NITY 
 
 x 
 
 m
 
 THE SECOND OPPORTUNITY 
 
 OF 
 
 MR. STAPLEHURST 
 n movei 
 
 BY W. PETT RIDGE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "A CLEVER WIFE" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 1896
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 A CLEVER WIFE. A Novel. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 25. 
 
 An entertaining novel. Pall Mall Gazette, London. 
 
 Clever and humorous. M^orld, London. 
 
 The author writes well, and the book is interesting right 
 through. London Daily Chronicle. 
 
 A brightly written and entertaining story. Scotsman, 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 
 
 Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 THE SECOND OPPORTUNITY OF 
 MR. STAPLEHURST
 
 THE SECOND OPPORTUNITY OF 
 MR. STAPLEHURST 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE Nomadic Club was holding its monthly 
 dinner, and the dinner had reached that happy 
 moment when dessert arrives. Quite one-half of 
 the men in this world look upon the eating of 
 a long dinner as a tiresome crime, and nearly 
 every-body at the four long tables was content to 
 see nuts on the table. The Nomadic Club had 
 no home (which was right and appropriate on the 
 part of Nomads); it existed only for the pur- 
 pose of dining once a month. 
 
 To this feast it was its cunning habit to invite 
 as guest of the club the most prominent man it 
 could catch, and extort from this guest a speech. 
 
 " Members of the Nomadic Club, you may 
 smoke ! " 
 
 The members edged their chairs slightly back
 
 from the tables, and cigars and cigarettes and 
 pipes came out. The youngest members smoked 
 pipes under the impression that it made them 
 look Bohemian. 
 
 "Look here, Staplehurst," whispered the 
 Chair, "I'll propose the Queen first, and then , 
 after a bit I'll propose your health, and 
 then " 
 
 "My dear fellow," said the Guest of the 
 Evening, with much fervor, "if I have any 
 influence with the gods, some happy accident 
 will intervene to prevent you. I rather fancy 
 a thunderbolt will come through the ceiling and 
 knock you over, but I'm not sure about the de- 
 tails. I had no idea that a speech was indis- 
 pensable." 
 
 " For a man who has written the big book of 
 the year," said the Chair, "you are an uncon- 
 scionably stupid person, Staplehurst. Why, this 
 ought to be the proudest moment of your life! 
 If any one thing represents Fame, this does. 
 Here are you, invited by a body of representa- 
 tive men in art and literature and what not " 
 
 "What not is good." 
 
 "And yet you aren't happy. Why, upon my 
 word, Staplehurst do you want a light ? upon
 
 my word, I believe you're one of the men who 
 don't know when they're really well off." 
 
 Gilbert Staplehurst looked at the red end of 
 his cigar and stroked his short-clipped beard 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " I am nearly always crying for the moon," he 
 confessed. " It's rather pleasant to desire the 
 absolutely unattainable." 
 
 ' ' Soyez content, mon ami. You have a charming 
 wife." 
 
 "That's quite true," agreed Gilbert Staple- 
 hurst with much heartiness. 
 
 ''You're earning goodness knows how much a 
 year out of your books." 
 
 "My income is pretty fair, certainly." 
 
 " Big house at Chelsea; no children to bother 
 you; only slightly gray; not corpulent as to 
 figure. Why, bless my soul, Staplehurst, what 
 more do you want?" 
 
 The Chair, rising to propose the loyal toast, 
 looked down indignantly at his friend. Chair 
 was so perturbed that he threw a suggestion of 
 defiance into his brief proposal of the health of 
 Her Majesty that was scarcely necessary. 
 
 " Now," said Chair, resuming his seat "now 
 I'm going to propose your health directly, Staple-
 
 hurst. You'd better make a note or two of what 
 you want to say in reply." 
 
 The man on the other side of Staplehurst 
 nudged him, and he turned. 
 
 " When are you coming up to my studio ? " 
 
 "I think I'll come soon, MacManus. Mrs. 
 Staplehurst is going away for six weeks, taking 
 her mother to the Cape, and I'm to be a 
 bachelor." 
 
 "Ay, man," said Mr. MacManus, "some of 
 you get all the luck." 
 
 "It will be rather miserable for me," said 
 Staplehurst thoughtfully. "We're neither of us 
 very happy when we're apart." 
 
 "Ye're a bit old to be in love, man. The 
 coortin' days are by, surely!" 
 
 "I think a man should always be his wife's 
 sweetheart." 
 
 "It depends," said Mr. MacManus thought- 
 fully " it depends to a great extent on the wife. 
 In streect confidence, I'll tell you, now, that Mrs. 
 MacManus will never toolerate for a single mo- 
 ment any thing of the kind. Thirty years ago, 
 now, it was so deeferent : I was a bit lad then, 
 and I married her, and ay," MacManus sighed, 
 "we were happy."
 
 Gilbert Staplehurst nodded his head in acqui- 
 escence. 
 
 "There's nothing so precious," he said, "as 
 youth." 
 
 He wrote on the back of the menu with a small 
 pencil three words "Thanks," "Success," 
 "Youth." The word " youth " he underlined, 
 that he might not forget to speak of the topic 
 of which the word was to remind him. As he 
 held his pencil on the card, he looked before him. 
 For a moment he saw, not four long white-clothed 
 tables with quick-eyed men seated thereat, but 
 a train coming in at Paddington, and a youth 
 alighting before the train stopped, in his impa- 
 tience to make a name for himself with the least 
 possible delay a well-looking youth, with plenty 
 of wavy hair ; with the complexion that health 
 brings, and the quick step that comes with 
 twenty-two and thinks of going at forty and fifty 
 years. The youth of twenty-two looks about 
 him delightedly, observing every thing, almost 
 laughing with the sheer joy of living. He has 
 been up from Devonshire three times before, but 
 always with an economic aunt or a careful uncle. 
 This morning he is alone. To-day the fight 
 begins. He, young Gilbert Staplehurst, is his
 
 own regiment ; he has no one at his back to 
 encourage him. Outside Paddington Station 
 
 "Fellow-members of the Nomadic Club" (Mr. 
 Gilbert Staplehurst, as he hears the Chair's voice, 
 swiftly comes down from the clouds of retrospec- 
 tion to the table-land of reality), " I have to ask 
 you to drink with me the health of the guest of 
 the evening, Mr. Gilbert Staplehurst [Cheers]. 
 We are not accustomed at our dinners to use the 
 language that flatters at the expense of the lan- 
 guage that is true, and it is only right that I 
 should tell you frankly that Mr. Staplehurst, 
 unlike ourselves, has his faults [Laughter] ; he 
 has the impudence not to be satisfied with his 
 career, albeit that career has been one that nearly 
 all of us present here to-night envy [Hear, hear !]. 
 
 "I need not give you a list of the works which 
 have made the name of Gilbert Staplehurst 
 famous wherever English literature is read. I 
 need not tell you how, after some years of steady 
 toil and, as Stevenson puts it, ' of slogging away, 
 day in and day out,' he not so very long ago 
 found himself one of the few men whom the 
 world delights to honor [Cheers]. We of the 
 Nomadic Club, who desire to meet talent and 
 acknowledge its existence, have done ourselves
 
 the pleasure of asking him to be our guest to- 
 night, in order that we may assure him of our 
 regard [Hear, hear!], of our admiration [Hear, 
 hear !], and our sincere felicitations [Cheers]. I 
 give you the health of Gilbert Staplehurst ; and 
 if one or two of you can sing without causing any 
 fatality [A laugh], we might give it with musical 
 honors" [Cheers]. 
 
 The Nomadic Club was made up of excellent 
 young men, most earnest in their various profes- 
 sions, and with many public and private virtues ; 
 but of these virtues accuracy in music was not 
 one. Nevertheless, the congratulatory chorus of 
 "For he's a jolly good fellow " was given with 
 great enthusiasm ; and if some did sing an octave 
 lower than others, their hearts were doubtless in 
 the right place. Something came to the throat 
 of Mr. Staplehurst as, alone seated, he watched 
 the excitement. A good proportion of the mem- 
 bers were on what is called the right side of 
 thirty; some were as absurdly young as twenty- 
 one. The noise they were making delighted these 
 younger ones, and they gave the ''Hip-hip- 
 hurrah ! " with so much of strenuousness that a 
 jovial smoking-concert in the hall below, finding 
 itself outnoised, sent up presently a polite mes-
 
 sage by the waiter to enquire whether the earth- 
 quake was over. 
 
 "It's very good of you to say those pleasant 
 things," said Gilbert Staplehurst. 
 
 "Did it rather neatly, didn't I?" said the 
 Chair humorously. "I suppose that Demos- 
 thenes and myself are really the only two orators 
 worth mentioning." 
 
 "I am quite serious," said the Guest of the 
 Evening. 
 
 "You shouldn't be, Staplehurst. Life is not a 
 performance to be serious about. The best way 
 is to look on and laugh." 
 
 "I should laugh," said Staplehurst good- 
 temperedly, "if I were only as young as some 
 of these lads round me. It's a fine thing to 
 have the world before you, instead of behind." 
 
 "No use worrying about that," said the Chair 
 wisely; "it can't be altered. The whole scheme 
 of things is not to be changed to suit even dis- 
 tinguished writers. My own opinion is that the 
 gods know what they're about, and that it's all 
 for the " 
 
 The secretary of the Club came and whispered 
 to the Chair. 
 
 "Certainly, Rowlands; let him sing now by
 
 all means if he wants to get away. Mr. Staple- 
 hurst can reply afterward." 
 
 The piano in the corner of the large room was 
 moved to a new position, and its candles were 
 lighted. A tall youth finished his coffee, and 
 strolled with an air of elaborate negligence from 
 his seat to the music-stool. Then, in a most 
 excellent baritone voice, and to his own vamped 
 accompaniments, he sang: 
 
 "There are joys of this earth of most excellent worth, 
 That to most of us sometimes arrive ; 
 But there's one that is sweeter than others you meet here 
 'Tis the joy just of being alive. 
 For when " 
 
 "Will you have a Chartreuse or something, 
 Staplehurst ? " asked the Chair. 
 
 "No, thank you not before I've got over this 
 speech business." 
 
 "Cheer up," said the Chair encouragingly. 
 
 "'At such a time,'" quoted Gilbert Staple- 
 hurst, with a laugh, " ' the mind, Mr. Wilfer, 
 naturally reverts to the past.'" 
 
 "You men with a past are nearly as great 
 'a nuisance as men with a future. What's the 
 matter with your past?" 
 
 "Nothing," exclaimed Staplehurst definitely.
 
 He glanced at the long white ash of his cigar. 
 "Nothing at all. Twenty years ago was the 
 happiest time of my life." 
 
 "Nonsense ! " 
 
 "I am speaking," said the Guest of the Even- 
 ing, with much earnestness "I am speaking 
 the absolute truth." 
 
 "That's a habit that will grow on you, if 
 you're not careful," remarked the Chair warn- 
 ingly. 
 
 The baritone youth at the piano concluded his 
 song with a triumphant manner : 
 
 " And here's to the health and the wisdom and wealth 
 Of the man who is always alive ! " 
 
 And hurried off. 
 
 "Now, Staplehurst" 
 
 Tremendous applause. Clattering of knives, 
 tapping of tables, the confused "hear, hear "-ing 
 that reporters called "cheers." 
 
 The tall figure of the Guest stood up. He 
 looked around the room at the flushed faces of 
 his young hosts; he passed his hand over his 
 prematurely grayish hair, and looked down at 
 the notes before him "Thanks." 
 
 "Gentlemen : let me try to tell you, if I can,
 
 ho.w much I appreciate the compliment that you 
 are paying me to-night. The good feeling of 
 one's fellow-workers is a priceless possession; 
 you, by your kindness to-night, are making me 
 believe that my enemies are few, and that my 
 friends are many [Cheers]. I shall not forget 
 this evening. It is not every thing in this life 
 that happens precisely as one would wish, and the 
 fault is perhaps generally one's own. I often 
 think that, if we were permitted to live our lives 
 over again, we might profit from the experience 
 of the first essay [Laughter], and comport our- 
 selves with something more of discretion. But 
 under the present rules of the game it is not 
 permitted to have a second innings, and we have 
 to take our own life as we find it, and do the 
 best we can with the brief training that we get. 
 I should like, though, to think that whatever 
 may happen to me after I leave this room noth- 
 ing may erase from my mind the memory of this 
 evening with you all " [Loud cheers]. 
 
 Gilbert Staplehurst looked down at the second 
 word on his notes, " Success." 
 
 "Your chairman, gentlemen, has been kind 
 enough to refer to one or two of my books 
 which have attained some circulation. The
 
 worst form of conceit is the assumption of self- 
 contempt, and I wish to declare frankly that it 
 gives me great pleasure to hear my work praised 
 [Hear, hear !]. I passed through years of good, 
 solid, hard work, as some of you perhaps have 
 done [Hear, hear !], as some of you perhaps are 
 doing [Cheers], before I found that the age 
 beamed upon me. I don't regret that appren- 
 ticeship. I am sincere in saying, gentlemen, that 
 those were the happiest, the most delightful days 
 of my life [A laugh]. I am sorry to hear a laugh. 
 I can assure you that I am speaking sincerely." 
 
 The Club cheered, and the gloomy, straight- 
 haired youth who had ejaculated the Mephistoph- 
 eles-like laugh was frowned at by his neighbors 
 and became a prey to gloom. 
 
 "To be young, to have youth on your side, 
 that is the true secret of happiness. Your future 
 is in your own hands then ; you can make it, mar 
 it, or play the fool with it, just as you please. 
 We and when I say we, I am holding a brief for 
 the middle-aged folk we, I say, were all young 
 once. I feel to-night that I wish it were per- 
 mitted to be young twice [Laughter]. What 
 mistakes one might omit, what waste of time one 
 might avoid, how quickly one might reach the
 
 goal of happiness ! I'm afraid, gentlemen, that 
 it is useless to argue the question, or even to 
 submit here to the gods the inconvenience of the 
 present arrangement [Laughter], All that we 
 can do, all that I can recommend you to do is to 
 
 " ' Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,' 
 
 and do your best while youth is with you, for you 
 will never have a second opportunity. 
 
 " Gentlemen, only one word more." 
 
 One or two youths sighed at hearing this 
 remark. They knew that, with average orators, 
 this phrase usually precedes a lengthy harangue. 
 
 "One word more. That word shall be of 
 thanks to you, of thanks to the British public, of 
 thanks to my dear wife, whom I shall see this 
 evening before she leaves on a trip to the Cape, 
 and who has always been my best and dearest 
 friend [Cheers], and, finally, God bless you all!" 
 
 Staplehurst closed his speech hurriedly because 
 his reference to Mrs. Staplehurst had just for the 
 moment made him feel as though he could not 
 trust his voice. The room cheered and rattled 
 glasses, and when a flushed young journalist rose 
 and cried "Good old G.," the room cheered 
 again the familiar initial.
 
 " Now, if it won't appear rude," said Staple- 
 hurst to the Chair, "I should like to hear one 
 more song and then slip off. They won't mind, 
 will they ? Mrs. Staplehurst has to go by the 
 nine-thirty train from Paddington to her mother's 
 house, and they go away by the early mail to 
 Southampton to-morrow morning. She's a very 
 good old lady, the mother." 
 
 " Do be careful, Staplehurst," said the Chair 
 protestingly; "you seem bent on upsetting all 
 the traditions that have made England noble. 
 A man who will say a good word for his 
 wife's mother is a man who will say any 
 thing ! " 
 
 " Nevertheless it is the truth." 
 
 " That is no excuse. Besides, you are not the 
 man to stand up for truth. Fiction has always 
 been your best friend." 
 
 " If I were beginning my life again, I wonder 
 whether I should choose literature ? " 
 
 "A man," interposed MacManus from the 
 other side, " never chooses his path in life. The 
 path just chooses him." 
 
 " I'm not quite sure that I understand what 
 that means," remarked the Chair. "I'm going 
 to call on Waterson for a recitation."
 
 Gilbert Staplehurst waited for this. It was a 
 powerful recitation of the Kipling order. 
 
 " He's a gruntin', grizzly fool with a head just like a mule, 
 But he's just the man to fight the Widow's fight ; 
 And when " 
 
 The Nomadic Club cheered at the end with 
 sufficient turmoil to permit the guest of the even- 
 ing to shake hands unobserved with a few of his 
 immediate friends; to walk down stairs for his 
 hat and coat, a touch of rheumatism in the left 
 shoulder made him wince as the cloak-room man 
 helped him with his long overcoat, and to take 
 hansom for home. 
 
 " Right you are, sir. Winder up or dahn ? " 
 
 "Up," said Mr. Staplehurst; "the night's 
 chilly." 
 
 "Ah," said the cabman sympathetically 
 through the trap, "we can't stand the 'eat, sir, 
 and we can't stand the cold, sir, like what we 
 used to in our young days." 
 
 " What the devil do you mean by that? " asked 
 Staplehurst sharply. 
 
 "What do I mean, sir?" repeated the cab- 
 man. "What do I mean ? Why, I don't mean 
 no offence, that's a very sure thing."
 
 16 
 
 "No, no; of course not!" 
 
 Staplehurst felt ashamed of his sudden out- 
 burst. He stepped into the hansom. " Pad- 
 dington Station." 
 
 "I dunno how it is," muttered the cabman to 
 himself, " but I never seem ible to say the right 
 thing some'ow. Lord knows I try to be nice, 
 too. Whoever would 'a' guessed that he'd got so 
 ror all in a moment just because I sympathized 
 with him." 
 
 The hansom went swiftly Bayswater way. 
 Staplehurst, looking out through the window of 
 the cab, found his mind bent on the considera- 
 tion, not of to-night's dinner, not of the cheers 
 of the Nomadic Club, not of the kind things said 
 by every one about himself and his work, not of 
 the position that to-night's event marked as it 
 were in scarlet letters; instead his mind persist- 
 ently centred itself on the incidents of twenty- 
 five years ago. The scent came from the trees 
 in the park, with it a suggestion of wallflowers : 
 outside the railings the dilapidated artist held 
 his evening exhibition of art with the aid of 
 candles stuck in gingerbeer bottles. 
 
 Suddenly came one of those amazing little 
 scenes that keep London streets from being
 
 commonplace. Three youths, long-legged, bare- 
 headed, and dank-haired, in blue pants and vest 
 and running shoes and nothing else, came madly 
 down Edgware Road, racing for some goal with 
 a determination that made them oblivious of 
 the ironical cheers of small boys on the pave- 
 ment. 
 
 " Go it ! Go /// Why don't you run ? " 
 
 " 'Urry along, there ; 'urry along ! You'll be 
 late 'ome, if you ain't careful." 
 
 " I say, mister, where's your hat ? You've bin 
 and lost it, I lay." 
 
 The odd sight somehow assisted Mr. Staple- 
 hurst's reminiscences. He had been an athletic 
 enthusiast in his youth, and now, whenever he 
 had to see Dr. Ripon of Wimpole Street, Ripon 
 always told him that he was paying for the 
 over-training in his youth. These wise men of 
 Wimpole Street are ever giving one unavailing 
 information in regard to first causes. Staple- 
 hurst, too, like every one else of his age, 
 had to use an increased discretion in regard 
 to solids that are eaten and liquids that are 
 drunk. 
 
 "At twenty," said Staplehurst, looking at a 
 restaurant "at twenty I used to be able to
 
 i3 
 
 eat nearly every thing. I wonder why some 
 pleasures are not reserved for the later life. 
 Why," said Mr. Staplehurst expostulatingly to 
 the cab horse "why cram them all into the 
 early years ? Ay?" 
 
 The cab horse seemed quite ignorant of the 
 answer to the riddle. 
 
 " From twenty to thirty, or a little after, 
 all the joy comes; all the excitement of 
 a man's life. He falls in love, he falls out; 
 he makes the foundation of his career, and 
 sees that the corner-stone is well and truly 
 laid; he " 
 
 "Hi !" 
 
 The cab pulled up. A youthful couple had 
 hailed it with so much decision that the cabman 
 did not dare but obey. 
 
 "Dear Mr. Staplehurst!" It was the youth 
 who spoke. " Madge and I are just getting 
 home, and we caught sight of you. You don't 
 mind our stopping you ? " 
 
 "It's dreadfully rude, I am afraid," said the 
 young lady; "but we're so happy that we are 
 doing all sorts of mad things." 
 
 Mr. Staplehurst stepped carefully out of the 
 hansom and shook hands.
 
 "And when did you come back from your 
 
 honeymoon, young people ? " he asked genially. 
 
 " Only on Saturday. And we've had the most 
 
 delightful tour you can possibly " 
 
 " Of course you have. And you liked Italy ? 
 Did it behave well to you ? " 
 
 "Italy conducted itself charmingly," said the 
 beaming young lady. " In fact, all Europe con- 
 spired on our behalf. And Herbert found, on his 
 return, such excellent news." 
 
 "Had a letter from old Purfleet," said the 
 young husband, taking up his part in the duet, 
 
 " offering me " 
 
 He whispered confidentially. 
 "Good ! " cried Gilbert Staplehurst. "I con- 
 gratulate you. And I wish you once more all 
 sorts of good luck. You have every thing in 
 your favor." 
 
 "We are going to settle down," she declared 
 with enthusiasm, " into the quietest young 
 couple you ever invented, Mr. Staplehurst. Do 
 you remember Mr. and Mrs. Warburgh in that 
 last novel of yours?" 
 
 "I had the inestimable pleasure of read- 
 ing that delightful work," said Staplehurst, 
 "and "
 
 20 
 
 "We are going to take them as our model, 
 aren't we, dear ? " 
 
 " The sweet girl lets her tongue run on, sir," 
 said the young fellow apologetically, "and for- 
 gets that we are keeping you here in the cold. 
 How's the sciatica, sir ? " 
 
 " Don't talk about it," said Mr. Staplehurst. 
 " I pretend to ignore it as long as I can. Good- 
 by, lucky young children." 
 
 " Good-by. Give our love to dear Mrs. 
 Staplehurst. Good-by." 
 
 Gilbert Staplehurst stood on the pavement 
 and watched the two young people hurry along in 
 the direction of the Marble Arch. The lady with 
 one hand bunched up her skirts carefully, as 
 young matrons (with an eye to dress bills) do; 
 with the other she took affectionately the arm of 
 her joyful husband. 
 
 Staplehurst sighed and turned to walk. 
 " 'Ere ! " expostulated the cabman. " 'Arf a 
 minute, sir; 'arf a minute! How do you think 
 a poor kebby's going to get drink and srnoke and 
 food if respectable middle-aged gents go bilking 
 of him like this ? If you don't want to be drove 
 
 all the w'y to Paddington, why " 
 
 It dawned upon Staplehurst that in his absence
 
 of mind he had forgotten his cab. He tossed, as 
 peace-offering, a four-shilling piece to the in- 
 dignant cabman and stepped in. 
 
 "Good luck to you, sir !" cried the cabman, 
 with a quick change of manner. " May you 
 never know what it is to " 
 
 "Drive on!" said Mr. Staplehurst.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 PADDINGTON STATION was, as to one part, in a 
 state of serenity and partial darkness; as to plat- 
 form No. i it was bustle, activity, and light. A 
 few passengers, nervous of being left behind, 
 were seated in the train, and in order to get well 
 forward with the work of saying farewell, had 
 already kissed their friends several times over. 
 In the refreshment room men were swallowing 
 cups of coffee and trying (with no success) to 
 make the reserved young ladies who had served 
 them to smile. 
 
 At the big bookstall, passengers read the titles 
 of a lot of books with an air of acute criticism, 
 finally rejecting all of them in favor of an evening 
 newspaper with a full account of the last and 
 best and brightest murder. A blustering com- 
 mercial traveller, annoyed at being charged the 
 correct amount for his excess luggage, used lan- 
 guage to the calm porter of such a character that 
 a small, fat, white baby near, of Puritanical views, 
 wailed aloud and absolutely refused to be com-
 
 23 
 
 forted until the commercial gent cooled down 
 and resumed the language to which the small 
 baby had been accustomed. 
 
 Mr. Gilbert Staplehurst entered the station 
 and went in search of his wife. Her good-look- 
 ing face lighted up as she saw him. 
 
 "I am so glad you are in time to see me off, 
 dear. You're not tired out with the evening ? " 
 
 " I am just a little fatigued," said Mr. Staple- 
 hurst. He stood on the platform with his wife ; 
 the guard touched his cap and locked up a 
 compartment. 
 
 " They were all very enthusiastic and noisy 
 and " 
 
 " And your head aches a little ? " Mrs. Staple- 
 hurst passed her small plump hand over his 
 forehead with an affectionate action. " I wish I 
 were not going now. Only poor mother will 
 expect me and " 
 
 " My dear," said Staplehurst, holding her 
 chin, "you must think of somebody besides your 
 husband." 
 
 " My mother and my husband are the only 
 folk I want to think of. I'm only a woman." 
 
 They walked toward the bookstall. The big, 
 broad platform was busy, and passengers with
 
 mountains of luggage were becoming scarlet with 
 worry. 
 
 "And," Mrs. Staplehurst laughed nervously, 
 "because I'm only a woman " 
 
 " It's enough, dear." 
 
 "Only a woman, I can't help a very stupid 
 feeling that something extraordinary is going to 
 happen before I return." 
 
 "If you will give me a hint, Alice, I will see 
 what can be done. Would you like " 
 
 " I almost wish, Gilbert, that you too were com- 
 ing for a change." 
 
 " If I am bored with my own company I will 
 go somewhere." 
 
 "I shall write as often as possible," went on 
 Mrs. Staplehurst, taking up two or three peri- 
 odicals, " and I have a two-shilling piece, dear 
 and if you can find time, you must send me just 
 a line to Madeira to meet us on our return. 
 That's the only chance you will have. The doc- 
 tor says that dear mother must keep going." 
 
 " If anything happens, dear, to prevent you 
 from getting a note you mustn't think that I have 
 forgotten you." 
 
 She pressed his arm, and Mr. Staplehurst 
 laughed suddenly.
 
 "Upon my word, Alice," he whispered, 
 " we're talking as though we were only half our 
 real age. Nobody who heard us would imagine 
 that we had been married for twenty-five years ! " 
 
 " I don't believe it is twenty-five years," de- 
 clared Mrs. Staplehurst obstinately. "I believe 
 it has been more like twenty-five minutes. Is 
 that the bell for my train ? Perhaps I had better 
 take my seat." 
 
 The guard was there. Guard anxious to have 
 a word or two to say to Mr. Staplehurst, in order 
 that he might quote the author's responses in 
 Exeter, where Staplehurst's popularity was great. 
 To-morrow, in the Northcote Arms, guard 
 would repeat word for word his Brief talk with 
 the West Country novelist, and listeners would 
 urge cider upon the guard as recompense. 
 
 "You'll look after Mrs. Staplehurst, guard?" 
 
 "Don't you fear about that, sir. How far's 
 her going ? " 
 
 " Just to Torquay." 
 
 "Nothin' shall 'appen to your good lady this 
 side Exeter, sir. Yew're not going?" 
 
 The guard turned his lamp on Staplehurst's 
 evening dress and noted one or two details for 
 the information of the Northcote Arms.
 
 26 
 
 " No, Barker. I'm to be left alone for six 
 weeks or more. I sha'n't know what to make of 
 it at first" 
 
 "And the baby, Barker ?'" interposed Mrs. 
 Staplehurst from the carriage " the last one, I 
 mean ? " 
 
 "He's a fine child, ma'am," said Mr. Barker, 
 "a fine child, if ever there was one. But I tell 
 the missis that it mun stop now. Ten children 
 in a family is a good mod'rate number. May I 
 shut the door, ma'am ? Thank you, sir, thank 
 you. My eldest boy read your last book, sir." 
 
 " Is he still alive, Barker ? " 
 
 "Bless you, sir, he roared over some parts of 
 it fairly roared, he did. And then other parts 
 made him look very straight." 
 
 Mr. Staplehurst smiled at the compliment. 
 It is a hard literary heart that does not re- 
 joice when the compliment unexpected arrives. 
 Barker, lamp in hand, ran forward ; the inspector 
 appealed to passengers to take their seats, and 
 begged non-passengers to stand away from the 
 train. To the railway official the world is ever a 
 reformatory school of undisciplined pupils. 
 
 " No other message, dear ? " 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Staplehurst.
 
 The tears were in her eyes, for some women 
 will weep even at the most affecting moments. 
 
 " Excepting to kiss you." 
 
 Staplehurst put his head in at the window and 
 kissed his wife. The train jerked; a newspaper 
 boy played lawn tennis with evening journals, his 
 server using coppers; the guard stepped into his 
 brake and shouted something satirical to a lamp- 
 man about the lampman's face; Gilbert Staple- 
 hurst took off his hat and stood bareheaded as 
 the train drew out. 
 
 Then he went outside and stepped again into 
 his cab. 
 
 "Cheyne Gardens," said Mr. Staplehurst 
 shortly. 
 
 It must have been the parting from his dear 
 wife that made the fare thoughtful. He leaned 
 over the splash-board and looked at the lighted 
 shops, at the crowds on the pavement, at tall, 
 lanky scarlet soldiers escorting dwarf-like ser- 
 vants, and all the ordinary sights of the streets 
 he looked at these without seeing them. He 
 could only see a delighted young couple, in the 
 hats of years ago, walking in Kensington Gar- 
 dens and telling each other 
 
 "Here you are, cabman."
 
 28 
 
 Mr. Staplehurst thrust his hand up to stop the 
 cab. 
 
 "Will this do for you, cabman ? " 
 
 " Sir," said the cabman, with a burst of enthu- 
 siasm, "you're what I call a gentleman. You 
 know how to treat a poor kebby, you do. You've 
 got a 'eart as " 
 
 "Good-night." 
 
 On the narrow table in the hall was a letter 
 marked, "By hand. Immediate." Mr. Staple- 
 hurst took it upstairs to his comfortable study, 
 switched on the electric light, and took a cigar- 
 ette. -They were of a very mild brand ; he did 
 not dare to smoke much. With a small paper- 
 cutter he opened the envelope. 
 
 "Hang it!" exclaimed Mr. Staplehurst. 
 
 The editor of a weekly review begged that his 
 dear friend Staplehurst would let him have, by 
 ten o'clock on the following morning, without 
 fail, a two-thousand-word article in continuation 
 of a series of light mythological studies that had 
 appeared before. The editor hoped that his dear 
 friend Staplehurst would not disappoint him. The 
 editor had (he said) tons of ordinary stuff; what 
 he wanted, and what was so difficult to get, was 
 the stuff extraordinary. Editor suggested Juno
 
 2 9 
 
 as a possible subject. Ten o'clock to-morrow 
 morning. 
 
 Mr. Staplehurst pressed the knob by the 
 mantel-piece. 
 
 "Martha!" 
 
 "Yes, sir. Did you ring, sir?" 
 
 "You servants needn't stay up. I shall be at 
 work for a while. And, by the bye, I may be 
 going away. I'm not sure, yet, but it is possible. 
 If I do go, you can manage, I suppose ? " 
 
 Martha was a middle-aged maid who had been 
 with the Staplehursts for years. 
 
 " I think I know how to manage, sir," she said 
 severely. 
 
 "Yes, yes, of course! Those men haven't 
 been about the telephone, I suppose?" 
 
 "Why, yes, sir. Haven't you noticed it? 
 Here it is, in the corner of the room, just where 
 you said it was to be put." 
 
 "I hadn't noticed it." Staplehurst rose and 
 went toward the newly fixed instrument. It was 
 a neat little affair; he had ordered that it 
 should be furnished with all the latest im 
 provements. 
 
 "Wonderful thing, sir, steam I mean to say 
 'lectricity," remarked Martha. "I'm told that
 
 you can talk to almost any body and anywheres 
 through these." 
 
 "Almost," said Mr. Staplehurst. 
 
 He took the tubes off their supports and 
 peered curiously at the wires. 
 
 " I wonder," said Martha, " what in the world 
 they'll be inventing of next. Reely, there don't 
 seem any bounds to what they can do nowadays, 
 does there, sir ? Once they set their mind on 
 a thing, why, it's as good as done. At least," 
 added Martha respectfully, " that's how it seems 
 to me. There must be a limit to it all some 
 day. Some day some one '11 go a bit too far and 
 then " 
 
 Martha stopped because she felt that she was 
 becoming too talkative. 
 
 "Good-night, sir." 
 
 "Good-night, Martha. You won't forget 
 what I said ? " 
 
 "/ sha'n't forget, sir." 
 
 The article took about an hour and a half to 
 write. Staplehurst, reading it through, felt 
 bound to smile here and there, tired as he was. 
 The defence of Juno was definite and uncom- 
 promising; the article argued quaintly that she 
 and Jove were really model characters with
 
 no thought of guile, that their characters had 
 been besmirched by the ancient society journals 
 thirsting for scandal in high places. 
 
 "It is to be regretted that so long a time 
 should have been allowed to elapse before a 
 proper investigation into these affairs was made. 
 It is indeed a crying scandal to our ancestors 
 whose 
 
 " ' swords are rust, 
 Their bodies dust, 
 Their souls are with the saints, we trust,' 
 
 that they never moved hand or foot to defend 
 the character of the much-traduced Juno. 
 
 " For the Victorian Era this has been reserved. 
 The present writer, although he has only in this 
 brief paper essayed to point the way, trusts that 
 the Government will lose no time in offering a 
 Commission of the House for search after accu- 
 racy in these matters. Commissions have been 
 held on subjects less tangible; on none more 
 fraught with interest to the community." 
 
 "Why, bless my soul," said Mr. Staplehurst, 
 as he enclosed the scrip and marked it for de- 
 livery by an express messenger, "it was over
 
 a mythological article that I earned my first 
 money. I can remember how my heart jumped 
 then; I never have that delight now. I believe 
 that I was happier then in my dullest moments 
 than I am now in my brightest." 
 
 He walked to the telephone and looked down 
 on the small mahogany board. 
 
 "I wish," he said wearily "I wish to good- 
 ness I were young again." 
 
 A ring at the telephone, one distinct ring. 
 Mr. Staplehurst was so astonished that he did 
 not at first answer it. 
 
 Another ring. Loud, insistent, complaining ! 
 Mr. Staplehurst took the tubes from off their 
 supports and placed them to his ears. 
 
 " Hullo there ! " he cried. 
 
 " Oh, you've answered at last, have you ? * Are 
 you Gilbert Staplehurst ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes, of course I am. Who are you? 
 Speak up, please. Don't mumble so. Speak 
 out distinctly." 
 
 "I can speak distinctly enough," said the 
 voice at the other end testily, "if you'd only 
 listen. You people fly into such a temper over 
 the smallest " 
 
 "I'm not in a temper," exclaimed Mr. Staple-
 
 33 
 
 hurst warmly, " I was never calmer in my life. 
 It's you who are behaving stupidly. If you 
 will kindly keep cool, and tell me what you 
 want " 
 
 " I don't want any thing. I've got every thing 
 I want." 
 
 "You're lucky," said Mr. Staplehurst. 
 
 "I know that. It's my special department. 
 But look here ! I mustn't bandy words with 
 you. I have a good many things to look after, 
 and I can't afford to waste a whole night over 
 one individual." 
 
 Gilbert Staplehurst bit his lips to avoid an 
 excursion into intemperate language. There is 
 no more trying situation in this world than to 
 have to deal through the telephone with a defiant 
 unknown. 
 
 "Will you allow me to speak?" begged Mr. 
 Staplehurst. " I only want to ask you to be so 
 kind as to say before we go any further who 
 you are ? " 
 
 The voice gave the reply with great distinct- 
 ness. 
 
 "Jove?" repeated Staplehurst, "Jove what? 
 Jove who ? " 
 
 "Just Jove." 
 3
 
 34 
 
 "What's your Christian name?" demanded 
 Mr. Staplehurst aggrievedly. 
 
 " Haven't any thing to do with Christian names. 
 I'm a god, and my name's Jove. You know me. 
 Why, you wrote an article not long ago a very 
 good, sensible article stating the facts of my 
 case in a remarkably logical and admirable way. 
 I in fact I'm much obliged to you." 
 
 "That's all right," answered Mr. Staplehurst 
 uneasily. "I'm glad you liked it; you needn't 
 say any more about that." 
 
 " Oh, but I shall. It is not often I feel deeply 
 over any thing, but your kindness" the voice 
 quavered a little "your kindness really affected 
 me very much. And now I understand that you 
 have taken a brief on behalf of my wife, Juno. 
 You have explained several matters in a way," 
 the speaker coughed, " in a way that I must con- 
 fess would never have occurred to me. I should 
 say, Staplehurst, that you're a man who is mak- 
 ing his way in the world." 
 
 "I began rather late," said Mr. Staplehurst. 
 "I made mistakes when I was a youth, and in 
 that way I lost time. If I had my time to live 
 over again, I should know a great deal better 
 what I ought to do."
 
 35 
 
 " Still, you're all right now. Men should 
 never worry about the past. It's the present and 
 the future that count. And as regards the future, 
 Juno, who is really very much touched by your 
 kindness " 
 
 '- 'Where a lady is concerned," said Mr. Staple- 
 hurst lightly, "it behooves us all to see that her 
 fair honor is not attacked by an ignorant rabble." 
 
 "That's just the way she put it herself. That's 
 exactly what Juno said. But you are the first mor- 
 tal who has troubled to take up the attitude, and 
 Juno insists that we should do something for you." 
 
 " I couldn't really accept any thing. I'm very 
 well paid for the " 
 
 "Bosh !" 
 
 " I beg pardon ?" 
 
 "You don't know the kind of god with whom 
 you have to deal. You have only to express a 
 wish for something and, no matter what it is, I 
 will see that it is done." 
 
 " Don't you trouble," begged Staplehurst. " I 
 dare say there are plenty of people worse off than 
 I am." 
 
