PASSING OF THE 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 
 
 JKROME'K- JERO ID
 
 LIBRARY] 
 
 UN!V.:i} TV OF 
 ' 
 
 V. 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 PASSING OF THE 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK
 
 PASSING OF THE 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 
 
 By 
 
 JEROME K. JEROME 
 
 Author of "Paul Kelver," "Three Men 
 in a Boat," etc., etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
 1908
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY 
 JEROME K. JEROME 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY 
 DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
 
 Published, September, 1906
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAQK 
 
 PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK . . 1 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 47 
 
 THE SOUL OF NICHOLAS SNYDERS, OB THE 
 
 MISER OF ZANDAM 85 
 
 MRS. KORNER SINS HER MERCIES . . . 120 
 
 THE COST OF KINDNESS 151 
 
 THE LOVE OF ULRICH NEBENDAHL . 171
 
 PASSING OF THE THIRD 
 FLOOR BACK 
 
 THE neighbourhood of Bloomsbury 
 Square towards four o'clock of a No- 
 vember afternoon is not so crowded as 
 to secure to the stranger, of appearance 
 anything out of the common, immunity 
 from observation. Tibb's boy, scream- 
 ing at the top of his voice that she was 
 his honey, stopped suddenly, stepped 
 backwards on to the toes of a voluble 
 young lady wheeling a perambulator, 
 and remained deaf, apparently, to the 
 somewhat personal remarks of the vol- 
 uble young lady. Not until he had 
 reached the next corner and then more 
 as a soliloquy than as information to 
 the street did Tibb's boy recover suf- 
 ficient interest in his own affairs 
 to remark that he was her bee. The
 
 2 PASSING OF THE 
 
 voluble young lady herself, following 
 some half-a-dozen yards behind, for- 
 got her wrongs in contemplation of 
 the stranger 's back. There was this that 
 was peculiar about the stranger's back: 
 that instead of being flat it presented a 
 decided curve. " It ain't a 'ump, and it 
 don't look like kervitcher of the spine," 
 observed the voluble young lady to her- 
 self. " Blimy if I don't believe 'e's tak- 
 ing 'ome 'is washing up his back." 
 
 The constable at the corner, trying to 
 seem busy doing nothing, noticed the 
 stranger's approach with gathering in- 
 terest. " That's an odd sort of a walk 
 of yours, young man," thought the con- 
 stable. " You take care you don't fall 
 down and tumble over yourself. ' ' 
 
 11 Thought he was a young man," 
 murmured the constable, the stranger 
 having passed him. " He had a young 
 face right enough." 
 
 The daylight was fading. The 
 stranger, finding it impossible to read 
 the name of the street upon the corner 
 house, turned back.
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 3 
 
 " Why, 'tis a young man," the con- 
 stable told himself; " a mere boy." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said the 
 stranger; " but would you mind telling 
 me my way to Bloomsbury Square." 
 
 " This is Bloomsbury Square," ex- 
 plained the constable ; ' ' leastways round 
 the corner is. What number might you 
 be wanting? " 
 
 The stranger took from the ticket 
 pocket of his tightly buttoned overcoat 
 a piece of paper, unfolded it and read 
 it out : ' i Mrs. Pennycherry. Number 
 Forty-eight." 
 
 " Bound to the left," instructed him 
 the constable; " fourth house. Been rec- 
 ommended there? " 
 
 " By by a friend," replied the 
 stranger. " Thank you very much." 
 
 ' ' Ah, ' ' muttered the constable to him- 
 self ; " guess you won't be calling him 
 that by the end of the week, young 
 
 " Funny," added the constable, gaz- 
 ing after the retreating figure of the 
 stranger. " Seen plenty of the other 
 sex as looked young behind and old in
 
 4, PASSING OF THE 
 
 front. This cove looks young in front 
 and old behind. Guess he'll look old all 
 round if he stops long at mother Penny- 
 cherry's : stingy old cat." 
 
 Constables whose beat included 
 Bloomsbury Square had their reasons 
 for not liking Mrs. Pennycherry. Indeed 
 it might have been difficult to discover 
 any human being with reasons for liking 
 that sharp-featured lady. Maybe the 
 keeping of second-rate boarding houses 
 in the neighbourhood of Bloomsbury 
 does not tend to develop the virtues of 
 generosity and amiability. 
 
 Meanwhile the stranger, proceeding 
 upon his way, had rung the bell of Num- 
 ber Forty-eight. Mrs. Pennycherry, 
 peeping from the area and catching a 
 glimpse, above the railings, of a hand- 
 some if somewhat effeminate masculine 
 face, hastened to readjust her widow's 
 cap before the looking-glass while direct- 
 ing Mary Jane to show the stranger, 
 should he prove a problematical boarder, 
 into the dining-room, and to light the 
 gas.
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 5 
 
 " And don't stop gossiping, and don't 
 you take it upon yourself to answer 
 questions. Say I'll be up in a minute," 
 were Mrs. Penny cherry 's further in- 
 structions, " and mind you hide your 
 hands as much as you can." 
 
 " What are you grinning at? " de- 
 manded Mrs. Penny cherry, a couple of 
 minutes later, of the dingy Mary 
 Jane. 
 
 " Wasn't grinning," explained the 
 meek Mary Jane, " was only smiling to 
 myself." 
 
 "What at?" 
 
 1 ' Dunno, ' ' admitted Mary Jane. But 
 still she went on smiling. 
 
 " What's he like then? " demanded 
 Mrs. Penny cherry. 
 
 " 'E ain't the usual sort," was Mary 
 Jane's opinion. 
 
 " Thank God for that," ejaculated 
 Mrs. Pennycherry piously. 
 
 " Says 'e's been recommended, by a 
 friend. ' ' 
 
 " By whom? "
 
 6 PASSING OF THE 
 
 1 1 By a friend. 'E didn 't say no name. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Penny cherry pondered. " He's 
 not the funny sort, is he? " 
 
 Not that sort at all. Mary Jane was 
 sure of it. 
 
 Mrs. Pennycherry ascended the stairs 
 still pondering. As she entered the 
 room the stranger rose and bowed. 
 Nothing could have been simpler than 
 the stranger's bow, yet there came with 
 it to Mrs. Pennycherry a rush of old 
 sensations long forgotten. For one brief 
 moment Mrs. Pennycherry saw herself 
 an amiable well-bred lady, widow of a 
 solicitor : a visitor had called to see her. 
 It was but a momentary fancy. The next 
 instant Eeality reasserted itself. Mrs. 
 Pennycherry, a lodging-house keeper, 
 existing precariously upon a daily round 
 of petty meannesses, was prepared for 
 contest with a possible new boarder, 
 who fortunately looked an inexperi- 
 enced young gentleman. 
 
 " Someone has recommended me to 
 you," began Mrs. Pennycherry; " may 
 I ask who? "
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 7 
 
 But the stranger waved the question 
 aside as immaterial. 
 
 " You might not remember him," he 
 smiled. " He thought that I should do 
 well to pass the few months I am given 
 that I have to be in London, here. You 
 can take me in? " 
 
 Mrs. Pennycherry thought that she 
 would be able to take the stranger 
 in. 
 
 " A room to sleep in," explained the 
 stranger, " any room will do with 
 food and drink sufficient for a man, is all 
 that I require." 
 
 " For breakfast," began Mrs. Penny- 
 cherry, " I always give " 
 
 " What is right and proper, I am 
 convinced," interrupted the stranger. 
 " Pray do not trouble to go into detail, 
 Mrs. Pennycherry. With whatever it is 
 I shall be content." 
 
 Mrs. Pennycherry, puzzled, shot a 
 quick glance at the stranger, but his 
 face, though the gentle eyes were smil- 
 ing, was frank and serious. 
 
 " At all events you will see the room,"
 
 8 PASSING OF THE 
 
 suggested Mrs. Penny cherry, " before 
 we discuss terms." 
 
 " Certainly," agreed the stranger. 
 " I am a little tired and shall be glad to 
 rest there." 
 
 Mrs. Penny cherry led the way up- 
 ward; on the landing of the third floor, 
 paused a moment undecided, then 
 opened the door of the back bedroom. 
 
 ' * It is very comfortable, ' ' commented 
 the stranger. 
 
 " For this room," stated Mrs. Penny- 
 cherry, " together with full board, con- 
 sisting of " 
 
 11 Of everything needful. It goes 
 without saying," again interrupted the 
 stranger with his quiet grave smile. 
 
 " I have generally asked," continued 
 Mrs. Pennycherry, " four pounds a 
 week. To you " Mrs. Penny cherry's 
 voice, unknown to her, took to itself the 
 note of aggressive generosity " seeing 
 you have been recommended here, say 
 three pounds ten." 
 
 11 Dear lady," said the stranger, 
 " that is kind of you. As you have
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 9 
 
 divined, I am not a rich man. If it be 
 not imposing upon you I accept your 
 reduction with gratitude. ' ' 
 
 Again Mrs. Pennycherry, familiar 
 with the satirical method, shot a sus- 
 picious glance upon the stranger, but 
 not a line was there, upon that smooth 
 fair face, to which a sneer could for a 
 moment have clung. Clearly he was as 
 simple as he looked. 
 
 " Gas, of course, extra." 
 
 " Of course," agreed the stranger. 
 
 Coals " 
 
 " We shall not quarrel," for a third 
 time the stranger interrupted. " You 
 have been very considerate to me as it 
 is. I feel, Mrs. Pennycherry, I can leave 
 myself entirely in your hands." 
 
 The stranger appeared anxious to be 
 alone. Mrs. Pennycherry, having put a 
 match to the stranger's fire, turned to 
 depart. And at this point it was that 
 Mrs. Pennycherry, the holder hitherto 
 of an unbroken record for sanity, be- 
 haved in a manner she herself, five min- 
 utes earlier in her career, would have
 
 10 PASSING OF THE 
 
 deemed impossible that no living soul 
 who had ever known her would have be- 
 lieved, even had Mrs. Pennycherry gone 
 down upon her knees and sworn it to 
 them. 
 
 " Did I say three pound ten? " de- 
 manded Mrs. Pennycherry of the 
 stranger, her hand upon the door. She 
 spoke crossly. She was feeling cross, 
 with the stranger, with herself partic- 
 ularly with herself. 
 
 " You were kind enough to reduce it 
 to that amount," replied the stranger; 
 " but if upon reflection you find your- 
 self unable " 
 
 " I was making a mistake," said Mrs. 
 Pennycherry, " it should have been two 
 pound ten." 
 
 1 ' I cannot I will not accept such sac- 
 rifice," exclaimed the stranger; " the 
 three pound ten I can well afford." 
 
 " Two pound ten are my terms," 
 snapped Mrs. Pennycherry. " If you 
 are bent on paying more, you can go 
 elsewhere. You'll find plenty to oblige 
 you."
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 11 
 
 Her vehemence must have impressed 
 the stranger. " We will not contend 
 further," he smiled. " I was merely 
 afraid that in the goodness of your 
 heart " 
 
 " Oh, it isn't as good as all that,' 7 
 growled Mrs. Penny cherry. 
 
 " I am not so sure," returned the 
 stranger. " I am somewhat suspicious 
 of you. But wilful woman must, I sup- 
 pose, have her way." 
 
 The stranger held out his hand, and 
 to Mrs. Penny cherry, at that moment, it 
 seemed the most natural thing in the 
 world to take it as if it had been the 
 hand of an old friend and to end the 
 interview with a pleasant laugh though 
 laughing was an exercise not often in- 
 dulged in by Mrs. Pennycherry. 
 
 Mary Jane was standing by the win- 
 dow, her hands folded in front of her, 
 when Mrs. Pennycherry re-entered the 
 kitchen. By standing close to the win- 
 dow one caught a glimpse of the trees 
 in Bloomsbury Square and through their 
 bare branches of the sky beyond.
 
 12 PASSING OF THE 
 
 ' ' There 's nothing much to do for the 
 next half hour, till Cook comes back. 
 I'll see to the door if you'd like a run 
 out? " suggested Mrs. Penny cherry. 
 
 ' ' It would be nice, ' ' agreed the girl so 
 soon as she had recovered power of 
 speech; " it's just the time of day I 
 like." 
 
 " Don't be longer than the half hour,'* 
 added Mrs. Penny cherry. 
 
 Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, as- 
 sembled after dinner in the drawing- 
 room, discussed the stranger with that 
 freedom and frankness characteristic of 
 Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, to- 
 wards the absent. 
 
 " Not what I call a smart young 
 man," was the opinion of Augustus 
 Longcord, who was something in the 
 City. 
 
 " Thpeaking for mythelf," com- 
 mented his partner Isidore, " hav'n'th 
 any uthe for the thmart young man. 
 Too many of him, ath it ith. ' ' 
 
 " Must be pretty smart if he's one too 
 many for you," laughed his partner.
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 13 
 
 There was this to be said for the repar- 
 tee of Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square: 
 it was simple of construction and easy 
 of comprehension. 
 
 ' ' Well it made me feel good just look- 
 ing at him," declared Miss Kite, the 
 highly coloured. * ' It was his clothes, I 
 suppose made me think of Noah and 
 the ark all that sort of thing." 
 
 ' * It would be clothes that would make 
 you think if anything," drawled the 
 languid Miss Devine. She was a tall, 
 handsome girl, engaged at the moment 
 in futile efforts to recline with elegance 
 and comfort combined upon a horsehair 
 sofa. Miss Kite, by reason of having 
 secured the only easy-chair, was unpopu- 
 lar that evening; so that Miss Devine 's 
 remark received from the rest of the 
 company more approbation than per- 
 haps it merited. 
 
 " Is that intended to be clever, dear, 
 or only rude? " Miss Kite requested to 
 be informed. 
 
 " Both," claimed Miss Devine. 
 
 " Myself, I must confess," shouted
 
 14 PASSING OF THE 
 
 the tall young lady's father, commonly 
 called the Colonel, " I found him a 
 fool." 
 
 " I noticed you seemed to be getting 
 on very well together, ' ' purred his wife, 
 a plump, smiling little lady. 
 
 " Possibly we were," retorted the 
 Colonel. " Fate has accustomed me to 
 the society of fools." 
 
 " Isn't it a pity to start quarrelling 
 immediately after dinner, you two," 
 suggested their thoughtful daughter 
 from the sofa, " you'll have nothing left 
 to amuse you for the rest of the 
 evening. ' ' 
 
 " He didn't strike me as a conversa- 
 tionalist," said the lady who was cousin 
 to a baronet; " but he did pass the veg- 
 etables before he helped himself. A 
 little thing like that shows breeding." 
 
 " Or that he didn't know you and 
 thought maybe you'd leave him half a 
 spoonful," laughed Augustus the wit. 
 
 11 What I can't make out about 
 him " shouted the Colonel. 
 
 The stranger entered the room.
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 15 
 
 The Colonel, securing the evening 
 paper, retired into a corner. The highly 
 coloured Kite, reaching down from the 
 mantelpiece a paper fan, held it coyly 
 before her face. Miss Devine sat upright 
 on the horse-hair sofa, and rearranged 
 her skirts. 
 
 " Know anything? " demanded Au- 
 gustus of the stranger, breaking the 
 somewhat remarkable silence. 
 
 The stranger evidently did not under- 
 stand. It was necessary for Augustus, 
 the witty, to advance further into that 
 odd silence. 
 
 " What's going to pull off the Lincoln 
 handicap? Tell me, and I'll go out 
 straight and put my shirt upon it. ' ' 
 
 " I think you would act unwisely," 
 smiled the stranger; " I am not an au- 
 thority upon the subject." 
 
 " Not! Why they told me you were 
 Captain Spy of the Sporting Life in 
 disguise." 
 
 It would have been difficult for a joke 
 to fall more flat. Nobody laughed, 
 though why Mr. Augustus Longcord
 
 16 PASSING OF THE 
 
 could not understand, and maybe none 
 of his audience could have told him, for 
 at Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square Mr. 
 Augustus Longcord passed as a humor- 
 ist. The stranger himself appeared una- 
 ware that he was being made fun of. 
 
 " You have been misinformed," as- 
 sured him the stranger. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Mr. Au- 
 gustus Longcord. 
 
 " It is nothing," replied the stranger 
 in his sweet low voice, and passed on. 
 
