree, thinking
about nothing in particular, when an absurd idea flashed into my
head, and I said to a member of the household, Suppose I
should live to be ninety-two, and dumb and blind and toothless,
and just as I was gasping out what was left of me, on my death-
bed- "
MARK TWAIN. 91
'Wait, I will finish the sentence,' said the member of the

household .
' Go on, ' said I.
Somebody should rush in with a document, and say, · All
the other heirs are dead, and you are the Earl of Durham ! '
That is truly what I was going to say. Yet until that
moment the subject had not entered my mind or been referred to
in my hearing for months before. A few years ago this thing
would have astonished me, but the like could not much surprise
me now, though it happened every week ; for I think I know now
that mind can communicate accurately with mind without the aid
of the slow and clumsy vehicle of speech."
This conglomerate interview will now be concluded by a poem
from the pen of Oliver Wendell Holmes, which, as far as I know,
has never before been published in England.
VIII . TO 66 MARK TWAIN," S. L. CLEMENS .
On his fiftieth birthday.)
OH ! Clemens, when I saw thee

RH
厚 last,
We both of us were younger,
How fondly rambling o'er the
past,
Is memory's toothless hun-
ger.
So fifty years have fled, they
say,
Since first you took to
drinking,
I mean in Nature's milky way,
Of course no ill I'm thinking.
But while on life's uneven road,
Your track you've been pursuing,
What fountains from your wit have flowed ,
What drinks you have been brewing.
I know whence all your magic came ,
Your secret I've discovered ,
The source that fed your inward flame,
The dreams that round you hovered.
92 THE IDLER.
Before you learned to bite or munch,

Still kicking in your cradle,
The Muses mixed a bowl of Punch,
And Hebe seized the ladle.
Dear Babe, whose fiftieth year to -day,

Your ripe half- century rounded,
Your looks the precious draught betray
The laughing Nine compounded .
So mixed the sweet, the sharp, the strong,

Each finds its faults amended,
The virtues that to each belong,
In happiest union blended .
And what the flavor can surpass,

Of sugar, spirits , lemons ?
So while one health fills every glass ,
Mark Twain for Baby Clemens.
O. W. HOLMES .
Meisenbach GroHutchin2012
Y
R AC
PI
E NS
TH CO
OF
BUN
MRS KER
.
BY BRET HARTE.
ILLUSTRATED BY G. HUTCHINSON.
COMPLETE IN THREE PARTS
I.
N the northerly shore of San Francisco Bay a line of bluffs

terminates in a promontory, at whose base, formed by the
crumbling débris of the cliff above, there is a narrow stretch
of beach, salt meadow, and scrub oak. The abrupt wall of rock
behind it seems to isolate it as completely from the mainland as the
sea before it separates it from the opposite shore. In spite of its
contiguity to San Francisco-opposite also, but hidden by the sharp
re-entering curve of coast-the locality was wild, uncultivated, and
unfrequented. A solitary fisherman's cabin half-hidden in the rocks
was the only trace of habitation . White drifts of sea-gulls and
pelican across the face of the cliff, grey clouds of sandpipers rising
from the beach, the dripping flight of ducks over the salt meadows ,
and the occasional splash of a seal from the rocks, were the only
signs of life that could be seen from the decks of passing ships.
And yet the fisherman's cabin was occupied by Zephas Bunker
and his young wife, and he had succeeded in wresting from the
hard soil pasturage for a cow and goats, while his lateen - sailed
fishing boat occasionally rode quietly in the sheltered cove below.
Three years before Zephas Bunker, an ex-whaler , had found
himself stranded on a San Francisco wharf and had " hired out " to
94 THE IDLER.
a small Petaluma farmer. At the end of a year, he had acquired

little taste for the farmer's business, but considerable for the
farmer's youthful daughter, who, equally weary of small agriculture,
had consented to elope with him in order to escape it. They were
married at Oakland ; he put his scant earnings into a fishing boat,
discovered the site for his cabin, and brought his bride thither.
The novelty of the change pleased her, although perhaps it was
but little advance on her previous humble position . Yet she
preferred her present freedom to the bare restricted home life of her
past ; the perpetual presence of
the restless sea was a relief to the
old monotony of the wheat field
and its isolated drudgery . For
Mary's youthful fancy, thinly sus-
tained in childhood by the lightest
literary food, had neither been
stimulated nor disillusioned by
her marriage. That practical ex-
perience which is usually the end
.
of girlish romance had left her
still a child in sentiment. The
long absences of her husband in
his fishing boat kept her from
wearying of or even knowing his
older and unequal companionship ;
it gave her a freedom her girlhood
had never known, yet added a
protection that suited her still
childish dependency, while it
tickled her pride with its
equality. When not engaged
in her easy household duties
in her three-roomed cottage ,
or the care of her rocky garden
patch, she found time enough to in-
dulge her fancy over the mysterious
haze that wrapped the invisible city so near and yet unknown to
her ; in the sails that slipped in and out of the Golden Gate, but of
whose destination she knew nothing ; and in the long smoke trail
of the mail steamer which had yet brought her no message . Like
all dwellers by the sea, her face and her thoughts were more
frequently turned towards it ; and as with them, it also seemed to
35000
THE CONSPIRACY OF MRS. BUNKER . 95
her that whatever change was coming into her life would come
across that vast unknown expanse . But it was here that Mrs.
Bunker was mistaken .
It had been a sparkling summer morning . The waves were
running before the dry
North-west Trade winds
with crystalline but
colourless brilliancy .
Sheltered by the high,
northerly bluff, the house
and its garden were ex-
posed tothe untem-
pered heat of the
cloudless sun re-
fracted from the rocky wall

behind it. Some tarpaulin
and ropes lying among the
rocks were sticky and odor-
ous ; the scrub oaks and
manzanita bushes gave out
the aroma of baking wood ;
occasionally a faint pot-
pourri fragrance from the
hot wild roses and beach
grass was blown along the
shore ; even the lingering
odours of Bunker's voca-
tion, and of Mrs. Bunker's
cooking, were idealised and
refined by the saline breath
of the sea at the doors and
windows. Mrs. Bunker, in
the dazzling sun, bending
over her peas and lettuces
with a small hoe , felt the
comfort ofherbrown holland
96 THE IDLER .
sun-bonnet. Secure in her isolation , she unbuttoned the neck of her

gown for air, and did not put up the strand of black hair that had
escaped over her shoulder. It was very hot in the lee of the bluff, and
very quiet in that still air. So quiet that she heard two distinct
reports, following each other quickly, but very faint and far. She
glanced mechanically towards the sea. Two merchantmen in mid-
stream were shaking out their wings for a long flight, a pilot boat
and coasting schooner were rounding the point, but there was no
smoke from their decks . She bent over her work again , and in
another moment had forgotten it. But the heat, with the dazzling
reflection from the cliff,
forced her to suspend her
gardening, and stroll along
the beach to the extreme
limit of her domain . Here
she looked after the cow,
who had also strayed away
through the tangled bush.
for coolness . The goats ,
impervious to temperature ,
were basking in inacces-
sible fastnesses on the clift
itself that made her eyes
ache to climb . Over an hour
passed, she was returning, and had
neared her house, when she was
suddenly startled to see the figure
of a man between her and the cliff. He was en-
gaged in brushing his dusty clothes with a hand-
kerchief, and although he saw her coming, and even moved slowly
towards her, continued his occupation with a half-impatient, half-
abstracted air. Her feminine perception was struck with the
circumstance that he was in deep black, with scarcely a gleam
of white showing even at his throat, and that he wore a tall
black hat. Without knowing anything of social customs , it
seemed to her that his dress was inconsistent with his appearance
there.
"Good morning," he said, lifting his hat with a preoccupied air.
" Do you live here ?"
"Yes," she said wonderingly.
" Anybody else ? "
" My husband."
THE CONSPIRACY OF MRS. Bunker . 97
" I mean any other people ? Are there any other houses ?" he
said with a slight impatience.
" No."
He looked at her and then towards the sea. " I expect some
friends who are coming for me in a boat. I suppose they can
land easily here ?"
" Didn't you land yourself here just now ? " she said quickly.
He half hesitated , and then, as if scorning an equivocation ,
made a hasty gesture over her shoulder and said bluntly, " No , I
came over the cliff."
" Down the cliff !" she repeated incredulously.
66
Yes, " he said, glancing at his clothes ; " it was a rough
scramble, but the goats showed me the way."
" And you were up on the bluff all the time ?" she went on
curiously.
"Yes. You see-I- ," he stopped suddenly at what seemed
to be the beginning of a pre-arranged and plausible explanation,
as if impatient of its weakness or hypocrisy, and said briefly :
" Yes I was there."
Like most women, more observant of his face and figure, she
did not miss this lack of explanation. He was a very good- looking
man of middle age, with a thin, proud, high-bred face, which in a
country of bearded men had the further distinction of being
smoothly shaven. She had never seen anyone like him before .
She thought he looked like an illustration of some novel she had
read, but also somewhat melancholy, worn , and tired.
"Won't you come in and rest yourself ?" she said, motioning
to the cabin.
"Thank you," he said, still half absently. " Perhaps I'd better.
It may be some time yet before they come ."
She led the way to the cabin , entered the living room - a
plainly furnished little apartment between the bedroom and the
kitchen-pointed to a large bamboo armchair, and placed a bottle
of whiskey and some water on the table before him . He thanked
her again very gently, poured out some spirits in his glass , and
mixed it with water. But when she glanced towards him again
he had apparently risen without tasting it, and going to the door
was standing there with his hand in the breast of his buttoned
frock coat, gazing silently towards the sea. There was something
vaguely historical in his attitude-or what she thought might be
historical-as of somebody of great importance who had halted on
the eve of some great event at the door of her humble cabin .
G
ER
98 THE IDL .
His apparent unconsciousness of her and of his surroundings,

his pre-occupation with something far beyond her ken, far from
piquing her, only excited her interest the more. And then there
was such an odd sadness in his eyes .
" Are you anxious for your folks coming ?" she said at last,
following his outlook.
" I-oh no !" he returned , quickly recalling himself, "they'll
THE CONSPIRACY OF MRS. BUnker . 99
be sure to come-sooner or later. No fear of that," he added half

smilingly, half wearily.
Mrs. Bunker passed into the kitchen , where, while apparently
attending to her household duties, she could still observe her
singular guest. Left alone, he seated himself mechanically in the
chair, and gazed fixedly at the fireplace. He remained à long
time so quiet and unmoved, in spite of the marked ostentatious
clatter Mrs. Bunker found it necessary to make with her dishes ,
that an odd fancy that he was scarcely a human visitant began
to take possession of her. Yet she was not frightened. She
remembered distinctly after-
wards that far from having
any concern for herself, she
was only moved by a strange
and vague admiration of
him .
But her prolonged scrutiny
was not without effect. Sud-
denly he raised his dark eyes ,
and she felt them pierce the
obscurity of her kitchen with
a quick, suspicious , impa-
tient penetration, which as
they met hers, gave way,
however, to a look that she
thought was gently reproach-
ful. Then he rose, stretched
himself to his full height,
and approaching the kitchen
door leaned listlessly against
the door post.
" I don't suppose you are ever lonely here ? "
66 No , sir."
" Of course not. You have yourself and
husband. Nobody interferes with you. You are contented and
happy together."
Mrs. Bunker did not say, what was the fact, that she had never
before connected the sole companionship of her husband with her
happiness . Perhaps it had never occurred to her until that
moment how little it had to do with it. She only smiled grate-
fully at the change in her guest's abstraction .
" Do you often go to San Francisco ? " he continued.
100 THE IDLER.
" I have never been there at all. Some day I expect we will
go there to live."
"I wouldn't advise you to, " he said , looking at her gravely.
" I don't think it will pay you . You'll never be happy there as
here. You'll never have the independence and freedom you have
here. You'll never be your own mistress again . But how does
it happen you never were in San Francisco ? " he said suddenly.
If he would not talk of himself, here at least was a chance for
Mrs. Bunker to say something. She related how her family had
emigrated from Kansas across the plains and had taken up a
""
" location at Contra Costa. How she didn't care for it, and how
she came to marry the seafaring man who brought her here-all
with great simplicity and frankness and as unreservedly as to a
superior being-albeit his attention wandered at times, and a rare
but melancholy smile that he had apparently evoked to meet her
conversational advances, became fixed occasionally. Even his
dark eyes which had obliged Mrs. Bunker to put up her hair, and
button her collar, rested upon her without seeing her.
"Then your husband's name is Bunker ? " he said when she
paused at last. " That's one of those Nantucket Quaker names—
sailors and whalers for generations-and yours, you say was
MacEwan. Well, Mrs. Bunker, your family came from Kentucky
to Kansas only lately, though I suppose your father calls himself
a Free-States man . You ought to know something of farming
and cattle, for your ancestors were old Scotch Covenanters who
emigrated a hundred years ago, and were great stock raisers. "
All this seemed only the natural omniscience of a superior
being. And Mrs. Bunker perhaps was not pained to learn that
her husband's family was of a lower degree than her own. But
the stranger's knowledge did not end there. He talked of her
husband's business-he explained the vast fishing resources of the
bay and coast. He showed her how the large colony of Italian
fishermen were inimical to the interests of California and to her
husband particularly as a native American trader. He told her
of the volcanic changes of the bay and coast line, of the formation
of the rocky ledge on which she lived . He pointed out to her its
value to the Government for defensive purposes , and how it
naturally commanded the entrance of the Golden Gate far better
than Fort Point, and that it ought to be in its hands. If the
Federal Government did not buy it of her husband , certainly the
State of California should . And here he fell into an abstraction
as deep and as gloomy as before. He walked to the window, paced
THE CONSPIRACY OF MRS. BUNKER . ΙΟΙ
the floor with his hand in his breast , went to the door, and finally
stepped out of the cabin, moving along the ledge of rocks to the
shore, where he stood motionless .
Mrs. Bunker had listened to him with parted lips and eyes of
eloquent admiration . She had never before heard anyone talk
like that she had not believed it possible that anyone could have
such knowledge. Perhaps she could not understand all he said,
but she would try to remember it after he had gone. She could
only think now how kind it was of him that in all this mystery of
his coming and in the singular sadness that was oppressing him,
he should try to interest her. And thus looking at him, and
wondering, an idea came to her.
She went into her bedroom and took down her husband's
heavy pilot overcoat and sou'- wester, and handed them to her guest .
"You'd better put them on if you're going to
stand there," she said.
" But I am not cold, " he said, wonderingly.
れら
"Butyou might
be seen," she said,
simply.
It was the first
suggestion that
had passed be-
tween them that
his presence there
was a secret. He
looked at her in-
tently, then he smiled and said,
rosion " I think you're right, for many
Cio Huletp reasons," put the pilot coat over
his frock coat, removed his hat
with the gesture of a bow, handed it to her, and placed the sou'-
wester in its stead . Then for an instant he hesitated as if about
102 THE IDLER.
to speak, but Mrs. Bunker, with a delicacy that she could not herself
comprehend at the moment, hurried back to the cabin without
giving him an opportunity.
Nor did she again intrude upon his meditations . Hidden in
his disguise, which to her eyes did not , however, seem to conceal
his characteristic figure, he wandered for nearly an hour under the
bluff and along the shore, returning at last almost mechanically to
the cabin , where oblivious of his surroundings he reseated himself
in silence by the table with his cheek resting on his hand .
Presently, her quick, experienced ear detected the sound of oars in
their rowlocks ; she could plainly see from her kitchen window a
small boat with two strangers seated at the stern being pulled to
the shore. With the same strange instinct of delicacy , she deter-
mined not to go out lest her presence might embarrass her guest's
reception of his friends . But as she turned towards the living
room she found he had already risen and was removing his hat
and pilot coat. She was struck, however , by the circumstance that
not only did he exhibit no feeling of relief at his deliverance, but
that a half cynical, half savage expression had taken the place of
his former melancholy. As he went to the door, the two gentlemen
hastily clambered up the rocks to greet him.
" Jim reckoned it was you hangin ' round the rocks , but I couldn't
tell at that distance . Seemed you borrowed a hat and coat.
Well-it's all fixed , and we've no time to lose . There's a coasting
steamer just dropping down below the Heads, and it will take
you aboard. But I can tell you you've kicked up a h-ll of a
row over there." He stopped, evidently at some sign from her
guest. The rest of the man's speech followed in a hurried whisper
which was stopped again by the voice she knew. " No. Certainly
not." The next moment his tall figure was darkening the door of
the kitchen ; his hand was outstretched . " Good-bye, Mrs.
Bunker, and many thanks for your hospitality. My friends here,"
he turned grimly to the men behind him , " think I ought to ask
you to keep this a secret even from your husband . I don't ! They
also think that I ought to offer you money for your kindness . I
don't. But if you will honour me by keeping this ring in remem-
brance of it" -he took a heavy seal ring from his finger-" it's the
only bit of jewelry I have about me I'll be very glad. Good-
bye ! " She felt for a moment the firm , soft pressure of his long,
thin fingers around her own , and then-he was gone. The sound
of retreating oars grew fainter and fainter and was lost. The same
reserve of delicacy which now appeared to her as a duty kept her
THE CONSPIRACY OF MRS. BUNKER. 103
from going to the window to watch the destination of the boat.

No, he should go as he came, without her supervision or knowledge.
Nor did she feel lonely
afterwards . On the con-
trary, the silence and soli-
tude of the isolated domain
had a new charm . They
kept the memory of her ex-
perience intact, and enabled
her to refill it with his
presence . She could see
his tall figure again paus-
ing before her cabin,
without the incongruous.
association of another
personality ; she could
hear his voice again,
unmingled with one more
familiar. For the first
time, the regular absence
of her husband seemed
an essential good fortune
instead of an accident of
their life. For the ex-
perience belonged to her,
and not to him and her
together. He could not understand it ; he would have acted
differently and spoiled it. She should not tell him anything of it ,
in spite of the stranger's suggestion , which, of course, he had only
made because he didn't know Zephas as well as she did . For
Mrs. Bunker was getting on rapidly ; it was her first admission
of the conjugal knowledge that one's husband is inferior to the
outside estimate of him. The next step-the belief that he was
deceiving her as he was them-would be comparatively easy.
Nor should she show him the ring . The stranger had
certainly never said anything about that ! It was a heavy ring,
with a helmeted head carved on its red cornelian stone , and
what looked like strange letters around it. It fitted her third
finger perfectly ; but his fingers were small, and he had taken it
from his little finger. She should keep it herself. Of course, if
it had been money, she would have given it to Zephas ; but the
stranger knew that she wouldn't take money. How firmly he
104 THE IDLER.
had said that " I don't." She felt the warm blood fly to her fresh
young face at the thought of it. He had understood her. She
might be living in a poor cabin, doing all the housework herself,
and her husband only a fisherman ; but he had treated her like a lady.
And so the afternoon passed. The outlying fog began to roll
in at the Golden Gate, obliterating the headland and stretching
a fleecy bar across the channel as if shutting out from vulgar eyes
the way that he had gone. Night fell, but Zephas had not yet
come. This was unusual, for he was generally as regular as the
afternoon " trades " which blew him there. There was nothing to
detain him in this weather and at this season. She began to be
vaguely uneasy ; then a little angry at this new development of
his incompatibility. Then it occurred to her, for the first time in
her wifehood, to think what she would do if he were lost. Yet, in
spite of some pain, terror, and perplexity at the possibility, her
dominant thought was that she would be a free woman to order
her life as she liked .
It was after ten before his lateen sail flapped
in the little cove. She was waiting to receive
him on the shore. His good -humoured hirsute
face was slightly apologetic in expression , but
flushed and disturbed with some new excite-
ment to which an extra glass or two of spirits
had apparently added intensity. The contrast
between his evident indulgence and the
previous abstemiousness of her late guest
struck her unpleasantly. " Well I declare ,"
she said indignantly , " so that's what kept
you ! "
"No, " he said quickly-"there's been awful
times over in ' Frisco ! Everybody
just wild, and the Vigilance Com-
mittee in session . Jo Henderson's
killed ! Shot by Wynyard Marion
in a duel ! He'll be lynched, sure
as a gun, if they ketch him. ”
"But I thought men who fought
duels always went free."
" Yes , but this aint no common
duel ; they say the whole thing was planned beforehand by
them Southern fire-eaters to get rid o' Henderson because he's a
Northern man and Anti- Slavery, and that they picked out Colonel
Marion to do it because he was a dead shot. They got him to insult
Henderson, so he was bound to challenge Marion , and that giv'

Marion the chyce of weppings. It was a reg'lar put up job to kill him."
" And what's all this to do with you ? " she asked , with irrita-
tion.
" Hold on, won't you ! and I'll tell you . I was pickin' up nets
off Sancelito about noon, when I was hailed by one of them
Vigilance tugs, and they set me to stand off and on the shore and
watch that Marion didn't get away, while they were scoutin' inland .
Ye see the duel took place just over the bluffthere-behind ye-and
they allowed that Marion had struck away North for Mendocino
to take ship there. For after overhaulin ' his second's boat, they
found out that they had come away from Sancelito alone. But
they sent a tug around by sea to Mendocino to head him off there,
while they're closin ' in around him inland. They're bound to
catch him sooner or later. But you aint listenin ' , Molly ? "
She was- in every fibre-but with her head
turned towards the window, and the invisible
Golden Gate through which the fugitive had escaped .
For she saw it
all now - that
glorious vision
- her high-
bred, handsome
guest and Wyn-
yard Marion
were one and
the same per-
son. And this
rough,common-
place man be-
fore her her
own husband-
had been basely
set to capture
him !
(TO BE CONTINUED
HEIDLER'S
CLUB
Sally
Heart.y
WHEN there was another thing. It was felt that

Robert Barr the time had come when a new monthly magazine
T
grieveth that ought really to be published. Whether the founders
there is no of our present system of education realised the possibility
making of new or not, the working of the scheme has resulted in a large
books and increase to the number of people who can read . You
magazines in would imagine that the demand would have created a
these days. supply. But look at our bookstalls to -day ! Almost
nothing on them. Here is a great reading population
crying out for printed matter, and yet nobody seems to pay any
attention to the appeal. Think what an opportunity the recent
festive holiday season might have supplied to an enterprising
publisher, yet no one seems to have thought of bringing out a
Christmas number ! It could easily have been done. All that
would have been needed would have been a few stories by some-
body on any subject except that of Christmas ; and, if the
publisher had wanted to indulge in a special freak of originality,
he might have given away a coloured plate- something startling
and new; as, for instance, a picture of a child and a dog. It is
deplorable that none of these things were thought of ; but,
THE IDLERS' CLUB. 107
never mind, you wait. We'll get out a Christmas number

ourselves at the end of this year, just to show the possibilities
of the idea.
Furthermore, we hope to be the means of bringing

before the public youthful talent. We have an eye for he desireth to
the discovery of youthful talent. Why, take this very encourage the
first number of ours . Who do you find in it ? Mark young men.
Twain, Bret Harte, James Payn , and Andrew Lang.
You say these men are unknown . Maybe. But it will
not be for long. I tell you we mean to make those
names famous wherever the English language is spoken-even
brokenly. I predict and am not like some prophets who
reserve their predictions until after the event -that all these
writers will leave their mark upon the literature of the day—
especially Twain . I have real hopes of Twain . I met him
awhile ago, and he talked so entertainingly that I took him
aside and asked him why he didn't try to write something funny.
He seemed staggered by the boldness of the idea, but finally
consented to try. The result will be found in the first pages of
The Idler. It was the same way with young Harte. He sat
and told us his adventures. They were many and marvellous .
I thought it a pity such a talent for fiction should be wasted,
so I drew him into a corner and whispered to him , " Why don't
you try to write a story ?" He, too, was surprised at the
suggestion . He said he didn't like . But I persuaded him. So
it was with the others. I goaded them on to write, and I am
convinced they will never regret it .
I have one or two proposals which I wish to make.

I believe that if they were carried out, they would benefit Barry Payn
humanity ; and I should like to be written as one who wisheth
loved his fellow- men . I have decided to make these to propose.
proposals in The Idler, because previous to the
publication of this number, I have found absolutely nothing in
The Idler to which I have been able to take objection . It can
look back upon its past without a blush . I am speaking in a
perfectly disinterested spirit, and with a full determination to be
paid for this conversation,
108 THE IDLER .
My first proposal is aimed at the further improve-

His first ment of amateur theatricals. We all know how amateur
proposal. theatricals tend to brighten the home. They are
especially common at Christmas-time, the season of
peace and goodwill, when the amateurs all fight like cats
to get the fattest parts. One of the commonest objections to the
amateur actor is that he either cannot or will not remember
his lines . A suggestion might be taken from " L'Enfant
Prodigue," were it not for another very common objection to
the amateur actor, that he cannot act. My proposal is that
amateur performances shall take place in dumb show and also
in the dark ; it disposes of the objections which I have
mentioned ; it does away with the cost of scenery and dresses ; it
is cheaper and less dangerous than the common practice of
chloroforming the audience. If the operation is performed under
these two conditions- in dumb show and in the dark -it is quite
safe and practically painless . Turn out the gas and leave the
rest to the imagination of the audience. I may add that any
amateur company, wishing to perform in this way, can do so
without the payment of any fee. I trust entirely to spontaneous
thank-offerings from the prompter and the audience.
I agree with you that to start anything exclusively

Zangwill funny is a serious mistake. This was why poor
speaketh Henry J. Byron's Mirth was so short- lived . It died
of of laughing . A friend of mine, with a hopeless
things passion for psychological analysis, says that the reason
humorous. people do not laugh over comic papers is that the
element of the unexpected is wanting. This, he
claims, is the essence of the comic. You laugh over a humor-
ous remark in the middle of a serious essay, over a witty
epigram flashed upon a grave conversation, over the slipping
into the gutter of a ponderous gentleman- it is the shock
of contrast, the flash of surprise, that tickles . Now this
explanation of why people do not laugh over comic papers is
obviously wrong, because you are surprised when you see a joke
in a comic paper ; at the same time, it contains an element of
truth . The books which gain a reputation for brilliance are those
which are witty at wide intervals ; the writer who scintillates steadily
THE IDLERS' CLUB . 109
stands in his own light. Hobbes , in his theory of the cause of

laughter, overlooked this element of contrast and incongruity, and
I never laughed so much in my life as when I asked for his works
at the Museum , and received a treatise on locks (no pun intended).
by another writer of the same name. It, however , brought me in
a guinea by enabling me to do a Globe turnover on " How locks
are picked ," and so Hobbes is one of the few philosophers to
whom I feel indebted . A last advantage of not labelling things
" comic " is that if you fail to be funny you have a chance of being
taken seriously .
My second proposal is to establish a club for

millionaires. We see suffering all around us, and it is Barry Payn
useless to close our eyes to it. There are millionaires sympathiseth
in our midst ; and , whether we like it or not, they are with the
our brothers and sisters . Putting it on grounds which millionaires.
will appeal to everyone-I mean the lowest possible
grounds we cannot afford to miss an opportunity of making a
little out of them . If we explore the region of the docks, we find
separate homes there for sailors ofevery nationality ; there is even
a home for lost dogs . But nowhere do we find a home for million-
aires. I propose to establish a proprietary club for them, a little room
with a sanded floor, where they will find that absence of luxury
which they must miss so much. They will be able to get a chop
or steak there ; wine will not be served , but a boy will fetch them
beer if they fecl that they don't want it ; a large cup of cocoa will
be one penny, and a small one will be half-a-crown . I have
forgotten my reason for that last regulation , but I remember that it
was logical. One of the cheaper evening papers will be taken ,
and members of the club can have it in turn ; or, if they prefer it ,
they can do without it. I have no wish to limit their liberty
more than is absolutely necessary for their own discomfort.
Everything that can be done to make the place nasty will be done.
I intend, for the protection of the general public, to make the
club exclusive. Only millionaires will be eligible . There will be
an entrance fee of a thousand guineas and an annual subscription
of one hundred . The subscriptions, together with a statement of
the place of their birth, if any, must be forwarded in advance to
the proprietor. I shall be the proprietor myself.
ΙΙΟ THE IDLER.
I have other proposals to make, but these are enough

be threateneth. for the present. I may have occasion to refer to the
subject again, but I make no threats.
Has anybody read Mrs. Grimwood's book ? Several

Langwill of you have reviewed it, I know. Delightful as it is,
Distinguisheth
it will only encourage women of action to usurp the
between functions of men of letters. The literary market is´
men af deeds
inundated with people who have no right to a stall.
and men of
Aristocrats are badgered for books merely because they
works.
have the titles ; and to have achieved success in any
other profession than literature is the surest recommendation
to the favour of the publishers. If I had to start my literary
career over again, I should commence by hopping on one leg
through the Pyrenees, or figuring in a big divorce case ; any-
thing short of assassination , which makes one's success too
posthumous. It is most unfair, this doubling of the parts of doing
and writing. Our modern heroes and heroines are quite too self- con-
scious ; amid all their deeds of derring-do they have their eye on
Mudie's. The old way was better. Even before the Pyramids were
reared, when books were pictures and letters were cuneiform, heroes
had their poets and kings their laureates. You can no more imagine
Agamemnon, after the fall of Troy, rushing off to write an account
of it for Bentley's than you can imagine Helen certifying that she
found Pears' soap matchless for the complexion . It was better
for the heroes as well as for the writers . Eneas would never have
dared to draw such constant attention to his " piety " as Virgil
does ; and even Louis Quatorze would have hesitated to describe
the taking of Namur in the language of Boileau-
Et vous, vents , faites silence :
Je vais parler de Louis.
The true hero nowadays is the man who conquers himself and
does not write books .
Oh, by-the-bye, if anybody gets his MSS. sent back

Robert Barr from this magazine, he must understand that it is the
explaineth Sub-editor's doing. So far as Jerome and myself are
things to the concerned , we are always ready to take anything we can
refected lay our hands on . Indeed , that has been the principle
contributor. that has guided us from childhood . But our Sub is a cold,
calculating villain , without a spark of kindly feeling in
him. As for his taste in literature, it is simply beneath contempt.
THE IDLERS' CLUB. III
He invariably rejects the most brilliant stories and articles that

are sent into the office ; and passes on to us only that rubbish
that his experience tells him the British public will care for. He
knows the British public, and that is why we have chosen him .
We-the Editors-could never run a popular magazine by our-
selves. We are too cultured . If we had our way we should fill
this magazine with Elizabethan poetry, and essays on Homer.
Literature is poured in upon us that we ourselves would be
delighted to publish . But that miserable Sub of ours returns it
1 with insincere compliments. It is no use our talking to him.
Some strong and active literary lady or gentleman ought really
to call up and speak to him about it. He is generally in between
eleven and two-Saturdays eleven till one. He is a very poor
fighter, and all his friends live in the country. Don't make a
mistake, however, his is the back office.
Yes, I do think that the height of imagination possible

to man in these small hours of the nineteenth century Kennedy
has been attained in the legend "Venice in London." Dreameth
One cannot but admire the energy of the devoted Venice.
spirits who in the thick of a London winter apply
themselves to realising this dream. One imagines them, in an
atmosphere of the temperature and density of a half-melted
penny ice, fumbling with fragments of an imitation Bridge of
Sighs, or solemnly erecting a simulacrum of the Rialto against a
sky of the colour of an unwashed office floor. Ah, if they could
have brought over the essentials !—the blue of the sky , the blue of
the lagoons, and the blue of the distant mainland, to mitigate the
internal blues of the Londoner ! In the atmosphere ofthe genuine
Venice, take the word of one who has tried it, it is next to im-
possible to take life seriously.
I remember how an ingenious person, with whom

I had entrusted the task of sending me a remittance to He exulteth
Venice when my funds came to an end, forwarded it in in his
the form of a draft on a Florentine bank which was frivolity.
absolutely useless to me, and had to be returned .
Applying to my travelling companion for assistance, I found,
to my great amusement, that his remittances had, somehow,
112 THE IDLER .
gone wrong too ; and that he was relying on me to finance

him through the next few days. Our mirth became excessive
when, on reckoning up our joint rescurces, we found they
amounted to less than one penny sterling. (I'm not exaggerating,
really.) I had a watch, however, and we promptly set out to
deposit it at the Mount of Piety (as one's Venetian uncle is
poetically called) . We were confronted with a difficulty at
starting, for we dwelt on what I may call the " Surrey side " of.
the Grand Canal , and the " leaving shop " was situated on the
farther shore. Ferries cost a halfpenny and were out of the
question, and there was a toll on our usual bridge of two-thirds of
a penny per head . Only one of us could have gone over, and
we did not wish to be parted. However, after wanderings com-
plex and many, we managed to strike the Rialto, where there is
free transit, and presently we emerged from the precincts of the
Monte di Pietà minus a timepiece , and plus a comfortable sum of
money. And how much better you get on at Venice without a
watch than with one ! Bang goes a gun from the Island of
Saint George at mid-day, which gives you an idea of how things
are going ; and, for the rest, you get up when you wake, eat when
you are hungry, go to bed when you are sleepy, and generally
" fleet the time carelessly , as they did in the golden world ."
There can be no question that a magazine coming

Zangwill out in January must be dated February at the very
agreeth that least . We " go ahead " nowadays in an Irish -American
we must sense, and cannot endure not to be in advance of our
take time by age . We live entirely in the future, and are too busy
the forelock. to live just at present. Christmas falls late in October
and extends to the end of November, the period being
marked by heavy showers of Christmas numbers. The Jews
begin all their festivals the day before, and Christmas is by far the
most Jewish of our holidays . Our evening papers come out in
the morning, though this will right itself in time, for they are
getting earlier and earlier, and will ultimately come out the evening
before. Dr. Johnson's line about Shakespeare , " And panting
Time toils after him in vain," is truer of the man of to- day.
What's that you say ? All this has been said before ? Naturally.
By-the-bye, talking of Christmas, have you noticed

how, of late years, the custom of sending valentines Jerome
to those we love, and to those we are supposed to remembereth
love, has steadily declined ? Why, when I was a young the
man , the shop windows were full of nothing but valentine days
valentines for weeks before the fourteenth of February ; ofhis youth.
and the Post Office authorities used to send round
circulars, begging the public to post them early in January
SO as to lessen the strain of delivery. Valentines were ,
then, quite an item in one's annual expenditure. I remember
buying two dozen once, and getting a discount ; and four men
I knew used always to club together and buy a gross between
them. You can get them at wholesale price if you take a gross.
Nearly every other shop, then, sold valentines . Whenever a
tradesman found an article lying about his premises that he did not
know how else to get rid of, he put it in a fancy box, and called it a
" useful valentine. " Ifit was too big to go into a box , he tied a bit of
coloured ribbon round it instead . Braces and " suspenders "
(whatever they may be) were especially popular, but# handkerchiefs
and stockings ran them very close . Then, boots and hats and
muffs were also regarded as goods peculiarly suggestive of affection .
Indeed, a girl of simple tastes might have clothed herself in
nothing else but valentines, and have looked very nice, and have
been warm and comfortable .
But the most useful thing of all to send to your beloved

was considered to be soap . The more a man or woman he discourseth
was idolised, the more soap they got. One year, my of the useful
brother-in-law had four separate boxes sent him, each valentine.
one accompanied by loving and encouraging words . He
was quite hurt about it .
During the height of this craze for combining utility with
sentiment, I saw in a greengrocer's window a large bunch of
carrots labelled " useful valentine." But whether the intention
was satire or enterprise I cannot say.
In those days, a fellow was supposed to send valentines to all
his sisters, cousins , and aunts ; and to their babies , if they had
any . He could also send them to other fellows' sisters and
cousins and aunts, but that was his own affair. He could do so
or not as he chose, and nobody said anything to him if he didn't.
In the former case, people did. Now, there is neither giving nor
H
114 THE IDLER .
receiving of valentines, to any extent worth speaking of, except;

of course, among professional lovers. With them , so I am in-
structed, the fashion still maintains , but I have very little doubt
that even they would be glad to see the end of it.
Another failure at taking things seriously in Venice.

Kennedy occurred to me in connection with my first early
speaketh of his morning bathe in the lagoons . I had had a pleasant
first swim, and was returning to my gondola, and meditating
Venetian bath. on the fact that it is much easier to get into the water
from any kind of boat than to reverse the process , when
my gondolier informed me (humorous dog not to mention it until
then ! ) that he had just been giving his vessel a fresh coat of tar.
There was a strip of carpet in the gondola, and I suggested that
he should hang this over the side and give me a hand , which he
did . As soon as he left the oar the boat began to drift before the
wind, and, as I was hanging on to the lee side, it began to drift
over me. It struck me that the simplest thing to do would be to
dive underneath it, and come up on the other side. But, at the
moment that I attempted this manœuvre , we were drifting on to
a sand bank, and I found myself suddenly sandwiched between
the bank and the flat bottom of the gondola. And there I stuck ,
struggling for a space of time that seemed quite considerable to
me, and I don't think I ever felt so ridiculous in the whole course
of my life. And you should have seen the anxious countenance
of the crew when I finally emerged , adorned with tar and sea-weed !
It was too amusing for anything. I fancy he had given up all
hope of seeing me again, except in the form of a " demd damp ,
moist, unpleasant body."
Well, as I was going to say, talking about valentines,

Jerome still a young man may adore a young woman to distrac-
harpeth upon tion, but he does not relish having to purchase and
the Valentine. post to her a printed and published exposition of the
fact. It requires a good deal of nerve to walk into a
crowded shop and purchase a valentine . I used to have to
do it myself once upon a time, and a most unenjoyable
proceeding it was. I would go in very red , and ask in a husky
voice to see some . After looking over great traysful of what , in

the language of the trade, are, I believe , termed " four-
penny," " sixpenny, " or " shilling sentimentals, " and failing to find
thereon any adequate expression of my thoughts , I would
blushingly observe to the saleswoman that I rather fancied
there was one in the window something like what I wanted , and I
would endeavour to describe its position . But she never seemed able
to understand me, and , after taking down every one on the shelf
but the right one, she would be sure to say :
" Perhaps you wouldn't mind just stepping into the street, and
pointing it out, sir. "
Then I would creep out of the door , feeling hot all over ;
and, elbowing my way through the mob assembled about the
window, would point the finger of desire towards the shame-
less, flaunting thing . The crowd , intensely interested , would
hustle round and read out the poetry aloud to each other, and the
woman inside would smile and nod , and unhesitatingly take down
and wrap up the wrong one ; and I , returning , would pay for
it and put it in my pocket, and slink hurriedly away, hoping
that St. Valentine's martyrdom had been an extra painful one.
Once I thought I would get out of the difficulty by

pretending it was for a child-a niece or a god- daughter he telleth of
-that I wanted my valentine. A married friend of the ways of the
mine always used to send valentines to his children , married man.
and would walk into the shop and ask for them as bold
as brass.
" I want ' em very affectionate , if you please, " he would say to
the young lady ; " something with poetry." And he would pick
out the most outrageously spooney ones that he could find-
ones that I should have blushed to the roots of my hair to be
seen looking at-and coolly lay them aside, with "Yes, that
will do for Johnny ; " and, " Ah , here's a good one for Nelly-
young fellow, kneeling, and offering his heart and a velvet
cushion to a girl ; ' or, " This is the one baby will like
-man shot dead by a child with a bow and arrow. I'll take
these three, my dear. " (He used to call all girls " My dear." I
know other married men who do the same . They go on
anyhow, some of them.)
116 THE IDler.
Well, this seemed a simple, and pleasant method of

He adopteth getting over the business . There was nothing to be
the ashamed about in sending a valentine to a child . It would
methods of the be a kindly, thoughtful action . The girls in the shop
married man. would respect a man for it , instead of giggling at him.
I determined to adopt the plan .
Accordingly, when the time came, I assumed an easy family-
man sort of manner (as easy and family-man sort of manner, that
is, as a gentleman of seventeen can) , and, marching into a busy
shop, airily asked to see a few valentines .
" I want something to send to a child ," I added—" something
respectful, and, at the same time , sincere ; something suitable for
a baby, you know ."
She was an addle-headed girl . She said :
" Yes , sir , what sort of a baby ? "
It annoyed me very much, that question . I had been to a
good deal of trouble that morning, and some expense, in acquiring
a sufficient amount of nerve to carry me through this valentine
transaction with comfort and credit. I had calculated to a nicety the
quantity I should require. I had stocked myselfwith just sufficient
to enable me to go into the shop, ask for and select my valentine ,
agree to what was said about the weather, and make an
original observation of my own upon the subject , and come out .
But that was all . I had enough nerve to do that,

The maiden of everything went smoothly, but there was none to spare.
the counter I felt that if I had to stand there, and go into compli-
questioneth him, cated explanations with a young lady about babies , my
supply would not last out.
Besides , it was such a silly question. Anyone might as well
ask, "What sort of a split pea !" or, " What sort of a periwinkle !"
as "What sort of a baby !" Why their own mothers cannot tell
them apart without their clothes . They think they can , but they
can't.
I was very much put out, and I answered somewhat sharply,
" Oh, a two- legged baby, clean shaven , and its hair parted in the
middle."
And then, in response to the girl's look of astonishment, I
added , " You ought to know what a baby is like. "
What I intended to convey was that a young woman of her

age must surely have seen plenty of babies and ought to know
what they were like, without asking . I was incapable of any other
meaning .
The girl , however, not knowing my character, jumped

to the idea that I had intended to insult her ; and , casting His plan
on me a look of indignation that will probably last me . worketh not
to my dying day, left me, and went and explained well.
matters in a clear voice to the head saleswoman.
Everybody in the shop thereupon regarded me as the per-
petrator of an unmanly outrage upon a defenceless girl , and,
leaving off their own business , stared at me with looks of dislike ,
tempered by curiosity. The head saleswoman approached me
with slow and measured tread , and when she was near enough
requested me to kindly inform her what it was that I required .
I replied, with an attempt—a painfully unsuccessful attempt—
at hauteur, that I wanted a valentine to send to a baby: And , to
prevent any further discussion on the point, I added, " To the
usual sort of baby."
The lady went, and returned in silence with a trayload ofvalen-
tines , labelled " Novelties for Children ." They were chiefly .
pictures of old ladies and gentlemen possessed of exceptionally
fine heads . You pulled a string, and the eyes wobbled . One
represented an old man in bed, and he swallowed rats . But that
was an expensive one.
I thought of Henrietta, the proud beauty that I worshipped at
that date, and said that I fancied the baby would prefer something
a little older.
The shopwoman thereupon asked me how old the child was .
I replied I did not know. She then asked me whether it was a
boy or girl. I said I was not sure .
She suggested that, perhaps, I might find something

more suitable to the child among their ordinary stock, a good dame
and I agreed, and we had down the eighteenpenny senti- hath sweet
mentals, and I selected one with a needle- case , and a pity on him .
verse from Tennyson .
Touched apparently by the palpable misery I had been, and
was still, suffering, and, taking it to be a sign of remorse, the
118 THE IDLER .
assistant relented sufficiently towards me while tying up the

parcel to observe, in a not unkindly undertone, that they were a
very superior class of young lady in that shop, and were not
accustomed to young men's little jokes .
" But it's quite a mistake. I didn't mean anything at all, " I
exclaimed, somewhat feebly.
" No, I'm sure you didn't, " replied the woman soothingly.
"We won't say anything more about it."
And I had the sense to follow her excellent advice, and to take
my packet, and my leave.
But I resolved that, next year, if I wanted a valentine (alas !
when next year came I didn't) , I would say it was for my sweet-
heart, and have done with it.
り
Yes, it is always the best policy to speakthe truth—
He moralizeth.
unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.
EvelynStuart
Hardy.
I
END
W
.- EST
HALLS
MUSIC
LONDON
THE IDLER.
MARCH , 1892 .
99
"Variety Patter.
ILLUSTRATED BY DUDLEY HARDY.
Y first appearance at
a Music Hall was in
the year of grace
one thousand eight
hundred and s-
Well, I would rather
not mention the
exact date . I was
M fourteen at the time.
It was during the
Christmas holidays,
and my aunt had
given me five shil-
lings to go and see
Phelps -I think it
was Phelps - in
99
" Coriolanus - I
think it was " Corio-
lanus ." Anyhow,
it was to see a high
class and improving
entertainment , I
know .
I suggested that
I should get young
Skegson , who lived
in our road , to go
with me. Skegson
is a barrister now, and could not tell you the difference between
a knave of clubs and a club of knaves . A few years hence, he will,
122 THE IDLER.
'Then you wink the other eye." (MARIE LLOYD.)

"VARIETY PATTER .” 123
if he works hard, be innocent enough for a judge. But at the period

of which I speak he was a red - haired boy of worldly tastes , notwith-
standing which I loved him as a brother. My dear mother wished
to see him before consenting to the arrangement, so as to be able
to form her own opinion as to whether he was a fit and proper
companion for me ; and, accordingly, he was invited to tea. He
came, and made a most favourable impression upon both my
mother and my aunt. He had a way of talking about the advan-
tages of application to study in early life, and the duties of youth
towards those placed in authority over it, that won for him much
esteem in grown -up circles. The spirit of the Bar had descended
upon Skegson at a very early period of his career.
My aunt, indeed , was so much pleased with him that she gave
him two shillings towards his own expenses (" sprung half a
dollar " was how he put it when we got outside) , and com-
mended me to his especial care.
Skegson was very silent during the journey. An idea was
evidently maturing in his mind . When we reached the Angel , he
stopped and said : " Look here , I'll tell you what we'll do . Don't
let's go and see that rot. Let's go to a Music Hall.".
I gasped for breath . I had heard of Music Halls. A stout
lady had denounced them across our dinner table on one occasion ,
fixing the while a steely eye upon her husband, who sat opposite
and seemed uncomfortable, as low, horrid places, where people
smoked and drank, and wore short skirts , and had added an
opinion that they ought to be put down by the police-whether
the skirts or the halls she did not explain . I also recollected that our
Charwoman, whose son had lately left London for a protracted
stay in Devonshire, had, in conversation with my mother, dated
his downfall from the day when he first visited one of these
places ; and likewise that Mrs. Philcox's nursemaid , upon her
confessing that she had spent an evening at one with her young
man , had been called a shameless hussy, and summarily dis-
missed as being no longer a fit associate for the baby.
But the spirit of lawlessness was strong within me in those
days, so that I hearkened to the voice of Skegson , the tempter, and
he lured my feet from the paths that led to virtue and Sadlers
Wells, and we wandered into the broad and crowded ways that
branch off from the Angel towards merry Islington .
Skegson insisted that we should do the thing in style, so we
stopped at a shop near the Agricultural Hall and purchased some
big cigars. A huge card in the window claimed for these that they
124 THE IDLER.
Tulle Gard
The Shop Walker." (DAN LENO.)

taris
" VARIETY PATTER." 125
were "the most satisfactory twopenny smoke in London." I

smoked two of them during the evening , and never felt more
satisfied-using the word in its true sense, as implying that a
person has had enough of a thing, and does not desire any more
of it, not just then- in all my life . Where we went , and what we
saw when we got there, my memory is not very clear about : it
never was. We sat at a little marble table. I know it was marble
because it was so hard and cool to the head . From out of the
smoky mist a ponderous creature of strange , undefined shape,
floated heavily towards us , and deposited a squat tumbler in front of
me containing a pale yellowish liquor, which subsequent investiga-
tion has led me to believe must have been Scotch whisky. It'
seemed to me then the most nauseous stuff I had ever swallowed .
It is curious to look back and notice how one's tastes change.
I reached home very late and very sick. That was my first
dissipation, and, as a lesson, it has been of more practical use to
me than all the good books and sermons in the world could have
been. I can remember to this day standing in the middle of the
room in my night-shirt, trying to catch my bed as it came round .
Next morning I confessed everything to my mother, and, for
several months afterwards , was a reformed character. Indeed , the
pendulum of my conscience swung too far the other way, and I
grew exaggeratedly remorseful and unhealthily moral.
There was published in those days , for the edification of young
people, a singularly pessimistic periodical , entitled " The Children's
Band of Hope Review." It was a magazine much in favour among
grown-up people, and a bound copy of vol . IX. had lately been
won by my sister as a prize for punctuality ( I fancy she must have
exhausted all the virtue she ever possessed , in that direction , upon
the winning of that prize . At all events , I have noticed no
ostentatious display of the quality in her later life). I had
formerly expressed contempt for this book, but now, in my
regenerate state, I took a morbid pleasure in poring over its
denunciations of sin and sinners . There was one picture in it
that appeared peculiarly applicable to myself. It represented a
gaudily costumed young man , standing on the topmost of three
steep steps, smoking a large cigar. Behind him was a very small
church, and below, a bright and not altogether uninviting looking
hell. The picture was headed " The Three Steps to Ruin , " and the
three stairs were labelled respectively " Smoking," " Drinking,"
" Gambling." I had already travelled two-thirds of the road !
Was I going all the way, or should I be able to get back ? I
126 THE IDLER .
(" BILLE BARLOW." )

“ VARIETY PATTER ." 127
used to lie awake at night and think about it, till I grew half
crazy .
Alas ! since then I have completed the descent, so where my
future will be spent I do not care to think.
Another picture in the book that troubled me was the frontis-
piece. This was a highly-coloured print, illustrating the broad
and narrow ways . The narrow way led upward past a Sunday
school and a lion to a city in the clouds . This city was referred
to in the accompanying letterpress as a place of " Rest and Peace,"
but inasmuch as the town was represented in the illustration as
surrounded by a perfect mob of angels , each one blowing a trumpet
twice his own size, and obviously blowing it for all he was worth,
a certain confusion of ideas would seem to have crept into the
allegory.
The other path—the "broad way "--which ended in what at
first glance appeared to be a highly successful display of fireworks ,
started from the door of a tavern , and led past a Music Hall, on
the steps of which stood a gentleman smoking a cigar . (All the
wicked people in this book smoked cigars - all except one young
man who had killed his mother and died raving mad . He had
gone astray on short pipes. )
This made it uncomfortably clear to me which direction I had
chosen, and I was greatly alarmed, until , on examining the picture
more closely, I noticed, with much satisfaction , that about midway
the two paths were connected by a handy little bridge, by the use
of which it seemed feasible, starting on the one path and ending
up on the other, to combine the practical advantages of both roads.
My belief in the possibility of this convenient compromise
must, I fear, have led to an ethical relapse, for there recurs to my
mind a somewhat painful scene of a few months' later date in
which I am seeking to convince a singularly unresponsive landed .
proprietor that my presence in his orchard is solely and entirely
due to my having unfortunately lost my way.
It was not until I was nearly seventeen that the idea occurred
to me to visit a Music Hall again . Then , having regard to my
double capacity of " Man About Town " and journalist (for I had
written a letter to The Era , complaining of the way pit doors were
made to open, and it had been inserted) , I felt I had no longer any
right to neglect acquaintanceship with so important a feature in
the life of the people. Accordingly, one Saturday night , I wended
my way to the " Pav. " ; and there the first person that I ran against
was my uncle. He laid a heavy hand upon my shoulder, and
128 THE IDLER.
Dille Harley
"The Coster." (CHEVALIER.)

" VARIETY PATTER." 129 L
asked me, in severe tones, what I was doing there. I felt this to
be an awkward question, for it would have been useless trying to
make him understand my real motives (one's own relations are never
sympathetic), and I was somewhat nonplussed for an answer ,
until the reflection occurred to me : What was he doing there ?
This riddle I , in my turn , propounded to him, with the result that
we entered into treaty by the terms of which it was agreed that no
future reference should be made to the meeting by either of us—
at least, not in the presence of any member of the family—and the
compact was ratified according to the usual custom, my uncle
paying the necessary expenses.
In those days, we sat , some four or six of us, round a little table,
on which were placed our drinks . Now we have to balance them
upon a narrow ledge ; and ladies , as they pass , dip the ends of
their cloaks into them, and gentlemen stir them up for us with the
ferrules of their umbrellas , or else sweep them off into our laps
with their coat tails, saying as they do so , " Oh , I beg your pardon ."
Also, inthose days, there were " chairmen "-affable gentlemen ,
who would drink anything at anybody's expense, and drink any
quantity of it, and never seem to get any fuller . I was intro-
duced to a Music Hall chairman once, and when I said to him,
""
"What is your drink ? he took up the " list of beverages " that
lay before him, and, opening it, waved his hand lightly across
its entire contents, from clarets, past champagnes and spirits, down
to liqueurs. " That's my drink, my boy," said he. There was
nothing narrow- minded or exclusive about his tastes .
It was the chairman's duty to introduce the artists . " Ladies
and gentlemen, " he would shout, in a voice that united the
musical characteristics of a fog -horn and a steam saw, " Miss
' Enerietta Montressor, the popular serio-comic, will now happear."
These announcements were invariably received with great
applause by the chairman himself, and generally with chilling
indifference by the rest of the audience.
It was also the privilege of the chairman to maintain order,
and reprimand evil- doers . This he usually did very effectively ,
employing for the purpose language both fit and forcible. One
chairman that I remember, seemed, however, to be curiously
deficient in the necessary qualities for this part of his duty. He
was a mild and sleepy little man, and, unfortunately, he had to
preside over an exceptionally rowdy audience at a small hall in
the South- East district. On the night that I was present, there
occurred a great disturbance. " Joss Jessop, the Monarch of
130 THE IDLER .
Mirth," a gentleman evidently high in local

request, was, for some reason or other, not
forthcoming, and, in his place, the manage-
ment proposed to offer a female performer
on the zithern, one Signorina Ballatino .
The little chairman made the announce-
ment in a nervous, deprecatory tone , as if
he were rather ashamed of it himself.
" Ladies and
gentlemen," he
began . (The
poor are staunch
sticklers for eti-
quette. I overheard a small
child explaining to her
mother one night in Three
Colts Street, Limehouse,
that she could
not get into the
house because
there was a
"lady " on the
door - step ,
drunk.) " Sig-
norina Ballatino ,
the world - re-
nowned
Here a voice
from the gallery
requested to know
what had become of
" Old Joss," and was
greeted by loud cries
of " Ere, ' ere." The
chairman , ignoring
the interruption, con-
tinued :
66 -the world-
renowned performer
on the zither ".
" On the whoter ?"
"The Nigger." (CHIRGWIN .) came in tones of
plaintive enquiry from the back ofthe hall.
“ VARIETY PATTER." 131
"Hon the zither," retorted the chairman, waxing mildly

indignant ; he meant zithern, but he called it a zither. "A hinstru-
ment well-known to anybody as ' as ' ad any learning."
This sally was received with much favour, and a gentleman
who claimed to be acquainted with the family history of the
interrupter begged the chairman to excuse him on the ground that
his (the interrupter's) mother used to get drunk with the twopence
a week and never sent him to school.
Cheered by this breath of popularity, our little president
endeavoured to complete his introduction of the Signorina. He
again repeated that she was the world - renowned performer on the
zithern ; and, undeterred by 'the audible remark of a lady in the pit
to the effect that she'd " never ' eard on ' er, " added :
She will now, ladies and gentlemen, with your kind per-
mission, give you examples of the "
" Blow yer zither," here cried out the gentleman who had
started the agitation , " we want Joss Jessop ."
This was the signal for much cheering and shrill whistling, in
the midst of which a wag with a piping voice suggested as a
reason for the favourite's non -appearance that he had not been
paid his last week's salary.
A temporary lull occurred at this point, and the chairman,
seizing the opportunity to complete his oft-impeded speech, sud-
denly remarked, "-songs of the Sunny South" ; and immediately
sat down and began hammering upon the table.
Then Signora Ballatino, clothed in the costume of the Sunny
South , where clothes are less essential than in these colder climes ,
skipped airily forward, and was most ungallantly greeted with a
storm of groans and hisses. Her beloved instrument was unfeel-
ingly alluded to as a pie- dish , and she was advised to take it back
and get the penny on it. The chairman , addressed by his Christian
name of “ Jimmee," was told to lie down and let her sing him
to sleep. Every time she attempted to start playing , shouts were
raised for Joss.
At length the chairman , overcoming his evident disinclination
to take any sort of hand whatever in the game, rose and gently
hinted at the desirability of silence. The suggestion not meeting
with any support, he proceeded to adopt sterner measures . He
addressed himself personally to the ringleader of the rioters , the
man who had first championed the cause of the absent Joss. This
person was a brawny individual , who , judging from appearance,
followed in his business hours the calling of a coalheaver. " Yes,
132 THE IDLER.
EAST END.
“ VARIETY PATTER ." 133
sir," said the chairman, pointing a finger towards him, where he

sat in the front row of the gallery ; " you , sir, in the flannel shirt .
I can see you . Will you allow this lady to give her entertain-
ment ?"
" No," answered he of the coalheaving profession, in sten-
torian tones .
66
Then, sir, " said the little chairman , working himself up into
a state suggestive of Jove about to launch a thunderbolt-" then ,
sir, all I can say is that you are no gentleman . "
This was a little too much , or rather a good deal too little, for
the Signora Ballatino . She had hitherto been standing in a meek
attitude of pathetic appeal, wearing a fixed smile of ineffable
sweetness ; but she evidently felt that she could go a bit farther
than that herself, even if she was a lady. Calling the chairman
" an old messer, " and telling him for- sake to shut up if that was
all he could do for his living , she came down to the front, and took
the case into her own hands .
She did not waste time on the rest of the audience . She went
direct for that coalheaver, and thereupon ensued a slanging match
the memory of which sends a thrill of admiration through me
even to this day. It was a battle worthy of the gods . He was a
heaver of coals , quick and ready beyond his kind . During many
years' sojourn East and South , in the course of many wanderings
from Billingsgate to Limehouse Hole, from Petticoat Lane to
Whitechapel Road ; out of eel - pie shop and penny gaff ; out of
tavern and street, and court and doss -house, he had gathered
together slang words and terms and phrases , and they came back
to him now, and he stood up against her manfully.
But as well might the lamb stand up against the eagle , when
the shadow of its wings falls across the green pastures , and the
wind flies before its dark oncoming. At the end of two minutes
he lay gasping, dazed , and speechless .
Then she began.
She announced her intention of " wiping down the bloomin'
' all" with him , and making it respectable ; and, metaphorically
speaking, that is what she did . Her tongue hit him between the
eyes, and knocked him down and trampled on him . It curled
round and round him like a whip, and then it uncurled and wound
the other way . It seized him by the scruff of his neck, and tossed
him up into the air, and caught him as he descended , and flung him
to the ground, and rolled him on it. It played around him like
forked lightning, and blinded him. It danced and shrieked about
134 THE IDLER .
Inte
r
Hard
C∙
'The Coster's Gal." (JENNY HILL.)

"VARIETY PATTER." 135
him like a host of whirling fiends, and he tried to remember a

prayer, and could not . It touched him lightly on the sole of his
foot and the crown of his head , and his hair stood up straight,
and his limbs grew stiff. The people sitting near him drew away,
not feeling it safe to be near, and left him alone, surrounded by
space, and language.
It was the most artistic piece of work of its kind that I have
ever heard. Every phrase she flung at him seemed to have been
woven on purpose to entangle him and to embrace in its choking
folds his people and his gods , to strangle with its threads his every
hope, ambition, and belief. Each term she put upon him clung to
him like a garment, and fitted him without a crease. The last
name that she called him one felt to be, until one heard the next,
the one name that he ought to have been christened by.
For five and three-quarter minutes by the clock she spoke, and
never for one instant did she pause or falter ; and in the whole
of that onslaught there was only one weak spot.
That was when she offered to make a better man than he was
out of a Guy Fawkes and a lump of coal. You felt that one lump
of coal would not have been sufficient.
At the end, she gathered herself together for one supreme
effort, and hurled at him an insult so bitter with scorn , so sharp
with insight into his career and character , so heavy with pro-
phetic curse, that strong men drew and held their breath while it
passed over them, and women hid their faces and shivered .
Then she folded her arms, and stood silent ; and the house,
from floor to ceiling, rose and cheered her until there was no more
breath left in its lungs.
In that one night she stepped from oblivion into success . She
is now a famous " artiste. "
But she does not call herself Signora Ballatino , and she does
not play upon the zithern . Her name has a homelier sound , and
her speciality is the delineation of coster character.
K
136 THE IDLER.
HOPE
SINE SPE NIHIL EST
Hope told me of a brightér sky

.
Of glad times coming byandbye
Of happier days that were in store

Hope told me a most cruel lie.
False knave ! Hecheated me before
"Begone ! Fll never trust thee more

more "
I drove him forth , and then-

What then?
I prayed him to come back again

BY MARK TWAIN .
ILLUSTRATED BY HAL HURST.
CHAPTER III .
RS . SELLERS returned now, with her composure restored ,

and began to ask after Hawkins's wife , and about his
children, and the number of them, and so on , and her
examination of the witness resulted in a circumstantial history of
the family's ups and downs and driftings to and fro in the far
West during the previous fifteen years. There was a message ,
now, from out back, and Colonel Sellers went out there to answer
to it. Hawkins took this opportunity to ask how the world had
been using the Colonel during the past half- generation .
66
' Oh, it's been using him just the same ; it couldn't change its
way of using him if it wanted to, for he wouldn't let it ."
66
I can easily believe that , Mrs. Sellers ."
" Yes, you see, he doesn't change himself—not the least little
bit in the world-he's always Mulberry Sellers ."
" I can see that plain enough. "
"Just the same old scheming, generous , good -hearted, moon-
shiny, hopeful, no -account failure he always was, and still everybody
likes him just as well as if he was the shiningest success ."
66
They always did ; and it was natural, because he was so
obliging and accommodating , and had something about him that
made it kind of easy to ask help of him , or favours-you didn't
feel shy, you know, or have that wish-you - didn't-have-to -try feeling
that you have with other people. "
" It's just so, yet ; and a body wonders at it, too , because he's
been shamefully, treated , many times , by people that had used
him for a ladder to climb up by, and then kicked him down when
they didn't need him any more. For a time you can see he's
hurt, his pride's wounded, because he shrinks away from that
thing , and don't want to talk about it—and so I used to think now
he's learned something, and he'll be more careful hereafter- but
laws ! In a couple of weeks he's forgotten all about it, and any
138 THE IDLER.
selfish tramp out of nobody knows where can come and put up à
poor mouth and walk right into his heart with his boots on."
" It must try your patience pretty sharply sometimes."
66
Oh, no, I'm used to it ; and I'd rather have him so than the
other way. When I call him a failure, I mean to the world he's
a failure ; he isn't to me. I don't know as I want him different-
much different , anyway . I have to scold him some, snarl at him,
you might even call it, but I reckon I'd do that just the same if he
was different- it's my make. But I'm a good deal less snarly
and more contented when he's a failure than I am when he isn't. "
" Then he isn't always a failure," said Hawkins , brightening.
" Him ? Oh, bless you, no. He makes a strike, as
he calls it, from time to time. Then's my time to
fret and fuss. For the money just flies-first come
first served. Straight off, he loads up the
house with cripples and idiots and stray cats
and all the different kinds of poor wrecks that
other people don't want and he does, and
then when the poverty comes again I've got
to clear the most of them out
or we'd starve ; and that dis-
tresses him, and me the same,
" THE MONEY JUST of course. Here's old Dan'l
FLIES.'
and Jinny, that the sheriff sold 1
south one of the
times that we got
SALE
bankrupted before the war-they came
wandering back after the peace, worn
out and used up on the cotton planta-
tions, helpless, and not another lick of
work left in their old hides for the rest
of this earthly pilgrimage-and we so
pinched, oh ! so pinched, for the very
crumbs to keep life in us, and he just
flung the door wide, and the way he
received them, you'd have thought they
had come straight down from heaven
in answer to prayer. I took him one side and
said, ' Mulberry, we can't have them-we've no-
thing for ourselves—we can't feed them.' He looked
at me kind of hurt, and said, ' Turn them out ?— " OLD DAN'L AND JINNY,
and they've come to me just as confident and THAT THE SHERIFF
SOLD."
THE AMERICAN CLAIMAN
CLAIMANT. 139
sting as-as-why Polly, I must have bought that confidence

me time or other a long time ago, and given my note, so to speak
you don't get such things as a gift—and how am I going to go
ck on a debt like that ? And you see, they're so poor, and old ,
d friendless, and , and But I was ashamed by that time,
d shut him off, and somehow felt a new courage in me, and so
said softly, ' We'll keep them-the Lord will provide.' He was
ad , and started to blurt out one of those over - confident speeches
his , but checked himself in time, and said humbly, I will,
yway.' It was years and years and years ago. Well,
u see those wrecks are here yet."
" But don't they do your housework ?"
" Laws ! The idea. They would if they could , poor
d things, and perhaps they think they do do some ofit.
ut it's a superstition . Dan'l waits on the front door,
nd sometimes goes on an errand ; and sometimes
ou'll see one or both of them letting on to dust
ound in here-but that's because there's something
ey want to hear about and mix their gabble into.
nd they're always around at meals, for the same
ason. But the fact is, we have to keep a young
negro girl just to take care of
them , and a negro woman to do
the housework and help take care
of them ." "DAN'L WAITS ON THE
66 FRONT DOOR."
'Well, they ought to be
tolerably happy, I should think. "
" It's no name for it. They quarrel together
pretty much all the time-most always about reli-
gion, because Dan'l's a DunkerBaptist and Jinny's
a shouting Methodist, and Jinny believes in special
Providences and Dan'l don't, because he thinks he's
a kind of a free-thinker-and they play and sing
plantation hymns together, and talk and chatter
just eternally and for ever, and are sincerely fond of
each other and think the world of Mulberry, and he
LETTING ON TO DUST puts up patiently with all their spoiled ways and
AROUND."
foolishnesses, and so- -ah, well, they're happy
enough if it comes to that. And I don't mind, I've got used to
it. I can get used to anything, with Mulberry to help ; and the
fact is , I don't much care what happens, so long as he's spared to me."
"Well, here's to him, and hoping he'll make another strikę
soon ."
140 THE IDLER.
" And fake in the lame, the halt and the blind, and turn the
house into a hospital again ? It's what he would do, I've seen a
plenty of that and more. No, Washington , I want his strikes to
be mighty moderate ones the rest of the way down the vale."
" Well, then, big strike or little strike, or no strike at all ,
here's hoping he'll never lack for friends-and I don't reckon he
ever will while there's people around who know enough to- 99
" Him lack for friends !" and she tilted her head up with a
frank pride-" why, Washington , you can't name a man that's
anybody that isn't fond of him. I'll tell you privately, that I've
had Satan's own time to keep them from appointing him to some
office or other. They knew he'd no business with an office , just
as well as I did , but he's the hardest man to refuse anything to a
body ever saw. Mulberry Sellers with an office ? Laws good-
ness, you know what that would be like. Why, they'd come from
the ends of the earth to see a circus like that . I'd just as lieves
be married to Niagara Falls , and done with it." After a reflective
pause she added- having wandered back,
in the interval , to the remark that had been
her text : " Friends ?-oh, indeed , no man
ever had more ; and such friends : Grant,
Sherman, Sheridan, Johnston, Long-
street, Lee- many's the time they've sat
in that chair you're sitting in." Hawkins
was out of it instantly, and
contemplating it with a re-
verential surprise , and with
theawed sense ofhaving trod-
den shod upon holy ground—
"They !" he said .
"Oh, indeed, yes, a many
and a many a time."
He continued to gaze at
the chair fascinated , mag-
netised ; and for once in his
life that continental stretch of
dry prairie which stood for his
" HE CONTINUED TO GAZE AT THE CHAIR
FASCINATED, MAGNETISED." imagination was a fire, and
across it was marching a
slanting flame front that joined its wide horizons together and
smothered the skies with smoke. He was experiencing what one or
another drowsing, geographically ignorant alien experiences every
day in the year, when he turns a dull and indifferent eye out of
the car window, and it falls upon a certain station sign which
reads, " Stratford-on-Avon ! " Mrs. Sellers went gossiping com.
fortably along :
" Oh, they like to hear him talk, especially if their load is
getting rather heavy on one shoulder and they want to shift it.
He's all air you know- breeze you may say-and he freshens them
up ; it's a trip to the country they say. Many a time he's made
General Grant laugh-and that's a tidy job, I can tell you-and
as for Sheridan, his eye lights up, and he listens to Mulberry
Sellers the same as if he was artillery. You see, the charm about
Mulberry is, he is so catholic and unprejudiced that he fits in any-
where and everywhere. It makes him powerful good company,
and as popular as scandal. You go to the White House when
the President's holding a general reception -some time when
Mulberry's there. Why, dear me, you can't tell which of them it
is that's holding the reception ."
"Well, he certainly is a remarkable man-and he always was.
Is he religious ? "
" Clear to his marrow-does more thinking and reading on
that subject than any other, except Russia and Siberia ; thrashes
around over the whole field , too ; nothing bigoted about him."
"What is his religion ? "
" He " She stopped, and was lost for a moment or two in
thinking ; then she said, with simplicity, " I think he was a
Mohammedan or something last week."
Washington started down town, now, to bring his trunk, for
the hospitable Sellerses would listen to no excuses ; their house
must be his home during the session. The Colonel returned
presently and resumed work upon his plaything. It was finished
when Washington got back.
" There it is," said the Colonel, " all finished ."
"What is it for, Colonel ? "
" Oh , it's just a trifle. Toy to amuse the
children.
Washington examined it.
" It seems to be a puzzle."
"Yes, that's what it is. I call it Pigs in the
Clover. Put them in- see if you can put them
in the pen ."
" PIGS IN THE CLOVER."
After many failures Washington succeeded ,
and was as pleased as a child .
140 THE IDLER.
" And rake in the lame, the halt and the blind, and turn the
house into a hospital again ? It's what he would do , I've seen a
plenty of that and more. No, Washington, I want his strikes to
be mighty moderate ones the rest of the way down the vale ."
66
'Well, then, big strike or little strike, or no strike at all ,
here's hoping he'll never lack for friends-and I don't reckon he
ever will while there's people around who know enough to "
" Him lack for friends !" and she tilted her head up with a
frank pride-" why, Washington , you can't name a man that's
anybody that isn't fond of him. I'll tell you privately, that I've
had Satan's own time to keep them from appointing him to some
office or other. They knew he'd no business with an office, just
as well as I did , but he's the hardest man to refuse anything to a
body ever saw. Mulberry Sellers with an office ? Laws good-
ness, you know what that would be like. Why, they'd come from
the ends of the earth to see a circus like that . I'd just as lieves
be married to Niagara Falls, and done with it." After a reflective
pause she added-having wandered back,
in the interval, to the remark that had been
her text : " Friends ?-oh, indeed , no man
ever had more ; and such friends : Grant,
Sherman , Sheridan , Johnston , Long-
street, Lee- many's the time they've sat
in that chair you're sitting in ." Hawkins
was out of it instantly, and
contemplating it with a re-
verential surprise , and with
the awed sense of having trod-
den shod upon holy ground-
"They !" he said.
"Oh, indeed, yes, a many
and a many a time."
He continued to gaze at
the chair fascinated, mag-
netised ; and for once in his
life that continental stretch of
dry prairie which stood for his
" HE CONTINUED TO GAZE AT THE CHAIR
FASCINATED, MAGNETISED." imagination was a fire , and
across it was marching a
slanting flame front that joined its wide horizons together and
smothered the skies with smoke . He was experiencing what one or
another drowsing, geographically ignorant alien experiences every
day in the year, when he turns a dull and indifferent eye out of
the car window, and it falls upon a certain station sign which
reads, " Stratford-on-Avon ! " Mrs. Sellers went gossiping com.
fortably along :
" Oh, they like to hear him talk, especially if their load is
getting rather heavy on one shoulder and they want to shift it,
He's all air you know- breeze you may say-and he freshens them
up ; it's a trip to the country they say. Many a time he's made
General Grant laugh-and that's a tidy job, I can tell you-and
as for Sheridan, his eye lights up, and he listens to Mulberry
Sellers the same as if he was artillery. You see, the charm about
Mulberry is, he is so catholic and unprejudiced that he fits in any-
where and everywhere. It makes him powerful good company,
and as popular as scandal. You go to the White House when
the President's holding a general reception-some time when
Mulberry's there. Why, dear me, you can't tell which of them it
is that's holding the reception ."
"Well, he certainly is a remarkable man —and he always was.
Is he religious ? "
" Clear to his marrow-does more thinking and reading on
that subject than any other, except Russia and Siberia ; thrashes
around over the whole field , too ; nothing bigoted about him."
"What is his religion ? "
" He " She stopped, and was lost for a moment or two in
thinking ; then she said, with simplicity, " I think he was a
Mohammedan or something last week."
Washington started down town , now, to bring his trunk, for
the hospitable Sellerses would listen to no excuses ; their house
must be his home during the session. The Colonel returned
presently and resumed work upon his plaything. It was finished
when Washington got back.
" There it is," said the Colonel, " all finished ."
"What is it for, Colonel ? "
" Oh, it's just a trifle . Toy to amuse the
children.
Washington examined it .
" It seems to be a puzzle."
"Yes, that's what it is. I call it Pigs in the
Clover. Put them in- see if you can put them
in the pen ."
" PIGS IN THE CLOVER ."
After many failures Washington succeeded ,
and was as pleased as a child.
142 THE IDLER .
" It's wonderfully ingenious , Colonel , it's ever so clever. And

interesting -why, I could play with it all day. What are you
going to do with it ? "
" Oh, nothing. Patent it and throw it aside."
" Don't you do anything of the kind . There's money in that
thing."
A compassionate look travelled over the Colonel's countenance ,
and he said :
" Money-yes ; pin money ; a couple of hundred thousand ,
perhaps. Not more . "
Washington's eyes blazed.
"A couple of hundred thousand dollars ! Do you call that pin
money ?
The Colonel rose and tip-toed his way across the room, closed
a door that was slightly ajar, tip-toed his way to his seat again,
and said, under his breath-
"You can keep a secret ? "
Washington nodded his affirmative , he was too awed to speak.
" You have heard of materialization - materialization of de-
parted spirits ? "
Washington had heard of it.
" And probably didn't believe in it ; and quite right too. The
thing as practised by ignorant charlatans is unworthy of attention
or respect where there's a dim light and a dark cabinet , and a
parcel of sentimental gulls gathered together, with their faith and
their shudders and their tears all ready, and one and the same
fatty degeneration of protoplasm and humbug comes out and ma-
terializes himself into anybody you want, grandmother, grandchild ,
brother-in -law, Witch of Endor, John Milton , Siamese twins,
Peter the Great, and all such frantic nonsense- no , that is all
foolish and pitiful . But when a man that is competent brings the
vast powers of science to bear, it's a different matter, a totally
different matter , you see. The spectre that answers that call has
come to stay. Do you note the commercial value of that detail ? ”
" Well, I -the-the truth is , that I don't quite know that I do .
Do you mean that such, being permanent, not transitory, would
give more general satisfaction , and so enhance the price of tickets
to the show- ""
" Show ? Polly-listen to me ; and get a good grip on your

breath, for you are going to need it . Within three days I shall
have completed my method , and then-let the world stand aghast,
for it shall see marvels. Washington , within three days-ten at
the outside-you shall see me call the dead of any century, and
they will arise and walk. Walk ?-they shall walk for ever , and
never die again . Walk with all the muscle and spring of their
pristine vigour."
" Colonel ! Indeed , it does take one's breath away."
" Now, do you see the money that's in it ? "
" I'm- well, I'm- not really sure that I do."
" Great Scott ! look here. I shall have a monopoly ; they'll
all belong to me, won't they ? Two thousand policemen in the
city of New York. Wages, four dollars a day. I'll replace
them with dead ones at half the money."
" Oh, prodigious ! I never thought of that. F - o-u - r
thousand dollars a day. Now I do begin to see ! But
will dead policemen answer ? "
" Haven't they- up to this time ? "
66 99
Well, if you put it that way '
" Put it any way you want to. Modify
it to suit yourself, and my lads
shall still be superior . They
won't eat, they won't drink-
don't need those things ; they
won't wink for cash at gam-
bling dens and unlicensed rum-
holes ; they won't spark the
scullery maids ; and, more-
over, the bands of roughs
that ambuscade them on
lonely beats, and cowardly
shoot and knife
them , will only
damage the uni-
forms, and not live
long enough to get
more than a mo-
mentary satisfac-
tion out of that."
"Why, Colonel ,
if you can furnish
policemen, then of
Course-
" Certainly - I
can furnish any line "YOU SHALL SEE ME CALL THE DEAD."
of goods that's
144 THE IDLER.
wanted. Take the army, for instance-now twenty-five thousand

men ; expense, twenty-two millions a year. I will dig up the Romans,
I will resurrect the Greeks, I will furnish the government for ten
millions a year . Ten thousand veterans drawn from the victorious
legions of all the ages-soldiers that will chase Indians year in
and year out on materialized horses, and cost never a cent for
rations or repairs . The armies of Europe cost two billions a year
now I will replace them all for a billion . I will dig up the
trained statesmen of all ages and all climes, and furnish this
country with a Congress that knows enough to come in out of the
rain—a thing that's never happened yet, since the Declaration of
Independence, and never will happen , till these practically dead
people are replaced with the genuine article. I will re- stock the
thrones of Europe with the best brains and the best morals that
all the royal sepulchres of all the centuries can furnish-which
isn't promising very much-and I'll divide the wages and the civil
list, fair and square, merely taking my half and-"
" Colonel, if the half of this is true, there's millions in it—
millions."
" Billions in it- billions ; that's what you mean . Why, look
here ; the thing is so close at hand, so imminent, so absolutely
immediate, that if a man were to come to me now and say ,
' Colonel, I'm a little short, and if you could lend me a couple of
billion dollars for '-come in ! "
This in answer to a knock. An energetic man
bustled in with a big pocket- book in his hand, took
a paper from it and presented it, with the curt re-
mark-
" Seventeenth and last call-you want to out
with that three dollars and forty cents this time
without fail, Colonel Mulberry Sellers ."
The Colonel began to slap this pocket and that
one, and feel here and there and everywhere, mut-
tering-
"What have I done with that wallet ?-let me
see-um- not here, not there- Oh ! I must
'A ENERGETIC MAN BUSTLED IN." have left it in the kitchen ; I'll run and- "
" No you won't-you'll stay right where you are. And you're
going to disgorge too-this time."
Washington innocently offered to go and look. When he was
gone the Colonel said-
The fact is, I've got to throw myself on your indulgence
just this once more, Suggs ; you see the remittances I was
""
expecting-
66
Hang the remittances- it's too stale- it won't answer.
Come ! "
The Colonel glanced about him in despair. Then his face
lighted ; he ran to the wall and began to dust off a peculiarly
atrocious chromo with his handkerchief. Then he brought it
reverently, offered it to the collector , averted his face and said-
" Take it, but don't let me see it go . It's the sole remaining
27
Rembrandt that-
" Rembrandt be damned , it's a chromo."
" Oh ! don't speak of it so, I beg you . It's the only really
great original , the only supreme example of that mighty school of
19
art which-
"Art ! It's the sickest- looking thing I— "
The Colonel was already bringing another horror and tenderly
dusting it.
" Take this one too-the gem of my collection-the only
genuine Fra Angelico that ”
" Illuminated liver- pad , that's what it is. Give it here-good
day- people will think I've robbed a nigger barber- shop ."
As he slammed the door behind him the Colonel shouted with
an anguished accent-
" Do please cover them up-don't let the damp get at them .
The delicate tints in the Angelico-
But the man was gone .
Washington re-appeared and said he had looked everywhere,
and so had Mrs. Sellers and the servants, but in vain ; and went
on to say he wished he could get his eye on a certain man about
this time- no need to hunt up that pocket- book then . The
Colonel's interest was awake at once.
“ What man ? ”
“ One-armed Pete they call him out there-out in the Cherokee
country, I mean. Robbed the bank in Tahlequah. "
“ Do they have banks in Tahlequah ? ”
"Yes -a bank, anyway. He was suspected of robbing it.
Whoever did it got away with more than twenty thousand dollars .
They offered a reward of five thousand . I believe I saw that very
man, on my way east."
" No-is that so ?"
" I certainly saw a man on the train , the first day I struck the
railroad, that answered the description pretty exactly-at least as
to clothes and a lacking arm .
146 THE IDLER .
"Why didn't you get him arrested and claim the reward ? "
" I couldn't. I had to get a requisition, of course. But I
meant to stay by him till I got my chance."
" Well ? "
"Well, he left the train during the night some time."
66 Oh, hang it, that's too bad."
" Not so very bad, either."
""
"Why ?
" Because he came down to Baltimore in the very train I was
in, though I didn't know it in time. As we moved out of the
station , I saw him going towards the iron gate with a satchel in
his hand."
"I SAW HIM GOING TOWARDS THE IRON GATE."
" Good ; we'll catch him. Let's lay a plan ."

" Send a description to the Baltimore police ! "
66
Why, what are you talking about ? No. Do you want them
to get the reward ? "
"What shall we do then ? "
The Colonel reflected .
" I'll tell you. Put a personal in the Baltimore Sun. Word
it like this :-—
A. DROP ME A LINE , PETE-
" Hold on. Which arm has he lost ? "
" The right."
" Good. Now then-
A. DROP ME A LINE, PETE, EVEN IF YOU HAVE to
write with your left hand. Address, X.Y.Z., General Post Office,
Washington. From YOU KNOW WHO .
" There-that'll fetch him."
" But he won't know who-will he ?"99
" No, but he'll want to know, won't he ? "
"Why, certainly-I didn't think of that. What made you

think of it ? "
" Knowledge of human curiosity. Strong trait, very strong
trait."
"Now I'll go to my room and write it out, and enclose a dollar,
""
and tell them to print it to the worth of that.'
(To be continued .)
Dead Memories.
Lately an elderly Frenchwoman

Showed me a dress with embroidery,
Delicate, worn by her grandmother
Once at the Court of Napoleon .
Instantly flashed the great Corsican

Duskily bright on my memory ,
Crumbled to dust with his dynasty
Long ere the dainty embroidery.
Also I strove to resuscitate

All those gay splendours the grandmother
Moved amid, but unsuccessfully,
Knowing so little of History.
I. ZANGWI. L.
D
PROFUNDIS
Dudier.Grardy
BY A CONAN DOYLE.
S long as the oceans are the ligaments which bind together

the great broadcast British Empire, so long there will be a
dash of romance in our slow old Frisian minds . For the soul
is swayed by the waters , as the waters are by the moon , and when
the great highways of an Empire are along such roads as those,
so full of strange sights and sounds, with danger ever running
like a hedge on either side of the course, it is a dull mind indeed
which does not bear away with it some trace of such a passage.
And now, Britain lies far beyond herself, for in truth the three
mile limit of every seaboard is her frontier, which has been won
by hammer and loom and pick, rather than by arts of war. For
it is written in history that neither a king in his might, nor an
army with banners, can bar the path to the man who having two-
pence in his strong box, and knowing well where he can turn it
to threepence, sets his mind to that one end. And as the Empire
has broadened, the mind of Britain has broadened too, spreading
out into free speech , free press, free trade, until all men can see
that the ways of the island are continental , even as those of the
continent are insular.
But for this a price must be paid, and the price is a grievous
one. As the beast of old must have one young human life as a
tribute every year , so to our Empire we throw from day to day the
pick and flower of our youth . The engine is world-wide and
strong, but the only fuel that will drive it is the lives of British
DE PROFUNDIS. 149
men. Thus it is that in the gray old cathedrals , as we look round

upon the brasses on the walls , we see strange names, such names
as they who reared those walls had never heard , for it is in
Peshawur, and Umballah, and Korti and Fort Pearson that the
youngsters die, leaving only a precedent and a brass behind them.
But if every man had his obelisk, even where he lay, then no
frontier line need be drawn , for a cordon of British graves would
ever show how high the Anglo - Saxon tide had lapped .
And this too, as well as the waters which separate us from
France, and join us to the world, has done something to tinge us
with romance . For when so many have their loved ones over the
seas, walking amid hillman's bullets, or swamp malaria , where
death is sudden and distance great, then mind communes with
mind, and strange stories arise of dream , presentiment or vision ,
where the mother sees her dying son , and is past the first bitter-
ness of her grief ere the message comes which should have broke
the news. The learned have of late looked into the matter, and
have even labelled it with a name, but what can we know more of
it save that a poor stricken soul , when hard -pressed and driven ,
can shoot across the earth some ten thousand -mile-long picture of
its trouble to the mind which is most akin to it. Far be it from
me to say that there lies no such power within us, for ofall things
which the brain will grasp the last will be itself, but yet it is well
to be very cautious over such matters , for once at least I have
known that which was within the laws of nature to seem to be far
upon the further side of them .
John Vansittart was the younger partner of the firm of Hudson
and Vansittart, coffee exporters of the Island of Ceylon , three-
quarters Dutchmen by descent, but wholly English in his sym-
pathies. For years I had been his agent in London , and when in
'72 he came over to England for a three months ' holiday, he
turned to me for the introductions which would enable him to see
something of town and country life. Armed with seven letters he
left my offices , and for many weeks scrappy notes from different
parts of the country let me know that he had found favour in the
eyes of my friends. Then came word of his engagement to Emily
Lawson, of a cadet branch of the Hereford Lawsons, and at the
very tail of the first flying rumour the news of his absolute
marriage, for the wooing of a wanderer must be short, and the
days were already crowding on towards the date when he must be
upon his homeward journey. They were to return together to
Columbo in one of the firm's own thousand ton barque-rigged
150 THE IDLER.
sailing ships, and this was to be their princely honeymoon , at

once a necessity and a delight.
Those were the royal days of coffee planting in Ceylon, before
a single season and a rotting fungus drove a whole community
through years of despair to one of the greatest commercial victories
which pluck and ingenuity ever won. Not often is it that men
EMILY LAWSON.
have the heart when their one great industry is withered to rear
up in a few years another as rich to take its place, and the teafields
of Ceylon are as true a monument to courage as is the lion at
Waterloo . But in '72 there was no cloud yet above the skyline,
and the hopes of the planters were as high and as bright as the
hill sides on which they reared their crops. Vansittart came down
to London with his young and beautiful wife. I was introduced,
dined with them, and it was finally arranged that I , since business
called me also to Ceylon, should be a fellow- passenger with them
on the Eastern Star, which was timed to sail upon the following
Monday.
It was on the Sunday evening that I saw him again. He was
shown up into my rooms about nine o'clock at night, with the air
of a man who is bothered and out of sorts. His hand , as I shook
it, was hot and dry.
66
I wish, Atkinson, " said he, " that you could give me a little
lime juice and water . I have a beastly thirst upon me, and the
more I take the more I seem to want."
I rang and ordered in a caraffe and glasses . "You are
flushed," said I. " You don't look the thing."
DE PROFundis. 151
" No, I'm clean off colour. Got a touch of rheumatism in my

back, and don't seem to taste my food. It is this vile London
that is choking me. I'm not used to breathing air which has been
used up by four million lungs all sucking away on every side of
you." He flapped his crooked hands before his face, like a man
who really struggles for his breath .
"A touch of the sea will soon set you right."
" Yes, I'm of one mind with you there. That's the thing for
me. I want no other doctor. If I don't get to sea to-morrow I'll
have an ill..ess . There are no two ways about it." He drank off
a tumbler of lime juice, and clapped his two hands with his
knuckles doubled up into the small of his back.
" That seems to ease me," said he, looking at me with a
filmy eye. " Now I want your help, Atkinson, for I am rather
awkwardly placed ."
" As how ? '
" This way. My wife's mother got ill and wired for her. I
couldn't go—you know best yourself how tied I have been— so she
had to go alone. Now I've had another wire to say that she can't
come to-morrow, but that she will pick up the ship at Falmouth
on Wednesday. We put in there, you know, and in, and in ,
though I count it hard , Atkinson , that a man should be asked to
believe in a mystery, and cursed if he can't do it. Cursed , mind
you, no less." He leaned forward and began to draw a catchy
breath like a man who is poised on the very edge of a sob.
Then first it came into my mind that I had heard much of the
hard drinking life of the island, and that from brandy came these
wild words and fevered hands . The flushed cheek and the glazing
eye were those of one whose drink is strong upon him. Sad it
was to see so noble a young man in the grip of that most bestial
of all the devils.
" You should lie down," I said, with some severity.
He screwed up his eyes, like a man who is striving to wake
himself, and looked up with an air of surprise.
66
" So I shall presently," said he, quite rationally. " I felt quite
swimmy just now, but I am my own man again now. Let me
see, what was I talking about ? Oh ah, of course, about the wife.
She joins the ship at Falmouth . Now I want to go round by
water. I believe my health depends upon it . I just want a little
clean first-hand air to set me on my feet again . Now I want you,
like a good fellow, to go to Falmouth by rail, so that in case we
should be late you may be there to look after the wife. Put up at
L
152 THE IDLER.
the Royal Hotel, and I will wire her that you are there. Her
sister will bring her down , so that it will be all plain sailing."
" I'll do it with pleasure," said I. " In fact, I should rather
go by rail, for we shall have enough and to spare of the sea before
we reach Columbo. I believe too that you badly need a change.
Now I should go and turn in, if I were vou."
"Yes, I will . I sleep aboard to-nt. You know, " he con-
tinued , as the film settled down again over his eyes, " I've not
slept well the last few nights. I've been troubled with theololclog
-that is to say, the io-
logical- hang it," with
a desperate effort, " with
the doubts of theololo-
gicians. Wondering
whythe Almighty made
us, you know, and why
He made our heads
swimmy, and fixed little
pains into the small of
our backs. Maybe I'll
do better to-night." He
rose, and steadied himself with an
effort against the corner of the chair
back.
" Look here, Vansittart," said I
gravely, stepping up to him, and
YOU ARE NOT FIT TO GO OUT." laying my hand upon his sleeve, " I
can give you a shakedown here. You are not fit to go out. You
are all over the place. You've been mixing your drinks."
" Drinks ! " he stared at me stupidly.
"You used to carry your liquor better than this."
" I give you my word , Atkinson, that I have not had a drain
for two days. It's not drink. I don't know what it is. I suppose
you think this is drink." He took up my hand in his burning
grasp, and passed it over his own forehead.
" Great Lord ! " said I.
His skin felt like a thin sheet of velvet beneath which lies a
close packed layer of small shot. It was smooth to the touch at any
one place, but, to a finger passed along it, rough as a nutmeg grater.
" It's all right," said he, smiling at my startled face. " I've
had the prickly heat nearly as bad."
" But this is never prickly heat."
DE PROFUNDIS. 153
"No, it's London. It's breathing bad air. But to-morrow

it'll be all right. There's a surgeon aboard , so I shall be in safe
hands. I must be off now."
" Not you," said I , pushing him back into a chair. " This is
past a joke. You don't move from here until a doctor sees you.
Just stay where you are." I caught up my hat, and rushing
round to the house of a neighbouring physician, I brought him
back with me. The room was empty and Vansittart gone. I
rang the bell. The servant said that the gentleman had ordered
a cab the instant that I had left, and had gone off in it. He had
told the cabman to drive to the docks.
""
" Did the gentleman seem ill ? I asked .
" Ill !" The man smiled. " No, sir, he was singin' his 'ardest
all the time."
The information was not as reassuring as my servant seemed
to think, but I reflected that he was going straight back to the
Eastern Star, and that there was a doctor aboard of her, so that
there was nothing which I could do in the matter. None the less ,
when I thought of his thirst, his burning hands, his heavy eye,
his tripping speech, and lastly, of that leprous forehead, I carried
with me to bed an unpleasant memory of my visitor and his visit.
At eleven o'clock next day I was at the docks, but the Eastern
Star had already moved down the river, and was nearly at Graves-
end. To Gravesend I went by train, but only to see her topmasts
far off, with a plume of smoke from a tug in front
"ONLY TO SEE HER TOPMASTS FAR OFF."
of her. I would hear no more of my friend

until I rejoined him at Falmouth. When I
got back to my offices a telegram was await-
ing for me from Mrs. Vansittart, asking me
to meet her, and next evening found us both
at the Royal Hotel, Falmouth , where we were
to wait for the Eastern Star. Ten days passed, and there came
no news of her.
They were ten days which I am not likely to forget. On the
very day that the Eastern Star had cleared from the Thames, a
152 THE IDLER.
the Royal Hotel, and I will wire her that you are there. Her
sister will bring her down , so that it will be all plain sailing."
" I'll do it with pleasure, " said I. " In fact, I should rather
go by rail, for we shall have enough and to spare of the sea before
we reach Columbo. I believe too that you badly need a change.
Now I should go and turn in , if I were vou."
66
"Yes, I will. I sleep aboard to-nt. You know, " he con-
tinued , as the film settled down again over his eyes , " I've not
slept well the last few nights. I've been troubled with theololclog
-that is to say, the io-
logical- hang it," with
a desperate effort, " with
the doubts of theololo-
gicians. Wondering
whythe Almighty made
us, you know, and why
He made our heads
swimmy, and fixed little
pains into the small of
our backs. Maybe I'll
do better to-night." He
rose, and steadied himself with an
effort against the corner of the chair
back.
"Look here, Vansittart," said I
gravely, stepping up to him, and
"YOU ARE NOT FIT TO GO OUT." laying my hand upon his sleeve, " I
can give you a shakedown here. You are not fit to go out. You
are all over the place. You've been mixing your drinks."
" Drinks !" he stared at me stupidly.
"You used to carry your liquor better than this."
" I give you my word, Atkinson , that I have not had a drain
for two days. It's not drink. I don't know what it is. I suppose
you think this is drink." He took up my hand in his burning
grasp, and passed it over his own forehead.
" Great Lord ! " said I.
His skin felt like a thin sheet of velvet beneath which lies a
close packed layer of small shot. It was smooth to the touch at any
one place, but, to a finger passed along it, rough as a nutmeg grater.
" It's all right," said he, smiling at my startled face. " I've
had the prickly heat nearly as bad."
" But this is never prickly heat."
DE PROFUNDIS. 153
"No, it's London. It's breathing bad air. But to-morrow

it'll be all right. There's a surgeon aboard , so I shall be in safe
hands. I must be off now."
" Not you," said I , pushing him back into a chair. " This is
past a joke. You don't move from here until a doctor sees you.
Just stay where you are." I caught up my hat, and rushing
round to the house of a neighbouring physician, I brought him
back with me. The room was empty and Vansittart gone. I
rang the bell. The servant said that the gentleman had ordered
a cab the instant that I had left, and had gone off in it. He had
told the cabman to drive to the docks .
" Did the gentleman seem ill ? " I asked .
" Ill ! " The man smiled . " No, sir, he was singin ' his ' ardest
all the time."
The information was not as reassuring as my servant seemed
to think, but I reflected that he was going straight back to the
Eastern Star, and that there was a doctor aboard of her, so that
there was nothing which I could do in the matter. None the less,
when I thought of his thirst, his burning hands, his heavy eye ,
his tripping speech , and lastly, of that leprous forehead , I carried
with meto bed an unpleasant memory of my visitor and his visit.
At eleven o'clock next day I was at the docks, but the Eastern
Star had already moved down the river, and was nearly at Graves-
end. To Gravesend I went by train, but only to see her topmasts
far off, with a plume of smoke from a tug in front
" ONLY TO SEE HER TOPMASTS FAR OFF."
of her. I would hear no more of my friend

until I rejoined him at Falmouth. When I
got back to my offices a telegram was await-
ing for me from Mrs. Vansittart, asking me
to meet her, and next evening found us both
at the Royal Hotel, Falmouth, where we were
to wait for the Eastern Star. Ten days passed, and there came
no news of her.
They were ten days which I am not likely to forget. On the
very day that the Eastern Star had cleared from the Thames, a
154 THE IDLER.
furious easterly gale had sprung up, and blew on from day to day
for the greater part of a week without the sign of a lull . Such a
screaming, raving, longdrawn storm has never been known on the
southerly coast . From our hotel windows the sea view was all
banked in with haze, with a little rain - swept half circle under our
very eyes, churned and lashed into one tossing stretch of foam .
So heavy was the wind upon the waves that little sea could rise ,
for the crest of each billow was torn shrieking from it, and lashed
broadcast over the bay. Clouds , wind , sea , all were rushing to the
west, and there, looking down at this mad jumble of elements , I
waited on day after day, my sole companion a white, silent woman,
with terror in her eyes , her forehead pressed ever against the bar of
the window, her gaze from early morning to the fall of night fixed
upon that wall of grey haze through which the loom of a vessel
might come. She said nothing, but that face of hers was one long
wail of fear.
On the fifth day I took counsel with an old seaman . I should
have preferred to have done so alone, but she saw me speak with
him, and was at our side in an instant, with parted lips and a
prayer in her eyes .
"Seven days out from London ," said he, " and five in the
gale. Well, the Channel's swept as clear as clear by this wind .
There's three things for it. She may have popped into port on
the French side . That's like enough ."
“ No , no, he knew we were here . He would have tele-
graphed ."
" Ah, yes, so he would . Well then , he might have run for it,
and if he did that he won't be very far from Madeira by now.
That'll be it, marm, you may depend ."
" Or else ? You said there was a third chance ."
" Did I, marm. No, only two, I think. I don't think I said
anything of a third. Your ship's out there, depend upon it, away
out in the Atlantic, and you'll hear of it time enough, for the
weather is breaking ; now don't you fret, marm, and wait quiet,
and you'll find a real blue Cornish sky to-morrow. "
The old seaman was right in his surmise, for the next day
broke calm and bright, with only a low dwindling cloud in the
west to mark the last trailing wreaths of the storm wrack. But
still there came no word from the sea, and no sign of the ship .
Three more weary days had passed , the weariest that I have ever
spent, when there came a seafaring man to the hotel with a
letter. I gave a shout of joy. It was from the Captain of the
DE PROFUNDIS.
155
" Eastern Star." As I read the first lines of it I whisked my

hand over it, but she laid her own upon it and drew it away. " I
have seen it," said she, in a cold , quiet voice ; " I may as well see
the rest, too . "
" Dear Sir," said the letter, " Mr. Vansittart is down with the
small -pox, and we are blown so far on our course that we don't
know what to do, he being off his head and unfit to tell us . By
dead reckoning we are but three hundred miles from Funchal , so
I take it that it is best that we should push on there, get Mr. V.
into hospital, and wait in the Bay until you come. There's a sailing
ship due from Falmouth to Funchal in a few days' time, as I
understand. This goes by the brig Marian, ' of Falmouth , and
five pounds is due to the master.
" Yours respectfully, JNO . HINES ."
She was a wonderful woman that, only a chit of a girl fresh
from school, but as quiet and strong as a man . She said nothing
-only pressed her lips together tight, and put on her bonnet.
"You are going out ?" I asked .
" Yes." "
" Can I be of use ?"
" No, I am going to the Doctor's. "
"To the Doctor's ? "
99
" Yes. To learn how to nurse a small - pox case.'
She was busy at that all evening, and next morning we were
off with a fine ten-knot breeze in the barque " Rose of Sharon "
for Madeira. For five days we made good time, and were no
great way from the island , but on the sixth there fell a calm , and
we lay without motion on a sea of oil, heaving slowly, but making
not a foot of weigh.
At ten o'clock that night Emily Vansittart and I stood leaning
on the starboard railing of the poop , with a full moon shining at
our backs, and casting a black shadow of the barque, and of our
own two heads upon the shining water. From the shadow on ,
a broadening path of moonshine stretched away to the lonely sky-
line, flickering and shimmering in the gentle heave of the swell .
We were talking with bent heads, chatting of the calm , of the
chances of wind, of the look of the sky, when there came a sudden
plop, like a rising salmon, and there in the clear light John
Vansittart sprang out of the water and looked up at us.
I never saw anything clearer in my life than I saw that man .
The moon shone full upon him, and he was but three oars' lengths
away. His face was more puffed than when I had seen him last,
156 THE IDLER.
mottled here and there with dark scabs , his mouth and eyes open
as one who is struck with some overpowering surprise. He had
some white stuff streaming from his shoulders, and one hand was
raised to his ear, the other crooked across his breast. I saw him
leap from the water into the air, and in the dead calm the waves
of his coming lapped up against the sides of the vessel. Then his
figure sank back into the water again, and I heard a rending,
crackling sound like a bundle of brushwood snapping in the fire
upon a frosty night. There were no signs of him when I looked
again, but a swift swirl and eddy on the still sea still marked the
spot where he had been. How long I stood there, tingling to
my finger-tips, holding up an unconscious woman with one hand ,
clutching at the rail of the vess´ with the other, was more than
I could afterwards tell . I had been noted as a man of slow and
unresponsive emotions, but this time at least I was shaken to the
core. Once and twice I struck my foot upon the deck to be certain
that I was indeed the master of my own senses , and that this was
not some mad prank of an unruly brain. As I stood, still marvel-
ling, the woman shivered, opened her eyes, gasped, and then stand-
ing erect with her hands upon the rail, looked out over the moonlit
sea with a face which had aged ten years in a summer night.
" You saw his vision ? " she murmured .
" I saw something."
" It was he. It was John. He is dead."
I muttered some lame words of doubt.
" Doubtless he died at this hour," she whispered . " In hospital
at Madeira. I have read of such things. His thoughts were with
me. His vision came to me. Oh, my John , my dear, dear , lost John !"
She broke out suddenly into a storm of weeping, and I led her
down into her cabin , where I left her with her sorrow. That
night a brisk breeze blew up from the east, and in the evening of
the next day we passed the two islets of Los Desertos , and
dropped anchor at sundown in the Bay of Funchal. The
Eastern Star lay no great distance from us, with the quarantine
flag flying from her main, and her Jack half way up her peak.
"You see," said Mrs. Vansittart quickly. She was dry-eyed
now, for she had known how it would be.
That night we received permission from the authorities to move
on board the Eastern Star. The Captain , Hines, was waiting
upon deck with confusion and grief contending upon his bluff face
as he sought for words with which to break this heavy tidings,
but she took the story from his lips.
DE. PROFUNDIS. 157
"I know that my husband is dead , " she said. " He died
yesterday night, about ten o'clock, in hospital at Madeira, did he
not ? "
The seaman stared aghast.
16
No, marm , he died eight days
ago at sea, and we had to bury
him out there, for
we lay in a belt
of calm , and
could not say
હજી સરખ
"WE HAD TO BURY HIM OUT THERE."

when we might make the land."
Well, those are the main facts about the death of John
Vansittart, and his appearance to his wife somewhere about
lat. 35 N. and long. 15 W. A clearer case of a wraith has
seldom been made out, and since then it has been told as such,
and put into print as such, and endorsed by a learned society as
such, and so floated off with many others to support the recent
theory of telepathy. For myself I hold telepathy to be proved,
but I would snatch this one case from amid the evidence, and say
that I do not think that it was the wraith of John Vansittart, but
John Vansittart himself whom we saw that night leaping into the
moonlight out of the depths of the Atlantic. It has ever been my
belief that some strange chance, one of these chances which seem
so improbable and yet so constantly occur, had becalmed us over
the very spot where the man had been buried a week before. For
158 THE IDLER .
the rest the surgeon tells me that the leaden weight was not too
firmly fixed, and that seven days bring about changes which are
wont to fetch a body to the surface. Coming from the depth
which the weight would have sunk it to, he explains that it might
well attain such a velocity as to carry it clear of the water. Such
is my own explanation of the matter, and if you ask me what then
became of the body, I must recall to you that snapping, crackling
• sound, with the swirl in the water. The shark is a surface feeder
and is plentiful in those parts.
SPENLOW AND JORKINS.

The
Terrible experience of Plodkins.

BY ROBERT BARR .
ILLUSTRATED BY GEO. HUTCHINSON .
" Which-life or death-'tis a gambler's chance !

Yet unconcerned we spin and dance
On the brittle thread of circumstance."
UNDERSTAND that Plodkins is in the

I habit of referring sceptical listeners to me,
and telling them that I will substantiate every
word of his story. Now, this is hardly fair of
Plodkins . I can certainly corroborate part of
what he says, and I can bear witness to the
condition in which I found
him after his ordeal was
over. So I have thought
it best, in order to set my-
self right with the public,
to put down exactly what
occurred. If I were asked
whether or not I believe Plodkins's
story myself, I would have to
answer that sometimes I believe it
and sometimes I do not. Of course,
Plodkins will be offended when he
reads this ; but there are other things
that I have to say about him which will
perhaps enrage him still more, yet they
are the truth. For instance, Plodkins
can hardly deny, and yet probably he
will deny, that he was one of the most
talented drinkers in America. I venture
to say that every time he set foot in
" HE DID LITTLE ELSE BUT DRINK
AND SMOKE.""1 Liverpool, coming East, or in New
York, going West, he was just on the
verge of the delirium tremens, because, being necessarily idle
during the voyage, he did little else but drink and smoke. I never
160 THE IDLER .
knew a man who could take so much liquor and show such
little result from it. The fact was that in the morning Plodkins
was never at his best, because he was nearer sober than in any
other part of the day, but after dinner a more entertaining, genial ,
generous, kind-hearted man than Hiram Plodkins could not be
found anywhere .
I want to speak of Plodkins's story with the calm , dispassionate
manner of a judge rather than with the partizanship of a favourable
witness ; and although my allusion to Plodkins's habits of intoxica-
tion may seem to him defamatory in character and unnecessary,
yet I mention them only to show that something terrible must
have occurred in the bath-room to make him stop short. The
extraordinary thing is from that day to this Plodkins has not
touched a drop of intoxicating liquor, which fact in itself strikes
me as more wonderful than the story he tells.
Plodkins was a frequent crosser on the Atlantic steamers . He
was connected with commercial houses on both sides ofthe Atlantic ,
selling in America for an English house, and buying in England
for an American establishment. I presume it was the experiences
in selling goods that led to his terrible habits of drinking. I
understood from him that out West, if you are selling goods , you
have to do a great deal of treating, and every time you treat
another man to a glass of wine, or a whiskey cocktail , you have , of
course, to drink with him. But this has nothing to do with
Plodkins's story .
. On an Atlantic liner, when there is a large list of passengers ,
especially of English passengers, it is difficult to get a convenient
hour in the morning at which to take a bath . This being the
case, the purser usually takes down the names of applicants and
assigns them a particular hour. Your hour may be, say, seven
o'clock in the morning. The next man comes on at half-past
seven, and the third man at eight, and so on . The bathroom
steward raps at your door when the proper time arrives , and
informs you that the bath is ready. You wrap a dressing-gown
or a cloak around you and go along the silent corridors to the
bath-room , coming back, generally before your half-hour is up ,
like a giant refreshed .
Plodkins's bath hour was seven o'clock in the morning. Mine
was half-past seven . On the particular morning in question , the
bath-room man did not call me, and I thought he had forgotten, so
I passed along the dark corridor and tried the bath-room door. I
found that it was not bolted, and as everything was quiet inside,
THE TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE OF PLODKINS. 161
I entered . I thought nobody was there, so I shoved the bolt in

the door and went over to see if the water had been turned on.
The light was a little dim, even at that time of the morning, and
I must say I was horror - stricken to see lying in the
bottom of the bath-tub, with his eyes
fixed on the ceiling, Plodkins . I am
quite willing to admit that I was never
so startled in my life. I thought at
first Plodkins was dead, notwith-
standing his open eyes staring at the
ceiling, but he murmured in a sort
of husky, far-away whisper,
"Thank God," and then closed
his eyes .
"What's the matter, Plod-
kins," I said ; 66 are you ill ?
What's the matter with you ?
Shall I call for help ? "
A feeble negative motion f INFORMS YOU THAT THE BATH
of the head was all the answer. IS READY ."
Then he said in a whisper, " Is the door bolted ?!
"Yes," I answered. After another moment's pause,
I said :
" Shall I ring and get you some whiskey or brandy ? "
Again he shook his head.
(6
Help me to get up," he said, feebly. He was very much
shaken, and I had some trouble alone in getting him up and
seating him on the one chair that was in the room .
"You had better come to my state-room," I said. " It is
nearer than yours . What has happened to you ? "
He replied , " I will go in a moment. Wait a minute." And
I waited.
" Now," he continued , when he had apparently pulled himself
together a bit, " just turn on the electric light, will you ? "
I reached up to the peg of the electric light, and turned it on.
A shudder passed over Plodkins's frame, but he said nothing.
He seemed puzzled , and once more I asked him to let me take
him to my state-room, but he shook his head.
" Turn on the water." I did so.
" Turn out the electric light." I did that also . 66"Now," he
added, " put your hand in the water and turn on the electric light. "
I was convinced Plodkins had become insane, but I recollected
162 THE IDLER.
I was there alone with him, shaky as he was, in a room with a

bolted door, so I put my fingers in the water, and attempted to
turn on the electric light. I got a shock that was very much
greater than that I received when I saw Plodkins lying at the
bottom of the bath-tub. I gave a yell and a groan, and staggered
backwards. Then Plodkins laughed a feeble laugh.
" Now," he said, " I will go with you to your
state room."
The laugh seemed to have braced up
Plodkins like a glass of liquor would have
done, and when we got to my state-room he
was able to tell me what had happened . As
a sort of preface to his remarks , I would
like to say a word or two about that bath-
tub. It was similar to bath - tubs on
board other steamers, a great and
very deep receptacle of solid marble.
There were different nickel- plated
taps for letting in hot or cold water,
or fresh water or salt water as was
desired ; and the escape pipe, instead
of being at the end, as it is in most bath-
tubs, was in the centre. It was the custom
of the bath-room steward to fill it about half
full of water at whatever temperature you
desired . Then, placing a couple of towels
tt
on the rack, he would go and call the man

Fa
whose hour it was to bathe.

Plodkins said : " When I went in there
everything appeared as usual, except that
" I TRIED THE BATH ROOM the morning was very dark. I stood in the
DOOR "1 bath- tub, the water reaching nearly to my
knees , and reached up to turn on the
electric light. The moment I touched the brass key I re-
ceived a shock that simply paralysed me. I think liquor has
something to do with the awful effect the electricity had upon me,
because I had taken too much the night before, and was feeling
very shaky indeed , but the result was that I simply fell full
length in the bath-tub just as you found me. I was unable to
move anything except my fingers and toes . I did not appear to be
hurt in the least, and my senses, instead of being dulled by the
shock, seemed to be preternaturally sharp, and I realised in a
THE TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE OF PLODKINS. 163
moment that if this inability to move remained with me for five

minutes I was a dead man-dead, not by the shock, but by
drowning. I gazed up through that clear green water, and I could
see the ripples on the surface slowly subsiding after my plunge
into the tub. It reminded me of looking into an aquarium . You
know how you see up through the water to the surface with the
bubbles rising to the top. I knew that
nobody would come in for at least half-
an-hour, and even then I couldn't remem-
ber whether I had bolted the door or not.
Sometimes I bolt it, and sometimes I
don't. I didn't this morning as it happens.
All the time, I knew that strength was
slowly returning to me, for I continually
worked my fingers and toes, and now the
strength seemed to be coming up to my
wrists and arms . Then I remembered
that the vent was in the middle
of the bath-tub, so, wriggling my
fingers around, I got
hold of the ring and
pulled up the plug.
In the dense silence
that was around me I
could not tell whether
the water was running
out or not, but gazing
up towards the ceiling,
I thought I saw the surface
gradually sinking down and
down and down. Of course o
Gr
it couldn't have been more
than a few seconds, but it "I WAS NEVER SO STARTLED IN MY LIFE."
seemed to be years and
years and years . I knew that if once I let my breath go
I would be drowned merely by the spasmodic action of my lungs
trying to recover air. I felt as if I should burst. It was a match
against time, with life or death as the stake. At first, as I said, my
senses were abnormally sharp, but by-and-bye I began to notice
that they were wavering. I thought that the glassy surface of the
water which I could see above me was in reality a great sheet of
crystal that someone was pressing down upon me, and I began to
164 THE IDLER.
think that the moment it came down I should smother. I tried to

struggle, but was held by a grip of steel . Finally, this slab
of crystal came down to my nose and seemed to split apart. I
could hold on no longer, and, with a mighty expiration , blew the
water up towards the ceiling and drew in a frightful smothering
breath of salt water, that I blew in turn upwards, and the next
breath I took in had some air with the water. I felt the water
tickling the corners of my mouth, and receding slower and slower
down face and neck. Then I think I must have become insensible
until just before you entered the room . Of course there is some-
thing wrong with the electric fittings, and there is a leak of
electricity, but I think liquor is at the bottom of all this. I don't
think it would have affected me like this if I had not been soaked
in whiskey ."
" If I were you," I said, " I would leave whiskey alone."
" I intend to," he answered solemnly, " and baths, too."
FREDMILLER
COUNTY COUNCILLORS
More Choice Blends.
By W. A. DUNKERLEY.
APITAL AND LABOUR blend well on the whole-much better

@
than one would have expected -Capital is undoubtedly the
gainer. An argument on the collar and tie question seems to have
ended in a compromise the result of arbitration probably. If
future conflicts result in a like profuse display of clean collar, the
public will have no cause to complain.
HENRY-EDMUND . -Peace , gentle peace ! No more little
slips on absolutely unimportant details of current gossip. No
more mildly caustic corrections. The hatchet is buried . They
are one ; one in thought, &c. , &c. They wear the same coat-
Henry's by the way ; they enjoy the same beard-again Henry's ;
but, with unwonted modesty, Henry's sprightly spirit conceals
itself behind Edmund's more materialised charms and double chin.
Blended they may be bright, but the most inveterate li- art critic
would hardly call them beautiful.
THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT.-Tennyson's wonderful

dome, with its straggling fringe and lowering brows , his negligent
attire and appalling collars, are the very antithesis of Browning's
clean-cut polished air de grand seigneur. Yet the camera blends
them admirably . Tennyson's brow furrows with some of
Browning's carefulness ; Browning's eyes deepen with some of
Tennyson's superabundant thoughtfulness . The lap- eared collars
and unbuttoned vest assert themselves as the true poetic
habiliments.
We're the LORD CHANCELLOR .-The stage wins the day in

the upper part of the face, and the wrinkles carry all before them .
But the real Lord Chancellor's grave mouth freezes out the genial
Grossmith smile and gives his united Lordship the appearance of
painfully struggling to repress a sneeze, or of suddenly recalling
the comic side of his character during the reading of family
prayers .
166 THE IDLER.
CAPITAL LABOUR.
COL. NORTH JOHN BURNS
From photos by the Stereoscopic Co., Regent Street, W.
A CAPITAL- LABOUR REPRESENTATIVE.

JOHN NORTH-BURNS.
Composite Photo by Boning and Small Baker Street, W
CHOICE BLENDS. 167
"HENRY." "EDMUND."
EDMUND YATES.
HENRY LABOUCHERE.
From a photo by Elliott and Fry, From a photo by Elliott and Fry,
Baker Street, W.
Baker Street, W.
"HENRY-EDMUND."
HENRY EDMUND LABOUCHERE-YATES.
Composite photo by Boning and Small, Baker Street, W.
168 THE IDLER.
THE LONG. THE SORT.

LORD TENNYSON. ROBERT BROWNING.
From a photo by Barraud, Oxford Street. W. From a photo by Barraud, Oxford Strect, W.
THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT.

BROWNING- TENNYSON.
CHOICE BLENDS. 169
"I'M THE LORD CHANCELLOR !" "I'M THE LORD CHANCELLOR !!"
GEORGE GROSSMITH. LORD HALSBURY.
From a photo by Elliott and Fry, From a photo by Russell and Sons,
" WE'RE THE LORD CHANCELLOR !! "

< GROSSMITH- HALSBURY.
Mr. Presterton .
WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY J. T. SULLIVAN.
S a physician, I have always taken the deepest interest in

practical experiments tending to the relief of suffering.
RⓇ There are few known poisons, and ( I believe I may say)
no known anæsthetics, which I have not at some period or other
tried upon myself. I believe my health has permanently suffered
in consequence ; but holding this sacrifice to be a duty of my
calling, I never allow that consideration to stand in my way.
I was in the act of trying the effect of a mild subcutaneous
injection of a new anæsthetic upon myself, when my boy came up
to my consulting room with a card . On it was " Bartholomew
Presterton ."
" Good morning-good morning ! " said Mr. Presterton . " Not
SULLIVAN
" GOOD MORNING !" SAID MR. PRESTERTON.

MR . PRESTERTON. I7I
busyjust this moment ? No. Well, I daresay you are aware that
I have the pleasure of being your next-door neighbour, lately
moved in ; and I thought I ought to call just to have a neigh-
bourly chat—er, that is, to express a hope that you have suffered
no annoyance from-from the-er-the grandfather's clock ticking
in my hall. Some persons are greatly disturbed by the ticking of
a clock."
As our villas stood at least forty feet apart it seemed hardly
necessary to assure him that the clock caused no annoyance.
My visitor was one of the strangest- looking persons I had ever
seen- more like a goblin than a man . He was very short and
absurdly plump ; his legs were extraordinarily short, small , and
bandy ; his ears enormous and aggressive ; he had a dreadful
squint, and a vast mouth ; he was perfectly bald with the excep-
tion of two sharp tufts of hair like horns over his ears ; his hands
and feet were large out of all proportion to him ; and yet he had
such a chubby, amiable face, characterised by an expression of
such boundless goodwill , geniality, and sympathy, that I loved
him at the first glance . He bellowed like a buccaneer ; but his
great voice had nothing unpleasant in its tones, being filled with
good humour and kindliness .
" Ah ! so glad to hear it," said he. " It's a great relief to my
mind. I often say to my daughter Amy-dear good child Amy,
6
and so like her poor mother-I often say, Amy, one has a
duty towards one's neighbours . One must always consider one's
neighbours . Most excellent girl is Amy- my only comfort.
• Now, I have no doubt that, as an eminent physician,
you come across many interesting cases-ah, severe and difficult
cases such as a medical man may gain great credit in curing ."
""
This man had evidently come to 66 pump me about some-
thing or other but he seemed such a pleasant fellow, and had
such a genial eye and winning manner, that I really could not
snub him .
" Such cases often occur, of course," I replied . " I have
certainly had to do with several very curious ”
" Ah ! just so," said Mr. Presterton eagerly, and drawing
his chair close to mine : " Easily contracted- and very severe
and painful - dangerous , you know, difficult to diagnose-and
apparently defying all the resources of medical skill, eh ? And
yet curable by a person who can manage to get at the clue of the
thing. A nice case that would create a widespread and absorbing
interest, and bring great glory to the doctor who should cure it ,
eh ? That's the sort of thing I want-oh- er- that is, I mean to
172 THE IDLER.
say, such cases are always most interesting, and-most interest-

ing."
Mr. Presterton seemed to be swelling before my eyes in his
tremulous eagerness ; his eyes , squint and all , seemed to grow as
large as plates ; he seemed to touch the walls and ceiling ; I
rubbed my eyes severely-
no, he had reassumed his
original proportions .
" I was not aware you
were a medical man your-
self, Mr. Prester-
ton," I said .
"Natur ally we all
welcome such
cases : but when
you say you want
such a case, do I
understand you to
99
imply-
" Eh ? Did I
say 'want ' ? Oh ,
no ; of course , I
" MR. PRESTERTON SEEMED TO BE SWELLING."
didn't mean that.
I'm not a medical man ; quite an amateur-quite an amateur ;
but- ah-interesting cases have always had a great fascination
for me."
I began to think this man wanted to murder somebody or
other but really his eye was so genial and his manner so winning !
He perceived my suspicions, and began to enlarge again with
horror, while his eyes threatened to shoot out and hit me.
" My dear sir, let me implore-let me beseech you not to
66 Dear,
believe I could be guilty of such a thought !" said he.
dear ! But now, about this disease ?"
He clutched my arm, causing positive pain in it in his eager-
ness he fixed on me one great round eye close to my face. Was
it really as large as a plate ? No - I rubbed my eyes again-it was
of the ordinary size . I gazed at him searchingly : no, he was not
a man who would want to murder people : he was a good fellow.
"Well , " I said , " I did know of such a case in India once.
It was a most remarkable case. At first a feverish restlessness
and inclination to insomnia, with a tickling sensation under the
heels ; followed by intervals of spasmodic action of the epiglottis ;
MR. PRESTERTON. 173
finally partial paralysis of the eyelids , the flexor muscles and the
muscles surrounding the spinal column ; disappearance of the
synovial fluid and ossification of the joints , partial deafness ,
epileptic fits and giddiness ; the whole accompanied by uninter-
mittent racking headaches, insomnia, excruciating pains in the
brain, behind the ears , under the diaphragm , and along the spine,
together with an intense and agonising tickling sensation under
the heels and in the palms of the hands ; and unquenchable thirst ,
nausea, heartburn , and fits of delirium-— ”
Mr. Presterton was rubbing his hands as if with intense satis-
faction ; his joyful grin seemed to expand to the walls and beyond
them ; he seemed to vibrate with joy until I could hardly see him.
"Capital ! The very thing ! " he said. " The sort of disease to
make a name for itself, and attract universal attention ." Then
his face suddenly fell as he said : " But perhaps you published a
book about that case, and it's well known now ? "
At this thought he seemed to be growing thinner and thinner-
to be sinking into his chair like a limp ag, and drying into a mere
husk. Again I rubbed my eyes, and pinched myself ; and the
man sat there in his natural aspect .
" No," I replied , " I did not. It occurred in a remote Indian
village, and hardly a soul knew of it but myself. It gave me a
deal of trouble-in fact, I am convinced that it would have foiled
all my efforts had I not, by the merest accident, discovered the
origin of it, and thus the clue to its cure."
“ Wonderful ! a most showy disease—the very thing ! " ex-
claimed Mr. Presterton excitedly, jumping up and clutching my
hand warmly. 66' My very dear sir-one more favour- tell me
how this disease is to be contracted ."
I shrank back from him. " I must decline, " I said, " to
place in your hands a piece of knowledge which might enable you
to-hang it , sir ! What on earth can be your motive in wanting
to know 99
Again I caught his genial eye, and was disarmed . " Oh , well, "
I said, " it's very foolish of me, but I will tell you the disease
was caused by repeatedly eating a certain fungus closely resembling
a mushroom in shape, but distinguished by bright green and
crimson spots."
" And the method of cure ? " said Mr. Presterton in his winning
way, again rising and swelling, swelling, swelling until he spread
all round and over me. I have always been weak-mindedly open
to persuasion ; I went and found the old diary which I had kept
174 THE IDLER .
in India, copied out my treatment of the case, and gave him the
copy and, with overpowering expressions of gratitude, he went
home ; or, rather, he floated out of the door , and was gone .
I was unable to sleep for a week or more after that, by reason
of anxiety about the foolish thing I had done ; and at the end of
that time I rushed round to my neighbour's house and rang the
bell. I nearly fell over the servant who opened the door, in my
anxiety to see Mr. Presterton ; and when she opened his room
door to announce me, I pushed her aside and dashed in.
I was conscious of a pretty girl - evidently his daughter
Amy-weeping hysterically on the mat, and holding out her hands
supplicatingly. Mr. Presterton seemed confused . The room
was like an oven, by reason of an enormous fire and no ventila-
tion ; and on a side table was a basket filled with fungi of
the shape of mushrooms, but spotted with green and crimson .
Mr. Presterton and I stared at each other for half a minute.
He was strangely altered ; much thinner and haggard, with
blue rings round his eyes , which were more prominent than ever.
His voice was far less powerful than before, and he kept his hand
upon the fifth button of his waistcoat as though he had a pain
there. He commenced a horrible grimace, which gradually
developed and grew as his smile had in the previous interview,
and was accompanied by a terrifying howk
" Well, the cat's out of the bag, doctor, " he said at last on
recovering himself, " and it can't be helped. But look here— I
don't know what's wrong-the symptoms don't seem to come
right yet. I've had some of the nausea-—a good deal of it ; and
I thought once that I had arrived at the sensation under the heel,
but it was only a tack on the floor-
66
' My good sir ! " I screamed , " I don't know whether you are
mad or not ; but I'm not. Do you suppose I'm going to allow
you to commit suicide in this- -How much of these horrible
fungi have you eaten ? "
" Oh, very little-very little indeed, " said Mr. Presterton .
"You see I wanted to see first whether I had got hold of the right
ones. I had a long search in the woods to find these . Do you
know, I fancy I've got on the right track- wait a bit—isn't that a
sensation under my left heel ? ”
Mr. P.'s features were lighted up with an expression of intense
hope and joy, which suddenly changed to a grimace worse than
the latest he howled . I suddenly threw the fungi on the glowing
fire, and threw open the window.
MR. PRESTERTON. 175
" And what on earth can be your reason for cooking yourself
93
in this way-
"Well, you see, " said Mr. Presterton , ruefully attempting to
dig the fungi out of the fire ; " I thought that, as your case
occurred in India , perhaps a high temperature was necessary for
99
the development of the-
" Sir ! " I broke in, " as I said before, I don't know whether
you are mad ; but I am not going to calmly stand by and allow
you to commit suicide."
" Suicide ! I ? " said he. " Bless my soul ; nothing's further
from my mind ! I see I shall have to tell you all about it .
Perhaps you have heard of young Dr. Winter, sir. No ? Ah,
well, well - I was afraid not ! That's just it, sir : nobody has heard
of him. He's engaged to Amy-sweet good girl Amy : adores
the young man . Hasn't had his chance yet ; as clever a boy as
ever breathed ; but he shall have his chance yet—I'll manage it !
Doctor, that young man's father was the best soul that ever
breathed ; and I injured him : first of all I married the lady he
had set his mind on (though I didn't know it at the time) —
sweetest woman that ever lived —and then I got an appointment he
had greatly desired , and they wouldn't let me give it up to him-they
refused , sir, on the absurd pretext that he wasn't so well qualified for
it as I ! —and finally an old uncle of ours left his property to my girl
Amy, instead of to him . That settled him , sir : he wouldn't
accept half the property from Amy, and be comforted : no, he died
of chagrin complicated by a bad cold which flew to the lungs . I
was paralysed with remorse, and solemnly vowed to myself to
make what reparation I could to the son he left-young George ;
young Dr. Winter-as good and clever a young man as ever——
Well, doctor, that poor boy does not seem to get on and
when I see such a lot of illness wasted on blind, perverse people
who can't recognise the cleverness of that boy , and call him in, I
am really tempted to find fault with the way the blessings of this
world are distributed ! " There he paused to howl deafeningly.
" Doctor, I have tried hard to give that poor boy a lift in his
profession : I once pretended to have a fit in the midst of a solo at
the Albert Hall in order that he might be mentioned in the papers
as ' treating the case with his well- known skill " ; I have, unknown
to him, distributed handbills about his neighbourhood recom-
mending the inhabitants to deal with no other doctor, and see that
they get him ; but Fate seems against him !
" But I see the way to do it. What the boy requires is a great
176 THE IDLER.
hit ; and this disease of yours is the very thing. Don't you think,
perhaps, if I tried again-with more fungi and a bigger fire ? "
I shrugged my shoulders and said I washed my hands of any
such business ; but, before I departed , Mr. Presterton had besought
me so earnestly, with tears in his eyes, to say nothing about the
affair to a soul, that
I had weakly pro-
mised . However ,
I decided to quietly
keep my eye on Mr.
Presterton . I gave
him an antidote,
and left.
The next time
I dropped in to see
SD
-
him he was in a very

despondent state of
mind ; the fungus case
had refused to develop itself, although
(as he assured me with satisfaction) " HE PAUSED TO HOWL DEAFENINGLY."
the attempt had made him sufficiently unwell to give the poor lad
some capital practice in getting him right . " I made the most of
it, you know," said he. Played him a bit-let him try to guess
what I had taken, for I wasn't going to tell him and spoil it.
Capital practice for a young man . Had a whole set of pains, too—
well distributed over me, so as to puzzle him, d'ye see ? Particu-
larly severe one in the region of the waistcoat . I played him a
long time with that ; kept leading him off the scent, so that
he only gave me things that made it worse . He hit on it at
last though, and cured it, before I intended him to. I confess
I was a little disappointed about that-but it was capital practice.
MR. PRESTERTON. 177
" I picked up a regular prize the other day-very old medical

book, with all manner of queer diseases in it that you medical
gentlemen have forgotten all about now. Good
workable diseases too, for all that, as far as an
unpretending amateur can presume to make
them out. There's one in that book, fine com-
plicated disorder, that ought to make poor young
George's fortune if I could only catch it. It
says it's to be brought on by wearing wet boots,
and I've kept this pair I have on soaked for
three days ; but, bless you, I've such a con-
founded constitution , sir, that I don't seem to
""
be able to catch anything. Poor George !
To judge by his appearance, Mr. Presterton
was in a fair way to get rid of his constitution ,
and the next time I went in I found him in bed
-and ill this time . Mr. George was
in attendance at his bedside, and Pres-
terton seized a favourable opportunity
to whisper in my ear : " I fancy I've
managed it at last. Seem to have a
regular complication this time, and it
may turn to something remarkable
-something showy, you know, that
will give George his chance at last.
Don't tell him what's the matter, or
he'll cure me at once before the thing
develops , and spoil it all."
1001 * * * *
I was compelled to leave town a
few days after this, and did not see
Mr. Presterton for nearly a year ; but,
as soon as possible , I called . He was
sitting over the fire , with his head
between his fists, and rocking himself ; and
when I entered he glared at me savagely.
" And how are we by this time ? " I asked.
Mr. Presterton thrust his fists deeply into
his pockets, and ground his teeth audibly. He
was a mere skeleton .
" Bad, sir, bad ; and getting steadily
worse," he growled . " That young man, sir-
" CROUND HIS TEETH AUDIBLY."