 "That's not the question at all. We're talk- 
 ing about you, Gilbert Staplehurst, and we don't 
 want a lot of other people brought into it.
 
 Besides, if you lose this chance, you'll be sorry 
 for it. It will never come again. Now is your 
 time. Make haste." 
 
 "I don't want you to think I'm not grateful," 
 said Staplehurst, with some anxiety, "but don't 
 you stop. I'm only wasting your time. Besides, 
 there's nothing that I really require just now." 
 
 "You're too modest by half. I can see that I 
 shall have to take this matter into my own hands. 
 You said that you wished you were young again. 
 You evidently want a chance of beginning life 
 once more, and of enjoying youth and happiness, 
 and " 
 
 "That was only a wish," explained Mr. Staple- 
 hurst. " If it had been a possible thing, I might 
 not have thought of it." 
 
 " Don't talk of impossible things to me, sir. 
 It won't take me a moment. I'll do it, just to 
 show you that the gods can be grateful when they 
 like. Consider it done." 
 
 There was a noise as of the tubes being 
 replaced at the other end. A delightful sensa r 
 tion of virility went through Staplehurst's veins. 
 He let the tubes fall. The electric light went 
 suddenly out ; bright, fresh daylight came to 
 his eyes, and made him blink.
 
 37 
 
 He stumbled, and recovered himself quickly. 
 In a mirror at the opposite end of the room he 
 had entered he saw his reflection; and a very 
 pleasant reflection it seemed to be a young face 
 of a lad of twenty-two, plenty of dark hair, good 
 complexion, in the eyes a quick, cheerful look. 
 
 " Hullo !" he cried. 
 
 The carpet was nearly covered with slips of . 
 proofs, "pulls" of sketches, manuscript, and 
 empty envelopes. In the corner was a waste- 
 paper basket intended for the reception of these 
 articles, but this held three siphons of soda- 
 water. A large, square table stood in the 
 middle, and this, too, was covered with literary 
 matter, but with just a suspicion more of order 
 in its disorder. A shaded lamp depended from 
 the ceiling; the date-case in the corner was only 
 about eight months behind; a huge Parisian 
 advertisement, by Cheret, of a capering damsel 
 was on one of the walls; and piles of blazingly 
 new books stood like pyramids in three places. 
 
 The red, curly-headed man at the table looked 
 up as Gilbert entered. 
 
 "Hullo, Gilbert!" said the man at the table, 
 "you're late this morning, aren't you? Where 
 have you been, old chap ? "
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 GILBERT stood for a moment on the doormat 
 and gasped. 
 
 "I've had rather an upset," he said. " I can't 
 explain it to you exactly, but " 
 
 "That's a good thing," said the man at the 
 table. " Start at once, will you, with this page, 
 and go through it very carefully. As sure as my 
 name is Bradley Webbe, we sha'n't get this thing 
 tabled to-night. I am half inclined to chuck the 
 whole business and run amok down the Strand." 
 
 Webbe took a cigarette from a tin box on the 
 table, and lighted it at the end of the one which 
 he was smoking. 
 
 " Aren't you enjoying life ? " asked Gilbert. 
 
 "Are you ? " 
 
 "I rather think," said Gilbert, glancing at 
 himself in the mirror with increased satisfaction, 
 " that I'm going to enjoy it very much indeed." 
 
 "Ah," said Webbe grudgingly, "you're 
 young. You don't know what it is to be thirty- 
 odd."
 
 39 
 
 " Don't I ? " 
 
 "Thank your stars that you don't, Gilbert. 
 Make the most of your time now. I've been in 
 a lot of places in my time, but I never enjoyed 
 myself anywhere so much as in the twenties." 
 He looked up from the galley-proof which he 
 was examining. " How do you spell furieuse- 
 ment, Gilbert? The chap who writes this column 
 uses the phrase every week, 'fa donne furieusement 
 d penser.' I wish to goodness these fellows 
 would stick to the English language." 
 
 Gilbert gave the information. 
 
 "Have you had your monthly check yet?" 
 demanded Webbe. 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "It will be in to-night, thank the Lord! I 
 want mine; you're different." 
 
 A sudden fear came over the new young man. 
 He had little desire to start life again with no 
 money at all in his pockets, and he went hastily 
 through them to ascertain the extent of his re- 
 sources. To his great relief, he found that the 
 few sovereigns which were in his dress waistcoat 
 before the change had been transferred to his 
 present more free-and-easy tweed suit. 
 
 "Scott !" cried Webbe.
 
 40 
 
 "What's up?" 
 
 "You with five pounds in your pocket, and 
 to-day pay-day ! " The amazed Bradley Webbe 
 affected to fall limp with astonishment. " My 
 boy, you're becoming miserly." 
 
 "It's just as well to look after money, Webbe; 
 you can't trust it to look after itself. Young fel- 
 lows squander their cash a great deal too freely; 
 if they would only save a little in their early 
 youth, it would be so much better for them. 
 There's an old Scotch adage " 
 
 A "Whittaker's Almanac" caught the young 
 lecturer on the arm and made him cease. 
 
 " I can stand a lot of things," said Webbe 
 definitely, "but I can not and will not stand 
 Scotch adages. Ring the bell, will you ? " 
 
 A small, bare-headed, sombre-looking boy came 
 in and took the slips which Webbe handed to him. 
 
 "Wait a moment, boy; Mr. Gilbert is nearly 
 ready." 
 
 "Sha'n't be one minute," said Gilbert. 
 "How's your mother, youngster?" 
 
 "Don't you begin chipping me, sir," said the 
 small boy moodily. "I've got plenty to worry 
 me without being chaffed. It's a licker to me 
 how I get through it all."
 
 "Cheer up, Barling," said Webbe encourag- 
 ingly. 
 
 "It's all very well to say 'cheer up,'" said 
 Master Barling, which increased gloom; "it's 
 another fing to go and jolly well do it." 
 
 "I perceive," said Webbe, placing one leg over 
 the arm of his chair, "that Miss Tomkins has 
 been unkind." 
 
 "Onkind!" repeated the small Barling 
 crossly " onkind, you call it ? If you awsk 
 me, I should call it croolty to animals ! 'Ere's 
 me takin' that girl out Sunday after Sunday, 
 givin' of 'er ices and chocolates and every thing 
 the 'eart can wish for, and lawst Sunday what 
 does she do but strolls out as cool as you like 
 with [Master Barling gasped] 'Erry Rogers ! " 
 
 "Barling," said Bradley Webbe with assump- 
 tion of much interest, "surely you are not telling 
 the truth." 
 
 "It's gawspel," said the boy, " gawspel. Goes 
 out with 'Erry Rogers, that works round 'ere at 
 Spottiswoode's; a chap he ain't fifteen a chap 
 that can't smoke and don't know a race-'orse 
 from a blooming 'air-pin." Master Barling 
 rubbed his nose with the vague, wistful air of a 
 man who cannot understand the orderings of
 
 Providence. "But I know one thing and that 
 ain't two. That girl " 
 
 " Miss Tomkins ? " 
 
 11 That's 'er, sir. She can go down on 'er 
 bended knees and beg and pray of me to keep 
 company wif 'er again, but " Master Barling 
 frowned severely "never no more. Once bit, 
 twice shy. She'll be sorry for it some day. The 
 time '11 come when she " 
 
 "Here you are, Barling," said Gilbert, handing 
 over the corrected proofs. 
 
 " Thank you, sir." Master Barling came over 
 and whispered confidentially to Gilbert. " Miss 
 Reade is down stairs, sir." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 " Talking to Mr. Besterton, sir. Thought I'd 
 mention it." 
 
 "You did quite right," said the mystified 
 Gilbert. And the small boy went. 
 
 " You might write a story on that," suggested 
 Webbe, looking up from his writing. "That 
 would rather suit your style, Gilbert." 
 
 "Oh," said Gilbert, "that's my style, is it?" 
 
 "It's a style," said Webbe candidly, "that, as 
 you know, /can't get over." 
 
 "Too lofty?"
 
 43 
 
 "Oh, dear, no! But still some people like it." 
 
 "I'm glad." 
 
 "And I dare say you'll improve as you get 
 older." 
 
 "That's something to look forward to, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 "Where you're lucky is in having the Proprie- 
 tor on your side. And you've no relatives to 
 
 borrow money from you, and In fact, 
 
 Gilbert, you're a deucedly fortu-nate fellow 
 altogether." 
 
 " Hooray ! " remarked Gilbert calmly. 
 
 " Did that boy say that Kittie Reade was 
 down stairs ? She's really an exceedingly good 
 sort. Clever, too, in her way. Her mother is 
 tiresome, but some people are very unfortunate 
 in the parents they choose. There's a subject 
 for you. Do for a turnover for the Globe ' The 
 Choice of Mothers.' ' 
 
 "How old should you say Miss Reade was, 
 Webbe?" 
 
 "You mean is." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I should say that at her next birthday she 
 would score twenty-two " 
 
 "Twenty-three and not out," said a cheerful
 
 44 
 
 young lady at the doorway. "If you will leave 
 your door open, and if you will talk about ladies' 
 ages, why " 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said Bradley Webbe, 
 rising from his chair hastily. " I didn't know 
 you were there, Miss Reade." 
 
 "I can quite believe that." She turned to 
 Gilbert. "And how are you?" she asked in a 
 lower tone of voice. 
 
 "I haven't felt better for years," declared 
 Gilbert joyously. " I am altogether like a new 
 man." 
 
 "I'm glad you've changed," said Miss Reade 
 quietly. "You said some unkind things last 
 night at the Stewarts'." 
 
 " Did I ? I didn't mean them." 
 
 Her pretty face brightened up at once. She 
 placed the large envelope on the table, opened 
 it, and took out the slips which it contained. 
 She handed them to Bradley Webbe. 
 
 "What I like about 'Marianne's' columns is 
 that they're always up to time," said Webbe. 
 " It's never a case of ' It cometh not, she said,' 
 with this ' Marianne.' " 
 
 "I am a most reliable young woman," said 
 Miss Reade. "I always keep my promises.
 
 45 
 
 This stuff signed ' Marianne ' comes here on 
 Wednesdays; on Fridays I have a column for 
 a Sunday paper ; on Mondays my column is 
 ready for the other journal. And short stories 
 thrown in! " 
 
 "You must earn very good money," said 
 Gilbert. 
 
 "The money is good," she said quaintly, 
 "but there is not always quite enough of it. 
 Parents cost a good deal of money in one way 
 and another." 
 
 She sighed a little. 
 
 " The pulls of your drawings will be here in a 
 few minutes, Miss Reade," said Webbe, "if you 
 don't mind waiting." 
 
 " Are you sure I shall not be in the way ?" 
 
 "We like you to be in the way," remarked 
 Gilbert. 
 
 She flushed and gave a comical little bow. 
 
 "How well some of these youths do pay 
 compliments, don't they?" said Bradley Webbe 
 admiringly. "I used to have a good manner 
 with me when I was younger, but Gilbert beats 
 me easily. I believe he studies ' Guides to Eti- 
 quette ' and 'How the Upper Ten Behave,' and 
 books like that ! Am I right ? "
 
 4 6 
 
 "You are exhibiting all your usual accuracy," 
 said Gilbert readily. He turned to the girl in 
 the office chair. "Where are you going to- 
 morrow evening, I wonder ? " 
 
 " I shall be at home," she said. " If you were 
 kind you would call and talk to mother for an 
 hour. Or let her talk to you." 
 
 "I wish you'd write down the address," said 
 Gilbert, " here on this slip. I always forget 
 numbers." 
 
 - "Thought you had a good head for figures," 
 remarked Webbe, as Miss Reade took the pencil 
 from her chatelaine and wrote. "You talked a 
 good deal about Mrs. Brentford's." 
 
 Miss Reade looked up quickly. 
 
 " Do you know Mrs. Brentford ? " she asked. 
 
 " Very slightly," declared Gilbert warily. " Is 
 this the full address ? No. 48 Alpha Terrace, 
 Regent's Park." 
 
 The boy came, in reply to Webbe's ring, with 
 the pulls of the costume pictures which were to 
 accompany the ladies' page. Barling touched 
 his forehead respectfully to Miss Reade, and 
 that young lady looked with care at the impres- 
 sions. 
 
 "That evening-dress sketch hasn't come out
 
 47 
 
 very well," she said, "but it was not my best 
 work. This walking costume is right enough, 
 but I haven't got the trick of drawing for reduc- 
 tion yet." 
 
 "You always recognize your own faults," 
 remarked Bradley Webbe, taking up his hat. 
 
 " Perhaps that's because there are so few of 
 them," remarked Gilbert. 
 
 " Isn't he simply perfect ?" demanded Webbe. 
 " Doesn't he say lovely things, Miss Reade ?" 
 
 "Sometimes," said Miss Reade. "Good-by, 
 Mr. Gilbert." 
 
 " Until to-morrow evening," said Gilbert, hold- 
 ing her hand for a moment. "I shall try to call 
 round at about eight." 
 
 "Do!" she said warmly. "Mr. Webbe, are 
 you going to see me into a 'bus ? " 
 
 "That was the idea," said Webbe. "And I 
 want to make a call. I shall be back in half an 
 hour, Gilbert. You might write something, if 
 you will, that can be set up for next week in 
 case the advertisements don't come in thick. 
 Ready, Miss Reade ? " 
 
 They went out and the door closed. Gilbert 
 resumed his seat and dipped his pen in the ink- 
 stand. He was thinking ; thinking a good deal
 
 of the young lady who had just left ; he was 
 wondering, too, whether he would find himself 
 able to write with facility. He began to write 
 the title. 
 
 "The Choice of " 
 
 A swish of skirts behind him. Two hands 
 on his eyes. The scent of a girl's hair. A 
 whisper : 
 
 "Guess who?" 
 
 She snatched up the gloves which she had left 
 on the table and hurried off. Gilbert, in a per- 
 fect glow of delight, went to adjust his dishev- 
 elled hair in the mirror. 
 
 "This is simply splendid !" he cried delight- 
 edly. "Why, I'm in love again!" 
 
 He had to walk up and down and around the 
 office several times before composure returned. 
 He experienced the joyful confusion of mind 
 that comes to the youth whose heart is affected ; 
 a confusion which is too well known to every- 
 body in this world to be here described at length. 
 Moreover, to attempt to do so were only, per- 
 haps, to expose the present writer's ignorance 
 and to bring upon him contumely from the 
 experienced. 
 
 Gilbert wrote as carefully as he could, and it
 
 49 
 
 gratified him to observe that he retained the 
 facility that he had enjoyed in his previous life. 
 In reading over the fourteen hundred words 
 which he managed to write before Bradley 
 Webbe's return, one or two conceits in the thing 
 almost made him laugh. 
 
 "What do you think of that, Webbe?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 Webbe looked it through swiftly, reading appar- 
 ently about six words on each page. 
 
 "Best thing you've done; not half bad," he 
 said, throwing it back. "I see that there's a 
 Cabinet Minister resigned. We shall have to 
 hunt up his portrait." 
 
 It was one of the great delights of the new life 
 to find that, at lunch in the Strand, Gilbert no 
 longer had to discriminate nervously between 
 about three light dishes from the bill of fare, but 
 that he could eat a good square meal with relish. 
 An elderly man, sitting at the marble table oppo- 
 site, looked at him enviously and sighed, and 
 sipped at the lime juice at his side. 
 
 "Enjoyed your lunch, sir?" said the pretty 
 waitress respectfully. She brought three cigars 
 in a wine-glass, and brushed the crumbs from 
 the table-cloth.
 
 5 
 
 "I haven't enjoyed one to such an extent," 
 declared Gilbert, "for twenty years." 
 
 The pretty waitress laughed so much that she 
 had to put her hair straight. 
 
 "You young gentlemen do exaggerate," she 
 said amusedly ; "one never knows whether you 
 are speaking the truth or not. I don't believe 
 you know yourselves half your time." 
 
 "Give me a light, Miss Miss " 
 
 " My name's Miss Bangs," she said, giving 
 him the match, "B-a-n-g-s." 
 
 "It's a very charming name," said Gilbert 
 pleasantly. 
 
 "It's a short name," confessed Miss Bangs; 
 "it has that drawback." 
 
 " Oh, that doesn't matter. You won't use it 
 long, I expect." 
 
 Miss Bangs looked around to see if any one 
 else was demanding her attention. Every-body 
 was apparently content, and Miss Bangs twisted 
 her fringe and patted the white pinafore covering 
 the bodice of her black dress, and smiled vaguely 
 at an advertisement of a new kind of ginger- 
 beer. 
 
 "Well," she said, "it doesn't become a girl to 
 brag, but I must say I've had chances that many
 
 another girl would have jumped at. There's 
 a gentleman now that mother's always urging 
 me to marry ; he's foreman in a warehouse at 
 least, he isn't exactly foreman, but he's very near 
 to it but," Miss Bangs sighed, "/don't know." 
 Miss Bangs glanced with something like admira- 
 tion at the good-looking fellow to whom she was 
 speaking. "What I think you want is a loving 
 heart," said Miss Bangs. 
 
 "There's something in that," agreed Gilbert, 
 "but it is necessary to be circumspect. And 
 those of us who are young should lose no oppor- 
 tunity of endeavoring to find the one " 
 
 "All right, sir," said Miss Bangs, to an impa- 
 tient customer. "I'll bring you some house- 
 hold bread in half a minute." 
 
 Gilbert discovered his own address in a book 
 at the Budget office, and when Bradley Webbe 
 told him he might go, he went outside a 'bus 
 from St. Martin's Lane to Bloomsbury in order 
 to see what the place was like. He found that 
 Doughty Street was a good broad street and 
 quiet, not far from the Foundling, and his 
 number looked even neater than the rest of the 
 houses. The landlady, sitting at the window of 
 the ground-floor room, bowed genially to him
 
 52 
 
 over the wire blind, and he opened the door 
 with the latch-key that he found in his pocket. 
 In the hall was a bust of William Pitt with some 
 one's straw hat set atop; a terra-cotta bust of 
 Clytie, and a well-filled hat-stand. 
 
 "I was just goidg up to your roob, sir," said 
 the small, neat servant with a cold in her head. 
 " I was takig up this bustard to put id the 
 cruet." 
 
 "Go on, Ermyntrude," said Gilbert. 
 
 "Jade, sir." 
 
 "I prefer to call you Ermyntrude for short." 
 
 It was really a very pleasant room. Two 
 windows looking out on the street, a bedroom 
 communicating, plenty of books about, a few 
 ferns, an open piano. 
 
 "Bistress's cobplibedts, sir," said the small 
 servant, "and will you dide id to-dight or dot?" 
 
 "I rather think I will dine in, to-night," said 
 Gilbert, " if you can let me have something soon. 
 I want to go out again." 
 
 "Goidg to a busic-hall, sir?" asked the small 
 girl as she laid the cloth. 
 
 " I might, perhaps." 
 
 It seemed a sparkish, youthful thing to do; 
 consonant with the acts of juvenility.
 
 53 
 
 "I wedt last week, sir," said the small servant, 
 placing a serviette on the table, "and / dever 
 saw adythidg so abusidg id all the days of by 
 life. They did carry od. I believe it does ady 
 body good to have a bit of ad outidg dow add 
 agaid. What I bead to say is, it wakes you up, 
 dod't it ? Have you dode with your evedig 
 paper, sir ? I'll take it dowd to bistress. She 
 likes to have a look through, just to read the 
 burders." 
 
 Gilbert, dining from an excellent joint of beef, 
 with a bottle of Beaune at his side, caught sight 
 of himself in the large, shining sideboard at the 
 end of the room, and stopping for a while, leaned 
 back in his chair and laughed out of sheer joy- 
 ousness. 
 
 "This is delightful ! " he cried. 
 
 He busied himself after dinner in opening the 
 drawers of the sideboard and gaining some idea 
 of the extent of his possessions. For the small 
 drawer in the writing-desk he could not find 
 a key, and he had to leave that unopened. 
 When he had finished his tour he sat down in the 
 deep, easy chair, took from the convenient rack 
 a pipe, and with some hesitation began to smoke. 
 
 " I've only had mild cigarettes lately," he said,
 
 54 
 
 " I don't quite know whether I ought to venture 
 on " 
 
 But the pipe, like every thing else, was excel- 
 lent to the taste of the young man. It soothed 
 him, too, and as he sat there he looked hard at 
 a portrait of a scarlet-faced general on the wall 
 and thought. 
 
 "I'm going to make ;.his a successful game," 
 said Gilbert, between the puffs, "and of course 
 I am going to enjoy life as well. With my 
 experience I shall be able to avoid a good many 
 of the blunders that are made by ordinary young 
 men. I don't see," he placed one foot hard 
 against the side of the mantle-piece, " I really 
 don't see why I shouldn't do uncommonly well." 
 
 "Fidished your didder, sir ? " asked the small 
 maid, reappearing at the door. 
 
 "Yes, thank you, Ermyntrude. Oh, and I 
 say, what time do the music-halls open ?" 
 
 "About half-past seved," said Jane. " We 
 got id early, by fred id the Arby ad be, because 
 we wadted to have our bodeys worth. But a 
 gedtlebad like you would just stroll id about 
 half-past eight. By word, you do see sobe 
 swells there, too. You are goidg, sir ? " 
 
 " I feel that nothing in this world, Ermyntrude,
 
 55 
 
 is. just now of any importance except a music- 
 hall. My heart's desire is to go to a music-hall. 
 Until I have been to a music-hall, life has for me 
 absolutely no attractions." 
 
 "I see what you bead, sir," said the small 
 maid, taking the tray. 
 
 "I can get in at the front door all right at 
 midnight, can't I ? " 
 
 "Bid-dight or bid-day," said Ermyntrude, 
 with some acerbity, "is all the sabe at this 
 blessed place." 
 
 The music-hall was a revelation to Gilbert. 
 He remembered that the last time he went to 
 one, he had been bored almost to tears by the 
 persistent idiocy of the performance. He saw 
 at once that there had been a considerable im- 
 provement, but there was, he knew, an improve- 
 ment also in himself, and the good temper of 
 every one affected his young head sympathetic- 
 ally. When the song-and-dance lady came on, 
 Gilbert found himself applauding, as vehemently 
 as the rest of the folk in the circle,, the not too 
 abstruse song and the not too demure dance 
 which she gave. 
 
 " This is the chap what '11 give you fits," said a 
 youth with a huge meerschaum cigar-holder, in
 
 the next seat. The number was being changed 
 to a large "9" by a magnificent footman. 
 Through the slight haze of smoke Gilbert noticed 
 the boy distributing fresh books of music to the 
 hard-working orchestra. " He's a fair knock- 
 out, this chap is. I saw him once "aving a drink 
 just like you or me might at a bar, and to look at 
 him you'd never guess he raked in fifty of the 
 best every week ! " 
 
 " Fifty pounds ? " 
 
 " Fifty solid pounds," said the informative 
 youth with the meerschaum cigar-holder. 
 " Fifty solid blooming sovereigns every bloom- 
 ing week of his blooming life." 
 
 The bell rang, the orchestra played a sym- 
 phony. It began to play it again, and as it did 
 so, a man came on in a confused uniform, with a 
 red nose, blue hair ; a sword between his legs. 
 
 " ' Oh, I am a volunteer officer bold, 
 I'm always the first on parade ; 
 If sometimes I catch just a bit of a cold, 
 I don't care ; I'm never afraid.' " 
 
 A small white cat strolled on the stage and 
 the comedian affected extreme fear. "Take it 
 away, man. You there with the calves. Drag
 
 57 
 
 this 'orrible " The magnificent footman 
 
 came on and took away the small white cat. 
 The hall roared at the carefully prepared joke, 
 and the red-nosed man marched to the chorus, 
 
 '"When the enemy comes over, you will find me down at 
 
 Dover ; 
 
 I shall only have to look at them and they will surely flee. 
 I shall argue with them kindly; then run away quite blindly. 
 If there's any body wounded, why ' " 
 
 (with much determination) 
 
 '"it won't be me !'" 
 
 Then a long string of preposterous patter, at 
 which Gilbert found himself laughing as loudly 
 as any one. 
 
 He enjoyed, too, the musical clowns who 
 played on every thing excepting musical instru- 
 ments, and the precocious infant in evening dress 
 who sang, 
 
 " ' We are the boys that make a noise, 
 At three o'clock in the morning.' " 
 
 The large, de'collete'e lady who sang songs of un- 
 certain sentiment about leaving her own sailor 
 boy, who'd gone across the sea ; the bicyclist, 
 who, at the end of his ten minutes' turn during
 
 which he had bit by bit discarded his bicycle, 
 rode round on half of one wheel of his machine 
 without the spokes; the girls with raucous voices 
 and amazing vitality who shouted till they 
 themselves were hoarse, and kicked till every 
 one else was tired. Gilbert liked them all. 
 
 The gas was out in his room in Doughty Street 
 when he returned. He felt in his waistcoat 
 pocket for a light, and found there, in addition 
 to a small silver match-box, a key. It looked 
 like the key of the small drawer in the writing- 
 desk, and he went at once to try it before light- 
 ing the gas. 
 
 The lid opened, and a long, narrow, white- 
 covered book lay on the top. It was a bank 
 pass-book, and Gilbert struck a wax vesta and 
 turned over the leaves. 
 
 " Balance to credit account, ^1852." 
 
 ''Well," said Gilbert, with great complacency, 
 " no one can say that I haven't a fair start."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AT Lord's the following day, where Gilbert 
 went to write for the Budget a descriptive sketch 
 of the game, he, by the merest accident, met a 
 man who apparently knew all about matters finan- 
 cial. He was a big, bald man, in a frock-coat 
 that bulged unevenly, and he asked Gilbert, as 
 they were standing under the clock, for a match. 
 He lighted a long, expensive-looking cigar, and 
 puffed up at the blue sky as though he were 
 furnishing the blue sky with a new cloud. 
 
 "What I like about a cricket field," said the 
 frock-coated man expansively, "is that every- 
 body's hail-fellow-well-met. Now, that's me all 
 the world over. I like to look upon every one of 
 my fellow-men as a friend, but hang it, sir, how 
 am I met ? Eh ? How am I met ? " 
 
 Gilbert, with the modesty of youth, hesitated 
 to offer a solution. 
 
 "Why," said the frock-coated man fiercely, 
 "by suspicion, by doubt, by hesitation, by want 
 of confidence, by, in short, a general exhibition
 
 6o 
 
 of those confounded traits that are sending old 
 England to the dogs." 
 
 He looked out at the play. "Well fielded, 
 sir, well fielded ! " he shouted approvingly. He 
 turned again to Gilbert. 
 
 " Sending the good old country to the dogs, 
 sir," he repeated. 
 
 "You think that is so?" enquired Gilbert 
 respectfully. 
 
 "Good gad, sir," cried the other explosively; 
 " I don't think. I never do think I know /" 
 
 " That, of course," said Gilbert apologetically, 
 " makes all the difference." 
 
 "Perhaps you're not an army man yourself," 
 suggested the frock-coated man. 
 
 " I labor under the disadvantage of not being 
 an army man." 
 
 "Ah !" said the frock-coated man, "as I ex- 
 pected. As I expected. There's a lack of de- 
 cision about civilians that always betrays them. 
 Now I'm a man who always hits the nail right on 
 the head." 
 
 "Very good place to hit it," said Gilbert. 
 
 "Right on the head, sir," he repeated insist- 
 ently. "I remember in the old days at mess, if 
 there was any dispute on any subject the boys
 
 6r 
 
 always said, ' Where's Dann ? Go and find 
 Dann, somebody. He'll settle it.' And by gad, 
 sir, what Captain Dann couldn't settle, wasn't 
 worth settling." 
 
 " There's room in the world," said Gilbert 
 politely, ''for men with heads." 
 
 "I'm in the City now," said Captain Dann, 
 sending another cloud up to the sky, "and a 
 pretty set they are there ? " 
 
 " You don't mean in a physical way ? " 
 
 "When I say a pretty set," said Captain Dann, 
 behind his hand confidentially, " I mean a pretty 
 bad set. Some of them will get stopped at it 
 some day, you mark my words. Things can't 
 go on for ever as they are going on now. There 
 must be a stop sooner or later. Do you take 
 any interest in business matters, sir ?" 
 
 " I shall have to take a little." 
 
 " There are several things being floated in the 
 City now that will never swim. They'll never 
 swim, sir. They'll sink as soon as they are 
 launched." 
 
 "Hard on the subscribers." 
 
 "I've no pity for them," declared Captain 
 Dann obstinately. "No pity for them at all. 
 If they'd only come and ask some of us we could
 
 62 
 
 warn them where they should not invest, and we 
 could do more than that." 
 
 "Tell them where they should invest ? " 
 
 " By gad, sir, you've hit it at once. You've 
 got an old head on young shoulders, I can see. 
 Tell them where they should invest. That 
 precisely describes it." 
 
 " I want to invest a little money in something 
 safe at about five per cent. It's in the bank at 
 present, and I see they only give me two." 
 
 "All banks, sir," said Captain Dann, "are 
 swindles." 
 
 " And if there's any thing going shortly that is 
 really safe, and promises a fair dividend, I shall 
 transfer some of it." 
 
 The man at the Nursery end cut a ball to leg. 
 It was a boundary hit, and the lookers-on ap- 
 plauded in the modest manner that is usual at 
 Lord's. Captain Dann offered his cigar-case. 
 
 " Some of the best, sir," he said. " Take one 
 and try it. I like to meet with young men of 
 sense. I always argue that they ought to be 
 encouraged. Hope we shall meet again." 
 
 "I hope so, too." 
 
 " Here's my card. That's my address in the 
 corner. If ever you want a bit of advice from
 
 a man of the world who knows the ropes, drop 
 me a line and make an appointment." 
 
 "You're very good, Captain Dann." 
 
 "It's my nature," said Captain Dann excus- 
 ingly. "We are what we are in this world, and 
 there's no getting away from that. You can't 
 fight against the eternal laws of Nature, sir." 
 
 Gilbert did not quite understand what this 
 meant, but he said he supposed that was so. 
 
 "Nature," said Captain Dann, speaking as 
 though Nature were a prote'ge" of his, whom he 
 was anxious to push into prominence "Nature, 
 sir, won't be trifled with. You can't do what 
 you like with Nature. Nature is one of those 
 things that gets its own way, and you may 
 kick, and you may squeal, and you may scream, 
 but Is this your card ? Thanks." 
 
 Captain Dann fixed his pince-nez and read it 
 with wrinkled forehead. 
 
 " ' Doughty Street, Bloomsbury,' " he said. 
 
 "A mere journalist," explained Gilbert, "can- 
 not afford to live in Carlton House Terrace." 
 
 "A journalist, sir," exclaimed Captain Dann, 
 mopping his forehead and looking fiercely at the 
 clock "a journalist follows the best and the 
 noblest profession in the world, and he can live
 
 6 4 
 
 where he deuced well pleases. He wields the 
 pen that carries the news of England's greatness 
 to er all ends of the world. All ends of the 
 world, sir. In fact," here he took Gilbert con- 
 fidentially aside and whispered, "in fact, as 
 I once put it, speaking after a dinner where some 
 press fellows were, the pen is quite as mighty, 
 in of course a different way, as the er sword." 
 
 He shook hands with much pleasantness and 
 told Gilbert that he believed Gilbert was going 
 to make his mark in the world. He said "good- 
 day " several times over, and went away toward 
 the exit gate into St. John's Wood Road hum- 
 ming a cheerful tune, and leaving Gilbert with 
 a vague feeling of gratification. 
 
 Gilbert strolled along to the press-box, and 
 from a good-natured youth there obtained one 
 or two facts. He noted also a few incidents on 
 the ground; listened to the talk of a few habitue's, 
 and then felt secure in having obtained all the 
 solid matter that was necessary. Too many 
 facts always hamper a descriptive writer. 
 
 "I wonder whether there is any body here 
 whom I know ? " he said to himself. 
 
 It was the one circumstance in this new life 
 of his which was disconcerting. The only plan
 
 was to nod to folk who nodded to him, and to 
 reciprocate any and every sign of amiability. 
 When, therefore, he found himself, just as he was 
 about to leave the ground, hailed by an insistent 
 voice, he turned at once, and finding that the 
 owner of the voice was a smartly dressed, attrac- 
 tive lady standing up in a landau, he raised his hat. 
 
 " Come here at once, Mr. Gilbert ! " cried the 
 attractive lady. "How dare you leave without 
 saying ' How d'you do ?' to me ?" 
 
 "Mrs. Brentford is not in the habit of being 
 overlooked," remarked languidly a stout youth, 
 standing with one foot on the step. 
 
 " I am very pleased to say ' How d'you do ? " 
 said Gilbert. " What is the answer to the ques- 
 tion ?" 
 
 "The answer is that I am very much an- 
 noyed," said Mrs. Brentford, with a comic affec- 
 tation of wrath. "Why didn't you come to 
 my last At Home, Mr. Gilbert? Why should 
 women any longer be trampled upon by brutes 
 in the guise of men ? Is it of any use writing to 
 the Times, I wonder, or shall I get a member to 
 move the adjournment of the House ? " 
 
 "I wouldn't take any hasty steps," said Gil- 
 bert. "The fact of the matter is, I have been 
 5
 
 66 
 
 very busy lately over an an unexpected stroke 
 of luck." 
 
 "Come next Thursday, then," said Mrs. 
 Brentford. " Bring Bradley Webbe." 
 
 "Shall I dress in sackcloth and ashes, Mrs. 
 Brentford ? " 
 
 " It is not a fancy-dress affair. You know 
 Mr. Lancing, the artist, I think ?" 
 
 Mr. Lancing, the stout youth, shook hands, 
 high in the air, and sighed after the exertion as 
 though it had nearly exhausted him. 
 
 " Oxford man ? " asked Mr. Lancing. 
 
 " Don't think so," said Gilbert. 
 
 "Ah! " said Mr. Lancing compassionately. 
 
 "Tell me exactly how the game is now, Mr. 
 Gilbert; and then we will go. I can give you a 
 lift as far as civilization." 
 
 Gilbert did as he was desired. She seemed 
 a very agreeable person, and the fact that she 
 spoke with restraint to the stout Lancing served 
 to accentuate her amiability. She was, perhaps, 
 nearly thirty (which is by some considered to be 
 the only real crime that a woman can commit); 
 but the new youth did not consider that a draw- 
 back. It gave her a genial elder-sister air that 
 was not displeasing.
 
 67 
 
 " Home," said Mrs. Brentford. 
 
 A quiet, confidential chat on the way down to 
 Marble Arch, that by adroit management on the 
 part of Gilbert gave him a deal of information, and 
 helped to place him to some extent au courant. 
 
 "I consider," said Mrs. Brentford, touching 
 his hand with her parasol, " that you have good 
 prospects, Mr. Gilbert, if you are only careful." 
 
 "Oh, I shall be careful!" 
 
 " You do hear of young men doing such stupid 
 things, though. There seems to come a moment 
 in their lives when they throw all discretion, all 
 common sense, to the winds." 
 
 "It's very silly of them, Mrs. Brentford." 
 
 " Usually," said Mrs. Brentford hesitatingly, 
 "it's over some girl. Some chit of a girl, on 
 whom the rest of the world looks quite calmly, 
 suddenly appears on the scene, and turns the 
 poor young man's head completely round." 
 
 She smoothed the lap of her dress, and glanced 
 at a well-dressed woman driving by. 
 
 "Still," urged Gilbert respectfully, " there are 
 men whose heads are screwed on the right way." 
 
 " I hope so." 
 
 " Hasn't experience told you that, Mrs. 
 Brentford ? "
 
 68 
 
 "I can't say that it has. Poor Mr. Brentford 
 was one of the queerest of men. He had the 
 most eccentric ways of running abroad, and run- 
 ning to Scotland, and running to America; and 
 I don't know where he didn't run. He was 
 never happy at home." 
 
 "I can't understand that," said Gilbert. 
 
 Mrs. Brentford gave Gilbert one of her im- 
 pressive looks, and then looked down shyly at 
 her small shoes and sighed. She was certainly 
 a striking woman, and the air of half-condescen- 
 sion, half-protection, with which she treated 
 Gilbert somehow gratified the youth exceed- 
 ingly. 
 
 "I shall be seeing some influential people this 
 evening people who have to do with the " 
 Mrs. Brentford whispered the name of a great 
 journal; "and, if you care for it, I should like 
 to speak of you and your work." 
 
 "That's exceedingly kind of you," said Gil- 
 bert enthusiastically. " I want to get on in the 
 world, and I've made up my mind not to lose 
 any chance of doing so. That's the only way, / 
 think. It is by missing opportunities for hitting 
 that you find, when you are bowled out, your 
 score is not worth mentioning."
 
 6 9 
 
 " You're quite right quite right. And be sure 
 to remember one thing." 
 
 "That is?" 
 
 "That you have a good friend in me. I'll do 
 all I can to help you." 
 
 "I can't thank you enough," said Gilbert 
 honestly. "I don't know why you should take 
 so much interest in me; but that only makes me 
 the more grateful. If I can ever show you how 
 sincerely " 
 
 "You see," she said hastily, "women are so 
 much more business-like nowadays than they 
 were. At one time they were a quantite" negli- 
 geable in the serious business of life; but that is 
 changed." 
 
 "I'm glad." 
 
 " Men no longer make faces at women who 
 interest themselves in affairs; unless, of course, 
 the women are silly, and I well, I'm not silly." 
 
 "The reverse." 
 
 "Shall we walk across Hyde Park," she 
 asked, "and send the carriage home? I am in 
 the mood for a talk with you." 
 
 Gilbert looked at his watch. 
 
 "I can listen to you for half an hour," he said. 
 "I wish I could do so for half a century."
 
 "You say things," said Mrs. Brentford, stop- 
 ping the carriage, " that you don't mean." 
 
 "I mean a good many things that I dare not 
 say," answered Gilbert. 
 