 " Well what about this theatre," de- 
 manded Mr. Longcord of his friend 
 and partner; " do you want to go or 
 don't you? " Mr. Longcord was feeling 
 irritable. 
 
 " Goth the ticketh may ath well," 
 thought Isidore. 
 
 " Damn stupid piece, I'm told." 
 
 11 Motht of them thupid, more or leth. 
 Pity to wathte the ticketh," argued Isi- 
 dore, and the pair went out. 
 
 " Are you staying long in London? ' 
 asked Miss Kite, raising her practised 
 eyes towards the stranger.
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 17 
 
 " Not long," answered the stranger. 
 " At least, I do not know. It depends. " 
 
 An unusual quiet had invaded the 
 drawing-room of Forty-eight Blooms- 
 bury Square, generally noisy with stri- 
 dent voices about this hour. The 
 Colonel remained engrossed in his 
 paper. Mrs. Devine sat with her plump 
 white hands folded on her lap, whether 
 asleep or not it was impossible to say. 
 The lady who was cousin to a baronet 
 had shifted her chair beneath the gaso- 
 lier, her eyes bent on her everlasting 
 crochet work. The languid Miss Devine 
 had crossed to the piano, where she sat 
 fingering softly the tuneless keys, her 
 back to the cold barely-furnished room. 
 
 " Sit down," commanded saucily Miss 
 Kite, indicating with her fan the vacant 
 seat beside her. " Tell me about your- 
 self. You interest me." Miss Kite 
 adopted a pretty authoritative air to- 
 wards all youthful-looking members of 
 the opposite sex. It harmonised with 
 the peach complexion and the golden 
 hair, and fitted her about as well.
 
 18 PASSING OF THE 
 
 " I am glad of that," answered the 
 stranger, taking the chair suggested. 
 " I so wish to interest you." 
 
 ' l You're a very bold boy. ' ' Miss Kite 
 lowered her fan, for the purpose of 
 glancing archly over the edge of it, and 
 for the first time encountered the eyes 
 of the stranger looking into hers. And 
 then it was that Miss Kite experienced 
 precisely the same curious sensation 
 that an hour or so ago had troubled Mrs. 
 Pennycherry when the stranger had first 
 bowed to her. It seemed to Miss Kite 
 that she was no longer the Miss Kite 
 that, had she risen and looked into it, 
 the fly-blown mirror over the marble 
 mantelpiece would, she knew, have pre- 
 sented to her view; but quite another 
 Miss Kite a cheerful, bright-eyed lady 
 verging on middle age, yet still good- 
 looking in spite of her faded complexion 
 and somewhat thin brown locks. Miss 
 Kite felt a pang of jealousy shoot 
 through her; this middle-aged Miss Kite 
 seemed, on the whole, a more attractive 
 lady. There was a wholesomeness, a
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 19 
 
 broadmindedness about her that in- 
 stinctively drew one towards her. Not 
 hampered, as Miss Kite herself was, by 
 the necessity of appearing to be some- 
 where between eighteen and twenty-two, 
 this other Miss Kite could talk sensibly, 
 even brilliantly: one felt it. A thor- 
 oughly " nice " woman this other Miss 
 Kite; the real Miss Kite, though envi- 
 ous, was bound to admit it. Miss Kite 
 wished to goodness she had never seen 
 the woman. The glimpse of her had 
 rendered Miss Kite dissatisfied with 
 herself. 
 
 " I am not a boy," explained the 
 stranger; " and I had no intention of 
 being bold." 
 
 " I know," replied Miss Kite. " It 
 was a silly remark. Whatever induced 
 me to make it, I can't think. Getting 
 foolish in my old age, I suppose." 
 
 The stranger laughed. " Surely you 
 are not old." 
 
 "I'm thirty-nine," snapped out Miss 
 Kite. " You don't call it young? " ' 
 
 " I think it a beautiful age," insisted
 
 20 PASSING OF THE 
 
 the stranger; " young enough not to 
 have lost the joy of youth, old enough 
 to have learnt sympathy. ' ' 
 
 " Oh, I daresay," returned Miss Kite, 
 " any age you'd think beautiful. I'm 
 going to bed." Miss Kite rose. The 
 paper fan had somehow got itself 
 broken. She threw the fragments into 
 the fire. 
 
 "It is early yet," pleaded the 
 stranger, " I was looking forward to a 
 talk with you. ' ' 
 
 " Well, you'll be able to look forward 
 to it," retorted Miss Kite. " Good- 
 night." 
 
 The truth was, Miss Kite was impa- 
 tient to have a look at herself in the 
 glass, in her own room with the door 
 shut. The vision of that *other Miss 
 Kite the clean-looking lady of the pale 
 face and the brown hair had been so 
 vivid, Miss Kite wondered whether tem- 
 porary forgetfulness might not have 
 fallen upon her while dressing for din- 
 ner that evening. 
 
 The stranger, left to his own devices,
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 21 
 
 strolled towards the loo table, seeking 
 something to read. 
 
 " You seem to have frightened away 
 Miss Kite," remarked the lady who was 
 cousin to a baronet. 
 
 ' ' It seems so, ' ' admitted the stranger. 
 
 " My cousin, Sir William Bosster," 
 observed the crocheting lady, " who 
 married old Lord Egham's niece you 
 never met the Eghams? " 
 
 " Hitherto," replied the stranger, 
 " I have not had that pleasure." 
 
 " A charming family. Cannot under- 
 stand my cousin Sir William, I mean, 
 cannot understand my remaining here. 
 * My dear Emily ' he says the same 
 thing every time he sees me: ' My dear 
 Emily, how can you exist among the 
 sort of people one meets with in a board- 
 ing-house. ' But they amuse me. ' ' 
 
 A sense of humour, agreed the 
 stranger, was always of advantage. 
 
 " Our family on my mother's side," 
 continued Sir William's cousin in her 
 placid monotone, " was connected with 
 the Tatton-Joneses, who when King
 
 2% PASSING OF THE 
 
 George the Fourth " Sir William's 
 
 cousin, needing another reel of cotton, 
 glanced up, and met the stranger's 
 gaze. 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know why I'm tell- 
 ing you all this," said Sir William's 
 cousin in an irritable tone. " It can't 
 possibly interest you." 
 
 " Everything connected with you in- 
 terests me," gravely the stranger as- 
 sured her. 
 
 "It is very kind of you to say so," 
 sighed Sir William's cousin, but with- 
 out conviction ; " I am afraid sometimes 
 I bore people." 
 
 The polite stranger refrained from 
 contradiction. 
 
 " You see," continued the poor lady, 
 " I really am of good family." 
 
 " Dear lady," said the stranger, 
 " your gentle face, your gentle voice, 
 your gentle bearing, all proclaim it." 
 
 She looked without flinching into the 
 stranger's eyes, and gradually a smile 
 banished the" reigning dulness of her 
 features.
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 23 
 
 " How foolish of me." She spoke 
 rather to herself than to the stranger, 
 " Why, of course, people people whose 
 opinion is worth troubling about judge 
 of you by what you are, not by what you 
 go about saying you are." 
 
 The stranger remained silent. 
 
 * ' I am the widow of a provincial doc- 
 tor, with an income of just two hundred 
 and thirty pounds per annum," she ar- 
 gued. t ' The sensible thing for me to do 
 is to make the best of it, and to worry 
 myself about these high and mighty rela- 
 tions of mine as little as they have ever 
 worried themselves about me." 
 
 The stranger appeared unable to think 
 of anything worth saying. 
 
 " I have other connections," remem- 
 bered Sir William's cousin; " those of 
 my poor husband, to whom instead of 
 being the ' poor relation ' I could be the 
 fairy god-mama. They are my people 
 or would be," added Sir William's 
 cousin tartly, " if I wasn't a vulgar 
 snob." 
 
 She flushed the instant she had said
 
 24 PASSING OF THE 
 
 the words and, rising, commenced prep- 
 arations for a hurried departure. 
 
 " Now it seems I am driving you 
 away," sighed the stranger. 
 
 " Having been called a ' vulgar 
 snob/ " retorted the lady with some 
 heat, " I think it about time I went." 
 
 " The words were your own," the 
 stranger reminded her. 
 
 " Whatever I may have thought," re- 
 marked the indignant dame, " no lady 
 least of all in the presence of a 
 total stranger would have called her- 
 self " The poor dame paused, be- 
 wildered. " There is something very 
 curious the matter with me this evening, 
 that I cannot understand," she ex- 
 plained, " I seem quite unable to avoid 
 insulting myself." 
 
 Still surrounded by bewilderment, she 
 wished the stranger good-night, hoping 
 that when next they met she would be 
 more herself. The stranger, hoping so 
 also, opened the door and closed it again 
 behind her. 
 
 " Tell me," laughed Miss Devine, who
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 25 
 
 by sheer force of talent was contriving 
 to wring harmony from the reluctant 
 piano, " how did you manage to do it? 
 I should like to know." 
 
 " How did I do what? " inquired the 
 stranger. 
 
 " Contrive to get rid so quickly of 
 those two old frumps? " 
 
 " How well you play! " observed the 
 stranger. ' * I knew you had genius for 
 music the moment I saw you." 
 
 " How could you tell? ' 
 
 " It is written so clearly in your 
 face." 
 
 The girl laughed, well pleased. " You 
 seera to have lost no tune in studying 
 my face." 
 
 "It is a beautiful and interesting 
 face," observed the stranger. 
 
 She swung round sharply on the stool 
 and their eyes met. 
 
 " You can read faces? ' 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Tell me, what else do you read in 
 mine? " . 
 
 " Frankness, courage "
 
 26 PASSING OF THE 
 
 " Ah, yes, all the virtues. Perhaps. 
 We will take them for granted." It was 
 odd how serious the girl had suddenly 
 become. " Tell me the reverse side." 
 
 " I see no reverse side," replied the 
 stranger. * ' I see but a fair girl, burst- 
 ing into noble womanhood." 
 
 " And nothing else? You read no 
 trace of greed, of vanity, of sordidness, 
 
 of " An angry laugh escaped her 
 
 lips. ' ' And you are a reader of faces ! ' ' 
 
 " A reader of faces." The stranger 
 smiled. " Do you know what is written 
 upon yours at this very moment? A 
 love of truth that is almost fierce, scorn 
 of lies, scorn of hypocrisy, the desire for 
 all things pure, contempt of all things 
 that are contemptible especially of 
 such things as are contemptible in 
 woman. Tell me, do I not read aright? " 
 
 I wonder, thought the girl, is that why 
 those two others both hurried from the 
 room? Does everyone feel ashamed of 
 the littleness that is in them when looked 
 at by those clear, believing eyes of 
 yours ?
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 27 
 
 The idea occurred to her: " Papa 
 seemed to have a good deal to say to you 
 during dinner. Tell me, what were you 
 talking about? " 
 
 " The military looking gentleman 
 upon my left? We talked about your 
 mother principally." 
 
 ' ' I am sorry, ' ' returned the girl, wish- 
 ful now she had not asked the question. 
 " I was hoping he might have chosen 
 another topic for the first evening! " 
 
 " He did try one or two," admitted 
 the stranger; " but I have been about 
 the world so little, I was glad when he 
 talked to me about himself. I feel we 
 shall be friends. He spoke so nicely, 
 too, about Mrs. Devine." 
 
 " Indeed," commented the girl. 
 
 11 He told me he had been married 
 for twenty years and had never regret- 
 ted it but once ! ' ' 
 
 Her black eyes flashed upon him, but 
 meeting his, the suspicion died from 
 them. She turned aside to hide her 
 smile. 
 
 " So he regretted it once."
 
 28 PASSING OF THE 
 
 " Only once," explained the stranger, 
 " a passing irritable mood. It was so 
 frank of him to admit it. He told me 
 I think he has taken a liking to me. In- 
 deed he hinted as much. He said he did 
 not often get an opportunity of talking 
 to a man like myself he told me that 
 he and your mother, when they travel 
 together, are always mistaken for a 
 honeymoon couple. Some of the expe- 
 riences -he related to me were really 
 quite amusing." The stranger laughed 
 at recollection of them " that even 
 here, in this place, they are generally 
 referred to as * Darby and Joan.' " 
 
 11 Yes," said the girl, " that is true. 
 Mr. Longcord gave them that name, the 
 second evening after our arrival. It 
 was considered clever but rather ob- 
 vious I thought myself. ' ' 
 
 " Nothing so it seems to me," said 
 the stranger, " is more beautiful than 
 the love that has weathered the storms 
 of life. The sweet, tender blossom that 
 flowers in the heart of the young in 
 hearts such as yours that, too, is beau-
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 29 
 
 tiful. The love of the young for the 
 young, that is the beginning of life. But 
 the love of the old for the old, that is the 
 beginning of of things longer." 
 
 " You seem to find all things beauti- 
 ful," the girl grumbled. 
 
 " But are not all things beautiful? " 
 demanded the stranger. 
 
 The Colonel had finished his paper. 
 ' ' You two are engaged in a very absorb- 
 ing conversation," observed the Colo- 
 nel, approaching them. 
 
 " We were discussing Darbies and 
 Joans, ' ' explained his daughter. ' * How 
 beautiful is the love that has weathered 
 the storms of life! " 
 
 " Ah! " smiled the Colonel, " that is 
 hardly fair. My friend has been repeat- 
 ing to cynical youth the confessions of 
 an amorous husband's affection for his 
 
 middle-aged and somewhat " The 
 
 Colonel in playful mood laid his hand 
 upon the stranger's shoulder, an action 
 that necessitated his looking straight in- 
 to the stranger's eyes. The Colonel drew 
 himself up stiffly and turned scarlet.
 
 30 PASSING OF THE 
 
 Somebody was calling the Colonel a 
 cad. Not only that, but was explaining 
 quite clearly, so that the Colonel could 
 see it for himself, why he was a cad. 
 
 " That you and your wife lead a cat 
 and dog existence is a disgrace to both 
 of you. At least you might have the 
 decency to try and hide it from the 
 world not make a jest of your shame 
 to every passing stranger. You are a 
 cad, sir, a cad! ): 
 
 Who was daring to say these things? 
 Not the stranger, his lips had not moved. 
 Besides, it was not his voice. Indeed it 
 sounded much more like the voice of the 
 Colonel himself. The Colonel looked 
 from the stranger to his daughter, from 
 his daughter back to the stranger. 
 Clearly they had not heard the voice 
 a mere hallucination. The Colonel 
 breathed again. 
 
 Yet the impression remaining was 
 not to be shaken off. Undoubtedly it 
 was bad taste to have joked to the 
 stranger upon such a subject. No gen- 
 tleman would have done so.
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 31 
 
 But then no gentleman would have 
 permitted such a jest to be possible. No 
 gentleman would be forever wrangling 
 with his wife certainly never in public. 
 However irritating the woman, a gentle- 
 man would have exercised self-control. 
 
 Mrs. Devine had risen, was coming 
 slowly across the room. Fear laid hold 
 of the Colonel. She was going to ad- 
 dress some aggravating remark to him 
 he could see it in her eye which 
 would irritate him into savage retort. 
 Even this prize idiot of a stranger would 
 understand why boarding-house wits 
 had dubbed them " Darby and Joan,'* 
 would grasp the fact that the gallant 
 Colonel had thought it amusing, in con- 
 versation with a table acquaintance, to 
 hold his own wife up to ridicule. 
 
 " My dear," cried the Colonel, hurry- 
 ing to speak first, " does not this room 
 strike you as cold? Let me fetch you a 
 shawl." 
 
 It was useless : the Colonel felt it. It 
 had been too long the custom of both 
 of them to preface with politeness their
 
 m PASSING OF THE 
 
 deadliest insults to each other. She 
 came on, thinking of a suitable reply: 
 suitable from her point of view, that is. 
 In another moment the truth would be 
 out. A wild, fantastic possibility flashed 
 through the Colonel's brain: If to him, 
 why not to her I 
 
 " Letitia," cried the Colonel, and the 
 tone of his voice surprised her into si- 
 lence, " I want you to look closely at 
 our friend. Does he not remind you of 
 someone? " 
 
 Mrs. Devine, so urged, looked at the 
 stranger long and hard. " Yes," she 
 murmured, turning to her husband, " he 
 does, who is it! " 
 
 " I cannot fix it," replied the Colonel; 
 " I thought that maybe you would 
 remember." 
 