178 THE IDLER.
I speak of George Winter- shall have his deserts at last. I will

show him up ; publish the story of his incapacity in all the
newspapers : he sha'n't hold up his head again , I can tell you ! "
" Dear me ! " I said, " this is a very extraordinary change on
your part ! " And I definitively decided that Mr. Presterton was
mad-indubitably mad.
66
Yes," he said, " I'm aware you think I've gone mad ; but
I've done nothing of the sort. I've had a shock-that's all. That
young man is a villain ! That young man, sir , persuaded my girl
Amy to hand over her little fortune to him under the pretence of
investing it better for her. I had allowed it all to be invested in
her name, sir, when she came of age -a fool and an idiot, that's
what I am ! As she sold it out without saying a word to me. He
gambled away the lot at cards, and then he threw her over-jilted ,
her ; and she's gone away, and I can't find her ! He's begun to
make his way too -been taken up by some influential people round
his way, and had his name in the newspapers : but I'll show him
up ! "
He began to swell until my head sam ; he towered and
waved over me like a half-filled balloon . I felt tempted to shriek.
" I have a slow and wasting poison inside me-just here where
my thumb is took it by mistake for something else ; but I'm very
glad of it now, as it will come in handily. It's a poison that I
discovered the recipe for in that old medical book ; one of
Lucrezia Borgia's specialities ; and it's very slow and subtle in its
action, and can't be identified, and would puzzle all the doctors in
the world put together. It gnaws and bites, sir, till I jump up and
bang my head against the ceiling with the pain ; and then I
chuckle and gnash my teeth at the thought that that villain George
can't get at it ! Ho ! ho ! "
His eyes rolled faster and faster, until they seemed to whirl so
fast that they became invisible. He rocked himself and roared
with demoniac glee.
" I've asked that young man to come and attend me ! And I
intend to get thinner, and gradually waste away under his very
nose, while he tries vainly to master the case. He shall never
know what the stuff was ; for I've taken care of that by burning
that book it was in ; and I intend to write to the Times regularly
every morning, showing up that young man and denouncing him
for an incompetent impostor . He'll be done for, sir, and go to the
workhouse ; and then I shall expire with great satisfaction . A
villain , sir ! "
MR. PRESTERTON. 179
It was in vain I implored Mr. Presterton to give up this

scheme of vengeance, and to make an attempt to recollect the
constituents of the fatal dose ; he was grimly and gruesomely
determined.
C. George Winter came, and took up his quarters in the house ;
and day by day the patient got visibly thinner ; but in his eye.
there was always a dreadful gleam of satisfaction . He would sit
and taunt young Winter by the hour together with his want of
skill and unfitness for his profession , all the while chuckling inwardly
with horrible glee. " Ho, ho ! " he would gurgle-" You're a fool,
young man ! A pretty doctor, indeed. Why now it's tweaking in
" YOU'RE A FOOL, YOUNG MAN !"
my inside and gnawing under my ribs-and shooting right through

my brain like red - hot darts ! Hi ! After it ! Hullo ! Chevy it round ,
, young man ! It's under my arm now-there it is, down in my
toes ; now it's dodging round behind my ears , and peeping at you ,
and grinning, and calling you a fool. Yah ! You'll never catch it !
Ho , ho ! "
At length he grew so weak that he took to his bed ; and there
he would sit and make faces at the young man, and point a skinny
finger at him, always chuckling inwardly like an exultant fiend ;
and ever and again swelling up in his horrible way, and waving
in the air just below the ceiling.
180 THE IDLER .
At last one night, as I crept softly into the room , George had
fallen asleep in a chair by the fire, from the sheer monotony of
his patient's tirade.
"Yah !" yelled Suddenly the
Mr. Presterton . patient perceived
" Duffer ! Dunce ! that his volleys of
Dunderhead !, A satire were being
deal you know of fired off at deaf
medicine ! Mix'em ears ; his chuckles
all together, young suddenly ceased ;
man, in one big he stretched out a
basin ; and I'll take lean hand for a
' em all at once. paraffin lamp that
Ho , ho ! Here's the stood by the bed ;
— he raised it slowly
pain, young man-
just here, hooting aloft with his re-
at you. Get a maining strength
terrier to ferret it and took deliberate
out, you Winter- aim at the sleeper
he'll do it better -and with the
than you. He ! he! crash that followed
Give me paper and I awoke from the
effects of the anæs-
an envelope to
write to the Lancet thetic.
about you. Quack,
quack, quack ! "
"TOOK DELIBERATE AIM AT

THE SLEEPER."10
66
" Two of a Trade."
By F. W. ROBINSON .
ILLUSTRATED BY THE MISSES HAMMOND .
VOR reasons to be delicately alluded to in due course , I do not

think that George Criddles was such a very bad fellow after
F all . I have been a long time arriving at the conclusion ; it
has taken something like a miracle to impress me with the fact ; it
has been driven home to me by sheer, hard , pulverisable moral
force, but take him altogether now, and I see him-my short,
squat, bow- legged , flat-nosed enemy that he was- in a better and
more becoming light. To think that I should ever live to write this
down and not be ashamed to own it ; to think that George Criddles
should think the same of me , too, considering for how many years
we thirsted for each other's blood —and, ha ! ha ! got it, too !-
is so uncommonly like a fairy tale that it makes George and me
laugh a bit over it when we get a chance and the chance turns
up for laughing on Sunday evenings generally. For George
Criddles and your humble servant, James Tooser, have been
bitter enemies for three-quarters of our mortal lives, and for nigh
on half a century have we two been pegging at one another hard .
The Corsicans have not been in it with us , for a good, square, all-
round obstinate, quarrelsome couple of chaps, who were born
contrary, and went contrariwise for close on fifty years . It's
wonderful, and so George has asked me to write it all down, just
to see how it looks in black and white ; and as George can't write
himself, and is one of those poor things who puts crosses to their
names, the duty has devolved on me. I was always a scholar
compared to Criddles . George sees the mental superiority now,
but it has taken him all his life to find it out. I have known the
time—ah, and not so long ago either-when George has been
heard to say that if ever there was a puffed -up silly idiot
more puffed up and more silly than all the rest of the idiots
resident on the Surrey side of Westminster Bridge it was old
Jemmy Tooser, strike him dead if it wasn't. And why he wasn't
struck dead on the spot for such a rancorous blasphemy, it is not
for a fellow like me to explain. I have only wondered-that's all.
But George Criddles was at his worst then-and so was I ! I own
it. I blush to own it. But this is a simple and candid outpour-
ing of the truth .
182 THE IDLER .
It was the unfortunate lot of George Criddles and myself to be

born down the same court, a long and narrow court which the
curious reader can find for himself in Frazer Street, Lower Marsh ,
if he takes the first turning to the left, and is pretty careful going
down the steps . Being a circumscribed field of operations, and
being, as boys together, left much to ourselves on the cold, wet
pavement, whilst our parents were hawking fish and vegetables
about the Cut, Gecrge and I were thrown together from twelve
months old to three years and a half, and thrown together—
perhaps chucked together is a better word- was not to make us,
in any sense of the phrase, bosom companions, but to engender
in our slight corporeal frames as large a quantity of envy, hatred ,
and malice, as it was possible for nature to pack into our systems.
From our infantine days, when we were very ragged, and smudgy,
and barefooted urchins, we fought each other, cursed each other,
threw every available missile at each other, tore out handfuls of
each other's hair, broke each other's parents' windows, and got
smacked and kicked by each other's
parents indiscriminately, according to
which parent, male or female, hap-
pened to turn up first in the intervals
of business. "Them rips are allus
fightin'," Mrs. Criddles , who
travelled in spring water-
cresses, used to say, " and if
they don't stash it pretty
quick, I'll cut their blessed
livers out." But she
never succeeded ,
though she tried
hard, and so did
mother, and so did
Our respective
fathers when they
were sober- which
was very seldom .
My liver is a bit
enlarged now,
the doctor tells
me, but that's
neither here
nor there, and
" THEM RIPS ARE ALLUS FIGHTIN'," MRS. CRIDDLES USED TO SAY.
" TWO OF A TRADE.” 183
has nothing to do with the story, save that I put it down to rough
treatment in my early years.
I daresay if my parents had stopped much longer in the court ,
George and I might have got over our antipathies, but my mother
died, and my father went to America suddenly and surreptitiously
with another female, and was never heard of more, and I was
taken under the protection of the Lambeth Guardians, who fed
and educated me economically, and after a funny fashion of their
own, Board Schools being not then in existence, and finally pitched
me into the world to earn a living for myself at an extremely early
age. I was apprenticed to a fishmonger in Lambeth Walk before
I was thirteen, and here I came across George Criddles once
more, in exactly the same line of business, too, at a fish-
monger's on the opposite side of the street. George was thirteen
years of age also, and short for his age, but very square . I was
developing into something tall and man-like. George called me
" rushlight," on the strength of it, when he did not call me
66
workus," which was more offensive, and led to blows-to many
blows one afternoon in George Street, Regent Street, where the
life was nearly knocked out of me, after five and twenty rounds ,
and George was in a similar condition, only more " " up to time."
Constable L357 separated us, but had the manliness not to run
us in. He had boys of his own , he told the audience assembled ,
and wished he hadn't. Then he shook us by the throats, knocked
both our heads together, and resumed his beat with dignity. We
had various skirmishes after that too many to particularise-and
then George went away to the West End, and I lost sight of him
again until we were both young men. George had grown up
in an ignorant, happy-go-lucky fashion , and was reputed to be a
man of business-a good seller-and could, if voice went for
anything, make the welkin ring-and the whole street ring,
too with his vociferous demands upon the public attention .
And we both began business in the same street, too — in
Lower Marsh, Lambeth, close to the homes of our infancy.
Somehow and I never could account for this-George Criddles got
on in the world much faster than I did . Superior abilities did not
seem to count, and ignorance had it all its own way, which
bothered me. I had joined a debating club in Gibson Street, and
was inclined to ruminate on the fitness of things when I had the
time to spare, and I could not see any fitness in George Criddles
being thought so much of by his master. He did not deserve it.
There was nothing in George . When we met after business
N
184 THE IDLER.
hours George used to tell me of his rise in wages, of the

superiority of his master's business over my master's -we were
in the fish trade still , and clung to fish with all our mights, and
were fishy from top to toe, and proud of it- until I was fit to boil
with rage . But it was quite true . Jenkins's business was better
than Johnson's. Jenkins was always twenty per cent. fresher in
his sprats, and we could not approach him in winkles. They.
could not approach us for winkles at times , people said ironically.
But that was in the summer days . Johnson , in fact, neglected
LI
V
EE E
LS
4
COD 3
3
business , was too

fond of the Spanish
Patriot and the Mar-
quis of Granby, and
the Three Compasses
42FKE before alluded to.
Jenkins was a total
abstainer, and proud
" MADE HIMSELF SO PLEASANT." of it.
Well, to get to the pith of my story, George Cridles had made
himself so pleasant to old Jenkins, and to old Jenkins's eldest
daughter-whom I liked myself, though she never guessed it, and
" TWO OF A TRADE ." 185
never will now, being dead and gone, poor thing-that he was
actually made a partner in the business before I was foreman
under Johnson . I don't know why I felt this, but I did acutely.
It was because I had known Criddles for so long, and had had a
poor opinion of him for so long too, that my feelings were
" flustered" at the news, and because he was so awful full of it ,
and swaggered about the Cut and Marsh as though the street
belonged to him. He thought too much of himself, George did.
He does now, for the matter of that, but I don't interfere with him.
At seventy-three the steam oozes out of the system , and I am too
old now to put him in his place . When his health gave way, old
Jenkins retired from business , and took a villa on Brixton Hill , Lord
bless you, where all the tradesmen retire to , because it's high and
airy ; and you might have knocked me down with a feather when I
heard that Criddles had married Polly Jenkins, and got his
father-in-law's business into the bargain. He had " worked it to
rights," Criddles had , as it appeared . For appearances are decep-
tive , mind you, and pride goeth before a fall, and serve it jolly
well right, too.
George began to cut too much of a dash after that, and to take
in sporting papers, and he gave me the most patronising of nods
when I came across him in the street, and then his babies turned
up, and the fuss he made over them was enough to make you sick.
He refurnished his drawing-room over the shop, too, and people
who saw it in its prime have told me that it was a blaze of splen-
dour, and had more glass shades and antimacassars in it than the
fancy shop had in the Waterloo Road. I never saw it myself—I
was not one of the privileged ones-oh, no ! All that was for his
sporting friends—the men who gave him tips and laid him odds
—and I was not sorry when I heard that his father-in-law had told
Barnes, the grocer, in the Marsh, that he was afraid George was
going it too fast and holding his head too high. And Jenkins was
right enough, though it did not come to a crisis in his time.
Jenkins died, and left his property to be divided amongst his seven
unmarried daughters , whom he had taken away to Brixton Hill .
George Criddles had had the business , and that was thought
enough for him-more than enough, as it turned out.
Johnson was the next to go off in a fit of delirium tremens. It
was very sudden, and his widow, a woman with two girls of
her own, was a frightful hand at management. Well, I married
Mrs. Johnson. She was fifteen years my senior, but there was no
one understood the business save myself, and it was going to
186 THE IDLER.
rack and ruin , and I did not like to see a lone widow imposed upon.
Johnson had not left his relict any money to boast of. There was
an assurance on his life for two hundred pounds , but he had
borrowed a hundred pounds on the strength of it, and spent it all
on Unsweetened Gin, but the balance came in handy at a pinch
-when we got it.
We were a long time getting that balance, and if George
Criddles had not stepped round one afternoon and offered to
advance it to me, and to wait for the life assurance money to come
in, I don't know what we should have done. I will own that was
a bit friendly of George , at all events it looked like it. People in
the Marsh said it was, but I'm not so sure he didn't want to sneak
the business by degrees, and get the monopoly of all the blessed
fish in the neighbourhood . It was very well to say that
he was sorry for poor Mrs. Johnson. What right had he to be
more sorry than anybody else ? Mrs. Johnson knew how to take
care of herself—at least, she did when she became Mrs. Tooser—
for it was not a happy match for me ; I got the worst of it in the
long run. She wouldn't listen to the voice of wisdom. She
assumed on her superior years, and tried to make a slave of me.
Our first quarrel was over that insurance money, for when it
came in she wished Criddles to be paid right off, without giving
a fellow time to turn round. And that would not do, and I told
her so. I told Criddles so , too, and he was more reasonable and
sensible. He took it back by instalments, so long as I was able
to pay instalments that was, for business got dreadfully bad and
payments were not to be kept up with a wearisome regularity.
His last two or three were not paid until he county-courted me—
an unfriendly proceeding which made us bitter foes for the re-
mainder of our lives almost. I could not abide the sight of
Criddles after that, and I know I was not a pleasing object in his
sight. We took to paying each other out when we got a chance—
that was the beginning of our lasting feud . I should not like to
say now who began it—perhaps it was Criddles, perhaps it was I
who took the initiative ; we have many an argument over that
still, and old Criddles won't give way. He was always a pig-
hreaded fellow was George.
We had jogged along at the fishmongering a good many years
when we took to violent opposition . George Criddles was not
doing so well as he used to do, and half the money that he made
in fish went into the pockets of the betting men, and I know his
wife used to fret a great deal over his goings on. He was as often
on the racecourse as in Billingsgate Market, and this was bad for

trade. He was fool enough to trust anybody who pitched him
a pitiful tale, and Lower Marsh , finding this out, poured all its
confidences and woes into George's bosom, and carried away his
fish on the three years' hire system . And when he ran short of
ready money he used to county court me for one of my instalments,
which was 66 a
so that I paid for his benevolence in the long run ,
pretty fine thing, " as I told Mrs. Tooser and the neighbourhood
in general .
We got to opposition in all its branches, Criddles and I.
Criddles's neglect of business was my opportunity, and I went for it.
I did not know it was going to be such a long affair when I first
sent mackerel down to eight a shilling, to the astonishment of every
fishmonger who wanted fourpence each. I lost by the transaction ,
but my blood was up, and I was reckless. I had just paid one of
the instalments to the receiver at that neat little cottage residence
in the Camberwell New Road , and I knew that Criddles was over-
stocked with mackerel. He came round that evening to inquire if
I had gone out of my mind, and I said, " No, I had not gone out of
that, but I had gone out of mackerel ."
" Oh ! that's it, is it ? " he said, and he went off with a very
malevolent expression . I laughed when he had left me, and Mrs.
Tooser said she did not see what there was to laugh at, as we had
lost money by the transaction . I told her to wait and see, and she
said she hoped she should not live to see me and her and the
children in the workhouse. She did not understand anything
about " catch articles, " poor creature, and how the sale of one thing
under prime cost will often bring a run upon the rest of goods
that are profitable—a law of trade, but it had been more common
amongst linendrapers than fishmongers before then. Mine was
a new departure. " A wilful man must have his way," quoted
Mrs. Tooser, and I certainly had mine-had it all my own way for
a week, and then Criddles, to put it slangily, " chipped in. " He
brought down the price of crabs, and lobsters, and oysters , and whelks ,
and winkles one Saturday night to a figure that I can only term
disgustingly low and ruinous . He gave also a handful of shrimps
away to every purchaser, and he had a hand about the size of a
shoulder of mutton. He had grown a big, coarsely-made man . He
had all the trade that evening, and I was left with my shell-fish
on my hands, and my speciality was shell -fish on Saturdays .
Criddles knew that, and took a mean advantage, and when in
despair I came down to his prices-and fifty per cent. below his
188 THE IDLER.
prices-every human being in the Marsh was supplied and did not
want any more . We opened on Sunday morning, but it was sum-
mer time, and the weather was against us-you could have smelt
our shell-fish at the foot of Westminster Bridge. There was
nothing left for them but decent burial- which took place, with due
solemnity, in the back yard .
But I had my revenge next week- I took it out of him in
herrings, and he retaliated with flounders , and having once tasted
blood, as it were, we never stopped
again. We began to achieve noto-
riety ; people came from Lambeth
Walk and the Borough to deal with
Criddles or Tooser, came for the fun
of the thing, too , and stood in mobs
in the roadway until the police had
to clear the way by brute force. The
costermongers called upon us instead
ofgoing to market, and we had depu-
tations from the trade once a week
begging us to leave off and remonstrat-
ing with us generally, but we kept
on ; we were not going to give in , we
hated each other too much for any
possibility of that kind.
To complicate matters, we found
out about this time that Selina John-
son, a grown-up girl of seventeen, had
become fond of Criddles's eldest son,
SHE HAD GONE DOWN ON HER KNEES TO ME.'"1
a bit of a boy of twenty-one, so far
had time skipped along with us all, and this kind of game had been
going on for years without anyone guessing at it. Criddles was
furious, so was I. Criddles said he'd cut off his son and heir with
a shilling if he thought anything more of that Selina, and I told
Selina one night, after she had gone down on her knees to me and
begged me not to be too hard on the Criddleses- I was getting the
upper hand then-and to let her marry Jack Criddles, and to be
comfortable all round, that I would see Jack Criddles hanged ,
drawn, and quartered before she should have him, or he should
ever darken my doors. Criddles and I had one more point of contact
-we did not want any marriages in the family. Montague and
Capulet were not more fixed in their decree than we were. And it
turned out in much the same way. The young people flew in the
face of all parental and step- parental authority, and got married on
their own account and went clean away to America.
Mrs. Tooser shed tears, and I said it was a good riddance, and
there were some more words , heaps of them, till a letter came from
Selina in America , saying that she was very happy, and that her
Jack had got an excellent situation , and everything was promising,
when Mrs. Tooser was comforted and became only normally
aggravating and contradictory.
And then Criddles " bust up." There came a crisis suddenly,
and he utterly collapsed ; the salesmen were down upon him like
a flash of lightning, and the brokers were in for rent, and the
shutters were up before his old- established fish emporium. George
Criddles was bankrupt from top to toe, and I remember his coming
outside my shop on the day he was done for, and standing before
me with his hands in his pockets, and very much the worse for
the liquor he had had at the Patriot, and saying, " Well , you've
done it at last, Tooser. Ain't you pleased ? Ain't you're going
off your bloomin ' head for joy ? "
" No, I ain't."
" You've ruined me."
" You tried to ruin me."
BEGAN DANCING ROUND ME, AND TELLING ME TO COME ON.''

190 THE IDLER .
" Come round Lucretia Street and have a round or two. Let's
fight it out, you But I will not sully these pages by in-
forming the reader what he said I was . The observation was
uncalled for.
I declined his invitation to go round Lucretia Street, and then
he deliberately took off his coat, gave it to a perfect stranger to
mind-who immediately ran away with it -and began dancing
round me, and telling me to come on ." I did not " come on."
He was much too overgrown now. George Criddles had to be
removed to the Tower Street Station House, and was fined five
shillings in the morning at the police court.
I ought to have prospered with one fishmonger the less about ;
but I did not. Trade did not improve-fresh fishmongers turned
up, bad debts fell in, there was a scarcity of fish, and famine
prices followed, and luck went dead against me somehow ; and
Mrs. Tooser died, and let me in for the funeral expenses , and her
other daughter went away to join the undutiful Selina, and
presently the landlord sent the brokers in to me, too, and sold me
up, lock, stock and barrel. I was as
clean done for as George Criddles.
Like him I faded out of Lower Marsh,
and led a hand to mouth existence
for no end of years ; got old and
scarred, fighting hard to live, had
one or two shopmen's berths , and
was eventually dismissed for not
being as brisk and active enough as
I was when I was five and twenty,
the fools said, and became eventually
a poor, broken-down, dilapidated
coster, still in the fish trade , and
trundling about with a barrow from
early morning till late at night, tak-
ing my " pitch" in East Street, Wal-
worth, or the London Road, and
sometimes , for old associations ' sake,
in the Cut again, and here I came
"A POOR, BROKEN-DOWN COSTER.' upon George Criddles once more,
just as old and grey, and weather-
beaten , and tattered and torn by the claws of bad luck.
66
What, Criddles ! "
"What, Tooser ! "
" TWO OF A TRADE .” Igr
We were almost glad to see each other-it was so like old

times . We said we should not have known each other anywhere,
which was a perfectly ridiculous statement. We had two " nips ”
at the corner pub, and compared notes upon the fish trade, and
upon our bad luck in general . We put our misfortunes down to
each other's opposition , and got a little warm over the discussion ,
and then we went out into the street to sell our goods ,
and, damme, if Criddles did not undersell me with fresh
haddocks before nine o'clock that night. He said he wanted
to sell out and get home, and the haddocks would be no good
to anybody to- morrow, as they had been three days on his
barrow already, trying very hard to look fresh . I told him it was
a paltry excuse, and we exchanged a few words, and I said I
should let him know I was not to be browbeaten , and he told me
to be blowed for an old fool.
After that evening we met each other frequently—we made a
point of meeting each other and underselling each other again.
Our businesses and our barrows were always clashing-where he
went I went, and there was not a round where he did not follow
sharpish. He said it was his round before mine, and that I was
trying to take his " regulars " away frorn him .
I missed him suddenly for some years again . I did not know
what had become of Criddles till I was seventy years of age. I
thought he was dead, or had gone after his son to America , or
something, but I found him at last . Odd it was that I was
always dropping upon Criddles .
We met in Lambeth Workhouse, of all places in the world-of
all the unfortunate and desolate places to meet the companion of
one's youth ! I had come down to parish relief, and then to
rheumatism with no relief, and finally to the House, and there
was Criddles ! You might have knocked me down with a feather
at first sight of him. Gosh ! He had got old and yellow, and
toothless and gummy, poor beggar.
He looked hard at me the first night, but did not speak. In
the morning, after breakfast, he came shuffling towards me and
sat down opposite me, and said , " Is your name Tooser ? "
"Yes it is ."
"How are you ? I'm Criddles ."
"Are you though ? Lord save us. "
"You're looking sadly."
" So are you ."
That was all we said that day, but we became more com-
192 THE IDLER .
panionable afterwards. We were in the same ward, and had to put

up with each other. We did not always quite do that, because,
though bygones were bygones, we were bound to talk of them ,
and Criddles had a nasty way of saying things. We quarrelled
now and then ; who could help it, when the soup was bad or
the victuals not up to the mark ?
" If it hadn't been for you , Tooser, I shouldn't have been
here."
"You TWO SHAKE HANDS, WILL YOU ? " SHE SAID AT LAST.
" If it hadn't been for you, Criddles, I might have been a

wholesaler by this time."
" Don't want any of your bounce, Tooser."
"Don't want any of your lies , Criddles ."

Perhaps we would not speak for a day or two after this , but we
came round by degrees.
" To think I shall have to die in this hole, " Criddles said once ,
savagely.
"Why don't you write to your son in America ? "
" I never forgave him marrying your Selina."
" She wasn't mine, she was Mrs. Tooser's."
" Oh, ah ! So she was. Doesn't she write to you ever ?”
" Never. And I don't want her."
"Too old to be bothered, eh ? "
" I'm not older than you are."
" No- but we're getting on."
Two days afterwards Selina actually came to bother us. She
had found me out somehow-and Jack Criddles , who had sailed
over to England along with her, was waiting in the street, not
having the courage to come in yet. Selina acted the peacemaker
very well, but we were old and contrary, and actually quarrelled
about her and her husband's disobedience before her very face.
" You two shake hands, will you ?" she said at last-" I don't
want my Jack to find you wrangling and going on just as you did
twenty years ago ."
" Is it twenty years since you went away with Jack ? " asked
Criddles.
"Just that- and here's Jack to say how sorry he is," said
Selina, laughing quite merrily.
Jack did not look sorry, and after awhile we were glad enough,
the lot of us. For Jack had come to take his father out of the
workhouse and set him up in a quiet sort of business in
Oakley Street.
" You two had better go into partnership, and then you cannot
have any opposition with each other, " said Jack, " and if the
business does not flourish much, why I'll stand the racket, and it
does not matter."
And that is why the names of Criddles and Tooser are em-
blazoned in letters of gold over the shop-front of the house in
Oakley Street. Criddles has got very old and deaf and feeble-
and is as obstinate and argumentative as ever-but I shall be
sorry when he's gone. Yes, I shall miss him very much !
A SPECTRES
LOMM
BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS .
ILLUSTRATED BY IRVING MONTAGU .
IS quite enough in this materialistic age

to say that I am a ghost for people to
turn up their noses at me ; and when I
add that I am a very second- rate phantom, a
spirit with the most mean spectral privileges , it
will be readily gathered that my position in ghostly
circles is more or less a painful one.
To be plain, I am not an awe- inspiring
apparition in any sense ; I am not even passable ;
I never raised the hair or froze the blood ; adults
gaze unmoved at my most fearsome manifesta-
tions ; children like me.
But I am a right ghost for all that. Time
and space possess no significance for me, and
hundreds of people have mistaken me for lumin-
ous paint after dark. Against these advantages,
however, must be set the unhappy conditions of
smallness and stoutness ; for as in life I had been
of diminutive and plump habit , so did I now re-
main . I am, in fact, a short, fat ghost-a com-
bination of qualities that promised from the first
to be fatal to anything tremendous or out of the
common.
Thus, though I have haunted in all the best
middle-class families, and once or twice taken a
locum tenens among county people ; though I have
foretold deaths, indicated buried treasure, pointed
out secret staircases, corpses and so forth ; though
I have gone through the regular mill, my spirit
has yet failed of acquiring even a reasonable reputation among
men.
For the past fifty years I have dwelt in Herefordshire with
A SPECTRE'S DILEMMA. 195
some pleasant, self-made folks who suit me very well . Capon

Hall is a roomy mansion, possessing architectural advantages
from my point of view, and situated in a somewhat densely-
haunted district. The original owners got themselves destroyed
in the time of Charles I. , and the property, after many fluctuations
of fortune, was ultimately purchased by Mr. John Smithson, a
Manchester man . Here he resided, developed into a good old
Squire of the right sort, and grew popular. He was a widower,
and had two children , Ethel , a girl of eighteen , who lived with
him, and William, a son of two or three and twenty, who entered
the army and went to India. This youth married, became the
father of a daughter, and sent the infant home to Capon Hall .
Now, love may often appear where there is no respect, and when
an element of real human affection entered into my ghostly life, I
found it a comfortable and pleasing thing.
This baby Smithson loved me, and her regard was returned .
Our attachment must be allowed platonic to a degree perhaps
never before imagined , for Winifred has just attained the age of
three years, while I am above three hundred . She is a golden-
haired, sunny little soul, making all the music and laughter of her
home. I am an old , grey ghost, to whom the western wing of
Capon Hall has for fifty years been consecrated .
With an accident to the Squire's daughter, Miss Ethel
Smithson, upon some occasion of fox-hunting, this narrative
properly begins. She suffered an awkward tumble, and the young
man who came to her aid had the good fortune to please the girl
immensely. Squire Smithson, upon the narration of Mr. Talbot
Warren's bravery, could not for the life of him see anything to
make a fuss about. " If a woman falls into a ditch, is it asking
much of the man nearest her at the time to pull her out ? " he
inquired . But Miss Ethel explained that the circumstances were
of a very terrific nature, and how her hero, not content with
seeing that she was safe and sound , had foregone all further sport,
sacrificed his day's pleasure , and insisted on riding with her to the
nearest farmhouse.
She met Mr. Warren again soon afterwards , and continued to
find peculiar pleasure in his society ; while, finally, through
mutual friends, the young man secured an invitation to Capo
Hall for a week's hunting.
He and his horse arrived . He proved uninteresting, and
a sportsman of mean capabilities ; but Ethel Smithson, blind
to the youth's colourless and negative nature , fell violently
196 THE IDLER.
in love with him. Being, moreover, a wilful little soul , who

did pretty much what she liked with a most indulgent parent,
matters went nearly all her own way from the start.
શબીરભા
NSMONTA
"BABY SMITHSON LOVED ME."

But the Squire and Mr. Warren had nothing in common, and ,
at times, their manifold differences of opinion might have produced
serious results save for the younger man's caution . Talbot's
physical nerve was weak, he wanted pluck-a lack that Mr.
Smithson quickly discovered, and made the boy's life a burden to
him .
Ethel always supported the weaker side in the many arguments

arising from this question of bravery ; and , on one occasion , after
the Squire had made some allusions more pointed than polite to his
guest's rapidly acquired knowledge of gaps, gates and like aids to
the judicious Nimrod, Miss Smithson thought proper to drag me
into the conversation .
"How can the wild, reckless courage you admire, papa ,
compare with the cool , mental nerve which may be shown to some
purpose in the useful affairs of life ? How many of the men who
jump over hedges and ditches, and risk their stupid necks before
the gaze of farm yokels, would sleep night after night in a haunted
room , for instance, as Mr. Warren does here ?
" Our ghost ! " roared the Squire. " Our little, plump , rolly-
polly of a ghost ! I'd make a better phantom with a sheet and a
turnip ! "
The man meant nothing ; his remark was not intended
offensively ; but I chanced to be in the drawing -room at the time
(on a little foot- stool by the fire) , and I confess I felt hurt. People
should be careful what they say in a haunted house . I have a
friend , doing some haunting about half a mile from here , who
would come over and punish these people horribly if I wished it .
He belongs to the Reformation period , works between three and
four in the morning , and, during that weird hour , can make a
noise like china falling down a lift. But I am not vindictive . A
phantom rarely reaches the age of three hundred without learning
to control his temper.
" Physical bravery may be shown to greater advantage than in
the hunting field," said Mr. Warren, answering the Squire.
" It may, I grant you , but that is a right good school for it ;
and a man who loses nerve at a critical moment there will, in my
judgment, be likely to do so all through his life. "
" Are there no brave men who do not hunt ?" asked Ethel.
"Thousands , my dear. You give us a beautiful feminine example
of begging the question," answered her parent. " Moral nerve is, I
allow, a greater thing than physical bravery at its best, but courage
of both kinds, according to my old-fashioned notions, should be the
hall-mark of a man."
Talbot expressed a hope that some opportunity might ere long
be given to him.
" I trust a chance of showing you I do not lack either one sort of
bravery or the other will come in my way, Mr. Smithson , " said he.
Then the company retired, and , on the following day, private
198 THE IDLER.
business took Mr. Warren to Hereford for an hour or two. He

returned, however, before luncheon ; and that night transpired the
monstrous event I am now to relate. Although he slept in the
apartment particularly associated with myself, I had not, I may
here explain, vouchsafed an interview to our visitor , for reasons
sufficiently sound. In my opinion, no good would have come of
" I'D MAKE A BETTER PHANTOM WITH A SHEET AND A TURNIP."

it . Mentally , Talbot Warren was not a coward ; and the know-
ledge of this fact, combined with a certain underbred cubbishness
in the young man's treatment of inferiors, led me to suspect some-
thing derogatory to myself did I appear to him ; but, after the
recent conversation , I felt I had no choice.
As the clock struck twelve, therefore, on the night in questio
A SPECTRE'S DILEMMA . 199
made my way through the wash-hand stand in the " Russet Room "
and stood before Talbot Warren . I am nothing by gaslight, and,
to my surprise and irritation , Warren's gas still burnt. He was
dressed and sitting by the fire examining a huge lethal weapon
with two barrels. He looked up and caught my wan, weird eyes
fixed upon him.
66
' Oh, you're the ghost, I suppose ? " he said rather carelessly.
I approached him and endeavoured to touch his brow with my
icy forefinger, but he arose from his chair, regarded me insolently,
and I hate to write it-walked straight through me. I was
never so put out in my life ; I should have hardly conceived such
a thing to be possible ; I nearly choked with indignation . Fo:
sheer, unadulterated vulgarity, the man who intentionally walks
through a ghost may fairly be said to stand alone . You tangible
ponderable people who read cannot remotely imagine my feelings ;
but any spectre will . Revenge was my one idea.
Having, by this outrage, convinced himself of my unsubstantial
nature, the little cad looked me up and down critically and
contemptuously. Then said he : " You can't upset my plans, any-
how."
The knowledge that he had plans comforted me somewhat. That
they were nefarious I gathered from the pistol which he carried ; and
that I would confound and outwit him at all costs I also
determined .
Not until two in the morning did he prepare for action. Mean-
time, rendering myself wholly invisible , I sat on a chest of drawers
and watched him. At the hour named, he shut his book, partially
unrobed, put on his slippers, produced a " jemmy " and a dark
lantern, picked up his weapon , and silently crawled downstairs .
The hideous truth flashed upon me. He was one of some gang
of burglars, and now intended throwing open the house to his
accomplices ! What was to be done ? Our household lay buried in
sleep. Warren stole to the butler's room. Once within it , a stroke
or two from his detestable apparatus would put the plate at his
mercy.
For one brief moment I lost my nerve. The responsibility of
my position was terrible. Then I strung myself to the struggle,
and attacked him. But, in spite of my frantic gesticulations,
aerial gyrations, and supernatural manifestations, the ruffian kept
on his evil way unmoved . dashed about, and tried hard to ma'.c
him get excited and impatient and worried, but he was as cool as
a cucumber, and told me to " keep my hair on, " whatever that
200 THE IDLER.
might mean. Then, realising the futility of this course, I sped

away, faster than thought, to alarm the house.
Squire Smithson was
slumbering noisily on his
right side as I loomed
through the fire-
place of his cham-
ber and laid an
icy digit upon his
brow . He leapt
up instantly, but
laughed when he
saw who it was.
"Hullo, Fatty !
Feeling lonely,
eh? Don't worry
me, my boy, I've
got a busy day
before me to - mor-
row. Stick to
your own room ,
and get a rise
out of that booby
Irving MONTAG Warren . If you
can'tfrighten him,
you'd better give
up the business
I STRUNG MYSELF TO THE STRUGGLE, AND ATTACKED HIM ." andgo backwhere
you came from ."
Then he turned with his face to the wall, and was asleep again
instantly. That is the world all over.
I went and woke the butler. I waved my drapery and pointed
downstairs with actions that spoke louder than words. He sat
up in bed and forgot himself altogether, and used language I shall
not soil this page by repeating. It appeared that he was suffer-
ing from gout, and had only managed to get to sleep a few
moments before I roused him.
" 'Ere ' ave I bin torn to pieces with agony for three mortal
hours, and just drop off, and then you come with your beastly
cold paw and wake me and bring back the torture a thousand
times worse than ever. I'll give warning ; I won't put up with
you and your tomfoolery for any master alive. Why should I ?
Get out of this room, you little brute. Don't stand there waving
about, like a shirt on a clothes-line . Go on, get out of it, or I'll
strangle you ."
I went. It was no good stopping . He couldn't strangle me,
of course ; but it is impossible to explain a difficult thing like
burglary, in pantomime, to a man who can hardly see straight for
temper. I almost wept ghostly tears. Never before had the pathos
and powerlessness of my position been so impressed upon me.
In this sorry plight I sought my little friend Winifred, the
Squire's grand-daughter before mentioned . She was lying wide-
awake, silent and speculative as small children will . I loomed
through a screen, covered with pictures from Christmas numbers ,
and she arose from her cot-a wee, comical white figure, faintly
illumined by a night-light.
" How is you, dear doast ? " she inquired.
My mystic presence always gratified her.
She chuckled and chir-
ruped in baby fashion .
while I beckoned and
moved towards the door.
"You funny old

doast. Stand on
' oo little head ,
doast, like yester-
day in de torridor."
But I wasn't there to
TAC fool . I wanted to get
U her out into the passage,
"YOU FUNNY OLD DOAST." then alarm her nurse and
so the entire house.
" It's too told to do walking to-night, doast," she said.
" Cold !" I doubt if ever a phantom got up to such a temperature
as I did on that occasion.
202 THE IDLER.
Then the nurse awoke, peeped two angry eyes over her counter-
pane and gave me some plainly-worded advice.
" Shame on you , ghost. Aint you got nothing better to do than
scare childer and wake decent women folks . Be off with you, you
old blackguard , or it's a bell, book and candle I'll fetch ." I only
wished she would fetch a bell- and ring it.
" Dood night, dear doast ! " cried my small friend , as I sank
through the floor into the footman's chamber . - Here further failure
awaited me. I could not so much as wake the man. His was no
natural sleep, but some species of loathsome hibernation rather,
entirely beyond my power to conquer or dispel .
And downstairs the inexpressible Warren was filling a sack
with choice spoil and drinking dry sherry from the decanter.
I dashed out of doors to see if anything could be done with the
watch-dog, a massive brute, judged without sufficient reason to be
ferocious . He was asleep, of course, but came forth from his
kennel when I touched his nose, recognised me instantly, wagged
his idiotic tail, and showed an evident desire to be patted . I
couldn't pat him, but I should like to have kicked him, and I'm
not ashamed to say so. Never was a well- meaning apparition
more justified in losing its temper than I on that hateful night . I
tried to rouse the dog's spirit ; I
threw imaginary stones, and frisked
about and pretended to steal its
supper ; but the lumbering brute
regarded me with that good - tem-
pered glance bred from conscious
superiority, and then went back
into its kennel .
I
M
"THAT GOOD-TEMPERED GLANCE BRED FROM

CONSCIOUS SUPERIORITY."
Warren had now taken his sack into the dining - room , had cut
two window-panes out with a diamond (why, I could not at the
time understand) , and then, opening the window widely, lowered
his booty into the garden . I fled out again to strike terror , if
possible, into the hearts of his vile accomplices, but found, to my
surprise, that there were none . Single-handed he was effecting
his dark scheme.
Then a final desperate resolution came to my mind : I would
rouse Miss Ethel Smithson herself, and show her the man she
loved in his true colours .
Even then, my natural kindness of disposition caused me to
hesitate. But if you see , as I did then , love's young dream
drifting into a nightmare, you are justified in shattering it . No
burglar could bring true and lasting happiness into a gentle-
woman's life. That, at least, is my view.
Why, ghost," said Ethel , rubbing her eyes after I had waked
her ; " I don't think it was kind of you to spoil a beautiful dream I
was having about- but never mind, it won't interest you."
I beckoned mystically, and she showed a little interest . I retreated ,
inch by inch, to the door , waving her after me. Hamlet's father's
spirit never did anything better or more solemn and impressive.
By all the curiosity of young ladies, she rose ! She put on a
dressing-gown and slippers ! She said, " Whatever is it ? I do
hope there's nothing happened to Talbot. " My heart bled for her,
but I was firm , and she followed me out on to the dark landing.
A dim light flickered from a doorway far below. This Miss
Smithson instantly observed, and deducing a theory therefrom
with marvellous celerity, had the good sense to cry " Thieves ! "
louder than I should have supposed it possible for her to do so .
Then she bolted into her father's room, made the same remark , and
finally retired to her own apartment , locking the door behind her.
" Alarums and excursions " were thereupon the order of the
night, while the behaviour of the outrageous Warren passed belief.
At the first sound of the tumult , he deliberately fired off his pistol
through the top of his hat, and discharged the other barrel into a
rather valuable hunting picture which hung above the sideboard . He
then leapt through the open window into the garden , rolled himself
in the mud, rose and galloped off into the darkness, shouting " This
way ! Follow me ; I've got the scoundrels ! Help here , help ! "
I need not point out that these expressions were calculated to
give an utterly false impression of the situation and circum-
stances. I had been grossly deceived, as the rest of the family
were now about to be.
204 THE IDLler .
Squire Smithson came down the front stairs with a life pre-
server, and my hibernating footman rushed down the back stairs
with another. The Squire kicked an umbrella - stand with his
This gave
naked foot and stopped a moment to talk to himself.
the menial some advantage of ground , and when the head of the
house reached his dining -room window, he found a man half way
out of it. It was too dark to distinguish friend or foe , and Squire
Smithson, making a dash at the figure, brought down his life pre-
server with considerable brute force. I cannot pretend to say I
was sorry for this. The injured domestic screamed and was about
to beg for mercy, when a mutual recognition occurred , and he con-
tented himself with giving warning. Then they tumbled out of
the window together and hastened to where great shouting arose
from a distant shrubbery. A tramp, hearing the riot, got over
the wall of the kitchen garden at the back of the house to
help, and fell through the roof of a vinery. There he was
ultimately discovered, cut to ribbons, and it took him all his
time for an hour to explain his intentions. The dog, of course ,
began barking now as if he had known all from the first, and only
waited the right moment ; maids were screaming in pairs from
lifferent windows , and some fool in the house (the butler, I
Imagine) was beating the dinner- gong-doubtless to conceal his
own cowardly emotions. For my own part, I was in twenty
places at once, whirling through the dark air, issuing directions,
explaining everything in dumb show, and making the entire concern
as clear as daylight, but nobody paid the slightest attention to me.
Warren at length returned , breathless and bedraggled . He
recovered with great apparent effort, gave utterance to a succession
of dastardly falsehoods, and became the hero of the hour.
The scamp related how a noise had wakened him ; how, see-
ing a light in the hall, he had crept downstairs , to find two
ruffians with black masks lowering a sack of valuables out of the
dining-room window ; how he had hurled himself upon them with
the courage of an army ; how they had twice fired point-blank at
him , and then fled ; how he had followed them, seized one , and
struggled with him ; how, finally, they had succeeded in escaping
from him.
And there was an end of the matter , for , of course, it appeared
impossible to question the truth of the story, or raise any further
Joubt about the moral and physical pluck of a young man who
could do these things.
Next morning the pistol was discovered in the garden ; de-
tectives wandered
about, lunched at
the Squire's ex-
pense, found clues ,
and tookthe address
of the tramp who had
fallen into the green-
house. This man had
departed a physical wreck,
swearing that he would
never put himself out of
the way again for any- " I DON'T THINK IT WAS KIND OF
"1
body as long as he lived . You To SPOIL A BEAUTIFUL DREAM.'
And all because Squire
Smithson did not see his way to recompense him for what
he had done . The local paper published two columns of
sickening adulation upon the subject of Talbot Warren ;
Ethel's father consented to her engagement, and bitterest
blow of all- thought it proper and decent to publicly censure
me at breakfast, before the servants, for the part that I had
played.
"What's the use of a paltry phantom that cannot even
scare burglars away from a family mansion ? " he asked.
"The poor little chap did his best, " said Ethel . .
"Yes, after it was all over and the inischief nearly done.
If he'd had the pluck of a mouse, he would have gone down
to help Warren, instead of fluttering about making faces and
doing nothing, and getting in the way. Why didn't he speak up
like a man ? "
The brute Warren said he thought that most spectres were
bad at heart, and the butler ventured to agree with him .
I am leaving Capon Hall. These incidents have knocked all
the spirit out of me. I wish to say no bitter word of anybody ;
it is more in sorrow than anger that I write ; but misunderstanding
so disgusting, coupled with loss of self-respect so complete, can
neither be lightly forgiven nor forgotten .
Change, repose, lapse of ages are all necessary to the renewal
of my shattered moral tone and vital principle. It may be many
centuries before I re-visit "the glimpses of the moon ." If I
had my way I should never haunt again . In my case the game
is not worth the phosphorescence. There obtains an idiotic
belief among men that " all appearances are deceitful" ; but that
such a rule has many exceptions I can only trust this narrative
will sufficiently prove.
The Conspiracy of Mrs. Bunker.
BY BRET HARTE .
ILLUSTRATED BY G. HUTCHINSON .
COMPLETE IN THREE PARTS .
PART II .
URING that evening and the next, Mrs. Bunker , without

betraying her secret, or exciting the least suspicion on the
part of her husband , managed to extract from him not only
a rough description of Marion which tallied with her own impres-
sions, but a short history of his career. He was a famous politician
who had held high office in the South ; he was an accomplished
lawyer ; he had served in the army ; he was a fiery speaker ; he had a
singular command of men. He was unmarried , but there were
queer stories of his relations with some of the wives of prominent
officials, and there was no doubt that he used them in some of his
political intrigues . He, Zephas, would bet something that it was
a woman who had helped him off ! Did she speak ?
Yes ! she had spoken . It made her sick to sit there and hear
such stories ! Because a man did not agree with some people in
politics it was perfectly awful to think how they would abuse him
and take away his character ! Men were so awfully jealous , too ;
if another man happened to be superior and fine-looking there
wasn't anything bad enough for them to say about him ! No ! she
wasn't a slavery sympathiser either, and hadn't anything to do
with man's politics , although she was a Southern woman , and the
MacEwans had come from Kentucky and owned slaves. Of
course, he, Zephas, whose ancestors were Cape Cod Quakers , and
had always been sailors, couldn't understand. She did not know
what he meant by saying " what a long tail our cat's got, " but
if he meant to call her a cat, and was going to use such language
to her, he had better have stayed in San Francisco with his
Vigilante friends . And perhaps

it would have been better if he had
stayed there before he took her
away from her parents at Mar-
tinez . Then she wouldn't have
been left in a desert rock without
any chance of seeing the world,
or ever making any friends or
acquaintances !
It was their first quarrel . Dis-
creetly made up by Mrs. Bunker
in some alarm at betraying her-
self ; honestly forgiven by Zephas in a
rude, remorseful consciousness of her limited
.
life. One or two nights later, when he returned ,
it was with a mingled air of mystery and satis-
faction . "Well, Mollie," he said cheerfully,
" it looks as if your pets were not as bad as I
thought them ." ‫طلاء‬
66
My pets ! " repeated Mrs. Bunker, with ' THEIR FIRST QUARREL. ' .
a faint rising of colour.
'Well, I call these Southern Chivs your pets , Mollie, because
you stuck up for them so the other night. But never mind that
now . What do you suppose has happened ? Jim Rider, you
know, the Southern banker and speculator, who's a regular big
6
Injin among the Chivs, ' he sent Cap Simmons down to the
wharf while I was unloadin' to come and see him. Well , I went,
and what do y'u think ? He told me he was gettin' up an
American Fishin' Company, and wanted me to take charge of a
first-class schooner on shares . Said he heard of me afore, and
knew I was an American and a white man , and just the chap ez
could knock them Eytalians outer the market. " 66 Yes," inter-
rupted Mrs. Bunker quickly, but emphatically, "the fishing
interest ought to be American and protected by the State, with
regular charters and treaties."
" I say, Mollie, " said her astonished but admiring husband,
"you've been readin ' the papers or listenin' to stump speakin ' ,
sure." " Go on," returned Mrs. Bunker impatiently, " and say
what happened next."
"Well," returned Zephas, " I first thought, you see, that it
had suthin to do with that Marion business, particklerly ez folks
allowed he was hidin' somewhere yet, and they wanted me to run
208 THE IDLER.
" TURNED HER WHITE FACE AWAY."

THE CONSPIRACY OF MRS . BUNker. 209
him off. So I thought he might as well know that I wasn't to be

bribed, so I ups and tells him how I'd been lyin ' off Sancelito the
other day workin ' for the other side agin him. With that he
laughs, says he didn't want any better friends than me, but that I
must be livin' in the backwoods not to know that Wynyard Marion
had escaped, and was then at sea on his way to Mexico or Central
America. Then we agreed to terms, and the long and short of it
is, Mollie, that I'm to have the schooner with a hundred and fifty
dollars a month, and 10 per cent. shares after a year ! Looks like
biz, eh, Mollie ? old girl, but you don't seem pleased ."
She had put aside the arm with which he was drawing her
to him, and had turned her white face away to the window. So
he had gone- this stranger-this one friend of her life-she would
never ree him again , and all that would ever come of it was this
pecuniary benefit to her husband, who had done nothing. He
would not even offer her money, but he had managed to pay hi
debt to her in this way that their vulgar poverty would appreciate.s
And this was the end of her dream !
" You don't seem to take it in, Mollie," continued the surprised
Zephas. " It means a house in ' Frisco and a little cabin for you
on the schooner when you like."
"I don't want it ! I won't have it ! I shall stay
here ," she burst out with a half-passionate, half-
childish cry, and ran into
her bedroom , leaving the
astonished Zephas help
less in his awkward con-
sternation .
" By Gum ! I must
take her to ' Frisco right
off, or she'll be havin' the
high strikes here alone. ]
oughter knowed it would
come to this ! But
although he consulted
66
Cap" Simmons the next)
lay, who informed him it G20,Harch198090
was all woman's ways HE CONSULTED 'CAP ' SIMMNS ."
when " struck, " and advised him pay out all the line he could
at such delicate moments , she had no recurrence of the outbreak.
On the contrary, for days and weeks following, she seemed
calmer, older, and more " growed up ;" although she resisted
210 THE IDLER.
changing her sea-shore dwelling for San Francisco she accom-

panied him on one or two of his " deep sea 99 trips down
the coast, and seemed happier on their Southern limits . She
had taken to reading the political papers and speeches, and some
cheap American histories. Captain Bunker's crew, profoundly
convinced that their skipper's wife was a " woman's rights" fanatic,
with the baleful qualities of a " sea lawyer " superadded, marvelled
at his bringing her.
It was on returning home from one of these trips that they
touched briefly at San Francisco, where the Secretary of the Fish-
ing Company came on board . Mrs. Bunker was startled to
recognise in him one of the two gentle-
men who had taken Mr. Marion off in the
boat, but as he did not appear to
recognise her even after
an awkward introduction
by her husband, she
would have recovered
her equanimity but for
a singular incident. As
her husband turned
momentarily avay, the
Secretary, with a sig-
nificant gesture, slipped
a letter into her hand.
She felt the blood rush
to her face as, with a
smile, he moved away
to follow her husband .
She came down to the
little cabin and impa-
tiently tore open the
envelope, which bore
no address . A small
Gro.Hutobinso folded note contained the
"SLIPPED A LETTER INTO HER HAND." following lines :
" I never intended to burden you with my confidence, but the discretion,
tact, and courage you displayed on our first meeting, and what i know of
your loyalty since, have prompted me to trust myself again to your kindness,
even though you are now aware whom you have helped, and the risks you ran.
My friends wish to communicate with me and to forward to me, from time to
time, certain papers of importance, which, owing to the tyrannical espionage
of the Government, would be discovered and stopped in passing through the
Express or Post Office. These papers will be left at your house, but here I
must trust entirely to your wit and judgment as to the way in which they
should be delivered to my agent at the nearest Mexican port. To facilitate
your action, your husband will receive directiors to pursue his course as far
South as Todos Santos, where a boat will be ready to take charge of them when
he is sighted. I know I am asking a great favour, but I have such confidence
in you that I do not even ask you to commit yourself to a reply to this. If it
can be done, I know that you
will do it ; if it cannot, I will
understand and appreciate the
reason why. I will only ask you
that when you are ready to re-
ceive the papers you will fly a
small red pennant from the little
flagstaff among the rocks. Be-
lieve me, your friend and grateful
debtor,
" W. M."
Mrs. Bunker cast a hasty
glance around her, and
pressed the letter to her lips.
It was a sudden consumma-
tion of her vaguest, half-
formed wishes, the realisa-
tion of her wildest dreams !
To be the confidant of the
gallant but melancholy he.o
in his lonely exile and per-
secution was to satisfy all
the unformulated romantic
fancies of her girlish read-
ing ; to be later, perhaps ,
" CAME DOWN TO THE LITTLE CABIN." the Flora Macdonald of a
middle-aged Prince Charlie did not, however, evoke any ludicrous
associations in her mind. Her feminine fancy exalted the escaped
duellist and alleged assassin into a social martyr. His actual small
political intrigues and ignoble aims of office seemed to her little
different from those aspirations of royalty which she had read
about-as perhaps they were . Indeed, it is to be feared that in
foolish little Mrs. Bunker Wynyard Marion had found the old
feminine adoration of pretension and privilege which every rascal
has taken advantage of since the flood.
Howbeit, the next morning after she had returned and Zephas
had sailed away, she flew a red bandanna handkerchief on the
212 THE IDLER.
little flagstaff before the house. A few hours later, a boat

appeared mysteriously from around the Point. Its only occupant
-a common sailor-asked her name, and handed her a sealed
package. Mrs. Bunker's invention had already been at work.
She had created an aunt in Mexico , for whom she had , with some
ostentation, made some small purchases while in San Francisco .
When her husband spoke of going as far South as Todos Santos,
she begged him to deliver the parcel to her aunt's messenger, and
even addressed it boldly to her. Inside the outer wrapper she
wrote a note to Marion , which, with a new and amazing diffidence,
she composed and altered a dozen times, at last addressing the
following in a large , school - girl hand : " Sir, I obey your commands
to the last. Whatever your oppressors or enemies may do , you
can always rely and trust upo She who in deepest sympathy
signs herself ever, Mollie Rosalie MacEwan ." The substitution
of her maiden name in full seemed in her simplicity to be a
delicate exclusion of her husband from the affair, and a certain
disguise of herself to alien eyes. The superscription , " To Mrs.
Marion MacEwan from Mollie Bunker, to be called for by hand at
Todos Santos," also struck her as a marvel of ingenuity. The
package was safely and punctually delivered by Zephas, who
brought back a small packet directed to her, which on private
examination proved to contain a letter addressed to " J. E. Kirby,
to be called for, " with the hurried line : " A thousand thanks ,
W.M." Mrs. Bunker drew a long, quick breath. He might
have written more ; he might have—— but the wish remained
still unformulated . The next day she ran up a signal ; the same
boat and solitary rower appeared around the Point, and took the
package. A week later, when her husband was ready for sea , she
again hoisted her signal. It brought a return package for Mexico ,
which she enclosed and re-addressed, and gave to her husband .
The recurrence of this incident apparently struck a bright idea
from the simple Zephas.
" Look here, Mollie, why don't you come yourself and see your
aunt. I can't go into port without a license, and them port
charges cost a heap o ' red tape, for they've got a Filibuster scare
on down there just now, but you can go ashore in the boat and I'll
get permission from the Secretary to stand off and wait for you
there for twenty-four hours ." Mrs. Bunker flushed and paled at
the thought. She could see him ! The letter would be sufficient
excuse, the distrust suggested by her husband would give colour to
her delivering it in person . There was perhaps a brief twinge of
THE CONSPIRACY Of mrs. bunker. 213
conscience in taking this advantage of Zephas's kindness, but the

next moment, with that peculiar logic known only to the sex, she
made the unfortunate man's suggestion a condonation of her
deceit. She hadn't asked to go ; he had offered to take her. He
had only himself to thank.
But the political excitement in which she had become a partisan
without understanding or even conviction , presently culminated
with the Presidential campaign and the election of Abraham
Lincoln. The intrigues of Southern statesmen were revealed in
open expression, and echoed in California by those citizens of
Southern birth and extraction who had long held place , power, and
opinion there. There were rumours of secession , of California
joining the South, or of her founding an independent Pacific
Empire. A note for "J. E. Kirby " informed Mrs. Bunker that
she was to carefully retain any correspondence that might be in
her hands until further orders , almost at the same time that
Zephas as regretfully told her that his projected Southern trip had
been suspended . Mrs. Bunker was disappointed , and yet, in
some singular conditions of her feelings, felt relieved that her
meeting with Marion was postponed . It is to be feared that some
dim [conviction, unworthy a partisan , that in the magnitude of
political ever.ts her own petty personality might be overlooked by
her hero, tended somewhat to her resignation .
Meanwhile the seasons had changed . The winter rains had
set in; the Trade winds had shifted to the South -east, and the
cottage, although strengthened , enlarged, and made more com-
fortable through the good fortunes of the Bunkers , was no longer
sheltered by the cliff, but was exposed to the full strength of the
Pacific gales . There were long nights when she could hear the
rain fall monotonously on the shingles, or startle her with a short,
sharp réveille on the windows ; there were brief days of flying
clouds and drifting sunshine, and intervals of dull grey shadow,
when the heaving white breakers beyond the gate slowly lifted
themselves and sank before her like wraiths of warning. At such
times , in her accepted solitude , Mrs. Banker gave herself up to
strange moods and singular visions ; the more audacious and
more striking it seemed to her froin their very remoteness , and the
difficulty she was beginning to have in materialising them . The
actual personality of Wynyard Marion , as she knew it in her one
interview, had become very shadowy and faint in the months that
passed, yet when the days were heavy she sometimes saw herself
standing by his side in some vague tropical surroundings, and
214 THE IDLER .
hailed by the multitude as the faithful wife and consort of the

great Leader, President, Emperor-she knew not what ! Exactly
how this was to be managed , and the manner of Zephas's efface-
ment from the scene, never troubled her childish fancy, and, it is
but fair to say, her woman's conscience. In the logic before
alluded to, it seemed to her that all ethical responsibility for her
actions rested with the husband who had unduly married her.
Nor were those visions always roseate. In the wild declamation
of that exciting epoch which filled the newspapers , there was talk
of short shrift with traitors. So there were days when the sudden
onset of a squall of hail against her window caused her to start
as if she had heard the sharp fusilade of that file of muskets of
which she had sometimes read in history.
20 11 .
m.
Gro,Hutchinson
" THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY," SHE SAID.
One day she had a singular fright. She had heard the sound
of oars falling with a precision and regularity unknown to
her. She was startled to see the approach of a large eight- oar
barge rowed by men in uniform , with two officers wrapped in
cloaks in the stern sheets, and before them the glitter of musket
barrels. The two officers appeared to be conversing earnestly,
and occasionally pointing to the shore and the bluff above. For
an instant she trembled , and then an instinct of revolt and resist-
ance followed. She hurriedly removed the ring, which she usually
wore when alone, from her finger, slipped it with the packet under
the mattress of her bed , and prepared with blazing eyes to face
the intruders . But when the boat landed , the two officers , with
scarcely a glance towards the cottage, proceeded leisurely along
the shore. Relieved , yet it must be confessed a little piqued at
their indifference, she snatched up her hat and sallied forth to
confront them.
" I suppose you don't know that this is private property," she
said, sharply.
The group halted and turned towards her. The orderly, who
was following, turned his face aside and smiled . The younger
officer demurely lifted his cap. The elder, grey, handsome, in a
general's uniform, after a moment's half-astounded , half- amused
scrutiny of the little figure, gravely raised his gauntleted fingers
in a military salute .
" I beg your pardon , Madam , but I am afraid we never even
thought of that. We are making a preliminary survey for the
Government with a possible view of fortifying the bluff. It is very
doubtful if you will be disturbed in any rights you may have , but
if you are, the Government will not fail to make it good to you."
He turned carelessly to the aide beside him . " I suppose the bluff
is quite inaccessible from here ?"
" I don't know about that, general . They say that Marion , after
he killed Henderson , escaped down this way," said the young man.
" Indeed-what good was that ? How did he get away from
here ?"
" They say that Mrs. Fairfax was hanging round in a boat,
waiting for him. The story of the escape is all out now."
They moved away with a slight perfunctory bow to Mrs.
Bunker, only the younger officer noting that the pert, pretty little
Western woman wasn't as sharp and snappy to his superior as
she had at first promised to be.
She turned back to the cottage astounded , angry and vaguely
alarmed. Who was this Mrs. Fairfax who had usurped her fame
and solitary devotion ? There was no woman in the boat that took
him off ; it was equally well known that he went in the ship alone.
If they had heard that some woman was with him here- why
should they have supposed it was Mrs. Fairfax ? Zephas might
know something but he was away. The thought haunted her that
day and the next . On the third came a more startling incident.
She had been wandering along the edge of her domain in a
state of restlessness which had driven her from the monotony ofthe
P
216 THE IDLER.
house when she heard the barking of the big Newfoundland dog
which Zephas had lately bought for protection and company.
She looked up and saw the boat and its solitary rower at the
landing. She ran quickly to the house to bring the packet. As
she entered she started back in amazement. For the sitting-
room was already in possession of a woman who was seated
calmly by the table.
The stranger turned on Mrs. Bunker that frankly insolent
glance and deliberate examination which only one woman can
give another. In that glance Mrs. Bunker felt herself in the
presence of a superior, even if her own eyes had not told her that
in beauty, attire and bearing the intruder was of a type and con-
dition far beyond her own, or even that of any she had known .
It was the more crushing that there also seemed to be in this
haughty woman the same incongruousness and sharp contrast to
the plain and homely surroundings of the cottage that she remem-
bered in him.
" Yo aw Mrs. Bunker, I believe," she said in languid Southern
accents. " How de doh .".
" I am Mrs. Bunker," said Mrs. Bunker shortly.
"And so this is where Cunnle Marion stopped when he waited
fo' the boat to take him off," said the stranger, glancing lazily
around, and delaying with smiling insolence the explanation she
knew Mrs. Bunker was expecting. " The Cunnle said it was a
pooh enough place, but I don't see it. I reckon, however , he was
too worried to judge and glad enough to get off. Yo' ought to
have made him talk-he generally don't want much prompting to
talk to women, if they're pooty."
"He didn't seem in a hurry to go," said Mrs. Bunker indig-
nantly. The next moment she saw her error, even before the
cruel, handsome smile of her unbidden guest revealed it .
" I thought so, " she said lazily ; " this is the place and here's
where the Cunnle stayed. Only yo' oughtn't have given him and
yo'self away to the first stranger quite so easy. The Cunnle
might have taught yo' that the two or three hours he was
with yo'."
"What do you want with me ? " demanded Mrs. Bunker
angrily.
" I want a letter yo' have for me from Cunnle Marion. "
" I have nothing for you, " said Mrs. Bunker. " I don't know
who you are."
" You ought to , considering

you've been acting as messenger
between the Cunnle and me,"
said the lady coolly .
" That's not true," said Mrs.
Bunker hotly, to combat an in-
ward sinking.
"THE SITTING-ROOM WAS ALREADY IN POSSESSION OF A WOMAN."

The lady rose with a lazy, languid grace, walked to the door
and called still lazily, " O Pedro ! "
The solitary rower clambered up the rocks and appeared on the
cottage threshold .
" Is this the lady who gave you the letters for me and to whom
99
you took mine ?
" Si Senôra."
" They were addressed to a Mr. Kirby," said Mrs. Bunker
sullenly. " How was I to know they were for Mrs. Kirby ? "
" Mr. Kirby, Mrs. Kirby and myself are all the same. You
don't suppose the Cunnle would give my real name and address ?
Did you address yo'r packet to his real name or to someone else ?
Did you let your husband know who they were for ? "
Oddly, a sickening sense of the meanness of all these deceits
and subterfuges suddenly came over Mrs. Bunker. Without
replying she went to her bedroom and returned with Colonel
Marion's last letter, which she tossed into her visitor's lap.
218 THE IDLer.
" Thank yo' , Mrs. Bunker . I'll be sure to tell the Cunnle how
careful yo' were not to give up his correspondence to everybody.
It'll please him mo' than to hear yo' are wearing his ring-which
everybody knows-before people."
" He gave it to me-he-he knew I wouldn't take money,"
said Mrs. Bunker indignantly.
" He didn't have any to give," said the lady slowly, as she
removed the envelope from her letter and looked up with a
dazzling but cruel smile. " A So'th'n gentleman don't fill up his
pockets when he goes out to fight. He don't tuck his Maw's
Bible in his breast pocket, clap his dear Auntie's locket big as a
cheese plate over his heart, nor let his sole leather cigyar case that
his gyerl gave him lie round him in spots when he goes out to
take another gentleman's fire. He leaves that to Yanks ! "
" Did you come here to insult my husband ? " said Mrs. Bunker
in the rage of desperation .
" To insult yo' husband ! Well-I came here to get a letter
that his wife received from his political and natural enemy and—
perhaps I did ! " With a side glance at Mrs. Bunker's crimson
cheek she added carelessly, "I have nothing against Captain
Bunker, he's a straightforward man and must go with his kind . He
helped those hounds of Vigilantes because he believes in them .
We couldn't bribe him if we wanted to. And we don't."
If she only knew something of this woman's relations to
Marion-which - she only instinctively suspected -and could
retaliate upon her, Mrs. Bunker felt she would have given up her
life at that moment.
" Colonel Marion seems to find plenty that he can bribe ," she
said roughly, " and I've yet to know who you are to sit in judg-
ment on them . You've got your letter, take it and go ! When he
wants to send you another through me, somebody else must come
for it, not you . That's all ! "
She drew back as if to let the intruder pass , but the lady, with-
out moving a muscle, finished the reading of her letter, then
stood up quietly and began carefully to draw her handsome cloak
over her shoulders . " Yo' want to know who I am, Mrs. Bunker,"
she said, arranging the velvet collar under her white oval chin.
"Well, I'm a So'th'n woman from Figinya, and I'm Fygynian
first, last, and all the time." She shook out her sleeves and the
folds of her cloak. " I believe in State rights and Slavery- if you
know what that means. I hate the North, I hate the East , I hate
the West. I hate this nigger Government, I'd kill that man
Lincoln quicker than lightning ! " She began to draw down the
fingers of her gloves, holding her shapely hands upright before
her. " I'm hard and fast to the Cause. I gave up house and
niggers for it." She began to button her gloves at the wrist with
some difficulty, tightly setting together her beautiful lips as she did
.
so. “ I gave up my husband for it, and I went to the man who
loved it better and had risked more for it than ever he had .
Cunnle Marion's my friend. I'm Mrs. Fairfax, Josephine Hardee
that was ; his disciple and follower . Well, maybe those puritanical
No'th'n folks might give it another name ! "
She moved slowly towards the door, but on the threshold
paused, as Colonel Marion had, and came back to Mrs. Bunker
with an outstretched hand. " I don't see that yo' and me need
quo" . I didn't come here for. that. I came here to see your
husband, and seeing you I thought it was only right to talk
squarely to you , as you understand I wouldn't talk to your husband.
Mrs. Bunker, I want your husband to take me away-I want him
to take me to the Cunnle. If I tried to go in any other way I'd
be watched, spied upon and followed, and only lead those hounds
on his track. I don't expect yo ' to ask yo' husband for me, but
only not to interfere when I do."
There was a touch of unexpected weakness in her voice and a
look of pain in her eyes which was not unlike what Mrs. Bunker
had seen and pitied in Marion . But they were the eyes of a
woman who had humbled her, and Mrs. Bunker would have been
unworthy her sex if she had not felt a cruel enjoyment in it. Yet
the dominance of the stranger was still so strong she did not dare
to refuse the proffered hand . She, however, slipped the ring from
her finger, and laid it in Mrs. Fairfax's palm.
"You can take that with you," she said, with a desperate
attempt to imitate the other's previous indifference . " I shouldn't
like to deprive you and your friend of the opportunity of making
use of it again. As for my husband I shall say nothing of you to
him as long as you say nothing to him of me—which I suppose is
what you mean ."
The insolent look came back to Mrs. Fairfax's face. " I reckon
yo're right," she said quietly, putting the ring in her pocket as she
fixed her dark eyes on Mrs. Bunker, " and the ring may be of use
again. Good- bye , Mrs. Bunker."
She waved her hand carelessly, and turning away passed out
of the house. A moment later the boat and its two occupants
pushed from the shore, and disappeared round the Point.
220 THE IDLER.
Then Mrs. Bunker looked round the room and down upon her
empty finger, and knew that it was the end of her dream . It
was all over now- indeed, with the picture of that proud, insolent
woman before her she wondered if it had ever begun. This was
the woman she had allowed herself to think she might be. This
was the woman he was thinking of when he sat there ; this was
the Mrs. Fairfax the officers had spoken of, and who had made her
-Mrs . Bunker-the go-between for their lovemaking ! All the
work that she had done for him , the deceit she had practised on
her husband, was to bring him and this woman together ! And
they both knew it, and had no doubt laughed at her and her
pretensions.
It was with a burning cheek that she thought how she had in-
tended to go to Marion , and imagined herself arriving perhaps to
find that shameless woman already there. In her vague unformu-
lated longings she had never before realised the degradation into
which her foolish romance might lead her. She saw it now ; that
humiliating moral lesson we are all apt to experience in the acci-
dental display of our own particular vices in the person we hate,
she had just felt in Mrs. Fairfax's presence . With it came the
paralysing fear of her husband's discovery of her secret. Secure
as she had been in her dull belief that he had in some way wronged
her by marrying her, she for the first time began to doubt if this
condoned the deceit she had practised on him. The tribute Mrs.
Fairfax had paid him-this appreciation of his integrity and
honesty by an enemy and a woman like herself-troubled her,
frightened her, and filled her with her first jealousy ! What if this
woman should tell him all ; what if she should make use of him
as Marion had of her. Zephas was a strong Northern partisan ,
but was he proof against the guileful charms of such a devil ? She
had never thought before of questioning his fidelity to her ; she
suddenly remembered now some rough pleasantries of Captain
Simmons in regard to the inconstancy of his calling. No ! there
was but one thing for her to do ; she would make a clean breast to
him ; she would tell him everything she had done except the fatal
fancy that compelled her to it ! She began to look for his coming
now with alternate hope and fear-with unabated impatience !
The night that he should have arrived passed slowly ; morning
came, but not Zephas. When the mist had lifted she ran im-
patiently to the rocks and gazed anxiously towards the lower bay.
There were a few grey sails scarce distinguishable above the
greyer water-but they were not his . She glanced half mechani-
cally seawards, and her eyes became suddenly fixed. There was
no mistake ! She knew the rig !-she could see the familiar
white lap-streak as the vessel careened on the starboard tack- it
washerhusband's schooner slowly creeping out ofthe Golden Gate !
(To be concluded.)
MARCH .
THE IDEAL.
Masterful, blustering March,

Frolicsome, noisy, and rude !
We love thee, though wayward and arch,
Masterful, blustering March !
Thy breath bends the oak and the larch,
But the daisy finds grace in thy mood,
THE REAL.
Here is March with an easterly breeze,

And things are all blown inside out !
I said when I heard the cat sneeze :-
" Here is March with an easterly breeze !
Bronchitis or ague will seize
My wife and the children, no doubt.
And things are all blown inside out ! "
J. H. GORING.
HEIDLER'S
CLUB
SallyHarty
Jerome com- No, it is not at all the sort of thing I meant. You
see, it came about in this way : I thought that
plaineth of a
" Music Halls " would make an interesting subject for
certain contri-
a paper ; so I do still. I went to young Dudley
butor.
Hardy, and propounded my plan . I said, " Look
here, Hardy, I've got an idea in my head . You go round to all
the Music Halls in London , and take sketches ofthe audiences and
the performers, and then I'll get some man who understands the
thing to write up to the pictures, and we will have a rattling good
article." He did not fall in with the suggestion at first. He had
the notion, common among the " unco' guid," that Music Halls
are highly improper places. He said he should not care to be
seen in such haunts himself, and suggested that a less strictly
brought up young man should be retained for the job. However,
I overcame his scruples. I told him I was positive he would
come across nothing likely to bring a blush to his cheek, and I
assured him that the most respectable people patronised Music
Halls now-a-days, and that Bishops often visited them . (For all
that I know to the contrary, they do. I am sure I can't see why
they should not.) He replied that, of course, that altered the
case. He had been given to understand otherwise ; but, if what
I stated was true, he had no objection to do what I wished . I
impressed upon him that it was true, and he undertook the con-
tract. When I next saw him , three weeks later, he handed me

some twenty sketches (ten of them are in this present number,
and the others will appear next month) . He said that to obtain
them he had visited sixteen Music Halls , and had sat out each
entertainment from beginning to end . He looked haggard, and his
manner towards me was cold.
Having obtained the sketches , I looked around for

someone to write the letterpress, and finally fixed The contri-
upon a certain contributor who I thought understood butor telleth
the subject . He said he knew exactly what I wanted— him a story.
he is one of those fellows who always do know
what you want better than you do yourself ; you know the sort of
man I mean-and would " knock off" just the very thing. I
showed him the sketches, and we talked them over together. He
took up the " West End " one. " Admirable," he said ; "this is
not a sketch, this is a group of portraits . You can see these
people any night at the Alhambra or the Empire. Some persons ,"
he continued, " visit these halls night after night. They never glance
at the performance . They merely go because they feel that it does
them good to be there. Why, I knew of an old gentleman who
occupied the same stall atthe Alhambra every evening for five years.
It was always kept for him , and he always came. He would arrive
about nine, settle himself comfortably, and go to sleep. At the
end of the performance the attendant would awake him , and he
would get up and go home. One evening, however, the chair
remained vacant ; and the waiters forgot to wait for their tips ,
and the strength went out of the arm of him who played upon the
big drum, and the première danseuse lost her balance. Enquiries
were made, and the old gentleman was found lying in his
gloomy chambers , surrounded by soft- stepping nurses and grave-
faced doctors. But he murmured very faintly that his stall was to
be reserved for him as usual. So the seat was kept, and a few
nights later, as the audience were filing out, the porter saw him
sitting in it, his eyes closed , and his chin resting upon his breast,
as was his custom, and was much surprised , for no one had noticed
him enter. The man went up to him and tried to wake him.
But he was not to be roused- neither then nor at any other time.
He had no friends , not even a relation . He had come to spend
his last evening at the only place where he was welcome ; among
the only people that he knew ."
224 THE IDLER.
Then he told me another story about a very young

The contribu- friend of his who had married a ballet-dancer. She
tor discourseth was an exceedingly beautiful girl, and a good and
of the ballet. modest girl-compared with many others of her class.
The lad had married her secretly, and for two
years but there, that is a long and sad story, and the moral
of it is that it is not well for young gentlemen, nor for
ballet girls either, even though they may be good and beau-
tiful, to marry away from their own people. Afterwards ,
we fell to discussing ballets generally. He said it was sur-
prising how few people understood the language of panto-
mime. He said, " I've known people-fairly intelligent people
-sit out a ballet three times, and then not be able to tell
what it was about. The subtle teaching, the fine moral (and few
things in this lax age are more instructively moral than a ballet) ,
are lost upon the average spectator. I took a friend of mine,
once," he went on, " to see a ballet at the Empire. It was a kind
of Terpsichorean sermon upon the sinfulness of greed and
dishonesty . It shewed how a wicked lawyer robbed and ruined a
good young man. For a while he gloried amid his ill-gotten
gains, but a large and influential body of fairies took the matter in
hand, and made it unpleasant for the old sinner. They danced
every night in his bedroom, some four hundred of them—it was a
big bedroom . At last he repented , and restored the good young
man to his estate. Then they let him go to sleep. My friend
was a City man . I thought this ballet would do him good, and I
wanted to be sure that he understood it. I said : " Can you follow
it? What's she doing now?' (The good young man was in the
'Fairy Queen's bower '-I forget what he had come there for-
and she was explaining things to him. ) My friend watched her
gesticulations for a while, and then answered that he thought she
was urging him to wash himself. This was disheartening. As a
matter of fact, she was telling him, to quote the words of the argu-
ment set forth in the programme , that his wife was still faithful
to him, and that all would come right in the end if he would only
be brave and patient. Later on , the Queen of the Fairies lectured
the wicked lawyer. She pointed to the ground and frowned .
'What's that mean ? ' I questioned my companion . Oh, that's
6
plain enough,' he replied. She's wild with him, and is telling
"
him to go to Hush ! ' I interrupted quickly, it means
nothing of the sort. She is reminding him of the days when he
was a happy, innocent lad , and knelt at his mother's knees. You
might have grasped a little thing like that .' I gave him one
more chance. The good young man was standing in the centre
6
of the stage, and the Première Danseuse Assoluta' was twid-
dling round and round him and wagging her head. A child would
have known that she was a wicked , heartless creature, and that
her object was to fascinate him, and so lure him away from his
wife, and home, and family. What do you make of that ? ' I
asked the man of business. He pondered a long time. Then a
ray of intelligence drove the cloud of doubt from his brow, and he
• exclaimed, I know. He's taken something that is bad for him—
poison, I expect—and she is trying to save his life by making him
sick.' I felt that the show was doing him no practical good
whatever, so I took him down to the club and taught him poker."
Ah, you should see a Constantinople Music Hall. Burgin dis-

It's the nearest approach to civilisation possessed by courseth of
the Turkish
Young Turkey. The juvenile Turkish " plunger" sits
Music Hall .
cross-legged on the ground (it is a painful attitude if
you are not used to it) and drinks an evil-smelling liquid
called "raki " out of a little cup. To promote a healthy thirst, he
nibbles bits of salt fish " between drinks." The performers are
also seated cross-legged, on a small platform. They play divers
melancholy instruments of brass and parchment. The general
effect strongly resembles the sound produced by ungreased cart-
wheels. But the Turks like it. The songs are generally senti-
mental or narrative. A narrative song will sometimes last for
three evenings. It is invariably sung in a weird, wild minor key,
strangely suggestive of the distant wail of a wolf. When the
singer is tired, he leaves off, has a cup of coffee, or something
stronger, smokes for half-an-hour or so, and then goes on again .
There is no applause. There never is in a Turkish place of enter-
tainment. Turks would consider it vulgar to applaud. Neither do
the people get vulgarly intoxicated , only gravely so. They smoke
narghilehs, and there are no police cases the next morning. If a
man is very far gone, the neighbours approach him with, " Allah
is with you, Effendi (a polite method of hinting to him that he is
blind drunk). We will accompany you to your dwelling." Which
they proceed to do, in spite of his protests.
226 THE IDLER.
But that is in Stamboul proper. The modern Music

He speaketh of Halls are in Pera-which is often improper. There
the Halls of
Pera. they have an occasional camel-fight between "the
turns." Just imagine two great, gaunt, ugly brutes
let loose from each side of the stage, and goaded on by their
drivers ! They are trained to fight, and they do so. When
they meet in the middle, their long upper-lips curl back and show
their gleaming white teeth-there is a crash , and the heavier one
of the twogradually forces his opponent step by step backward . And
all the time, their long snake-like necks are winding and twisting
about to a chorus of grunts as they worry and tear at each other.
At first you feel sick, then you become interested , and , just as one
forces the other down and is going to kneel on him and smash
him to a jelly, the curtain falls, leaving the rest to your imagina-
tion. A peculiarity of the Pera Halls is the pair of long (once
white) gloves provided by " The Management " for the use of the
lady vocalists. As each girl goes off, she unfastens the gloves
and pitches them to the next artiste, who comes on smiling and
bowing and struggling into them. The one pair of gloves has to
do for everybody. The fat ladies have difficulty in getting them
on, the thin ladies in keeping them on. But we all have to suffer in
the cause of etiquette.
Well, then he took up the picture of Dan Leno. He

Jerome's friend
said it brought to his mind a curious speech he once
speaketh of
the " Lion heard a comic singer make at a Hall in Drury Lane.
Comique." The singer sang that night a new song, and the élite of
Seven Dials, assembled within that Hall, received it
with rapturous delight. Whereupon the singer spoke, and un-
burdened himself of a trouble that lay upon his heart. " Lydies
and gentlemen," he said, his voice trembling with emotion,
"you'll ' ardly believe it, but I've jest sang that song at a ' All in
the West End , and I was ' issed , lydies and gentlemen-' issed"
(murmurs of indignation and surprise). " Yes, ' issed ," he con-
tinued , warmed into greater vehemence by the evident sympathy
of his hearers, " and not by folks like you, mind yer, mere no-
bodies ("' ear, ' ear," in tones of gratified vanity, difficult to account
for) , but by toffs in white shirts and kid gloves , real lydies and
gentlemen" (thunders of applause ; everybody pleased all round).
From that, my contributor went on to talk ofthe " Lion Comique"
(or comic lion) and ofthe dwindling of his glory. " Where is he
now ?" mused my gossip , sadly. " Where do we hear now that
bull-like bellow ; where see those wondrous trousers, that gorgeous
overcoat that swept the ground ; that opera hat that closed at
every joke, and opened at every noble sentiment ? Ah ! but in my
young days, he was a mighty man . His voice was a voice in the
policy of the government. The chorus of his latest ditty was the
one repartee of the nation . For nine months, I remember,
6
England said, Tommy, make room for your uncle. ' Schoolboys
left their games , and repeated it to each other in their play-time. City
men relieved the tedium of business by calling it out to each other
across the street. Drivers yelled it at other drivers as an insult.
Lovers whispered it to one another. Wicked men said it, and
winked. Sweet girls said it, and giggled. Good young men said
it nervously, and felt that they were going it .' From barge to
drawing-room , from beershop to senate, it was the national joke.
Each newspaper kept it stereoed in every possible type . The
high-class journals translated it into Latin. One Saturday night I
went to bed, and the murmur of people saying it to each other, as
they passed beneath my window, lulled me to sleep . On Sunday
morning, when the girl brought me up my breakfast, she said,
'Woa Emma .' I did not understand it. On my way to church
everybody I met said ' Woa Emma ,' but not a soul remarked
' Tommy make room for your uncle.' I thought I must be
dreaming that I was up. The day passed, and not once did I
hear Tommy even alluded to. On the other hand, London rang
with the name of Emma . I grew seriously alarmed. Had I,
like Rip Van Winkle, slept for twenty years ? If not, what had
happened ? I made enquiries, and then I learnt the explanation.
The Lion Comique, who had given us 6 Tommy make room for
your uncle,' had on Saturday night introduced a new song, the
chorus of which was Woa Emma.' So we said ' Woa Emma'
to each other for the next year or two."
We chatted about " serio- comics " and niggers .

He said he had a deal of useful information about
The contributor
niggers, and that he should put it opposite the is dismissed .
picture of Chirgwin . Against Chevalier and Jenny
Hill he intended to discuss East End character
and coster life. He had known Chevalier (so he stated) years
228 THE IDLER .
ago, when he (Chevalier) was merely an actor, playing ordinary

theatrical parts at the " Strand " and " Avenue. " He used in
those days to come to the Vagabonds ' Club, and would often sing
one of his coster songs there. He was always enthusiastically
received, and the Vagabonds predicted even then that he would be
a great man. Now they go about saying " I told you so. " I
gathered from all this, that my young gentleman was going to
write for me an article on Music Halls which would make a fit and
proper accompaniment to Mr. Dudley Hardy's pictures. He
sends me a paper that has nothing whatever to do with the
pictures . There is not in it, from one end to the other, a word
relating to them. How a man could have written a nine- page
article on Music Halls, and yet have managed to avoid the
slightest reference to any single one of these pictures, in the way
that he has done , is a mystery to me. I shall put the thing into
somebody else's hands for next month .
The first and only time I visited a Constantinople

Burgin seeth
life in Constan- Music Hall was about a week after my arrival . I accom-
tinople , panied a young but not equally guileless friend .
Selected specimens of riff-raff from every quarter of
the globe appeared to be there. They sat at little marble-
topped tables, and were waited on by pretty girls, whose business
it was to tempt customers to drink. The belles of the place were
expected to sip something from the glass of every admirer. The
Hall was full of smoke, and the British sailor in the audience
declared with monotonous iteration that his name was " Cham-
pagne Charlie." But his beverage was rum . We soon got tired
of the entertainment, and my friend suggested that we should
"go behind." We knocked at a mysterious little door close to
the stage, and were admitted after he had given the countersign.
There was a blaze of light, a babble of voices, and a distant click-
click which made my companion prick up his ears. " Roulette !"
he said. " Have you a fiver ? We'll plunge." When we
approached the table, " the bonnets " courteously made way for
us. We won a little at first. An old Carlist Count, to whom
I had a letter of introduction, came up, and begged me to
desist. I was flushed with success , and went on. I lost ten
pounds-fifteen- twenty . The Count could contain himself no
longer. He came up, and struck me lightly on the cheek.
" Monsieur," he said, " I will send my seconds to you to-morrow

morning. Meantime, leave here at once. " It seemed that I had
pushed him away. Then I left off playing, and my companion
suggested a stroll through the green-room. Just to show I wasn't
excited , I went. There had been an alarm of fire, and a tall girl
was kicking hysterically on a sofa. " Cut her laces," said some.
one. Something popped like a champagne cork, and the fair one
recovered. Then I went home, made my will, wrote a letter to my
mother, and sat up all night wondering whether the weapons would
be swords or pistols . The Count called next morning, instead of
his seconds, and I pledged my word of honour never to enter the
place again.
The " Street Arab " 'cute, I should think he was .

A friend of mine had some conversation with one
Phillpotts and
only the other day, and exchanged ideas with him upon the Arab.
the subject of tobacco. The naked-footed, ragged,
gimlet-eyed boy had been a smoker from infancy, he ex-
plained. He was now seven years old, he thought, or " may-
be eight ; one loses count, sir." Concerning tobacco, he
liked a cigar better than anything, and generally smoked them.
My friend delicately suggested how much better it would be to
forego such luxuries for a brief season, save money, and buy a pair
of boots ; but the child assured him that his tobacco bill was
nothing. " You've only got to watch," he said, producing a variety
of cigar stumps from his pocket. " Clean shaves aint no good ,
'cause they smokes down to the end, and cigar-holders aint no use.
neither ; but when I sees a gent with a big moustache I keeps my
heye on ' im, ' cause I knows ' e aint goin' to burn ' isself. Pre-
sently ' e chucks ' is ' smoke ' and I'm on it-see ? " My friend did
see. Verily the infant Londoner, gutter-bred, gutter-nurtured, is
one of the most acute things on earth.
Listening to " Bab's" latest libretto, I could not

help asking why the world which denounces Ibsen Zangwill
tolerates W. S. Gilbert. From the days of the talking speaketh of
Gilbertianism .
serpent, the cynic has always been looked upon as the
enemy of mankind . Human nature resents analysis,
and feels it a violation of modesty to be stripped. Swift and
230 THE IDLER .
Mandeville, La Rochefoucauld and Machiavelli, may extort

admiration ; they will never be loved like the sentimentalists . Nor
are they so useful ; for to influence men nobly, one must appeal to
the good qualities they do not possess . How comes it then that
Gilbert alone has gone home to the great heart of the people, and,
what is more, to its great pocket ? For surely, scepticism of human
nature has never been expressed more unflinchingly in literature
than by the sordid exposure of our inner selves in The
Palace ofTruth and The Mountebanks . It is beside the question to
point out that Gilbert has his moments of pathos, that he has
made the hapless lot of the policeman as proverbial as Hood made
the needlewoman's, and that he has enriched English poetry with
the idyllic picture of the tired costermonger basking in the sun
after he has finished his daily task of jumping upon his mother ;
the broad tenour of his teaching remains relentlessly destructive.
And what is human nature's reply to the satirist's mockeries ? Why..
- it waltzes, and polks to them set to lively tunes. What ho !
twist ye, twine ye, set to partners, balance and retire, chassé-croisé
and ladies' chain ! Gilbert is out-Gilberted by - the spectacle.
Perhaps the reply to Horace's famous Quid vetat, &c. , is that
nothing forbids you to tell the truth , jesting except that the world
will take it for jesting and not for truth .
What can be more scarifying, in sooth, than the

He regretteth
conception of The Mountebanks ? Imagine everybody .
the convention-
turned into what he pretends to be. Let each of us
ality of human
nature. take the lesson to his privy breast. Oh, the horror of
fancying myself doomed to be a humourist to go ..
through life perennially facetious ! Then , again, where has the
doctrine of determinism, of human automatism , been more nåkedly
preached than in the lines sung with such insouciance by Harry
Monkhouse and Aida Jenoure:
BARTOLO : Clockwork figures may be found
Everywhere, and all around.
NITA Ten to one, if we but knew,
You are clockwork figures too.
To this, then, have we come at last—in this English theatre we
have striven to keep so wholesome and elevating to the material-
ism of D'Holbach and Spencer, the denial that we are aught but
" cunning casts in clay." Yet there is an element of truth in these
profound verses for even the most spiritualistic of us-the reminder

of our terrible tendency to grow automatic. Even our ideas
became stereotyped, our conversations clichés . Clockwork figures
could say, " How are you ?" with the cordiality of human beings,
and interchange views about the weather with equal intelligence.
I remember once holding conversation with a young lady visitor .
"How are you ? ” I led off. "Quite well, thank you." Thus her
repartee. " How is your sister ?" "Quite well, thank you ."
"Why didn't she come with you ?" " She's down with influenza ,
I'm sorry to say." And my interlocutor does not know till this
day why I was so heartless as to smile. It is not only in our little
household ways that we grow mechanical. Religion becomes
"
formula, and art artifice . The stock novelist is an automatic liar ,
the popular song-writer a barrel organ , the successful artist per-
petually reproduces the same types . Even History repeats itself.
And so does Gilbertian opera.
Some years ago, somebody wrote a book entitled

"Twelve Miles from a Lemon ." I never read the Barr seeketh
volume, and so do not know whether the writer had to to shirk his
work.
tramp twelve miles to get the seductive lemon toddy,
which cheers and afterwards inebriates, or the harmless
lemon squash, which neither cheers nor inebriates. I think there
are times when most people would like to get twelve miles away
from everything— including themselves. I tried to put a number
of miles between me and a telegraph instrument, and flattered
myself for a time that I had succeeded . I dived into the depths
of the New Forest. The New Forest is popular in summer,
deserted in winter, and beautiful at any season . I found a secluded
spot in the woods, and thought I was out of reach of a telegram .
I wish now I had not got so far away from the instrument. The
boy came on horseback with the message . It was brief, coming
well within the sixpenny range, and it stated tersely that the printer
was waiting for these paragraphs. The boy said calmly that
there would be fifteen shillings and sixpence to pay for the
delivery of that yellow slip of paper. It came out in the conversa-
tion we had that there were only a certain number of places in the
Forest where a man could be, unless he were lost, and the
telegraph boy had made the rounds until he found me. If I had
got deeper into the woods there would simply have been more to
Q
208 THE IDLER.
"TURNED HER WHITE FACE AWAY."

him off. So I thought he might as well know that I wasn't to be

bribed, so I ups and tells him how I'd been lyin' off Sancelito the
other day workin' for the other side agin him. With that he
laughs, says he didn't want any better friends than me, but that I
must be livin ' in the backwoods not to know that Wynyard Marion
had escaped, and was then at sea on his way to Mexico or Central
America. Then we agreed to terms, and the long and short of it
is , Mollie, that I'm to have the schooner with a hundred and fifty
dollars a month, and 10 per cent. shares after a year ! Looks like
biz, eh, Mollie ? old girl, but you don't seem pleased. "
She had put aside the arm with which he was drawing her
to him , and had turned her white face away to the window. So
he had gone- this stranger-this one friend of her life-she would
never ree him again , and all that would ever come of it was this
pecuniary benefit to her husband, who had done nothing. He
would not even offer her money, but he had managed to pay hi
debt to her in this way that their vulgar poverty would appreciate.s
And this was the end of her dream !
" You don't seem to take it in , Mollie," continued the surprised
Zephas. " It means a house in ' Frisco and a little cabin for you
on the schooner when you like. "
" I don't want it ! I won't have it ! I shall stay
here," she burst out with a half-passionate, half-
childish cry, and ran into
her bedroom, leaving the
astonished Zephas help
less in his awkward con-
sternation .
" By Gum ! I must
take her to ' Frisco right
off, or she'll be havin' the
high strikes here alone. ]
oughter knowed it would
come to this ! " But
although he consulted
66
Cap" Simmons the next)
lay, who informed him it ChaHary 200
was all woman's ways HE CO NSU LTED ' CAP ' SIMMNS ."
CONSU
when " struck," and advised him pay out all the line he could
at such delicate moments, she had no recurrence of the outbreak.
On the contrary, for days and weeks following, she seemed
calmer, older, and more " growed up ;" although she resisted
210 THE IDLER.
changing her sea -shore dwelling for San Francisco she accom-
panied him on one or two of his " deep sea " trips down
the coast, and seemed happier on their Southern limits . She
had taken to reading the political papers and speeches, and some
cheap American histories. Captain Bunker's crew, profoundly
convinced that their skipper's wife was a " woman's rights" fanatic ,
with the baleful qualities of a " sea lawyer " superadded , marvelled
at his bringing her.
It was on returning home from one of these trips that they
touched briefly at San Francisco, where the Secretary of the Fish-
ing Company came on board . Mrs. Bunker was startled to
recognise in him one of the two gentle-
men who had taken Mr. Marion off in the
boat, but as he did not appear to
recognise her even after
an awkward introduction
by her husband, she
would have recovered
her equanimity but for
a singular incident. As
her husband turned
momentarily avay, the
Secretary, with a sig-
nificant gesture , slipped
a letter into her hand .
She felt the blood rush
to her face as , with a
smile, he moved away
to follow her husband .
She came down to the
little cabin and impa-
tiently tore open the
envelope, which bore
no address . A small
folded note contained the
Gro.Hutobinson
"SLIPPED A LETTER INTO HER HAND." following lines :
" I never intended to burden you with my confidence, but the discretion,
tact, and courage you displayed on our first meeting, and what i know of
your loyalty since, have prompted me to trust myself again to your kindness,
even though you are now aware whom you have helped, and the risks you ran.
My friends wish to communicate with me and to forward to me, from time to
time, certain papers of importance, which, owing to the tyrannical espionage
of the Government, would be discovered and stopped in passing through the
THE CONSPIRACY OF MRS. BUNker. 211
Express or Post Office. These papers will be left at your house, but here I
must trust entirely to your wit and judgment as to the way in which they
should be delivered to my agent at the nearest Mexican port. To facilitate
your action, your husband will receive directiors to pursue his course as far
South as Todos Santos, where a boat will be ready to take charge of them when
he is sighted. I know I am asking a great favour, but I have such confidence
in you that I do not even ask you to commit yourself to a reply to this. If it
can be done, I know that you
will do it ; if it cannot, I will
understand and appreciate the
reason why. I will only ask you
that when you are ready to re-
ceive the papers you will fly a
small red pennant from the little
flagstaff among the rocks. Be-
lieve me, your friend and grateful
debtor,
" W. M."
Mrs. Bunker cast a hasty
glance around her, and
pressed the letter to her lips.
It was a sudden consumma-
tion of her vaguest, half-
formed wishes, the realisa-
tion of her wildest dreams !
To be the confidant of the
gallant but melancholy he.o
in his lonely exile and per-
secution was to satisfy all
the unformulated romantic
fancies of her girlish read-
ing ; to be later, perhaps ,
" CAME DOWN TO THE LITTLE CABIN ." the Flora Macdonald of a
middle-aged Prince Charlie did not, however, evoke any ludicrous
associations in her mind. Her feminine fancy exalted the escaped
duellist and alleged assassin into a social martyr. His actual small
political intrigues and ignoble aims of office seemed to her little
different from those aspirations of royalty which she had read
about-as perhaps they were . Indeed, it is to be feared that in
foolish little Mrs. Bunker Wynyard Marion had found the old
feminine adoration of pretension and privilege which every rascal
has taken advantage of since the flood.
Howbeit, the next morning after she had returned and Zephas
had sailed away, she flew a red bandanna handkerchief on the
212 THE IDLER.
little flagstaff before the house. A few hours later, a boat

appeared mysteriously from around the Point. Its only occupant
-a common sailor-asked her name, and handed her a sealed
package. Mrs. Bunker's invention had already been at work.
She had created an aunt in Mexico , for whom she had, with some
ostentation, made some small purchases while in San Francisco .
When her husband spoke of going as far South as Todos Santos ,
she begged him to deliver the parcel to her aunt's messenger, and
even addressed it boldly to her. Inside the outer wrapper she
wrote a note to Marion , which, with a new and amazing diffidence,
she composed and altered a dozen times, at last addressing the
following in a large , school - girl hand : " Sir, I obey your commands
to the last. Whatever your oppressors or enemies may do, you
can always rely and trust upo She who in deepest sympathy
signs herself ever, Mollie Rosalie MacEwan ." The substitution
of her maiden name in full seemed in her simplicity to be a
delicate exclusion of her husband from the affair, and a certain
disguise of herself to alien eyes. The superscription , " To Mrs.
Marion MacEwan from Mollie Bunker, to be called for by hand at
Todos Santos," also struck her as a marvel of ingenuity. The
package was safely and punctually delivered by Zephas, who
brought back a small packet directed to her, which on private
examination proved to contain a letter addressed to " J. E. Kirby,
to be called for, " with the hurried line : " A thousand thanks ,
W.M." Mrs. Bunker drew a long, quick breath . He might
have written more ; he might have—— but the wish remained
still unformulated . The next day she ran up a signal ; the same
boat and solitary rower appeared around the Point, and took the
package. A week later, when her husband was ready for sea , she
again hoisted her signal. It brought a return package for Mexico,
which she enclosed and re-addressed , and gave to her husband .
The recurrence of this incident apparently struck a bright idea
from the simple Zephas .
" Look here, Mollie, why don't you come yourself and see your
aunt. I can't go into port without a license, and them port
charges cost a heap o ' red tape, for they've got a Filibuster scare
on down there just now, but you can go ashore in the boat and I'll
get permission from the Secretary to stand off and wait for you
there for twenty-four hours." Mrs. Bunker flushed and paled at
the thought . She could see him ! The letter would be sufficient
excuse, the distrust suggested by her husband would give colour to
her delivering it in person . There was perhaps a brief twinge of
THE CONSPIRACY OF MRS. Bunker. 213
conscience in taking this advantage of Zephas's kindness, but the

next moment, with that peculiar logic known only to the sex, she
made the unfortunate man's suggestion a condonation of her
deceit. She hadn't asked to go ; he had offered to take her . He
had only himself to thank.
But the political excitement in which she had become a partisan
without understanding or even conviction , presently culminated
with the Presidential campaign and the election of Abraham
Lincoln . The intrigues of Southern statesmen were revealed in
open expression, and echoed in California by those citizens of
Southern birth and extraction who had long held place, power, and
opinion there. There were rumours of secession , of California
joining the South , or of her founding an independent Pacific
Empire. A note for " J. E. Kirby " informed Mrs. Bunker that
she was to carefully retain any correspondence that might be in
her hands until further orders , almost at the same time that
Zephas as regretfully told her that his projected Southern trip had
been suspended. Mrs. Bunker was disappointed, and yet, in
some singular conditions of her feelings, felt relieved that her
meeting with Marion was postponed . It is to be feared that some
dim [ conviction , unworthy a partisan , that in the magnitude of
political ever.ts her own petty personality might be overlooked by
her hero, tended somewhat to her resignation .
Meanwhile the seasons had changed . The winter rains had
set in; the Trade winds had shifted to the South-east , and the
cottage, although strengthened, enlarged, and made more com-
fortable through the good fortunes of the Bunkers , was no longer
sheltered by the cliff, but was exposed to the full strength of the
Pacific gales. There were long nights when she could hear the
rain fall monotonously on the shingles , or startle her with a short,
sharp réveille on the windows ; there were brief days of flying
clouds and drifting sunshine, and intervals of dull grey shadow,
when the heaving white breakers beyond the gate slowly lifted
themselves and sank before her like wraiths of warning. At such
times , in her accepted solitude, Mrs. Banker gave herself up to
strange moods and singular visions ; the more audacious and
more striking it seemed to her froin their very remoteness , and the
difficulty she was beginning to have in materialising them. The
actual personality of Wynyard Marion , as she knew it in her one
interview, had become very shadowy and faint in the months that
passed, yet when the days were heavy she sometimes saw herself
standing by his side in some vague tropical surroundings, and
214 THE IDLER .
hailed by the multitude as the faithful wife and consort of the

great Leader, President, Emperor-she knew not what ! Exactly
how this was to be managed , and the manner of Zephas's efface-
ment from the scene, never troubled her childish fancy, and , it is
but fair to say, her woman's conscience . In the logic before
alluded to , it seemed to her that all ethical responsibility for her
actions rested with the husband who had unduly married her.
Nor were those visions always roseate. In the wild declamation
of that exciting epoch which filled the newspapers , there was talk
of short shrift with traitors. So there were days when the sudden
onset of a squall of hail against her window caused her to start
as if she had heard the sharp fusilade of that file of muskets of
which she had sometimes read in history.
404.4 .
20 11m .
.
Geo,Huahinsun
" THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY," SHE SAID.
One day she had a singular fright. She had heard the sound
of oars falling with a precision and regularity unknown to
her. She was startled to see the approach of a large eight- oar
barge rowed by men in uniform , with two officers wrapped in
cloaks in the stern sheets , and before them the glitter of musket
barrels . The two officers appeared to be conversing earnestly,
and occasionally pointing to the shore and the bluff above. For
an instant she trembled , and then an instinct of revolt and resist-
ance followed. She hurriedly removed the ring, which she usually
wore when alone, from her finger, slipped it with the packet under
the mattress of her bed, and prepared with blazing eyes to face
the intruders . But when the boat landed, the two officers , with
scarcely a glance towards the cottage, proceeded leisurely along
the shore. Relieved , yet it must be confessed a little piqued at
their indifference, she snatched up her hat and sallied forth to
confront them.
" I suppose you don't know that this is private property, " she
said, sharply.
The group halted and turned towards her. The orderly, who
was following, turned his face aside and smiled . The younger
officer demurely lifted his cap . The elder, grey, handsome, in a
general's uniform , after a moment's half-astounded , half- amused
scrutiny of the little figure, gravely raised his gauntleted fingers
in a military salute .
" I beg your pardon , Madam, but I am afraid we never even
thought of that. We are making a preliminary survey for the
Government with a possible view of fortifying the bluff. It is very
doubtful if you will be disturbed in any rights you may have , but
if you are, the Government will not fail to make it good to you."
He turned carelessly to the aide beside him . " I suppose the bluff
is quite inaccessible from here ?"
" I don't know about that, general. They say that Marion , after
he killed Henderson , escaped down this way," said the young man.
" Indeed—what good was that ? How did he get away from
here ?"
66
They say that Mrs. Fairfax was hanging round in a boat ,
waiting for him. The story of the escape is all out now."
They moved away with a slight perfunctory bow to Mrs.
Bunker, only the younger officer noting that the pert, pretty little
Western woman wasn't as sharp and snappy to his superior as
she had at first promised to be.
She turned back to the cottage astounded , angry and vaguely
alarmed. Who was this Mrs. Fairfax who had usurped her fame
and solitary devotion ? There was no woman in the boat that took
him off; it was equally well known that he went in the ship alone.
If they had heard that some woman was with him here-why
should they have supposed it was Mrs. Fairfax ? Zephas might
know something-but he was away. The thought haunted her that
day and the next. On the third came a more startling incident .
She had been wandering along the edge of her domain in a
state of restlessness which had driven her from the monotony of the
P
216 THE IDLER.
house when she heard the barking of the big Newfoundland dog
which Zephas had lately bought for protection and company.
She looked up and saw the boat and its solitary rower at the
landing. She ran quickly to the house to bring the packet. As
she entered she started back in amazement. For the sitting-
room was already in possession of a woman who was seated
calmly by the table.
The stranger turned on Mrs. Bunker that frankly insolent
glance and deliberate examination which only one woman can
give another. In that glance Mrs. Bunker felt herself in the
presence of a superior, even if her own eyes had not told her that
in beauty, attire and bearing the intruder was of a type and con-
dition far beyond her own, or even that of any she had known.
It was the more crushing that there also seemed to be in this
haughty woman the same incongruousness and sharp contrast to
the plain and homely surroundings of the cottage that she remem-
bered in him .
"Yo aw Mrs. Bunker, I believe," she said in languid Southern
accents . " How de doh.".
" I am Mrs. Bunker," said Mrs. Bunker shortly.
" And so this is where Cunnle Marion stopped when he waited
fo' the boat to take him off," said the stranger, glancing lazily
around, and delaying with smiling insolence the explanation she
knew Mrs. Bunker was expecting. " The Cunnle said it was a
pooh enough place, but I don't see it. I reckon, however, he was
too worried to judge and glad enough to get off. Yo' ought to
have made him talk-he generally don't want much prompting to
talk to women, if they're pooty."
" He didn't seem in a hurry to go," said Mrs. Bunker indig-
nantly. The next moment she saw her error , even before the
cruel, handsome smile of her unbidden guest revealed it.
" I thought so," she said lazily ; " this is the place and here's
where the Cunnle stayed . Only yo' oughtn't have given him and
yo'self away to the first stranger quite so easy . The Cunnle
might have taught yo' that the two or three hours he was
with yo'."
"What do you want with me ? " demanded Mrs. Bunker
angrily.
" I want a letter yo' have for me from Cunnle Marion ."
"I have nothing for you," said Mrs. Bunker. " I don't know
who you are."
THE CONSPIRACY OF MRS. BUnker . 217
"You ought to, considering

you've been acting as messenger
between the Cunnle and me,"
said the lady coolly.
" That's not true, " said Mrs.
Bunker hotly, to combat an in-
ward sinking.
" THE SITTING-ROOM WAS ALREADY IN POSSESSION OF A WOMAN.""1

The lady rose with a lazy, languid grace, walked to the door
and called still lazily, " O Pedro ! "
The solitary rower clambered up the rocks and appeared on the
cottage threshold.
" Is this the lady who gave you the letters for me and to whom
you took mine ? "
" Si Senora."
"They were addressed to a Mr. Kirby," said Mrs. Bunker
sullenly. " How was I to know they were for Mrs. Kirby ? "
" Mr. Kirby, Mrs. Kirby and myself are all the same. You
don't suppose the Cunnle would give my real name and address ?
Did you address yo'r packet to his real name or to someone else ?
Did you let your husband know who they were for ? "
Oddly, a sickening sense of the meanness of all these deceits
and subterfuges suddenly came over Mrs. Bunker. Without
replying she went to her bedroom and returned with Colonel
Marion's last letter, which she tossed into her visitor's lap.
218 THE IDLER .
" Thank yo' , Mrs. Bunker. I'll be sure to tell the Cunnle how
careful yo' were not to give up his correspondence to everybody.
It'll please him mo' than to hear yo' are wearing his ring—which
everybody knows -before people."
"He gave it to me-he- he knew I wouldn't take money,"
said Mrs. Bunker indignantly.
" He didn't have any to give," said the lady slowly, as she
removed the envelope from her letter and looked up with a
dazzling but cruel smile. " A So'th'n gentleman don't fill up his
pockets when he goes out to fight. He don't tuck his Maw's
Bible in his breast pocket, clap his dear Auntie's locket big as a
cheese plate over his heart, nor let his sole leather cigyar case that
his gyerl gave him lie round him in spots when he goes out to
take another gentleman's fire. He leaves that to Yanks ! "
" Did you come here to insult my husband ? " said Mrs. Bunker
in the rage of desperation.
" To insult yo' husband ! Well-I came here to get a letter
that his wife received from his political and natural enemy and—
perhaps I did ! " With a side glance at Mrs. Bunker's crimson
cheek she added carelessly, " I have nothing against Captain
Bunker, he's a straightforward man and must go with his kind . He
helped those hounds of Vigilantes because he believes in them.
We couldn't bribe him if we wanted to. And we don't."
If she only knew something of this woman's relations to
•
Marion- which - she only instinctively suspected-and · could
retaliate upon her, Mrs. Bunker felt she would have given up her
life at that moment.
"Colonel Marion seems to find plenty that he can bribe, " she
said roughly, " and I've yet to know who you are to sit in judg-
ment on them. You've got your letter, take it and go ! When he
wants to send you another through me, somebody else must come
for it, not you. That's all ! "
She drew back as if to let the intruder pass, but the lady, with-
out moving a muscle, finished the reading of her letter, then
stood up quietly and began carefully to draw her handsome cloak
over her shoulders. " Yo' want to know who I am, Mrs. Bunker, "
she said, arranging the velvet collar under her white oval chin .
"Well, I'm a So'th'n woman from Figinya, and I'm Fygynian
first, last, and all the time." She shook out her sleeves and the
folds of her cloak. " I believe in State rights and Slavery— if you
know what that means. I hate the North, I hate the East, I hate
the West. I hate this nigger Government, I'd kill that man
THE CONSPIRACY OF mrs. bunker . 219
Lincoln quicker than lightning ! " She began to draw down the
fingers of her gloves, holding her shapely hands upright before
her. " I'm hard and fast to the Cause. I gave up house and
niggers for it." She began to button her gloves at the wrist with
some difficulty, tightly setting together her beautiful lips as she did
.
so. " I gave up my husband for it, and I went to the man who
loved it better and had risked more for it than ever he had.
Cunnlc Marion's my friend. I'm Mrs. Fairfax, Josephine Hardee
that was ; his disciple and follower. Well, maybe those puritanical
No'th'n folks might give it another name ! "
She moved slowly towards the door, but on the threshold
paused, as Colonel Marion had , and came back to Mrs. Bunker
with an outstretched hand . " I don't see that yo ' and me need
quo" . I didn't come here for that. I came here to see your
husband, and seeing you I thought it was only right to talk
squarely to you , as you understand I wouldn't talk to your husband .
Mrs. Bunker, I want your husband to take me away-I want him
to take me to the Cunnle. If I tried to go in any other way I'd
be watched, spied upon and followed , and only lead those hounds
on his track. I don't expect yo' to ask yo' husband for me, but
only not to interfere when I do."
There was a touch of unexpected weakness in her voice and a
look of pain in her eyes which was not unlike what Mrs. Bunker
had seen and pitied in Marion . But they were the eyes of a
woman who had humbled her, and Mrs. Bunker would have been
unworthy her sex if she had not felt a cruel enjoyment in it. Yet
the dominance of the stranger was still so strong she did not dare
to refuse the proffered hand . She, however, slipped the ring from
her finger, and laid it in Mrs. Fairfax's palm .
"You can take that with you," she said, with a desperate
attempt to imitate the other's previous indifference . " I shouldn't
like to deprive you and your friend of the opportunity of making
use of it again. As for my husband I shall say nothing of you to
him as long as you say nothing to him of me-which I suppose is
what you mean."
The insolent look came back to Mrs. Fairfax's face . " I reckon
yo're right," she said quietly, putting the ring in her pocket as she
fixed her dark eyes on Mrs. Bunker, " and the ring may be of use
again. Good-bye, Mrs. Bunker."
She waved her hand carelessly , and turning away passed out
of the house. A moment later the boat and its two occupants
pushed from the shore, and disappeared round the Point.
220 THE IDLER.
Then Mrs. Bunker looked round the room and down upon her
empty finger, and knew that it was the end of her dream . It
was all over now-indeed, with the picture of that proud, insolent
woman before her she wondered if it had ever begun . This was
the woman she had allowed herself to think she might be. This
was the woman he was thinking of when he sat there ; this was
the Mrs. Fairfax the officers had spoken of, and who had made her
-Mrs . Bunker-the go-between for their lovemaking ! All the
work that she had done for him , the deceit she had practised on
her husband, was to bring him and this woman together ! And
they both knew it, and had no doubt laughed at her and her
pretensions.
It was with a burning cheek that she thought how she had in-
tended to go to Marion , and imagined herself arriving perhaps to
find that shameless woman already there . In her vague unformu-
lated longings she had never before realised the degradation into
which her foolish romance might lead her. She saw it now ; that
humiliating moral lesson we are all apt to experience in the acci-
dental display of our own particular vices in the person we hate ,
she had just felt in Mrs. Fairfax's presence. With it came the
paralysing fear of her husband's discovery of her secret. Secure
as she had been in her dull belief that he had in some way wronged
her by marrying her, she for the first time began to doubt if this
condoned the deceit she had practised on him. The tribute Mrs.
Fairfax had paid him-this appreciation of his integrity and
honesty by an enemy and a woman like herself-troubled her,
frightened her, and filled her with her first jealousy ! What if this
woman should tell him all ; what if she should make use of him
as Marion had of her. Zephas was a strong Northern partisan ,
but was he proof against the guileful charms of such a devil ? She
had never thought before of questioning his fidelity to her ; she
suddenly remembered now some rough pleasantries of Captain
Simmons in regard to the inconstancy of his calling. No ! there
was but one thing for her to do ; she would make a clean breast to
him ; she would tell him everything she had done except the fatal
fancy that compelled her to it ! She began to look for his coming
now with alternate hope and fear-with unabated impatience !
The night that he should have arrived passed slowly ; morning
came, but not Zephas. When the mist had lifted she ran im-
patiently to the rocks and gazed anxiously towards the lower bay.
There were a few grey sails scarce distinguishable above the
greyer water—but they were not his . She glanced half mechani-
cally seawards, and her eyes became suddenly fixed . There was
no mistake ! She knew the rig !-she could see the familiar
white lap-streak as the vessel careened on the starboard tack- it
was her husband's schooner slowly creeping out of the Golden Gate !
(To be concluded.)
MARCH .
THE IDEAL.

We love thee, though wayward and arch ,
Masterful, blustering March !
Thy breath bends the oak and the larch,
But the daisy finds grace in thy mood,
Masterful , blustering March ,
THE REAL.

And things are all blown inside out !
I said when I heard the cat sneeze :-
" Here is March with an easterly breeze !
Bronchitis or ague will seize
My wife and the children, no doubt.
And things are all blown inside out ! "
J. H. GORING.
S
HEIDLER'
CLUB
Sally
Harry
Jerome com- No, it is not at all the sort of thing I meant. You
see, it came about in this way : I thought that
plaineth of a
" Music Halls" would make an interesting subject for
certain contri-
a paper ; so I do still . I went to young Dudley
butor.
Hardy, and propounded my plan . I said, " Look
here, Hardy, I've got an idea in my head. You go round to all
the Music Halls in London , and take sketches of the audiences and
the performers, and then I'll get some man who understands the
thing to write up to the pictures, and we will have a rattling good
article." He did not fall in with the suggestion at first. He had
the notion, common among the " unco' guid," that Music Halls
are highly improper places. He said he should not care to be
seen in such haunts himself, and suggested that a less strictly
brought up young man should be retained for the job. However,
I overcame his scruples. I told him I was positive he would
come across nothing likely to bring a blush to his cheek, and I
assured him that the most respectable people patronised Music
Halls now-a-days, and that Bishops often visited them. (For all
that I know to the contrary, they do. I am sure I can't see why
they should not. ) He replied that, of course, that altered the
case. He had been given to understand otherwise ; but, if what
I stated was true, he had no objection to do what I wished . I
impressed upon him that it was true, and he undertook the con-
tract. When I next saw him, three weeks later, he handed me

some twenty sketches (ten of them are in this present number,
and the others will appear next month) . He said that to obtain
them he had visited sixteen Music Halls, and had sat out each
entertainment from beginning to end . He looked haggard, and his
manner towards me was cold .
Having obtained the sketches, I looked around for

someone to write the letterpress , and finally fixed The contri-
upon a certain contributor who I thought understood butor telleth
the subject . He said he knew exactly what I wanted— him a story.
he is one of those fellows who always do know
what you want better than you do yourself ; you know the sort of
man I mean—and would " knock off" just the very thing . I
showed him the sketches , and we talked them over together. He
took up the "West End " one. " Admirable," he said ; " this is
not a sketch, this is a group of portraits. You can see these
""
people any night at the Alhambra or the Empire. Some persons ,'
he continued, " visit these halls night after night. They never glance
at the performance. They merely go because they feel that it does
them good to be there. Why, I knew of an old gentleman who
occupied the same stall at the Alhambra every evening for five years .
It was always kept for him, and he always came. He would arrive
about nine, settle himself comfortably, and go to sleep. At the
end of the performance the attendant would awake him, and he
would get up and go home. One evening, however, the chair
remained vacant ; and the waiters forgot to wait for their tips,
and the strength went out of the arm of him who played upon the
big drum, and the première danseuse lost her balance . Enquiries
were made, and the old gentleman was found lying in his
gloomy chambers , surrounded by soft-stepping nurses and grave-
faced doctors. But he murmured very faintly that his stall was to
be reserved for him as usual . So the seat was kept, and a few
nights later, as the audience were filing out, the porter saw him
sitting in it, his eyes closed , and his chin resting upon his breast,
as was his custom , and was much surprised, for no one had noticed
him enter. The man went up to him and tried to wake him .
But he was not to be roused-neither then nor at any other time.
He had no friends, not even a relation . He had come to spend
his last evening at the only place where he was welcome ; among
the only people that he knew."
224 THE IDLER.
Then he told me another story about a very young

The contribu- friend of his who had married a ballet-dancer. She
tor discourseth was an exceedingly beautiful girl, and a good and
of the ballet. modest girl-compared with many others of her class .
The lad had married her secretly, and for two
years but there, that is a long and sad story, and the moral
of it is that it is not well for young gentlemen, nor for
ballet girls either, even though they may be good and beau-
tiful, to marry away from their own people. Afterwards,
we fell to discussing ballets generally. He said it was sur-
prising how few people understood the language of panto-
mime. He said, " I've known people-fairly intelligent people
-sit out a ballet three times, and then not be able to tell
what it was about. The subtle teaching , the fine moral (and few
things in this lax age are more instructively moral than a ballet) ,
are lost upon the average spectator. I took a friend of mine,
once," he went on , " to see a ballet at the Empire. It was a kind
of Terpsichorean sermon upon the sinfulness of greed and
dishonesty. It shewed how a wicked lawyer robbed and ruined a
good young man. For a while he gloried amid his ill -gotten
gains, but a large and influential body of fairies took the matter in
hand, and made it unpleasant for the old sinner. They danced
every night in his bedroom, some four hundred of them-it was a
big bedroom . At last he repented , and restored the good young
man to his estate. Then they let him go to sleep. My friend
was a City man . I thought this ballet would do him good , and I
wanted to be sure that he understood it. I said : ' Can you follow
it ? What's she doing now ?' (The good young man was in the
"
Fairy Queen's bower '-I forget what he had come there for-
and she was explaining things to him.) My friend watched her
gesticulations for a while, and then answered that he thought she
was urging him to wash himself. This was disheartening . As a
matter of fact, she was telling him , to quote the words of the argu-
ment set forth in the programme, that his wife was still faithful
to him, and that all would come right in the end if he would only
be brave and patient. Later on, the Queen of the Fairies lectured
the wicked lawyer. She pointed to the ground and frowned .
'What's that mean ?' I questioned my companion. Oh , that's
6
plain enough,' he replied. She's wild with him, and is telling
him to go to ' Hush !' I interrupted quickly, it means
nothing of the sort. She is reminding him of the days when he
was a happy, innocent lad , and knelt at his mother's knees. You
might have grasped a little thing like that.' I gave him one
more chance. The good young man was standing in the centre
of the stage, and the Première Danseuse Assoluta' was twid-
dling round and round him and wagging her head. A child would
have known that she was a wicked , heartless creature, and that
her object was to fascinate him, and so lure him away from his
wife, and home, and family. What do you make of that ? ' I
asked the man of business. He pondered a long time. Then a
ray of intelligence drove the cloud of doubt from his brow, and he
exclaimed, I know. He's taken something that is bad for him—
poison, I expect—and she is trying to save his life by making him
sick.' I felt that the show was doing him no practical good
whatever, so I took him down to the club and taught him poker."
Ah, you should see a Constantinople Music Hall. Burgin dis-

It's the nearest approach to civilisation possessed by courseth of
the Turkish
Young Turkey. The juvenile Turkish " plunger" sits
Music Hall .
cross-legged on the ground (it is a painful attitude if
you are not used to it) and drinks an evil- smelling liquid
called "raki " out of a little cup. To promote a healthy thirst, he
nibbles bits of salt fish " between drinks." The performers are
also seated cross -legged , on a small platform . They play divers
melancholy instruments of brass and parchment. The general
effect strongly resembles the sound produced by ungreased cart-
wheels. But the Turks like it. The songs are generally senti-
mental or narrative. A narrative song will sometimes last for
three evenings. It is invariably sung in a weird, wild minor key,
strangely suggestive of the distant wail of a wolf. When the
singer is tired, he leaves off, has a cup of coffee, or something
stronger, smokes for half-an-hour or so , and then goes on again .
There is no applause . There never is in a Turkish place of enter-
tainment. Turks would consider it vulgar to applaud. Neither do
the people get vulgarly intoxicated , only gravely so. They smoke
narghilehs, and there are no police cases the next morning. If a
man is very far gone, the neighbours approach him with, " Allah
is with you, Effendi (a polite method of hinting to him that he is
blind drunk) . We will accompany you to your dwelling." Which
they proceed to do , in spite of his protests.
226 THE IDLER.
But that is in Stamboul proper. The modern Music

He speaketh of Halls are in Pera-which is often improper. There
the Halls of
Pera. they have an occasional camel-fight between "the
turns." Just imagine two great, gaunt, ugly brutes
let loose from each side of the stage, and goaded on by their
drivers ! They are trained to fight, and they do so. When
they meet in the middle, their long upper-lips curl back and show
their gleaming white teeth-there is a crash , and the heavier one
of the two gradually forces his opponent step by step backward . And
all the time, their long snake-like necks are winding and twisting
about to a chorus of grunts as they worry and tear at each other.
At first you feel sick, then you become interested , and , just as one
forces the other down and is going to kneel on him and smash
him to a jelly, the curtain falls, leaving the rest to your imagina-
tion . A peculiarity of the Pera Halls is the pair of long (once
white) gloves provided by " The Management " for the use of the
lady vocalists . As each girl goes off, she unfastens the gloves
and pitches them to the next artiste, who comes on smiling and
bowing and struggling into them. The one pair of gloves has to
do for everybody. The fat ladies have difficulty in getting them
on, the thin ladies in keeping them on. But we all have to suffer in
the cause of etiquette.
Well , then he took up the picture of Dan Leno. He

Jerome's friend
said it brought to his mind a curious speech he once
speaketh of
the " Lion heard a comic singer make at a Hall in Drury Lane.
Comique. " The singer sang that night a new song, and the élite of
Seven Dials, assembled within that Hall, received it
with rapturous delight. Whereupon the singer spoke, and un-
burdened himself of a trouble that lay upon his heart. " Lydies
and gentlemen," he said, his voice trembling with emotion,
"you'll ' ardly believe it , but I've jest sang that song at a ' All in
the West End, and I was ' issed , lydies and gentlemen-' issed"
(murmurs of indignation and surprise) . " Yes, ' issed, " he con-
tinued, warmed into greater vehemence by the evident sympathy
of his hearers , " and not by folks like you , mind yer, mere no-
bodies (" 'ear, ' ear," in tones of gratified vanity, difficult to account
for), but by toffs in white shirts and kid gloves, real lydies and
gentlemen" (thunders of applause ; everybody pleased all round).
From that, my contributor went on to talk ofthe " Lion Comique"
(or comic lion) and ofthe dwindling of his glory. "Where is he

now ?" mused my gossip , sadly. " Where do we hear now that
bull-like bellow ; where see those wondrous trousers, that gorgeous
overcoat that swept the ground ; that opera hat that closed at
every joke, and opened at every noble sentiment ? Ah ! but in my
young days, he was a mighty man . His voice was a voice in the
policy of the government . The chorus of his latest ditty was the
one repartee of the nation. For nine months, I remember,
England said, "Tommy, make room for your uncle.' Schoolboys
left their games , and repeated it to each other in their play-time. City
men relieved the tedium of business by calling it out to each other
across the street. Drivers yelled it at other drivers as an insult.
Lovers whispered it to one another. Wicked men said it, and
winked. Sweet girls said it, and giggled. Good young men said
6
it nervously, and felt that they were going it.' From barge to
drawing-room , from beershop to senate , it was the national joke .
Each newspaper kept it stereoed in every possible type. The
high-class journals translated it into Latin. One Saturday night I
went to bed, and the murmur of people saying it to each other, as
they passed beneath my window, lulled me to sleep. On Sunday
morning, when the girl brought me up my breakfast, she said,
'Woa Emma .' I did not understand it. On my way to church
everybody I met said ' Woa Emma,' but not a soul remarked
' Tommy make room for your uncle .' I thought I must be
dreaming that I was up. The day passed, and not once did I
hear Tommy even alluded to. • On the other hand, London rang
with the name of Emma. I grew seriously alarmed. Had I,
like Rip Van Winkle, slept for twenty years ? If not, what had
happened ? I made enquiries, and then I learnt the explanation .
6
The Lion Comique, who had given us Tommy make room for
your uncle,' had on Saturday night introduced a new song, the
chorus of which was 'Woa Emma. ' So we said ' Woa Emma'
to each other for the next year or two."
We chatted about " serio-comics " and niggers .