 " Hush ! " said Mrs. Brentford. 
 
 It was too early for the gathering of enter- 
 tainers just within Marble Arch; but one 
 speaker a dusty, demented, elderly lady was 
 there, and she was speaking, in a kind of subdued 
 scream, to one nursemaid and two boys and three 
 babies on the injustice from which she was 
 suffering. 
 
 " Oh, my fellow-sufferers ! " cried the old lady, 
 untying the black strings of her bonnet, and 
 addressing more particularly the three babies 
 "oh, my fellow-sufferers! it's time some of us 
 made a stand I say it's time some of us made a 
 stand. It's time some of us made a stand, and 
 put our foot down, and let those in 'igh places 
 see once for all that we are not to be trampled 
 on. I 'old in my 'and a few papers bearing on 
 my case, and I should like to read you some 
 extracts in order that you may see exactly 'ow 
 I've been treated." 
 
 She placed the small bag with no handle on the 
 gravel, and tipped her bonnet to the back of her
 
 head. She fixed one of the white, fat, staring 
 babies with a serious eye, and the fat baby 
 seemed to make an effort to enter into the spirit 
 of the game. 
 
 " In the year '69," began the dusty old lady 
 " in the year '69 the bank in which my trustees 
 'ad invested my money trustees whom I do 
 not 'esitate to refer to 'ere, in the light of 
 day, as sheep in wolves' clothing I mean to 
 say " 
 
 Gilbert walked across Prince's Gate way, with 
 Mrs. Brentford. They were as nearly as possi- 
 ble of equal height. Mrs. Brentford walked with 
 the grace that comes to those who have not dis- 
 dained exercise in the days of early youth; a 
 rustle, a swish of silken flounces, formed an 
 accompaniment to the musical chattering of her 
 voice. 
 
 "It's hard, I suppose, to feel that one has a 
 grievance against the world," she said. "It 
 must keep one always at a red-hot point. I think 
 every-body ought to be happy." 
 
 "That sounds like a good suggestion," said 
 Gilbert. 
 
 "If people would only keep up their spirits " 
 
 " Isn't that rather like the old story, Mrs.
 
 72 
 
 Brentford ? The full nigger always says to the 
 empty nigger, ' Keep a good heart.' ' 
 
 " I suppose one ought not to dictate behavior 
 to others. I know that even when I had the 
 letter from the Consul telling me of poor, dear, 
 eccentric Mr. Brentford's death I " 
 
 "He died abroad?" 
 
 Mrs. Brentford took out an absurd belaced 
 little handkerchief. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "abroad. He was always 
 more or less abroad. A dear, good fellow, but 
 so odd. And, of course, it was a great shock to 
 me, but I didn't let it disturb me too much." 
 
 " Quite right," said Gilbert approvingly. 
 
 "And although sometimes, of course, I feel 
 lonely," Mrs. Brentford sighed, and put the little 
 handkerchief back into its resting place, "still, 
 I don't allow the feeling to affect me for long." 
 
 "You are well off ? " guessed Gilbert. 
 
 "Oh, yes ! Oh, dear, yes!" 
 
 "'Even people who are well off are sometimes 
 happy." 
 
 "Money," said Mrs. Brentford, "is not an 
 absolute bar. How do you do ? " Mrs. Brentford 
 bowed with an indulgent air to some one who 
 was hastening across the grass with a book under
 
 73 
 
 her arm to Hyde Park Corner. The hastening 
 young person stopped, and the color came 
 quickly to her pretty cheeks. 
 
 " I can't stop," she said. " How are you, Mr. 
 Gilbert ? I have an appointment with an editor 
 man, and you know what they are ! " 
 
 "We won't detain you, Miss Reade," said Mrs. 
 Brentford politely. " Plenty of work ? " 
 
 " Miss Reade is always busy," said Gilbert. 
 
 "It is the better plan," said the young lady 
 with spirit. "The idle folk get into mischief, 
 and then busy people have to get them out of it." 
 
 "A poet named Watts," remarked Gilbert, 
 " has put the same argument rather neatly. I 
 haven't his poems with me, but I believe they 
 include a reference to Satan. Are you going 
 Strand way, Miss Reade ? " 
 
 "'Bus from the corner," said the young lady 
 promptly. 
 
 " Then if Mrs. Brentford doesn't mind I think 
 I'll come with you. You can manage alone, can't 
 you, Mrs. Brentford ? '' 
 
 " Quite well," she said. 
 
 " And you won't forget to speak to that man 
 about me?" 
 
 " I will be sure not to forget. Good-by."
 
 74 
 
 They were near to the band-stand. Mrs. 
 Brentford shook hands, lifted her skirt slightly, 
 and walked across Rotten Row. Gilbert and 
 Miss Reade turned east. They walked along for 
 some little time without speaking, and when, 
 eventually, Gilbert remarked that he had been to 
 Lord's to see cricket, his companion said, " Oh! " 
 as though the statement interested her not at all. 
 A long, tired man was asleep on one of the seats 
 with his legs extended, and Miss Reade would 
 have tripped over his feet, if Gilbert had not 
 touched her arm. 
 
 " Please forgive me," she said quickly. 
 
 "For what?" 
 
 "For being a silly, humpish young person. It 
 only lasts two minutes with me." 
 
 " Two minutes is long enough." 
 
 "It is much too long," cried the young lady 
 self-reproachingly. " It sha'n't happen again. " 
 
 "Was there any cause for it?" enquired Gil- 
 bert; "because, if so, we will remove it." 
 
 She stopped and laughed, and with a quick 
 return to good temper, pointed to the tall figure 
 of the far-off Mrs. Brentford. She assumed the 
 frown, and stamped the stamp, of a tragic 
 actress.
 
 75 
 
 " Look, sir ! " she exclaimed. Gilbert fol- 
 lowed the direction. "That, that is the cause." 
 She changed quickly to her ordinary self. 
 "And now let's get on the top of a 'bus and 
 forget all about her."
 
 V 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THERE were several matters in which Gilbert 
 felt that his previous experience was of value. 
 When, for instance, he received at his rooms a 
 long letter from the effusive Captain Dann, beg- 
 ging him to come and see him at once on matters 
 connected with an investment, he called down 
 at the big block of buildings and went up the 
 continuous lift, armed with a prudence that is 
 generally associated with maturity. 
 
 Similarly, he thought as he waited in the outer 
 office Captain Dann always kept every-body 
 waiting for five minutes, in order to convey an 
 impression that he was engaged on matters of 
 the first importance in that five minutes Gilbert 
 stroked his young mustache and smiled confi- 
 dently at his reflection in a mirror, and decided 
 that, in regard to any love affair that might 
 develop, he would exercise identical foresight. 
 
 "I like little Reade," he said thoughtfully; 
 " she's quite the dearest girl I have met. Pretty, 
 too, and clever. And Mrs. Brentford seems
 
 77 
 
 amiable, and she lives at Queen's Gate and has 
 no mother. The affair will require to be looked 
 at squarely and calmly." 
 
 He whistled softly and half closed his eyes. 
 
 " The way is," he said argumentatively, to a 
 map of South Africa that hung on the walls 
 "the way is to detach yourself from your own 
 personal emotions and to do every thing accord- 
 ing to the rules of a business-like man. The 
 mistakes that I made before were due entirely 
 to want of experi " 
 
 "Captain Dann can see you now, sir." 
 
 The junior clerk gave the information confi- 
 dentially, as something not to be bruited about. 
 
 "My dear fellow!" Captain Dann met Gil- 
 bert on the mat with an air of effusive delight, 
 and held his hand for a few moments. " I'm 
 awfully glad you called for your sake. This is 
 a moment that you will look back upon some day 
 as the one which laid the foundation of your 
 fortune. First of all, though, let me say this. 
 You newspaper Johnnies by the bye, this is my 
 dear old friend Matcham. You must have heard 
 of Matcham ? " 
 
 That young man, with small eyes and no chin 
 worth mentioning, nodded his head to Gilbert
 
 and said brusquely, in reply to Gilbert's enquiry, 
 that he was feeling pretty fit. Rather thick 
 night of it though, last night (said Mr. Matcham). 
 Out with about ten chaps ; ten of the best. 
 Painted (said Mr. Matcham with a mere flicker 
 of satisfaction) painted the bally place scarlet. 
 
 " My young friend Matcham," said Captain 
 Dann excusingly, "is one of those who combine 
 strictly business tactics with the the flaneur, 
 the boulevardier, the to use a common expres- 
 sion the man of the world. A many-sided man, 
 Matcham," Captain Dann looked at the small- 
 eyed youth critically, "one who will some day 
 make a mark." 
 
 "No necessity to make a mark," said Mr. 
 Matcham, "when one can write one's name." 
 
 "Good!" cried Captain Dann explosively. 
 "Devilish good. Mark signature, good! See 
 it, Mr. Gilbert?" 
 
 Gilbert answered that he had not failed to 
 do so. 
 
 " Fine thing, humor, sir," said Captain Dann, 
 still chuckling. "I often wonder where the 
 deuce we should be without it. I crack a joke 
 myself when I see half a chance. Many a time, 
 bless my soul, in my old days, I've sat at mess,
 
 79 
 
 and I assure you " Captain Dann laughed bois- 
 terously "I assure you, sir, that I've kept the 
 whole table in a roar. The whole table, sir." 
 
 "Only the table?" asked Mr. Matcham 
 languidly. 
 
 "But this isn't what I wanted to see you about, 
 Mr. Mr. " 
 
 "Gilbert." 
 
 " Yes, yes, of course. A deuced good name, 
 too. Deuced good name. There's more in a 
 name than some people think. Give a man a 
 good name, and they'll never hang him. No, sir." 
 
 "Now, why in the world, Dann," said Match- 
 am "why in the world don't you cut your 
 cackle and get to business? You've got as much 
 jaw as an old woman." 
 
 "Briefly, my dear sir," said Dann, "the point 
 is this. There are some very cheap mining 
 shares Merry, Merry England in the market 
 just now, and my friend Matcham and myself 
 have secured a good many of them. At any 
 moment they may go up at any moment ! You 
 never know with these things." 
 
 "/don't," said Gilbert candidly. 
 
 "But some of us," went on .Captain Dann 
 mysteriously "some of us do. I can't give you
 
 8o 
 
 all the details just now better not, I think, 
 Matcham ? " 
 
 Mr. Matcham replied that not a word must be 
 breathed to a soul on any account. 
 
 " But what I can tell you is that, if you like to 
 invest an odd thousand, we can oblige you by 
 letting you stand in, and if all's well you'll be 
 glad you seized the opportunity. Now then, 
 take a few minutes to think over it. You're a 
 sensible young fellow much like I was myself at 
 your age and I " Captain Dann spoke impul- 
 sively "well, I like you. There!" 
 
 Captain Dann mopped his bald forehead with 
 his handkerchief. 
 
 "I wear my heart upon my sleeve, as I once 
 rather neatly put it," said Captain Dann; 
 "heart upon my sleeve. Eh, Matcham?" 
 
 Mr. Matcham said that if you asked him, Cap- 
 tain Dann was a fool to himself. 
 
 "I can't help it," said Captain Dann reck- 
 lessly. "My plain, John Blunt way has lost me 
 a mint of money in my time, but well, friend- 
 ship can't be bought. That's the way I put it. 
 Let me be surrounded by friends, and I ask no 
 more. Blood, is thicker than water. What do 
 you say on that point, Matcham ? "
 
 Si 
 
 Mr. Matcham said cautiously that it depended. 
 
 "Depended be hanged!" said Captain Dann 
 boisterously. " A friend I'd trust to the further- 
 most ends of the earth; an enemy" Captain 
 Dann swept a sheet of letter-paper off the table 
 with an expressive action "an enemy I wouldn't 
 trust with a penny 'bus ticket ! " 
 
 " Can you give me an hour to think this 
 over?" asked Gilbert. "I don't want to do 
 any thing without due consideration." 
 
 "It's twelve-twenty now," said Matcham, 
 looking at his watch. "Wire us here by one- 
 twenty, and not a moment later." 
 
 "Not a moment later!" echoed Captain Dann. 
 " At one-thirty another man is coming, who will 
 go down on his knees for them ! On his knees, 
 sir! Call back or wire." 
 
 "I will," said Gilbert, rising; "and in any 
 case, many thanks for the trouble you're taking." 
 
 "It's no trouble," said Captain Dann. "I 
 don't make trouble of this sort of thing. Last 
 week I should no more have given you the 
 chance of this good thing than to to the man in 
 the moon. Do you know why ? eh ?" 
 
 "Well, you didn't know me." 
 
 " That's ykj/ it. That's precisely the answer 
 6
 
 82 
 
 I wanted. I'm a judge of character, mind you, 
 and it isn't often I make mistakes. I remember 
 when I first met my dear old chum Matcham " 
 
 " Drop it ! " said that gentleman warningly. 
 
 "In fact, to put it shortly, I'm one of those 
 who can take one look at a man and say directly, 
 without thinking, ' He's sound ' or ' He's not 
 sound.' See what my meaning is ? " 
 
 "I think I see," said Gilbert. "Is this my 
 hat?" 
 
 " Have a drink of some sort ? " suggested 
 Matcham, rolling a cigarette. " Dann, why 
 don't you keep a bottle or two of fizz about the 
 place ? Shall I send out for some, or " 
 
 "I never drink before dinner," said Gilbert 
 hastily. 
 
 "Why, that's like Dann." said Mr. Matcham, 
 "only he has dinner at 10 A. M., before he comes 
 to the City." 
 
 Captain Dann could not have laughed more 
 loudly if he had made this joke himself. He 
 walked to the lift with Gilbert, patting him on 
 the back encouragingly. 
 
 "You'll like Matcham," he said with much 
 joviality. "Sort of chap that grows on one, you 
 know. More you see him, more you like him."
 
 "Oh !" said Gilbert. 
 
 "And as keen, sir, as keen well, as keen as 
 I am. And that's keen enough for all ordinary 
 purposes. Good-by. Wire us sharp, mind. 
 Between ourselves " (this confidentially, for fear 
 the empty lift should hear), " I don't want this 
 other man to get them. He's what I call a 
 bounder. Now," obstinately, "what I cannot 
 and will not stand is a bounder. Good-by." 
 
 Mr. Gilbert, journalist, with a little compe- 
 tence in the bank, felt relieved when he found 
 himself in the open air of Queen Victoria Street. 
 He applauded his excellent wariness at not 
 being caught by the net that had been spread in 
 his sight, and at a restaurant in Cheapside he had 
 a long lemon squash with a lump of ice bobbing 
 a-top, and congratulated himself. 
 
 A large panel photograph in a shop window 
 made him stop for five minutes, because the girl's 
 eyes were rather like those possessed by Miss 
 Reade. There were other photographs in the 
 window; photographs of eminent beauties placed 
 there to be purchased by emotional City youths, 
 who would bear them home triumphantly on pay 
 day to Islington, to enliven and make joyous the 
 mantle-piece of bed- and sitting-room combined.
 
 8 4 
 
 Also there were photographs of humorous 
 comedians in their favorite diverting attitudes, 
 with an excerpt from the dramatic literature with 
 which they were associated, as " Ah, Tottie ! I 
 saw you first," and "This is the 'ottest place 
 I've ever been in," and " I wonder what's become 
 of my wife's Ma?" Further, there were, to 
 balance matters and to compensate for these 
 hilarious ones, portraits of demure bishops, and 
 portly aldermen, and others; all looking very 
 well-satisfied with the world and inclined to be 
 just a little wrath with those who questioned the 
 correctness of this attitude. 
 
 But Gilbert only looked at the girl whose eyes 
 resembled those of Miss Reade. 
 
 "And they're to be had up this morning," said 
 a man behind him; "and I hope they both go 
 for trial." 
 
 " Bad case ? " asked a straw-hatted youth of 
 the man. 
 
 " It is a bad case and it isn't a bad case, if you 
 understand me. It's a job that a lot of people 
 have lost their money in, that's certain. Whether 
 these chaps have done any thing that makes them 
 liable to the law is, of course, another matter ?" 
 
 "At the Mansion House to-day?"
 
 "At the Mansion House," said the man. 
 "Case ought to be on now." 
 
 "How'd it be," asked the straw-hatted youth, 
 " to drop in and see the fun ? " 
 
 "Not half a bad idea," replied the other. " I 
 was always rather chummy with Wentmore. " 
 
 " Won't look like bad form ? " 
 
 " Bad form be hanged! " said the man. " For 
 my part, I was never a stickler for etiquette." 
 
 Gilbert looked at the clock and decided to also 
 spare an hour to hear some of this case of which 
 the two were speaking. It would be a good 
 object lesson, and one probably that would assist 
 him in his scheme of caution. 
 
 He bought a financial paper in the street and 
 noticed that the Merry, Merry England shares 
 were down low. 
 
 " 'Oh, wise young judge!'" he quoted. And 
 composed and despatched a telegram to Captain 
 Dann of Mansion House Buildings, declining the 
 offer. 
 
 He strolled on and, ascending the steps where 
 a small, excited crowd had assembled, went 
 through a passage to the Justice Room. An 
 Alderman in his gown was on the high-backed 
 chair, behind him the sword of justice. The tall
 
 86 
 
 jailer in uniform opened the lid behind the dock, 
 and much as though he were offering a fresh 
 course at a rather long dinner said, "Number 
 eight and nine, Sir Donald. Richard Wentmore 
 and Joseph Marks. "- 
 
 The crowd at the side of the small, square 
 room shuffled its feet and stepped on each 
 others' toes the better to see. The two men, 
 well dressed, stood in the dock, the tall foot- 
 man-like jailer whistled down the speaking-tube 
 to the cells below, and a youthful counsel in a 
 frock-coat, with gardenia, rose and bowed to the 
 judge. 
 
 "/appear for Mr. Wentmore, Sir Donald." 
 
 "And," said the Alderman humorously, with 
 a strong Scotch accent "and a fine appear- 
 ance ye make, Mr. Fenton. He's done well to 
 engage ye." 
 
 The young counsel bowed again; the small 
 crowd at the side smiled and the Alderman 
 laughed inwardly, in a manner so repressed that 
 it made him quite scarlet in the face. 
 
 "Is your name Wentmore ?" he asked one of 
 the well-dressed men in the dock. 
 
 "It is, your worship." 
 
 "I think," said the Alderman, "if ye went
 
 87 
 
 more to the kirk and not sae much to the City, 
 ye'd get into less trooble. " 
 
 Court much diverted. The prisoners, es- 
 pecially, quite delighted at the Alderman's 
 humor. 
 
 "And your name," he addressed the other 
 man, "your name is Marks." 
 
 "Joseph Marks, your worship." 
 
 The Alderman thought for a moment before 
 offering his comment. 
 
 " It's only bad marks that coom to this coort," 
 he said genially. "If ye were good marks, ye'd 
 not have coom within a hoondred miles o' the 
 place." 
 
 Court again amused. 
 
 "/appear for the Treasury, Sir Donald," said 
 a bearded counsel briskly. "And I have to 
 charge the two gentlemen in the dock with 
 fraudulently obtaining money in the matter of a 
 certain company, under false pretences. It is 
 contended that there were incorrect statements 
 in the prospectus issued by the prisoners " 
 
 "False statement in a coompany proo- 
 spectus?" said the Alderman, with comic affecta- 
 tion of amazement. "Where will this awfu' 
 habit of leeing stop ? "
 
 88 
 
 "And I shall endeavor to give you evidence 
 this morning that will enable you to commit the 
 prisoners." 
 
 "I'll coommit the preesoners," said the watch- 
 ful humorist in the high-backed chair "I'll 
 coommit the preesoners, if I find they've coom- 
 mitted theirsel's a'ready." 
 
 Gilbert became interested in the case. It 
 seemed an apposite illustration of the scene in 
 which he had recently taken part, and the piling 
 up of evidence against the two gave him intense 
 gratification. The line of the younger counsel 
 was that his client, Wentmore, was a man igno- 
 rant of these matters, who had allowed himself 
 to be directed by the prisoner Marks. 
 
 "That's .no excuse," whispered Gilbert to the 
 man next him. 
 
 " Of course not." 
 
 " If a man is fool enough to assist a rogue to 
 take in other fools, he must be punished for it." 
 
 "Quite so." 
 
 "I always contend, you know " 
 
 " Silence there, please," said the Usher. 
 
 The excellent Alderman presently stopped the 
 case. He had offered so many witticisms in the 
 course of the hearing that the two men in the
 
 dock looked cheerfully and optimistically toward 
 him. 
 
 " It's a verra interesting case," he said, " but 
 I think I'll nae trouble ye to gie us any more 
 of it." 
 
 The clerk stood up and whispered. 
 
 " Pairfectly so," said the Alderman. He 
 turned genially to the prisoners. "I don't 
 think we need boother much longer with this 
 affair. I dare say ye're both extremely sorry 
 that any body should ha' lost mooney o'er this 
 beesness. " 
 
 " Very sorry, your worship," they said in duet; 
 " very sorry indeed. If we can do any thing " 
 
 "Ye'll hae a guid opportunity of doing some- 
 thing later on, I'm thinking. I commit ye both 
 for trial at the Old Bailey, and," he turned to the 
 clerk, "I hope that they'll be severely punished 
 for their behavior. Next case, please." 
 
 Gilbert, at the Budget office that evening, 
 talked the affair over with Bradley Webbe and 
 took much credit to himself for his acumen in 
 avoiding the snares of Captain Dann and Mr. 
 Matcham. Bradley Webbe remarked in answer 
 that Gilbert's column wanted brightening up, 
 and that even the Proprietor, with all his admi-
 
 ration for Gilbert's work, had confessed that it 
 might be improved. 
 
 "An ordinary young man," went on Gilbert, 
 "would have sat down and written at once a 
 check for a thousand pounds, had the stuff trans- 
 ferred to him, and would have been the poorer 
 by that thousand pounds and the richer for a few 
 pounds of waste paper." 
 
 "I rather think," said Bradley Webbe, "that 
 the Proprietor wants you to dine with him in 
 Cavendish Square to have a talk with you." 
 
 "And what will happen when I dine with him, 
 Webbe ? " 
 
 "Why, you will begin at eight-thirty," ex- 
 plained Webbe, "soup and sherry. At nine you 
 will find yourself at saddle of mutton and cham- 
 pagne. At ten liqueurs and cigars. At eleven, 
 to the minute, out you go." 
 
 "Sounds all right." 
 
 "It is all right," said Webbe ; "and if you 
 can only play the amiable and keep on the right 
 side of the old fellow, why you can't go far 
 wrong." 
 
 " I don't mean to go wrong at all," said Gil- 
 bert confidently; "and you maybe quite sure 
 that I shall make myself agreeable."
 
 "It's no effort for you to do so," remarked 
 Webbe, " that's where you're lucky again." 
 
 "Again!" echoed Gilbert. "Have I been 
 lucky in any other way ? " 
 
 "All your life," said Webbe. "I think you 
 are one of those men whose career is all mapped 
 out and arranged, and all you have to do is to 
 keep the rudder straight and go on. Where's 
 that short story that came in this morning from 
 young Lady Thing-me-bob ? " 
 
 " I stuck it there to keep the window open." 
 
 "We mustn't lose sight of it," remarked 
 Webbe. "It will have to go back by to-night's 
 post. The young aristocracy, when they write, 
 are like nothing else under the sun. They can't 
 bear their precious scrip to be out of their sight 
 for more than a few minutes at a time." 
 
 They wrote for a while without further con- 
 versation. Presently Bradley Webbe rang and 
 Master Barling appeared. Master Barling rolled 
 up the Halfpenny Wonder with a sigh, and placed 
 it in the pocket of his corduroy trousers. 
 
 "Barling! " 
 
 "Sir, to you." 
 
 " Latest Pall Mall." 
 
 "Right, sir."
 
 9 2 
 
 Bradley Webbe, when the journal arrived, 
 leaned one leg over the arm of his office chair and 
 went through the news rapidly. 
 
 "You see," said Gilbert, looking up from his 
 work, " the best of being cool-headed is that you 
 are prepared for the swindlers in this life." 
 
 " What are you talking about now ? " 
 
 "Why, in regard to this Merry, Merry Eng- 
 land mine. One would have thought, to hear 
 Captain Dann talk, that really it was one of the 
 most profitable investments that any body could 
 put their money into. 'A fortune in it, my 
 boy,' he said. But I was just a little too know- 
 ing for them, I fancy. I wasn't born yester- 
 day, Webbe." 
 
 " Did you tell them so ? These little facts 
 are very impressive sometimes." 
 
 "I didn't tell them, but I expect they saw 
 they had a wary customer to deal with. Why, 
 the very name of the mine is against it. Merry, 
 Merry England indeed ! Merry, Merry swindle 
 I should call it." 
 
 Webbe turned over to the City page. 
 
 " Hullo ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " I wonder where they find their victims, these 
 chaps," went on Gilbert. "You'd think that at
 
 93 
 
 this end of the century, now What's the 
 
 matter with you, Webbe ? " 
 
 " Nothing the matter with me," said Bradley 
 Webbe; "nothing the matter with the Merry, 
 Merry England shares. On the contrary, listen 
 to this." 
 
 Gilbert, amused, turned to listen. 
 
 " 'A most gratifying cablegram reached Throg- 
 morton Street this afternoon from the Merry, 
 Merry England Mines. We are not able to give 
 a literal copy, but the effect is that a new vein 
 of gold has been unexpectedly struck, and this 
 scheme, which has for some months past been 
 down at the bottom of the list, will once again 
 take up position. A tremendous bound upward 
 in prices naturally took place, and lucky outside 
 buyers of shares at the figure of the last few 
 months will make a big haul. As it is, nearly 
 every-body who "knew any thing" in financial 
 circles had unloaded the shares long since.' ' 
 
 Gilbert rose from his chair and went to the 
 window. He opened it and stood there for a few 
 moments. The voices of printers' boys came up 
 from below and mingled with the tinkling of a
 
 94 
 
 piano-organ out in the street. Two or three 
 murky-faced infants were pirouetting to the 
 gavotte, stopping now and again to pull up their 
 socks and to ask the beaming Italian gentleman 
 why he didn't turn the handle faster. 
 
 "Come on," said Bradley Webbe ; "don't 
 dwell on lost opportunities, there's nothing con- 
 crete about them. Do you happen to know 
 whom Dom Pedro married?"
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE immediate acceptance of a five-thousand- 
 word story by one of the weeklies he was free 
 to work for papers other than the Budget sent 
 Gilbert into a state of delight that helped to com- 
 pensate for the disappointment caused by the 
 Merry, Merry England affair. He had not ex- 
 perienced this acute satisfaction for so many 
 years that he had quite forgotten its joyousness. 
 Now he remembered that, in the old days, the 
 feeling of desolation which came when the ser- 
 vant handed in large, white envelopes was always 
 atoned for by the sensation of supreme content 
 that occasional letters of acceptance brought. 
 
 At these times the buoyant-minded recipient 
 feels so assured that his pathway to success is 
 broad and smoothly paved that he generally goes 
 and buys a new necktie. Gilbert's feeling was 
 that he must tell somebody of the incident at 
 once ; somebody who would be pleased to hear 
 it and who would frankly say so. And he took 
 'bus straightway to Portland Road Station and 
 called at Alpha Terrace.
 
 9 6 
 
 "This is good of you," said Kittie Reade. 
 She rose from the table at which she was working 
 and came to take his hat and stick. "I was 
 afraid you were annoyed at poor mamma's re- 
 mark the other night and that we shouldn't see 
 you again." 
 
 Gilbert laughed good-temperedly. 
 
 " Is Mrs. Reade in ? " 
 
 " Mamma is playing at nap," said Kittie 
 brightly. "She always has just forty winks at 
 midday. Do you mind if I go on with my work ? 
 You can talk, you know. It won't affect me." 
 
 " Can nothing I say affect you ? " 
 
 "I didn't mean that," she said composedly. 
 
 She resumed her seat at the small table and 
 went on with her sketch of "A New Morning 
 Frock." Gilbert told her of the acceptance of 
 the short story, and she flushed prettily with 
 delight. ' 
 
 "And I think it would show Providence that 
 I am grateful," said Gilbert, "if I were to do 
 something in a special way to celebrate the 
 event. Where could we go now in order to 
 spend a happy day ? " 
 
 Kittie Reade tapped her lips with her pencil 
 and rocked back in the chair and considered.
 
 97 
 
 "Rosherville ! " she cried suddenly. 
 
 "Very well," agreed Gilbert; "but isn't it 
 rather " 
 
 "I don't know," said Kittle; "I've never been 
 there. We'll take mamma and " 
 
 " Do you think she will enjoy it?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " said Kittie hastily, " she will like 
 it very much. And we'll go by the three o'clock 
 boat from London Bridge, and have tea in the 
 gardens and roam about and see every thing that's 
 funny and come back, too, by boat." She hesi- 
 tated a moment. "It won't be expensive," she 
 added. 
 
 "That's a drawback," said Gilbert, "but for 
 once we must put up with it. Give my regards 
 to Mrs. Reade. At three o'clock sharp, mind, at 
 London Bridge." 
 
 "I shall just be able to finish my sketch in 
 time." 
 
 " Do you never neglect your work ? " 
 
 "I am the most reliable young person in the 
 world," said Kittie Reade quaintly. " Good-by 
 until three." 
 
 At three o'clock, therefore, the Swan pier near 
 London Bridge: London Bridge itself fringed 
 with heads of leisurely loafers who lean elbows 
 7
 
 on the stone coping and conjure up a kind of 
 abstract fatigue by watching the work of the men 
 on the boats below; London Bridge also busy 
 with 'bus and wagon traffic, anxious to show 
 Tower Bridge that it still finds plenty to do, in 
 spite of unmannerly competitors with bascules 
 and other fal-de-lals. 
 
 The Swiftsure bumped gently at the side of the 
 pier, and across the gangway to the Swiftsure 
 walked intending voyagers, the four members of 
 the band watching each narrowly, as who should 
 consider "Are you good for a tanner, or are you 
 not good for a tanner ? " A fussy little steamer 
 came across from the Southwark side of the river 
 to take passengers to Chelsea, and became very 
 excited and frothed furiously at the paddle- 
 wheels on finding the Swiftsure slightly in the 
 way. 
 
 "Plenty of time," cried Gilbert. "How do, 
 Mrs. Reade? I've got the tickets. This way." 
 
 Kittie Reade, in absolutely the neatest and 
 most charming of tailor-made gray serge gowns 
 that mortal tailor ever cut, and a big-brimmed 
 hat fixed with a silver stiletto, gave her arm to 
 the elder lady. 
 
 "Don't for goodness' sake ask me how I do,"
 
 99 
 
 Mrs. Reade panted. " Do please let me sit down 
 first and get my breath. Young people nowa- 
 days seem to have no consideration, really. To 
 please them you must be always flying here or 
 flying there, trapsing up steps and down steps 
 and " 
 
 " You sit here, mamma," said Kittie gently, 
 "and you'll be nicely sheltered from the wind." 
 
 "Nicely sheltered, indeed!" said the lady 
 wrathfully. " There's a lot of ' nicely sheltered ' 
 about this business." 
 
 "The mood only lasts a few minutes," 
 whispered Kittie apologetically to Gilbert. 
 
 "I know." 
 
 Gilbert turned to Mrs. Reade. 
 
 "Do you mind if I say a very rude thing, 
 Mrs. Reade ? I want to tell you that this new 
 bonnet of yours simply makes you look ten years 
 younger." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Gilbert ! " said the old lady delight- 
 edly, "how can you say such things? But 
 really, do you think it suits me?" 
 
 "It has such a chic appearance!" urged 
 Gilbert. 
 
 "/thought it seemed a little too young," she 
 said doubtfully.
 
 100 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Reade ! In these things every 
 thing depends on the wearer." 
 
 "Well," acknowledged Mrs. Reade candidly, 
 "there certainly is something in that. I once 
 had a sister who, just because she married a 
 colonial man, seemed to think she was every-body, 
 and that sister of mine, if you'll believe me, 
 never would take my advice in matters of dress." 
 
 " Good gracious ! " exclaimed the surprised 
 Gilbert. 
 
 " The trouble I used to take over her, too ! / 
 never saw her equal, really. And this just shows 
 that it's no use trying too much. There was s/ie, 
 an ordinary girl, she had none of the good looks, 
 bless you, of the rest of us, and this sheep- 
 shearer, or whatever he was, came over for a 
 holiday from Queensland, and he had plenty of 
 money, and I'm sure the poor silly man could 
 have had the pick of us; instead of which " 
 
 "Chose her!" 
 
 "Chose her," confirmed Mrs. Reade. 
 
 "Well, well!" said Gilbert amazedly, "that's 
 the most extraordinary anecdote I ever heard." 
 
 "Oh, bless you!" said Mrs. Reade lightly, 
 "that's nothing. Why, there was a cousin of 
 mine once her name was Maude, but she was a
 
 pleasant enough young girl for all that and 
 she " 
 
 The clock on the insurance office showed at 
 three, and faint jingling of the hour came from 
 City churches. The Swiftsure was comfort- 
 ably full, and under the canvas-covered half of 
 the deck the breeze danced refreshingly. A bell 
 rang, and the Swiftsure backed away from the 
 pier and then returned and bumped it once more 
 for fun. The captain on the bridge called down 
 the brass speaking-tube, the Swiftsure went out 
 into mid- stream, selected an archway, and, its 
 funnel lowered, went through it ; the band 
 started a selection of comic songs hewn into 
 quadrille form ; the men unloading mammoth 
 blocks of ice at the wharves cheered ; a facetious 
 youth on board affected to shed blinding tears at 
 the agony of leaving his native land and waved 
 good-by to a fictitious parent. 
 
 "But don't you let me go and take up all of 
 your time, Mr. Gilbert. It's very good of you 
 to ask us to come, I'm sure, and it would be too 
 bad for me to talk and talk and talk all the while. 
 Is there an inquest, or any thing, in that paper 
 you've got ? " 
 
 Gilbert found a good long absorbing inquest
 
 for Mrs. Reade, and that lady composed herself 
 for an enjoyable read. Kittie and Gilbert walked 
 along the deck and watched the wharves, the 
 old-fashioned inns squeezed tightly between 
 them, and the huge steamers, mid-river, unload- 
 ing their cargo. 
 
 "We have here," remarked Kittie, with an 
 imitation of the showman manner "we have 
 here Wapping Old Stairs, referred to in the olden 
 days, you will remember, ladies and gentlemen, 
 in immortal poetry that can never die. Also we 
 have here the Thames Police Station, so called 
 on account of it being the er Station of the 
 Thames Police." 
 
 " Cheers ! " remarked Gilbert. 
 
 "In the old smuggling days Wapping was a 
 prosperous place, and a good trade in wines, 
 spirit, and cigars was carried on to the satis- 
 faction of all but King George's revenue men. 
 Stowe tells us " 
 
 A curious, clean-shaven man in convex glasses 
 was watching them with much interest. She 
 stopped her imitation at once. 
 
 "Pardon me, Miss," said Gilbert, as they 
 walked along, "but how did you come to learn 
 all you know?"
 
 103 
 
 "The gentleman in the gallery asks me how 
 I came to learn all I know. My reply to the 
 gentleman is that I came to know what I know 
 by keeping on pegging away, reading all that I 
 could, and not well," she resumed her normal 
 manner, " not being lazy ! " 
 
 "And are you happy ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes! Certainly. Nearly always happy." 
 
 " But not quite always ?" 
 
 "Why, nobody is always happy, Mr. Gilbert. 
 It would become quite intolerable to be always 
 smiling. Besides, if we were never miserable, 
 we should not know, when happiness came, how 
 pleasant it was." 
 
 "I wonder now," said Gilbert, looking thought- 
 fully at the folk on deck " I wonder now whether 
 there is any body on board this steamer who is 
 seriously below the average in contentment. I 
 suppose, if you weighed each case squarely, you 
 would find that Providence has been pretty fair 
 to every body." 
 
 The wind, coming round the bend of the river 
 down to Greenwich, lifted a youth's straw hat 
 and sent it out to sea. A long, deep roar of 
 laughter came from a knot of men and girls 
 standing near. The tears rolled down their
 
 104 
 
 cheeks as they watched the cross, indignant 
 youth ; the ladies had to lean against the sides 
 and fan themselves exhaustedly with their 
 pocket-handkerchiefs. 
 
 "Now that, for instance," said Miss Reade 
 "that just shows how difficult it is to gauge the 
 emotions of any one but one's self. That inci- 
 dent doesn't amuse me at all." 
 
 "Yet it has added to the gayety of nations," 
 remarked Gilbert. 
 
 She looked out at the shipping in the docks; 
 the masts as thick as hop-poles in Kent at sum- 
 mer time. 
 
 "Let's give it up," she said cheerfully. 
 " What we must each of us do is to live our own 
 life." 
 
 "That's it," agreed Gilbert excitedly; "fight 
 for yourself and make your way in the world " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And if somebody should impede the way, 
 why, somebody must go out of it, neck and crop! 
 That's the plan that I " 
 
 A toddling child in a stupendous, white, Beef- 
 eater hat came staggering with infantile reckless- 
 ness across the gangway, and Gilbert, in his 
 enthusiasm, would have stepped against it, if
 
 105 
 
 Kittie had not lifted the small person aside. She 
 gave the fat cheeks a kiss with a nice, feminine 
 action and guided the tiny promenader to her 
 young mother. 
 
 " But you must not forget to have con- 
 sideration for others," she said sedately to 
 Gilbert. 
 
 At Rosherville the Swiftsure released its passen- 
 gers, and they went up to the gates and wandered 
 about the grounds. The grounds were dusty 
 grounds, to some extent; and a school party, 
 which marched about with banners, raised a per- 
 fect simoom wherever it went. Mrs. Reade was 
 much moved at the cordiality of the welcome 
 which she spelled out on the ornamental flower- 
 beds, and cried a little, as though the warmth 
 of the gardener's gentle art had touched her 
 acutely. A tired, unwashed old bear in a pit 
 reminded her of a diverting incident in the Zoo- 
 logical Gardens in her young days and effected 
 another change of temperament. 
 