 " It will come to me," mused Mrs. 
 Devine. " It is someone years ago, 
 when I was a girl in Devonshire. 
 Thank you, if it isn't troubling you, 
 Harry. I left it in the dining-room." 
 
 It was, as Mr. Augustus Longcord ex- 
 plained to his partner Isidore, the colos-
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 33 
 
 sal foolishness of the stranger that was 
 the cause of all the trouble. " Give me 
 a man, who can take care of himself 
 or thinks he can," declared Augustus 
 Longcord, " and I am prepared to give 
 a good account of myself. But when a 
 helpless baby refuses even to look at 
 what you call your figures, tells you that 
 your mere word is sufficient for him, and 
 hands you over his cheque-book to fill 
 up for yourself well, it isn't playing 
 the game." 
 
 " Auguthuth," was the curt comment 
 of his partner, " you're a fool." 
 
 " All right, my boy, you try," sug- 
 gested Augustus. 
 
 " Jutht what I mean to do," asserted 
 his partner. 
 
 " Well," demanded Augustus one 
 evening later, meeting Isidore ascending 
 the stairs after a long talk with the 
 stranger in the dining-room with the 
 door shut. 
 
 " Oh, don't arth me," retorted Isi- 
 dore, " thilly ath, thath what he ith." 
 
 11 What did he say? "
 
 34 PASSING OF THE 
 
 " What did he thay! talked about the 
 Jewth: what a grand rathe they were 
 how people mithjudged them: all that 
 thort of rot. 
 
 * ' Thaid thome of the motht honorable 
 men he had ever met had been Jewth. 
 Thought I wath one of 'em! " 
 
 " Well, did you get anything out of 
 him? " 
 
 * ' Get anything out of him. Of courthe 
 not. Couldn't very well thell the whole 
 rathe, ath it were, for a couple of hun- 
 dred poundth, after that. Didn't theem 
 worth it." 
 
 There were many things Forty-eight 
 Bloomsbury Square came gradually to 
 the conclusion were not worth the do- 
 ing: Snatching at the gravy; pouncing 
 out of one 's turn upon the vegetables and 
 helping oneself to more than one's fair 
 share; manoeuvring for the easy-chair; 
 sitting on the evening paper while pre- 
 tending not to have seen it all such- 
 like tiresome bits of business. For the 
 little one made out of it, really it was 
 not worth the bother. Grumbling ever-
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 35 
 
 lastingly at one 's food ; grumbling ever- 
 lastingly at most things ; abusing Penny- 
 cherry behind her back; abusing, for a 
 change, one's fellow-boarders; squab- 
 bling with one's fellow-boarders about 
 nothing in particular; sneering at one's 
 fellow-boarders; talking scandal of 
 one's fellow-boarders; making sense- 
 less jokes about one's fellow-boarders; 
 talking big about oneself, nobody believ- 
 ing one all such-like vulgarities. Other 
 boarding-houses might indulge in them: 
 Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square had its 
 dignity to consider. 
 
 The truth is, Forty-eight Bloomsbury 
 Square was coming to a very good opin- 
 ion of itself : for the which not Blooms- 
 bury Square so much as the stranger 
 must be blamed. The stranger had ar- 
 rived at Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square 
 with the preconceived idea where ob- 
 tained from Heaven knows that its 
 seemingly commonplace, mean-minded, 
 coarse-fibred occupants were in reality 
 ladies and gentlemen of the first water; 
 and time and observation had appar-
 
 36 PASSING OF THE 
 
 ently only strengthened this absurd idea. 
 The natural result was, Forty-eight 
 Bloomsbury Square was coming round 
 to the stranger's opinion of itself. 
 
 Mrs. Pennycherry, the stranger would 
 persist in regarding as a lady born and 
 bred, compelled by circumstances over 
 which she had no control to fill an ardu- 
 ous but honorable position of middle- 
 class society a sort of foster-mother, 
 to whom were due the thanks and grati- 
 tude of her promiscuous family ; and this 
 view of herself Mrs. Pennycherry now 
 clung to with obstinate conviction. 
 There were disadvantages attaching, 
 but these Mrs. Pennycherry appeared 
 prepared to suffer cheerfully. A lady 
 born and bred cannot charge other ladies 
 and gentlemen for coals and candles they 
 have never burnt; a foster-mother can- 
 not palm off upon her children New 
 Zealand mutton f o*r Southdown. A mere 
 lodging-house-keeper can play these 
 tricks, and pocket the profits. But a 
 lady feels she cannot: Mrs. Penny- 
 cherry felt she no longer could.
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 37 
 
 To the stranger Miss Kite was a witty 
 and delightful conversationalist of most 
 attractive personality. Miss Kite had 
 one failing: it was lack of vanity. She 
 was unaware of her own delicate and 
 refined beauty. If Miss Kite could only 
 see herself with his, the stranger's eyes, 
 the modesty that rendered her distrust- 
 ful of her natural charms would fall 
 from her. The stranger was so sure of 
 it Miss Kite determined to put it to the 
 test. One evening, an hour before din- 
 ner, there entered the drawing-room, 
 when the stranger only was there and 
 before the gas was lighted, a pleasant, 
 good-looking lady, somewhat pale, with 
 neatly-arranged brown hair, who de- 
 manded of the stranger if he knew her. 
 All her body was trembling, and her 
 voice seemed inclined to run away from 
 her and become a sob. But when the 
 stranger, looking straight into her eyes, 
 told her that from the likeness he 
 thought she must be Miss Kite 's younger 
 sister, but much prettier, it became a 
 laugh instead: and that evening the
 
 38 PASSING OF THE 
 
 golden-haired Miss Kite disappeared 
 never to show her high-coloured face 
 again; and what perhaps, more than all 
 else, might have impressed some former 
 habitue of Forty-eight Bloomsbury 
 Square with awe, it was that no one in 
 the house made even a passing inquiry 
 concerning her. 
 
 Sir William's cousin the stranger 
 thought an acquisition to any boarding- 
 house. A lady of high-class family! 
 There was nothing outward or visible 
 perhaps to tell you that she was of high- 
 class family. She herself, naturally, 
 would not mention the fact, yet somehow 
 you felt it. Unconsciously she set a 
 high-class tone, diffused an atmosphere 
 of gentle manners. Not that the stranger 
 had said this in so many words ; Sir Wil- 
 liam 's cousin gathered that he thought 
 it, and felt herself in agreement with 
 him. 
 
 For Mr. Longcord and his partner, as 
 representatives of the best type of busi- 
 ness men, the stranger had a great re- 
 spect. With what unfortunate results
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 39 
 
 to themselves has been noted. The curi- 
 ous thing is that the Firm appeared con- 
 tent with the price they had paid for the 
 stranger's good opinion had even, it 
 was rumoured, acquired a taste for hon- 
 est men's respect that in the long run 
 was likely to cost them dear. But we all 
 have our pet extravagance. 
 
 The Colonel and Mrs. Devine both suf- 
 fered a good deal at first from the neces- 
 sity imposed upon them of learning, 
 somewhat late in life, new tricks. In the 
 privacy of their own apartment they 
 condoled with one another. 
 
 " Tomfool nonsense," grumbled the 
 Colonel, * ' you and I starting billing and 
 cooing at our age! " 
 
 " What I object to," said Mrs. De- 
 vine, " is the feeling that somehow I 
 am being made to do it." 
 
 " The idea that a man and his wife 
 cannot have their little joke together for 
 fear of what some impertinent jacka- 
 napes may think of them! it's damn 
 ridiculous," the Colonel exploded. 
 
 " Even when he isn't there," said
 
 40 PASSING OF THE 
 
 Mrs. Devine, ' ' I seem to see him looking 
 at me with those vexing eyes of his. 
 Really the man quite haunts me." 
 
 1 ' I have met him somewhere, ' ' mused 
 the Colonel, " I'll swear I've met him 
 somewhere. I wish to goodness he 
 would go." 
 
 A hundred things a day the Colonel 
 wanted to say to Mrs. Devine, a hundred 
 things a day Mrs. Devine would have 
 liked to observe to the Colonel. But by 
 the time the opportunity occurred 
 when nobody else was by to hear all 
 interest in saying them was gone. 
 
 " Women will be women," was the 
 sentiment with which the Colonel con- 
 soled himself. " A man must bear with 
 them must never forget that he is a 
 gentleman." 
 
 " Oh, well, I suppose they're all 
 alike," laughed Mrs. Devine to herself, 
 having arrived at that stage of despair 
 when one seeks refuge in cheerfulness. 
 " What's the use of putting oneself out 
 it does no good, and only upsets one." 
 
 There is a certain satisfaction in feel-
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 41 
 
 ing you are bearing with heroic resigna- 
 tion the irritating follies of others. 
 Colonel and Mrs. Devine came to enjoy 
 the luxury of much self-approbation. 
 
 But the person seriously annoyed by 
 the stranger's bigoted belief in the in- 
 nate goodness of everyone he came 
 across was the languid, handsome Miss 
 Devine. The stranger would have it 
 that Miss Devine was a noble-souled, 
 high-minded young woman, something 
 midway between a Flora Macdonald and 
 a Joan of Arc. Miss Devine, on the con- 
 trary, knew herself to be a sleek, lux- 
 ury-loving animal, quite willing to sell 
 herself to the bidder who could offer her 
 the finest clothes, the richest foods, the 
 most sumptuous surroundings. Such a 
 bidder was to hand in the person of a 
 retired bookmaker, a somewhat greasy 
 old gentleman, but exceedingly rich and 
 undoubtedly fond of her. 
 
 Miss Devine, having made up her 
 mind that the thing had got to be done, 
 was anxious that it should be done 
 quickly. And here it was that the
 
 42 PASSING OF THE 
 
 stranger's ridiculous opinion of her not 
 only irritated but inconvenienced her. 
 Under the very eyes of a person how- 
 ever foolish convinced that you are 
 possessed of all the highest attributes of 
 your sex, it is difficult to behave as 
 though actuated by only the basest mo- 
 tives. A dozen times had Miss Devine 
 determined to end the matter by formal 
 acceptance of her elderly admirer's 
 large and flabby hand, and a dozen 
 times the vision intervening of the 
 stranger's grave, believing eyes had 
 Miss Devine refused decided answer. 
 The stranger would one day depart. In- 
 deed, he had told her himself, he was but 
 a passing traveller. When he was gone 
 it would be easier. So she thought at 
 the time. 
 
 One afternoon the stranger entered 
 the room where she was standing by the 
 window, looking out upon the bare 
 branches of the trees in Bloomsbury 
 Square. She remembered afterwards, 
 it was just such another foggy afternoon 
 as the afternoon of the stranger's ar-
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 4,3 
 
 rival three months before. No one else 
 was in the room. The stranger closed 
 the door, and came towards her with 
 that curious, quick-leaping step of his. 
 His long coat was tightly buttoned, and 
 in his hands he carried his old felt hat 
 and the massive knotted stick that was 
 almost a staff. 
 
 " I have come to say good-bye," ex- 
 plained the stranger. " I am going." 
 
 " I shall not see you again? " asked 
 the girl. 
 
 " I cannot say," replied the stranger. 
 11 But you will think of me? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered with a smile, 
 " I can promise that." 
 
 ' ' And I shall always remember you, ' ' 
 promised the stranger, * ' and I wish you 
 every joy the joy of love, the joy of 
 a happy marriage." 
 
 The girl winced. " Love and mar- 
 riage are not always the same thing," 
 she said. 
 
 " Not always," agreed the stranger, 
 " but in your case they will be one." 
 
 She looked at him.
 
 44 PASSING OF THE 
 
 " Do you think I have not noticed? " 
 smiled the stranger, " a gallant, hand- 
 some lad, and clever. You love him and 
 he loves you. I could not have gone 
 away without knowing it was well with 
 you. ' ' 
 
 Her gaze wandered towards the fad- 
 ing light. 
 
 " Ah, yes, I love him," she answered 
 petulantly. " Your eyes can see clearly 
 enough, when they want to. But one 
 does not live on love, in our world. I 
 will tell you the man I am going to 
 marry if you care to know. ' ' She would 
 not meet his eyes. She kept her gaze 
 still fixed upon the dingy trees, the mist 
 beyond, and spoke rapidly and vehe- 
 mently: " The man who can give me 
 all my soul's desire money and the 
 things that money can buy. You think 
 me a woman, I'm only a pig. He is 
 moist, and breathes like a porpoise ; with 
 cunning in place of a brain, and the rest 
 of him mere stomach. But he is good 
 enough for me." 
 
 She hoped this would shock the
 
 THIRD FLOOR BACK 45 
 
 stranger and that now, perhaps, he 
 would go. It irritated her to hear him 
 only laugh. 
 
 " No," he said, " you will not marry 
 him." 
 
 " Who will stop me? " she cried 
 angrily. 
 
 " Your Better Self." 
 
 His voice had a strange ring of au- 
 thority, compelling her to turn and look 
 upon his face. Yes, it was true, the fancy 
 that from the very first had haunted her. 
 She had met him, talked to him in si- 
 lent country roads, in crowded city 
 streets, where was it? And always in 
 talking with him her spirit had been 
 lifted up: she had been what he had 
 always thought her. 
 
 " There are those," continued the 
 stranger (and for the first time she saw 
 that he was of a noble presence, that his 
 gentle, child-like eyes could also com- 
 mand), " whose Better Self lies slain by 
 their own hand and troubles them no 
 more. But yours, my child, you have 
 let grow too strong ; it will ever be your
 
 46 PASSING OF THIRD FLOOR BACK 
 
 master. You must obey. Flee from it 
 and it will follow you ; you cannot escape 
 it. Insult it and it will chastise you with 
 burning shame, with stinging self- 
 reproach from day to day. ' ' The stern- 
 ness faded from the beautiful face, the 
 tenderness crept back. He laid his hand 
 upon the young girl's shoulder. " You 
 will marry your lover," he smiled. 
 " With him you will walk the way of 
 sunlight and of shadow." 
 
 And the girl, looking up into the 
 strong, calm face, knew that it would be 
 so, that the power of resisting her Better 
 Self had passed away from her for ever. 
 
 " Now," said the stranger, " come to 
 the door with me. Leave-takings are 
 but wasted sadness. Let me pass out 
 quietly. Close the door softly behind 
 me." 
 
 She thought that perhaps he would 
 turn his face again, but she saw no more 
 of him than the odd roundness of his 
 back under the tightly buttoned coat, be- 
 fore he faded into the gathering fog. 
 
 Then softly she closed the door.
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 MYSELF, I do not believe this story. Six 
 persons are persuaded of its truth; and 
 the hope of these six is to convince them- 
 selves it was an hallucination. Their 
 difficulty is there are six of them. Each 
 one alone perceives clearly that it never 
 could have been. Unfortunately, they 
 are close friends, and cannot get away 
 from one another; and when they meet 
 and look into each other's eyes the thing 
 takes shape again. 
 
 The one who told it to me, and who 
 immediately wished he had not, was 
 Armitage. He told it to me one night 
 when he and I were the only occupants 
 of the Club smoking-room. His telling 
 me as he explained afterwards was 
 an impulse of the moment. Sense of the 
 thing had been pressing upon him all 
 that day with unusual persistence; and 
 the idea had occurred to him, on my en- 
 
 47
 
 48 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 tering the room, that the flippant scep- 
 ticism with which an essentially com- 
 monplace mind like my own he used 
 the words in no offensive sense would 
 be sure to regard the affair might help 
 to direct his own attention to its more 
 absurd aspect. I am inclined to think it 
 did. He thanked me for dismissing his 
 entire narrative as the delusion of a dis- 
 ordered brain, and begged me not to 
 mention the matter to another living 
 soul. I promised; and I may as well 
 here observe that I do not call this men- 
 tioning the matter. Armitage is not the 
 man's real name; it does not even begin 
 with an A. You might read this story 
 and dine next to him the same evening: 
 you would know nothing. 
 