He said he had a deal of useful information about
The contributor
niggers, and that he should put it opposite the is dismissed .
picture of Chirgwin . Against Chevalier and Jenny
Hill he intended to discuss East End character
and coster life. He had known Chevalier (so he stated) years
228 THE IDLER.
ago, when he (Chevalier) was merely an actor, playing ordinary

theatrical parts at the " Strand " and " Avenue. " He used in
those days to come to the Vagabonds ' Club, and would often sing
one of his coster songs there. He was always enthusiastically
received, and the Vagabonds predicted even then that he would be
a great man. Now they go about saying " I told you so ." I
gathered from all this, that my young gentleman was going to
write for me an article on Music Halls which would make a fit and
proper accompaniment to Mr. Dudley Hardy's pictures. He
sends me a paper that has nothing whatever to do with the
pictures. There is not in it, from one end to the other, a word
relating to them. How a man could have written a nine-page
article on Music Halls, and yet have managed to avoid the
slightest reference to any single one of these pictures, in the way
that he has done , is a mystery to me. I shall put the thing into
somebody else's hands for next month.
The first and only time I visited a Constantinople

Burgin seeth
life in Constan- Music Hall was about a week after my arrival. I accom-
tinople. panied a young but not equally guileless friend.
Selected specimens of riff-raff from every quarter of
the globe appeared to be there. They sat at little marble-
topped tables, and were waited on by pretty girls, whose business
it was to tempt customers to drink. The belles of the place were
expected to sip something from the glass of every admirer. The
Hall was full of smoke, and the British sailor in the audience
declared with monotonous iteration that his name was " Cham-
pagne Charlie." But his beverage was rum . We soon got tired
of the entertainment, and my friend suggested that we should
"go behind." We knocked at a mysterious little door close to
the stage, and were admitted after he had given the countersign.
There was a blaze of light, a babble of voices , and a distant click-
click which made my companion prick up his ears. " Roulette !"
he said. " Have you a fiver ? We'll plunge." When we
approached the table, " the bonnets " courteously made way for
us. We won a little at first. An old Carlist Count, to whom
I had a letter of introduction, came up, and begged me to
desist. I was flushed with success, and went on. I lost ten
pounds-fifteen-twenty. The Count could contain himself no
longer. He came up, and struck me lightly on the cheek.
"Monsieur," he said , " I will send my seconds to you to-morrow

morning. Meantime, leave here at once." It seemed that I had
pushed him away. Then I left off playing, and my companion
suggested a stroll through the green-room. Just to show I wasn't
excited, I went. There had been an alarm of fire, and a tall girl
was kicking hysterically on a sofa. " Cut her laces," said some.
one. Something popped like a champagne cork, and the fair one
recovered. Then I went home, made my will , wrote a letter to my
mother, and sat up all night wondering whether the weapons would
be swords or pistols. The Count called next morning, instead of
his seconds, and I pledged my word of honour never to enter the
place again.
The " Street Arab " ' cute, I should think he was.
A friend of mine had some conversation with one
Phillpotts and
only the other day, and exchanged ideas with him upon the Arab.
the subject of tobacco. The naked-footed, ragged ,
gimlet-eyed boy had been a smoker from infancy, he ex-
plained. He was now seven years old, he thought, or " may
be eight ; one loses count, sir." Concerning tobacco, he
liked a cigar better than anything, and generally smoked them.
My friend delicately suggested how much better it would be to
forego such luxuries for a brief season, save money, and buy a pair
of boots ; but the child assured him that his tobacco bill was
nothing. " You've only got to watch," he said, producing a variety
of cigar stumps from his pocket. " Clean shaves aint no good,
'cause they smokes down to the end, and cigar-holders aint no use
neither ; but when I sees a gent with a big moustache I keeps my
heye on ' im , ' cause I knows ' e aint goin' to burn ' isself. Pre-
sently 'e chucks ' is ' smoke ' and I'm on it-see ? " My friend did
Verily the infant Londoner, gutter-bred, gutter-nurtured, is
one ofthe most acute things on earth .
Listening to " Bab's" latest libretto, I could not

help asking why the world which denounces Ibsen Zangwill
tolerates W. S. Gilbert. From the days of the talking speaketh of
Gilbertianism .
serpent, the cynic has always been looked upon as the
enemy of mankind. Human nature resents analysis,
and feels it a violation of modesty to be stripped. Swift and
230 THE IDLER.
Mandeville, La Rochefoucauld and Machiavelli, may extort

admiration ; they will never be loved like the sentimentalists. Nor
are they so useful ; for to influence men nobly, one must appeal to
How comes it then that
the good qualities they do not possess.
Gilbert alone has gone home to the great heart of the people, and,
what is more, to its great pocket ? For surely, scepticism of human
nature has never been expressed more unflinchingly in literature
than by the sordid exposure of our inner selves in The
Palace ofTruth and The Mountebanks. It is beside the question to
point out that Gilbert has his moments of pathos, that he has
made the hapless lot of the policeman as proverbial as Hood made
the needlewoman's, and that he has enriched English poetry with
the idyllic picture of the tired costermonger basking in the sun
after he has finished his daily task of jumping upon his mother ;
the broad tenour of his teaching remains relentlessly destructive.
And what is human nature's reply to the satirist's mockeries ? Why
it waltzes, and polks to them set to lively tunes. What ho !
twist ye, twine ye, set to partners , balance and retire, chassé - croisé
and ladies' chain ! Gilbert is out- Gilberted by the spectacle.
Perhaps the reply to Horace's famous Quid vetat, &c. , is that
nothing forbids you to tell the truth , jesting except that the world
will take it for jesting and not for truth.
What can be more scarifying, in sooth, than the

He regretteth
the convention- conception of The Mountebanks ? Imagine everybody
turned into what he pretends to be. Let each of us
ality of human
nature. take the lesson to his privy breast. Oh, the horror of
fancying myself doomed to be a humourist to go
through life perennially facetious ! Then, again, where has the
doctrine of determinism, of human automatism, been more nakedly
preached than in the lines sung with such insouciance by Harry.
Monkhouse and Aida Jenoure :
BARTOLO : Clockwork figures may be found.
Everywhere, and all around .
NITA : Ten to one, if we but knew,
You are clockwork figures too.
To this, then, have we come at last-in this English theatre we
have striven to keep so wholesome and elevating-to the material-
ism of D'Holbach and Spencer, the denial that we are aught but
" cunning casts in clay." Yet there is an element of truth in these
profound verses for even the most spiritualistic of us-the reminder

of our terrible tendency to grow automatic. Even our ideas
became stereotyped , our conversations clichés. Clockwork figures
could say, " How are you ?" with the cordiality of human beings,
and interchange views about the weather with equal intelligence.
I remember once holding conversation with a young lady visitor.
" How are you ?" I led off. " Quite well, thank you." Thus her
66
repartee. " How is your sister ?" Quite well, thank you ."
""
'Why didn't she come with you ?” " She's down with influenza ,
I'm sorry to say." And my interlocutor does not know till this
day why I was so heartless as to smile. It is not only in our little
household ways that we grow mechanical. Religion becomes
formula, and art artifice. The stock novelist is an automatic liar,
the popular song-writer a barrel organ, the successful artist per-
petually reproduces the same types. Even History repeats itself.
And so does Gilbertian opera.
Some years ago, somebody wrote a book entitled

"Twelve Miles from a Lemon." I never read the Barr seeketh
volume, and so do not know whether the writer had to to shirk his
work.
tramp twelve miles to get the seductive lemon toddy,
which cheers and afterwards inebriates, or the harmless
lemon squash, which neither cheers nor inebriates. I think there
are times when most people would like to get twelve miles away
from everything-including themselves . I tried to put a number
of miles between me and a telegraph instrument, and flattered
myself for a time that I had succeeded . I dived into the depths
of the New Forest. The New Forest is popular in summer,
deserted in winter , and beautiful at any season. I found a secluded
spot in the woods, and thought I was out of reach of a telegram .
I wish now I had not got so far away from the instrument. The
boy came on horseback with the message. It was brief, coming
well within the sixpenny range, and it stated tersely that the printer
was waiting for these paragraphs. The boy said calmly that
there would be fifteen shillings and sixpence to pay for the
delivery of that yellow slip of paper. It came out in the conversa-
tion we had that there were only a certain number of places in the
Forest where a man could be, unless he were lost, and the
telegraph boy had made the rounds until he found me. If I had
got deeper into the woods there would simply have been more to
Q
232 THE IDler .
pay. It is hard (and expensive) to get far away from the click of
the telegraph instrument . I fear that those who read these items
will agree with me that they are not worth the original expendi-
ture, and will join in my regret that I did not succced in getting
outside the electric circuit.
In the New Forest, I tramped over part of the

He goeth on ground covered by a recent book. The hero of " The
the tramp
with wild White Company " walked from Beaulieu Abbey to
companions. Christchurch. So did I. He joined the White Com-
pany. So did I , for it was snowing while I walked.
It is pleasant to journey through a picturesque country with
the hero of an interesting book as a comrade . I have tramped
with Quentin Durward over that part of Europe where he took
his celebrated journey. I found A. Conan Doyle's young man
quite as charming a companion as Durward, and I could give
him no higher praise than that. Mr. Doyle is very ingenious in
his treatment of situations . A very good example of his genius
in this particular may be found in the grim and ghastly story that
appears elsewhere in this number of The Idler. You have two
methods of explaining the awful and momentary appearance of
the dead man at sea. One explanation is natural , the other super-
natural. Either fits the story as well as the other. You pays
your sixpence and takes your choice.
It would seem to be almost impossible to help the

millionaires. This may be because they have got
Barry Pain on
into the habit of helping themselves ; hence those
his proposals. millions. At any rate, no millionaire has offered
himself for membership of that club which I proposed
last month . Several have suggested that they would like to be
the proprietor of it. That is sheer greed ; besides , I am going to
be the proprietor myself. But several amateur actors have sent
my proposal for the amelioration of private theatricals to other
amateur actors ; and a great deal of very bad feeling has arisen in
consequence. This is most encouraging. It has led me to hope
that I may do some good for the authors.
I have a grievance against the hotels situated in

interesting places in this country. Can anyone explain Barr hath a
why it is that an hotel never has in its scant library any
grievance.
book pertaining to its immediate locality ? I dislike to
carry guide books with me, for they are bulky and they
accumulate. Besides, they are of no use after your trip is finished .
I would like to read up about the points of interest the night
before at the hotel, and then call around and see the places next
day. While staying at a hotel in Torquay the other week, I found
beautiful books in the reading-room about Ilfracombe, Malvern ,
Hastings, and London. Country hotels always have a book
about London . In the New Forest hotels, I could get any
amount of information about Devonshire and the Peak country.
At Buxton , they have lovely books with pretty pictures of the lakes
and the highlands of Scotland. In Scottish hotels, I have read
charming accounts of the Isle of Wight, and on the Isle of Wight
you may have full particulars of the scenery of the not quite
adjacent island of Ireland . I think I shall endeavour to put the
hotels of this country into communication with each other, and
get them to exchange the contents of their reading-rooms. The
present arrangement seems to me defective from a business point
of view. If I kept an hotel, I would impress my guests with
the beauties of the surrounding district rather than hold forth
on the charms of other localities. I would prefer them to bear the
evils of my hotel rather than fly to others that they knew not of.
Just as there are many persons of whose existence

you are unaware till you read their obituaries, so Zangwill's re-
there are many of whose celebrity you are ignorant flections on
till you see the advertisement of their biographies. life.
On all sides we are flooded with books " mainly about
people." What is this new disease that has come upon us ? Life
is short but a " Life " is long. Can there be any one man in this
great procession of the suns who deserves the two royal octavo
volumes, which is the least monument that the pious biographer
builds ? How keen must be the struggle for life amid these shoals
of " Lives." How futile and vain this aspiration for a " Life '
beyond the grave ! Vainer still the bid for immortality, when
one's own hand raises the mendacious memorial. It is an open
question whether even Marie Bashkirtseff's self-hewn shrine will
234 THE IDLER.
stand- she, who sacrificed her life to her " Life." If it does, it will
not be by virtue of its veracity. I would not trust George Wash-
ington himself to write a perfectly accurate record of a prior day.
As for the average biography, it is but the In Memoriam of
memory. A friend of mine (not present) has written some excel-
lent fiction and some entertaining reminiscences ; only he has
mis-labelled his books, and called his fiction " reminiscences," and
his reminiscences " fiction . ”
The greatest difficulty is the commencement of the

Barry Pain work. A novelist will spend hours over his first
setteth forth paragraph . Ce n'est que le premier " par " qui coûte.
his novel views. There is always a possibility that the first chapter may
be read ; the rest of the book does not matter so
much. I propose to abolish the first chapters altogether.
Evening papers get along very well without any first editions ;
why should novels have first chapters ? If this proposal
were carried out, we might have many more novelists ; there
must be a number of writers who are at present deterred by
the difficulties inseparable from a first chapter. Think whata gain
this would be. The object of the novel is to interest. Nothing
is so interesting to a man as his attempt to interest some-
one else. Therefore the object of the novel is better attained
by writing it than reading it. I have always thought it quite
wrong that his public should pay a writer ; the writer ought to
pay his public ; for he always gets the greater pleasure out of his
work. In the same way, no man ought to pay for his entrance to
a theatre ; he is really doing the dramatic author and the actors a
favour ; but he might be made to pay for permission to leave.
However, lessees are rich enough without that.
I have a grievance also against many Abbeys,

Barr hath Cathedrals, and Castles, or, rather, against the
another present possessors of them. I resent the charge
grievance. of sixpence. I do not mind the squandering of the
coin, and would " bang " it with less regret than
the Highlander had, but it seems to me undignified and
insulting to a grand old building to charge sixpence for looking
at it. At the beginning of my journey they charged a six-

pence to let me see Beaulieu Abbey, and at the end of my journey
they charged me sixpence entrance fee to Christchurch Priory.
Think of having to pay sixpence to go into Canterbury Cathedral,
the church of the Archbishop ! I don't say that a gloomy old
castle isn't cheap at sixpence ; in fact, it is the cheapness that I
object to. It should be something big or nothing. Whatever
may be said against the moral character of the old knights who
once occupied the castles, they never got down to a sixpenny basis.
They might take a wayfarer in and hang him from the highest
tower, but they certainly wouldn't charge him sixpence for looking
through the castle. Of course, I an well aware of the fact that
the moment these words appear in rint the sixpenny charges will
at once be taken off, from the dome tee of St. Paul's to the entrance
tanner at the furthest end of the country, but what I claim is, that
the charge should never have been made.
I have never had the courage to answer a waiter

or argue with a cabman . Therefore, I sincerely trust Zangwill advis-
eth the cab-
the agitation to extend the four-mile radius will be
man for his
continued. Not that I live beyond the magic circle
good .
myself, but the drivers are all agreed I do. If the
circumference were a whole mile further away, a few of them
might let me off the double fare sometimes . Personally, I rarely
take a hansom unless it is raining, and then the driver always
wants more because it is raining. It is of no use trying to
explain that that is the only reason I require his services . It is of
no use, either, trying to slang him, for, as Henry J. Byron long
ago pointed out, he can always beat you at that. Time after time,
stung to madness by the insolence of Jehus, I have resolved to lay
up an umbrella for a rainy day ; and, although I have never done
it yet, I have little doubt but that the hour will come when the
cabman will be cheated of his prey. I verily believe that the
cabmen would make at least fifty per cent. more money if they were
satisfied with their legal fares ; for the dread of their haughtiness
and extortiveness drives many to drink the shilling that should be
theirs, and go rolling home not in a hansom, but a state of intoxi-
cation. I do not say I have done this myself, but I have often
walked rather than pay two shillings for a mile and a half, whereas
I would gladly have paid half that for double the distance. It is
236 THE IDLER.
a public duty to prosecute cabmen who swear audibly, and the

man who does it deserves the Victoria Cross for bravery. I say
this, because the President of our Club once got an advertisement
by doing it, and he will like to see his feat is not forgotten.
Yes-but it was an expensive advertisement. My

Jerome re-
solicitor's bill came to ten pounds , and the cabman was
membereth fined two. I have been taking lessons in language
the incident. since then from a friend of mine who steers a barge
between Blackwall and Kew, and the next cabman
that swears at me, I am not going to summons. I am going to
• talk to him.
TREDMELE
IDLERS
R
Beshark )
THE IDLER.
APRIL, 1892.
On Music with a " k."
BY JOSEPH HATTON .
USIC with a " k" was

the origin of the Gaiety
Theatre. Not that the
Gaiety is a Music Hall ; by no
means. It began there, or there-
abouts, more thereabouts
than otherwise. " Practical
John " began it, but they
didn't call him Practical John
until after-
wards. Whether
he was re-
sponsible
or not for
spelling
music with
a " k," he
was the
presiding
genius of that
Strand Music
Hall upon the
foundations of which rose the
present Temple of the Masher.
And all because the founder
of the feast spelled music with
a " k "! He had it chiselled
upon the white stone façade
of the building. He writ it large
on the programmes. He dis- HARRY RANDALL
240 THE IDLER.
Janay Hanty
.
Meisenbach
MISS LOTTIE COLLINS.

ON MUSIC WITH A " K." 241
cussed its orthography in the papers. It is all very well to be

persistent when you are right. The public hated to have music
spelt with a " k," so Mr. Hollingshead , entering upon his career
as "Practical John," gave up the contest , and from the ashes of
music with a " k " sprang the Gaiety Theatre. " Up it rose, and
donned its clothes," sometimes a trifle scanty, but always
picturesque, and the Strand Musick Hall became as dead as the
Anti-Jacobin, the Whirlwind, and other clever things that have, as
it were, persisted in spelling music with a " k." The classic lamp
of burlesque was lighted . It suffered occasional eclipse. " Practical
John " grew ambitious. Shakespeare and other more or less
popular authors who can no longer collect fees were impressed
into the Gaiety service. The voices of Phelps and Matthews were
heard in the Strand . The managerial wand brought the elegance
of French art also within his popular house, all of which goes to
the good account of a man of many enterprises , and makes the
66
Gaiety famous, or any other man, " as the illustrious Mr.
Unsworth was wont to say.
The Theatre turns up its nose at the Music Hall . Well , it
has the right, no doubt. But the adaptation of Music Hall songs
has made the fortune of many a burlesque. Planché found his
inspiration in the higher realms of classic extravaganza. Byron,
the Broughs , Reece, and Burnand caught the realistic fun of the
Music Hall. Stead , Unsworth, and the rest gave them points.
The result was an idealisation of Music Hall fun . The patter
song of the Canterbury and the Oxford was filtered through the
fancy of Byron and Burnand , and we had merry results in
" Aladdin and the Wonderful Scamp," the latest edition of " Black
Ey'd Seusan," and other musical farces that were delightful , not
only because they burlesqued something, but for the reason that
they were up to date, and gave serious- minded persons an excuse
to go to the Music Halls . Paterfamilias having taken his family
to a Royalty or Strand burlesque, hearing that Weston's, the
Oxford, or the Canterbury, or some other hall had inspired the
leading song or dance with which Materfamilias had been
delighted, naturally desired to see the originals . It was thus that
many of the halls became popular . Miss Marie Wilton in town
and Miss Henrietta Hodson in the country were sweet and grace-
ful " perfect cures " in the burlesques of the day ; and without, of
course, intending so to do, they sent thousands to see Stead , upon
whom their dancing songs were modelled . The Music Halls
made the burlesques, and the burlesques made the Music Halls ,
242
THE
IDLER.
.
COBORN
CHARLES
Evans's excepted , I feel justified in saying, with many other

serious taxpayers , that I should never have thought of going to a
Music Hall if Mr. Byron and Mr. Burnand had not popularised
the Music Hall songs .
Am I not grateful to them ? Of course I am. Did not
my current experience enable me to enjoy a special superiority
over everybody at Palmer's Theatre in New York, quite recently,
when Jenny Hill appeared at a benefit and sang " The Coster
Girl " ? I was almost the only man in the audience who
understood and enjoyed that Cockney dialect ; and didn't I feel
homesick ! " you bet," as they say in the American classics .
Then the band played " When you wink the other eye, " and I
remember how utterly " up-to-date " I felt. It is a good thing
to go everywhere to see everything ; to be able to join in the
chorus of " Annie Rooney," to appreciate the delicate subtlety
of " Hi-tiddly-hi-ti-hi-ti-hi ! " and be at home even with Mr.
Leno's " Shop Walker."
Do I go to Music Halls now ? It is occasionally my painful
duty to go to much worse places and to see much worse entertain-
ments. You are acquainted with the works of A.K.H.B. , of
course . A Music Hall author ? Not at all ; quite the contrary.
A very pleasant scribe, nevertheless . He tells the story of that
famous Edinburgh preacher who was encountered by another
canny Scot going into the pit of Drury Lane Theatre. “ Oh ,
Dr. Macgrugar, what would the people say in the old kirk if I
tell't them I saw you here ? " " Deed," was the prompt reply,
66
they wadna believe you , and so you needna tell them."
When the Editors of The Idler waited upon me, with the bold-
ness of the Water Rate and the empressement of a Watkin surveyor
taking measurements for the new railway, to inquire if I was
familiar with the Music Halls, I did not seek to prevaricate.
Nor did I attempt to justify my knowledge by explaining that it
might fall to my lot to become a member of the County Council,
and that I had already matriculated in that direction . A free and
independent elector of the great metropolis never knows what he
may come to. When a certain highly conscientious citizen was
elected to the County Council, it had never entered his mind that a
sense of public duty would corupel him to study Music Hall
manners and customs . But I did not dream of offering my
visitors an excuse for my knowledge. On the contrary, it was as
if the imp who tried to lure the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale into
blurting out a volley of bad remarks in a gathering of good society
244 THE IDLER.
MACDERMOTT.
had taken possession of me. I out with all I knew. It came forth in
reminiscence of song and dance, of patter and comic, of
freaks of nature and others . I told them-but no matter !
Glance at the pictorial reminiscences that embellish these
pages. Here , ladies and gentlemen, you will find examples
of the halls from East to West. In the former, you will
not fail to note the unsophisticated happiness that comes of “ arf-
and-arf." In the latter, you will at once detect the higher influences
of " S. and B. ," not to mention what is popularly called
"phiz." Nor will you fail to perceive in the social atmosphere of
the West End halls a distinct tone of high life . Here, to do your-
self honour and pay respect to the lovely ladies who lend a special
grace to the foyer and the promenade, you must be in evening
dress . You should not, however, on any account take off your hat.
Tilt it forward over your nose, stick it on one side, or let it go
back into your neck ; how you wear your hat is a great matter in
these fashionable lounges. You should also stroll about with your
hands in your pockets ; and you may smoke a cigarette when you
are not chewing the end of an eighteenpenny cigar. It is not
necessary that you should pay any attention to the artists on the
stage. Note the attractions that beauty and fashion offer in the
locality of the bars. If you have a third of the malady that
inspired the philosophy of Schopenhauer, you may feel a trifle
saddened at the vision of innocence in the dainty hat and ruff,
contemplating her fairy-like parasol, and listening to the poetic
remarks ofmy Lord Harry by the round table in the foreground ofthe
picture entitled "The West End " ; but in that case you will straight-
way call a waiter and refresh your other nature, and hear what Marie
Lloyd has to say on the question of the special circumstances
under which you are supposed to " wink the other eye "; or, if you
are old enough to have reminiscences , you will sit down and con-
trast Unsworth of the past and Chirgwin of the present. I am
inclined to think that the influences of the School Board and the
Society press have refined away the humour of the nigger. There
is a certain æstheticism about Chirgwin's coat and shoes that
seems to be a protest against the original swallow-tailed coat and
beetle-crushers of the great Unsworth, the famous stump - orator
of his time, and who made the gag " Or any other man 99 as classic
as the popular comedian's pessimistic reflection , " Still I am not
happy ! "
I think it is the realistic tendency of the times in the direction of
art that has hurt the Music Hall darkey. To-day, we must have
246 THE IDLER .
Judley Etardy
MISS LUCY CLARKE,

ON MUSIC WITH A "K." 247
the real thing . The negro minstrel must be a negro . But as

there never were any negroes like the original Music Hall negroes ,
the change is a trifle violent, and it is often far inferior to the
burnt cork and the imitation dialect and shiftless shuffle of the
children of the cotton fields " way down in ole Virginny." Would
you care for the gay and happy minstrels of Margate Sands and
Epsom Downs if they were the real, genuine, ebony article ? Not
at all. I plead for art ; I plead for fancy. Do not, oh, Mr.
Ibsen, and you, his sweet interpreters, Mr. Archer of London and
THE TWO MACS.
Mr. Meltzer of New York, compel us to be too real ; leave the

imagination a little margin in which to turn itself round. You
often want a great deal of imagination at a Music Hall . If you
have not got it by you, if you were not born with it, why then you
must procure it at the bar ; some men take a dash of Angostura
with their champagne ; I prefer dry and simple ; but in the
matter of voices, you have to allow a great deal , I suppose, for
smoke and custom. The lady " artistes," for instance, evidently
lay in a special supply of Music Hall voice, something between a
shout and a scream ; heady, like the froth on the top of a pot of ,
" arf-and-arf," and it is always the same. I have heard it at
-Brussels ; in the slums of a Dutch city ; once in a way, it may be
248 THE IDLER .
noted, in a Parisian café chantant ; but, like the leopard, it never

changes its spots. I suppose the boys of the halls , the old bucks ,
and the young mashers , like it. Use is second nature. I wonder what
they would say to a real singer at the halls-a Patti, for instance .
The audience in the old days of the early halls would occa-
sionally chaff a performer or question the ruling of a chairman .
It would not be tolerated now. No undue levity is permitted
in these days , except in the way of innuendo on the other
side of the footlights. Oh, the good old days , before Mr.
Gladstone passed his Early Closing Bill ! There were the early
halls and " The Finish " ; the Coal-hole and Cider-cellars ;
there were poses plastiques ; there were breach- of- promise trials
before Baron Nicholson ; and men starting to go home found
every door open to receive them , tavern, pot-house, and hotel . In
those days , the story of the truant husband who , asked what he
meant by coming home " at that hour in the morning," answered
because there was no other house open, would not have raised a
smile. The West End-aye, and the East End also- held high
carnival long after midnight. My Lord Tom Noddy at the West,
and the gentle ' Arry of the East , not to mention the costermonger
jumping on his mother, kept up their nightly games until morning.
If you lived beyond the regions of Regent and Oxford Streets,
and wended your way home at strange hours of the morning , your
path would be strewn with the wreckage of Music Hall and
Finish, with " rollicking rams " and " Champagne Charlies," with
bedraggled silks and satins , with noisy fares in ricketty cabs, and all
the glories of the night's fun and frolic. Oh, such times ! And
how they hated the Grand Old Man when he put his big foot upon
it all. The delicate refinements of the Empire and the Pavilion ,
the tiny broughams, the perfumes of Arabia , the languid air of
ennui, the marble halls , the ballets of form and figure in diaphanous
robes , and the “ chappies " in front, and the unreal suggestions
of Circean haunts behind , the lights and glamour ; I suppose all
this is better than the old ways of the old halls. The public
evidently thinks so ; and the public knows best ; it is no good going
counter to it, not the slightest use spelling music with a " k " ifthe
public objects .
“ Bedad and I'll sing ye a song tu ! " You remember the
incident of Captain Costigan and Colonel Newcome ? Who can
forget it ? Sit down to read " The Newcomes " through to-day,
with the influences of the present-day novelist upon you, and you
will find even Thackeray verbose, not to say dull ; but take the
ley Hardy
THE PARAGON MASHER.

250 THE IDLER.
great book up and read a chapter here and there, and you will feel
that you have been into good society, where even the occasional
snob is certainly superior to the gentleman you see in the picture
with his hands in his pockets, his hat on the back of his head, and
his eyes fixing themselves into a washy leer that he will
presently turn upon the lady in the Elizabethan cloak. It was
at the " Cave of Harmony," you know, where the Colonel
had taken Clive. " You have come here to see the wits,"
said the Colonel ; but he had been many years from home,
and everything had changed except his good heart and courtly
manners . I need do no more than recall the finish of the
story. Captain Costigan did sing. At the end of the second
verse the Colonel started up , clapping on his hat , seizing his stick,
and looking as ferocious as though he had been going to do battle
with a Pindaree. " Silence ! " he roared . 66 Hear, hear," cried
certain wags at a lower table . "Go on, Costigan ," said others.
" Go on ! " cried the Colonel. " Does any gentleman say go on to
such disgusting ribaldry as this ? Do you dare, sir, to call yourself
a gentleman, sir, and to say that you hold the King's commission,
and to sit down among Christians and men of honour and defile
the ears of young boys with this wicked balderdash ? Why do I
bring young boys here, sir ! Because I thought I was coming into
the society of gentlemen ; because I never could believe that
Englishmen could meet together and allow a man , and an old man ,
to disgrace himself. For shame, you old wretch ! Go home to your
bed, you hoary old sinner ! " The invective, to modern ears,
sounds more like Mrs. Brown " as ever was " than the erudite
Thackeray ; but Colonel Newcome was of the old school. In those
days the guests at the Cave of Harmony, or the Adelphi, and,
occasionally, even at Evans's, supplied their own music, just as
they do to this day at a Free-and - easy or a Wayzegoose. " Your
health and song, sir, " and so on . Now and then , it was a senti-
ment . "As we travel up the hillside of life may we never meet a
friend coming down." And then you drank to his " health and
sentiment." Although Thackeray had Evans's in his mind
when he wrote that early chapter of " The Newcomes," I have
not the smallest doubt that the incident was imaginary, or that he
had transposed it from an experience of some other establishment.
Evans's was the model Music Hall . These are days of the
reminiscent. We live at such a rate that at five-and-forty a man is
old . He talks of the days when he was young, and went twice a
week to the pit of the Haymarket, and paid his money at the doors,
ON MUSIC WITH A "K." 251
by Gad, sir, and never thought of touting r an order. A good

many years ago, when as a young fellow i was doing the town
(or, to speak more correctly, the town was doing me) , Evans's was
in its way a thing of beauty, and might perhaps have been a joy
for ever, if a progressionist proprietary had not attempted to vie
with the new halls in the matter of admission to the fair sex.
Hitherto, the management had treated ladies as the House of
MISS BESSIE BELLWOOD.
Commons treats them. Cages, or wired-off boxes, out of sight, were

provided, where they could see without being seen . It was not
exactly necessary that you should produce your marriage certifi-
cate before you could obtain permission to take your wife, your
sisters , your cousins , or your aunts to those select cages ; but it
was understood by the management that you vouched for the
perfect respectability of your guests. You were charged nothing
for the box ; but as a rule you entertained your guests at a petite
souper, and during the evening you might be sure that the pro-
prietor, who was familiarly known as Paddy Green, would look in
to pay his compliments to the ladies, and present each of them
with a little bouquet from the prolific garden close by. A short,
rubicund, courtly, pleasant, grey-headed gentleman, Paddy Green,
with a ready snuff- box and an equally ready wit, who knew every-
252 THE IDLER.
body, and whom everybody knew and liked . A delightful place,

Evans's, entered from one of the Covent Garden corridors. I
recall its unique, if smoky, atmosphere with peculiar pleasure.
Redolent of chops and steaks and foaming stout, hazy with
tobacco smoke (through which wandered the soothing vocal
strains of " Who will o'er the Downs with me ?" or the
patriotic refrain of " Men of Harlech " ) , Evans's was a chop-
house, a concert room, and the best of night clubs . It had
its bad beginnings, no doubt, and its unhappy ending ; but
between these extremes there was a really pleasant, genial time. I
hardly ever went there without seeing Serjeant Ballantyne, who
pays high tribute to the dear old place in his book of Reminiscences .
He reminds me that we only called Mr. Green " Paddy" behind
his back. Everyone respected the merry old man. He shook his
head about Colonel Newcome, and mentioned that the Cave of
Harmony was at the Adelphi. Ballantyne was a great favourite
with Mr. Green, who always reserved a special chair for the
famous advocate. Like other frequenters, he belonged to many
clubs, but rarely missed spending an evening at Evans's. I have
seen at his table in a corner of the old room there , Mr. Montagu
Williams , the present popular London magistrate, the late Mr.
Lawson, of the great daily paper, and his successor, looking not
' more fresh and fit than he does to-day. Before my time, Thackeray
and Dickens were habitués, as were also Albert Smith and
Douglas Jerrold . I have eaten many supper there with Mark
Lemon and Shirley Brooks, and have met there both Benjamin
Webster and Mr. Buckstone, of the Haymarket. And what
potatoes the cook sent up to be squeezed upon one's plate by
the most attentive of waiters with the whitest of napkins !
There were many and notable pictures on the walls. The
music was supplied by a trained choir of men and boys,
and consisted of the gems of Bishop, Purcell, Hatton, and other
masters of the art of madrigal, glee, and chorus. " Sir Patrick
Spens," " The Chough and Crow," and a score of kindred works
were given during the evening, with an occasional solo. If you
happened to be alone, it was easy enough to listen and be senti-
mental over both words and music ; if you had company, the music
made a soft and agreeable accompaniment to your conversation.
It was not aggressive music, it might have been one voice har-
monised, so perfect was the method, so complete the conductor's
control. The place had its noisy times, its rowdy incidents, but
they were not the vicious incidents that occasionally darken the
uk
GEORGE BEAUCHAMP ,
254 THE IDLER.
splendours of the modern halls. Once a year, the men of Oxford

and Cambridge, coming up for the Boat Race, made Evans's hum.
They sang their own songs ; they danced on the furniture ; they
fought with anything and anybody. And once a year the ordinary
frequenters left the place to these sedate students of the Univer-
sities, and nothing very serious came of their high spirits.
Then one sad day it was all over. Paddy died . The pictures
were sold. There succeeded a proprietary that had new ideas .
The lady in her tiny brougham drew up, and was admitted .
Champagne in cut glasses , took the place of stout in pewter pots.
Disturbance followed the innovation . The police stepped in , and
they who had loved the old place in its days of innocence dis-
persed to seek recreation in other scenes . Whether the Great
This, the Charming Serio- comic That, the Chain-breaking Sam-
son, and the rest, are an improvement on Herr Joel , the sentimental
songster, or Evans's trained choir, it is not my province to
discuss ; whether the presence of Phryne and Circe is a distinct
advance upon the old fashion dictated by Paddy Green and his
snuff-box is a question for editorial columns, and not for these
Idler's pages ; but I will say without fear of contradiction that
there is no supper now-a-days to be compared with the simpl ›
wholesome fare and the courteous attendance that men rejoice l
in during the palmy days of Evans's Music Hall , under the urbane
and genial management of Paddy Green.
#
BY MARK TWAIN.
CHAPTER IV.
HE day wore itself out. After dinner the two friends put in a
long and harassing evening trying to decide what to do with
the five thousand dollars reward which they were going to get
when they should find One armed Pete, and catch him, and prove
him to be the right person, and extradite him, and ship him to
Tahlequah in the Indian Territory. But there were so many
dazzling openings for ready cash that they found it impossible to
make up their minds and keep them made up. Finally, Mrs.
Sellers grew very weary of it all , and said :
"What is the sense in cooking a rabbit before it's
99
caught ?
Then the matter was dropped , for the
time being, and all went to bed. Next
morning, being persuaded by Hawkins,
the Colonel made drawings and specifica-
tions, and went down and applied for a patent for his toy puzzle,
and Hawkins took the toy itself and started out to see what chance
there might be to do something with it
commercially. He did not have to go
far. In a small old wooden shanty,
which had once been occupied as a
dwelling by some humble negro family,
he found a keen-eyed Yankee, engaged
in repairing cheap chairs and other
second-hand furniture . This man
examined the toy indifferently ; at-
tempted to do the puzzle ; found it
not so easy as he had expected ; grew
more interested ; and finally emphati-
cally so ; achieved a success at last,
and asked
" IS IT PATENTED ?" " Is it patented ? "

256 THE IDLER .
" Patent applied for."

" That will answer . What do you want for it ? "
" What will it retail for ?
"Well, twenty-five cents, I should think."
"What will you give for the exclusive right ?"
" I couldn't give twenty dollars, if I had to pay cash down ;
but I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make it out and market it, and
pay you five cents royalty on each one."
Washington sighed . Another dream disappeared ; no money
in the thing. So he said-
" All right, take it at that. Draw me a paper."
He went his way with the paper, and dropped the matter out
of his mind-dropped it out to make room for further attempts to
think out the most promising way to invest his half of the
reward, in case a partnership investment satisfactory to both
beneficiaries could not be hit upon.
He had not been very long at home when Sellers arrived ,
sodden with grief and booming with glad cxcitement-working
both these emotions successfully, sometimes separately, sometimes
together. He fell on Hawkins's neck sobbing, and said—
" Oh, mourn with me, my friend , mourn for my desolate house ;
death has smitten my last kinsman , and I am Earl of Rossmore
-congratulate me ! "
He turned to his wife , who had entered while this was going
on, put his arms about her, and said, " You will bear up for my
sake, my lady- it had to happen , it was decreed ."
She bore up very well, and said—
" It's no great loss . Simon Lathers was a poor, well-meaning
useless thing, and no account, and his brother never was worth
shucks ."
The rightful earl continued-
" I am too much prostrated by these conflicting griefs and joys
to be able to concentrate my mind upon affairs ; I will ask our
good friend here to break the news by wire or post to the Lady
""
Gwendolen, and instruct her to-
"What Lady Gwendolen ? "
" Our poor daughter, who, alas !——"
"Sally Sellers ? Mulberry Sellers, are you losing your mind ? "
"There—please do not forget who you are, and who I am ;
remember your own dignity, be considerate also of mine. It were
best to cease from using my family name, now, Lady Rossmore."
" Goodness gracious , well I never ! What am I to call you
then ? "
AA EM OT
IN PUBLIC IT WILL BE MORE BECOMING IF YOUR LADYSHIP WILL SPEAK TO ME AS MY LORD,
LO WE W EN OI
M T
258 THE IDLER .
"In private, the ordinary terms of endearment will still be

admissible to some degree ; but in public it will be more becoming
if your ladyship will speak to me as my lord, or your lordship, and
99
of me as Rossmore, or the Earl, or his lordship, and-
" Oh, scat ! I can't ever do it, Berry."
"But indeed you must, my love-we must live up to our
altered position and submit with what grace we may to its
requirements."
" Well, all right, have it your own way ; I've never set my
wishes against your commands yet, Mul-my lord, and it's late to
begin now, though to my mind it's the rottenest foolishness that
ever was."
" Spoken like my own true wife ! There, kiss and be friends
again."
" But-Gwendolen ! I don't know how
I am ever going to stand that name. Why,
a body wouldn't know Sally Sellers
in it. It's too large for her ; kind
of like a cherub in an ulster, and
it's a most outlandish sort of a
name, anyway, to my mind."
" You'll not hear her find fault
with it, my lady."
" That's a true word. She takes to
' A CHERUB IN AN ULSTER." any kind of romantic rubbish like she
was born to it. She never got it from me,
that's sure. And sending her to that silly colle hasn't helped
the matter any-just the other way." *
"Now, hear her, Hawkins ! Rowena-Ivanhoe College is
the selectest and most aristocratic seat of learning for young
ladies in our country. Under no circumstances can a girl get in
there unless she is either very rich and fashionable, or can prove
four generations of what may be called American nobility. Cas-
tellated college buildings-towers and turrets , and an imitation
moat and everything about the place named out of Sir Walter
Scott's books, and redolent of royalty and state and style ; and all
the richest girls keep phaetons , and coachmen in livery, and riding
horses, with English grooms in plug hats and tight-buttoned
coats and top-boots, and a whip-handle without any whip in it, to
ride sixty-three feet behind them "
" And they don't learn a blessed thing, Washington Hawkins ,
not a single blessed thing but showy rubbish and un-American
pretentiousness . But send for the Lady Gwendolen-do ; for I

reckon the peerage regulations require that she must come home
and let on to go into seclusion and mourn for those Arkansas
blatherskites she's lost."
" My darling ! Blatherskites ? Re-
member-noblesse oblige."
66 There, there-talk
to me in your
tongue, Ross -you don't know any other,
and you only botch it when you try.
Oh, don't stare-it was a slip , and no
crime ; customs of a lifetime can't be
dropped in a second. Rossmore - there,
now be appeased , and go along with you
and attend to Gwendolen. Are you
going to write, Washington- or tele-
graph ? "
" He will telegraph, dear."
" I thought as much," my lady mut-
tered, as she left the room. " Wants it
so the address will have to appear on
the envelope. It will just make a fool
of that child. She'll get it, of course,
for if there are any other Sellerses there
they'll not be able to claim it. And just
leave her alone to show it around and
make the most of it. Well, maybe she's
forgivable for that. She's so poor and
they're so rich, of course she's had her
share of snubs from the livery- flunkey
sort, and I reckon it's only human to
want to get even."
Uncle Dan'l was sent with the tele-
gram ; for although a conspicuous object
in a corner of the drawing-room was a " VERY RICH AND FASHIONABLE .'
telephone hanging on a transmitter,
Washington found all attempts to raise the central office vain.
The Colonel grumbled something about it's being " always out
of order when you've particular and especial use for it," but he
didn't explain that one of the reasons for this was that the
thing was only a dummy and hadn't any wires attached to it.
And yet the Colonel often used it, when visitors were present—
and seemed to get messages through it. Mourning paper and
260 THE IDLER.
a seal were ordered, then the

friends took a rest.
Next afternoon , while
Hawkins , by request, draped
Andrew Jackson's portrait with
crape, the rightful earl wrote
of the family bereavement to
the usurper in England- a
letter which we have already
read . He also by letter to
" THE THING WAS ONLY A DUMMY AND HADN'T
the village authorities at ANY WIRES ATTACHED."
Duffy's Corners, Arkansas, gave order that the
remains of the late twins be embalmed by
some St. Louis expert and shipped at once to
the usurper-with bill. Then he drafted out
the Rossmore arms and motto on a great sheet
of brown paper, and he and
Hawkins took it to Hawkins's
Yankee furniture-mender, and
at the end of an hour came
back with a couple of stunning
hatchments, which they nailed
up on the front of the house-
attractions calculated to draw,
and they did ; for it was mainly
an idle and shiftless negro
neighbourhood, with plenty of
ragged children and indolent
dogs to spare for a point
of interest like that, and
keep on sparing them
for it, days and days
together.
The new earl found
-without surprise- this
society item in the even-
" DRAPED ANDREW JACKSON'S PORTRAIT
WITH CRAPE." ing paper, and cut it
out and scrap-booked it :
By a recent bereavement our esteemed fellow-citizen, Colonel Mulberry
Sellers, Perpetual Member-at-large of the Diplomatic Body, succeeds, as
rightful lord, to the great earldom of Rossmore, third by order of precedence
in the earldoms of Great Britain, and will take early measures, by suit in the
House of Lords, to wrest the title and estates from the present usurping
holder of them. Until the season of mourning is past, the usual Thursday
evening receptions at Rossmore Towers will be discontinued.
Lady Rossmore's comment- to herself :
"Receptions ! People who won't rightly know him may think
he is commonplace, but to my mind he is one of the most unusual
men I ever saw. As for suddenness and capacity in imagining
things, his beat don't exist, I reckon . As like as not it wouldn't
have occurred to anybody else to name this poor old rat-trap Ross-
more Towers, but it just comes natural to him . Well, no doubt
it's a blessed thing to have an imagination that can always make
you satisfied, no matter how you are fixed . Uncle Dave Hopkins
used to always say, ' Turn me into John Calvin , and I want to know
which place I'm going to ; ' turn me into Mulberry Sellers, and I
don't care ! "
The rightful earl's comment-to himself :
s a beautiful name, beautiful. Pity I didn't think of it
befo. I wrote the usurper. But I'll be ready for him when he
answers."
CHAPTER V.
O answer to that telegram, no arriving daughter. Yet nobody

showed any uneasiness or seemed surprised ; that is, nobody
N°but Washington. After three days of waiting, he asked
Lady Rossmore what she supposed the trouble was . She answered ,
tranquilly :
" Oh, it's some notion of hers, you never can tell. She's a
Sellers all through-at least, in some of her ways ; and a Sellers
can't tell you beforehand what he's going to do, because he don't
know himself till he's done it. She's all right ;
no occasion to worry about her. When she's ready
she'll come or she'll write, and you can't tell
which, till it's happened."
It turned out to be a letter. It was handed
in at that moment, and was received by the
mother without trembling hands or feverish
eagerness , or any other of the manifestations
common in the case of long-delayed answers
to imperative telegrams. She polished her
glasses with tranquillity and thoroughness, plea-
santly gossiping along awhile, then opened the letter
and began to read aloud :
" SHE POLISHED HER GLASSES."
262 THE IDLER .
KENILWORTH KEEP, REDGAUNTLET HALL, ROWENA-IVANHOE

COLLEGE, THURSDAY.
DEAR PRECIOUS MAMMA ROSSMORE-
Oh, the joy of it !-you can't think. They had always turned up their
noses at our pretensions, you know ; and I had fought back as well as I
could by turning up at theirs. They always said it might be something great
and fine to be rightful shadow of an earldom, but to merely be shadow of a
shadow, and two or three times removed at that-pooh-pooh ! And I
always retorted that not to be able to show four generations of American-
Colonial - Dutch - Peddler-and - Salt - Cod- McAllister-Nobility might be endur-
able, but to have to confess such an origin-pfew-few ! Well, the telegram,
it was just a cyclone ! The messenger came right into the great Rob Roy
Hall of Audience, as excited as he could be, singing out " Despatch for Lady
Gwendolen Sellors ! " and you ought to have seen that simpering, chattering
assemblage of pinchbeck aristocrats turned to stone ! I was off in the
corner, of course, by myself-it's where Cinderella belongs. I took the
telegram and read it and tried to faint-and I could have done it if I had
any preparation, but it was all so sudden, you know- but no matter, I did
the next best thing : I put my handkerchief to my eyes and fled sobbing to
my room, dropping the telegram as I started. I released one corner of my
eye a moment-just enough to see the herd swarm for the telegram-and
then continued my broken-hearted flight, just as happy as a bird.
Then the visits of condolence began, and I had to accept the loan of Miss
Augusta-Templeton-Ashmore Hamilton's quarters because the press was so
great, and there isn't room for three and a cat in mine. And I've been
holding a Lodge of Sorrow ever since, and defending myself against people's
attempts to claim kin. And do you know, the very first to fetch her tears and
sympathy to my market was that foolish Skimperton girl who has always
snubbed me so shamefully, and claimed lordship and precedence of the whole
college because some ancestor of hers, some time or other, was a McAllister.
Why it was like the bottom bird in the menagerie putting on airs because its
head ancestor was a pterodactyl.
But the ger-reatest triumph of all was-guess. But you'll never. This
is it. That little fool and two others have always been fussing and fretting
over which was entitled to precedence-by rank, you know. They've nearly
starved themselves at it ; for each claimed the right to take precedence of all
the college in leaving the table, and so neither of them ever finished her
dinner, but broke off in the middle and tried to get out ahead of the others.
Well, after my first day's grief and seclusion-I was fixing up a mourning
dress, you see I appeared at the public table again, and then-what do you
think ? Those three fluffy goslings sat there contentedly and squared up the
long famine-lapped and lapped, munched and munched, ate and ate, till
the gravy appeared in their eyes- humbly waiting for the Lady Gwendolen
to take precedence and move out first, you see !
Oh, yes, I've been having a darling good time. And do you know, not
one of these collegians has had the cruelty to ask me how I came by my new
name. With some this is due to charity, but with others it isn't. They
refrain, not from native kindness, but from educated discretion. I educated
them.
Well, as soon as I shall have settled up what's left of the old scores, and
W.8.19
" I RELEASED ONE CORNER OF MY EYE A MOMENT-JUST ENOUGH TO SEE THE HERD SWARM
FOR THE TELEGRAM-AND THEN CONTINUED MY BROKEN-HEARTED FLIGHT, JUST AS
HAPPY AS A BIRD,"
264 THE IDLER.
snuffed up a few more of those pleasantly intoxicating clouds of incense, I

shall pack and depart homeward . Tell papa I am as fond of him as I am
of my new name. I couldn't put it stronger than that. What an inspiration
it was ! But inspirations come easy to him.
These from your loving daughter,
GWENDOLLN.
Hawkins reached for the letter and glanced over it.
" Good hand," he said , " and full of confidence and animation ,
and goes racing right along. She's bright-that's plain ."
" Oh, they're all bright-the Sellerses . Anyway, they would
be if there were any. Even those poor Latherses would have been
bright if they had been Sellerses ; I mean full blood . Of course ,
they had a Sellers strain in them—a big strain of it, too, but—
99
being a Bland dollar don't make it a dollar just the same . '
The seventh day after the date of the telegram , Washington
came dreaming down to breakfast, and was set wide awake by an
electrical spasm of pleasure. Here was the most beautiful young
creature he had ever seen in his life . It was Sally Sellers , Lady
Gwendolen ; she had come in the night. And it seemed to him
that her clothes were the prettiest and the daintiest he had ever
looked upon, and the most exquisitely contrived and fashioned
and combined as to decorative trimmings, and fixings , and melting
harmonies of colour. It was only a morning dress, and inexpen-
sive, but he confessed to himself, in the English common to
Cherokee Strip, that it was a " corker. " And now, as he perceived ,
the reason why the Sellers household poverties and sterilities had
been made to blossom like the rose, and charm the eye and satisfy the
spirit, stood explained ; here was the magician ; here in the midst
of her works, and furnishing in her own person the proper accent
and climaxing finish of the whole.
" My daughter , Major Hawkins -come home to mourn ; flown
home at the call of affliction to help the authors of her being to
bear the burden of bereavement. She was very fond of the late
99
earl- idolised him , sir, idolised him
66
Why, father, I've never seen him.”
" True-she's right, I was thinking of another—er—of her
mother- 99
"I idolised that smoked haddock ?-that sentimental, spirit-

less- 99
" I was thinking of myself ! Poor noble fellow, we were
"
inseparable com-
" Hear the man ! Mulberry Sel- Mul-Rossmore !-hang the
troublesome name, I can never-if I've heard you say once, I've
99
heard you say a thousand times that if that poor sheep-
" THE MOST BEAUTIFUL YOUNG CREATURE HE HAD EVER SEEN."
" I was thinking of-of-I don't know

who I was thinking of, and it doesn't make
any difference anyway ; somebody idolised
him, I recollect it as if it were yesterday,
and "
Father, I am going to shake hands
with Major Hawkins, and let the introduc-
tion work along and catch up at its leisure. I
THE LADY GWENDOLEN.

266 THE IDLER.
remember you very well indeed, Major Hawkins,

although I was
a little child when
I saw you last ;
and I am very,
" I REMEMBER YOU

VERY WELL INDEED,
MAJOR HAWKINS."
very glad indeed

to see you again
and have you in
our house as one of us ;" and beaming in his face she
finished her cordial shake with the hope that he had not forgotten her.
He was prodigiously pleased by her outspoken heartiness, and
wanted to repay her by assuring her that he remembered her, and
not only that but better even than he remembered his own children ,
but the facts would not quite warrant this ; still , he stumbled
through a tangled sentence which answered just as well, since the
purport of it was an awkward and unintentional confession that
her extraordinary beauty had so stupefied him that he hadn't got
back to his bearings yet, and therefore couldn't be certain as to
whether he remembered her at all or not. The speech made him
her friend ; it couldn't well help it.
In truth the beauty of this fair creature was of a rare type, and
may well excuse a moment of our time spent in its consideration .
It did not consist in the fact that she had eyes , nose, mouth , chin ,
hair, ears, it consisted in their arrangement. In true beauty ,
more depends upon right location and judicious distribution of
feature than upon multiplicity of them . So also as regards colour.
The very combination of colours which in a volcanic irruption
would add beauty to a landscape might detach it from a girl.
Such was Gwendolen Sellers.
The family circle being completed by Gwendolen's arrival, it
was decreed that the official mourning should now begin ; that
it should begin at six o'clock every evening (the dinner hour) , and
end with the dinner.
" It's a grand old line, Major, a sublime old line, and deserves to
be mourned for, almost royally ; almost imperially, I may say.
Er-Lady Gwendolen-but she's gone ; never mind ; I wanted
my Peerage ;.I'll fetch it myself, presently, and show you a thing
or two that will give you a realising idea of what our house is.
I've been glancing through Burke, and I find that of William the
Conqueror's sixty-four natural-oh,
my dear, would you mind getting
me that book. It's on the escritoire
in our boudoir. Yes , as I was say-
ing, there's only St. Albans , Buc-
cleugh and Grafton ahead of us on
the list ; all the rest of the British
nobility are in procession behind us.
Ah, thanks, my lady. Now then,
we turn to William, and we find-
letter for X.Y.Z. ? Oh ! splendid-when'd
you get it ?"
" Last night ; but I was asleep before you came,
you were out so late ; and when I came to break-
fast Miss Gwendolen-well, she knocked everything out
of me, you know. "
"Wonderful girl, wonderful ; her great origin is
detectable in her step, her carriage, her features- but
what does he say ? Come, this is exciting."
" I haven't read it-er-Ross - Mr . Rossm- er- "
" M'Lord ! Just cut it short like that. It's the GLANCING THROUGH
English way. I'll open it. Ah ! now let's see." BURKE."
TO YOU KNOW WHO. Think I know you. Wait ten days.
Coming to Washington.
268 THE IDLER.
The excitement died out of bc'h men's faces. There was a

brooding silence for a while, then the younger one said with
a sigh :
66
'Why we can't wait ten days for the money."
" No-the man's unreasonable ; we are down to the bed rock,
financially speaking. "
" If we could explain to him in some way, that
we are so situated that time is of the utmost
99
importance to us-
" Yes-yes, that's it-and so if it
would be as convenient for him to
come at once it would be a
great accommodation to us,, aand
one which we-
-Which we- wh-"
-Well, which we
should sincerely appre-
ciate- 99
" That's it-and most
99
gladly reciprocate
" Certainly that'll fetch him.
Worded right ; if he's a man-
got any of the feelings of a man,
sympathies and all that, he'll be
' here inside of twenty-four hours .
Pen and paper-come we'll get
right at it."
Between them they
framed twenty-two differ-
ent advertisements , but
none were satisfactory.
A main fault in all of
them was urgency. That
feature was very trouble-
some : if made prominent, it was
calculated to excite Pete's sus-
picion ; if modified below the
suspicion-point it was flat and
meaningless . Finally the Colonel
resigned and said-
66 THESE TWO IMPRES- " I have noticed , in such literary
SIVE SHIPMENTS WOULD
MEET AND PART IN MID- experiences as I have had, that one
ATLANTIC."
of the most taxing things to do is to conceal your meaning

when you are trying to conceal it. Whereas if you go at
literature with a free conscience and nothing to conceal , you can
turn out a book, every time, that the very elect can't understand .
They all do ."
Then Hawkins resigned also, and the two agreed that they
must manage to wait the days somehow or other. Next , they
caught a ray of cheer : s..ce they had something definite to go
upon , now, they could probably borrow money on the reward-
enough, at any rate, to tide them over till they got it ; and mean-
time the materializing-recipe would be perfected , and then good-
bye to trouble for good and all.
The next day, May the tenth, a couple of things happened—
among others. The remains of the noble Arkansas twins left our
shores for England, consigned to Lord Rossmore, and Lord Ross-
more's son, Kirkcudbright Llanover Marjoribanks Sellers Viscount
Berkeley, sailed from Liverpool for America to place the reversion
of the earldom in the hands of the rightful peer, Mulberry Sellers ,
of Rossmore Towers, in the District of Columbia, U.S.A.
These two impressive shipments would meet and part in mid-
Atlantic, five days later, and give no sign.
T
THE IDLER.
270
CHAPTER VI .
THE course of time the

twins arrived and were
delivered to their great kins-
man. To try to describe the
rage of that old man would
profit nothing, the attempt
would fall so far short of the
purpose. However, when he
had worn himself out and got
quiet again, he looked the
matter over and decided that
the twins had some moral
rights, although they had no
legal ones ; they were of his
blood, and it could not be
decorous to treat them as
common clay. So he laid
them with their majestic kin
in the Cholmondeley church ,
with imposing state and cere-
mony, and added the supreme
touch by officiating as chief
mourner himself. But he
drew the line at hatchments .
Our friends in Washington
watched the weary days go by,
while they waited for Pete and
covered his name with reproaches
because of his calamitous pro-
crastinations. Meantime, Sally
Sellers, who was as practical and
democratic as the Lady Gwen-
dolen Sellers was romantic
and aristocratic, was leading
a life of intense interest and
activity, and getting the most she
could out of her double personality.
All day long in the privacy of her workroom, Sally Sellers

earned bread for the Sellers ' family ; and all the evening
Lady Gwendolen Sellers supported the Rossmore dignity.
All day she was American , practically, and proud of the work
of her head and hands and its commercial result ; all the
evening she took holiday and
dwelt in a rich shadow-land
peopled with titled and coroneted
fictions. By day, to her, the
place was a plain, unaffected ,
ramshackle old trap-just that,
and nothing more ; by night it
was Rossmore Towers. At
college she had learned a
trade without knowing it.
The girls had found out that
she was the designer of her
own gowns . She had no
idle moments after that, and
wanted none ; for the exer-
cise of an extraordinary gift
is the supremest pleasure in
life, and it was manifest that
Sally Sellers possessed a gift
of that sort in the matter
ofcostume-designing . With-
in three days after reaching
home she had hunted up
some work ; before Pete was
yet due in Washington, and
before the twins were fairly
asleep in English soil, she
was already nearly swamped
with work, and the sacrificing of the
family chromos for debt had got an
effective check .
" She's a brick," said Rossmore
to the Major. "Just her father all "JUST ME, EXACTLY."
over ; prompt to labour with head or hands, and not ashamed
of it ; capable, always capable, let the enterprise be what it
may ; successful by nature-don't know what defeat is ; thus ,
intensely and practically American by inhaled nationalism , and at
272 THE IDLER.
the same time intensely and aristocratically European by inherited

nobility of blood . Just me, exactly ; Mulberry Sellers in matters
of finance and invention ; after office hours, what do you find ?
The same clothes, yes, but what's in them ? Rossmore of the
peerage. "
The two friends had haunted the general
post- office daily. At last they had their
reward. Toward evening the 20th of
May, they got a letter for X.Y.Z. It
bore the Washington postmark ; the
note itself was not dated . It said :
" Ash-barrel back of lamp-post Black-
horse Alley. If you are playing square go and
sit on it to-morrow morning 21st 10.22 not
sooner not later wait till I come."
The friends cogitated over the note
profoundly. Presently the earl said :
"Don't you reckon he's afraid we are a sheriff
99
with a requisition ?
"Why, m' lord ? "
" Because that's no place for a séance. No-
46 A LETTER FOR X.Y Z."
thing friendly, nothing sociable about it. And at
the same time, a body that wanted to know who was roosting
on that ash-barrel without exposing himself by going near it, or
seeming to be interested in it, could just stand on the street corner
and take a glance down the alley and satisfy himself, don't you see ?"
66 Yes, his idea is plain, now. He seems to be a man that
can't be candid and straightforward. He acts as if he thought

we-shucks , I wish he had come out like a man and told us what
99
hotel he-
" Now, you've struck it ! You've struck it sure, Washington ;
he has told us."
" Has he ?"
66
'Yes, he has ; but he didn't mean to. That alley is a lone-
some little pocket that runs along one side of the New Gadsby.
That's his hotel."
"What makes you think that ? "
66
'Why I just know it. He's got a room that's just across from
that lamp-post. He's going to sit there perfectly comfortable
behind his shutters at 10.22 to-morrow, and when he sees us
6
sitting on the ash -barrel , he'll say to himself, I saw one of those
fellows on the train'-and then he'll pack his satchel in half a
minute, and ship for the enús of the earth ."
Hawkins turned sick with disappointment :

" Oh, dear, it's all up, Colonel- it's
exactly what he'll do."
" Indeed he won't ! "
"Won't he ? Why ? "
" Because you won't be holding
the ash-barrel down , it'll be me.
You'll be coming in with an officer
and a requisition in plain clothes-
the officer, I mean-the minute you
see him arrive and open up a talk
with me.'99
"Well , what a head you have got,
Colonel Sellers ; I never should have
thought of that in the world ."
" Neither would any Earl of Rossmore ,
betwixt William's contribution and Mulberry
--as earl ; but it's office hours, now , you see, and the
earl in me sleeps. Come-I'll show you his very
room ."
They reached the neighbourhood , of the New
THERE YOU ARE " Gadsby about nine in the evening, and passed down
the alley to the lamp- post.
" There you are," said the Colonel, triumphantly, with a wave
of his hand which took in the whole side of the hotel.
" There it is-what did I tell you ? "
66
Well, but- why, Colonel, it's six stories
high. I don't quite make out which win-
་.
dow you-
" All the windows , all of them . Let
him have his choice, I'm indifferent, now
that I have located him. You go and
THE RENDEZVOUS. stand on the corner and wait ; I'll prospect
the hotel ."
The earl drifted here and there through the swarming lobby,
and finally took a waiting position in the neighbourhood of the
elevator. During an hour crowds went up and crowds came down ;
and all complete as to limbs ; but at the last the watcher got a
glimpse of a figure that was satisfactory-got a glimpse of the
back of it, though he had missed his chance at the face through
waning alertness. The glimpse revealed a cowboy hat, and below
it a plaided sack of rather loud pattern, and an empty sleeve
274 THE IDLER .
pinned up to the shoulder. Then the elevator snatched the vision

aloft and the watcher fled away in joyful excitement, and rejoined
the fellow-conspirator.
"We've got him, Major-got him
sure ! I've seen him-seen him good ;
and I don't care
where or when that
man approaches me
backwards, I'll re-
cognise him every time.
We're all right. Now for the requisition ."
They got it, after the delays usual in
such cases . By half- past eleven
they were at home and happy, and
I
went to bed full of dreams of the
morrow's great promise.
Among the elevator load which
had the suspect for fellow-passenger
was a young kinsman of Mulberry
Sellers, but Mulberry was not aware
of it and didn't see him. It was Viscount
Berkeley .
" THE EARL DRIFTED HERE AND (TO BE CONTINUED.)

THERE THROUGH THE SWARMING
LOBBY.'"
THE
Three to One.
BY " DO BAHIN ."

ILLUSTRATED BY THE MISSES HAMMOND .
CHAPTER I.
"" ETTAH , Sahib ! " "The English
LETTAH,
mail , eh ? " From Hilda , I bet ! No !
that is not the paper she uses . She writes
r le ink of all horrors !
on blue pape with purp
It's Rosamund then . She wants to
make me jealous by descriptions of
Jones's attentions . Last time she
hinted at breaking with me. But
no such luck ! Oh , confound it all !
It's Mary . She hasn't written for
six weeks , and I hoped she was getting
over it.
"Hi ! You Abdul ! I cannot see any-
one ; out ; do you understand ? Bring me a
brandy and soda , and work those punkahs .
" LETTAH, SAHIB ! "
This old hole gets hotter every day.”
What a cad I have been ! Worse to Mary than either of the
others ! Suppos e she has found me out ! Well , here goes .
66 My dearest Jack,
" I did not w. ite to you by the last two mails as you told me not to write too
often. I hope you will not think this letter comes too soon, as I have not
written to you for nearly six weeks――'
Oh, I really must skip these two pages about the Cathedral
set, and the College frumps , and the clothes at the headmaster's
party-
" My dear Jack, I do miss you so ! Of course I love you too much ever to
disregard your wishes, but do allow me to tell my father of our engagement.
He is so good, so fond of you
And so on for three pages !
"Your mother asked me to pay her a visit in London . I cannot well be
spared this term, but I hope I shall be able to go in the Spring. Surely, Jack,
I might then tell her our secret. I cannot bear to feel I am deceiving her.
Write to me soon and release me from this painful silence.
" Ever yours only,
" MARY GREY.
" P.S.- I send my fondest love , write soon."
276 THE IDLER.
This is truly awful ! It all began at old Grey's , " The

Turnip " as we called him ; I was in and out there a good bit. I
cannot remember when I first began to think of Mary-in that
way. It must have been noticing her quiet ways in chapel . She
was such a contrast to some of the other girls who grinned at our
men. But it was my last Eton match which finished me. Just
as I came out for my second innings, Mary was passing. The
crowd all round the Meads and the cheering made me feel a bit queer.
Mary stopped and held out her hand. " Courage, Jack ! I shall
shout quite loud when you make a good hit ! " That was all she
sail, but they changed the bowling soon after !
When I went to New College, Mary
worked me a tablecloth . Flemick spilt
ink all over it,
but I kept it
all the same.
" MARY STOPPED AND HELD OUT HER HAND."

I went back once to the old place. The Turnip was delighted to
see me, and so was Mary, but it was beastly work. A year's
absence makes a great change . I got back to Oxford without
making a fool of myself, and should have escaped but for my
infernal good nature ! I had two tickets for our ball in the Eights
week returned to me suddenly. The Darcys asked me for them .
I fully meant to act on the square by Hilda Darcy. I always
had the best intentions ! I sent one to the Mater and the other
to Mary. Here is my diary :
66
May 20th . Mary is coming ! Thought she had no one to
bring her. Bumped Christ Church.
THREE TO ONE. 277
66
May 21st. Bumped Exeter. Mater wild .
66 May 22nd . Introduced Flemick to mother. She was
frigid at first, but thawed in the evening when he sang Gounod's
6
Nazareth .' I hid all our comic songs under his bed.
66
May 23rd. Bumped by Exeter. Jones is a beast."
Jones was our stroke !
" May 24th . Re-bumped Exeter. Mater seedy from excite-
ment.
" May 25th. New College, 1 ; Exeter, 2 ; Magdalen, 3.
Hurrah ! Mary arrived at one. Hurried to the barge. Mater,
though convinced the barge was going over, behaved pluckily. I
had to hold Mary tight as the Eight went past, it was such a
cram . Flemick took charge of mother.
" Indian Civilian Ball at 9.30 . "
It was all that squash on the barge ! I had Mary by the
arm , and suddenly she lifted her eyes to mine. They are curious
eyes-very clear, and the lashes curl up. Green, or hazel, they
made me lose my head. I forget what I said , but I know I
whispered something. She turned
very pale and said, " Oh, Jack !
Speak to me to-night ; not
now." The Eight came byjust
then , and we left the barge very
soon.
How charming she looked
that night in soft pale grey
stuff, and something pink on
the shoulder. We sat out up-
stairs in a small recess . Of
course we got engaged ! Be-
sides, it was virtually settled
when we arrived. Poor little
soul, how happy she was, even
though I would not allow her
to announce it. I could not have " HOW CHARMING SHE LOOKED
THAT NIGHT !
it proclaimed till I had passed
my last exam. Besides , there was no hurry, and she
was sure Mr. Grey would not object.
We never met again. We never shall, as I shall
certainly cut my throat first !
278 THE IDLER.
CHAPTER II .
The rest of the term seems filled with Darcys . That was not
my fault, they were everywhere ! The Professor liked me, we
both collected butterflies, and we were always meeting by the river.
He used to run for miles with his net and his enthusiasm. I sat in
the shade with my net and Hilda . I swore solemnly to myself
never to begin making love to her. I never did . The Professor
came back, hot and triumphant ; I received him , cool and butter-
flyless . This pleased both of us . It did not please Mrs. Darcy,
however, and after a bit she shut Hilda up and refused me the
house. This piqued me.
"July 7th . Flemick and I agreed to give a dance in our
rooms."
I sent Flemick to the house at the Professor's tea-time, with
instructions to invite all the Darcys, father, mother, and two
things with long plaits, and to remark, as
Mrs. Darcy opened the envelope , that Sir
Solomon Shape was coming. Shape was a
short, stout, red-faced , rude little baronet,
with four thousand per annum, and a con-
viction that every girl wanted to marry
him. Mrs. Darcy's plans on his account
were well known.
She hesitated, and then the Pro-
fessor's voice decided it. " My love,
we will go, of course ; Pegsie, Babsie,
and all ." .
Mrs. Darcy gave way, and ac-
cepted for herself and Hilda, adding,
" Margaret and Babetta will certainly
not go. " Amidst the confusion result-
ing from Miss Pegsie bursting into
tears, Flemick escaped.
"June 16th . Hilda came ! Oh
that I had kept cool ! "
She was pale, her dark eyes shone
like lamps. Her black hair was " SIR SOLOMON SHAPE.33
wound round behind, with a scarlet
flower in the coils . Mrs. Darcy was taken ill at the last . She
tried to keep Hilda at home. That young lady and her father
escaped like guilty things at 9.15 , and arrived late, but triumphant.
THREE ΤΟ ΟΝΕ . 279
Hilda danced indifferently, so we retired to the rooms of the man

next door. We sat in the window behind the curtains ; I was mad!
The strains of " Geliebt und Verloren" were heard rising and fall-
ing plaintively. I alluded to my approaching departure for India,
and the pleasure her society had given me during the past two
years. She burst into tears, and, at my first consoling words ,
threw herself into my arms !
I remember trying to stammer out some words of a repressive
nature ; I remember feeling like a man who has taken opium , and
cannot direct his actions ! Flemick routed us out at last. If only
he had done it earlier ! But that was Flemick ; he was a
procrastinator.
He wanted to introduce me to his sister. Hilda clung to my
arm , but her partner for the next dance claimed her, and I was left
to stagger after Flemick. Hang his sister !
CHAPTER III.
In Flemick's room, under the light of
two rose-coloured lamps, against a back-
ground of palms and flowers, sat the
loveliest girl I ever saw.
Flemick said something, Lord knows
what ! All I noticed was
her golden hair waving over
her blue eyes. I sank into
a chair by her ; and she
drow the floating
amber dress on one
side to make room
for me. Hilda left
early, and Rosa-
mund and I danced
the last three
dances toge-
ther. Her
step was
perfection,
and she
was as light as
a feather in spite
of her height.
" AGAINST A BACKGROUND OF PALMS AND FLOWERS."
280 THE IDLER.
I rushed up to Town for my exam . next morning, shaking the

dust off my feet against Oxford . I never saw Hilda again , and ,
as I had her solemn promise not to reveal our engagement , I
managed to enjoy the end of the London season, though sometimes
I felt hot as I reflected on my horrible position . Naturally I
reflected on it as little as possible. I see in my diary-
" July 6th. Went down to Riversmead for Henley."
Riversmead was a house belonging to some people called Mure .
The house was full, and my sister Lucy was there. Lucy and I
never got on. She is a prig ; and circumstances on this visit
kept us apart. These circumstances took the form of Rosamund
Flemick. Lucy detested Rosamund,
who returned the feeling with interest.
The Mures had a small boat,
which held two comfortably, and soon
that boat was considered our particular
property . We spent three long sum-
mer days on the river. I never enjoyed
three days more . I was proud of my
companion in the Daphne, and man-
aged temporarily to dismiss Mary and
Hilda from my thoughts. It requires
taste to dress well for Henley, and
Rosamund was perfectly dressed .
Lucy remarked at luncheon that it
was " making a fool of yourself to
change your dress three times a day."
I recollect that I begged her to try
and make allowances for people who
had good figures. Luncheon was an
exciting meal at Riversmead .
I see in my diary for Saturday,
"Fled from Jones" -this looks simple ,
nevertheless it was the cause of un-
speakable mischief.
Jones was rowing for the Diamond
Sculls and had his people up. Old Mrs.
Jones had a rhubarb-bed in her bon-
net, and everyone turned to stare at
the girls. They saw us, they pursued.
We fled anywhere ! We were just
" THEY SAW US, THEY PURSUED." comfortably settled under a tree, hid-
THREE TO ONE. 281
den by Rosamund's parasol and a neighbouring hedge, when a

gipsy pounced upon us with the usual jargon. Rosamund insisted
on hearing her fortune. " See," said the hag, holding the soft
little hand, " what a line of luck ! Crossed, but never severed , and
leading straight to riches and honour ! There's the heart line !
Well, well, there's hearts to be broken, but never your own, and a
long and merry life you'll have. See where the love line ends.
It's a wife and a mother you'll be, and your first husband'll be
none your last !"
This was too much ! I gave her half-a-sovereign to go, and
then turned to Rosamund. She looked lovelier than ever, and I
told her so . We sat under that red sunshade oblivious of every
thing but each other. I remember that we never spoke of
marriage the word " engagement " never passed our lips , we
simply discovered that we loved !
That evening whilst shaving, I
stopped suddenly, cutting my chin
in the action, which annoyed me
immensely, as I hate a man who
habitually gashes himself, and
remembered !
I got through dinner somehow, but
I never looked at Rosamund. After
dinner, she beckoned me into the
garden, flooded by moonlight. Here,
to my joy, she stated that she would
have no avowed engagement. "Your
prospects ," she said frankly, " are
very uncertain, and your sister hates
me like poison." She held out her
shawl on both sides, showing her tall ,
slight figure in its low, black dress.
The moon lighted up her big eyes and
softly curling hair. I would have
agreed to anything, except to losing
her then ; besides, the arrangement
suited me admirably. We agreed to
write regularly.
The agony of my correspondence
was great, but it reached a climax as
" SHE HELD OUT HER SHAWL my departure for India became im-
ON BOTH SIDES." minent. Not until I had seen the
282 THE IDLER.
Mater taken off the ship in hysterics by Lucy, and felt the throb-
bing of the engines , did I seem safe from a triple invasion ! At
Last, my mental anguish yielded to greater bodily sufferings .
Oh, hang it ! I've forgotten Mrs. Mason's party ! I shall just
have time to go if I hurry up . I hate the old cat, but I must keep
in with Mason . How the old woman treats her little companion ,
Jane Lee ! I wonder Mason doesn't interfere ! " Hi, Abdul ! where
are my dress clothes ?"
CHAPTER IV .
66 May 26th .It is now a month since further news has come
of my poor boy's fate. I have opened a packet of his letters which
Archibald sent me, but my eyesight is not what it was. I shall be
helped to-morrow by Mary Grey, who comes to me for a few days.
Dear Jack appeared to me, last year, to regard Mary as a sister,
and I shall be very glad of a quiet companion who knew my
darling.
" May 27th. Mary arrived, looking very ill . She was most
sympathetic. No daughter could have greeted me more tenderly.
" After tea I said to her : Mary, I'm beginning to sort dear
Jack's letters, and I propose to begin on this packet tied with blue
ribbon .' To my astonishment she burst into tears, and said : ' Dear
Mrs. Vivian, I must tell you something which you ought to have
known long ago ; I was to have been dear Jack's wife if he had lived .
I believe those are my letters which you hold in your hand ! Jack
and I had been attached to one another from his early schooldays ,
and when you took me up to the Indian Civilian Ball it was all
settled between us .'
" How glad I am now that I asked Mary to stay ; the girl who
first awakened in my Jack's heart a pure -minded and constant
affection. We passed a very peaceful evening talking of dear
Jack ! I see the Flemicks have returned to-day from abroad .
Rosamund's dressing is usually calculated to draw far too much
attention to her, but now she is in mourning-I wonder what rela-
tion they have lost.
66
May 28th . I am in a state of terrible perplexity. The top
letter in the bundle is in a different handwriting . It bears the
signature of Hilda Darcy , ' and appears to me to partake of the
nature of a love letter . The writer refers to an engagement ; this ,
of course, must be a mistake , as dear Jack was engaged to Mary ,
but I really begin to fear he must have been imprudenț ,
THREE TO ONE. 283
"4 o'clock. This morning, as Mary and I were

sitting working at the window, a cab drove up, and
the servant said : Miss Darcy is below, ma'am , and
would be glad to speak to you . ' I was horrified ! and
6
exclaimed : Show Miss Darcy into the dining- room ,
and tell her that I will be with her directly.' Mary
also jumped up, saying : ' Dear Mrs. Vivian, let me
see this lady for you, I am sure it would save you
fatigue.'
"An awful vision arose in my mind
of the two girls meeting before I had
probed the mystery of those letters .
' I think,' said I, ' she has come on I WAS HORRIFIED !
some private family business , and I had better see her myself.'
" Slowly I descended to the dining-room, and found myself
confronted by a decidedly pretty girl, who advanced to meet me,
and threw her arms round me, exclaiming : You are the mother
of my dear Jack ! '
"The pronoun ' my ' alarmed me exceedingly, as did the girl's
uncontrolled manner . Disengaging myself I said : ' I do not
understand you, Miss
Darcy ! To what am I
indebted for this visit ?'
" Miss Darcy burst
into tears. ' Did Jack
never tell you any-
thing ? ' she asked .
" Really, Miss
Darcy, ' I exclaimed ,
my heart sinking
within me, ' I must
ask you to be more
explicit.'
" Slightly check-
ing her sobs, the
girl said : ' I was
engaged to Jack,
and oh, Mrs. Vi-
vian, I loved him
more than I can
ever tell you ! I
"I DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOU, MISS DARCY. have come to you
284 THE IDLER.
to hear all about him, to know if he left any letter for me, and to
ask if I might be a daughter to you ?
" Miss Darcy,' I said, ' I have found letters of yours which I
now understand, but you must really allow me time to recover from
the shock of this discovery. Will you return this evening ? By
that time I shall have examined more of my son's papers .' I
told her all we knew of Jack's death, and soothed her in every way
I could, as I feared Mary might pass the door and hear her sobs.
At last she said she would leave, ard , again throwing her arms
round my neck, she exclaimed : ' Oh, I shall love you very much,
you are so like my dear Jack.' But Jack was always the image
of his father ! As soon as I was fairly composed I rejoined Mary,
who asked me what Miss Darcy had come for.
" About a charity,' I replied , ' I always see these people
myself, and enquire into their claims.""
CHAPTER VI.
May 29th. I now feel strong enough to record some of the

incidents of this terrible day.
I was looking over Miss Darcy's letters, when the servant
announced " Miss Flemick." I was much annoyed ! It really was
very hard to have my short interval of rest interrupted by so
unwelcome a visitor. Besides, it was an intrusion . I do not
visit the Flemicks. She entered and seated herself, and , after a
pause began : " Mrs. Vivian , I have been abroad, but, of course,
I have been intending to call on you ever since your son's death !
You are doubtless already aware why I have come ? "
" I presume to condole with me," I replied. " It is really very
kind of you to visit a total stranger, but I am hardly strong
enough to see visitors yet."
This I hoped would be a sufficiently broad hint.
"Your calling me a stranger, Mrs. Vivian, " she said, " shows
that you know nothing, so I will tell you the truth at once. A
year ago your son proposed to me." " Miss Flemick," I replied, as
calmly as I could, "do you consider this is an occasion to refer to
any opportunity you may have had of refusing my son ? Not
that I believe it !"
Miss Flemick smiled. "I am not surprised," she said, " that
you should misunderstand me, but I am referring to an opportunity
I had of accepting your son ! It was unwise to bind myself to a
THREE TO ONE. 285
man in his position, but it is at any rate a proof of my disinterested

affection."
Perhaps, after hearing two similar announcements in forty-
eight hours I should have been callous, but I was literally
stunned, and could only gasp out, " This cannot be true."
Miss Flemick, who was completely mistress of the situation ,
calmly continued : " I had another object in coming to see you,
besides the duty of telling you the truth ; I wish to reclaim a letter
written by me to Jack."
I began searching mechanically through the papers . Suddenly
Miss Flemick rose, and, pointing to a letter, said : " That is
mine." I tore it open. It was of a nature I do not care to recall ,
referring to certain love passages, and enquiring into Jack's
prospects. My head whirled. Jack must have become engaged
to her barely a
month after he
proposed to Hilda
Darcy, and about
seven weeks after
he spoke to Mary
Grey! I asked her
a few questions,
and then felt that
I must persuade
her to go.
I told her that
I was too tired to
talk any more,
but that I would
come and see her
to-morrow. She
was just saying
she would leave-
when-" Miss
Darcy" was an-
nounced! It was
only half-past six,
and she had
returned before I
could give orders
for her non-ad-
04 HOW DARE YOU TELL SUCH A STORY !"
mittance. The
286 THE IDLER.
girls looked at one another, and I hurriedly introduced them,

hoping Rosamund would leave, when Hilda turned to her and
said : " Are you any relation to some Mr. Flemicks at Oxford ? "
" I am their sister," she replied.
66
They gave that dance with dear Jack, Mrs. Vivian , ” said
Hilda . The words " dear Jack " must have aroused Rosamund's
suspicions. She said haughtily : " I presume you were very
intimate with Mr. Vivian ." " Oh, yes " -began Hilda. I
interrupted : " Her father was very kind to Jack. "
" Then," said Rosamund , " I need not conceal from you that
he was to have married me ! "
The effect on Hilda was terrible. She turned pale and then
crimson, and said furiously : " How dare you tell such a story, you
must be a very wicked girl ! Jack and I were engaged for a
year before his death ! ” It was now Rosamund's turn to look
amazed, but she controlled herself, and said : " How is this, Mrs.
Vivian ? " Hilda burst out : " Mrs. Vivian knows that I was his
fiancée ; she has seen my letters ! "
Rosamund cast a withering glance at me, and, then turning to
Hilda, said : " I fear we have both been strangely deceived . Mrs.
Vivian has just acknowledged that my engagement was proved.
I also had been engaged to Jack for nearly a year. We had better
discuss the matter calmly, and perhaps when Mrs. Vivian feels able
to speak " (this in a tone of cutting scorn) " she would lend us her
assistance."
Hilda cast one wild glance at her, and burst into a torrent of
sobs , saying : " I won't believe it ! Jack was the noblest man that
ever lived ; how dare you say such things ! "
"When you are calmer, Miss Darcy," replied Rosamund, “ I
will prove to you the truth of my assertion , and I should be glad
if you would prove yours."
Here a slight noise made me look round, and I saw- Mary-
white as a sheet , clinging to the door. She had entered noise-
lessly without anyone perceiving it.
" I have heard everything," she said in a stunned voice, " and
it is perhaps of the most importance to me that these ladies
should prove their statements, for I am staying here as Jack's
acknowledged fiancée."
" My dear girls," I gasped out, " I believe you are all telling
the truth ! You were all engaged to Jack ! For Heaven's sake
go away peaceably. Nothing can be done now ! "
At this moment Hammond entered, bringing a telegram .
THREE TO ONE. 287
CHAPTER VII.
I was so stupefied by all I had gone through that I opened it

mechanically, and repeated the words without comprehending their
sense " Expect news of Jack to-morrow." Their effect was
electric. Hilda started to her feet from the sofa. " The wretch !"
she said, " he is alive !" Rosamund began to draw on her gloves,
remarking with an indescribable smile : " Really, Mrs. Vivian, after
the interesting discoveries of to-day, you may expect anything ."
A mother must always defend her boy. I said , .with all the
dignity I could muster, though my knees shook under me :
"Your remark seems to me most improper under the circum-
stances, and I must now request to be left alone.
Rosamund acquiesced with unruffled calm, remarking as she
reached the door, " I shall call upon you to-morrow to hear news
of Jack."
" I shall come too," said Hilda quickly.
" Come when you will," I said desperately, " but for pity's sake
go now ."
May 30th. As we sat at breakfast ,
the door opened and Archibald walked in .
I was so anxious for news of Jack that I
scarcely felt surprised to see my elder son,
though I had fully believed him to be with
his regiment in India . " Jack," I gasped,
" what of Jack ?"
" He is nearly well," said Archie,
66
glancing at Mary ; moreover, he is
married ! "
Mary left the room- -I sank into a
chair.
66
' Married ," I said , " impossible !
Why they were all here yesterday ! "
"Here ?" replied Archie. " My dear
mother, you are most naturally bewil-
dered ; why, they crossed with me and
will be here directly. I preceded them to
break the news."
" Crossed with you ? Rosamund and
Hilda ?"
"No ! Jack and his wife, Jane.
"ARCHIBALD WALKED IN." What are you thinking of? "
288 THE IDLER.
I grasped the arm of the chair whilst Archie poured out the
story ofJack's accident. How he was run away with and thrown
insensible on the hill -side. How he lay for a fortnight in a native
hut before he could speak enough to be understood , and how, only
three weeks ago, he was brought back to Archie's bungalow. All
this I only half heard , as I was repeating all the time " Rosamund,
Hilda, Mary, Jack, and Jane !"
"Then," continued Archie, " I found out, from letters, that two
months before he had married privately a Miss Jane Lee, the
companion of my Colonel's wife. "
" But where ! How ! Why ! " I went on hopelessly, when
the door opened, and Hilda and Rosamund entered . " Miss
Flemick and Miss Darcy," said Hammond gently.
Archie rose, and bowed stiffly, looking at me for an intro-
duction, but before I could speak he exclaimed : " Here they are,
coming up the garden. Let Mr. Jack in, Hammond !"
" No ! no !" I cried wildly. " Archie ! Rosamund ! go away !
Take them away ! Put them in the next room ! "
Rosamund Flemick: settled herself deliberately in a chair, and
actually laughed aloud ! " I'm anxious to see Jack," she said.
" I won't stir," said Hilda ; " let him meet me if he dare ! I
despise him !"
FACING HILDA AND ROSAMUND STOOD A SMALL, RED-HAIRED GIRL."

THREE TO ONE. 289
In another moment Jack was in the room, and, forgetful of all

but my favourite child, I clasped him in my arms as he knelt at
my feet. The silence made me look up. Facing Rosamund and
Hilda stood a small , red-haired girl. I clutched Jack's arm .
" Oh, Jack," I said . But Jack was petrified under the glances of
Hilda , Rosamund, and Mary, the latter standing in the doorway
holding nervously on to Archie's arm .
"Would it not be as well, Jack, to introduce your wife ?" said
Archie in dry tones . My poor boy was simply unable to speak.
Rosamund was of course the first to break the silence. 66 Pray let
me do the introducing, Jack," she said in sweet, even tones . " Mrs.
John Vivian, I am glad to make your acquaintance ! Let me intro-
duce Miss Grey to you, who has been engaged to your husband
since last May. Also Miss Darcy, who has been engaged to
him for nearly the same period . I am Miss Flemick, and occupied
the same proud position until last night, when I accepted Mr. Jones
-you will remember him , Jack-and now" -turning to me-" dear
Mrs. Vivian, let me congratulate you on your son's marriage, and"
-with a look of scorn at poor Jane, who
certainly is plain-" on your charming
daughter-in-law !"
So saying she swept from the room.
Hilda burst into a little shriek of
hysterical laughter. " Let's congratulate
all round," she said. " As for
you" -turning to Jane-" I pity
you as much as I despise your
husband . I would not be in your
position for anything !"
Then my daughter- in - law
opened her lips . " It's a better
one than yours , anyhow," was
all she remarked , but I doubt if
Miss Darcy heard her, as she
rushed from the room, and the
hall door slammed behind her.
I retired to my room, and
"IT'S A BETTER ONE THAN YOURS, ANYHOW." have not had the courage to go
down and face Mary. Dear Archie will take her to Winchester,
as she insists on leaving to-day.
290 THE IDLER.
CHAPTER VIII.
"June 21st. Archie has gone down to Winchester again, and

sends me a good report of Mary-Jane is a regular little vixen . I
trust Lucy may be a match for her. Poor, dear Jack ; he is terribly
henpecked !
"June 30th. Archibald has proposed to Mary and been
accepted. I am most joyfully surprised. Archie is a very good,
steady fellow- but after Jack !
" July 31st . I paste in this extract without comment : ' July
29th, at St. Mark's , Oxford, by the Rev. X. Y. Z. Clark, LL.D. ,
assisted by the Rev. T. Smith, Sir Solomon Timothy Shape, Bart. ,
of Lea Park, Kent, to Hilda , eldest daughter of John Darcy, Esq. ,
Professor of Etymology at Oxford .'
"-Poor, dear, darling Jack ! "
2
1
0
0
I sawTim s
Wh e it in the real ofspa
ic ms ce
hhe gr
ave stitc wit arue fa .
h ful ce
ly hed
Wor
The ld up O the
on hisWor
kneld'smuchin needofrepair
e
An thu san
d s g
he
Butyet ere )end it.I'll struggaleirto
sp mendit.
d e
I'm like togive up e

ks ery ad lar us
Tho it loo v b y dec c
i
n
G
Meisenbach
The Secret of the Hidden Room.
BY SPENCER JEROME .
ILLUSTRATED BY MISS G. D. HAMMOND.
THE long
desert was
shimmering with
heat. The many
clouds of dust
rising into the fer-
vid air showed
frequent caravans.
The water pools
had shrunk with
the drought, and
were trampled into
miry sloughs .
Horses lay dead
about them, and
vultures came
wheeling out of
the air to the
feast. Yet along
the heavy roads
eager - faced men
kept pressing on,
until, at last on
the horizon, all
trembling in the
quivering air ,
could be seen the
fair towers , the
domes, and clus-
tered minarets of
the Sacred City.
The mazy
streets of the City
were thronged
with pilgrims from
far places — the
uttermost parts of
the earth jostled
in the by-ways-
for the morrow
HE SPOKE, AND HIS WORDS CAME FAINTLY DOWN."
THE SECRET OF THE HIDDEN ROOM. 293
was the day of the Ineffable Sacrament—the very name of which it

were death to speak.
* *
There was little sleep in the City that night, and all through
the dark hours processions of priests passed and repassed along
the narrow ways. Long before daybreak the path cut in the rock
leading up to the Grand Portal of the Temple was crowded . At
sunrise the great brazen gates, never opened save on such an
occasion as this , were flung apart, and the vast throng was carried
on between rows of colossal marble figures into an enormous hall ,
the low roof of which was supported by thousands of marble pillars ,
and then out into the great courtyard of the Temple. In a
moment this was filled with the pilgrims.
After the sun was fairly above the horizon , a black-robed priest
came out on the castellated gallery of a lofty minaret, and spread
out his hands to the East. He spoke, and his words came faintly
down to the worshippers . An intense silence fell over the court,
save when now and then the pent-up excitement of a pilgrim found
vent in a gasp. From within the Temple now at times came faint,
mysterious sounds. The ceremony had begun.
* * * *
The hot day wore away, but no one stirred : the cool dampness
of evening came , and the full white moon rose into the sky, but
no one marked the flight of time.
* * * * *
A priest appeared at a high portico , robed in white which
seemed as phosphorescent in the moonlight. He spoke in a low.
tone to those immediately below him, and an awe-struck whisper
passed through the throng of worshippers .
" The Lama is about to enter the Holy of Holies ."
* * *
A chant was heard within the Temple as of a thousand voices
-it grew louder and louder until it rose into a great rhythmic roar
like the sea- suddenly it stopped, and the vast crowd without, as
by a common impulse, threw themselves on their faces.
At this moment a black shadow touched the face of the great
white moon, and minute by minute increased until the light of
the night waned , and a darkness fell over all . The prostrate
pilgrims lay trembling.
Then, of a sudden, from a part of the Temple behind the wor-
shippers, was heard a high, clear voice , speaking in an unknown
tongue words of weird beauty. This ceased , and was succeeded
by a mysterious rushing sound as of wings,
294 THE IDLER.
Then came from the summit of the minaret a strange, low chant,
which floated softly down to the gloomy courtyard. It was taken
up by a single voice in the great nave of the Temple-other voices
joined in till it swelled and broadened into a prayer-an adoration,
and then, at first tentatively, but at last firmly and gratefully, into a
glorious, resounding pæan of joy-and the light of the moon
returned .
*
As a grizzled worshipper was passing through the entrance hall
of the Temple, a dark-faced, black-robed priest came to him from
behind one of the pillars, and pointing to the slender, serious
stripling at his side , said :
" The Gods have need of him-follow me."
fado A
C6 THE LAMA IS ABOUT TO ENTER

THE HOLY OF HOLIES."
In silence they traversed high, vaulted corridors, and through

long cloisters by many a court and garth where shone in the
sparkling fountains of quicksilver, and then down they turned and
penetrated into the bowels of the rocky hill , which was crowned
by the Temple . At last they reached a series of chambers
hollowed in the rock, and in these many priests were assembled .
In the last one, nine priests in scarlet robes sat on a dais, and the
chief of these arose and said to the boy :
" Is it thy wish to serve the Gods ?"

The boy, though frightened , said, " Yes," and the grave words
of the priests at last won consent from the terrified reluctance of
the father. The last interview was short, and then the youth was
led away, and great doors clanged shut. The father made futile
efforts to retract, but was forced to leave with his son's last cry of
terror ringing in his ears.
* * * * *
Years passed . The youth increased in learning and piety
more than any of his fellows . Long days he sought for Know-
ledge in time- stained manuscripts and ancient volumes bound in
gold : long nights on his knees he strove for Wisdom in keeping
vigil of the Holy Taper. And into the World and into the breasts
of men had he penetrated , and he knew what they contained .
With years came the advancement which brought him nearer the
Divine Source, and at last he stood next to the Lama , the great
High Priest, and within his grasp was the knowledge of that
Ultimate Truth, to the passionate pursuit of which his life.
for thirty years had been given .
* * * *
The Lama secluded himself from the eyes of even his nearest
attendants for many weeks. At last he emerged and appointed a
day a twelvemonth hence for the Ineffable Sacrament. Sacred
envoys galloped on foaming stallions to the courts of kings , and
thence thousands ofmessengers issued to the uttermost provinces of
the world, that all men might know the day.
A year elapsed , and again the desert was thronged with
caravans, and again the vultures wheeled out of the air, uttering
harsh cries .
Again the brazen gates were opened, and again the crowd of
reverent worshippers filled the great court of the Temple.
Again the black-robed priest appeared on the lofty minaret , and
again the priest in white gave the low words of warning from
the portico .
*
Again the chanting of the myriad voices, and again the vast
throng of pilgrims fell upon their faces.
* * * *
Within the enormous nave of the Temple, all the priests were
assembled, wearied by the arduous ceremonies which they had
been performing, and yet full of most intense eagerness , for it was
now that the Lama was to choose his successor. The moment drew
296 THE IDLER .
near when he was to appear, and the priests grouped themselves in

accordance with their rank in symbolic order and muttered to
themselves phrases of superhuman import.
All eyes were bent upon the high
throne of the sublime Lama , the jewels of
which were glittering in the light
of many torches , while the rest
of the immense cham-
ber was in gloom.
Suddenly from
a hidden panel
high up in the
wall came the
06 LONG DAYS HE SOUGHT FOR KNOWLEDGE.'99

Lama, tall, robed in red, his sunken eyes blazing with the fires of a
supernatural enlightenment.
He took his seat upon the lofty throne, and cast his eyes over
the upturned faces. It was still , save that a faint murmur of
whispered prayers came from the pilgrims in the court without,
and in this stillness , the moonbeams, which fell here and there
from openings high up in the walls upon the priests and tessellated
pavement, shone strangely beautiful. At last he spoke in a low
voice, but one which penetrated to every corner of the chamber.
"My time is accomplished," he said, " and I will leave with
you that Wisdom which I alone possess . I shall determine
whether he, among you, who seems most worthy of the knowledge
of the Ultimate Truth be so or not. If he be so, I will veil the
Lamp of the Night while I show him a Divine Light."
Then he spoke in a language that but one other person in the
whole assembly could understand.
"Let him who hears these words kneel at the foot of my

throne."
A moment's pause, and the boy of thirty years
ago stepped forward and knelt submissively. His
face was flushed, but he did not tremble.
With a gleam of affectionate pride in his
eyes, the Lama looked down upon him,
and still in the same language he said,
" Thou hast merited much, my son ,
and I shall now put thee to the test to
know whether thou dost merit all that
I can give to thee. Behind my throne,
through yon door, are divers
rooms, in each of which a career
is symbolised. Thou must
choose the one that seemeth to
thee most desirable upon earth.
If thou chooseth aright, then
the Holy of Holies lieth open to
thee, and Ultimate Truth is
thine. Ifthou chooseth wrongly,
thou wilt, perhaps, be happier,
since, then, as thou hast de-
served so much, I will decree
that the rest of thy life shall be
that career, which thou chooseth,
in its highest form attainable "HE TOOK HIS SEAT UPO
THE LOFTY THRONE."
on earth. Go and choose."
The prostrate priest arose
and said :
" O sublime Lama, would that I might choose aright."
Then he passed behind the throne and was lost to sight of all .
The Lama sank back upon his cushions and closed his eyes, while
his face in the flickering torchlight seemed ghastly and haggard.
A low chant now began, almost imperceptibly increasing in
power.
The priest found himself in a corridor which he never before
had entered. It was suffused with light that came from behind a
translucent ceiling. Opening off it were small rooms, or deep
alcoves cut off from the corridor by heavy curtains. He pushed
aside one of these. Within were bags of gold and open golden
caskets of rarest jewels . He scarcely glanced at them , but saying,
298 THE IDLER .
"The burdens of life are enough—I wish not the burdens of

wealth," he passed on.
In the next alcove were swords and javelins of every descrip-
tion, and a plumed helmet capping them all. They did not
detain him, and murmuring ,
66
Naught is so empty as glory, " he turned to the next.
In it, on a purple cloth, were a crown and sceptre . " Baubles
for children ," he smiled and turned away.
Another room showed an almsgiver. The priest frowned ,
" Those who cannot live should die."
Then he came to a student's library, the shelves filled with
rare volumes and curious manuscripts , while through a half-
opened door the tools of alchemy were visible .
" My soul is wearied with knowledge," he exclaimed ; " I long
for wisdom."
The next room showed a divan, upon which a woman
reclined in all the splendour of her beauty. A blush came to
her cheeks as she saw the priest , and she hid her face from
him, and strove to cover herself with a silken shawl . He
lingered, looking at her, and his heart beat rapidly.
66
' I would tarry here, " he said , " could I be thy lover, and not
thy slave. I would tarry here, wouldst thou but release me when
the tie that bound our hearts was broken . I would tarry here,
wouldst thou recognise that at the most thou couldst be but an
eddy in the current of my life ; but, to be content with this, thou
wouldst love me too much—or not enough. "
And so, with one last regretful look, he turned away, and
throwing aside another curtain , he felt the cool air of night upon
his hot face, and he looked out over the desert lying dim and
mysterious in the moonlight. He advanced a few steps to where
he saw a taper burning. There was a porch with a rose bush
running over it, and the red blossoms visible here and there. Two
well-tried friends of many years sat there , and there was upon a
table a flask filled with red wine, through which the light of the
taper came rich in colour as the twilight sky in autumn. There
was a third chair and a glass waiting for him. The friends rose
and came towards him, saying :
" We were told you were coming. Come, we have been
waiting long ."
He went to them gladly and grasped their hands .
"My dear old friends," he cried, " here is unalloyed happiness ,
free from all the evils of the world.I have but a moment, but it
shall be spent with you."
The chanting of the priests in the great nave of the Temple
was now resounding like the distant roar of a cataract, but the
three sat there a few moments in happy familiar converse, and the
priest said to himself :
" Though I may have chosen wrongly, I have gained much."
Then he bade good-bye to his friends and went back through the
corridor, not turning to the right nor to the left . Coming out
before the Lama, he knelt down , and the chanting ceased , and all
was still. Lifting up his head he spoke again in the strange
tongue, saying :
" O sublime Lama, I have chosen a glass of wine drunk
with old friends as the type of the highest career. Though this
choice debar me from knowledge of that Ultimate Truth which
thou alone canst give, yet, at least, it will make me happy."
" Thou hast chosen wisely, O my son, " replied the Lama , with
a smile of affection, " thou hast chosen the best possible. There ,
and there alone, is all the delights of wealth without its burden .
There, and there alone, is an intoxication like to that of glory with
none of the chances of failure. There is the grandeur of a power
that can triumph over grief. There canst thou forget the helpless
" VEIL THY FACE, O LAMP OF HEAVEN.'"1
misery of the world ever hopelessly tugging at our heart strings.

There canst thou weave the subtlest fabrics of a knowledge that
partakes of wisdom in that it is without weariness. There is an
ecstasy like to that of love without the ennui of satiety. Regrets
of the past and forebodings of the future are dismissed, and the
joy of living drives from thy mind the black brood of cares ."
And then rising he spoke in the tongue that all understood :
300 THE IDLER.
"Veil thy face, O Lamp of Heaven, and thou, my son, follow me.
I would that thou shouldst possess all wisdom , even as it is mine."
The two withdrew by the secret passage by which the Lama had
entered, and traversed long ways, deep hidden in the massive walls
of the Temple. Passing an opening they saw the moon partly
obscured. At last they reached a lofty room in a part of the Temple
never visited by any but the Lama. From a window they looked
out into the court and saw the backs of the many pilgrims, and
beyond them the great nave of the Temple which they had just left.
The Lama turned toward a large curtain of richest tapestry
which hung across one end of the room , and spoke loudly in that
sweet, unknown tongue, so that his voice could be heard by the
many, out in the court, but only the man whom he addressed
understood the words :
" Thou hast learned all that the sages can teach thee. Thou
hast grasped what the world has to give. Thou knowest the
feebleness of man and the folly of the hopes of man . Thou
knowest thine own heart, and art not led astray by the clamour of
the unenlightened . Thou art worthy of all wisdom, even as I,
for thou shalt be the Lama after me.
" Listen-behind that Veil is the Ultimate Essence of all
Things there shalt thou behold the meaning of the universe and
of the life of humanity-there shalt thou behold all that has been
and all that shall be there shalt thou behold the Soul of Man
and the Face of God."
They approached the curtain . With a rushing sound it parted
in twain and fell away on either side.
The room beyond was empty .
Francis Bret Harte.
TWO INTERVIEWS WITH HIM ON SOMEWHAT DISSIMILAR LINES.
FIRST. THE IDEAL INTERVIEW .

BY LUKE SHARP .
ILLUSTRATED BY A. S. BOYD.
THE jangling stage coach with its four horses and profane driver
left me standing alone, the only passenger who was getting
off at Coleman's Grave, and dis-
appeared around the shoulder
of rock that marked the entrance
of Broken Skull Canyon .
The town of Coleman's
Grave consisted of one rude
frame-house, situated on the
brow ofthe ravine that led down
to the wild waters of Gusha-
wassit Creek, whose mighty roar
filled the otherwise still mountain
air. All around rose stupendous moun-
tains . Nature had piled them there in
one of her most lavish moods , little
recking the fact that space was worth
a hundred thousand dollars a foot-front
in New York City. High above all , and
dominating the wild scene, arose the
gigantic snow- covered peak, Onefuris
Nob, coldly white against the opalescent
sky .
Coleman's Grave was so called be-
cause Coleman, before putting up the one
house of the place, had dug a cellar,
which was a novelty in this region .
The few residents of the mining camp
near, who saw Coleman dig-
ging, and who knew there was
no gold in that spot, naturally
came to the conclusion that
Coleman was making prepara-
tions to plant those who differed "THE TOWN OF COLEMAN'S GRAVE.'
with him, and to enter into the social enjoyments of the place . W
C
302 THE İDLER.
A man who was evidently Coleman himself was seated on a

tilted - back wooden chair, with his feet on the rounds in front.
The back of the chair rested against the outside wall of the house.
Coleman's wide- brimmed , slouched hat was drawn well down on
his forehead , and from the obscurity underneath there flashed the
steely glitter of a pair of eyes that showed their owner was not to
be trifled with . He was playfully tossing in the air, and catching
it deftly by the handle as it fell , a large bowie knife, whose bright
blade glistened as it whirled in space.
66
' Wall , stranger , " was Coleman's greeting. " D'ye want
ter buy some bang -up town lots ter day ? They're going up
every twenty-four hours , and now is the time to buy fur a rise."
" Some of them seem to be high enough already,"
I said, glancing at the peaks around . Then , as he stopped
whirling the knife and held it menacingly in
his hand , I hastily added, " I wanted to see
Bret Harte, who lives, I understand, in this
neighbourhood. "
"What's he wanted for ? " enquired Cole-
man with interest.
66
Nothing ; I merely wished to interview
him. "
" Then you'll have to shoot mighty quick
an' straight . Bret never gives a man a
second chance, and precious seldom the fust
one . "
I had some difficulty in explaining the
real nature of an interview to Coleman , but
"WALL, STRANGER ! ' when he comprehended it at last, he said .
sadly :
" Yes, Bret's a great hand on literatoor-writes poems an'
things. Used to read ' em down at Brady's saloon till the boys
got the drop on him. Bret never could stand town life, so he lives
in the suburbs . He don't take no stock in civilisation , an' the
hustling round in a big place like the Grave worries him so. He
lives at number ten thousand Pine Tree Avanoo . Thar," and
Coleman pointed with his knife upwards at Onefuris Nob, where
through the clear air, although it was so far away, could be seen a
hut by the edge of the precipice.
99
" And how is a person to reach there ?
" Ain't no way but hoofing it, as I know of. We ain't quite
as far as ' Frisco yet, an' the cable cars are not a runnin'."
FRANCIS BRET HARTE.
303
To fall in with the customs of the place, I offered Coleman a

drink out of my flask of prime Kentucky whiskey. Coleman
tasted it gingerly, held up the bottle to the light for a moment, and
then handed it back.
" You're white, stranger, " he said, " but I don't go much on
temperance drinks . Forty rod's the favorite brand out in the
mountings."
It was a long and toilsome journey up the mountain path , but
the wonderful views , gradually unfolded, repaid the effort . The
roaring of the torrent became more and more subdued as I climbed
into the thinning air. As I neared the cabin ,
a sharp voice shouted , " Throw up your
hands ! "
At a turn in the path I saw a man,
apparently with one eye, gazing at me along
he gleaming barrel of a rifle. It may seem
weakness on my part, but I instantly com-
plied with his request.
" Are ye heeled ?" was the next question .
Not quite understanding the enquiry, I
replied that I had footed it up the mountain,
if that was what he meant.
After a little discussion , during which,
fortunately for me, the rifle did not go off, I
told him that I had merely come to see Mr.
Bret Harte, and talk with him about his
work.
" Put it thar, stranger," h
said, holding out his hand.
" I'm your man."
The celebrated writer wore
a slouch hat similar to the THROW UP YOUR
HANDS ! "
one Coleman had on, from
which fact I take it that such headgear is fashionable in
that part of the world . His shirt was red , and open at the
throat. His trousers were partly shoved into the top of big
cowhide boots . From a leathern belt around his waist depended
a revolver or two, a sheathed knife, and other ornaments of a like
nature .
With his rifle on his elbow he led the way to his hospitable
cabin , which, it is no exaggeration to say, was the finest on the
whole thoroughfare . It stood on a ledge somewhat similar to
302 THE IDLER.

tilted-back wooden chair, with his feet on the rounds in front.
Coleman's wide-brimmed, slouched hat was drawn well down on
his forehead, and from the obscurity underneath there flashed the
be trifled with. He was playfully tossing in the air, and catching
" Wall, stranger," was Coleman's greeting. " D'ye want
ter buy some bang- up town lots ter day ? They're going up
every twenty-four hours , and now is the time to buy fur a rise."
" Some of them seem to be high enough already,"
I said, glancing at the peaks around . Then , as he stopped
his hand , I hastily added, " I wanted to see
Bret Harte, who lives, I understand, in this
neighbourhood. "
"What's he wanted for ?" enquired Cole-
man with interest.
" Nothing ; I merely wished to interview
him."
an' straight. Bret never gives a man a
one ."
real nature of an interview to Coleman , but
"WALL, STRANGER ! " when he comprehended it at last, he said
sadly :
got the drop on him. Bret never could stand town life, so he lives
in the suburbs . He don't take no stock in civilisation, an ' the
lives at number ten thousand Pine Tree Avanoo . Thar," and
99
" And how is a person to reach there ?
FRANCIS BRET HARTE. 303
To fall in with the customs of the place, I offered Coleman a

" You're white, stranger," he said , " but I don't go much on
temperance drinks. Forty rod's the favorite brand out in the
mountings."
It was a long and toilsome journey up the mountain path, but
the wonderful views, gradually unfolded , repaid the effort . The
into the thinning air. As I neared the cabin ,
a sharp voice shouted, " Throw up your
hands ! "
he gleaming barrel of a rifle. It may seem
plied with his request .
" Are ye heeled ?" was the next question.
After a little discussion, during which,
work.
“ Put it thar, stranger," h
said , holding out his hand .
" I'm your man ."
a slouch hat similar to the " THROW UP YOUR
HANDS! "
one Coleman had on, from
that part of the world . His shirt was red, and open at the
a revolver or two, a sheathed knife, and other ornaments of a like
nature.
cabin, which, it is no exaggeration to say, was the finest on the
302 THE IDLER.

tilted-back wooden chair , with his feet on the rounds in front.
Coleman's wide-brimmed , slouched hat was drawn well down on
his forehead, and from the obscurity underneath there flashed the
be trifled with. He was playfully tossing in the air, and catching
" Wall, stranger," was Coleman's greeting. " D'ye want
ter buy some bang-up town lots ter day ? They're going up
every twenty-four hours, and now is the time to buy fur a rise. ”
66
Some of them seem to be high enough already,"
I said, glancing at the peaks around . Then, as he stopped
his hand, I hastily added, " I wanted to see
Bret Harte, who lives, I understand , in this
neighbourhood. "
" What's he wanted for ? " enquired Cole-
man with interest.
" Nothing ; I merely wished to interview
him."
an' straight . Bret never gives a man a
one."
real nature of an interview to Coleman, but
16 WALL, STRANGER ! " when he comprehended it at last, he said
sadly :
got the drop on him . Bret never could stand town life , so he lives
in the suburbs . He don't take no stock in civilisation , an ' the
lives at number ten thousand Pine Tree Avanoo . Thar, " and
" And how is a person to reach there ? "
To fall in with the customs ofthe place, I offered Coleman a

" You're white, stranger," he said, " but I don't go much on
temperance drinks. Forty rod's the favorite brand out in the
mountings."
It was a long and toilsome journey up the mountain path, but
the wonderful views , gradually unfolded , repaid the effort . The
into the thinning air. As I neared the cabin,
a sharp voice shouted, " Throw up your
hands ! 99
the gleaming barrel of a rifle. It may seem
plied with his request .
" Are ye heeled ?" was the next question .
After a little discussion , during which,
work.
" Put it thar, stranger," h
said, holding out his hand.
"I'm your man ."
a slouch hat similar to the " THROW UP YOUR
HANDS! "
one Coleman had on , from
that part of the world . His shirt was red, and open at the
a revolver or two , a sheathed knife, and other ornaments of a like
nature .
cabin , which , it is no exaggeration to say, was the finest on the
304 THE IDLER.
Table Rock at Niagara, but overlooking a precipice compared to

which the Niagara Gorge is but a step.
The one room of the cabin was of that severe simplicity of
decoration which we would expect in the home of such a man.
The mural decorations consisted of the unhewn exteriors of logs ,
the sombre tone of which was relieved by longitudinal plasterings
of clay whose subdued greyish hue harmonised with the smoke-
colored rafters . Only one painting hung on the walls, but that
was a gem. It was entitled " The Two Men of Sandy Bar," and
represented them as leaning against the bar, each with a glass in
one hand, while the other grasped the stock of a revolver. The Bar
Tender behind was critically examining the dollar- bill offered in
payment for the refreshments. " Yes," said Mr. Harte, seeing my
eyes fixed on the painting, " I value that work, for it was unani-
mously refused by the Royal Academy."
He placed a chair for me in the middle of the room , and sat
himself on the edge of the bed . I had now a good chance of look-
ing at the talented man whose handy revolver had removed so
many objectionable people, and whose equally ready pen had put in
their places so many delightful characters. His brown hair fell in
profuse ringlets over his shoulders , and his thick, long
tawny moustache swept his cheek, and drooped below
his chin. A long bowie knife scar enhanced the beauty
of his face rather than disfigured it.
We talked long of Dickens
and Thackeray who were gone,
and of J. M. Barrie, Rudyard
Kipling , Conan
Doyle, and Quiller-
Couch who were ar-
riving. Mr. Harte
spoke, it seemed to
me, with some bitter-
ness ofthe neglect of
these young men in
not paying him a
visit, when all they
had to do was to
take an ocean steamer at
Liverpool , then a six-days'
journey on the Overland
HE SIGHED. " Express , 450 miles on a
stage, and a walk up to the cottage. " I suppose," he said

sadly, " that it is partly my own fault, for, by mistake, I shot
a man who came from the Illustrated London News. I asked
him to throw up his hands, and , instead of doing so, he reached , as
it afterwards turned out, for a letter of introduction . I misinter-
preted the action, and although I apologised to the papers since
then, I am afraid they have not forgiven me." He sighed . Alas !
that such trivialities should weigh down the spirits of our greatest
writers ! I spoke of this, but, like all large-minded, magnanimous
men, he was quick to take the blame on himself.
" I fear," he said, " that I have always been too prone in deal-
ing with my fellows to let the particulars of the cases come out at
the post-mortem."
He sometimes had objectionable
visitors who interrupted his work,
but he seldom wasted powder on
them .
"Just move your
chair a little to one
side. Thanks , that
will do ." Then he
touched a knob in the
floor with his foot ,
and the portion of the
floor I had been sit-
ting on fell, being a
hinged trap-door.
"Just look at the
view," he cried , with
child -like enthu-
siasm . 14 JUST LOOK AT THE VIEW."
A sloping tunnel floored with greased plank had been cut

through the ledge, and the view, as he justly remarked, was indeed
wonderful . It was a section of the opposite mountain ten miles
away clothed with pines, and, darkly framed as it was, it looked
like a picture seen in a stereoscope .
I praised the ingenuity of the scheme.
" Oh, the idea is not original," he said, with great modesty.
" It is merely the adaptation of a little contrivance we had in the
newspaper office in San Francisco when I was a reporter. We
dropped them out into an alley there, and , of course, could not give
them the fine fall they have here . That is one of the advantages
306 THE IDLER.
of living in the country. There is a straight drop here of a mile

and a half before the first stopping place is reached . Even at the
stopping place, those descending seldom pause. They merely call
and then bounce off into the Gushawassit. It is a great con-
venience."
I said it must indeed prove so.
"You may have noticed that net ? That is a little idea of my
own. It saves its cost in chairs many times over in the course of
a year. While it lets the man through, it stops the chair."
He pulled up the trap door ; placed my chair on it ; and asked
me to sit down again .
I told him, with regret, that I had already
occupied too much of his valuable time, and must
be going.
"I am sorry," he was good enough to say-
66 come round with me to the club."
He walked down the path with me till we
came to a crystal spring of very pure water
gushing out of the rock.
" This," he said , " I call the club-the
National Liberal-for drinks are free
here to all nationalities. I get here
what little water I use. It is very
handy in case of fire ."
He reached down in the water and
drew forth a jug.
" This is how I keep it cool ," he
said, taking a cup out of the niche in
.he rock. He used no cup himself,
but threw the jug in a picturesque
way around over his shoulder, bring-
ing his face up to meet it. 66 THIS I CALL THE
CLUB."
Standing here, we bade each other
good-bye, and I wended my way alone down the moun-
tain path .
SECOND . THE REAL INTERVIEW .

By G. B. BURGIN .
ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE HUTCHINSON.
TO have the op-

portunity of seeing
Mr. Bret Harte , I
clambered on the
top of a passing 'bus,
18340 and hastened to Upper
Hamilton Terrace , where
he was sojourning for
awhile . Imagine a row

of stuccoed houses, each
as stolid and respectably THE THE O
dull as a family butler.. ID ID
LE LE
R
These intensely sleepy-
looking and ponderous
buildings, of an architec-
ture peculiar to themselves ,
stand in a long, quiet,
half-asleep road, the
solemn silence of which
was only broken by the
careless whistle of a pass-
ing butcher-boy, or the wail of a fugitive cat as it evaded the
fervid advances of an eager fox- terrier. But my imagination
received a rude shock when , in response to my knock, the door of
one of these stately buildings was opened by a conventional
footman. There was an ordinary hat- rack in the hall , on which
were hung glossy silk hats . Not a sign of a bearskin or a revolver
anywhere.
The conventional footman ushered me into a morning room
furnished in old oak. Mr. Bret Harte did not appear to be there.
My friend, Mr. Hutchinson, sat talking to a military- looking man,
308 THE IDLER .
clad in a fashionably- cut morning suit of grey cloth. An

irreproachable pin glistened in the stranger's dark tie. His hair
was iron-grey, the heavy mous-
tache a little darker, face oval ,
eyes clear, grey, humorous , shrewd,
penetrating ; height above the
medium , figure trim, with broad,
square shoulders ; he wore an
eyeglass, and there was a delight-
fully polished man-of-the-world air
about him-the appearance of an
individual who is equally at home
in a wigwam or a palace. Mr.
Hutchinson mumbled what I took
to be the conventional form of in-
troduction, " Mr. Um-um-um, let
me introduce Mr. Um-um-um ," and
we were soon chatting pleasantly,
་་ THE CONVENTIONAL FOOTMAN."
something after this fashion :-
"Yes," said the military-looking man, " I agree with you in
thinking that people- English people-are growing a little tired.
ofinterviewing. In America the system flourishes ; but Englishmen
appear to have a rooted dislike to the whole thing. Every now and
then, a man who is interviewed contrives to convey the exact
impression which he wishes to produce, but very rarely. When a
man is interviewed he, consciously or unconsciously, prepares
himself for it, and isn't at all natural. Now, the ideal interview
would be one when the victim wasn't aware that it was taking
place . Suppose, for instance, you found your man in a railway
car, and entered casually into conversation with him . Then you
would probably get his real thoughts-the man as he is. But, of
course, when a man is asked questions, and sees the answers
taken down in shorthand, it is a very different thing.
" You wonder whether Mr. Bret Harte would care to be inter-
viewed ? Well , Mr. Bret Harte's impression is that the public
will find all the details they care about in the preface to the
collected edition of his works . It has been done so often . And
there is very little to be said . You disagree with me, and imagine
that every detail would be eagerly welcomed ? I scarcely think
So. A man's work should speak for itself.
"Which do I think his favourite story ? He would doubtless
say one of his later works. You prefer Tennessee's Partner '?
Perhaps you read it when young ? Ah, that accounts for it. I
haven't read it ? Oh, yes, I have, and remember the procession
through the forest and the speech at the grave. How does it run ?
Oh, like this :
" When a man ,' began Tennessee's Partner, slowly, ' has
been running free all day, what's the natural thing for him to do ?
Why, to come home. And if he ain't in a condition to go home,
999
what can his best friend do ? Why, bring him home.'
" Very glad to know that it appeals to you so strongly. A
story without a woman in it is rather difficult to write. Now in
' The Luck of Roaring Camp ' there was a baby, and that wasn't so
difficult.
"When The Luck of Roaring Camp' was
written, Mr. Bret Harte was editor of The Over-
land Monthly, a Californian magazine . The editor
called the publisher's
attention to the fact
that there was not
one distinctive Cali-
fornian romance in
the magazine , and
offered, should
no contribu-
tion come in,
to write a story
himself. The
Luck' was
written in a
few days .
Then trouble
arose . The
printer, instead
of sending the proofs " SAT TALKING TO A MILITARY-
direct to the author, LOOKING MAN.'
forwarded them to
the publisher, with a
statement that his reader, a young lady, declared the story in-
decent, improper, and irreligious . Moral suasion had been brought
to bear on the young lady to induce her to finish the proofs, but
her feelings were hurt. At last, after several complications, Mr.
Bret Harte declared he would resign the editorship if his editorial
judgment were doubted . That settled it . The Luck' appeared,
310 THE IDLER.
and was promptly anathematised by the religious press as the

offspring of evil.
6
" I prefer Tennessee's Partner' of the two , although ' The
Luck' isn't so improbable. But the improbable frequently happens
in real life . Do you remember in ( Gabriel Conroy,' where the
coach came up the narrow, precipitous gorge through which the
Wingdam stage passed on its way from Marysville , and the
wall of the dam burst, and Gabriel saved a woman when the
coach upset ? Mr. Bret Harte was travelling through a locality
exactly like that , in the Foot Hills . One evening he came to just
such a valley. It was shut in by the hills, and it occurred to him ,
as he halted his horse and looked down the gorge, ' If there were
a flood, and a coach happened to be passing, the passengers would
have to swim for their lives .'
" Soon after the publication of Gabriel Conroy' Mr. Bret Harte
received a letter from California saying that he (Mr. Bret Harte)
had evidently anticipated the catastrophe, and enclosing a news-
paper cutting giving an almost similar account of an accident
which had happened under precisely the same circumstances , even
to the saving of a woman's life . This was a case of imagination
anticipating Nature. These curious coincidences do sometimes
happen."
As the minutes flew by, I regretted Mr. Bret Harte's absence
less and less. He was probably busy. All the hero-worship of
a lifetime would have to be expended on these intensely peaceful
surroundings. Still, Mr. Bret Harte's representative had a knack
of saying exactly the things one would have expected from Mr.
Bret Harte. One by one, that gentleman's heroes and heroines
rose up in response to my eager questioning. Folinsbee the gay,
Jack Hamlin , tenderest-hearted and most angelically - voiced of
gamblers, Miggles and Mliss , Mr. John Oakhurst and Wan Lee,
Jinny and the Heathen Chinee, and, above all, that haunting
heroine of the Newport Romance, who has probably visited most
of us at some time or another :—
" But whether she came as a faint perfume,
Or whether a spirit in stole of white,
I feel, as I pass from the darkened room ,
She has been with my soul to- night."
We reluctantly bade adieu to this brilliant conversationalist,
this accomplished man of the world, this cosmopolitan militaire.
Still, as we went down the steps, and I thought of the wasted
opportunity, it was difficult to repress a sigh. " Hutchinson ,"

I said, feelingly , " that's a delightful man, but I wanted to meet
and shake hands with Mr. Bret Harte, to thank him for many an
hour wherein he has beguiled sickness and sorrow and pain-
thank him for many a jest, for many a sweet and tender thought.
He might have come in for five minutes ."
"Well," said Hutchinson , sardonically, " considering that
you talked to him , and listened to him, for nearly forty minutes ,
I don't think you ought to complain."
" W-what ?" I gasped .
66
Yes ; that was Mr. Bret Harte himself."
Gutc
hins
on
" I DON'T THINK YOU OUGHT TO COMPLAIN.