 "Ah!" said Mrs. Reade, "time goes on, 
 I say, Mr. Gilbert; time goes on, doesn't it?" 
 
 "There seems to be no means of stopping it," 
 agreed Gilbert. 
 
 "Sit down here, mamma dear," suggested
 
 io6 
 
 Kittie; " this is rather a pleasant seat. You will 
 get tired if you walk too much." 
 
 " I may be past my first bloom of youth," said 
 the old lady with sudden hauteur; " I don't deny 
 it; it would be useless to do so. I'm no longer 
 a giddy-pated miss of eighteen; I acknowledge 
 that frankly. But if a daughter of mine is to 
 dictate to me exactly when and where " 
 
 "Come along, then, mamma." Kittie always 
 preserved her good temper with her mother. 
 " I'll run you to the tea-room, and Mr. Gilbert 
 shall be referee." 
 
 " There she goes," complained Mrs. Reade to 
 Gilbert; ''there she goes to the opposite ex- 
 treme now. I cannot understand people who 
 change about so. Who's this supposed to be, I 
 wonder ? " 
 
 They looked at all the whitewashed busts on 
 their way to the tea-room. Also they found at 
 the end of the gardens a round, boarded space 
 with members of the band perched high up in 
 the centre as though they were birds, and 
 dozens of couples dancing strenuously to the 
 blatant waltz. 
 
 "Have I ever danced with you?" asked 
 Gilbert.
 
 107 
 
 " Of course you haven't. You know that." 
 
 " I didn't know," said Gilbert candidly. " Are 
 you engaged for this waltz ? " 
 
 "After tea, perhaps," she whispered; "when 
 mamma is asleep." 
 
 Nothing could exceed the frivolity and light- 
 heartedness of the excellent Mrs. Reade at the 
 tea-table. The jokes that versatile lady told; 
 the humorous comments that she made on the 
 appearance of a hard-faced, flat young waitress 
 who attended on them ! Mrs. Reade, searching 
 through the caves of memory, brought to light 
 astounding anecdotes of much length and some 
 obscureness, not entirely unconnected with one 
 Mr.X. ; a gentleman to whom she begged per- 
 mission to refer thus guardedly. It delighted 
 Gilbert to watch the admirable tact of Kittie 
 under these trying circumstances. 
 
 "And the Opera House at the time I'm speak- 
 ing of," went on Mrs. Reade, pouring out her 
 fourth cup of tea, "was at this end of the Hay- 
 market, if you understand me, Mr. Gilbert ? " 
 
 "Perfectly, Mrs. Reade." 
 
 "And Mr. X. made a proposition to my 
 father, who was, although I say it, one of the 
 most punctilious men that you ever dreamed of.
 
 io8 
 
 Etiquette ? My dear sir ! You've heard of the 
 Comte d'Orsay, perhaps?" 
 
 Gilbert nodded assent. 
 
 "Well," said the old lady impressively, "the 
 Comte d'Orsay was, if you'll believe me, a mere 
 bull in a china-shop compared with my poor 
 father. A mere bull in a china-shop, I do assure 
 you. " 
 
 Gilbert said he could quite believe it. 
 
 "It was the talk of all Hornsey," declared 
 Mrs. Reade with triumph. "To see him bow 
 to Sir Henry, who lived up in the large house 
 near the church it used to astonish Sir Henry 
 himself. Well, as I was saying bless my soul, 
 what was I saying ? I get so interrupted when 
 I do happen to open my mouth for a single 
 moment that it's no wonder " 
 
 "You were talking of Mr. X. and the Opera 
 House, mamma." 
 
 "Of course I was ! of course I was ! Very 
 well, then. This Mr. X., he called on poor 
 papa and said would he allow Miss Mercy that 
 was me to go to hear ' Puritani ' with him. And 
 so papa hummed and ha'd a bit, as any gentle- 
 man would, but at last he gave in." 
 
 "And you went to hear ' Puritani ' ? "
 
 109 
 
 " Do wait a bit, please, Mr. Gilbert. If I 
 don't tell the story my own way I shall never 
 get through with it. Well, when the evening 
 came, poor papa had been having a glass or two 
 of port, as, of course, every gentleman who was 
 a gentleman used to in those days, and when 
 Mr. Brown called " 
 
 The old lady stopped with sudden conster- 
 nation. 
 
 11 There ! " she exclaimed; "that's your fault, 
 Kittle." 
 
 " What, mamma ?" 
 
 "Why, making me blurt out the name of the 
 gentleman that poor papa had a row with over 
 me. Really, you do aggravate one ! " 
 
 When Mrs. Reade consented after tea to 
 doze, Gilbert and Kittie stole their dance on 
 the boarded platform outside. The band aloft 
 played a waltz, and the enchanted youth took the 
 delighted young lady and footed it with the best 
 of them. The rest of the dancers were partly 
 Kentish damsels and their swains; partly their 
 fellow-voyagers by the boat. A few of these 
 stopped and stared open-mouthed at the well- 
 dressed young couple waltzing in such inappro- 
 priate surroundings with so much enjoyment.
 
 And Gilbert felt that now, indeed, he was 
 experiencing the delights of youth. 
 
 "An odd sight, sir ? " 
 
 Kittie had gone in to prepare her mother for 
 the return journey. The convex-spectacled man 
 leaned against a square post and stroked his 
 clean-shaven chin. He spoke with a queer, 
 nervous air. 
 
 "Yes," said Gilbert, fanning himself with his 
 hat. " A little like the Continent, isn't it ? 
 The chalk walls over there make a good back- 
 ground for the trees." 
 
 "It wouldn't make a bad article for one of 
 the evening papers." 
 
 "I'll do it !" cried Gilbert. 
 
 "You are a journalist? I used to do a little 
 myself when I was young, but I came into some 
 money and " 
 
 "That was lucky." 
 
 "You're wrong, sir," declared the spectacled 
 man. "Quite wrong. It was the very worst 
 thing that could have happened. It is only by 
 exercise of the greatest ingenuity that I can pre- 
 vent myself from being a miserable man." 
 
 " But you do manage to evade it ?" 
 
 The band started in its lofty perch a polka.
 
 There were some at the gardens who were coy 
 in regard to a waltz, and shirked the lancers 
 altogether, but it seemed that they could all 
 dance a polka. So crowded was the boarded floor 
 that couples bumped up against each other, and 
 went on good-humoredly, only to bump again. 
 The shrill giggling from the ladies was continuous. 
 
 " I am not quite sure," said the spectacled man. 
 
 The Swiftsure was obediently waiting at the 
 little pier when they came out of the gardens. 
 The convex-spectacled man, with a purse in his 
 hand, touched Kittie politely on the shoulder 
 and asked if her name was Katherine Reade. 
 
 "It is," said Gilbert with an air of proprietor- 
 ship. 
 
 "I found this small purse at the gate, with 
 this card in it," said the convex-spectacled man, 
 "and I thought I heard you call the elder lady 
 Mrs. Reade. And putting two and two to- 
 gether " 
 
 "That is so good of you," said Kittie thank- 
 fully. "I should have been sorry to have lost 
 it entirely." 
 
 "I am glad to have been of some service," 
 said the spectacled man. "I am not of very 
 much use in the world."
 
 112 
 
 " I think that's almost a wicked thing to say," 
 interposed Mrs. Reade graciously. "We all 
 have our work to perform, even the meanest." 
 
 " Mamma, dear! " 
 
 The man lifted his hat to the ladies, and Gil- 
 bert shook hands with him and exchanged cards. 
 The name on his card was Ford. They saw no 
 more of him on the journey back. 
 
 A delightful voyage home. Noisy at first, 
 with choruses at one end of the ship and gentle- 
 men alternately quarrelling and swearing never- 
 ending friendship; but these become quiescent 
 after a while. A young moon, scarcely half 
 formed, comes up and beams on the river; the 
 stars in the dark blue sky are out in their fullest 
 strength. Gilbert, sitting next to Kittie, finds 
 that when, by accident, his foot touches for one 
 moment her small, brown shoe, a swift rush of 
 excitement makes him flush. He interrupts the 
 remark he is making and looks at the eyes under 
 the wide brim of her straw hat. 
 
 "Let me see," says Gilbert reflectively; 
 "have I ever asked you to marry me, Kittie ? " 
 
 The flower at her bodice stops for a moment 
 its regular movement. 
 
 "There was some vague talk in regard to the
 
 affair," she says, laughing a little nervously, 
 "but I fancy nothing definite was settled." 
 
 " I didn't give you a ring? " 
 
 "Oh, dear, no! No." 
 
 ' That was very thoughtless of me. I must 
 remedy it as soon as possible. And, Kittie " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Shall we talk quite seriously for just one 
 minute?" 
 
 " It's a long time," she says. 
 
 " Supposing I were to tell you that I care for 
 you more than every other woman in the world ? 
 Supposing I were to tell you that with your help 
 I should feel the more confident of making my 
 way in the world. Supposing I were to tell you 
 that I want to marry you soon soon. Suppos- 
 ing I were to say that I believe you to be the 
 dearest and the sweetest " 
 
 "No, no," she whispers. "I'm only just .a 
 girl. Don't think I am any thing more." 
 
 "And will you marry me, dear love," he says 
 anxiously, " as soon as I like ? " 
 
 She looks across the deck at the winking 
 eyes of the warehouses. A boat with the peak- 
 capped, reefer-jacketed Thames Police comes 
 alongside one of the huge Norwegian steamers, 
 8
 
 and the sergeant, sitting at the bow, flashes the 
 light of the lantern on the ship's side. The 
 singing at the other end of the Swiftsure comes 
 faintly now, for the singers are tired. 
 
 "Dear heart," she says softly, "I love you 
 too well to say no ! " 
 
 His lips have been very near, under the brim 
 of her straw hat, to her little white ear. They 
 are nearer now and nearer. 
 
 "I believe, Gilbert," declares Kittie, putting 
 her big hat straight, "that, with ordinary luck, 
 we shall be a very happy young couple."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE feelings of an affianced youth on the morn- 
 ing following his engagement are said to be usu- 
 ally those of extreme satisfaction with the world. 
 Proposals, it is notorious, are generally made 
 at eventide; twilight has often been especially 
 recommended by careful watchers of the game. 
 The indecision of the atmosphere assists some- 
 how to attune the mind to the desirable key. It 
 is doubtless a want of knowledge of this that has 
 sent so many men through life in the deplorable 
 state of bachelorhood. They have asked for 
 hearts and hands on foggy days; they have, per- 
 haps, called quite early in the afternoon; they 
 have chosen moments when all that the lady 
 really required was, not a husband, but a cup 
 of tea. 
 
 Gilbert, parting his hair with some accuracy 
 before his mirror, looked thoughtfully at him- 
 self and flushed with pleasure as he thought of 
 the previous evening. He picked out a necktie 
 Kittie had once referred to appreciatively.
 
 n6 
 
 "Hullo!" 
 
 "It's odly Bister Webbe, sir," said Emyrn- 
 trude. "Shall I ask hib to wait?" 
 
 "Tell him to come in here," said Gilbert. 
 And Bradley Webbe stamped into the bedroom. 
 
 "I say," said Webbe, " I want to go away for 
 a week rather urgently, and I want you, Gilbert, 
 to look out. You can manage, can't you ? Lucas 
 will give you a hand." 
 
 "I've got two already," said Gilbert. "When 
 do you come back ? " 
 
 " I sha'n't be longer than I can help, old chap. 
 Fact is, there's some money affair going on down 
 where my people used to live; and if it comes out 
 right, it will be rather a fine thing for me." 
 
 "Good luck ! " said Gilbert. 
 
 Gilbert waltzed a few steps to the cupboard 
 for his coat: 
 
 "Anything happened?" asked Bradley 
 Webbe. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 "This gayety of manner this Gaiety Theatre 
 manner is not usual with you. You are gener- 
 ally a sedate youth." 
 
 Gilbert took Bradley Webbe's arm and led him 
 into the sitting-room.
 
 "Have one cup of coffee," he said; "and if 
 you'll promise to keep the information secret, 
 perhaps I'll tell you." 
 
 "Is it worth printing?" asked the journalist 
 cautiously. 
 
 " Oh, no ! It interests no one but the parties 
 concerned." 
 
 "I've had breakfast," said Bradley Webbe, 
 "and I want to be off; but your air of mystery, 
 young sir, attracts me." He sat down with a 
 fine mock melodramatic air. " Tell me the story, 
 fair youth." 
 
 "Sugar?" 
 
 "Tons! " said Bradley Webbe. 
 
 They talked about the current number of the 
 Budget and the relative value of the younger 
 black-and-white artists. Bradley Webbe, being 
 one of the shrewd fellows of this world, had 
 ever a wary eye for youths who had not yet 
 arrived. 
 
 " It won't be a bad number," said Webbe, sum- 
 ming up; "and so long as the Proprietor is 
 satisfied, nothing matters." 
 
 "What would happen if he were not satis- 
 fied ? I suppose he would stop the whole con- 
 cern ? "
 
 n8 
 
 "Capital, my dear Gilbert, is able to do just 
 what it darn well likes." 
 
 " I shouldn't care to be thrown out of a berth 
 just now," said Gilbert apprehensively. " That 
 would lack all elements of fun." 
 
 "I, too, should feel more independent if I had 
 money to fall back upon. You see " Bradley 
 Webbe turned and looked out of one of the 
 windows "one might get married." 
 
 "More than one. Say two." 
 
 "Well, two then. I suppose that is the correct 
 total." 
 
 " But why get married ? Has some one given 
 you a white waistcoat ? " 
 
 "The question has not yet arrived at that 
 stage. In fact, I I haven't asked the lady." 
 
 "You mustn't forget to do that," advised 
 Gilbert. He took a second egg and tapped it to 
 the rhythm of his quotation: 
 
 " ' Fair ladies by faint hearts were never won ; 
 Win their love swiftly, lest they turn and run.' " 
 
 "These matters are not to be settled," said 
 Bradley Webbe, "by irresponsible youths of no 
 experience." 
 
 "My good chap," said Gilbert joyously, "I
 
 have had more experience in this world than 
 
 I beg pardon. I ought not to brag. Does the 
 damsel like you ? " 
 
 "That's rather difficult to say for certain." 
 
 " She has never thrown any thing at you ? " 
 
 Webbe shook his head. 
 
 "Come, now, that's encouraging. Can I help 
 the matter to a happy solution ? " 
 
 "Why, do you know, Gilbert," cried Webbe, 
 starting up, "I rather think you could. I can 
 rely on you ?" 
 
 "The Bank of England is, as compared to me, 
 a mere reed." 
 
 "You might help me," went on Webbe, speak- 
 ing quickly, "by saying something to her about 
 me in a casual way when opportunity offered. 
 Of course, you wouldn't let her see that it was 
 intentional." 
 
 " Of course not." 
 
 " But a word or two might make a lot of dif- 
 ference. I'm not a bad sort of fellow, and I 
 think I should make a fairly good husband. 
 And I'm energetic and " 
 
 "One moment, Webbe. I must put these 
 things down or I shall forget them." 
 
 " It sounds rather stupid, I know," said Webbe
 
 120 
 
 apologetically, " but I'm rather anxious about 
 the matter. It makes a lot of difference to a 
 man whether he gets the wife he wants, or 
 whether he gets one " 
 
 "Whom nobody wants. Is there any thing 
 else ? " 
 
 "Let me think," said Bradley Webbe, with a 
 pleasant laugh. " I had one or two other virtues, 
 I think." 
 
 " Try your waistcoat pocket." 
 
 "Well, you might bear in mind generally that 
 I'm steady, and " (Bradley Webbe ran his hand 
 through his thick red hair, and laughed a little 
 awkwardly) "and I'm fairly honest, and " 
 
 "You're a very good chap," said Gilbert 
 earnestly, "and I'll do all I can. Are you off 
 now ? I sha'n't see you before you leave, I 
 suppose ?" 
 
 "I am going at once. Here's an address that 
 you can send letters to. And don't forget to 
 do that article on the Chinese shop, will you ? 
 We've got the illustrations." 
 
 "I I was going to make a call, but I'll do it 
 this evening the Chinese thing. Good-by." 
 
 Bradley Webbe found his hat, and stood at the 
 doorway.
 
 "And, Gilbert; if you have a chance, you will 
 do what I asked you ? " 
 
 "There's only one detail that you have for- 
 gotten; you haven't mentioned the name." 
 
 " Haven't I really ? Perhaps I thought you 
 had guessed. But I quite thought I had men- 
 tioned that Miss Reade " 
 
 " Kittle Reade ?" 
 
 "I shall call her Kittie some day, if all goes 
 well. Good-by, Gilbert. Keep a good look-out, 
 won't you ? " 
 
 The door closed, but the footsteps returned 
 hurriedly. 
 
 " I say, Gilbert ! I beg your pardon really. 
 I'm absolutely selfish when I am thinking of this 
 particular subject. What was your secret?" 
 
 " My secret ! " 
 
 " You said you had something to tell me when 
 I came in." 
 
 Gilbert went toward the excellent Webbe with 
 much gravity of demeanor, and put his hand 
 upon his shoulder. 
 
 " Since I spoke," said Gilbert, " the affairs of 
 Europe have assumed a more complicated atti- 
 tude, and it would ill become a wary Cabinet 
 Minister like myself to disclose Imperial secrets.
 
 The honorable member will therefore kindly 
 allow me to postpone my answer to the question 
 on the paper." 
 
 The door closed again on Webbe's good- 
 tempered laugh. Gilbert whistled very slowly a 
 rollicking air and took his pipe and his news- 
 paper. 
 
 "Poor old Webbe ! " he said with genuine 
 concern. " Upon my word I feel quite sorry 
 for him. But I'm glad the dearest possible is 
 mine. I am not going to lose her." 
 
 Nevertheless it did occur to Gilbert, late in the 
 day, that he had acted in a perfectly conventional 
 manner in his affair of the heart; that he had 
 exhibited none of the calmness and forethought 
 which a man of his ripe experience should have 
 exhibited. A note from Kittle, enclosing a 
 cabinet photograph of herself, dispelled the 
 shadow of these thoughts. It was such a very 
 charming note that it was capable of doing 
 almost any thing. Gilbert took an opportunity, 
 when Master Barling left the room, to press the 
 photograph to his lips and to place it with much 
 care in his breast pocket. The arrival of the 
 letter had, indeed, a most disturbing effect upon 
 the infatuated youth. He found himself drawing
 
 123 
 
 her face on the blotting-pad; he bega'n a letter 
 to an archdeacon, returning a humorous story, 
 with " My dearest and loveliest girl," and 
 detected the clerical error just in time. 
 
 "If it wasn't for this confounded Chinese 
 thing," remarked Gilbert with an injured air, 4< I 
 could call there to-night." 
 
 It is not by permitting mere sentiment to inter- 
 fere with work that literary men make their way. 
 This Gilbert knew. Therefore, at seven o'clock 
 that evening, Limehouse Causeway: Limehouse 
 Causeway guarded at the East India Dock Road 
 end by stout women in no hats, and oiled hair and 
 white aprons, to whom Lascars and Scandinavian 
 sailors threw words of raillery as they passed. 
 A scent of tarred goods and a scent of boiling 
 soup; at the door of a shop headed " Lew Ching 
 & Co.," three Chinamen arguing. At the 
 other end of the narrow street an ebony-faced 
 sailor, dancing for his own gratification a series of 
 intricate steps, creating no special interest on the 
 part Of the occupants of doorsteps, but causing 
 much perturbation to the temper of a dirty white 
 little dog, who barked at the shining-faced 
 dancer and then ran away and barked excitedly, 
 as one demanding the police. On the window-
 
 124 
 
 sill over Lew Ching's shop a bright scarlet coun- 
 terpane fluttered; the scent of an uncommonly 
 good cigar, smoked by an unseen person, came 
 idly. Gilbert stood still and fixed the entire 
 picture on his mind. Then he entered the shop 
 of Lew Ching and made a trifling purchase and 
 looked carefully around. Lew Ching himself, a 
 yellow-faced, bony-cheeked celestial, in an incon- 
 gruous bowler hat and a drab cloak, smiled amia- 
 bly at his customer, and sold him a small pack of 
 Chinese playing cards at ten times the usual 
 price, with much geniality. 
 
 "What's the idea of this thing on the 
 counter ? " asked Gilbert. He pointed to the 
 contrivance for counting. 
 
 "Make up figure," said Lew Ching; "count 
 lil money." 
 
 " And do you do pretty well ? " 
 
 "Do vel ba'ly," complained the Chinaman. 
 "Sailor no coma see poor Lew Ching. Forget 
 poor Lew Ching. Ba' lot, sailor man. He no 
 good." 
 
 "That's a pity. And do you occupy all this 
 house ? " 
 
 "How?" 
 
 Gilbert explained his question more precisely,
 
 125 
 
 and Lew Ching in his loose-tongued English 
 replied that he let his rooms. Lew Ching, look- 
 ing narrowly at the inquisitive journalist, became 
 suddenly reserved, fearing perhaps an approach 
 to the subject of opium. Some one came down 
 the stairs, and passing through the dark little 
 shop spoke casually to Lew Ching and went on 
 to the door. He stood there in the evening sun- 
 light for a moment, and Gilbert looked at him. 
 
 "How do you do, Mr. Ford ? " he said. " We 
 meet again in an odd corner." 
 
 Mr. Ford (with no blue spectacles) came back 
 into Lew Ching's shop, and failed for a moment, 
 in the dim light, to recognize Gilbert. 
 
 " How do you know my name ? " he demanded 
 with some acerbity. 
 
 "Well, you gave me your card on the boat last 
 night and " 
 
 "I beg your pardon really." His manner 
 changed at once. " I beg your pardon. You are 
 the young journalist who was with with " 
 
 "Miss Reade." 
 
 " And you are here for copy ? " 
 
 " That was the idea," said Gilbert. 
 
 " Do you know Chinese ? " 
 
 " Heavens, no ! "
 
 126 
 
 "Perhaps I can help you, then." He spoke 
 again to Lew Ching, and Lew Ching bowed 
 respectfully. "I live over this shop. Come up- 
 stairs and I'll tell you any thing you want to 
 know." 
 
 " You're very kind." 
 
 "Oh, no, I'm not !" said Mr. Ford obstinately; 
 " I happen to be in the humor to talk. That's all, " 
 
 Gilbert followed him up the rickety staircase 
 to the front room on the first floor. Mr. Ford 
 turned up the light of a red shaded lamp in the 
 corner, and Gilbert gave an involuntary excla- 
 mation of surprise. The room was handsomely 
 and quaintly furnished in the Chinese style ; 
 Gilbert had seen some photographs of interiors 
 at Hankow that were exactly similar. His host 
 sat on a rug and poured out some wine into a 
 long-stemmed glass. 
 
 "Are you afraid to drink ? " he asked. 
 
 " I think perhaps I'd rather not." 
 
 Mr. Ford laughed good-humoredly and stroked 
 the carpet on which he was sitting. 
 
 " You are cautious, Mr. Gilbert." 
 
 "It is a trait that I endeavor to cultivate. 
 ' He was circumspect ' is the epitaph that I have 
 written for my own mourning cards."
 
 127 
 
 "It is not a bad idea," agreed Ford, "within 
 certain limits. Tell me what you want to know 
 of the Chinese quarter in London." 
 
 Fifteen minutes with the eccentric person 
 seated on the yellow carpet placed the Budget 
 youth in possession of all the facts that he re- 
 quired. As Ford became interested in his own 
 descriptions the brusqueness of manner and the 
 harshness of accent disappeared; in its place 
 came a refinement of tone that Gilbert did not 
 fail to notice. 
 
 " Tell me something now for my own personal 
 information," asked Gilbert. 
 
 "Any thing that does not concern myself, I 
 shall be " 
 
 "But I am afraid it does. I want to know 
 why " 
 
 Ford held up his hand for silence. He took 
 a cigarette from a brass lacquered bowl, and 
 lighting it, looked up as the first puff of smoke 
 wandered round the room in search of the win- 
 dow. Then he laughed a queer, short laugh. 
 
 "Decidedly I am in an odd humor this even- 
 ing. I am going to tell you you whom I met 
 only yesterday more than I have told any one 
 else in the world."
 
 128 
 
 He paused and Gilbert nodded. 
 
 " But," he went on quickly, " I am not going 
 to tell you much. You will have to fill in the 
 details for yourself, mind. All that I am going 
 to tell you is that I am not one man but" he 
 coughed "but ten ! " 
 
 He looked at Gilbert to see the effect of this 
 statement. Gilbert inclined his head, and re- 
 marked politely that ten was a good round 
 number. 
 
 "Ten different and distinct persons," cried 
 Ford, holding up the fingers of his hands; " ten! 
 In the course of this current year I have already 
 assumed three of these. A student of foreign 
 life near the docks is No. 8 on the list. No. 9 
 on the list is no ! There is no necessity to 
 trouble you with that." 
 
 "Is the student of foreign life near the docks 
 about to relinquish his existence ?" 
 
 " I think he has two days longer to exist," an- 
 swered Ford. 
 
 " And do you like the life I mean the lives ? " 
 
 " Of course I do. What a particularly stupid 
 question to ask ! " 
 
 " It wasn't very intelligent," confessed Gilbert. 
 
 "Have you never felt tired of the hideous
 
 I2Q 
 
 monotony of the ordinary career of men ? Have 
 you never considered with horror the picture of 
 life with the same eternal person at the opposite 
 end of the breakfast-table each morning, the 
 same work at the same office, the same calls on 
 the same people and all this to go on for the 
 rest of your existence. My God ! why is it 
 people don't scream out against this persistent 
 repetition of events ? " 
 
 "I know," said Gilbert. 
 
 "Tell me, then." 
 
 " Because they like it." 
 
 Ford dropped the end of his cigarette into 
 another brass bowl, and stroked his clean-shaven 
 chin. A change came into his eyes, and they 
 twinkled. 
 
 "I suppose, then, you mean to suggest," 
 he said good-temperedly, "that I am a little 
 mad." 
 
 "All intelligent men are," said Gilbert. 
 
 " Then I'm mad in a devilishly new and amus- 
 ing way. You must confess that. I am trying 
 to enjoy life as much as " 
 
 " Ten men ?" 
 
 " Yes ! " Mr. Ford rose to his feet and patted 
 Gilbert's back approvingly. " That's just it. 
 9
 
 130 
 
 When I was only one man I used to have serious 
 thoughts of suicide." 
 
 "And now ? " 
 
 " Why, now, I commit suicide whenever I 
 have a mind to. To-morrow night, in all prob- 
 ability, the student of foreign life near the docks 
 will cease for a year to exist. Very well, then. 
 What happens is this : There is a new lodger in 
 furnished apartments in Park Place, St. James's; 
 a military man, who reads the service papers and 
 has his own idea about Lord Wolseley." 
 
 " Does he live long ? " 
 
 "His," said Ford with candor, "is not a long 
 existence. The moment that he is bored " he 
 gave an expressive wave of the hand " out he 
 goes." 
 
 " It's a perfectly delightful idea," said Gilbert. 
 Then he added, "for those who like it." 
 
 "These cigars came from Cuba," said Ford. 
 " Take one. And tell me six words about your- 
 self. About your future. Only give me the 
 outline, or you will weary me." 
 
 "I shall marry a lady named Miss Katherine 
 Reade " 
 
 "Whom I met yesterday. She is entirely 
 charming."
 
 " I shall scheme and contrive and do all I can 
 to become a successful man. I believe many 
 young men lose a good deal of the best time of 
 their life by a too careful consideration of others 
 and by a want of push. I have made up my 
 mind not to let those considerations bar me. It 
 happens that I am in an especially fortunate 
 position." 
 
 " It will be interesting to see how it turns out," 
 said Mr. Ford. " Let me go down stairs first." 
 
 Gilbert nodded good-night to the drab-gowned 
 Lew Ching, and Ford, without his hat, saw him 
 up to the end of Limehouse Causeway. 
 
 "You must take care not to ride your princi- 
 ples too hard," he said. "They break down if 
 you do, and the last hurdle finds you without 
 a jump left in you. And, above all, stick close 
 to Miss Miss Reade." 
 
 "I mean to," said Gilbert. 
 
 "A sensible girl can often make her husband 
 continue to be her sweetheart all his life. You 
 won't go far wrong if you go through life with 
 her. I have never called myself a judge of 
 character, but I am one nevertheless. And if I 
 run across you again, I shall ask you how the 
 scheme progresses."
 
 132 
 
 "Do," said Gilbert. 
 
 "You will get a tram from the corner down 
 there to Bloomsbury through the Commercial 
 Road. Good-night, and good luck to you." 
 
 " By the bye," said Gilbert. " Who were you 
 in the first place before you multiplied yourself 
 by ten? " 
 
 Mr. Ford frowned slightly. 
 
 "I was the son of a Scotch earl, not, I 
 regret to say, a Representative peer, and I 
 married an American lady whose father knew 
 the last word about pigs. She died, and then 
 I died, and " 
 
 "Is this true ?" 
 
 "Oh, dear, no!" said Mr. Ford pleasantly, 
 "oh, no! It is not true. But you asked a 
 question that you had no business to ask, and 
 I was giving it an appropriate answer."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IT really seemed that the world was going 
 very well with young Gilbert. The Proprietor of 
 the Budget, over green Chartreuse after dinner, 
 assured him that he was a youth in whom he (the 
 Proprietor) was determined to take a special 
 and a lively interest, and the Proprietor of the 
 Biidget was notoriously a man of generous 
 impulse. This was a fact known to all England. 
 When, for instance, during his racing craze, he 
 won a big race with Liverno, he straightway 
 gave to the jockey the successful Liverno as 
 token of his content. When, again, during his 
 music-hall craze, Little Toff one Saturday even- 
 ing raised the roof of the hall "literally raised 
 it " the professional organs put in, but this was 
 an exaggeration with his new song, " We can't 
 do without 'em," did he not go round to the 
 back and present the Little Toff with a diamond 
 ring of excellent value ? Emphatically, the Pro- 
 prietor of the Budget was a good man to have on 
 your side.
 
 134 
 
 Moreover, Mrs. Brentford had been as good 
 as her word, and an easy-going editor had written 
 in a kindly way to Gilbert at her request. Miss 
 Kittie Reade being informed of this fact, and of 
 his indebtedness to Mrs. Brentford, bit her lips 
 and frowned her pretty eyebrows and went 
 straightway to the gymnasium in Albany Street, 
 where she punched the ball with such determina- 
 tion and vigor for near upon half an hour that 
 she felt afterward the calmer for the exercise. 
 
 "I hope I haven't hurt her," said Kittie to 
 herself, "much." 
 
 Gilbert, having done a hard morning's work in 
 his rooms at Doughty Street, sat in his easy chair 
 near the window and looked out upon Blooms- 
 bury. 
 
 "I don't seem to earn any thing great at this 
 odd work," he said; "but there's no harm in 
 slogging away. And there's the Budget money 
 that's a fixed income, and there's my reserve 
 fund and well, I mustn't complain." 
 
 A scarlet-coated, scarlet- faced young soldier 
 was walking up and down on the other side of 
 the street, waiting for his belated sweetheart. 
 The soldier tapped his leg impatiently with his 
 cane.
 
 135 
 
 "And," continued Gilbert, "I am a precious 
 deal better off in every way than I was at this 
 age in my former life. The dearest possible girl 
 is in herself enough to make one feel a million- 
 naire. Just to think of her eyes is to think of 
 countless wealth." He hooked her photograph 
 to him with a convenient golf-club and kissed it. 
 " The dearest possible," he said. 
 
 The title had only been arrived at after some 
 hours of consideration. It had made Kittie 
 flush with pleasure when he had first called her 
 by it, and a week's use had endeared it to them 
 both. But they were careful not to use it in the 
 chilling atmosphere of publicity an atmosphere 
 that always contrives to make terms of endear- 
 ment appear wholly idiotic. 
 
 "Here's a bessedger with a letter, Bister Gil- 
 bert," said Ermyntrude at the doorway, "ad 
 he's a-waitidg for ad adser." 
 
 "Another offer of the Times editorship, I sup- 
 pose," said Gilbert with a bored air. 
 
 " Do they wadt you to be editor of the Tides, 
 sir ? " 
 
 " They won't take no for an answer, Ermyn- 
 trude. That's what /complain of." 
 
 "What a duisadce ! " said the small servant.
 
 136 
 
 Gilbert scribbled a line on a correspondence 
 card and enclosed it in an envelope. 
 
 "Let the lad take that to Mrs. Brentford," he 
 said. 
 
 Gilbert, in shining hat and admirable frock- 
 coat, looked at himself in the Psyche mirror in 
 his bedroom with satisfaction. Mrs. Brentford 
 had asked him in her note to come with her to 
 the Botanical Gardens that afternoon, and Gil- 
 bert felt that it was an occasion deserving of 
 some special attention in regard to his habit. 
 
 For he recognized that Mrs. Brentford was not 
 only a smart and an acceptable and a genial per- 
 son, but also one likely to be extremely useful. 
 Wherefore, he smoothed his silk hat carefully. 
 
 "I think you had better be unusually cordial 
 with her this afternoon," said Gilbert to his 
 reflection in the mirror. "I am afraid that 
 since the Thursday at Rosherville you have been 
 a little reserved with Mrs. Brentford. As a 
 cool, level-headed, sensible youth, Mr. Gilbert, 
 it is your duty not to quarrel with all woman- 
 kind just because you are engaged to one. 
 There can be no harm, my dear chap, positively 
 no harm, in keeping on excellent terms with Mrs. 
 Brentford."
 
 137 
 
 The scarlet-faced young soldier on the oppo- 
 site side of the street was growing apoplectic in 
 his impatience. He took the handkerchief from 
 his sleeve and mopped his forehead. His lips 
 moved as though he were making a remark to 
 himself. 
 
 " 'Ello ! " said a voice, " 'ello ! Beed 'ere lo'g ? " 
 
 The short, belated maid crossed the road with 
 an air of perfect assurance, adjusting the red 
 sash on her white dress and patting her back 
 hair. 
 
 "I don't know what you call long," growled 
 the scarlet-faced soldier. "I seem to 'a' been 
 'ere the best part of a week." 
 
 Ermyntrude looked up at him. 
 
 "Well," she said calmly, "give us a kiss, at 
 ady rate." 
 
 The scarlet-faced young soldier bent himself 
 into the form of an upside-down L and did as he 
 was told. Immediately his spirits returned and 
 they marched off in the best of tempers. . Gil- 
 bert was much amused at the victory of the 
 small servant. 
 
 " That's the result of strategy and impudence," 
 he exclaimed. " Savoir faire is the only virtue 
 that one really wants."
 
 138 
 
 He took a hansom clown to Queen's Gate, as 
 being in accord with his appearance, and the page 
 showed him into the drawing-room, where he 
 waited in the well-furnished apartment. Per- 
 haps some of the articles in the room were 
 rather heavy in appearance, but that was reassur- 
 ing in an age of insecure tables and unreliable 
 chairs. On the table was a miniature, which 
 Gilbert guessed to be a portrait of the departed 
 Mr. Brentford. 
 
 "It is quite odd that I should find you look- 
 ing at that," said Mrs. Brentford. There was 
 always a suggestion of regret in her tone when 
 she spoke of her husband, and nearly half a sigh. 
 "For some reason I have been thinking of him 
 a good deal." 
 
 "I seem to know the face." 
 
 "I don't think that is possible. I had not 
 met you until after I I lost him." Mrs. Brent- 
 ford sighed. " Until he had gone to that bourn 
 from which no traveller ever returns." 
 
 " If a traveller ever does return," said Gilbert, 
 " he keeps the account of his journey very quiet. 
 Are we ready ?" 
 
 The Gardens were at their best and brightest. 
 A Personage was expected, an Eastern Person-
 
 139 
 
 age, and a band was stationed on an improvised 
 platform near the large, white-faced conserva- 
 tory, playing acceptable selections from the latest 
 go-as-you-please musical comedy. To avoid the 
 crowd, Gilbert and Mrs. Brentford walked along 
 the red-gravelled paths to the ornamental water. 
 The scent from the flowers and trees came 
 lazily; and away, when the band ceased playing, 
 they could hear faintly the sibilant sound of 
 women's voices. 
 
 "You mustn't thank me, Mr. Gilbert, for any 
 thing that I have been able to do. It gives me 
 so much pleasure that I'm afraid it becomes 
 purely a selfish act." 
 
 "I wish I could do something to show how 
 grateful I am," said Gilbert. 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 "I should like to do some good work and 
 bring it to you and say " 
 
 "Your Christian name is Gilbert?" 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Brentford." 
 
 "It is an odd name," she said thoughtfully; 
 "Gilbert Gilbert." 
 
 "The fact is," said Gilbert, "7 had no voice 
 in the matter. That was the name chosen for 
 me."
 
 140 
 
 " So that it really doesn't matter whether you 
 are called by your Christian name or your sur- 
 name ?" 
 
 "Celam'este'gair 
 
 Mrs. Brentford drew two capital G's on the 
 red gravel. 
 
 ''Then," she said a little nervously, pointing 
 to the first G, "I think I should like to call you 
 by this name." 
 
 "There is no earthly reason," said Gilbert, 
 flushing, "why you shouldn't." 
 
 " The only thing is that you mustn't forget, 
 please, that my name is Gertrude. That is to 
 say, when we're alone." 
 
 "I see. When we're playing our usual parts 
 you will always remain Mrs. Brentford." 
 
 She took a rose from her belt and played with 
 it nervously. 
 
 "Yes," she said with a sigh, "I shall always 
 remain Mrs. Brentford." 
 