 Also, of course, I did not consider my- 
 self debarred from speaking about it, 
 discreetly, to Mrs. Armitage, a charming 
 woman. She burst into tears at the first 
 mention of the thing. It took me all I 
 knew to tranquillize her. She said that 
 when she did not think about the thing 
 she could be happy. She and Armitage
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 49 
 
 never spoke of it to one another ; and left 
 to themselves her opinion was that even- 
 tually they might put remembrance be- 
 hind them. She wished they were not 
 quite so friendly with the Everetts. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Everett had both dreamt pre- 
 cisely the same dream ; that is, assuming 
 it was a dream. Mr. Everett was not the 
 sort of person that a clergyman ought, 
 perhaps, to know ; but as Armitage would 
 always argue: for a teacher of Chris- 
 tianity to withdraw his friendship from 
 a man because that man was somewhat 
 of a sinner would be inconsistent. 
 Eather should he remain his friend and 
 seek to influence him. They dined with 
 the Everetts regularly on Tuesdays, and 
 sitting opposite the Everetts, it seemed 
 impossible to accept as a fact that all 
 four of them at the same time and in 
 the same manner had fallen victims to 
 the same illusion. I think I succeeded in 
 leaving her more hopeful. She acknowl- 
 edged that the story, looked at from the 
 point of common sense, did sound ridicu- 
 lous; and threatened me that if I ever
 
 50 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 breathed a word of it to anyone, she 
 never would speak to me again. She is 
 a charming woman, as I have already 
 mentioned. 
 
 By a curious coincidence I happened 
 at the time to be one of Everett's di- 
 rectors on a Company he had just pro- 
 moted for taking over and developing 
 the Eed Sea Coasting trade. I lunched 
 with him the following Sunday. He is 
 an interesting talker, and curiosity to 
 discover how so shrewd a man would 
 account for his connection with so in- 
 sane so impossible a fancy, prompted 
 me to hint my knowledge of the story. 
 The manner both of him and of his wife 
 changed suddenly. They wanted to 
 know who it was had told me. I refused 
 the information, because it was evident 
 they would have been angry with him. 
 Everett's theory was that one of them 
 had dreamt it probably Camelford 
 and by hypnotic suggestion had con- 
 veyed to the rest of them the impression 
 that they had dreamt it also. He added 
 that but for one slight incident he should
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 51 
 
 have ridiculed from the very beginning 
 the argument that it could have been 
 anything else than a dream. But what 
 that incident was he would not tell me, 
 His object, as he explained, was not to 
 dwell upon the business, but to try and 
 forget it. Speaking as a friend, he ad- 
 vised me, likewise, not to cackle about 
 the matter any more than I could help, 
 lest trouble should arise with regard to 
 my director's fees. His way of putting 
 things is occasionally blunt. 
 
 It was at the Everetts', later on, that 
 I met Mrs. Camelford, one of the hand- 
 somest women I have ever set eyes upon. 
 It was foolish of me, but my memory for 
 names is weak. I forgot that Mr. and 
 Mrs. Camelford were the other two con- 
 cerned, and mentioned the story as a 
 curious tale I had read years ago in an 
 old Miscellany. I had reckoned on it to 
 lead me into a discussion with her on 
 platonic friendship. She jumped up 
 from her chair and gave me a look. I 
 remembered then, and could have bitten 
 out my tongue. It took me a long while
 
 52 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 to make my peace, but she came round 
 in the end, consenting to attribute my 
 blunder to mere stupidity. She was 
 quite convinced herself, she told me, that 
 the thing was pure imagination. It was 
 only when in company with the others 
 that any doubt as to this crossed her 
 mind. Her own idea was that, if every- 
 body would agree never to mention the 
 matter again, it would end in their for- 
 getting it. She supposed it was her hus- 
 band who had been my informant: he 
 was just that sort of ass. She did not 
 say it unkindly. She said when she was 
 first married, ten years ago, few people 
 had a more irritating effect upon her 
 than had Camelford; but that since she 
 had seen more of other men she had 
 come to respect him. I like to hear a 
 woman speak well of her husband. It is 
 a departure which, in my opinion, should 
 be more encouraged than it is. I assured 
 her Camelford was not the culprit; and 
 on the understanding that I might come 
 to see her not too often on her Thurs- 
 days, I agreed with her that the best
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 53 
 
 thing I could do would be to dismiss the 
 subject from my mind and occupy my- 
 self instead with questions that con- 
 cerned myself. 
 
 I had never talked much with Camel- 
 ford before that time, though I had often 
 seen him at the Club. He is a strange 
 man, of whom many stories are told. 
 He writes journalism for a living, and 
 poetry, which he publishes at his own 
 expense, apparently for recreation. It 
 occurred to me that his theory would at 
 all events be interesting; but at first 
 he would not talk at all, pretending to 
 ignore the whole affair, as idle nonsense. 
 I had almost despaired of drawing him 
 out, when one evening, of his own ac- 
 cord, he asked me if I thought Mrs. Ar- 
 mitage, with whom he knew I was on 
 terms of friendship, still attached im- 
 portance to the thing. On my express- 
 ing the opinion that Mrs. Armitage was 
 the most troubled of the group, he was 
 irritated ; and urged me to leave the rest 
 of them alone and devote whatever 
 sense I might possess to persuading her
 
 54 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 in particular that the entire thing was 
 and could be nothing but pure myth. He 
 confessed frankly that to him it was 
 still a mystery. He could easily regard 
 it as chimera, but for one slight incident. 
 He would not for a long while say what 
 that was, but there is such a thing as 
 perseverance, and in the end I dragged 
 it out of him. This is what he told me. 
 11 We happened by chance to find our- 
 selves alone in the conservatory, that 
 night of the ball we six. Most of the 
 crowd had already left. The last * ex- 
 tra ' was being played: the music came 
 to us faintly. Stooping to pick up Jes- 
 sica's fan, which she had let fall to the 
 ground, something shining on the tes- 
 selated pavement underneath a group of 
 palms suddenly caught my eye. We had 
 not said a word to one another; indeed, 
 it was the first evening we had any of 
 us met one another that is, unless the 
 thing was not a dream. I picked it up. 
 The others gathered round me, and when 
 we looked into one another's eyes we 
 understood : it was a broken wine-cup, a
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 55 
 
 curious goblet of Bavarian glass. It 
 was the goblet out of which we had all 
 dreamt that we had drunk." 
 
 I have put the story together as* it 
 seems to me it must have happened. The 
 incidents, at all events, are facts. Things 
 have since occurred to those concerned 
 affording me hope that they will never 
 read it. I should not have troubled to 
 tell it at all, but that it has a moral. 
 
 
 
 Six persons sat round the great oak 
 table in the wainscoted Speise Saal of 
 that cosy hostelry, the Kneiper Hof at 
 Konigsberg. It was late into the night. 
 Under ordinary circumstances they 
 would have been in bed, but having ar- 
 rived by the last train from Dantzic, and 
 having supped on German fare, it had 
 seemed to them discreeter to remain 
 awhile in talk. The house was strangely 
 silent. The rotund landlord, leaving 
 their candles ranged upon the sideboard, 
 had wished them " Gute Nacht " an 
 hour before. The spirit of the ancient 
 house enfolded them within its wings.
 
 56 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 Here in this very chamber, if rumour is 
 to be believed, Emmanuel Kant himself 
 had sat discoursing many a time and oft. 
 The walls, behind which for more than 
 forty years the little peak-faced man had 
 thought and worked, rose silvered by 
 the moonlight just across the narrow 
 way; the three high windows of the 
 Speise Saal give out upon the old Cathe- 
 dral tower beneath which now he rests, 
 Philosophy, curious concerning human 
 phenomena, eager for experience, un- 
 hampered by the limitation Convention 
 would impose upon all speculation, was 
 in the smoky air. 
 
 " Not into future events," remarked 
 the Eev. Nathaniel Armitage, " it is bet- 
 ter they should be hidden from us. But 
 into the future of ourselves our tem- 
 perament, our character I think we 
 ought to be allowed to see. At twenty 
 we are one individual; at forty, another 
 person entirely, with other views, with 
 other interests, a different outlook upon 
 life, attracted by quite other attributes, 
 repelled by the very qualities that once
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 57 
 
 attracted us. It is extremely awkward, 
 for all of us." 
 
 1 1 I ain glad to hear somebody else say 
 that," observed Mrs. Everett, in her 
 gentle, sympathetic voice. " I have 
 thought it all myself so often. Some- 
 times I have blamed myself, yet how can 
 one help it : the things that appeared of 
 importance to us, they become indiffer- 
 ent; new voices call to us; the idols we 
 once worshipped, we see their feet of 
 clay. ' ' 
 
 " If under the head of idols you in- 
 clude me," laughed the jovial Mr. Ever- 
 ett, " don't hesitate to say so." He was 
 a large red-faced gentleman, with small 
 twinkling eyes, and a mouth both strong 
 and sensuous. " I didn't make my feet 
 myself. I never asked anybody to take 
 me for a stained-glass saint. It is not 
 I who have changed." 
 
 " I know, dear, it is I," his thin wife 
 answered with a meek smile. " I was 
 beautiful, there was no doubt about it, 
 when you married me." 
 
 " You were, my dear," agreed her
 
 58 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 husband. " As a girl few could hold a 
 candle to you." 
 
 ' * It was the only thing about me that 
 you valued, my beauty," continued his 
 wife; " and it went so quickly. I feel 
 sometimes as if I had swindled you. ' ' 
 
 " But there is a beauty of the mind, 
 of the soul," remarked the Bev. Na- 
 thaniel Armitage, " that to some men is 
 more attractive than mere physical 
 perfection." 
 
 The soft eyes of the faded lady shone 
 for a moment with the light of pleasure. 
 " I am afraid Dick is not of that num- 
 ber," she sighed. 
 
 " Well, as I said just now about my 
 feet," answered her husband genially, 
 " I didn't make myself. I always have 
 been a slave to beauty and always shall 
 be. There would be no sense in pretend- 
 ing among chums that you haven't lost 
 your looks, old girl." He laid his fine 
 hand with kindly intent upon her bony 
 shoulder. " But there is no call for 
 you to fret yourself as if you had done 
 it on purpose. No one but a lover imag-
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 59 
 
 ines a woman growing more beautiful 
 as she grows older." 
 
 " Some women would seem to," an- 
 swered his wife. 
 
 Involuntarily she glanced to where 
 Mrs. Camelford sat with elbows resting 
 on the table; and involuntarily also the 
 small twinkling eyes of her husband fol- 
 lowed in the same direction. There is 
 a type that reaches its prime in middle 
 age. Mrs. Camelford, nee Jessica Dear- 
 wood, at twenty had been an uncanny- 
 looking creature, the only thing about 
 her appealing to general masculine taste 
 having been her magnificent eyes, and 
 even these had frightened more than 
 they had allured. At forty, Mrs. Camel- 
 ford might have posed for the entire 
 Juno. 
 
 " Yes, he's a cunning old joker is 
 Time," murmured Mr. Everett, almost 
 inaudibly. 
 
 " What ought to have happened," said 
 Mrs. Armitage, while with deft fingers 
 rolling herself a cigarette, " was for 
 you and Nellie to have married."
 
 60 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 Mrs. Everett's pale face flushed 
 scarlet. 
 
 " My dear," exclaimed the shocked 
 Nathaniel Armitage, flushing likewise. 
 
 " Oh, why may one not sometimes 
 speak the truth 1 " answered his wife 
 petulantly. ' * You and I are utterly un- 
 suited to one another everybody sees 
 it. At nineteen it seemed to me beauti- 
 ful, holy, the idea of being a clergyman's 
 wife, fighting by his side against evil. 
 Besides, you have changed since then. 
 You were human, my dear Nat, in those 
 days, and the best dancer I had ever met. 
 It was your dancing was your chief at- 
 traction for me as likely as not, if I 
 had only known myself. At nineteen 
 how can one know oneself ? ' 
 
 11 We loved each other," the Eev. 
 Armitage reminded her. 
 
 " I know we did, passionately then; 
 but we don't now." She laughed a little 
 bitterly. "Poor Nat! I am only an- 
 other trial added to your long list. Your 
 beliefs, your ideals are meaningless to 
 me mere narrow-minded dogmas, sti-
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 61 
 
 fling thought. Nellie was the wife Na- 
 ture had intended for you, so soon as 
 she had lost her beauty and with it all 
 her worldly ideas. Fate was maturing 
 her for you, if only we had known. As 
 for me, I ought to have been the wife of 
 an artist, of a poet." Unconsciously a 
 glance from her ever restless eyes 
 flashed across the table to where Horatio 
 Camelford sat, puffing clouds of smoke 
 into the air from a huge black meer- 
 schaum pipe. " Bohemia is my coun- 
 try. Its poverty, its struggle would 
 have been a joy to me. Breathing its 
 free air, life would have been worth 
 living. ' ' 
 
 Horatio Camelford leant back with 
 eyes fixed on the oaken ceiling. " It is 
 a mistake," said Horatio Camelford, 
 * * for the artist ever to marry. ' ' 
 
 The handsome Mrs. Camelford 
 laughed good-naturedly. " The ar- 
 tist," remarked Mrs. Camelford, " from 
 what I have seen of him would never 
 know the inside of his shirt from the out- 
 side if his wife was not there to take
 
 62 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 it out of the drawer and put it over his 
 head." 
 
 " His wearing it inside out would not 
 make much difference to the world," 
 argued her husband. " The sacrifice of 
 his art to the necessity of keeping his 
 wife and family does." 
 
 " Well, you at all events do not ap- 
 pear to have sacrificed much, my boy," 
 came the breezy voice of Dick Everett. 
 " Why, all the world is ringing with 
 your name." 
 
 " When I am forty-one, with all the 
 best years of my life behind me," an- 
 swered the Poet. " Speaking as a man, 
 I have nothing to regret. No one could 
 have had a better wife ; my children are 
 charming. I have lived the peaceful ex- 
 istence of the successful citizen. Had I 
 been true to my trust I should have gone 
 out into the wilderness, the only possi- 
 ble home of the teacher, the prophet. 
 The artist is the bridegroom of Art. 
 Marriage for him is an immorality. Had 
 I my time again I should remain a 
 bachelor."
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 63 
 
 " Time brings its revenges, you see," 
 laughed Mrs. Camelford. " At twenty 
 that fellow threatened to commit suicide 
 if I would not marry him, and cordially 
 disliking him I consented. Now twenty 
 years later, when I am just getting used 
 to him, he calmly turns round and says 
 he would have been better without me. ' ' 
 
 " I heard something about it at the 
 time, ' ' said Mrs. Armitage. ' ' You were 
 very much in love with somebody else, 
 were you not? ' 
 
 " Is not the conversation assuming a 
 rather dangerous direction? " laughed 
 Mrs. Camelford. 
 
 " I was thinking the same thing," 
 agreed Mrs. Everett. " One would im- 
 agine some strange influence had seized 
 upon us, forcing us to speak our 
 thoughts aloud." 
 
 " I am afraid I was the original cul- 
 prit," admitted the Eeverend Nathaniel. 
 " This room is becoming quite op- 
 pressive. Had we not better go to 
 bed? " 
 
 The ancient lamp suspended from its
 
 64 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 smoke-grimed beam uttered a faint, 
 gurgling sob, and spluttered out. The 
 shadow of the old Cathedral tower crept 
 in and stretched across the room, now 
 illuminated only by occasional beams 
 from the cloud-curtained moon. At the 
 other end of the table sat a peak-faced 
 little gentleman, clean-shaven, in full- 
 bottomed wig. 
 
 " Forgive me," said the little gentle- 
 man. He spoke in English, with a strong 
 accent. " But it seems to me here is 
 a case where two parties might be of 
 service to one another." 
 
 The six fellow-travellers round the 
 table looked at one another, but none 
 spoke. The idea that came to each of 
 them, as they explained to one another 
 later, was that without remembering 
 it they had taken their candles and 
 had gone to bed. This was surely a 
 dream. 
 
 " It would greatly assist me," con- 
 tinued the little peak-faced gentleman, 
 " in experiments I am conducting into 
 the phenomena of human tendencies, if
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 65 
 
 you would allow me to put your lives 
 back twenty years. ' ' 
 
 Still no one of the six replied. It 
 seemed to them that the little old gen- 
 tleman must have been sitting there 
 among them all the time, unnoticed by 
 them. 
 