ODE TOSPRING.
upernal spring! when bursts the bud

IS To flower,thebird to sonq;.
Whenlike an overwhelming flood
The cleaning comes along.
When through dismantled rooms
we grape,
And slide downstairs on cakes of soap ,

And stumble over treacherous pails ,
Which at each turn our shin bones greet,
Ena tread with ill protected feet

On heaven- aspiring nails
season wafted from above!.

When Mr's go- and - go
Accosts her husband thus :- "

NowLove ,
The Spring is here, you know.
The girls musthave new things - they must,
(Yousee it in that light , I trust ? ),
And I, although never do
get anything -now do Idear? -
LS
GIR
This dress I'vehad at least a year, -
I shall want something too. "
Our woods and lanes, supernal spring!
Thou dost with glory deck.-

-I wish thou wouldst not always bring
BOYLE
·HE MORALIZETH WITHHYS .
boil for my poor neck.
Tet farsuch weak complaining be !
Hair time,that callst thebard, like me,
Communion sweet tohald, -

MAM 4
To wander by the murmurous rill,
Or sit upon damp stiles until
he gets a nasty cold!
INF NIS
LUE
NZA
The Conspiracy of Mrs. Bunker.
BY BRET HARTE .
ILLUSTRATED BY G. HUTCHINSON .
COMPLETE IN THREE FARTS.
PART III.
FIRSTwild impulse was to run tothe

cove, for the little dingey always
THER moored there, and to desperately
attempt to overtake him. But the
swift consciousness of its impossi
bility was followed by a dull, bewildering torpor ,
that kept her motionless, helplessly following
the vessel with straining eyes, as if they could
evoke some response from its decks . She was
so lost in this occupation that she did not see
that a pilot boat nearly abreast of the cove
had put out a two-oared gig, which was pulling
quickly for the rocks . When she saw it, she
trembled with the instinct that it brought her
intelligence. She was right ; it was a brief
note from her husband, informing her that he
had been hurriedly despatched on a short sea
cruise ; that in order to catch the tide he had
not time to go ashore at the bluffs, but he
"THE NEXT DAY SHE LOCKED Would explain everything on his return . Her
UP HER HOUSE."
relief was only partial ; she was already ex-
perienced enough in his vocation to know that the excuse was a
feeble one. He could easily have " fetched " the bluff in tacking out
of the Gate and have signalled to her to board him in her own boat.
The next day she locked up her house, rowed round the Point to the
Embarcadero, where the Bay steamboats occasionally touched and
took up passengers to San Francisco . Captain Simmons had not
seen her husband this last trip ; indeed, did not know that he had
gone out of the Bay. Mrs. Bunker was seized with a desperate
idea. She called upon the Secretary of the Fishing Trust. That
gentleman was business-like, but neither expansive nor com-

municative. Her husband had not been ordered out to sea by
them , she ought to know that Captain Bunker was now his own
master ; choosing his own fishing grounds, and his own times and
seasons . He was not aware of
any secret service for the Company
in which Captain Bunker was
engaged. He hoped Mrs. Bunker
would distinctly remember that
the little matter of the duel to
which she referred was an old bye-
gone affair, and never anything
but a personal matter, in which
the Fishery had no concern what-
ever, and in which he certainly.
should not again engage. He
would advise Mrs. Bunker, if she
valued her own good, and especially
her husband's, to speedily forget
all about it. These were ugly
THEOUT
UFF
AL
times, as it was.
If Mrs. Bunker's
services had not
been properly re-
warded or con-
sidered, it was cer-
tainly a great
shame, but really
he could not be
expected to make
it good. Certain
parties had cost him
trouble enough al-
" MEN HAD GATHERED IN KNOTS."
ready. Besides ,
really, she must see that his position between her husband, whom
he respected, and a certain other party was a delicate one. But.
316 THE IDLER.
Mrs. Bunker heard no more . She turned and ran down the stair-
case, carrying with her a burning cheek and blazing eye that
somewhat startled the complacent official .
She did not remember how she got home again . She had a
vague recollection of passing through the crowded streets, wonder-
ing if the people knew that she was an outcast, deserted by her
husband, deceived by her ideal hero, repudiated by her friends !
Men had gathered in knots before the newspaper offices , excited
and gesticulating over the bulletin boards that had such strange
legends as " The Crisis ," " Details of an Alleged Conspiracy to
Overthrow the Government," " The Assassin of Henderson to the
Fore Again," 66 Rumoured Arrests on the Mexican Frontier."
Sometimes she thought she understood the drift of them ; even
fancied they were the outcome of her visit-as if her very presence
carried treachery and suspicion with it, but generally they only
struck her benumbed sense as a dull, meaningless echo of some-
thing that had happened long ago. When she reached her house,
late that night, the familiar solitude of shore and sea gave her a
momentary relief, but with it came the terrible conviction that she
had forfeited her right to it,
that when her husband
came back it would be hers
no longer, and that with
their meeting she would
know it no more. For
through all her childish
vacillation and imagin-
ings she managed to
cling to one steadfast
resolution . She would
tell him everything, and know the
worst. Perhaps he would never
come ; perhaps she should not be
alive to meet him .
And so the days and nights
slowly passed . The solitude which her
previous empty deceit had enabled her
to fill with such charming visions now
in her awakened remorse seemed only to " THAT GREY SEA, ETERNALLY
protract her misery. Had she been a WAITING FOR HER."1
more experienced, though even a more guilty, woman she would
have suffered less. Without sympathy or counsel, without even
the faintest knowledge of the world or its standards of morality

to guide her, she accepted her isolation and friendlessness as a
necessary part of her wrongdoing. Her only criterion was her
enemy-Mrs. Fairfax-and she could seek her relief by joining
her lover ; but Mrs. Bunker knew now that she herself had never
had one-and was alone ! Mrs. Fairfax had broken openly with
her husband ; but she had deceived hers, and the experience and
reckoning were still to come. In her
miserable confession it was not strange
that this half child , half woman, some-
times looked towards that grey sea, eter-
nally waiting for her-that sea which had
taken everything from her and given her
nothing in return-for an obliterating,
and perhaps exonerating Death !
The third day of her waiting isolation
was broken upon by another
intrusion . The morning had
been threatening, with an
opaque, motionless, livid arch
above, which had taken the
place of the usual flying scud
and shaded cloud masses of
the rainy season. The
whole outlying ocean, too,
beyond the bar, appeared
nearer, and even seemed to
be lifted higher than the
Bay itself, and was lit every now and then
with wonderful clear- ness by long flashes of
breaking foam like summer lightning. She
knew that this meant a south - wester , and
began, with a certain mechanical deliberation ,
to set her little domain in order against the
coming gale. She drove the cows to the
rude shed among the scrub oaks, she collected
the goats and young kids in the corral , and
replenished the stock of fuel from the wood-
pile. She was quite hidden in the shrubbery
when she saw a boat making slow headway
" AGAINST THE COMING GALE.'
X
318 THE IDLER.
against the wind towards the little cove where but a moment
before she had drawn up the dingey beyond the reach of
breaking seas. It was a whale hoat from Sancelito containing
few men. As they neared the landing she recognised in the man
who seemed to be directing the boat the second friend of Colonel
Marion-the man who had come with the Secretary to take him
off, but whom she had never seen again. In her present horror
of that memory she remained hidden , determined at all hazards
to avoid a meeting. When they had landed, one of the men
halted accidentally before the shrubbery where she was concealed
as he caught his first view of the cottage, which had been in-
visible from the Point they had rounded .
" Look here, Bragg," he said , turning to Marion's friend , in a
voice which was distinctly audible to Mrs. Bunker. " What are
we to say to these people ? "
" There's only one, " returned the other. " The man's at sea.
His wife's here. She's all right."
" You said she was one of us ? "
" After a fashion. She's the woman who helped Marion when
he was here. I reckon he made it square with herfrom the beginning,
for she forwarded letters from him since. But you can tell her as
much or as little as you find necessary when you see her."
66' Yes, but we must settle that now,"
said Bragg sharply, " and I propose to tell

her nothing. I'm against having any more .
petticoats mixed
up with our
affairs. I propose to
make an examina-
tion of the place without bothering
our heads about her."
" But we must give some reason
་་ THE WOMAN WOULD SURELY for coming here, and we must ask her
COME OUT." to keep dark, or we'll have her blabbing
to the first person she meets," urged the other.
" She's not likely to see anybody before night, when the brig
will be in. and the men and guns landed . Move on, and let Jim
THE CONSPIRACY OF MRS. BUNKER .
319
take soundings off the cove, while I look along the shore.
It's just as well that there's a house here, and a little cover like
this "-pointing to the shrubbery-"to keep the men fron making
too much of a show until after the earthworks are up. There are
sharp eyes over at the fort."
"There don't seem to be anyone in the house now," returned
the other after a moment's scrutiny of the cottage, " or the woman
would surely come out at the barking of the dogs, even if she
hadn't seen us. Likely she's gone to Sancelito."
"So much the better. Just as well that she should know
nothing until it happens. Afterwards we'll settle with the
husband for the price of possession ; he has only
a squatter's rights. Come along ; we'll have
bad weather before we get back round the
Point again, but so much the better, for it
will keep off any inquisitive long-
shore cruisers ."
They moved away. But Mrs.
Bunker, stung through her benumbed
and brooding consciousness , and made
desperate by this repeated revelation of
her former weakness, had heard enough
to make her feverish to hear more. She
knew the intricacies of the shrubbery
thoroughly. She knew every foot of shade
and cover of the clearing, and creeping like a
cat from bush to bush, she managed , without
being discovered, to keep the party in sight
and hearing all the time. It required no great
discernment, even for an inexperienced woman
like herself, at the end of an hour, to gather their
real purpose . It was to prepare for the secret
SHE KNEW EVERY
landing of an armed force, disguised as labourers , FOOT OF COVER."
who, under the outward show of quarrying in the bluff, were to
throw up breastworks, and fortify the craggy shelf. The landing
was fixed for that night, and was to be effected by a vessel now
cruising outside the Heads.
She understood it all now. She remembered Marion's speech
about the importance of the bluff for military purposes ; she
remembered the visit of the officers from the fort opposite. The
strangers were stealing a march upon the Government, and by
night would be in possession. It was perhaps an evidence of her
320 THE IDLER.
newly-awakened and larger comprehension that she took no

thought of her loss of home and property-perhaps there was
little to draw her to it now-but was conscious only of a more ter-
rible catastrophe-a catastrophe to which she was partly accessory,
of which any other woman would have warned her husband-or at
least those officers of the Fort whose business it was to- Ah ,
yes !-the officers of the Fort-only just opposite to her ! She
trembled, and yet flushed with an inspiration . It was not too
late yet-why not warn them now ?
But how ? A message sent by Sancelito and the steamboat to
San Francisco- the usual way-would not reach them to-night.
To go herself, rowing directly across in the dingey,
would be the only security of success. If she could
do it ? It was a long pull-the sea was getting up-
but she would try.
She waited until the last man had stepped
into the boat, in nervous diead of someone
remaining. Then, when the boat had
vanished round the Point again , she ran
back to the cottage, arrayed herself in her
husband's pilot coat, hat and boots, and
launched the dingey. It was a heavy, slow,
but luckily a staunch and seaworthy boat. It
was not until she was well off shore that
she began to feel the full fury of the wind
and waves, and knew the difficulty and danger
of her undertaking . She had decided that
her shortest and most direct course was within
a few points of the wind, but the quartering of the waves
on the broad bluff bows of the boat tended to throw it to
ARRAYED HERSELF IN HER leeward, a movement that, while it retarded
HUSBAND'S PILOT COAT." her forward progress, no doubt saved the
little craft from swamping. Again, the feebleness and shortness of

her stroke, which never impelled her through a rising wave, but
rather lifted her half-way up its face, prevented the boat from
taking much water, while her steadfast gaze, fixed only on the
slowly-retreating shore, kept her steering free from any fatal
nervous vacillation which the sight of the threatening seas on her
bow might have produced . Preserved through her very weakness,
ignorance and simplicity of purpose, the dingey had all the security
of a drifting boat, yet retained a certain gentle but persistent guid-
ance. In this feminine fashion she made enough headway to carry
her abreast of the Point, where she met the reflux current sweeping
round it that carried her well along into the channel, now sluggish
with the turn of the tide. After half an hour's pulling, she was
delighted to find herself again in a reverse current, abreast of her
cottage, but steadily increasing her distance from it. She was, in
fact, on the extreme outer edge of a vast whirlpool formed by the
force of the gale on a curving lee shore, and was being carried to
her destination in a semi-circle around that bay which she never
could have crossed. She was moving now in a line with the shore
and the Fort, whose flagstaff, above its green , square, and white
quarters, she could see distinctly, and whose lower water battery
and landing seemed to stretch out from the rocks scarcely a mile
ahead . Protected by the shore from the fury of the wind , and even
of the sea, her progress was also steadily accelerated by the velocity
of the current, mingling with the ebbing tide. A sudden fear
seized her. She turned the boat's head towards the shore, but it
" STRUCK DOWN MRS. BUNKER. 19
was swept quickly round again ; she redoubled her exertions ,

tugging frantically at her helpless oars. She only succeeded in
getting the boat into the trough of the sea, where, after a lurch
that threatened to capsize it, it providentially swung around on its
short keel and began to drift stern on. She was almost abreast
of the battery now ; she could hear the fitful notes of a bugle that
322 THE IDLER.
seemed blown and scattered above her head ; she even thought she
could see some men in blue uniforms moving along the little pier.
She was passing it ; another fruitless effort to regain her ground,
but she was swept along steadily towards the Gate, the whitening
bar and the open sea.
She knew now what it all meant. This was what she had
come for ; this was the end ! Beyond, only a little beyond, just a
few moments longer to wait , and then, out there among the
breakers was the rest that she had longed for but had not dared to
seek. It was not her fault ; they could not blame her. He would
come back and never know what had happened- nor even know
how she had tried to atone for her deceit. And he
would find his house in possession of-of-those devils !
No ! no ! she must not die yet, at least not until she had
warned the Fort. She seized the oars
again with frenzied strength ; the boat had
stopped under the unwonted strain ;
staggered, tried to rise in an uplifted sea,
took part of it over her bow, struck down
Mrs. Bunker under half a ton of blue
water that wrested the oars from her
paralysed hands like playthings , swept
them over the gunwale, and left her lying
senseless in the bottom of the boat.
* * * * *
*
" Hold har-rd-or you'll run her
down."
"Now then, Riley-look alive- is it
slapin' ye are !"
" Hold yer jaw, Flanigan, and stand ready
with the boat hook. Now then, hold har-rd !"
" HER HEAD PILLOWED ON THE SHIRT The sudden jarring and tilting of the
SLEEVE OF AN ARTILLERY CORPORAL." water- logged boat, a sound of rasping
timbers, the swarming of men in shirt sleeves and blue trousers
around her, seemed to rouse her momentarily, but she again
fainted away.
When she struggled back to consciousness once more she was
wrapped in a soldier's jacket, her head pillowed on the shirt sleeve
of an artillery corporal in the stern sheets of that eight- oared
Government barge she had remembered . But the only officer
was a bare-headed, boyish lieutenant, and the rowers were an
athletic but unseamanlike crew of mingled artillerymen and

infantry.
" And where did ye drift from, darlint ? "
Mrs. Bunker bridled feebly at the epithet.
" I didn't drift. I was going to the Fort."
" The Fort, is it ? "
" Yes . I want to see the General ."
"Wadn't the Liftenant do ye ? Or shure there's the Adjutant ;
he's a foine man."
66
Silence, Flanigan," said the young officer sharply. Then
turning to Mrs. Bunker he said, " Don't mind him, but let his
wife take you to the canteen, when we get in, and get you some dry
clothes ."
But Mrs. Bunker, spurred to convalescence at
the indignity, protested stiffly, and demanded on
her arrival to be led at once to the General's
quarters. A few officers, who had been attracted.
to the pier by the rescue, acceded to her demand .
She recognised the grey-haired , hand-
some man who had come ashore at her
house. With a touch of indignation at
her treatment, she briefly
told her story. But
the General listened
coldly and gravely with
his eyes fixed upon her
face.
" You say you re-
cognised in the leader
of the party a man you had seen be-
fore. Under what circumstances?"
Mrs. Bunker hesitated with
burning cheeks . " He came to take
Colonel Marion from our place."
"When you were hiding him-
yes, we've heard the story. Now
Mrs. Bunker, may I ask you what you ,
as a Southern sympathiser, ex-
"" HER SINCERITY AND PASSION WERE
pect to gain by telling EQUALLY UNMISTAKABLE.' methis story?"
But here Mrs. Bunker burst out. " I am not a Southern
sympathiser ! Never ! Never ! Never ! I'm a Union woman
-wife of a Northern man. I helped that man before I knew
324 THE IDLER.
who he was. Any Christian , Northern or Southerner, would have

done the same ! "
Her sincerity and passion were equally unmistakable. The
General rose, opened the door of the adjoining room, said a few
words to an orderly on duty and returned . " What you are asking
ofme, Mrs. Bunker, is almost as extravagant and unprecedented as
your story. You must understand as well as your husband, that if
I land a force on your property, it will be to take possession of it in
the name of the Government, for Government purposes."
"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Bunker eagerly ; " I know that. I am
willing ; Zephas will be willing."
" And," continued the General, fixing his eyes on her face,
"you will also understand that I may be compelled to detain you
here as a hostage for the safety of my men."
" Oh no ! no ! please ! " said Mrs. Bunker, springing up with an
imploring feminine gesture ; " I am expecting my husband. He
may be coming back at any moment ; I must be there to see him
first ! Please let me go back, sir, with your men ;
put me anywhere ashore between them and those
men that are coming. Lock me up ; keep me a
prisoner in my own home ; do anything else if you
think I am deceiving you ; but don't keep
me here to miss him when he comes ! "
" But you can see him later," said the
General.
" But I must see him first," said Mrs.
Bunker desperately. " I must see him
first, for-for- he knows nothing of this.
He knows nothing of my helping Colonel
Marion ; he knows nothing of-how foolish
I have been, and he must not know it from
others ! There ! " It was out at last. She
was sobbing now, but her pride was gone. She
felt relieved, and did not even notice the
presence of two or three other officers, who had 66 THE RELAXED.
GENERAL'S BROW
entered the room , exchanged a few hurried
words with their superior, and were gazing at her in astonish-
ment.
The General's brow relaxed, and he smiled . " Very well,
Mrs. Bunker ; it shall be as you like, then. You shall go and
meet your husband with Captain Jennings here "-indicating one
of the officers " who will take charge of you and the party."
" And," said Mrs. Bunker, looking imploringly through her

wet but pretty lashes at the officer, " he won't say anything to
Zephas, either ? "
" Not a syllable," said Captain Jennings gravely. " But while
the tug is getting ready, General, hadn't Mrs. Bunker better go
to Mrs. Flanigan ? "
" I think not," said the General, with a significant look at the
officer as he gallantly offered his arm to the astonished Mrs.
Bunker. " If she will allow me the pleasure of taking her to my
wife."
There was an equally marked respect in the manner of the
men and officers as Mrs. Bunker finally stepped on board the
steam tug that was to convey the party across the
turbulent bay. But she heeded it not, neither did
she take any concern of the still furious
gale, the difficult landing, the preter-
natural activity of the band of sappers
who seemed to work magic with their
picks and shovels, the shelter tents
that arose swiftly around her, the sheds
and bush enclosures that were evoked
from the very ground beneath her feet ;
the wonderful skill , order and discipline
that in a few hours converted her
straggling dominion into a formal
camp, even to the sentinel, who was
already calmly pacing the rocks by the
landing as if he had been doing it for
years ! Only one thing thrilled her-
the sudden outburst, fluttering THREW HERSELF UPON
and snapping of the National HER HUSBAND'S BREAST."
flag from her little flagstaff. He
would see it- and perhaps be pleased !
And indeed it seemed as if the men had caught the infection
of her anxiety, for when her strained eyes could no longer pierce
the murky twilight settling over the Gate, one came running to
her to say that the look-out had just discovered through his glass
a close-reefed schooner running in before the wind. It was her
husband, and scarcely an hour after night had shut in the
schooner had rounded to, off the Point, dropped her boat and sped
away to anchorage. And then Mrs. Bunker, running bareheaded
down the rocks , breaking in upon the hurried explanation of the
326 THE IDLER.
officer of the guard, threw herself upon her husband's breast and
sobbed and laughed as if her heart would break !
Nor did she scarcely hear his hurried comment to the officer
and unconscious corroboration of her story : How a brig had raced
them from the Gate, was heading for the bar, but suddenly
sheered off and put away to sea again, as if from some signal
from the headland. " Yes-the bluff, " interrupted Captain
Jennings bitterly, " I thought of that, but the old man said it
was more diplomatic just now to prevent an attempt than even
to successfully resist it."
But when they were alone again in their little cottage, and
Zephas's honest eyes-with no trace of evil knowledge or suspicion
in their homely, neutral lightness-were looking into hers with his
usual simple trustfulness, Mrs. Bunker trembled, whimpered , and
-I grieve to say-basely funked her bcted confession . But
here the Deity which protects feminine weakness intervened with
the usual miracle. As he gazed at his
wife's troubled face, an apologetic cloud
came over his rugged but
open brow, and a smile of
awkward, deprecating em-
barrassment suffused his
eyes. " I declare to good-
ness, Mollie, but I must tell
you suthin, although I guess
I didn't kalkilate to say
a word about it. But darn
it all , I can't keep it in. No !
Lookin' inter that innercent face
o' yourn "-pressing her flush-
ing cheeks between his cool
66 GAZING INTER THEM TWO TRUTHFUL EYES. brown hands — " and gazing
inter them two truthful eyes "-they blinked at this moment
with a divine modesty-" and thinkin ' of what you've just
did for your kentry-like them revolutionary women o' '76 -
I feel like a darned swab of a traitor myself. Well ! what I want
ter tell you is this : Ye know, or ye've heard me tell o' that Mrs.
Fairfax as left her husband for that fire-eatin' Marion , and stuck
to him through thick and thin, and stood watch and watch with
him in this howlin' Southern rumpus they're kickin' up all along
the coast, as if she was a man herself. Well , jes as I hauled up
at the wharf at ' Frisco , she comes aboard ."
99 she says .
"You're Cap Bunker ?
" That's me, Ma'am," I says.
" You're a Northern man and you go with your kind , " sez she ;
" but you're a white man, and thar's no cur blood in you.
But you aint listenin', Mollie-you're dead tired, lass "-with a
commiserating look at her now whitening face-"and I'll haul in line
and wait. Well, to cut it short, she wanted me to take her down
the coast a bit to where she could join Marion . She said she'd
been shook by his friends , followed by spies- and blame my skin ,
Mollie, ef that proud woman didn't break down and cry like a
baby. Now, Mollie, what got me in all this, was that them
Chivalry folks- ez was always jawin' about their • Southern
dames' and their " Ladye fairs ,' and always runnin' that kind of
bilge water outer their scuppers whenever they careened over on a
fair wind-was jess the kind to throw off on a woman, when they
didn't want her, and I kinder thought I'd like her to see the
difference betwixt the latitude o' Charleston and Cap Cod . So I
told her I didn't want the jewelry and dimons she offered me , but
if she would come down to the wharf, after dark, I'd smuggle her
aboard , and I'd allow to the men that she was your Auntie ez I
was givin' a free passage to ! Lord ! dear ! think o' me takin '
the name o' Mollie Bunker's aunt in vain for that sort o' woman !
Think o' me," continued Captain Bunker with a tentative
chuckle- " sort o' pretendin' to hand yo'r Auntie to Kernel Marion
for--for his lady love ! I don't wonder ye's half frighted and
half laffin'," he added , as his wife uttered a hysterical cry ; " it was
awful ! But it worked, and I got her off, and wots more I got
her shipped to Mazatlan , where she'll join Marion , and the two
are goin' back to Virginy, where I guess they won't trouble
Californy again. Ye know now, deary," he went on, speaking
with difficulty through Mrs. Bunker's clinging arms and fast
dripping tears , " why I didn't heave to to say good-bye.' But
its all over now- I've made a clean breast of it, Mollie-and don't
you cry ! "
But it was not all over. For a moment later, Captain Bunker
began to fumble in his waistcoat pocket with the one hand that
was not clasping his wife's waist . " One thing more , Mollie ;
when I left her and refused to take any of her dimons , she put
a queer sort o' ring into my hand , and told me with a kind o'
mischievious, bedevilin' smile, that I must keep it to remember
her by. Here it is-why Mollie-lass ! are you crazy ?"
328 THE IDLER .
She had snatched it from his fingers and was running swiftly
from the cottage out into the tempestuous night. He followed
closely, until she reached the
edge of the rocks. And only
then, in the straggling, fast-
flying moonlight, she raised a
passionate hand, and threw it
far into the sea.
As he led her back to the
cottage she said she was jealous ,
and honest Captain Bunker, with
his arm around her, felt himself the happiest
man in the world !
* * * * *
From that day the Flag flew regularly
over the rocky shelf, and, in time, bugles
and morning drum-beats were wafted from
it to the decks of passing ships. For
the Federal Government had adjudged
the land for its own use, paid Captain
Bunker a handsome sum for its possession ,
and had discreetly hidden the little cottage " HE FOLLOWED CLOSELY UNTIL
of Mrs. Bunker and its history for ever SHE REACHED THE EDGE OF
THE ROCKS.""
behind bastion and casemate.
FROM THAT DAY THE FLAG FLEW REGULARLY

OVER THE ROCKY SHELF."
[THE END.]
Famous Idling Places.
HYERES .
BY ROBERT BARR .
ILLUSTRATED BY PERCY SMALL.
HYERES is an idler's town ; the surrounding country

is an idler's companion . There is no choice about
the matter. If you visit Hyères you
have to idle ; there is nothing else
to do. There are no public gambling
places, no horse races, no regattas,
no pigeon-shooting, no pier, no
marine parade, and no casino.
Once, when the wind blew from the
north for a week, a slight spasm of
northern energy seized the people
of Hyères, and they began
to build an ambitious casino ,
but they got no further than
the foundation , and to-day
the stone walls , a foot or two
above the ground , stand , as
they have stood for years,
a monument to that unpre-
cedented fit of energy. The
English bank is down the
hill, off a back street, and is part of a private residence . The visitor
usually has to ring a bell, and call some one up if he wishes to
transact business . There is a reading-room and library in the
main street, but the members go there to doze over the papers
rather than to read them. The band is so lazy that it plays under
the tall palms above the little tropical garden once a week only.
But the condensation of all the idleness that ever squandered time
is to be found in the Hyères Post Office. This building is not in
the main street of course, where it ought to be, but is snugly con-
cealed in a secluded spot in the Boulevard des Palmiers. The
Government, recognising the fact that visitors to the Post Office
will not be served with undue haste, have placed comfortable
seats in the centre of the Post Restante room . Here patient people
330 THE IDLER.
sit reposefully waiting for their

turn . That complete Idlers ' Club,
whose members are the Post Office
clerks, gossip leisurely with the
person who happens to be trans-
acting business with the postal
department of France at that
particular moment . Sometimes an
impatient new comer, with some
remnant of energy still in his
northern veins, rudely expresses a
desire to have his letters within
the next six hours . He is looked
upon by habitués and officials with
mild and pained astonishment.
But the idling influence of the
place soon encompasses him, and
he comes in, takes his seat, and
waits with calm serenity, often going out again into the avenue of
palms forgetting what he entered the Post Office for.
Even the railway recognises the fact that somnolent Hyères
is not a place to be rushed through as is Cannes or Nice or Monte
Carlo, so it passes far inland, and serves the town by means of a
sleepy branch line, whose trains stop at every station, and are
never on time.
The air has probably
something to do with
this indolent state of
things. It is mild and
balmy, and whispers
gently through the palm
branches. It is said to
be beneficial to old
people and young chil-
dren.
The old town of Hyères clusters
at the foot of the Chateau Hill ,
and rises tier upon tier up the southern side, crouching close
under the wall of the seventh century castle, which doubtless
afforded it protection in bygone days, and, as a slight return, taxed
the life out of the inhabitants. The castle occupied the top of the
hill, 657 feet above the sea, and its ruins show that it was pro-
FAMOUS IDLING PLACES. 331
vided with commodious dungeons and other ancient conveniences

intended to make things pleasant for those whose opinions did not
suit the proprietor . To the south stretch olive groves and vine-
yards with the Mountains of the Birds half-way between the town
and the blue waters of the Mediterranean . Nestled snugly in the
valleys of the Montagnes des Oiseaux are the Costebella Hotels,
where Her Majesty the Queen has chosen to meet the coming
springtide. In the horizon are the Islands of Gold . Between
them and the mainland are generally to be seen the most gigantic
idlers of the place-huge French ironclads, whose electric range-
lights at night flash for an instant with startling effect into the
windows of the peaceable inhabitants of Hyères. Long may the
big ships remain idlers . To the north and west rise tall
mountains, most of them crowned, not with harmless, ancient
castles, but with deadly modern forts.
One great attraction of Hyères and its
environs is that the law of trespass is
practically unknown . A visitor is free to
wander where he chooses . All the roads
and paths are free, and nobody objects to
a person wandering through the fields or
orchards where he pleases . It is very
pleasant to saunter through the cork woods
that clothe the sides of the mountains . As
the cork is cut every ten years, and then
in the month of June, the visitor in March or April will see nothing
of the operation, but as a stroll in the woods engenders thirst, any
innkeeper, when he comes down, will be pleased to show him .
the interesting and refreshing process of drawing the cork. So
interested are English visitors in local industries that they very
frequently have this operation performed in their presence .
One of the most charming walks from Hyères is to Carquey-
ranne, a seaside fishing village much loved by artists. There are
two roads and several paths
which reach there from Hyères .
On the level road the so -called
Carqueyranne coach worries
over the six miles between the
two places . The coach is a
ramshackle vehicle that will
someday go suddenly to pieces,
like Oliver Wendell Holmes's " one-horse shay." Where this road
332 THE IDLER.
meets the sea, there is a curious half-buried Roman town on the

shore. Little remains but the foundations of the houses, and the
name-Pomponiana . The other road
leads over the hills, at the foot of the
Mountains of the Birds, and past the
hotels selected by Her Majesty the
Queen. One path wanders through
the forest over the top of the moun-
tain, and then through the back yard
of an old castle, now used as a farm-
house. The people seem rather to
like the advent of tramping tourists
among their pots and pans in the
back yard.
Carqueyranne is a
little fishing village
on the Mediterranean .
The chief hotel is part
of an old monastery ,
and the chapel with
its Gothic roof is one
of the public rooms.
There is a broad plaza
in front of the tavern,
with a stone balus-
trade around it, hang-
ing over the waves of the Mediterranean ; and the scene is like that
painted on the drop curtain of most theatres. There is a café in
the town itself, with a first floor piazza overlooking the little port,
where cool beer can be absorbed in the midst of the most
enchanting scenery .
Below walk the bare-footed fishers with their Greek faces-for
they are all descended from the Greeks ,
and use words of Greek origin to this
day that are never heard in inland
France.
In Hyères itself, the two great days
of excitement during the season are
the day of the Battle of Flowers and
the day of the Battle of Comfetti.
The flower fight is entirely a visitors'
affair. The great object seems to be
to enable the flowersellers of the place
to get rid of their surplus stock.
FAMOUS IDLING PLACES. 333
Probably at first the Battle of Comfetti , in which the towns-

people indulge, was really a battle of candy, but in this commercial
age it has degenerated into a battle of lime . Pellets of lime are
cold by the bushel in the shops , coloured so as to be an under-
study of Carrawa candy. This stuff the townspeople, in fancy
dress, with their faces protected with masks , fire at each other
with little tin shovels. It is very funny until you get a charge
in your eye.
VILLA OFLUXEMBOU
The Romance of Sergeant Clancy.
By E. W. HORNUNG .
ILLUSTRATED BY H. C. SEPPINGS Wright.
MISS SLAGG was asleep . Her toes pointed placidly

to the cloudless blue, a pine-trunk propped her
shoulders ; the intervening frock was of obsolete fashion
and extreme shabbiness, and was crowned by a very old,
very big wideawake, below which were visible the point
of Miss Slagg's chin, an ear reddened through by the sun,
and some strands of dark hair similarly tinged. No more
than a mile
westward, the
same rays heat-
ed to crackling
point the gal-
vanized roof-
ings of Cocka-
too Corner ,
and within half
that distance
lay the river-
timber. Miss
Slagg, how-
ever, finding
herselfnearing
home earlier
than usual,was
not keen to
arrive, nor yet
66 MISS SLAGG WAS ASLEEP." to tempt the
river - timber,
an occasional haunt of her father's at this hour. Here where she
was she had decided to " camp " ; and here she slept, while the
shadows lengthened and the crows drew round to cock their
heads and watch. Two dead rabbits , at the sleeper's side, allured
the crows no other creature saw her until the new police- sergeant
came driving by, in plain clothes, and descried her from the road.
THE ROMANCE OF SERGEANT CLANCY. 335
Now Sergeant Clancy, the new man at Cockatoo Corner, was,

in his way, a special person ; he was quite different from the
ordinary mounted constable of the Colonies. His speciality
was an imagination of his own . This imagination was of the
restless kind which would have proved a distinct advantage in the
detective department down in Sydney ; but in the back-blocks
it was no advantage at all . The Sergeant's own imagination he fed
in his leisure on that of other imaginative men , the novelists ; and as
his leisure had been large, so was the flavour of romance about him
strong and stale. He was new to the Corner, so new as now to be
returning from the station with his very first supply of mutton ;
he was still examining the township through romantic glasses, a
the potential scene of the kind of things he read of but never had
a chance of doing . And the sight of Miss Slagg asleep among
the pines more nearly hinted at such a thing than anything he had
seen or heard of yet. For instance , she might not be asleep at all ,
but dead . This obviously was not the case , but the Sergeant
pulled up, jumped down , and drew near to inspect .
He saw before him a spectacle in which there was little
to attract ; for the clothes were ragged , the boots in holes ,
the hands large, and the face invisible. He did not know it was
Miss Slagg ; indeed , he knew the Slaggs by reputation only, and
this since his visit to the station this afternoon . But it was a
woman the gallant Sergeant looked instinctively for the attendant
peril for which fiction had taught him to yearn . There was none .
There was no snake in the sand crawling on to attack , no savage
waving his boomerang behind the tree . There was no first-
class danger to rescue her from. But the woman's wideawake
was tilted so far forward that part of her head was exposed to the
sun ; and this seemed to constitute a danger of the second class .
The Sergeant tugged up half a blue- bush , and stole forward to
adjust it behind the unconscious head, remembering as he did
so that he had read something of the kind once in a story.
" Be off to blazes ! "
The words cracked out distinct , harsh, and separate, as a
revolver spits , and they shot Clancy two yards backward , shrub
in hand. They came from under the wideawake , which was
raised a little by one of the large, sunburnt hands , so that the
Sergeant now beheld the full lips and even teeth from which the
words had been fired.
" Excuse me," he stammered , " but sunstroke-
" You an' your sunstroke ! "
336 THE IDLER.
The wideawake was pushed higher still . Clancy saw half the
face now, and was attracted .
" I wished to protect you from the
sun," he protested , with perhaps con-
scious gallantry-"that was all ; I
never meant to disturb you ."
She eyed him from the ground. He
was not a very fine fellow to look at.
He was thin and tall, and he
stooped ; his face was sallow, he
HC
SW
wore a short black beard , and his

mahogany hands had a fleshless
look, the muscles knotting over
them like the roots of a tree
fro. which the soil has drifted .
Well," said Miss Slagg, " who
" SHE EYED HIM FROM THE GROUND." are you, anyway ? "
" My name's Clancy."
"The new Sergeant ? "
" Yes."
"Well, I'll be bothered ! " exclaimed Miss Slagg, sitting bolt
upright, and opening her dark eyes wide. " I've seen you across
the road, in uniform , but I'm blessed if I'd ha ' tumbled to you as
you are ! The barracks is right opposite our shanty- me and
father's ; I'm Nancy Slagg, d'ye see ? Nancy and Sergeant
Clancy-that's a rhyme ! Likely you've heard on us ? '
" Yes, I've heard of you," said Clancy, pleasantly ; he had
never taken his eyes from hers since those striking orbs had become
visible.
" Very bad ?" inquired the girl.
" Never mind ; I don't believe all I hear ; I take people
as I find ' em. And I don't go poking my nose into what's no
concern o' mine ; you can ask ' em where I come from ; and I don't
mind who you tell that I said so, Miss Nancy Slagg . You can
tell them that may like to know, that the new bobby minds his
own business , as a rule. And now, if you're going that way, I'll
give you a lift back to the township-most happy ! " added the
Sergeant rather grandly, suddenly remembering his favourite
literature, which he had temporarily forgotten.
"No, thanks," replied Nancy, decidedly.
66
'Why not ?"
" Because I'll walk."
She sprang up as she spoke, but immediately reeled back to

the tree one foot she could not put to the ground .
" You've sprained your ankle ! " cried the Sergeant, finding
himself, to his delight, in one of the familiar heroic situations after
all. " You must let me give you a lift now. I insist on helping
you into my trap-stop, I'll bring it up to you ! " And the gallant
fellow was running to do so when her laugh arrested him .
"Not sprained," said she, kicking out her right foot . "Asleep ! "
The Sergeant was disappointed .
" I don't know whether to believe you or
not. Why shouldn't I drive you , though ?
Your place and mine too are right at
this end of the township."
" Shall I tell you ?"
" Yes."
" Get aboard then-'cause I'm
not coming."
He did so reluctantly. " Now,
then," said he, " tell me what
makes you so stubborn ! "
Nancy Slagg had whipped off
her wideawake, and was swinging.
it in one hand, while the other
knuckled her side, showing to
shapely advantage the strong arm
and elbow in the shabby old sleeve .
Her dark hair, half up, half down ,
glowed in the sun as before a fire:
so did her eyes : so did her whole
face, from the forehead , where the
sunburn began, to the throat, " NANCY SLAGG HAD WHIPPED OFF HER
where it ended in a collar of white WIDEAWAKE.'""
skin conspicuous whenever she raised her head. She raised i:

now, in her uncouth coquetry, and gave the Sergeant a broad grin,
and a thrill to treasure in his sentimental soul .
" First of all I don't want : second of all , if I did, the old man
99
he'd-
"What ? He illtreats you , I've heard so to-day," cried Clancy,99
in some excitement ; " but you don't mean to say that just for
" I don't mean to say not another word. Whoever's been
telling you is a bloomin' liar, and you can say so from me-
and tell him to mind his own bloomin' business ! I'd say the
R
THE IDLE .
338
same thing to you , Sergeant , if you hadn't told me you minded

yours of your own accord . And I believe you. See ?" Her eyes
had flashed ; but now she was grinning again .
" I see, " said the Sergeant , dis-
creetly .
“ So long , then . ”
"So long." And with yet greater
discretion , foreign to his habit , the
inspired Sergeant drove
off at once, without
another word , though
not without another look.
He glanced back
presently along
the wide , sandy
track ; and Miss
Slaggwas trudg-
ing after him
with long, un-
feminine steps,
swinging a dead
rabbit in either
hand.
" SWINGING A DEAD RABBIT IN EITHER HAND."
From that day
forward , Sergeant Clancy inhaled the atmosphere of personal
Here was a wild but
romance for which he had long pined .
glor ious girl livi ng at the mer cy of a wre tch of a father . They
inhabited a hovel ; no one trusted them ; the father was an in-
veterate villain ; the girl a lovely , unfriended savage-until the
He loved her
Sergeant's advent . He befriended her, and more .
from the first. It was the rom anc e of his life, for which he had
waited ently .
Thepati villainous Slagg was one of those picturesque persons
who decorate the outer rings of civilisation more often than the
populous bull's -eye . He was of the medium height and build, had
really handsome features (when newly shaved ) , and he had given
Nancy her eyes . But he was the acknowledged rogue of the
district , and the Sergeant smoked an occasional evening pipe with
He ran the risk sometimes ,
him at the peril of his own position .
however , and when he did Nancy would be there . More often he
would manage to encounter her when going the round of her
rabbit -traps , and the girl would laugh and fling slang at him
across a gulf of her own fixing, captivating him in her own way.
It was a way that strengthened without tightening existing bonds.
She encouraged him in her rough fashion , yet kept him at a dis-
heartening distance, and this with a facility really astonishing in
one so purely a child of nature . It never occurred to him that the
encouragement was not genuine, but enforced by old Slagg, who
would score considerably by an attachment between his daughter
and the Sergeant, through the latter's consequent attitude towards
himself.
Slagg had a reputation for sheep- stealing : he had been caught
at it, and convicted , before this ; and it was Clancy's dread that it
might fall to him to catch and convict the old sinner again . I am
afraid the gallant Sergeant neglected his severest duty for the sake
of Slagg's daughter and her brilliant eyes ; either there were some
things he would not see , or he was blind and unfit for the force .
What he saw with all his soul , and naturally to the eclipse of
duty, was the uncouth beauty of this strapping girl ; and later,
her good heart. For she had merits other than her eyes and hair ,
the ripe tint of her skin , or the graceful curves which old clothes ,
never made for Nancy, could not hide. Of the two inhabitants of
the hovel opposite the police - barracks, it was the girl who supplied
the necessaries of their lives always barring the mutton , which
was a luxury, and never paid for . Nancy was the rabbiter, who
went the round of her traps every day, and carried the skins to the
station once a week, where they fetched sixpence each . Nancy
had paid for the piebald pony which her father rode, and from
which he had fallen more than once when in drink. Nancy carved
the emu -eggs, and carved them better than anyone else in those
parts, so that her work would have paid her really well had she
known its actual value. And it was Nancy who took care of her
disreputable old father, drunk or sober, and bore his violence in
either state, brooking no word against him from sympathising
neighbours.
Past Cockatoo Corner, and immediately behind the tenement of
old Slagg, flowed one of the rivers which give to this part of New
South Wales the name of the Riverina ; that is to say, it so
flowed three seasons out of four : in summer it became a mere
chain of waterholes . Though the surrounding country was free
from forest, the river banks were well timbered , and behind the
hovel the savage Nancy could boast of that luxury of civilised
girlhood-a favourite tree. The tree was a willow with a fork
jutting over the river. In this fork Nancy Slagg would sit carving,
340 THE IDLER.
occasionally, in the afternoon ; or dreaming, more often, of an

evening. Of those dreams she could have told you little only
that it was strange to sit perched between two starry skies, mid-
IN THIS FORK NANCY ST AGG WOULD SIT CARVING.""
way, in a single belt of whispering timber : always strange, some-

times sickly ; for she could have told you what it was to sit there
too long, until the stars spun round overhead and underneath, and
what an age it took to creep back along the trunk with tight- shut
eyes and chattering teeth.
But once, when it was merely strange, a black figure punted a

primitive raft round the bend nearer the township-seeming to shoot
right out of the trees-and passed clean under the forked willow.
"Who is it ?" cried Nancy, startled out of her shapeless
dreams.
" Hyslop," responded a young man, who, indeed, was equally
startled.
" Never heard of him ! Who are you ?"
" The new hand at Gulland's store."
The young man grasped the branches, and lifted his face ; and
Nancy, peering through them, found it to her liking . He had
made his raft in an hour of empty solitude ; he improved ,
strengthened, and elaborated it later with pains and ecstasy. And
under the forked willow, behind Slagg's hut, the raft lay hidden
most evenings when the moon was not perilously bright.
It did not last long .
One dark night, well
within the month, the
punter suddenly dis-
covered that he had
overshot the place ;
then a block of wood
whizzed past his head
and splashed into the
water near the further
bank ; and, looking
round, our young man
saw that the willow
of delight had been
hewn down, and made
out the form of old
Slagg seated on the
stump . A volley of
oaths, thickly uttered ,
followed the missile ;
but Hyslop , a good
specimen of the cool
Australian youth , had
" A BLOCK OF WOOD WHIZZED PAST HIS HEAD.'"
the presence of mind
to punt on ; and old Slagg, being drunk, got another lump of
wood from the ground , and waited patiently for the enemy's return
passage. And while he waited , young Hyslop, who had landed
342 THE IDLER .
higher up, was quietly interviewing Miss Slagg in the.hovel itself,

and undertaking to avenge at convenience a certain ugly blue
mark upon her wrist.
Luckily for everybody (excepting, perhaps, the common hang-
man), they were not caught.
Slagg sought the Sergeant next day, and bluntly asked him .
if he meant to let this whipper - snapper of a counter-jumper snatch
the girl from under his very nose. The Sergeant had mad few
friends in the township ; he had not so much as heard of young
Hyslop , and he was fairly astounded to hear of his audacity and
of Nancy's crimes. Slagg left him in the state of mind he had
desired to induce. He did not mean to lose his girl to Clancy
either ; but that was for future prevention . Clancy would be
useful meanwhile. Slagg crossed the road, chuckling, and gave
his daughter a delicate reminder of his authority and power by
taking from her the emu-egg which she was busily carving, and
stamping it into little pieces with his heel .
Meanwhile the Sergeant endured all the torments of the
losing lover. He had not yet literally lost ; but, as he reflected,
there was little to choose between the girl who had not said
" No " -because she had not been asked- and the girl who
held clandestine meetings with some other man. He was as
miserable as he could have been if she had refused him for
the hundredth time. And in his misery he
went to Gulland's store, to purchase an
article he did not want, and to
take stock of the man who had
undermined him. The latter be-
trayed no embarrassment ; he was
a cool hand, as we have seen,
even for a young Colonial ; he
talked of the rains and the state
of the roads with perfect ease,
and some little civility. He
turned out to be a young fellow of medium
build and height, with decided features , and a
"6
HE WAS A COOL HAND. " great air of independence, which Nancy was the
very girl- reflected the Sergeant, sadly-to admire in a man.
Clancy, indeed, was much more dispirited than incensed by the sight
of his rival. For the sterner feeling he had no time, this was filled
with involuntary reflection upon his own inferiority, from a young
woman's point of view. On leaving the store he made a casual
inquiry or two respecting the new assistant there ; and these served
only to deepen his dejection ; for already the young man seemed
to bear an excellent character in the township .
Before the day was over Clancy encountered the young man
again, this time unintentionally. It was late in the evening, near
the pine-ridge where he had first set eyes on Nancy Slagg , and
whither he now wandered- egregiously enough to calm his soul.
And the young man was not alone ; Nancy Slagg was with him .
The Sergeant strode back to the township, breathing hard,
and met old Slagg on his way out.
" Have you seen my girl Nancy ? " asked Slagg, excitedly.
The Sergeant had no time to consider ; he let his instinct answer,
and astonished himself by saying steadily : " No- I haven't. "
" They're together somewhere-damn them ! "
" Are you sure ? "
"Pretty positive ; and I thought it was somewhere in this
direction, but you've not seen a trace of ' em, eh ? ”
" Not a trace," answered the Sergeant, already half regretting
his instinctive lie, and wholly marvelling at it, but sticking to it
as one does to a lie once told .
So Slagg was thrown off that particular scent. And whatever
happened later in the hovel, there was no collision between Hyslop
and the old man that night, nor the next, nor the night after that.
Then came a darker one than usual , and what was rarer, a gentle rain.
The Sergeant sat in his verandah , thinking , to the rather agree-
able accompaniment of rain drops on a corrugated iron roof. He
was also smoking, and his spirit was comparatively calm . Affairs,
too, had calmed somewhat during the last three days . The youth
Hyslop was conducting himself as admirably as ever behind his
counter, and was but seldom seen outside the premises ; in fact, he
was running no more risks . Moreover, some sort of reconciliation
seemed to have taken place between the two Slaggs . And above all ,
Nancy had been civil - more than civil for Nancy Slagg -to
Sergeant Clancy. So the good Sergeant was once more smoking
the pipe of peace not in name only. His imagination was itself
again, and the picture of Nancy , becomingly dressed, and enthroned
in this very verandah as his wife- this picture , which had got out
of focus, was now as clearly defined as it had ever been .
He was considering ways of strengthening his hand . One
way he had thought of in the beginning of things, when all his
ideas had come from books, and this among them . It was to
detect and incarcerate the old sheep- stealer-that were not hard—
344 THE IDLER.
and to convert him, in durance vile, into the ace of trumps. The
girl, in her way, was
devoted to her father.
The ingenuous Ser-
geant did not in-
deed propose to hold
a pistol to this de-
votion. But if
he allowed him-
self to be prevailed
upon, and, at the last and most dra-
matic moment, set the father free ,
the effect on the girl might be as that of
66 SMOKING THE PIPE OF PEACE."
the pistol , with a less disagreeable after-
effect. His sense of official duty had become regrettably demoralised,
partly owing (no doubt) to an unhealthy appetite for fiction.
But Sergeant Clancy read books as he would have eaten fancy
puddings without inquiring, even in his own mind, how they
were made. So he did not see very clearly his way through the
situation suggested . It kept him up very late indeed, and then
something happened to keep him up all night. Something real :
a horseman rode out from behind the shanty of old Slagg, and
passed close to the barracks , heading in the direction of Cockatoo
Station. It was still raining, it was darker than ever, but the pie-
bald pony was unmistakable as it passed the angle of the barracks ;
and if that were not old Slagg astride of her, Sergeant Clancy,
as he buckled on the belt that supported his revolver, desired him-
self to be shot. The old man was after no good ; he would
follow, and discover what bad ; and as to the end- it depended .
Two hours later he was back in the verandah-at one end of
it-wet through with rain and sweat ; crouching, with his revolver
in one hand and the other hollowed at his ear. Hoof- sounds met
it the thief was returning with his plunder : and it was not
sheep, but horses !
At this end of the township the sand was heavy ; none should
know it better than old Slagg ; and Clancy was not surprised
when the two driven horses trotted close by the barracks - close
to where he knelt- their hoofs effectually muffled in the deep

sand. But as the piebald passed , the Sergeant leapt out, and
pulled the rider to the ground . The man seemed dazed. The
revolver, too, cowed him. He pulled the wideawake further
down over his eyes-as if Clancy did not know him ! He sub-
mitted to be pushed along the verandah, and into the strong
room , without a word, and
without a single motion of
resistance, though the muscles
of his arms, as Clancy gripped
them, were firm and hard as
those of a young man . Neither
did Clancy speak ; the thing
was done in tragic silence,
and in a matter of seconds ;
the cell door banged, the key
grated in the lock, and after
that Sergeant Clancy leant
against a verandah post, and
heard nothing but his own heart
" THE MAN SEEMED DAZED."
beating.
Half that he had plotted then was even now a living fact ;
but he did not think of that, he was far enough from plots and
stories, in the midst of the most striking reality of his life. His
brain was bewildered by the events embedding it ; he pressed his
head to the post, leaned hard on it, and closed his eyes.
When he opened them another face was close to his in the
darkness, the face of Nancy Slagg.
" What'll he get ? " she whispered , hoarsely.
" Get ?" said Clancy ; for it did not clarify his understanding
to see her there, and face her now. " What will who get ?"
Nancy pointed to where the small barred window was ; the
window itself was invisible in the dense darkness of the verandah .
" Him ! "
" Oh, him !-Nancy, I'm so sorry ! "
"What'll he get ?"
"God knows !"
He was looking down upon her very sorrowfully, very tenderly.
The girl met his look, and read it .
"I say, Sergeant ! S'pose you aint to be got at-eh ? "
" No ! How can you ask ? "
'Cause there's nothin' I wouldn't do for you , Sergeant, to let
"
him go nothin' ! You've been good to me all along."
346 THE IDLER .
The Sergeant trembled . " Do you mean it, Nancy ? " he

whispered, brokenly. " Do you mean it ?"
"What'll he get ? " asked the girl once more, dropping back
into her first words and tone.
" A long time—a long time ! "
" Long or short , it'd ruin him for life , " said Nancy, bitterly ;
and her head drooped , her fingers wrenched one another, as she
made up her mind . " Yes, I do mean it ! " she cried , looking him
squarely in the face . "I mean it- do you ? Will you let him
go ? It's no good makin ' any bloomin ' bones about it. I mean—
if you wanted me to— I'd marry you ! ‫י‬
" He's free ! " said the Sergeant, very distinctly. Then, with a
single sob, he caught her in his arms and to his breast , and she did
not immediately resist ; it was a part of the bargain. Long moments
to each of them-of hell to her, of heaven to him- moments that
both might carry to their death--he held her tight . At last she
released herself, quietly , and looked up at him with so white a face
that he heard again the rattle of the rain that had never ceased .
Then Nancy spoke, and her words were the words of mystery.
" There was no other way, and he's been a great brute to me
always, has the old man , but never such a brute as over this .
He'd have killed my Jack-an ' he tried ! So we said next time he
got tight we'd do a bolt-and he's been paralytic tight since sun-
down . But we couldn't bolt on our legs , ' cause he'd have had me
back in the morning . The other evening-time you saw us— I'd
been with my Jack to the horse- paddock, and I shown him them
two horses you've got there, ' cause they wouldn't miss ' em first
thing in the mornin ' like they'd miss station horses . What's up ?
Didn't you know they was yours ? Why, they loafed straight into
your yard by theirselves ; but you was here."
From a state of entire mystification , Clancy had passed, during
this explanation, to one of incredulity.
" Nancy," he cried, weakly smiling, as at chaff, " your father's
sober enough to- night ; it's your father I've run in . ”
" I wish it was my father ; it's my Jack ! "
The Sergeant remembered the dense darkness (it grew lighter
as they talked) , the wideawake pulled forward , and the firm
muscles for old arms .
66
Hyslop ! " he said, with a gasp . “ Hyslop, I suppose ! "
66
Yes, Jack Hyslop-my Jack. That's why I'm going to do
what I've promised you I'll do —to set my Jack scot free !"
She seemed to speak of what she could not realise, for her fine
eyes were dry, and dull ; but she spoke on one hard despairing
note that struck straighter to the heart than tears.
"Your Jack ! Then you love him-all this much ?"
" You may have me if you let him go. My poor old Jack !
You'd be done for , like father, when you came out ! "
In the lessening darkness the Sergeant looked long into her
dull, sad eyes ; and life rolled out before him, with those splendid
eyes always meeting his, dull and sad to the end . And that was
enough. He stepped inside, and came back with a key, which
he put in Nancy's hands. " Let him out yourself," he said .
" God knows what I have been thinking of doing ! "
He went round to the yard, and bridled the two horses he
found there ; for they were his own . He led them out in the rain,
and in the darkness, which was not the darkness that had been.
He regretted the growing light, for in it Nancy Slagg and Jack
Hyslop took well-nigh a furlong to vanish, the two together,
riding away for ever from Cockatoo Corner. And it had been bad
enough to be left standing in eternal darkness ,
with Nancy's wild, impetuous kiss red -hot on
his cheek, and her tears of gratitude still wet
upon his face.
But daylight found Sergeant Clancy kneeling
at the tree where he had seen her first, and strip-
ping off the bark, just where her head had rested.
He had become alive to the fact that his personal
love- story had reared suddenly, and toppled over
without his knowing it. He was now performing
the kind of final act his reading taught him to
expect of himself, as the hero of his own romance.
"LEFT STANDING IN ETERNAL

DARKNESS."
S
THEIDLER'
CLUB
HAD accepted the invitation and I felt bound to go ;

G. R. Sims but at two o'clock in the afternoon, on a snowy day,
accepteth the I
one doesn't altogether feel that evening dress is a
invitation. luxury. That is the worst of being an Idler and hating
trouble . Most men would have taken their evening
dress with them in a bag, but I hate bags , especially on a railway
journey. I generally leave them in a cab, or in the train , and
then you might just as well not have brought them with you .
It is such a nuisance to arrive, say, at York, on the day of the
dinner or the day of the ball, and then to have to come back to
town and go to Scotland Yard in order to claim your clothes
and declare the value and pay the cabman's percentage. It is
much better to dress before you leave home, if you are returning
the same night . Your things are bound to arrive with you then,
that is, of course, if you are not both left on the line.
I never could put myself into evening dress away

He horrifieth from home with any comfort, but it looks ostentatious
the Bishop . if you are only going down into the country "just for
the evening" to take your gardener, or your housemaid,
or your housekeeper (all three are very useful if you can't afford
a valet) with you, just to button your collar and tie your tie.
One of our sweetest singers has somewhere sung (of course I

know who it was, but this vagueness has a pleasing effect to
the eye), " Alas ! how easily things go wrong," and they do ,
especially evening dress things . Once I was asked by a clergy-
man in the country to dine at his house and meet a Bishop .
The only possible train landed me at my host's at three o'clock
in the afternoon. I couldn't stroll about a clergyman's grounds
all the summer afternoon in evening dress, so I had to take
my things with me. I dressed in the next room to the Bishop ,
who was staying in the house, but I didn't know there was only a
wooden partition between our rooms. It was a very hot , thundery
evening, I had rheumatism in my right arm , and I had a collar
with a buttonhole two sizes too small to fix on to a button four
sizes too large. I didn't take much notice of what I said myself,
but the Bishop did , for presently he knocked at my door and
insisted on coming in and buttoning that collar for me and tying
my tie, and, to my horror, he went down on his knees and tried to
button my boots with his fingers. I was confused, overwhelmed,
and I protested, but the Bishop only looked up at me with a sad,
pained expression , and said that it was his duty to check the use
of bad language by every means in his power . I felt the reproof
keenly, and though his Lordship took three buttons off one boot
and turned my white tie into a comic sketch, I thanked him
meekly, and made a poor dinner.
That is why on this occasion (the snow occasion ) I

dressed myself at two o'clock, and covering myself up He forgetteth
in ulsters and scarves , travelled down by train en grande his dress
tenue. It was very cold , but I had to sit bolt upright for shoes.
fear of crumpling myself. There was a good deal of
train changing before I reached my station, and then i had to
go five miles across country in a cab. I couldn't sit upright in
that cab, because it was a covered fly with a soft roof that bulged
down and compelled you to take off your hat and bend double.
When I arrived at my destination I only had an hour to spare , as
the ball commenced at seven. This would have been agreeably
passed in dining had I not discovered that in the hurry of starting
I had come away in a pair of thick walking- boots . That upset
me, because if there is one thing I dislike it is entering a ball-
room in thick walking - boots .
350 THE IDLER .
It was a delightful ball. There were fifty ladies

G. R. Sims present and only ten gentlemen. I was introduced to
seeketh an a charming lady for the first quadrille, and after I had
asylum . made the usual remarks about the weather, she turned
he conversation on to murder, and told me the story
of a lady who had killed her nusband , and asked me if I did not
think the lady was perfectly justified in her conduct. I avoided
committing myself to a direct answer by enquiring if my partner
would take an ice, and conducted her to the refreshment room ,
where I lost her while looking for a sponge cake. Then the
Master ofthe Ceremonies discovered me fanning myself with the
lid of one of Tom Smith's cracker boxes , and introduced me to
another lady for the next dance, which was a waltz. My new
partner was tall and buxom , and wore diamonds and a corsage of
natural flowers . She waltzed divinely, but insisted on talking to
me in French . She assured me that it was a great pleasure to
meet a man who understood the language , and she complained
that the rest of the guests were "so ignorant- oh , so terribly
ignorant." Naturally a modest man, I stumbled slightly in my
French in endeavouring to acknowledge the compliment, and then
she asked me if I had ever heard of her before. I confessed I had
not quite caught her name at the introduction. She smiled and
whispered it in my ear. After that she had the conversation to
herself, until the band struck up the next dance. Then I gracefully
retired to the doorway and looked on . I was getting frightfully
anxious about my boots. I had an idea that some of the ladies
might look upon them as a slight-possibly as an insult. I tried
to hide them by sitting down and putting my feet well under the
seat, but the indefatigable Master of the Ceremonies gave me no
peace. Men were scarce, and I was in demand . I danced with
eight different ladies that evening-they were all charming—one
of them in particular had a sweet musical voice and gentle , dreamy
eyes that haunt me to this day. When I stood up and vowed
that I didn't know the Lancers, there were ringing peals of
laughter all over the room, and the way in which (in my confusion
and boots) I persistently spoilt every figure caused some of the
ladies to clap their hands with delight. I tried to preserve my
dignity and made feeble jokes, but do what I would, I could not
feel quite at my ease. Perhaps you will appreciate my feelings.
better if I tell you that the ball was the Female Patients '
Annual Ball , was at Broadmoor, and that all the fair dancers
were-well, guests of that noble institution " duri ng Her Majesty's
pleasure." I don't as a rule care to be laughed at, but when I

left the Queen's Pleasure House in the early light of dawn , and
walked along the quiet country road to the station ( I was glad of
those boots then) , I felt that if I had brought a little merriment into
the saddened lives of those poor women, I had not endured the
miseries of sixteen hours in evening dress (and thick boots)
in vain.
I can give you an example of the good action

which brings its own reward. The senior partner of a Phillpotts giveth
considerable firm having made up his mind to rest an example of
from his labours and retire , did so . A most gratifying the good action
testimonial was the immediate result , and the recipient, that is its own
unequal to the task of thanking individually his very reward .
large staff, chose out his senior clerk-a man not
younger than himself—whose name headed the lengthy list . This
gentleman, it is to be noted , was famous for his methodical accuracy,
happy facility in always saying the right thing at the right moment ,
and general smartness and despatch in all matters of business . To
him the retiring partner tendered sincere thanks , expressing , at
the same time, his surprise at any manifestation of regard so
unexpected, his keen satisfaction, and so forth. Whereupon the
senior clerk answered thus : " My dear sir, we are, one and all of
us, only too happy to have this opportunity . " Such a mal à propos
remark can, of course, only be lived down . But here follows the
interesting part of the narrative. That evening our unfortunate
head clerk chanced to read the current number of Truth ; and he
observed that a prize of two guineas was offered for the most
pointed example of one of those things a man had, afterwards ,
rather left unspoken. His own recent experience instantly occurred
to him ; he forwarded the same, and won the said competition
with it. Thus, as his original contribution to his employer's testi-
monial was but one guinea, and the Truth prize amounted to
twice that sum, our friend made a clear profit of one-and- twenty
shillings upon the entire transaction .
D'you know it has puzzled me for a long time why

It is that you younger men are always crying out Kennedy
for " a drama that reflects the monotony of human life," argueth upon
and objecting to the use of " coincidences," and the drama.
"comic reliefs," and " happy endings ," and, generally,
the machinery of the romantic drama, and giving as a reason for
352 THE IDLER.
it that you don't see anything like them in nature ? Now I have
found out why it is . You are not householders . Living in apart-
ments, or chambers , or a flat , life seems like that to you ; but just
charter a house with a roof, and a kitchen - boiler , and drains , and
rates and taxes , and a wife , and all the rest of it, and you will
find out what a romantic drama your life will become.
Here is a little specimen for you of the kind of thing

He beginneth a I mean ; it is quite recent, and it is quite true. There
tale about a was a man once whose life was saddened for a while
bottle of corked by a bottle of corked Scotch whiskey. It cost too
whiskey and an much money to be lightly thrown away ; it was pro-
angel . foundly unpleasant to drink. The man tried it
with hot water and lemon and sugar, but he soon
gave that up. Those of you who have made a similar
experiment will know why ; no one else could understand .
Sadly, and unusually slowly, were two-thirds of that bottle
imbibed. Now, there dwelt an angel in that man's house,
and the angel issued a fiat that no more whiskey should be drunk
until that corked bottle was wholly consumed . This saddened
the man still more, but though, as will be seen , a weak and erring
mortal , he was not wholly bad . He did not say that, perhaps if
angels liked whiskey themselves, their opinions on the subject
would not be so pronounced. No, he accepted that fiat as the
utterance of one nobler and better than himself. And then she,
with angelic inconsistency, with perhaps a tenderness for mortal
frailty, or, maybe, with a wish to cheer him through his trials with
the hope of better things to come-ordered in another bottle of
whiskey .
The rest should be told in the fateful language of

The tale the shilling novelist . 'Twas past twelve o'clock of a
sheweth how winter's night, the house was still and silent ; but in a
the angel got room on the ground floor the light of a gas lamp fell
rid of the on a decanter partly filled with corked whiskey, that
corked whiskey. stood untouched on the sideboard , whilst a man with a
black bottle (and a blacker conscience) was holding
unhallowed revel. He poured out- he snuffed the flavour-
he tasted -he drank-he exulted . Suddenly a mysterious
sound smote upon his sinful ear , a long-drawn and a
groaning sound . It was like someone having fun with the

low notes of a church organ . The angel entered the room,
beautiful in terror. She clung to him. "What is it ? " she
cried, " I am frightened ! " Putting the black bottle as far as
possible out of sight, he strove to calm her fears . Presently the
mysterious sounds died away, and then the cause of them was
discovered . An extempore geyser had broken out in the middle of
the street, and was playing merrily in the moonlight. The road
was being fast flooded , and the man feared for his basement .
He went out to investigate, and a policeman and an inspector
allayed his forebodings . The matter was one which could rapidly
be put right. In gratitude, for the night was cold , he offered them
some whiskey. The policeman's eye sparkled , the inspector drew
the back of his glove across his mouth . The man had already got
the black bottle in his hand with hospitable intent , and was about
to leave the house again , when a light touch was laid upon his
wrist. The angel had grasped the situation ; she pointed to the
decanter on the sideboard . " Give them that," she said.
To sum up before I begin , it is the truest reading

of the part I have ever seen, and the least inspired . Zangwill dis-
I say this with all deference to Mr. Wilson Barrett , courseth upon
whose Hamlet I do not know. But, to judge by Tree's Hamlet.
the many high eulogies of his performance, this
resonant, romantic actor is simply not in it . He was praised
for playing Hamlet without subtlety, which amounts to playing
the Prince of Denmark without Hamlet . Mr. Irving's Hamlet
is redeemed by moments of genius . Mr. Tree's has scarce one
of these moments , though he tries hard to get them. In
revenge he settles for ever the vexed question of Hamlet's sanity.
Mr. Gilbert has epitomised the controversy in the statement that
he was idiotically sane with lucid intervals of lunacy. " Mr.
Tree plays him as a brooding high -souled philosopher, a scholar ,
a prince, and a brave gentleman , over-weighted by the terrible
actualities of life , by duties too great , and human beings too little .
Mr. Tree's Hamlet is never for a moment mad ; from the depths
of his bitterness, and scorn , and self- contempt, flash lightning
speeches that bewilder the poor hearers ; there is an emotional
logic behind every abrupt- seeming phrase, every apparently
irrelevant outburst . It is the true Hamlet Hamlet the man of
genius ; only insane if the theories of Lambroso and Nisbet are
354 THE IDLER.
sane ; Hamlet, Prince of all the " fellows crawling 'twixt earth
and heaven " ; of Mrs. Humphry Ward's Langham ; of Mr.
Barrie's " Noble Simms ." It only remains for Hamlet to be
played as a man of genius by one. Mr. Tree seems to have
exhausted himself in the conception.
Tree always excites my admiration and interest,

He moraliseth and I found plenty of scope for both emotions in the
on the subject new Hamlet . The actor-manager has invented all sorts
of Hamlet. of new business both for himself and his colleagues.
His first great effort is made at the end of Act ii . , in
the soliloquy (delivered with novel variety) , " O what a rogue and
peasant slave am I ," though the red glow of the fire by which he
scribbles the lines for the players is turned on too suddenly and
theatrically. The Play Scene (yes, I have heard Mr. Barrett
transferred it to the open air) always gives the actor his best
chance, and Mr. Tree's burst of hysterical laughter at the climax
is a thing to hear. In the famous " Look here upon this picture
and on this " episode, Hamlet carries a medallion of his father,
while the Queen wears one of her new husband , which Hamlet
dramatically tears from her bosom. A more dubious effect is
produced by cutting Act iii. short at " Thus bad begins, and
worse remains behind," Hamlet drawing aside the arras , and
gazing at the dead Polonius as he speaks the pregnant, tragic
line, which thus sounds like a petty play upon words . It may
not be intentional, but it is unfortunate . On the other hand
nothing but praise can be given to the idea of burying Ophelia in
beautiful surroundings on a bright sunny day. No future pro-
duction of Hamlet will be complete without Mr. Tree's innovation,
though it is a pity this proof of his poetic insight should be some-
what contradicted by the strain of angelic music he introduces at
the close. If the rest is not to be silence , then let us have the
peal of ordnance and the dead march of the stage directions . At
the same time I must admit the strain was not so great as I
feared. The conclusion of " Hamlet " is so weak and dramatically
ineffective that even Mr. Tree's additions cannot spoil it. Perhaps
the happiest of his innovations is his refusal to grimace to the
audience on his entry. How about Mrs. Tree's Ophelia ? Well,
there will be no discussion about that. It is charming . Fred
Terry is also notable as Laertes . Mr. Henschel's music ? I like
it very much . It seems really to enhance the effects , and I was
glad to find it 1:new its place as well as its time, and did not
insist on accompanying Mrs. Tree with her mad ballads.
Talking of the general plan of creation , if I had a new

world to make I would grow newspapers and magazines Joseph Hatton
just as you grow strawberries and potatoes . It should proposeth a
be a physical matter entirely, not mental ; and it should new industry.
all be done out of doors . Fresh air is the great thing
to aim for ; fresh air and exercise. You can grow blue roses and
black by watering them with liquid blue and patent blacking.
Any intellectual tint could be given to magazine bulbs and news-
paper cuttings ; it would all be a matter of grafting, seeding, and
cultivation. I would have no men knocking their heads together
at clubs for ideas, no reporters tramping through the mud to
inquests (in my world there would be no inquests, because all
deaths would be voluntary and by arrangement) , no noisy type-
writers, no machines pounding at the foundations of city cellars ;
no, it should be all done in gardens and fields , and nobody should
be expected to smoke anything but eighteenpenny cigars . There
would be no excuse for Salvation Armies in my world ; morality
should be mirthful and jolly, everybody should go for it. Of
course the growers and cultivators of newspapers and magazines
should be very clever and important persons ; they should be a
Guild, awfully difficult to get into it, and the rate of pay should be
always up to The Idler's highest standard.
An impossible world , you say ? Not a bit of it.

Nothing you can think of is more wonderful than the This new world
world in which we live, but anybody could invent addi- hath material
tional comforts , not to mention new physical, moral , and advantages.
material advantages . Of all the suggestions in modern
philosophy, Ingersoll's idea of making health contagious instead
of disease is about the biggest I know of ; but even that might be
supplemented. Dudley Warner has been ransacking his brain on
the subject ; he is of opinion that if every man could be born old
and rich, and go on getting younger , life would be worth living.
A better notion still , I think, would be to have every man and
woman born at eighteen, well educated , and financially endowed ;
all on an equality as to brains and money, and opportunities to
begin with ; a fair start, you know. They should never be physi-
cally old. The women should stop at twenty-five , the men at forty ;
the women beautiful , the men handsome. But, if at five and
forty a man had not done something to prove himself worthy of
356 THE IDLER .
living, and above all had not made his contribution to the general
endowment fund for the unborn , why he should be called upon to
perform the happy dispatch ; it should be a really happy dispatch,
a lethal chamber provided with luxuries of the most delightful
kind, in the enjoyment of which the happy dispatcher should go to
sleep, and wake no more unless through he kind consideration of
the ruler of the other world, wherever or whatever that might be.
What do I mean by saying he finish of " Hamlet " is

Zangwill poor ? Just this ; the tragedy is laid on so thick that it
admonisheth becomes almost farce. The step from the sublime to
Mr. Shake- the ridiculous is very nearly taken. There is a lofty
speare. disregard of human life, which smacks of Marlowe's
Tamburlaine, a magnificence of slaughter which Rider
Haggard might envy. The action, instead of developing simply
and inevitably, suddenly explodes like a bombshell, scattering
death and destruction . How much finer the less complex climax
of " Othello," brought about , moreover, by the natural stress of
inward passion , not by the artifice of external accident . The
original author of the fable seems to have said to himself, given
one poisoned foil and one poisoned bowl, how many of the
characters can I kill off with them ? This is in essence, if not
in appearance, a problem of farcical comedy, and the more
ingenuity there is in making the wrong people drink the poison or
get stabbed by the daggers, the more the sombre grandeur of
tragedy is discounted . "Hamlet" would have terminated more
finely if the wicked King and Queen had been left alive-to
read the commentaries on "Hamlet." Mr. Shakespeare should
see to this if he intends to publish the text of his play in
accordance with the latest fashion , and if he has any serious
ambition to vie with Jones or Pinero . There is another point
to which he might attend. His Play Scene is too ridiculous ;
knowing as they did the matrimonial circumstances of the King
and Queen, is it likely the players would have accepted Hamlet's
play ? Think of the risk they ran. Fancy Irving and Ellen
Terry playing before Her Majesty, and introducing a scene
(specially written by the Prince of Wales) reproaching her for not
going to the theatre. Why, all actors will tell you that when
Royalty is present, any allusions that might make the galled jade
wince are carefully omitted . I daresay the poor Danish players,
on whom Hamlet played such a scurvy trick, lost their heads

entirely over the business. Still , Mr. Shakespeare may be par-
doned the improbability of this scene in view of its excellent
satire. When a Prince takes to dramatic authorship, it is only
natural the curtain should have to be dropped in the middle.
Is the motto of my world to be " a short life

and a merry one " ? A merry one certainly, but a short Joseph Hatton
one, no ! When I say a woman's age should stop at five- knoweth the
and-twenty I don't mean that her life should end ; when I working of his
give a man until forty , I don't mean that he is to be at new world .
the end of his tether. Not a bit of it. His appearance ,
his capacity for enjoyment shall remain at forty ; but his
years shall go on, his experience, his wisdom ; and he shall live as
long as he is a good fellow, and keeps up his payments to the
creation's endowment fund. As for women, I mete out the same
conditions and privileges ; they should never know a wrinkle nor
see a grey hair, always have bright merry eyes , soft , sweet, youthful
voices. Think of it, if Jenny Lind had been in my world she
would have been here now and only twenty- five ; so would
Siddons , so would Garrick and Kean, not to mention that im-
postor Shakespeare, who got everybody to write plays for him,
and induced them not to tell . Think of the men he would have
working for him now who would never mention the fact of their
collaboration ! Some of these long lives might make it
awkward for rising talent. You must not approach my
world in the spirit of criticism . There would be no critics
on the newspapers in my world ; they would be reporters
whose duty would be simply to lay in the play-bill, and the
advertisement of the first night as seed ; the right descriptive tint
would be added by the expert engaged on theatrical news, and the
whole thing would come out bright and pleasant, with compliment-
ary mention of every performer, and a tribute of grace to the
author. Oh, I know what I'm talking about. My world would
not want to be excited with newspaper criticisms and libel suits,
with disrespectful remarks on the footlights, and insults spoken
against prosceniums. Every man and woman would know the
merits of a stage play by natural instinct ; it would not be a
matter for controversy , and every actor would be only a little less
delightful than every actress. I tell you, my friends, I know
exactly how my world would work.
358 THE IDLER .
Let us put aside such exceptionally glaring ex-

He dwelleth on
amples of hyperbolic depravity as myself, and take
legal axioms. the ordinary run of vendors with some human feelings
in them . If you buy a horse, or a bun , or a house,
go for a sail , have your likeness taken , or put a penny in the
slot, is not more or less invariably snipped off the quality or
quantity of the article you pay for : do you snip a little piece off
the coin you pay for it ? Have you ever in your life bought
a tenpenny nail which, on close examination, really proved
to be worth even ninepence ; and would not every twopenny-
halfpenny concern one has to do with be dear at a penny- three-
farthings ? Very well then , why is every law which is not a dead-
letter designed to protect the seller against the purchaser ; why
is there a legal axiom " Caveat emptor " and no legal axiom
"Caveat venditor ; " why is the custom of the trade recognised,
and not the custom of the customer (by his very name a maker of
customs ) ? Because we are a great commercial community.
And the biggest frauds we pay for the articles from which so
much is clipped that hardly a rag remains -are our dead-letter
"Acts for the Protection of the Public ." Pereat emptor !
Have you noticed the Renaissance of alliteration in

Zangwill asketh the new journalism ? The early English poets made
about allitera. alliteration the chief element of their poetry, and in
tion . modern times Swinburne has paid more attention to it
(and to rhyme) than to meaning, with the result that
there has arisen a school of poets who don't mean anything—don't
say it . In the olden days , a bride was bonny, and was requested to
busk herself in consequence ; all of which was intelligible . Now-
adays, the poet would call a basilisk bonny rather than miss his
alliteration . It is because the new journalism is so imaginative
and emotional that it throws off alliterative phrases as naturally
and unconsciously as Whittier confesses he did in writing " The
Wreck of Rivermouth ." It is sometimes difficult to believe that
providence is not on the side of the evening bills . When
Balmaceda died he committed suicide by shooting himself in
Santiago of all places in the world. Boulanger, if from a local
point of view he died less satisfactorily, was yet careful to employ
a bullet. It is for the sake of the phrase-makers that burglars good-
naturedly prefer Bermondsey, and that tigers do not escape from their
cages to play in tragedies till the show arrives at Tewkesbury. The
baboon is already so largely alliterative in himself that it was
an excess of generosity that made one recently attack an infant
under such circumstances as to allow the report to be headed ,
"Baby Bitten by a Baboon in a Backyard at Bow." Alliteration

has become a mighty factor in politics, it is fast replacing
epigram, while its effects on moral character are tremendous .
That " hardened criminal," Mr. Balfour, might have been a
good man instead of a 66 base, brutal bully, " if his name
had only commenced with an X. He is a noteworthy martyr
to the mania of the times. I am convinced that the death
of the Duke of Devonshire was accelerated by anxiety to please
the sub- editors , and it is a source of real regret to me to reflect
that my own death can afford them no supplementary gratifi-
cation of this nature .
How often we find in the world a warm , good heart

going with perfectly execrable taste. Take grave- Phillpotts roam-
yards . I think you shall see in them more frequent eth among the
examples of these qualities hand-in-hand than any- tombs.
where . If some of the blessed dead knew the nature
of their monuments , epitaphs , and cenotaphs, they would rattle
their poor bones uneasily . I have observed of late a new horror
added to death . This takes the shape of an air-tight photograph
of deceased , arranged in some terrible frame of 66 ever-
lastings " or tin leaves , upon the tomb or grave. You
read an inscription setting forth a character that it were simple
platitude to describe as seraphic ; you then gaze upon a face quite
non-angelic-a troubled face, an unhappy face, an obviously
short-tempered face, a greedy face, an idiotic face , a conceited
face. Physiognomy of the most elementary sort confounds the
recorded word ; and you regret that you are obliged by ocular
evidence to deny the dead at least a percentage of the amiable
characteristics claimed for him. It is doing a man a great and
glaring wrong, as a rule, to put his photograph on his grave.
Again, a good heart, a pious disposition , and a hopeless lack of
humour are often seen in company. Epitaphs sufficiently attest
this assertion . I chanced not long since to be at Hanwell (from
choice, and under no compulsion ) . Whilst there , I wandered
amongst graves, and noted the following :
Sacred to the Memory
of
John Samuel Jones .
"Angels, angels , sweet and fair,
O take me to thy heavenly care. "
Also Mr. Arthur Podbury.
360 THE IDLER .
There is one kind of literary man who has never

Barr findeth a had justice done him in this world, whatever his
much maligned reward may be in the next . He is unselfish, and
writer. labours without hope of gain . His style is terse and
to the point . There is no Meredithian ambiguity
about his phrases , and you understand instantly what he means .
He has the faculty of putting his ideas in vigorous English, and
he desires your improvement rather than his own. He pays his
own postage, and never tempts an editor's cupidity by enclosing
stamps for the return of his manuscript . Yet this estimable
writer has been held in the utmost contempt by people who fancy
themselves liberal- minded and charitable . He has been flouted
and jeered at and sneered at. He has been libelled in print, and
slandered in speech . Yet no one has ever seen him, and no one
knows his name. He is the writer of anonymous letters .
Now why should this honest man be traduced ?

And speaketh Let him be comforted when he remembers that I , at
a good word least, am always ready to speak a good word for him.
for him . I have a pile of letters a foot thick from him, and when
I look at the heap I wish I had his talent of industry.
His insight into character is so keen that I would be only too
gratified if the editors of this magazine met with his approval , but,
alas ! they do not. He doesn't care much about The Idler either,
and won't buy another copy, which is all the more deplorable
because he will never see this slight tribute to his worth . I
regret this the more, as I feel that I am receiving the greatest
benefit from his works. My colleague is the most generous man
on earth. He utterly refuses to look at an anonymous letter . With
an unselfishness that is as noble as it is rare, he even lavishes on me
those anonymous epistles addressed to himself alone . I feel that I
can make no adequate return for such self- sacrificing kindness , for
were I to attempt doing so by writing him an anonymous letter
myself he would not read it . A lady once said to me that the
anonymous letter writer would not be so objectionable if he
only signed his name to his communications . This is indeed
true, and here again fate is unjust to " Nemo . " How often
would he " hear of something to his advantage " if he but attended
to the little formality of the signature. For instance, I would
long since have resigned in his favour if I only had his address,
because he knows so well how to make a magazine that would be
absolutely faultless.
ЛА
‫انملتاہے‬
" MY THREE COLLABORATORS "
A
THE IDLER
MAY, 1892.
Novel Notes.
ILLUSTRATED BY J. GÜLICH, GEORGE HUTCHINSON , AND

MISS HAMMOND .
HEN, on returning home one evening, after a pipe party at

WHEN, on
my friend Jephson's, I informed my wife that I was going
to write a novel, she expressed herself as pleased with the idea.
She said that she had often wondered I had never thought of doing
so before. "Look," she added, " how silly all the novels are now-a-
" I'M SURE YOU COULD WRITE ONE.'"2
days, I'm sure you could write one." (Ethelbertha intended to be

complimentary, I am convinced ; but there is a looseness about.
her mode of expression which, at times, renders her meaning
obscure.)
364 THE IDLER .
When, however, I told her that my friend Jephson was going

to collaborate with me, she remarked, " Oh , " in a doubtful tone ;
and when I further went on to explain to her that Selkirk Brown
and Derrick MacShaughnassy were also going to assist, she
replied, " Oh," in a tone which contained no trace of doubtful-
ness whatever, and from which it was clear that her interest in
the matter as a practical scheme had entirely evaporated .
I fancy that the fact of my three collaborators being all
bachelors diminished somewhat our chances of success , in
Ethelbertha's mind. Against bachelors, as a class, she entertains
a strong prejudice . A man's not having sense enough to want to
marry, or , having that, not having wit enough to do it , argues to
her thinking either weakness of intellect or natural depravity, the
former rendering its victim unable, and the latter unfit, ever to
become a really useful novelist.
I tried to make her understand the peculiar advantages our
plan possessed.
" You see," I explained , " in the usual commonplace novel we
only get, as a matter of fact, one person's ideas . Now in this
novel, there will be four clever men all working together. The
public will thus be enabled to obtain the thoughts and opinions of
the whole four of us , at the price usually asked for merely one
author's views . If the British reader knows his own business , he
will order this book early, to avoid disappointment. This book
will be to him the same as four ordinary works, and it will take
up less space . Such an opportunity may not occur again for
years ."
Ethelbertha agreed that this was probable .
66
Besides," I continued , my enthusiasm waxing stronger the
more I reflected upon the matter, " this work is going to be a
genuine bargain in another way also . We are not going to put
our mere every-day ideas into it. We are going to crowd into
this one novel all the wit and wisdom that the whole four of us
possess, if the book will hold it . We shall not write another
novel after this one. Indeed, we shall not be able to ; we shall
have nothing more to write . This work will partake of the
nature of an intellectual clearance sale . We are going to put
into this novel simply all we know. ”
Ethelbertha shut her lips, and said something inside ; and then
remarked aloud that she supposed it would be a one volume affair.
I felt hurt at the implied sneer . I pointed out to her that there
already existed a numerous body of specially-trained men employed
NOVEL NOTES. 365
to do nothing else but make disagreeable observations upon

authors and their works a duty that, so far as I could judge, they
seemed capable of performing without any amateur assistance
whatever. And I hinted that by his own fireside a literary man
looked to breathe a less critical and more sympathetic atmosphere.
Ethelbertha replied that of course I knew what she meant.
She said that she was not thinking of me, and that Jephson was,
no doubt, sensible enough (Jephson is engaged) , but she did not
see the object of bringing half the parish into it. (Nobody
suggested bringing " half the parish " into it. Ethelbertha will
talk so wildly.) To suppose that Brown and MacShaughnassy
could be of any use whatever, she considered absurd . What
could a couple of raw bachelors know about life and human
nature ? As regarded MacShaughnassy, in particular, she was of
opinion that if we only wanted out of him all that he knew, and
could keep him to the subject, we ought to be able to get that into
about a page .
My wife's present estimate of MacShaughnassy's knowledge is
the result of reaction . The first time she ever saw him, she and he
got on wonderfully well together ; and when I returned to the draw-
ing-room, after seeing him down to the gate, her first words were,
"What a wonderful man that Mr. MacShaughnassy is. He seems
to know so much about everything."
That describes MacShaugh-
nassy exactly . He does seem
to know a tremendous
lot. He is pos-
sessed of more in-
formation about
everything than
any man I ever
came across . Oc-
casionally, it is
correct informa-
tion ; but, speaking
broadly, it is re-
markable for its
marvellous unre-
liability. Where
he gets it from is " BUT HE WILL GO ABOUT IMPARTING IT."
a secret that no-
body has ever yet been able to fathom.
366 THE IDLER.
This would not matter so much if he would only keep it to

himself, or put it into an encyclopædia or a newspaper where
nobody would take any notice of it, and it would do no harm .
But he will go about imparting it.
He used to impart a good deal of it to Ethelbertha at one time,
and she in those days used to sit and listen to it, and when he
had finished she would ask for more.
Ethelbertha was very young when we started housekeeping .
(Our first butcher very nearly lost her custom, I remember, once
and for ever by calling her " Missie, " and giving her a message to
take back to her mother. She arrived home in tears . She said
that perhaps she wasn't fit to be anybody's wife, but she did not
see why she should be told so by the tradespeople. ) She was
naturally somewhat inexperienced in domestic affairs , and, feeling
this keenly, was grateful to anyone who would
give her any useful hints and advice. When
MacShaughnassy came along he seemed, in
her eyes, a sort of glorified Mrs. Beeton. He
knew everything wanted to be known inside
a house from the scientific method of peeling
a potato to the cure of spásms in cats, and
Ethelbertha would sit at his feet, figuratively
speaking, and gain enough information in one
evening to make the house unlivable in for a
month .
He told her how fires ought to be laid .
He said that the way fires were usually laid in
this country was contrary to all the laws of
nature, and he showed her how the thing was
done in Crim Tartary, or some such place
where the science of laying fires is alone pro-
perly understood . He proved to her that an
immense saving in time and labour, to say
nothing of coals, could be effected by the
adoption of the Crim Tartary system ; and he
taught it to her then and there, and she
went straight downstairs and explained it to
AMENDA. " the girl.
Amenda, our then " general, " was an extremely stolid 'young
person, and, in some respects, a model servant. She never
argued. She never seemed to have any notions of her own what-
ever. She accepted our ideas without comment, and carried them
NOVEL NOTES. 367
out with such pedantic precision and such evident absence of all
feeling of responsibility concerning the result as to surround our
home legislation with quite a military atmosphere.
On the present occasion she stood quietly by while the
MacShaughnassy method of fire-laying was expounded to her.
When Ethelbertha had finished she simply said :
" You want me to lay the fires like that ?"
" Yes, Amenda, we'll always have the fires laid like that in
future, if you please."
" All right, mum," replied Amenda, with perfect unconcern ,
and there the matter ended for that evening.
On coming downstairs the next morning we found the break-
fast table spread very nicely, but there was no breakfast. We
waited . Ten minutes went by-a quarter of an hour- twenty
minutes. Then Ethelbertha rang the bell . In response Amenda
presented herself, calm and respectful .
" Do you know that the proper time for
breakfast is half- past eight, Amenda ?"
" Yes'm."
" BUT THERE WAS NO BREAKFAST."
"And do you know that it's now nearly nine ?"

" Yes'm ."
"Well, isn't breakfast ready ? "
" No, mum."
" Will it ever be ready ? "
" Well, mum, " replied Amenda , in a tone of genial frankness ,
64
to tell you the truth, I don't think it ever will ."
"What's the reason ? Won't the fire light ? "
Oh, yes, it lights all right. ".
"Well, then, why can't you cook the breakfast ?" :
" Because before you can turn yourself round it goes out
again."
Amenda never volunteered statements . She answered the
question put to her and then stopped dead . I called downstairs
to her on one occasion, before I understood her peculiarities, to
368 THE IDLER.
ask her if she knew the time. She replied, " Yes, sir," and
disappeared into the back kitchen. At the end of about thirty
seconds or so, I called down again. " I asked you, Amenda," I
said reproachfully, " to tell me the time about ten minutes ago."
" Oh, did you ?" she called back pleasantly. " I beg your
pardon. I thought you asked me if I knew it-it's half-past four."
Ethelbertha enquired-to return to our fire-if she had tried
lighting it again .
" Oh, yes, mum," answered the girl. " I've tried
four times." Then she added cheer-
fully, " I'll try again if you like, mum."
Amenda was the most willing ser-
vant we ever paid wages to.
Ethelbertha said she would step
down and light the fire herself,
and told Amenda to follow her
and watch how she did it.
I felt interested in the ex-
periment, and followed
also . Ethelbertha
tucked up her frock and
-set to work. Amenda
and I stood round and
looked on.
At the end of half-
an - hour, Ethelbertha
retired from the contest
hot and dirty, and a
little irritable. The
fireplace retained the same
cold, cynical expression with
which it had greeted our
entrance.
Then I tried. I honestly
tried my best. I was eager
and anxious to succeed. For
one reason, I wanted my
breakfast. For another, I
" I FELT INTERESTED IN THE "EXPERIMENT, AND
wanted to be able to say that FOLLOWED ALSO."
I had done this thing. It
seemed to me that for any human being to light a fire, laid as that
fire was laid, would be a feat to be proud of. To light a fire even
NOVEL NOTES. 369
under ordinary circumstances is not too easy a task-to do so, handi-

capped by MacShaughnassy's rules, would , I felt, be an achievement
that it would be pleasant to look back upon in one's old age. My
idea , had I succeeded , would have been to go over the neigh-
bourhood and brag about it. There were married friends of ours
living near us-experienced men who understood all about babies
and greenhouses and drains and such like things-who, I knew,
thought simply nothing of me as a family man . Here
was a chance for my showing these people what I could
do in a home. I pictured myself going down into their kitchens ,
raking out their fires, relaying them as this fire was laid, and then
telling them , as I stood pointing proudly to the grate, that I had
lighted and made to burn a fire laid in precisely similar manner.
They would not have believed me, but I should have had the
consciousness myself that I was speaking the truth, and that is
always a sensation worth enjoying, when you can afford it.
However, I did
not succeed, and my
ambition to become a
useful husband was
nipped in its bud.
I lit various other
things, including the
kitchen carpet and
the cat, who would
come sniffing round,
but the materials
within the stove
appeared to be fire-
proof.
Ethelbertha and I
sat down, one each
side of our cheerless
hearth, and looked at
one another, and " I LIT VARIOUS OTHER THINGS."
thought of Mac-
Shaughnassy, until
Amenda chimed in on our despair with one of those practical
suggestions of hers that sheoccasionally threw out for us to
accept or not as we chose.
66'Maybe,
" said she, " I'd better light it in the old way iust for
to-day."
370 THE IDLER.
" Do, Amenda, " said Ethelbertha , rising. And then she added,
" I think we'll always have them lighted in the old way, Amenda ,
ifyou please."
Another time he showed us how to make coffee-according to
the Arabian method . Arabia must be a very untidy country if
they make coffee often over there. He dirtied three saucepans ,
four jugs, one tablecloth, two strainers, one nutmeg-grater, one
hearthrug, two chairs, three cups , and
himself. This made coffee for two-
what would have been necessary in
the case of a party, one dares not
think.
That we did not like the coffee
when made, MacShaughnassy at-
tributed to our debased taste the
result of long indulgence in an in-
ferior article. He drank both cups
himself, and afterwards went home in
a cab.
He had an aunt in those days, I
remember, a mysterious old lady, who
lived in some secluded retreat from
which she wrought incalculable mischief upon
MacShaughnassy's friends . What he did not
know the one or two things that he was not
an authority upon-this aunt of his knew. ‫مهد معنده‬
"No," he would say with engaging candour-- HE SHOWED US HOW TO MAKE
COFFEE."
"no, that is a thing I cannot advise you about
myself. But," he would add, " I'll tell you what I'll do . I'll
write to my aunt and ask her." And a day or two afterwards he
would call again, bringing his aunt's advice with him ; and, if you
were young and inexperienced, or a natural born imbecile, you
might possibly follow it.
She sent us a recipe on one occasion , through MacShaughnassy,
for the extermination of blackbeetles. We occupied a very
picturesque old house ; but, like most picturesque old houses , its
advantages were chiefly external. There were many holes and
cracks and crevices within its cracking framework. Frogs, who
had lost their way and taken the wrong turning, would suddenly
discover themselves in the middle of our dining- room, apparently
quite as much to their own surprise and annoyance as to ours. A
numerous company of rats and mice, remarkable as a body for
NOVEL NOTES. 371
their fondness for physical exercise, had fitted the place up as a

gymnasium for themselves, and our kitchen , after ten o'clock ,
was turned into a blackbeetles' club. . They came up through the
floor and out through the walls , and gambolled there in their light-
hearted , reckless way till daylight .
The rats and mice Amenda did not object to . She said she
liked to watch them . But against the blackbeetles she was
prejudiced . Therefore , she was glad when my wife informed
her that she had received from MacShaughnassy's aunt an infallible
recipe for the annihilation of their tribe .
We got the materials and made the stuff, and put it about .
The beetles came and ate it. They seemed to like it . They
finished it all up , and were evidently vexed that there was not any
more. But they did not die.
We told these facts to MacShaughnassy . He smiled, a very
grim smile, and said in a low tone, full of awful meaning , " Let
them eat ! "
it appeared that this was one of those slow, insidious poisons .
It did not kill the beetle off immediately, but it undermined his
constitution , so that day by day he would; sink and droop without
being able to tell what was the matter with himself, until one
morning we should enter the kitchen to find him lying cold and
very still while the grey dawn came creeping in through the
shutter's cracks .
So we made more stuff and laid it round each night, and the
blackbeetles from all about the neighbourhood swarmed to it.
Each night they came in greater quantities . They fetched up all
their friends and relations. Strange beetles - beetles from other
families, with no claim on us whatever- got to hear about the
thing, and came in hordes, and tried to rob our blackbeetles of it .
By the end of a week we had lured into our kitchen every beetle
that wasn't lame for miles round.
MacShaughnassy said it was a good thing . We should clear
the suburb at one swoop . The beetles had now been eating this
poison steadily for ten days, and he said that the end could not
be far off. I was glad to hear it , because I was beginning to find
this unlimited hospitality somewhat expensive. It was a dear
poison that we were giving them, and they were hearty eaters .
We went downstairs to see how they were getting on .
MacShaughnassy thought that they seemed queer, and was of
opinion that they were rapidly breaking up. Speaking for myself, I
can only say that a healthier looking lot of beetles I never wish to see.
372 THE IDLer.
One, it is true, did die that very evening.

He was detected in the act of trying to make
offwith an unfairly large portion of the poison
and three or four of the others set upon him
savagely and killed him.
But he was the only one, so far as I could
ever find out, to whom MacShaughnassy's
recipe proved fatal. As for the others , they
grew fat and sleek upon it. Some of them ,
indeed , began to acquire quite a figure . We
lessened their numbers eventually by the help
of some common oil- shop stuff. But such
vast numbers , attracted by MacShaugh-
nassy's poison , had settled in the house,
that to ever finally exterminate them now
was hopeless .
I have not heard of MacShaugh-
nassy's aunt lately. Possibly, one
of MacShaughnassy's bosom
friends has found out her address
and has gone down and murdered
her. If so, I should like to thank
him .
I tried a little while ago to cure
MacShaughnassy of his fatal
passion for advice- giving, by re-
peating to him a very sad story " THREE OR FOUR OF THE
OTHERS SET UPON HIM
that was told to me by a gentle- SAVAGELY AND KILLED
HIM."
man I met in an American railway
car. I was travelling from Buffalo,
and, during the day, it suddenly
occurred to me that I might make
the journey a more interesting one by leaving the cars at Albany
and completing the distance by water. But then I did not know
how the boats ran , and I had no guide- book with me. I glanced
about for someone to question . A mild-looking , elderly gentleman
sat at the next window reading a book, the cover of which was
familiar to me. I deemed him to be intelligent, and approached
him .
" I beg your pardon for interrupting you," I said, sitting down
opposite to him, " but could you give me any information about the
boats between Albany and New York ?"
NOVEL NOTES. 373
"Well," he answered , looking up with a pleasant smile, " there

are three lines of boats altogether. There is the Heggarty line,
but they only go as far as Catskill. Then there are the Pough-
keepsie boats, which go every other day. Or there is what we
call the canal boat."
66 Oh," I said . " Well now, which would you advise me to-
4 He jumped to his feet with a cry, and stood glaring down
at me with a gleam in his eyes which was positively murderous .
"You villain ! " he hissed in low tones of concentrated fury, " so
that's your game, is it ? I'll give you something that you'll want
advice about," and he whipped out a six-chambered revolver .
I felt hurt. I also felt that if the inter-
view were prolonged I might feel even more
hurt. So I left him without a word, and
drifted over to the other end of the car, where
I took up a position between a stout lady and
the door.
I was still musing upon the inci-
dent, when, looking up, I observed
my elderly friend making towards
me. I rose and laid my hand
upon the door-knob. He should
not find me unprepared. He
smiled, reassuringly, however, and
held out his hand .
" I've been thinking ," he said ,
"that maybe I was a little rude
just now. I should like, if you
will let me, to explain . I think,
when you have heard my story,
you will understand, and forgive
me."
There was that about him that
made me trust him. We found
#6 HE WHIPPED OUT A SIX-CHAMBERED
a quiet corner in the smoking-car. REVOLVER. "
I had a " whiskey sour, " and he
prescribed for himself a strange thing of his own invention .
Then we lighted our cigars, and he talked.
Thirty years ago, said he, I was a young man with a
healthy belief in myself, and a desire to do good to others . I did
not imagine myself a genius. I did not even consider myself
exceptionally brilliant or talented . But it did seem to me, and
374 THE IDLER.
the more I noted the doings of my fellow-men and women,

the more assured did I become of it, that I possessed plain ,
practical common sense to an unusual and remarkable degree .
Conscious of this , I
wrote a little book which I entitled " How to
be Happy, Wealthy and Wise, " and published it at my own
expense. I did not seek for profit. I merely wished to be
useful.
The book did not make the stir that I had anticipated . The
public, apparently, did not care to know how to be happy, wealthy
and wise. Some two or three hundred copies went off, and then
the sale practically ceased .
I confess that at first I was disappointed . But after awhile,
I reflected that, if people would not take my advice, it was more
their loss than mine, and I dismissed the matter from my mind .
One morning, about a twelve-
month afterwards, I was sitting
in my study, when the servant
entered to say that there was a
man downstairs who wanted very
much to see me.
I gave instructions that he
should be sent up, and up accord-
ingly he came.
He was a common
man, but he had an
open , intelligent
countenance, and his
manner was most
respectful. I motion-
ed him to be seated.
He selected a chair,
and sat down on the
extreme edge of it.
" HE WAS A COMMON MAN, BUT HE HAD AN OPEN, INTELLIGENT " I hope you'll
COUNTENANCE."
pard'n this intrusion ,
sir," he began, speaking deliberately, and twirling his hat
the while ; " but I've come more'n two hundred miles to see
you, sir."
66
I expressed myself as pleased, and he continued : They tell
"
me, sir, as you're the gentleman as wrote that little book, How
to be Happy, Wealthy, and Wise.'" He enumerated the three
items slowly, dwelling lovingly on each. I admitted the fact.
NOVEL NOTES. 375
ain't one
" Ah, that's a wonderful book , sir, " he went on . " I
of them as has got brains of their own- no: to speak of-but
I know enough to know them as has ; and when I read that little
book, I says to myself, Josiah Hackett (that's my name, sir) , when
you're in doubt don't you get addling that thick head of yours , as
will only tell you all wrong ; you go to the gentleman as wrote that
little book and ask him for his advice. He is a kind -hearted
gentleman, as anyone can see, and he'll give it you ; and when
you've got it, you go straight ahead, full steam , and don't you stop
for nothing, ' cause he'll know what's best for you , same as he
knows what's best for everybody. That's what I says , sir ; and
that's what I'm here for."
He paused, and wiped his brow with a green cotton handker-
chief. I prayed him to proceed .
It appeared that the worthy fellow wanted to marry, but could
not make up his mind whom he wanted to marry. He had his
eye-so he expressed it- upon two young women, and they, he
had reason to believe, regarded him in return with more than
usual favour . His difficulty was to decide which of the two-
both of them excellent and deserving young persons- would make
him the best wife . The one , Juliana , the only daughter of a
retired sea-captain , he described as a winsome lassie , with fair hair
and blue eyes . The other, whose name was Hannah , was an
older and altogether more womanly girl. She was the eldest of a
large family. Her father, he said, was a God- fearing man , and
was doing well in the timber trade . He asked me which of them
I should advise him to marry .
I was flattered . What man in my position would not have
been ? This Josiah Hackett had come from afar to hear
my wisdom . He was willing-nay, anxious-to entrust his whole
life's happiness to my discretion . That he was wise in doing so ,
I entertained no doubt. The choice of a wife I had always
held to be a matter needing a calm, unbiased judgment, such as
no lover could possibly bring to bear upon the subject. In such a
case, I should not have hesitated to offer advice to the wisest of
men . To this poor, simple-minded fellow, I felt it would be cruel
to refuse it.
He handed me photographs of both the young persons under
consideration . I jotted down on the back of each such particulars
as I deemed would assist me in estimating their respective fitness
for the vacancy in question , and promised to carefully consider the
problem, and write him in a day or two.
376 THE IDLER .
His gratitude was touching. "Don't you trouble to write no

letters, sir," he said ; " you just stick down ' Julia ' or ' Hannah '
on a bit of paper, and put it in an envelope. I shall know what
it means, and that's the one as I shall marry."
Then he gripped me by the hand , and left me.
I gave a good deal of thought to the selection of Josiah's wife.
I wanted him to be happy.
Juliana was certainly very pretty. There was a lurking play-
fulness about the corners of Juliana's mouth which conjured up
to one's mind the sound of rippling laughter and the vision of
delicious childish poutings. Had I acted on impulse, I should
have clasped Julia in Josiah's arms.
But, I reflected, more
sterling qualities than mere
playfulness and prettiness
are needed for a wife.
66
Hannah," though not so
charming as Julia, clearly
possessed both energy and
sense qualities highly
necessary to a poor man's
wife. Hannah's father was
a pious man, and was "doing
well " a thrifty, saving
man, no doubt. He would
have instilled into her les-
sons ofeconomy and virtue ;
JULIANA WAS CERTAINLY VERY PRETTY." and, later on, she might
possibly come in for a little
something. She was the eldest of a large family. She was sure
to have had to help her mother a good deal . She would be experi-
enced in household matters , and would understand the bringing
up of children .
Julia's father, on the other hand, was a retired sea-captain .
Seafaring folk are generally loose sort of fish . He had probably
been in the habit of going about the house, using language and
expressing views, the hearing of which could not but exercise an
injurious effect upon the formation of a growing girl's character .
Juliana was his only child. Only children generally make bad
menand women. They are allowed to have their own way too much.
The pretty daughter of a retired sea - captain would be certain to
be spoilt. I could picture the choleric old fellow, pinching her soft
NOVEL NOTES. 377
cheek, while she coaxed him into letting her have this and do that
which she ought not to have and do-petting her and humouring
her every whim, and so ruining her for all useful purposes what-
ever.
Josiah, I had also to remember , was
a man evidently of weak character .
He would need management . Now,
there was something about Hannah's
eye that eminently suggested manage-
ment.
At the end of two days my mind
was made up. I wrote " Hannah on
a slip of paper, and posted it.
A fortnight afterwards I received a
letter from Josiah . He thanked me for
my advice, but added, incidentally, that
he wished I could have made it " Julia."
However, he said, he felt sure I knew
best, and by the time I received the
letter he and Hannah would be one.
That letter worried me considerably .
I began to wonder if, after all , I had
chosen the right girl . Suppose Hannah
was not all I thought her ! What a
terrible thing it would be for Josiah.
What data, sufficient to reason upon ,
had I possessed ? How did I know 66 THERE
WAS SOMETHING ABOUT HANNAH'S
that Hannah was not a lazy, ill-tem- EYE THAT EMINENTLY SUGGESTED
pered girl, a continual thorn in the side MANAGEMENT."
of her poor, overworked mother, and a perpetual blister to her

younger brothers and sisters ? How did I know she had been well
brought up ? Her father might be a precious old fraud : many
seemingly pious men are. She may have learned from him only
hypocrisy.
Then also, how did I know that Juliana's merry childishness
would not ripen into sweet, cheerful womanliness ? Her father,
for all I knew to the contrary , might be the model of what a retired
sea-captain should be ; with possibly a snug little sum safely
invested somewhere. And Juliana was his only child. What
reason had I for rejecting this fair young creature's love for Josiah ?
I took her photo from my desk. I seemed to detect a reproach-
ful look in the big eyes . I saw before me the scene of the little
BB
378 THE IDLER .
"1 SAW HER KNEELING BY HER FATHER'S CHAIR."

NOVEL NOTES. 379
far-away home when the first news of Josiah's marriage fell like a
cruel stone into the hitherto placid waters of her life . I saw her
kneeling by her father's chair while the white-haired , bronzed old
man gently stroked the golden head shaking with silent sobs
against his breast. My remorse was almost more than I could
bear.
I put her aside and took up " Hannah"-my chosen one. She
seemed to be regarding me with a cold smile of heartless triumph.
There began to take possession of me a feeling of positive dislike
to Hannah.
I fought against the feeling . I told myself it was prejudice.
But the more I reasoned against it the stronger it became. I
could tell that, as the days went by, it would grow from dislike to
loathing, from loathing to hate-and this was the woman I had
deliberately selected as a life companion , for Josiah.
For weeks I knew no peace of mind . Every letter that arrived
I dreaded to open , fearing it might be from Josiah. At every
knock I started up , and looked about for a hiding place. Every
time I came across the heading, 66 Domestic Tragedy," in the
newspapers, I broke into a cold perspiration. I expected to read
that Josiah and Hannah had murdered each other and died
cursing me.
As the time went by, however, and I heard nothing, my fears
began to assuage, and my belief in my own intuitive good
judgment to return . Maybe , I had done a good thing for Josiah
and Hannah, and they were blessing me. Three years passed
peacefully away, and I was beginning to forget the existence of
the Hacketts .
Then he came again. I returned home from business one
evening to find him waiting for me in the hall . The moment I
saw him I knew that my worst fears had fallen short of the truth.
I motioned him to follow me to my study. He did so, and seated
himself in the identical chair on which he had sat three years ago .
The change in him was remarkable ; he looked old and careworn .
His manner was that of resigned hopelessness.
We both remained for awhile without speaking , he twirling his
hat as at our first interview, I making a show of arranging the
papers on my desk. At length , feeling that anything would be
more bearable than this silence, I turned to him.
66 Things have not been going well with you , I'm afraid,
Josiah ? " I said.
" No, sir," he replied quietly ; " I can't say as they have,
380 THE IDLER.
altogether. That Hannah of yours has turned out a bit of a

teaser."
There was no touch of reproach in his tones . He simply
stated a melancholy fact .
" But she is a good wife to you in other ways," I urged. " She
has her faults , of course. We all have. But she is energetic.
Come now, you will admit she's energetic ."
I owed it to myself to find some good in Hannah, and this was
the only thing I could think of at the moment .
66 Oh, yes, she's that, " he
assented . "A little too much so for
our sized house, I sometimes think. "
" You see, ' he went on, " she's a bit cornery in her temper,
Hannah is ; and then her mother's a bit trying at times."
66
Her mother ! " I exclaimed, " but what's she got to do with
you ? "
"Well, you see,
sir," he answered ,
" she's living with
us now- ever since
the old man went
off. "
" Hannah's father ? He is dead ,
then ?
"Well , not exactly, sir," he re-
plied. " He ran off about a twelve-
month ago with one of the young
women who used to teach in the
Sunday School , and joined the Mor-
mons. It come as a great surprise
to everyone."
I groaned. " And his business,"
I enquired " the timber business ,
who carries that on ? "
" Oh , that ! " answered Josiah. " THEY AIN'T
Oh, that had to be sold to pay SCATTERED MUCH.
THEY'REALL LIVING
his debts- leastways , to go towards WITH US.
'em."
I remarked what a terrible thing it was for his family. I
supposed the home was broken up, and they were all scattered .
" No, sir," he replied simply, "they ain't scattered much.
They're all living with us."
" But there," he continued , seeing the look upon my face ; " of
NOVEL NOTES. 381
course, all this has nothing to do with you, sir . You've got
troubles of your own , I daresay, sir. I didn't come here to worry
you with mine. That would be a poor return for all your kindness
to me."
" What has become of Julia ? " I asked . I did not feel I wanted
to question him any more about his own affairs .
A smile broke the settled melancholy of his features . " Ah, "
he said, in a more cheerful tone than he had hitherto employed ,
" it does one good to think about her, it does . She's married to a
friend of mine now, young Sam Jessop . I slips out and gives ' em
a call now and then , when Hannah ain't round . Lord , it's like
getting a glimpse of heaven to look into their little home. He
6 Well, you was a sawny-
often chaffs me about it, Sam does .
headed chunk, Josiah, you was , ' he often says to me. We're old
chums, you know, sir, Sam and me, so he don't mind joking a bit
like."
Then the smile died away, and he added with a sigh , " Yes,
I've often thought since , sir, how jolly it would have been if you
could have seen your way to making it Juliana .”
I felt I must get him back to Hannah at any cost. I said : " I
suppose you and your wife are still living in the old place ? "
" Yes," he replied, " if you can call it living. It's a hard
struggle with so many of us."
He said he did not know how he should have managed at all if
it had not been for the help of the Captain, Julia's father. He
said " the Captain " had behaved more like an angel than any-
thing else he knew of.
" I don't say as he's one of your clever sort, you know, sir, "
he explained . " Not the man as one would go to for advice , like
one would to you , sir ; but he's a good sort for all that."
" And that reminds me , sir," he went on , " of what I've come
་་
here about. You'll think it very bold of me to ask, sir, but—— ”
I interrupted him . " Josiah ," I said , " I admit that I am
much to blame for what has come upon you. You asked me for
my advice. I gave it you. Which of us was the bigger idiot, we
will not discuss . The point is that I did give it, and I am not
a man to shirk my responsibilities . What, in reason , you ask,
and I can grant, I will give you."
He was overcome with gratitude. " I knew it, sir," he said.
" I knew you would not refuse me. I said so to Hannah . I said,
' I will go to that gentleman and ask him. I will go to him and
ask him for his advice.' "
382 THE IDLER .
" I said, " His what ? "

" His advice," repeated Josiah, apparently surprised at my
tone, " on a little matter as I can't quite make up my mind about."
I thought at first that he was trying to be sarcastic, but he
wasn't. That man sat there, and wrestled with me for my advice
as to whether he should invest a thousand dollars which Julia's
father had offered to lend him in the purchase of a laundry busi-
ness or a bar. He hadn't had enough of it (my advice, I mean) ;
he wanted it again, and he spun me reasons why I should give it
him . The choice of a wife was a different thing altogether, he
argued. Perhaps he ought not to have asked me for my opinion
as to that. But advice as to which of two trades a man would
do best to select, surely any business man could give . He said
he had just been reading again my little book, " How to be
Happy," etc., and if the gentleman who wrote that could not
decide between the respective merits of one particular laundry and
one particular bar, both situate in the same city, well, then, all he
had got to say was that knowledge and wisdom were clearly of
no practical use in this world whatever.
Well , it did seem a simple thing to advise a man about.
Surely as to a matter of this kind, I , a professed business man, must
be able to form a sounder judgment than this poor pumpkin-
headed lamb. It would be heartless to refuse to help him. I
promised to look over the papers, and let him know what I
thought. He rose and shook me by
the hand. He said he would
not try to thank me ; words
would only seem weak.
He dashed away a tear
and went out.
I brought an amount
of thought to bear upon
this thousand dollar investment sufficient to
have floated a bank. I did not mean to
make another " Hannah " job, if I could help
it. I studied the papers Josiah had left with
" I DISGUISED MYSELF AS A
me, but did not attempt to form any opinion
SIMPLE-MINDED YOUNGMAN."
from them . I went down quietly to Josiah's
city, and inspected both businesses on the spot. I instituted
secret but searching inquiries about them in the neighbourhood.
I disguised myself as a simple- minded young man who had come
into a little money, and wormed myself into the confidence of the
NOVEL NOTES.
383
servants. I interviewed half the town upon the pretence that I

was writing the commercial history of New England , and should
like some particulars of their career, and I always ended my
examination by asking them which was their favourite bar, and
where they got their washing done. I stayed a fortnight in the
town. Most of my spare time I spent at the bar. In my leisure
moments I dirtied my clothes so that they might be washed at
the laundry .
As the result of my investigations discovered that, so far as
the two businesses themselves were concerned , there was not a pin
to choose between them. It became merely a question of which
particular trade would best suit the Hacketts.
I reflected . The keeper of a bar was exposed to much tempta-
tion . A weak-minded man , mingling continually in the company
of topers, might possibly end by giving way to drink. Now,
Josiah was an exceptionally weak-minded man . It had also to be
borne in mind that he had a shrewish wife, and that her whole
family had come to live with him . Clearly, to place Josiah in a
position of easy access to unlimited liquor would be madness.
About a laundry, on the other hand, there was something
soothing and peaceful. The working of a laundry needed many
hands. Hannah's relatives might be used up in a laundry, and
made to earn their own living. Hannah might expend her energy
in flat-ironing, and Josiah could turn the mangle. The idea con-
jured up quite a pleasant domestic picture. I recommended the
laundry.
On the following Monday Josiah wrote to say that he had
bought the laundry. On Tuesday I read in the Commercial
Intelligence that " one of the most remarkable features of the time
was the marvellous rise taking place all over New England
in the value of hotel and bar property." On Thursday, in the list
of " Failures," I came across no less than four laundry pro-
prietors ; and the paper added, in explanation , that the American
washing industry, owing to the rapid growth of Chinese com-
petition, was practically on its last legs. I went out and got
drunk.
My life became a curse to me. All day long I thought of
Josiah. All night I dreamed of him. Suppose that, not content
with being the cause of his domestic misery, I had now deprived
him of the means of earning a livelihood , and had rendered use-
less the generosity of that good old sea- captain . I began to
appear to myself as a malignant fiend, ever following this simple
but worthy man to work evil upon him.
384 THE IDLER .
Time passed away, however ; I heard nothing from or of him,

and my burden at last fell from me.
Then at the end of about five years he came again.
He came to me as I was standing on
the doorstep, and laid an unsteady hand
upon my arm. It was a dark night, but
a gas lamp showed me his face. I recog-
nised it in spite of the red blotches and
the bleary film that hid the eyes. I
caught him roughly by the arm, and
hurried up into my study, and closed and
locked the door.
" Sit down," I hissed, " and tell me
the worst first."
He was about to select his favourite
chair . I felt that if I saw him and that
particular chair in association for the third
time, I should do something terrible to
both of them. I snatched it away from
him , and he sat down heavily on the
floor, and burst into tears . I let him
remain there, and , thickly, between hic-
coughs, he told his tale of woe.
The laundry had gone from bad to
worse. A new railway had come to the
town, altering its whole topography. The
" HE CAME TO ME AS I WAS STAND- business and residential portion had
ING ON THE DOORSTEP, AND LAID
AN UNSTEADY HAND UPON MY ARM." gradually shifted northward. The spot
where the bar-the particular one which I
had rejected for the laundry-had formerly stood was now the
commercial centre of the city. The man who had purchased it in
place of Josiah had sold out and made a fortune . The southern
area (where the laundry was situate) , it had been discovered , was
built upon a swamp, and was in a highly unsanitary condition.
Careful housewives naturally objected to sending their washing
into such a neighbourhood .
Other troubles had also come. The baby-Josiah's pet, the
one bright thing in his life- had fallen into the copper and been
boiled . Hannah's mother had been crushed in the mangle, and
was now a helpless cripple, and had to be waited on day and
night.
Under these accumulated misfortunes Josiah had sought
NOVEL NOTES. 385
consolation in drink. He was now a hopeless sot. He felt his

degradation keenly, and wept copiously. He said he thought that
in a cheerful place like a bar, he might have been strong and
brave ; but that there was something about the everlasting atmos-
phere of damp clothes, and the eternal smell of suds , that seemed
to sap his manhood .
I asked him what the Captain had said to it all . He burst
into fresh tears and replied that the Captain was no more . That,
he added , reminded him of what he had come about . The good-
hearted old fellow had bequeathed him five thousand dollars . He
wanted my advice as to how to invest it .
My first impulse was to kill him on the spot . I wish now that
I had . I restrained myself, however, and offered him the alterna-
tive of being thrown from the window or of leaving by the door
without another word .
He answered that he was quite prepared to go by the window
if I would first tell him whether to put his money in the Terra
del Fuego Nitrate Company, Limited, or in the Union Pacific
Bank. Life had no further interest for him. All he cared for was
to feel that this little nest-egg was safely laid by for the benefit of
his beloved ones after he was gone.
He pressed me to tell him what I thought of nitrates . I
declined to say anything whatever on the subject . He assumed
from my silence that I did not think much of nitrates , and
announced his intention of investing the money, in consequence ,
in the Union Pacific Bank.
I told him by all means to do so , if he liked .
He paused, and seemed to be puzzling it out. Then he smiled
knowingly, and said he thought he understood what I meant. It
was very kind of me. He should put every dollar he possessed
in the Terra del Fuego Nitrate Company.
He rose (with difficulty) to go. I stopped him. I knew, as
certainly as I knew the sun would rise the next morning , that
whichever company I advised him, or he persisted in thinking I
had advised him (which was the same thing) , to invest in , would ,
sooner or later, come to smash. My grandmother had all her
little fortune in the Terra del Fuego Nitrate Company. I could
not see her brought to penury in her old age . As for Josiah , it
could make no difference to him whatever . He would lose his
money in any event. I advised him to invest in Union Pacific
Bank Shares. He went and did it.
The Union Pacific Bank held out for eighteen months . Then
386 THE IDLER .
it began to totter. The financial world stood bewildered . It had

always been reckoned one of the safest banks in the country .
People asked what could be the cause. I knew well enough the
cause ; but I did not tell .
The Bank made a gallant fight, but the hand of fate was upon
it. At the end of another nine months the crash came.
(Nitrates, it need hardly be said, had all this time been going
up by leaps and bounds. My grandmother died worth a million
dollars, and left it all to a charity. Had she known how I had
saved her from ruin, she might have been more grateful . )
A few days after the failure of the Bank, Josiah arrived on my
doorstep ; and, this time, he brought his families with him.
There were sixteen of them in all.
What was I to do ? I had brought these people step by step to
the verge of starvation . I had laid waste alike their happiness
and their prospects in life . The least amends I could make was
to see that at all events they did not want for the necessities of
existence.
That was seventeen years ago. I am still seeing that they do
not want for the necessities of existence ; and my conscience is
growing easier by noticing that they seem contented with their
lot. There are twenty-two of them now, and we have hopes, if
all goes well , of another in the spring.
66
" That is my story," he said . Perhaps you will now under-
stand my sudden emotion when you asked for my advice. As a
matter of fact, I do not give advice now on any subject."
I told this tale to MacShaughnassy. I told it to him with im-
pressiveness and point. He agreed with me that it was instruc-
tive, and said he should remember it. He said he should
remember it so as to be able to tell it to some fellows that he knew ,
to whom he thought the lesson should prove useful .
HE SAT DOWN HEAVILY ON THE FLOOR, AND

BURST INTO TEARS.""
Rutherford the Twiceborn.
BY EDWIN LESTER ARNOLD (AUTHOR OF "PHRA THE PHOENICIAN " ).