 "That question," said Gilbert gallantly 
 " that question rests with you for decision. 
 But I expect you are much happier as you are. 
 You are quite free " 
 
 "When a woman is free, Gilbert," declared 
 Mrs. Brentford, "she wants to be enslaved, and
 
 141 
 
 when she is enslaved she screams for liberty. 
 What is that they are playing now ? " 
 
 It was the Eastern Personage's National 
 Anthem, and they hurried from their seats to see 
 him. The well-dressed mob had already penned 
 in the Eastern Personage with so much complete- 
 ness that they could only see his silk hat; and 
 this, although a good silk hat and a shiny, failed 
 to excite enthusiasm among most of those on 
 the outside of the crowd. There were, however, 
 exceptions. 
 
 " By gad, Louisa, this is a sight that makes 
 one feel the greatness of England. Here's this 
 Johnny come from the West to see the sights of 
 the grand old country; and he'll go back to India, 
 which I er once described rather well, I think, 
 
 as the er brightest jewel in the Hullo, 
 
 young Gilbert. How are you ? Allow me." 
 
 Captain Dann presented Mrs. Dann, a lady of 
 a bleached look, with much empressement, and then 
 lifted his hat with so much grace to Mrs. Brent- 
 ford that Gilbert was forced to introduce him. 
 
 "We're old chums, madam," said Captain 
 Dann boisterously, " my young friend Gilbert 
 and I. I dare say he has told you of rather a 
 good thing that I recommended "
 
 142 
 
 "I did hear of that, Captain Dann." 
 
 "But our young friend here was too cautious; 
 too cautious by half. Perhaps another time " 
 
 "You must let me know if there's any thing 
 else going," said Gilbert anxiously. 
 
 "There was not much encouragement," said 
 Captain Dann, "in your conduct in that last 
 affair. If I trust a man, I expect him to trust 
 me. Isn't that so, Louisa ? " 
 
 "Yes, dear," said the faded lady. 
 
 "I want confidence to be met by confidence, 
 sir. That's me all the world over. But look 
 here, I'll tell you what. We'll forget all about 
 that business." 
 
 " Did the other man buy them ? " 
 
 "Yes, confound him! And a devilish good 
 thing he made over them. You ought to have 
 had them, you know. I said to my wife didn't 
 I, Louisa ? " 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 "I said tp my wife that night, I said, ' I would 
 rather have given those things to Mr. Gilbert,' I 
 said, ' than have sold them to that other bounder.' 
 I believe those were my very words, Louisa ? " 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 " Look me up," said Captain Dann effusively,
 
 143 
 
 " look me up at any time, and if you want a hint 
 or two I'm not the sort to bear any ill will. Am 
 I, Louisa ?" 
 
 " No, dear." 
 
 "That was only one case of many, my boy," 
 said Captain Dann. "Such chances crop up 
 every day in the City. The great thing is to be 
 on the spot, and to take instant advantage of 
 them. Instant advantage, my dear sir; instant 
 advantage. Haven't I often said so, Louisa ? " 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 "There!" cried Captain Dann triumphantly, 
 as though that proved every thing. " There ! 
 My wife has heard me say so." 
 
 Mrs. Brentford spoke to the monosyllabic 
 lady, and Dann drew Gilbert apart. 
 
 " A wonderfully shrewd woman, my wife," said 
 Captain Dann confidentially. "Wonderfully 
 shrewd ! An old head, as I often say about her, 
 an old head on young shoulders." 
 
 Gilbert glanced at the reserved lady, and 
 thought that the shoulders, too, were tolerably 
 mature. 
 
 " I came across her first at a dance at Wool- 
 wich," went on Captain Dann. " She had a little 
 money of her own, then, and in ten minutes I
 
 144 
 
 had made up my mind that she and no one else 
 should be my wife. And I was attentive to her, 
 and as true as I stand here, in less than a week 
 in less than seven days, sir that woman had con- 
 sented to be my wife. I've heard other people 
 complain of their partners, but I've always found 
 Louisa quite obedient. Quite obedient." 
 
 Gilbert remarked that marriage was always, 
 to some extent, an experiment, and some were 
 successful and some 
 
 " The way I put it, my boy, is this : / always 
 say that marriage is a lottery." 
 
 Captain Dann stepped back, the better to ob- 
 serve how Gilbert was affected by this novel and 
 striking way of putting the matter. 
 
 "That puts the whole difficulty in a nutshell, 
 Gilbert. Make a note of it, and keep it well in 
 mind. An old stager like myself hasn't lived in 
 this world all these years for nothing. Experi- 
 ence is the best schoolmaster." 
 
 Gilbert agreed. He felt that he had every 
 reason to do so. But for his own store of knowl- 
 edge of the world, he was quite sure he would 
 commit blunders every day of his own life. 
 
 "I must give you a call again, Dann," he 
 said.
 
 145 
 
 " You know my address ? Number a hundred 
 and " 
 
 The Eastern Personage came near them, and 
 the clearance of the crowd enabled Gilbert and 
 Mrs. Brentford to escape from Captain Dann's 
 attention. They strolled off to chairs which 
 they found under a large tree whose leaves af- 
 forded welcome shade. 
 
 "A queer fellow," said Gilbert, laughing; 
 "but really there's something in him. I was a 
 fool not to take his advice in regard to that 
 Merry, Merry England affair." 
 
 "It is in money matters that I sometimes feel 
 my loneliness," she said. "I get many invita- 
 tions to speculate, and I want to be able to 
 turn to somebody who has a man's knowledge of 
 affairs and ask his advice. Do you see what I 
 mean, Gilbert ? " 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Brentford " 
 
 " It is not well," she interrupted. " Have you 
 so soon forgotten that my name is Gertrude ? " 
 
 " I was going to say that if I can be of any use 
 in that way I shall only be too glad." 
 
 It really seemed the least that the confident 
 young man could say. Mrs. Brentford placed 
 her hand lightly for a moment on his knee.
 
 146 
 
 "You mustn't forget that promise," she said; 
 " I shall bank it with any other promises that 
 you give me and some day some day I shall 
 draw upon them." 
 
 ''The check will be met Gertrude." He 
 smiled as he spoke. There is nothing quite so 
 startling as the using of a prtnom for the first 
 time. "It's a good name, Gertrude," he added. 
 
 "It sounds good to hear you speak it." 
 
 The trees blurred oddly in the sight of the 
 flattered youth; the white-faced conservatory 
 danced an awkward but perfectly decorous pas 
 seul. He held his breath for a moment and bit 
 his lips. Then the gardens righted themselves, 
 and behaved as though nothing had happened. 
 
 " Kittie ! " he said to himself reproachfully, 
 "Kittie, Kittie, Kittie !" 
 
 They had tea at four o'clock in Regent Street. 
 In a corner of the restaurant was a correctly 
 dressed man with a spiked, fair mustache. He 
 held up a Petit Journal pour Rire in front of his 
 face as soon as he saw Gilbert, as though he did 
 not wish to be recognized. There were chatter- 
 ing French folk in the restaurant, too, and a few 
 tired English girls, who had been to the Academy 
 and apparently regretted it deeply. Their poor
 
 147 
 
 heads, they said, trying to fan themselves with 
 the small, green-covered catalogues, were simply 
 splitting. 
 
 " I like restaurants," remarked Gilbert. 
 11 Nearly every patron of a restaurant is a freak 
 of Nature." 
 
 "You are a close observer," said Mrs. Brent- 
 ford admiringly. 
 
 "It's copy," said Gilbert. He touched by 
 accident the lady's small foot under the marble 
 table, and she did not withdraw it. 
 
 " It must be delightful, Gilbert, to feel that 
 all the world is offering you plots, and that you 
 have only to pick and choose. Do you get an 
 idea from every-body you meet ?" 
 
 " Not every-body," said Gilbert importantly. 
 It would have made a retiring youth feel con- 
 ceited, this gracious interest, and Gilbert was 
 not a retiring youth. " But now and again one 
 strikes oil. I came across a good well a night 
 or two since." 
 
 "Tell me." 
 
 Gilbert diverted Mrs. Brentford exceedingly 
 by an exaggerated account of his visit to Lew 
 Ching's shop and his encounter with the man of 
 ten lives. An anecdote is much improved by
 
 148 
 
 artistic accentuation of points. The naked truth 
 so frequently requires drapery. 
 
 "And I heard him as I came away," concluded 
 Gilbert, " singing to himself a queer old tenor 
 song. Imagine the situation. A dull, sleepy 
 street; a single gas-light at the end, blowing 
 gustily ; a sound of women using the language 
 that is usual in Limehouse " 
 
 "Dreadful!" 
 
 "A roaring of wind from the river; a good 
 tenor voice singing." 
 
 " I am always fond of a tenor voice," remarked 
 Mrs. Brentford thoughtfully. "When Mr. 
 
 Brentford was alive " She stopped and 
 
 laughed. " That's rather like the conventional 
 widow of the comic journals, isn't it ? I must 
 be more careful." 
 
 " It is so easy," he said gently, "not to for- 
 get." 
 
 "Thank you, Gilbert." She leaned forward 
 and touched lightly the hand that rested on the 
 table. "You are the only person in the world 
 who understands me. I wish sometimes that we 
 had met earlier, so that " 
 
 "I say," interrupted Gilbert, as he glanced at 
 the clock, "I must get down to the Budget
 
 149 
 
 office. Do you mind if I see you into a han- 
 som ? " 
 
 As they were leaving the restaurant, the 
 spiked-mustached man looked over the top of 
 the Petit Journal pour Rire. He watched the 
 two go through the doorway. He watched them 
 saying good-by, and he saw the swift look of 
 affection that Mrs. Brentford shot at the youth. 
 Then the well-dressed man with the mustache 
 looked at himself in the mirror and touched the 
 spiked ends and whistled softly. 
 
 "Well," said the military-looking man, folding 
 up the journal carefully, "I should never have 
 thought it possible. And he told me in Lime- 
 house Causeway two nights ago that Waiter, 
 
 give me something to drink, d you !" 
 
 That evening at the Budget office Miss Kittie 
 Reade made her weekly call, and when Bradley 
 Webbe had left the office for a moment to find 
 Master Barling, she asked Gilbert what he had 
 been doing that day. Gilbert made answer that 
 he had been doing nothing particular, and he 
 kissed her on the lips. 
 
 "The dearest possible," he whispered affec- 
 tionately.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IT was partly with relief and partly with 
 regret but mainly, perhaps, with relief that 
 Gilbert heard, a day or two later, that Mrs. 
 Brentford was leaving town for Coblentz. Mrs. 
 Brentford had taken a dear little villa it was 
 her own description a dear little villa looking 
 over the Rhine Anlagen, and she proposed to 
 stay there for a month or two. The agent had 
 guaranteed it to be nearly covered with blue 
 clematis, and the name, Villa Hermosa, could 
 be altered for the time of occupancy if the 
 temporary tenant so desired most tenants, so 
 the obliging agent said, had a preference for 
 some special name ; a Scotch family who occu- 
 pied it for a month last year had called the small 
 villa Ben Nevis. 
 
 "You must be sure to come out for a week or 
 two," wrote Mrs. Brentford. " A rest will do 
 you good, and I shall have some bright folk 
 staying with me. If the villa happens to be full, 
 I can easily book rooms for you at one of the
 
 Coblentz -hotels facing the river. You will like 
 Coblentz. The German ladies, I am happy to 
 say, are all singularly plain, and they dress in 
 the fashion that was popular at the time of the 
 Crimea. You must call and say good-by to me 
 this week." 
 
 At Alpha Terrace that evening Gilbert men- 
 tioned the fact of Mrs. Brentford's approaching 
 departure to Kittie, and Kittie went straight- 
 way to the piano and played an air of special 
 joyousness. 
 
 "I wonder how many times a woman would 
 marry, if she had the chance, Gilbert?" 
 
 " Difficult to say, dear. The woman of 
 Samaria " 
 
 She turned round on the music-stool with a 
 swish of her skirts. 
 
 " Do you like her ? " she demanded. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Mrs. Brentford." 
 
 "Oh, I don't know!" said Gilbert. 
 
 "Yes, you do, sir. Tell me ! " 
 
 "Well," said Gilbert, "she tries to be 
 pleasant." 
 
 "Yes," said Kittie acutely, " I noticed that." 
 
 " But we needn't talk about her."
 
 152 
 
 "Good gracious, no! There are many more 
 agreeable topics." 
 
 " I want to speak to you about something. I 
 have been asked to intercede with a lady on be- 
 half of some one who cares for her a good deal, 
 and I don't know quite whether to do it at all; or, 
 if I do it, I am not sure how to do it." 
 
 "I thought it was only in short stories that 
 men entrusted that task toother men," remarked 
 Kittie. 
 
 "Oh, I am not empowered to make a pro- 
 posal." 
 
 "That sounds more real." 
 
 " I am only to say words that shall soften the 
 damsel's heart and make her contemplate my 
 client with feelings of lively emotion." 
 
 "I don't like the idea of you going to a girl 
 on that errand," said Kittie soberly. She rested 
 on the arm of the easy chair in which Gilbert was 
 sitting, and stroked his hair. " The girl is likely 
 enough to say, 'Speak for yourself, John,' as 
 she did in Longfellow." 
 
 " I think it quite likely," said Gilbert compla- 
 cently. 
 
 " What size hat do you take, dear ? " 
 
 Gilbert gave the information.
 
 153 
 
 "I think you had better take a size larger. 
 Your head is certainly swelling." 
 
 "Well, Kittie, it is of no use disguising the 
 obvious, is it ? I know very well that she is in 
 love with me, and " 
 
 "Tell me her name," said Kittie hotly, "and 
 I'll box her ears." 
 
 "I wish you would. That's a promise, is it? 
 I don't believe you'd dare to do it ?" 
 
 " If she's as big as the side of a house," said 
 Miss Kittie Reade definitely, " I'll do something 
 to her." 
 
 " She's not so very tall. Just about your 
 height." 
 
 "Good ! " 
 
 " In fact, dear Kittie, you you are the young 
 person." 
 
 She stood up, flushing. 
 
 " Really ? " 
 
 "On my honor." 
 
 She fanned her face with a sheet of drawing- 
 paper. 
 
 "This is' romantic," she said, half-laughing. 
 " I wonder who he is." 
 
 Gilbert told her, and Kittie Reade immediately 
 became grave.
 
 154 
 
 "Poor Mr. Webbe ! " she said; ''he's a good 
 fellow." 
 
 " He's a better fellow than I am," said Gilbert 
 honestly. 
 
 "He is always quite genuine." 
 
 "I don't know any man," said Gilbert, " for 
 whom I have greater respect. He is not too brill- 
 iant, but he's a good worker, and some day " 
 
 " He has been kind ever since I first began to 
 do this fashion work." 
 
 " Bradley Webbe," said Gilbert, "is a straight- 
 forward, honest sort of fellow, with a great de- 
 sire to be perfectly fair toward every-body with 
 whom he has to deal." 
 
 "In fact," said Kittie, with a return to her 
 usual brightness, " there is no reason why I 
 shouldn't marry him, excepting that " 
 
 "That?" 
 
 Kittie folded her arms, strode across the room, 
 and spoke over her shoulder in the manner of 
 ladies in melodrama. 
 
 " Sir," she said, in a deep voice, "I love a 
 nother ! " 
 
 " Dearest girl ! " 
 
 Mrs. Reade looked in at the doorway, and 
 greeted Gilbert with great effusiveness.
 
 155 
 
 " I'm sure," said Mrs. Reade joyously, " I was 
 saying to Kittie only the other night how much 
 we should miss Mr. Gilbert, if he left off calling, 
 by any chance. Somehow, when any body be- 
 comes part and parcel " 
 
 "We are just going out, mamma; Mr. Gilbert 
 and I." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mrs. Reade bitterly, with her usual 
 sudden change of manner, " there's a great deal 
 too much going out with young girls of the 
 present day. I remember when / was a girl I 
 had to stay indoors and do crochet work or some- 
 thing useful. Not" with much asperity " not 
 playing about with drawing new costumes of 
 horrid girls with bicycles " 
 
 "The work brings money." 
 
 " Money ! " Mrs. Reade was very wrath at 
 Kittie's reminder. "That's all some of you 
 think about. Money, indeed ! There are plenty 
 of God's gifts in the world that will do you 
 more good than money. What do you say, Mr. 
 Gilbert ? " 
 
 Gilbert answered warily that there was a good 
 deal to be said on both sides. Kittie escaped to 
 fetch her hat and coat. 
 
 "But you might as well talk to a deaf wall,"
 
 156 
 
 said Mrs. Reade, with much acrimony, " as to 
 try and knock a little sense into girls. / don't 
 know what's come over them, really. I'm sure 
 Kittie will go so far sometimes as to actually to 
 contradict me ! Me, her own mother ! " 
 
 Gilbert said soothingly that it was the tendency 
 of the age. 
 
 " Bother the age ! " exclaimed Mrs. Reade ex- 
 plosively. "I've got no patience with it. I 
 wonder Parliament, or the County Council or 
 something, doesn't step in with a firm hand and 
 stop it." 
 
 Mrs. Reade fanned herself vigorously and com- 
 pressed her lips tightly, as ladies do who dare 
 not trust themselves to speak. 
 
 "But mind you, Mr. Gilbert," she said pres- 
 ently, "I wouldn't let any body else say a word 
 against her. No ! A better girl or a sweeter- 
 tempered girl never lived. She can't do too 
 much for her silly old mother. The way that 
 dear girl nursed me when I was down with in- 
 fluenza I shall never forget. And you know, Mr. 
 Gilbert, I'm not always the easiest person in the 
 world to manage." 
 
 Gilbert was much astonished. 
 
 "No," said the old lady firmly, "I know my
 
 faults; I'm not blind. We're none of us perfect, 
 and " 
 
 "The perfect woman," said Gilbert, "would 
 be a perfect nuisance." 
 
 "Ah!" said Mrs. Reade, "how well you 
 literary gentlemen put these things ! I've often 
 regretted that I never kept up my writing. 
 When I went to school up at Hampstead a good 
 
 many years ago now I used to write the most 
 
 % 
 beautiful essays on 'How I spent my holidays,' 
 
 and ' Love for animals,' and ' How to be happy,' 
 and what not. Miss Robertson, the writing- 
 mistress, used to say that I wrote a better hand 
 than " 
 
 Kittie appeared. 
 
 " Ready ? " she asked. 
 
 "Quite," said Gilbert. 
 
 " I'm going to one or two shops in Bond 
 Street, dear, to see some new costumes, and I 
 shall lunch at the club. You won't be lonely 
 until I come back ? " 
 
 She kissed the old lady with an affectionate 
 manner that seemed to Gilbert's eyes to take 
 away immediately every suspicion of the ridicu- 
 lous that had been present. 
 
 In Old Bond Street the two said good-by.
 
 158 
 
 "Don't forget me, Gilbert," said the young 
 lady. 
 
 "I never, never shall," said the young gentle- 
 man fervently. 
 
 At the Piccadilly end of Old Bond Street, Gil- 
 bert, walking along in his youthful, impetuous 
 manner, avoided only by dexterity a collision 
 with the Proprietor of the Hudget. The Pro- 
 prietor was beautifully dressed, as became a man 
 of money; his necktie alone was a liberal educa- 
 tion to the young. He was looking into the 
 window of an expensive shop, apparently with a 
 view of seeing whether he could find a new 
 outlet for his money. 
 
 " You're looking extremely well, sir." 
 
 The Proprietor had been fearing that morning 
 that he was looking out of sorts, and Gilbert 
 could not have made a more diplomatic remark. 
 There are some who delight to extol their com- 
 plaints and make much of them: these are 
 jealous of the introduction of any other topic, 
 and do not greatly care to talk of the House of 
 Lords, excepting as an opening to their favorite 
 subject. The Proprietor belonged to the class 
 who affect never to be in any thing but the rudest 
 health.
 
 159 
 
 "Never better, my boy," he said, "ne-ver 
 better. But you you are not looking quite up 
 to the mark. Why not take a holiday ? A 
 short one, eh ? " 
 
 "Bradley Webbe is away for a few days." 
 
 " Well, wnen he comes back, you go. And, by 
 the bye, speaking of Bradley Webbe reminds me. 
 I want to talk to you about him. He's a very 
 good chap, and does the work well and turns out 
 
 a very good paper, I admit, but Have you 
 
 lunched ? " 
 
 Gilbert had not lunched. The Proprietor 
 took Gilbert's arm, and they walked together 
 across Piccadilly to St. James's Street. As Gil- 
 bert ascended the steps of the Proprietor's 
 club his feet were inclined to dance with sat- 
 isfaction. 
 
 "They give you a devilish poor lunch here," 
 said the Proprietor apologetically; "but perhaps 
 you won't mind making shift with it just for once 
 in a way. I have to complain of one or two 
 things in this Waiter ! " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Why isn't that window open over there? 
 How many times have I " 
 
 "Beg pardon, sir; it is open."
 
 i6o 
 
 "Well, then," said the Proprietor, unappeased, 
 "go and shut it at once." 
 
 "Certainly, sir." 
 
 "A more woollen-headed set of men than 
 these club waiters I never saw; they've got no 
 more sense than " 
 
 Gilbert suggested with respect that perhaps 
 they had to deal with some rather trying people. 
 
 "I'd like to try them," said the Proprietor 
 humorously. "I'd give them six months' hard 
 labor." 
 
 The sub-editor of the Budget laughed very 
 much at this remark, and the Proprietor's ami- 
 ability increased. The bottle of Chablis with 
 the fish, the magnum of Perrier Joue't with the 
 entries, the liqueur at the end all helped to 
 increase the cordiality of his manner. The Pro- 
 prietor was a man of sudden and intense friend- 
 ships. 
 
 "No, no, no, waiter! These are not the cigars 
 I want. You know that very well." 
 
 " Do you want those at one and six each, 
 sir?" 
 
 " Good God, man! /don't care what they cost. 
 Don't bother me with your confounded figures." 
 The Proprietor glanced round at Gilbert for a
 
 look of approval. "Bring what I've asked for 
 at once, and don't waste my valuable time." 
 
 The worried waiter brought a small pile of 
 boxes, and the Proprietor with immense circum- 
 spection made his choice. 
 
 "Give this gentleman a light, waiter; can't 
 you see he wants one?" 
 
 Gilbert sat well back in the exceedingly easy 
 leathern chair placed in the bow window. He 
 stretched out his long legs and gazed down into 
 St. James's Street with kindly tolerance. Really 
 it was, with all its faults, a very agreeable world. 
 Very agreeable indeed. 
 
 "When does Bradley Webbe come back, Mr. 
 Gilbert?" 
 
 " At the end of the week, sir." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 The Proprietor sent a ring of smoke up in 
 the direction of the oak ceiling. 
 
 "What do you get now, Mr. Gilbert?" 
 
 Gilbert named the sum. 
 
 "Three hundred, eh? You're worth more 
 than that, you know." 
 
 The youth flushed and said, laughing ner- 
 vously, that it was impossible for him to con- 
 trovert the statement, 
 it
 
 "You're a very young man, certainly, for an 
 editorship, but this is an age of renowned young 
 men. Do you think you could edit a journal ? " 
 
 There is no adult man in England at the pres- 
 ent moment of writing not one man who 
 would answer this question in the negative. 
 Gilbert, for his part, said with much readiness 
 that he would like a chance of trying. 
 
 " At six hundred a year ? " 
 
 "The charge of the Six Hundred," said the 
 delighted Gilbert, " is a capital selection. But 
 what paper could I go for ? There is no vacancy, 
 is there ? " 
 
 "We'll make a vacancy." 
 
 "On what paper, sir." 
 
 "Why, on my paper. On my paper. On the 
 Budget. " 
 
 "And get rid of Bradley Webbe ?" gasped 
 the sub-editor. 
 
 " Certainly certainly ! Why not ? " 
 
 "Well, but," stammered Gilbert, "why should 
 you? He does the work very well." 
 
 " I have no fault to find with the way in which 
 he does his work, but well, I've taken a dislike 
 to red-headed men, and Bradley Webbe is red- 
 haired."
 
 " Still," urged Gilbert, " even a man with blue 
 hair might make a good editor, if, in other re- 
 spects, he " 
 
 "Look here, Mr. Gilbert. We don't want to 
 take up too much time over this matter. I'll 
 tell you plainly what I want you to do. I'm a 
 great man for having every thing done in a 
 strictly business-like way, and I'll tell you exactly 
 what my proposal is. I want you to write a 
 letter to me, offering certain suggestions for the 
 improvement of the paper." 
 
 "Right!" 
 
 "Then I want you to go on to say that there 
 are one or two weak points in the present editing 
 lay stress on this, mind and finally, say that 
 if I decide to make any change may you offer 
 yourself for the position." 
 
 The Proprietor waited. 
 
 "You see," said Gilbert slowly, "Bradley 
 Webbe is a friend of mine. It looks rather like 
 a mean attempt to oust him " 
 
 "Mr. Gilbert! I'm a slightly older man than 
 you. Slightly older, I say. And I can tell you 
 that, if you're going to be so confoundedly punc- 
 tilious in matters of business, you'll pass the last 
 days of your life in the Scotch whiskey bar in
 
 1 64 
 
 Milford Lane. You're an ambitious young man, 
 and I want to help you. If you decline to let 
 me assist you up one or two rungs of the ladder 
 of Fame, why" the Proprietor gave a gesture 
 of despair " it's of no use my troubling." 
 " Can I have a day to think it over, sir ?" 
 " No ! " Curtly and with much decision. 
 Gilbert rose from his chair and looked for a 
 moment down at the street. Correctly-habited 
 men were strolling along ; an open carriage with 
 two Princesses drove down the middle of the 
 street, and the shining silk hats went off. A 
 man in a dust-coat stepped into a hansom and 
 told the man to drive to the Horse Guards. It 
 was all so much more opulent and attractive than 
 Doughty Street, Bloomsbury. 
 
 "I agree," said Gilbert without looking round. 
 "Good!" exclaimed the Proprietor. "Let 
 me have the letter to-day." 
 "You shall have it to-day." 
 "And make it hot for Bradley Webbe." 
 "I'll make it make it hot for Bradley Webbe." 
 "Spoken like a sensible man of business! 
 Which way are you going ? " 
 
 "I am going to the Budget office first, to do 
 some work "
 
 165 
 
 "And write the letter?" 
 
 " Ye-es. And write the letter. And then I 
 have to go to the City to attend a Company 
 meeting." 
 
 "Shareholder?" 
 
 " Director," said Gilbert proudly. " A friend 
 of mine, Captain Dann, introduced me to the 
 affair. I am to get two guineas for every meet- 
 ing, and I think the affair is likely to run through 
 pretty well." 
 
 "Glad to hear you are making money. You'll 
 find it a great assistance to you. And in regard 
 to the Budget, Mr. Gilbert, rely upon me. /'// 
 see you're safe there. You and I together will 
 do big things." 
 
 "I hope so," said Gilbert soberly. 
 
 The prospective editor had written the com- 
 munication at the Budget office (it was a task, to 
 do him justice, of some difficulty), and had 
 despatched it, when Barling, with a look of 
 unusual moodiness, brought a post letter which 
 had been placed in the wrong letter-box. Gil- 
 bert, desperately anxious to force himself into 
 light-heartedness, asked Master Barling concern- 
 ing the lady of Master Barling's heart. 
 
 "Oh, she's 'imiable enough," said Barling
 
 166 
 
 gloomily, "just for the present. 'Ow long it '11 
 last, 'Eaven only knows. / don't. It's my 
 belief that some people ain't 'appy unless they're 
 a-breaking of honest 'earts." 
 
 "Still," urged Gilbert, "you're on good terms 
 now." 
 
 "That's nothing to go by, sir," said Master 
 Barling, the small boy spoke as one who has 
 drunk deeply from the cup of bitter experience, 
 '''that's nothing to go by. I've never been 
 particular 'appy in my life without directly after 
 something 'appening to give me the 'ump." 
 
 "That's not an encouraging experience, 
 Barling." 
 
 "And then she wonders that I ain't bright and 
 cheerful and light-'earted ! I'll defy any body to 
 be reely bright and cheerful and light-'earted in 
 this world. Some of 'em may pretend to be ; 
 but it's only a 'ollow marsk that they wear. 
 You take it from me, sir ! " 
 
 "I can't help thinking, Barling, that you 
 adopt a somewhat pessimistic view of things. 
 You must buy a pair of rose-colored spectacles." 
 
 Master Barling rubbed his chin with his grimy 
 hand, and gave it a hue of blackness. 
 
 "I don't want no spectacles, sir," he said.
 
 i6 7 
 
 "I see too much of the world as it is. You 
 cawn't trust any body. A chap calls 'imself your 
 friend, and 'e's jest the one to go and take the 
 very bread out " 
 
 " It's the way of the world, Barling the way 
 of the world." 
 
 " It's 'ightime, sir, then, that it learned better. 
 Any thing else, sir ? " 
 
 "Nothing else, Barling." 
 
 The letter was from Bradley Webbe. Gilbert 
 opened it with a sensation of hesitancy and re- 
 luctance that he had not, in his new life, hitherto 
 experienced. 
 
 "Mv DEAR GILBERT: 
 
 "Things have turned out badly here, and I 
 might well have saved myself the trouble of com- 
 ing down. For a reason that you, dear chap, 
 will understand, I am bitterly disappointed. 
 
 " Fortunately, the excellent Budget is faithful. 
 On the strength of that I shall try my luck as 
 soon as I return. I have thought of her con- 
 tinuously. If I am successful, I shall owe much 
 of my happiness to you, and I shall never forget 
 your kindness. It is every thing to possess a 
 good friend.
 
 i68 
 
 "I shall be in the Strand on Saturday to take 
 up work again. If you think of going away, you 
 might be prepared to start in the following week. 
 " My sincerest regards. 
 
 " Affectionately yours, 
 
 "F. BRADLEY WEBBE."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, City, on a bright 
 summer afternoon, offers every attraction but 
 shade. Queen Victoria Street commences near 
 to the river-side, at a point where folk hurry to- 
 ward the stone steps of Blackfriars Bridge, to take 
 boat to Chelsea, and thence for love of a roving 
 life is a thing that grows on one thence to Kew. 
 Queen Victoria Street is not one of those streets 
 which are unable to make up their minds as to the 
 direction they shall take. It aims ambitiously 
 at the Mansion House; and the directness and 
 persistency with which it makes for that goal is a 
 standing lesson to embryo Lord Mayors for all 
 time. It is a busy street, too, much occupied 
 with a variety of occupations; from huge iron 
 machines, revolving ceaselessly for no apparent 
 motive, to the College of Heralds, where the 
 newest knight gets the oldest ancestry that his 
 wife desires; from American typewriters to gor- 
 geous outfitters where one may buy neckties 
 that shall amaze suburbs and force them into 
 admiration.
 
 170 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Gilbert!" Captain Dann patted 
 Gilbert's shoulders with both hands as he greeted 
 him. It was a habit that some of Captain Dann's 
 acquaintances did not care for. " That's right. 
 Nothing like being up to time. It's an old say- 
 ing of mine, you know, that time, to a certain 
 extent, is er money. That's the way I put it, 
 and by gad, sir" (frankly), "there's something 
 in it." 
 
 "How long will the meeting last?" 
 
 "Well." Captain Dann whistled on the edge 
 of his pince-nez. The pince-nez was a new adorn- 
 ment with the effusive gentleman, and with it 
 had come a white hat and a tendency to frown. 
 Generally, he seemed to wear a garment of pros- 
 perity that he had not hitherto put on. "Well, 
 I should say an hour would cover it. I must 
 introduce you to the other directors. And I 
 say ! " 
 
 Gilbert waited. 
 
 " I got them to elect you on the board, old 
 chap, because I told them that you not only had 
 a little money yourself, but you knew people 
 who had a lot." 
 
 "I only know " 
 
 "'And, moreover, I told them that you had an
 
 immense influence over the press of this country. 
 That was what really fetched them." 
 
 "But I don't know that I could use the Budget 
 in that way, Dann. You see it's a particular 
 journal." 
 
 " It's just the particular journals that we 
 want. You needn't puff the Company in a 
 brazen-faced manner. All you have to do is to 
 mention casually, at the proper time, that this 
 looks like a big thing; that men with heads on 
 their shoulders are managing it, and that the 
 shares will shortly go up by leaps and bounds, 
 and " 
 
 "But will they?" 
 
 Captain Dann whispered behind his large, fat, 
 beringed hand. 
 
 "They will, my boy, if you say so. Besides, 
 there's some news in store." 
 
 He pawed Gilbert again on the shoulder and 
 took his arm. 
 
 " Got a cigar ? " he asked, as they were going 
 up the lift. 
 
 " Yes. Do you want to smoke? " 
 
 "No," said Dann. "But just light one, and 
 then, when you go in the room, throw it carelessly 
 into the fire-place. It will have a good effect."
 
 172 
 
 " Pity to waste it, surely," said Gilbert, as he 
 lighted a Manilla. 
 
 " It won't be wasted, my boy. Little actions 
 like these tell strangers what a man is really like. 
 There's nothing in this world like making a good 
 
 first impression. I've known people Here 
 
 we are. I dare say some of the directors have 
 already arrived." 
 
 The smaller office of the Hip Hip Hurrah 
 Mining Co. was a room with a green, baize- 
 covered table in the centre and a sufficient 
 number of chairs; on the walls maps of South, 
 Africa, colored red and blue, with a large cross 
 in one place. On the table lay sheets of white 
 foolscap, and sheets of virgin blotting paper, 
 and new pens and shining inkstands; all offer- 
 ing facilities to directors anxious to earn their 
 fees by taking voluminous notes. A large, 
 round, padded chair for the Chairman, at the 
 head of the table; at the other end sat Mr. 
 Matcham, with (seemingly) rather less chin than 
 usual; his small eyes intent on a financial news- 
 paper. Two or three men were talking in a 
 corner. 
 
 "Matcham!" cried Captain Dann, as he 
 brought Gilbert forward, "here's my old true,
 
 173 
 
 tried, and trusted friend, Mr. Gilbert. You re- 
 member meeting a week or two since, you two? 
 I think I told you, Mr. Gilbert, that Matcham had 
 been appointed secretary of this company?" 
 
 "It's a devil of a tie," complained Mr. 
 Matcham. " I'm here till half-past four and 
 five o'clock sometimes." 
 
 "In the morning?" asked Gilbert sympatheti- 
 cally. 
 
 "Oh, no; in the evening. But the continual 
 grind tells on one, don't you know. I'm not 
 used to it." 
 
 "You soon will be," exclaimed Captain Dann; 
 "you'll soon settle down." 
 
 "Yes. I know," said Matcham despondently, 
 "in my grave. I've heard of people working 
 themselves to death before now, and I'm begin- 
 ning to think " 
 
 "Let me make you known to some of your 
 co-directors, Gilbert. Come along." 
 
 Mr. Blenkinsop. Mr. Percy Blenkinsop was 
 nephew of the Chairman (explained Captain 
 Dann), Jasper Blenkinsop, M. P. Good family 
 (whispered Captain Dann), devilish good family, 
 but deucedly hard up. Deucedly hard up, to be 
 sure.
 
 174 
 
 "How do?" said Mr. Percy Blenkinsop 
 languidly. " Strornary weather time year. 
 What ? " 
 
 Commander Harvey. Commander Harvey, 
 bluff naval man with carefully trimmed black 
 side-whiskers, hands ever in trousers pockets, 
 and a suggestion of a lurch in his walk, as of one 
 still at sea. Commander Harvey withdrew one 
 hand from his trousers pocket and smacked with 
 it the hand offered by Gilbert, much in the way 
 affected by emotional leading men in stirring 
 melodrama. 
 
 And the Hon. George Beauclerc. The Hon. 
 George, a little perturbed by the arrival of 
 Gilbert, inasmuch as he was thus interrupted in 
 a humorous story at the very moment where the 
 laugh should have come. The Hon. George 
 prided himself on being a raconteur; he knew 
 seven anecdotes, and they all had a strong 
 feminine interest. 
 
 "Absolutely," whispered Captain Dann au- 
 dibly "abso lutely the most amusing dog that 
 ever came into the City." 
 
 "Oh, hang it, Dann!" protested the Hon. 
 George. 
 
 "Come, now," demanded Dann boisterously,
 
 175 
 
 "confess it. Confess it. Is it a fact or is it not a 
 fact, that you, my dear sir, have a joke ready for 
 every possible occasion ? Have you ever found 
 yourself nonplussed ? Eh ? Have you ever found 
 yourself at a loss for a humorous remark ? 
 Eh?" 
 
 "Well," agreed the Hon. George frankly, "I 
 must say I'm about as fly as the rest of them. 
 Talking about being fly, though, reminds me of a 
 girl at the Gaiety, and she " 
 
 "The Chairman ! " 
 
 The Chairman: a little late, but only because to 
 be late was a busy, important, conspicuous thing 
 to do. Mr. Jasper Blenkinsop bowed to Gilbert, 
 sank into the chair, and looked round the table 
 with the wearied, patronizing look of a statesman 
 who is giving up his life to the service of his 
 country. Captain Dann, seated by his side, 
 whispered the word, " Minutes." 
 
 "The Secretary," said the Chairman sonor- 
 ously "the Secretary will be so good as to read 
 the minutes of the last meeting." 
 
 Mr. Matcham, screwing up his small eyes, read 
 hurriedly the minutes of the last meeting. 
 
 " Those who are in favor of the minutes being 
 signed as correct will signify "
 
 1 7 6 
 
 "I don't wish to delay this meeting," inter- 
 rupted the burly naval gentleman, ''but we want 
 everything straight and above-board. Those 
 minutes say that Mr. Percy Blenkinsop moved 
 that a further call of five shillings per share be 
 made. Now I want to point out to you, because, 
 as a naval man, I believe in having the thing done 
 correctly, that / moved that resolution. / did it. 
 / spoke to it. / was asked to move it, and / 
 moved it." 
 