 " Judging from your talk this even- 
 ing, ' ' continued the peak-faced little gen- 
 tleman, " you should welcome my offer. 
 You appear to me to be one and all of 
 exceptional intelligence. You perceive 
 the mistakes that you have made: you 
 understand the causes. The future 
 veiled, you could not help yourselves. 
 What I propose to do is to put you back 
 twenty years. You will be boys and 
 girls again, but with this difference : that 
 the knowledge of the future, so far as 
 it relates to yourselves, will remain with 
 you. 
 
 " Come," urged the old gentleman, 
 " the thing is quite simple of accom- 
 plishment. As as a certain philoso- 
 pher has clearly proved : the universe is 
 only the result of our own perceptions.
 
 66 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 By what may appear to you to be magic 
 by what in reality will be simply a 
 chemical operation I remove from your 
 memory the events of the last twenty 
 years, with the exception of what imme- 
 diately concerns your own personalities. 
 You will retain all knowledge of the 
 changes, physical and mental, that will 
 be in store for you; all else will pass 
 from your perception." 
 
 The little old gentleman took a small 
 phial from his waistcoat pocket, and, 
 filling one of the massive wine-glasses 
 from a decanter, measured into it some 
 half-a-dozen drops. Then he placed the 
 glass in the centre of the table. 
 
 1 ' Youth is a good tune to go back to, ' ' 
 said the peak-faced little gentleman, 
 with a smile. " Twenty years ago, it 
 was the night of the Hunt Ball. You 
 remember itt " 
 
 It was Everett who drank first. He 
 drank it with his little twinkling eyes 
 fixed hungrily on the proud handsome 
 face of Mrs. Camelford; and then 
 handed the glass to his wife. It was she
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 67 
 
 perhaps who drank from it most eagerly. 
 Her life with Everett, from the day 
 when she had risen from a bed of sick- 
 ness stripped of all her beauty, had been 
 one bitter wrong. She drank with the 
 wild hope that the thing might possibly 
 be not a dream ; and thrilled to the touch 
 of the man she loved, as reaching across 
 the table he took the glass from her 
 hand. Mrs. Armitage was the fourth 
 to drink. She took the cup from her 
 husband, drank with a quiet smile, and 
 passed it on to Camelford. And Camel- 
 ford drank, looking at nobody, and re- 
 placed the glass upon the table. 
 
 " Come," said the little old gentle- 
 man to Mrs. Camelford, " you are the 
 only one left. The whole thing will be 
 incomplete without you." 
 
 1 ' I have no wish to drink, ' ' said Mrs. 
 Camelford, and her eyes sought those 
 of her husband, but he would not look 
 at her. 
 
 " Come," again urged the Figure. 
 And then Camelford looked at her and 
 laughed drily.
 
 68 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 " You had better drink," he said. 
 " It's only a dream." 
 
 " If you wish it," she answered. And 
 it was from his hands she took the glass. 
 . 
 
 It is from the narrative as Armitage 
 told it to me that night in the Club 
 smoking-room that I am taking most of 
 my material. It seemed to him that all 
 things began slowly to rise upward, leav- 
 ing him stationary, but with a great pain 
 as though the inside of him were being 
 torn away the same sensation greatly 
 exaggerated, so he likened it, as descend- 
 ing in a lift. But around him all the 
 time was silence and darkness unre- 
 lieved. After a period that might have 
 been minutes, that night have been 
 years, a faint light crept towards him. 
 It grew stronger, and into the air which 
 now fanned his cheek there stole the 
 sound of far-off music. The light and 
 the music both increased, and one by 
 one his senses came back to him. He 
 was seated on a low cushioned bench be- 
 neath a group of palms. A young girl
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 69 
 
 was sitting beside him, but her face 
 was turned away from him. 
 
 ' * I did not catch your name, ' ' he was 
 saying. " Would you mind telling it 
 tome? " 
 
 She turned her face towards him. It 
 was the most spiritually beautiful face 
 he had ever seen. " I am in the same 
 predicament," she laughed. " You had 
 better write yours on my programme, 
 and I will write mine on yours." 
 
 So they wrote upon each other's pro- 
 gramme and exchanged again. The name 
 she had written was Alice Blatchley. 
 
 He had never seen her before, that he 
 could remember. Yet at the back of his 
 mind there dwelt the haunting knowl- 
 edge of her. Somewhere long ago they 
 had met, talked together. Slowly, as one 
 recalls a dream, it came back to him. In 
 some other life, vague, shadowy, he had 
 married this woman. For the first few 
 years they had loved each other; then 
 the gulf had opened between them, wid- 
 ened. Stern, strong voices had called 
 to him to lay aside his selfish dreams,
 
 70 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 his boyish ambitions, to take upon his 
 shoulders the yoke of a great duty. 
 When more than ever he had demanded 
 sympathy and help, this woman had 
 fallen away from him. His ideals but 
 irritated her. Only at the cost of daily 
 bitterness had he been able to resist her 
 endeavours to draw him from his path. 
 A face that of a woman with soft eyes, 
 full of helpfulness, shone through the 
 mist of his dream the face of a woman 
 who would one day come to him out of 
 the Future with outstretched hands that 
 he would yearn to clasp. 
 
 ' ' Shall we not dance t ' ' said the voice 
 beside him. " I really won't sit out a 
 waltz. ' ' 
 
 They hurried into the ball-room. With 
 his arm about her form, her wondrous 
 eyes shyly, at rare moments, seeking his, 
 then vanishing again behind their droop- 
 ing lashes, the brain, the mind, the very 
 soul of the young man passed out of 
 his own keeping. She complimented him 
 in her bewitching manner, a delightful 
 blending of condescension and timidity.
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 71 
 
 * ' You dance extremely well, ' ' she told 
 him. " You may ask 'me for another, 
 later on." 
 
 The words flashed out from that dim 
 haunting future. " Your dancing was 
 your chief attraction for me, as likely 
 as not, had I but known 1 ? " 
 
 All that evening and for many months 
 to come the Present and the Future 
 fought within him. And the experience 
 of Nathaniel Armitage, divinity stu- 
 dent, was the experience likewise of 
 Alice Blatchley, who had fallen in love 
 with him at first sight, having found him 
 the divinest dancer she had ever whirled 
 with to the sensuous music of the waltz ; 
 of Horatio Camelford, journalist and 
 minor poet, whose journalism earned 
 him a bare income, but at whose minor 
 poetry critics smiled; of Jessica Dear- 
 wood, with her glorious eyes, and muddy 
 complexion, and her wild hopeless 
 passion for the big, handsome, ruddy- 
 bearded Dick Everett, who, knowing it, 
 only laughed at her in his kindly, lordly 
 way, telling her with frank brutalness
 
 72 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 that the woman who was not beautiful 
 had missed her vocation in life; of that 
 scheming, conquering young gentleman 
 himself, who at twenty-five had already 
 made his mark in the City, shrewd, 
 clever, cool-headed as a fox, except 
 where a pretty face and shapely hand 
 or ankle were concerned ; of Nellie Fan- 
 shawe, then in the pride of her ravish- 
 ing beauty, who loved none but herself, 
 whose clay-made gods were jewels, and 
 fine dresses and rich feasts, the envy 
 of other women and the courtship of all 
 mankind. 
 
 That evening of the ball each clung 
 to the hope that this memory of the fu- 
 ture was but a dream. They had been 
 introduced to one another; had heard 
 each other's names for the first time 
 with a start of recognition ; had avoided 
 one another's eyes; had hastened to 
 plunge into meaningless talk; till that 
 moment when young Camelford, stoop- 
 ing to pick up Jessica's fan, had found 
 that broken fragment of the Rhenish 
 wine-glass. Then it was that conviction
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 73 
 
 refused to be shaken off, that knowledge 
 of the future had to be sadly accepted. 
 
 What they had not foreseen was that 
 knowledge of the future in no way af- 
 fected their emotions of the present. 
 Nathaniel Armitage grew day by day 
 more hopelessly in love with bewitching 
 Alice Blatchley. The thought of her 
 marrying anyone else the long-haired, 
 priggish Camelford in particular sent 
 the blood boiling through his veins; 
 added to which sweet Alice, with her 
 arms about his neck, would confess to 
 him that life without him would be a 
 misery hardly to be endured, that the 
 thought of him as the husband of an- 
 other woman of Nellie Fanshawe in 
 particular was madness to her. It was 
 right perhaps, knowing what they did^ 
 that they should say good-bye to one 
 another. She would bring sorrow into 
 his life. Better far that he should put 
 her away from him, that she should die 
 of a broken heart, as she felt sure she 
 would. How could he, a fond lover, 
 inflict this suffering upon her? He
 
 74 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 ought of course to marry Nellie Fan- 
 shawe, but he could not bear the girl. 
 Would it not be the height of absurdity 
 to marry a girl he strongly disliked be- 
 cause twenty years hence she might be 
 more suitable to him than the woman he 
 now loved and who loved him! 
 
 Nor could Nellie Panshawe bring her- 
 self to discuss without laughter the sug- 
 gestion of marrying on a hundred-and- 
 fifty a year a curate that she positively 
 hated. There would come a time when 
 wealth would be indifferent to her, when 
 her exalted spirit would ask but for the 
 satisfaction of self-sacrifice. But that 
 time had not arrived. The emotions it 
 would bring with it she could not in her 
 present state even imagine. Her whole 
 present being craved for the things of 
 this world, the things that were within 
 her grasp. To ask her to forego them 
 now because later on she would not care 
 for them! it was like telling a school- 
 boy to avoid the tuck-shop because, when 
 a man, the thought of stick- jaw would 
 be nauseous to him. If her capacity for
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 75 
 
 enjoyment was to be short-lived, all the 
 more reason for grasping joy quickly. 
 
 Alice Blatchley, when her lover was 
 not by, gave herself many a headache 
 trying to think the thing out logically. 
 Was it not foolish of her to rush into 
 this marriage with dear Nat? At forty 
 she would wish she had married some- 
 body else. But most women at forty 
 she judged from conversation round 
 about her wished they had married 
 somebody else. If every girl at twenty 
 listened to herself at forty there would 
 be no more marriage. At forty she 
 would be a different person altogether. 
 That other elderly person did not inter- 
 est her. To ask a young girl to spoil 
 her life purely in the interests of this 
 middle-aged party it did not seem 
 right. Besides, whom else was she to 
 marry? Camelford would not have her ; 
 he did not want her then; he was not 
 going to want her at forty. For prac- 
 tical purposes Camelford was out of the 
 question. She might marry somebody 
 else altogether and fare worse. She
 
 76 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 might remain a spinster: she hated the 
 mere name of spinster. The inky- 
 fingered woman journalist that, if all 
 went well, she might become : it was not 
 her idea. Was she acting selfishly? 
 Ought she, in his own interests, to re- 
 fuse to marry dear Nat? Nellie the 
 little cat who would suit him at forty, 
 would not have him. If he was going to 
 marry anyone but Nellie he might as well 
 marry her, Alice. A bachelor clergy- 
 man! it sounded almost improper. Nor 
 was dear Nat the type. If she threw him 
 over it would be into the arms of some 
 designing minx. What was she to do? 
 Camelford at forty, under the influ- 
 ence of favourable criticism, would have 
 persuaded himself he was a heaven-sent 
 prophet, his whole life to be beautifully 
 spent in the saving of mankind. At 
 twenty he felt he wanted to live. Weird- 
 looking Jessica, with her magnificent 
 eyes veiling mysteries, was of more im- 
 portance to him than the rest of the 
 species combined. Knowledge of the fu- 
 ture in his case only spurred desire. The
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 77 
 
 muddy complexion would grow pink and 
 white, the thin limbs round and shapely ; 
 the now scornful eyes would one day 
 light with love at his coming. It was 
 what he had once hoped : it was what he 
 now knew. At forty the artist is 
 stronger than the man; at twenty the 
 man is stronger than the artist. 
 
 An uncanny creature, so most folks 
 would have described Jessica Bearwood. 
 Few would have imagined her develop- 
 ing into the good-natured, easy-going 
 Mrs. Camelf ord of middle age. The ani- 
 mal, so strong within her at twenty, at 
 thirty had burnt itself out. At eighteen, 
 madly, blindly in love with red-bearded, 
 deep-voiced Dick Everett she would, had 
 he whistled to her, have flung herself 
 gratefully at his feet, and this in spite 
 of the knowledge forewarning her of the 
 miserable life he would certainly lead 
 her, at all events until her slowly devel- 
 oping beauty should give her the whip 
 hand of him by which time she would 
 have come to despise him. Fortunately, 
 as she told herself, there was no fear of
 
 78 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 his doing so, the future notwithstanding. 
 Nellie Fanshawe's beauty held him as 
 with chains of steel, and Nellie had no 
 intention of allowing her rich prize to 
 escape her. Her own lover, it was true, 
 irritated her more than any man she had 
 ever met, but at least he would afford 
 her refuge from the bread of charity. 
 Jessica Dearwood, an orphan, had been 
 brought up by a distant relative. She 
 had not been the child to win affec- 
 tion. Of silent, brooding nature, every 
 thoughtless incivility had been to her an 
 insult, a wrong. Acceptance of young 
 Camelford seemed her only escape from 
 a life that had become to her a martyr- 
 dom. At forty-one he would wish he had 
 remained a bachelor; but at thirty-eight 
 that would not trouble her. She would 
 know herself he was much better off as 
 he was. Meanwhile, she would have 
 come to like him, to respect him. He 
 would be famous, she would be proud of 
 him. Crying into her pillow she could 
 not help it for love of handsome Dick, 
 it was still a comfort to reflect that Nel-
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 79 
 
 lie Fanshawe, as it were, was watching 
 over her, protecting her from herself. 
 
 Dick, as he muttered to himself a 
 dozen times a day, ought to marry 
 Jessica. At thirty-eight she would be 
 his ideal. He looked at her as she was 
 at eighteen, and shuddered. Nellie at 
 thirty would be plain and uninteresting. 
 But when did consideration of the fu- 
 ture ever cry halt to passion : when did 
 a lover ever pause thinking of the mor- 
 row? If her beauty was to quickly pass, 
 was not that one reason the more urg- 
 ing him to possess it while it lasted? 
 
 Nellie Fanshawe at forty would be a 
 saint. The prospect did not please her : 
 she hated saints. She would love the 
 tiresome, solemn Nathaniel : of what use 
 was that to her now? He did not desire 
 her ; he was in love with Alice, and Alice 
 was in love with him. What would be 
 the sense even if they all agreed in 
 the three of them making themselves 
 miserable for all their youth that they 
 might be contented in their old age ? Let 
 age fend for itself and leave youth to
 
 80 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 its own instincts. Let elderly saints 
 suffer it was their metier and youth 
 drink the cup of life. It was a pity Dick 
 was the only " catch " available, but 
 he was young and handsome. Other 
 girls had to put up with sixty and the 
 gout. 
 
 Another point, a very serious point, 
 had been overlooked. All that had ar- 
 rived to them in that dim future of the 
 past had happened to them as the results 
 of their making the marriages they had 
 made. To what fate other roads would 
 lead their knowledge could not tell them. 
 Nellie Fanshawe had become at forty a 
 lovely character. Might not the hard 
 life she had led with her husband a life 
 calling for continual sacrifice, for daily 
 self-controlhave helped towards this 
 end? As the wife of a poor curate of 
 high moral principles, would the same 
 result have been secured? The fever 
 that had robbed her of her beauty and 
 turned her thoughts inward had been 
 the result of sitting out on the balcony 
 of the Paris Opera House with an Italian
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 81 
 
 Count on the occasion of a fancy dress 
 ball. As the wife of an East End clergy- 
 man the chances are she would have 
 escaped that fever and its purifying 
 effects. Was there not danger in the 
 position: a supremely beautiful young 
 woman, worldly-minded, hungry for 
 pleasure, condemned to a life of poverty 
 with a man she did not care for! The 
 influence of Alice upon Nathaniel Armi- 
 tage, during those first years when his 
 character was forming, had been all for 
 good. Could he be sure that, married 
 to Nellie, he might not have deteri- 
 orated ? 
 