ILLUSTRATED BY L. M. KILPIN .
T the twentieth outset of this story-when I have made

up my mind many times to tell it, and have as often
shrunk back from the paper and pen unwilling- I still
hesitate and doubt, weighing with he wretched sensitiveness of my
nature your certain ridicule against the hunger of confession that is
within me. Yet I must speak, and I will ! -here on the twentieth
venturing I feel the crowded incidents of that one marvellous
evening of my life rise up strongly before me ; the giddy, fantastic
thrall of the strangest hour that ever a mortal man lived through
possesses me again : my cold pen slips eagerly forward to the
betrayal, and this is the narrative of my shame and my penance
just as it came unasked upon me out of the invisible
past. I was the youngest son of an ancient family
boasting an untarnished re-
putation, and one of the best
rent rolls in the northern
country. When I was very
young I gloried in the splen-
did sweep of territory that
spread out in purple vistas
round Wanleigh Court, weav-
ing golden fancies of the
sweet share I would play in
the rule of my mimic kingdom , and
when I was a little older I quickly ·M.Kilpin
learned with a sigh that I had no more part
in that fertile realm than the meanest
peasant on it. Briefly, I was the
younger son of three, and before I was
come to manhood I had had a fiery
word or two with those above me,
and taken the younger son's portion , " I HAD HAD A FIERY WORD OR TWO WITH THOSE
ABOVE ME."
and went out into the world and eat
husks with social swine, and, too poor to ask and too proud to
beg, kept that sensitive, self- searching soul my ancestors had be-
388 THE IDLER .
queathed me and my frail, fine body together on the scanty

wages of two unable hands. Lord ! how I suffered during those
years , how nicely I measured each black abyss of humiliation , and
probed each raw wound, that my sensitive nature took in the rough
and tumble of that grim, ugly strife for bare maintenance , and
then- even now I cannot write it without a lump of genuine
sorrow in my throat -my father died , and Wanleigh passed to my
elder brother in the summer, and before the next spring it had
gone again from that brother's dead hands into those of Guy, who
came between us, and here, in a trice , Guy's horse had tripped and
tumbled at a fence, and Guy was gone in turn ! and I -ragged
John Rutherford-who had feasted for years on poor men's
leavings, and kennelled with his peers in leaky attics , was Lord
of Lutterworth and Worsborough , of Warkworth and Torsonce, of
Thenford House and Sudley Park, with a new world of delights
opening at my feet .
It was as sweet a flying sip from the full
cup of pleasure as ever a man tasted , and my
starving body and my hungry soul , I re-
member, burst into new,
young life withthe
bare conception of
it. And that brief
glimpse of delight
lasted one day. Be-
fore I had scarcely
ventured from my lair or
shaken off those cruel rags ,
which weighed like lead on
my proud spirit , some rolls
were handed to me as eldest
now and heir, the most
secret archives of our race,
SPEECHLESS IN MY GARRET, MY HEAD ON MY ARM ON and therefrom I learned in a
THE TABLE." few numb minutes what had
been to me before only a vague, whispered hearsay, that we held
our splendid holdings by fraud, and that many generations back,
but well within the discovery of research and the possibility of
restitution , should a Rutherford arise so minded , was a foul deed
of treachery and usurpation, whereby the lawful line had been
ousted from their right and ours substituted . That was all,
For six long, black hours I-ragged, hungry John Rutherford-
RUTHERFORD THE TWICEBORN. 389
lay white and silent and speechless in my garret , my head on my

arm on the table, that dreadful thing crushed in my unfeeling
fingers, my corporeal body inert and lifeless , while the good and
the bad within me fought desperate and long for the mastery,
until, when the sodden dusk of a December evening had fallen
across my cheerless window, the fight was finished and won , and I
rose to my feet pale and faint and grateful . I went out and
ordered that search which I felt would condemn me for ever to
my kennel, and the blank drudgery of living from which my soul
revolted . Then, I recall , I came back in the dark and took
down my crust and my pitcher, and could not eat or drink, but sat
like that all the night, cold and alone, fighting again all the
incidents of the fight, and so fell asleep at last in my chair in the
twilight, wonderfully, incredibly contented.
And now begins the strangest part of the story ! The search
begun at my orders prospered so well that soon the long sequence
of the wrong had been followed down until at last it seemed there
was only a step or two needed to snatch the splendid pageantry of
Lutterworth and Worsborough, Warkworth and gay Torsonce,
from me for all time. I bore those endless hours of torture in dull
resignation , and then, on the very
morrow of the final discovery, a
fierce yearning took possession of
me to see the old house once more-
a fierce hunger which overlapped
even the physical hunger in which
I lived, an insatiable longing to touch
even though it were but the humblest
thing that friendly hands had touched ,
to hide my heavy loneliness even for a mo-
ment in the kind mother shadows of my
home. And so I wet.
It was a wet, rough evening when I
turned off the high road I had been
trudging, and, picking my way in the still-
ness of the dark along broad avenues and
through lonely fir plantations , every turn and
bend of which were redolent to me of bygone
memories , presently found myself amongst
the tangled, neglected lawns and effaced
flower-beds of Wanleigh Hall itself. And as "IT WAS A WET, ROUGH EVENING."
I stood there in the sullen drip of the trees.
390 THE IDLER .
while the white moon shone between the chinks of the storm
upon the desolate face of that splendid sorrow in front, and the
black feet of the clouds trod in gloomy procession across the
sodden, unkempt lawns, the measure of the price of my victory,
the depth of my loneliness, was forced upon me, and I wrung
my hands and hid my face and prayed to the night time, prayed
to the great, unforgiving, inscrutable powers-prayed as I had
never prayed before in shame or in sickness , cursing in my
blindness and folly that black debt and him who had bequeathed
me to pay it and leant me against a tree and wept like the
weak fool that I was-wept , but did not waver !
Presently the gust was over, and walking out into the light I
hardened my heart and approached the house from whose many
windows only one small streak of brightness shone into the dark
air from where an old servitor and her husband lodged . The hall
had been left in charge of these, and it was they
who gave me admittance and had prepared in some
measure for my coming. I will not say what a flood
of memories rushed upon me as I stood again
in the old wainscoted hall , or, later on , as-
cended the broad stair-
case and passed down a
long ranked avenue of
my ancestors ' portraits
to my bedroom ; those
crowding recollections of dead
days were infinitely painful,
my senses were all on the alert
for laughing voices the memory of
which filled every echo in these
gloomy corridors with ghostly
meaning, and my heart hungered
for some sign of life or love to
break the speechless emptiness of
the desolate place. I washed and
dressed in moody abstraction , and
then made my way down to the
great banquet room, where a soli-
ASCENDED THE BROAD STAIRCASE." tary, stately supper was laid for me
in grim parody of my condition .
There I supped under the wide vaulted roof at the table that
had sat a hundred , the pale shine of two tall candles making a
RUTHERFORD THE TWICEBORN . 391
bright island of my supper napkin and plate and tankard in the

ocean ofthe gloom around- touching the white tips of the antlers my
kinsmen had brought home from long-forgotten hunts, and gilding
with their faint yellow beams buckler and breast- plate of that
ranked armour they had worn in long forgotten fights. On the
one hand-far down the hall-the lonely fire burnt away back in
the great cavernous grate- place, singing low, sad songs , it seemed ,
to itself as the grey smoke twined in wreaths up the wide chimney ;
and on the other hand the long, uncurtained sequence of the
mullioned windows and the wet raven night outside the plaintive
rustle of the dead, unseen summer things that for ever drew their
withered strands to and fro against the streaked diamond panes ,
and the sad sob of the evening wind wandering like a restless
spirit on the broken garden terrace- lifting with the invisible hem
of its sable skirt the rustling dead leaves, and gently trying in turn
with wet, soft fingers each casement catch and latchet ! Not a
being moved in that full- haunted house, not a sound broke upon
the dead stillness ; my head dropped upon my hand, and I grieved
with a stony, emotionless grief, like the grief of the stones around
me.
Then- all on a sudden- someone was
coming, and upon my empty ear fell the sound
of fine, small footsteps

in the dim corridors
at the distant end of
the hall ; those steps were
like the dripping of water in
the silence of a cavern, and
" I HELD MY BREATH, AND GRIPPED THE CARVED
LIONS ON MY CHAIR.""1 somehow, every awakening
fibre in me thrilled instinc-
tively to the measured ap-
proach of my invisible visitor. I held my breath, and gripped
the carved lions on my chair and stared, and then very gently,
inch by inch, and foot by foot, the heavy tapestries down beyond
the bottom of the long table were parted, and from between them
392 THE IDLER .
came an immaterial something, a smoothly-stepping shadow that

dropped the draperies behind it, and came meditatively forward
into the radiance of the low-burning fire, and there in the glow
stood a black velvet- clad Elizabethan gentleman, as like to myself
somehow, and yet not quite alike, as one bird is to another of
kindred feather ! For some minutes that strange figure stood there
gazing into the blaze, while I strove to steady my beating heart
and wondering fancies , and then it looked up . My whole nature
was fascinated by that glance. I felt a secret unknown association
between my essence and that thin essence in front of me which
was like the eager attraction of the two parted elements of one
common whole in a chemist's crucible. I did not fear or tremble ;
but a quick, strong, expressionless apprehension of my visitor-of
every turn and motion of him , of every touch and play the firelight
made on his soft velvet garments , the hilt of his silver rapier , or the
lines of his pale, passionless features enthralled me. And when he
spoke my heart was in my throat. "John Rutherford !" he said in a
low cadenced way—and I thought even the wind outside and the
raindrops had stopped to listen to him-" I have come to-night to
explain, to help you to explain, some things which you find
inexplicable. You have been wondering, and fuming, and fretting ;
cursing the unknown origin of your sorrow , and even blaming,
with bitter harshness , the stable equity of chance ! Your grief in
this is my grief, and both might end , " he murmured , with a gentle,
courtierly inflexion suiting him strangely, " if you will but lend
yourself to me. Now ! " he said, gliding gently up until I felt
the thrill of the cold , smooth presence that hung about him—
" now !-think-remember ! back son of a hundred fathers - back
into the dim- back up the long path you have come-think !
remember, I conjure you ! " and he laid a light, thin hand upon
my wrist, and at the touch of it every fibre in me began
fiercely pulsing, my breath came thick and short, my head grew
light and giddy, and all the real about became dissolved into a
vague immaterial shadow ; I , me , the hard, material passion-
aching me, and the solid life around was wiped out, and down I
went, out of my own control, down the plane of the immaterial
into a fantastic world-remembering at that magic touch all, every-
thing I had done ; step by step, backwards into the past my
wondering wide-eyed consciousness receded , watching that im-
mortal ego which was myself shrink from manhood down to
babiness, and then materialise again into another life in another
age, and heave and push and struggle, and shout and laugh and
RUTHERFORD THE TWICEBORN.
393 t
cry, and, ever acting as though that life it lived upon the minute
were the only one, the while it floundered slowly through am-
biguous sloughs towards the pale,
deathless glimmer of that distant
godly Hopewhich was
its life and being
-back reeled my
consciousness
back by death-
beds and altars
and cradles, and
cradles and
death - beds and
altars ; at one
minute of that
compressed un-
derstanding I
saw myselfloath-
some for base
design and deed,
and then the rhythm of that
ceaseless struggle for the 66 LAID A LIGHT, THIN HAND UPON MY WRIST."
better which my ego waged
mended as the baseness mended ; at one minute my staggering,
startled consciousness saw itself grey and lean and wrinkled—
stretched in courtly obsequies upon a bed of silk and minever- and
then, as a soldier hot and young, waving a broken hilt in the
thick red tangles of charging squadrons ; at one minute of those
lives that flashed in endless sequence before their liver, that
liver, sunk in shameful hopelessness, scarcely lived, and then
anon-at a hair's- breadth interval- he rose to heroic heights .
I could not stand the stress of that wild vision , and presently
ceased recalling all on a sudden, the material materialised again ,
and with a gasp I was myself the opaque curtain of cor-
poreal being clouded my mind, leaving only a vague conscious-
ness behind that I had forgotten something I had lately
remembered !
" Back again, sweet kinsman , " cried the shadow, standing right
in front of me ;
" back again, sweet comrade, back into the black
sea of the forgotten for that great pearl of fact you have not
found ! " and he touched me once more upon the wrist .
I struggled ; I would not go ; I gasped, and in a minute I had
gone again, and was spinning down long , dim vistas of the by and
CC
394 THE IDLER.
done-with, until I came at last, by episode of love and fear and

hate and redeeming sadness , back to where two half- brothers jointly
owned our land . This was the kernel of it all. The elder of those
two close comrades was learned and gentle, serene in his con-
fidence of the brother whose loyal friendship made half the sweet-
ness of the wide dominion that they shared . Another breathing
space, and I saw mad envy growing in the younger till it
ripened into a malice and savagery pictured against the dark
background of my fancy in his every pose and gesture, and lastly,
in one minute of shame and sorrow incredible, I saw him decoy
the other to a pleasant tryst, and stab him most foully in the back
-stab him twice and thrice till he lay bloody and dead in the
screen of the woods , and all for the sake of a few more acres ;
then sneaking home, traitor no less than coward , I saw him, by
lies and forgery, brand with infamy the true wife and children of
that brother ; and as he rose, wicked and flushed and triumphant
on their ruin, undivided master of Wanleigh and Worsborough, of
Torsonce and Lutterworth, I saw his face-and it was my own.
With a scream and a start I awoke, all the terror and shame
and confusion of that dread discovery working in my features . I
threw myself out upon the table in an agony of contrition , and ,
locking my clasped hands above my head , shut out for a minute
the long, dim length of the hall , half seen in the golden gloom of
the candles , and the deathless eyes of that grey inquisitor who
stood watching the tempest of emotions that racked my soul . So
it was I , was it ? I who had done that black, foul deed in another
life, and sown the miserable seed of which the harvesting also was
mine. It was myself, then , on whose head I had heaped a
hundred thousand curses. It was I , gentle John Rutherford , that
was the best butcher of them all . In my wild , incoherent grief
and astonishment I lay moaning like that for a minute, thinking
over in my living mind each step of the motley pageantry which
had carried me back into the past, and given me that strange
knowledge, that one chance, fleeting insight into the great
methods of the inscrutable powers. I forgot the grey shadow by
me until, in a minute, he touched me again, and said, more gently
this time, " The wrong was great , and great has had to be the
repentance, but the methods of the law which governs your life,
and mine—there where you are and here where I am—are as just
and as generous as they are unalterable. You have offended and
made restitution. Good ! This single circle of the hundred
thousand which compose your life is completed-now see how
nicely the ways of ' chance ' (forsooth ! ) fit to the needs of justice ;
think again, kinsman ."
But I dared not. I staggered back, back from the glamour of that
shrouding presence about him, back from those inflexible grey eyes
. pin
2.M Kil
66 STAB HIM TWICE AND THRICE."
standing out keen and bright like two pale planets in the dusky
night of my hall ; I wrung my hands in my stress like a woman ,
and wailed as the fear and the doubt and the wonder played like hot
metal in my veins ; in a frenzy of terror , with the courage of a rat
in a corner, I remember swearing I would not remember again,
and for answer in a thought he had touched me with that smooth ,
cold, velvet touch, and I was away, nevertheless, dreaming anew,
right back into that age where my earlier self had done the
baseness, and thence, this time descending through the years , I
followed on the heels of the outlawed ones I had wronged. I saw
those dear, flitting phantoms stream across the stage of my com-
prehension , dropping as they went from their gentle condition
down into lesser ranks, son succeeding to father, and brother
to brother, a long line of yeomanry living in forgetfulness on 1
the outskirts of the land that was theirs but for my treachery ;
‫י‬
marrying and working and dying, writing their names in
churches and chapels and Bibles, until so many of them had
slipped by that presently all knowledge of the wrong that had
396 THE IDLER .
been suffered and the right unrestored was gone from amongst
them ! But could I overlook it ? Step by step and life by life
I saw the right in the cottage come down step by step and life by
life with the wrong in the hall . I saw that right inviolate slip
from name to name and hand to hand ; twice
it was nearly extinguished , and then, when I
somehow knew in my sleep I had followed it
down almost to the actual present day, all the
right and heirship of our wide acres and many
halls was concentrated by true descent, and
existed only.in
one fair, unwot-
ting, yeoman
girl. I saw her
bud in the swift,
bright sequence
of my involun-
taryrecollection
from a tender cottage maid
into a comely woman with
averted face ; I saw one in
dress of better kind ride down
I SAW THOSE DEAR, FLITTING PHANTOMS." and woo her by cottage door
and hazel copse, and win-
and lead her to the altar-
and all my straining soul and aching heart and stretching nerves
were breaking to look upon their faces, for here were they who
had bred him who was to-day true lord of Lutterworth and
Worsborough - he to whom I must give place, and light and
life, the embodied heir of that deathless wrong I had done. I
half dragged the white linen from the table, and the clattering
plates and cups , in the bitterness of my expectation ; I half rose
from my chair with starting , straining eyes, still body- senseless
as I was , and waited for those two to turn. And turn they did
in a minute, and with a stagger and a start and a cry from the
lowermost depths of my soul I tottered out of my vision into
the material world again, and tossed my arms aloft, and laughed
and wept, and reeled, and then fell fainting right across the floor,
right at the feet of the grave, calm, gently smiling shadow who
was watching me, for I had seen them-all in one blinding,
dazzling moment of swift comprehension I had perceived that in
myself was the focus of wrong and of right, in me were both the
debt and the credit for those two were my father and mother !
*
* * *
There is nothing more to tell . I was ill after that, and when
I was well a bulky blue letter was handed
to me saying those who had undertaken
my search had, to their marvel , come to
conclusions the same as my own , but,
it need hardly be added,
by methods much more
prosaic. And Wanleigh
"6 SEES BET TER MEN

THAN HIMSELF IN
EVERY WASTREL THAT
HE MEETS."
and Worsborough , and Torsonce

and Lutterworth have a new
master-a humble, open-handed
master, who goes about thinking
he sees better men than himself
in every wastrel that he meets , and purpose in the purposeless,
and justice in injustice, and the clear heart of eternal equity
beating inviolate, imperturbable, and perpetual under all the noisy
pulses of casual life.
The Stump Orator.
By L. D. POWLES.
ILLUSTRATED BY J. F. SULLIVAN .
ASKS me to make a confession ,

and giv' myself away,
And tell yer all my story, ' ere,
in the light of day,
And yer swears by all that's 'oly,
yer won't betray my name,
And that fiver ain't a duffer ?-
well, all right, Boss, I'm game.
Wot part of the States was I born in ?
Yer say yer wants to know ?
I see, yer thinks I'm a Yankee cos
I'm called American Joe ;
That's kid, for I worn't born there,
nor nowhere near by miles,
I was dragged up ' ere in London ,
in the parish of St. Giles.
THE STUMP ORATOR. 399
Don't ask me questions yet, Boss .

Yer'll ' ave no need to pump.
I 'ates bein' interrupted ,
when I'm startin ' on the stump ;
I've promised to tell my story,
I'll do it, and never shirk.
Questions come after speeches ,
so let me git to work !
I'm one of the ' orny ' anded,

an honest artisan,
Wot can do a ' ard day's labour
with any workin ' man ,
Wot's allus earned his livin ' , straight,
square, and fair from his youth-
I beg yer pardon, Gov'nor,
I forgot I was speakin' the truth.
I allus begins like that, Boss , it does to open the ball,

And sets the jugginses cheerin' in every part of the ' all ,
For when they sees a cove wot ' as done so well at the game ,
The bloomin ' duffers fancies they can go and do the same.
Fust time I went

to quod then,
I did a six
months' stretch ,
All on
account of a
trifle ,
I thought as
I'd run and
fetch,
Wot chanced to
belong to a
neighbour as kept
a jeweller's shop,
But he come upon
me sudden,
and copped me on the ' op.
" HE COME UPON ME SUDDEN."
THE IDLER.
400
Ah ! the toke was ' ard as brickbats, and the skilly awful thin ,
And never a feelin ' ' eart to sneak yer a drop o ' gin ,
Or even a pint of porter, but the mill , and the cold ' ard bed !
It worn't a pleasant time, Boss , but I done it on my 'ead,
And come out as fresh as paint,

and set to priggin ' again,
And made acquaintance of Newgate, and
Wan'sworth, and ' Orsemonger Lane,
Till I'd done my bit of time in every
prison in town,
And several in the country from Norwich to
Sussex Down .
For the "tecs as was goin' then , Boss ,

was regular nailers to lag,
And there worn't no " safe deposit " where a
cove could ' ide his swag.
And at last I was tried at the Bailey for a job
I did one night,
Where they giv' me five years ' penal, and that's wot
put me right!
For, yer see, I'd learnt my book,

Boss , and didn't break no
rules,
Or fall foul of the warders like
some ofthem blessed fools-
No, I got well round the
Chapling, it took no more
nor a week,
I'd only to snivel a little and
shove my tongue in my cheek,
And turn up the whites of my

eyes, and talk some Tommy
rot,
I ' eard from a 'yde Park
preacher, but ' e swallowed.
the bloomin' lot.
B'lieved every word I told
' im , and went and started
a fuss ,
And got me put in the kitching, "I'D ONLY TO SNIVEL A LITTLE."
then made infirmary nuss ,-
And I read every book ' e lent me,

and swore a vow in my ' eart
I'd live and labour for others,
ah ! and make them others part !
For why should a cove work honest,
or spend his time in the jugs,
If ' e's got the gift of the gab, Boss ,
while the world's so full of mugs ?
Well, I got my ticket of leave , and the parson sent me off,

With a note of introduction to a kind of benevolent
Toff,
Who took a fancy to wot I called my statement
of facts ,
And turned me out at a weekly screw a
'awkin' tracts .
And I tried a bit of preachin', but didn't make much

at that,
Only studied the art of spoutin ' , and goin'
round with the 'at !
For it worn't so easy then, Boss , to trade
on the things above,
With no Salvation Army to give yer a
'elpin ' shove ;
And when my ticket run out I fancied I'd

take a trip ,
And the old Toff got me a berth aboard of
a Temp'rance ship-
For I'd learnt a lot in prison , so they took
me on as cook,
And I staid till we got to " Frisco,"
and there I sfung my ' ook. リ
Just after the sixties that was ,

when the French was in a fix,
And I loafell about the States till
eighteen seventy- six , " 'CEPT BY THE SWEAT OF MY BROW ! "
And I made a goodish livin'-

I could ' ardly tell you ' ow !
For I made it a'most in all ways-
'cept by the sweat of my brow !
402 THE IDLER.
Then I sneaked a bit of money, and when I come to land

In England, I'd a matter of a thousand " dols " in ' and,
And I'd studied hagitation and perlitical hintrigue,
And they made me seckereterry of the
66
Hanti- Capital League."
And whenever the workin ' man is bilked by a bogus cry !

You bet your precious life , Boss , I've a finger in the pie !
And a quarrel ain't been started ' twixt master
and man for years,
But what I've ' elped in settin ' the parties by the ears ;
For I've bled every blessed trade in every town until

I knows the ropes as well as I once did " Portland Bill " ;
And I've worked ' em to some purpose .
Aye ! and I've lined my puss
Till, though there's thousands better, there's
many millions wuss !
Question time's come now, Boss ! Wotever yer please to arsk

I'll answer yer straightforrud , as I'm throwin' off
the marsk ,
But don't yer keep me long, Boss, I see it's a gittin'

late,
And I'm lecturin' in the Chapel , just over the
road, at eight !
Well ! there's a muggish question ! " Ow do we fake the tin ? "
Why out of expenses , surely ! They covers a ' eap of

sin !
Ex's are magic things , Boss , it's wonderful ' ow

they mounts !
When pals does yer bookkeepin' and audits
yer accounts !
Do things go allus pleasant ? Well, it can't but be confessed ,

There's certain times and seasons when we ain't exackly
blessed
By contumacious cusses , as don't appear to like
To starve their wives and children , when
ordered out on strike.
WORKING
MEN!
SECRETARYOUR
SUPPORT
-STRIKE.
CO
COLLECTION WORKMEN
"" WE AIN'T EXACKLY BLESSED ."
And it ain't exackly pleasant when the

women come and whine,
And cry for grub for their babies !
But 'taint no business of mine,
And they're bound to do some starvin'
and freezin' o' cold o' nights ,
While their things are all at " the popshop,"
and fighting for their "rights.
Stand for Parlimint ? Not much-

I couldn't make it pay,
And I ain't ' alf showy enough
to work the Company lay,
And that's the only sort of swindle
wot I can see
A party can safely go in for
when he writes ' isself M.P.
404 THE IDLER.
Goin' to pay the members ! They haven't passed the hact,

I never count on nothin' wot ain't an existin' fact ;
And even if they do, Boss, it won't be so very fat,
Only a quid a day ! Well, there ain't much change in that
The London County Council will be much

more of a go,
There'll be " pickins " enough to be made up there
in a year or so,
When all their purity principles ' as been
sufficiently air'd ,
And the Councillors ' ave learnt the dodge of
gettin' properly squared .
Ain't there any of us honest ? Some was afore my time,

And I don't say every spouter has been convicted of crime ;
But if Salisbury wants a tip , Boss , when Parlimint ' as to gc
You tell ' im e can't do better than bid for American Joe.
D
N TE ION
WO SH!
SI
PO
T
US
OV TR
IK
BL
PU
RD
BO
F E RD
PER
Uncle Lock's Legacy.
BY JAMES PAYN .
ILLUSTRATED BY SYDNEY COWELL .
S there are some men who are always known by their

Christian names-James, or William , or Robert- and
others with whom their friends are more familiar still, and
use those names abbreviated-Jem, or Bill, or Bob-so there are
men who might have had no Christian name at all, so little is
there known of it ; except when they write it on a cheque it is never
in evidence, and they are known by their surnames
only to the end of their life's chapter. Of such a
kind was my Uncle Lock. Few of his acquaint-
ances, till they read it on his tombstone, were
aware that he was christened Richard , and if his
mother ever called him Dick (which I doubt), she
was the only one.
Once upon a time he was
married, though I did not know
him till he had been a widower for
a quarter of a century, but his wife
never addressed him by any other
name than Mr. Lock. The only
Se
Ch
parallel to this within my experi-

ence is the case of a lady of title
who speaks of her husband as
"my Lord," but Aunt Lock never
got even to that degree of
familiarity ; she might have called
him " my Mr. Lock " appropriately
enough, for they were more like a " MY MR. LOCK."
commercial firm than a married
couple, but I am sure she never ventured on the experiment. She
died after a few years of wedded life, not of a broken heart, for she
was not of that kind, but rather as one who, having had enough of
the business of life, retires from it early. She was not an attractive
406 THE IDLER .
person from any point of view, but she suited Uncle Lock much
better than anyone, including himself, had had any idea of. Hard
as he was, and harsh as he could be, he sincerely regretted her
death, and, what seemed curious to many people, showed it in a
very sentimental fashion . As a matter of fact, all of us who are
not absolutely inhuman are actuated by sentiment, and those who
deny it at least as much as other people ; and the more we re-
press the natural emotions the more extravagant become the
expression of them . Thus, though Uncle Lock never wore
mourning for his wife, not
even in the mitigated
form of a two -inch hat-
band , he put away every
article of jewellery and
clothing she had worn in
a room the door of which
was never opened, and
kept the very books (mostly
on cookery and house-
keeping) she had used,
under glass, like melons
or cucumbers.
There was a soft place
indeed, that few suspected,
in Uncle Lock's heart, and
his niece Sophy found it
out. It was impossible,
indeed, for her to miss it,
Coll if it existed at all, for a
more delightful child than.
Sophy Mayhew it was
difficult to imagine ; nor
would she have seemed
' HIS NIECE SOPHY FOUND IT OUT. "
capable of improvement,
had she not become the most charming and gracious of young
women.
When her parents died , which they did a few years after her
birth, and comforted no doubt by the reflection that they had
made the world happier and better by presenting her to it, Uncle
Lock adopted her, and, I am bound to say, did his duty by her in
every respect save one-unfortunately for me, a most important
exception. He would not allow her to marry the man of her
UNCLE LOCK'S LEGACY . 407
choice. The objection he put forward was that he did not approve,
on principle, of the marriage of cousins. Everybody knows that
when anything is objected to " on principle, " it means that the
objecting party has a personal dislike to it, and this was what
Uncle Lock felt as regarded the suitor in question. It was not
the consanguinity he objected to so much as me ; but the pretext
exactly suited his purpose, for no improvement in myself, or my
position, could get over the fact that Sophy and I had had the
same grandfather.
Although I was an orphan , like herself, Uncle Lock never
adopted me, but only, in due course, made me his confidential
clerk and secretary. The salary I received for my services
was small , but, on the other hand, I lived under the same
roof with Sophy, which would have been compensation enough
for anything . How Uncle Lock could have supposed it
possible that such contiguity could have resulted in anything
short of a passionate devotion to her is
amazing to me, but he stigmatised it
as idiotic. After expressing his views
about the marriage of cousins (enter-
y ll
Syda Cowe
" EXPRESSING HIS VIEWS ABOUT THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS."
tained, as I am persuaded, on the spur of the moment, and solely

with an eye to my discomfiture), he added : " Moreover, Master
Charles, I cannot conceal from myself, and know no reason why
I should do so from you, that it appears to me that your aspirations
are not very creditable to your sense of honour. I don't say that
408 THE IDLER .
your motives may be wholly mercenary, but you cannot be blind

to the fact that Sophy will probably be my heiress, and you have
nothing of your own but a hundred a year, so you are therefore
in the position of a mere fortune-hunter. Do you think it a high-
toned thing to look for your livelihood to your wife's money ? "
I replied that I was so wildly fond of Sophy that such con-
siderations had never occurred to me.
" At all events," he went on , "they have now been presented to
you ; and what may also suggest itself to you is that, when I am
dead and gone, my niece may, out of foolish good nature or other
causes " (that was howhe spoke ofthe noblest emotions of the female
heart) , "throw herself away upon you, penniless
though you be. Now I mean to stop that by the terms
of my will, by which it will be provided that she shall
marry a man of suitable fortune, say with
£20,000 of his own- if she marries a beggar
she will be a beggar herself, as in that case
my money will go elsewhere. I don't think
so ill of you as to suppose you would
drag her down to poverty and
wretchedness , but believe that
this proviso will put an end
once for all to any nonsense
between you, in which confi-
dence I shall retain you in
your present situation ."
SydneyCrosull To this I replied that, as
"I WROTE TO HER LONG LETTERS." to being a beggar, I could
hardly think it possible that
any man of humanity and good feeling (such as I paid him the
compliment of being) could leave the only relation (except Sophy)
he had in the world (myself) totally unprovided for.
At this he grinned, I must say, most unbecomingly, and
muttered something about somebody's " infernal impudence." I
added that my expectations from him were not unreasonable, but
only such as, I was sure, his own sense of right would dictate. I
did not ask him for the sum he had mentioned as the lowest tender
for Sophy's hand, but only for a modest competence . I felt
confident that if I had something to start with I could soon build
up a fortune by my own exertions .
To this he only replied by a guttural noise, which I am afraid
expressed contempt, and the subject dropped ; and for a long time
things went on as they had done before. Notwithstanding that we
UNCLE LOCK'S LEGACY. 409
inhabited the same dwelling, I saw little of Sophy, being kept hard
at work in my uncle's office till near dinner time, and even when I
got home had few opportunities of speaking with her alone . But I
wrote to her long letters every night, and slipped them under her
chamber door when I went down to my early breakfast with my
uncle, at which she did not appear. They were very tender and
hopeful , speaking of the great fortune I hoped to make one day,
whose only value in my eyes would be its enabling me to call her
mine. They were also plentifully interspersed with verse of the
most touching kind. And she on her part replied to them in the
sweetest strain, adjuring me to keep a good heart , and be confident
of her unchangeable love ; but still duty ran through all of them,
and I am well convinced that her gratitude to our common relative
(to whom she was indebted for all she had) would never have per-
mitted her to disregard his prohibition so far as to wed me in
secret, had I been capable of proposing such a thing. All these
letters I kept, tied up with rose-coloured ribbon , and read and
re-read again and again ; I have reason to believe she did the
like, nor did we ever dream that this innocent but agreeable
correspondence would be interfered with. But one day it came
to a sudden and miserable end .
In Uncle Lock's " study,"
as he was pleased to term the
apartment in which he often
looked at his banker's book,
but which contained
no other, stood an oak
desk most beautifully
carved. This was
Sophy's handi-
work, and, as I
had often told
him , I envied
him the posses-
sion of it more
than anything
else in the world.
One evening ,
when I returned
from office, he
threw this open , "I FOUND THESE IN YOUR ROOM, YOUNG MAN. "
and displayed in it, to my great indignation , a great many bundles

of letters tied with rose-coloured ribbon . D D
410 THE IDLER.
" I found these in your room , young man , and they are the
last you will ever receive from your cousin. She has given me her
word never to write to you again , on condition that I do not
destroy them, so here they will be kept safe enough . "
Transported with passion at this outrage, I exclaimed :
"When you ransacked my room I presume you read those
letters."
" You presume, sir, indeed , " he said , with a look of fury which
I shall never forget. To do my uncle justice, he was too much of
a gentleman to do anything of the kind , and such an imputation
was inexcusable. I made some sort of apology, but he only
answered :
" When I am dead , young man , you shall have them again ,
and not before."
Nothing more was said betweeen us, but I felt that I had
done for myself, so far as that " modest competence " from Uncle
Lock was concerned . It was characteristic of him, however, that
this incident made no difference in our external relations .
To outsiders, if we were not a united family, there was no
sign of any domestic unpleasantness, and though they instinctively
kept silence upon the matter, it was thought only probable (as,
indeed, it well might be) that we two young people were well
disposed to one another, and would sooner or later make a match
of it. If my uncle had objected to such an eventuality it seemed
only natural that he should have separated us, and placed me in
some other office than his own ; but , as has been shown , he had
taken another way with us, which he had good reason to feel
would be still more efficacious.
It was about six months after this that my uncle had a sudden
illness , which, though it did not confine him to the house for more
than a day or two, was, as I afterwards discovered , of a very serious
nature. He developed, in fact, symptoms of heart disease, and the
doctor, adjured to be candid, informed him that it was a warning
which would not be repeated-or, in other words, that his next
seizure would be a fatal one. The old gentleman received
this intelligence with much equanimity, merely observing that
his affairs had long been arranged with a view to any such
contingency ; nor did I notice that it made the slightest differ-
ence in his spirits or behaviour. There was, however, a
little difference, so Sophy afterwards told me, with very genuine
emotion , in his conduct to herself, which became more than
ever tender. I am glad to say I never spoke a word against
UNCLE LOCK'S LEGACY. 411
him to her, and carefully concealed from her my conviction that he

intended to cut me off with a shilling-a belief which, I am con-
strained to say, was never shaken by any demonstration of
avuncular affection . The sequel , however , shows how easy it is to
misjudge people , even when they are near relatives .
My uncle, about this time , was making some changes in his
investments, and one evening received more than £20,000 of
securities from his stockbroker ; as it was too late, of course , to
place them in his banker's hands, he locked them up in his desk for
the night, and retired to rest, neither better nor worse than usual .
Unhappily, in the morning, he was found dead in his bed.
This catastrophe , which
gave me genuine sorrow ,
though there had certainly
been " no love lost "
between us,
affected Sophy
extremely .
There was no
room in her
mind for any
consideration
of material
affairs, but for
my part I could
4 not help think-
Mu ing of Uncle
Lock's " testa-
'mentary dispositions." After the
funeral his man of business called
on her, but she refused to see him,
" I SUPPOSE IT IS ALL THE SAME,'
HE SAID." and referred him to me.
99
" I suppose it is all the same, '
he said, with a cheerful smile, and I feebly tried to look as if it was.
" You see, as there are no relatives but you two, " he went on ,
" and you two, as I understand , are going to be made one, there
will be no necessity for even a friendly suit,' which otherwise the
wording of your uncle's will might have necessitated . He has
forbidden his niece to marry anyone who is not possessed of at
least £20,000 , but then , as if to indicate the very person he wished
to wed her, he has left you that very sum , with just a few
hundreds over to pay, I suppose, the legacy duty. "
412 THE IDLER .
" Dear old man ," I murmured ; " how like him ! "
"Yes ; his method of leaving you the money was also
peculiar, one might almost say characteristic. To my nephew,
John Lock,' he says , ' since I know he values it very highly,
I leave my desk and its contents,' and in the desk was this
money. It, therefore, seems quite clear that it was intended
for you."
I nodded as confi-
dently as I could nod, but
words seemed somehow
to fail me.
It was not for me, a
mere layman, to dispute
a legal opinion.
Sophy, too , held
the same view as
the lawyer. She
had always
thought, she said,
that Uncle Lock
had only her
happiness in
view, and how
could he have
taken a better way
to ensure it ? She
" SHE HAD NOT A DOUBT OF HIS "1GOOD (TESTAMENTARY) had not a doubt of
INTENTIONS.'
his good (testa-
mentary) intentions. It was not for me, at that early stage of my
affections before I have even married her to contradict Sophy,
nor , indeed, have I ever breathed a word of doubt upon the matter.
But I sometimes think if Uncle Lock had lived a little longer-
say twelve hours-that those bonds would have gone to the
banker's, and his " desk and its contents " would not have been
quite so valuable a legacy as I found them.
Detective Stories Gone Wrong.
The Adventures of Sherlaw Rombs.
BY LUKE SHARP .
ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE HUTCHINSON.
(With apologies to Dr. Conan Doyle, and his excellent book, " A Study
in Scarlet.")
DROPPED in on my friend, Sherlaw Kombs, to
hear what he had to say about the Pegram mystery,
as it had come to be called in the newspapers . I
found him playing the violin with a look of sweet
peace and serenity on his face, which I never noticed
on the countenances of those within hearing distance.
I knew this expression of seraphic calm indicated
that Kombs had been deeply annoyed
about something. Such, indeed, proved
to be the case, for one of the morning
papers had contained an article eulogising
the alertness and general competence of
Scotland Yard . So great was Sherlaw
Kombs's contempt for Scotland Yard that
he never would visit Scotland during his
vacations, nor would he ever admit that
a Scotchman was fit for anything but
export.
He generously put away his violin , for
he had a sincere liking for me, and greeted
" I FOUND HIM PLAYING THE VIOLIN." me with his usual kindness.
" I have come," I began, plunging at once into the matter on
my mind, " to hear what you think of the great Pegram mystery. "
" I haven't heard of it, " he said quietly, just as if all London
were not talking of that very thing . Kombs was curiously
ignorant on some subjects, and abnormally learned on others . I
found, for instance, that political discussion with him was impos-
sible, because he did not know who Salisbury and Gladstone were .
This made his friendship a great boon.
" The Pegram mystery has baffled even Gregory, of Scotland
Yard."
" I can well believe it," said my friend, calmly. " Perpetual
414 THE IDLER.
motion, or squaring the circle, would baffle Gregory. He's an

infant, is Gregory . "
This was one of the things I always liked about Kombs .
There was no professional jealousy in him, such as characterises
so many other men.
He filled his pipe, threw
himself into his deep- seated
arm -chair, placed his
feet on the mantel , and
clasped his hands be-
hind his head.
"Tell me about it," he
said simply.
" Old Barrie Kipson," I
began , 66 was a stockbroker in
the City. He lived in Pegram,
and it was his custom to
" COME IN ! " shouted
Kombs , without changing his
position, but with a suddenness
that startled me. I had heard no
knock.
" Excuse me," said my friend , laughing,
"my invitation to enter was a trifle prema-
ture. I was really so interested in your
recital that I spoke before I thought, which a
detective should never do. The fact is, a man
will be here in a moment who will tell me all
"6
THREW HIMSELF
DEEP-SEATED INTO HIS about this crime, and so you will be spared
ARM-CHAIR."
further effort in that line."
Ah, you have an appointment. In that case I will not
intrude," I said , rising.
" Sit down ; I have no appointment. I did not know until I
spoke that he was coming."
I gazed at him in amazement. Accustomed as I was to his
extraordinary talents, the man was a perpetual surprise to me.
He continued to smoke quietly, but evidently enjoyed my con-
sternation .
" I see you are surprised . It is really too simple to talk about ,
but, from my position opposite the mirror, I can see the reflection
of objects in the street. A man stopped , looked at one of my
cards, and then glanced across the street. I recognised my card ,
DETECTIVE STORIES GONE WRONG .
415
because, as you know, they are all in scarlet . If, as you say ,
London is talking of this mystery, it naturally follows that he will
talk of it, and the chances are he wished to consult with me upon
it .Anyone can see that, besides there is always--Come in ! "
There was a rap at the door this time.
A stranger entered . Sherlaw Kombs did not change his
lounging attitude.
" I wish to see Mr. Sherlaw Kombs, the detective," said
the stranger, coming within the range of the smoker's vision.
" This is Mr. Kombs, " I remarked at last, as my friend smoked
quietly, and seemed half-asleep.
"Allow me to introduce myself," continued the stranger,
fumbling for a card .
" There is no need . You are a journalist," said
Kombs.
" Ah," said the stranger, somewhat taken
aback, " you know me, then ."
" Never saw or heard of you in my life
before."
" Then how in the world- 29
"Nothing simpler. You write for an

evening paper. You have written an article
slating the book of a friend. He will feel
badly about it, and you will condole with
him . He will never know who stabbed him
unless I tell him."
" The devil ! " cried the journalist, sinking
into a chair and mopping his brow, while his
face became livid .
" Yes," drawled Kombs, " it is a devil of a
shame that such things are done. But what " YOU ARE A JOURNALIST.'
would you ? as we say in France ."
When the journalist had recovered his second wind he pulled
himself together somewhat. " Would you object to telling me how
you know these particulars about a man you say you have never
seen ?'
" I rarely talk about these things," said Kombs with great
composure. " But as the cultivation of the habit of observation
may help you in your profession , and thus in a remote degree
benefit me by making your paper less deadly dull, I will tell you.
Your first and second fingers are smeared with ink, which shows
that you write a great deal. This smeared class embraces two
416 THE IDLER .
sub-classes, clerks or accountants, and journalists . Clerks have

to be neat in their work. The ink smear is slight in their case.
Your fingers are badly and carelessly smeared ; therefore, you are
a journalist. You have an evening paper in your pocket . Any
one might have any evening paper, but yours is a Special Edition ,
which will not be on the streets for half-an- hour yet. You must
have obtained it before you left the office, and to do this you must
be on the staff. A book notice is marked with a blue pencil. A
journalist always despises every article in his own paper not written
by himself ; therefore, you wrote the article you have marked, and
doubtless are about to send it to the author of the book referred to.
Your paper makes a speciality of abusing all books not written by
some member of its own staff. That the author is a friend of yours ,
I merely surmised. It is all a trivial example of ordinary obser-
vation. "
" Really, Mr. Kombs, you are the most wonderful
man on earth. You are the
equal of Gregory, by Jove,
you are."
A frown marred the brow
of my friend as he placed
his pipe on the sideboard and
drew his self- cocking six-
shooter.
" Do you mean to insult
me, sir ?"
" I do not- I- I assure
you . You are fit to take
charge of Scotland Yard to-morrow- I
am in earnest, indeed I am, sir."
" Then heaven help you," cried Kombs ,
slowly raising his right arm .
I sprang between them.
" Don't shoot ! " I cried. " You will spoil
the carpet. Besides, Sherlaw, don't you see
" DON'T SHOOT,' I CRIED." the man means well . He actually thinks it
is a compliment ! "
" Perhaps you are right, " remarked the detective, flinging his
revolver carelessly beside his pipe, much to the relief of the third
party. Then, turning to the journalist , he said, with his customary
bland courtesy-
" You wanted to see me, I think you said. What can I do for
you, Mr. Wilber Scribbings ?"
DETECTIVE STORIES GONE WRONG . 417
The journalist started .

" How do you know my name ?" he gasped .
Kombs waved his hand impatiently.
"Look inside your hat if you doubt your own name."
I then noticed for the first time that the name was plainly to
be seen inside the top-hat Scribbings held upside down in his
hands.
""
"You have heard , of course, of the Pegram mystery-
66
Tush," cried the detective ; " do not, I beg of you , call it a
mystery. There is no such thing. Life would become more
tolerable if there ever was a mystery. Nothing is original. Every-
thing has been done before. What about the Pegram affair ? ”
"The Pegram-ah-case has baffled everyone. The Evening
Blade wishes you to investigate, so that it may publish the result.
It will pay you well. Will you accept the commission ? "
"Possibly. Tell me about the case."
"I thought everybody
knew the particulars . Mr.
Barrie Kipson lived at Peg-
ram . He carried a first- class
season ticket between the
terminus and that station .
It was his custom to leave for
Pegram on the 5.30 train each
evening. Some weeks ago, Mr.
Kipson was brought down by the
influenza . On his first visit to
the City after his recovery , he drew something
like £300 in notes , and left the office at his
usual hour to catch the 5.30. He was never
seen again alive, as far as the public have been GenHutchmany
able to learn . He was found at Brewster in a
"" HE DREW SOMETHING LIKE
first-class compartment on the Scotch Express, £300 IN NOTES."
which does not stop between London and
Brewster. There was a bullet in his head, and his money was
gone, pointing plainly to murder and robbery."
" And where is the mystery, might I ask ? "
" There are several unexplainable things about the case.
First, how came he on the Scotch Express, which leaves at six,
and does not stop at Pegram ? Second, the ticket examiners at
the terminus would have turned him out if he showed his season
ticket ; and all the tickets sold for the Scotch Express on the 21st
R
416 THE IDLE .
sub-classes , clerks or accountants, and journalists. Clerks have

to be neat in their work. The ink smear is slight in their case.
Your fingers are badly and carelessly smeared ; therefore, you are
a journalist. You have an evening paper in your pocket. Any
one might have any evening paper, but yours is a Special Edition ,
which will not be on the streets for half-an-hour yet. You must
have obtained it before you left the office, and to do this you must
be on the staff. A book notice is marked with a blue pencil . A
journalist always despises every article in his own paper not written
by himself; therefore, you wrote the article you have marked , and
doubtless are about to send it to the author of the book referred to.
Your paper makes a speciality of abusing all books not written by
some member of its own staff. That the author is a friend of yours ,
I merely surmised . It is all a trivial example of ordinary obser-
vation."
" Really, Mr. Kombs, you are the most wonderful
man on earth . You are the
equal of Gregory, by Jove,
you are."
A frown marred the brow
of my friend as he placed
his pipe on the sideboard and
drew his self- cocking six-
shooter.
" Do you mean to insult
me, sir ?"
" I do not- I-I assure
you . You are fit to take
charge of Scotland Yard to-morrow- I
am in earnest, indeed I am, sir."
" Then heaven help you," cried Kombs ,
slowly raising his right arm .
I sprang between them.
" Don't shoot ! " I cried. " You will spoil
લેક યો the carpet. Besides , Sherlaw, don't you see
" DON'T SHOOT ,' I CRIED." the man means well . He actually thinks it
is a compliment ! "
"Perhaps you are right," remarked the detective, flinging his
revolver carelessly beside his pipe, much to the relief of the third
party. Then, turning to the journalist, he said, with his customary
bland courtesy-
"You wanted to see me, I think you said. What can I do for
you, Mr. Wilber Scribbings ?"
The journalist started .

" How do you know my name ? " he gasped .
Kombs waved his hand impatiently.
"Look inside your hat if you doubt your own name."
I then noticed for the first time that the name was plainly to
be seen inside the top-hat Scribbings held upside down in his
hands.
" You have heard, of course, of the Pegram mystery--"
"Tush," cried the detective ; " do not, I beg of you, call it a
mystery. There is no such thing. Life would become more
tolerable if there ever was a mystery. Nothing is original. Every-
thing has been done before . What about the Pegram affair ? "
"The Pegram-ah-case has baffled everyone . The Evening
Blade wishes you to investigate, so that it may publish the result .
It will pay you well. Will you accept the commission ? "
"Possibly. Tell me about the case."
"I thought everybody
knew the particulars . Mr.
Barrie Kipson lived at Peg-
ram . He carried a first- class
season ticket between the
terminus and that station .
It was his custom to leave for
Pegram on the 5.30 train each
evening. Some weeks ago, Mr.
Kipson was brought down by the
influenza . On his first visit to
the City after his recovery, he drew something
like £ 300 in notes, and left the office at his
usual hour to catch the 5.30. He was never
seen again alive, as far as the public have been
able to learn . He was found at Brewster in a
66 HE DREW SOMETHING LIKE
first-class compartment on the Scotch Express ,
£ 300 IN NOTES.'
which does not stop between London and
Brewster. There was a bullet in his head, and his money was
gone, pointing plainly to murder and robbery."
" And where is the mystery, might I ask ? "
" There are several unexplainable things about the case.
First, how came he on the Scotch Express , which leaves at six,
and does not stop at Pegram ? Second , the ticket examiners at
the terminus would have turned him out if he showed his season
ticket ; and all the tickets sold for the Scotch Express on the 21st
R
418 THE IDLE .
are accounted for. Third , how could the murderer have escaped ?
Fourth, the passengers in the two compartments on each side of
the one where the body was found heard no scuffle and no shot
fired ."
" Are you sure the Scotch Express on the 21st did not stop
between London and Brewster ? '
"Now that you mention the fact, it did. It was stopped by
signal just outside of Pegram. There was a few moments ' pause,
when the line was reported clear, and it went on again . This
frequently happens, as there is a branch line beyond Pegram ."
Mr. Sherlaw Kombs pondered for a few moments, smoking his
pipe silently.
" I presume you wish the solution in time for to-morrow's
paper ? "
" Bless my soul, no. The editor thought if you
evolved a theory in a month you would do well ."
66
" My dear sir, I do not deal with theories , but
with facts. If you can make it convenient to call
here to- morrow at 8 a.m. I will give you the
full particulars early enough for the first
edition . There is no sense in taking up much
time over so simple an aftair as the Pegram
case. Good afternoon , sir."
Mr. Scribbings was too much as-
tonished to return the greeting. He
left in a speechless condition, and I
saw him go up the street with his hat
still in his hand.
Sherlaw Kombs relapsed into his
old lounging attitude, with his hands.
clasped behind his head . The smoke came from
his lips in quick puffs at first, then at longer inter-
vals. I saw he was coming to a conclusion, so
I said nothing.
"HIS HAT STILL IN HIS Finally he spoke in his most dreamy manner.
HAND."
"I do not wish to seem to be rushing things at
all, Whatson, but I am going out to-night on the Scotch Express .
Would you care to accompany me ?"
" Bless me !" I cried , glancing at the clock, " you haven't time ,
it is after five now ."
" Ample time, Whatson-ample," he murmured , without
changing his position . " I give myself a minute and a half to
change slippers and dressing gown for boots and coat, three
seconds for hat, twenty-five seconds to the street, forty-two seconds
waiting for a hansom, and then seven minutes at the terminus
before the express starts. I shall be glad of your company."
I was only too happy to have the privilege of going with him.
It was most interesting to watch the workings of so inscrutable a
mind. As we drove under the lofty iron roof of the terminus I
noticed a look of annoyance pass over his face.
"We are fifteen seconds ahead of our time, " he remarked , look-
ing at the big clock. " I dislike having a miscalculation of that
sort occur."
The great Scotch Express stood
ready for its long journey. The de-
tective tapped one of the guards on
the shoulder.
" You have heard of the so -called
Pegram mystery, I presume ?"
" Certainly, sir. It happened on
this very train, sir."
" Really ? Is the same carriage
still on the train ?"
66
'Well, yes, sir, it is," replied the
guard, lowering his voice, " but of
course, sir, we have to keep very quiet
about it. People wouldn't travel in
it, else, sir."
" Doubtless . Do you happen to
know if anybody occupies the com-
partment in which the body was
found ?" 16 THE DETECTIVE TAPPED
ONE OF THE GUARDS ON THE SHOULDER."
" A lady and gentleman , sir ; I
put ' em in myself, sir ."
" Would you further oblige me, " said the detective, deftly
slipping half-a- sovereign into the hand of the guard, " by going to
the window and informing them in an offhand casual sort of way
that the tragedy took place in that compartment ?"
" Certainly, sir."
We followed the guard , and the moment he had imparted his
news there was a suppressed scream in the carriage. Instantly a
lady came out, followed by a florid -faced gentleman , who scowled
at the guard. We entered the now empty compartment, and
Kombs said :
420 THE IDLER.
"We would like to be alone here until we reach Brewster."

" I'll see to that, sir," answered the guard, locking the door.
When the official moved away, I asked my friend what he
expected to find in the carriage that would cast
any light on the case.
" Nothing," was his brief reply.
" Then why do you come ?"
" Merely to corroborate the conclusions I
have already arrived at."
" And might I ask what those conclusions
are ?"
" Certainly," replied the detective , with
a touch of lassitude in his voice. "I beg
to call your attention, first, to the fact that this
train stands between two platforms , and can be en-
tered from either side . Any man familiar with the
station for years would be aware of that fact. This
shows how Mr. Kipson entered the train just
before it started ."
" But the door on this side is locked," I " INSTANTLY A LADY
CAME OUT. '
objected, trying it.
" Of course. But every season ticket-holder carries a key. This
accounts for the guard not seeing him, and for the absence of a
ticket. Now let me give you some information about the influenza .
The patient's temperature rises several degrees above normal, and
he has a fever. When the malady has run its course, the tem-
perature falls to three-quarters of a degree below normal. These
facts are unknown to you , I imagine , because you are a doctor ."
I admitted such was the case.
"Well, the consequence of this fall in temperature is that the
convalescent's mind turns towards thoughts of suicide. Then is
the time he should be watched by his friends. Then was the time
Mr. Barrie Kipson's friends did not watch him. You remember
the 21st, of course. No ? It was a most depressing day. Fog
all around and mud under foot. Very good. He resolves on
suicide. He wishes to be unidentified , if possible, but forgets his
season ticket. My experience is that a man about to commit a
crime always forgets something. "
"But how do you account for the disappearance of the
money ? "
" The money has nothing to do with the matter. If he was a
deep man, and knew the stupidness of Scotland Yard , he probably
sent the notes to an enemy. If not, they may have been given to
a friend. Nothing is more calculated to prepare the mind for self-
destruction than the prospect of a night ride
on the Scotch express, and the view from
the windows of the train as it passes
through the northern part of London is
particularly conducive to thoughts of an-
nihilation ."
"What became of the weapon ? "
"That is just the point on which I
wish to satisfy myself. Excuse me for a
moment."
Mr. Sherlaw Kombs drew down the
window on the right hand side, and ex-
amined the top of the casing minutely with
a magnifying glass . Presently he heaved
a sigh of relief, and drew up the sash.
"Just as I expected," he remarked,
speaking more to himself than to me.
"There is a slight dent on the top of the
window-frame . It is of such a nature as
to be made only by the trigger of a pistol
"" THE TOP OF
falling from the nerveless hand of a suicide . THEEXAMINED
CASING MINUTELY WITH A
He intended to throw the weapon far out of MAGNIFYING GLASS.'
the window, but had not the strength . It
might have fallen into the carriage . As a matter of fact, it
bounced away from the line and lies among the grass about
ten feet six inches from the outside rail. The only question that
now remains is where the deed was committed, and the exact
present position of the pistol reckoned in miles from London , but
that, fortunately, is too simple to even need explanation."
" Great heavens, Sherlaw !" I cried . " How can you call that
simple ? It seems to me impossible to compute . ”
We were now flying over Northern London, and the great
detective leaned back with every sign of ennui, closing his eyes ..
At last he spoke wearily :
" It is really too elementary, Whatson , but I am always willing
to oblige a friend . I shall be relieved , however, when you are able
to work out the A B C of detection for yourself, although I shall
never object to helping you with the words of more than three
syllables . Having made up his mind to commit suicide , Kipson
naturally intended to do it before he reached Brewster, because
422 THE IDLER.
tickets are again examined at that point. When the train began
to stop at the signal near Pegram , he came to the false conclusion
that it was stopping at Brewster. The fact that the shot was not
heard is accounted for by the screech of the air-brake, added to the
noise of the train . Probably the whistle was also sounding at the
same moment. The train being a fast express would stop as near
the signal as possible. The air- brake will stop a train in twice its
own length . Call it three times in this case. Very well . At
three times the length of this train from the signal - post towards
London, deducting half the length of the train , as this carriage is in
the middle, you will find the pistol ."
" Wonderful ! " I exclaimed .
"Commonplace ," he mur-
mured.
Atthis moment the whistle
sounded shrilly, and we felt the
grind of the air- brakes.
"The Pegram signal again,"
cried Kombs, with something
almost like enthusiasm. " This
is indeed luck. We will get
out here, Whatson , and test the
matter."
As the train stopped, we got out
on the right-hand side of the line.
The engine stood panting im-
patiently under the red light, which
changed to green as I looked at it.
AS THE TRAIN STOPPED, As the train moved on with increas-
WE GOT OUT." ing speed, the detective counted the
carriages , and noted down the
number. It was now dark, with the thin crescent of the
moon hanging in the western sky throwing a weird half-
light on the shining metals . The rear lamps of the train
disappeared around a curve, and the signal stood at baleful red
again. The black magic of the lonesome night in that strange
place impressed me, but the detective was a most practical man .
He placed his back against the signal -post , and paced up the line
with even strides, counting his steps. I walked along the per-
manent way beside him silently. At last he stopped , and took a
tape-line from his pocket. He ran it out until the ten feet six inches
were unrolled, scanning the figures in the wan light of the new
DETECTIVE STORIES GONE WRONG. 423
moon. Giving me the end, he placed his knuckles on the metals,

motioning me to proceed down the embankment. I stretched out
the line, and then sank my hand in
the damp grass to mark the spot.
jroHulchinson.
IT IS THE PISTOL, SAID KOMBS QUIETLY."
" Good God ! " I cried, aghast, " what is this ? "
" It is the pistol," said Kombs quietly.
It was !!
* X
*
Journalistic London will not soon forget the sensation that
was caused by the record of the investigations of Sherlaw Kombs ,
as printed at length in the next day's Evening Blade. Would that
my story ended here . Alas ! Kombs contemptuously turned over
the pistol to Scotland Yard . The meddlesome officials, actuated ,
as I always hold, by jealousy, found the name of the seller upon
it. They investigated . The seller testified that it had never been
in the possession of Mr. Kipson, as far as he knew. It was sold to
a man whose description tallied with that of a criminal long
watched by the police. He was arrested, and turned Queen's
evidence in the hope of hanging his pal. It seemed that Mr.
Kipson, who was a gloomy, taciturn man, and usually came home
in a compartment by himself, thus escaping observation , had been
murdered in the lane leading to his house. After robbing him , the
miscreants turned their thoughts towards the disposal of the body
-a subject that always occupies a first- class criminal mind before
424 THE IDLER.
the deed is done. They agreed to place it on the line, and have it
mangled by the Scotch Express, then nearly due. Before they got
the body half-way up the embankment the express came along
and stopped . The guard got out and walked along the other side
to speak with the engineer. The thought of putting the body into
an empty first-class carriage instantly occurred to the murderers .
They opened the door with the deceased's key. It is supposed
that the pistol dropped when they were hoisting the body in
the carriage.
The Queen's evidence dodge didn't work, and Scotland Yard
ignobly insulted my friend Sherlaw Kombs by sending him a pass
to see the villains hanged.
FRED MILLER
An Ornithological Romance.
By W. L. Alden .
ILLUSTRATED BY RICHARD JACK.
OUR Americans were sitting in the smoking room of a Paris

hotel . One of them was a grizzled , middle-aged man , who
sat silent and apart from the others and consumed his
heavy black cigar with a somewhat gloomy air . The other three
were briskly talking. They had been three days in Paris , and had
visited the Moulin Rouge, the tomb of Napoleon , and the sewers ,
and naturally felt that they were thoroughly acquainted with the
French capital, the French Government, and the French people .
They were unanimously of the opinion that Paris was in all things
fifty years behind the age, and at least sixty behind Chicago .
There was nothing fit to eat , drink, or smoke in Paris . The
French railway carriages were wretched, and afforded no facilities
for burning travellers in case of an accident. The morals of
French society- as studied at the Moulin Rouge- were utterly
corrupt, owing possibly to that absence of free trade in wives and
husbands which a liberal system of divorce permits . The French
people did not understand English , which was alone sufficient to
prove them unfit for self- government, and their preference for
heavy five franc pieces when they might have adopted soft and
greasy dollar bills showed their incurable lack of cleanliness .
Suddenly the silent man touched the bell and summoned a
waiter.
66
Waiter," he said, as that functionary entered the room ,
" bring me an owl."
" If you please, sir ?" suggested the waiter, timidly.
" I said, bring me an owl. If you pretend to talk English you
ought to understand that."
66
Yes, sir. Certainly, sir. How would you please to have the
nowl ?"
" Never you mind . You go and bring me an owl, and don't
be too long about it."
The waiter was gone some little time , and , then returning, said ,
E E
426 THE IDLER .
" I am very sorry, sir, but we cannot give you a nowl to-night.
The barkeeper is out of one of the materials for making nowls .
But I can bring you a very nice cocktail."
Wes
" WAITER,' HE SAID, AS THAT FUNCTIONARY ENTERED THE ROOM, 'BRING ME AN OWL.' "
" Never mind ," replied the American . " That'll do. You can
go now ."
" I beg your pardon , sir," said one of the three anatomisers of
the French people , speaking with that air of addressing a vast
AN ORNITHOLOGICAL ROMANCE. 427
popular assemblage which is so characteristic of dignified American

conversationalists . " Would you do me the favour to tell me, and
these gentlemen , why you ordered an owl ?"
"I don't mind telling you, " was the answer, " but I can't very
well do it without telling you a story first."
"All right, Colonel. Give us the story by all means ."
The elderly American leaned back in his chair searching for
inspiration with his gaze fixed on the chandelier. He rolled his
cigar lightly from one corner of his mouth to the other, and back
again, and presently began :
"A parrot, gentlemen, is the meanest of all creation . People
that are acquainted with parrots, and I don't know as you are ,
generally admit that there is nothing that can make a parrot
ashamed of himself. Now this is a mistake , for I've seen a parrot
made ashamed of himself, and he was the most conceited parrot
that was ever seen outside of Congress . It happened in this way.
" I came home one day and found a parrot
in the house. My
daughter Mamie had
hought him off a sailor
who was tramping
through the ..n. Said
he had been ship-
wrecked, and he and the
parrot were the only
persons saved .
JAC
66 HE AND THE PARROT WERE THE ONLY PERSONS SAVED. :
He had made up his mind never to part with that bird, but he was
so anxious to get to the town where his mother lived that he would
sell him for a dollar. So Mamie she buys him, and hangs him
up in the parlour, and waits for him to talk.
" It turned out that the parrot couldn't talk anything but Spanish,
and very little of that. And he wouldn't learn a word of English,
though my daughter worked over him as if he had been a whole
Sunday school . But one day he all at once began to teach him-
428 THE IDLER .
self English . Invented a sort of Ollendorff way of studying,

perhaps because he had heard Mamie studying French that way.
He'd begin by saying, ' Does Polly want a cracker ? ' and then
he'd go on and ring the changes. For example, just to give you
an idea of the system, he'd say, Does Polly want the lead
cracker of the plumber, or the gold cracker of the candlestick
C
maker ?' and then he'd answer, No , Polly does not want the
lead cracker of the plumber, nor the gold cracker of the candle-
stick maker, but the large steel cracker of the
blacksmith. ' He used to study in this way three
hours every morning, and three
every afternoon , and never
stop for Sundays, being , as I
suppose, a Roman Catholic,
and not a Sabbath - keeping
bird. I never saw a
bird so bent on learn-
ing a language as
this one was , and he
fetched it. In three
months' time that
parrot could talk
English as well as
you or me, and a
blamed sight better
than that waiter who
pretends that he talks
English. The trouble was
the parrot would talk all
the time when he was
not asleep. My wife
is no slouch at talk-
ing, but I've seen her
burst into tears
RJ and say, ' It's no
use, I can't get
in a word edge-
"ASKING THE CAT IF HE HAD EVER SEEN A MOUSE." wise. And no
more could she . That
bird was just talking us deaf, dumb, and blind . The cat, he gave
it up at an early stage of the proceedings . The parrot was
so personal in his remarks-asking the cat if he had ever seen
a mouse in his whole life, and wanting to know who it was that
helped him to paint the back fence red the other night, till the cat,
after cursing till all was blue, went out of the house and never
showed up again. He hadn't the slightest regard for anybody's
feelings, that bird hadn't. No parrot ever has .
" He wasn't content with talking three-fourths of the time, but
he had a habit of thinking out loud which was far worse than his
conversation. For instance , when young Jones called of an even-
ing on my daughter, the parrot would say, ' Well , I suppose that
young idiot will stay till midnight, and keep the whole house
awake as usual.' Or when the Unitarian minister came to see
my wife the parrot would just as likely as not remark, ' Why
don't he hire a hall if he must preach, instead of coming here and
wearing out the furniture.' Nobody would believe that the parrot
made these remarks of his own accord, but insisted that we must
have taught them to him. Naturally, folks didn't like this sort
of thing, and after a while hardly anybody came inside our front
door.
"And then that bird developed a habit of bragging that was
simply disgusting. He would sit up by the hour and brag about
his superiority to other birds , and the beauty of his feathers , and
his cage, and the gorgeousness of the parlour, and the genera!
W
R.JACK
" THE PARROT BEGAN BY TRYING TO DAZZLE THE OWL WITH HIS CONVERSATION,
BUT IT WOULDN'T WORK."
430 THE IDLER.
meanness of everything except himself and his possessions. He

made me so tired that I sometimes wished I was deaf. You see
it was the infernal ignorance of the bird that aggravated me. He
didn't know a thing of the world outside of our parlour ; and yet
he'd brag and brag till you couldn't rest.
" You may say, why didn't we kill him, or sell him , or give him to
the missionaries, or something of that sort. Well Mamie, she said
it would be the next thing to murder if we were to wring his neck ;
and that selling him would be about the same as the slave trade.
She wouldn't let me take the first step towards getting rid of the
parrot, and the prospect was that he'd drive us clean out of the
house.
"One day a man who had had considerable experience of parrots
happened to come in , and when I complained of the bird he said,
'Why don't you get an owl ? You get an owl, and hang him up
close to that parrot's cage, and in about two days you'll find that
your bird's dead sick of unprofitable conversation ."
"Well, I got a small owl, and put him in a cage close to the
parrot's cage. The parrot began by trying to dazzle the owl with
his conversation, but it wouldn't work. The owl sat and looked
at the parrot just as solemn as a minister whose salary has been
cut down, and after a while the parrot tried him with Spanish . It
wasn't of any use . Not a word would the owl let on to under-
Was.C
TJACK
" ONE OF THEM INVITED THE OTHER TWO TO STEP OVER TO HENRY'S
AND TAKE SOMETHING."
stand. Then the parrot tried bragging, and laid himself out to
make the owl believe that of all the parrots in existence he was
the ablest. But he couldn't turn a feather of the owl. That
noble bird sat silent as the grave , and looked at the parrot as if to
say, This is indeed a melancholy exhibition of imbecility !'
Well , before night that parrot was so ashamed of himself that he
closed for repairs, and from that day forth he never spoke an un-
necessary word. Such, gentlemen, is the influence of example
even on the worst of birds ."
The American lit a fresh cigar, and, pulling his hat over his
eyes, fell into profound meditation . His three auditors made no
comment on his story, and did not repeat the inquiry why he had
asked the waiter for an owl . They smoked in silence for some
moments, and then one of them invited the other two to step over
to Henry's and take something-an invitation which they promptly
accepted, and the smoking room knew them no more that night .
HAEST ECTOP INTOT DRY

THE OXFORD CREW.
J. A. Ford, Esq., H. B. Cotton, Esq ., W. A. S. Hewitt, Esq.,
Brasenose. Magdalen. Univ. Coll
F. E Robeson, Esq., R. P. P. Rowe, Esq., V Nickalls, Esq.,
Merton. Magdalen ( President). Magdalen.
W. A. L. Fletcher, Esq ., J. P Heywood Lonsdale, Esq ., C. M. Pitman , Esq.,
Ch . Ch . New. Coll. (Cox.) New Coll.
(From Photos taken for " THE IDLER by Messrs. Hills & Saunders, Oxford.)
CHOICE BLENDS. 433
THE OXFORD CREW.

Nine in One.
Composite Photo by Boning and Small, 22, Baker Street, W.
THE CAMBRIDGE CREW.
R. G. Neill, Esq ., E. W. Lord, Esq. G. Francklyn, Esq.,
Jesus. Trin. Hall. Third Trin.
E. T. Fison, Esq., G. Elin, Esq., W. Landale, Esq.,
Corpus. Trin. Coll. ( President.) Trin. Hall,
G C. Kerr, Esq., J. V. Braddon, Esq., C. T. Fogg- Elliot, Esq., 114
First Trin. Trin. Hall (Cox.) Trin. Hall.
(From photos taken for " THE IDLER " by Messrs. Stearn, Cambridge.)
CHOICE BLENDS. 435
THE CAMBRIDGE CREW.

Nine in One.
A Suicide.
BY MABEL E. WOTTON.
ILLUSTRATED BY THE MISSES HAMMOND.
F you don't get away at once, at once, mind you, the conse-
IF
quences will be of the gravest . To winter in England in
your present condition would be deliberate suicide."
This was the verdict with which Major Dallas had been
confronted that morning, and this it was which he was now
pondering as he sat at the club window in St. James's Street,
meditating the few arrangements it would be necessary to
make before starting for Egypt in, say, a couple of days ' time.
The prospect was not a disagreeable one. His
wife had died years before ; his only child , a
son, was married and settled in London ; and
the quiet home in Dorset, where he spent the
greater part of the year, could be trusted to take
care of itself. It was not worth while running
down to it again- two or three letters would
suffice, and then he could pick up whatever was
absolutely necessary in
town , say good - bye to
Ralph, and be off. There
was no possible escape
from the unconciliatory
opinion as regards his
health, for the doctor was
a personal friend of his
own , and had impressed
66 HE SAT AT THE CLUB WINDOW." upon him at some length
both the present precarious
condition of his lungs , and that it would be " deliberate suicide "-
the phrase kept recurring to his patient's mind- if he stayed in
England . And to Dallas, being a man of simple, old-fashioned
creeds and God- fearing habits, this settled the matter.
He was just beginning a note to his lawyer when the desultory
talk of a little knot of men near him, to which he had been
listening perforce, though without heeding it, suddenly arrested his
attention .
A SUICIDE. 437
"There goes Ray," said a voice, apparently in reference to a

man who was then passing. " I bet you anything you like he is
going to call on Mrs. Ralph Dallas . He is head over ears in love
with her, you know."
" You should join the staff of The Repeater," returned one of
the two friends he addressed. " They have a partiality for stale
news there."
The first speaker flushed hotly. He was
little more than a lad , and a possible scandal
being a newer thing to him than to his com-
panions, he felt nettled at the way his
remarks had been received.
66 I believe she'll bolt with him
sooner or later, from what I am told,"
he said sagely, and would have waxed
eloquent upon the subject had the
others not agreed carelessly, and then
sauntered off, none of the three be-
stowing a secondary glance on the
eiderly man at the writing table. Dallas
was very seldom at his club, and but
few of the members knew him by sight.
His hand trembled a little as he laid
down his pen , and, sorting the letters
in his pocket-book, took up one from
his son. Ray ? Ray ? Surely Ralph
had mentioned that name in his last
" TOOK UP ONE FROM HIS SON." letter. Yes , here it was.
" This secretary business keeps me
pretty close at work, and the little Thursday dinners you ask about
have almost fallen through. However, I want to arrange one when
you are in town, ifI can possibly spare an evening, to make you
acquainted with a Mr. Julius Ray, of whom we see a good deal.
He is a brilliant talker, and I think would interest you ."
Dallas was not an emotional man. The hand with which
he refolded the letter was quite steady again , and he did not
shift his attitude as he sat thinking over what he had heard .
He had thought the young people so happy ; what was this
horrible thing these men had openly discussed ? To be sure
he had never quite understood Ralph's choice, nor cared much
for his young wife, Elizabeth. She was a pale -faced girl,
ER .
438 THE IDL
given to dressing in neutral tints, and was apt to

jar upon the Major, who was ultra - fastidious on
such points, by her excessive anxiety to do the
right thing socially, and to mould her opinions
upon those of the Countess of Townley, who was
the great lady of her little world . But it was
characteristic of him that when once the first
shock of the thing was over, he insisted to him-
self that if this were true it was thanks to
Ralph's self-absorption . It could not be the
ault of a young girl, and one, too, who bore the
name of his dead wife. Very slowly he tore up
the half-written letter, and , without farther
thought of the doctor's warning, went out
into the misty streets, and so on to his son's
home. At all events, he decided , he would
not leave England for a week or two ; he
Iwould see how matters went.
Matters went in such a fashion that
when, Christmas being now within appre-
ciable distance , Julius Ray and his friend's
wife met by appointment one morning at
a Bond Street gallery, they greeted each
other with more than their usual pleasure ,
owing to the fact that for the last five
days their little outings had been marred
by an unwelcome third, in the person of
Major Dallas.
66 SHE WAS A PALE-FACED GIRL." " I never knew such a tactless booby
in my life !" Ray said irritably, in com-
menting on this fact. " Can't he see for himself that his room
would be preferred to his company ?"
" I wish he could," said little Mrs. Ralph ruefully. " But he is
so fond of going about, and it would offend Ralph awfully if I refused
to take him now he is our guest. And besides , he is an old dear ! I
believe if I asked him to cut off his head , he would give it me."
Ray glanced at her askance . This almost childish fashion
of taking his speeches literally lent her an odd fascination which
sometimes piqued , sometimes delighted him. What was the use
of pretending to him ? When one watches a man fall over a
precipice, it is a pretty safe conclusion to warrant him dead at the
bottom . And there are certain flirtations which are bound to
A SUICIDE. 439
find their last chapter in the night train to Paris, and in a fool's
paradise located somewhere south of Monte Carlo.
" You'll make me jealous ," he said sud-
denly, and she turned and laughed at him.
" You," she said, and Ray's ill -humour
vanished . Dallas might blunder on as he
would, for there was no other in all the world
who could bring such a look to her face as that.
"Where are you supposed to be now ? " he
asked her presently, for it worried her
to look at pictures systematically, and
her plan of sitting on a central couch,
and just glancing at whatever, by
virtue of frame or colouring ,
WHERE ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO

BE NOW: "
caught her eye, was con-

ducive to much cosy chatter.
"At the dressmaker's ,"
she answered, with a blithe
little laugh. "Even the
most devoted of fathers - in-
law could not pretend to any
authority on gowns."
" Or coats," said Ray
with a smile.
" Did I quite ruin you
over it ?" she returned . " I
can't help it, Ju. When
you told me to give the
tailor carte blanche, I could
not resist this beauty. You
like me in fur, don't you ? "
" Yes. '
" Or out of it, Ju ? "
" Yes." WHAT YOU WOULD HAVE ME THINK, DEAR.'
99
" In fact, you think me
"What you would have me think, dear." His hand stole
440 THE IDLER .
forward and imprisoned hers : the room was deserted , save for
the secretary, who, at the farther corner, was discreetly mending
the fire the scent of the violets she had fastened to her muff
rose fragrantly in the hushed, warm air. " I want to be just the
complement of you, supplying-well, furs, if the whim so takes
you, or friendship when you choose to take it. Sympathy always
-have I not proved it ?-and more than sympathy when you-
when you let me . Is this a very low ambition ? "
" It is a very comfortable one for me," said the girl. " But more
than sympathy ? What can be more ? She freed her hand, and
began toying with the violets . " I don't see what can be more."
Julius Ray possessed the great gift of being able to hold his
tongue, and it was only when she turned to him enquiringly that
he broke the marked silence.
66
Oh, nothing, of course," he ag reed
suavely, and was rewarded for his re-
ticence by the sudden flood of crimson
which dyed her face .
They spoke of other things certainly,
but to the calculations of both that ended
their talk for the time being, and after
it, Elizabeth's visits to her dressmaker
grew more frequent.
" It is so provoking," she would ex-
plain to her visitor, " but I daren't offend
the woman, and she is so fidgety she
insists on a fresh fitting for each wrinkle."
The Major always begged that he
might not be allowed to trespass too far
upon her time, with that flavour of old-
fashioned courtesy in the words which
she found so pleasant. He also was in a fool's
paradise just then, and whenever the cough
6+ USED TO GET INTO HIS THIN which had attacked him suddenly became pecu-
EVENING CLOTHES." liarly troublesome, he solaced himself with the
reflection that at all events Elizabeth and Julius Ray met far less
often . But it was hard work. Night after night he used to get into
his thin evening clothes, though not without a wistful recollection
of the shabby old velveteen suit down in Dorsetshire, and take her
out to whatever theatre or gathering she might select ; and then
hang about for hours, a pathetic enough looking figure, had it
occurred to anyone to notice him, with his bright eyes, and thin,
flushed cheeks.
A SUICIDE. 441
" It is awfully good of you , father, " Ralph said to him once.
" You make me positively ashamed of myself. But I daren't risk
my chances by taking holiday from Ledbury just now. "
The young man intended to stand at the next election , and the
pivot of his hopes was Lord Ledbury's influence .
" Set your mind at rest. I like it," returned the elder man
quietly.
He was dotingly fond of his boy, but that was not the reason
he spent that winter with so silent a tongue . Had the ambitious ,
self-absorbed , trusting young husband possessed a different nature ,
he might have hinted somewhat of his suspicions, but as it was
Ralph would either have pooh - poohed the whole affair, or would
have created such a loud-voiced disturbance that the home
happiness would have been effectually injured . Besides , the
Major had learnt that Ray was a married man with a wife and
child shut away somewhere in Chiswick, so probably that horrible
club rumour had been devoid of all truth . It was only when he
heard by the merest accident that the two met invariably once a
day, and often twice, that he spoke to his daughter-in-law for the
first time about her husband's friend .
" I may be unreasonable," he said, " but I do not like Mr.
Ray."
"Don't you ? " asked Elizabeth, indifferently .
It was late afternoon , and she and her self-invited guest
were together in the fire-lit drawing-room . Tea and the lamps
were not due for some minutes , and the Major decided it was
fairer to speak to her in the half- lights, when he could not watch
her face.
" Yes, it may be a foolish prejudice, but personally I dislike
men who socially ignore their wives."
" Ignore their wives ? "
" Yes. Go out and about without them, I mean . We have
often met him ; we have never met Mrs. Ray."
" But Julius is not married .”
In the extremity of her surprise , the name slipped out
unnoticed .
" Pardon me," said the Major politely, " but he is. Mrs. Ray
lives at 3, Sydney Villas , Bedford Park. ”
":
" How do you know ?
The girl was completely in the shadow, but the question
sounded breathless .
" Oh, quite casually. I forget how.
how."" The Major blushed at
F F
442 THE IDLER.
the lie as he uttered it. " But naturally you know this , knowing
him so well. I only mentioned it as the reason of my dislike. A
foolish prejudice, as I said."
Here a servant opened the door to bring in the lamp, but at
the first glimmer of its tell-tale light, Elizabeth cried out sharply,
and as if in sudden pain .
" Take it away7!! Take it away in-
stantly," she said. " I have neuralgia,
neuralgia in my eyes. I will not
have a light."
66 And I have been prosing
away and making your pain

worse, " said her companion. " I
will take myself
off at once. For-
give me. "
Those two
words came very
carnestly , for after
all she was very
young, and Ray a " THE GIRL WAS COMPLETELY IN THE SHADOW. ་་
most consummate villain .
He went away slowly to the smoking room , and there sat
thinking, while upstairs, in the very chair he had occupied , his
place was soon taken by Julius Ray. It was very seldom he
called upon her now, but there were sundry last arrangements to
be made which he dared not entrust to a letter. As a matter of
fact, he never had sent her a letter at all which might not have
been opened by her husband , and Elizabeth had been equally
cautious ; that he had never written a line since school days
without imagining how it would read if inspected by counsel's
eyes was one of Ray's few boasts .
" It was good of you to see me, my darling," he said tenderly,
" but I did not want to leave you to fireside fancies. Sitting
alone here, they might possibly be sad ones."
The girl did not answer. Was it true ? Was it true? Had
he lied to her when he had planned their future, when he had
dwelt upon his right to make her happy ? The figure in the
opposite chair, with its ugly, oddly-attractive face, seemed
swaying in the firelight, and she gripped at the arms of her chair.
No, it could not be true.
She brushed her hand across her eyes, and made a great effort
to speak naturally .
A SUICIDE. 443
"Where do you come from ? she said at last. " Is it late ? "
"Why, you are trembling !' He rose and came over to her,
but she shrank from his touch . Was it true ?
66
' I — I am frightened , I think. " She gave a nervous little
laugh .
66
Of me ?" He dropped on one knee , his arms lying forward on
66
hers as they leaned on the big chair. You can't be frightened of
me. I love you too dearly. "
" I LOVE YOU TOO DEARLY."

99
"How dearly ? said Elizabeth .
Then he told her. She lay back listlessly, hearing it all, and
hen of the final preparations he had made for their start, and of
how the weather promised a fine crossing. She was gathering up
her strength to answer him blithely, for she knew that if once she
grew tragic, all her chances of arriving at the truth were lost .
" And then I shall be quite yours, " she said contentedly.
66
"Quite. Always by love, and very soon by law."
""
" And you will be quite mine ?`
66
My dearest ! "
Ray bent forward and kissed her lips, and she submitted . But
she shut her eyes the while, that he might not see the growing
444 THE IDLER.
horror in them. This material talk, this solidification of feeling

which hitherto had danced through her heart too airily to be
defined, awoke a sudden distaste in her, and for the first time she
said to herself, " It is true."
" I shall be missed here, shan't I ? 99 she went on. “ And you
at Sydney Villas ."
Opening her eyes she flashed them on him and laughed
musically, and for one moment- it was the woman's salvation—
he misunderstood her . He did not understand that she was
trying to trick him into a confession or he would have fought her
with her own weapons : he only thought for the moment that,
after all, it had been rather absurd of him to concoct the idea of a
speedy marriage, when she knew all the time that such a thing
was out of the question , and evidently cared nothing for the lack .
" She'll be all right," he said , and stopped short at the look in
her eyes.
" Your wife." She brushed his arms aside and stood up in
front of him , very slight and girlish in the utter impotence of her
misery. " I didn't know you had a wife."
Downstairs the Major sat brooding over the
fire. Years ago, in the Crimea, he had held an
outpost with a certain amount of difficulty, and
to-night, as he sat in the silent room, he was
recalling the feeling of delight with which he had
learned he was relieved . Something of that
same feeling was with him now, and when after
a long solitude his son came in to him , the face
he turned towards the new-comer was cheery
and hopeful . But Ralph looked vexed.
166
Julius Ray must be out of his senses ," he
began. " He was coming out of the house like
a whirlwind, and nearly knocked me down as I
came up the step. ' So much for manners, old
fellow, ' I said, and he turned on me as if I had
insulted him. 'Manners be damned ! ' he cried,
and bolted off before I could ask him what was
the matter."
61 COMING OUT OF THE HOUSE.'" Mr. Ray is apt to be impertinent upon
occasions, I rather fancy," said his father quietly.
" Probably Elizabeth had been setting him in his place."
" I hope to goodness she had, " exclaimed Ralph fervently,
and then forgot his vexation in discussing a little trip to Paris he
A SUICIDE. 445
had planned as a surprise to his wife. " Your devotion to her,

father, has shamed your son at last," he added , with a rather
conscious laugh.
Major Dallas listened with a well -pleased smile . It was all
falling out just as he would have had it , even though he could
merely guess at, and would never really know of, that scene in the
drawing- room .
" Amen ! to your new endeavours , " he said soberly. And
thinking some weeks later of this talk together, his son re-
membered it as the time when it first struck him his father was
breaking up . Acute inflammation of the lungs , they called it in the
obituary notice , and Ralph , who honestly grieved for him , used
to lament the constant attendance upon his wife which possibly
hastened matters , and which ought not by rights to have
devolved upon him . But Elizabeth was very firm upon the
subject. While going through his letters they had come across
more than one remonstrance from his friend the doctor , who had
warned him against the London fogs , and Elizabeth took up a
very high ground indeed.
" It is a terrible thing for you , since he was your father," she
would respond to these outbursts , " but right is right, and wrong
is wrong, and we must not make it otherwise . He stayed in
town for no earthly reason when he ought to have gone away,
and so he killed himself. Let us hope he was forgiven , Ralph,
but it was very wrong."
T M
h
We a
a g
n i
d c
Would that my fairy god - mother

Might wave her magic wand
Over this dull arithmetic
And make me understand .
His dreary ,dull arithmetic

He now can understand ,
For his kind old fairy god- mother

Has come , and
'waved l her wand:

u
c
i
n
y
C
What Followed a Knock.
BY HUGH COLEMAN DAVIDSON .
ILLUSTRATED BY A. S. BOYD .
'HAT knock startled me more than any knock before or since.

T I had just taken my diploma, hired a couple of smal!
rooms in a fairly fashionable neighbourhood, and put up a brass
plate of which I was inordinately proud. That done, I sat down
to wait, with a novel as my companion . I expected the period of
waiting to be long, but after only two days-just at dusk-that
knock came. When I heard it echoing through the silent house,
I felt that my opportunity had arrived. Hence my agitation.
The novel was pitched into a corner, and with " Lectures on
Surgical Pathology " before me, I en leavoured to assume an air
of professional calm .
The long-legged servant girl
came bounding up the stairs, three
at a time. Bursting into the room ,
she gasped :
" You're wanted, sir- wanted
at once ."
"By whom ? " I enquired,
cautiously .
In those days , there was a cer-
tain tailor very anxious
to see me. He was 2
healthy man who had
a healthy family, and
all my offers of pro-
fessional assistance had been de-
clined with scorn . He was bent
upon having his pound of flesh .
I thought that perhaps the tailor 68 THE LONG-LEGGED SERVANT GIRL CAME
was playing a mean trick upon BOUNDING UP THE STAIRS."
me now.
But the girl answered excitedly : " It's a woman as brought
the message . She was at the door. Her master's dying of
appleplexy-that's what she said-and you've got to go at once-
this very minute. "
448 THE IDLER .
" And the name and address ? "

" Oh, bless me, I clean forgot to ask." And the round eyes
opened wide with horror. " Well, did you ever ! "
I caught her by the arm, whisked her round, and pushed her
before me out of the room.
" Run !" I shouted at her. " Run for your life ! Go after her
and bring her back. Which way did she go?"
But she was already leaping down the stairs like a wild cat.
A few moments later, I heard her pounding along the pavement
outside. After a very trying period of suspense she came back
again. She had caught the woman , she said, just at the corner .
Her master's name was Bond, and the address was Number
Thirteen in the next street-a street of large and substantial
houses
" She was going after a second doctor,
her master's that bad," she added . " I
told her of Dr. Peacock, but she said he
wouldn't do. There's some people think
a lot of him, too ." And she looked at
me with a sort of scornful wonder, as if
she could not understand anyone's send-
ing for me in preference to Dr. Peacock.
I was too flustered to attach any im-
portance to her words at the time , but
their impertinence made them stick, and
I thought over them later. When they
were spoken I had but one anxiety- to get
first to Number Thirteen .
The door was opened by a woman of
about thirty, who did not impress me very
favourably. She had a florid, selfish, ill-
tempered face, a long, square chin , and
untidy red hair. There was a peculiar
66 THE DOOR WAS OPENED BY A glisten in her eyes , and her voice was un-
WOMAN OF ABOUT THIRTY." steady-symptoms which might have been
due to grief, but it certainly struck me that
she had been drinking . The finery which she wore-gold bracelets
and so forth—did not tend to remove the impression she had made
upon me.
She introduced herself as Mrs. Gotch, niece of Mr. Bond, and
at the mention of her uncle's name she burst into tears.
" He's dying," she sobbed, " dying of apoplexy."
WHAT FOLLOWED A KNOCK. 449
"Oh, I hope not, " I said. 66 Perhaps we may pull him round
yet."
" No, he's dying," she repeated . " I know he's dying . Oh,
poor, dear, good uncle, what shall I do without him ?"
" Is this his first attack ?" I asked, after a pause.
" I don't know ; I've been so little with him. It may be-I
can't say."
Then if she had been " so littl: with him," how could she be so
distressed at having to " do without him ?" The woman was
plainly a fraud . Rather curtly I requested her to conduct me at
once to her uncle.
She led the way upstairs to a room on the first floor. It was
on the left of the staircase, and there was another door on the
right. The gas had not yet been lighted , and as I entered I could
see little more than an old-fashioned four-post bed with curtains.
The windows were closed, and the atmosphere was very oppressive.
My first proceeding was to let in more air. Then I walked to
the bed.
The man who lay upon it had white hair, whis-
kers and beard , and a knobby red nose. His face
-what I saw of it was flushed ; his breathing
was slow and stertorous ; I felt his pulse,
and the beats were unnaturally strong ; his
skin was moist with perspiration . There
were some of the symptoms which I
was prepared to find in an apoplectic
patient. He was perfectly conscious ,
but seemed to have great difficulty in
speaking, and his answers to my ques-
tions were short and broken . Once,
when I happened to touch his head ,
he moved it sharply away, as if afraid
of being hurt. This rather puzzled "HE WAS PERFECTLY CONSCIOUS."
me.
" Has your uncle had any injury to his head ? " I asked of
Mrs. Gotch, who was sobbing behind her handkerchief at the foot
of the bed.
" No," she said , with surprising energy. " Of that I am sure.'
" No fall of any sort ?
" No, no injury at all."
As Mr. Bond confirmed her statement by a nod, I was com-
pelled to accept the answer.
-450 THE IDLER.
One thing seemed certain-that he was not by any means as

bad as she had made out. If he had had a serious apoplectic
attack he was now recovering. I put this in professional language,
assuring him that I would pull him through. But my words
completely failed in their effect . He said he knew the end was at
hand, and as he had not yet made his will , he must lose no time
in doing so. Would I kindly help him ? Of course, I could not
refuse.
“ Then , as I may be concerned , " said Mrs. Gotch , " I had
better retire ." She accordingly withdrew.
I suggested that
a lawyer would be
necessary, but Mr.
Bond would nothear
of such a thing . He
knew exactly what
he wanted to say, he
declared , and could
say it in half a dozen
words . He hated
lawyers .
" But another
witness is wanted , "
he added faintly.
" Anybody anybody from the
street . Will you fetch somebody ?
I'll pay, if necessary. "
So I went out into the street,
and, after some hunting about,
came upon a plumber returning
46 THE SCENE WAS MOST DEPRESSING . "
from his work, with his bag of
tools over his shoulder . When I
had explained matters, he consented to accompany me. - He
laid down his bag in the hall, and we went up to the bedroom
together.
During my absence, a solitary candle had been placed on the
little table near the foot of the bed, and its feeble light seemed to
add to the gloom . Altogether, the scene was most depressing.
By the side of the candle were pens, ink, and paper . I was about
to move it nearer, so that Mr. Bond might see to write, but he
waved it back.
" You write," he said, " I can't. I'll dictate . "
The will, which he presently dictated to me, was short and

simple enough. So far as I can remember, it was in these
words :
" This is my last will and testament . To my dearly- beloved
niece, Susan Gotch , and to her husband , David Gotch, I bequeath
absolutely everything I possess , and I appoint the said David
Gotch my sole executor. " That was all.
I ventured to ask whether he was sure there was not some
relation whom he had forgotten, but a gesture of impatience was
the only answer. So I added the date , carried the document to
the bed, and laid it on the counterpane before him . Without
changing his position , he took the pen, and in a very tremulous.
hand wrote his name--" Roger Bond . " When the plumber and I
had appended our signatures, the will was complete, and, at Mr.
Bond's request, I placed it under his pillow.
The plumber went his way. While
I lingered, Mrs. Gotch entered , still sob-
bing, and asked me to wait for her
downstairs . As there was a light in the
room on the right of the hall , I went
in there. It was the drawing room .
A young girl sat on the sofa , weeping
bitterly. In spite of the extreme shabbi-
ness of her dress , I saw at once that she
was very pretty. There was a pitiful
expression in the white little face as she
looked at me, and her lips twitched in the
painful endeavour to control them .
" You have seen him ? " she said, with a
sort of little gasp, her hands clasped tightly
together. " You have seen my uncle ? "
" A YOUNG GIRL SAT ON THE SOFA,
Another niece, then ! A charming niece, WEEPING BITTERLY.'
too, and the old curmudgeon had not left her a
single penny !
66
Oh, he will soon be downstairs again, I hope, " I said ,
cheerily. There is no need to grieve yet . "
" Downstairs again ! " she exclaimed , hope struggling with
66
incredulity. They told me he was dying."
Before I had time to speak again, Mrs. Gotch entered the
room. She looked broken -down , outrageously broken- down , after
what I had said about Mr. Bond's recovery , but at the sight ofthe
girl her whole expression changed . She became a tigress .
452 THE IDLER .
"What are you doing here, Ruth ? " she asked furiously.
" You know you ought not to be here. It's just like your vile
temper. Go into the kitchen this moment."
Ruth rose meekly to obey, but I protested . She was not to
think of leaving on my account, I said . I could go into the hall ,
or, if it were necessary, into another room . Would she , pray ,
remain seated ? Ruth gave me a grateful look-a look so full of
pathos that I believe I loved her from that moment. But she still
continued to walk towards the door.
"You are very kind," she said, " but it is of no consequence.
One can cry just as well in the kitchen as in the drawing-room .
Please stay here, and let me go."
"That is one of her nasty speeches, " said Mrs. Gotch, when
Ruth had gone . "The girl has an uncontrollable temper. I really
don't know what we shall do with her when poor dear uncle is
taken from us. She won't even-purely out of spite-close the
door after her." And she slammed it to, quite regardless of the
sick man upstairs .
I asked her what she wanted with me, and she put a number
of trivial questions about her uncle. Anxious as I was to escape
from her, I found great difficulty in doing so with-
out actual rudeness . While she was still talking
the hall door opened hastily, and a short, stout ,
unpleasant - looking man, with a hat in his hand,
came into the drawing- room. His face was
flushed either from some exertion or from drinking ;
the latter seeming to me the more probable .
In his nose I traced a family resemblance to
Mr. Bond.
""
" How is dear uncle now ? he asked.
,,
" This is the doctor, I suppose ?
I was introduced to him.
66
" I have just been to see the family lawyer,"
he explained, " but , unfortunately, he is away on
a holiday. Uncle is very anxious to make his will."
" He has made it, " I said shortly, for I dis-
liked the man as much as his wife. ' A SHORT, STOUT. UN-
PLEASANT LOOKING
"You don't say so ! " he exclaimed. " I'm MAN."
uncommonly glad to hear it. Poor dear uncle won't have that on
his conscience at any rate."
It was a relief to get away from this detestable couple. Plainly
there was some dark mystery about the whole affair, but what it
was I could not see. Two things I noted that the servant had
apparently not returned yet, and that no second doctor had arrived .
Then why had I been selected instead of a more experienced
practitioner, especially if they really believed Mr. Bond to be so ill
as they pretended ? Why had Ruth's name been omitted from the
will ? Had any injury been really inflicted upon Mr. Bond, or why
that shrinking of the head ? Certainly he had not appeared to be
acting under the influence of anybody else , and that was the
strange part of the thing. When he dictated the will , the only
persons in the room were strangers , the plumber and myself.
From the very first he had shown considerable firmness of purpose.
Altogether it was a most extraordinary business .
It was sultry that night, and about an hour later I opened my
window and leaned out. Below lay the silent street, the gas lamps
showing no moving object except a solitary cab, a murmur as of
the distant sea coming from the broad thoroughfare round the corner.
At first I did not notice a stationary figure immediately beneath
the window ; when I did, I had no difficulty in recognising Mr.
Gotch . Was he coming to summon me a second time ? He did
not stir. His face was directed towards some spot
further along the street-towards, I thought, the
house where Dr. Peacock lived . The mystery
was growing in interest. I set myself to watch
him .
After two or three persons had passed
by, a boy ran into view, approaching from
the far end ofthe street . At Dr. Peacock's
door he stopped and rang, and, after de- Dr Praco
livering some message, went back the
same way as he had come. Shortly after-
wards the doctor followed .
It was now Mr. Gotch's turn . He
waited until there was nobody in sight ;
then hastened to Dr. Peacock's house and
rang, very violently. When the door was
opened, he stayed a few moments talking
to the servant, and gesticulating a good
deal. Finally, he hastened back in the
direction of Number Thirteen . I had no notion
what it was all about. I was more puzzled than
ever .
It was therefore with much curiosity that I went
next morning to Number Thirteen to pay my " RANG, VERY VIOLENTLY,"
second visit. Shall I confess it ? I also entertained a hope of
454 THE IDLER.
meeting Ruth. When I reached the house I saw, to my aston-

ishment and dismay, that all the blinds were drawn down. I
did not doubt what had happened - that I had lost my first
patient. And so it proved . The servant who answered my
knock said her master had died during the night. He had been
attended by Dr. Peacock.
Had he been poisoned ? Then why had he been in such a
hurry to make a will , without which his murderers could not have
profited by his death ? You see, my suspicions instantly attached
themselves to Mr. and Mrs. Gotch .
But for the moment the slight that had been put upon me
overpowered all my other feelings. I had been called in once,
and then cast aside like a worthless rag. This made me very
bitter. Of course, I could not enter the house now, and I angrily
returned to my lodgings.
There was an inquest, adjourned for the purpose of a post-
mortem, but I was not summoned on
either occasion . I read a report of
it in the papers , and so far as I could
see, my name was not even men-
tioned, though it may have been, the
report being very brief. The fact was
unimportant, for the post-mortem
proved that there had been no foul
play, Dr. Peacock and his colleague
certifying the cause of death to have
been apoplexy. In one respect this
was satisfactory ; it confirmed my own
diagnosis- or, to be more accurate,
the diagnosis which I had accepted
from the servant and Mrs. Gotch.
So Roger Bond died and was buried,
and John Gotch reigned in his stead ;
and one of the first things that he did
was to turn Ruth out of doors . That,
perhaps , was only to have been ex-
pected. I sometimes went to look at
the house in the evening, and there
one wet night I found her, leaning
against the railings in the pouring
Tain, with nothing in the world be-
longing to her except the threadbare
LEANING AGAINST THE RAILINGS IN
THE FOURING RAIN.
clothes she was wearing . She was a pauper, they had told her,
and they were not going to keep her--she must go. Then they
had put her out into the night, and closed the door upon her. The
poor child, miserable enough at her uncle's death, was in a
pitiable plight.
Yet how was I to help her ? I could
not take her to my own rooms- that was
out of the question-and I could not well
afford to pay for her lodgings elsewhere .
It was even more impossible to let her
remain where she was. Trying to find
some way out of the difficulty, I remem-
bered that my landlady had a friend who
let lodgings, and who would , perhaps ,
be willing to take charge of Ruth until
something could be done for her. At any
rate the plan was worth a trial.
Ruth accompanied me readily enough.
She was so accustomed to doing as she
was told that for the time-she is
different now-she had no will of her
own. Her gentleness of disposition was
most remarkable . She had not a single
hard word for the couple who had treated
her so infamously, and, indeed, she
hardly once mentioned them . As we
walked along, both sheltering under my
umbrella, she talked chiefly of her uncle.
" It was very cruel of him to leave
you penniless ," I said.
But she would not allow this. She
declared that he was the dearest old man
in the world . No doubt he had some
good purpose in leaving all his money
to Mr. and Mrs. Gotch . When I shook
my head, she grew quite indignant.
Fortunately, I succeeded in carrying is BOTH SHELTERING UNDER
out my plan . Before another hour had MY UMBRELLA. "
elapsed I had left Ruth in the care of Mrs.
Cruickshank, my landlord's friend, and I had the satisfaction of
feeling that, for the present, she would be fairly comfortable. When
I said good- night to her I promised to come and see her in the
456 THE IDLER .
morning, and you may be quite sure I kept my word. Mrs.

Cruickshank's house being less than a quarter- of- a -mile from my
lodgings , there was no difficulty about this. I called not only
next day, but on many days following, and every time I saw Ruth
I fell more deeply in love with her. But I was no nearer giving
her any real help. Perhaps if she would marry me- But,
then, it was ridiculous to think of setting up housekeeping when I
had not enough to buy a tin-kettle .
The worst of it was, I was the person who had been largely
instrumental in depriving
her of any share in her
uncle's estate. If it had
not been for me that
iniquitous will would, in
all probability, never have
been written . For, ac-
cording to Mr. Gotch's
statement, the attempt to
fetch a solicitor had failed ,
and the old man had died
that same night. This
thought worried me per-
petually. If only I could
" HE WAS STRICKEN DOWN BY THE APOPLECTIC find out the fraud. For I
ATTACK. 11 still felt sure there had
been a fraud.
A chance remark made by Ruth set me thinking. Once, when
talking about her uncle, a subject of which she was never tired,
she happened to say that his bedroom was the one above the draw-
ing-room , situated , therefore, on the right of the staircase.
" But I saw him in a bedroom on the left," I exclaimed.
" Oh, no, you are mistaken, " said Ruth, " that is Mr. and Mrs.
Gotch's room ."
" But, Ruth, I am quite sure of it. I noticed the door on the
right, but I was taken into the room on the left ."
I described the room as well as I could-I had not had much
opportunity of seeing it, remember-and Ruth admitted that the
description , so far as it went, was accurate. At the same time,
she said, still with incredulity, that her uncle's room did not greatly
differ from it.
" In which did he die ? " I asked .
" In the one I have told you. In his own-the one he always
had. I know that, because, although they would not let me see
him , I was in the drawing-room when the coroner and the jury
went upstairs, and I could hear them overhead . I know, too, that
he was in his own room-for I saw him there-when he was
stricken down by the apoplectic attack, about an hour before they
sent for you. They were very long, dreadfully long, in sending."
" Then why on earth was he taken into another room merely
for me to see him ? "
I could think of no explanation , unless it were that there had
been something in the room which they had wished to hide from
me. Could it have been a smell of poison ? or a stain of blood ?
At the inquest there had not been the
slightest suggestion of poison or any
external injury.
"What relation was your
uncle to Mr. and Mrs.
Gotch ?" I asked .
" Not really any relation
at all. Mrs. Gotch called
herself a niece, but it was only
in some way by marriage."
" And he left all his money
to people not related to him,
and did not give you a far-
thing ? I call it monstrous .
At least, it would be if-
but I saw a family likeness.
between him and Mr. Gotch ."
This roused Ruth's indig-
nation. She declared that
there had not been the least
"A POMPOUS, BULLET-HEADED LITTLE MAN."
likeness between the two, and
as for a family likeness, that was obviously impossible . As I
could not very well cite the knobby red nose in proof of my asser-
tion , I was forced to remain silent .
But I had already learned enough to feel that an interview
with Dr. Peacock might yield some result, and to him I accordingly
went. He was a pompous, bullet-headed little man , with an
immense opinion of himself, and a firm determination not to let
anybody else speak in his presence. But after a struggle I
succeeded in telling him what I had witnessed from my window-
how Mr. Gotch had waited about until the doctor had been
summoned elsewhere, and how he had then rushed forward and
delivered his message .
GG
ER
458 THE IDL .
" That explains one thing which puzzled me, " said Dr. Peacock.
" I did not get to Mr. Bond's home until two hours after I was sent
for, and he was then dead. He had been dead some time-five
or six hours, I should have thought, but they told me I was wrong.
Although I had no reason to suspect foul play, this was one of the
things that made me insist upon a post-mortem. Now I under-
stand it. They wanted to make sure that the old fellow was gone,
beyond the hope of recovery, before they called me."
Dr. Peacock thought he had got to the bottom of the whole
business , but I knew he hadn't. A new and startling idea had
just occurred to me. I put two or three questions to him , and his
answers confirmed it. But for the present I preferred to keep my
own secret, so I left without saying a word about it.
I have mentioned a wild servant-girl at my lodgings . I
selected her as a confederate, and sent her away vastly pleased
with her own importance, her instructions being to make friends
with the servant at Number Thirteen , to bring me any medicine
bottles she could get there, and to collect as
much miscellaneous information as possible.
That girl did her work well. A few days later,
grinning from ear to ear, she brought
me a clothes- basket full of bottles.
She evidently estimated their value by
their number, and was vexed when I
tossed most of them aside. But I
found what I had expected- a bottle
which had lately contained opium .
The girl also told me this : On the
night of Mr. Bond's death the servant
noticed a disagreeable smell of burning,
and next morning she found in a bed-
room grate a few scraps of charred
white hair. At first the sight terrified
A CLOTHES-BASKET her, but closer investigation showed
" SHE BROUGHT MEBOTTLES."
FULL OF
that the hair had formed part of a wig.
I was now in a position to put my theory into definite shape .
First of all, the man I saw was not Mr. Bond at all, for he was
then dead. I was called in because I did not know him by sight,
and because of my youth and inexperience. The tale about the
solicitor was a lie. The man I saw was Gotch, disguised in a wig
-hence his alarm lest I should touch his head-and drugged with
cpium to simulate the symptoms of apoplexy. Afterwards, while
I was detained downstairs by his wife, he slipped out of the house ,

entered by the hall door, and presented himself in the drawing-
room . The object of the fraud was , of course , to rob Ruth of her
uncle's property. These things were plain . They were afterwards
proved in court, and the conspirators were sentenced to a long
term of imprisonment.
A personal matter in conclusion . I now have a large practice
and am married . My wife is Ruth . I felt it inexpedient for a
medical man to live single.
BY MARK TWAIN .
CHAPTER VII.
RRIVED in his room Lord

Berkeley made preparations
for that first and last and all-
the-time duty of the visiting
Englishman - the jotting
down in his diary of his " im-
pressions " to date. His
preparations consisted in
ransacking his " box " for a
pen. There were plenty of
P
steel pens on his table with
the ink bottle, but he was
64 RANSACKING HIS BOX '
English . The English people
FOR A PEN."
manufacture steel pens for
nineteen-twentieths of the globe, but they never use any them-
selves. They use exclusively the pre-historic quill . My lord not
only found a quill pen, but the best one he had seen in several
years and, after writing diligently for some time, closed with the
following entry :
" But in one thing I have made an immense mistake. I ought to have
sunk my title and changed my name before I started."
He sat admiring that pen a while and then went on :
"All attempts to mingle with the common people and become permanently
one of them are going to fail, unless I can get rid of it, disappear from it, and
re-appear with the solid protection of a new name. I am astonished and pained
to see how eager the most of these Americans are to get acquainted with a lord,
and how diligent they are in pushing attentions upon him. They lack English
servility, it is true, but they could acquire it with practice. My quality travels
ahead of me in the most mysterious way. I write my family name, without
additions, on the register of this hotel, and imagine that I am going to pass for
an obscure and unknown wanderer, but the clerk promptly calls out, Front !
Show his lordship to four-eighty-two !' and before I can get to the liftthere is a
reporter trying to interview me, as they call it. This sort ofthing shall cease at
once. I will hunt up the American Claimant the first thing in the morning,
accomplish my mission, then change my lodging and vanish from scrutiny
under a fictitious name."
He left his diary on the table, where it would be handy in
case any new " impressions " should wake him up in the night,
then he went to bed and presently fell asleep. An hour or two
passed, and then he came slowly to consciousness with a confusion
of mysterious and augmenting sounds hammering at the gates of
his brain for admission ; the next moment he was sharply awake ,
and those sounds burst with the rush and roar and boom of an un-
dammed freshet into
his ears. Banging and
slamming of shutters ;
smashing of windows
and the ringing clash of
falling glass ; clatter of
flying feet along the
halls, shrieks, suppli-
cations , dumb moan-
ings ofdespair within ,
hoarse shouts of
command outside ;
cracklings and snap-
pings, and the windy
roar of victorious
flames !
Bang, bang, bang !
on the door, and a cry:
" Turn out-the house is
on fire !"
The cry passed on , and
the banging. Lord Berkeley
" HE WENT TO BED AND PRESENTLY FELL ASLEEP.'"1 sprang out of bed and moved
with all possible speed to-
wards the clothes press in the darkness and the gathering smoke,
but fell over a chair and lost his bearings. He groped desperately
about on his hands, and presently struck his head against the table,
and was deeply grateful , for it gave him his bearings again, since
it stood close to the door. He seized his most precious possession ,
his journaled impressions of America, and darted from the room .
He ran down the deserted hall towards the red lamp which he
knew indicated the place of a fire-escape. The door of the room.
462 THE IDLER .
beside it was open . In the room the gas was burning full head ;
on a chair was a pile of clothing . He ran to the window , could
not get it up, but smashed it with a chair, and stepped out on the
landing of the fire-escape ; below him was a crowd of men, with a
sprinkling of woman and youth , massed in a ruddy light. Must
he go down in his spectral night -dress ? No-this side of the
house was not yet on fire except
at the further end ; he would
snatch on those clothes . Which
he did. They fitted well enough,
though a trifle loosely ; they
were just a shade loud as
to pattern. Also as to hat-
which was of a new breed
to him, Buffalo Bill not
having been to England
yet. One side of the
coat went on, but the
other side refused ; one
of its sleeves was turned
up and stitched to the
shoulder. He started
down without waiting to
get it loose, made the
trip successfully, and
was promptly hustled
outside the limit rope by the
police.
The cowboy hat and
the coat but half on made
him too much of a centre
MUST HE GO DOWN IN HIS SPECTRAL of attraction for comfort,
NIGHT-DRESS ? " although nothing could be
more profoundly respectful , not to say deferential, than was the
manner of the crowd toward him . In his mind he framed a dis-
couraged remark for early entry in his diary : " It is of no use ;
they know a lord through any disguise, and show awe of him—
even something very like fear, indeed . "
Presently one of the gaping and adoring half-circle of boys ven-
tured a timid question . My lord answered it. The boys glanced
wonderingly at each other, and from somewhere fell the comment :
"English cowboy ! Well , if that ain't curious ."
Another mental note to be preserved for the diary : " Cowboy.

Now what might a cowboy be ? Perhaps- 99 But the viscount
perceived that some more questions were about to be asked ; so he

worked his way out of the crowd , released the sleeve, put on the
coat, and wandered away to seek a humble and obscure lodging.
He found it and went to bed and was soon asleep.
In the morning, he examined his clothes. They were rather
assertive, it seemed to him, but they were new and clean , at any
rate . There was consider-
able property in the pockets.
Item , five one-hundred-
dollar bills. Item , near
fifty dollars in small bills
and silver. Plug of to-
bacco. Hymn - book which
refuses to open ; found to
contain whiskey . Memo-
randum -book bearing no
name. Scattering entries
in it, recording in a scrawl-
ing, ignorant hand , appointments , bets ,
horse-trades, and so on, with people of
strange hyphenated name — Six-fin-
gered Jake, Young-man Afraid- of-his
Shadow, and the like. No letters , no
documents.
The young man muses -maps out
his course. His letter of credit is
66 WORKED HIS WAY OUT OF THE CROWD." burned ; he will borrow the small bills
and the silver in these pockets , apply
part of it to advertising for the owner, and use the rest for
sustenance while he seeks work. He sends out for the morn-
ing paper, next, and proceeds to read about the fire. The
biggest line in the display-head announces his own death !
The body ofthe account furnishes all the particulars ; and tells how,
with the inherited heroism of his caste, he went on saving women
and children until escape for himself was impossible ; then, with
the eyes of weeping multitudes upon him, he stood with folded
arms and sternly awaited the approach of the devouring fiend ;
" and so standing, amid a tossing sea of flame and on- rushing
billows of smoke, the noble young heir of the great house of
Rossmore was caught up in a whirlwind of fiery glory, and dis-
appeared for ever from the vision of men."
464 THE IDLER.
The thing was so fine and generous and knightly that it

brought the moisture to his eyes. Presently he said to himself :
"What to do is as plain as day, now. My Lord Berkeley is dead
-let him stay so. Died creditably, too ; that will make the
calamity the easier for my father. And I don't have to report to
the American Claimant, now. Yes, nothing could be better than
the way matters have turned out. I have only to furnish myself
with a new name , and take my new start in life totally un-
trameled . Now I breathe my first breath of real freedom ; and
how fresh and breezy and inspiring it is ! At last I am a man !
a man on equal terms with my neighbor ; and by my manhood,
and by it alone , I shall rise and be seen of the world , or I shall
sink from sight and deserve it. This is the gladdest day, and the
proudest, that ever poured its sun upon my head ! "
"THIS IS THE GLADDEST DAY."

THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT.
465
PAIS
THE MORNING PAPER DROPPED FROM THE COLONEL'S

NERVELESS GRASP."
CHAPTER VIII.
" God bless my soul , Hawkins ."

The morning paper dropped from the Colonel's nerve-
less grasp .
"What is it ? "
466 THE IDLER .
" He's gone the bright, the young, the gifted , the noblest of
his illustrious race-gone. Gone up in flames and unimaginable
glory."
"Who ? "
"My precious, precious kinsman Kirkcudbright Llanover
Marjoribanks Sellers Viscount Berkeley, son and heir of usurping
Rossmore. "
" No."
" It's true- too true."
""
"When ?'
" Last night."
"Where ? "
" Right here in Washington , where he arrived from England
last night, the papers say. "
" You don't say.”
" Hotel burned down."
"What hotel ? "
"The New Gadsby."
" Oh, my goodness . And have we lost both of them ? "
" Both who ?
" One-Arm Pete ."
""
Oh, great guns , I forgot all about him . Oh, I hope not. "
66 Hope. Well, I should say . Oh, we can't spare him . We
can better afford to lose a million viscounts than our only support
and stay ."
They searched the paper diligently, and were appalled to find
that a one-armed man had been seen flying along one of the halls
of the hotel in his underclothing, and apparently out of his head
with fright, and as he would listen to no one, and persisted in
making for a stairway which would carry him to certain death, his
case was given over as a hopeless one.
" Poor fellow, " sighed Hawkins ; " and he had friends so near.
I wish we hadn't come away from there-maybe we could have
saved him ."
The Earl looked up and said calmly-
"His being dead doesn't matter. He was uncertain before.
We've got him sure, this time."
"Got him ? How ? "
" I will materialize him ."
" Rossmore don't

don't trifle with me. Do
you mean that? Can you do
it ?"
" I can do it, just as

sure as youare sitting there.
And I will
" Give me your hand and let me have the comfort of

shaking it. I was perishing and you have put new life into me.
Get at it, oh, qet at it right away."
" It will take a little time, Hawkins, but there's no hurry, none
in the world- in the circumstances. And, of course, certain duties
have devolved upon me now, which necessarily claim my first
""
attention . This poor young nobleman-
" Why, yes, I am sorry for my heartlessness, and you smitten
with this new family affliction . Of course you must materialize
him first-I quite understand that."
" I—I—well , I wasn't meaning just that, but-why, what am
I thinking of ! Of course I must materialize him . Oh , Hawkins,
selfishness is the bottom trait in human nature ; I was only think-
ing that now, with the usurper's heir out of the way-but you'll
forgive that momentary weakness, and forget it. Don't ever
remember it against me, that Mulberry Sellers was once mean
enough to think the thought that I was thinking. I'll materialize
him-I will, on my honor-and I'd do it were he a thousand heirs
468 THE IDLER.
jammed into one and stretching in a solid rank from here to the
stolen estates of Rossmore and barring the road for ever to the
rightful earl ! "
" There spoke the real Sellers-the other had a false ring, old
friend."
66
Hawkins, my boy, it just occurs to me-a thing I keep for-
getting to mention a matter that we've got to be mighty careful
about."
""
"What is that ?'
"We must keep absolutely still about these materializations.
Mind, not a hint of them must escape-not a hint. To say nothing
of how my wife and daughter-high-strung, sensitive organiza-
tions-might feel about them, the negroes wouldn't stay on the
place a minute."
" That's true, they wouldn't. It's well you spoke, for I'm not
naturally discreet with my tongue when I'm not warned ."
Sellers reached out and touched a bell-button in the wall ;
set his eye upon the rear door and waited ;
touched it again and waited ; and just as
Hawkins was remarking
admiringly that the
Colonel was the
7
most progressive
and most alert man
he had ever seen ,
in the matter of im-
pressing into his
service every mod-
ern convenience the mo-
ment it was invented, and
always keeping breast to
breast with the drum- major
in the great work of material
civilization, he forsook the button
(which hadn't any wire attached to
" TOUCHED A BELL-BUTTON IN it) , rang a vast dinner-bell which
THE WALL."
stood on the table, and remarked
that he had tried that new-fangled dry battery, now, to his entire
satisfaction, and had got enough of it ; and added-
" Nothing would do Graham Bell but I must try it ; said the
mere fact of my trying it would secure public confidence, and get
it a chance to show what it could do . I told him that in theory
a dry battery was just a curled darling, and no mistake, but when
it comes to practice, sho ! -and here's the result. Was I right?
What should you say, Washington Hawkins ? You've seen me
try that button twice. Was I right ?-that's the idea . Did I
know what I was talking about, or didn't I ? "
"Well, you know how I feel
about you, Colonel Sellers, and
always have felt. It seems to
me that you always know every-
thing about every thing. If
that man had known you as I
know you , he would have taken
your judgment at the start, and
dropped his dry battery where
it was."
" Did you ring, Marse Sel-
lers ?"
" No, Marse Sellers didn't."
" Den it was you, Marse
Washington. I's heah, suh. "
No, it wasn't Marse Wash-
ington, either."
" De good lan ! who did
ring her den ?"
" Lord Rossmore rang it !"
The old negro flung up his arms and
exclaimed : " Blame my skin if I hain't
gone en forgit dat name agin !"
" Come heah, Jinny - run heah,
honey."
Jinny arrived.
"You take dish-yer order de lord
gwine to give you . I's gwine down
suller, and study dat name tell I git it."
" I take de order ! Who's yo' nigger
DID YOU RING, MARSE SELLERS ?"
las' year ? De bell rung for you ."
" Dat don't make no diffunce. When a bell ring for anybody,
99
en old marster tell me to-
" Clear out, and settle it in the kitchen !
The noise of the quarreling presently sank to a murmur in the
distance, and the earl added : " That's a trouble with old house
servants that were your slaves once and have been your personal
friends always ."
470 THE IDLER.
" WITH TEARS IN HIS VOICE HE GAVE THEM THAT HEROIC DEATH- PICTURE ."
47I
6:
Yes, and members of the family."
" Members of the family is just what they become the
members of the family, in fact. And sometimes master and
mistress of the household. These two are mighty good and
loving and faithful and honest, but hang it, they do just about as
they please, they chip into a conversation whenever they want to,
and the plain fact is, they ought to be killed ."
It was a random remark, but it gave him an idea- however,
nothing could happen without that result.
" What I wanted , Hawkins, was to send for the family and
break the news to them.”
" Oh, never mind bothering with the servants then . I will go
and bring them down ."
While he was gone, the earl worked his idea .
" Yes," he said to himself, " when I've got the materializing
down to a certainty, I will get Hawkins to kill them, and after that
they will be under better control. Without a doubt a materialized
negro could easily be hypnotized into a state resembling silence.
And this could be made permanent—yes , and also modifiable, at
will -sometimes very silent, sometimes turn on more talk, more
action, more emotion , according to what you want. It's a prime
good idea. Make it adjustable-with a screw or something."
The two ladies entered , now, with Hawkins , and the two
negroes followed, uninvited, and fell to brushing and dusting
around, for they perceived that there was matter of interest to the
fore, and were willing to find out what it was.
Sellers broke the news with stateliness and ceremony, first
warning the ladies, with gentle art, that a pang of peculiar sharp-
ness was about to be inflicted upon their hearts -hearts still sore
from a like hurt, still lamenting a like loss-then he took the
paper, and with trembling lips and with tears in his voice he gave
them that heroic death - picture.
The result was a very genuine outbreak of sorrow and sympathy
from all the hearers . The elder lady cried, thinking how proud
that great-hearted young hero's mother would be, if she were
living, and how unappeasable her grief ; and the two old servants.
cried with her, and spoke out their applauses and their pitying
lamentations with the eloquent sincerity and simplicity native to
their race. Gwendolen was touched, and the romantic side of her
nature was strongly wrought upon. She said that such a nature
as that young man's was rarely and truly noble, and nearly
perfect ; and that with nobility of birth added it was entirely
472 THE IDLER.
сс HOW WILL YOU IDENTIFY IT?

473
perfect. For such a man she could endure all things , suffer all
things, even to the sacrificing of her life. She wished she could
have seen him ; the slightest, the most momentary contact with
such a spirit would have ennobled her own character and made
ignoble thoughts and ignoble acts thereafter impossible to her
for ever.
" Have they found the body, Rossmore ? " asked the wife.
" Yes, that is, they've found several. It must be one of them ,
but none of them are recognizable."
" What are you going to do ?"
" I am going down there and identify one of them and send it
home to the stricken father."
But, papa , did you ever see the young man ? "
" No, Gwendolen- why? "
66
How will you identify it ? "
66
I- well, you know, it says none of them are recognizable .
I'll send his father one of them-there's probably no choice . "
Gwendolen knew it was not worth while to argue the matter
further, since her father's mind was made up, and there was a
chance for him to appear upon that sad scene down yonder in an
authentic and official way. So she said no more-until he asked
for a basket.
" A basket, papa ! What for? "
"It might be ashes ! "
RAMEST JESSOP.
HH
HEIDLERS
CLUB
Dhally
Hardy.
.
Who keep the Parisian shops now, did you ask ?