 Commander Harvey, very red, leaned back 
 and tapped the table nervously with his fingers, 
 as one who has felt it necessary to clear his 
 character from lasting dishonor. 
 
 "What's the use of talking like that ?" asked 
 Mr. Matcham from the end of the table. "Here 
 it is, down in black and white, and how " 
 
 Captain Dann had whispered again to the 
 Chair. 
 
 "You will make the necessary correction, Mr. 
 Secretary," said the Chair severely. 
 
 It was the Speaker's style of sitting on recal- 
 citrant members in the House of Commons, and 
 Mr. Jasper Blenkinsop flattered himself that it 
 was not a bad imitation. In fact, if any thing 
 were to happen to the Speaker, it was obvious, in
 
 177 
 
 Mr. Blenkinsop's opinion, that no one was so well 
 qualified to take the place as himself. 
 
 " You will excuse me reminding you, sir," 
 whispered Captain Dann respectfully. 
 
 "Certainly, Dann; certainly. I've got a mar- 
 vellous memory," said the Chair, "but now 
 and again it wants jogging. It's the constant 
 wear and tear in the House that takes it out 
 of a man." 
 
 The Chairman rose, a sign that he was about 
 to address the directors on a subject of im- 
 portance. 
 
 " Mr. Speaker, sir, in asking the House I beg 
 pardon, I beg pardon. Gentlemen, excuse the 
 slight slip of the tongue. I have to speak to 
 you on rather an important question. Mr. 
 Matcham, is the door closed ? " 
 
 Mr. Matcham with a sigh intended to convey 
 a remonstrance against the laborious nature of 
 the new undertaking which he was requested to 
 engage upon went over to the door ; opened it 
 and closed it carefully. 
 
 " I hope, gentlemen, you will take careful note 
 of what I am about to say. It appears that a 
 cablegram will shortly reach this country " 
 
 "Hear, hear !" approvingly from Captain Dann. 
 
 12
 
 " Which will give shall I say an encouraging 
 account yes, a most encouraging account of the 
 Hip Hip Hurrah Mines. You are aware that 
 these mines have not for some time past held a 
 favorable position in the estimation of the public. 
 The one-pound shares, now fully paid up, are 
 quoted at an absurdly low figure." 
 
 " Hear, hear ! " regretfully from Captain Dann. 
 
 "Gentlemen, it is not we who are responsible 
 for much of this. When the old directorate 
 resigned we took the helm of the ship and led 
 it forward if you will excuse the metaphor 
 across the field of battle, strewn with bodies of 
 like companies, in the hope of finding the 
 promised land. Like the Egyptians of old " 
 
 "Hear, hear!" reverentially from Captain 
 Dann. 
 
 " Like the Egyptians of old like the Egyp- 
 tians of old, we " 
 
 The recollection of the Chair did not appear 
 to be able to take him into the details of that 
 remote period. 
 
 "At any rate, it is time we made something 
 out of this concern. We came in cheap, gentle- 
 men, we shall go out dear. The spoils to the 
 victor."
 
 179 
 
 "Good!" cried Captain Dann enthusiastically. 
 " Spoils to the victor! Good ! " 
 
 "This cablegram will be communicated to the 
 newspapers on Tuesday morning next. To-day 
 is Thursday. My advice to you all is, then, to 
 buy carefully any Hip Hip Hurrah shares that 
 you can. On Tuesday and Wednesday next I 
 venture to think that you will be able to dispose 
 of them at excellent prices." 
 
 "Excuse me," said Gilbert, "but how do we 
 know that the cable will arrive ? " 
 
 The Chair rose excitedly. "I am not, 
 gentlemen, in the habit of finding my word 
 doubted " 
 
 "I am not doubting your word," persisted 
 Gilbert hotly. " You have not yet given it." 
 
 The Chair looked despairingly at Captain 
 Dann, as who should say, "This is what comes 
 of letting in outsiders." 
 
 "Seems me," said Mr. Percy Blenkinsop, with 
 much effort, " seems me something in what 
 Mr. I-forget-his-darn-name er says." 
 
 " If we know that a good find has been made, 
 then, I think," went on the new director, flushing, 
 " that we ought to make the news known to the 
 shareholders. If we don't know that a good find
 
 i8o 
 
 has been made, how can we be sure that we shall 
 know on Tuesday next ?" 
 
 Gilbert had not stated his argument quite so 
 clearly as he could have wished, but he hoped he 
 had made it sufficiently obvious. 
 
 "I don't want to make any trouble," went on 
 Gilbert, with less heat, "but at the same time I 
 don't want to get into any trouble. At present 
 it looks as though " 
 
 "Allow me," interrupted Captain Dann. 
 "Perhaps a few words from me will clear the air. 
 A stitch in time, as I often say, saves as many as 
 nine, and if I tell my dear friend Mr. Gilbert 
 that I stake my reputation on the arrival of this 
 cablegram before Tuesday morning next; that 
 I'll forfeit my head my head, sir, on the block, 
 if it does not arrive; why, then I feel sure that 
 he will agree with every word that you, sir, have 
 said. I may remind my young friend Mr. Gil- 
 bert one of the best and brightest and cleverest 
 journalists of the day, gentlemen, and one for 
 whose name on the scroll of Fame a bright space 
 is waiting I may remind him that on a former 
 occasion he omitted to take my advice " 
 
 "I agree," said Gilbert, abashed. 
 
 "My idea is," said the Hon. George, "that
 
 our motto's this: Keep your eye on Cap'n Dann 
 and he will pull you through." 
 
 General agreement. Commander Harvey half 
 inclined to take his hands out of his trousers 
 pockets and hail the Chairman, but not seeing 
 exactly what he should say, determining after 
 consideration not to do so. 
 
 "Gentlemen, you honor me." Captain Dann 
 flourished his red silk handkerchief and dabbed 
 his eyes with it. "You honor me. I am proud 
 of your confidence I say it frankly. I am not 
 one of those who are ashamed to acknowledge 
 that they are trusted by honest men. Give me 
 (as I have said on more occasions than one) give 
 me the man of an er honest heart. Gentle- 
 men, thank you." 
 
 There was some further business, but Gilbert 
 sat back rather sulkily and did not trouble to 
 listen. Instead, he thought of Kittie, and he 
 thought of the Budget, and he thought of many 
 things that had no reference to the Hip Hip 
 Hurrah Mining Company. 
 
 " Then you agree, gentlemen," said the Chair- 
 man, "to take this important step. It seems 
 to be the only thing we can do, and our friend, 
 Captain Dann, says that we are safe in doing it."
 
 182 
 
 "The law can't touch us," said Captain Dann. 
 
 Still more business, engineered mainly by the 
 excellent Dann, and Gilbert's admiration for that 
 gentleman increased as he noted the tact with 
 which he managed every one around the table. 
 When the Hon. George Beauclerc interrupted 
 with a devilish good story that a Stock Exchange 
 man had told him, it was Dann who sidled round 
 to the Hon. George and listened attentively, and 
 prevented the recital from delaying business. 
 When Mr. Percy Blenkinsop could not find his 
 eye-glass, it was Dann who scribbled a line, " It is 
 on your back," and passed it along to the dis- 
 tressed youth. When a question arose of the 
 time a steamer would take from Cape Town to 
 Southampton, and Commander Harvey grunted 
 and growled at the clumsy guesses of the land- 
 lubbers, it was Dann who said, " Gentlemen, 
 pardon me for interrupting, but we are favored 
 with the presence of a colleague whose knowl- 
 edge of the ocean is limited only by the bounds 
 placed on it by the possessions of our great coun- 
 try. Will that gentleman need I say that I re- 
 fer to Commander Harvey will he decide this 
 question for us?" And his deference to the 
 Chair, and the way in which, while apparently
 
 183 
 
 conceding to that difficult gentleman, he always 
 managed to make the Chair do exactly what he 
 wanted the Chair to do, was in itself a generous 
 education. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the Chair, "a most satis- 
 factory meeting! Most satisfactory! I prom- 
 ised the Whips that I would be back in the House 
 by five-thirty; where my vote is required on a 
 subject to which I will not, with your permission, 
 further allude." 
 
 Cheers from Captain Dann, indicative of com- 
 mendation of the politician's diplomatic attitude 
 of reserve. 
 
 "Thanks to the attention which you have 
 given to the business of the Hip Hip Hurrah 
 Company " (the Chair glanced at his nephew's 
 blotting-pad, whereon that languid youth had de- 
 picted an extremely plump young lady in tights), 
 " I have been able to stay to the finish. May I 
 say that just as our motto is 'aspire,' so should 
 we hope that now the clouds are rolling away 
 from this undertaking to which we have the 
 honor to belong; that the clouds will be washed 
 away by the the sudden wave of prosperity " 
 
 "Capital ! " murmured Captain Dann. " Wave 
 of prosperity. Capital ! capital ! "
 
 1 84 
 
 " Wave of prosperity which I see in my mind's 
 eye, no bigger, perhaps, than a man's hand, but 
 destined, as I hope, to grow, to accumulate, to 
 increase, to enlargen if I may use the word 
 until the bright sun of joy once again rains down 
 upon us its generous gifts." 
 
 The Chair put on his hat and found his stick, 
 and seemed half inclined to weep. There were, 
 indeed, tears in his eyes as he waved good-by, 
 and, with the haste of a man who feels that the 
 political world is waiting impatiently for him, 
 hurried away. 
 
 In the outer office Gilbert waited a few mo- 
 ments. Four or five clerks were doing a little 
 work, and doing it with much assiduity. They 
 all frowned at their books and at their correspond- 
 ence, and they bit their lips as though the con- 
 centration of intellect were doing them a serious 
 injury. In the corner a telephone with a junior 
 clerk speaking at it. Gilbert looked at the tele- 
 phone and smiled. It reminded him of an inci- 
 dent in Cheyne Gardens only a few weeks since, 
 it seemed like several years, and he wondered 
 what these people would say if he were to tell 
 them the facts. He felt that it would be useless 
 to do this, even if he were so inclined. In his
 
 ca.se nothing would sound quite so untrue as the 
 truth. 
 
 "Oh, and I say, Miss " 
 
 The junior clerk was unaware of the presence 
 of a director, and was giving a little exhibition of 
 mannishness for the benefit of the other clerks. 
 He was a small, brush-haired boy, and he had to 
 stand on tiptoe to speak. 
 
 "And I say, Miss, what are you doing next 
 Sunday, eh ? You don't know ? Well, what do 
 you say to Kew ? You say c no fear,' do you? 
 All right then, don't! I dare say there's plenty 
 of other girls " 
 
 A cough from one of the seniors caused the 
 junior to look round, and he stopped at once. 
 
 "That telephone is on the Central, I sup- 
 pose ? " asked Gilbert. 
 . "Yes, sir." 
 
 "So that you can communicate to almost any- 
 where?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 Gilbert stood looking at the instrument, and 
 the senior clerk waited respectfully. 
 
 "Wonderfully ingenious invention, sir," 
 remarked the senior clerk. "Quite in its 
 infancy, too, they tell me."
 
 i86 
 
 "I suppose so," said Gilbert absently. 
 
 "If you had told people thirty years ago that 
 the time would come when they could speak to 
 each other from London to Paris, why, they 
 would have stared like any thing." 
 
 "That would have been the least they could 
 do." 
 
 "Quite so, sir. And of course they've be- 
 come a great convenience; I don't know what 
 we should do without them now; do you, sir ? " 
 
 "No," said Gilbert, " I don't." 
 
 Captain Dann's hand fell upon his shoulder. 
 
 "One moment," said Captain Dann. "Just 
 step this way, Mr. Gilbert." They walked to 
 the corridor. " Be very caref ul not to let that 
 little matter of the coming telegram slip out. 
 What passes in a Board Room is of course in the 
 nature of er what I call a Cabinet secret. 
 You'll be very careful, won't you ? In next 
 week's Budget you can boom the news for ail 
 it's worth." 
 
 "I should like to let a friend of mine into the 
 know," said Gilbert. 
 
 "One friend?" 
 
 "Only one!" 
 
 " Personal friend ?"
 
 i8 7 
 
 "Yes, certainly, a personal friend; some one 
 who has been very kind " 
 
 "If you can trust your friend, Mr. Gilbert, 
 well and good. But do be careful. These little 
 things so easily go wrong." 
 
 Gilbert went down the lift. Outside, in the 
 bright sunlight of busy Queen Victoria Street, he 
 stopped. 
 
 "I'll go straight to her," he said. 
 
 He hailed a hansom and stood on the step to 
 speak to the driver. 
 
 "Queen's Gate!" he said.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE Rhine in August belongs not to Germany, 
 but to America and in a lesser extent to 
 England. The Kaiser Wilhelm, the Germania, 
 and the other awning-covered steamers that 
 hurry from Cologne to Mayence, are boarded by 
 folk speaking either the English or the American 
 language; the hotels that give their titles in 
 three languages, so that none may have cause for 
 hesitation, are in a state of siege, and nobody 
 relishes the invasion more than the invaded 
 Germans. Mr. Gilbert journalist, financial man, 
 engaged youth, one with the rosiest of pros- 
 pects had stood at the side of the steamer 
 as it left Cologne and had laughed with satis- 
 faction. His reception at the Coblentz land- 
 ing-stage by the entire household of the Villa 
 Hermosa was most gratifying; but not more 
 gratifying than the attentions that were paid to 
 him during the week. Rooms had been taken 
 for him at the Hotel du Geant, and his days were 
 spent in trips organized by the assiduous Mrs.
 
 i8g 
 
 Brentford. The party had been across the river 
 to Ehrenbreitstein with the exception of the 
 stout youth, Mr. Lancing, who objected to all 
 exercise as cruel; they had been down the wind- 
 ing, undecided Moselle to Treves; they had 
 been up the Rhine to Bingen; they had held 
 a picnic near Stoltenfels. Aucun incident, as the 
 French journals say. But Miss Campbelltown, 
 of the Ladies' Own, had told the stout minor 
 artist (whom she loved) that something was 
 going to happen soon. 
 
 "Mark my words," Miss Campbelltown had 
 said mysteriously. 
 
 They were sitting on one of the balconies on 
 the Rhine side of the Villa Hermosa. There 
 were many balconies at the Villa Hermosa; a 
 distinct advantage, inasmuch as if you wanted 
 to evade old Howson, who had been an editor 
 of some paper in the fifties (now extinct), and 
 cherished against somebody a grievance that was 
 at least forty years old, you went to the upper 
 balcony, where you perhaps found little Miss 
 Howson, his daughter, whose company was the 
 more gracious; similarly, if the lady of the house 
 desired to consult Gilbert on financial matters 
 Mrs. Brentford insisted on looking upon Gilbert
 
 as a prospective governor of the Bank of Eng- 
 land why, there was sure to be a disengaged 
 balcony overlooking the Mainzer Chaussee. 
 
 "I am sorry to be so near the end," said 
 Gilbert. 
 
 He rested an elbow on the wooden railing of 
 the balcony, and took his cigar-case from his 
 pocket. In doing so a letter in the familiar writ- 
 ing of Kittie Reade fluttered down, and, as he 
 picked it up, he flushed. 
 
 "The regret will be mainly on my side," 
 declared Gertrude Brentford earnestly. " Do 
 smoke." 
 
 "I suppose, when I get back to the Budget, I 
 shall have to take off my coat and do my best to 
 fill Bradley Webbe's place." He laughed a little 
 uneasily. " Poor old Bradley Webbe ! He's 
 unlucky." 
 
 " Why is he leaving ? " 
 
 "Well, I scarcely know how to explain it. 
 The Proprietor didn't care for him." 
 
 "Of course, Bradley Webbe can't say that 
 you have helped to oust him out of the 
 position ? " 
 
 " I hope he won't say that," answered Gilbert 
 with some anxiety.
 
 " He is sure not to hint that you have done 
 any thing unfair," said Mrs. Brentford. "Any 
 one who knows you, Gilbert " 
 
 " Quite so, quite so." 
 
 " Would never think of suggesting that you 
 could act in any way " 
 
 "I suppose that is so." 
 
 "Ah!" said Gertrude Brentford, "you have 
 all a good man's modesty." 
 
 Gilbert picked a flower from the creeping blue 
 clematis on the wall, and hummed a tune softly 
 to give himself time to regain his self-possession. 
 
 " I wonder what your future will be like, 
 Gilbert?" 
 
 "I beg your pardon?" 
 
 Gertrude Brentford repeated the question. 
 She leaned back in the basket chair and placed 
 one small foot on a ledge of the balcony. It was 
 a small, neatly-slippered foot, and there was thus 
 every excuse for giving it some little prominence. 
 Too often it is the large, bulging, elastic-side 
 boot that is allowed by ladies to be en Evidence ; 
 boots which bring no gratification to the heart of 
 man, and should be used exclusively for the pur- 
 pose of frightening birds. The silver buckle on 
 Gertrude Brentford's slippers caught the last rays
 
 of the declining sun through the lime-trees and 
 made Gilbert blink as he glanced at it. 
 
 11 It's rather difficult to say," answered Gilbert. 
 " My future depends, I suppose, partly on myself, 
 partly on my friends. In some moods I foresee 
 Westminster Abbey; in other moods the pauper 
 side of Kensal Green. Can you do any thing at 
 palmistry ?" 
 
 " Not unless you give me your hand," she said 
 softly. 
 
 The voice of Miss Campbelltown came from 
 the small drawing-room below. Miss Campbell- 
 town was a good journalist, but, as little Miss 
 Howson remarked, she could not sing for nuts. 
 Now, not to be able to sing for nuts is (one may 
 translate for the benefit of country gentlemen) to 
 sing with want of accuracy. Gilbert had only 
 half heard the last remark and did not reply. 
 
 "Let us go out into the avenue," said Mrs. 
 Brentford. He picked up a lace shawl and placed 
 it over her head. " Thank you so much." 
 
 It was growing dim out in the long, long 
 avenue that reaches from the barracks at Co- 
 blentz up to Laubach. Here and there statues of 
 Fame and of Liberty, and other abstract things, 
 gleamed at the side; a few hard-up German
 
 1 93 
 
 officers were strolling along, wooing, with mili- 
 tary pertinacity, plain daughters of well-to-do 
 Coblentz tradesfolk. 
 
 " Do you mind taking my arm, Gilbert ? I am 
 afraid of stumbling. Let us walk in this direc- 
 tion; we can find a place to look down upon the 
 Rhine." 
 
 "I admire the Rhine too much to do that." 
 
 " I want to ask you something. I want to ask 
 you if you if you are engaged." 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 ''Well," said Gilbert evasively, "I have no 
 contract signed with the Proprietor, but if he 
 gives me the editorship, I shall insist " 
 
 ''Are you engaged to Miss Reade ? " 
 
 "ToMissReade?" He coughed. " Oh, no ! " 
 
 It is so easy sometimes not to tell the truth. 
 People say the thing untrue either because they 
 are lazy, or because they are ingenious. As a 
 matter of fact, Gilbert blurted out this denial 
 mainly because he did not want to have to enter 
 into explanations. 
 
 " I am so glad. So glad. She is a good, dear 
 little girl, but " 
 
 " I admire her very much," remarked Gilbert 
 earnestly. 
 13
 
 I 9 4 
 
 "But she is not quite the wife that you 
 want. She will make somebody very happy, 
 but " 
 
 "It's a pity that these things are not managed 
 by a State department. It would save people a 
 great deal of trouble." 
 
 "I suppose some people like the trouble. 
 Here is the place." 
 
 They could look across over the low, solid 
 brick wall at the broad river. By the side of 
 the wall was a map of the Rhine from Cologne to 
 Basle. The birds, looking down upon the two, 
 twittered in the high branches of the trees with 
 an air of lively interest, as who should say, 
 " Here's more fun/' ^Jt occurred to Gilbert quite 
 suddenly that Gertrude Brentford was an ex- 
 ceedingly good-looking woman; the faint sus- 
 picion of matronliness that day-time with its 
 brutal frankness suggested was absent now. 
 
 "I suppose that being in love," she said 
 slowly, "is a kind of agreeable madness." 
 
 "I believe that marriage not infrequently 
 restores the patients to sanity." 
 
 She turned to him quickly. 
 
 "Why do you always talk like that, Gilbert? 
 You make me think at times that you are want-
 
 195 
 
 ing in sincerity. It is because you are trying to 
 conceal your real self ! " 
 
 "I am always rather cautious, I suppose. 
 The fact is that, before my present life, I had the 
 experience of forty years. That enables me, you 
 see, to avoid the errors other youths commit." 
 
 "You absurd person!" laughed Gertrude 
 Brentford. The quaint conceit restored her 
 good humor, and she patted his arm with an 
 affectionate manner of reproof. "One cannot 
 be annoyed with you." 
 
 "But touching this question of wives," said 
 Gilbert. 
 
 It is not easy to say why, at this moment, 
 Gilbert placed his hand gently on her shoulder. 
 Gertrude Brentford gave a little shiver of delight 
 and did not protest. 
 
 "What kind of a partner do you think I ought 
 to advertise for?" he went on. 
 
 "I think," she said slowly, "that you want 
 some one whose position in the world would help 
 you. You want some one who can take a sincere 
 interest in all that you do. You want some one 
 who who loves you. You want some one who 
 can help you at once to make a name in the 
 world. You want "
 
 196 
 
 "It's a long advertisement," interrupted Gil- 
 bert. He touched a vagrant curl on her neck, 
 and as he bent his head slightly the soft perfume 
 of her hair came to him. "And there would 
 probably be no answers." 
 
 Her fingers played a quick tune on the low 
 brick wall. 
 
 " There would be one answer," she said 
 slowly. 
 
 "From whom ?" 
 
 She stepped back suddenly, and held out her 
 hands to him appealingly. The birds up in the 
 branches sang with much excitement. 
 
 "Can't you see," she cried with something of 
 t a wail in her voice "can't you see that I love 
 you?" 
 
 The birds up in the high branches of the limes 
 of the Rhine Anlagen twittered now with enthu- 
 siasm, as though the sight of two mortals hold- 
 ing each other in their arms for a brief moment 
 were the most gratifying spectacle in the world. 
 Gilbert had not hesitated; he saw, with the 
 foresight that experience gave him, in a quick 
 flash of anticipation the advantages of a wife 
 with a house in Queen's Gate. Years of his new 
 existence would be economized; at one step he
 
 197 
 
 would be able to breathe an atmosphere of 
 luxury. 
 
 He kissed Gertrude Brentford on the lips, and 
 the excited birds flew off to tell other birds of 
 their acquaintance all about it. 
 
 ' ' You mean that ? " he asked. "You mean that 
 you do love me ? I want to hear you say it again." 
 
 " I am willing to say it all my life," she 
 answered softly. 
 
 "I wonder I wonder how it is that I have 
 never guessed this ?" 
 
 "Perhaps it was because you were not " 
 
 " Not conceited enough ? That was it. I 
 never dared to think for one moment that you 
 would care to marry me; I should never have 
 ventured to ask you." 
 
 "The fact that I proposed to you, Gilbert," 
 she said nervously, " is not to be remembered to 
 my debit." 
 
 "They say the queen did it," answered Gil- 
 bert encouragingly. "As a loyal subject, the 
 least you could do was to emulate her example." 
 
 " But, Gilbert," rather anxiously. 
 
 "Gertrude." 
 
 " You you have always cared for me, haven't 
 you ? "
 
 ig8 
 
 "Since the moment that I first saw you," said 
 Gilbert gravely. 
 
 He comforted himself with a swift reflection 
 that the moderate form of the question enabled 
 him to answer it with absolute truth. And No. 
 310 Queen's Gate was really a charming house; 
 his study would look out on the Institute. 
 
 He took her arm, and they walked down the 
 long, foliage-roofed avenue toward the villa. 
 
 "I wonder what would happen," she asked 
 laughingly, "if a woman were to propose to 
 some one who didn't want to marry her." 
 
 "Quite easy, dear. The gentleman would 
 reply, with becoming modesty, that it was impos- 
 sible to give the hand where the heart could 
 never be, and he would offer as an alternative to 
 be as a brother to the lady." 
 
 "There is really no reason why men should 
 claim the monopoly." 
 
 "It is a relic of the barbarous age," agreed 
 Gilbert. "We are working away from the old 
 practice of permitting the gentleman to stun the 
 lady with a battle-axe and ride off with her, but 
 the process is slow. Do you mind doing some- 
 thing to oblige me, Gertrude ? " 
 
 "With pleasure, dear."
 
 199 
 
 " Kiss me again." 
 
 Decidedly Gilbert's experience came to his 
 aid effectively now, for he showed none of the 
 gaucherie that the average youth exhibits in try- 
 ing circumstances. Gertrude Brentford, sin- 
 cerely happy, stood at the tall iron gate leading 
 to the garden of the Villa Hermosa. 
 
 "We must come out here next year, Gilbert," 
 she said contentedly. "You will be host then, 
 and you must invite your friends." 
 
 He took her chin and looked into her eyes. 
 
 "Would you like me to tell these people 
 now ? " he asked; " or shall we^eep it locked in 
 our own hearts as a mysterious secret ? " 
 
 "I think I think I would rather it were 
 known to them. Besides, they will be sure to 
 guess. Is that a steamer going down?" 
 
 Out on the Rhine the Germania was making 
 its way back to Cologne, pushing along with 
 much determination, and making the river form 
 miniature affrighted waves. A baritone voice 
 came from the deck through the still air, singing: 
 
 " Ich habe ja Ew'ge Treu verspochen dir, 
 
 Wohl unter heissen Wonneklissen. 
 In meinen Augen siehst du mehr 
 Als Mond und Sterne wissen."
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " ' In meinen Augen siehst du mehr,' " echoed 
 Gertrude Brentford softly. 
 
 There were tears in her eyes. 
 
 "Gilbert Gilbert," said the young man to 
 himself, "you are a scoundrel. You are behav- 
 ing like a scoundrel, and you are a scoundrel." 
 
 Nevertheless, he managed to enter the draw- 
 ing-room of the villa with some gayety of heart. 
 He could see so well that it meant prosperity, 
 and the thought soothed his indignation at his 
 act. It is easy to persuade ourselves that we 
 are not really so black as in a moment of anger 
 we have painted ourselves; one must use toler- 
 ance in this world, even in regard to our own 
 faults. 
 
 "Miss Howson, come here; Miss Campbell- 
 town, come here also, please. I want to speak 
 to you on a subject of importance." 
 
 " Good Heavens, Gilbert ! " said old Mr. 
 Howson, "you are not going to propose to both 
 of them, are you ? " 
 
 Old Mr. Howson laughed so much at his joke 
 that he coughed and was forced to sip his 
 whiskey-and-water. 
 
 "I scent romance," said the stout artist
 
 201 
 
 lazily. " I find a distinct suggestion of romance. 
 I hope it will be understood that, while I am not 
 unwilling to listen to romance if it comes to me, 
 I am willing to make no effort to go out to meet 
 romance." 
 
 "Where is Mrs. Brentford?" asked Miss 
 Campbelltown. 
 
 " She is gathering a buttonhole in the garden 
 for me." 
 
 " Is there some hidden mystery here ? " de- 
 manded old Mr. Howson, chuckling. "I 
 remember at the time of the Crimean war I 
 was a mere youngster at the time and a lady 
 of my acquaintance " 
 
 "I only want to tell you," interrupted Gilbert, 
 "that Mrs. Brentford has promised to be my 
 wife." 
 
 Mouvement. Gertrude Brentford, entering, 
 was immediately kissed by the ladies and 
 covered with exuberant congratulations. The 
 servant bringing in wine, old Mr. Howson 
 craned himself into a standing position, and 
 offered his good wishes in a little speech. 
 
 "Young people: this announcement fills me, 
 and I am sure every one else, with the greatest 
 delight. I have known our charming hostess for
 
 2O2 
 
 some time; I knew her poor husband, who was 
 certainly the oddest " 
 
 Miss Howson coughed warningly. 
 
 "I'm sure that you'll both be very happy. 
 My friend Gilbert, if he will permit me to call 
 him so, is one of those men who are bound to 
 get along in the world. The stars in their 
 courses fight in his favor " 
 
 " Hear, hear ! " from the stout artist. 
 
 "And, if our good wishes are of any effect, 
 he will be very, very happy with his delightful 
 companion. Journalists nowadays have oppor- 
 tunities that in my younger days were never 
 dreamed of. In '55, as I may have mentioned to 
 one or two of you, I was unfortunate enough to 
 encounter the most confounded scamp of a " 
 
 Little Miss Howson coughed warningly 
 again. 
 
 " Let me conclude by asking you all to drink 
 to their healths and to their great prosperity in 
 a good, honest, English way. Ladies and gen- 
 tlemen, charge your glasses. Mrs. Brentford 
 and Gilbert, to you ! " 
 
 Gilbert, rather nervous, begged to be allowed 
 to say, very briefly, thank you. If he had been an 
 orator, he would have bored them with a speech.
 
 203 
 
 As it was he could only say again for his dear 
 love 
 
 Gertrude Brentford's eyes fill again. 
 
 And himself, thank you, and good-night. 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Brentford," said Miss Camp- 
 belltown, " I knew it all the time. And I'm so 
 pleased, really." 
 
 Miss Campbelltown was eliciting additional 
 facts, like the practised interviewer she was, by 
 a visit to Gertrude Brentford's room. 
 
 "And may I mention it, when I return, in the 
 Ladies' Own? I can make rather a charming 
 little par. out of it." 
 
 "Please don't. I am not sure that Gilbert 
 would care for it to be publicly known yet." 
 
 She stood up in front of the cheval glass and 
 looked contentedly at the reflection of a glad 
 face. 
 
 "You look five years younger, dear Mrs. 
 Brentford," said the lady journalist ingratiat- 
 ingly. "I must really see about falling in love 
 myself, if it has that effect." 
 
 "I am so very happy," said Gertrude Brent- 
 ford softly, "that I think presently I shall 
 cry." 
 
 Miss Campbelltown, having promised to keep
 
 204 
 
 the additional details an absolute secret, looked 
 in at Ethel Howson's room on her way to her 
 own bedroom and confided the new information 
 to that young person. 
 
 "Good!" cried little Miss Howson. She 
 turned down the page of her novel and closed 
 it, for love in real life is so much more interest- 
 ing than love in books. "I am glad to hear it. 
 I could see she was fond of him." 
 
 " I don't see that that has any thing to do with 
 it," grumbled Miss Campbelltown. "I wonder 
 how many times she expects to marry. There's 
 little chance for us single girls, if widows are to 
 go on like this. Surely a maximum of one ought 
 to be fixed." 
 
 '* Have you never been engaged, dear ? " 
 
 "Well, I have been engaged," said Miss 
 Campbelltown guardedly, "and I haven't been 
 engaged, if you can understand that. Some 
 men are very careful not to absolutely pledge 
 their word to you. Besides it's a well-known 
 fact that folk don't marry so frequently nowa- 
 days as they used to." 
 
 "I shouldn't want to marry frequently," said 
 little Miss Howson, nursing her knees. " Once 
 would do."
 
 205 
 
 "What I mean to say is that it's a distinctive 
 thing for a girl to do to remain single all her 
 life." 
 
 "It might be distinctive," said little Miss 
 Howson. "It would certainly be very disap- 
 pointing."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 IN his room at the Hotel facing the bridge of 
 boats, facing the Rhine running swiftly Cologne 
 way, facing the high fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, 
 which keeps a frowning eye on both the Moselle 
 and on the sturdier and more decided river in 
 his room a clever young writer was in the throes 
 of composition. There are several dodges at the 
 disposal of literary men to enable them to write, 
 and they select the one which affords them the 
 greatest assistance. Some walk about their 
 study for a space before applying themselves to 
 work, much as though they were engaged on a 
 go-as-you-please race, and when they finish the 
 last lap they seat themselves and write quickly. 
 Others, of whom in a general way Gilbert was 
 one, dispense with this pedestrian exercise and 
 let the pen do as it pleases, correcting the pen's 
 errors afterward. In the work upon which Gil- 
 bert found himself engaged, neither plan seemed 
 of much assistance.
 
 207 
 
 " MY DEAR KITTIE: 
 
 " My short holiday is nearly over and I shall 
 be back at the Budget early next week. I dare 
 say that we shall see each other. 
 
 " I have been considering our engagement 
 and " 
 
 There it seemed his powers of composition 
 ended. The ink had long been dry, and the 
 various ways of continuing the letter were con- 
 fusing themselves in his brain. 
 
 " It is not easy," he said thoughtfully, " to 
 play the part of a scamp, but " 
 
 A steamer with cargo was coming up the 
 Rhine. Two boats of the bridge, creaking and 
 grumbling bitterly at being disturbed so late at 
 night, came away with grudging politeness and 
 allowed the cargo-steamer to pass through. 
 There was some severe badinage in German; the 
 two boats went back and took their place in 
 the bridge. Down below, at the tables outside 
 the restaurant next door, was a queer, fore- 
 shortened view of white-topped tables and 
 fierce-mustached officers in uniform, and long, 
 thin glasses of beer. A couple of privates 
 stopped in the roadway, and saluted, with much
 
 208 
 
 care and particularity, the seated, fierce-mus- 
 tached officers. 
 
 "But," said Gilbert to himself, " it's of course 
 the best thing to do for every-body. And " he 
 tried to laugh and failed " and especially for me. " 
 
 He looked out again at the river ; looked 
 across the river at the high, burly fort; tried 
 hard to listen to the talk of the people below, 
 and saw not the Rhine and Ehrenbreitstein, 
 heard not the talk of the people below, but saw 
 Kittle Reade taking up the letter which he was 
 trying to write from her breakfast-table. Saw 
 her kiss it and hide it in her blouse. Heard 
 old Mrs. Reade's distracting conversation. Saw 
 Kittie at the earliest opportunity take the letter 
 from its sweet resting-place, open the envelope 
 with much care (for lovers' letters, mind you, 
 are not to be torn open roughly as though they 
 were circulars from the draper), saw her open 
 the letter and read the first lines. Saw Kittie's 
 face go white; saw the blouse palpitating hur- 
 riedly; heard her scream 
 
 "I'm upsetting myself for nothing at all," 
 cried Gilbert, wiping the perspiration from his 
 
 forehead. "It's quite likely that that 
 
 Where's my pipe?"
 
 20Q 
 
 If a man likes to smoke, and if a man flatters 
 a certain tobacco by remaining constant to it, 
 that tobacco will repay his devotion at certain 
 crises of the man's life in a most vaTuable way. 
 Before Gilbert's pipe was half done he had 
 finished his letter. He sat back when the task 
 was over, feeling somehow more content than 
 before. This slight revulsion of feeling increased 
 until he approached the stage where men wonder 
 with a kind of gratified surprise at the very 
 moderate character of their vices. If he had 
 been the average sentimental youth, he would 
 have clung to his first promise, and Queen's 
 Gate would have weighed as nothing; being (he 
 argued) a young man of considerable experience, 
 he had seen in a moment which was the most 
 profitable course to pursue. 
 
 He took up the letter: 
 
 "My DEAR KITTIE : 
 
 " My short holiday is nearly over and I shall 
 be back at the Budget early next week. I dare 
 say that we shall see each other. 
 
 " I have been considering our brief engage- 
 ment, and I want you to let me say honestly 
 what I think of the matter. I hope you will 
 14
 
 believe that I like you very much. But we are 
 both young, and I think we became engaged with- 
 out due and sober consideration. Shall we can- 
 cel the past, and see at the end of twelve months 
 whether we care for each other well enough to 
 resume the engagement ? 
 
 "I like to think that you are a common-sense 
 little woman, who will look at the whole affair as 
 calmly as I do. Let me know what you decide 
 when I return. 
 
 " Meanwhile and always, 
 
 " Believe me, 
 
 "Yours sincerely, 
 
 "GILBERT." 
 
 Gilbert read this through several times, and 
 dotted the z's, and inserted commas with partic- 
 ular care. He sighed. 
 
 "Now," he said, "if any one will kindly come 
 and knock me down several times I shall feel 
 better." 
 
 He addressed the envelope. By force of 
 habit he placed on the flap of the envelope the 
 tiny cross which Kittie and he had always placed 
 on their communications. He addressed another, 
 and rang the bell.
 
 "Sare !" 
 
 " I want you to get me a twenty-five pfennig 
 stamp, waiter." 
 
 "In two minutes, sare." 
 
 The waiter reappeared with the stamp, and 
 stood while Gilbert slowly placed it on the letter. 
 
 "Lods of beople in Coblentz," remarked the 
 waiter. "Ver* busy. Many Am ericans haf 
 gome here alretty." 
 
 "Post that," said Gilbert after a pause, "and 
 come back here." 
 
 A gleam of satisfaction came over the waiter's 
 face as he glanced at the address. 
 
 "Goot!" 
 
 When the waiter returned, Gilbert was sitting 
 on the ledge of the window. The waiter was 
 a tall, middle-aged man with domino-shaped 
 whiskers and close-cut hair. As he looked up to 
 touch the lamp, the light fell distinctly on his 
 face. 
 
 "Why, I know you ! " cried Gilbert quickly. 
 
 "Possible, sare." 
 
 The waiter turned away, as though anxious to 
 avoid recognition. 
 
 "Why, you you are " 
 
 " I've never been discovered before," said the
 
 waiter, laughing. He sat on the table with easy, 
 well-bred familiarity. " Don't let any body 
 know, that's all. You're a sharp fellow, Gilbert, 
 to recognize me." 
 
 " What number of life is this ? " asked Gilbert. 
 The diversion of encountering Ford came op- 
 portunely, for his thoughts were not entirely 
 pleasant. 
 
 " Well, this is a new life altogether," said Mr. 
 Ford. "Adopted for a special purpose." 
 
 "Which is?" 
 
 "Which is," said Mr. Ford, "a secret." 
 