 Were Alice Blatchley to marry an 
 artist could she be sure that at forty 
 she would still be in sympathy with ar- 
 tistic ideals? Even as a child had not 
 her desire ever been in the opposite di- 
 rection to that favoured by her nurse? 
 Did not the reading of Conservative 
 journals invariably incline her towards 
 Eadicalism, and the steady stream of 
 Radical talk round her husband's table 
 invariably set her seeking arguments in
 
 82 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 favour of the feudal system? Might it 
 not have been her husband's growing 
 Puritanism that had driven her to crave 
 for Bohemianism? Suppose that to- 
 wards middle age, the wife of a wild 
 artist, she suddenly " took religion," as 
 the saying is. Her last state would be 
 worse than the first. 
 
 Camelford was of delicate physique. 
 As an absent-minded bachelor with no 
 one to give him his meals, no one to see 
 that his things were aired, could he have 
 lived till forty? Could he be sure that 
 home life had not given more to his art 
 than it had taken from it? 
 
 Jessica Bearwood, of a nervous, 
 passionate nature, married to a bad 
 husband, might at forty have posed for 
 one of the Furies. Not until her life 
 had become restful had her good looks 
 shown themselves. Hers was the type 
 of beauty that for its development de- 
 mands tranquillity. 
 
 Dick Everett had no delusions con- 
 cerning himself. That, had he married 
 Jessica, he could for ten years have re-
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 83 
 
 mained the faithful husband of a singu- 
 larly plain wife he knew to be impossi- 
 ble. But Jessica would have been no 
 patient Griselda. The extreme proba- 
 bility was that having married her at 
 twenty for the sake of her beauty at 
 thirty, at twenty-nine at latest she would 
 have divorced him. 
 
 Everett was a man of practical ideas. 
 It was he who took the matter in hand. 
 The refreshment contractor admitted 
 that curious goblets of German glass oc- 
 casionally crept into their stock. One 
 of the waiters, on the understanding 
 that in no case should he be called upon 
 to pay for them, admitted having broken 
 more than one wine-glass on that par- 
 ticular evening: thought it not unlikely 
 he might have attempted to hide the 
 fragments under a convenient palm. 
 The whole thing evidently was a dream. 
 So youth decided at the time, and the 
 three marriages took place within three 
 months of one another. 
 
 It was some ten years later that Anni- 
 tage told me the story that night in the
 
 84 THE PHILOSOPHER'S JOKE 
 
 Club smoking-room. Mrs. Everett had 
 just recovered from a severe attack of 
 rheumatic fever, contracted the spring 
 before in Paris. Mrs. Camelf ord, whom 
 previously I had not met, certainly 
 seemed to me one of the handsomest 
 women I have ever seen. Mrs. Armitage 
 I knew her when she was Alice Blatch- 
 ley I found more charming as a woman 
 than she had been as a girl. What she 
 could have seen in Armitage I never 
 could understand. Camelford made his 
 mark some ten years later : poor fellow, 
 he did not live long to enjoy his fame. 
 Dick Everett has still another six years 
 to work off ; but he is well behaved, and 
 there is talk of a petition. 
 
 It is a curious story altogether, I ad- 
 mit. As I said at the beginning, I do not 
 myself believe it.
 
 THE SOUL OF NICHOLAS SNY- 
 
 DERS, OR THE MISER OF 
 
 ZANDAM 
 
 ONCE upon a time in Zandam, which is 
 by the Zuider Zee, there lived a wicked 
 man named Nicholas Snyders. He was 
 mean and hard and cruel, and loved but 
 one thing in the world, and that was 
 gold. And even that not for its own 
 sake. He loved the power gold gave him 
 the power to tyrannize and to oppress, 
 the power to cause suffering at his will. 
 They said he had no soul, but there they 
 were wrong. All men own or, to speak 
 more correctly, are owned by a soul; 
 and the soul of Nicholas Snyders was an 
 evil soul. He lived in the old windmill 
 which still is standing on the quay, with 
 only little Christina to wait upon him 
 and keep house for him. Christina was 
 an orphan whose parents had died in 
 
 85
 
 86 THE SOUL OF 
 
 debt. Nicholas, to Christina's everlast- 
 ing gratitude, had cleared their memory 
 it cost but a few hundred florins in 
 consideration that Christina should 
 work for him without wages. Christina 
 formed his entire household, and only 
 one willing visitor ever darkened his 
 door, the widow Toelast. Dame Toelast 
 was rich and almost as great a miser as 
 Nicholas himself. ' * Why should not we 
 two marry? " Nicholas had once croaked 
 to the widow Toelast. " Together we 
 should be masters of all Zandam." 
 Dame Toelast had answered with a 
 cackling laugh; but Nicholas was never 
 in haste. 
 
 One afternoon Nicholas Snyders sat 
 alone at his desk in the centre of the 
 great semi-circular room that took up 
 half the ground floor of the windmill, 
 and that served him for an office, and 
 there came a knocking at the outer door. 
 
 ' * Come in ! " cried Nicholas Snyders. 
 
 He spoke in a tone quite kind for Nich- 
 olas Snyders. He felt so sure it was Jan 
 knocking at the door Jan Van der
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 87 
 
 Voort, the young sailor, now master of 
 his own ship, come to demand of him 
 the hand of little Christina. In antici- 
 pation, Nicholas Snyders tasted the joy 
 of dashing Jan's hopes to the ground; 
 of hearing him plead, then rave; of 
 watching the growing pallor that would 
 overspread Jan's handsome face as 
 Nicholas would, point by point, explain 
 to him the consequences of defiance- 
 how, firstly, Jan's old mother should be 
 turned out of her home, his old father 
 put into prison for debt; how, secondly, 
 Jan himself should be pursued without 
 remorse, his ship be bought over his 
 head before he could complete the pur- 
 chase. The interview would afford to 
 Nicholas Snyders sport after his own 
 soul. Since Jan's return the day before, 
 he had been looking forward to it. 
 Therefore, feeling sure it was Jan, he 
 cried " Come in! " quite cheerily. 
 
 But it was not Jan. It was somebody 
 Nicholas Snyders had never set eyes on 
 before. And neither, after that one 
 visit, did Nicholas Snyders ever set eyes
 
 88 THE SOUL OF 
 
 upon him again. The light was fading, 
 and Nicholas Snyders was not the man 
 to light candles before they were needed, 
 so that he was never able to describe 
 with any precision the stranger's ap- 
 pearance. Nicholas thought he seemed 
 an old man, but alert in all his move- 
 ments; while his eyes the one thing 
 about him Nicholas saw with any 
 clearness were curiously bright and 
 piercing. 
 
 " Who are you? " asked Nicholas 
 Snyders, taking no pains to disguise his 
 disappointment. 
 
 " I am a pedlar," answered the 
 stranger. His voice was clear and not 
 unmusical, with just the suspicion of 
 roguishness behind. 
 
 " Not wanting anything," answered 
 Nicholas Snyders drily. " Shut the 
 door and be careful of the step." 
 
 But instead the stranger took a chair 
 and drew it nearer, and, himself in 
 shadow, looked straight into Nicholas 
 Snyders' face and laughed. 
 
 " Are you quite sure, Nicholas Sny-
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 89 
 
 ders ? Are you quite sure there is noth- 
 ing you require? " 
 
 " Nothing," growled Nicholas Sny- 
 ders " except the sight of your back." 
 
 The stranger bent forward, and with 
 his long, lean hand touched Nicholas 
 Snyders playfully upon the knee. 
 " Wouldn't you like a soul, Nicholas 
 Snyders? " he asked. 
 
 " Think of it," continued the strange 
 pedlar, before Nicholas could recover 
 power of speech. * ' For forty years you 
 have drunk the joy of being mean and 
 cruel. Are you not tired of the taste, 
 Nicholas Snyders? Wouldn't you like 
 a change? Think of it, Nicholas Sny- 
 ders the joy of being loved, of hearing 
 yourself blessed, instead of cursed! 
 Wouldn't it be good fun, Nicholas Sny- 
 ders just by way of a change? If you 
 don't like it, you can return and be your- 
 self again." 
 
 What Nicholas Snyders, recalling all 
 things afterwards, could never under- 
 stand was why he sat there, listening in 
 patience to the stranger's talk; for, at
 
 90 THE SOUL OF 
 
 the time, it seemed to him the jesting 
 of a wandering fool. But something 
 about the stranger had impressed him. 
 
 " I have it with me," continued the 
 
 odd pedlar; " and as for price " 
 
 The stranger made a gesture indicating 
 dismissal of all sordid details. " I look 
 for my reward in watching the result 
 of the experiment. I am something of a 
 philosopher. I take an interest in these 
 matters. See." The stranger dived 
 between his legs and produced from his 
 pack a silver flask of cunning workman- 
 ship and laid it on the table. 
 
 " Its flavour is not unpleasant," ex- 
 plained the stranger. " A little bitter; 
 but one does not drink it by the goblet : 
 a wineglassful, such as one would of old 
 Tokay, while the mind of both is fixed 
 on the same thought : * May my soul pass 
 into him, may his pass into me! ' The 
 operation is quite simple : the secret lies 
 within the drug." The stranger patted 
 the quaint flask as though it had been 
 some little dog. 
 
 1 1 You. will say : ' Who will exchange
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 91 
 
 souls with Nicholas Snyders? ' " The 
 stranger appeared to have come pre- 
 pared with an answer to all questions. 
 " My friend, you are rich; you need not 
 fear. It is the possession men value the 
 least of all they have. Choose your soul 
 and drive your bargain. I leave that to 
 you with one word of counsel only: you 
 will find the young readier than the old 
 the young, to whom the world prom- 
 ises all things for gold. Choose you a 
 fine, fair, fresh, young soul, Nicholas 
 Snyders; and choose it quickly. Your 
 hair is somewhat grey, my friend. Taste, 
 before you die, the joy of living." 
 
 The strange pedlar laughed and, ris- 
 ing, closed his pack. Nicholas Snyders 
 neither moved nor spoke, until with the 
 soft clanging of the massive door his 
 senses returned to him. Then, seizing 
 the flask the stranger had left behind 
 him, he sprang from his chair, meaning 
 to fling it after him into the street. But 
 the flashing of the firelight on its bur- 
 nished surface stayed his hand. 
 
 " After all, the case is of value,'*
 
 92 THE SOUL OF 
 
 Nicholas chuckled, and put the flask 
 aside and, lighting the two tall candles, 
 buried himself again in his green-bound 
 ledger. Yet still from time to time Nich- 
 olas Snyders' eye would wander to 
 where the silver flask remained half 
 hidden among dusty papers. And later 
 there came again a knocking at the door, 
 and this time it really was young Jan 
 who entered. 
 
 Jan held out his great hand across the 
 littered desk. 
 
 " We parted in anger, Nicholas Sny- 
 ders. It was my fault. You were in 
 the right. I ask you to forgive me. I 
 was poor. It was selfish of me to wish 
 the little maid to share with me my 
 poverty. But now I am no longer 
 poor." 
 
 11 Sit down," responded Nicholas in 
 kindly tone. " I have heard of it. So 
 now you are master and the owner of 
 your ship your very own." 
 
 " My very own after one more voy- 
 age," laughed Jan. " I have Burgo- 
 master Allart's promise."
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 93 
 
 " A promise is not a performance," 
 hinted Nicholas. " Burgomaster Allart 
 is not a rich man; a higher bid might 
 tempt him. Another might step in be- 
 tween you and become the owner." 
 
 Jan only laughed. * * Why, that would 
 be the work of an enemy, which, God be 
 praised, I do not think that I possess. ' ' 
 
 " Lucky lad! " commented Nicholas; 
 " so few of us are without enemies. And 
 your parents, Jan, will they live with 
 you? " 
 
 " We wished it," answered Jan, 
 ' * both Christina and I. But the mother 
 is feeble. The old mill has grown into 
 her life." 
 
 ' ' I can understand, ' ' agreed Nicholas. 
 " The old vine torn from the old wall 
 withers. And your father, Jan; people 
 will gossip. The mill is paying? ' 
 
 Jan shook his head. " It never will 
 again ; and the debts haunt him. But all 
 that, as I tell him, is a thing of the past. 
 His creditors have agreed to look to me 
 and wait." 
 
 " All of them? " queried Nicholas.
 
 94 THE SODL OF 
 
 " All of them I could discover," 
 laughed Jan. 
 
 Nicholas Snyders pushed back his 
 chair and looked at Jan with a smile 
 upon his wrinkled face. " And so you 
 and Christina have arranged it all? " 
 
 " With your consent, sir," answered 
 Jan. 
 
 " You will wait for that? " asked 
 Nicholas. 
 
 " We should like to have it, sir." 
 
 Jan smiled, but the tone of his voice 
 fell agreeably on Nicholas Snyders' ear. 
 Nicholas Snyders loved best beating the 
 dog that growled and showed its teeth. 
 
 " Better not wait for that," said 
 Nicholas Snyders. " You might have 
 to wait long." 
 
 Jan rose, an angry flush upon his 
 face. " So nothing changes you, Nicho- 
 las Snyders. Have it your own way, 
 then." 
 
 " You will marry her in spite of me? " 
 
 " In spite of you and of your friends 
 the fiends, and of your master the 
 Devil! " flung out Jan. For Jan had a
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDEES 95 
 
 soul that was generous and brave and 
 tender and excessively short-tempered. 
 Even the best of souls have their 
 failings. 
 
 " I am sorry," said old Nicholas. 
 
 ' * I am glad to hear it, ' ' answered Jan. 
 
 " I am sorry for your mother," ex- 
 plained Nicholas. " The poor dame, I 
 fear, will be homeless in her old age. 
 The mortgage shall be foreclosed, Jan, 
 on your wedding-day. I am sorry for 
 your father, Jan. His creditors, Jan 
 you have overlooked just one. I am 
 sorry for him, Jan. Prison has always 
 been his dread. I am sorry even for you, 
 my young friend. You will have to be- 
 gin life over again. Burgomaster Allart 
 is in the hollow of my hand. I have but 
 to say the word, your ship is mine. I 
 wish you joy of your bride, my young 
 friend. You must love her very dearly 
 you will be paying a high price for 
 her." 
 
 It was Nicholas Snyders' grin that 
 maddened Jan. He sought for some- 
 thing that, thrown straight at the wicked
 
 96 THE SOUL OF 
 
 mouth, should silence it, and by chance 
 his hand lighted on the pedlar's silver 
 flask. In the same instance Nicholas 
 Snyders' hand had closed upon it also. 
 The grin had died away. 
 
 " Sit down," commanded Nicholas 
 Snyders. " Let us talk further." And 
 there was that in his voice that com- 
 pelled the younger man's obedience. 
 
 ' ' You wonder, Jan, why I seek always 
 anger and hatred. I wonder at times 
 myself. Why do generous thoughts 
 never come to me, as to other men? 
 Listen, Jan; I am in a whimsical mood. 
 Such things cannot be, but it is a whim 
 of mine to think it might have been. Sell 
 me your soul, Jan, sell me your soul, 
 that I, too, may taste this love and glad- 
 ness that I hear about. For a little 
 while, Jan, only for a little while, and I 
 will give you all you desire." 
 
 The old man seized his pen and wrote. 
 " See, Jan, the ship is yours beyond 
 mishap; the mill goes free; your father 
 may hold up his head again. And all 
 I ask, Jan, is that you drink to me, will-
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 97 
 
 ing the while that your soul may go from 
 you and become the soul of old Nicholas 
 Snyders for a little while, Jan, only 
 for a little while." 
 
 With feverish hands the old man had 
 drawn the stopper from the pedlar's 
 flagon, had poured the wine into twin 
 glasses. Jan's inclination was to laugh, 
 but the old man's eagerness was almost 
 frenzy. Surely he was mad; but that 
 would not make less binding the paper 
 he had signed. A true man does not 
 jest with his soul, but the face of Chris- 
 tina was shining down on Jan from out 
 the gloom. 
 
 " You will mean it? " whispered Nich- 
 olas Snyders. 
 
 " May my soul pass from me and 
 enter into Nicholas Snyders ! ' ' answered 
 Jan, replacing his empty glass upon the 
 table. And the two stood looking for a 
 moment into one another's eyes. 
 
 And the high candles on the littered 
 desk flickered and went out, as though a 
 breath had blown them, first one and 
 then the other.
 