Alden chats of I am sorry to say that the Parisian retail trade is , for
the Parisian the most part, managed by parrots, and very badly
shopkeeper. managed at that. There is but one branch of trade
for which the parrot is fitted. He is admirably adapted
for keeping a barber's shop , and conducting the polite conversa-
tion department, while the actual shaving and hair-cutting is
done by human assistants . But there are thousands of parrots in
France who have been crowded out of political life by the small
lawyers who now govern the country, and these birds have taken
the places of the cats as shopkeepers. Occasionally you find a
parrot who has sense enough to keep himself in the back part of
his shop, and let his saleswoman conduct the business, but for
the most part the shopkeeping parrots try to make things pleasant
for the customers by addressing observations to them, and the
result is that the small retail shops in Paris are steadily going
into bankruptcy. Many people pretend that the real reason is the
competition of the great shops , like the Louvre and the Bon
Marché, but they are mistaken . It is the gross incompetence of
the parrots that is ruining the small shops . What man wants to
buy a pair of gloves from a parrot that will insist upon addressing
idiotic remarks to him, when he can buy gloves in peace at one of
the great magasins ? The day is not far off when the parrots will
be forced to abandon the mistaken attempt to engage in shop-
keeping. Some of them already foresee this, and that is why the
parrots , who were Boulangists to a bird, supported the Brave
Général's proposal to revise the constitution . They hoped that
under a revised constitution they would have a better opportunity
for exercising those talents for public life which they undeniably
possess . There are too few parrots in the Chamber of Deputies at
present. That is why the Chamber does not always command the
respect of the nation . I think I am justified in saying that I
know cats . I have studied them for years . I have been intimate
with scores of leading American , British, and French cats , and
have moved in the very best cat circles. It may be news to
naturalists , but I can positively assert tha : if there is one thing
that a cat hates worse than water, it is a Republican form of
government.
In Paris, under the Empire, nearly all the retail

shopkeeping business was in the paws of cats. He studies the
You could hardly enter a shop without finding the political opinions
feline proprietor either sitting on the counter, and of cats .
keeping a sharp eye on the woman employed to keep
the accounts and handle the goods , or else lounging with apparent
carelessness in the window, and endeavouring to attract custom
by a display of her personal attractions . These cats did a thriving
business , and the city was full of them, but to -day there is scarcely
a shopkeeping cat in all Paris , and , indeed , very few respectable
cats of any sort. You may say that the rise in the price of cats'
meat, consequent upon the war with Germany, has driven the cats
out of France, but this is not the case, for cats abound in other
countries where prices are even higher than they are in France .
The cats have gone simply because they cannot endure to live
under a Republic. Give them a despotism and they are contented ,
and the more despotic the government is the better they like it .
Look at the flourishing condition of the Persian cats . Note the
expensive character of the furs worn by them, and the costly
style of tails adopted by all the prominent cats both of Persia and
Angora. In those despotic regions the cat is in her glory , whereas
in France and America the few remaining cats are among the
most disreputable of their kind . A Republic is all very well for
dogs , especially curs of pronounced anarchical views , but your cat
will have none of it.
On the first night of that delightful comedy

"Walker London " Mr. J. M. Barrie was not in the Geo. R. Sims
house to take his well -earned “ call. ” A newspaper , recalls some
commenting on the fact, explained that it was Mr. "first nights .'
Barrie's modesty which kept him away. I have no
doubt that this was so, but it does not follow that authors who do
476 THE IDLER .
take a call are deficient in that quality. I am myself a modest

man , but I have been compelled to come forward trembling and
face the house on a first night. The older I grow the more
terrible the ordeal becomes to me. I descend to all manner of
subterfuges to escape it. I court accidents which at any other
time would fill me with alarm . On the first night of " Mother-in-
Law, " at the Opera Comique, just as I was dressing to go to the
theatre I struck a wax match, and the lighted end flew into my eye.
It was agony in one way, but intense relief in another. I
sent a telegram to the management announcing my temporary
blindness , and went to bed happy with a huge poultice on the
injured optic. On the first night of the " Lights o ' London " I
walked round and round Soho Square a prey to the most terrible
anxiety. I dared not venture into the theatre until eleven o'clock.
Then I had a glass of neat brandy, folded my arms like
Napoleon, and waited till all was over. I never saw the audience
that night. I only know that Wilson Barrett dragged me on, and
that hardly knowing what I was doing I tried to drag him off.
From the house it must have looked as if we were having a little
game at " tug-of-war " all to ourselves .
When the " Romany Rye " was produced , I fled to

He recalls a the Kyles of Bute, and buried myself in a small Scotch
seventh night. village far from the busy haunts of men and the press
notices . It was all in vain . The first person I met
was poor, kind -hearted , cheery Peter Blobbs. He had come on
from Glasgow, and his first question was , " Well , what do you
think of the notices ? Rather warm some of them, aren't they ? "
I returned to my inn , packed up, and made the best of my way
back to London . My first night had found me out even on the
Kyles of Bute. A week afterwards I went to see the play.
Wilson Barrett sent private instructions to the check-takers . At
the end of the play, when I was on the stage, the check-takers in
chorus raised a cry of " Author," and the house took it up. I
was led on, bowing, between Mr. Barrett and Miss Eastlake .
It was all very well going on, but I had to gct off, and with
Mr. Barrett and Miss Eastlake each holding a hand I did not
quite know how to do it gracefully. I blundered and backed , and
at last we got to the wings . Then I bowed to Miss Eastlake,
and got into a terrible muddle, and , in some extraordinary way,
turned both my companions round, and Barrett whispered in my
ear, " Don't ! they will think we're going to dance. ” The next
time he produced a play of mine, I went to Africa.
But the most awkward adventure I ever had on a

first night occurred not very long ago. As usual, I The disadvan-
stayed away. But I telegraphed to my collaborator to tage of being a
meet me outside the Langham Hotel . He being in well-known
the house was compelled to take a call , and he said character.
that I was ill in bed . He was a long time coming to
the rendezvous, but, to my horror, two critics , who had been
present, hove suddenly in sight . I was too paralysed to take to
my heels and run away, so I turned my face to the dark wall , and
stooped down and pretended to tie my boot-laces . The critics
bade each other good- night near a lamp - post, but before they
separated they began to discuss the play. They discussed for ten
minutes , and all that time I remained in the uncomfortable posi-
tion of a man tying his boot-laces for the whole time. It was a
mercy I did not have a fit, for the blood was getting into my
head in a most alarming manner. When they did go, and I
regained an erect position , everything went round and round
with me, and when my collaborator came up his first im-
pression was that I had been allaying my anxiety unwisely.
Now that Mr. Barrie has been praised for not taking a call , I hope
the custom will become general. It should be sufficient for an
author that the audience applaud his play. He cannot be a
modest man if he wants them to applaud him .
Incredible as it may seem, there exists but one

obstacle to the British taking their place among the J. F. Sullivan
nations credited with the use of brain- power. From on magisterial
time to time-at long intervals-there appear signs , intelligence-
minute, but unmistakable, that we do possess somewhat there is
thing in the nature of intelligence . The obstacle to its of it.
use is our own voluntary self-abnegation : we hasten to
absolutely suppress it by means of unlimited doses of IRRITATION .
The first and most dearly-cherished factor of what we call our
liberty is the right of every man to irritate his neighbour ; it is
the practical application of the socialistic and trades union
principles-the levelling down of intellects to the grade of the
lowest. Perhaps the most remarkable manifestation is on the
part of our magistrates , and proves the absolute unselfishness and
self- obliteration of that class . The use of the brain would appear
to be of some importance to a magistrate ; and yet, with a
magnanimity quite Quixotic, these officials are the most eager of
11s all to foster the irritation brain -levelling process , joyfully
478 THE IDLER .
sacrificing any brain -power which they may possess on the altar
of pure socialism . This is noble, but is it not a mistake ? One
does not, of course, go to the length of saying that all , or even a
large percentage of our magistrates possess brain -power ; but I do
believe that some of our magistrates could , if they let themselves
go, display an amount of intelligence which would simply astound
us by its near approach to the normal human standard !
Everyone has heard of the keen nervous suffering

He compiles inflicted on John Leech by noise : his was an extreme
statistics . case, of course ; his susceptibility being abnormal .
There are many noises which are necessary and
reasonable ; and there are exactly 5,000,000 times as many which
are unnecessary and unreasonable ; and about one-half of the
latter class ought to come under the criminal laws . How much
of the intellectual and reasoning power of this country has been
stultified and crushed by the successful efforts of the lower class
of intelligence to level down to its own grade ? From statistics
which I have carefully prepared and had stamped at Somerset
House and patented at the Patent Office , I find that, but for the
torture of unnecessary noise , there would , in the last five hundred
years, have existed eleven Shakespeares (three of them superior to
the one we know), twenty-five Doctor Johnsons, fifty-seven
Thomas Hoods, one hundred and thirty- seven Sir Isaac Newtons ,
one hundred and seventy- six Sir Philip Sydneys , one million
Dickenses, and two Martin Tuppers . But the man who keeps
fowls in his back yard has wiped them out-the man who keeps
fowls in his back yard being taken as the representative Lowest
Form of Intelligence, or Low-Grade- Leveller. Let us call him
the M.K.F.B.Y. for short. Mr. Plowden (for or against whose
brain I have nothing to say, not having made a study of him) is
perhaps the staunchest upholder of the M.K.F.B.Y. A few weeks
ago a sufferer complained to him of a neighbour of that species ;
whereupon Mr. Plowden (if correctly reported ) uttered these
memorable words : " I never grant a summons in such cases,
because it is in the nature of a cock to be noisy ." In vain the
applicant stated that his wife was ill the right of the M.K.F.B.Y.
to annoy must be upheld , though all the world should be on the
point of death .
But the humorous part of it is the magistrate's

reasoning : taking as his premiss that it is in the He draws
nature of a cock to be noisy , he deduces from it that, deductions.
therefore, a person has a right to keep one to the
annoyance of his neighbours . I am thinking of taking a
house next door to Mr. Plowden- (provided the house possesses
a sufficiently echoing back yard)-and keeping a selection
of articles whose nature it is to be noisy. I propose to
include a gorilla, two hyenas, a few minute- guns , a steam siren ,
some stage thunder , an ore- crusher, and a dozen or so fog - signals .
It is in the nature of all these things to be noisy ; and, therefore,
I have a right to keep them in a back yard .
Another Christmas has come and gone, and still

nothing has been said or done about improving the Phillpotts
status and significance of the mince- pie. It is left for discusses
me, evidently , to sound the first trumpet- note of alarm . mince - pies
The mince-pies of Old England are deteriorating fast !
Either they are , or I must be. As an expert in mince-pies , as an
amateur of them whose reputation is pretty generally recognised.
even in the trade, I unhesitatingly declare that the latterday
mince -pie lacks , both in substance and flavour, much that may be
reasonably expected from it . The old solidity, the nourishing ,
sustaining, even life-giving qualities of the mince -pie are things
of the past. This flimsy, hollow age of upper-crust, with nothing
under it, has too surely left its mark alike on our methods of
thought, our estimates of right action , our ethics generally, and
our mince- pies. Noble lessons in morals may be drawn from a
confectioner's shop. Talk of " sermons in stones " ! Think of the
great truths, the simple human precepts , the parables that lurk in
a stale Bath bun . Particularly if the stale bun is being paraded
as a fresh one—a vicious circumstance that may chance at Swindor.
Refreshment Room , and other places where people have but little
time for the use of adequate language . To return to the mince-
pie, a fact to note is this : that the modern cakes of that name,
whilst satisfying to the verge of inconvenience , nourish not at
all. Instead of the ancient and intensely alimentary mince -meat,
we have now to deal with a weird, unlovely, almost gastric-juice-
proofcompound, containing divers substances of a nature extremely
injurious to the more delicate humours and organs of the body.
Every mince-pie that I have eaten this year (and as an expert the
number is not small) has contained the embryonic germ or bacillus
480 THE IDLER .
or animalculæ of the Incubus or ordinary Nightmare. And almost

every judicious mince- pie eater will tell you the same thing. It is
undoubtedly time for a Commission to sit upon the mince-pie.
Well , it all depends upon what you mean by “ a

Jerome speaks good man . " It seems to me that the best men are
ofgood men and often very far from being good men-as goodness is
oysters. commonly understood . We have forgotten the true
significance of the word " virtue " nowadays . We
call that man virtuous who has no vices . Following this
argument to its logical conclusion , we are compelled to the
assumption that the most virtuous thing in nature is an oyster.
His life is chaste and pure. He is a strict water drinker . He
never enjoys himself ; and he never (so long as he lives) gives a
moment's pleasure to any other living thing . He would appear to
be the ideal , according to a certain noisy section of the community,
of what a Christian should be . It is quite in keeping with the
sort of talk and writing that is prevalent just now to image
an oyster lecturing a lion on the subject of morality. " You
never hear me," the oyster might say, " roaring and howling
round camps and villages, making night hideous, and frighten-
ing people out of their lives. Why don't you stop at home
and be respectable , like me ? I never go about fighting other
oysters, and taking their wives from them . It's disgraceful .
I never kill antelopes and missionaries. Why don't you live
like I do on salt water and mud-or whatever it is that I do
live on- and then, after a while , if you try hard and do all I
tell you, you may come to be as good as I am ! " An oyster has
no evil passions , and a lion has many ; but is it , therefore, so very
certain that the oyster is the nobler animal ?
The truth is , we extra righteous folk have got into

Virtues and a wrong way of estimating our frailer fellow-men and
vices. women. We judge them, as critics judge books , not
by the good that is in them, but by their faults. Abraham
and David would have been driven out of public life, had they
lived in this century. Noah would have been denounced from
every platform in the country, and Ham fulsomely belauded for
exposing him ; and poor Saint Peter would have been kicked out of
the church as a liar. We should never have paused to ask ourselves
whether, in spite of their failings , these men were not great and
honour-worthy. Out would have reached our Pharisaical hands for
the stones, and down they would have gone. We have abolished
virtue and for it substituted a lot of miserable little affectations

which we call " virtues ." If a man is a teetotaler and belongs to
a purity league, we say he is a good man. He may be a narrow-
minded, narrow-hearted , narrow- souled libel on a man , selfish and
hard , and cruel and weak—a man with no more real worth in him
than there is in a Brummagem idol . What matter ! He has no
vices- what we call vices- and therefore he is a good man.
Can we be quite sure that our present list of virtues

and vices is the only possible, correct , and complete Who are the
one ? Is the kindly, unselfish, generous, big-hearted "good " men ?
man necessarily a villain because he does not always
succeed in suppressing his natural instincts ; and the evil-
speaking, evil-thinking, bitter- hearted , mean - souled man a saint
because he has none ? Need we " unco' guid" people be so
very certain that we are the ideal of manhood ? It seems to me
that some of us, in seeking to drive out sin, end by driving out
virtue also . We become unhealthy, unnatural monstrosities . We
are so far above our fellow- men and women that our sympathies
cannot reach down to them . We are so occupied with the first
ten commandments that we forget altogether the eleventh and
greatest. We are so convinced that this world ought to be an
abode of misery that we do our best to make it so for everyone
connected with us. I sometimes wonder if we understand this
subject of virtue and vice quite as thoroughly as we imagine we do.
My dear Oscar, I have never for one moment

doubted that you are a thinker, a poet, an art-critic, a Zangwill talketh
dramatist, a novelist, a wit, an Athenian , and what- to Oscar in
ever else you say you are. You are all these things Wilde fashion .
I confess it to your shame. I have always looked
down upon you with admiration . As an epigrammatist I con-
sider you only second to myself, though I admit that in the
sentiment, "to be intelligible is to be found out," I had
the disadvantage of prior publication . When you point out
that Art is infinitely superior to Nature, I feel that you are
cribbing from my unpublished poems, and I am quite at one with
you in regarding the sunset as a plagiarism. Nature is un-
doubtedly a trespasser, and should be warned off without the
option of a fine. I say these things to make it quite clear that I
speak to you more in anger than in sorrow. You are much too
important to be discussed seriously, and if I take the trouble to
give you advice it is only because I am so much younger than
482 THE IDLER .
you. I am certain you are ruining yourself by cigarette cynicism ;

far better the rough, clay-pipe cynicism of a Swift. There is no
smoke without fire , but it requires very little fire to keep a
cigarette going. The art of advertising oneself by playful puffs
is not superior to Nature. But you are not really playful and
innocent ; it would be ungracious to deny that you have all the
`corruption which the Stage has so truly connected with the
cigarette. Still, isn't it about time you got divorced and settled
down ? At present there are only two good plays in the world—
" The Second Book of Samuel " and " Lady Windermere's Fan
-surely you have power to add to their number. Try a quiet life
of artistic production , and don't talk so much about Art. We are
tired of missionaries, whether they wear the white tie of the
Church or of Society, and it is a great pity we have not the simple
remedy of the savages , who eat theirs. These few words of
admonition would be incomplete if I did not impress upon you that
policy is the only honesty. Art is short and life is long, and a
stitch in time debars one from having a new coat. You can take
a drink to the horse, but you can't make him well, and nothing
succeeds like failure. Vice is the only perfect form of virtue, and
virtue- Easy there ! Steady ! Avast ! Belay ! Which !
The Boeotians are dull folk , no doubt, but life would

He continueth be dull without them . Imagine a wilderness of Wildes !
his Wilde It would be like a sky all rainbows . Then what
career. beautiful whetstones the Boeotians are ! Abuse them,
by all means, so long as they will pay for it. But
what a blessing that the minds capable of taking the artistic view
of life are rare enough to keep the race sane ! The coarser forms
of egotism seem less baneful to the brain -tissue. Oscar Wilde
claims to be an Athenian , but the Athenians did not smoke
cigarettes. It is true that tobacco had not been invented , but this
is a sordid detail. If Athens stands for anything in the history
of culture, it is for sanity, balance , strength. Aristotle, at least
as much an Athenian as Oscar Wilde, meditated about æsthetics ,
but he meditated also about politics, logic, philosophy, political
economy, ethics-everything. Socrates was a causeur, but he
was also a martyr. No , after all the Beautiful is not so important
as Oscar Wilde imagines he is. No doubt for a few billion years
painters and musicians and epigrammatists will remain the centre
of creation, but when the sun grows cold it is conceivable that
invaluable canvases may be used up as fuel , and that humanity
may sacrifice even Oscar's printed paradoxes to keep warmth a
little longer in its decrepit bones. The fact is , Oscar is too borné,
too one- sided to be accepted as a " king of men." He takes such
broad views that he has grown narrow. What he wants is a little
knowledge of life, and twelve months ' hard labour.
This is an age of fads and faddists . They prosper

in art, in literature, and in society. Not so much , Joseph Hatton
perhaps , in literature as on the stage and in the on fads.
studio. If I had my time to come over again, I am
not sure that I would not be a fad . Of course there is the trouble
that comes when you are alone with your contemptible self. It
must be an awful thing to be alone and feel that you are a jolly
humbug. There is something in self- respect. I am inclined to
think it is as good as money, better than being a lion in society,
preferable even to being what is called " successful. " I often
wonder what the fads feel like when they go home at night, light
their solitary candles, and enter their chambers and try to sleep.
Do they laugh in their sleeves ? Or do they weep ? Do they
long for the honest friendships of their youth, or do they gloat
over their bad pictures, their silly plays , their stolen epigrams , and
their cheap social conquests ? What a wonderful thing it is to
see " impressionists in Art who cannot draw, lecturing the world
on Colour ; the dramatists who do not know a sky border from a
raking piece, posing as Stage Managers ; the long-haired shams
who can't write a sensible sentence, giving themselves airs as
Critics. Perhaps they pretend so well that when they are alone
with themselves they do not know that they are mere fads and
quacks . Anyhow, the world is so busy with its own affairs that
it seems to take men at their own estimate ; and the women love
fads . Oh yes , they do. " So original, you know, so audacious , so
cynical ! "
I wonder if it is the higher education of women

that has brought the fad and the faddist into fashion . On "bits
Taking the other extreme, the School Board has
certainly given us what they call the " bits " in journalism . I
never understood what D.T. was, even though I once saw a man
going on very much like Warner in " Drink," but I can quite
believe some intellects catching from the modern School Board
literature a kind of intellectual D.T. sufficient to make them
worthy of candidature for Bedlam . Once on board ship , I tried a
course of " bits," pictorial, philosophical , scientific, conundrumistic
482 THE IDLER .
you. I am certain you are ruining yourself by cigarette cynicism ;

far better the rough, clay-pipe cynicism of a Swift. There is no
smoke without fire , but it requires very little fire to keep a
cigarette going. The art of advertising oneself by playful puffs
is not superior to Nature . But you are not really playful and
innocent ; it would be ungracious to deny that you have all the
corruption which the Stage has so truly connected with the
cigarette. Still, isn't it about time you got divorced and settled
down ? At present there are only two good plays in the world—
" The Second Book of Samuel " and " Lady Windermere's Fan
—surely you have power to add to their number. Try a quiet life
of artistic production , and don't talk so much about Art. We are
tired of missionaries , whether they wear the white tie of the
Church or of Society, and it is a great pity we have not the simple
remedy of the savages , who eat theirs . These few words of
admonition would be incomplete if I did not impress upon you that
policy is the only honesty. Art is short and life is long, and a
stitch in time debars one from having a new coat. You can take
a drink to the horse, but you can't make him well , and nothing
succeeds like failure. Vice is the only perfect form of virtue, and
virtue- Easy there ! Steady ! Avast ! Belay ! Which !
The Boeotians are dull folk , no doubt , but life would

He continueth be dull without them . Imagine a wilderness of Wildes !
his Wilde It would be like a sky all rainbows. Then what
career. beautiful whetstones the Boeotians are ! Abuse them,
by all means, so long as they will pay for it. But
what a blessing that the minds capable of taking the artistic view
of life are rare enough to keep the race sane ! The coarser forms
of egotism seem less baneful to the brain - tissue . Oscar Wilde
claims to be an Athenian , but the Athenians did not smoke
cigarettes. It is true that tobacco had not been invented , but this
is a sordid detail . If Athens stands for anything in the history
of culture, it is for sanity, balance, strength. Aristotle, at least
as much an Athenian as Oscar Wilde, meditated about æsthetics ,
but he meditated also about politics , logic , philosophy, political
economy, ethics-everything . Socrates was a causeur, but he
was also a martyr. No , after all the Beautiful is not so important
as Oscar Wilde imagines he is . No doubt for a few billion years.
painters and musicians and epigrammatists will remain the centre
of creation, but when the sun grows cold it is conceivable that
invaluable canvases may be used up as fuel , and that humanity
may sacrifice even Oscar's printed paradoxes to keep warmth a
little longer in its decrepit bones . The fact is , Oscar is too borné,
too one- sided to be accepted as a " king of men." He takes such
broad views that he has grown narrow. What he wants is a little
knowledge of life, and twelve months' hard labour.
This is an age of fads and faddists . They prosper

in art, in literature, and in society. Not so much , Joseph Hatton
perhaps, in literature as on the stage and in the on fads.
studio. If I had my time to come over again, I am
not sure that I would not be a fad. Of course there is the trouble
that comes when you are alone with your contemptible self. It
must be an awful thing to be alone and feel that you are a jolly
humbug . There is something in self- respect. I am inclined to
think it is as good as money, better than being a lion in society,
preferable even to being what is called " successful." I often
wonder what the fads feel like when they go home at night, light
their solitary candles, and enter their chambers and try to sleep.
Do they laugh in their sleeves ? Or do they weep ? Do they
long for the honest friendships of their youth, or do they gloat
over their bad pictures, their silly plays , their stolen epigrams, and
their cheap social conquests ? What a wonderful thing it is to
see " impressionists in Art who cannot draw, lecturing the world
on Colour ; the dramatists who do not know a sky border from a
raking piece, posing as Stage Managers ; the long -haired shams
who can't write a sensible sentence, giving themselves airs as
Critics . Perhaps they pretend so well that when they are alone
with themselves they do not know that they are mere fads and
quacks . Anyhow, the world is so busy with its own affairs that
it seems to take men at their own estimate ; and the women love
fads . Oh yes , they do. " So original, you know, so audacious , so
cynical ! "
I wonder if it is the higher education of women

that has brought the fad and the faddist into fashion. On "bits
Taking the other extreme, the School Board has
certainly given us what they call the " bits " in journalism . I
never understood what D.T. was, even though I once saw a man
going on very much like Warner in " Drink, " but I can quite
believe some intellects catching from the modern School Board
literature a kind of intellectual D.T. sufficient to make them
worthy of candidature for Bedlam . Once on board ship , I tried a
course of " bits," pictorial, philosophical , scientific, conundrumistic
484 THE IDLER.
and otherwise, and- well, it might have been mal de mer, but I
think it was the new literature of shreds and patches , the extracts
from This and the compilations from That, coupled with
houses, saw- pits , and railway trains which the editors offered for
the best guess of how many words could be made out of their
names, and what the length of their papers would be supposing
their circulation was equal to their financial desires . Oh ! I tell
you it is an awful thing to be shut up for a week with all the
66
bitty " papers of the day, and the fortunes that lie ready for you
if you can only make one or two lucky guesses .
I have heard much concerning the tuneful cry of

Phillpotts the gondolier. Those who knew it, and had listened to
listens to the it upon many a Venetian canal, told me that the affair
song of the was very musical and pleasing. At our transplanted ,
gondolier. Addison Road , Imre Karalfy Venice, therefore , I looked
forward to hearing the melodious concern with interest .
My gondolier was extremely taciturn , however. Once only did he
open his mouth to reprove another waterman who ran into us
round à corner ; but what he said was only about as musical as
hansom cabmen having a misunderstanding . When I reached the
landing- stage, however, the man burst into verse and song . In
three words- two presumably intended for English, the third
Italian- he explained how he and his fellows had fallen in with the
manners and customs of the Briton . Hat in hand, he chanted-
"Gondolieri
Drinki beeri !"
I was naturally gratified , noted the hat, and placed therein the
value of half-a-pint of our national intoxicator . I may perhaps
hear " the tuneful cry of the gondolier" already mentioned later on.
0
Meisenbach
THE
QUEST
THE IDLER.
JUNE , 1892 .
The Quest.
(FROM THE GERMAN OF LESSING . )
BY W. COURTHOPE FORMAN .
ILLUSTRATED BY MISS GERTRUDE DEMAIN -HAMMOND.
Juno and Venus on the theme of love

Had once upon a time a warm discussion,
And Venus swore Love ruled each female breast,
From cultured Greek to semi -barbarous Russian .
Said the fair Goddess, " Send to ev'ry clime,
And scan with care the women of each nation ;
Show me but three who ever scorned Love's flame,
No matter what their age, their looks, their station,
And then will I confess that I have erred,
And mortal love is but a vain tradition."
The stately Juno bowed , and she despatched
At once her trusty Iris on the mission.
So Iris searched each village, city, town,
Each nook and corner wheresoe'er she landed ;
Though long and weary were the hours she spent,
She got back to Olympus empty-handed.
" Oh, Chastity ! " cried Juno, "Where are they,
These women virtuous whom I desired ? "
" Goddess," said Iris, " I did hear of three,
Too late, by Hell's grim King they were required ."
" For what could Pluto want them ?" Juno asked,
While Venus smiled in gentle exultation .
" He was in need of Furies ," Iris said,
"And he secured them for the situation ."
Novel Notes.
BY JEROME K. Jerome .
ILLUSTRATED BY J. GÜLICH AND A. P. BOYD.
II.
CAN'T honestly say that we made much progress at our first

T meeting. It was Brown's fault. He would begin by telling us
a story about a dog.. It was the old, old story of the dog who had
been in the habit of going every morning to a certain baker's shop
with a penny in his mouth, in exchange for which he always
received a penny bun. One day, the baker, thinking he would not
know the difference, tried to palm
off upon the poor animal a ha'-
penny bun, whereupon the dog
walked straight outside and fetched
in a policeman. Brown had heard
this chestnut for the first time that
afternoon, and was full of it. It is
always a mystery to me where
Brown has been for the last hundred
years. He stops you in the street
with, " Oh, I must tell you !-such
a capital story ! " And he there-
upon proceeds to relate to you,
with much spirit and gusto, one
of Noah's best known jokes, or
some story that Romulus must
have originally told to Remus.
One of these days somebody will
" SOME STORY THAT ROMULUS MUST HAVE
ORIGINALLY TOLD TO REMUS." tell him the history of Adam
and Eve, and he will think he
has got hold of a new plot, and will work it up into a novel.
He gives forth these hoary antiquities as personal reminis-
cences of his own, or, at furthest, as episodes in the life of his
second cousin. There are certain strange and moving catastrophes
that would seem either to have occurred to, or to have been
NOVEL NOTES. 489
witnessed by, nearly everyone you meet. I never came across a

man yet who had not seen some other man jerked off the top of an
omnibus into a mud-cart. Half London must, at one time or
another, have been jerked off omnibuses into mud-carts, and have
been fished out at the end of a shovel .
Then there is the tale of the lady whose husband is taken
suddenly ill one night at an hotel . She rushes downstairs , and
prepares a stiff mustard plaster to put on him, and runs up with it
again. In her excitement, however, she charges into the wrong
room, and, rolling down the bedclothes, presses it lovingly upon the
wrong man. I have heard that story so often that I am quite
nervous about going to bed in an hotel now. Each man who has
told it me has invariably slept in the room next door to that of
the victim, and has been awakened by the man's yell as the
plaster came down upon him. That is how he (the storyteller)
came to know all about it.
Brown wanted us to believe that this pre- historic animal he had
been telling us about had belonged to his brother-in-law, and was
hurt when Jephson murmured, sotto voce, that that
made the twenty-eighth man he
had met whose brother- in-law had
owned that dog- to say nothing of
the hundred and seventeen who had
owned it themselves.
We tried to get to
work after that, but
Brown had unsettled
us for the evening. It
is a wicked thing to
start dog stories among
a party of average sin-
ful men . Let one man
‫منها‬
tell a dog story, and
every other man in the
room feels he wants to " TOLD HIM AN ANECDOTE ABOUT A DOG."
tell a bigger one.
There is a story going-I cannot vouch for its truth, it was
told me by a judge-of a man who lay dying. The pastor of the
parish, a good and pious man, came to sit with him, and, thinking to
cheer him up, told him an anecdote about a dog. When the pastor
had finished, the sick man sat up, and said, " I know a better
story than that. I had a dog once, a big, brown, lop- sided- "
490 THE IDLER.
The effort had proved too much for his strength. He fell back
upon the pillows, and the doctor, stepping forward, saw that it
was a question only of minutes .
The good old pastor rose, and took the poor fellow's hand in
his, and pressed it. "We shall meet again, " he gently said.
The sick man turned towards him with a consoled and grate-
ful look..
" I'm glad to hear you say that, " he feebly murmured .
" Remind me about that dog."
Then he passed peacefully away, with a sweet smile upon his
pale lips .
Brown, who had had his dog story and was satisfied, wanted
us to settle our heroine ; but the rest of us did not feel equal to
settling anybody just then. We were thinking of all the true dog
stories we had ever heard, and wondering which was the one least
likely to be generally disbelieved .
MacShaugnassy, in particular,
was growing every moment more
restless and moody. Brown con-
cluded a long discourse- to which
nobody had listened by remarking
with some pride, " What more can
you want? The plot has never
been used before, and the characters
are entirely original ! "
Then MacShaugnassy gave
way. " Talking of plots, " he said,
hitching his chair a little nearer
the table, " that puts me in mind.
Did I ever tell you about that dog we
had when we lived in Norwood ? "
" It's not that one about the
" THE MOST SAVAGE AND MURDEROUS-LOOKING
bull -dog, is it ? " queried Jephson ,
SPECIMEN."
anxiously.
"Well, it was a bull-dog, " admitted MacShaugnassy, " but I
don't think I've ever told you this one before. "
We knew, by experience, that to argue the matter would only
prolong the torture, so we let him go on.
"A great many burglaries had lately taken place in our
neighbourhood," he began, " and the pater came to the con-
clusion that it was time he laid down a dog. He thought a bull-
dog would be the best for his purpose, and he purchased the most
savage and murderous- looking specimen that he could find.
NOVEL NOTES. 491
66 "
My mother was alarmed when she saw the dog. Surely
you're not going to let that brute loose about the house, ' she
exclaimed. He'll kill somebody. I can see it in his face.'
" I want him to kill somebody,' replied my father ; I want
him to kill burglars .'
" I don't like to hear you talk like that, Thomas , ' answered
the mater ; it's not like you . We've a right to protect our
property, but we've no right to take a fellow human creature's
life.'
" Our fellow human creatures will be all right so long as they
don't come into our kitchen when they've no business there , '
retorted my father, somewhat testily. I'm going to fix up this
dog in the scullery, and if a burglar comes fooling
around-well, that's his affair.'
"The old folks quarrelled on and off
for about a month over this dog . The
dad thought the
mater absurdly
sentimental ,
and the mater
thought the dad
unnecessarily
vindictive .
Meanwhile the
dog grew more
ferocious - look-
ing every day.
" One night
my mother woke
my father up
with : Thomas, THOMAS, THERE'S A
BURGLAR DOWNSTAIRS."
there's a burglar
downstairs, I'm
positive. I distinctly heard the kitchen door open .'
" Oh, well, the dog's got him by now, then,' murmured my
father, who had heard nothing, and was sleepy.
" Thomas, ' replied my mother severely, I'm not going to lic
here while a fellow-creature is being murdered by a savage beast.
If you won't go down and save that man's life, I will.'
" Oh, bother, ' said my father, preparing to get up . 'You're
always fancying you hear noises. I believe that's all you women
come to bed for- to sit up and listen for burglars.' Just to satisfy
492 THE IDLER .
her, however, he pulled on his trousers and socks, and went

down.
" Well, sure enough, my mother was right, this time. There
was a burglar in the house. The pantry window stood open , and
a light was shining in the kitchen. My father crept softly for-
ward, and peeped through the partly open door. There sat the
burglar, eating cold beef and pickles, and there, beside him, on the
floor, gazing up into his face with a blood-curdling smile of
affection, sat that idiot of a dog, wagging
his tail.
"My father was so taken aback that he
forgot to keep silent.
""Well, I'm -, ' and
he used a word that I should
not care to repeat to you
fellows.
" The burglar, hearing him ,
made a dash, and got clear off
by the window ; and the dog
seemed vexed with my father for
having driven him away.
"Next morning, we took the
dog back to the trainer from whom
we had bought it.
" What do you think I wanted
7.9 this dog for ? ' asked my father,
trying to speak calmly.
" Well, ' replied the trainer,
'you said you wanted a good
house dog.'
" Exactly so, ' answered the
46 THERE SAT THE BURGLAR, EATING dad . I didn't ask for a burglar's
COLD BEEF AND PICKLES."
companion, did I ? I didn't say I
wanted a dog who'd chum on with a burglar the first time he
ever came to the house, and sit with him while he had his
supper, in case he might feel lonesome, did I ?' And my father
recounted the incidents of the previous night.
• I'll
"The man agreed that there was cause for complaint.
tell you what it is, sir,' he said . ' It was my boy Jim as trained
this ' ere dawg, and I guess the young beggar's taught ' im more
about tackling rats than burglars . You leave ' im with me for a
week, sir ; I'll put that all right.'
NOVEL NOTES. 493
"We did so, and at the end of the time the trainer brought
him back again.
" You'll find ' im game enough now, sir, ' said the man . "E
ain't what I call an intellectual dawg, but I think I've knocked the
right idea into ' im .'
66
My father thought he'd like to test the matter, so we hired
a man for a shilling to break in through the kitchen window while
the trainer held the dog by a chain. The dog remained perfectly
quiet until the man was fairly inside. Then he made one savage
spring at him, and if the chain had not been stout the fellow would
have earned his shilling dearly.
" The dad was satisfied now that
he could go to bed in peace ; and the
mater's alarm for the safety of the
local burglars was proportionately
increased.
" Months passed uneventfully by,
and then another burglar sampled
our house. This time there could be
no doubt that the dog was doing
something for his living. The din
in the basement was terrific. The
house shook with the concussion of
falling bodies.
"My father snatched up his
revolver, and rushed downstairs , and
I followed him . The kitchen was in
confusion. Tables and chairs were
overturned, and on the floor lay a
man gurgling for help. The dog was
standing over him, choking him.
"The pater held his revolver to
66 THE TRAINER BROUGHT HIM
the man's ear, while I , by super- BACK AGAIN."
human effort, dragged our preserver
away, and chained him up to the sink, after which I lit the gas .
"Then we perceived that the gentleman on the floor was a
police constable.
" Good heavens ! ' exclaimed my father, dropping the revolver,
' however did you come here ? '
" "' Ow did I come ' ere ? ' retorted the man, sitting up and
speakingin a tone of bitter, but not unnatural, indignation. Why,
in the course of my duty, that's ' ow I come ' ere. I see a burglar
494 THE IDLER.
getting in through the window, so I just follows my gentleman,

and slips in after ' im.'
666
" Did you catch him ? ' asked my father.
" Did I catch ' im ! ' almost shrieked the man. ''Ow could I
catch ' im with that blasted dog of yours ' olding me down by the
throat while ' e lights ' is pipe and walks out by the back door. '
" That dog was for sale the next day. The mater, who had
grown to like him, because he let the baby pull his tail, wanted us
to keep him. The mistake, she said, was not
the poor animal's fault. Two men broke into the
house almost at the same time. The dog could
not go for both of them. He did his best, and
Iwent for one. That his selection
should have fallen upon the police man
instead of upon the burglar was un-
fortunate . But still it was a thing
that might have happened to any dog.
" My father, however, had become
prejudiced against the dog, and that
same week he inserted an advertise-
ment in The Field, in which the
animal was recommended as an invest-
i
ich ment likely to prove useful to any enter-
Enl
prising member of the criminal classes ."
HE LET THE BABY PULL MacShaugnassy having had his
HIS TAIL."
innings, Jephson took a turn , and told
us a pathetic story about a poor mongrel that was run over in the
Strand one day and its leg broken. A medical student, who was
passing at the timę, picked it up and carried it to the Charing
Cross Hospital, where its leg was set, and where it was kept and
tended until it was quite itself again, when it was sent home..
The poor thing had quite understood what was being done for
it, and had been the most grateful patient they had ever had in the
hospital. The whole staff were quite sorry when he went.
One morning, a week or two later, the house- surgeon, looking
out of the window, saw the dog coming down the street. When
it came near he noticed that it had a penny in its mouth. A cat's-
meat barrow was standing by the kerb, and for a moment, as he
passed it, the dog hesitated.
But his nobler nature asserted itself, and, walking straight up
to the hospital railings, he stood upon his hind legs and dropped
his penny into the contribution box.
NOVEL NOTES. 495
Jephson nearly cried as he told the story. He said it showed

such a beautiful trait in the dog's character. The animal was a
poor outcast, vagrant thing, that had perhaps never possessed
a penny before in all its life,
and might never have another.
He said that dog's penny
scemed to him to be
a greater gift than
the biggest cheque
that the wealthy
patron ever signed.
He added that it
was a true story, he
knew, because he had
had it from the house-
surgeon himself.
It sounded like a
house-surgeon's story.
The other three were
very eager now to get
to work on the novel,
but I did not quite see
the fairness of this . I
had one or two dog
stories of my own.
I knew a black and tan terrier
years ago. He lodged in the
same house with me. I say he
"lodged " there, because that is
just exactly what he did do, and
I like to be precise. He did not
belong to anyone. He had dis-
charged his owner (if, indeed, he
had ever permitted himself to
possess one, which is doubtful,
having regard to the aggressive
independence of his character),
and was now running himself
cntirely on his own account. He
had appropriated the front hall
HE STOOD UPON HIS
for his sleeping apartment, and HIND LEGS."
he took his meals with the other
lodgers -whenever they happened to be having meals.
492 THE IDLER.
her, however, he pulled on his trousers and socks, and went

down.
"Well, sure enough, my mother was right, this time. There
was a burglar in the house. The pantry window stood open, and
a light was shining in the kitchen. My father crept softly for-
ward , and peeped through the partly open door . There sat the
burglar, eating cold beef and pickles , and there, beside him, on the
floor, gazing up into his face with a blood-curdling smile of
affection, sat that idiot of a dog, wagging
his tail.
66'My father was so taken aback that he
forgot to keep silent.
666 Well, I'm - ,' and
he used a word that I should
not care to repeat to you
fellows.
" The burglar, hearing him,
made a dash, and got clear off
by the window ; and the dog
seemed vexed with my father for
having driven him away.
" Next morning, we took the
dog back to the trainer from whom
we had bought it .
" What do you think I wanted
this dog for ? ' asked my father,
trying to speak calmly.
666'Well,' replied the trainer,
'you said you wanted a good
house dog.'
" Exactly so, ' answered the
66 THERE SAT THE BURGLAR, EATING dad. I didn't ask for a burglar's
COLD BEEF AND PICKLES."
companion, did I ? I didn't say I
wanted a dog who'd chum on with a burglar the first time he
ever came to the house, and sit with him while he had his
supper, in case he might feel lonesome, did I ? ' And my father
recounted the incidents of the previous night.
"The man agreed that there was cause for complaint. I'll
tell you what it is, sir,' he said. ' It was my boy Jim as trained
this ' ere dawg, and I guess the young beggar's taught ' im more
about tackling rats than burglars. You leave ' im with me for a
week, sir ; I'll put that all right.'
NOVEL NOTES. 493
"We did so, and at the end of the time the trainer brought
him back again.
" You'll find ' im game enough now, sir, ' said the man. "E
ain't what I call an intellectual dawg, but I think I've knocked the
right idea into ' im .'
66
My father thought he'd like to test the matter, so we hired
a man for a shilling to break in through the kitchen window while
the trainer held the dog by a chain . The dog remained perfectly
quiet until the man was fairly inside. Then he made one savage
spring at him, and if the chain had not been stout the fellow would
have earned his shilling dearly.
" The dad was satisfied now that
he could go to bed in peace ; and the
mater's alarm for the safety of the
local burglars was proportionately
increased .
"Months passed uneventfully by,
and then another burglar sampled
our house. This time there could be
no doubt that the dog was doing
something for his living. The din
in the basement was terrific. The
house shook with the concussion of
falling bodies .
66'My father snatched up his
revolver, and rushed downstairs, and
I followed him . The kitchen was in
confusion. Tables and chairs were
overturned, and on the floor lay a
man gurgling for help. The dog was
standing over him, choking him.
" The pater held his revolver to 66 THE TRAINER BROUGHT HIM
the man's ear, while I , by super- BACK AGAIN."""
human effort, dragged our preserver
away, and chained him up to the sink, after which I lit the gas.
" Then we perceived that the gentleman on the floor was a
police constable.
""" Good heavens ! ' exclaimed my father, dropping the revolver,
' however did you come here ? '
" "'Ow did I come ' ere ? ' retorted the man, sitting up and
speaking in a tone of bitter, but not unnatural , indignation . Why,
in the course of my duty, that's ' ow I come ' ere. I see a burglar
494 THE IDLER.
getting in through the window, so I just follows my gentleman,

and slips in after ' im.'
666
" Did you catch him ? ' asked my father.
" Did I catch ' im ! ' almost shrieked the man. ''Ow could I
catch ' im with that blasted dog of yours ' olding me down by the
throat while ' e lights ' is pipe and walks out by the back door. '
" That dog was for sale the next day. The mater, who had
grown to like him, because he let the baby pull his tail, wanted us
to keep him. The mistake, she said, was not
the poor animal's fault. Two men broke into the
house almost at the same time. The dog could
not go for both of them. He did his best, and
went for one. That his selection
should have fallen upon the police man
instead of upon the burglar was un-
fortunate. But still it was a thing
that might have happened to any dog.
66
My father, however, had become
prejudiced against the dog, and that
same week he inserted an advertise-
ment in The Field, in which the
animal was recommended as an invest-
ment likely to prove useful to any enter-
prising member of the criminal classes."
" HE LET THE BABY PULL MacShaugnassy having had his
HIS TAIL."
innings, Jephson took a turn , and told
us a pathetic story about a poor mongrel that was run over in the
Strand one day and its leg broken. A medical student, who was
passing at the time, picked it up and carried it to the Charing
Cross Hospital , where its leg was set, and where it was kept and
tended until it was quite itself again , when it was sent home.
The poor thing had quite understood what was being done for
it, and had been the most grateful patient they had ever had in the
hospital. The whole staff were quite sorry when he went.
One morning, a week or two later, the house- surgeon, looking
out of the window, saw the dog coming down the street. When
it came near he noticed that it had a penny in its mouth. A cat's-
meat barrow was standing by the kerb, and for a moment, as he
passed it, the dog hesitated.
But his nobler nature asserted itself, and, walking straight up
to the hospital railings, he stood upon his hind legs and dropped
his penny into the contribution box .
NOVEL NOTES. 495
Jephson nearly cried as he told the story. He said it showed

such a beautiful trait in the dog's character. The animal was a
poor outcast, vagrant thing, that had perhaps never possessed
a penny before in all its life,
and might never have another.
He said that dog's penny
scemed to him to be
a greater gift than
the biggest cheque
that the wealthy
patron ever signed.
He added that it
was a true story, he
knew, because he had
had it from the house-
surgeon himself.
It sounded like a
house-surgeon's story.
The other three were
very eager now to get
to work on the novel ,
but I did not quite see
the fairness of this . I
had one or two dog
stories of my own.
I knew a black and tan terrier
years ago. He lodged in the
same house with me. I say he
"lodged" there, because that is
just exactly what he did do, and
I like to be precise. He did not
belong to anyone. He had dis-
charged his owner (if, indeed, he
had ever permitted himself to
possess one, which is doubtful ,
having regard to the aggressive
independence of his character),
h
and was now running himself s
i
cntirely on his own account. He t
a
S
had appropriated the front hall
for his sleeping apartment, and " HE STOOD UPON HIS
HIND LEGS."
he took his meals with the other
lodgers-whenever they happened to be having meals.
ER
496 THE IDL .
At five o'clock he
would take an early
morning snack with
young Hollis, an en-
gineer's pupil, who had
to get up at half- past
four and make his own
coffee, so as to be down
at the works by six.
(I used to think that
I should like to be an
TOOK HIS MEALS WITH THE OTHER LODGERS." engineer , until I met
young Hollis.)
At eight-thirty he would breakfast in a more sensible fashion
with Mr. Blair, on the first floor, and on occasions would join Jack
Gadbut, who was a late riser, in a devilled kidney at eleven.
From then till about five, when I generally had a cup of tea and
a chop, he regularly disappeared . Where he went and what he did
between those hours nobody ever knew. Gadbut swore that twice
he had met him coming out of a stockbroker's office in Thread-
needle Street, and, improbable though the statement at first
appeared, some colour of credibility began to attach to it when we
reflected upon the dog's inordinate passion for acquiring and hoard-
ing coppers.
This craving of his for wealth was really quite remarkable. He
was an elderly dog, with a great-almost an exaggerated-sense
of his own dignity ; yet, on the promise of a penny, I have seen
him run round after his own tail until he didn't know one end of
himself from the other.
He used to teach himself tricks, and go all round the house in
the evening, from room to room, performing them, and when he
had completed his programme, he would sit up and beg. All the
fellows used to humour him. He must have made pounds in the
course of the year.
Once, just outside our door, I saw him standing in a crowd,
watching a performing poodle attached to a hurdy- gurdy. The
poodle stood on his head, and then, with his hind legs in the air,
walked round on his front paws . The people laughed very much,
and, when afterwards he came amongst them with his wooden
saucer in his mouth, they gave freely.
Our dog came in and immediately commenced to study. In
three days he could stand on his head and walk round on his front
NOVEL NOTES. 497
legs, and the first evening he did so he

made sixpence. It must have
been terribly
hard work for
him at his age,
and subject to
rheumatism as
he was ; but
he would do
anything for
money. I be-
lieve he would
have sold himself to the
devil for eightpence down.
He knew the value of
money, did that dog. If
ch you held out to him a
Güli
penny in one hand and a
STANDING IN A CROWD, WATCHING A PERFORMING
POODLE ." threepenny-bit in the other,
he would snatch at the threepence, and then break his heart because
he could not get the penny in as well. You might safely have left
him in the room with a leg of mutton, but it would not have been
wise to leave your purse about.
Now and then he spent a little, but not
often. He was desperately fond of sponge-
cakes, and occasionally, when he had
had a good week, he would indulge himself
to the extent of one or two. But, even
then, he hated paying for them, and always
made a frantic and frequently successful
effort to get off with the cake and the penny
too. His plan of opera-
tions was simple. He
would walk into the shop
with his penny in his
mouth, well displayed , and
a sweet and lamblike ex-
pression in his eyes .
" HE KNEW THE VALUE OF MONEY, DID THAT DOG."
Taking his stand as near
to the cakes as he could
get, and fixing his eyes affectionately upon them , he would begin
to whine, and the shopkeeper, thinking he was dealing with an
honest dog, would throw him one.
498 THE IDLER .
To get the cake he was obliged , of course, to drop the penny,

and then began a struggle between him and the shopkeeper for the
possession of the coin. The man would try to pick it up. The
dog would put his foot upon it, and growl savagely. If he could
finish the cake before the contest was over he would snap up the
penny and bolt. I have known him to come home gorged with
sponge-cakes, the original penny still in his mouth.
So notorious in the neighbourhood did this dishonest practice
of his become, after a. time , that the majority of the local trades-
people refused to serve him at all . Only the exceptionally quick
and able -bodied would attempt to do business with him.
Then he took his custom further afield , into districts where his
reputation had not yet penetrated . And he would pick out shops
kept by nervous females or rheumatic old men.
They say that the love of money is the root of all evil. It
seemed to have robbed him of every shred of principle.
It robbed him of his life in the end, and that came about in
this way. He had been performing one evening in Gadbut's
room , where a few of us were sitting smoking and talking ; and
young Hollis, being in a generous mood , had thrown him , as he
thought, a sixpence . The dog grabbed it up, and retired under
the sofa. This was an odd thing for him to do , and we commented
upon it. Suddenly a thought occurred to Hollis, and he took out
his money and began counting it.
" By Jove," he exclaimed, " I've given that little beast half-a-
sovereign- here, Tiny ! "
But Tiny only backed further underneath the sofa , and no
mere verbal invitation would induce him to stir. So we adopted
a more pressing plan, and coaxed him out by the scruff of his
neck.
He came an inch at a time, growling viciously, and holding
Hollis's half- sovereign tight between his teeth . We tried sweet
reasonableness at first. We offered him a sixpence in exchange ;
he looked insulted, and evidently considered the proposal as tanta-
mount to our thinking him a fool . We made it a shilling, then
half- a- crown- he seemed only bored by our persistence .
" I don't think you'll ever see this half-sovereign again, Hollis,"
said Gadbut, laughing. We all thought the whole thing a very
good joke, all except young Hollis . He, on the contrary, seemed
annoyed , and, taking the dog from Gadbut, made an attempt to
pull the coin out of its mouth .
The dog, true to his life-long principle of never parting if he
NOVEL NOTES. 499
" HE SEEMED ONLY BORED BY OUR PERSISTENCE ."
could possibly help it, held on like grim death, until, feeling that
his little earnings were slowly but surely going from him, he made
one final desperate snatch, and swallowed the money. It stuck in
his throat, and he began to choke.
Then we became seriously alarmed for the dog. He was an
amusing chap, and we did not want any accident to happen to
him . Hollis rushed into his room and got a long pair of pinchers,
and the rest of us held the little miser while he tried to relieve him
of the cause of his suffering.
But poor Tiny did not understand our intentions. He still
thought we were seeking to rob him of his night's takings, and he
resisted vehemently. His struggles fixed the coin firmer, and , in
spite of our efforts , he died-one more victim, among many thou-
sands, to the fierce fever for gold .
I dreamt a very curious dream about riches once, that made a
great impression upon me. I thought that I and a friend -a very
dear friend-were living together in a strange old house. We
were very fond of one another, and we lived there very happily. I
don't think anybody else dwelt in the house but just we two . One
day, wandering about this strange old rambling place, I discovered
the hidden door of a secret room , and in this room were many iron-
bound chests, and when I raised the heavy lids I saw that each
chest was full of gold.
And, when I saw this, I stole out softly and closed the hidden
door, and drew the worn tapestries in front of it again, and crept
back along the dim corridor, looking behind me, fearfully.
500 THE IDLER.
And the friend

that I had loved
came towards me,
and we walked to-
gether with Our
hands clasped. But
I hated him.
And all day long
I kept ever beside
him , or followed
him unseen, lest by
chance he should
learn the secret of
that hidden door ;
and at night I lay
ever awake watch-
"EACH CHEST WAS FULL ing him.
OF GOLD."
But one night I
sleep, and, when I open

my eyes , he is no
longer near me. I run
swiftly up the little
narrow stairs and along
the silent corridor. The
tapestry is drawn aside,

and the hidden door
stands open, and in the
secret room beyond the
friend that I loved is
kneeling before an open
chest, and the glint of
the gold is in my eyes.
"I CRAWL FORWARD INCH BY INCH.'"
NOVEL NOTES. 501
His back is towards me, and I crawl forward inch by inch ; and
when I am near enough I kill him as he kneels there.
His body falls against the door, and it shuts to with a clang,
and I try to open it, and cannot. I beat my hands against its iron
nails, and scream, and the dead man grins at me. The light
streams in through the chink beneath the massive door, and fades ,
and comes again, and fades again, and I gnaw at the oaken lids of
the iron-bound chests, for the madness of hunger is climbing into
my brain.
Then I awake, and find that I really am very hungry, and
remember that in consequence of a headache I did not eat any
dinner. So I slip on a few clothes, and go down to the kitchen on
a foraging expedition.
It is said that
dreams are mo-
mentary conglo-
merations of
thought, centring
round the incident
that awakens us,
and , like most
scientific facts ,
this is occasion-
ally true. There
is one dream that,
with slight varia-
tions, is continu-
ally recurring to
me. Over and over
again I dream that
I am suddenly
called upon to act
an important part
in some piece at
the Lyceum. That
poor Mr. Irving
should invariably ,,IRVING COMES UP AFTERWARDS AND CONGRATULATES ME.""1
be the victim
seems unfair, but really it is entirely his own fault. It is he
who persuades and urges me. I myself would much prefer to
remain quietly in bed, and I tell him so. But he does not
study my convenience. He thinks only of himself, and insists
-502 THE IDLER .
on my getting up at once and coming down to the theatre.

I explain to him that I can't act a bit. He seems to
consider this unimportant, and says , " Oh, that will be all right."
We argue for a while, but he makes the matter quite a personal
one, and to oblige him and get him out of the bedroom I consent,
though much against my own judgment. I generally dress the
character in my nightshirt, though on one occasion , for Banquo , I
wore pyjamas- but then that was a swell part—and I never
remember a single word of what I ought to say. How I get
through I do not know. Irving comes up afterwards and con-
gratulates me, but whether upon the brilliancy of my performance,
or upon my luck in getting off the stage before a brickbat is thrown
at me, I cannot say.
Whenever I dream this incident I invariably wake up to find
that the bedclothes are on the floor, and that I am shivering with
cold ; and it is this shivering, I suppose, that causes me to dream
I am wandering about the Lyceum stage in nothing but my night-
shirt . But still I do not understand why it should always be the
Lyceum .
Another dream which I fancy I have dreamt more than once-
or, if not, I have dreamt that I dreamt it before , a thing one some-
times does is one in which I am walking down a very wide and
very long road in the East End of London . It is a curious road
to find there. Omnibuses and trams pass up and down the centre of
it, and it is crowded with stalls and barrows , beside which men in
greasy caps stand shouting ; yet on each side it is bordered by a
strip of tropical forest. The road , in fact, combines the advan-
tages of Kew and Whitechapel.
Someone is with me , but I cannot see him, and we walk
through the forest, pushing our way among the tangled vines that
cling about our feet, and every now and then , between the giant
tree trunks, we catch glimpses of the noisy street.
At the end of this road there is a narrow turning, and when I
come to it I am afraid, though I do not know why I am afraid . It
leads to a house that I once lived in when a child , and now there
is someone waiting there who has something to tell me.
I turn to run away. A Blackwall ' bus is passing, and I try to
overtake it. But the horses turn into skeletons and gallop away
from me, and my feet are like lead, and the thing that is with me,
and that I cannot see , seizes me by the arm, and drags me back.
It forces me along, and into the house, and the door slams to
behind us, and the sound echoes through the lifeless rooms. I
NOVEL NOTES. 503
recognise the rooms ; lived and laughed and cried in them long
ago. Nothing is changed. The chairs stand in their places,
empty. My mother's knitting lies upon the
hearthrug, where the kitten, I remember,
dragged it, somewhere back in the sixties .
I go up into my own little attic. My
cot stands in the corner, and my bricks
lie tumbled out upon the floor (I was
always an untidy child) .
An old man enters-
an old, bent, withered
man-holding a lamp.
above his head, and I
look at his face, and it
is my own face. And
another enters , and he
also is myself. Then
more and more, till the
room is thronged with
faces, and the stair-
way beyond , and all
the silent house . Some " A BLACKWALL. 'BUS 13
PASSING, AND I TRY TO OVER-
of the faces are old TAKE IT."
and others young, and
some are fair and smile at me, and many are foul
and leer at me. And every face is my own face,
but no two of them are alike.
I do not know why the sight of myself should
alarm me so, but I rush from the house in terror,
and the faces follow me ; and I run faster and faster, but I know
that I shall never leave them behind me.
As a rule one is the hero of one's own dreams, but at times I
have dreamt a dream entirely in the third person-a dream with the
incidents of which I have had no connection whatever, except as
an unseen and impotent spectator. One of these I have often
thought about since, wondering if it could not be worked up into
a story. But, perhaps, it would be too painful a theme.
I dreamt I saw a woman's face among a throng. It is an evil
face, but there is a strange beauty in it. I see it come and go,
moving in and out among the shadows. The flickering gleams
thrown by street lamps flash down upon it, showing the wonder
of its evil fairness. Then the lights go out. I see it next in
504 THE IDLER.
a place that is very far away, and it is even more beautiful than
before, for the evil has gone out of it. Another face is looking
down into it, a young, pure face. The faces meet and kiss ,
and, as his lips touch hers, the blood mounts to her cheeks
and brow. I see the two faces again. But I cannot tell
where they are or how long a time has passed. The lad's face has
grown a little older, but it is still young and fair, and when the
woman's eyes rest upon it there comes a glory into her face so
that it is like the face of an angel . But at times the woman is
alone, and then I see the old evil look struggling to come back
.again.
Then I see things clearer. I see the room in which they live.
It is very poor. An old-fashioned piano stands in one corner, and
beside it is a table on which lie scattered a tumbled mass of
papers round an inkstand . An empty chair waits before the
table. The woman sits by the open window.
She seems to be sitting there for a long while. From far below
there rises the sound of a great city. Its lights throw up faint
beams into the dark room . The smell of its streets is in the
woman's nostrils.
Every now and then she looks towards the door and listens.
Then turns again to the open window. And I notice that each
time she looks towards the door the evil in her face shrinks back ;
but each time she turns to the open window it grows more fierce
and sullen .
Suddenly she starts up, and there is a terror in her eyes that
frightens me as I dream, and I see great beads of sweat upon her
NOVEL NOTES. 595
brow. Then, very slowly, her face changes, and I see again the
evil creature of the night. She wraps around her an old cloak,
and creeps out. I hear her footsteps going down the stairs. They
grow fainter and fainter. Then it seems as if a door were opened,
so that the roar of the streets rushes up into the house, and
the woman's footsteps are
swallowed up.
Time drifts onward
through my dream . Scenes
change, take shape, and fade ;
but all is vague and undefined ,
until, out of the dimness ,
there fashions itself a long,
deserted street. The lights
make glistening circles on the
wet pavement. A figure,
dressed in gaudy rags, slinks
by, keeping close against the
wall. Its back is towards me,
and I do not see its face.
Another figure glides from
out the shadows. I look
upon its face, and I see it is
the face that the woman's
eyes gazed up into and
worshipped long ago when
my dream was just begun.
But the fairness and the
innocence are gone from out
of it, and it is old and evil,
66 SHE WRAPS AROUND HER AN OLD CLOAK, AND
like the woman's when I CREEPS OUT."
looked upon her last. The
figure in the gaudy rags moves slowly on. The second figure
follows it, and overtakes it. The two pause, and speak to one
another as they draw near. The street is very dark where they
have met, and the figure in the gaudy rags keeps its face still turned
aside. They walk on together, side by side, in silence, till they
come to where a flaring gas-lamp hangs before a tavern ; and
there the woman turns, and I see that it is the woman of my dream .
And she and the man look into each other's eyes once more.
In another dream that I remember, an angel (or a devil, I am
not quite sure which) has come to a man and told him that so
KK
506 THE IDLER .
long as he loves no living human thing-so long as he never

suffers himself to feel one touch of tenderness towards wife or
child, towards kith or kin, towards stranger or towards friend , SO
long will he succeed and prosper in his dealings- so long will all
this world's affairs go well with him ; and he will grow each day
richer and greater and more powerful. But if ever he let one
kindly thought for living thing to come into his heart, in that
moment all his plans and schemes will topple down about his ears ;
and from that hour his name will be despised by men, and then
forgotten.
And the man treasures up these words, for he is an ambitious

man, and wealth and fame and power are the sweetest things in
all the world to him. A woman loves him and dies, thirsting for
a loving look from him ; children's footsteps creep into his life and
steal away again, old faces fade and new ones come and go.
But never a kindly touch of his hand rests on any living thing ;
never a kindly word comes from his lips ; never a kindly thought
springs from his heart. And in all his doings fortune favours
him,
NOVEL NOTES. 507
The years pass by, and at last there is left to him only one
thing that he need fear-a child's small, wistful face. The child
loves him, as the woman, long ago, had loved him, and her eyes
follow him with a hungry, beseeching look. But he sets his teeth,
and turns away from her.
The little face grows thin and white,
and one day they come to him where he
sits before the keyboard of his many
enterprises, and tell him she is dying.
"PLEADING DUMBLY."
He comes and stands beside the bed, and the child's eyes open and
turn towards him ; and , as he draws nearer, her little arms stretch
out towards him, pleading dumbly. But the man's face never
changes, and the little arms fall feebly back upon the tumbled
coverlet, and the wistful eyes grow still, and a woman steps softly
forward, and draws the lids down over them ; then the man goes
back to his plans and schemes.
But in the night, when the great house is silent, he steals
up to the room where the child still lies, and pushes back the
white, uneven sheet.
" Dead-dead," he mutters. Then he takes the tiny corpse up
in his arms, and holds it tight against his breast, and kisses the
cold lips, and the cold cheeks, and the little cold, stiff hands .
508 THE IDLER .
And at that point my story becomes impossible, for I dream

that the little dead child lies always beneath the sheet in that quiet
room, and that the little face never changes, nor the little white-
robed limbs decay.
I puzzle about this for an instant, but soon forget to wonder ;
for when the Dream Fairy tells us tales we are only as little
children, sitting round with open eyes, believing all, though marvel-
ling that such things should be.
Each night, when all else in the great house sleeps, the door of
that room opens noiselessly, and the man enters and closes it
behind him gently. Each night he draws away the white sheet,
and takes the small dead body in his arms ; and through the dark
hours he paces softly to and fro, holding it close against his breast,
kissing it and crooning to it, like a mother to her sleeping baby.
When the first ray of dawn peeps into the room, he lays the
dead child back again, and smooths the sheet above her, and
steals away .
And he succeeds and prospers in all things, and each day he
grows richer and greater and more powerful.
"AND TAKES THE SMALL DEAD BODY IN HIS ARMS.'"
(To be continued.)
LITERATVRE ART MVSIC
Gnicus
OVERWORKED.
The Artist Up to Date.
By J. BERNARD PARTRIDGE .
MAPELLES JONES has realised an important

truth :-the potser of insistent Advertisement , —in other words,
the gullibility of the Public : Thus he reflects :
AESOPUS BROWN
AS
EARS HAMLE
POSITIVELY THE
AP
GREATEST ACTOR
ON EARTH
VIDE PRESS
NOTICES.
The Tradesman advertises : The Actor advertises

MR
ALBERT EDWARD SMITH
WILLDELIVER A The Dramatist
LECTURE
ONTHE KERBSTONE
THE OF advertises:
'ON ROAD
MILE END
SOPHOCLES,
SHAKESPEAR
AND 39
MYSELF.
Why should the Artist lag behind & becoy?
Onthe oppositepage is afacsimile ofone ofM: Jones's

smallbills."Itisdedicated, withoutpermission, to certainfolk.
who have lostsight of the dignity of theirart
PILEUM CUI MERUIT FERAT
www
MJ.B.P.
THE ARTIST UP TO DATE. 511
ES
E LL ON EsD 1874
ESTABLISHE
AP ES ti
ties . ma
iali te
Spec TEL s
S Cash
PA Terms
DROIT Fr
ee
Yardscapes Artist ,Des igner. &Painter in Oil SAMP
or WATER L ES
SENT
PORTRAITS EXECUTEDIN THE SITTERS WAITED UPON
HIGHEST STYLE OFART, WITH ATTHEIR OWN RESID-
NEATNESS & DESPATCH, ONMOD- ENCES. PORTRAITS
ERATE TERMS. PAINTED WHILE YOU
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED, WAIT.
TEN
OR MONEY RETURNED.
PRIZE
A LARGE & VARIED SELECTION
OFWORKS . AT PRICES TOSUIT MEDALS,
ALL PURSES, ALWAYS ON VIEW PICTURES
IN THE STUDIO. FOR
X-MAS
Callorwrite for mymonth-
ly PRICE LIST ; and com. or WEDDING GIFTS
pare my charges with
To be had of all respectable
those you are paying else Dealers , or direct from
where
Scores of Testimonials from de- the Studio ,on application
lighted Purchasers can beseen at NOTICE !! 73
myStudio. The Press unanim
ous inpraise ofmy Pictures PORTRAITEXTRAORDINARY
COUPON A TWENTYGUINEA OFFER !!!
MB APELLES JONES has paint-
ed MOREWORKS. and exhibited Jan 1 1892 SAPMLE PORTRAIT
FOR
at MORE EXHIBITIONS than ANY 1
OTHER LIVING ARTIST 10/6'
Cutout this Coupon ,
Thesefacts speak for themselves
& enclose it with PO for
MRJONES has been patronised
bytheleading members ofthe 10/6 within a monthfrom
aristocracy. thisdate toMrJones,&
IMPRESSIONIST and NEWLYN he wellpositivelypaintyou
SCHOOL work PROMPTLYEXECUT
ED to Order one of hisfamous Portraits,
the same as usually sold
CAUTION!. for £21 , the whole com
It havingcom plete in handsome gold
tothe knowledge of M²Jones Frame MJONES
thatcertain
Artists inferior.
ofthe Junscrupul makes this offersolely
name. tomake his workmore
vus . widelyknown, being con
have for some time been enderrouring fident that having once seen it,
topalm off theirspurious wares as his own ,he feels it necessary| you willneverforget it
topislect himself ofthe Lublic by requesting them to see thathis THIS IS GENUINE
Signaturs , in RedPaint. w in the lowerleft-hand corar of
vely Canvas : thus - APELLES JONES ( REGISTERED) O Note my SOLE ADDRESS :
WITHOUT IT YOUHAVE BEEN Hounte Bank Studios,
IMPOSEDUPON BYAWORTHLESS IMITATION DONOTBE PUT OFF BYTHEWORKOF SUCH Bounder Road,
MEN AS BURNEJONES & OTHERS, BUTASK FORTHAT OFAPELLES JONES & SEETHAT YOUGETIT. SW.
S..
Dr. Smyle.
By J. F. SULLIVAN. ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR.
I wish to remark before commencing that there are plenty of men, and they are
easily replaced ; but that a venerable work of art once destroyed is irreplaceable.
NE day I went down to the village of X- with a letter

of introduction to the Rev. Thalaba Smyle, the well-known
-nay famous- antiquarian. I had often heard of this
gentleman as one whose learning was equalled by his devotion
SOLTU
RA
"THEY WOULD DELAY ME WITH LONG STORIES

OF HIS GOODNESS."
to venerable things and his conspicuous amiability of character ;

and so full of admiration had been the descriptions of him given
by all who had mentioned him to me that I felt a positive yearning
to grasp the hand of such a man, and anticipated the utmost
DR. SMYLE. 513
pleasure and moral profit from his society. I could not fail to
observe the affectionate manner in which those living in his vicinity
spoke of him ; on my enquiring of them the way to his house
they would delay me with long stories of his goodness ; the whole
parish was apparently devoted to him, and regarded him with the
utmost reverence ; and the accounts of his personal charity and
kindliness were in every mouth, and warmed the heart of the hearer.
As I entered the garden gate of the Vicarage, I felt the influence
of the happy English home presided over by the spirit of thoughtful
gentleness and love ; and in the library I found the old gentleman
himself, seated on the hearthrug by the side of a sick weasel which
he had found in the woods and carefully carried home to nurse .
The library was full of pets- sparrows , hedgehogs , rats , tits , and
others .
I presented my credentials, and the old gentleman seemed to
love me at once ; he seized both my hands cordially , and shook
them long and heartily, and insisted on my taking off my damp
boots and putting on slippers which he aired with his own hands .
The house was quite a museum ; on every hand were the works
of bygone centuries- carvings , manuscripts, illuminations, em-
broidery, pottery, armour, ornaments, little fragments of wood,
stone, and metal - each with its history, which the old gentleman
had by heart. To see the reverence and affection with which he
would touch the most insignificant piece of shapeless stone was
as delightful as it was infectious : it was all poetry to him . With
a sigh of relief, too , I perceived the utter absence in him of that
cut and dried, orthodox, antiquarian affectation which, placing
side by side some crude and commonplace piece of work of early
date and some modern production of great artistic merit , will
triumphantly remark, " Ah ! They could turn out good work in
those days—just look at the difference between those two things . "
I am an intense lover of old things myself, but I have frequently
been compelled to admit the difference in such cases, particularly
in one case which has impressed itself on my mind, in which the
venerable object consisted of a piece of iron , which , having
lain in the earth for a century or two, had (by reason of
heterogeneous constitution of the metal) become channelled in an
irregular pattern by oxidation , thus developing into a precious
work of art. It would have been cruel to tell the collector that it
was not a fine effort of the chisel corroded by age , and he still
compares it with the best modern work, to the detriment of the
latter.
514 THE IDLER.
The finely-carved old oak chest, consisting of rough planks

nailed together, and decorated with a few rude slashes, apparently
executed by a schoolboy, is one of the most familiar exemplars of
the superiority of bygone art ; and I know men who are vandals
enough to fancy that some of the modern productions of Sienna
surpass it in merit.
These men, I hasten to explain , would not be admitted into
any antiquarian society.
The old vicar's love of the antique,
however, left ample room for plenty of
consideration and charity for the living
(as before suggested), and his broad
sympathies were obvious in every
word and action.
The gentleness of his voice and
manner to, or of, whomsoever he spoke
endeared one to him at first
sight. He apparently had not
a hard word for any living being,
and his evident enjoyment of
life and acquiescence in its con-
ditions were a beautiful lesson
to all who approached him.
These characteristics seem
to render all the more remark-
able the incidents in his career
which I am about to relate .
I was delighted to find stay-
64 THE OLD GENTLEMAN SEEMED TO LOVE
ing in the house an old friend of ME AT ONCE."
mine ; and altogether I accepted
with unusual pleasure Dr. Smyle's pressing invitation to spend a
few days with him. We spent the afternoon and evening in the
most delightful way, examining rare curiosities, and listening to
the intellectual conversation of the old vicar ; and I sank to
sleep in the midst of the most delightful reflections upon the
extraordinary gentleness of his disposition .
Next morning, after breakfast , our host begged to be excused
for an hour, as he had to write his sermon for the following
Sunday ; so we left him seated in his library with a starling on
his shoulder , a tit hanging on to his spectacles , and a tame rat
peeping from his pocket, and strolled out upon the lawn to enjoy
a cigar.
DR SMYLE. 515
" A most amiable and delightful man, our host," I remarked .

"Very," said my friend Westwraith, " very, and a remarkable
man, too. Has written no end of books and pamphlets, which are
quite looked upon as classics by antiquaries : a bit of a philosopher,
too -I mean a practical philosopher."
" A most moral and virtuous man, I should imagine ? "
" Unboundedly so ; although there is a phase of his career
which has been found to have a very startling effect upon those
apt to form hasty or narrow conclusions, and which, indeed, has
been looked at more or less askance by those from whom one
would expect a greater degree of reflection . I will admit that I
have, in unreflecting moments, myself ex-
perienced a certain passing inclination to
shudder at his practical application of theories
which all reasoning men must needs declare
to be just, wise, and admirable."
"But how is it possible that any
act of so good a man could
cause a shudder ? " I asked , in
much surprise.
"Well ," said myfriend,
"justice, even though tem-
pered by mercy to a
reasonable extent, must
needs have its dark and
terrible side ; and the
mind has in all ages felt
a certain perhaps un-
reasoning-shock at the
idea of bloodshed and the
extinction of human life,
however unworthy. The
execution of a fellow-
creature ever has in it an
element which appeals to 66 7 A MOST AMIABLE AND DELIGHTFUL MAN, OUR
HOST, ' I REMARKED."
Our sense of horror.
Mind, I am far from sug-
gesting that Dr. Smyle is sanguinarily inclined- very far ;
indeed, on the contrary, I am convinced that the necessity for
ultimate measures is a severe shock to a nature so gentle as his,
and inflicts upon it the most intense suffering."
These words filled me with the most perplexing thoughts, and
516 THE IDLER .
a strange longing for some more definite explanation of my

friend's somewhat enigmatical words, which seemed to bear a
terrible meaning : but delicacy prevented my making further
enquiries into an evidently painful subject. We had wandered
out of the beautiful Vicarage garden some way along the road , a
turn of which suddenly brought into view an imposing old
mansion of early date standing in the midst of venerable trees—a
sight which drew from me an exclamation of delight.
" It is, indeed, a fine old place, " replied Westwraith , " as fine
an old place as you will find in these five counties round here.
Part of it is a portion of a Norman Abbey-refectory, cloisters, and
chapel-dating from the time of Henry I. , and in an admirable
state of preservation ; while the rest of the house is earlier or
later Tudor, the entire front quadrangle being in the best
Elizabethan style.
66
' But, alas ! it has fallen into the hands of an unworthy owner
-Lord Felltimber de Razeby—who is a veritable thorn in the side
of our good host, as being likely to necessitate measures
of a painful nature . Lord Felltimber is determined to spoil-
irretrievably ruin-that fine historical house. He proposes to cut
down that grand historical avenue of oaks which you see stretching
from the lodge to the grand entrance-that avenue under which
the First Richard frequently paced as he sketched out his plans for
the campaigns in Palestine, that avenue which led up to the
gate of the original monastery. Further than this, he purposes to
take down the whole front and replace it by a new one in the
Victorian style, pull down the refectory and chapel to make room
for hunting stables , alter the room in which Queen Elizabeth slept
to make a billiard- room , and otherwise injure the house. How-
ever, Dr. Smyle (after vain attempts to dissuade his lordship from
his sinister purpose) has intimated to him that he will not permit
""
the sacrilege, nor any part of it-
" Dr. Smyle, then, is really the owner of the house ?"
" Not in the least-nor does he put forth any such claim . His
motives are purely unselfish , and in the interests of archæology."
" But," I said, " what claim can our good host have to dictate
in this matter to-
" Fortunately," said Westwraith, " we live in enlightened
times , when such an apparent impossibility is possible. "
I was more puzzled than ever ; but forbearing to indulge in
impertinent queries, I occupied myself with speculations upon this
position of affairs, which struck me as so incomprehensible, and
we strolled back to the Vicarage almost in silence .
DR. SMYLE. 517
Dr. Smyle was in his laboratory, a room of whose existence I

had been unaware, and had left word with the servant for us to
join him there on our return . We found him sharpening a
large surgical knife, and he explained that he had been very busy
lately in mixing a potent
poison, the ingredients of
which were known only to
himself.
" One would imagine ,
Dr. Smyle, " I ventured to
say, "that you were preparing
for some terrible and ghastly
deed !"
The good old man slowly
turned on me an eye in the
corner of which a bright tear
was rapidly forming, and, in a
voice half choked with emotion,
said : " My dear friend, I am deeply
grieved to say that your suggestion
but reflects the actual truth. The
necessity for such a deed fills me with
a horror and an unhappiness which 1 vainly
endeavour to thrust from my mind ; indeed, the
strain of the undertaking is almost more than I can bear,
but the thing-tragic as it must appear from every point
of view-must needs be done ! And he continued the
sharpening of the knife until, upon testing it on the
skin of his thumb, he appeared satisfied, and carefully
6 WE FOUND HIM SHARPENING A LARGE
SURGICAL KNIFE." placed it in a sheath at his waist.
He then took from its case a neat
revolver, slipped a cartridge into each chamber, and deposited
the weapon in a hip pocket ; after which he put the phial of
poison in the breast- pocket of his waistcoat, and sighed deeply.
Then, very sadly and slowly, he walked across the room and
threw open the doors of a great cupboard which stretched
right across one side of the apartment, and from ceiling to
floor, and as I looked upon the contents I recoiled with horror.
Ranged in hideous rows were scores of human heads in a
mummified condition , stuck upon upright rods like the bonnets
in a milliner's window, and labelled .
" It had to be done, " said Dr. Smyle in a sepulchral voice.
518 THE IDLER .
"Need I say that I exhausted every art of dissuasion before

resorting to the last sad expedient. This one belonged to one
Jones , an architect, who had undertaken the ' restoration ' of the
ancient chancel of St. James ; the chancel was saved . This one
with the beard and spectacles belonged to one Turbath, a landed
proprietor, who was allowing an interesting cromlech to be under-
mined by the overflow from a ditch. This one destroyed a
Roman pavement which stood in the way of building operations.
That one with red whiskers was the property of a Vandal who
defaced some fine old books which could never have been replaced ."
As the reverend gentleman proceeded , his cheek flushed and
his chest heaved at the thought of the desecrations attempted, or
actually practised, by these persons ; but at length he paused, and ,
as he silently reclosed the cupboard, more than one tear trickled
down his worthy cheek ; and , sadly shaking his head, he hastened
to change the conversation to a more congenial` theme.
" I am expecting a dear old friend, Lord Justice Pondrus of
the High Court, to come down to dinner to-day," he said, resum-
ing all his natural genial cheeriness of manner ; " I know you
will like him the moment you see him. A very sound lawyer,
and most amiable-perfectly lovable-man. I shall have to
leave you for a little while-every afternoon Lord Felltimber is
in the habit of indulging in a nap in his study, which is accessible
by a French window from the lawn ; and thus I can take him
unawares without attracting the attention of the servants, who
might interfere with my arrangements , and the affair is not likely
to occupy me for more than an hour. ”
There was a quiet calmness and fortitude about the old man ,
as he said these words, which could not fail to create a deep
impression on the hearer.
We accompanied him as far as the stile which led, through a
narrow belt of covert, immediately on to Lord Felltimber's lawn ;
and there we watched his receding figure until it disappeared
within the French window .
I glanced at Westwraith. He had become deadly pale, and now
turned hastily away and walked hurriedly back towards the
Vicarage. " I am weak-minded and foolish," he murmured, half-
apologetically ; " but these affairs almost unnerve me for the time.
It is most regrettable that the wilful perverseness of such men
should render such a course absolutely indispensable. "
Oppressed by a feeling akin to suspense, we sat in silence upon
a garden seat in front of the Vicarage , our gaze turned in the
DR. SMYLE. 519
direction of Lord Felltimber's house. The clock in Dr. Smyle's

library struck a quarter-another ; and then, between the trees , we
perceived the Doctor quickly approaching the house. He was
carrying a bundle-a bundle which he had not carried when going
upon his errand ; and on his nearer approach, I perceived that it
consisted of something of roundish shape and about the dimensions
of a medium - sized melon , suspended in a large silk handkerchief.
Dr. Smyle carried his burden rapidly into the house.
* * * *
It was about three-quarters of an hour after that our
reverend friend advanced toward us from his library
window, smiling radiantly ; all traces of his former agita-
tion having passed away. He excused himself for his pro-
tracted absence, explaining that the process of embalming
can always be carried out in a more satisfactory
manner when undertaken immediately after decease.
While we conversed thus pleasantly, a police-
man appeared at the garden gate, accom-
panied by several men, whose excited de-
meanour spoke of some unusual occurrence ;
with a good deal of gesticulation, they
seemed to be explaining matters to
the officer ; the latter advanced to
Dr. Smyle, and saluted him with
great respect.
"Beg pardon, sir," he said.
" Very sorry indeed ; but my
duty, sir-very painful. Don't
appear to be no doubt about it,
sir ; as several of these ' ere servants
see you a-going away across the
lawn immediately after the-the
painful occurrence, sir ; begging
pardon for mentioning it. Would
you like to come along o' me now,
06 WE WATCHED HIS RECEDING sir, to the inspector, sir, and get
FIGURE." that part of it over?"
66
No, George, no, that will not
be at all necessary," replied the reverend gentleman . " I
have several friends to dine with me this evening, and
could hardly spare the time to come with you ; but you
may be sure of finding me here whenever you really want
me."
520 IDLER.
THE
" Thank you, sir, " said the policeman . " Of course , sir, I
needn't say, ' You won't play no tricks, such as disappearing from
the scene of the tragedy, and leavin' no clue to your where-
abouts ? ' Excuse my mentioning it, sir, of course-but, you see,
it's as much as my place in the force is worth- 99
" I will not play you false, George . We have been through
these affairs together before ; and I think you have had no reason
to complain of me ? "
" You'll plead guilty,
sir, I take it, as usual ? "
" Yes. I
will call and
have a chat
with the in-
spector some
time to-mor-
row, and make
a point ofdoing
So. Bail as
usual -a thou-
sand pounds on
my own recog-
nisances."
"Very good, sir ;
you won't take it
amiss my making a
report of the occur- ፡፡ HE WAS CARRYING A BUNDLE."
rence ? — no reflec-
tions intended, sir, of course, but my duty. They can't find the
' ed nowhere, sir ; but I suppose "
"Oh, yes -that's all right. It shall be produced for the
inquest."
" Thank you kindly, sir. By the way, sir, Lady Felltimber-
dreadfully cut up-a taking on dreadful- hysterical , sir. "
The good clergyman drew out his handkerchief from his pocket
and covered his face : one could see that he felt keenly the suffer-
ings of others ; and his voice was tremulous with genuine emotion
as he murmured , " Poor thing ! poor thing ! " But his face
brightened as he added, " But it was inevitable, constable. Mrs.
Smyle shall call upon her, and do what she can to comfort her. I
fear- no, no ; she would not care to see me under the circum-
stances ; very natural, very natural ! I cannot complain of that."
DR. SMYLE. 521
This delicate and tactful appreciation of the feelings of others

was one of the old man's most lovable characteristics. The
constable brushed a tear from his eye, and retired , taking with
him the still indignant men , who turned out to be servants of the
late Lord Felltimber.
After this, Dr. Smyle threw off all traces of gloom , and was once
more his genial self, chatty, highly intelligent, excellently informed
on every subject he touched ; and the rest of the afternoon glided
delightfully away in examining more curiosities, and drawing upon
Dr. Smyle's inexhaustible store of antiquarian lore ; the garden ,
too, to which he devoted a considerable share of his time and the
most loving care, absorbed much of our attention . The Doctor's two
little grandchildren seemed as tenderly attached to him as he to
them ; and as for his collection ofdumb pets , they would not permit
him to get out of their sight, but insisted on running after (and all
over) him wherever he went. I learned from Westwraith that Dr.'
Smyle had had but one child of his own , a son of whom he never
spoke, but whose grave I afterwards saw in the pretty churchyard
about his church. It had been a painful story : the young man had,
on attaining his majority, come into a considerable fortune, and one
of the finest collections of antiquities in that part of the country ;
but warped and distorted views regarding such treasures had led
him to devote much of his leisure time to " improving " them—as
he termed it . On one occasion his father found him attempting to
decorate a fifteenth century cuirass , of unique form but plain surface,
with designs in aqua -fortis ; at another time he surprised him in the
act of making barbarous additions to some old carved furniture ;
and again he found him repainting an early Italian picture of a
Madonna and Child . So great was the shock of such exhibitions of
vandalism to Dr. Smyle that he was laid up with a severe illness
of some duration ; on recovering from which he discovered ,
decaying in a damp cellar of his son's house, some irreplaceable
tapestries.
Persuasion , protest, even warnings, were unheeded ; and , at
length, when all attempts to turn him from his ways had proved
fruitless , the heart-broken parent, feeling the necessity of saving
the remnant of the antiquities , had been forced to-but it is a
most painful subject , for he had been his only child .
" But," I could not help exclaiming, as Westwraith finished
the story, " how is it possible that such acts- even though acts
of pure justice and necessity-should be permitted in a country
whose laws-whose judges-whose juries ?"
LL
522 THE IDLER.
" Fortunately," replied W. , " we live in times when the

minds of judges and juries are illumined by an enlightenment
the outcome of which would have startled the more narrow
thinkers of a past generation."
I will confess that this reply furnished me with food for
reflections of a most complex nature ; nay, I am forced to admit
that I was actually startled -yes , that is the only word which
adequately describes my emotions.
Lord Justice Pondrus
now arrived — a most
estimable man of incisive
judgment and great bril-
liancy of conversation-
and we presently sat
down to dinner.
"There seemed to be.
a considerable stir in the
town as I came through,"
said the judge. " It seems
that a murder has been
committed, the victim
having been neatly de-
capita "
His lordship suddenly
paused. An awkward and
somewhat painful silence
had fallen upon the com- 66 A POLICEMAN 'APPEARED AT THE GARDEN GATE."
pany, and Mrs. Smyle
was obviously nervous and discomposed. I cannot help thinking
that these affairs affected her more than she would have owned,
even to herself.
" A most painful incident has been rendered unavoidable, '
explained Dr. Smyle, quickly ; " the preservation of an unique and
most venerable structure demanded it-ah, absolutely called
for it."
The judge's eye was lighted up by a keen flash of perception.
"Ah, I see, I see, Doctor," he said, shaking his head. " It would
not, of course , be fitting for me to make any comment upon a case
which will probably come under my official attention ; and there-
fore, I can only express a hope that the circumstances will be
found to point to as complete a justifiability as has distinguished
DR. SMYLE. 523
all your previous-ah-experiences of a similar nature. But you

must not tell me any of the circumstances in-er-in this place. "
Mrs. Smyle explained that she had called
upon the widowed Lady Felltimber, and had
succeeded beyond her hopes in comforting her ;
and added that the bereaved lady had gladly
accepted an invitation to stay a few days at
the Vicarage while arrangements- necessarily
of a painful nature-were in progress at the
Hall.
Then we changed the conversation , and
any painful feelings were banished by a flow
of pleasant and enlightening discourse. The
next morning, feeling that the presence of strangers
at such a time might be embarrassing to the unfor-
YOU MUST NOT TELL ME
NY OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES." tunate lady who had experienced so sad
a bereavement, Westwraith and I warmly
thanked our host for his kindness, and , expressing a heartfelt hope
that the experiences of the near future might have a happy result,
returned to town.
Westwraith and I went to the trial of the reverend gentleman.

It could have but one result before a jury of really intelligent
Englishmen, and a judge of so well -balanced a perception as Lord
Pondrus. It is true that the coroner's jury at X- men of no
education- had wavered in their verdict through the muddle-headed
obstinacy of one of their number-a speculative builder-who talked
wildly of " murder," or something of that sort ; but the jury at
the trial , without retiring, returned a verdict of " Justifiable homi-
cide," adding a rider to the effect that the country needed more
men like the prisoner-a decision in which his lordship heartily
concurred . Dr. Smyle left the court without a stain on his
character, amid the congratulations of his friends. A motion is to
be brought forward in the House of Commons, tendering the
thanks of the country to the Rev. gentleman. Dr. Smyle is
contemplating a tour of the museums and galleries.
Wall Stemmet
My First Book.
I. READY MONEY MORTIBOY.
BY WALTER BESANT.
ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE HUTCHINSON .
OT the very first. That, after

causing its writer labour in-
N
° finite, hope exaggerated, and
LISHIP MORTI80Y AND CO disappointment dire, was consigned ,
while still in manuscript, to the
flames. My little experience, how-
ever, with this work of Art , which
never saw the light, may help others
to believe, what is so constantly
denied, that publishers do consider
MSS. sent to them. My MS . was
sent anonymously, without any intro-
duction, through a friend. It was not
F.W.C
only read- and refused-but it was
read very conscientiously and right through. So much was
proved by the reader's opinion, which not only showed the
reasons- good and sufficient reasons why he could not re-
commend the manuscript to be published, but also contained,
indirectly, certain hints and suggestions, which opened up new
ideas as to the Art of Fiction, and helped to put a strayed
sheep in the right way. Now it is quite obvious that what was
done for me must be constantly and consistently done for others.
My very first novel, therefore, was read and refused. Would that
candidates for literary honours could be made to understand that
refusal is too often the very best thing that can happen to
them ! But the gods sometimes punish man by granting his
prayers . How heavy may be the burden laid upon the writer by
his first work ! If anyone, for instance, should light upon the
first novels written by Richard Jefferies, he will understand the
weight of that burden. My first MS . , therefore, was destined
to get burned or somehow destroyed . For some years it lay in a
corner-say, sprawled in a corner-occupying much space. At
dusk I used to see a strange, wobbling, amorphous creature, in that
corner among those papers. His body seemed not made for his
526 THE IDLER .
limbs, nor did these agree with each other, and his head was out of
proportion to the rest of him. He sat upon the pile of papers, and
he wept, wringing his hands. " Alas !" he said. " Not another
like me. Don't make another like me. I could not endure another
like myself. " Finally the creature's reproaches grew intolerable ;
so I threw the bundle of papers behind the fire, and he vanished.
One had discovered, by this time, that for the making even of a
tolerable novel it is necessary to leave off copying other people, to
observe on your own account, to study realities , to get out of the con-
ventional groove, to rely upon one or other of the great emotions
of human nature, and to try to hold the reader by dramatic presenta-
tion rather than by talk. I do not say that this discovery came all
at once, but it came gradually, and it proved valuable.
One more point. A second assertion is continually being heard
concerning editors. It is said that they do not read contributions
offered to them. When editors publicly advertise that they do not
invite contributions, or that they will not return contributions, it
is reasonable to suppose that they do not read them . Well ; you
have heard my first experience with a publisher. Hear next an
experience with editors. It is, first, to the fact that contributions
are read by editors that I owe my introduction to James Rice and
my subsequent collaboration with him. It was, next, to an un-
solicited contribution that I owed a connection of many years
with a certain monthly magazine. It was, lastly, through an un-
solicited contribution that I became and continued for some
time a writer of leading articles for a great London daily. There-
fore, when I hear that editors will not read contributions, I ask if
things have changed in twenty years-and why.
I sent a paper, then, unasked, and without introduction, to the
Editor of Once a Week. The editor read it, accepted it, and sent
it to the press. Immediately afterwards he left the journal because
it was sold to Rice, then a young man, not long from Cambridge,
and just called to the Bar. He became editor as well as proprietor.
The former editor forgot to tell his successor anything about my
article. Rice, finding it in type, and not knowing who had
written it, inserted it shortly after he took over the journal, so
that the first notice that I received that the paper was accepted was
when I saw it in the magazine, bristling with printer's errors. Of
course I wrote indignantly to the editor. I received a courteous
reply begging me to call. I did so, and the matter was explained.
Then for a year or two I continued to send things to Once a
Week. But the paper was anything but prosperous . Indeed,
selte
zuus
furch .
es
Jaur Prie
528 THE IDLER .
I believe there was never any time during its existence

of twenty years when it could be called prosperous. After
five years of gallant struggle, Rice con-
cluded to give it up. He sold the paper.
He would never confess how much he
lost over it ; but the ambition to become
proprietor and editor of a popular weekly
existed no longer in his bosom , and he
was wont to grow thoughtful in after
years when this episode
was recalled to his memory.
During this period, however,
I saw a great deal of the
management, and was ad-
mitted be-
hind the
scenes , and
"HE WAS A THIRSTY SOUL."
saw several remarkable and interesting people. For instance, there

was a certain literary hack, a pure and simple hack, who was
MY FIRST BOOK. 529
engaged at a salary to furnish so many columns a week to order.

He was clever, something of a scholar, and could write a very
readable paper on almost any subject. In fact, he was not in the
least proud, and would undertake anything that was proposed.
It was not his duty to suggest, nor did he show the least interest in
his work, nor had he tl.e least desire to write better or to advance
himself. In most cases, I believe, he simply " conveyed" the matter;
and if the thing was found out, he would be the first to deplore that
he had " forgotten the quotes." He was a thirsty soul ; he had no
enthusiasm except for drink ; he lived, in fact, only for drink ; in
order to get more money for drink he lived in one squalid room ,
and went in rags . One day he dismissed himself after an incident
over which we may drop a veil. Some time
after it was reported that he was attempting
the stage as a pantomime super. But fate
fell upon him ; he became ill ; he was carried
to a hospital ; and pneumonia
opened for him the gates of
the other world.
He was made for
better things .
Again, it was in
the editor's small
back room that I
made the acquaint-
ance of a young
lady named Julia,
whose biography
I afterwards re-
lated. She was a
bookbinder's accountant all the
day, and in the evening she was
a figurante at one of the
theatres. I think she was not
a very pretty girl, but she had
good eyes of the soft, sad kind,
which seem to belong to those
Goutt destined to die young ; and in
" JULIA." the evening, when she was
dressed, she looked very well
indeed, and was placed in the front. Hither came in
multitudes, seedy and poverty- stricken literary men-there were
530 THE IDLer .
not, twenty-four years ago, so many literary women as at

present, but there were many more seedy literary men , because
in those days the great doors of journalism were neither
so wide nor so wide open as they are now. Every one, I remember,
wanted to write a series of articles . Each in turn proposed a series as
if it was a new and striking idea. A certain airy, rollicking, red-
nosed person, who had once walked the hospitals , proposed , I
remember, to " catch science on the wing-on the wing, sir "-in
a series of articles ; a heavy, conscientious person , also red-nosed,
proposed, in a series of articles, to set the world right in
Economics ; an irresponsible, fluttering, elderly gentleman , with
a white waistcoat and a red nose, thought that a series of
articles on- say the Vestries of our Native Land , would prove
enormously popular ; if not the Vestries, then the Question of
Education, or of Emigration , or-or-something else. The main
point with all was not the subject, but the series. As it hap-
pened, nobody ever was allowed to contribute a series at all.
Then there were the people who sent up articles, and especially
the poor ladies who were on the point of starving. Would the
editor only-only take their article ? Heavens ! What has become
of all these ladies ? It was twenty-four years ago ; these particular
ladies must have perished long since ; but there are more—and
more and more- -still starving, as any editor knows full well.
Sometimes, sitting in that sanctum , I looked through their
MSS. for them. Sometimes the writers called in person, and the
editor had to see them, and if they were women, they went away
crying, though he was always as kind as possible . Poor things !
Yet what could one do ? Their stuff was too-too terrible.
Another word as to the contributions. In most cases a glance
at the first page was sufficient . The MS. was self-condemned.
" Oh !" says the contributor ; " if the editor would only tell me
what is wrong, I would alter it. " Dear contributor, no editor has
time for teaching . You must send him the paper complete,
finished, and ready for press ; else it either goes back or lies on
the shelf. When Rice handed over the paper to his successor ,
there were piles of MSS . lying on all the shelves . Where are
those MSS . now ? To be sure, I do not believe there was one,
among them all, worth having.
Rice wrote a novel by himself, for his own paper. It was a
work which he did not reproduce , because there were certain
chapters which he wished to re-write. He was always going to
re-write these chapters , but never did, and the work remains
MY FIRST BOOK.
531
still in the columns of Once a Week. One day, when he was

lamenting the haste with which he had been compelled to send off
a certain instalment, he told me that he had an idea of another
novel, which seemed to him not only possible, but hopeful . He
proposed that we should take up this idea together, work it out,
if it approved itself to
me, as it did to him,
and write a novel upon
it together.
His idea, in the first
crude form, was simple
-so simple that
wonder it had never
occurred to any-
body before. The
prodigal son was
to come home
again-apparently
repentant really
with the single
intention of feign-
ing repentance
and getting what
he could out of
MR. BESANT'S STUDY. the old man and
then going back
to his old companions. That was the first germ .
When we came to hammer this out together, a great many
modifications became necessary. The profligate, stained with vice,
the companion of scoundrels, his conscience hardened and battered
and reckless , had yet left, hitherto undiscovered, some human
weakness . By this weakness he had to be led back to the better life.
532 THE IDLer.
Perhaps you have read the story, dear reader. One may say without
boasting that it attracted some attention from the outset. I even
believe that it gave an upward turn-a last gasp-to the circulation
of the dying paper.
When to anticipate a little-the time came for publishing it,
we were faced with the fact that a new and anonymous novel is
naturally regarded with doubt by publishers. Nothing seems
more risky than such a venture. On the other hand , we were
perfectly satisfied that there was no risk in our novel at all.
This, of course, we had found out, not only from the assur
ances of Vanity, but also from the reception the work had
met with during its progress through the magazine. Therefore,
we had it printed and bound at our own expense, and we
placed the book, ready for publication , in the hands of Mr. William
Tinsley. We so arranged the business that the printer's bill was
not due till the first returns came from the publisher. By this
plan we avoided paying anything at all . We had only printed a
modest edition of 600 , and these all went off, leaving, of course, a
very encouraging margin . The cheap edition was sold to Henry
S. King and Co. for a period of five years . Then the novel was
purchased outright by Chatto and Windus, who still continue to
publish it, and, I believe, to sell it. As things go, a novelist
has reason to be satisfied with an immortality which stretches
beyond the twenty-first year.
In another place I am continually exhorting young writers
never to pay for production . It may be said that I broke my own
rule ,
But it will be observed that this case was not one in which
66
production was paid for," in the ordinary sense of the term—
it was one of publication on commission of a book concerning
which there was neither doubt nor risk. And this is a very good
way indeed to publish, provided you have such a book, and
provided your publisher will push the book with as much vigour
as his own .
Now, since the origin of the story cannot be claimed as my own ,
I may be allowed to express an opinion upon it.
The profligate, with his dreadful past behind him, dragging
him down ; the low woman whom he has married ; the gambler,
his associate ; the memory of robbery and of prison ; and with the
new influences around him-the girl he loves, pure and sweet, and
innocent ; the boy whom he picks out of the gutter ; the wreck
ofhis old father-form together a group which I have always thought
MY FIRST BOOK. 533
to be commanding, strong, attractive, interesting, much beyond any

in the ordinary run of fiction. The central figure, which, I repeat,
is not my own, but my partner's initial conception , has been imi-
tated since-in fiction and on the stage-which shows how strong
he is. I do not venture to give an opinion upon the actual
presentment or working out of that story. No doubt it
might have been better told . But I wish I was five-and-twenty
years younger, sitting once more in that dingy little office where
we wrangled over this headstrong hero of ours , and had to suppress
so many-oh ! so very many-of the rows and troubles and fights
into which he fell even after he became respectable. The office
was handy for Rule's and oysters. We would adjourn for the
" delicious mollusc," and then go back again
to the editor's room to resume the wrangle.
Here we would be interrupted by Julia, who
brought the book-
binder's account,
or by the interest-
ing but thirsty
hack who brought
his сору, and with
it an aroma of
rum ; or by the
airy gentleman
who wanted to
catch science on
the wing, sir- on
the wing ; or by
the Economic
man, or by the
irresponsible man,
ready for any-
thing. In the "THE OYSTER SHOP."
evening we would
dine together, or
go to a theatre, or sit in my chambers and play cards before re-
suming the wrangle. And always during that period, whatever we
did, wherever we went, Dick Mortiboy sat between us. Dear old
Dick grew quiet towards the end. The wrangling was finished. The
inevitable was before him ; he must pay for the past. Love could
not be his, nor honour, such as comes to most men, nor the quiet
vie de famille, which is all that life really has to give worth having.
534 THE IDLER .
His cousin Frank might have love and honour. For him- Dick's
brave eyes looked straight before-he had no illusions-for him ,the
end that belongs to the nineteenth century ruffler-the man of the
West-the sportsman and gambler-the only end-the bullet
from the revolver of his accomplice , was certain and inevitable.
So it ended. Dick died . The novel was finished .
Dick died ; our friend died ; he had his faults-but he was
Dick and he died . And alas ! his history was all told and done
with the manuscript finished ; the last wrangle over : the fatal
word, the melancholy word, Finis written below the last line.
W
WALTER BESANT, M.A
MR, BESANT'S BOOK FLATE,

Nonsense Verses .
By M. K. H.
ILLUSTRATED BY E. GRISET.
H, have you seen the

elephant ?
His smile was sweet and
sad.
He was the loveliest , lightest
thing
Of all the lot I had.
There was a grace about his When beans were dear, he lived
feet, on beer
A charm about his tail : (He much preferred it stale).
Chorus (with Guitars and Tambourines) .
Oh, have you seen the elephant ?
Oh, have you seen him smile ?
You would have wept, and soundly slept
For very joy the while.
Oh, have you seen the kangaroo ?
His very looks were buns :
I don't mean seed, I do not need,
But scrumptious currant ones .
He wore an overcoat all day ;
His boots were always blue.
In very sooth- I speak the truth-
I loved that kangaroo .
Chorus-
Oh, have you seen the kangaroo ?
He had such pleasant ways :
He never once came home at night,
And stopped out all the days.
536 THE IDLER .
Oh, have you seen the crocodile ?

Oh, have you heard him sigh ?
You could not choose but read
the news
Whene'er he wandered by.
You might have trusted him
with cats
(It would have made them
gay) ;
There was no guile in his
sweet smile , Ernest Grige "
t.
And yet I kept away.
Chorus-Oh, have you seen the crocodile ?

His eye was like a spell.
I cannot say he came our way :
I did not feel quite well.
DIFFICULTIES OF LEADERSHIP.
" You seem perplexed , Crossnib ?"
" I am. As a press
critic it is my high
mission to
lead the
public taste
in literature,
and I've got
to write a S
leader about
Rockett
Sticke, the
new novelist
99
"Well, why
don't you setto work
then ?"
" I can't- I've asked everybody,
and I can't find out whether the
public look upon him as a genius or an idiot. One must be guided
by the verdict of the public . '
CHOICE BLENDS. 537
MISS ELLEN TERRY. MISS ADA REHAN.

From a Photo by Barraud, 263, Oxford St. From a Photo by Barraud, 263, Oxford St.
ELLEN TERRY- ADA REHAN.

Composite Photo by Boning & Small, Baker Street, W.
M M
R
538 THE IDLE .
MISS ANNIE HUGHES. MISS ROSE NORREYS.

From a Photo by Elliott & Fry, Baker St., W. From a Photo by C. Barraud, 263, Oxford St., W.
MISS HUGHES-NORREYS.
Composite Photo by Boning & Small, 22, Baker Street, W.
CHOICE BLENDS. 539
MISS MARY ANDERSON. MISS MARY RORKE.

From a Photo by Barraud, 263, Oxford St. From a Photo by Boning and Small, 22, Baker St,
MISS RORKE-ANDERSON.
THE IDLER.
540
A VERY CHOICE BLEND.- MDLLE. NORDÉTCHANBURY.

Composite Photo by Messrs. Boning & Small, 22, Baker Street, W.
MISS LILY HANBURY. MDME. NORDICA. MISS ADELAIDE DÉTCHON .
From a photo by From a photo by From a photo by
Elliott & Fry, Baker St., W. Elliott & Fry, Baker St., W. Elliott & Fry, Baker St., W.
Fold by the Colonel.
II.
JEWSEPPY .
By W. L. ALDEN .
ILLUSTRATED BY HAL HURST .
ES, sir ! " said the Colonel . " Being an American,
I'm naturally in favour of elevating the oppressed and
down-trodden, provided, of course, they live in other
countries. All Americans are in favour of Home Rule for Ireland ,
" SHE WOULD ASK HIM IF HE WAS COLD OR HUNGRY."
because it would elevate the Irish masses, and keep them at

home ; but if I was living in Ireland, perhaps I might prefer
542 THE IDLER.
elevating Russian Jews or Bulgarian Christians. You see the

trouble with elevating the oppressed at home is that the moment
you get them elevated they begin to oppress you. There is
no better fellow in the world than the Irishman, so long as you
govern him, but when he undertakes to govern you it's time to
look out for daybreak to Westward . You see we've been there,
and know all about it."
Did I ever tell you about Jewseppy ? He was an organ-
grinder, and, take him by and large, he was the best organ - grinder
I ever met. He could throw an amount of expression into
" Annie Rooney ," or, it might be, " The Old Folks at Home,"
that would make the strongest men weep , and heave anything at
him that they could lay their hands to . He wasn't a Jew, as you
might suppose from his name, but only an Italian-" Jewseppy "
being what the Italians would probably call a Christian name, if
they were Christians . I knew him when I lived in Oshkosh ,
some twenty years ago. My daughter, who had studied Italian ,
used to talk to him in his native language ; that is, she would ask
him if he was cold , or hungry, or ashamed, or sleepy, as the
books direct, but as he never answered in the way laid down in
the books, my daughter couldn't understand a word he said, and
so the conversation would begin to flag. I used to talk to him in
English, which he could speak middling well , and I found him
cranky, but intelligent.
He was a little , wizened , half- starved looking man , and if he
had only worn shabby black clothes, you would have taken him
for a millionaire's confidential clerk, he was that miserable in
appearance. He had two crazes-one was for monkeys, who
were, he said, precisely like men, only they had four hands and
tails, which they could use as lassos, all of which were in the
nature of modern improvements, and showed that they were an
improvement on the original pattern of men . His other craze
was his sympathy for the oppressed . He wanted to liberate
everybody, including convicts, and have everybody made rich by
law, and allowed to do anything he might want to do. He was
what you would call an Anarchist to-day, only he didn't believe
in disseminating his views by dynamite.
He had a monkey that died of consumption , and the way that
Jewseppy grieved for the monkey would have touched the heart of
an old-fashioned Calvinist, let alone a heart of ordinary stone.
For nearly a month he wandered around without his organ ,
occasionally doing odd jobs of work, which made most people
TOLD BY THE COLONEL. 543
think that he was going out of his mind . But one day a
menagerie came to town, and in the menagerie was what the
show bill called a gorilla . It wasn't a genuine gorilla, as
Professor Amariah G. Twitchell, of our University, proved after
the menagerie
men had re-
fused to give
him and his
family free
tickets . How-
ever, it was
an animal to
that effect,
and it would
probably have
made a great
success , for
our public ,
though criti-
cal , is quick
to recognise
real merit , if
it wasn't that
the beast was
very sick.
This was
Jewseppy's
chance, and he
went for it as if
he had been a
born specula-
tor. He offered
to buy the
gorilla for two
dollars, and
the menagerie
men, thinking 36 THE WAY THAT JEWSEPPY GRIEVED FOR THE MONKEY."
the animal
was as good as dead, were glad to get rid of it, and calculated
that Jewseppy would never get the worth of the smallest
fraction of his two dollars. There is where they got left, for
Jewseppy knew more about monkeys than any man living ,
and could cure any sick monkey that called him in, provided ,
544 THE IDLER.
of course, the disease was one which medical science could

collar. In the course of a month he got the gorilla thoroughly
repaired, and was giving him lessons in the theory and practice
of organ-grinding.
The gorilla didn't take to the
work kindly, which, Jewseppy said,
was only another proof of his grand
intellect, but Jewseppy trained him
so well that it was not long before
he could take the animal with him
when he went out with the organ ,
and have him pass the plate. The
gorilla always had a line round his
waist, and Jewseppy heldthe end
of it, and sort of telegraphed to him
through it when he wanted him
to come back to the organ. Then,
too, he had a big whip, and he
had to use it on the gorilla pretty
often . Occasionally, he had to
knock the animal over the head
DANGEROUS
with the butt end of the whip
handle, especially when he was
playing something on the organ
that the gorilla didn't like, such as " Marching through Georgia,"
for instance. The gorilla was a great success as a plate passer,
for all the men were anxious to see the animal, and all the
women were afraid not to give something when the beast put
the plate under their noses. You see he was as strong as two or
three men, and his arms were as long as the whole of his body,
not to mention that his face was a deep blue, all of which helped
to make him the most persuasive beast that ever took up a
collection.
Jewseppy had so much to say to me about the gorilla's wonder-
ful intelligence that he made me tired, and one day I asked him
if he thought it was consistent with his principles to keep the
animal in slavery. " You say he is all the same as a man ," said
I. " Then why don't you give him a show ? You keep him
oppressed and down-trodden the whole time. Why don't you let
him grind the organ for awhile, and take up the collection your-
self? Turn about is fair play, and I can't see why the gorilla
shouldn't have his turn at the easy end of the business." The
idea seemed to strike Jewseppy where he lived. He was a
TOLD BY THE COLONel. 545
consistent idiot. I'll give him credit

for that. He wasn't ready to throw
over his theories every time he found
they didn't pay. Now that I had
pointed out to him his duty towards
the gorilla he was disposed to do it.
You see he reasoned that while
it would only be doing justice to
the beast to change places with
him , it would probably
increase the receipts .
When a man can do
his duty and make money
by it, his path is mid-
dling plain, and after
Jewseppy had thought
it over he saw
that he must do
justice to the
gorilla without
delay.
It didn't
take the beast
long to learn
the higher
branches of
hand-organing .
He saw the
advantages
THE GORILLA WAS A GREAT SUCCESS." of putting

the money
in his own pocket instead of collecting it and handing it over
to Jewseppy, and he grasped the idea that when he was push-
ing the little cart that carried the organ, and turning the handle,
he was holding a much better place in the community than
when he was dancing and begging at the end of a rope. I
thought, a day or two after I had talked to Jewseppy, that there
was considerable uproar in town, but I didn't investigate it until
towards evening, when there seemed to be a sort of riot or
temperance meeting, or something of the kind, in front of my
house, and I went out to see about it. There were about
two thousand people there watching Jewseppy and his gorilla, or
rather the gorilla and his Jewseppy. The little man had been
546 THE IDLER .
elevating the oppressed with great

success . A long rope was tied around
his waist, and he was trotting around
among the people, taking up the
collection , and dancing between times.
The gorilla was wearing Jewseppy's
coat, and was grinding away at
the organ with one hand, and
holding Jew-
seppy's rope with
" WEARING JEWSEPPY'S COAT, AND WAS GRINDING AWAY AT THE ORGAN."
the other. Every few minutes , he would haul in the rope hand over
hand , empty all the money out of Jewseppy's pocket, and start him
out again . If the man stopped to speak to anybody for a moment
the gorilla would haul him in and give him a taste ofthe whip, and
if he didn't collect enough money to suit the gorilla's idea, the
animal would hold him out at arm's length with one hand and lay
into him with the other till the crowd were driven wild with
delight. Nothing could induce them to think that Jewseppy was
in earnest when he begged them to protect him. They supposed
it was all a part of the play, and the more he implored them to
set him free, the more they laughed and said that " thish yer
Eyetalian was a bang-up actor."
As soon as Jewseppy saw me, he began to tell me of his
TOLD BY THE COLONEL. 547
sufferings. His
story lacked con-
tinuity, as you
might say, for he
would no sooner
get started in his
narrative than the
gorilla would jerk
the rope as a re-
minder to him to
attend strictly to
business if he wanted
to succeed in his pro-
fession. Jewseppy said that as
soon as he tied the rope around
his waist and put the handle of the
organ in the gorilla's hand the beast
saw his chance, and proceeded to take
advantage of it. He had already
knocked the man down twice with the
handle of the whip, and had lashed
him till he was black and blue, besides
" NOTHING COULD INDUCE THEM TO keeping him at work since seven
THINK THAT JEWSEPPY WAS IN
EARNEST.'" o'clock that morning without anything
to eat or drink.
At this point the gorilla hauled Jewseppy in and gave him a
fairly good thrashing for wasting his time in conversation. When
the man came around again with the plate I told him that he was
taking in more money than he had ever taken in before, and that
this ought to console him, even if the consciousness that he was
doing justice to the oppressed had no charms for him. I'm sorry
to say that Jewseppy used such bad language that I really couldn't
stay and listen to him any longer. I understood him to say that
the gorilla took possession of every penny that was collected, and
would be sure to spend it on himself, but as this was only what
Jewseppy had been accustomed to do it ought not to have irritated
a man with a real sense of justice. Of course, I was sorry that
the little man was being ill -treated, but he was tough, and I
thought that it would not hurt him if the gorilla were to carry out
his course of instruction in the duty of elevating the oppressed a
little longer. I have always been sort of sorry that I did not
interfere, for although Jewseppy was only a foreigner who couldn't
vote, and was besides altogether too set in his ideas, I didn't want
548 THE IDLER .
him to come to any real harm. After that day no man ever saw
Jewseppy, dead or alive. He was seen about dusk two or three
miles from town on the road to Sheboygan. He was still tied to
the rope, and was using a lot of bad language, while the gorilla.
was frequently reminding him with the whip of the real duties of
his station, and the folly of discontent and rebellion . That was
the last anybody ever saw of the Italian . The gorilla turned up
the next day at a neighbouring town with his organ, but without
anybody to take up the collection for him, and as the menagerie
happened to be there the menagerie men captured him and put him
back in his old cage, after having confiscated the organ . No one
thought of making any search for Jewseppy, for, as I have said, he
had never been naturalised , and had no vote , and there were not
enough Italians in that part of the country to induce anyone to
take an interest in bringing them to the polls . It was generally
believed that the gorilla had made away with Jewseppy, thinking
that he could carry on the organ business to more advantage
without him . It's always been my impression that if Jewseppy
had lived he would have been cured of the desire to elevate the
down-trodden, except, of course, in foreign countries. He was
an excellent little man-enthusiastic, warm -hearted , and really
believing in his talk about the rights of monkeys, and the duty of
elevating everybody. But there isn't the least doubt that he made
a mistake when he tried to do justice to that gorilla .
A Coster Song.
BY ALBERT CHEVALIER.
ILLUSTRATED BY J. F. SULLIVAN.
'M just about the proudest

T man that walks,
I've got a little nipper, when ' e

talks
I'll lay yer forty shiners

to a quid
You'll take ' im for the

father, me the kid.
Now as I never yet was

blessed wi' wealf,
I've ' ad to bring that

youngster up myself,
And though ' is educa-

tion ' as been free,
'E's' allus ' ad the best

of tips from me.
And ' e's a little champion ,

Do me proud well ' e's a knock out !
Takes after me and ain't a bit too tall.
'E call ' is mother " Sally,"
And ' is father " good old pally,"
And ' e only stands about so ' igh, that's all !
'E gits me on at skittles and ' e flukes ,

""
And when ' e wants to ' e can use ' is " dooks ;
You see ' im put ' em up, well there, it's great,
'E takes a bit of lickin' at ' is weight.
550 THE IDLER.
'E'll stick up like a Briton for ' is pals,
An' ain't ' e just a terror with the gals,
I loves to see ' im cuttin' of a dash,
A walkin' down our alley on the mash.
There ' e's a little champion,
Do me proud well ' e's a knock

out,
I've knowed ' im take a girl on six

feet tall ;
' E'd git ' imself up dossy,
Say " I'm goin ' out wi'

Flossie,"
An' ' e only stands about so ' igh,

that's all !
I used to do a gin crawl ev'ry night,

An' very, very often come ' ome tight,
But now of all sich ' abits I've got rid,
I allus wants to git ' ome to the kid.
In teachin' 'im, I takes a reg'lar pride,
Not books, of course, for them ' e can't abide,
But artful little ikey little ways
As makes the people sit up where we stays.

A COSTER SONG 551
(Recit.)-Only last Sunday me an' my missus took ' im out

for a walk- I should say ' e took us out. As we was a comin' '
' ome I says to the old gal, " let's pop into the ' Broker's Arms ' and
'ave a drop o' beer." She didn't raise no objection , so in we goes
followed by ' is nibs . I'd forgotten all about ' im. I goes to the
bar and calls for two pots of four ' alf. Suddenly I feels ' im tug-
gin' at my coat. "Wot's up ? " sez I. "Wot did yer call for ? "
sez ' e. " Two pots of four ' alf," sez I. " Oh, " sez ' e, " ain't
mother goin' to ' ave none ? "
SAVIVAN
.
Oh ! ' e's a little champion,

Do me proud well, ' e's a knock out,
"Drink up," sez 'e, " Three pots, miss, its my call."
I sez, " Now Jacky, Jacky,"

' E sez, " and a screw of baccy."
And ' e only stands about so ' igh, that's all !

The Kindness of The Celestial.
BY BARRY PAIN.
ILLUSTRATED BY SYDNEY COWELL.
IS real name was Cyprian Langsdyke, but that would have

struck anyone as being far too much of a name for the boy.
H He had a quaint Chinese look, due to his bright, narrow
eyes, and in consequence he was generally known at Des-
ford as The Celestial. He was much more athletic than he
looked, was reputed to be clever but whimsical, and known to be
unruly. He was in the fifth, and just at present he was in a bad
temper, for things had been going exceedingly wrong with The
Celestial.
S.C
"" HE WAS SEATED ON THE STACK OF HOT-WATER PIPES."
He was seated on the stack of hot-water pipes in the hall of

the School House . At his back were the screens on which school
notices were posted. Around him were certain sympathetic
THE KINDNESS OF THE CELESTIAL. 553
friends. The Celestial had just expressed , in simple language, a

wish that he was dead, and had been asked for his reasons.
" I never get any luck now-a-days ; look at that." He pointed
to a football list on the screens. " Peter Hill playing half in my
place, and me stuck in
the scrum . Oh , yes,
I'd expected that. I
shall be kicked out alto-
gether, to-morrow ;
that's a bit of Tommy
Hill's captaining, that
is. I knew he'd

give Peter a lift ; I
wonder he hasn't
asked his bloom-
ing motherto play.
However, I don't
want any favour-
ing, I want ordi-
nary justice- not
family influence,
but ordinary jus-
tice. And you don't
get that from
Tommy Hill , nor
from the old man ,
nor from Henry
Sc
Reginald Liggers ,
M.A. — more
YOU'LL RUIN YOUR WIND." especially Liggers .
I have had a day
with Liggers . I was about two seconds late for morning prep.-row
with Liggers. Then, when we got to work, I saw that fat- head
Smithson asleep on the other side of the table . So I
spilt my ink, calculating that, the way the table sloped, it
NN
554 THE IDLER.
would run acr

oss and pour over Smithson , and wake him
up. Liggers copped me ; he didn't even take the trouble to ask
why I'd spilt it—simply a hundred Greek with accents . Going in
to breakfast , I had a slight accident , and fell up against Liggers ,
and he called me a clumsy lout . Morning school , he made me
construe three -quarters of the Livy all to my own cheek , and never
put on Douglas , nor Banks , nor that fat-head Smithson at all ;
finding he couldn't kill me on the Livy , he tore up my prose and
told me to do it again. In the afternoon at footer he amused
himself by scragging me, and hacking me, and saying I was off-
side when I wasn't."
" He can't play much," said Banks, meaning to be sympathetic,
but speaking inadvisedly.
1
" You complete chump ! " replied The Celestial , scornfully. " Of
course he can play. He captained his college team, and he's
better than any of the other masters by a long chalk. There's no
sense in saying that he can't play footer, but he spites me.
Coming up from footer, he saw me come out of Hunley's, so he
said, 'You're always in there, Langsdyke, eating buns and
chocolate, and trash of that kind ; you'll ruin your wind. '
wasn't going to explain to him, but, as a matter of fact, I hadn't
been eating anything. I'd just had four bottles of gingerbeer,
and that was all-not another thing. Then in afternoon school
he sent me out of the room for blowing my nose."
The Smithson to whom The Celestial had made uncompli-
mentary allusions giggled reminiscently. " I own it made a row,"
continued The Celestial, with an air of judicial fairness . " I don't
deny it ; but I didn't do it on purpose. I never know when it's
going to make that row and when it isn't. And now it's Liggers's
prep. , and I'm bound to get dropped on again . Don't I wish I
was in the sixth, and had a study to myself ? You can get your
work done in three-quarters of an hour, and then you have the
other half of prep . all to yourself, to read novels in. It's beastly
working in that day-room with Liggers or some other master
looking on all the time. You don't get a chance to-to do
anything. However, if Liggers is going to be rough on me, I'll
be rough on him . There's the prep. bell ; so now for breezes ! "
The little group dispersed. During preparation that night
there were more than breezes there were hurricanes. The
Celestial retired to his cubicle at ten resigned and philo-
sophical. There were two big dormitories in the School House
at Desford, each containing twenty cubicles. The partitions
which formed the cubicles were about seven feet high, and did not
nearly reach to the ceiling, so conversation was possible, and was
permitted until the lights were put out at half- past ten.
" I'm going to give up being hard on Liggers," remarked The
Celestial from his cubicle to the rest of the lower dormitory. " It's
played out. A master can call you an idiot, and you can't call
him anything back again ; so he has the bulge. It's no use being
at war with Liggers . I'm going on a different line."
" What are you going to do ? " enquired Smithson from the
next cubicle. Smithson, generally addressed as " fat-head," was
of the good- natured , fat, indolent , rather stupid type . He was
.
entirely devoted to The Celestial, to whom he stood in the position
of a humble serf.
" I'm going to try kindness . Now dry up, because I'm writing
my lines, and the gas will be out directly. "
When the gas was put out, The Celestial
removed the counterpane and one blanket
from his bed, and lay down. He was in
consequence only just warm enough to be
able to go to sleep, and he calculated quite
rightly that in a couple of hours the cold
would wake him. The cold acted
as a silent alarum. As soon as he
was awake, he got out of bed and
looked out of window. He was
pleased to find that all the lights
were out in the master's wing of
the house. Then he produced from
his chest of drawers a bull's- eye
S.C.
lantern, which he lit and placed so
that it would illuminate the head
of his bed . On the chair by the " HEHIGHEST WROTE THESE LINES IN THE VERY
STYLE OF CALIGRAPHY. "
bedside he put his Homer, his
writing-case, and two ink-pots. Then he put on a football jersey,
an ulster, and a dressing- gown, and, sitting up in bed, began to
write lines, taking the writing-case and the Homer on his knee. He
wrote these lines in the very highest style of caligraphy. Greek
looks very beautiful when it is beautifully written , and The
Celestial looked upon his performance , when he had finished , with
the eye of an artist. He numbered every fifth line in red ink, and
wrote the following note at the head of the first page :
" N.B.- These lines have been correctly numbered, in order to facilitate
counting.-C. LANGSDYKE."
556 THE IDLER .
He could think of nothing

else which would make the im-
position look more artistic, so
he got out of bed , put away his
writingthings, ate two cranberry
tarts which he had brought from
Hunley's to assist him in his
midnight toil, and turned out
the lantern . Then he went
back again to bed, and slept like
a tired dog.
Yet was Mr. Liggers not
contented with that imposition .
"If I ever get any ofthis red-ink
foolery from you again," he re-
marked, "you'll have to re-write
-understand that, please." The
Celestial sighed the sigh of
Christian resignation, and as
Mr. Liggers was going out 66 POLITELY OPENED THE DOOR FOR HIM. "
politely opened the door for him.
That morning in school Mr. Liggers happened to crumple up
a corrected prose
in his hand and
aim it at the waste-
paper basket. It
just missed . The
fifth were down
at their desks at
the time. The
Celestial rosefrom
his place, stepped
softly across the
class-room, picked
up the little ball of
paper, and care-
fully placed it in
the very centre of
St the waste - paper
basket. Then he
looked round the
44 CAREFULLY PLACED IT IN THE VERY CENTRE OF THE
room with perfect
WASTE-PAPER BASKET.
gravity, and returned to his seat. The politeness was so

excessive, so abnormal, and in The Celestial so singularly
unexpected, that the fifth suffered- suffered badly from enforced
suppression of their feelings . For a second or two the strict
silence of the class-room continued, and then came a faint
gurgling sound as of one pouring water out of a bottle. It stopped
abruptly, and an observer might have noticed that Smithson had
gone purple in the face . Then the gurgling sound began again ;
it came quicker, and louder and louder. Mr. Liggers looked up
from the prose that he was correcting, and requested Smithson
and Langsdyke to go out of the room.
"We've done it now, " said Smithson ; " I wonder what he'll
do."
" You've done it," said The Celestial. " I was only carrying
out my plan, and being polite to him . What did you laugh for ?"
" If I hadn't laughed ," said Smithson sadly, " I believe I
should have broken something inside me. It's awful . I never
want to laugh except when I don't want to, and then I have to."
"Well," said The Celestial, " I'm going on being kind to that
man. It's sure to move him in the end. Then he'll be sorry. I
wonder if he likes cocoanuts ."
"Most people do . Where are you going to get them ?"
66
Market-place. There's a man comes in on Saturdays, and
you have shies at them."
" But the Market-place is out of bounds ."
" I never said I wouldn't break
any rules, fat-head. It's only Liggers
I'm favouring."
" All right, I'm on," said Smithson.
" If we're copped , we're copped ," he
added , fatalistically.
They were informed at the end of
the morning that punishment was de-
ferred ; it might be modified, or even
altogether averted, by good behaviour.
" That's Liggers all over," Smith-
son remarked . " He leaves things
hanging over your head, and just
when you think he's forgotten all about
C
it, he drops down on you."
" You wait till I've done with
"WHEN I WANT YOU TO let ME WIN,
I'LL TELL YOU." him," said The Celestial. " I've got
558 THE IDLER .
an idea that he was ill-treated when he was young, and

he doesn't understand kindness at present -but I shall bring him
round all right."
On the Saturday morning which followed, Mr. Liggers put The
Celestial on to translate Virgil . Now The Celestial had taken
particular trouble with his translation
the night before, and on the rare
occasions when The Celestial took
trouble it became evident that he was
a youth of some considerable promise.
He had the beginnings of a poetical
taste in him, of which he was very
sincerely ashamed . His translation
was not a marvellously brilliant piece
of work, but it was good.
He had a notion of style,
and he had followed his
master's example in
translating Virgil into
simple, rather archaic
and biblical English.
Mr. Liggers let him go
on until he had trans-
lated the whole lesson,
and then said icily,
" Thank you that will
do ." He gave The Celes-.
tial full marks for the
translation, however ;
and Mr. Liggers very
rarely gave full marks .
But The Celestial had no
'means of discovering
what marks he had got,
and in any case would
have preferred a word
3.6.
or two of praise.
" That was an awful
66 THE CELESTIAL WALKED A LITTLE IN ADVANCE- swagger construe of
RADIANT, TRIUMPHANT." yours," remarked the
sympathetic Banks to The Celestial afterwards, " but Liggers
didn't say much, did he ?"
Before The Celestial could reply, Mr. Liggers touched him on

the shoulder and asked him if he would play fives. Now fives was
the game at which The Celestial particularly excelled, and Mr.
Liggers was rather a new hand at it . But The Celestial thanked
him, and presently they met at the fives- courts . Mr. Liggers
won the first game easily, and looked suspicious . He was winning
the second rather more easily when he stopped suddenly :
"We'll finish this some time when you aren't sulking, Langs-
dyke. I don't want any of your condescensions. When I want
you to let me win I'll tell you."
The Celestial said nothing, but politely handed Mr. Liggers
his coat. In taming Mr. Liggers it was obvious that considerable
patience would be necessary.
" Fat-head," said The Celestial, when he had found the devoted
Smithson, " meet me after footer at Dow's Lane, and we'll go for
those cocoanuts. I'm going to give him three days ' more kindness ;
he's trying, but I may get him in hand yet." Dow's Lane was
the short cut to the Market-place ; both were out of bounds , and
Dow's Lane was a peculiarly unsavoury, unsanitary, disease- pro-
ducing place. But Smithson never thought of refusing ; where
his great patron The Celestial went, Smithson followed like a
faithful dog.
Late that afternoon the two returned from their expedition .
The Celestial walked a little in advance-radiant, triumphant ;
behind him came the humble Smithson , bearing four cocoanuts-
won by The Celestial at a cost of fivepence.
" There's one for you , fat-
head," remarked The Celes-
tial when they had got up to
the School House, " and one
for me, and two for a peace-
offering on the altar of
Liggers. Go and borrow
Douglas's gimlet, and get
the gravy out of the in-
wards of our two. I'm
going upstairs to
Liggers's study with the
peace-offering."
" He is such a corker ,
you know," remarked
Smithson to Douglas ,
" I SHIED FOR THEM IN THE MARKET PLACE , SIR. " when The Celestial had
560 THE IDLER .
disappeared. " I'm blest if I know whether he's rotting Liggers

or whether he isn't. But, my word, he can shy ! Four in five
shots isn't so dusty."
The Celestial found Mr. Liggers in his study, and remarked
gravely that he had brought him two cocoanuts. Mr. Liggers
almost smiled, and his manner approached geniality.
" Come now, Langsdyke, that's very good of you, but you
mustn't let me deprive the senior day-room of its desirable in-
digestion. Suppose you leave one of them, and take the other
away with you . Where did you get them ?"
The question was not in the least inquisitorial ; Mr. Liggers
had expected that the answer would be, " At Hunley's ." The
dialogue which followed illustrates the state of The Celestial's
ethics , which were erratic, but had something rather fine about
them .
" I shied for them in the Market- place, sir." The Celestial
would never lie to save himself.
The geniality vanished at once from Mr. Liggers's manner.
" You know that the Market -place is out of bounds. Which way
99
did you go to it ? '
" By Dow's Lane, sir."
"Which also is out of bounds ?"
" Yes, sir."
" Did anyone go with you ?"
" No." The Celestial would always lie to save anyone else.
" Not Smithson ?"
66 No, sir, I went alone. ”
" Take these things away. I will tell you on Monday after-
noon what your punishment will be ; you have broken a most
important rule. You have gone a little too far this time. I am
sorry for you, but I am afraid that this will mean expulsion . Now
go away."
The Celestial went down again to the day-room, where he
found Smithson and some others engaged in extracting the milk
from the nuts with a gimlet.
" Cocoanuts are cheap to -day," observed The Celestial .
" Liggers can't eat them ; they're too rich for his poor stomach .
So he bade me bestow them on the bilious Banks and the debili-
tated Douglas . Give me to drink of the gravy of the cocoanut."
He seemed to be in particularly high and whimsical spirits , and
drained the tooth- mug proffered to him with a fine melodramatic
air. " Now, then," he said, " I've got three blessed shillings.
THE KINDNESS OF THE CELESTIAL.
561
Let us go to Hunley's and drink and eat cranberry tarts, for the
day after to-morrow we die-at least I do ."
Smithson knew there was something wrong, and privately
enquired what it was.
" I fancy," said The Celestial meditatively, " that I've about
come to the end of the string, and now you can dry up, fat-head.
You ll hear all the rest of it soon enough."
But late on the Sunday evening following, moved perhaps by
the sentimentality inspired by the music of the evening service
and the lateness of the hour , he told the faithful Smithson every-
thing. " For myself," he said, " I don't care. With Tommy
Hill to captain the footer and Liggers to make your life miserable
in the fifth, the sooner I'm out of Desford the better. But my
people will be sick-that's what I'm thinking about."
" Look here," said Smithson, half-angrily, " I won't stand it.
I- I'm damned if I want to get off and see you sacked. I was in
it every bit as much as you were, and I'm going to say so."
" If you say one single word about it," answered The
Celestial, " I'll just punch your fat head off, and never
speak to you again. Dry up and keep quiet, and do as
you're told ."
When on Monday afternoon Mr.
Liggers came downstairs with bad
news for The Celestial, he found the
boy seated on the stack of hot- water
pipes and wrapped up in two over-
coats.
66
Langsdyke, " he said, coldly,
" I have considered your case, and I
see no reason for treating you with
any leniency. I shall therefore— "
he stopped suddenly, as he saw
the boy's flushed face and feverish
eyes. " Why," he asked, in quite
a different voice, " what's the matter
with you, Langsdyke ? Are you ill ?"
HE FOUND THE BOY SEATED ON THE STACK " It isn't anything , sir , "
OF HOT-WATER PIPES AND WRAPPED UP IN answered The Celestial, a little
TWO OVERCOATS."
excitedly. "It's just an ordinary
sort of a cold. I'm shivering one moment and swea - awfully
hot the next, and my head aches fit to split. Couldn't I take out
my punishment in canings, sir, or partly canings and partly lines ?
562 THE IDLER.
I don't want to beg off anything-only, you see, it's not so

99
much me as the mater that'll feel it if I-
Mr. Liggers interrupted him, and he had lost all his beautiful,
magisterial manner : " That's all right, old man, don't you fret
yourself. You're not going to be expelled . Now run off to the
sick-room at once, and say I sent you ; and don't dream of coming
to school this afternoon. We'll forget all about that punishment,
I think ; I'm sorry you're ill."
The Celestial thanked him, and climbed up-
Istairs to the sick-room. " I'm bad, Mrs. Carter,"
he said to the matron, " and Liggers says I'm
to stop here." And then this curious youth, who
would have received the news of his expulsion
with dry eyes, bent his head in his hands, and
burst into tears.
" Poor dear ! " said the motherly
Mrs. Carter, " you must be ill to take
on like that."
In the meantime Mr. Liggers , who
knew something of the condition of
Dow's Lane, had hurried off to fetch
a doctor. On the following day the
rest of the school knew that The
Celestial was ill with scarlet fever, and
had been removed to the sanatorium .
* * * *
On the following night, in Mr.
Liggers's sitting- room, the mathe-
matical master, Mr. Dunham , was
46 BENT HIS HEAD IN HIS HANDS, AND
giving Mr. Liggers a piece of his BURST INTO TEARS.""
mind.
" I tell you I was in the dormitory passage myself, and
overheard it ; and I'll swear he only meant to be decent to you.
Of course, he blundered, and overdid it, and was whimsical about
it being a boy and not a prig-and would not let the others
know that he really meant it, but he did mean it. I know Langs-
dyke, and I tell you he's as plucky as a man , and proud of it-and
as sensitive as a girl, and ashamed of it. Look at that Virgil
construe of his that you told me about . Do you suppose a boy
takes the trouble to prepare work like that unless he means to be
kind to a master ? There isn't another boy in the fifth, by the
way, who could have rendered in optato alveo' by ' in the
THE KINDNESS OF THE CELESTIAL . 563
haven where they fain would be .' I tell you that he's a clever
fellow , and a good fellow, and that you've consistently ill-treated
and misunderstood him ."
" I'm ashamed of myself, Dunham . I always liked the boy
really, but I didn't want the others to say that I favoured him,
and, perhaps, I "
At this point there was a knock at the door, and the fat- head
Smithson appeared in an agitated condition.
" Please, sir, I was with The Celest- with Langsdyke in Dow's
Lane the other day, when he said I wasn't, to get me off. And
I'd sooner I was expelled than Langsdyke, because I've only got
an uncle, and he doesn't care much ; and Langsdyke's ill , you see,
and it mightn't be good . for him, and he'll knock my head off it
he hears about it. But I thought as long as one of us was
expelled "
" Go away," said Mr. Liggers, irritably. " No one's going to
be expelled. Don't make a fool of yourself. I say, Dunham ,"
he added, when Smithson had withdrawn, " I say-damn it all-
this is rather touching, you know."
SydayColl
"I'D SOONER I WAS EXPELLED THAN LANGSDYKE."
564 THE IDLER .
The following is an extract from a fumigated letter which The

Celestial wrote to his sister Madge during the period of his con-
valescence :-
"Well, severity didn't do him, no more did kindness, but illness has made
him just proper. He brought me books and things, and came to enquire about
me every day. And now that term's over, he has stopped on, and risked
infection by keeping me company in the sanatorium. So I said to him last
night, ' If you'll tell me what you like next term, I'll do it, sir, because you're
too good a sort to have rows with.' An1 he said, ' So are you, old man.' So
that'll be all right."
KEEPING ME COMPANY IN THE SANATORIUM."