 " What a man you are ! " 
 
 " I am several men. I have only arrived to- 
 day, and I shall stay a week. But I shall be 
 particularly obliged, Mr. Gilbert, if you will take 
 care not to speak of me to any body. I have a 
 very urgent reason for that." 
 
 " Rely upon me." 
 
 " And if I can do any thing while I am here, to 
 assist you in any way, I shall be glad." 
 
 "You can do something for me at once. 
 Bring some whiskey and some mineral water in 
 those cool little jars, and two glasses " 
 
 "Two?" 
 
 " Yes," said Gilbert; " one for yourself."
 
 213 
 
 When Ford brought the glasses he sat down 
 and allowed Gilbert to play the host. The hour 
 was late, and his services were not required else- 
 where in the hotel. 
 
 " When did I see you last, Mr. Ford ? I don't 
 think I've seen you since I visited Limehouse 
 Causeway." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 " But I have wondered once or twice what you 
 were doing. I thought your next life was to be 
 a military person, with rooms in " 
 
 " He's buried for the present. I came to 
 Coblentz because " 
 
 He hesitated, and pushed his chair back into 
 the shade. 
 
 "Because my wife is here." 
 
 "You married ? And what in the world does 
 your wife think of your eccentric behavior? " 
 
 "She does not mind," answered Ford calmly. 
 
 "That's lucky for you. Some wives would 
 seriously object to having so many husbands. Is 
 she staying in lodgings in the town ? I should 
 like to meet her, and see what she thinks of you." 
 
 "You shall," said Mr. Ford, in the shade, "if 
 it is convenient. I am going out to North Africa 
 next week."
 
 2I 4 
 
 "Another quick change ! And do you take 
 her with you ? " 
 
 "Good God, no!" exclaimed Ford. "I can 
 only endure the society of men for a little while; 
 the society of women sends me frantic." 
 
 "With joy?" 
 
 "No, no! with annoyance." 
 
 "You ought never to have married, Ford." 
 
 "I know that," said Mr. Ford, "now. It was 
 a great blunder of mine. Unfortunately, it is one 
 of the few blunders that cannot be remedied 
 without an infinite amount of trouble." 
 
 " But I fancied you rather enjoyed your present 
 attitude of irresponsibility." 
 
 "Why, yes, I believe I do; lam sure I do. 
 But I am not certain that some day I shall not tire 
 of the monotony of change and begin to think 
 about returning to the old life." 
 
 "Your wife will be pleased." 
 
 "You think she will, Gilbert ?" 
 
 " There can be little doubt about that. AVhat 
 shall you do in North Africa ? " 
 
 " My mind is not yet made up. I thought at 
 first about being a missionary, but I saw por- 
 traits the other day of some, and " 
 
 "You pass the missionary idea."
 
 215 
 
 "Yes. I think I shall do some shooting." 
 
 " Take care that the natives don't ; they have 
 an awkward habit of potting Europeans with 
 their Birmingham rifles." 
 
 " Nothing would suit me better," said Mr. Ford 
 cheerfully. " It would save me and other people 
 a lot of worry. But I suppose it is a notorious 
 fact that those who want to die can never do so." 
 
 "It's very hard," said Gilbert. 
 
 "Suicide is such a messy business. Besides, it 
 always looks so theatrical." 
 
 "It's a drama that I don't care for," agreed 
 Gilbert. "I think a man should endure his 
 life, and let Providence say when it is to end. 
 Providence knows best: it has had such a lot of 
 experience." 
 
 Ford rose, lighted another cigarette, and, lean- 
 ing his elbows on the mantle-piece, looked down 
 at Gilbert. There was always a certain refine- 
 ment on Ford's face, and his carefully-tended 
 finger nails were in themselves almost enough to 
 betray him. 
 
 "You're going back to town?" he added 
 abruptly. 
 
 "Yes ; I can't stay much longer." 
 
 " Going to get married soon, I suppose ?"
 
 216 
 
 "As it happens, you are right, Ford. I am to 
 be married very soon. I have just been making 
 some arrangements this evening." 
 
 "I am pleased to hear it very pleased indeed. 
 And look here, Gilbert: I don't know whether I 
 ever mentioned it, but I have plenty of money." 
 
 " I guessed you were not a pauper." 
 
 "And on your wedding-day I wish you would 
 do me a favor. I shall be away a few thousand 
 miles at the time, and I should like to feel that I 
 was doing something to help to make you both 
 happy." 
 
 Gilbert rose, with genuine recognition of 
 Ford's generosity. 
 
 "I'll get you on the morning of the wedding 
 to send a letter down to Cox's, the bankers, ask- 
 ing them for a parcel addressed to you. In it 
 you will find some things of considerable money 
 value, which you and " he smiled one of his rare 
 smiles "young Mrs. Gilbert must please accept. 
 There, don't thank me; I am doing it for quite 
 a selfish purpose. It is only to afford myself 
 gratification." 
 
 "I am sure that it is exceedingly good of 
 you," cried Gilbert. " She will be delighted. I 
 shall tell her all about you "
 
 217 
 
 " Pardon me; no. I am sorry in a sense that 
 you recognized me to-night. Don't talk of me, 
 please, to any one else more than you can help. 
 The satisfaction of the life would be gone, if I 
 once felt that it was known to many people. Is 
 she as old as you ? " 
 
 "I rather fancy," said Gilbert, "that she is 
 slightly older." 
 
 ''Oh!" 
 
 "But " hurriedly "the difference is noth- 
 ing to speak of. And, as there is no occasion to 
 wait, I dare say we shall be married at once." 
 
 Mr. Ford walked to the window, and sat with 
 his back to the river-side and his head bowed. 
 
 "I remember," he said slowly, "that when 
 I was married I thought the world was going to 
 reconstruct itself for my special convenience. 
 I thought that I myself should be altered, and 
 that it should be " 
 
 "Roses, roses all the way," suggested Gilbert. 
 
 "Yes. And my wife was younger than I, and 
 we were happy, and I was some one else until 
 No." He stopped suddenly. "No, I'm hanged 
 if I'm going to become a bore ! Mr. Gilbert, 
 why didn't you stop me ? " 
 
 "I was interested."
 
 218 
 
 "All that I shall tell you is that it was my 
 fault. Any ordinary man would have been 
 exceedingly happy. Now, I am no ordinary 
 man, unfortunately." 
 
 "That is true." 
 
 "All the same " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "All the same, I'll have a little more whiskey- 
 and-water, if you don't mind." 
 
 "My dear chap, why didn't you help your- 
 self?" 
 
 "I do, generally." 
 
 Gilbert put in some whiskey, filled up his glass 
 with water from the slim stone jar, and Ford 
 took two drinks. 
 
 "I shall be sorry to say good-by to you," said 
 Gilbert earnestly. "I have a feeling that some- 
 thing untoward is going to happen to me, and 
 I should like to have a man like you to advise 
 me. I have had a great deal of experience 
 altogether, but I fancy you, with all your oddi- 
 ties, have a good fund of solid sense. Two 
 heads are better than one." 
 
 "It depends on the quality. Twice one is 
 two, but twice nought is nought." 
 
 "I am not prepared to disprove that calcula-
 
 tion. But yours is a good head, and I well, 
 I wish we were not going to part." 
 
 "God bless you!" said Ford. "I shall think 
 about you a good deal. We needn't say good- 
 by now, though." 
 
 He went out, and Gilbert took off his coat. 
 His bedroom was the next room, and he shied 
 the coat through the open door on to the bed. 
 The bed had a puffed, inflated little scarlet 
 counterpane on the top, which seemed to be 
 placed there in order that it might slip off dur- 
 ing the night. Germans have a style of humor 
 that is peculiarly their own. 
 
 " For a man," said Gilbert, swinging his 
 arms as athletic young men do before retiring 
 to bed "for a man who has done an uncom- 
 monly base action I feel, on the whole, singularly 
 comfortable. I suppose, after a time, it will 
 become a positive source of delight." 
 
 Mr. Ford reappeared at the doorway. He 
 took a Pall Mall Gazette from his pocket, and 
 glanced at it. 
 
 "I found this down stairs, Mr. Gilbert. If 
 you haven't seen a London newspaper^for a day 
 or two, you may care to have it." 
 
 He shook hands. At the door he stopped.
 
 220 
 
 "Any ordairs for the morning, sare?" he 
 asked deferentially. 
 
 " No, thank you, Fritz." 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 The newspaper had a piece of late news 
 inserted hurriedly in the "fudge," headed: 
 
 "NEWS AS WE GO TO PRESS 
 
 "Warrants have been granted against the 
 directors of a well-known financial scheme. 
 The Old Jewry authorities are taking steps for 
 the immediate arrest of those concerned." 
 
 "Ah!" said Gilbert philosophically; "if peo- 
 ple will dabble in shady matters, they must 
 expect to be tripped up." 
 
 He glanced at the cricket scores. 
 
 "Well done, Grace ! " he cried approvingly.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IT was a heavy, close morning when Gilbert 
 opened his window; there were gray-brown 
 clouds above, and the sun had apparently given 
 up the task of endeavoring to pierce them. A 
 sound of grumbling came now and again from the 
 skies. The youth at the window hastily attrib- 
 uted his vague feelings of depression to the 
 atmosphere, and forced himself to ignore the fact 
 that he had not been able to sleep until a late 
 hour. The tiny book-stall leaning against the 
 office on the side of the river was being arranged 
 by its proprietor, and Gilbert observed that the 
 proprietor opened and flattened out two London 
 morning papers. 
 
 " Goot-morgen, sare," said Ford respectfully. 
 "You dake goffee or tea, eh ? " 
 
 "Coffee, Fritz." 
 
 "You sleep well, eh ? " 
 
 " No, Fritz," said Gilbert. "I slept badly. I 
 began to think; and to think, you know, is always
 
 222 
 
 fatal to a night's rest. Ask the head waiter, 
 will you, where I can buy a good bouquet." 
 
 A few large spots of rain splashed lazily on the 
 cobble-stones as Gilbert went out to the market 
 in quest of flowers. The trams with a bright 
 brass bell in front were running round the town 
 from the Rhine to the Moselle Station, but he 
 preferred to walk. 
 
 "I forgot to buy that Daily Chronicle" he ex- 
 claimed to himself. " I must get it when I 
 return." 
 
 He looked at the board outside the Cobhnzer 
 Zeitung office, and felt surprised to find that the 
 news blue-pencilled upon it was not of his engage- 
 ment to Gertrude Brentford, but a mere everyday 
 item announcing the assassination of a Bulgarian 
 statesman. In the market he caused such intense 
 commotion by demanding the best bouquet the 
 crowded little space could furnish, that he ran 
 some danger of being smothered by the offerings 
 of enormous ladies, whose figures were rather 
 more lumpy than the average sculptor conceives 
 to belong to Flora. He pencilled on a card, 
 "With all my love," and walking down the 
 Mainzer Chaussee left the bouquet at the Villa 
 Hermosa, with a message to the effect that he
 
 223 
 
 would call again later. The voice of Miss Camp- 
 belltown, singing merrily as she descended the 
 staircase, made him hurry incontinently away. 
 
 "I'm going to have a bath,'* said Mr. 
 Ford. 
 
 He was in tweeds and was standing at the 
 entrance to the small Bad attached to the bridge 
 of boats on the Ehrenbreitstein side. It was 
 odd to notice how completely (despite the domi- 
 noes of black whiskers) the man was able to put 
 off the German waiter with the dress suit. 
 " It is terribly close," he added. 
 
 "Good idea!" cried Gilbert. "I'll do the 
 same. I've walked to and from the Villa Her- 
 mosa, and " 
 
 "You have been there this morning ? " 
 
 "A friend of mine, Mrs. Brentford, has rented 
 it for a month or two. I spend most of my time 
 there." 
 
 There was a roll of drums from the skies that 
 seemed almost to prepare one for a shrill march 
 from fifes. 
 
 "Oh!" repeated Mr. Ford thoughtfully. 
 "You spend most of your time there. But 
 Miss Miss Reade is not there, is she ? " 
 
 " Miss Reade," said Gilbert, with some fri-
 
 224 
 
 gidity of manner " Miss Reade, as a matter of 
 fact, is not there. Miss Reade is in town." 
 
 " Charming young person ! " 
 
 "Ye-es. Yes, she is. Oh, yes, certainly. I 
 should think she will marry very well some day. 
 She is clever, and she is " 
 
 " But excuse me ! I understood that you were 
 engaged to her ?" 
 
 "Did you?" said Gilbert airily. "There 
 must have been some mistake." 
 
 "Evidently," said Mr. Ford, with sudden 
 gravity of manner. " Will you wait for me, if you 
 come out first ? I want to speak to you on rather 
 an important subject. We can walk along this 
 side of the river and cross by the little steam- 
 boat. How long shall you be ? " 
 
 A good plunge into the delicious cold water 
 did Gilbert a great deal of good. After all, as he 
 argued with himself, after all one often feels a 
 sensation of impending evil, and the evil so rarely 
 arrives. He was to lunch at the Villa Hermosa 
 at one o'clock, and there would be the gratifica- 
 tion of feeling that he was master in embryo of 
 the house; that next year, if he and Gertrude 
 were to come here, it would be his duty to assist 
 his agreeable wife in dispensing hospitalities.
 
 225 
 
 He thought, as he rubbed himself into a ruddy 
 condition and redressed, that it would be rather 
 a kind thing for him to ask poor Bradley Webbe, 
 and Gertrude could ask Kittie. 
 
 " Really," said Gilbert generously to the 
 warped, undecided slip of looking-glass, "really, 
 one ought to try to do some good in the world." 
 
 Mr. Ford was seated on the wooden rail of the 
 bridge, swinging his stick in a thoughtful way 
 and humming softly. He slipped down and 
 took Gilbert's arm, and the two strolled on. 
 
 "Can you spare ten minutes, Mr. Gilbert?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Twenty." 
 
 "Ten will do. Perhaps two will do." 
 
 "The shortest stories are sometimes the 
 best," said Gilbert, "if only there be incident 
 enough." 
 
 " I am not sure whether there is enough in- 
 cident to suit you. There is a Miss Campbell- 
 town staying at the Villa Hermosa, I think." 
 
 "Journalist girl. Sings a good deal and 
 always sings wrongly. Kind of girl who will 
 make some man happy by not marrying him." 
 
 "And a Miss Howson." 
 
 "Not a bad little girl. Her father's a 
 15
 
 226 
 
 bore, but we shall all be bores when we are 
 old enough." 
 
 "And the others ?" 
 
 "Well, there's a minor artist chap more 
 minor than artist, I think who, if he only goes 
 on increasing in size at the present rate of 
 progress will, I think, eventually be able to make 
 a very good income in another way. And old 
 Howson, as I said, is a man with a grievance 
 that has grown since its birth to such an extent 
 that now it fills a room. Taken altogether, 
 though, they are a very amusing set, and I I 
 enjoy myself there a good deal. Every-body is 
 very attentive." 
 
 "And you ? You are attentive to " 
 
 "Myself," said Gilbert promptly. 
 
 "The only lady remaining is Mrs. Mrs. 
 Brentford." 
 
 "Yes," said Gilbert, flushing. (It is a tire- 
 some habit of youth to flush at inconvenient 
 moments. Even the gifted people who write 
 "Answers to Correspondents" in the weekly 
 journals are helpless, when asked for a remedy.) 
 "Yes, Mrs. Brentford." 
 
 " Do you admire her ? " 
 
 "Well," said Gilbert, "it's a very odd thing
 
 227 
 
 you should ask that question. I admire her so 
 much, and my good fortune is so great, that I I 
 am going to marry her." 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " Come, Ford ! Congratulate me." 
 
 "I don't think I will," said Mr. Ford slowly. 
 "Not just yet." 
 
 "Well, that's frank, anyway." 
 
 "I shall have to be even more frank than that, 
 I fear. You know already a good deal more of 
 my life of my lives than any one; I'm afraid I 
 must tell you some more. I dare say you look 
 upon me as a crank; as a man who is only 
 removed by a few short steps from lunacy." 
 
 "On the contrary," declared Gilbert, "lam 
 not sure that you are not the sanest man I ever 
 met." 
 
 " Glad to hear you say that. I am a selfish 
 man, I confess. I have always done the thing 
 that gave me greatest satisfaction, and as I have 
 always had plenty of money, .there has been no 
 good reason for changing my procedure. If I 
 had had to earn my living, circumstances would 
 have forced me into something like convention- 
 ality." 
 
 "You may have your faults, but you are cer-
 
 228 
 
 tainly not conventional. At least, not often. 
 I was amazed, though, to hear you say that you 
 were married. That was a terribly common- 
 place action. Such a lot of men do it." 
 
 "I am afraid it was a blunder. I saw that 
 soon afterward. It was a blunder for which, as 
 we were saying last night, I, and not my wife, 
 was wholly responsible. I could have remedied 
 the situation by dying, but " 
 
 "That's the last thing that one thinks of doing." 
 
 " I suppose, despite what I sometimes say, 
 that I am rather fond of being alive. One knows 
 at any rate what this world is like. And I must 
 confess, although I have grumbled, that, by 
 taking a lot of trouble, I have managed to enjoy 
 life since fairly well. And now I must try to tell 
 you something that affects yourself." 
 
 "I don't think you can," said Gilbert airily. 
 "Is it any thing about the Budget ? " 
 
 "Nothing about the Budget." 
 
 11 Any thing wrong about the Hip Hip Hurrah 
 Company ? " 
 
 "A company with so exuberant a title could 
 scarcely, I should say, go wrong. The informa- 
 tion I have to give you is of a more personal 
 nature."
 
 229 
 
 He laid his hand on the young man's shoulder. 
 
 " Fire away ! " said Gilbert. 
 
 " I told you that my wife was at Coblentz. I 
 hinted that I did not want to see her, and that I 
 was sure she did not want to see me. Now then, 
 brace up, Gilbert." 
 
 He held Gilbert's arm somewhat tighter. 
 
 "My wife is Mrs. 'Brent Don't stagger 
 
 like that, man Mrs. Brentford." 
 
 The great drops of rain again came languidly 
 down from the heavy sky, and one splashed 
 ludicrously on Gilbert's nose. 
 
 "Don't be a a d fool!" he cried 
 
 nervously. 
 
 "I'm not. I'm quite serious. I should never 
 have told you, if it had not been that " 
 
 "But her husband was drowned. She had a 
 letter from the Consul at " 
 
 "I know; I wrote it myself." Mr. Ford 
 laughed oddly. "But it it wasn't true. lean 
 easily give you proofs of the truth of what I 
 say." 
 
 The restaurant over the way danced a con- 
 fused, preposterous dance in the eyes of Gilbert. 
 He struck Ford stupidly on the shoulder, and 
 Ford gripped him by the arm.
 
 230 
 
 "You see, it is this way," explained Ford; 
 "I should never have dreamed of interfering, 
 had it not been " 
 
 "Don't say another word," cried Gilbert 
 hoarsely; "let me get back to the hotel and 
 and think." 
 
 They embarked on the small steamer and 
 crossed the river. Gilbert 'stared steadily before 
 him, endeavoring with no success to re-assort his 
 thoughts, and neither of the two spoke. They 
 had to wait while one of the Rhine steamers 
 passed down to the pier where passengers em- 
 bark for Cologne, and Gilbert chafed, with 
 apparently no reason in the world, at the 
 delay. 
 
 " Give me a paper," he said to the man at the 
 small book-stall. 
 
 " Tib Bis ? " asked the German book-stall man, 
 offering a green-covered periodical. 
 
 "A newspaper, confound you ! A London 
 daily paper." 
 
 The man found a Standard and took thirty 
 pfennigs for it, and Gilbert, cramming it into 
 his pocket, strode across the roadway to the 
 hotel. At the entrance he steadied himself and 
 looked round.
 
 231 
 
 " Did you post that letter last night?" he 
 demanded brusquely. 
 
 " I bosted it," said Mr, Ford, in his most re- 
 spectful German waiter manner. Another waiter 
 was near. " I bosted it, sare, immediate that you 
 to me handed it. It is nearly in London alretty." 
 
 Gilbert stumbled upstairs to his room and 
 threw open wide the window. On the table was 
 a square little envelope addressed in a firm, de- 
 cided handwriting that was not unfamiliar. He 
 was about to tear it up, when he stopped. 
 
 " I may as well see what she says, perhaps. 
 Ford won't mind if he doesn't know." 
 
 The letter inside had the monogram " G. B. " 
 in the corner, and the printed heading "Friday." 
 
 " An unlucky day," remarked Gilbert grimly. 
 
 "Mv DEAREST GILBERT: 
 
 " Why did my dear boy not present his charm- 
 ing flowers in person ? I was waiting to see you: 
 waiting to hear you tell me that there is such a 
 place as the Rhein Anlagen; that there is such 
 a lover as Gilbert Gilbert; that it is true that 
 Gertrude Brentford is the happiest woman on 
 the Continent of Europe. 
 
 " Be punctual for lunch. I am too joyful to
 
 232 
 
 write. I only want to see you and to hear your 
 dear voice. 
 
 "Yours now and always, 
 
 " GERTRUDE." 
 
 Gilbert sat down in the low rocking-chair and 
 laughed foolishly. He laughed until a catch 
 came into his throat, and then he felt that if he 
 had not been a man he would like to have cried. 
 
 He rang the bell. 
 
 "I say, Gilbert," Mr. Ford, in his waiter's 
 dress again, closed the door carefully before he 
 spoke "I say, don't let this upset you, you 
 know. I know, of course, that I am a good deal 
 to blame, but you will see that I had no other 
 course to pursue. Here is an old letter of hers 
 I have brought to show you, and here is a photo- 
 graph of our two selves taken at Neuchatel. 
 And although I am most anxious not to be 
 bothered, still, if you insist upon it, I will drive 
 down to the Villa this afternoon, and " 
 
 "I shall not go there again." 
 
 " Perhaps that would be the better plan. 
 I'll write a note, if you like, to her that will 
 explain every thing. Then I shall get down to 
 Marseilles and cross over to Algiers."
 
 233 
 
 " Your behavior is very rough upon her." 
 
 "I don't quite see that," said Ford, with a 
 touch of obstinacy. " She has been a good deal 
 happier than she would have been if I had stayed 
 on. She has plenty of money, and unless she 
 invests it stupidly " 
 
 "I shall get back to town," interrupted Gil- 
 bert. " This place is like hell to me." 
 
 " It will be cooler than hell," said Ford, look- 
 ing out of the window, "after the rain. And 
 after all, you still have your excellent prospects, 
 and in a little while you will have forgotten all 
 about this." 
 
 "You're a queer kind of Enoch Arden, 
 Ford." 
 
 "I'm afraid I am. What train are you going 
 to catch ? " 
 
 "The first." 
 
 "I'll go and get your bill. We shall both of 
 us be much amused at this incident in the days 
 to come." 
 
 "Possibly. Just now it seems to me to lack 
 several of the cardinal elements of fun." 
 
 Gilbert packed his portmanteau and took up 
 the Standard. He noticed with satisfaction that 
 Surrey was doing well; that the batting averages
 
 234 
 
 were keeping up, and the ground having been 
 rather dry, the crack bowlers had been able to 
 do very little. There is something marvellously 
 cheering to the average man in seeing a record 
 of centuries. Gilbert turned over the paper and 
 glanced at the police intelligence. A special 
 paragraph near to the column was headed: 
 
 "SERIOUS CHARGE AGAINST DIRECTORS 
 
 "The sitting Alderman at the Mansion House 
 will have an important case before him to-day. 
 The directors of the Hip Hip Hurrah Mines will 
 be charged on warrants with conspiring to 
 induce a post-office official to issue a forged 
 cablegram purporting to come from South 
 Africa. The proceedings have been taken 
 hastily for the reason that it was feared some 
 difficulty might arise in the serving of warrants. 
 As it is, two of the directors are abroad, and 
 they will probably remain there until the case 
 is decided. 
 
 "The Hip Hip Hurrah Company was formed 
 in " 
 
 He looked hastily at the end of the paragraph. 
 A list of the directors was there given, and one
 
 235 
 
 line seemed to stand out as though the words 
 were being shrieked: 
 
 " Mr. Gilbert Gilbert, journalist, of 84 
 Doughty Street, Bloomsbury." 
 
 He went to the table, and with a trembling 
 hand poured out a glass of water. When he had 
 drained that, he found with difficulty for the 
 light in the room seemed strangely dim a time- 
 table. A train left the Moselle Station in 
 twenty minutes ; and travelling by way of 
 Treves, Luxemburg, and Brussels he could 
 reach Charing Cross at five-forty-five the fol- 
 lowing morning. 
 
 On his way down stairs he encountered Ford. 
 
 " I am going," he said thickly, " at once. At 
 once. Write to her and explain. Pay the bill 
 with this." 
 
 There was no one else on the landing, and 
 Ford drew the agitated young man aside. 
 
 "You are doing quite the right thing," he said 
 kindly. "I think I will call at the Villa this 
 evening and see her. I hate a scene, especially 
 where women are playing in it, but I must 
 endure it for once. Good luck to you!"
 
 236 
 
 He took Gilbert's portmanteau with a change 
 of manner. 
 
 "The hotel 'bus," speaking loudly, "he go to 
 start di-rectly. Al-low me, if you blease." 
 
 Gilbert stepped into the 'bus. There were two 
 other passengers; an obviously new husband 
 and an obviously new wife, both in the best of 
 spirits. 
 
 "What a happy, happy place Coblentz is, 
 Reginald. I should think nobody was ever sad 
 here; should you, dear?" 
 
 The new husband looked nervously at Gilbert 
 and said that he supposed not. 
 
 " I shall always look upon Coblentz as a town 
 of joy," said the new wife enthusiastically. 
 "Whenever I see the word in print it will always 
 make me good-tempered. And if " 
 
 "Don't talk so loudly, sweetest." 
 
 "My dear Reggie ! I'm sure I wasn't talking 
 loudly. What a cross boy you are ! You say 
 such unkind things sometimes " 
 
 "Sweetest! I never mean them, if I do. 
 You are always the best and prettiest " 
 
 The new husband patted the cheek of the new 
 wife. Gilbert looked out of the window, and 
 they kissed furtively.
 
 237 
 
 "Naughty boy! My hat's all crooked now, 
 I'm sure. Put it straight, you sad, sad scamp!" 
 
 The sad, sad scamp did as he was bid and 
 received a mock-warning shake of the head from 
 the new wife for his shocking behavior. 
 
 "Let me wave my hand to the Rhine, Reggie 
 dear. Let me say oh, now we're off." 
 
 The manager on the doorstep bent respect- 
 fully to the departing guests; Ford behind him 
 waved his hand to Gilbert. A detachment of 
 mounted soldiers cantered past; their accoutre- 
 ments glistening, despite the absence of the sun. 
 The giant drops of rain once more began to 
 patter, striking the roof of the small, jolting 
 omnibus with decided taps. 
 
 "Well," said the new wife contentedly, "it 
 doesn't matter now if it does rain. It's been 
 fine all through the honeymoon."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE train pursued with ardor and pertinacity 
 the elusive Moselle between Coblentz and 
 Treves, and Gilbert, by dint of persistently keep- 
 ing his bare head at the open window, managed 
 to divert his thoughts to some extent from the 
 dire prospects that awaited him in London. To 
 some extent only. Nothing could remove that 
 leaden feeling of dismay that stuck somewhere 
 just below his throat. Forcing itself steadily 
 through the scene of a broad, winding river with 
 vines growing in steps on the high, green hills 
 beyond, came now and again, in the manner of a 
 dissolving view entertainment, a scene of the 
 little square Justice Room at the Mansion 
 House, with sharp solicitors in frock-coats, a 
 shuffling crowd at the back, kept in order by the 
 precise, footman-like jailer, and on the high- 
 backed chair beneath the sword, the queer old 
 Alderman, cracking old jokes with a broad 
 Scotch accent. This scene gave way to one at 
 the Villa Hermosa with Mr. Brentford, other-
 
 239 
 
 wise Ford, explaining to Gertrude Brentford; 
 and this in its turn faded, to be replaced by a 
 picture of Kittie Reade opening the letter from 
 Coblentz and shrieking. 
 
 Gilbert closed his eyes. He cared for this 
 last picture the least of all. 
 
 "Will you 'low me to offer you a cracker," 
 asked the white-haired American lady opposite. 
 
 She handed him a paper bag, and Gilbert took 
 a cracker and thanked her politely. Her hus- 
 band was asleep in the other corner, and her 
 daughter, in a violet veil, was writing, as well as 
 the movement of the train would permit, to 
 judging from the look upon her face some lucky 
 youth in the United States. 
 
 " Don't speak of it," said the old American 
 lady volubly, "don't speak of it. I always 
 think it passes the time 'long so much more 
 pleasant to talk to your fellow-passengers. I 
 can't sleep in the train." 
 
 "I also," said Gilbert wofully, "do not 
 anticipate being able to sleep. I have a good 
 deal to worry about." 
 
 "Come out of that !" said the old American 
 lady cheerfully. 
 
 " I wish I could."
 
 240 
 
 "Why, you've got every thing in your favor," 
 she said. " You've on'y got to hustle." 
 
 "I've tried that," said poor Gilbert, "and it 
 doesn't seem to answer." 
 
 " P'raps you ain't hustled enough." 
 
 "I'm afraid I have hustled a little too much. 
 I've had a good deal of experience, and I've tried 
 to use my knowledge of the world, but somehow 
 or other " 
 
 " It '11 dry straight, I shouldn't wonder," said 
 the old lady. 
 
 "I don't see how it can. It's as crooked as it 
 can be, now." 
 
 The daughter looked up, from under the vio- 
 let veil folded just above her eyes, with some 
 curiosity. 
 
 "Finished your letter to Peter Thornhill, 
 Julie?" 
 
 Julie said No, Ma. She'd got such an awful 
 lot to tell him, added Julie frankly. 
 
 "Engaged," whispered the old lady confiden- 
 tially, "to as good a chap over in Chicargo as 
 ever breathed the American air." 
 
 " Well done ! " said Gilbert. 
 
 "She's a bit dif'cult to manage, though," 
 went on the mother, still in a whisper. "It '11
 
 241 
 
 be a rare good thing for Julie, you see, and the 
 only way we can keep her up to the mark is by 
 saying things agenst him." 
 
 "Against him?" 
 
 " Fact ! It's only been necessary to say in 
 Rome, f'r instance, ' There's goes a young fel- 
 low like Peter Thornhill only better lookin',' and 
 she'd flare up, bless you, Julie would, and go off 
 and write a nice lovin' letter to Pete by the next 
 mail. Our Chicargo girls are very independent, 
 don't you see." 
 
 " It's a good thing for them." 
 
 The father moved in his corner of the com- 
 partment, and put his large, white felt hat 
 straight. 
 
 "In Chicargo, sir," he said, rubbing his eyes, 
 "we have houses seventeen stories high, and a 
 weather " 
 
 "Go to sleep, Larry !" 
 
 And the father obediently went to sleep again. 
 
 The old lady's chatter certainly assisted to 
 shorten the journey. She was an entertaining 
 old lady, and she had been to the Tower of 
 London, and to Stoke Pogis, and to Windsor, 
 and to several other places which are names only 
 to most Englishmen. When Gilbert obtained 
 16
 
 242 
 
 fruit for her at Namur, and a huge thick slab 
 of gingerbread for the daughter, she awoke her 
 husband to find one of his cards. 
 
 The great friendliness of the three, the frank 
 descriptions of Europe by the daughter, the brag 
 about Chicago by the father, and the general 
 volubility of the mother constituted the best 
 treatment for Gilbert's depression that could 
 possibly have been devised. 
 
 "Well, /reckon that Cologne Cathedral's one 
 of the biggest frauds ever arranged on this earth. 
 Why, we was munching something, Mar and me, 
 and I was jest lookin' through the opera-glasses 
 at the altar up at the end, and talking to Mar, 
 when a beadle kind of feller he come up and " 
 
 "You travel the hull distance, sir, from New 
 York to 'Frisco in the most per feet comfort 
 that you cain possibly imagine. You have on 
 board the car a library and a barber and a bath, 
 and I cain't tell you what you don't have. Yes, 
 sir ! And there's no fuss nor nothin' 'bout your 
 baggage, you onderstand me. When you leave 
 the ho tel you jest go to the ho tel clerk, and 
 you say, ' Mister, I want you ' " 
 
 "And we've enjoyed the six months purfectly. 
 Purfectly. It's been a well-managed tower, I
 
 243 
 
 will say that for Larry, and it's learned us 
 things that we'd no idea of before, and we've 
 picked up bargains in Parrus that '11 simply make 
 some of the old back numbers friends of Julie's 
 turn magenta color. And if you ever find 
 yourself within a hundred mile of Chicargo, and 
 you don't come to see us, why, we'll never for- 
 give you." 
 
 Gilbert said good-by to the three at the 
 Brussels Nord Station with genuine regret. If 
 he had known that from Brussels to Calais he 
 was to be alone, if he had foreseen the agony of 
 thought that his isolation would bring to him, he 
 would have been tempted to offer them untold 
 gold to continue the journey with him. 
 
 It was almost a grim satisfaction to him at 
 Calais, about midnight, to find that the Channel 
 was rough. The sea out beyond the harbor 
 made white little cliffs of water, that disappeared 
 and reappeared in another place; even within 
 the harbor there was movement. Most of the 
 passengers went discreetly below; a few only 
 remained on the deck of the Empress. One, a 
 blue-capped, tweed-coated little figure, turned up 
 the collar of her coat, thrust her hands deep into 
 her pockets, and strode up to the end. She
 
 244 
 
 asked a French sailor for a tarpaulin, and Gil- 
 bert's heart gave a big jump as he heard her 
 voice. 
 
 " Kittie ! " 
 
 The name came as an involuntary ejaculation. 
 
 " My dear, dear Gilbert ! This is kind of 
 Providence ! I brought mother over to Calais 
 for a three days' trip, and we are just getting 
 back. She is down below." (Kittie took his 
 arm with her old^ffectionate manner.) "And 
 why haven't you written to me, you dreadful 
 person ? Have you been so busy getting local 
 color you are very brown that you have not 
 had time?" 
 
 " I did write, Kittie, but you will not get the 
 letter perhaps until you reach home. I think 
 that I ought to tell you what I have said in it." 
 
 "If you dare tell me a single word," she cried, 
 placing her gloved hand over his lips, " I will call 
 the captain." 
 
 "But, Kittie " 
 
 "Sir ! will you obey me or will you not ?" 
 
 The bell rang, the last mail bag slid down the 
 plank, and was passed along to be buried in the 
 deep hole amidships. The board-covering to the 
 deep hole was placed in position; the tarpaulin
 
 245 ' 
 
 covering was fixed over it. The Empress bumped 
 the Calais landing-stage once, as though it were 
 playing a children's touched-you-last game, and 
 steamed slowly out into the perturbed Channel. 
 The lights held by the men on the landing stage 
 waved; the sailors on board hurried below in 
 search of early victims to mal de mer, and then 
 suddenly the skies opened. The rain, pent up 
 for hours, came down exultantly, battering the 
 Channel, lightening the heaviness of the atmos- 
 phere; amusing with its enterprise the tweed- 
 coated little woman standing under cover on 
 deck in a place where she and Gilbert could 
 stand only by pressing closely to each other. 
 
 "This is simply perfect," cried Kittie Reade 
 delightedly. "Doesn't it make you feel very 
 happy, Gilbert ? You are a good sailor, I know." 
 
 "I'm a good sailor," confessed Gilbert, "but 
 I am beginning to think that I am rather a bad 
 man." 
 
 "Farceur!" cried Kittie. "Tell me whom 
 you met at Coblentz." 
 
 Gilbert gave the information without details of 
 further circumstances. 
 
 "And you did not run off with Mrs. Brentford, 
 or marry her?"
 
 246 
 
 Gilbert said gravely that his answer to the 
 honorable member must be " No " to each of 
 these questions. 
 
 "I'm glad you haven't enjoyed yourself 
 much," said Kittie, hugging his arm a little 
 tighter. " London was hideous without you. 
 That's why I persuaded mamma " 
 
 " Who is, I hope, quite well ? " 
 
 "She is lying quite still down below with a 
 dictionary tied round her waist, and she begged 
 me on no account to come near her, or to say a 
 word to her, until we reached Dover. If I hadn't 
 met you, dear, I should have been lonely. As it 
 is " 
 
 " I wonder whether we shall either of us ever 
 be really happy," remarked Gilbert. 
 
 "Good gracious ! " she cried, "I had no idea 
 that Germany had that effect on one. I don't 
 like your change of air, sir." 
 
 " I must get you to forgive me, Kittie. I am 
 not quite sure that I know what I am talking 
 about." 
 
 "Go a little further," she said encouragingly; 
 "there's a capital opening for a flattering re- 
 mark. You should add that the sight of me has 
 turned your head."
 
 247 
 
 " I didn't think of that." 
 
 "This is a hard world," complained Kittie, 
 looking out at the sea. The Empress seemed 
 undecided on the respective merits of pitch and 
 toss, and was for the present doing both. "You 
 not only have to make compliments yourself, but 
 you have to suggest them to other people." 
 
 "If you knew all, you wouldn't " 
 
 The Empress gave a tremendous pitch into the 
 irritated sea. A voice, belonging to a drenched 
 lady below, screamed. The Empress righted her- 
 self, and proceeded penitently for some minutes 
 in a demure manner. 
 
 "I think I ought to tell you, Kittie, exactly 
 what is happening. And yet, somehow, I haven't 
 the courage to." 
 
 A wave came spraying across the deck, and the 
 two moved well back. 
 
 "I like the scent of the sea, don't you, Gil- 
 bert? There's something so so honest about 
 it. I say 'honest' because it is the trait that I 
 most admire. I think, dear, that your straight- 
 forwardness and your honesty make me like you 
 even more than " 
 
 " The rain is stopping," said Gilbert hurriedly; 
 " let's go out on deck."
 