 98 THE SOUL OF 
 
 " I must be getting home," came the 
 voice of Jan from the darkness. i ( Why 
 did you blow out the candles! ' 
 
 11 We can light them again from the 
 fire," answered Nicholas. He did not 
 add that he had meant to ask that same 
 question of Jan. He thrust them among 
 the glowing logs, first one and then the 
 other; and the shadows crept back into 
 their corners. 
 
 " You will not stop and see Chris- 
 tina 1 ? " asked Nicholas. 
 
 " Not to-night," answered Jan. 
 
 " The paper that I signed," Nicholas 
 reminded him * ' you have it ? " 
 
 " I had forgotten it," Jan answered. 
 
 The old man took it from the desk and 
 handed it to him. Jan thrust it into his 
 pocket and went out. Nicholas bolted 
 the door behind him and returned to his 
 desk; sat long there, his elbow resting 
 on the open ledger. 
 
 Nicholas pushed the ledger aside and 
 laughed. ' ' What foolery ! As if such 
 things" could be ! The fellow must Have 
 bewitched me."
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 99 
 
 Nicholas crossed to the fire and 
 wanned his hands before the blaze. 
 " Still, I am glad he is going to marry 
 the little lass. A good lad, a good lad." 
 
 Nicholas must have fallen asleep be- 
 fore the fire. When he opened his eyes, 
 it was to meet the grey dawn. He felt 
 cold, stiff, hungry, and decidedly cross. 
 Why had not Christina woke him up and 
 given him his supper. Did she think he 
 had intended to pass the night on a 
 wooden chair? The girl was an idiot. 
 He would go upstairs and tell her 
 through the door just what he thought 
 of her. 
 
 His way upstairs led through the 
 kitchen. To his astonishment, there sat 
 Christina, asleep before the burnt-out 
 grate. 
 
 ' ' Upon my word, ' ' muttered Nicholas 
 to himself, " people in this house don't 
 seem to know what beds are for! r 
 
 But it was not Christina, so Nicholas 
 told himself. Christina had the look of 
 a frightened rabbit: it had always irri- 
 tated him. This girl, even in her sleep,
 
 100 THE SOUL OF 
 
 wore an impertinent expression a de- 
 lightfully impertinent expression. Be- 
 sides, this girl was pretty marvellously 
 pretty. Indeed, so pretty a girl Nicho- 
 las had never seen in all his life before. 
 Why had the girls, when Nicholas was 
 young, been so entirely different! A 
 sudden bitterness seized Nicholas : it was 
 as though he had just learnt that long 
 ago, without knowing it, he had been 
 robbed. 
 
 The child must be cold. Nicholas 
 fetched his fur-lined cloak and wrapped 
 it about her. 
 
 There was something else he ought to 
 do. The idea came to him while drawing 
 the cloak around her shoulders, very 
 gently, not to disturb her something 
 he wanted to do, if only he could think 
 what it was. The girl's lips were parted. 
 She appeared to be speaking to him, 
 asking him to do this thing or telling 
 him not to do it. Nicholas could not be 
 sure which. Half a dozen times he 
 turned away, and half a dozen times 
 stole back to where she sat sleeping with
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 101 
 
 that delightfully impertinent expression 
 on her face, her lips parted. But what 
 she wanted, or what it was he wanted, 
 Nicholas could not think. 
 
 Perhaps Christina would know. Per- 
 haps Christina would know who she was 
 and how she got there. Nicholas climbed 
 the stairs, swearing at them for 
 creaking. 
 
 Christina's door was open. No one 
 was in the room; the bed had not been 
 slept upon. Nicholas descended the 
 creaking stairs. 
 
 The girl was still asleep. Could it be 
 Christina herself? Nicholas examined 
 the delicious features one by one. Never 
 before, so far as he could recollect, had 
 he seen the girl; yet around her neck 
 Nicholas had not noticed it before lay 
 Christina's locket, rising and falling as 
 she breathed. Nicholas knew it well; 
 the one thing belonging to her mother 
 Christina had insisted on keeping. The 
 one thing about which she had ever de- 
 fied him. She would never have parted 
 with that locket. It must be Christina
 
 102 THE SOUL OF 
 
 herself. But what had happened to her ? 
 
 Or to himself. Remembrance rushed 
 in upon him. The odd pedlar! The 
 seene with Jan ! But surely all that had 
 been a dream 1 ? Yet there upon the lit- 
 tered desk still stood the pedlar's silver 
 flask, together with the twin stained 
 glasses. 
 
 Nicholas tried to think, but his brain 
 was in a whirl. A ray of sunshine 
 streaming through the window fell 
 across the dusty room. Nicholas had 
 never seen the sun, that he could recol- 
 lect. Involuntarily he stretched his 
 hands towards it, felt a pang of grief 
 when it vanished, leaving only the grey 
 light. He drew the rusty bolts, flung 
 open the great door. A strange world 
 lay before him, a new world of lights and 
 shadows, that wooed him with their 
 beauty a world of low, soft voices that 
 called to him. There came to him again 
 that bitter sense of having been robbed. 
 
 " I could have been so happy all these 
 years," murmured old Nicholas to him- 
 self. " It is just the little town I could
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 103 
 
 have loved so quaint, so quiet, so home- 
 like. I might have had friends, old 
 cronies, children of my own maybe " 
 
 A vision of the sleeping Christina 
 flashed before his eyes. She had come 
 to him a child, feeling only gratitude to- 
 wards him. Had he had eyes with which 
 to see her, all things might have been 
 different. 
 
 Was it too late ? He is not so old not 
 so very old. New life is in his veins. 
 She still loves Jan, but that was the Jan 
 of yesterday. In the future, Jan's every 
 word and deed will be prompted by the 
 evil soul that was once the soul of Nicho- 
 las Snyders that Nicholas Snyders re- 
 members well. Can any woman love 
 that, let the case be as handsome as you 
 will? 
 
 Ought he, as an honest man, to keep 
 the soul he had won from Jan by what 
 might be called a trick? Yes, it had been 
 a fair bargain, and Jan had taken his 
 price. Besides, it was not as if Jan had 
 fashioned his own soul ; these things are 
 chance. Why should one man be given
 
 104 THE SOUL OF 
 
 gold, and another be given parched peas? 
 He has as much right to Jan's soul as 
 Jan ever had. He is wiser, he can do 
 more good with it. It was Jan's soul 
 that loved Christina; let Jan's soul win 
 her if it can. And Jan's soul, listening 
 to the argument, could not think of a 
 word to offer in opposition. 
 
 Christina was still asleep when Nicho- 
 las re-entered the kitchen. He lighted 
 the fire and cooked the breakfast and 
 then aroused her gently. There was no 
 doubt it was Christina. The moment her 
 eyes rested on old Nicholas, there came 
 back to her the frightened rabbit look 
 that had always irritated him. It irri- 
 tated him now, but the irritation was 
 against himself. 
 
 " You were sleeping so soundly when 
 
 I came in last night " Christina 
 
 commenced. 
 
 " And you were afraid to wake me," 
 Nicholas interrupted her. 1 1 You thought 
 the old curmudgeon would be cross. 
 Listen, Christina. You paid off yester- 
 day the last debt your father owed. It
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 105 
 
 was to an old sailor I had not been able 
 to find him before. Not a cent more do 
 you owe, and there remains to you, out 
 of your wages, a hundred florins. It is 
 yours whenever you like to ask me 
 for it." 
 
 Christina could not understand, 
 neither then nor during the days that 
 followed ; nor did Nicholas enlighten her. 
 For the soul of Jan had entered into a 
 very wise old man, who knew that the 
 best way to live down the past is to live 
 boldly the present. All that Christina 
 could be sure of was that the old Nich- 
 olas Snyders had mysteriously vanished, 
 that in his place remained a new Nicho- 
 las, who looked at her with kindly eyes 
 frank and honest, compelling confi- 
 dence. Though Nicholas never said so, 
 it came to Christina that she herself, 
 her sweet example, her ennobling influ- 
 ence it was that had wrought this won- 
 drous change. And to Christina the 
 explanation seemed not impossible 
 seemed even pleasing. 
 
 The sight of his littered desk was hate-
 
 106 THE SOUL OF 
 
 ful to him. Starting early in the morn- 
 ing, Nicholas would disappear for the 
 entire day, returning in the evening 
 tired but cheerful, bringing with him 
 flowers that Christina laughed at, tell- 
 ing him they were weeds. But what mat- 
 tered names? To Nicholas they were 
 beautiful. In Zandam the children ran 
 from him, the dogs barked after him. 
 So Nicholas, escaping through byways, 
 would wander far into the country. 
 Children in the villages around came to 
 know a kind old fellow who loved to 
 linger, his hands resting on his staff, 
 watching their play, listening to their 
 laughter; whose ample pockets were 
 storehouses of good things. Their 
 elders, passing by, would whisper to one 
 another how like he was in features to 
 wicked old Nick, the miser of Zandam, 
 and would wonder where he came from. 
 Nor was it only the faces of the children 
 that taught his lips to smile. It trou- 
 bled him at first to find the world so full 
 of marvellously pretty girls of pretty 
 women also, all more or less lovable. It
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 107 
 
 bewildered him. Until he found that, 
 notwithstanding, Christina remained al- 
 ways in his thoughts the prettiest, the 
 most lovable of them all. Then every 
 pretty face rejoiced him: it reminded 
 him of Christina. 
 
 On his return the second day, Chris- 
 tina had met him with sadness in her 
 eyes. Farmer Beerstraater, an old 
 friend of her father's, had called to see 
 Nicholas; not finding Nicholas, had 
 talked a little with Christina. A hard- 
 hearted creditor was turning him out of 
 his farm. Christina pretended not to 
 know that the creditor was Nicholas him- 
 self, but marvelled that such wicked men 
 could be. Nicholas said nothing, but the 
 next day Farmer Beerstraater had called 
 again, all smiles, blessings, and great 
 wonder. 
 
 " But what can have come to him? " 
 repeated Farmer Beerstraater over and 
 over. 
 
 Christina had smiled and answered 
 that perhaps the good God had touched 
 his heart; but thought to herself that
 
 108 THE SOUL OF 
 
 perhaps it had been the good influence 
 of another. The tale flew. Christina 
 found herself besieged on every hand, 
 and, rinding her intercessions invariably 
 successful, grew day by day more 
 pleased with herself, and by consequence 
 more pleased with Nicholas Snyders. 
 For Nicholas was a cunning old gentle- 
 man. Jan's soul in him took delight in 
 undoing the evil the soul of Nicholas had 
 wrought. But the brain of Nicholas 
 Snyders that remained to him whis- 
 pered: " Let the little maid think it is 
 all her doing. ' ' 
 
 The news reached the ears of Dame 
 Toelast. The same evening saw her 
 seated in the inglenook opposite Nicho- 
 las Snyders, who smoked and seemed 
 bored. 
 
 " You are making a fool of your- 
 self, Nicholas Snyders," the Dame 
 told him. " Everybody is laughing at 
 you." 
 
 " I had rather they laughed than 
 cursed me! " growled Nicholas. 
 
 " Have you forgotten all that has
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 109 
 
 passed between us? " demanded the 
 Dame. 
 
 " Wish I could," sighed Nicholas. 
 
 " At your age " commenced the 
 
 Dame. 
 
 * l I am feeling younger than I ever felt 
 in all my life, ' ' Nicholas interrupted her. 
 
 " You don't look it," commented the 
 Dame. 
 
 " What do looks matter? " snapped 
 Nicholas. " It is the soul of a man that 
 is the real man." 
 
 " They count for something, as the 
 world goes," explained the Dame. 
 " Why, if I liked to follow your exam- 
 ple and make a fool of myself, there are 
 young men, fine young men, handsome 
 young men " 
 
 " Don't let me stand in your way," 
 interposed Nicholas quickly. " As you 
 say, I am old and I have a devil of a 
 temper. There must be many better men 
 than I am, men more worthy of you." 
 
 " I don't say there are not," returned 
 the Dame: " but nobody more suitable. 
 Girls for boys, and old women for old
 
 110 THE SOUL OF 
 
 men. I haven't lost my wits, Nicholas 
 Snyders, if you have. When you are 
 yourself again " 
 
 Nicholas Snyders sprang to his feet. 
 " I am myself," he cried, " and intend 
 to remain myself ! Who dares say I am 
 not myself? " 
 
 " I do," retorted the Dame with ex- 
 asperating coolness. " Nicholas Sny- 
 ders is not himself when at the bidding 
 of a pretty-faced doll he flings his money 
 out of the window with both hands. He 
 is a creature bewitched, and I am sorry 
 for him. She'll fool you for the sake of 
 her friends till you haven't a cent left, 
 and then she'll laugh at you. When you 
 are yourself, Nicholas Snyders, you will 
 be crazy with yourself remember 
 that." And Dame Toelast marched out 
 and slammed the door behind her. 
 
 " Girls for boys, and old women for 
 old men." The phrase kept ringing in 
 his ears. Hitherto his new-found hap- 
 piness had filled his life, leaving no room 
 for thought. But the old Dame's words 
 had sown the seed of reflection.
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 111 
 
 Was Christina fooling him? The 
 thought was impossible. Never once 
 had she pleaded for herself, never once 
 for Jan. The evil thought was the 
 creature of Dame Toelast's evil mind. 
 Christina loved him. Her face bright- 
 ened at his coming. The fear of him had 
 gone out of her; a pretty tyranny had 
 replaced it. But was it the love that he 
 sought? Jan's soul in old Nick's body 
 was young and ardent. It desired Chris- 
 tina not as a daughter, but as a wife. 
 Could it win her in spite of old Nick's 
 body! The soul of Jan was an impa- 
 tient soul. Better to know than to 
 doubt. 
 
 1 1 Do not light the candles ; let us talk 
 a little by the light of the fire only, ' ' said 
 Nicholas. And Christina, smiling, drew 
 her chair towards the blaze. But Nicho- 
 las sat in the shadow. 
 
 ' * You grow more beautiful every day, 
 Christina," said Nicholas " sweeter 
 and more womanly. He will be a happy 
 man who calls you wife. ' ' 
 
 The smile passed from Christina's
 
 112 THE SOUL OP 
 
 face. " I shall never marry," she 
 answered. 
 
 " Never is a long word, little one." 
 
 " A true woman does not marry the 
 man she does not love." 
 
 ' ' But may she not marry the man she 
 does? " smiled Nicholas. 
 
 " Sometimes she may not," Christina 
 explained. 
 
 " And when is that? " 
 
 Christina's face was turned away. 
 " When he has ceased to love 
 her." 
 
 The soul in old Nick's body leapt with 
 joy. " He is not worthy of you, Chris- 
 tina. His new fortune has changed him. 
 Is it not so? He thinks only of money. 
 It is as though the soul of a miser had 
 entered into him. He would marry even 
 Dame Toelast for the sake of her gold- 
 bags and her broad lands and her many 
 mills, if only she would have him. Can- 
 not you forget him? " 
 
 " I shall never forget him. I shall 
 never love another man. I try to hide it ; 
 and often I am content to find there is so
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 113 
 
 much in the world that I can do. But my 
 heart is breaking." She rose and, kneel- 
 ing beside him, clasped her hands around 
 him. " I am glad you have let me tell 
 you," she said. " But for you I could 
 not have borne it. You are so good 
 to me." 
 
 For answer he stroked with his with- 
 ered hand the golden hair that fell dis- 
 ordered about his withered knees. She 
 raised her eyes to him; they were filled 
 with tears, but smiling. 
 
 " I cannot understand," she said. " I 
 think sometimes that you and he must 
 have changed souls. He is hard and 
 mean and cruel, as you used to be. ' ' She 
 laughed, and the arms around him tight- 
 ened for a moment. ' * And now you are 
 kind and tender and great, as once he 
 was. It is as if the good God had taken 
 away my lover from me to give to me a 
 father." 
 
 " Listen to me, Christina," he said. 
 " It is the soul that is the man, not the 
 body. Could you not love me for my 
 new soul? "
 
 114 THE SOUL OF 
 
 11 But I do love you," answered Chris- 
 tina, smiling through her tears. 
 
 " Could you as a husband? " 
 
 The firelight fell upon her face. Nicho- 
 las, holding it between his withered 
 hands, looked into it long and hard ; and 
 reading what he read there, laid it back 
 against his breast and soothed it with 
 his withered hand. 
 