Friar Lawrence.
BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS .
ON
ILLUSTRATED BY ERNEST M. JESSOP.
FRIAR LAWRENCE climbed

over the monast'ry wall on
a beautiful night, with the
moon shining bright ; and
his watchers expected the
friar would fall , for this
little excursion we're sorry
to call far from right.
But he reached the ground
safely, and hastened away
just as fast as he could,
with his nose in his
&Jessop
hood, to a hostelry- censured by
night as too gay. For that mat-
ter, the inn's reputation by day
wasn't good. If a paltry lay sinner,
the Abbot decreed , should be found.
at this place, it meant utter dis-
grace ; but for clerics, the penance
was frightful indeed : unavailing to
weep or to pray or to plead in their
case. For the Abbot arranged

quite a horrible doom ; and the
rash celibate who went roaming
out late, if discovered , they deeply
immured in a tomb. To be buried
alive in a little brick room was his
fate. But the friar we name felt
no shadow of fear they would ever
find out that he wasn't devout.
He had been to the tavern for over
a year, and his coming was always the sign for a cheer or a shout.
In exchange for his tales of the monks, which are rare, and
566 THE IDLER.
ridiculous lays of the good Abbot's

ways, godless fellows who visit
A that hostelry share his expenses ;
VE PIC& WHISTLE so Lawrence, whenever he's there,
GOOD ENTERTAINMENT FOR
never pays . From the rigour of
ecclesiastical life, why, the change
was sublime-worth a dangerous
climb. " Man is meant," Lawrence
said, " for a home and a wife ; not to
wear out both knees in long spiritual
strife all his time." In a monk such
opinions were unjustified. " We must
carefully shun," said the Abbot, " each
one of those devilish pleasures , where-
on we relied in the world. If we
MAN &BYBEAST.
E.JESSOR don't, I shall flog out our pride."
Which was done. But no penance could mortify
Lawrence's soul ; and suspicions of doubt began
creeping about ; for, in spite of his fasting and
fine self-control, Friar Lawrence became,

as a composite whole, very stout. Now the
Abbot regarded this singular case with no
little surprise ; but, not deeming it wise to
accuse the ascetic direct to his face, did a
thing, which some folks might denominate
base, and set spies. On the night of this
FRIAR LAWRENCE. 567
record they saw the monk start ;

then retreated pell -mell their good
Abbot to tell. Whereupon he re-
plied, " Though I'm sorry at
heart, we must send for stone-
masons and settle this smart
Brother L." But that ignorant
sinner, both thirsty and cold,
found his tavern
of vice quite a
small paradise ;
for the fire it
E.Jessup
was bright and
the liquor was
old, while his host's pretty daughter had hair like spun gold, and
1/1
MAT
was nice. Soon the friar forgot

all his manifold wrongs as he
sat by the board, and the ruddy
wine poured . Then he gave
2.Je imitations and sang racy songs ,
ssop.
till the wicked old topers ,
around him in throngs, fairly roared . Next
he conjured with coppers and stood on his
head, which was funny, although just a little
bit low ; but his last entertainment all voted
ill-bred ; for he cheated at ' halfpenny nap.'
So they said, " You must go." The result is
exactly as might be foretold, though one
greatly deplores, and, in fact, quite abhors , to
describe how his watchers were soon to
568 THE IDLER.
behold Friar Lawrence come rollicking

back to the fold on all fours. See !
The Abbot meets Lawrence and men-
tions his schemes,
with a purpose to
check that monas-
tical wreck. Hark !
H The drunken and
INA olut
e
-
AM diss friar blas
phemes ! so they
lavishly pour holy
water, in streams,
down his neck. All E.M.J.
&.M.
)..
the monks lent a hand, and they did their work well ;
but the language that night, when the friar showed fight, not a
soul- no, not even the Abbot, could quell ; while, concerning a
subsequent scene in his cell, I won't write. In the morning ,
when sober, they told him his fate ; and although
pretty tough, being made of stern stuff, Friar Law-
rence's tonsure stood up on his pate. Then the
wretch, as reliable chronicles state, cut up rough .
He entreated and prayed and most solemnly swore
he was not fit to die ; which they didn't deny. He
exclaimed, " Spare my life, just this once, I im-
plore ; and I'll never, dear Abbot, slip out any
more on the sly." The kind Abbot, a merciful man
in his way, was prepared to discuss the affair with-
out fuss ; so in patience he sat till the end of that day. After
which, having heard all the monk had to say, answered thus :
6
" If you'll write out the Lives of the Saints ' to the end, without
error or spot, or erasure or blot ; in-say twenty- four hours ;
then, my backsliding friend, shall your criminal past, as you've
promised to mend , be forgot."
Now this feat was entirely be-
yond human skill, which the
Abbot well knew, and the good
friars too ; so, when Lawrence
set out on his task with a will,
they all winked, as they plied
him with paper and quill , then
withdrew. As for Lawrence, he quickly discovered the trap.
66
' Though I'm done just as brown as my clerical gown, " he bawled
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
569
out through the keyhole, " I don't care a scrap. It's just like our
vile Abbot to jump on a chap when he's down ! " At this sad ex-
hibition of temper and sin, said the Abbot, " Now we, you will
doubtless agree, can inform the stonemasons they'd better begin ;
and, on Saturday evening, we'll brick Lawrence in, after tea.'
Then both silent and peaceful the Abbey became, save at
Lawrence's door. There he hammered and swore till the loud
repetition of Somebody's name brought a shabby red fiend, on a
tongue of forked flame, through the
floor. " Ah ! exactly ; another poor
monk in distress ," he remarked with a
bow. "What's the fix you're in now ?
As you're doubtless aware, I can clear
up this mess . Shall I do so ? " And
Lawrence said instantly, " Yes, only
how ?" " You may leave that with
absolute safety to me ; I'm a splendid
ally," did the demon reply ; " But, of
course," he continued, " if I guarantee
a performance like this,
then my terms, you
will see, must be high."
Having spoken, he in-
stantly sought in his
breast for a strange
docu ment of most sinis-
op
4.Jess ? ter bent. Seven toasting-
Sathanas.
forks, rampant , it bore
for a crest, and a motto, in Latin , distinctly expressed long
descent. "There ! you've no fault to find with my bond, I should
think. Now, for form, nothing more ( I have witnessed a score),
just your name we require, but I
fear you will shrink when I tell you
the Deed must be signed, not with
ink, but in gore." Lawrence punc-
tured his finger and let the blood
run ; then he wrote as desired while
the other admired. " Now," the
devil remarked , "just you see how
each one of these precious old M
'Lives of the Saints ' shall be done when required." He sat
down to the task with a business-like air ; found a pen to his
O
570 THE IDLER.
taste ; then, with no time to waste,

put his quill in the ink and went off
like a hare ; while our friar could only
stand idly and stare at such
haste. "We will get this thing
finished, by hook or by crook,
if we can," the fiend said ; but,
TH BEAT
.
as onward he sped, with explosions

of laughter he constantly shook, and
remarked, " On my soul, it's the
funniest book that I've read.
Why these Saints-quite two-
thirds of them shouldn't ap-
pear ; really nothing avails-
language utterly fails to de-
scribe the ridiculous muddle
that's here. You have drawn
them with wings and with
p
esso
E.J
halos ; but where are their tails ?

This is worse than misleading, it's
simply untrue ; yet the volume sur-
E.M.Jessop. -vives and apparently thrives. Why,
my own name is mentioned repeat-
edly too ! It's about time I pub-
lished a little review of these ' Lives.' At least half of your Saints
I have long ago gleaned ; you'll discover anon where the clerics
have gone. Now just read this bit- '99 Then the monk inter-
vened and observed , " Let me beg you won't chatter, dear fiend,
but push on." The demoniac personage nodded his head ; but
his smile disappeared, though he still persevered . While his pen
tore along, squeaking loud as it sped , no more comments he
made, not another word said ; only sneered . Then, at last, when
the bright silver grill of the day streaked the dim Eastern sky,
he remarked , with a sigh, " There, it's done, thank my stars !
FRIAR LAWRENCE. 571
now I'll hasten away ; though, before I depart, Au revoir,' let

me say, not ' Good-bye.' There's the whole book completed
-most terrible trash. You have got your desire ; how, they
need not inquire. So farewell for the present." Then followed
a crash of loud thunder, and Satan went off in a flash of red
fire. Later on, when the Abbot and monks came
to see how far Lawrence had got ; they were cer-
tainly not in the least bit prepared to discover
that he had, with skill just as perfect as perfect
could be, done the lot. Said the Abbot, " This
feat is without parallel ; no blots and no scratches ?
Great credit attaches to such an achievement ;
but, Lawrence, your cell has an odour distinctly
suggestive of-well, say matches. Such a thing in my Abbey I
greatly lament. On our noses it jars, and most certainly mars
your performance ; it's not a respectable scent, and it hangs in
the vestments to any extent, like cigars. But of course
it's your business , we freely confess ;
though we cannot pretend such a feat
to commend. By a miracle you have
escaped from your mess ; and, as men of
the world, we can easily guess who's
your friend. You will figure, however,
henceforth as a Saint. It may even be
wise, when I next advertise , just to
mention the matter ; while as to this
taint in your ceil, that, no doubt, Condy's
fluid or paint will disguise." So they
sent little
'pars ' to the
clerical press ,
just to open
the ball and to make people call. Then
they worked up a ' boom' through the
whole diocess ; and the Pope dropped a
line, wishing every success to them all .
Friar Lawrence has long left this wicked
old earth-' twas in Rome, they avow,
that he made his last bow. But his
present address is no matter for mirth .
Let us all, my dear friends, shun the
tropical berth he's got now.
FINIS.
The American Claimant .
BY MARK TWAIN.
CHAPTER IX.
HE earl and Washington started

on the sorrowful errand, talk-
ing as they walked .
" And as usual !"
"What, Colonel ?
" Seven of them in that hotel.
Actresses. And all burnt out, of
course.
66 Any
of them burnt up ? "
" Oh , no, they escaped ; they
always do ; but there's never a one of
them that knows enough
to fetch out her jewelry
with her."
"That's strange."
" Strange-it's the
most unaccountable
thing in the world.
Experience teaches
them nothing ; they
can't seem to learn
anything except out
of a book. In some
cases there's mani-
festly a fatality about
it. For instance, take
What's · her - name,
THEY STARTED ON THE SORROWFUL ERRAND.""
that plays those sen-
sational thunder and lightning parts. She's got a perfectly im-
mense reputation-draws like a dog-fight-and it all came from
getting burnt out in hotels."
66'Why, how could that give her a reputation as an actress ? "
" It didn't-it only made her name familiar. People want to
see her play because her name is familiar, but they don't know
THE AMERICAN CLAİMANT. 573
what made it familiar, because they don't remember. First, she

was at the bottom of the ladder, and absolutely obscure- wages ,
thirteen dollars a week and find her own pads ."
" Pads ? "
"Yes, things to fat up her spindles with so as to be plump and
attractive. Well , she got burnt out in a hotel and lost thirty
thousand dollars worth of diamonds-
"She ? Where'd she get them ? ”
" Goodness knows-given to her, no doubt, by spooney young
flats and sappy old bald-heads in the front row. All the papers
were full of it. She struck for higher pay and got it. Well , she
got burnt out again and lost all her diamonds , and it gave her
such a lift that she went starring ."
"Well, if hotel fires are all she's got to depend on to keep up
her name, it's a pretty precarious kind of a reputation I should
think."
"Not with her. No, anything but that. Because she's so
lucky ; born lucky, I reckon. Every time there's a hotel fire , she's
in it. She's always there—and if she can't be there herself, her
diamonds are. Now you can't make anything out of that but just
sheer luck."
"I never heard of such a thing. She must have lost quarts of
diamonds ."
"Quarts, she's lost bushels of them. It's got so that the
hotels are superstitious about her. They won't let her in. They
think there will be a fire ; and besides , if she's there it cancels the
insurance. She's been waning a little lately, but this fire will set
her up . She lost sixty thousand dollars worth last night."
" I think she's a fool . If I had sixty thousand dollars worth
of diamonds I wouldn't trust them in a hotel ."
" I wouldn't either ; but you can't teach an actress that. This
one's been burnt out thirty-five times. And yet if there's a hotel
fire in San Francisco to-night she's got to bleed again, you mark
my words. Perfect ass ; they say she's got diamonds in every
hotel in the country."
When they arrived at the scene of the fire the poor old earl
took one glimpse at the melancholy morgue and turned away his
face, overcome by the spectacle. He said :
" It is too true, Hawkins- recognition is impossible, not one
of the five could be identified by its nearest friend . You make
the selection , I can't bear it ."
" Which one had I better- ""
574 THE IDLER.
"Oh, take any of them. Pick out the best one."

However, the officers assured the earl-for they knew him,
everybody in Washington knew him- that the position in which
these bodies were found made it impossible that any one of them
could be that of his noble young kinsman. They pointed out the
spot where, if the newspaper account was correct, he must have
sunk down to destruction ; and at a wide distance from this spot
they showed him where the young man must have gone down in
case he was suffocated in his room ; and they showed him still a
third place, quite remote, where he might possibly have found his
death if perchance he tried to escape by the side exit toward the
rear. The old Colonel brushed away a tear and said to
Hawkins-
" As it turns out, there
was something prophetic in my
fears . Yes, it's a matter of
ashes. Will you kindly step
to a grocery and fetch a couple
more baskets ?"
Reverently they got a
basket of ashes from each of
those now hallowed spots , and
carried them home to consult
as to the best manner of for-
warding them to England, and also
to give them an opportunity to
" lie in state," a mark of respect
which the Colonel deemed obligatory,
considering the high rank of the
deceased.
They set the baskets on the table
in what was formerly the library,
drawing-room, and workshop- now the
Hall of Audience-and went upstairs 46 TOOK ONE GLIMPSE AT THE MELANCHOLY
MORGUE."
to the lumber room to see if they
could find a British flag to use as a
part of the outfit proper to the lying in state. A moment later,
Lady Rossmore came in from the street and caught sight of the
baskets just as old Jinny crossed her field of vision. She quite
lost her patience, and said-
"Well, what will you do next ? What in the world possessed
you to clutter up the parlor table with these baskets of ashes ?"
" Ashes ?" And she came to look. She put up her hands in
pathetic astonishment. "Well, I never see de like !"
" Didn't you do it ? "
"Who, me? Clah to goodness it's de fust time I've sot eyes
on ' em , Miss Polly. Dat's Dan'l ! Dat ole moke is losin' his
mine."
But it wasn't Dan'l, for he was called, and denied it.
66
Dey ain't no way to ' splain dat wen hit's one er dese-yer
common currences, a body kin reckon maybe de cat-
" Oh !" and a shudder shook Lady Rossmore to her foundations.
" I see it all . Keep away from them- they're his ."
"His, m'lady ? "
" Yes, your young Marse Sellers from England that's burnt
up."
She was alone with the ashes-alone before she could take
half a breath. Then she went after Mulberry Sellers, purposing
to make short work with his programme, whatever it might be ;
"for," said she, " when his sentimentals are up, he's a numskull ,
and there's no knowing what extravagance he'll contrive, if you
let him alone. " She found him. He had found the flag, and was
bringing it. When she heard that his idea was to have the
remains " lie in state, and invite the Government and the public,"
she broke it up. She said-
" Your intentions are all right-they always are-you want to
do honor to the remains, and surely nobody can find any fault
with that, for he was your kin ; but you are going the wrong way.
about it, and you will see it yourself if you stop and think. You
can't file around a basket of ashes trying to look sorry for it , and
make a sight that is really solemn, because the solemner it is, the
more it isn't—anybody can see that. It would be so with one
basket ; it would be three times so with three. Well , it stands to
reason that if it wouldn't be solemn with one mourner, it wouldn't
with a procession-and there would be five thousand people here.
I don't know but it would be pretty near ridiculous ; I think it
would. No, Mulberry, they can't lie in state-it would be a
mistake . Give that up, and think of something else."
So he gave it up, and not reluctantly, when he had thought it
over, and realised how right her instinct was. He concluded to
merely sit up with the remains ; just himself and Hawkins . Even
this seemed a doubtful attention , to his wife, but she offered no
objection, for it was plain that he had a quite honest and simple-
hearted desire to do the friendly and honorable thing by these
R
576 THE IDLE .
forlorn poor relics which could command no hospitality in this far-

off land of strangers but his. He draped the flag about the
baskets, put some crape on the door-knob, and said with satis-
faction-
" There he is as comfortable, now, as we can make him in
the circumstances . Except-yes, we must strain a point there-
one must do as one would wish to be done by-he must have it."
99
" Have what, dear ?
" Hatchment."
The wife felt that the house-front
was standing about all it could well
stand in that way ; the prospect
of another stunning decoration
of that nature distressed her,
and she wished the thing
had not occurred to him.
She said, hesitatingly-
" But I thought such
an honor as that
wasn't allowed to
any but very very
near relations,
who- "
" LADY ROSSMORE AND HER DAUGHTER ASSISTED AT THE SITTING UP.
" Right, you are quite right, my lady, perfectly right ; but
there aren't any nearer relatives than relatives by usurpation.
We cannot avoid it, we are slaves of aristocratic custom , and
must submit."
The hatchments were unnecessarily generous , each being as
large as a blanket, and they were unnecessarily volcanic, too, as
to variety and violence of color, but they pleased the earl's bar-
baric eye, and they satisfied his taste for symmetry and complete-
ness, too, for they left no waste room to speak of on the house-
front.
Lady Rossmore and her daughter assisted at the sitting-up till
near midnight, and helped the gentlemen to consider what ought
577
to be done next with the remains. Rossmore thought they ought

to be sent home-with a committee and resolutions at once.
But the wife was doubtful. She said :
"Would you send all of the baskets ? "
" Oh, yes, all .”
" All at once ? '
" To his father ? Oh, no-by no means . Think of the shock.
No-one at a time ; break it to him by degrees ."
" Would that have that effect, father ? "
" Yes, my daughter. Remember, you are young and elastic ,
but he is old. To send him the whole at once might well be more
than he could bear. But mitigated-one basket at a time , with
restful intervals between, he would be used to it by the time he
got all of him. And sending him in three ships is safer anyway,
on account of wrecks and storms."
" I don't like the idea, father. If I were his father it would
be dreadful to have him coming in that-in that— ”
" On the instalment plan," suggested Hawkins, gravely, and
proud of being able to help.
" Yes-dreadful to have him coming in that incoherent way
There would be the strain of suspense upon me all the time. To
have so depressing a thing as a funeral impending, delayed , wait-
ing, unaccomplished "
" Oh, no, my child , " said the earl, reassuringly, " there would
be nothing of that kind ; so old a gentleman could not endure a
long-drawn suspense like that. There will be three funerals ."
Lady Rossmore looked up surprised , and said-
" How is that going to make it easier for him ? It's a total
mistake, to my mind . He ought to be buried all at once ; I'm
sure of it."
" I should think so, too , " said Hawkins .
" And certainly I should ," said the daughter.
" You are all wrong," said the earl . " You will see it your-
selves if you think. Only one of these baskets has got him in it.”
"Very well, then , " said Lady Rossmore, " the thing is perfectly
simple-bury that one."
" Certainly," said Lady Gwendolen .
" But it is not simple," said the earl, " because we do not know
which basket he is in. We know he is in one of them , but that is
all we do know. You see now, I reckon , that I was right ; it
takes three funerals, there is no other way." ,
" And three graves , and three monuments , and three inscrip-
tions ? " asked the daughter.
578 THE IDLER.
" Well-yes -to do it right. That is what

I should do."
"It could not be done so, father. Each
of the inscriptions would give the same
name and the same facts, and say that
he was under each and all of
these monuments, and that
would not answer at all."
The earl nestled uncom-
fortably in his chair.
" No," he said, " that is
an objection. That is a
serious objection . I see no
way out."
There was a general silence
for awhile. Then Hawkins
said-
" It seems to me that if
we mixed the three ramifi-
99
cations together-
" IT COULD NOT BE DONE SO, FATHER 19
The earl grasped him by
the hand and shook it gratefully .
" It solves the whole problem ," he said. " One ship, one
funeral, one grave, one monument-it is admirably conceived . It
does you honor, Major Hawkins ; it has relieved me of a most
painful embarrassment and distress, and it will save that poor
stricken old father much suffering. Yes, he shall go over in one
basket."
" When ? " asked the wife.
" To-morrow--immediately, of course."
" I would wait, Mulberry."
"Wait ? Why ? "
" You don't want to break that childless old man's heart ?"
" God knows I don't !"
" Then wait till he sends for his son's remains. If you do
that, you will never have to give him the last and sharpest pain a
parent can know-I mean, the certainty that his son is dead. For
he will never send ."
66
'Why won't he ? "
" Because to send-and find out the truth-would rob him of
the one precious thing left him, the uncertainty, the dim hope that
maybe, after all , his boy escaped, and he will see him again some
day."
THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT . 579
" Why, Polly, he'll know by the papers that he was burnt up."
" He won't let himself believe the papers ; he'll argue against
anything and everything that proves his son is dead ; and he will
keep that up and live on it, and on nothing else till he dies. But
if the remains should actually come, and be put before that poor
old dim-hoping soul "
" Oh, my God, they never shall ! Polly, you've saved me from
a crime, and I'll bless you for it always. Now we know what to do
We'll place them reverently away, and he shall never know."
DEPOSITS
66 WHAT NAME ?"
CHAPTER X.
HE young Lord
Berkeley, with
the fresh air of freedom
in his nostrils , was
feeling invincibly
strong for his new
career ; and yet- and
yet-ifthe fight should
prove a very very hard
one at first, very dis- Meisenbach
F couraging, very taxing
on untoughened moral sinews, he might in some weak moment
580 THE IDLER.
want to retreat. Not likely, of course , but possibly that might

happen. And so on the whole it might be pardonable caution to
burn his bridges behind him. Oh , without doubt. He must not
stop with advertising for the owner of that money, but must put
it where he could not borrow from it himself, meantime, under
stress of circumstances . So he went down town, and put in his
advertisement, then went to a bank and handed in the 500 dollars
for deposit.
"What name ? "
He hesitated and coloured a little ; he had forgotten to make a
selection . He now brought out the first one that suggested itself—
" Howard Tracy."
When he was gone the clerk, marvelling, said-
"The cowboy blushed."
The first step was accomplished . The money was still under
his command and at his disposal , but the next step would dispose
of that difficulty. He went to another bank and drew upon the first
bank for the 500 dollars by check. The money was collected and
deposited a second time to the credit of Howard Tracy. He was
asked to leave a few samples of his signature, which he did. Then
he went away, once more proud and of perfect courage, saying-
" No help for me now, for henceforth I couldn't draw that
money without identification, and that has become legally impos
sible. No resources to fall back on . It is work or starve from
now to the end. I am ready and not afraid ! "
Then he sent this cablegram to his father.
" Escaped unhurt from burning hotel . Have taken fictitious
name. Good-bye ."
During the first few days he kept the fact diligently before his
mind that he was in a land where there was " work and bread for
all ." In fact, for convenience sake he fitted it to a little tune, and
hummed it to himself; but as time wore on the fact itself began to
take on a doubtful look, and next the tune got fatigued , and
presently ran down and stoped. His first effort was to get an
upper clerkship in one of the departments, where his Oxford
education would come into play and do him service. But he stood
no chance whatever. There , competency was no recommendation ;
political backing, without competency, was worth six of it. He
was glaringly English , and that was necessarily against him in the
political centre of a nation where both parties prayed for the Irish
cause on the house tops , and blasphemed it in the cellar. By his
dress he was a cowboy ; that won him respect when his back was
not turned-but it couldn't get a clerkship for him . But he had

said, in a rash moment, that he would wear those clothes till the
owner or the owner's friends caught sight of them and asked for
that money, and his conscience would not let him retire from that
engagement now.
At the end of a week
things were beginning to
wear rather a startling
look. He had hunted
everywhere for work, de-
scending gradually the
scale of quality, until ap-
parently he had sued for
all the various kinds of
work a man without a
special calling might hope
to be able to do except
ditching and the other
DARY
coarse manual sorts-
and had got neither work
nor the promise of it.
He was mechanically
turning over the leaves
of his diary, meanwhile ,
and now his eye fell upon
thefirst record made after
he was burnt out :
"I myself did not doubt
my stamina before ; nobody
could doubt it now, if they
could see how I am housed,
and realize that I feel abso-
" TURNING OVER THE LEAVES OF HIS DIARY." lutely no disgust with these
quarters, but am as serenely
content with them as any dog would be in a similar kennel. Terms, twenty-
five dollars a week. I said I would start at the bottom. I have kept my
word."
A shudder went quaking through him, and he exclaimed-
" What have I been thinking of ? This the bottom ! Mooning
along a whole week, and these terrific expenses climbing and
climbing all the time ! I must end this folly straightway. "
He settled up at once and went forth to find less sumptuous
lodgings. He had to wander to and fro and seek with diligence,
582 THE IDLER .
but he succeeded . They made him pay in advance-four dollars

and a half; this secured both bed and food for a week. The good-
natured, hard-worked landlady took him up three flights of narrow,
uncarpeted stairs, and delivered him into his room . There were
selled what once twantearth
"WENT FORTH TO FIND LESS SUMPTUOUS LODGINGS."

two double bedsteads in it and one single one. He would be

allowed to sleep alone in one of the double beds until some new
boarder should come ; but he wouldn't be charged extra .
So he would presently be required to sleep with some stranger !
The thought of it made him sick. Mrs. Marsh, the landlady, was
very friendly, and hoped he would like her house-they all liked it,
she said.
" And they're a very nice set of boys. They carry on a good
deal , but that's their fun . You see, this room opens right into
this back one, and sometimes they're all in one and sometimes in
the other ; and hot nights they all sleep on the roof when it don't
rain. They get out there the minute it's hot enough. The
season's so early that they've already had a night or two up there.
If you like to go up and pick out a place , you can . You'll find
chalk in the side of the chimney where there's a brick wanting.
You just take the chalk and- but, of course, you've done it before. "
66 Oh, no, I haven't. "
" Why, ofcourse, you haven't-what am I thinking of ? Plenty

of room on the Plains without chalking , I'll be bound. Well , you
just chalk out a place the size of a blanket anywhere on the tin
that ain't already marked off, you know, and that's your property.
You and your bed-mate take turn -about carrying up the blankets
and pillows and fetching them down again ; or one carries them
up and the other fetches them down-you fix it the way you like ,
you know. You'll like the boys, they're everlasting sociable-
except the printer . He's the one that sleeps in that single bed-
the strangest creature ; why, I don't believe you could get that
man to sleep with another man not if the house was afire. Mind
you, I'm not just talking, I know. The boys tried him to see.
They took his bed out one night, and so when he got home about
three in the morning- he was on a morning paper then, but he's
on an evening one now-there wasn't any place for him but with
the iron-moulder ; and , if you'll believe me, he just set up the rest
of the night- he did, honest. They say he's cracked , but it ain't
so, he's English- they're awful particular. You won't mind my
saying that ? You-you're English ?"
" Yes."
" I thought so. I could tell it by the way you mispronounce
the words that's got a's in them, you know, such as saying loff
when you mean laff—but you'll get over that. He's a right down
good fellow, and a little sociable with the photographer's boy and
the caulker and the blacksmith that work in the navy yard, but not
584 THE IDLER.
so much so with the others. The fact is, though it's private, and
the others don't know it, he's a kind of an aristocrat, his father
being a doctor, and you know what style that is—in England, I
mean, because in this country a doctor ain't so very much, even if
he's that. But over there, of course, it's different. So this chap
had a falling out with his father, and was pretty high strung, and
just cut for this country, and the first he knew he had to get to
work or starve. Well, he'd been to college, you see , and so he
judged he was all-right-did you say anything ? "
" No I only sighed."
41 WOULD THERE BE ANY HARM IN IT ?"
" And there's where he was

mistaken. Why , he mighty
near starved. And I reckon
he would have starved , sure
enough, if some jour' printer
or other hadn't took pity on
him, and got him a place as apprentice. So he learnt the trade,
and then he was all right-but it was a close call . Once he thought
he had got to haul in his pride and holler for his father, and
-why you're sighing again . Is anything the matter with you ?
""
Does my clatter-
66 Oh , dear, no . Pray go on-I like it. "
" Yes, you see he's been over here ten years ; he's twenty - eight
now, and he ain't pretty well satisfied in his mind, because he
can't get reconciled to being a mechanic and associating with
mechanics, he being, as he says to me, a gentleman , which is
a pretty plain letting on that the boys ain't, but, of course, I
know enough not to let that cat out of the bag."
"Why-would there be any harm in it ?"
"Harm in it ? They'd lick him, wouldn't they ? Wouldn't
you ? Of course you would. Don't you ever let a man say you ain't
a gentleman in this country. But laws, what am I thinking
about ? I reckon a body would think twice before he said a cow-
boy wasn't a gentleman.
A trim, active, slender, and very pretty girl of about eighteen
walked into the room now, in the most satisfied and unembarrassed
way. She was cheaply but smartly and gracefully dressed, and
the mother's quick glance
at the stranger's face as
he rose, was of a kind
which inquires what effect
has been produced, and
expects to find indications
of surprise and admiration.
" This is my daugh-
ter Hattie-we call her
'Puss .' It's the new
boarder, Puss . " This with-
out rising.
The young English-
man made the awkward
bow common to his nation-
ality and time of life in
circumstances of delicacy
and difficulty, and these
words of that sort ; for
being taken by surprise,
his natural, life-long self
sprang to the front, and
་ BEFORE THE WRECK OF A CHEAP MIRROR." that self, of course , would
586 THE IDLER.
not know just how to act when introduced to a chambermaid, or

to the heiress of a mechanics' boarding-house. His other self
-the self which recognised the equality of all men- would
have managed the thing better, if it hadn't been caught off
guard and robbed of its chance. The young girl paid no
attention to the bow, but put out her hand frankly and gave the
stranger a friendly shake, and said—
" How do you do ?
Then she marched to the one washstand in the room, tilted
her head this way and that before the wreck of a cheap mirror that
hung over it, dampened her fingers with her tongue, perfected the
circle of a little lock of hair that was pasted against her forehead,
then began to busy herself with the slops.
" Well, I must be going- it's getting towards supper time.
Make yourself at home, Mr. Tracy, you'll hear the bell when it's
ready."
The landlady took her tranquil departure, without commanding
either of the young people to vacate the room . The young man
wondered a little that a mother who seemed so honest and respect-
able should be so thoughtless , and was reaching for his hat, intend-
ing to disembarrass the girl of his presence ; but she said—
""
" Where are you going ?
""
' Well, nowhere in particular, but as I am only in the way
99
here-
66' Why, who said you were in the way ? Sit down- I'll move
you when you are in the way."

She was making the beds now. He sat down and watched
her deft and diligent performance.
"What gave you that notion ? Do you reckon I need a whole
room just to make up a bed or two in ? "
"Well, no, it wasn't that exactly. We are away up here in an
99
empty house, and your mother being gone
The girl interrupted him with an amused laugh, and said—
66 Nobody to protect me ? Bless you , I don't need that. I'm
not afraid. I might be if I was alone, because I do hate ghosts,
and I don't deny it. Not that I believe in them, for I don't. I'm
only just afraid of them. ”
" How can you be afraid of them if you don't believe in them ? "
66
Oh, I know the how of it-that's too many for me ; I only
know it's so . It's the same with Maggie Lee."
" Who is that ? "
" One of the boarders ; young lady that works in the factory"
" She works in a factory ? "

"Yes. Shoe factory." 29
" In a shoe factory ; and you call her a young lady ?'
"Why she's only twenty-two ; what should you call her ? "
"I wasn't thinking of her age, I was thinking of the title.
The fact is, I came away from England to get from artificial forms
-for artificial forms suit artificial people only-and here you've
got them too. I'm sorry. I hoped you had only men and women ;
everybody equal ; no differences in rank."
The girl stopped with
a pillow in her teeth, and
the case spread open below
it, contemplating him from
under her brows with a
slightly puzzled expression .
She released the pillow and
said-
"Why, they are all
equal . Where's any differ-
ence in rank ?
" If you call a factory
girl a young lady, what do
you call the President's
wife ? "
" Call her an old one."
" Oh, you make age
the only distinction ? '
"There ain't any other
to make as far as I can
see."
" Then all women are
ladies ? "
" Certainly they are.
All the respectable ones ."
"Well, that puts a
better face on it. Cer-
" STOPPED WITH A PILLOW IN HER TEETH." tainly there is no harm
in a title which is given to everybody. It is only an offence and
a wrong when it is restricted to a favored few. But Miss
""
er-
" Hattie ."
" Miss Hattie, be frank ; confess that the title isn't accorded by
588 THE IDLER.
everybody to everybody. The rich American doesn't call her

cook a lady- isn't that so ? "
"Yes, it's so. What of it ? "
He was surprised and a little disappointed to see that his
admirable shot had produced no perceptible effect.
"What of it ? " he said. " Why this : equality is not conceded
here after all , and the Americans are no better off than the
English. In fact, there's no difference."
" Now, what an idea. There's nothing in a title except what
is put into it-you've said that yourself. Suppose the title is
clean, instead of lady. You get that ? "
" I believe so. Instead of speaking of a woman as a lady,
you substitute clean and say she's a clean person ."
" That's it. In England the swell folks don't speak of the
working people as gentlemen and ladies ? "
" Oh no."
" And the working people don't call themselves gentlemen and
ladies ? "
"" Certainly not."
" So if you used the other word there
wouldn't be any change. The swell people
wouldn't call anybody but themselves
clean,' and those others would drop sort
of meekly into their way of talking and
they wouldn't call themselves clean . We
don't do that way here. Everybody calls
himself a lady or gentleman , and thinks he
is, and don't care what anybody else thinks
him so long as he don't say it out loud.
You think there's no difference . You
knuckle down and we don't. Ain't that a
difference ? "
"It is a difference I hadn't thought of;
I admit that. Still -calling one's self a
99
lady dosen't-er-
" I wouldn't go on if I were you."
Howard Tracy turned his head to see
who it might be that had introduced this "I WOULDN'T GO ON IF I WERE YOU."
remark. It was a short man about forty years old, with sandy
hair, no beard, and a pleasant face badly freckled, but alive and
intelligent, and he wore slop-shop clothing, which was neat,
but showed wear. He had come from the front room beyond the
THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT· 589
hall, where he had left his hat, and he had a chipped and
cracked white wash-bowl in his hand . The girl came and took
the bowl.
" I'll get it for you. You go right ahead and give it to him,
Mr. Barrow. He's the new boarder— Mr. Tracy—and I'd just got
to where it was getting too deep for me."
" Much obliged if you will , Hattie. I was coming to borrow
of the boys ." He sat down at his ease on an old trunk, and said ,
" I've been listening and got interested ; and, as I was saying, I
wouldn't go on, if I were you. You see where you are coming to ,
don't you ? Calling yourself a lady doesn't elect you ; that is
what you were going to say ; and you saw that if you said it you
were going to run right up against another difference that you
hadn't thought of, to wit, whose right is it to do the electing ?
Over there, twenty thousand people in a million elect themselves
gentlemen and ladies, and the nine hundred and eighty thousand
accept that decree and swallow the affront which it puts upon
them . Why, if they didn't accept it, it wouldn't be an election ; it
would be a dead letter and have no force at all. Over here the
twenty thousand would - be exclusives come up to the polls and vote
themselves to be ladies and gentlemen. But the thing doesn't
stop there. The nine hundred and eighty thousand come and vote
themselves to be ladies and gentlemen, too, and that elects the
whole nation. Since the whole million vote themselves ladies and
gentlemen, there is no question about that election . It does make
absolute equality, and there is no fiction about it ; while over
yonder the inequality (by decree of the infinitely feeble, and
consent of the infinitely strong) is also absolute-as real and
absolute as our equality."
Tracy had shrunk promptly into his English shell when this
speech began, notwithstanding he had now been in severe training
several weeks for contact and intercourse with the common herd
on the common herd's terms ; but he lost no time in pulling
himself out again, and so by the time the speech was finished his
valves were open once more, and he was forcing himself to accept
without resentment the common herd's frank fashion of dropping
sociably into other people's conversations unembarrassed and un-
invited. The process was not very difficult this time, for the
man's smile and voice and manner were persuasive and winning.
Tracy would even have liked him on the spot, but for the fact—
fact which he was not really aware of—that the equality of men
was not yet a reality to him, it was only a theory ; the mind per-
590 THE IDLER .
ceived, but the man failed to feel it. It was Hattie's ghost over .
again, merely turned around. Theoretically, Barrow was his
equal, but it was distinctly distasteful to see him exhibit it. He
presently said :
" I hope, in all sincerity, that what you have said is true, as
regards the Americans , for doubts have crept into my mind several
times. It seemed that the equality must be ungenuine where the
sign- names of castes were still in vogue ; but those sign - names
have certainly lost their offence, and are wholly neutralised , nulli-
fied, and harmless, if they are the undisputed property of every
individual in the nation . I think I realise that caste does not
exist, and cannot exist, except by common consent of the masses
outside of its limit. I thought caste created itself, and per-
pêtuated itself ; but it seems quite true that it only creates itself,
and is perpetuated by the people whom it despises , and who can
dissolve it at any time by assuming its mere sign-names them-
selves."
" It's what I think. There isn't any power on earth that can
prevent England's thirty millions from electing themselves dukes
and duchesses to- morrow, and calling themselves so . And within
six months all the former dukes and duchesses would have retired
from the business. I wish they'd try that. Royalty itself couldn't
survive such a process. A handful of frowners against thirty
million laughers in a state of irruption ! Why, it's Herculaneum
against Vesuvius ; it would take another eighteen centuries to find
that Herculaneum after the cataclysm. What's a colonel in our
South ? He's a nobody ; because they are all colonels down there .
No , Tracy "-(shudder from Tracy)-" nobody in England would
call you a gentleman, and you wouldn't call yourself one ; and I
tell you it's a state of things that makes a man put himself into
most unbecoming attitudes sometimes the broad and general
recognition and acceptance of caste as caste does, I mean. Makes
him do it unconsciously-being bred in him, you see, and never
thought over and reasoned out. You couldn't conceive of the
Matterhorn being flattered by the notice of one of your comely
little English hills, could you ? "
" Why, no . "
"Well, then, let a man in his right mind try to conceive of
Darwin feeling flattered by the notice of a princess. It's so
grotesque that it-well, it paralyses the imagination. Yet that
Memnon was flattered by the notice of that statuette ; he says so
himself. The system that can make a god disown his godship and
profane it-oh, well, it's all wrong, it's all wrong, and ought to be
abolished, I should say."
The mention of Darwin brought on
a literary discussion , and this topic roused.
such enthusiasm in Barrow that he took
off his coat and made himself the more
free and comfortable for it , and detained
him so long that he was still at it when
the noisy proprietors of the room came .
shouting and skylarking in, and began
to romp, scuffle, wash, and otherwise
entertain themselves. He lingered yet a
little longer to offer the hospitalities of
his room and his book-shelf to Tracy,
and ask him a personal question or
two-
"What is your trade ?"
"They- well, they call me a cowboy,
but that is a fancy ; I'm not that. I
haven't any trade."
" What do you work at for your
living ? " AND MADE HIMSELF THE MORE
" Oh, anything-I mean I would FREE AND COMFORTABLE,'11
work at anything I could get to do, but
thus far I haven't been able to find an occupation ."
" Maybe I can help you ; I'd like to try."
" I shall be very glad . I've tried myself to weariness."
""
Well, of course, where a man hasn't a regular trade he's
pretty bad off in this world. What you need, I reckon, was less
book learning and more bread-and-butter learning. I don't know
what your father could have been thinking of. You ought to have
had a trade, you ought to have had a trade, by all means. But
never mind about that ; we'll stir up something to do, I guess .
And don't you get home-sick ; that's a bad business. We'll talk
the thing over and look around a little. You'll come out all right.
Wait for me I'll go down to supper with you."
By this time Tracy had achieved a very friendly feeling for
Barrow, and would have called him a friend, maybe, if not taken
too suddenly on a straight-out requirement to realize on his
theories . He was glad of his society, anyway, and was feeling
lighter hearted than before. Also he was pretty curious to know
what vocation it might be which had furnished Barrow such a
large acquaintanceship with books and allowed him so much time
to read
(To be continued.)
THEIDLER S
CLUB
Sadly
Hasty.
The gipsy has always been my ideal Idler. He is

Geo. R. Sims the aristocratic vagabond as the tramp is the plebeian.
goeth on I have spent a good many hours on the road with pro-
tramp. fessional tramps, and found them generous people.
They were always ready to share a raw turnip with me
in exchange for some of my loose silver. My objection to tramps
is that you never quite know what to make of them. I tramped
once from Hatfield to London with a fearful bundle of rags , and
when we got to Barnet I took him into the Red Lion and stood
him a bottle of champagne. It was Moet and Chandon . I
thought I was giving him the luxury of his life-something that
he would tell his grandchildren about in years to come. He
drained his glass , picked up the bottle , looked at the label and said,
" Hm-the only champagne I really care for is Perier Jouet 74.”
* *
I dropped all interest in tramps after that, and took
He loseth to gipsies. When I was writing " The Romany
his friend . Rye " I studied the Romany language, and got some
telling short sentences and some effective scraps of
poetry into my head . I once baked a hedgehog, or hótchiwitchi,
as the gipsies call it, in clay, and tasted it to see how gipsy
fare would suit me. It was very like roast pork, and gave
me indigestion for a week. I also went out with a friend and told
him how the gipsies arranged pátrins, or little heaps of leaves,
at two cross - roads so that the loiterers could follow the tribe.
Then I lost my friend, and went on ahead, and left pátrins by the
way. He got mixed over the heaps , and wandered into a farmyard,
where he was badly bitten by a bull-dog, and became a melancholy
man. For years afterwards he lived in hourly dread of hydro-
phobia, and swelled to an enormous size through drinking cold
water every five minutes to make sure that he had not taken an
aversion to it. During the last hydrophobia scare he summoned
me-his own familiar friend-for letting a little toy terrier sit on
my front doorstep unmuzzled .
*
The first time I met a real gipsy was on Tunbridge
Wells Common. He was having a fight outside his He is sent to
tent with a farm labourer. I first of all called out- Ratavalo
" Sor shan, pála ? rinkeno saúlo si " (How do you Bengesko Tem .
do, brother ? A beautiful morning), and when he took no
notice I sang to a tune of my own :
Well done, my gorgio,
Del him adré the múi again ;
S'help mi dearie dúvel,
You can mill Kushtó .
Then the gipsy left off fighting , and came across to me and told
me to mind my own business for a mumply gorgio that I was ,
and I might go to ratavalo bengesko tem , which being interpreted
meant Sheol, with the traces of slaughter about it.
* * *
I neglected the Romany tongue for some time after
that until one day I found myself in Granada , The He findeth
Granada gipsies are famous , and live under the gipsy life
Alhambra Hill. I managed to get on friendly terms expensive.
with the King of the Granada gipsies through an
interpreter, and he invited me to come and spend an evening with
him. He had prepared a little fête for me. The gipsy lads and
lasses obliged me with a gipsy dance and several gipsy songs , and
also drank my health in bumpers which I found I was expected to
provide. I was so delighted with my gipsy friends that I deter-
mined to try my Romany on them, and to my intense delight I
succeeded in making myself understood . At least I asked the
King in Spanish if he understood , and he replied in the same
language that he did. I made up my mind to stay for awhile with
these Spanish gipsies , and I asked the King if I might come and
spend a week with his tribe. He said I might, and I rose to
594 THE IDLER.
return to my hotel. Then he held out his hand and informed me

that the price of the entertainment I had just witnessed was 100
pesetas. Five pounds for two hours with the gipsies ! I paid
because it was late at night, and the spot was a lonely one, but I
gave up the idea of a week with them at once. A gipsy life at
£2 10s. an hour was beyond my modest means.
* * * *
It was in Cordova that I tried my Romany again .
Bad Romany A gipsy guide waiting outside the Fonda Suiza wanted
saves a good to take me up to the top of the church tower. I
man. addressed him in his own language, and he shrugged
his shoulders and explained in bad French that he
didn't speak English . That nettled me, and I refused his
proffered services. To have my Romany mistaken for English by
a gipsy was a slight, and I felt it deeply. Soon afterwards all
Europe rang with the story of an English doctor who had shot a
gipsy dead in Cordova. The dead man was my guide, and the
doctor had killed him in self-defence. It was the playful custom
of Señor Heredia-that was the gipsy's name—to get a tourist up
to the top of the tower, rob him, fling him over, and then go down
and say that the tourist had committed suicide. Had my
Romany been good enough for Heredia to understand I should
probably have done a Claude Frollo fall from the top of the
church of Cordova. Whenever I meet a gipsy now I say " Good
morning !" and pass on. It is the cheapest and safest way of
carrying on a conversation with a Romany.
* *
The average Englishman takes his religion on
Zangwill Sundays and his Art in the spring. Influences that
proposeth the should permeate life are collected in chunks at par-
abolition of ticular seasons . This is sufficient to prove how little
catalogues. they are really felt or understood. The Academy
headache is the due penalty of hypocrisy. It is the
catalogue that is the greatest coadjutor of cant. If pictur、 s,
besides being hung, were treated like convicts in becoming merely
numbers , without names either of painters or subjects, what a
delightful confusion of critical tongues would ensue ! But con-
ceding that a picture should have the painter's name, for the sake
of the artist (or his enemies) , I would propose that everything else
be abolished. It is not unfair to subject pictures to this severe
test, because of all forms of art painting is the one whose appeal
is instantaneous, simple and self-complete. If a picture cannot
speak for itself, no amount of advocacy will save it. If it

tells a story (which no good picture should) , let it at least do so
without invoking the aid of the rival art of literature . Literature.
does not ask the assistance of pictures to make its meaning
clear. Nor, too, is anything gained by calling colours har-
monies or symphonies. Let such pictures strike their own chords
and blow their own trumpets . Catalogues of all kinds are but
props to artistic inefficiency. If dumb show plays did not rely on
" books of the words," pantomime would have to become a finer
art. If ballets had no thread of narrative attached to them, their
constructors would be driven to achieve greater intelligibility, or to
give up trying for it-which were the more gratifying alternative..
So with the descriptions of symphonies we find in our pro-
grammes. Why should good music be translated into bad litera-
ture ? Surely each art should be self- sufficient ; developing its
effects according to its own laws ! A melody does not need to be
painted, nor a picture to be set to music. The graceful evolutions
of the dance are their own justification . The only case in which
I would allow a title to a picture is when it is a portrait. That
is an obvious necessity. Portrait-painting is a branch of art which
demands recognition.
* *
The enormous superiority of nature over art is
shawn very forcibly by a study of comparative flower Alden com-
girls. The Continental flower girl is almost wholly a par es art and
work of art. Her dress is coquettish, but it is the nat ure .
opposite of such a dress as would be devised by an
unsophisticated person in love with nature. Her manners are
insinuating, but they are unquestionably artificial ; her com-
plexion is rosy and delicate, but most assuredly it is not natural ;
and her morals-but this is no place for microscopical investi-
gation. Now contemplate the London flower girl. She is
purely, or otherwise, a child of nature. Her clothes are severely
plain, and are obviously natural rags , for no such rags could be
made by any artificial process . Her face is far from clean, for
cleanliness is not an attribute of nature, but pertains to the
artificial and sophisticated paths of life. Her language is the
simple, unadorned language of her who has never subjected her
words to the arbitrary tests of artificial civilisation . Anything
more truly and thoroughly natural than the London flower girl ,
even to that thirst for gin which is a second nature to girls of her
class, could hardly be imagined. And this shows the immense
596 THE IDLer .
superiority of nature over art. At least it ought to show it, but

somehow it seems as if there were something wrong in my
illustration, and perhaps I had better withdraw it for repairs.
* *
1 What puzzles me is the curious condition of taste
Hatton is in regard to the stage . Everybody is saying, " Oh, we
puzzled . want to go to the Theatre to laugh, we don't want to
be made miserable. " They have been saying the same
thing in New York for a year or two. Are we going to get our
theatrical moods as well as our weather from America ? It seems
like it. But supposing this " make-us-laugh " demand were
applied to any other art than that of the playwright and the actor,
what would be said ? Certain writers on The Idler are supplying
their share of the comedy that is desirable in literature ; but the
public does not say to the Editors, " Give us only fun." That is
certainly the cry to-day in regard to the Theatre, unless exception
be made in the matter of sensation and horror. " Thrill us or
make us laugh," say a minority of playgoers, and it is exactly the
same in New York. Unfortunately for the Ibsen craze, the public
does not ask to be shocked with morbid psychology. Wanting
this, it is very courageous in the Ibsenites to persevere. A friend
of mine who knows the Norwegian sage says he assuredly did not
expect to have his dialogues acted, " Pillars of Society " and " The
Wild Duck " excepted . It never entered into his moody mind
that the higher culture of young England would be asked to make
him their ideal dramatist. What is the matter with the public
taste when such a play as " The Times " does not run, and such a
play as (I leave the selection to the company) does ?
*
It has been said over and over again that the
He moralises public likes plays of the " double intender " class,
on taste. wants to sit open-mouthed at improper revelations of
improper society. I could mention a dozen of suc-
cessful plays that contradict this ; and we have at Toole's a
notable current example in point. " Walker, London, " is not, it
is true, a fine comedy with a moral ; but it is a pleasant, fresh
illustration of manners and customs on the river. Its humour is
gentle and very prettily set-London in Arcadia ; and it ought to
be a good sign of the times (which " The Times " isn't) that it is
successful. I wonder if it is a good sign ; it is, of course, for
Toole and Barrie-I hope it is for the rest of us. I believe any-
thing that is really good has a very fair chance of making its way
whether the taste of the moment is favourable or not. Neverthe-

less, certain dramatists and managers are having a bad time of it.
Odd people, the dramatists ! When the Abyssinian war broke
out, I visited the reading-room of the British Museum, and found
half- a-dozen newspaper correspondents writing their adventures in
that somewhat unknown country. The other day, I went into a
fellow's room in the Temple. He was very busy. On his table
were half-a-dozen novels, two French comedies, a book of
epigrams, one ditto of proverbs, and several volumes of anecdotes.
66
"What are you doing, old friend ? " I asked . Writing a new
and original play," he replied.
Why cannot people mind their own business ? I

have heard the question asked often enough, and myself Phillpotts's
put it times not a few ; but upon no occasion has a satis- advice to
factory answer been forthcoming. Recently, I designed advice-givers
to travel from Victoria Railway Station to Regent's
Circus, and with that object entered an omnibus known as " Royal
Blue." A woman of commanding nature and ample physical
endowments sat over against me, and , when I tendered twopence
to the omnibus conductor, explaining at the same time my destina-
tion, she accused the official of barefaced attempts to rob a hapless
passenger, and declared the just fare to be a penny. Finding I
did not support hér in this assertion, she became satirical at my
expense, and said aloud to a feminine companion that she believed
that " some of the country people one meets in London like being
robbed . " Meantime the conductor was explaining to me how he
should have acted if my lady champion had been a man . The
good woman's error arose from a common confusion that obtains
as to the exact geographical position of Regent's Circus. She
confounded it with that other circus known as Piccadilly ; but
Regent's Circus , properly so called, as gigantic advertisement on
adjacent building testifies, is one and the same with Oxford Circus.
It must be painful to thus interest yourself on another's behalf, and
find him or her so apathetic. I was quite sorry for that woman,
even while she insulted me. She had meant very well. But
people who combine a strong sense of justice with a general
vagueness about facts are apt to get themselves extremely disliked .
Once only I volunteered some advice and information about a train.
The result was that a man who wanted to go to the Lake District
found himself snowed up in Scotland , and I lost a friend. Every
branch of human knowledge has its own experts . If you are not
598 THE IDLER ..
an expert, don't be too instructive about anything. People do

take advice sometimes, at sudden, unexpected moments, and when
the advice turns out badly, the man who gave it generally hears
that it has. Again, I ask, what is the fatal fascination that others'
affairs have for everybody ?
Have you noticed that when some subject, about

Coulson which you have scarcely troubled to think, is, for any
Kernahan reason, brought directly under your notice , allu-
reviles the sions to it spring up simultaneously from each quarter
anonymous of the globe ? Sometimes I see in the papers mention
correspondent. of an author of whom I have never to my knowledge
heard. After wondering vaguely how it is that I
have never noticed his name , I dismiss the subject and take up
the Graphic, Athenæum , or World, and find a view of his house in
the first, a review of his book in the second, or an interview with
himself in the third. The remainder of the season I spend in try-
ing vainly to dodge allusions to this inevitable individual. I
suppose there is so much to read nowadays that, in skimming the
papers, we mechanically pass over the names and news in which
we are not personally interested . The murder of a mother- in-
law in some little village in which we happen once to have spent
a holiday catches our eye, and is read with profound attention,
but we skip the massacre of a thousand Chinamen as trivial and
unexciting. It was, however, neither about mothers-in-law nor
massacres that I was about to speak, but about our good friend
Barr's remarks a little while ago upon the subject of anonymous
correspondents . After reading what he had to say, I took up
a literary journal, and the first thing upon which I happened to
light was an anonymous letter charging a poet of some reputation
with plagiarising a poet of none . The writer of the letter, who
had adopted the singularly unoriginal method of stabbing at a
reputation from behind a sneaking anonymity, signed himself,
with characteristic inconsistency, " A Lover of Originality," and
quoted two verses of the " poem " from which the person whom he
charged with literary theft was declared to have pilfered. Here is
the first verse :—
"More ill and dying ! Shall one never rest ? "
He cried. "There is no peace for sick and dead.
Ah, who would choose a life so illy blest !
What am I saying ? Lord, what have I said ? "
Now I am quite prepared to admit that a writer

who speaks of " a life so illy blest" is not unwise to He does not
inquire in his next line , " What am I saying ? Lord , believe charges
what have I said ?" But that isn't the point which I of plagiarism .
wish to discuss. What I contend is, that no charge of
plagiarism , and least of all when made anonymously, should be
printed in any periodical until the author who is accused of
plagiarism has been communicated with, so that the accusation and
the reply appear together. Many who read the accusation will
fail to see the defence, and will associate the name of the
accused person , long after the facts of the matter have been for-
gotten, with the very serious charge of literary theft. I believe
that deliberate plagiarism—at all events, among men who have a
reputation to sustain- is very rare. Here, for example, is an
instance of three fictionists working out identical plots. I tell the
story, not because I happen to be mentioned in it, but because it
has already been put upon record by the President of this
Club, and because it will be taking a " rise " out of Jerome
to make him pay for " copy " which consists of his own
words. " I remember one evening, not long ago," he wrote,
""
sitting in this very room of mine with one or two boys. It was
after supper, and we were smoking and discussing plots- I don't
mean revolutionary or political plots, necessitating slouched hats,
black cloaks, and a mysterious walk-but plots to harrow up the
feelings of magazine readers and theatrical audiences. Poor Philip
Marston was one of us, and he, puffing contentedly at a big cigar,
sketched us, Traddles -like, the skeleton of a story he meant
to write. There was dead silence when he had finished , and I felt
hurt because it was precisely the same plot that I had thought out
for a tale I meant to write, and it seemed to me unfair of Marston
to go and think it out too . And then young Coulson Kernahan
arose and upset his beer, and fished out from my bookshelves an
old magazine with the very story in it. He had sneaked it from
both of us, and published it two years before."
* * *
People who casually notice the automatic match-
box distributors in the railway stations have little idea Alden talketh
of the terrible havoc they have wrought. Hundreds of of the custom
men who, previous to the invention of these soul and called putting
pocket destroying machines, were honest, sober, frugal, a penny in
and self-respecting, have been entirely ruined by them. the slot.
The young man who fancies that because there is no sin
600 THE IDLer .
per se in dropping a penny in the slot, and taking out a box of

matches, little knows the danger that he challenges when first he drops
the fateful penny . The ease and certainty with which the match-
box slides into the hand of the victim has a fearful fascination.
The habit of obtaining matches in this way grows upon him with
terrible rapidity. He cannot pass a railway station without an
unholy longing to rush in and fill his pocket with matches . In a
few short months the victim of the automatic match provider
becomes a hopeless wreck. Men who are employed in the
Charing Cross Station will tell you blood-curdling stories of the
debased victims of this vice, who will spend their last penny in
matches, and then humbly beg from passing strangers for further
means to gratify their passion. There are men who daily indulge
in from ten to twenty boxes of matches, and at times some poor
wretch, who has become possessed of a shilling, will hasten to
the accursed machine and try to drain it to the very dregs of
every match-box that it holds. Reformers should take this
matter in hand before it is too late. There should be a society
for the promotion of total abstinence from automatic match - box
dispensers in every form , and Parliament should be urged to pass
a law either prohibiting the display of the automatic machines , or
at least submitting the question of their display to what is called
"local option. "
Yes, and it is not only in his pocket that they ruin

Jerome a man. They damage his immortal soul . They warp
regretteth the his moral nature . They wreck his sense of probity
evil influence of and honour. There is a devil comes out of each one
the automatic of these machines that tempts a man to crime and sin.
machine. I am a fairly honest citizen myself, as honesty goes
nowadays ; but never can I summon up sufficient
integrity to purchase a box of wax lights or a packet of butter-
scotch from one of these engines of iniquity without trying to shake
it into giving me a second consignment for the same penny. That
I never succeed in my nefarious design , the drawer invariably closing
with a discourteous and irritating snap just at the very moment
when victory seems about to crown my efforts , excites within me
only feelings of sadness and disappointment ; and I have another
pennyworth, and try again. You see, when doing business with
an ordinary human tradesman , various considerations occur to you,
causing you to pause before endeavouring to rob him. You think
of his wife and children , or you reflect that he may possibly catch
THE IDLERS' CLUB. бог
you at it, and give you in charge. But from a deal with a cast
iron automaton all such elevating influences are entirely absent.
True, there is some shadowy sort of a company concerned
in the transaction, but who ever felt a kindly emotion towards a
company ! The thing seems made to be robbed . The first one I
ever saw stirred all the thieving instincts within me that had been
lying dormant for years.
*
Nor am I , by a very long way, the only man
whose character is being thus automatically deterio- He sheweth
rated by these instruments of evil . The virtue of the how the auto-
nations is being drained into their capacious slots. matic machine
Men come to me-men who , until a year or two ago, corrupteth the
were honest, upright pew-holders- and gloat as they morals of
tell me shameful tales of how they have palmed off mankind .
French pennies upon some unsuspecting sweetstuff
machine, or of how six of them have tried their weight for the
price of one. This, by the way, can easily be done. The method
is very simple. Your first man mounts the stand, drops in his
penny and makes a note of his weight. Before he gets down ,
let the second man step up and stand beside him . The pointer,
under the combined weight of the two, will probably fly round as
far as it can go. Then let the first man slip off gently, and the
pointer will swing back and record the weight of the second man
as he stands there alone. You repeat this process until you are
all weighed. There need not, of course, be only six of you . Any
number can join in-twenty if need be. Indeed , it is better fun
with a large number ; there is more excitement. A few of us
found out the trick quite accidentally one day when returning
from a funeral in the country. My only regret in the matter
is that it is so seldom I feel I want to know my weight.
* *
A striking example of the moral depravity engen-
dered among all classes by this mechanical method He giveth a sad
of trade was afforded me one afternoon while I was example.
waiting for a circle train on the platform of the Temple
Station. A Richmond train drew up, and a young man , evidently
dying for a smoke, leapt from a second-class carriage and tried to
obtain a cigarette out of an automatic cigarette box. But although
his penny went in all right, the cigarette would not come out. He
fumbled with the drawer for some time, and then , the guard's
whistle sounding, he cursed the machine, and darted back to his
602 THE IDLER.
seat. Well , there wasn't a man of us left on that platform that

didn't try to get that cigarette-the cigarette bought and paid for
by somebody else. Elderly barristers , returning from work, strolled
up in a casual way, and shook and worried the box, and then ,
failing to obtain any satisfaction from it, passed away, trying to
look as if they had been actuated merely by motives of curiosity.
Editors of high-class papers-men who spent six days out of
every week teaching morals and good conduct to Europe and
America-furtively prodded the box with their umbrellas, and when
they fancied nobody was watching them, pushed lead pencils and
toothpicks up the slit, and endeavoured to get the cigarette out that
way. As each passenger tried his dishonest practices upon the box,
the rest of us, in an agony of anxiety, watched him out of the corners
of our eyes. I believe that had any man succeeded in obtaining that
cigarette, we should have fallen upon him in a body and have
slain him .
Very often, as I have just shewn, the machine robs

The meanness the customer by taking his penny away from him , and
and frequent giving him nothing for it. In consequence of this,
dishonesty of folks who might otherwise remain honest are com-
the machine. pelled, in sheer self-defence, to try and cheat the
machines on every possible occasion ; and thus a
general spirit of guile is fostered through the land . Personally,
there is nothing I know of that makes me more furious, or that
arouses more sinful thoughts in my bosom, than being done out of
my money by one of these soulless automata . If a tradesman
defrauds me, I can tell him what I think of him. If he is a little
man, I can kick him . But if I put my hard-earned money into a
slot, and the drawer won't work, there is no satisfaction for me
whatever. If I stand and swear at the thing, the passers- by jeer
at me, and small boys, with unsympathetic voices, call out, " What,
'ave yer lost yer penny, guvnor ? " If I fetch a policeman to it,
he tells me to write to the company . If I do write to the com-
pany, they answer that I must have been tampering with the
mechanism , and threaten me with an action for damages. I saw
a man late one night, at a lonely suburban station, standing before
a sweetmeat machine, and using the most fearful language . He
told me he had put a penny into it- his last penny- under the
impression it was a fusee vendor , and had obtained a packet of
hardbake, a thing he never ate. Another time I met a small boy
on South Kensington platform, sobbing as if his heart would
break. He had intended to invest his week's savings in toffee,

but had accidentally put them into the wrong slot, and had thus
become the purchaser of an envelope and a sheet of notepaper.
Misery and crime, I tell you , are sown broadcast by these machines.
*
I fancy it is not generally known among the
public that the Japanese custom of Hara Kiri has been Sullivan inter-
systematically practised for many years past in our vieweth the
executive departments of the State and municipality. State Confider.
Circumstances have long and insistently pointed to
this solution of the problem presented by a fact which is con-
tinually recurring in our official circles, and yet nobody ever
has guessed the very simple truth. I will confess that I did
not actually guess it myself, but a strange psychic agitation
stirred my depths one day after I had read a newspaper paragraph
touching on an administrative scandal ; and rest declared itself
impossible until the mystery surrounding the incident had been
dissolved. Impelled by that mystic impulse within , I cleared at a
bound the space between me and the Government Inquiry Office
that is, the office (not generally known to the public) where
departmental secrets are freely confided to any taxpayer desiring
to learn the why and wherefore of this or that—and was ushered
into the presence of the State Confider. " I want you to explain
to me," I said, " how it is that whenever some gross departmental
scandal has (in spite of the efforts of the department to screen
him) been brought home to the culpable official, that official—
unless quite an underdog is never punished ? ” The State
Confider drew out his handkerchief of State and dropped upon it
three official tears, all precisely of the same size and pattern , and
in a hushed voice he said : " It is because he always dies."
" Just so," I said ; " and how is it that he always dies ?" " It is
necessary," replied the Confider, with three more tears . " Poisoned ?"
I asked , " or is there an oubliette in each department ?" " Neither,"
he replied ; " we do the thing decently." Reverently opening a
cabinet, he drew forth a magnificent sword of Japanese workman-
ship, and of the finest temper and polish. 66 This, " he said , " is
the weapon of the ceremony-the brand of the Happy Despatch.
When all is up, and the public has at length, by superhuman
efforts, burst through the veil of official conspiracy and identified
the crimin-ahem, the unfortunate official, this sword is carried to
him at midnight by the special functionary, and he is left alone
with it. Within the hour all is over, and we officially announce
! 604 THE IDLER.
the demise in the morning papers . We were forced to obtain the

sword for the purpose from Japan , as the docmed officials ccm-
plained that the British cavalry swords curled about too much
inside, causing unnecessary pain to the performer. We anticipate
that the weapon will be required again very shortly. The School
Board and the Metropolitan Board used to have a sword each
after the pattern of this one ; and the L.C.C. are, we hear, having
the old weapon of the Metropolitan Board cleaned up in readiness
for future emergencies." Thanking the official politely, I retired.
* *
Yes, of course they can talk. I saw an ordinary red
Barry Pain and white bullock soliloquise the other day. It was
listens to the in a side- street, a street of some breadth and preten-
voice of the sions, on the outskirts of London. There is a very
bullock . respectable public-house at the corner ; cabs rest there,
orhover gently round it, on hot and thirsty mornings . The
street happened to be fairly empty when the bullock with his drover
entered it ; and the drover went into the public- house at the corner.
The bullock looked behind him , and then all around him. "What ?
Drover gone ? Then I suppose we are at the end of the journey,
and this is a-a meadow. What terribly hot weather it was for
travelling ! " He nosed the white dust. " Doesn't smell much like
grass." He touched it with his tongue. " And doesn't taste like
grass -in fact, I should say that it wasn't grass. " He shrugged
his tail. 66 Well, as there's no drover, it must be a meadow, and
one may as well make the best of it ; at any rate, it's pleasant to rest
after this long journey." He let himself down very gingerly and
clumsily, and lay there in the middle of the road-way. A hansom .
cab went past ; the bullock shook his head, quickly and nervously.
" They oughtn't to be allowed in here ; they should be confined to the
streets . Ah, we travellers see strange things-a meadow without
any grass or hedges or gates- most extraordinary." He closed
his pained eyes gently. " I wish this was grass ; when one is dead
tired, it's so pleasant to sit on grass . Besides, I'm not greedy,
but a little something succulent wouldn't be altogether-
Here he stopped , because the drover had come out from the public-
house, and had struck him. He staggered to his feet, and went off
at an ungainly compromise between a waddle and a canter.
" Death and horse-radish ! It was a street after all.”
PHS NEW YORK
1 Y
PUBLIC HIERAR
ASTOR , LENOX ANDS

TIL EN FOUNDATION
A MAN MAY
LEAD
HORHSIES
THE TO
WAT
ER
BUT
TWENTYT
CAN' MAKE
HIM DRINK
SEPPINSS
WRISHT
Meisenboch
A PROVERB ILLUSTRATED
THE IDLER.
JULY, 1892.
Novel Notes .
ILLUSTRATED BY A. S. BOY .
III.
WE had a deal of trouble

τα with our heroine . Brown
wanted her ugly. Brown's chief
ambition in life is to be original,
and his method of obtaining the
original is to take the unoriginal
andjust turn it round. If Brown
were given a little planet of his
own to do as he liked with he
would call day, night, and sum-
mer, winter. He would make
all his men and women walk on
their heads and shake hands
with their feet, his trees would
grow with their roots
in the air, and the
BROWN'S WORLD. old cock would lay
all the eggs while
the hens sat on the fence and crowed . Then he would step back
and say, " See what an original world I have created, entirely my
own idea !"
There are many other people besides Brown whose notion of
originality would seem to be precisely similar .
I know a little girl, the descendant of a long line of politicians."
The hereditary instinct is so strongly developed in her that she is
almost incapable of thinking for herself. Instead , she copies in
everything her elder sister, who takes more after the mother. If
her sister has two helpings of rice pudding for supper, then she
has two helpings of rice pudding. If her sister isn't hungry and
doesn't want any supper at all, then she goes to bed without any
supper.
608 THE IDLER.
This lack of character in the child troubles her mother, who is

not an admirer of the political virtues, and one evening, taking the
little one on her lap, she talked seriously to her .
"Do try to think for yourself," said she. " Don't always do
just what Jessie does , that's silly. Have an idea of your own now
and then. Be a little original."
The child promised she'd try, and went to bed thoughtful.
Next morning, for breakfast, a dish of kippers and a dish of
kidneys were placed on the table side by side. Now the child
loved kippers with an affection that amounted almost to passion ,
while she loathed kidneys more than powders . It was the one
subject on which she did know her own mind.
"A kidney or a kipper for you, Jessie ? " asked her mother,
addressing the elder child first .
Jessie hesitated for a moment, while her sister sat regarding
her in an agony of suspense.
66
Kipper, please, ma," Jessie answered at last, and the
younger child turned her head away to hide the tears.
66 BURST INTO TEARS."19

"You'll have a kipper, of course, Trixy ? " said the mother,
who had noticed nothing .
"No, thank you, ma, " said the small heroine, stifling a sob,
and speaking in a dry, tremulous voice, " I'll have a kidney."
NOVEL NOTES. 609
" But I thought you couldn't bear kidneys," exclaimed her

mother, surprised .
" No, ma, I don't like ' em much."
" And you're so fond of kippers ! "
" Yes, ma."
"Well, then, why on earth don't you have one ? "
"'Cos Jessie's going to have one, and you told me to be
original," and here the poor mite, reflecting upon the price her
originality was going to cost her, burst into tears.
The other three of us
refused to sacrifice ourselves
in this manner upon the
altar of Brown's originality.
We decided to be content with
the customary beautiful girl .
"Good or bad ? " queried
Brown.
" Bad," responded Mac-
Shaugnassy, emphatically.
"What do you say, Jeph-
son ?"
"Well," replied Jeph-

son, taking the pipe from
between his lips, and
speaking in that sooth-
ingly melancholy tone of
voice that he never varies,
whether telling a joke
about a wedding or an
anecdote relating to a
funeral, " not altogether
bad. Bad, with good in-
stincts, the good instincts
well under control."
" I wonder why it is, " murmured Brown , reflectively, " that bad
people are so much more interesting than good . "
" I don't think the reason is very difficult to find," answered
Jephson. " There's more uncertainty about them. They keep you
more on the alert. It's like the difference between riding a well-
R R
610 THE IDLER.
broken, steady-going cob and a lively young colt with ideas of his
own. The one is comfortable to travel with , but the other provides
you with more exercise. If you start off with a thoroughly good
woman for your heroine you give your story away in the first
chapter. Everybody knows precisely how she will behave under
every conceivable combination of circumstances in
which you can place her. On every occasion she will
do the same thing-that is, the right thing.
With a bad heroine, on the other hand, you can
never be quite sure what is going to happen. Out of
khon the fifty or so courses open to her, she may take
the right one, or she may take one of the forty-
nine wrong ones, and you watch
her with curiosity to see which it will
be.
" But surely there are plenty of
good heroines who are interesting,"
I said.
"At intervals-when they do
something wrong," answered Jeph-
son drily. "A consistently irre-
proachable heroine is as irritating to
the average reader as Socrates must
have been to Xantippe, or as the model
boy at school is to all the other lads.
Take the stock heroine of the eighteenth
century romance. She never met her lover
except for the purpose of telling him that
she could never be his, and she generally
wept steadily throughout the interview, She
never forgot to turn pale at the sight of
blood, nor to faint in his arms at the most
inconvenient moment possible. She was
" THE MOST
INCONVENIENT determined never to marry without her
MOMENT POSSIBLE."19
father's consent, and was equally resolved
never to marry anybody but the one par-
ticular person she was convinced he would
never agree to her marrying. She was an
excellent young woman, and nearly as uninteresting as a celebrity
at home."
"Ah, but you're not talking about good women now," " I
observed. " You're talking about some silly person's idea of a
good woman."
NOVEL NOTES. 611
" I quite admit it," replied Jephson . " Nor, indeed, am I

prepared to say what is a good woman. I consider the subject
too deep and too complicated for any mere human being to give
a judgment upon. But I am , talking of the women who con--
formed to the popular idea of maidenly goodness in the age when
these books were written . You must remember goodness 15
" ALL OUR BEST HEROINES GO SLUMMING."
not a known quantity. It varies with every age and every

C
locality, and it is, generally speaking, your silly persons ' who
are responsible for its varying standards. In Japan , a ' good '
girl would be a girl who would sell her honour in order to afford
612 THE IDLER.
little luxuries to her aged parents . In certain hospitable islands

of the torrid zone, the ' good ' wife goes to lengths that we should
deem altogether unnecessary in making her husband's guest feel
himself at home. In ancient Hebraic days, Jael was accounted
a good woman for murdering a sleeping man, and Sarai stood in
no danger of losing the respect of her little world when she led
Hagar unto Abraham . In eighteenth century England, super-
natural stupidity and dulness of a degree that must have been
difficult to attain were held to be feminine virtues indeed, they
are so still- and authors, who are always among the most servile
followers of public opinion, fashioned their puppets accordingly.
Now-a-days, ' slumming ' is the most applauded virtue, and so all
our best heroines go slumming, and are always extra ' good to the
599
poor.'
"How useful the poor ' are," remarked MacShaugnassy, some-
what abruptly, placing his feet on the mantelpiece and tilting his
chair back till it stood at an angle that
caused us to rivet our attention upon it with
hopeful interest. " I don't think we scrib- "
bling fellows ever fully grasp how much we'
owe to ' the poor.' Where would our angelic
heroines and our noble-hearted heroes be if it
were not for the poor ' ? We want to show
that the dear girl is as good as she is beauti-
ful. What do we
do ? We put a bas-
ket full of chickens
and bottles of wine
on herarm , a fetch-
ing little sun bon-
net on her head,
and send her round
among 'the poor.'
How do we prove
that our apparent
scamp of a hero
is really a noble
young man at
heart ? Why, we
HARE send him out on
AND SEND HER ROUND AMONG THE POOR 999 the quiet to do
good to " the poor. It comes out in the end. Grateful elderly
613
NOVEL NOTES.
females, unable to hold themselves in any longer, blurt out the

facts in spite of his efforts to silence them. Then he stands
blushingly confessed, and the girl gives him one quick glance that
tells all .
66
They are just as useful in real life as they are in Bookland .
What is it consoles the tradesman when the actor, earning eighty
Ipounds a week, cannot pay his debts ? Why, reading in the
theatrical newspapers gushing accounts of the dear fellow's
invariable generosity to ' the poor. ' What is it stills the small, but
irritating, voice of conscience when we have successfully accom-
plished some extra big feat of swindling ? Why, the noble resolve
6
to give ten per cent. of the nett profits to the poor.'
"What does a man do when he finds himself growing old , and
feels that it is time for him to think seriously about securing his
position in the next world ? Why, he becomes suddenly good to
the poor.' If the poor were not there for him to be good to , what
could he do ? He would be unable to reform at all. It's a great
comfort to think that the poor will always be with us.
They are the ladder by which we climb into heaven ."
There was silence for a few moments, while
MacShaugnassy puffed away vigorously, and almost
savagely, at his pipe, and then Brown said, " I can
tell you rather a quaint incident, bearing very aptly
on the subject. A cousin of mine was a land-
agent in a small country
Atown, and among the houses
on his list was a fine old
?mansion that had remained
vacant for a good many
years. He had nearly
despaired of ever sell-
ing it, when one day
an elderly lady, very
richly dressed, drove
up to the office and
made enquiries about
it. She said she had
come across it acci-
66 MADE ENQUIRIES ABOUT IT.'"1
dentally while travel-
ling through that part of the country the previous autumn, and
had been much struck by its beauty and picturesqueness . She
added that she was looking out for some quiet spot where she
614 THE IDLER .
could settle down and peacefully pass the remainder of her days,
and that she thought this place might possibly prove to be the
very thing for her.
" My cousin, delighted with the chance of a purchaser, at once
drove her across to the estate, which was about eight miles distant
from the town, and they went over it together. My cousin waxed
eloquent upon the subject of its advantages . He dwelt upon its
quiet and seclusion , its proximity-but not too much proximity-to
the church, its handiness to the little village that nestled round
its gates.
66
Everything pointed to a satisfactory conclusion of the
business. The lady was charmed with the situation and the
surroundings, and delighted with the house and grounds. She
considered the price low.
" And now, Mr. Brown ,' said she, as they stood
6
by the lodge gate, tell me,
what class of poor have you
got round about ? '
" Poor,' answered my
cousin , ' there are no
poor.'
""No poor !?
" ex-
"
claimed the lady. No
poor people in the village ,
or anywhere near ?'
" You won't find a
poor person within five
miles of the estate ,'
he replied proudly.
You see, my dear
madam , this is a thinly
populated and ex-
ceedingly prosperous
county. This parti- 666 WHAT CLASS OF POOR HAVE YOU GOT ROUND ABOUT?""
cular district is es-
pecially so. There is not a family in it that is not, comparatively
speaking, well-to -do . '
" Oh, I'm sorry to hear that,' said the lady, in a tone of
disappointment . The place would have suited me so admirably
but for that.'
" But surely, madam,' cried my cousin, to whom a demand
for poor persons was an entirely new idea, ' you don't mean to say
NOVEL NOTES. 615
that you want poor people ! Why, we've always considered it one
of the chief attractions of the property-nothing to shock the eye or
wound the susceptibilities of the most tender-hearted occupant.'
" My dear Mr. Brown , ' replied the lady, I will be perfectly
frank with you . I am becoming an old woman, and my past life
has not perhaps been altogether too well spent. It is my desire
to atone for the-er-follies of my youth by an old age of well-
doing, and to that end it is essential
that I should be surrounded by a
certain number of deserving poor. I
had hoped to find in this charming
neighbourhood of yours the custom-
ary proportion of poverty and misery,
in which case I should have taken
the house without hesitation . As it
is, I must seek elsewhere .'
" My cousin was perplexed, and
sad. There are plenty of poor
people in the town,' he said ; ' many
of them most interesting cases, and
you could have the entire care of them
all. There'd be no opposition what-
ever, I'm positive.'
" Thank you,' replied
the lady, but I really
couldn't go as far as the
town. They must

be within easy
driving distance or
they are no good. '
66
My cousin cudgelled
his brains again . He did
not intend to let a purchaser slip
through his fingers if he could help
it. At last a bright thought flashed into his mind . I'll tell you
"
what we could do,' he said. There's a piece of waste land the
other end of the village that we've never been able to do much with
in consequence of its being so swampy. Ifyou liked , we could run
you up a dozen cottages on that cheap- it would be all the better
their being a bit ramshackle and unhealthy-and get some poor
people for you and put into them .'
616 THE IDLER.
"The lady reflected upon the idea, and it struck her as a good
one.
"
" You see,' continued my cousin, pushing his advantage, by
adopting this method you would be able to select your own poor.
We would get you some nice, clean, grateful poor, and make the
thing pleasant for you.'
" It ended in the lady's accepting my cousin's offer, and giving
him a list of the poor people she would like to have. She selected
one bedridden old woman ( Church of England preferred ), one
paralytic old man , one blind girl who would want to be read aloud
to, one poor atheist willing to be converted, two cripples , one
drunken father who would consent to be talked to seriously , one
disagreeable old fellow needing much patience, two large families,
and four ordinary assorted couples.
" My cousin experienced some difficulty in securing the
drunken father. Most of the drunken fathers he interviewed
upon the subject had a rooted objection to being talked to
at all. After a long search, however, he discovered a mild
little man, who, upon the lady's requirements and charitable
intentions being explained to him , undertook to qualify himself
for the vacancy by getting intoxicated at least once a week. He
said he could not promise more than once a week at first, he
unfortunately possessing a strong natural distaste for all alcoholic
liquors which it would be necessary for him to overcome. As he
got more used to them, he would do better.
" Over the disagreeable old man, my cousin
also had trouble. It was hard to hit the right
degree of disagreeableness. Some of them were so
very unpleasant . He eventually made choice
of a decayed cab- driver with advanced Radical
opinions, who insisted on a three
years' contract.
"The plan worked exceedingly
well, and does so, my cousin tells me,
to this day. The drunken father has
completely conquered his dislike to strong
drink. He has not been sober now for over
three weeks, and has lately taken to knock-
་་ A DECAYED CAB-DRIVER."
ing his wife about. The disagreeable fellow
is most conscientious in fulfilling his part
of the bargain, and makes himself a perfect curse to the whole
village. The others have dropped into their respective positions
NOVEL NOTES. 617
and are working well. The lady visits them all every afternoon,
and is most charitable. They call her Lady Bountiful, and every-
body blesses her. It is generally felt throughout the parish that
if she does not go to Heaven , then it will be because Heaven
doesn't know its own business ."
Brown rose as he finished speaking , and mixed himself a glass
of whisky and water with the self- satisfied air of a benevolent man
about to reward somebody for having done a good deed ; and
MacShaugnassy lifted up his voice and talked .
" I know a story bearing on the subject, too," he said ; " but
mine is not so serious as yours. It happened in a tiny Yorkshire
village-a peaceful , respectable spot,
where folks found life a bit slow. One
day, however, a new curate ar-
rived, and that woke things up
considerably. He was a nice
young man, and, having a large
private income of his own, was
altogether a most desirable
catch. Every unmarried female
in the place went for him with
one accord.
" But ordinary feminine.
blandishments appeared to have
no effect upon him. He was a
seriously inclined young man,
and once, in the course of a
casual conversation upon the
subject of love, he was heard to
say that he himself should never
be attracted by mere beauty and
charm. What would appeal to 66 WITH A PRIVATE INCOME OF HIS OWN."
him , he said, would be a
woman's goodness-her charity and kindliness to the poor.
"Well, that set the petticoats all thinking. They saw that in
studying fashion plates and practising expressions they had been
going upon the wrong tack. The card for them to play was ' the
poor.'
" But here a serious difficulty arose. There was only one poor
person in the whole parish, a cantankerous old fellow who lived in
a tumble-down cottage at the back of the church, and fifteen able-
bodied women (eleven girls, three old maids and a widow) wanted
to be ' good ' to him.
618 THE IDLER.
" Miss Simmonds, one of the old maids, got hold of him first,
and commenced feeding him twice a day with beef-tea ; and then
the widow boarded him with port wine and oysters . Later in the
week, others of the party drifted in upon him, and wanted to cram
him with jelly and chickens.
" The old man couldn't understand it. He was accustomed to
a small sack of coals now and then, accompanied by a long lecture
on his sins, and an occasional bottle of dandelion tea. This
sudden spurt on the part of Providence puzzled him. He said
nothing, however, but continued to take in as much of
everything
as he could
hold . At
the end of
a month he
was too fat
to get through
his own back
door.
" The com-
petition among
thewomen folk
grew keener
every -day, and
at last the old
.. THE COMPETITION GREW KEENER
man began to
EVERY DAY. "
o give himself
airs, and to
make the place hard for them. He made
them clean his cottage out, and cook his
meals , and when he was tired of having them about the house, he
set them to work in the garden .
" They grumbled a good deal, and there was talk at one time
of a sort of a strike, but what could they do ? He was the only
pauper for miles round , and knew it. He had the monopoly, and ,
like all monopolists, he abused his position shamefully.
" He made them run errands. He sent them out to buy his
' baccy,' at their own expense . On one occasion he sent Miss
Simmonds out with a jug to get his supper beer. She indignantly
refused at first, but he told her that if she gave him any of her
stuck-up airs out she would go, and never come into his house
again. If she wouldn't do it there were plenty of others who
would. She knew it and went.
NOVEL NOTES. 619
" They had been in the habit of reading to him- good boo!:3
with an elevating tendency. But now he put his foot down upon
that sort of thing. He said he didn't want Sunday- school rubbish
at his time of life. What he liked was something spicy. And he
made them read him French novels and seafaring tales, contain-
ing realistic language. And they didn't have to skip anything
either, or he'd know the reason why.
" He said he liked music , so a few of them clubbed together and
bought him an harmonium . Their idea was that they would sing
hymns and play high-class melodies, but it wasn't his. His idea
was- Keeping up the old girl's birthday ' and ' She winked the
other eye,' with chorus and cellar-flap dance, and that's what
they sang.
64 WITH CHORUS AND CELLAR-FLAP DANCE."
" To what lengths his tyranny would have gone it is difficult

to say, had not an event happened that brought his power to a
premature collapse. This was the curate's sudden and somewhat
unexpected marriage with a very beautiful burlesque actress who
had lately been performing in a neighbouring town. He gave up
the Church on his engagement, in consequence of his fiancée's
objection to becoming a minister's wife. She said she could never
tumble to the district visiting.
"With the curate's wedding, the old pauper's brief career of
prosperity ended . They packed him off to the workhouse after
that, and made him break stones."
At the end of the telling of his tale, MacShaugnassy lifted
his feet off the mantelpiece, and set to work to wake up his legs ;
and Jephson took a hand, and began to spin us stories.
620 THE IDLER.
But none of us felt inclined to laugh at Jephson's stories, for

they dealt not with the goodness of the rich to the poor, which is
a virtue yielding quick and highly atisfactory returns, but with
the goodness of the poor to the poor, a somewhat less remunerative
investment and a different matter altogether.
For the poor themselves- not the noisy professional poor I do
not mean, but the silent, fighting poor-one is bound to feel
with Charles Kingsley a genuine respect. One honours them ,
as one honours a wounded , lean old soldier .
In the perpetual warfare between Humanity and Nature, the
poor stand always in the van. They die in the ditches , and
we march over their bodies with the flags flying and the drums
playing.
I can never think of them myself without an uncomfortable
feeling that I ought to be a little bit ashamed of living in security
and ease, leaving them to take all the hard blows. It is as if one
were always skulking in the tents, while one's comrades were
fighting and dying in the front.
They bleed and fall in silence there. Nature with
her terrible club, Survival of the Fittest " ; and
Civilisation with her cruel sword , " Supply and
Demand," beat them back, and they give
way inch by inch, fighting to the end. But
it is in a dumb, sullen way, that is not
sufficiently picturesque to be heroic.
I remember seeing
an old bull -dog, one
Saturday night, lying
on the doorstep of a
small shop in the New
Cut. He lay there very
quiet, and seemed a
bit sleepy ; and, as he,
looked savage , nobody
disturbed him. People
stepped in and out over
him, and occasionally in
doing so, one would " SEEMED A BIT SLEEPY."
accidentally kick him,
and then he would breathe a little harder and quicker.
At last, a passer-by, feeling something wet beneath his feet,
looked down, and found that he was standing in a pool of blood, and,
NOVEL NOTES. 621
looking to see where it came from, saw that it flowed in a thick,

dark stream from the step on which the dog was lying.
Then he stooped down and examined the dog, and the dog
opened its eyes sleepily and looked at him, gave a grin which may
have implied pleasure, or may have implied irritation at being
disturbed, and died.
A crowd collected, and they turned the dead body of the dog
over on its side, and saw a fearful gash in the groin , out of which
oozed blood, and other things. The proprietor of the shop said the
animal had been there for over an hour.
I have known the poor to die in that same grim, silent way--
not the poor that you, my delicately-gloved Lady Bountiful and my
very excellent Sir Simon DoGood , know, or that you would care
to know ; not the poor who march in processions with banners and
collection -boxes ; not the poor that clamour round your soup
kitchens and sing hymns at your tea meetings ; but the poor that
you don't know are poor until the tale is told at the coroner's
inquest the silent, proud poor who wake each morning to wrestle
with Death till night-time, and who, when at last he overcomes
them, and, forcing them down on the
rotting floor of the dim attic , strangles
them, still die with their teeth tight
shut.
There was a boy I came to know
when I was living in the East End
of London . He was not a nice boy
by any means . He was not quite so
clean as are the good boys in the
religious magazines, and I have known
a sailor to stop him in the street and
reprove him for using indelicate lan-
guage. But he was a boy to shake
hands with for all that, even if it
was necessary to wipe your own
hand afterwards .
" REPROVE HIM FOR USING INDELICATE
He and his mother and the baby, a LANGUAGE.""1
sickly infant of about five months
old, lived in a cellar down a turning off Three Colt Street. I
am not quite sure what had become of the father. I rather think
he had been " converted," and had gone off round the country on
a preaching tour. The lad earned six shillings a week as an
errand boy ; and the mother stitched trousers , and on days when
622 THE IDLER.
she was feeling strong and energetic would often make as much
as tenpence, or even a shilling. Unfortunately, there were days
when the four bare walls would chase each other round and round,
and the candle seem a faint speck of light, a very long way off ;
and the frequency of these caused the family income for the week
to occasionally fall somewhat low.
One night the walls danced round quicker and quicker till they
danced away altogether, and the candle shot up through the ceiling
and became a star ; and the woman knew that it was time to put
away her sewing and crawl on to the mattress and wait.
" Jim," she said : she spoke very low, and the boy had to bend
over her to hear, " if you poke about in the middle of the mattress
you'll find a couple of pounds. I saved them up a long while ago.
That will pay for burying me. And, Jim, you'll take care of the
kid. You won't let it go on the parish:"
" JIM, YOU'LL TAKE CARE OF THE KID."
Jim promised.
" Say ' S'welp me Gawd, ' Jim."
66
S'welp me Gawd, mother."
Then the woman, having arranged her worldly affairs , lay
back ready, and Death struck.
Jim kept his oath . He found the money, and buried his
mother ; and then, putting his household goods on a barrow
moved into cheaper apartments- half an old shed, for which he
paid two shillings a week.
For eighteen months he and the baby lived there. He left the
child at a nursery every morning, fetching it away each evening
on his return from work, and for that he paid fourpence a day,
NOVEL NOTES. 623
which included a limited supply of milk. How he managed to

keep himself and more than half keep the child on the remaining
two shillings I cannot say. I only know that he did it, and that
not a soul ever helped him or knew that there was help wanted .
He nursed the child, often pacing the room with it for hours ,
washed it, occasionally, and took it out for an airing every Sunday.
Notwithstanding all which care, the little beggar, at the end
of the time above mentioned, " pegged out, " to use Jimmy's
own words.
The coroner was very severe on
Jim. " If you had taken proper steps ,"
he said, " this child's life might have
been preserved. (He seemed to think
it would have been better if the child's
life had been preserved. Coroners have
quaint ideas.) "Why didn't you apply to the
relieving officer ?"
"'Cos I didn't want no relief," replied Jim,
sullenly. "I promised my mother it should
never go on the parish, and it didn't."
The incident occurred, very luckily, during the
dead season, and the evening papers took the
case up, and made rather a good thing out of it.
Jim became quite a hero, I remember. Kind-
hearted people wrote, urging that somebody- VERY " THE CORONER WAS
SEVERE ON JIM."
the ground landlord , or the Government , or
some one of that sort-ought to do something for him . And
everybody abused the local vestry. I really think some benefit to
Jim might have come out of it all if only the excitement had lasted
a little longer. Unfortunately, however, just at its height a spicy
divorce case cropped up, and Jim was crowded out and forgotten.
I told the boys this story of mine, after Jephson had done telling
his, and, when I had finished, we found it was nearly one o'clock.
So, of course, it was too late to do any more work to the novel that
evening.
(To be continued.)
M
ARCTIC
.OF
GLAMOUR
THE
.‫ن‬
The Glamour of the Frotic.

By A. CONAN DOYLE .
ILLUSTRATED BY A. WEBB .
T is a strange thing to think that

TT
there is a body of men in Great
Britain, the majority of whom have.
never since their boyhood seen the corn
in the fields. It is the case with the
whale fishers of
Peterhead. They
begin their
hard life very
early as boys
or ordinary
seamen , and
from that time JUST OFF.
onwards they
leave home at the end of February,
before the first shoots are above the
ground, and return in September, when
only the stubble remains to show where the harvest has been. I
have seen and spoken with many an old whaling man to whom a
bearded ear of corn was a thing to be wondered over, and preserved.
The trade which these men follow is old and honourable. There
was a time when the Greenland seas were harried by the ships of
many nations, when the Basques and the Biscayans were the great
fishers of whales, and when Dutchmen, men of the Hansatowns,
Spaniards, and Britons all joined in the great blubber hunt. Then
one by one, as national energy or industrial capital decreased, the
various countries tailed off, until, in the earlier part of this century,
Hull, Poole, and Liverpool were three leading whaling ports . But
again the trade shifted its centre. Scoresby was the last of the
great English captains, and from his time the industry has gone
more and more North, until the whaling of Greenland waters came
to be monopolised by Peterhead, which shares the sealing, how-
ever, with Dundee, and with a fleet from Norway. But now, alas !
the whaling appears to be upon its last legs, the Peterhead ships
are seeking new outlets in the Antarctic seas, and a historical train-
ing-school of brave and hardy seamen will soon be a thing of the
past.
$$
626 THE IDLER.
It is not that the present generation is less persistent and

skilful than its predecessors, nor is it that the Greenland whale is
in danger of becoming extinct, but the true reason appears to be
that Nature, while depriving this unwieldy mass of blubber of any
weapons, has given it in compensation a highly intelligent brain.
That the whale entirely understands the mechanism of its own
capture is beyond dispute. To swim backwards and forwards
beneath a floe in the hope of cutting the rope against the
sharp edge of the ice is a common device of the creature after
being struck. By degrees, however, it has realised the fact that
there are limits to the powers of its adversaries, and that by
keeping far in among the icefields it may shake off the most
intrepid of pursuers. Gradually the creature has deserted the open
sea, and bored deeper and deeper among
the ice barriers, until now, at last, it
really appears to have reached inaccessible
feeding grounds, and it is seldom,
indeed, that the watcher in the
crow's nest sees the high plume
of spray, and the broad , black tail
in the air which sets his heart
a-thumping.
But if a man have the good
fortune to be present at a 66 fall,"
and, above all, if he be, as I
have been, in the harpooning
and in the lancing boat,
he has a taste of sport
which it would
be ill to match .
Toplay a salmon
is a royal game,
but when your
fish weighs more
than a suburban
"A HUNDRED TONS OF DESPAIR ARE CHURNING THE WATERS.'་་ villa, and is worth
a clear two thou-
sand pounds, when, too, your line is a thumb's thickness of manilla
rope with fifty strands, every strand tested for 361b. , it dwarfs all
other experiences. And the lancing too, when the creature is spent,
and your boat pulls in to give it the coup de grâce with cold steel, that
is also exciting ! A hundred tons of despair are churning the waters
THE GLAMOUR OF THE ARCTIC. 627
up into a red foam, two great black fins are rising and falling like
the sails of a windmill, casting the boat into a shadow as they
droop over it, but still the harpooner clings to the head, where no
harm can come, and , with the wooden butt of the twelve-foot lance
against his stomach, he presses it home until the long struggle is
finished, and the black back rolls over to expose the livid , whitish
surface beneath . Yet amid all the excitement-and no one who
has not held an oar in such a scene can tell how exciting it is—
one's sympathies lie with the poor hunted creature. The whale
as a small eye, little larger than that of a bullock, but I cannot
easily forget the mute expostulation which I read in one, as it
limmed over in death within hand's touch of me. What could it
guess, poor creature, of laws of supply and demand, or how could
it imagine that when Nature placed an elastic filter inside its
:mouth, and when man discovered that the plates of which it was
composed were the most pliable and yet durable 1 things in creation,
its death-warrant was signed .
Of course, it is only the one species, and the very rarest species
of whale, which is the object of the fishery. The common rorqual
or finner, largest of creatures upon this planet, whisks its eighty
feet of worthless tallow round the whaler without fear of any
missile more dangerous than a biscuit . This, with its good-for-
nothing cousin, the hunch-back whale, abounds in the Arctic seas ,
and I have seen their sprays upon a clear day shooting up along
the horizon like the smoke from a busy factory. A stranger
sight still is, when looking over the bulwarks into the clear water,
to see far down where the green is turning to black the huge,
flickering figure of a whale gliding under the ship. And then the
strange grunting, soughing noise which they make as they come
up, with something of the contented pig in it, and something of
the wind in the chimney ! Contented they well may be, for the
finner has no enemies, save an occasional sword- fish , and Nature ,
which in a humorous mood has in the case of the right whale
affixed the smallest of gullets to the largest of creatures, has
dilated the swallow of its less valuable brother, so that it can have
a merry time among the herrings.
The gallant seaman, who in all the books stands in the prow
of a boat, waving a harpoon over his head, with the line snaking
out into the air behind him, is only to be found now in Paternoster
Row. The Greenland seas have not known him for more than a
hundred years , since first the obvious proposition was advanced
that one could shoot both harder and more accurately than one
628 THE IDLER.
could throw. Yet one clings to the ideals of one's infancy, and I
hope that another century may have elapsed before the brave fellow
disappears from the frontispieces, in which he still throws his
outrageous weapon an impossible distance. The swivel gun, like
a huge horse- pistol, with its great oakum wad, and 28 drams of
powder, is a more reliable, but a far less picturesque, object.
tador bas d
THE SWIVEL GUN.
But to aim with such a gun is an art in itself, as will be seen

when one considers that the rope is fastened to the neck of the
harpoon, and that as the missile flies the downward drag of this
rope must seriously deflect it. So difficult is it to make sure of
one's aim, that it is the etiquette of the trade to pull the boat right
on to the creature, the prow shooting up its soft, gently- sloping
side, and the harpooner firing straight down into its broad back,
into which not only the four-foot harpoon, but ten feet of the rope
behind it, will disappear. Then, should the whale cast its tail in
the air, after the time-honoured fashion of the pictures, that boat
would be in evil case, but, fortunately, when frightened or hurt it
does no such thing, but curls its tail up underneath it, like a cowed
dog, and sinks like a stone. Then the bows splash back into the
water, the harpooner hugs his own soul, the crew light their pipes
and keep their legs apart while the line runs merrily down the
middle of the boat and over the bows. There are two miles of it
there, and a second boat will lie alongside to splice on if the first
should run short, the end being always kept loose for that purpose.
And now occurs the one serious danger
sent of whaling. The line has usually been
eligo-anil olt coiled when it was
wet, and as it runs
out it is very liable"
THE HARPOONER.
to come in loops which whizz down the boat between the-

men's legs. A man lassoed in one of these nooses is gone,
and fifty fathoms deep, before the harpooner has time to say
"Where's Jock ? " Or if it be the boat itself which is caught, then
down it goes like a cork on a trout-line, and the man who can
swim with a whaler's high boots on is a swimmer indeed. Many
a whale has had a Parthian revenge in this fashion. Some years
ago a man was whisked over with a bight of rope round his thigh.
" Christ, man, Alec's gone ! " shrieked the boat- steerer, heaving
up his axe to cut the line. But the
harpooner caught his wrist. " Na, na,
mun," he cried, "the oil money'll
be a good thing for the widdie."
And so it was arranged, while Alec
shot on upon his terrible journey.
That oil money is the secret of the
frantic industry of these seamen, who,
when they do find themselves taking
grease aboard, will work day and night,
though night is but an expression up
there, without a thought of fatigue.
For the secure pay of officers and men is AN ABERDEENSHIRE SEAMAN.
low indeed, and it is only by their
share of the profits that they can hope to draw a good
cheque when they return. Even the new-joined boy gets his
630 THE IDLER.
shilling in the ton, and so draws an extra five pounds when

a hundred tons of oil are brought back. It is practical
socialism , and yet a less democratic community than a
whaler's crew could not be imagined. The captain rules
the mates, the mates the harpooners, the harpooners the
boat-steerers, the boat- steerers the line-coilers, and so on in a
graduated scale which descends to the ordinary seaman, who, in
turn, bosses it over the boys. Every one of these has his share of
oil money, and it may be imagined what a chill blast ofunpopularity
blows around the luckless harpoon .
who, by clumsiness or evil chance, has
missed his whale. Public opinion has
a terrorising effect even in those little
floating communities of fifty souls. I
have known a grizzled harpooner burst
into tears when he saw by his slack
line that he had missed his
mark, and Aberdeenshire sea-
men are not a very soft race
either.
Though twenty or thirty
whales have been taken in a
single year in the Greenland
seas, it is probable that the
great slaughter of last cen-
tury has diminished their
number until there are not
Web more than a few hundreds in
existence . I mean, of course, o
the right whale, for the others, as
I have said, abound. It is difficult to
compute the numbers of a species which
comes and goes over great tracks of
water and among huge icefields , but the
fact that the same whale is often pur-
" I'VE BEEN AFTER THAT FELLOW sued by the same whaler upon suc-
THREE TIMES,' SAID THE CAPTAIN."
cessive trips shows how limited their
number must be. There was one, I remember, which was con-
spicuous through having a huge wart, the size and shape of a
beehive, upon one of the flukes of its tail . " I've been after that
fellow three times," said the captain, as we dropped our boats .
"He got away in '61. In '67 we had him fast, but the harpoon
THE GLAMOUR OF THE ARCTIC.
631
drew. In '76 a fog saved him. It's

offisic odds that we have him now !'
I fancied that the betting
adr
lay rather the other way
myself, and so it proved,
for that warty tail is still
thrashing the Arctic seas
for all that I know to the
contrary.
I shall never forget
my own first sight of
a right whale . It had
been seen by the look-
"IT'S TAIL WAS CURVED out on the other side
JUST AS A TROUT'S IS."
of a small ice-
field, but had sunk as we all rushed on deck.
For ten minutes we awaited its re- appearance ,
and I had taken my eyes from the place, when a
general gasp of astonishment
made me glance up, and there
was the whale in the air. Its
tail was curved just as a
trout's is in jumping, and
every bit of its glistening
lead- coloured body was
clear of the water. It was
little wonder
that I should
jsWebb
be aston-
ished, for the
captain , after
thirtyoth
voyages, had
never seen O
such a
sight. On 66 THE CREATURE IS FIXED
HEAD AND TAIL "
catching
it we dis-
covered
that it was
very thickly
covered with a red, crab-like parasite, about the size of a shilling,
and we conjectured that it was the irritation of these creatures
632 THE IDLER.
which had driven it wild. If a man had short, nail-less flippers,

and a prosperous family of fleas upon his back, he would appreciate
the situation.
When a fish, as the whalers will for ever call it, is taken, the
ship gets alongside, and the creature is fixed head and tail in a
curious and ancient fashion, so that by slacking or tightening
the ropes, each part of the vast body. can be
brought uppermost. A whole boat may be seen
inside the giant mouth, the men hacking with
axes to slice away the ten-foot screens of bone,
while others with sharp spades upon
the back are cutting off the deep great-
coat of fat in which kindly Nature has
wrapped up this most overgrown of
her children. In a few hours all is
stowed away in the tanks, and a red
islet, with white projecting bones, lies
alongside, and sinks like a stone when
the ropes are loosed. Some years ago
a man, still lingering upon the back,
had the misfortune to have his foot
caught between the creature's ribs at
the instant when the tackles were un
done. Some æons hence those two
skeletons, the one hanging by the foot
from the other, may grace the museum
of a subtropical Greenland, or astonish
SPLITTING THE WHALE-
BONE. the students of the Spitzbergen
Institute of Anatomy .
Apart from sport, there is a
glamour about those circumpolar
regions which must affect everyone who has penetrated to them. My
heart goes out to that old, grey- headed whaling captain who, having
been left for an instant when at death's door, staggered off in his
night gear, and was found by his nurses far from his house and
still, as he mumbled , " pushing to the norrard ." So an Arctic fox
which a friend of mine endeavoured to tame escaped, and was caught
many months afterwards in a gamekeeper's trap in Caithness. It
also was pushing norrard , though who can say by what strange
compass it took its bearings ? It is a region of purity, of white ice
and of blue water, with no human dwelling within a thousand miles
to sully the freshness of the breeze which blows across the icefields.
And then it is a region of romance also. You stand on the very

brink of the unknown, and every duck that you shoot bears pebbles
in its gizzard which come from a land which the maps know not.
These whaling captains profess to see no great difficulty in

reaching the Pole. Some little margin must be allowed , no doubt,
for expansive talk over a pipe and a glass, but still there is a
striking unanimity in their ideas . Briefly they are these.
What bars the passage of the explorer as he ascends between
Greenland and Spitzbergen is that huge floating ice-reef which
scientific explorers have called " the palæocrystic sea," and the
whalers, with more expressive Anglo- Saxon, " the barrier."
The ship which has picked its way among the great ice-floes finds
itself, somewhere about the 81st degree, confronted by a single
634 THE IDLER .
mighty wall extending right across from side to side, with no chink
or creek up which she can push her bows. It is old ice, gnarled
and rugged, and of an exceeding thickness, impossible to pass , and
nearly impossible to travel over, so cut and jagged is its surface.
BLOCKED.
Over this it was that the gallant Parry struggled with his sledges
in 1827 , reaching a latitude (about 82° .30, if my remembrance is
correct) which for a long time was the record . As far as he could
see this old ice extended right away to the Pole.
Such is the obstacle. Now for the whaler's view of how it
may be surmounted .
This ice, they say, solid as it looks, is really a floating body,
and at the mercy of the water upon which it rests . There is in
those seas a perpetual southerly drift, which weakens the cohesion.
of the huge mass, and when, in addition to this, the prevailing
winds happen to be from the North, the barrier is all shredded out,
and great bays and gulfs appear in its surface. A brisk northerly
wind, long continued, might at any time clear a road , and has ,
according to their testimony, frequently cleared a road by which a
ship might slip through to the Pole . Whalers fishing as far North
as the 82nd degree have in an open season seen no ice, and, more
important still, no reflection of ice in the sky to the north of them.
But they are in the service of a company, they are there to catch
whales, and there is no adequate inducement to make them risk
themselves, their vessels, and their cargoes, in a dash for the
North.
The matter might be put to the test

without trouble or expense. Take a
stout wooden gunboat, short and
strong, with engines as antiquated
as you like, if they be but a hundred
horse power. Man her with a sprink-
ling of Scotch and Shetland seamen
from the Royal Navy , and let the rest
of the crew be lads who must have a
training cruise in any case. For the
first few voyages carry a couple of
experienced ice masters, in addition
to the usual Naval officers . Put a
man like Markham in command.
A SHETLANDER. Then send this ship every June or
July to inspect the barrier, with strict
orders to keep out of the heavy ice unless there were a very clear
water-way. For six years she might go in vain. On the seventh
you might have an open season, hard, northerly winds, and a clear
sea. In any case no expense or danger is incurred, and there could
be no better training for young seamen. They will find the
Greenland seas in summer much more healthy and pleasant than
the Azores or Madeira , to which they are usually dispatched .
The whole expedition should be done in less than a month .
Singular incidents occur in those northern waters , and there
are few old whalers who have not their queer yarn, which is somc-
times of personal and sometimes of general interest. There is
one which always appeared to me to deserve more attention than
has ever been given to it. Some years ago Captain David Gray,
of the Eclipse, the doyen of the trade, and the representative ,
with his brothers John and Alec, of a famous family of whalers ,
was cruising far to the North when he saw a large bird flapping
over the ice. A boat was dropped, the bird shot, and brought
aboard , but no man there could say what manner of fowl it was.
Brought home, it was at once identified as being a half- grown
albatross, and now stands in the Peterhead Museum with a neat
little label to that effect between its webbed feet.
Nowthe albatross is an Antarctic bird, and it is quite unthinkable
that this solitary specimen flapped its way from the other end of
the earth. It was young, and possibly giddy, but quite incapable
of a wild outburst of that sort. What is the alternative ? It
must have been a Southern straggler from some breed of albatrosscs
further North. But if there is a different fauna further North , then
OPTAG
THE
Risenbach
DECK
WHALER
A
.OF
there must be a climatic

change there. Perhaps Kane was
not so far wrong after all in his
surmise of an open Polar sea. It
may be that that flattening at the
- Poles of the earth , which always
seemed to my childhood's imagi-
nation to have been caused by
the finger and thumb of the
Creator, when He held up this little planet
before He set it spinning, has a greater influence AN ALBATROSS.
on climate than we have yet ascribed to them.
But if so, how simple would the task of our exploring ship become
when a wind from the North had made a rift in the barrier.
There is little land to be seen during the seven months of a
whaling cruise. The strange solitary island of Jan Meyen may
possibly be sighted, with its great snow-capped ex-volcano jutting
up among the clouds. In the palmy days of the whale fishing the
Dutch had a boiling station there, and now great stones with iron
rings let into them and rusted anchors lie littered about in this
absolute wilderness as a token of their former presence. Spitz-
bergen, too, with its black crags and its white glaciers, a dreadful
looking place, may possibly be seen. I saw it myself for the first
and last time in a sudden rift in the drifting wrack of a furious
gale, and for me it stands as the very emblem of stern grandeur.
And then towards the end of the season the whalers come South to
the 72nd degree, and try to bore in towards the coast of Greenland ,
in the South- eastern corner, and if you then , at the distance of
eighty miles, catch the least glimpse of the loom of the cliffs ,
then, if you are anything of a dreamer, you will have plenty of
food for dreams, for this is the very spot where one of the most
interesting questions in the world is awaiting a solution .
Of course, it is a commonplace that when Iceland was one of
the centres of civilisation in Europe, the Icelanders budded off a
colony upon Greenland, which throve and flourished, and produced
sagas of its own, and waged war upon the Skraelings or
Esquimaux, and generally sang and fought and drank in the bad
old, full-blooded fashion. So prosperous did they become that they
built them a cathedral, and sent to Denmark for a bishop, there
being no protection for local industries at that time. The bishop,
however, was prevented from reaching his see by some sudden
climatic change which brought the ice down between Iceland
638 THE IDLER.
and Greenland, and from that day (it was in the 14th
century) to this no one has penetrated that ice, L nor has it ever
been ascertained what became of that ancient city, or of its inhabit-
ants. Have they preserved some singular civilisation of their
own, and are they still singing and drinking and fighting, and wait-
ing for the bishop from over the seas ? or have they been destroyed
by the hated Skraelings, or have they, as is more likely, amal-
gamated with them, and produced a race of tow-headed, large- limbed
Esquimaux ? We must wait until some Nansen turns his steps in
that direction before we can tell. At present it is one of those
interesting historical questions, like the fate of those Vandals who
were driven by Belisarius into the interior of Africa, which are far
better unsolved. When we know everything about this earth, the
romance and the poetry will all have been wiped away from it.
There is nothing so artistic as a haze.
There is a good deal which I had meant to say about bears,
and about seals, and about sea-unicorns, and sword-fish, and all
the interesting things which combine to throw that glamour over
the Arctic ; but, as the genial critic is fond of remarking, it has all
been said very much better already. There is one side of the
Arctic regions, however, which has never had due attention paid to
it, and that is the medical and curative side. Davos Platz has
shown what cold can do in consumption , but in the life-giving air
of the Arctic Circle no noxious germ can live. The only illness of
any consequence which ever attacks a whaler is an explosive bullet.
It is a safe prophecy that before many years are past, steam yachts
will turn to the North every summer, with a cargo of the weak-
chested, and people will understand that Nature's ice-house is a
more healthy place than her vapour-bath.
Ahr.gr.
THE IDEAL END

Two in a Gondola.
(AN OLYMPIAN IDYL . )
BY ARCHIE FAIRBAIRN .
ILLUSTRATED BY G. H. SYDNEY COWELL AND CYRIL HALLWARD .
DID a foolish thing the other day ; I went alone on a

I Saturday afternoon to " Venice in London, " in response
to a vague invitation to meet the Lexham- Gardiners " near the
entrance between one and two ." It was my first visit,
and it did not take me very long to realise that there
were about four entrances , and a seeth-
ing crowd bent on enjoying a half-
holiday, and to recollect that the
Lexham- Gardiners are invariably late
for every ball, din-
ner - party , or
theatre that they
ever go to. Before
many minutes , I
had got extremely
hot walking from
one entrance to
another, had thor-
oughly lost my
temper, and had
' I WENT ALONE." realised what soli-
tude means in a
crowd of enthu-
siastic sightseers , of a class Grildfallward.
worthy no doubt,
but in which, personally, I take no interest whatever. After a
time, I gave up trying to find the Lexham-Gardiners, though I
felt that I should have enjoyed a stroll with Maud Gardiner,
if we could have deposited her mother to rest in a secluded
seat. Ethel Gardiner would be sure to have provided herself
with a. man to walk about with.
I struggled to what appeared to be a place of call for gondolas ;
they were crowded to repletion , and I remained on shore. I tried
the streets and bridges of Venice, and little boys and girls
pushed themselves in front of me, apparently for the sole purpose
of treading on my toes and rubbing their noses against glass
640 THE IDLER .
show-cases, which could not in the nature of things contain any.

thing to attract them, while their mothers followed them, partly
-
in pursuit, and partly to see what I was looking at .
Of course, I saw a great deal which
might have interested me, had I had a
companion ; I was bored,
however, to death, and
longed for a friend . Even
an enemy would have
been a relief ; I might
have allured him to
the edge and pushed
him into the water.
I was just study.
ing a voluminous
programme of the
"entertainment, "
and wondering
whether it was
" HE WAS
AN ETON BOY." worth my while to
stay and witness
what were described as " Terpsichorean Revels," when I felt
someone pluck my sleeve. I looked round, and saw a very fat
woman in a bright blue gown, pointing to a cheery-looking
gondolier, and beseeching a sticky infant to admire the
" pretty soldier. " The infant said " Da-da" in an infant-like,
imbecile way, and the woman had evidently no desire
to attract my attention . I heard a voice, and I looked down ;
about the level of the third button of my waistcoat was an
admirably-brushed tall hat, below it the rosy cheeks and white
collar of a small boy ; such a nice, clean, smart little boy. As
he turned I could see that his jacket, " cut all round," with no
peak at the back, was the " real article " ; his trousers, too, were
faultless, neither too tight nor too loose at any point. There was
no need for him to be labelled or catalogued- he was an Eton boy ;
a small specimen, but genuine and perfect of his kind, up for a
day's holiday. He had turned from me, and seemed to be looking
for someone in the crowd.
" I want to introduce you to a cousin of mine," he said, and
his eye twinkled cheerfully. " How do you do ? " he added politely,
holding out his hand. I shook it, and looked inquiringly at him.
" She is a deuced pretty girl," he said, " but she is tired, and I
TWO IN A GONDOLA . 641
want her to sit down while I go and have an ice ; girls are
rather a bother sometimes," he continued, confidentially, " but
you will like her."
Just at that moment, a very good- looking , fair girl came
through the crowd, looking anxiously from right to left ; then
she saw us, and came towards us. Anyone who has ever gone
through the ceremony of introduction performed by a child knows
that it is awkwardly elementary and without detail. The small
CHyaril
llwa
ww
rd
" A VERY GOOD-LOOKING, FAIR GIRL CAME THROUGH THE CROWD."
boy no sooner saw us confronting each other than, without uttering

a word of presentation , he dived into the crowd and disappeared .
I raised my hat, feeling rather nervous, but she was perfectly at
her ease.
" Charlie met you at the Brantinghursts, did he not, last
autumn, Captain Lyndon ? He pointed you out to me in the
crowd just after we got here. Have you seen Lady Brantinghurst
here to-day ? I don't believe she has come.”
I bowed, and murmured that I had not seen Lady Brantinghurst.
"We were to have met her and her boys at the entrance, but
they were late, and Charlie was so impatient, I thought we might
walk about a little. Do you mind taking me to sit down ? "
TT
642 THE IDLER .
I suggested a gondola, and the cheery-looking rascal I had

already noticed brought his craft to the landing stage just as we
got there, while a shilling in his swarthy palm made him start at
TEATRO MALBRAN
QUEST RI-VE
RAPY OTAT
AM
#SHAKESPERI
" SHE WAS PERFECTLY AT HER EASE."
once without waiting for a family of seven who approached

with the idea of sharing our boat. I fancy also he kept us out
longer as favoured passengers . When our trip ended, I took fresh
tickets and we started again . I enjoyed it very much, for my
companion was charming. She had been as bored as I had before
we met, and quite appreciated my caustic remarks on the
company we had been in, as we looked at them from the
aristocratic seclusion of our gondola. I am of a naturally
talkative and somewhat inquisitive disposition, but my
companion was still more so. She asked me more questions
than I could possibly answer, and carried on a bubbling conversa.
tion for half-an-hour, as I sat and listened and nodded assent.
I quite enjoyed the mere pleasure of looking at her, she was so
well dressed and turned out, from her little dove-coloured gloves
to the tips of her tiny patent leather shoes.
TWO IN A GONDOLA . 643
Her young cousin returned after a time,

and, having spied us out, showed signs of
joining us. I quelled that by the suggestion
of a cup of Italian chocolate, which I said
could be obtained at a
distant spot which I en-
deavoured to describe, and
I furnished him with a
couple of half- crowns to
pay for it, and for a
gondola- trip or two
40m.
on his Own ac-
www
count. I am afraid
he treated my sug-
炒
蘆
gestion that he
should visit Salvi-
ati's glass works
with contempt .
Perhaps he saw
that it was prompt-
"I SUGGESTED A GONDOLA. ".
ed by the idea that
the crowd would make such an expedition a lengthy one. He
departed , and his companion gave me a look which, I felt sure,
was meant to express gratitude .
" It is a great nuisance for you having to bring him," I said ;
"you must have been fearfully bored ."
" Oh, no," she answered , " I have enjoyed myself very much
since I have been able to sit down- and- rest."
I felt sure she meant since she had had the pleasure of making
my acquaintance-she said that with her eyes.
" I have been so amused watching two people," she added ;
66
they are funny ! Do look at that girl-what style ! Can any
human being ?"
"Where ? " I asked .
" There," she said, " by that poetic- looking Italian policeman ;
did you ever see such a hat, and isn't she pleased with herself ?
Do look at her terrible, fat mother."
I looked in the direction indicated, and at that moment the
girl in question turned her head ; but I averted my eyes at once,
and I don't think she bowed . Poor Maud Gardiner, she is a very
"good sort," as no doubt she would describe herself, but her cos-
tumes, occasionally fetching on the river, at a distance, or even
644 THE IDLER.
when one is tête-à-tête with her in a punt, are a little bit voyants
for town in the season. And besides, when I compared her with
my companion, I really felt there was an indefinable difference
between them which nothing could bridge over.
" Is not she awful ? I don't
believe you see her," said my
companion.
"Awful," I said, endea-
vouring not to actually look
in the direction where I knew
Miss Gardiner was trying to
bow to me.
"They seemed to think of
coming for a row with us,"
said my companion . " I wish
they had."
I wished so, too , audibly,
while inaudibly I prayed that
they might go to the utter-
most end of the
Olympia and drown
themselves .
" Of course, you
" WE STARTED AGAIN."
are going to the Bran-

tinghursts ' ball, on the
9th ? " said my companion .
I replied that I had not been asked.
"Not asked !" she said. " Why, she told me she had asked all
your regiment, and I think she mentioned you by name."
" Very likely I am wrong," I said " one gets so many invita-
tions in the season."
TWO IN A GONDOLA. 645
" Oh, of course," she said, " I suppose you go out a great deal ;
now I only come up for a little time, and I do enjoy all the balls
we go to. I hope you will
come to it, mind you do ; but
perhaps even if you do you
will have forgotten me."
" Forgotten you ! " I
answered enthusiastically ,
ແ never ; if I can get to the
ball I certainly shall hope for
the pleasure of dancing with
you several times. "
" Do you dance much with
Mabel Brantinghurst , Captain
Lyndon ?"
I replied that I rarely, if
ever, danced with Lady Mabel
Brantinghurst.
" I thought you were a
friend of hers, " she said, rather
inquisitively ; " don't you like
her ? " *
I shrugged my shoulders 64 HER TERRIBLE, FAT MOTHER."
expressively .
" She does talk a great deal, " said my companion . " Dear
Mabel, she is my cousin , and I am very fond of her, but I think
she rather bores one."
" Not much in her," I suggested .
" Just so," she answered ; " how well you judge character, but
22
if you don't come to dance with her, you will come all the same.'
" If I can," I said, " but what is the matter?" My companion
had jumped up in the gondola, and was trying to attract someone's
attention .
"Why, there is Lady Brantinghurst, " she answered. " Come
along and let us join her, and find Charlie. She will tell you she
sent you an invitation ."
We were landed . Gondoliers are, fortunately , a leisurely race,
and we went in pursuit of a tall lady, who, with an equally tall girl
and two little boys in Eton jackets , was walking rather rapidly
away from us. My companion hurried on ; we had nearly caught
up the object of our pursuit when I pulled out my watch. " My
goodness ! " I said in horror, " it is half-past two, and unless
I can get to Paddington by three, I shall be late."
646 THE IDLER.
"What for ? " she said. " Can't you come and just speak to
auntie ? Are you not going to see the ballet ? It must have begun
long ago."
"Impossible," I answered, " you
have made me forget the time too
much already," and bidding her
a hasty good- bye, I hurried to-
wards the door . As I was going
out, I ran straight into a group
of the whole family of Lexham-
Gardiners.
Mrs. Lexham-Gardiner looked
very cross ; so did Maud.
" You threw us

over," they said both at
once. "We've a good
mind not to let you have
a seat in our box ."
" Yes !" said Ethel
Gardiner, who had a tall,
dark man beside her,
and seemed quite con-
tented, " but you had a
very good excuse ; what
a pretty girl you were
with ; we saw her get out
of her carriage ; such
liveries, and a coronet
on the panel. Who was
she ? I did not know 64 THERE IS LADY BRANTINGHURst ."
you knew such swells."
TWO IN A GONDOLA. 647
I did not answer very co-
herently, I am afraid ; I tried to
convey to them that I was
suffering from the first symp-
toms of a sudden and violent
attack of influenza, or some-
thing equally alarm-
ing, and I hurried
away, departing west-
wards by the Under-
ground. But who was
she ? Upon my soul
I don't know. I can
look into Burke or
Debrett and conjecture, but I have
never seen her since, or her small
cousin either. Whether wilfully or
accidentally he mistook me for Gril Hallward
someone he had met, when he set " WE SAW HER GET OUT OF
HER CARRIAGE."
himself at liberty by introducing
me to his cousin , I do not know. He had a twinkle in his eye as
he did it, but that is nothing with a boy. I only know that I am
not in any way ac-
quainted with Lady
Brantinghurst or her
family, thatI am not
Captain Lyndon, or
Captain anything
else, but a harmless
individual who, for
an hour ofthat after-
B
noon, enjoyed him-

selfthoroughly. Let
no one who has not
been similarly
tempted condemn
him,
" YOU HAD A VERY GOOD EXCUSE.12. "

JAMES PAYN.
My First Book.
II. THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE .
BY JAMES PAYN.
ILLUSTRATED BY GEO. HUTCHINSON .
HAD written a great many short

stories and articles in all sorts of
publications, from Eliza Cook's Four-
nal to the Westminster Review, before
I ventured upon writing a novel ; and the
appearance of them I have since had cause
to regret. Not at all because they were
" immature," and still less because I
am ashamed of them-on the con-
trary, I still think them rather good-
but because the majority of them
were not made the most of from a
literary point of view, and also went
very cheap. As a friend observed to
me, who was much my senior, and
whose advice was therefore treated with contempt, " You are like
an extravagant cook, who wastes too much material on a single
dish." The entrées of the story-teller-his early and tentative
essays in Fiction-if he has really any turn for his calling, are
generally open to this criticism . Later on, he becomes more
economical (sometimes, indeed , a good deal too much so, because,
alas ! there is so little in the cupboard), and has a much finer sense
of proportion .
I don't know how many years I went on writing narratives of
school and college life, and spinning short stories, like a literary
spider, out of my own interior, but I don't remember that it was ever
borne in upon me that the reservoir could hardly hold out
for ever, and that it was time to be doing something on a more
permanent and extended scale. The cause of that act of prudence
and sagacity was owing mainly to a travelling menagerie. I had
had in my mind, for some time, to write a sort of autobiography
(of which character first novels almost always consist, or at least
650 THE IDLER.
partake), but had in truth abstained from doing so on the not

unreasonable ground that my life had been wholly destitute of
incidents of public interest. True, I had mended that matter by
the wholly gratuitous invention of a cheerless home and a
wicked sister, but I had hitherto found nothing more attractive to
descant upon than my own domestic wrongs. Even if they had
existed, it was doubtful whether they would have aroused public
indignation, and I mistrusted my powers of making them exist.
What I wanted was a dramatic situation
or two (a " plot," the evolution of
which by no means comes by nature,
though the germ is often an
inspiration, was at that time
beyond me), and especially the
opportunity of observation.
My own slender experiences
were used up, and imagination
had no material to work upon ;
one can't blow even glass out of
nothing at all. Just in the nick
of time arrived in Edinburgh,
where I was then editing
Chambers's Journal, Tickera-
candua, " the African Lion
"A WICKED SISTER." Tamer." At that time (though
I have seen a great deal of them
since) lions were entirely out of my line, and also
tamers ; but this gentleman was a most attractive
specimen of his class . Handsome, frank, and
intelligent, he took my fancy from the first, and
we became great friends. " His actual height,"
says my notebook, " could scarcely have been less than six feet
two, while it was artificially increased by a circlet of cock's
feathers set in a coronet, which the majority of enraptured be-
holders believed to be of virgin gold. A leopard skin, worn after
the fashion of a Scotch plaid, set off a jerkin of green leather,
while his legs were encased in huge jack boots." This, of course,
was his performing dress, and I used to wonder how the leopards
(with whom he had a great deal to do) liked his wearing their
relative's cast- off clothing. In the "leopard hunt" (twice a day)
these animals raced over him as he stood erect, and each , as it
" took off" from his shoulder left its mark there with its claws ,
MY FIRST BOOK. 651
He was so good as to show me his shoulder, which looked as if he

had been profusely vaccinated in the wrong place. A much more
dangerous, if less painful, experience was his daily (and nightly)
doings with the lions. There were two of them, with a lioness of
an uncertain temper, who jumped through hoops at his imperious
bidding with many a growl and snarl of remonstrance.
" Are you never afraid ?" I once asked him tentatively.
" If I was," he answered , quietly, but not contemptuously, " I
might count myself from that moment a dead man . Then, you
see, I have my whip." It was a carter's whip, good to keep off a
dog, but scarcely a lion. " The handle is
loaded," he explained, " and I know exactly
where to hit ' em with it, if the worst comes
to the worst." If I remember right, it was the
tip of the nose.
His conversation was delightful, and he often
honoured me with his company at supper, when
the toils and perils of the day were o'er. Upon
the whole, though I have since known many
other eminent persons, he has left a more
marked impression on me than any of them,
and it is no wonder that in those youthful days
he influenced my imagination . His autobio-
graphy, without his having the least suspicion
of the appropriation , became in fact my auto-
biography, as may be read (if there is anybody
who has not enjoyed that treat) in " The
Family Scapegrace. " But, as my predecessors
in the field of Fiction were wont to exclaim,
" I am anticipating." TOOK OFF FROM HIS
Another official connected with the mena- SHOULDER.""
gerie gave daily lectures upon the animals,
so curiously dry and grave that they filled me with admiration ;
he was like an embodiment of the answers to " Mangnall's
Questions ." Whatever suspicions Tickeracandua may have
subsequently entertained of me, I am quite sure that " Mr.
Mopes would no more have seen himself in the portrait I drew
of him than would the animals under his charge, if their
attention had been drawn to them, have recognised their
counterfeit presentments outside the show. I also became
acquainted with the Earthman and Earthwoman, the slaughterman
652 THE IDLER.
of the establishment, Mr. and Mrs. Tredgold (its proprietors),

and other individuals seldom met with in ordinary society.
The adventures of " Richard Arbour " were, therefore, cut out
for me in a most convenient and unexpected fashion, but I had
the intelligence to perceive that though the interest they might
excite would be dramatic enough, they would be in danger of
dealing too much with the animal world to interest adult readers ;
nor would the narrative have made an attractive book for boys,
since I felt it would be too full of fun (for my spirits were very
MR. PAYN'S STUDY.
high in those days) to suit juvenile tastes. I knew little of the

world, but had seen much of boys (though I had never belonged to
the species), and was well aware that, except as regards practical
jokes, the boy is not gifted with humour. I accordingly looked
about me for some dramatic material of a wholly different kind,
and eventually found it in the person of Count Gotsuchakoff.
It was a mistake to call such a sombre and serious individual
by so ludicrous a name, but it was a characteristic one. My dis-
position was at that time lively (not to say frivolous), and the
MY FIRST BOOK. 653
atmosphere I usually lived in was one of mirth, but, as often

happens, it had another side to it, which was melancholy almost to
melodrama. In after years I found this to be the case in an
infinitely greater story-teller, who, while he delighted all the world
with humour and pathos, in reality nourished a taste for the weird
and terrible, which, though its ghastly face but very
rarely showed itself in his writings, was
the favourite topic of his familiar and
confidential talk. Tickeracandua himself
was not dearer to me than the Count, who
was almost entirely the offspring of my own
invention, and though I have since seen in
Nihilist novels a good many gentlemen
of the same type, I venture to think
that, slightly as he is sketched, he
will bear comparison with the best of
them . The conception of his long
years of enforced silence, and even of
the terrible moment in which he forgot
that he was dumb, owed its origin, if
I remember right, to a child's game
that was popular in our nursery. It
consisted in resisting the temptation to
laugh, and the resolution to reply in
tones of gravity when such questions
" COUNT GOTSUCHAKOFF."" as " Have you heard the Emperor
of Morocco is dead ? " were put. The
adaptation of it, in the substitution of speech for laughter,
suddenly suggested itself, like any other happy thought.
Instead of writing straight ahead, as the fancy prompted,
which, in my less ambitious attempts at Fiction (like all young
writers) I had hitherto done, I had all these materials pretty well
arranged in my mind before sitting down to write my first book.
It was after all only a string of adventures, but it is still , and I
think deservedly, a popular book. The question with its author,
however, was how, when it was finished, he was to get it
published. I took it to my friend, Robert Chambers , and asked for
his opinion about it. He looked at the manuscript, which was
certainly not in such good handwriting as his own, and observed
slily-
"Would you mind just reading a bit of it ? "
I had never done such a thing before, nor have I since, and the
654 THE IDLER .
proposal was a little staggering, not to my amour propre, but to my

natural modesty. Moreover, I mistrusted my ability to do justice
to it, remembering what the poet has said about reading one's own
productions :
" The chariot wheels jar in the gates through which we drive them forth."
However, I started with it, and notwithstand-
ing that we were subjected to "jars " (one by
the servant, who came to put coals on the fire,
just at a crisis , and made me at heart a mur-
derer), the specimen was pronounced satisfac-
tory.
" I think it will
suit nicely for the
Journal," said my
friend , which I
think were the
pleasantest words
I ever heard from
the mouth of man .
I might have
taken them , in-
deed, as a good "WOULD YOU MIND JUST READING
A BIT OF IT ?"
omen, for though
I have since written more novels than I can
count, I have never failed to secure serial publica-
tion for every one of them. " This gentleman's
novels are suitable enough for serial publication ,"
once wrote a critic of them, intending to be very
particularly disagreeable, but it aroused no emotion
in my breast warmer than gratitude.
So " The Family Scapegrace " came
out in Chambers's Journal . I do not re-
member whether it had any effect upon its
circulation, but it was well spoken of, and
there was at least one person in the world
who thought it a masterpiece. The diffi-
culty, which no one but a young and un-
known writer can estimate , was to get a
publisher to share in this belief. For many
years afterwards I published my books.
" THE SERVANT CAME TO PUT anonymously (i.e., "by the author " of so
COALS ON THE FIRE." and so), and many a humorous interview I
MY FIRST BOOK. 655
had with various denizens of Paternoster Row, to whom I (very

strongly) recommended them, by proxy. " If I were speaking to
the author," they said, " it would be unpleasant to say this (that,
and the other of a deprecatory character), but with you we can
be quite frank." And they were sometimes very frank ; and ,
though I didn't much like it at the time, their candour (when
I had sold the book tolerably well) tickled me afterwards
immensely. For persons who have enjoyed this experience, mere
literary criticism has henceforth no terrors .
Ita
MR. PAYN'S OFFICE AT WATERLOO PLACE.
" The Family Scapegrace," however, had appeared under my

own name, so that concealment was out of the question ; it was
in one volume, a form of publication which at that time, at all
events (though I see they now affirm the contrary), was unpopular
with the libraries, and I was quite an unknown novelist. Under
these circumstances, I have never forgotten the kindness of Mr.
Douglas (of the firm of Edmonstone and Douglas), who gave me
fifty pounds for the first edition of the book-by which enterprise
he lost his money. There were many reasons for it, no doubt,
656 THE IDLER.
though the story has since done well enough, but I think the chief
of them was the alteration of the title to " Richard Arbour," which,
contrary to the wishes both of myself and my publisher, was
insisted upon by a leading librarian . It is difficult, nowadays, to
guess his reason, but people were more 66 square-toed" in those
times, and I fancy he thought his highly
respectable customers would scent
something Bohemian, if not abso-
lutely scampish,
in a Scapegrace.
A mere name is
not an attractive
title for a book ;
though many books

so called- such as
"Martin Chuzzle-
wit" and " Robin-
son Crusoe" -have " KILLED BY LIONS."
become immensely
popular, they owed nothing to their baptism ; and certainly
" Richard Arbour" prospered better when he got rid of his rather
commonplace name.
MY FIRST BOOK. 657
A rather curious incident took place with respect to this book,

which annoyed me greatly at the time, because I was quite un-
acquainted with the queer crotchets and imaginary grievances that
would-be literary persons often take into their heads. Somebody
wrote to complain that he had written (not published) a story upon
the same lines, and even incidents, as " The Family Scapegrace, "
just before its appearance in the columns of Chambers's Journal,
and the delicate inference he drew was that, whether in my capacity
of editor or otherwise, I must have somehow got hold of it. He
gave the exact date of the conclusion of his own composition,
which was prior to the commencement of my story in the Journal.
Conscious of innocence, but troubled by so disagreeable an
imputation, I laid the matter before Robert Chambers .
"You are not so versed in the ways of this class of person as
I am, " he said, smiling ; " but since he has been so injudicious as
to give a date, I think we can put him out of court. I am one of
those methodical individuals who keep a diary." And on refer-
ence to it, he found that I had read him my story long before that
of my traducer, according to his own account, had left his hands .
It was a small matter, but proved a useful lesson to me, for
there is a great deal of imposture of this kind going on in the
literary world ; sometimes, as perhaps in this case, the result of
mere egotistic fancy, but also sometimes begotten by the desire to
levy blackmail .
The above, so far as I can remember them , are the circum-
stances under which I published my first novel. I am sorry to
add that poor Tickeracandua, to whom it owed so much , subse-
quently met the very fate in reality which I had assigned to him
in fiction ; though as good a fellow as many I have met out of a
show, he came to the same end as " Don't Care " did in the
nursery story, and was 66 eaten (or at all events killed) by lions."
UU
Fold by the Colonel.
III.
THAT LITTLE FRENCHMAN.
By W. L. Alden .
ILLUSTRATED BY RICHARD JACK.
OES anybody doubt my patriotism ? " asked the Colonel .