 248 
 
 "I declare," cried Kittle, with atone of comic 
 annoyance, " that I'll never say any thing nice to 
 you again." 
 
 "I am afraid," said Gilbert, under his breath, 
 " that you never will." 
 
 The Empress ran across from Calais to Dover 
 in just over an hour and a half. Dover at 2 
 o'clock A. M. is not overflowing with gayety, and 
 white-faced passengers, emerging from below 
 after a tempestuous voyage, find little in the 
 sleeping harbor and the misty castle on the 
 white cliffs to cheer them. Mrs. Reade, quite 
 buoyant at having escaped illness, was facetious 
 at the expense of yellow-visaged travellers, glad 
 to see Gilbert, and declared then, with one of 
 her sudden changes of manner, that she did hope 
 she'd never be silly enough again to go journey- 
 ing about in trains, or on boats, and what not at 
 her time of life. Gilbert saw the versatile old 
 lady and Kittie into a "ladies' compartment," 
 and found for himself a smoking. 
 
 At Charing Cross, in the gray, early morning, 
 he hailed a four-wheeler, controlled by a fiery- 
 faced cabman. 
 
 "What a good fellow you are !" said Kittie 
 appreciatively. "It makes all the difference in
 
 249 
 
 the world to have you near to one. Is it too 
 early to get a newspaper ? I have not seen one 
 for three days, and I always get an idea, when 
 I am absent from London, that the worst is 
 happening." 
 
 " I don't think I'd trouble about a newspaper, 
 Kittie; you'll want to sleep as soon as you get 
 home." 
 
 "Oh, dear, no, sir; oh, no! I shall change 
 and set to work at once. Come up to-morrow 
 morning, and let us have a good long walk in 
 Regent's Park and listen to the discontented 
 lecturers up near the Zoo." 
 
 "I am not quite sure where I shall be to- 
 morrow. And, Kittie ! " 
 
 She stood with one foot on the step of the 
 four-wheeler. Mrs. Reade within had half closed 
 her eyes. 
 
 ("It don't matter," grumbled the fiery-faced 
 cabman to himself " it don't matter what time 
 o' day it is, young couples must always take a 
 'ell of a time a-saying goo'-by.") 
 
 " Kittie, I am afraid I am afraid something 
 rather serious is about to happen. I want you, 
 whatever happens, to think as well as you can 
 of me."
 
 250 
 
 " I'll do my best," said Kittie Reade, laughing. 
 
 "And you will find a letter from me at 
 home a letter that I wrote from Coblentz. I 
 want you to destroy that letter without read- 
 ing it." 
 
 ("Nah, then," muttered the fiery-faced cab- 
 man impatiently, "nah, then! Are we going to 
 wite 'ere all this year ?") 
 
 "I shouldn't think of doing so," said Kittie 
 decidedly. "If you have been more affec- 
 tionate in that letter than you meant to be, 
 I'll allow a slight discount; but I shall certainly 
 read it." 
 
 "You shall not read it!" cried Gilbert excit- 
 edly. "I insist " 
 
 " I wouldn't miss seeing the contents of that 
 letter now," she said firmly, " for all the rest of 
 the years of my life. And try to come up to- 
 morrow morning, Gilbert. You have been away 
 from town for so many centuries." 
 
 ("'Urry up, 'urry up, there!" said the red- 
 faced cabman; "'ave the argument out else- 
 where. This ain't a debitin' society; this is a 
 four-wheel keb.") 
 
 Gilbert pressed her hand, and Kittie looked 
 up at him as young ladies do who expect to be
 
 251 
 
 kissed; but Gilbert only stepped back and raised 
 his hat. 
 
 ("Thenk Gawd!" said the cabman piously. 
 "I shall be 'ome at the stibles before domesd'y 
 now, if I try.") 
 
 Gilbert remained near Queen Eleanor's statue 
 until the four-wheeler, with a small handkerchief 
 fluttering at the window, went out of the gates 
 into the empty, half-awake Strand. Then he 
 took his portmanteau and walked up by Covent 
 Garden Market, with its perfume of Kent and its 
 crowded, cabbage-leaved pavements, to Doughty 
 Street. He half-stumbled upstairs to his rooms, 
 and, falling into the easy chair, went instantly 
 to sleep. 
 
 "Well, I dever!" exclaimed Ermyntrude. 
 The sun was staring in on the disordered youth 
 when he awoke, with an amazement equalled by 
 that of the small maid. "You've cub obe at last 
 thed, Bister Gilbert ? " 
 
 "I think so," said Gilbert, yawning. "But, 
 really, Ermyntrude, I scarcely know." 
 
 " There's beed lots of callers 'ere for you, sir," 
 said Ermyntrude, opening the window. "Very 
 adxious to see you they were, and just a little 
 dasty, too, whed I told theb I diddet dow where
 
 252 
 
 you was. A gedlebad with a pipe id his bouth 
 walked up ad dowd opposite for dearly all the 
 bordig. " 
 
 "That was very kind of him," remarked 
 Gilbert. 
 
 "The bissus she was quite upset over it ; she 
 read sobethig id the papers about you, ad she got 
 idto a rare tear over it." 
 
 " What was it, Ermyntrude ? " 
 
 " Oh, it's do use askig be" said the small 
 servant; "/ dever read the dewspapers, bless 
 you, sir. I've got too buch to do to bother by 
 head about what other people are doig. Do you 
 wadt sobe hot water, sir ? " 
 
 "I should like to shave, Ermyntrude." 
 
 "You look it, sir," said Ermyntrude candidly. 
 "I'll get you a good strog cup of tea, too ; that '11 
 pull you together." 
 
 "I'm afraid it will take more than a cup of tea 
 to pull me together," said Gilbert ruefully. 
 
 "Try two cups," suggested Ermyntrude. 
 
 The small maid stopped at the doorway and 
 looked back at the mantle-piece. 
 
 "You 'aved't oped your letters, sir," she said. 
 
 The top letter was in the writing of Bradley 
 Webbe, and Gilbert opened it first. Some of the
 
 253 
 
 others contained proofs; one was a fat, long 
 envelope from a magazine. 
 
 "DEAR GILBERT: 
 
 "This will, I hope, reach you immediately 
 upon your return from Germany. Events have 
 been happening since your departure at an ex- 
 press rate, and I shall be glad when they slow 
 down. 
 
 " Firstly, I have had my notice from the Pro- 
 prietor. He had a letter before him (he said) 
 which plainly pointed out my unfitness for the 
 post, and he had thought it better to ask me to 
 go at once; he would send a check in lieu of 
 notice. 
 
 "This was rather in the nature of a whack 
 in the eye, and I called down to see him. He 
 declined for the present to show me the letter 
 to which he had referred, but promised that I 
 should see it eventually. 'He added that he was 
 getting rather tired of the Budget, and he shook 
 hands with me very warmly. 
 
 " I do not know the name of my successor. 
 Come down to the Budget office as soon as you 
 return. 
 
 "I have not yet dared to call at Regent's
 
 254 
 
 Park, and under the new circumstances I cannot 
 think of doing so. 
 
 "Yours always, 
 
 "F. BRADLEY WEBBE." 
 
 The last letter on the pile the pile had evi- 
 dently been shuffled by the small maid the last 
 letter was also from Bradley Webbe. 
 
 " The Proprietor wires me that the Budget is 
 to stop at once. I am preparing for next week's 
 issue a valedictory note, and I scarcely know 
 whether to be glad or sorry. I am certainly 
 sorry for the man, whoever he was, who was to 
 succeed me. 
 
 " Sincerely trust you are not affected by this 
 Hip Hip Hurrah swindle. I know that you 
 bought some shares in it."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 IT is a notorious fact, and one known to all 
 men, that a hand which trembles is no hand for 
 shaving. Gilbert had all the average man's dis- 
 inclination to be at the mercy of a barber for a 
 space of minutes, and to have, in that space, soap 
 dabbed in his eye, conversation poured into his 
 ear, and bottles of impossible liquids for making 
 the hair wave or cease to wave pressed upon his 
 attention. But a man whose nerves are unstrung 
 has no alternative. 
 
 " More weather, sir ! " 
 
 "Yes," said Gilbert coldly. "It doesn't 
 promise to be a pleasant day." 
 
 " It's what I call a muggy morning," said the 
 youth, rubbing the soap into Gilbert's chin and 
 looking across Holborn at a housemaid who was 
 cleaning a window. " That's what / call it. 
 Sort of morning that any thing might happen. 
 Fond of being out o* doors, sir ?" 
 
 Gilbert nodded. 
 
 "I often wish I was out 'unting, this kind of
 
 2$ 6 
 
 weather," said the youth, shaving Gilbert's left 
 cheek. " I'm a dabster on all species of out- 
 door sport, I am." 
 
 "Fond of following the hounds?" 
 
 "Oh," said the youth exultantly, " 'ounds or 
 any thing else. Nothing comes amiss to me. I 
 often think to myself when I'm a-sittin' 'ere, and 
 there's no customer, and only the old comic 
 papers to look at, that I ought to 'ave been a 
 country gentleman. I don't say a M. P., mind 
 you, but well, you know jest a country gentle- 
 man. Might 'old your chin up a bit, sir." 
 
 Gilbert obeyed. 
 
 "After all," sighed the ambitious youth, wip- 
 ing the razor on the small white cloth and 
 soaping afresh "after all, though, it's no use 
 repining, as the song has it. We 'ave to take 
 things as they come, don't we, sir?" 
 
 "Generally." 
 
 "And I dare say I'm as 'appy as a good many 
 country gentlemen. In my way, of course, I 
 mean. What you 'ave to do is to make the 
 best of your life, whatever it 'appens to be. 
 You shave up, on this side, I think, sir ? " 
 
 Gilbert said "Yes." 
 
 "It don't do," said the youthful philosopher
 
 257 
 
 " it don't do to be too grasping. A young gentle- 
 man friend of mine at least I call him a friend 
 of mine, but really I don't know his name he 
 looked in this morning and had a shampoo. 
 He's in a solicitor's office round here in Lincoln's 
 Inn, and he was saying his people had got a 
 case on at the Mansion 'Ouse to-day over some 
 people that had been a bit too anxious that way." 
 "The Hip Hip Hurrah Mining Co." 
 "That's it, sir; that's it. That's the very 
 name. And this friend of mine was saying 
 mind you, he told me this in confidence that it 
 would go pretty 'ard on some of 'em, unless he 
 was greatly mistaken. And it all goes to prove 
 that what I say is right, and a little bay rum, 
 sir ? No ! Pay the lady at the counter, will you, 
 please. Thank you, sir. Good morning." 
 
 Gilbert walked down Holborn into Newgate 
 Street in a semi-dazed condition that made the 
 faces of the people hurrying by appear blurred 
 in his sight. At any moment he might feel a 
 hand on his shoulder, the hand of a City detect- 
 ive. A City detective is phis royaliste qiie le roi 
 more like a City man than any other person in 
 the City but it is, nevertheless, not easy to 
 recognize him. The City detective comes up 
 17
 
 2 5 S 
 
 from Brixton in the morning and hurries up to 
 the mysterious little office in Old Jewry with as 
 modest an air as though he dealt in trimmings 
 instead of errant men. 
 
 " Come down here." 
 
 Gilbert instinctively turned into a side passage 
 near him. Out in Newgate Street the yellow- 
 stockinged, long-gowned, leather-belted, bare- 
 headed boys were hurrying across from Christ's 
 Hospital to invest their savings in phantom food 
 at the confectioner's. They were all in exceed- 
 ingly good spirits, these yellow-stockinged boys, 
 and they linked arms, and held a special meeting 
 in front of the confectioner's, debating the rela- 
 tive merits of jam puffs at three-halfpence eacl 
 and long, empty, chocolate-looking cakes at 
 twopence. 
 
 "What a fool you are, Gilbert! Why the 
 deuce didn't you keep away ? " 
 
 It was not a City detective, but Captain Dann. 
 Captain Dann not quite so buoyant, not quite so 
 affectionate in his manner of pawing; the flower 
 in his coat was faded and hung stem upward as 
 though anxious to make its escape. 
 
 "We all managed to get bail," went on Cap- 
 tain Dann, " but Heaven knows what is going to
 
 259 
 
 happen to-day. I don't know what the Treasury 
 has got up its sleeve. It seems a crying shame," 
 went on Captain Dann with a touch of his early 
 manner, "a confounded crying shame, sir, that 
 we rate-payers should be called upon to support 
 a parcel of lawyers down at Whitehall, and that 
 we should actually have to pay for our own prose- 
 cution! As I said to poor Louisa, my wife's 
 very much cut up over this affair, as I said, what 
 we want and what we must have some day is, 
 Government by the people, and for the people. 
 That's the way I put it. Meanwhile, we have a 
 lot of these what I call Tadpole and Tapers " 
 
 " Is there is there a warrant out against me ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! Yes; warrants have been granted 
 against all the directors." 
 
 "But, good gracious, man! /knew nothing of 
 any thing illegal being done. I was not aware " 
 
 " Now you look here. I'm deucedly sorry 
 about this, and although I don't say you won't 
 perhaps get off, I want to give you a bit of 
 advice. Get away at once and stop away. If 
 we pull through, the way I put it to Blenkinsop 
 was in a nautical way I said it must be ' All 
 hands to the pump,' why, then you can come 
 back. If we don't, why, you can stay away."
 
 260 
 
 " I believe you are not a bad fellow, 
 Dann." 
 
 It is an odd thing to chronicle, but it is a fact 
 that Captain Dann's puffed eyes watered at this 
 guarded compliment. 
 
 "And I sincerely believe you are sorry that I 
 am in the mess. Heaven knows / am. It could 
 not have come at a worse moment." 
 
 "Any moment is the worst for business like 
 this," said Captain Dann. "The fact is, there's 
 no chance for honest I mean to say enterprising 
 men, nowadays. It's like carrying on business 
 in a glass case. Every-body is prepared to 
 pounce down upon you, and the public prosecutor 
 is nearly as bad as any body else. I wonder how 
 they expect the commerce of the empire to be 
 carried on, eh ? " 
 
 Gilbert shook his head wearily as one not 
 desirous of arguing the point. 
 
 "Believe me, my dear sir, they'll work things 
 up to such a pitch eventually, that it won't be 
 worth any body's while to take a threepenny 'bus 
 to the City. That will be the end of it. And 
 when they've done that perhaps they will see 
 their mistake. It's all of a piece of what I call 
 the system of grandmotherly interference with
 
 26l 
 
 the liberty of the subject. That's what I call it, 
 nothing more or less." 
 
 "The fact remains," said Gilbert, "that we 
 have to appear in the dock at the Mansion 
 House; that we may be committed for trial at 
 the Old Bailey, and a jury will decide " 
 
 " Trial by jury," said Captain Dann explo- 
 sively, "ought to be abolished. I've said so 
 over and over again, but nothing has been done. 
 I might as well have talked to a brick wall. 
 Which way are you going ? I should have 
 shaved off my mustache, if I had been you." 
 
 "I hope your wife is well, Dann?" 
 
 Captain Dann put his hand to his eyes in an 
 agitated way. 
 
 "Sir," he said, "that woman is a treasure. 
 Ah! we men don't half understand how much we 
 owe to woman." He coughed and resumed his 
 old manner. " Indeed, my dear sir, as I often 
 say, it is a matter of fact that when pain or er 
 anguish or any thing of that kind rack the 
 brow, why woman is, in a manner of speaking, a 
 perfect ministering angel. But I say ! What 
 are you going to do ? " 
 
 " I am going to the office, and I shall send a 
 note to Old Jewry saying I am there, and that
 
 262 
 
 they have only to send a detective and I shall go 
 at once with him " 
 
 "I thought you had more sense than most 
 young men. More caution. More of what our 
 lively neighbors across the Channel call nous." 
 
 "So did I." 
 
 " My boy," Captain Dann for the first time 
 patted Gilbert's shoulders, " I'm disappointed 
 in you in a sense. In another sense I admire 
 your pluck. For my part, I am going now to 
 the Mansion House. Sitting begins at half-past 
 twelve. But" he lowered his voice "on the 
 steps of the Mansion House I shall be seized 
 with a fainting fit and I shall have to be removed 
 to my home. That will give me time to look 
 round and to see what happens at the second 
 hearing." 
 
 The faded flower pitched itself from Captain 
 Dann's coat, head first on to the pavement. 
 
 "This is not the first time I've been in a 
 hot corner," he went on hesitatingly. " The 
 dodge is to keep your head as cool as possible. 
 Good-by." 
 
 It was, in an odd way, a relief to Gilbert to 
 find himself in the continuous lift at the cham- 
 bers in Queen Victoria Street. The taste for
 
 263 
 
 being arrested on the public pavement is one not 
 easily acquired, and it certainly seemed a more 
 dignified act to summon the representative of 
 the law to the office. Stepping out at the 
 second floor and pushing the glass doors, Gil- 
 bert saw quickly that the Hip Hip Hurrah 
 Mining Co.'s office had discarded its aspect of 
 being extremely busy. The huge date-case on 
 the wall was two days behind in the information 
 that it offered ; there was dust on the desk, and 
 a jet of gas flared furiously away in the corner, 
 where it was not wanted. One clerk only re- 
 mained in the office, and he was reading the front 
 page of the Sporting Times with much enjoyment. 
 
 " Is the chief clerk in, please ? " 
 
 " No," said the clerk, without looking up. 
 
 "Where is he, then?" 
 
 "Why, out," said the clerk. 
 
 The clerk laughed a little, not at his own 
 remark, but at a paragraph in the pink journal 
 before him. 
 
 " Is there no one here, then." 
 
 "Yes, there is." 
 
 "Who then, please." 
 
 "Why, me." The clerk looked up unwill- 
 ingly. He slipped off his stool as soon as he
 
 264 
 
 recognized Gilbert and came toward him with 
 a grin. " Beg pardon, sir; didn't know it was 
 you." 
 
 *' It is difficult to recognize people unless you 
 look at them. Will you give me a sheet of note- 
 paper, please? And an envelope." 
 
 The clerk balanced the end of a ruler on 
 his fore-finger and kept it there with some 
 difficulty. 
 
 " Been to Germany, haven't you, sir ? There's 
 been a rare upset here this week. Old Abbot, 
 the chief clerk, he sloped out of it, and White 
 and Simpson and young Congreve are out look- 
 ing for berths, and " 
 
 "Give me a sheet of paper at once, sir," 
 shouted Gilbert. 
 
 "Temper!" said the clerk softly to himself as 
 he complied with Gilbert's demand. "Temper; 
 that's what it is. Temper and bad luck." 
 
 The letter did not take long to write. The 
 hand-writing looked strangely unlike his usual 
 style, as he addressed the envelope shakily: 
 
 " To the Superintendent, 
 " City Police, 
 
 "Old Jewry"
 
 265 
 
 "Will you take this round at once?" 
 
 "But how can I leave the office, sir ? There's 
 no one here but me, and if " 
 
 " I shall remain here. I shall remain here 
 until you return with with some one. I'll 
 answer the telephone, if it rings." 
 
 "I shouldn't," said the clerk airily. "I let 
 'em ring. I know there's only an argument of 
 some kind if I do answer it, so I just let 'em ring 
 on. Same with callers. They've come up these 
 last two days, and one or two of 'em that used 
 to come up in the old times, very cocky and 
 very haughty in their manners, I've given them 
 beans." 
 
 The clerk chuckled at the remembrance of his 
 successful duels. 
 
 "They get quite as good as they give me," 
 said the clerk confidently, " now that the show's 
 gone over. I'm on the look-out for a new berth, 
 and as soon as I get one " 
 
 "Please take that letter at once. I will wait 
 here." 
 
 The clerk found his hat reluctantly, and made 
 a cigarette to smoke on his way across the 
 Poultry. 
 
 "More fool him," said the clerk sotto voce, as
 
 266 
 
 he looked- at the address; "that's all I can 
 say. " 
 
 Left to himself, Gilbert took off his hat and 
 strode round the office with hands in pockets. 
 The marble clock on the wall ticked away con- 
 scientiously, and Gilbert knew that when it had 
 ticked about five times sixty, a detective would 
 arrive prepared to take him to the' Mansion 
 House. He wiped the perspiration from his 
 forehead, and his breath came shorter as he 
 thought of his position. Only six weeks ago he 
 had commenced his new life with prospects so 
 shining that they had almost dazzled him; to- 
 day he was without a friend, without a berth, 
 without money, and only four minutes and a half 
 from arrest. He thought of Kittle; he thought 
 of Bradley Webbe. 
 
 " I don't seem to have been an overpowering 
 success," he said grimly. 
 
 He took up the clerk's Sporting Times, but the 
 paragraphs detached themselves and sat momen- 
 tarily on the desk, and then dodged back; all in 
 a manner highly confusing. He took up an old 
 copy of a financial paper, with glorious puffs of 
 the Hip Hip Hurrah mines, and could not read 
 that.
 
 267 
 
 " In my anxiety to get on, I seem to have come 
 off very badly. If I were to leave this life now, 
 not a single person nor a married person 
 would regret my absence. I only hope that 
 Bradley Webbe will forgive me and that he'll 
 he'll marry Kittie." 
 
 Gilbert gave a big gulp, and bit his under-lip 
 hard. But a week since, at Coblentz, the world 
 had seemed the most delightful world that in- 
 genuity could devise. A fortnight since he had 
 done nothing mean; nothing of which he was 
 ashamed. Six weeks ago he was Gilbert Staple- 
 hurst, and 
 
 " It is of no use thinking about that," he said 
 severely. 
 
 Yet, for almost the first time in his new life 
 he found himself thinking of the old life that he 
 had given up. Looking at it now, he wondered 
 what in the world had induced him to feel the 
 faintest shadow of discontent with his lot. He 
 had then a charming wife, as much of fame as is 
 good for any man, a number of friends whose 
 faces brightened pleasantly when they saw him, 
 he had 
 
 " By Jove ! I wish to goodness I were Gilbert 
 Staplehurst again."
 
 268 
 
 Ting ting ting ! 
 
 " I wish I had never wanted to be young again. 
 I wish I had never listened when " 
 
 Ting ting ting ! 
 
 Half mechanically Gilbert goes over to the 
 telephone and, pressing the knob, places the 
 tube to his ear. 
 
 " Hul lo, there ! " 
 
 "Hul lo ! Is that you?" 
 
 "Of course it is." 
 
 "Gilbert Staplehurst, I mean." 
 
 Gilbert, suddenly interested, speaks with ex- 
 citement: "I was Gilbert Staplehurst once. I 
 wish I were Gilbert Staplehurst now." 
 
 "That's what I understood from your remarks. 
 I suppose my name is Jove " 
 
 " I know, I know ! Go on." 
 
 "I suppose you know that it is impossible for 
 you to return to your former existence." 
 
 "Nothing is impossible to you, Jove. I recol- 
 lect in an article I wrote for the Contemporary 
 about you, I mentioned that." 
 
 "I remember," says the voice at the other 
 end. "I remember it quite well. Very good 
 article it was, too." 
 
 "It wasn't bad," confesses Gilbert. "If I
 
 26g 
 
 were only my old self again, I could do a lot of 
 work like that." 
 
 A sound of thoughtful whistling at the other 
 end. Gilbert, in a perfect agony of impatience, 
 does not dare to interrupt. 
 
 "There isn't another person in the world," 
 says the voice, "that I'd take two minutes' 
 trouble about. But you, somehow, have always 
 been so fair-minded " 
 
 "I have," says Gilbert feverishly; " I have." 
 
 " That if you're sure if you're quite sure 
 that you want to be Gilbert Staplehurst 
 again " 
 
 "I do. Indeed I do." 
 
 "It makes such a muddle in the books," com- 
 plains the voice. "A lot of scratching out and 
 carrying forward and general confusion. I 
 really don't know that's it's worth my while to 
 bother any more about it." 
 
 "I do hope you will. And please please 
 don't be long. I may not have an opportunity 
 of communicating with you again for some time." 
 
 Gilbert speaks with strenuous earnestness and 
 glances apprehensively at the ticking clock on 
 the green wall. 
 
 "Oh, I'm not going to be in a hurry over the
 
 270 
 
 matter. You have only yourself to blame for 
 the position that you are in " 
 
 "I know, I know." 
 
 "And you mustn't suppose that I have noth- 
 ing else to do but wait upon you. There are 
 other people to be considered besides you. I 
 have a great deal to do in one way and another, 
 and I scarcely know whether I am justified in 
 spending so much of my time on one person." 
 
 "I should never forget your great kindness," 
 urges Gilbert piteously. " If there should ever 
 be any opportunity of taking your side in the 
 public press " 
 
 "I'll make it hot for that same public press 
 some day, if it doesn't look out. I've seen some 
 most unfair, one-sided attacks upon me in it at 
 various times." 
 
 "Not from my pen." 
 
 "No, no, I admit that. You have always 
 been very impartial. If it had not been for that, 
 I should never have done all that I did for you." 
 
 "I wish you hadn't," muttered Gilbert. 
 
 "You think it over," says the voice. "It's 
 very likely that your mind is not fully made up." 
 
 "But it is. It is made up. And there is 
 really no time to lose, Jove. If you only knew
 
 how important time was, you wouldn't hesitate 
 a moment. Do do put me back into my former 
 life, and let every thing go on as though this had 
 not happened." 
 
 "But how about Kittie Reade and Mrs. Brent- 
 ford and Bradley Webbe, and " 
 
 "I'm afraid," confesses Gilbert, "that they 
 will not be sorry to lose sight of me." 
 
 The voice at the other end hums an air in a 
 reflective, thoughtful way. 
 
 "As a special case," pleads Gilbert with much 
 anxiety "as a special case, you won't mind the 
 trouble." 
 
 "What I want made perfectly clear is," says 
 the voice deliberately, "that no one to whom 
 you tell all this must expect to be treated in the 
 same way. It would be a nice look-out if we 
 had to keep on chopping and changing." 
 
 " I will particularly impress it upon them." 
 
 " And you won't want to change again? You 
 won't be asking " 
 
 "Never, never, never" declares Gilbert with 
 intense excitement. 
 
 There is a sound of footsteps outside. A 
 voice asks if this is the office, and the clerk 
 answers that this is the shop. The clerk adds
 
 272 
 
 a remark to the effect that he wonders whether 
 the young geeser is still there. The other man 
 says that he should rather hope so. 
 
 "All right," remarks the voice at the other 
 end of the telephone reluctantly, "but mind 
 you, only this once."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 GILBERT STAPLEHURST opened the door of his 
 study in Cheyne Gardens and walked in. There 
 was a scent of home about the room, made up of 
 a faint suggestion of his favorite cigarettes, a 
 more decided contribution from the box of 
 mignonette outside the window. He sank down 
 into his big chair and swung half round in it 
 with a feeling of the most profound relief. 
 
 " Thank goodness ! " he exclaimed fervently. 
 
 A small Mont Blanc of white letters and cards 
 stood on the table, and crossing his legs con- 
 tentedly, Gilbert took an avalanche. The 
 checks he stuffed into a drawer to receive 
 attention at his leisure, checks are a deplora- 
 ble nuisance to busy literary men, the news- 
 paper cuttings he glanced at and tore up. Many 
 of these referred to his brief speech at the 
 Nomadic dinner, and some gave with the candor 
 of the minor press those highly important details 
 in regard to small matters that are nowadays 
 apparently indispensable. 
 18
 
 274 
 
 "Mr. Gilbert Staplehurst takes much care in 
 regard to his personal appearance and is usually 
 very correct. Why, then, he should have allowed 
 the tape of his dress-tie to stick up at the back 
 of his collar is one of those things that give the 
 thoughtful pause." 
 
 And another: 
 
 " Mr. Gilbert Staplehurst is a man of many 
 talents, but he can't orate. Still, he made a 
 sincere, almost touching, little speech with in 
 one place des larmes dans la voix, as our Paris 
 colleagues might phrase it." 
 
 Gilbert took up the morning paper which lay 
 folded on the side of the bookcase and looked 
 eagerly at the date. It was quite true, then. 
 Five minutes ago he was in the Mansion House 
 Chambers expecting arrest and now he was at 
 home. 
 
 It made him pale to think how near he had 
 been to serious disaster and how extremely for- 
 tunate he had been to have just escaped it. 
 Really he had little to complain of. He had had 
 an experience more novel than falls to the lot of
 
 275 
 
 most men, and if he could have had the satisfac- 
 tion of feeling that he had done some good 
 either to himself or to others during the last six 
 weeks, there would have been few grounds for 
 regret. He went to the book-case and took out 
 his Dickens and his Thackeray, for Gilbert 
 Staplehurst belonged to the stalwarts, and 
 glanced affectionately at the volumes. It 
 pleased him, too, to see the row of his own 
 novels again. 
 
 "Be it ever so comfortable," he said good- 
 temperedly, "there's no place like home." 
 
 The voice of Martha came to his ears. That 
 excellent servant was ascending slowly the 
 stairs, chasing the hours with shrill melody. 
 
 " ' Roaming roaming, over the stormy sea, 
 
 Sails my loved one, coming back 'ome to me. 
 My 'eart goes out to greet him, some day I'll 
 
 surely meet him. 
 Till then my cry ' " 
 
 She suddenly stopped and called over the 
 banisters to cook, far below. It sounded like a 
 ventriloquial entertainment. 
 
 "Co ok!" 
 
 " Now begin again," answered the far-off 
 voice of cook.
 
 276 
 
 "What '11 you bet the guv'nor don't come 
 home before mistress ? " 
 
 "What '11 I bet?" 
 
 "Yes, what '11 you bet. They've both been 
 away six weeks and mistress is due this evening, 
 and I shouldn't wonder if the guv'nor hadn't ar- 
 ranged so's to be home just about the same time. " 
 
 Cook, below, took a few minutes to consider 
 the wager. 
 
 "I shouldn't mind betting," called out cook, 
 "but I always lose." 
 
 "Well," said Martha argumentatively, "some 
 one must lose." 
 
 "Yes," said the voice of cook, "but it needn't 
 always be me. How long do you reckon before 
 mistress '11 be 'ere ? " 
 
 "Not more than a quarter of an hour, perhaps 
 less." 
 
 "Well, I've got work to do," cried cook; " it 
 won't do for me to stand here shouting to you 
 all the blessed day long." 
 
 "But touching this bet?" urged Martha per- 
 sistently, " what d' you say ? Let's have a little 
 bit of a flutter. Make it threepence or three 
 pennyworth of ribbon or something." 
 
 " I'll lay you," said the far-away voice of
 
 277 
 
 sportive cook "I'll lay you a bottle of that 
 New Mown 'Ay scent that the grocer sells, that 
 mistress is 'ome first." 
 
 " Done with you," cried Martha approvingly; 
 " and the one that loses has to pay." 
 
 Martha took up her song conscientiously at 
 the point she had left it : 
 
 " ' must always be 
 Remember me, darling Jim. 
 For its roaming, roaming over the ' 
 
 " I beg pardon. I beg your pardon, sir. I had 
 
 
 no idea you was here. I didn't hear you come in. " 
 
 " Didn't you ? " said Gilbert. He was reading 
 a telegram from his wife, handed in at South- 
 ampton. 
 
 " I wonder I didn't hear the hall-door shut," 
 remarked Martha curiously. "As a rule I'm 
 very quick of hearing. The page boy has gone 
 out, sir. He's learning a bicycle, and he comes 
 home from the Embankment not fit to be seen." 
 
 " There has been no letter from Mrs. Staple- 
 hurst? " 
 
 "No, sir. Cook had a telegraph message the 
 same time as yours came, telling her what to do, 
 and cook nearly danced with joy when it arrived. 
 It's been a bit lonely here all to ourselves."
 
 2 7 8 
 
 "I'll see that you are well paid." 
 
 "Thank you, sir. I'm sure, if it hadn't been 
 for Arthur knocking himself about so over his 
 bicycle, we shouldn't have had any thing to pass 
 the time away. He's a caution, that lad. Me 
 and cook have looked out in the papers to see 
 
 
 
 if we could find where you were got to, sir, but 
 none of them seemed to say." 
 
 " Perhaps they did not know." 
 
 " There isn't much the newspapers miss, sir," 
 replied Martha confidently. " The evening 
 papers especially. * They do get hold of some 
 startlers. Did you take a portmanteau with 
 you, sir ? " 
 
 "No, Martha." 
 
 "I thought not," said Martha triumphantly. 
 "That makes another twopence I've won 
 from Beg your pardon, sir ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Staplehurst will be here in a few 
 minutes, if the train keeps its time. Will you 
 and cook see about something to eat?" 
 
 "With pleasure, sir. I hope you've had a nice 
 time while you've been away, sir ? " 
 
 "It's been er a little mixed, Martha. Many 
 people called ? " 
 
 "A fair number, sir. The cards are there, on
 
 279 
 
 the silver tray. I told them all that you had 
 gone abroad. Was that right, sir?" 
 
 "Yes. I I've been abroad." 
 
 l ' We've been almost expecting, sir, if you'll 
 excuse me for saying so, that you would have 
 dropped us a line." 
 
 "Well," said Gilbert pleasantly, " I was quite 
 sure that the house was perfectly safe with you 
 
 and with cook." 
 
 f 
 
 Martha went down stairs flushed with the com- 
 pliment which she was to halve with cook; intent 
 also on collecting the wagers. In the hall the 
 bell rang, followed by a quick little rat-tat at the 
 brass knocker. 
 
 "Ah, Martha! I'm back again." 
 
 " So pleased to see you, ma'am." 
 
 " Every thing gone on well ? " 
 
 " Yes, every thing, ma'am. Master is upstairs 
 in his study, and " 
 
 Mrs. Staplehurst went quickly up the thickly 
 carpeted stairs. 
 
 In less time than might have been imagined she 
 was kissing her husband and he was kissing her. 
 
 " My dear, dear Gilbert! It has seemed like 
 years since we said good-by to each other at 
 Paddington."
 
 280 
 
 " It seems a good long while to me, dear." 
 
 "And you have been away, I hope? You're 
 looking so well. The change has done you good, 
 I can see." 
 
 "It certainly has done me," acknowledged 
 Gilbert, " a lot of good." 
 
 "You must tell me all about it." 
 
 " I would rather listen to you, Alice. Has the 
 voyage improved your mother's health ?" 
 
 "She is so much better, Gilbert. And you 
 know I didn't want to go at first, but now that 
 it's over I'm glad I went. It's pleasant to feel 
 that one has performed a good action, and has 
 done something valuable for other people. 
 Isn't it?" 
 
 " I think it must be, dear. I am afraid, 
 though, I have had no personal experience of 
 that during the past six weeks. I've been 
 entirely selfish." 
 
 "And it has answered well?" 
 
 "My dear madam," said Gilbert comically; 
 he took her chin, and looked down into her 
 good, brown eyes, "I will not deceive you. 
 It has failed utterly." 
 
 "Good!" cried his wife. "I dare say you 
 wanted to write to me," she went on vivaciously,
 
 2Sl 
 
 "but of course it wasn't possible. We just had 
 two days at Cape Town and then caught the 
 Scot back. If only you had been there " 
 
 "I almost wish I had, dear." 
 
 "Still, you have managed, I expect, to get 
 some what is it you call it? some 'copy.' 
 You generally do, wherever you go. What shall 
 you write about it ? " 
 
 She looked up admiringly at her husband, and 
 stroked his short beard. 
 
 " I'm afraid," said Gilbert thoughtfully, " that 
 even if I were to write about it, folk might say 
 that it didn't sound true." 
 
 " I'm very much mistaken in you, sir, if you 
 don't make it of some use." 
 
 "I think I think it is sure to prove of use 
 to me." 
 
 "You met some nice people, I hope." 
 
 "I met," said Gilbert guardedly, "some 
 exceedingly pleasant people." 
 
 "And I am sure they were very pleased to 
 meet you. Weren't they all sorry to say 
 good-by ? " 
 
 "I don't remember any case of wailing and 
 teeth-gnashing for the moment, dear. In fact I 
 can't help thinking that they were all a little
 
 282 
 
 relieved to miss me. It's difficult to say for cer- 
 tain, of course, but I can't persuade myself that 
 my existence was absolutely indispensable to any 
 of them." 
 
 " It is to me, Gilbert." 
 
 He bowed with an assumption of great court- 
 liness. She laughed and courtesied low. 
 
 "It's very absurd for staid, middle-aged 
 people like ourselves," she said, "to be still 
 complimenting each other." 
 
 " It's a habit, Alice, that grows on one some- 
 times. And when the wife is so delightful, 
 and " 
 
 "I must go upstairs and change," said Mrs. 
 Staplehurst quaintly. 
 
 "Stay just one moment, dear. I think I 
 never before realized how happily I was situated. 
 I think that I see now how much I have to be 
 to be thankful for." 
 
 "If you are not very careful," said his wife 
 warningly, "you will pay me another compliment." 
 
 "I declare," said Gilbert, "that I could say 
 nothing more kind to you, dear, than you 
 deserve. And I want you to believe that I'm 
 very glad to be home again, and to be with you, 
 and to "
 
 283 
 
 " I thought before I left, Gilbert," said his 
 wife, taking off her bonnet and preparing to go 
 upstairs to her dressing-room, " that you were 
 becoming becoming un peu mecontent" 
 
 "I am not to be beaten by a mere wife," said 
 Mr. Staplehurst genially, "in the use of a 
 foreign tongue. I beg, therefore, to state (also 
 in the language of France) that I have arrived by 
 experience at this conclusion: Si on if a ce gu' 
 Von aime, il faut aimer ce gu 1 I' on a." 
 
 " Not a bad quotation, that." 
 
 The gong sounded down stairs; Mrs. Staple- 
 hurst hurried away to her room. 
 
 "It is one," said Gilbert Staplehurst, "that I 
 shall try to remember." 
 
 THE END.
 
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