We all hastened to say that we should as soon, doubt
our own existence. Had he not made a speech no longer
ago than last Fourth of July, showing that America was destined
to have a population of 1,000,000,000 , and that England was on
the verge of extinction ? Had he not perilled his life in the cause
of freedom, and was he not tireless in insisting that every China-
man should be driven out of the United States ? If there ever was
one American more patriotic than another it was the Colonel.
" Well , then ," continued the speaker, " you won't misunder-
stand me when I say that the American railroad car is a hundred
times more dangerous than these European compartment cars.
In thirty years there have been just four felonious assaults in
English railroad cars . There have been a few more than that in
France, but not a single one in Germany. Now I admit that you
are in no danger of being shot in an American car, unless , of
course, two gentlemen happen to have a difficulty, and shoot wild ,
or unless the train is held up by train robbers, who are a little too
free with their weapons . But I do say that the way in which we
heat our cars with coal stoves kills thousands of passengers with
pneumonia, and burns hundreds alive when the trains are wrecked .
" You see I've looked into this thing, and I've got the statistics
down fine. I'm the only man I ever knew who ever had any trouble
with a passenger while travelling in Europe, and I don't mind tell-
ing you about it, although it will be giving myself away. Kindly
push me over those matches, will you ? These French cigars take
a lot of fuel, and you have to encourage them with a match every
three minutes if you expect them to burn .
" When I was over here in Paris ten years ago, there was a
fellow here from Chicago who was trying to introduce American
cars, and he gave me a pamphlet he had got up showing the
horrors of the compartment system . It told of half a dozen
THAT LITTLE FRENCHMAN. 659
murders, fifteen assaults, eleven cases of blackmail, and four cases

in which a solitary traveller was shut up in a compartment with a
TR JACK
WSLE
" DOES ANYBODY DOUBT MY PATRIOTISM ? ASKED THE COLONEL."
lunatic-all these incidents having occurred on European rail-

ways. I was on my way to Egypt, and when I had read the
660 THE IDLER.
pamphlet I began to wonder if I should ever manage to live

through the railroad journey without being killed , or blackmailed,
or lunaticked, or something of the kind. You see I believed the
stories then, though I know now that about half of them were false.
" I took the express train-the Peninsular and Oriental they call
it-from Paris about twelve o'clock one night. I went early to the
train, and until just before we
started I thought I was going
to have the compartment to
myself. All at once
a man very much
out of breath jumped
in, the door was
slammed ,
and we
were off.
" I didn't
like the
looks of
the fellow.
He was a
Frenchman ,
though of
course that
wasn't his
fault. He
was small but wiry
looking, and his sharp
black eyes were not the
Was L
style of eyes that in-
spires me with confi-
dence. Then he had no
" A MAN VERY MUCH OUT OF
baggage except a small BREATH.'"
paper parcel, which was
queer, considering that the train was a long distance one. I kept a
close watch on him for a while, thinking that he might be one of
the professional lunatics that, according to the Chicago chap's
pamphlet, are always travelling in order to frighten solitary
passengers, but after a while I became so sleepy that I decided
to lie down and take a nap, and my chances of being killed at
the same time . Just then the man gets up and begins to talk
to me in French.
" Now I needn't say that I don't speak French, nor any of those
fool languages. Good American is good enough for me. One
reason why these Europeans have been enslaved for centuries is
that they can't make each other understand their views without
shouting at the top of their lungs, and so bringing the police
about their ears. But I did happen to know, or thought I did, the
French word for going to sleep, and so I thought I would
just heave it at this chap so that he would understand that I didn't
require his conversation . I have always found that if you talk to
a Frenchman in English very slowly and impressively he will get
the hang of what you say. That is, if he isn't a cabman. You
can't get an idea into a French cabman's head unless you work it in
with a club. So I said to the fellow in the train : 6 My friend ! 1
RJ
AS
H
W&S LP
06' HE BEGAN TO SLING THE WHOLE FRENCH LANGUAGE AT ME."
haven't any time to waste in general conversation . I'm going to

sleep, and I advise you to do the same. You can tell me all about
your institutions and your revolutions and things in the morning.'
And then I hove in the French word ' cochon, ' which I supposed
meant something like ' Now I lay me down to sleep.'
" The fellow staggered back as if I had hit him, and then he
began to sling the whole French language at me. I calculate
662 THE IDLER.
that he could have given Bob Ingersoll fifty points in a hundred

and beaten him , and, as you know, Bob is the ablest vituperator
now in the business . The Frenchman kept on raving and getting
madder and madder every minute, and I saw that there wasn't the
least doubt that he was a dangerous lunatic.
" I stood up and let him talk for a while, occasionally saying
non comprenny ' and ' cochon , ' just to soothe him , but
presently he came close to me and shook his fist in my face.
This was too much , so I took him by the shoulders and slammed
him down in a corner seat, and
said, 6 You sit there, sonny ,
and keep quiet, or you'll end by
getting me to argue with you.'
But the minute I let go of him
hebounced up again as ifhe was
WE
" I PUT ANOTHER STRAP AROUND

HIS LEGS."
made of indiarubber, and came at me just as a

terrier will come at a horse, pretending that he is going to tear him
into small pieces. So I slammed him down into his corner again,
and said, This foolishness has gone far enough, and we'll have
I'm
it stopped right here. Didn't you hear me say cochon ?
going to cochon, and you'd better cochon , too , or I'll make you .'
" This time he jumped up as soon as I had let go of him and
tried to hit me. Of course I didn't want to hit so small a chap,
letting alone that he knew no more about handling his fists than
the angel Gabriel, so I just took and twisted his arms behind his
back and tied them with a shawl strap. Then, seeing as he
showed a reprehensible disposition to kick, I put another strap
around his legs, and stretched him on the seat with his bundle
under his head. But kindness was thrown away on that
Frenchman. He tried to bite me, and not content with spitting
like a cat, he set up a yell that was the next thing to the loco-
motive whistle, and rolling off the seat tried to kick at me with
both legs .
" I let him exercise himself for a few minutes, while I got my
hairbrush and some twine out of my bag. Then I put him back
on the seat, gagged him with the handle of the hairbrush, and
lashed him to the arm of the seat, so that he couldn't roll off.
Then I offered him a drink, but he shook his head , not having any
manners, in spite of what people say about the politeness of
Frenchmen . Having secured my own safety, and made the
WAS LO
RJACK
PARIS9
" LED HIM TO THE CAR."
lunatic reasonably comfortable, I turned in and went to sleep. I

must have slept very sound, for although the train stopped two or
three times during the night I never woke up until we stopped for
breakfast about eight o'clock the next morning . I sat up and
looked at my lunatic, who was wide awake and glaring at me. I
wished him good morning, for I couldn't bear any grudge against
664 THE IDLER .
a crazy man, but he only rolled his eyes and seemed madder than
ever, so I let him lie and got out of the train.
"Two policemen were walking up and down the platform , and I
took one of them by the arm and led him to the car, explaining
what had happened. I don't know whether he understood or not,
but he pretended that he didn't.
"As soon as he saw the lunatic there was a pretty row. He
called two more policemen, and after they had ungagged the fellow,
they hauled us both before a magistrate, who had his office in the
railroad station. At least he acted like a magistrate, although he
wore the same uniform as the policemen.
Here the fellow I had
travelled with was
allowed to speak
s
Wa Lo
JACK
PARI9S7
" THEY HAULED US BOTH

BEFORE A MAGISTRATE."
first, and he charged me, as I afterwards found, with having first

insulted, and then assaulted him. He said he rather thought I
was a lunatic, but at any rate he must have my blood. Then an
interpreter was sent for, and I told my story, but I could see that
nobody believed me.
" Accused,' said the magistrate, very sternly, you called this
gentleman a pig. What was your motive ?'
" Of course I swore that I had never called him a pig ; that I
hardly know half-a-dozen words of his infamous language, and that
I had used only one of those. Being asked what it was, I said
' cochon.' And then that idiot ordered me to be locked up.
"By rare good luck there happened to be an American Secretary
of Legation on the train. You know him. It was Hiram G.
Trask, of West Centreopolis. He recognised me, and it didn't
take him very long to explain the whole affair. It seems that the
Frenchman had asked me if I objected to smoking, and when I
tried to tell him that we ought to go to sleep, I said cochon,'
which means pig, instead of ' couchons, ' which was the word I
ought to have used. He was no more of a lunatic than a French-
man naturally is, but he was disgusted at being carried two hundred
miles beyond his destination , which was the first stopping place
beyond Paris, and I don't know as I blame him very much. And
then, too, he seemed to feel that his dignity had been some ruffled
by being gagged and bound. However, both he and the policemen
listened to reason, and the man agreed to compromise on my pay-
ing him damages, and withdrawing the assertion that he was
morally or physically a pig. The affair cost considerable, but it
taught me a lesson , and I have quit believing that you can't travel
in a European railroad car without being locked up with a lunatic
or a murderer. I admit that the whole trouble was due to my
foolishness. When the Frenchman began to make a row, I ought
to have killed him, and dropped the body out of the door, instead
of fooling with him half the night and trying to make him com-
fortable. But we can't always command presence of mind or see
just where our duty lies at all times."
RJACK
WAS
PARIX
Connemara Miracle.
BY FRANK MATHEW.
ILLUSTRATED BY A. S. BOYD.
" Because of Christ,

Whose sad face on the cross sees only this
After the Passion of a thousand years."
OME said big John Murnane was the

Solaziest man in Connemara, others
called him a surly dog ; but I always
liked him . He had some excuse for
his laziness and surliness. When
I knew him first he was active
enough, he used then to begin
the day in the brightest of
tempers, and if he had been let
sit in peace and sunshine
would have remained
merry, but work under-
mined his cheerfulness .
His farm lay high
above Leenane at the
head of the Killeries , a
creek walled in by sheer
mountains, in the heart of the
desolate Irish Highlands.
Two roads wind down to the
creek, one lower by Finigan's
66 shebeen," and one by Mur-
nane's farm .
66 THE LAZIEST MAN IN CONNEMARA."
In those days I half envied
him , he had a pretty little wife, a neat home and three pigs , while
I owned neither a pig nor a wife ; he had no vain ambition , and
asked nothing better than to live and die at home in that wilderness .
But when I visited Connemara again years later, thing had
changed with him, he had met with ill-luck, and had lost heart.
A bank holding his little money had failed , his crops had failed
too, his last pig had died-everything had gone badly with
him . It was not in him to make any stand against mis-
A CONNEMARA MIRACLE. 667
fortune, he spent half his time at the shebeen, and had a

dangerous look. To make matters worse, he was to be turned
out of his farm-had quarrelled with his landlord ; a true
Galway man always quarrels with the man best able to thrash him.
Murnane had been always full of fight, his mother used to say of
him that he was never at rest except when he was fighting, and of
course he knew that someone else must be responsible for his
misfortunes, so he laid the blame at his landlord's door.
Now young Desmond, of Castle Desmond, was as kindly a
man as you might meet in a day's march, but, to tell the truth,
was hard with the peasants, and never pretended to understand
them ; their fine cantankerousness was a form of chivalry he could
not appreciate. Here I thought were the makings of a tragedy-a
lawless district , an unruly peasantry ,
and a rash, hated landlord - and I
was afraid Murnane would have a
hand in it.
Well, that summer my stay in
Connemara was brief, and soon after
I left, he came to the turning point of
his life I have the story from his
own lips.
In November when the days grew
short and the nights dark, there was
a rumour in the shebeens near
Leenane that some of " the boys ‫ני‬
were coming from Desmond's estate
in Clare, a fishing boat would bring
them from Liscannor to the Killeries,
and take them back, without anyone
being the wiser, and their trip might
mend matters.
One wet evening, Murnane was
standing at his window watching
his wife trudging heavily up the
mountain road. It was boisterous
6 Weather, the wind was snarling and
STANDING AT HIS WINDOW WATCHING."
yelping like fighting dogs, every now
and then it fell and the rain stopped and hung wavering a veil on
the western mountains or further on the grey crescent of sea, then
a gust would bring the rain back, and the air would be full again of
a hoarse grumbling, the monotonous chorus of the breakers.
668 THE IDLER.
He had spent hours that day at the shebeen. As he watched

his wife he thought in a muddled way how pretty she was when
she was young though now she was a stumpy plain little woman,
he thought of the time when he first caught her in his arms down
yonder on the bank of the Owen- Erriff-" I love ye, Molly Joyce !
tell me now are ye listening to me, mavourneen dheelish ! I love
ye ! "-then of their life, of the careless years, of his losses and
troubles, of the heavy evenings he spent smoking by the dull light
of the turf-fire alone with her in this cabin , then of the loud nights
in the shebeen, and of the dreary times at home after. She seemed
to get so silent and dull, he was tired of her worried face, sick of
her frightened way of watching him.
Though he knew that she was a kind little woman, and that
she loved him like a dog , he had grown hard and cold with her.
Only that evening he had told her roughly to stop making a hare
of herself, moping and poking about doing nothing, and to get
out of that and to spend the night at her father's , and she, knowing
the little use of speaking to him, went silently. He felt half sorry
for his roughness as he watched her, after all she was a good
soul and they had been happy together once. But now he was
to lose his last belongings ; v.hy should he keep her ? how
could he when he couldn't ? She must go back to her father who
was well-to-do-for those parts— while he went out to try his luck
in the world .
Then he walked up and down his cabin , it looked wretched , the
turf-fire on the hearth had smouldered , the whitewashed walls
were blackened by smoke, they had little on them but a big crucifix,
there was little furniture left ; he remembered it bright and home-
like, now it would be unroofed , he would be penniless and homeless
unless Desmond was shot that night.
For the boat had come from Liscannor, and there was to be
black work. When Desmond drove back from Carrala , " the
boys " were to wait for him on the lower road . If he came by the
upper road, Murnane would see him, and was to put a light in his
window ; then they would change their ambush.
At the best, Murnane's thoughts were not clear ; now he kept
thinking over and over again, sure ' twas no harm lighting a
candle, ' twas no business of his whatever the boys below might
do ; then, ' twas his chance of revenge, sure the man deserved to
be killed ; then, if only he was going to hit Desmond himself
'twould be different, but 'twas cowardly just lighting a candle,—
then ' twas a black job after all .
Outside the twilight was fading, the wind was working itself
into a rage with uncanny cries. Was that the wind or the shriek
of the banshee ? It was said lost souls were chained on the
wind, surely there were human cries in it now ; why were the
dead abroad to-night ?
The landscape was blotted out, then the moon began to rise
and the backs of the mountains rose out of the darkness ; then he
saw their steep walls and the winding lane
of slaty water between them. There was
a glimmer of silver over Muilrea, the
moon floated slowly into sight with milky-
edged clouds round her, a path of white
light crossed the water-a sail glittered
on it, on one hillside three streams shone
like silver snakes. The moon seemed to
shine out with strange suddenness , the
jagged top of the mountain stood black
against her, making her look as if a ragged
piece had been torn from her. He stared
at her till the light seemed dazzling ; he
turned away .
The black crucifix on the wall opposite
was shown plainly by the moonlight, the
face of its figure was bent forward as if
watching him. He had prayed before it
so often all his life, it had seen him a
baby in the cradle, a child dandled by his
mother, a man bringing home his bride ;
here in this cabin, this one room where his
"WRENCHED IT OUT." life had been centred, the crucifix hung
as a silent witness . He thought of his
misery, sure he had cause to hate the man. Still that sad face
was watching him, he could not stand it, must take the crucifix
down. Placing a bench under, he reached to the nail fastening
the top and wrenched it out.
The moon was covered. The cross leant forward in the
darkness, he turned his head away to shun the bent face, and
groping wrenched out the nail at the foot. The cross seemed as
heavy as lead, he dared not look at it-placed it in the corner face
downward, and covered it with a cloth.
Then he stood again at the window, the moon shone out, and
the wind lurched drunkenly against the door, with an echo of
singing from the shebeen the chorus of " Cruiscin Lan ":
670 THE IDLER.
" Is gradh mo croidhe a cuilin ban ban ban,

Is gradh mo croidhe a cuilin ban."
He could fancy the crowded smoky room ,
the glowing turf-fire, and old Pat Finigan
singing with a jolly flushed face , and
those other men listening too , crouching
behind the low wall.
There was a stain of rust on his
right hand, and he thought it was blood
-rubbed it, but it was dry- felt as if
a curse had fallen on him. Then came
a pause between the gusts, and he heard
the ring of hoofs on the stony road .
At once he turned back to light the
candle, took it with a shaky hand- then
on the wall where the cross had been ,
saw a dazzling white cross.
He staggered back with his eyes fixed
on it- it was a miracle, a last warning.
He dashed the candle on the ground, and
"A DAZZLING WHITE CROSS."
crunched it under foot in-

to the earthen floor.
The moon was
drowned by the clouds
and left the cabin pitch
dark, the wind crashed
against the door again .
He unlatched the door,
it was dashed open ; he
could not breathe, tried to
pull it to after him but
could not, some unseen
hand seemed dragging it.
The wind swirled through
"6 DOWN THE
the cabin, and flung the
MOUNTAIN ROAD."
cloth from the prostrate
crucifix.
The next morning was calm, with a stainless sky. Molly

came trudging down the mountain road from her father's farm,
her heart heavy with foreboding. All that night she had been
crying and praying. The glory of the morning, the rare colouring
of the mountains, the vivid green crescent of sea , were nothing to
her.
As she reached the door of the cabin, she saw her man sitting
by the hearth with his head bent forward on his hands . The
crucifix was gone from its place, it had been fixed there when
the walls were shining with fresh whitewash, now they were
blackened , but where it had hung the wall remained white in the
shape of a cross .
" Is it you, asthore ? " he said, came to meet her, placed his
hands on her shoulders, and drew her close to him.
" It's a harrd worrld ' tis, mavourneen , but we'll bear God's
will together, Molly dear. "
"DREW HER CLOSE TO HIM."

The Memory Clearing House.
By I. ZANGWILL.
ILLUSTRATED BY A. J. FINBerg .
HEN I moved into better quarters on the strength of

W the success of my first novel, I little dreamt that I
was about to be the innocent instrument of a new
epoch in telepathy. My poor Geraldine-but I must be calm ; it
would be madness to let them suspect I am insane. No, these
last words must be final. I cannot afford to have them dis-
credited . I cannot afford any luxuries now.
Would to Heaven I had never written that first novel ! Then
I might still have been a poor,
unhappy, struggling, realistic
novelist ; I might still have
been residing at 109, Little
Turncot Street, Chapelby
Road, St. Pancras. But
I do not blame Provi-
dence. I knew the book
was conventional even
before it succeeded . My
only consolation is that
Geraldine was part-
author of my misfor-
tunes, if not of my
novel. She it was who
urged me to abandon
my high ideals , to marry " URGED ME TO ABANDON MY HIGH IDEALS."
her, and live happily
ever afterwards . She said if I wrote only one bad book it would
be enough to establish my reputation ; that I could then command
my own terms for the good ones. I fell in with her proposal , the
banns were published , and we were bound together. I wrote a
rose-tinted romance, which no circulating library could be without ,
instead of the veracious picture of life I longed to paint ; and I
moved from 109, Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St.
Pancras, to 22, Albert Flats, Victoria Square, Westminster.
THE MEMORY CLEARING HOUSE. 673
A few days after we had sent out the cards, I met my friend
O'Donovan, late member for Blackthorn . He was an Irishman
by birth and profession , but the recent General Election had
thrown him out of work. The promise of his boyhood and of his
successful career at Trinity College was great, but in later years
he began to manifest grave symptoms of genius . I have heard
whispers that it was in the family, though he kept it from his wife.
Possibly I ought not to have sent him a card and have taken
the opportunity of dropping his acquaintance. But Geraldine
argued that he was not dangerous , and that
we ought to be kind to him just after he had
come out of Parliament.
O'Donovan was in a rage.
" I never thought it of you ! " he said
angrily, when I asked him how he was . He
had a good Irish accent, but he only used
it when addressing his constituents
"Never thought what ? " I enquired
in amazement.
" That you would treat your friends
so shabbily."
"Wh-what, didn't you g- get a
card ? " I stammered . " I'm sure the
wife- "
" Don't be a fool ! " he interrupted .
" Of course I got a card. That's what
I complain of. "
. rg
e
I stared at him blankly. The social

mb
F·i
experiences resulting from my marriage

had convinced me that it was impossible to
avoid giving offence. I had no reason to be
surprised, but I was.
"What right have you to move and put
18 O'DONOVAN WAS IN A RAGE." all your friends to trouble ? " he enquired
savagely.
" I have put myself to trouble," I said, " but I fail to see
how I have taxed your friendship ."
66
No, of course not," he growled. " I didn't expect you to see.
You're just as inconsiderate as everybody else. Don't you think I
had enough trouble to commit to memory 109, Little Turncot
Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras, ' without being unexpectedly
set to study 6 21 , Victoria Flats
VV
674 THE IDL
ER.
" 22, Albert Flats," I interrupted mildly.

" There you are ! " he snarled. " You see already how it
harasses my poor brain. I shall never remember it."
" Oh yes, you will, " I said deprecatingly. " It is much easier than
the old address . Listen here ! 22 , Albert Flats, Victoria Square,
Westminster.' 22-a symmetrical number, the first double even
number ; the first is two, the second is two , too , and the whole is
two, two, too-quite æsthetical, you know.
Then all the rest is royal-Albert, Albert the
Good, see. Victoria-the Queen. Westmin-
ster-Westminster Palace. And the other
words-geometrical terms , Flat , Square. Why
there never was such an easy address since
the days of Adam before he moved out of
Eden," I concluded enthusiastically.
" It's easy enough for you , no doubt," he
said, unappeased. " But do you think you're
the only acquaintance who's not contented
with his street and number ? Bless my soul,
with a large circle like mine, I find myself
charged with a new schoolboy task twice a
month. I shall have to migrate to a village.
where people have more stability of character.
Heavens ! Why have snails been privileged
44 THERE NEVER WAS SUCH
with a domiciliary constancy denied to AN EASY ADDRESS.'
human beings ? "
" But you ought to be grateful, " I urged feebly. " Think of
22, Alberts Flats, Victoria Square, Westminster, and then think of
what I might have moved to ? If I have given you an imposition ,
at least admit it is a light one."
" It isn't so much the new address I complain of, it's the old .
Just imagine what a weary grind it has been to master— ' 109 ,
Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road , St. Pancras.' For the last
eighteen months I have been grappling with it, and now, just as
I am letter perfect and postcard secure, behold all my labour
destroyed, all my pains made ridiculous. It's the waste that
vexes me. Here is a piece of information, slowly and laboriously
acquired, yet absolutely useless . Nay, worse than useless ; a
positive hindrance. For I am just as slow at forgetting as at
picking up. Whenever I want to think of your address , up it
will spring, 6 109 , Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St.
Pancras.' It cannot be scotched-it must lie there blocking up
my brains, a heavy, uncouth mass, always ready to spring at

the wrong moment ; a possession of no value to anyone but
the owner, and not the least use to him."
He paused, brooding on the thought in moody silence. Suddenly
his face changed .
" But isn't it of value to anybody but the owner ? " he exclaimed
excitedly. " Are there not persons in the world who would jump
at the chance of acquiring it ? Don't stare at me as if I was a
comet. Look here ! Suppose someone had come to me eighteen
months ago and said, Patrick, old man, I have a memory I don't
want. It's 109, Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St. Pancras !
You're welcome to it, if it's any use to you.' Don't you think I
would have fallen on that man's or woman's- neck, and watered
it with my tears ? Just think what a saving of brain - force it
would have been to me-how many petty vexations it would have
spared me ! See here, then ! Is your last place let ? "
" Yes," I said. " A Mr. Marrow has it now."
" Ha ! " he said, with satisfaction . " Now there must be lots
of Mr. Marrow's friends in the same predicament as I was-people
whose brains are softening
in the effort to accom-
modate 109 , Little
Turncot
Street ,
Chapelby
Road, St.
Pancras.'
Psychical science has
made such great strides
in this age that with a
little ingenuity it should
surely not be impossible to .
transfer the memory of it from my brain
to theirs."
66
But," I gasped, " even if it was
possible, why should you give away PEOPLE WHOSE BRAINS ARE
what you don't want ? That would be SOFTENING."
charity."
"You do not suspect me of that ? " he cried , reproachfully.
66' No, my ideas are not so primitive. For don't you see that there
99
is a memory I want- 33 , Royal Flats'
"22, Albert Flats," I murmured, shamefacedly.
676 THE IDLER.
"22, Albert Flats," he repeated , witheringly. " You see how

badly I want it. Well, what I propose is to exchange my
memory of 109, Little Turncot Street, Chapelby Road, St.
Pancras " (he always rolled it slowly on his tongue with morbid
self-torture and almost intolerable reproachfulness), " for the
memory of 22, Albert Square.' "
" But you forget," I said, though I lacked the courage to
6
correct him again, " that the people who want 109, Little Turncot
Street,' are not the people who possess 22, Albert Flats .' "
" Precisely ; the principle of direct exchange is not feasible.
What is wanted, therefore, is a Memory Clearing House. If I
can only discover the process of
thought-transference, I will establish
one, so as to bring the right parties
into communication . Everybody who
has old memories to dispose of will
send me in particulars. At the end of
each week I will publish a catalogue of
the memories in the market, and circu-
late it among my subscribers , who will
pay, say, a guinea a year. When the
subscriber reads his catalogue and
lights upon any memory he would like
to have, he will send me a postcard,
and I will then bring him into com-
munication with the proprietor, taking ,
of course, a commission upon the trans :
action. Doubtless, in time, there will
be a supplementary catalogue devoted " THE SUBSCRIBER READS HIS
CATALOGUE."
to Wants,' which may induce people
to scour their brains for half-forgotten reminiscences , or persuade
them to give up memories they would never have parted with
otherwise. Well, my boy, what do you think of it ?
" It opens up endless perspectives," I said, half-dazed.
" It will be the greatest invention ever known ! " he cried, in-
flaming himself more and more. " It will change human life, it
will make a new epoch, it will effect a greater economy of human
force than all the machines under the sun. Think of the saving
of nerve-tissue, think of the prevention of brain-irritation. Why,
we shall all live longer through it-centenarians will become as
cheap as American millionaires.'
Live longer through it ! Alas, the mockery of the recollection !
He left me, his face working wildly. For days the vision of it inter-
rupted my own work. At last, I could bear the suspense no more
and went to his house. I found him in ecstasies and his wife in
tears. She was beginning to suspect the family skeleton .
" Eureka ! " he was shouting. " Eureka ! "
"What is the matter ?" sobbed the poor woman . "Why don't
you speak English ? He has been going on like this for the last
five minutes," she added , turning pitifully to me.
"Eureka !" shouted O'Donovan. "I must say
it. No new invention is complete without it."
" Bah ! I didn't think you were so con->
ventional," I said, contemptuously. "I
suppose you have found out how
to make the memory-transferring
machine ?"
" I have," he cried, exultantly.
" I shall christen it the noemagraph ,
or thought-writer. The impression
is received on a sensitised plate
which acts as a medium between
the two minds. The brow of the
purchaser is pressed against the
plate, through which a current of
electricity is then passed."
He rambled on about volts and
dynamic psychometry and other
66 WHAT IS THE MATTER ? "
hard words, which, though they
break no bones, should be strictly confined in private dic-
tionaries.
" I am awfully glad you came in," he said , resuming his mother
tongue at last-" because if you won't charge me anything I will
try the first experiment on you . "
I consented reluctantly, and in two minutes he rushed about
the room triumphantly shouting, " 22, Albert Flats, Victoria
Square, Westminster, " till he was hoarse. But for his enthusiasm
I should have suspected he had crammed up my address on the
sly.
He started the Clearing House forthwith . It began humbly
as an attic in the Strand . The first number of the catalogue was
naturally meagre . He was good enough to put me on the free
list, and I watched with interest the development of the enterprise.
He had canvassed his acquaintances for subscribers, and begged
THE IDLER.
678
everybody he met to send him particulars of their cast-off memories.

When he could afford to advertise a little, his clientèle increased .
There is always a public for anything bizarre , and a percentage of
the population would send thirteen stamps for
the Philosopher's Stone, post free. Of course,
'the rest of the population smiled at him for an
ingenious quack.
The " Memories on Sale " catalogue grew
thicker and thicker. The edition issued to the
subscribers contained merely the items, but
O'Donovan's copy comprised also the names
and addresses of the vendors, and now and again
he allowed me to have a peep at it
in strict confidence. The inventor
himself had not foreseen the extraor-
dinary uses to which his noemagraph
would be put, nor the extraordinary
developments of his business. Here
are some specimens culled at random
from No. 13 of the Clearing House
catalogue, when O'Donovan still
limited himself to facilitating the sale
of superfluous memories :- " A CLERGYMAN RECENTLY ORDAINED '
I. 25, Portsdown Avenue, Maida Vale.

3. 13502, 17208 (banknote numbers).
12. History of England (a few Saxon kings missing), as successful in a recent examina-
tion by the College of Preceptors. Adapted to the requirements of candidates for
the Oxford and Cambridge Local and the London Matriculation.
17. Paley's Evidences, together with a job lot of dogmatic theology (second-hand), a
valuable collection by a clergyman recently ordained, who has no further use for
them. 1
26. A dozen whist wrinkles, as used by a retiring speculator. Excessively cheap.
29. Mathematical formulæ (complete sets ; all the latest novelties and improvements,
including those for the higher plane curves, and a selection of the most useful.
logarithms), the property of a dying Senior Wrangler. Applications must be
immediate, and no payment need be made to the heirs till the will has been
proved.
35. Arguments in favour of Home Rule (warranted sound) ; proprietor, distinguished
Gladstonian M.P., has made up his mind to part with them at a sacrifice.
Eminently suitable for bye-elections. Principals only.
58. Witty wedding speech, as delivered amid great applause by a bridegroom. Also an
assortment of toasts, jocose and serious, in good condition. Reduction on taking
a quantity.
Politicians, clergymen, and ex-examinees soon became the chief

customers . Graduates in arts and science hastened to discumber
their memories of the useless load of learning which had out-
stayed its function of getting them on in the world . Thus not only
did they make some extra money, but memories which would
otherwise have rapidly faded were turned over to new minds to
play a similarly beneficent part in aiding the careers of the
owners . The fine image of Lucretius was realised, and the torch
of learning was handed on from generation to generation . Had
O'Donovan's business been as widely known as it deserved , the
curse of cram would have gone to roost for ever, and a finer
physical race of Englishmen would have been produced. In the
hands of honest students the invention might have produced .
intellectual giants, for each scholar could have started
where his predecessor left off, and added more to his
wealth of lore, the moderns standing upon the shoulders
of the ancients in a more literal sense than Bacon
dreamed . The memory of Macaulay, which all
Englishmen rightly reverence, might have been
possessed by his schoolboy. As it was , omniscient.
idiots abounded, left colossally wise by their
fathers, whose painfully acquired memories they
inherited .
O'Donovan's Parliamentary connection
was a large one, doubtless merely because
of his former position and his consequent
contact with political circles. Promises to
constituents were always at a discount, the
supply being immensely in excess of the
demand ; indeed , promises generally were a
drug in the market.
day Instead of issuing the projected supplemental
Fri
catalogue of " Memories Wanted ," O'Donovan
by this time saw his way to buying them up
on spec. He was not satisfied with his com-
44 THE OMNISCIENT IDIOT." mission . He had learnt by experience the
kinds that went best, such as exam. answers ,
but he resolved to have all sorts and be remembered as the
Whiteley of Memory. Thus the Clearing House very soon
developed into a storehouse. O'Donovan's advertisement ran
thus :
WANT ED Wanted ! Wanted! Memories ! Memories ! Best Prices in the

Trade.! Happy, Sad, Bitter, Sweet (as Used by Minor Poets). High Prices for
Absolutely. Pure Memories. Memories, Historical, Scientific, Pious, &c. Good
Memories ! Special Terms to Liars. Precious Memories (Exeter Hall-marked). New
Memories for Old ! Lost Memories Recovered while you wait. Old Memories Turned
equal to New,
680 THE IDLER .
O'Donovan soon sported his brougham. Any day you went

into the store (which now occupied the whole of the premises in
the Strand) you could see endless traffic gcing on. I often loved
to watch it. People who were tired of themselves came here to
get a complete new outfit of memories, and thus change their
identities. Plaintiffs , defendants , and witnesses came to be fitted
with memories that would stand the test of the oath, and they
often brought solicitors
with them to advise
them in selecting from
the stock. Counsel's
opinion on these
points was regarded
as especially valu-
able. Statements
that would wash
and stand rough
pulling about were
much sought after.
Gentlemen and
ladies writing remi-
niscences and auto-
biographies were to
be met with at all
hours, and nothing
was more pathetic
than to see the
humbleartisan investing
his hard -earned " tan-
ner " in recollections of 61 THEY OFTEN BROUGHT SOLICITORS WITH THEM.""1
a seaside holiday.
In the buying- up department trade was equally brisk, and
people who were hard-up were often forced to part with their
tenderest recollections . Memories of dead loves went at five
shillings a dozen, and all those moments which people had vowed
never to forget were sold at starvation prices . The memories
"indelibly engraven " on hearts were invariably faded and only
sold as damaged . The salvage from the most ardent fires of
affection rarely paid the porterage . As a rule, the dearest
memories were the cheapest. Of the memory of favours there
was always a glut, and often heaps of diseased memories had to
be swept away at the instigation of the sanitary inspector.
Memories of wrongs done, being rarely parted with except when

their owners were at their last gasp, fetched fancy prices.
Mourners' memories ruled especi-
ally lively. In the Memory Ex-
change, too, there was always a
crowd, the temptation
to barter worn-out me-
mories for new proving
irresistible .
One day O'Donovan
came to me, crying.
"Eureka ! " once more.
" Shut up !" I said ,
annoyed by the idiotic
Hellenicism .
" Shut up ! Why, I shall
open ten more shops. I have
" WHEN THEIR OWNERs were at their lasT GASP. discovered the art of duplicat-
ing, triplicating, polyplicating
memories. I used only to be able to get one impression out of
the sensitised plate, now I can get any number.
" Be careful !" I said. " This may ruin you. "
" How so ? " he asked, scornfully.
66
Why, just see-suppose you supply two candidates for a
science degree with the same chemical reminiscences, you lay them
under a suspicion of copying ; two after-dinner speakers may find
350
66 TWO AFTER-DINNER SPEAKERS RECOLLECTING

THE SAME JOKE. '
themselves recollecting the same joke ; several autobiographers

may remember their making the same remark to Gladstone. Unless
682 THE IDLER.
your customers can be certain they have the exclusive right in

other people's memories, they will fall away."
66
Perhaps you are right," he said. " I must ' Eureka ' some-
thing else." His Greek was as defective as if he had had a
classical education .
What he found was "The Hire System ." Some people who
might otherwise have been good customers objected to losing their
memories entirely . They were willing to part with them for
a period. For
instance, when a
man came up to
town or took a run
to Paris, he did
not mind dispens-
ing with some of
his domestic recol-
lections , just for a
change. People
who knew better
than to forget themselves
entirely profited by the
opportunity of acquiring
the funds for a holiday,
merely by leaving some of
their memories behind them .
There were always others
ready to hire for a season
the discarded bits of per- WRETCHED-LOOKING
WOMEN.'"
sonality, and thus remorse
was done away with, and double lives became a luxury within the
reach of the multitude. To the very poor, O'Donovan's new
development proved an invaluable auxiliary to the pawn-shop.
On Monday mornings, the pavement outside was congested with
wretched-looking women anxious to pawn again the precious
memories they had taken out with the Saturday's wages . Under
this hire system it became possible to pledge the memories of the
absent for wine instead of in it. But the most gratifying result
was its enabling pious relatives to redeem the memories of the
dead , on payment of the legal interest. It was great fun to watch
O'Donovan strutting about the rooms of his newest branch,
swelling with pride like a combination cock and John Bull.
The experiences he gained here afforded him the material for
a final development, but, to be strictly chronological, I ought first

to mention the newspaper into which the Catalogue evolved . It
was called In Memoriam, and was published at a penny, and gave
a prize of a thousand pounds to any reader who lost his memory
on the railway, and who applied for the reward in person . In
Memoriam dealt with everything relating to memory, though, dis-
honestly enough, the articles were all original . So were the
advertisements, which were required to have reference to the
objects ofthe Clearing House-e.g.,
PHILANTHROPIC GENTLEMAN of good address, who has travelled a great
A deal, wishes to offer his addresses to impecunious young ladies (orphans preferred).
Only those genuinely desirous of changing their residences, and with weak memories,
need apply.
And now for the final and fatal " Eureka ." The anxiety of
some persons to hire out their memories for a period led O'Donovan
to see that it was absurd for him to pay for the use of them. The
owners were only too glad to dodge remorse. He hit on the
sublime idea that they ought to pay him . The result was the fol-
lowing advertisement in In Memoriam and its contemporaries :-
AMNESIA
Partial. AGENCY ! O'Donovan's Anodyne.
Easy Amnesia-Temporary
Cheap Forgetfulness - Complete or
or Permanent. Haunting Memories Laid !
Consciences Cleared. Cares carefully Removed without Gas or Pain. The London
address of Lethe is 1001, Strand. Don't forget it.
Quite a new class of customers rushed to avail themselves of

the new pathological institution . What attracted them was
having to pay. Hitherto they wouldn't have
gone if you paid them, as O'Donovan used to
do . Widows and
widowers presented
themselves in
shoals for treat-
ment, with the
result that mar-
riages took
place even with-
in the year of
mourning — a
thing which
obviously could
" TWO GROSS OF ANECDOTES ? " not be done
under any other
system. I wonder whether Geraldine-but let me finish now !
How well I remember that bright summer's morning when ,
684 THE IDLER.
wooed without by the liberal sunshine, and disgusted with the

progress I was making with my new study in realistic fiction, I
threw down my pen, strolled down the Strand , and turned into the
Clearing House. I passed through the selling department, catch-
ing a babel of cries from the counter-jumpers—“ Two gross of
anecdotes ? Yes, sir ; this way, sir. Half- dozen proposals ; it'll
be cheaper if you take a dozen , miss . Can I do anything more for
you, mum ? Just let me show you a sample of our innocent
recollections. The Duchess of Bayswater has just taken some.
Anything in the musical line this morning, signor ? We have
some lovely new recollections just in from impecunious composers.
Won't you take a score ? Good morning, Mr. Clement Archer.
We have the very thing for you-a memory of Macready playing
Wolsey, quite clear and in excellent preservation ; the only one in
the market. Oh, no, mum ; we have already allowed for these
memories being slightly soiled . Jones , this lady complains the
memories we sent her were short."
O'Donovan was not to be seen. I passed through the Buying
Department, where the employees were beating down the prices of
"kind remembrances," and through the Hire Department, where
the clerks were turning up their noses at the old memories that
had been pledged so often , into the Amnesia Agency. There I
found the great organiser peering curiously at a sensitised plate.
" Oh , " he said, " is that you ? Here's a curiosity ."
"What is it ? " I asked .
" The memory of a murder. The patient paid well to have it
off his mind, but I am afraid I shall miss the usual second profit,
for who will buy it again ? "
" I will ! " I cried, with a sudden inspiration. " Oh ! what a
fool I have been. I should have been your best customer. I
ought to have bought up all sorts of memories , and written the
most veracious novel the world has seen. I haven't got a murder
in my new book, but I'll work one in at once. 'Eureka !'"
" Stash that ! " he said, revengefully. " You can have the
memory with pleasure. I couldn't think of charging an old friend
like you, whose moving from an address , which I've sold, to 22,
Albert Flats, Victoria Square, Westminster, made my fortune."
That was how I came to write the only true murder ever
written. It appears that the seller, a poor labourer, had murdered
a friend in Epping Forest, just to rob him of half-a- crown , and
calmly hid him under some tangled brushwood . A few months
afterwards , having unexpectedly come into a fortune , he thought
it well to break entirely with his past, and so had the memory
extracted at the Agency. This, of course, I did not mention , but
I described the murder and the subsequent feelings of the assassin,
and launched the book on the world with a feeling of exultant
expectation.
Alas ! it was damned universally for its tameness and the
improbability of its murder scenes . The critics, to a man, claimed
to be authorities on the sensations of murderers, and the reading
public, aghast, said I was flying in the face of Dickens. They
said the man would have taken daily excursions to the corpse, and
have been forced to invest in a season ticket to Epping Forest ;
they said he would have started if his own shadow crossed his path,
not calmly have gone on drinking beer
like an innocent babe at its mother's
breast. I determined to have the laugh
of them . Stung to madness , I wrote to the
papers asserting the truth of my murder,
and giving the exact date and the place of
burial. The next day a detective found
the body, and I was arrested . I asked
the police to send for O'Donovan , and
gave them the address of the Amnesia
Agency, but O'Donovan denied the
existence of such an institution , and said
he got his living as secretary of the Sham-
rock Society.
I raved and cursed him then- now it
occurs to me that he had perhaps sub-
mitted himself (and everybody else) to
amnesiastic treatment. The jury recom-
mended me to mercy on the ground that to
commit a murder for the artistic purpose of
describing the sensations bordered on insanity;
but even this false plea has not saved my life.
It may. A petition has been circulated by Mudie's, and even at
the eighth hour my reprieve may come. Yet, if the third volume of
my life be closed to-morrow, I pray that these, my last words,
may be published in an édition de luxe, and such of the profits as
the publisher can spare be given to Geraldine.
If I am reprieved , I will never buy another murderer's
memory, not for all the artistic ideals in the world, I'll be hanged
if I do.
An Old Letter.
BY ZEIMBURG .
ILLUSTRATED BY A. S. BOYD .
Marie Sophie Von Herbendorf, you will not read this letter
till I am dead. When your eyes look upon this writing, mine will
be closed for ever, but you will be forced to hear from a dead man
what you refused to hear from living.
Marie Sophie , I am an honest man,
and you- -but you were never like other
girls ; I knew that the first time I saw
you. It was on a snowy Christmas
morning at early mass. They
told me, when I came home
on leave one Christ-
mas Eve, that the
Herbendorfs had a
niece staying with
them . She was a daughter of
Herbendorf of Schwenteborn,
who had just been lately declared a
bankrupt, soon after his wife was
buried. My mother added that you
were a pretty girl, but very reserved ,
and proud as a princess in spite of
your bankrupt father. I will not
pretend that I got up so early and
went to church out of any other
LOOKED UP TO YOUR PEW IN THE
GALLERY." motive than curiosity to see you ,
for at that time I was ready to run
after any girl who came in my way. What other amusement did
our dull little garrison town offer ?
You kept me waiting a long time, Marie Sophie, before you
came. I stood in the shadow of the baptismal font, and looked
up to your pew in the gallery till I thought that my neck would
break. I can still see the large wax candles burning on the altar,
AN OLD LETTER. 687
surrounded by the small wax tapers below. I can smell the pine-
twigs with which they had strewn the floor of the little church .
The little wax tapers shone like glow-worms in the body of the
church, and dimly lighted the darkness . The children's voices
sounded full of joy as the words of the hymn were wafted from the
organ loft. I see it all now as clearly as I did on that day. At
last, I saw old Frau von Herbendorf's velvet, fur-trimmed bonnet.
She bent her head in silent devotion , and you came behind her,
and bent your head too. I
can never forget your dark
eyes, shaded by long lashes ,
and your golden hair. You
clasped your hands, but you
were not praying ; I knew
that, for your eyes looked
sadly into the gloom of the
church-not like the eyes of
a person who was speaking
with God. After service, at
the church door, we met,
and I bowed as deeply as if
you were a princess , but you
only inclined your head
slightly . Cld Sidenburg
went in front of you, with
his lantern . The snow-flakes
glistened on your fair hair.
Once your eyes met mine,
and you looked at me as
though I was a beggar that
had crossed your path- nay,
" I FOLLOWED YOU OVER THE BRIDGE." not so kindly, for I saw you
put something in the hand of
a beggar you met outside the church door. I followed you
secretly, at a distance, and you knew it, Marie Sophie, for you
turned round on the bridge that joins our garden to the Herben-
dorf's. Your relations always took a short cut through our grounds
to the church. Your relations and mine were always good friends.
I followed you over the bridge, and stood in the blinding snow
that was beginning to turn the hills white. I stood for a long time
under your window. To this day, I do not know if you saw me.
But you doubtless knew it, for nothing else would account for the
688 THE IDLER .
cold manner in which you received me when I called at twelve

o'clock en grande tenue with trailing sword and shining helmet to
pay a neighbourly Christmas visit . We stood face to face, and
you told me that your aunt had a headache. I blamed the early
morning walk to church, and asked after your uncle, and the little
orphan grandchild who was at school at Geneva, and as the
master of the house entered the room you stepped out. Of course ,
I remember that still ; and you must remember it too , Marie
Sophie, although you are a lonely old woman now. And you
know that I followed your very shadow, and that I was over-
poweringly happy when I hurt my hand out shooting and could
not return to my garrison life for a time.
And how seldom you came to our house, only when you were
sure that I was not at home ; and how I cheated you one evening
-I was sitting in the twilight at my mother's feet, as I loved to
do from childhood. We talked of many things, and of you. I
had told you purposely that I intended to go out shooting that
afternoon, for I knew that if I said that
you would come. I was right. You
stood in the doorway. I pulled at
my mother's sleeve, and she, enter-
ing into the joke, advanced
to meet you as if she were
alone in the room. Then, I
saw for the first time that
you really had sorrows and
troubles like an ordinary
woman. You were very
fond of my mother ; she had
a softness in her manner
that was wanting in Aunt
Herbendorf. You knelt down
at the other side of her chair. 66 AND BEGAN TO CRY SOFTLY."
I was close to you, but you
did not see me in the shadow. You threw your arms round her
neck, laid your head on her shoulder , and began to cry softly.
" Do not
"What is it, Marie Sophie ?" my mother asked .
cry, dear child ; things will go better. The world is round , and
is sure to right itself again ."
I sat quite still. I felt that I must take you out of my
mother's arms, and kiss away your tears . The pain that I
experienced at not being able to come out from my hiding- place
AN OLD LETTER. 689
and take you to my heart still remains. My mother sent you on

a message, and I rushed to my room . When you were on your
way home, I was standing on the bridge ; it was clear moonlight,
and I could see that you had been crying. Your face looked
more beautiful to me that moment than it had ever done in cold
repose.
"Marie Sophie," I asked , 66 may I take you home ?" But no ,
I called you Fraulein von Herbendorf ! You bent your head
silently, and we walked side by side along the avenue of lime
trees. Neither of us spoke. Your eyes gazed through the bare
boughs of the trees as though they were counting the stars in the
clear winter sky, and my heart beat like a hammer.
" Good-night," I said, when we reached your door, but you , as
if in deep thought , gave me your hand .
" Good-night, Lieutenant von Ebersleben . ”
" Hans is my name, " I said boldly, holding your hand fast in
mine.
" Good-night, Herr Hans von Ebersleben , you repeated , like
a lesson ; but I felt your hand tremble in mine, and then you
were gone .
"Why was Marie Sophie crying this afternoon ? " I asked my
mother, as we sat alone at supper. My father was playing chess
with the head -forester.
"6
Oh, Hans , all girls cry sometimes . "
“ But she would not cry from temper. When she cries it must
be for something serious."
“ Well, child, it is hard to know that your father is arrested
for debt. Marie Sophie is proud , and she feels being dependent
on the kindness of relations. They are singular, the old uncle
and aunt, and do not spare her. How often do you think the
child hears that her father is a scoundrel ? ”
I knew all this before, Marie Sophie. I took up my hat, and
went out into the raw February- night air . I stood under your
lighted window, like one who guards a treasure. That night I
swore to protect you from the world, and to take you from the
unhappy position you were placed in . I swore there, under your
window, that I would carry out my plan , and I felt quieter and
more at rest than I had done for a long time.
My last day at home came-a sharp, clear March day. As
I walked over to your house, I saw snowdrops peeping above the
earth, and the willows by the brook were waving their yellow
catkins over the water. The starlings were building their nests,
W
690 THE IDLER.
and the sun shone down hotly on the stone steps of the house.
I found you in the drawing-room . The room was filled with a
scent of hyacinths, and the sun poured in at the windows, and
sparkled on your golden hair. The uncle was not at home, and
the aunt was not well. I can hear the old clock ticking now, as
it stood on the cabinet, which was crammed with old Meissner
china. I can hear your voice,
as you asked me after my
mother, and if she were not
sad at my departure .
66
My mother ? Oh ! yes ,
she feels it. But you must
often go over to her. She is
very fond of you."
" Fond of me ?" you said,
and smiled in your strange,
quiet way. I looked at you
in surprise, and you shook
your head.
" You do not believe it ? "
I said, half hurt.
" No, Hans von Ebersleben, I do
not. Only one person ever loved me, and
that was my mother ! When are you going ? "
" Not at all if you talk like that, Marie
Sophie, for I will stay to prove to you that
more than one heart- 29
Then you turned
as white as I was red, but still you kept
silent . I sat beside you on the sofa, and took
your hand in mine ; the words tumbled over
each other out of my mouth, I was so anxious
to have a certain answer from you, to be sure
that you would go on listening to what I had
to say for ever. You looked at me with your
large, questioning eyes, as though you were
"I STOOD UNDER YOUR listening to a fairy tale ; and then at last you
LIGHTED WINDOW."
drew your hand out of mine, clasped it tightly
in your other hand which lay in your lap, and shook your fair
head.
66
Hans," you said, " you don't know what you are doing,"
and then you became silent again, and gazed at me with your
beautiful eyes full of tears .
AN OLD LETTER. 691
" I know quite well what I am doing," I cried . " And I

know that I am doing right, Marie Sophie, and- "
Then you sprang up and said, " Uncle is
coming ! " But I held your hand fast, and
begged you for the love of heaven to say one
word to me. You answered, " I am going to
run in to your mother's for a few minutes
this evening, and you can see me home."
You flushed scarlet, and, drawing your hand
away, fled from the room .
I could hardly wait for the evening
to come. Long before twilight I was
had my
seated in my mother's room . I
uniform on again, and my boxes stood
ready packed . I felt restless and unhappy ;
" TOOK YOUR HAND IN MINE." I could not bear the air of the house any
longer. I went out into the garden . The
air was soft and damp, and the sky was full of clouds, but here
and there a star peepec
out. I met you or
the bridge , Marie
Sophie. You wore a
piece of lace round
your head, and I could
see in the dim light
that your face was
dreadfully pale. I knelt
at your feet, and begged
you for one word of
hope, only one.
" Stand up, Hans
von Ebersleben, I am
not dishonourable
enough to give you
false hope. I do not
love you," you said,
in a clear, cold voice that
went through me like ice. I
sprang up, and took a step
backwards .
" And this morning ? " I asked .
" This morning ?"
"I KNELT AT YOUR FEET.'
692 THE IDLER .
"C
Morning and evening are not the same," you answered
" In this short time you have ?"
66
Disposed of a dream ! " you answered, putting your hand t
your head.
There was a silence between us ; the only sound was the soft
splashing of the brook. Your dark eyes were fixed on my face
with a pleading, sad expression .
" Marie," I said, " you are deceiving me ; you are not telling
me the truth."
" I don't know what you mean," you
answered in an even voice, but re-
66
moving your eyes from my face.
have told you my reason. I do
not love you as a girl should love
a man whose wife she is to be-
come !"
66
Farewell , Marie Sophie !"
And you bent your fair head
and said, 66 Farewell, Herr von
Ebersleben ."
I wished to leave you, but your
voice held me back. You stood in
the same spot, and put out your hand,
saying-
" I. thank you , Hans. " Then your
lips moved as if you would say
more, but no words came-you
turned away, and I stood and
looked after you till your slight
form was lost in the darkness .
I went to my room, and, for the
first time since I was a child , " UNDER THE LINDENS."
shed bitter tears . The next morning I returned to my garrison ,
and lived the same old life ; perhaps I was a little wilder ; but
whatever I did I always had your pale face and your dark eyes
before me.
For two years, I did not visit Herbendorf. I did not wish
you to see that I felt your refusal so much. My mother arranged
to spend a few weeks with me in Berlin. She brought her niece
with her ; a brown-haired , merry little thing that loved dancing,
and liked walking with " cousin Hans " under the Lindens. I do
not know myself how it happened, but one day we became engaged,
AN OLD LETTER. 693
with the blessing of all our relations . I never asked after you in
my letters to my mother, and she never mentioned your name.
But now she wrote-
" Now I will tell you, Hans, that at one time I was very
much troubled about you . You will laugh at me for my pains .
I thought that you were head over ears in love with Marie Sophie
von Herbendorf. My fears on that point are set at rest. It
would never have done : for , of course, the girl is marked since the
story of her father has become known. But you never heard it.
On the day you left home, it was made public that he had forged a
cheque. It was dreadful, Frau von Herbendorf told me, when
Marie Sophie heard the news. She lay for hours like a dead thing
on the bed they carried her to, and then begged and prayed of her
uncle to try and clear her
father's name, which the old
gentleman did at great sacrifice,
and I do not think that more
than rumours of the scandal
ever reached the ears of the
general public. Since that
day, Marie Sophie is a
changed person. She sits
for hours without speaking
a word. She has only been
to see me once since- for
about a quarter- of- an - hour.
She sat on the window- seat
as if she was in a dream ,
and when I tried to comfort her she
jumped up and ran away without a
word. Poor child, hers is a hard lot.
" TO CLEAR HER FATHER'S NAME."
But she never would have made a
suitable wife for my boy."
So that was it, my mother. Marie Sophie, can you guess my
1
feelings at that moment ? I felt like one that has lost for ever,
by a miserable mistake, the sweetest treasure of life , and who,
must speak the bitter words, " Too late ! "
But it was your fault, Marie Sophie, for you were not honest
with me. Could you not understand love better than that ? I
would have clung to you if you had been the daughter of a
condemned murderer ! What did others matter to me ? I only
wanted you, only you ; I meant to be true to you, Marie Sophie !
694 THE IDLER.
It was nobility on your part, my poor child, but mistaken nobility.

But how could you help it ?
My wife and I travelled . I quitted the service and went to
live on my estate.
Much had happened in that space of time. The old uncle
and aunt were both dead, and you were the owner of Gross-
Herbendorf.
My mother told
me, as we sat round
the old oak table,
that you had taken
your father to live
with you-a drun-
ken scoundrel who
played cards all
night and made
love to the village
girls. You bore his
ways patiently , and
said to my mother ,
" I could not leave
him in the street !"
The first time
we met was on the
bridge . The air was
full of the scent of
lilac and jasmine .
My wife hung on my arm . There
you stood, as proud and as pale
as on the last evening we had
met. Your large, dark eyes
went from my face to my little "ON THE BRIDGE. "
wife at my side, and slowly you
urned and took the nearest path home.
The next morning, the trellis- gate in the bridge was closed.
Those were hard times, Marie Sophie. Do you not think that I
suffered double as much as you did ? Daily, hourly, every minute
of the day my though.s flew over the gate to you with longing
and sorrow, and beside me was the lawful possessor of all my
thoughts and actions. And you became more reserved, more
lonely, and prouder than ever.
And then came a dreadful day, when your maid rushed in and
begged me to come over to you immediately.
AN OLD LETTER. 695
It was a snowy Christmas Eve . I was dressing a Christmas

tree for my only child , and thinking of you , how lonely you were
with nothing to love, and wishing that I could bring you to the
lighted tree.
I swung myself over the trellis - gate, and tore my hand as
I did so. I rushed upstairs into your little writing-room,
and
found you sitting before your desk playing with some papers
you held in your hand. You were laughing to yourself, and ,
as you saw me standing there, you laughed again . Your maid ,
Salome, stood beside you with a white , terrified face, and told
me that your father had broken open your desk, and , beside
a large sum of money, had taken your diamonds, and had dis-
appeared. When you first discovered it, you thought that t
was one of the servants, and then you put things together,
and you knew who was the thief, and since then you had never
ceased to laugh . It was fearful to listen to that laugh. And
the days that followed were dreadful. In that time, your poor,
pale lips confessed to me in your delirium what they had
kept secret before. Ah ! Marie Sophie, if you had only been
honest with me !
You were ill for a long time, and when your mind became
clear again your youth had passed away. You lived the same
secluded, lonely life as ever, and would have nothing to do
with me.
And now, for a long time past, I have been alone , too . My
parents are both dead ; my wife, and the only joy of my life—my
son ! Our houses are opposite each other. Between us rustle
the trees in the park, just as they rustled that evening you bade
me farewell. Winter is disappearing and spring is showing
itself on the hill-tops , and the brook murmurs and splashes as
it did of yore. But there is no way over the bridge to you now.
We have never looked in each other's eyes since then. Some-
times, from my window I see your still slim figure moving among
the trees. And when the wind blows and the rain beats on
the window-panes of my lonely room I feel as if I must come
over to you and sit by your fireside to talk of our youth which has
passed away .
Your picture is always before me, Marie Sophie, in the
sweet, withour young beauty, so proud, so cold, and yet so
as night . I will carrytoning golden hair and your eyes as deep
the pictur
is one question which puzzles me, Marie me to the grave.
Sophie von But there
Herben-
696 THE IDLER.
dorf. Why you refused to be happy ; and why you were not
honest with me ?
Both our lives might have been very different, very different,
Marie Sophie !
BY MARK TWAIN .
ILLUSTRATED BY HAL HURST .
CHAPTER XI.
RESENTLY the supper bell began to ring in the depths
of the house, and the sound proceeded steadily upward,
growing in intensity all the way up. The higher it came
the more maddening was the noise, until at last what it lacked of
being absolutely deafening was
made up ofthe sudden crash and
clatter of an avalanche
of boarders down the
uncarpeted stairway.
Barrow and Tracy fol-
lowed the avalanche
down through an ever
increasing and ever
more and more aggres-
sive stench of bygone
cabbage and kindred
smells ; smells which
are to be found nowhere but
in a cheap private boarding
house ; smells which once
encountered can never be for-
gotten ; smells which encour-
tered generations later are
instantly recognizable,
but never recognizable
with pleasure. Arrived
in the basement, they
entered a large dining
room , where thirty-five
or forty people sat at a
long table. The feast
had already begun , and " AN AVALANCHE OF BOARDERS."
the conversation was
going on in the liveliest way from one end of the table to the
other. The tablecloth was of very coarse material, and was
698 THE IDLER.
liberally spotted with coffee- stains and grease. The knives and
forks were iron , with bone handles ; the spoons appeared to be
sheet-iron. The tea and coffee cups were of the commonest and
heaviest and most durable stoneware. There was a single large
thick slice of bread by each boarder's plate, and it was observable
that he economised it as if he were not expecting it to be dupli-
cated . Dishes of butter were distributed along the table within
reach of people's arms, if they had long ones. The butter was
perhaps good enough, and was quiet and well behaved, but it had
more bouquet than was necessary. The main feature of the feast
was a piping hot Irish stew, made of the potatoes and meat left
over from a procession of previous meals. On the table were
a couple of great dishes of sliced ham, and there were some
other eatables of minor importance-preserves and New Orleans
molasses, and such things . There was also plenty of tea
and coffee of an infernal sort, with brown sugar and con-
densed milk, but the milk and sugar
supply was not left at the discretion
of the boarders, but was rationed
out at headquarters- one spoonful
of sugar and one of condensed
milk to each cup, and no
more. The table was waited
upon by two stalwart
negro women , who raced
back and forth from the
bases of supplies with
splendid dash and clatter and energy .
Their labors were supplemented after
a fashion by the your.g girl Puss .
She carried coffee and tea back and
Was forth among the boarders , and made
jokes with various people. Manifestly
she was a favorite with most of the
young fellows , and sweetheart of the
" WAITED UPON BY TWO STALWART rest of them . Where she conferred
NEGRO WOMEN."
notice she conferred happiness , as
was seen by the face of the recipient ; and at the same time she
conferred unhappiness -one could see it fall and dim the faces of
the other young fellows like a shadow . She never "Mistered "
these friends of hers, but called them " Billy," " Tom," "John ,"
and they called her " Puss " or " Hattie .".
Mr. Marsh sat at the head of

the table ; his wife sat at the foot.
Marsh was a man of sixty, and was
an American ; but if he had been
born a month earlier he would have
been a Spaniard . He was stoop-
shouldered and lean-faced , and the
general aspect of him was disagree-
able ; he was evidently not
a very companionable per-
son. If looks went for
anything, he was the very
opposite of his wife, who
was all motherliness and
charity, goodwill and good
nature. All the young men
and the women called her
Aunt Rachel , which was
another sign . Tracy's wan-
dering and interested eye
presently fell upon one
boarder who had been overlooked
in the distribution of the stew.
He was pale , and looked as if 66 PUSS."
he had but lately come out of a
sick bed, and also as if he ought
to get back into it again as soon as possible . His face was very
melancholy. The waves of laughter and conversation broke upon
it without affecting it any more than if it had been a rock in the
sea, and the words and the laughter veritable waters . He held
his head down and looked ashamed . Some of the women cast
glances of pity towards him from time to time in a furtive and half
afraid way, and some of the youngest of the men plainly had com-
passion on the young fellow. But the great majority of the people
present showed entire indifference to the youth and his sorrows .
Marsh sat with his head down, but one could catch the malicious
gleam of his eyes through his shaggy brows. He was watching
that young fellow with evident relish . He had not neglected him
through carelessness, and apparently the table understood that
fact . The spectacle was making Mrs. Marsh very uncomfortable.
She had the look of one who hopes against hope that the impossible
may happen. But as the impossible did not happen , she finally
700 THE IDLER.
ventured to speak up and remind her husband that Nat Brady

hadn't been helped to the Irish stew.
Marsh lifted his head and gasped out with mock courtliness ,
" Oh, he hasn't, hasn't he ? Ah ! he must pardon me. You
must, indeed, Mr.-er- Baxter- Barker, you must pardon me. I
-er-my attention was directed to some other matter. The thing
that grieves me mainly is that it happens every meal now. But
you must try to overlook these little-these little neglects on my
part. They're always likely to happen with me in any case, and
they are especially likely to happen where a person has-er-well ,
where a person is, say, about three weeks in arrears for his board.
You get my meaning ? You get my idea ? Here is your Irish
stew, and—er—it gives me the greatest pleasure to send it to you,
and I hope that you will enjoy the charity as much as I enjoy
conferring it."
A blush rose in Brady's white cheeks and flowed slowly back-
ward to his ears and upward toward his forehead, but he said
nothing. Barrow whispered to Tracy :
" The old man's been waiting for that. He wouldn't have
missed that chance for anything."
"It's a brutal business ," said Tracy. Then he said to
himself, purposing to set the thought down in his diary later :
"Well, here in this very house is a republic where all are free
and equal, if men are free and equal anywhere in the earth ;
therefore I have arrived at the place I started to find , and I am a
man among men , and on the strictest equality possible to men, no
doubt. Yet here on the threshold I find an inequality. There are
people at this table who are looked up to for some reason or another,
and here is a poor devil of a boy who is looked down upon ,
treated with indifference, and shamed with humiliations, when he
has committed no crime but that common one of being poor. "
After supper Barrow proposed a walk. Barrow had a purpose.
He wanted Tracy to get rid of that cowboy hat. Barrow pre-
sently said :
" As I understand it, you're not a cowboy ? ".
" No ; I'm not."
" Well, now, if you will not think me too curious, how did you
come to mount that hat ? Where did you get it ? "
Tracy didn't know quite how to reply to this , but presently said :
"Well, without going into particulars , I exchanged clothes
with a stranger under stress of weather, and I would like to find
him and re- exchange."
"Well, why don't you find him ? Where is he ? "

" I don't know. I suppose the best way to find him would be
to continue to wear his clothes, which are conspicuous enough to
attract his attention if I should meet him on the street."
" I HOPE THAT YOU WILL

ENJOY THE CHARITY,"
" Oh, very well," said Barrow. " The rest of the outfit is well
enough, and while it's not too conspicuous , it isn't quite like the
clothes that anybody else wears. Suppress the hat. When you
meet your man he'll recognize the rest of his suit. That's a
mighty embarrassing hat, you know, in a centre of civilization like
this . I don't believe an angel could get employment inWashington
in a halo like that."
702 THE IDLER.
Tracy agreed to replace the hat with something of a modester

form , and they stepped aboard a crowded car, and stood with others
on the rear platform . Presently, as the car moved swiftly along
the rails, two men crossing the street caught sight of the backs of
Barrow and Tracy , and both exclaimed at once, " There he is ! "
It was Sellers and Hawkins. Both were so paralyzed with joy that
W&SL
" IT WAS GONE TOO

FAR."
before they could pull themselves

together and make an effort to stor
the car, it was gone too far, and
they decided to wait for the next
one. They waited a while ; then it
occurred to Washington that there
could be no use in chasing one
horse-car with another, and he
wanted to hunt a hack. But the Colonel said :
"When you come to think of it, there's no occasion for that at
all. Now that I've got him materialized, I can command his
motions. I'll have him at the house by the time we get there.".
Then they hurried off home in a state of great and joyful
excitement.
The hat exchange accomplished , the two new friends started

to walk back leisurely to the boarding house. Both men were busy
with their thoughts for a time , then Tracy heaved a sigh and said :
" Mr. Barrow, the case of that young fellow troubles me. "
""
" You mean Nat Brady ? '
" Yes , Brady, or Baxter, or whatever it was. The old landlord
called him several different names ."
" Oh, yes, he has been very liberal with names for Brady,
since Brady fell into arrears for his board . Well, that's one of
his sarcasms- the old man thinks he's great on sarcasm . "
"Well, that is Brady's difficulty. What is Brady ? "
" He's a young journeyman tinner who was getting along all
right till he fell sick and lost his job. He was very popular
before he lost his job ; everybody in the house liked Brady. The
old man was rather especially fond of him, but you know that
when a man loses his job, and loses his ability to support himself
and to pay his way, it makes a great difference in the way people
feel about him. "
" Is that so ? "
Barrow looked at Tracy in a puzzled way. "Why, of course,
it's so. Wouldn't you know that naturally. Don't you know
that the wounded deer is always attacked and killed by its com-
panions and friends ?"
Tracy said to himself, while a chilly and boding discomfort
spread itself through his system, " In a republic of deer and men,
where all are free and equal, misfortune is a crime , and the
prosperous gore the unfortunate to death ." Then he said aloud ,
" Here in the boarding house, if one would have friends and be
popular, instead of having the cold shoulder turned upon him, he
must be prosperous ."
"Yes," Barrow said, "that is so. It's their human nature .
They do turn against Brady, now that he is unfortunate, and they
don't like him as well as they did before ; but it isn't because of
any lack in Brady-he's just as he was before, has the same nature
and the same impulses , but they-well , Brady is a thorn in their
consciences , you see. They know they ought to help him , and
they're too stingy to do it , and they're ashamed of themselves for
that, and they ought also to hate themselves on that account, but,
instead of that, they hate Brady because he makes them ashamed
of themselves. I say that's human nature ; that occurs every-
where ; this boarding house is merely the world in little, it's the
case all over- they're all alike.
704 THE IDLER.
Tracy's noble theories and high purposes were beginning to

feel pretty damp and clammy. He wondered if by any possibility
he had made a mistake in throwing his own prosperity to the
winds and taking up the cross of other peoples ' unprosperity.
CHAPTER XII .
THE days drifted by, and they grew

Barrow's efforts to find work for ever more
Tracy weredreary. For
unavailing.
Always the first question asked was, "What Union do you belong
to ? " Tracy was obliged to reply that he didn't belong to any
trade-union .
" Very well, then , it is impossible to employ you . My men
wouldn't stay with me if I should employ a ' scab ' or ' rat,' or
whatever the phrase is."
Finally, Tracy had a happy thought. He said, " Why, the
thing for me to do , of course, is to join a trade-union ."
66 Yes, " Barrow said , that
" is the thing for you to do if you
can."
Therefore Tracy tried ; but he did not succeed . He was re-
fused admission with a good deal of promptness , and was advised
to go back home, where he belonged , not come here taking honest
men's bread out of their mouths . Tracy began to realize that the
situation was desperate, and the thought made him cold to the
marrow, He said to himself, " So there is an aristocracy of
position here, and an aristocracy of prosperity , and apparently
there is also an aristocracy of the ins as opposed to the outs,
and I am with the outs. So the ranks grow daily, here. Plainly,
there are all kinds of castes here , and only one that I belong to,
the outcasts ." But he couldn't even smile at his small joke.
He was feeling so defeated and miserable by this time that
he could no longer look with philosophical complacency on the
horseplay of the young fellows in the upper rooms at night. At first
it had been pleasant to see them unbend and have a good time after
having so well earned it by the labors of the day, but now it all
rasped upon his feelings and his dignity. When they were feeling
good, they shouted, they scuffled, they sang songs, they romped
about the place like cattle, and they generally wound up with a
pillow fight, and every now and then he got a buffet himself. They
called him " Johnny Bull," and invited him, with excessive
familiarity, to take a hand . At first he had endured all this
with good nature, but latterly he had shown by his manner

that it was distinctly distasteful to him, and very soon he saw
a change in the manner of these young people toward him . They
were souring on him, as they would have expressed it in their
language. He got a good many slights of that small, ill - defined
sort that you can't quite put your finger on, and it was manifest
that there was only one thing which protected him from open
insult, and that was his muscle. These young people had seen
him exercising, mornings, after his cold sponge bath, and they
had perceived by his performance and the build of his body that
he was athletic, and also versed in boxing. He felt pretty naked
now, recognizing that he was shorn of all respect, except respect
for his fists . One night when he entered his room he found about
a dozen of the young fellows there carrying on a very lively
conversation, punctuated with horse-laughter. The talking ceased
instantly, and frank affront of a dead silence followed . He said :
" Good evening, gentlemen ," and sat down.
There was no response. He flushed to the temples, but forced
himself to maintain silence . He sat there in this uncomfortable
stillness some time, then got up and went out. The moment he
had disappeared he heard a prodigious shout of laughter break
forth. He saw that their plain purpose had been to insult him.
He ascended to the flat roof, hoping to be able to cool down
his spirit there and get back his tranquility. He found the young
tinner up there, alone and brooding, and entered into conversation
with him . They were pretty fairly matched, now, in unpopularity
and general ill-luck and misery, and they had no trouble in
meeting upon this common ground with advantage and something
of comfort to both. But Tracy's movements had been watched,
and in a few minutes the tormentors came straggling one after
another to the roof, where they began to stroll up and down in an
apparently purposeless way. But presently they fell to dropping
remarks that were evidently aimed at Tracy , and some of them at
the tinner. The ringleader of this little mob was a short-haired
bully and amateur prize-fighter named Allen, who was accustomed
to lording it over the upper floor, and had more than once shown
a disposition to make trouble with Tracy. Now there was an
occasional cat-call , and hootings, and whistlings, and finally the
diversion of an exchange of connected remarks was introduced :
"What were you saying about the English a while ago ? "
" Oh, I only said they swallow well."
" Swallow better than other people ? "
XX
706 THE IDLER.
" Oh, yes, the English swallow a good deal better than other
people. "
66
What is it they swallow best ?
" Oh, insults." Another general laugh.
"Pretty hard to make ' em fight, ain't it ? "
" No, 'tain't hard to make ' em fight."
"3
" Ain't it, really ? '
66
' No, ' tain't hard. It's impossible." Another laugh.
"This one's kind of spiritless, that's certain."
" Couldn't be the other way-in his case."
"Why ? "
" Don't you know the secret of his birth ? "
19
" No ! has he got a secret of his birth ?
"You bet he has .'
"What is it ? "
" His father was a wax-figger."
Allen came strolling by where the pair were sitting, stopped ,
and said to the tinner :
66
How are you off for friends, these days ? "
"Well enough off."
" Got a good many ? "
66
Well, as many as I need ."
" A friend is valuable, sometimes-as a protector, you know.
What do you reckon would happen if I was to snatch your cap
off and slap you in the face with it ? "
" Please don't trouble me, Mr. Allen, I ain't doing anything to
you."
"You answer me! What do you reckon would happen ? "
" Well, I don't know ."
Tracy spoke up with a good deal of deliberation and said:
" Don't trouble the young fellow, I can tell you what would
happen. "
"Oh, you can, can you ? Boys , Johnny Bull can tell us what
would happen if I was to snatch this chump's cap off and slap
him in the face with it. Now you'll see."
He snatched the cap and struck the youth in the face, and
before he could enquire what was going to happen , it had already
happened, and he was warming the tin with the broad of his back.
Instantly there was a rush, and shouts of " A ring, a ring, make a
ring ! Fair play all round ! Johnny's grit ; give him a chance."
In a moment, all the windows in the neighborhood were
filled with people, and the roofs also . The men squared off, and
the fight began. But Allen stood no chance whatever against

the young Englishman . Neither in muscle nor in science was
he his equal . He measured his length on the tin time and
again-in fact, as fast as he could get up he went down again,
and the applause was kept up in liberal fashion from all the
neighborhood around . Finally, Allen had to be helped up. Then
Tracy declined to
punish him further,
and the fight was at
an end. Allen was
carried off by some
of his friends in a
very much humbled
condition, his face
black and blue and
bleeding, and Tracy
was at once sur-
rounded by the young
fellows , who con-
gratulated him , and
told him that he had
done the whole house
a service, and that
from this out Mr.
Allen would be a little
more particular about
how he handed slights
and insults and mal-
treatment around
amongst the boarders.
Tracy was a hero
now, and exceedingly
popular. Perhaps no-
body had ever been
quite so popular on
that upper floor be- WAS.L
fore. But ifbeing dis-
MEASURED HIS LENGTH ON THE TIN."
countenanced bythese
young fellows had been hard to bear, their lavish commendations
and approval were harder still to endure. He felt degraded, but
he did not allow himself to analyze the reasons why too closely.
He was content to satisfy himself with the suggestion that he
708 THE IDLER.
looked upon himself as degraded by the public spectacle which he

had made of himself, fighting on a tin roof, for the delectation of
everybody a block or two around. But he wasn't entirely satis-
fied with that explanation of it. Once he went a little too far,
and wrote in his diary that his case was worse than that of the
Prodigal Son. He said the Prodigal Son merely fed swine ; he
didn't have to chum with them. But he struck that out , and said,
" All men are equal. I will not disown my principles. These
men are as good as I am."
Tracy had become popular on the lower floor also. Everybody
was grateful for Allen's reduction to the ranks, and for his trans-
formation from a doer of outrages to a mere threatener of them.
The young girls, of whom there were half a dozen, showed
many attentions to Tracy, particularly that boarding-house pet,
Hattie, the landlady's daughter. She said to him very sweetly :
" I think you're ever so nice ; " and when he said , " I'm glad
you think so, Miss Hattie, " she said, still more sweetly :
" Don't call me Miss Hattie-call me Puss."
Ah ! here was promotion ! He had struck the summit. There
were no higher heights to climb in that boarding house. His
popularity was complete.
In the presence of people, Tracy showed a tranquil outside,
but his heart was being eaten out of him by distress and despair.
In a little while he would be out of money, and then what should
he do ? A single torturing, terrifying thought went racking round
and round in his head, wearing a groove in his brain. And along
with it began to intrude a something which was very like a wish,
that he had not joined the great and noble ranks of martyrdom ,
but had stayed at home and been content to be merely an earl,
with nothing more to do in this world of a useful sort than an
earl finds to do. Finally, one day, being near the imminent
verge of total discouragement, he said to himself and took
occasion to blush privately when he said it-" If my father knew
what my American name is, he-well, my duty to my father rather
requires that I furnish him my name. I have no right to make
his days and nights unhappy. Really, he ought to know what my
American name is." He thought over it a while, and framed a
cablegram in his mind to this effect :
"My American name is Howard Tracy."
That wouldn't be suggesting anything. His father could under-
stand that as he chose, and , doubtless, he could understand it as
it was meant as the dutiful and affectionate desire on the part
of a son to make his old father happy. Continuing this train of

thought, Tracy said to himself, " Ah ! but if he should cable me
to come home ! I-I-couldn't do that. I've started out on a
mission, and I mustn't turn my back
on it." After a reflective pause :
"Well, maybe,
perhaps , it would
be my duty to go
in the circum-
stances ; he's
"CAN'T YOU TAKE MY TELEGRAM ?'
very old, and he does need me by

him to stay his footsteps down the
long hill that inclines westward to-
ward the sunset of his life. Yes,
of course, it wouldn't be right to
stay here. I - if I-well, perhaps I
could just drop him a line and put.
it off a little while, and satisfy him
in that way. It would be-well, it would
mar everything to have him require me to
come instantly." Another reflective pause,
then : " And yet if he should do that I
don't know, but-oh, dear me, home !
How good it sounds ! "
He went to one of the telegraph offices
in the Avenue, and got the first end of
W&S.L what Barrow called the " usual Wash-
ington courtesy," where "they treat you
as a tramp until they find out you're a
Congress man, and then they slobber all
over you." There was a boy of seventeen
• on duty there, tying his shoe. He had his foot on a chair, and
his back turned towards the wicket . He glanced over his shoulder,
710 THE IDLER.
took Tracy's measure, turned back, and went on tying his shoe.
Tracy finished writing his telegram, and waited, still waited, and
still waited, for that performance to finish, but there didn't seem
to be any finish to it ; so finally Tracy said :
"Can't you take my telegram ? "
The youth looked over his shoulder and said, by his manner,
not his words :
" Don't you think you could wait a minute, if you tried ?
However, he got the shoe tied at last, and came and took the
telegram, glanced over it, then looked up surprised at Tracy.
There was something in his look that bordered upon respect ,
almost reverence, it seemed to Tracy, although he had been so
long without anything of this kind he was not sure that he knew
the signs of it.
The boy read the address aloud, with pleased expression in
face and voice.
"The Earl of Rossmore ! Cracky ! Do you know him ? "
" Yes ."
" Is that so ? Does he know you ? "
"Well-yes."
"Well, I swear ! Will he answer you ? "
" I think he will."
99
" Will he, though ? Where'll you have it sent ?
(c Oh, nowhere. I'll call here and get it. When shall I call ? "
" Oh, I don't know- I'll send it to you. Give me your address ;
I'll send it to you soon's it comes. "
But Tracy didn't propose to do this. He had acquired the
boy's admiration and deferential respect, and he wasn't willing to
throw these precious things away, a result sure to follow, if he
should give the address of that boarding house. So he said again
that he would call.
He idled along, reflecting. He said to himself, " There is
something pleasant about being respected. I have acquired the
respect of Mr. Allen and some of those others, and almost the
deference of some of them, on pure merit, for having thrashed
Allen . While their respect and their deference are pleasant, a
deference based upon a sham, a shadow, does really seem
pleasanter still. It's no real merit to be in correspondence with
an earl, and yet, after all, that boy makes me feel as if there was."
(To be continued.)
People I Have Never Met.
BY SCOTT RANKIN .
(J. M. BARRIE .)
LOBE
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Qua ahorro ARTO GA
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"A WINDOW IN THRUMS."

THEIDLER'S
HEIDLER'S
SallHan
y dy.
We have received three interesting and valuable

How can the comments upon Mr. Conan Doyle's suggestion as to
North Pole be how one may hang one's hat upon the North Pole.*
reached ? The first is from Captain David Gray, of Peterhead,
an old whaler, a sailer in the Arctic seas of many
years' experience, and a gentleman who has given much thought
to the problem. The second is from Clement R. Markham, C.B. ,
F.R.S. , author of " Threshold of the Unknown Region," who
served both in the Expedition in search of Sir John Franklin in
1850-1 , and in the Arctic Expedition of 1875-6 ; while the third is
from Admiral Markham, who commanded the " Alert " in the last
mentioned expedition, and who has also made two private Arctic
voyages.
* * *
I think Mr. Conan Doyle is quite correct so far as
Captain David he goes, and am of opinion that the plan suggested ,
Gray's opinion . namely, that of sending a gunboat north for a number
ofyears to watch for the opportunity of an open sea to the
Pole, is the most practicable one. There are three routes by which
an attempt may be made. One, east coast of Greenland ; two,
through the barrier N.W. of Spitzbergen ; three, by Franz Josef
Land. Any of these routes may give an opportunity of gaining a
very high latitude about once in ten years. In May, 1855 , I sailed
north to the usual whaling ground in latitude 80° , and found the ice
in a very unusual position, its eastern margin being over 150 miles
to the westward of Spitzbergen, where a narrow ridge of ice, not
more than six miles broad, lying N.E. and S.W. , was met with .
• See " Glamour of the Arctic," page 635.
Beyond this, there was no ice to be seen except a few washed pieces
here and there. The late Captain Gravill, of the " Diana," then
in command of the " Sarah and Elizabeth," penetrated to the west
side of the ridge and saw no ice to the north, N.W. , and west. I
was not thinking of discovery at the time, but of where whales
would be found, and so impressed was I by the extraordinarily
open character of the ice, that I was quite sure all the whales
would be found south of latitude 75°. It turned out that I was
right, for, on reaching the locality I had in view, I found the
whales, both large and small, in great numbers-a most unusual
circumstance, for I had never heard of small whales being seen in
any numbers south of latitude 78°. Whales will not remain on
any feeding bank, however good it may be, after the ice leaves , and
this fact, I think, goes far to prove that on the occasion referred to
I had reached the northernmost limit of the ice at that time .
During my voyage, in the months of March, April, and part of
May, in the year 1874, I experienced a combination of hard gales
from north and N.N.W. , and these gales had , I believe, created a
large space of open water in the region of the Pole. I believe that
this space went on increasing as the season advanced , until I think
it is probable that a large proportion of the ice in the circumpolar
space was driven south as far as the 80° parallel by the middle of
August. Towards the end of July of the same year, we left our
usual cruising ground (at that season in latitude 74°) and sailed
north through the ice, which was in a moderately open condition ,
with the floes lying unbroken , until we reached latitude 79°. After
this, the ice became much broken up, and was closely packed
together, and of a much lighter character than it had been found
to be farther south . I was now convinced that we were
approaching the northern limit of the ice, because a southerly
swell could not have broken up the ice so far north, and left the
floes unbroken for three hundred miles to the south. Indeed ,
nothing but a northerly swell, with a heavy weight of water at the
back of it, could possibly have broken the ice up so small, or kept
it so close together, as it was found to be. Keeping the ship
under canvas, near the edge of the pack, at this time during a thick
fog, with the wind fresh from the N.W., we found the ice
continually driving down upon us . When the weather cleared ,
all the boats were sent away to bring fresh-water ice on board , and
so fast was the ice driving, that they were obliged to pull away
from it to prevent them from getting beset, thus showing, in my
opinion, that the ice was being driven south by a large sea at the
714 THE IDLER.
north of it. Proceeding north as far as latitude 79° 45', I distinctly

saw the water to the north of the ice, with a dark water- sky from
N.W. to E.N.E. , reaching north until lost in the distance. I have
no doubt that a wide and open sea lay before me, reaching north
far beyond where anyone had ever been before.
* * *
The obstacle to reaching the North Pole from
Clement R. Spitzbergen is the great ice- bearing current which
Markham's flows southward between Greenland and Spitzbergen.
opinion. It does not touch the western coast of Spitzbergen ,
where there is a counter current. Ships are con-
sequently able to reach the north coast of Spitzbergen , andl
occasionally a little further north . The furthest north ever reached
in this direction was by the Swedish steamer " Sophia" in 1868,
namely, 81 ° 42 ' N. Captain Scoresby, in 1806 , reached 81 ° 30 ′ N.,
where he was stopped by the solid polar pack. Parry, in 1827,
hauling two boats over the ice, reached 82 ° 45 ' N. He turned back
because the current was drifting him south faster than he could
drag the boats north . There is no authentic account of any
whaler having reached 82 ° N. , and , consequently, the statement
that they saw no reflection of ice to the north of them when in
that latitude falls to the ground . Their employment to catch
whales furnished no excuse for not going north if the sea appeared
to be open to the Pole, for the Government offered a reward which
would have exceeded the value of an average cargo. In 1818 an
Act was passed offering £ 1,000 for crossing the 83rd parallel,
£2,000 for crossing the 85th, £ 3,000 for crossing the 87th, £4,000
for crossing the 88th , and £ 5,000 for crossing the 89th . This
law continued in force until 1828. For ten years , there was an
adequate inducement to make a dash for the north , but the pack
ice barred the way. If a gunboat, short or long, with engines anti-
quated or new, was sent up every year to watch for the ice being
cleared away between Spitzbergen and Greenland , she would watch
in vain until the end of the world—that is , until the earth ceased to
rotate on its axis, for rotation and ocean currents are cause and
effect. It seems to be supposed that long-continued northerly winds
would clear out the ice. This fallacy is based on the idea that the
frozen water is generated in the polar region , and that northerly
winds would blow it all out. Had that been the case, the polar
region would have been left high and dry long ago. But the
frozen water is not generated round the Pole. The ocean current
flows in along the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, and water also
flows into the polar area from Behring's Strait , and from the
American and Siberian rivers . It is frozen to a great depth on its
way across the polar area , and flows out as the great ice- bearing
current between Spitzbergen and Greenland. This movement is
continuous and unceasing. North winds incessantly blowing
would make no difference. It is consequently impossible to reach
the Pole by attempting to force a way from Spitzbergen against
the current. If there is continuous land from Franz Josef Land to
the Pole, then the Pole can be reached by travelling along it. If
there is no continuous land, but only a.group of islands , then the
only way to reach the Pole is by following the in-flowing current
from the Siberian coast.
* *
Dr. Conan Doyle's idea of sending a small vessel
up, year by year, to examine the state, condition , and Rear-Admiral
position of the ice is a very good one , so far as a Markham's
reconnoitring expedition is concerned, but I should views.
deprecate the idea of allowing this vessel to push on
northwards , unless proper provision had been made to support
her, and depôts formed in her rear in the event of any disaster
happening to her. Her doing so , unsupported , would result
in the same disastrous termination as attended De Leng
and Greeley. In my opinion , the only way in which a
higher northern latitude than has already been attained can
be reached, is to endeavour in a ship to push up as far
as possible along the coast of Franz Josef Land, and then to
explore northwards along that coast with sledges, establishing
depôts of provisions for the travellers. There is no saying how
far the coast of Franz Josef Land extends in a northerly direction ,
but it is almost certain that sledge parties would have but little
difficulty in reaching the termination of the land, even if it reached
the Pole itself ! All efforts should be centred in this direction, and
I have no hesitation in predicting that if a well- found expedition
were to be despatched to Franz Josef Land , a successful result
would be assured . I only wish I could have a chance of going
myself.
Every man should endeavour to take a high-

minded, broad view of things. He should see to it Barr aspires to
that his outlook is not impeded by anything common higher things.
or low, but should try to place himself at such an
altitude that he can, as it were, look calmly down upon the
716 THE IDLer .
trivialities of life, uninfluenced by them. He should strive by his

own efforts , or the help of others , to reach as great an elevation as
he feels himself capable of attaining. These and similar lofty
considerations , that will readily suggest themselves to the in-
telligent reader, induced me to part for ever with four francs in
order to reach the top of the Eiffel Tower. Nearly everyone else
on earth except myself had been up the Eiffel Tower, so, knowing
the French Government might take offence at my neglect of the
iron monument, I concluded to go up before my absence began to
cause comment, and promote international ill-feeling. The four
francs entitles a tired man to the hospitality of three lifts. The
lower lift seemed to me the most terrorising, because its floor did
not remain level. This lift crawls up sideways like a great crab,
and the floor at first presents to the incomer an angle of nearly 45
degrees , up which he must climb to reach the seat at the back.
Or perhaps it is the other way about. It may be, that he has to
go down to the seat. Be that as happens, when the big
machine begins to crawl upward the floor gradually becomes level ,
and then as gradually tilts over the other way. This strange
action on the part of an apparently solid floor shakes a person's
faith in the foundations of things. You feel that if the lift went
much further you would be standing on your head. The other
two lifts go straight up , with reassuring little jolts now and then ,
that make your heart stand still , and your hair creep .
Of course , I was not at all afraid going up that

He meets a man Eiffel Tower lift -nobody was-but some of us might
of experience. have been if it were not for the talk of a kind American
gentleman who knew all about lifts ; he had met the
elevator on its native soil , and he imparted his knowledge freely
so that all might hear , and thus fear was cast out from among us .
" Bless you ," this cheerful man said , " I remember the first trip
of the first elevator in New York City . Yes , sir, I got off
cheaply -broken leg- but it killed Joe Howard -you remember
Joe ?" This to a friend , who nodded . " Well , the mistake they made
was trying to haul the elevator over the pulley at the top . No
elevator will stand that . But now -a-days elevators are as safe as
a bed . If this rope were to break, and of course it's always liable
to, as the constant jarring granulates the metal , the patent catch
would take hold —say , were you ever on an elevator when the wire
rope broke and the patent catch wasn't feeling just right ?" His
companion shook his head . "Well , sir, it's the funniest
sensation you ever experienced . Crack goes the wire rope, and
then the patent catch begins to get in its work ; slips two or three
cogs, grips , slips again, grips , slips a dozen , and takes your breath
away, holds for a couple of seconds , crack ! slip, grip, slip , grip,
then a final smash , and down you go. That was when I broke
my arm- in Chicago-'83 . I tell you, gentlemen, after we had
gone down two stories in that jerky way, it was a positive relief
when the patent catch went smash and dropped us all down three
stories into the cellar. We knew the worst then . Of course the
patent wedging arrangement is a great thing. It's on this
elevator. I asked the man, and he said ' we.' It 's a first rate
thing when it works. You remember that awful elevator smash
in Boston ?-seven killed. Well, that elevator had every safety
device on it that ever went through the patent office. Yes , sir !
I asked the man who put up the elevator how he accounted for
none of ' em acting. Said he couldn't account for it-supposed
cach one just lay low and waited for the others to act . But the
greatest thing now-a-days is the air chamber. Elevator drops
down as if it were sinking in a feather bed . Lovely sensation.
I remember going down on a trial trip in Philadelphia. It was a
new thing then. They put a glass of water-full up to the top-
on a chair, and the proprietor guaranteed it wouldn't spill a drop .
When we were seven stories up , the engineer cut the rope."
" And did the water spill ?" asked his friend . "We never found
that out. I expect it did , but when we got down it wasn't glasses
of water we were looking for, brandy was our size. You see , they
neglected to remember that the brickwork of the air chamber
hadn't had time to set. It was green- so were we. The brick
walls blew out as if there had been a dynamite explosion. There
were five merchants, three lawyers, and four newspaper men on
board, and they were so mixed up at the bottom with bricks ,
mortar, and bits of elevator, that it took most of us a couple of
weeks before we could remember whether we were lawyers ,
merchants , or reporters. I don't feel quite sure yet, but I made up
my mind to go on any elevator but a safety one after that. How-
ever, the air chamber has been improved since then. That's what
the Eiffel Tower needs. Now, look at the height we're at. If we
were to drop, we would go clear through to China. Every man
on board would have his name in big type in to- morrow's papers .
I remember that awful accident in- — " But here, happily, we
reached the top.
718 THE IDLER .
Alden makes a I feel a great deal of sympathy for Italy. She is

present to the suffering from an annual deficit in the treasury, and, as
Italian I have suffered in the same way myself, I can feel for
Government. her. But why does the Italian Government neglect the
obvious way out of its difficulties ? There are at least
two millions, let us say, of tourists who visit Italy annually, either
because they look upon it as a vast museum of art and antiquities,
or because they have been told that it is a hospital for the cure of
any particular diseases that they may have adopted . Now, why
should these people be admitted free ? The Government might
charge two guineas admission fee to the whole of Italy, with the
exception of one or two reserved cities, such as Rome and Venice,
for which an additional charge of, say, ten shillings might be
made. Of course " professionals, " such as reigning monarchs,
Buffalo Bill, and the like, would be admitted free, but to all the
rest of the world the " Greatest Art Show on Earth " should be
open only on payment of the regular rates. Nobody who cares to
see Italy would stay away because of the charge made at the gates,
and the result would be that the annual deficit would be changed
into an annual surplus . I ask no reward for this suggestion,
except to be put on the free list, but the more I think of it the
more I am convinced that Nature intended me to be a great
financier, though she unaccountably forgot to give me any
materials to practise with. *
*
I must really give up not smoking, at least till the
Zangwill American Copyright Act works smoothly, and I am in
setteth forth a position to afford luxuries. At present, this habit of
ye economy of not smoking is a drain upon my resources which I can
smoking. ill support. Whenever a man comes to my house I have
to give him cigars , or else gain the reputation of a churly
and ill - mannered host. In the olden days , when I was economical
and smoked all day long , I could go to that man's house and get
those cigars back. Very often, too, I used to get the best of the
bargain, and thus effect considerable economies in the purchase of
good tobacco. Nowadays, not only have I got to give away
cigars for nothing, but they must be good ones . Formerly, if I
gave my friends bad cigars, it was from a box I was obviously
smoking myself, and , therefore, they had at least the consolation
of knowing I was a companion in misfortune. But to give others
" evils from which you are yourself exempt " (to quote Lucretius)
would be a terrible blend of bad taste and inhospitality. Under
such circumstances a man looks on a bad cigar as an insult, none

the less an insult because it is a gratuitous one. But my losses
from these sources are trivial compared with the item for theatres .
In the pure, innocent days, when I could not bear to let my pipe
out of my mouth even for a moment, I was unable to go
to theatres, but now that I have taken to not smoking, I
have fallen a victim to my other craving-the passion for the
play. Three stalls a week tot up frightfully in a year. No,
decidedly I must check this extravagant habit of not smoking
before I am irretrievably ruined .
* *
It is a mistake to suppose that our chatty and con-
versational utterances never get outside this smoking Phillpotts tells
room. Many of them fly up the chimney and through how great fame
the keyhole , and so into the world . There has come has come to
to my ears a very gratifying circumstance from the the Idlers' Club.
North of England, and the significance of the Idlers'
Club is thereby proved to demonstration . Sundry young ladies ,
the admired of sundry young and old gentlemen, recently designed
an entertainment with a view to giving pleasure , securing moneys
for a charitable object, and , perhaps, themselves gaining some
well-deserved attention. Tableaux vivants were the order of the
night, and amongst them, sandwiched between the " Execution of
King Charles I. " and " The Finding of Moses in the Bulrushes ,"
was presented a living reproduction of the Idlers' Club, as it
appears above this page of gossip . The difficulties were not
small, but those entertainers met and mastered each in turn .
Young men with cigarettes and pipes gladly volunteered their
services. The trouble began , however, when it became necessary
to find a bald- headed Idler for the second chair on the right-hand
side. Those energetic and original North-country maidens could
command several bald-headed friends, but none had legs long
enough to reach the mantelpiece , and so lend truth and style to
the representation . One acquaintance only combined height and
baldness, and he was a Justice of the Peace, and refused to put
his feet on a mantelshelf, even in fun, to help a charity.
Besides, he did not smoke . So the girls rigged up a lanky brother,
and placed a bald wig upon his head, and achieved great and
splendid success . This is true Fame, for she ever plants in
obscurest corner the bay which shall presently shadow the sun ;
she ever breathes in most secret hiding- places the first wavering
notes of that clarion call which shall anon ring in the ear of the
world.
720 THE IDLER.
One of the saddest of things in the sight of the

Alden regrets profound moralist is the ease with which perfumes are
the lack of
corrupted and degraded . Take a comparatively recent
moral fibre in instance. A few years ago opopanax made its first
perfumes. appearance. It was a tender, innocent perfume, and
its winning ways soon made it immensely popular .
But before long it was whispered that opopanax was becoming
altogether too free and unconventional in its habits, and very' soon
every woman who had a regard for her reputation dropped its
acquaintance. To-day, opopanax has utterly and openly gone to
the bad, and flaunts itself only in places in which respectable
people decline to be seen. It is said that a similar story can be
told of musk, which was once, incredible as it may seem to the
present generation, a pure, innocent, and unsophisticated scent.
What it is now we all know, although we may not speak of it in
the presence of the young person , or the clergy. As for Ylang-
ylang, the best that can be said of it is that it has been horribly
indiscreet. It may not be a positively immoral perfume, but it is
one in the company of which no careful person would be willing
to be seen. Why perfumes are so easily led astray can only be
conjectured. There are, of course, perfumes of unimpeachable
character, such as lavender, which is to other perfumes what the
British spinster of advanced years is to other women ; and there
is that concentrated expression of bourgeois respectability, eau-
de- Cologne. Still, most perfumes are so easily led astray, that it
might be well were Parliament to establish an age of consent ,
fixing it, let us say, at ten years, and forbidding any perfume that
has not been at least ten years before the public to frequent any
society except that of thoroughly respectable people.
* *
That baptismal names exercise a profound influence
And cogitates upon their owners can be doubted by no thoughtful
upon the observer. What is very curious is that when a boy is
influence of named after some great man he invariably shows
names. qualities the reverse of those which made the great
man famous. Take, for example, the three religious
reformers , Calvin, Wesley, and Luther. Now statistics prove
that if a boy is named " Calvin, " he develops a tendency to join a
circus ; if he is named " Wesley," he is very apt to incline towards
petty ways of dishonesty ; and if he is named " Luther," he ought
never to be made cashier of a bank. Of ten " Calvins ” inhabiting
a single county in the West of England, five became connected
with the circus , one became a negro minstrel , two were theatrical
supernumeraries, and two were labour reformers. Similarly, of
ten " Wesleys," taken at random in the Metropolitan district, four
were convicted of larceny, two were burglars, two were habitual
brokers, and the remaining two were presumably honest. Ten
"Luthers " were also taken from the Metropolitan district, and of
these three were guilty of breach of trust in a fiduciary capacity,
}
two bolted with the funds of banking institutions, and five were
lawyers, although it is only fair to say that one of the latter reformed
at the age of forty, and is still living a blameless life. Whatever
else Calvin, Wesley, and Luther were, they were strictly honest
men, and certainly Calvin had no connection with any circus , or
other show. Why, then, should their names , when given to
helpless boys , work such moral devastation ? This is a mystery
which someone ought to solve , even if it requires the vivi-
section of parents who wilfully convey demoralising names to
their offspring .
There is an unknown poet whose works have never

been printed. To slightly change a familiar verse , it Barr muses
might be said of him : on fame.
"Unknown the region of his birth,
The land in which he died unknown,
His name has perished from the earth,
His verse survives alone."
The works of this poet are to be found scribbled all over the land
-in lead pencil . Here is a couplet quoted from memory ; it may
not be verbally correct, but it is to this effect :-
" Fools' names and monkeys' faces
Are to be seen in public places."
What the connection is between the name of a fool and the face
of a monkey may not be very clear ; still , it must be remembered
that all great poets are more or less obscure . The monkey referred
to is doubtless of the organ variety, familiar in all public places, but
the evident intention of the unknown poet is to heap contumely
upon the man- referred to in the verse as a fool- who scribbles
his name on museum walls, on the top of St. Paul's and St.
Peter's , on the piers by the sea, and on any other writable
surface where men congregate. The man who writes his name
wherever he can has long been looked upon with contempt, and
the two lines quoted merely place in beautiful poetic language the
general opinion of the public regarding him, Notices have been
YY
722 THE IDLER.
put up to catch his eye, with the terse command, " Do not write om
the walls," or the appeal to his better nature, " Please do not write
on the walls." These notices do not seem to answer the purpose-
intended. If the boards are white and the lettering black, the:
surface is invariably filled with the scribbled names of " John
Jones," " Sam Smith, " and "Billy Brown." Command and
appeal are alike in vain . The trouble is that no nation except the
French appreciate the scribbler as he ought to be appreciated. We
honour Shakespeare and Milton and Byron , and we sneer at Jones-
and Smith and Brown , yet the very same motives actuate the three:
latter that actuated the three former. It is the innate desire for
immortality. Smith does not wish his name to sink into oblivion
any more than Shakespeare did. Brown and Byron each desired
his name to live. The man who pays thousands a year to have
:
a name of five letters attached to the word " soap " blazoned all
over the country is induced to do so by hopes of gain, but no such
sordid motive urges Brown to write his five letters on the statue-
of Venus de Milo in the Louvre. One man immortalises his name:
by writing a great book, winning a great battle, or building a great
tower or bridge ; another man tries to do the same by scribbling
with a lead pencil on the walls of the British Museum . The
French, as I have said , recognise the scribbler's high and pure
motive, and at the four corners on the top of the Eiffel Tower they
have made preparation for him. There is conspicuously placed at
each of the four corners a large sheet of white paper, which can be
rolled up as often as is needed so as to expose a fresh, unwritten
surface. Above this , is printed the words, " Please write your
name here." The attendant tells you a lovely untruth to the
effect that this scribbled- over paper is to be bound up into albums
and preserved for ever in the archives of France. Thus do Brown,
Jones, and Smith at last receive adequate recognition. The con-
sequence is that all the woodwork at top is left untouched by
pencil, and the names are written on the paper provided. The
latent desire for immortality that exists in every human breast is.
satisfied . The French are a wonderful people.
* * *
I spent a few days last week in a seaside boarding--
Zangwill dis- house. I went incognito so as to discuss myself in
Courseth of the drawing-room . Alas ! no one had ever heard of
Tame. me. When I left everyone had . I think I shall spend
a good deal of time this summer touring the boarding-
houses and enlightening the country. You can get at the
population by fifties that way. I was consoled to find older

advertisers in no better plight. One man had never heard of
Hardy, but he had read " Far from the Madding Crowd." Various
dazzling metropolitan reputations had not yet travelled down.
The final blow was when a lady told me she thought she had seen
the name of Kipling in a newspaper. " Great Rudyard !" I thought
" The man who has been Kipling with such extraordinary energy
all these moons not got farther than that !" And yet so it was.
Even Kipling's light had failed to illuminate more than a certain
area. But then Kipling wouldn't mind , for, as he says in " The
Light that Failed " : 66'Just think how full an average man's life
is of his own pursuits and pleasures. When twenty thousand of
him find ti kup between mouthfuls, and grunt something
about somet ncy are t the least interested in the net result
is cd fame.tatica or notoriety, accor g to the tact.
fancy of the "ler." Wondoners are ch too prov-Luial
get a little a ‫ ני‬from the te, and you shall find all the great
literary, artistic, and dramatic interests about which we are con-
tinually wrangling fade away to vanishing point. Even in Epping
Forest you can meet persons to whom the names of Ibsen and
Macterlink, and Montanaro and Otto Benzon, and all sorts and
conditions of Shakespeares, are mere vibrations of the air. Sims
himself, though perhaps the best-known man in England, has
ients to a
he says that he went to one of his Plays t
his friends, and not one of them knew he was the author, though
his name was staring at them from the programme all along.
Time was when I put this downto " Dagon sexuberant imagina
tion, but the longer I live the more I believe it.
* *
In this same boarding-house where they had not
heard of Kipling, they were quite familiar with tippling. He dwelleth
The household words that are really and literally familiar at a boarding-
in our mouths are Bass and Allsopp . There was a house.
great deal of alcohol consumed, chiefly in the shape
of British beers and Australian wines . You cannot always
exhaust your bottle of ale or wine at a sitting. Now-a-days
we are three-quarter bottle men , or one-and-a-third bottle
men. The problem, then , was how to preserve the remains.
There is nothing distinctive about a beer-bottle, and even wine-
flasks lack individuality. If they were left carelessly about, there
was no certainty of ever looking upon their labels again.
724 THE IDLER.
Consequently, when the diners rose from the table, each man or
woman hugged his or her bottle to his or her breast (beastly
phrase, that " his or her," I want to talk about it some day),
and so the Bacchic procession filed out . It struck me that it
would make an excellent scene in a farcical comedy or a comic
opera. The situation has never been done upon the stage, and ,
with the generosity natural to a man who is not in the dramatic
ring, I present it to anyone of you who is. Perhaps it would
be best, in a comic opera . It would lend itself to a good opening.
chorus. Something like this-
We carry our bottles ,
Our flasks and our pottles ,
Like wise Aristotles ,
Who know what is what.
We're bound to retain ' em ,
For others would drain ' em
Nor should we regain ' em,
If once we did not.
Now that is absolutely impromptu , so I will not have it criticised .
flatter myself, however, it is quite up to the mark of the average
libretto. I do not intend to be complimentary to the average
libretto, which has long been the disgrace of the London stage.
To return to our bottles . I discovered that it is much more
economical to drink wine than beer, because when you are going
away you get sixpence off the bill for every empty flask you leave
behind you. If you drink beer you get nothing back. A simple:
process of calculation shows that if you only drink wine enough
you can wipe off the entire bill, perhaps even get a profit over,
sufficient to cancel your travelling expenses . I intend to go into
the figures in detail and publish a pamphlet on " How to Have a
Seaside Holiday For Nothing."
al

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THE IDLER MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY TO JULY, 1892.

JEROME K. JEROME & ROBERT BARR .

FEBRUARY TO JULY, 1892 .

The American Claimant.

HE Colonel Mulberry Sellers here re-introduced

The name was changed from Eschol to Beriah to accom-

WEATHER FOR USE IN THIS BOOK.

A brief though violent thunderstorm which had raged over the

There was every indication of a dust-storm , though the sun

It rained forty days and forty nights . -Genesis .

IS a matchless morning in rural England.

you somehow seem to be contemplating a lamb in armour ; his

" Keep that exasperating name to yourself ! For ten years it

" Ye-s," with hesitation and some embarrassment.

reason for resolving to renounce my heirship without resistance is

evidently a secretary with a most confident swing and florish to

OLONEL Mulberry Sellers-this was some days before

LIKEWISE HIS WORKSHOP.

any joy to unconfine, you'll be the healthier for it every time-

and so at last I consented- no getting out of it , had to do it, so

Member of a Diplomatic Body accredited.

" It is wonderful, Colonel- simply wonderful . "

Though the clouds be thick

EAD leaves whisper, " so they show it,

Know, say, from what tree they showered ,

Yes, and you yourself to-day, friend,

" Dead leaves whisper " in strange places,

And we listen, and we ponder

Dead leaves in the twilight glistening,

" Dead leaves whisper." Right, my brother !

O dream over literary projects, Balzac says , is like " smoking

not fall in love, the heroine's

the last. After playing in a comedy at the house of an Earl , Rose

BURIED AFTER CULLODEN.

louis that Murray of Broughton buried after Culloden ? Mr. Louis

Another tale Hawthorne

for me the novel of which Byron only wrote a chapter ; who, as

ART & theKING

Beinga Deplorable Trushset forthind

al -focame, & lay'd Offerings before Demos, Offering

Notices,each one concerning hym-felf&the Vertves of hys Prefentment of this Part

Parabolam iftam veridicus narrauitJohannesBernardi's

LONDON, Emprinted for Chatto and Windvs, &

T is better to be born lucky than rich," says the proverb,

" I admit, my dear fellow," he will say, with a very charming

" DON'T LET OUT THAT YOU MET ME HERE."

astounding misfortune was to prove a blessing in disguise, that

emotion, that the painful spectacle which my son exhibited to

HE idea has doubtless occurred to many that if it were

Thus, if to Mr. Gladstone's vast experience we could add some

What we cannot at present do with their minds we fortunately

These are no ideal touched-up portraits, but the actual results

In several cases the combinations work out so curiously that

LORD SALISBURY. RIGHT HON W. H SMITH .

RIGHT HON. A. J BALFOUR. RIGHT HON. G. J. GOSCHEN :

SALISBURY- SMITH . SALISBURY- BALFOUR.

SALISBURY- GOSCHEN. SMITH- BALFOUR- GOSCHEN .

SALISBURY- SMITH- BALFOUR- GOSCHEN.