 " I was jesting, little one," he said. 
 * ' Girls for boys, and old women for old 
 men. And so, in spite of all, you still 
 love Jan? " 
 
 " I love him," answered Christina. 
 " I cannot help it." 
 
 " And if he would, you would marry 
 him, let his soul be what it may? " 
 
 " I love him," answered Christina. 
 " I cannot help it." 
 
 Old Nicholas sat alone before the dy- 
 ing fire. Is it the soul or the body that 
 is the real man ? The answer was not so 
 simple as he had thought it. 
 
 " Christina loved Jan " so Nicholas 
 mumbled to the dying fire " when he 
 had the soul of Jan. She loves him still,
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDEES 115 
 
 though he has the soul of Nicholas Sny- 
 ders. When I asked her if she could 
 love me, it was terror I read in her eyes, 
 though Jan's soul is now in me; she 
 divined it. It must be the body that is 
 the real Jan, the real Nicholas. If the 
 soul of Christina entered into the body 
 of Dame Toelast, should I turn from 
 Christina, from her golden hair, her 
 fathomless eyes, her asking lips, to de- 
 sire the shrivelled carcass of Dame Toe- 
 last? No; I should still shudder at the 
 thought of her. Yet when I had the soul 
 of Nicholas Snyders, I did not loathe 
 her, while Christina was naught to me. 
 It must be with the soul that we love, 
 else Jan would still love Christina and I 
 should be Miser Nick. Yet here am I lov- 
 ing Christina, using Nicholas Snyders' 
 brain and gold to thwart Nicholas Sny- 
 ders' every scheme, doing everything 
 that I know will make him mad when 
 he comes back into his own body; while 
 Jan cares no longer for Christina, would 
 marry Dame Toelast for her broad 
 lands, her many mills. Clearly it is the
 
 116 THE SOUL OF 
 
 soul that is the real man. Then ought 
 I not to be glad, thinking I am going 
 back into my own body, knowing that I 
 shall wed Christina 1 But I am not glad ; 
 I am very miserable. I shall not go with 
 Jan's soul, I feel it; my own soul will 
 come back to me. I shall be again the 
 hard, cruel, mean old man I was before, 
 only now I shall be poor and helpless. 
 The folks will laugh at me, and I shall 
 curse them, powerless to do them evil. 
 Even Dame Toelast will not want me 
 when she learns all. And yet I must do 
 this thing. So long as Jan's soul is in 
 me, I love Christina better than myself. 
 I must do this for her sake. I love her 
 I cannot help it." 
 
 Old Nicholas rose, took from the place, 
 where a month before he had hidden it, 
 the silver flask of cunning workmanship. 
 
 " Just two more glassfuls left," 
 mused Nicholas, as he gently shook the 
 flask against his ear. He laid it on the 
 desk before him, then opened once again 
 the old green ledger, for there still re- 
 mained work to be done.
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 117 
 
 He woke Christina early. " Take 
 these letters, Christina," he commanded. 
 ' ' When you have delivered them all, but 
 not before, go to Jan ; tell him I am wait- 
 ing here to see him on a matter of busi- 
 ness." He kissed her and seemed loth 
 to let her go. 
 
 * * I shall only be a little while, ' ' smiled 
 Christina. 
 
 " All partings take but a little while," 
 he answered. 
 
 Old Nicholas had foreseen the trouble 
 he would have. Jan was content, had 
 no desire to be again a sentimental 
 young fool, eager to saddle himself with 
 a penniless wife. Jan had other dreams. 
 
 * * Drink, man, drink ! ' ' cried Nicholas 
 impatiently, " before I am tempted to 
 change my mind. Christina, provided 
 you marry her, is the richest bride in 
 Zandam. There is the deed; read it; 
 and read quickly." 
 
 Then Jan consented, and the two men 
 drank. And there passed a breath be- 
 tween them as before ; and Jan with his 
 hands covered his eyes a moment.
 
 118 THE SOUL OF 
 
 It was a pity, perhaps, that he did so, 
 for in that moment Nicholas snatched at 
 the deed that lay beside Jan on the desk. 
 The next instant it was blazing in the 
 fire. 
 
 " Not so poor as you thought! " came 
 the croaking voice of Nicholas. " Not so 
 poor as you thought ! I can build again, 
 I can build again ! ' : And the creature, 
 laughing hideously, danced with its with- 
 ered arms spread out before the blaze, 
 lest Jan should seek to rescue Chris- 
 tina's burning dowry before it was 
 destroyed. 
 
 Jan did not tell Christina. In spite 
 of all Jan could say, she would go back. 
 Nicholas Snyders drove her from the 
 door with curses. She could not under 
 stand. The only thing clear was that 
 Jan had come back to her. 
 
 1 ' 'Twas a strange madness that seized 
 upon me," Jan explained. " Let the 
 good sea breezes bring us health." 
 
 So from the deck of Jan's ship they 
 watched old Zandam till it vanished into 
 air.
 
 NICHOLAS SNYDERS 119 
 
 Christina cried a little at the thought 
 of never seeing it again; but Jan com- 
 forted her and later new faces hid the 
 old. 
 
 And old Nicholas married Dame Toe- 
 last, but, happily, lived to do evil only 
 for a few years longer. 
 
 Long after, Jan told Christina the 
 whole story, but it sounded very im- 
 probable, and Christina though, of 
 course, she did not say so did not quite 
 believe it, but thought Jan was trying to 
 explain away that strange month of his 
 life during which he had wooed Dame 
 Toelast. Yet it certainly was strange 
 that Nicholas, for the same short month, 
 had been so different from his usual self. 
 
 "Perhaps," thought Christina, "if 
 I had not told him I loved Jan, he would 
 not have gone back to his old ways. Poor 
 old gentleman! No doubt it was 
 despair."
 
 MRS. KORNER SINS HER 
 MERCIES 
 
 " I DO mean it," declared Mrs. Korner, 
 " Hike a man to be a man." 
 
 " But you would not like Christopher 
 I mean Mr. Korner to be that sort of 
 man," suggested her bosom friend. 
 
 11 I don't mean that I should like it if 
 he did it often. But I should like to feel 
 that he was able to be that sort of man. 
 Have you told your master that break- 
 fast is ready? " demanded Mrs. Korner 
 of the domestic staff, entering at the 
 moment with three boiled eggs and a 
 teapot. 
 
 " Yus, iVe told 'im," replied the staff 
 indignantly. 
 
 The domestic staff at Acacia Villa, 
 Ravenscourt Park, lived in a state of 
 indignation. It could be heard of morn- 
 ings and evenings saying its prayers 
 indignantly. 
 
 120
 
 MRS. KORNER SINS HER MERCIES 121 
 
 1 'What did he say? " 
 
 " Said 'e'll be down the moment Vs 
 dressed." 
 
 " Nobody wants him to come before," 
 commented Mrs. Korner. " Answered 
 me that he was putting on his collar 
 when I called up to him five minutes 
 ago. ' ' 
 
 " Answer yer the same thing now, if 
 yer called up to 'im agen, I 'spect, ' ' was 
 the opinion of the staff. " Was on 'is 
 'ands and knees when I looked in, scoop- 
 ing round under the bed for 'is collar 
 stud." 
 
 Mrs. Korner paused with the teapot 
 in her hand. " Was he talking? " 
 
 " Talkin'? Nobody there to talk to; 
 I 'adn't got no time to stop and chatter." 
 
 " I mean to himself," explained Mrs. 
 Korner. " He he wasn't swearing? " 
 There was a note of eagerness, almost 
 of hope, in Mrs. Korner 's voice. 
 
 ' * Swearin ' ! 'E ! Why, 'e don 't know 
 any." 
 
 " Thank you," said Mrs. Korner. 
 1 ' That will do, Harriet ; you may go. ' '
 
 122 MRS. KORNER 
 
 Mrs. Korner put down the teapot with 
 a bang. " The very girl," said Mrs. 
 Korner bitterly, ' ' the very girl despises 
 him." 
 
 11 Perhaps," suggested Miss Greene, 
 " he had been swearing and had fin- 
 ished." 
 
 But Mrs. Korner was not to be com- 
 forted. " Finished! Any other man 
 would have been swearing all the 
 time. ' ' 
 
 " Perhaps," suggested the kindly 
 bosom friend, ever the one to plead the 
 cause of the transgressor, " perhaps he 
 was swearing, and she did not hear him. 
 You see, if he had his head well under- 
 neath the bed " 
 
 The door opened. 
 
 " Sorry I am late," said Mr. Korner, 
 bursting cheerfully into the room. It 
 was a point with Mr. Korner always to 
 be cheerful in the morning. ' * Greet the 
 day with a smile and it will leave you 
 with a blessing," was the motto Mrs. 
 Korner, this day a married woman of 
 six months and three weeks' standing,
 
 SINS HER MERCIES 123 
 
 had heard her husband murmur before 
 getting out of bed on precisely two hun- 
 dred and two occasions. The Motto en- 
 tered largely into the scheme of Mr. 
 Korner's life. Written in fine copper- 
 plate upon cards all of the same size, 
 a choice selection counselled him each 
 morning from the rim of his shaving- 
 glass. 
 
 " Did you find it? " asked Mrs. 
 Korner. 
 
 ''It is most extraordinary," replied 
 Mr. Korner, as he seated himself at the 
 breakfast-table. " I saw it go under the 
 bed with my own eyes. Perhaps " 
 
 " Don't ask me to look for it," inter- 
 rupted Mrs. Korner. " Crawling about 
 on their hands and knees, knocking their 
 heads against iron bedsteads, would be 
 enough to make some people swear." 
 The emphasis was on the " some." 
 
 "It is not bad training for the char- 
 acter," hinted Mr. Korner, " occasion- 
 ally to force oneself to perform patiently 
 tasks calculated " 
 
 " If you get tied up in one of those
 
 124 MRS. KORNER 
 
 long sentences of yours, you will never 
 get out in time to eat your breakfast," 
 was the fear of Mrs. Korner. 
 
 " I should be sorry for anything to 
 happen to it," remarked Mr. Korner, 
 " its intrinsic value may perhaps " 
 
 " I will look for it after breakfast," 
 volunteered the amiable Miss Greene. 
 " I am good at finding things." 
 
 " I can well believe it," the gallant 
 Mr. Korner assured her, as with the 
 handle of his spoon he peeled his egg. 
 " From such bright eyes as yours, 
 few " 
 
 " YouVe only got ten minutes," his 
 wife reminded him. " Do get on with 
 your breakfast." 
 
 11 I should like," said Mr. Korner, 
 " to finish a speech occasionally." 
 
 " You never would," asserted Mrs. 
 Korner. 
 
 " I should like to try," sighed Mr. 
 Korner, " one of these days " 
 
 " How did you sleep, dear? I forgot 
 to ask you," questioned Mrs. Korner of 
 the bosom friend.
 
 SINS HER MERCIES 125 
 
 " I am always restless in a strange 
 bed the first night," explained Miss 
 'Greene. " I daresay, too, I was a little 
 excited.'' 
 
 " I could have wished," said Mr. Kor- 
 ner, " it had been a better example of 
 the delightful art of the dramatist. 
 When one goes but seldom to the 
 theatre " 
 
 " One wants to enjoy oneself," inter- 
 rupted Mrs. Korner. 
 
 " I really do not think," said the 
 bosom friend, * * that I haye ever laughed 
 so much in all my life." 
 
 * * It was amusing. I laughed myself, ' ' 
 admitted Mr. Korner. " At the same 
 time I cannot help thinking that to treat 
 drunkenness as a theme " 
 
 " He wasn't drunk," argued Mrs. 
 Korner, " he was just jovial." 
 
 " My dear! " Mr. Korner corrected 
 her, " he simply couldn't stand." 
 
 " He was much more amusing than 
 some people who can," retorted Mrs. 
 Korner. 
 
 " It is possible, my dear Aimee," her
 
 126 MRS. KORNER 
 
 husband pointed out to her, ' ' for a man 
 to be amusing without being drunk ; also 
 for a man to be drunk without " 
 
 " Oh, a man is all the better," de- 
 clared Mrs. Korner, " for letting him- 
 self go occasionally." 
 
 " My dear " 
 
 " You, Christopher, would be all the 
 better for letting yourself go occa- 
 sionally. ' ' 
 
 " I wish," said Mr. Korner, as he 
 passed his empty cup, " you would not 
 say things you do not mean. Anyone 
 hearing you " 
 
 ' ' If there 's one thing makes me more 
 angry than another, ' ' said Mrs. Korner, 
 " it is being told I say things that I do 
 not mean." 
 
 " Why say them then? " suggested 
 Mr. Korner. 
 
 " I don't. I do I mean I do mean 
 them," explained Mrs. Korner. 
 
 " You can hardly mean, my dear," 
 persisted her husband, ' ' that you really 
 think I should be all the better for get- 
 ting drunk even occasionally."
 
 SINS HER MERCIES 127 
 
 " I didn't say drunk; I said ' going 
 it.' " 
 
 " But I do * go it ' in moderation," 
 pleaded Mr. Korner, " ' Moderation in 
 all things,' that is my motto." 
 
 " I know it," returned Mrs. Korner. 
 
 " A little of everything and noth- 
 ing " this time Mr. Korner inter- 
 rupted himself. " I fear," said Mr. 
 Korner, rising, " we must postpone the 
 further discussion of this interesting 
 topic. If you would not mind stepping 
 out with me into the passage, dear, there 
 are one or two little matters connected 
 with the house " 
 
 Host and hostess squeezed past the 
 visitor and closed the door behind them. 
 The visitor continued eating. 
 
 " I do mean it," repeated Mrs. Kor- 
 ner, for the third time, reseating herself 
 a minute later at the table. " I would 
 give anything anything, ' ' reiterated 
 the lady recklessly, " to see Christo- 
 pher more like the ordinary sort of 
 man." 
 
 " But he has always been the sort
 
 128 MRS. KORNER 
 
 the sort of man he is," her bosom friend 
 reminded her. 
 
 " Oh, during the engagement, of 
 course, one expects a man to be perfect. 
 I didn't think he was going to keep it 
 up." 
 
 " He seems to me," said Miss Greene, 
 " a dear, good fellow. You are one of 
 those people who never know when they 
 are well off." 
 
 " I know he is a good fellow," agreed 
 Mrs. Korner, " and I am very fond of 
 him. It is just because I am fond of him 
 that I hate feeling ashamed of him. I 
 want him to be a manly man, to do the 
 things that other men do." 
 
 " Do all the ordinary sort of men 
 swear and get occasionally drunk? " 
 
 11 Of course they do," asserted Mrs. 
 Korner, in a tone of authority. One 
 does not want a man to be a milksop." 
 
 11 Have you ever seen a drunken 
 man? " inquired the bosom friend, who 
 was nibbling sugar. 
 
 " Heaps," replied Mrs. Korner, who 
 was sucking marmalade off her fingers.
 
 SINS HER MERCIES 129 
 
 By which Mrs. Korner meant that 
 some half a dozen times in her life she 
 had visited the play, choosing by pref- 
 erence the lighter form of British drama. 
 The first time she witnessed the real 
 thing, which happened just precisely a 
 month later, long after the conversation 
 here recorded had been forgotten by the 
 parties most concerned, no one could 
 have been more utterly astonished than 
 was Mrs. Korner. 
 
 How it came about Mr. Korner was 
 never able to fully satisfy himself. Mr. 
 Korner was not the type that serves 
 the purpose of the temperance lecturer. 
 His " first glass " he had drunk more 
 years ago than he could recollect, and 
 since had tasted the varied contents of 
 many others. But never before had Mr. 
 Korner exceeded, nor been tempted to 
 exceed, the limits of his favourite vir- 
 tue, moderation. 
 
 1 ' We had one bottle of claret between 
 us," Mr. Korner would often recall to 
 his mind, " of which he drank the 
 greater part. And then he brought out
 
 130 MRS. KORNEE 
 
 the little green flask. He said it was 
 made from pears that in Peru they 
 kept it specially for children's parties. 
 Of course, that may have been his joke ; 
 but in any case I cannot see how just 
 one glass I wonder could I have taken 
 more than one glass while he was talk- 
 ing." It was a point that worried Mr. 
 Korner. 
 
 The " he " who had talked, possibly, 
 to such bad effect was a distant cousin 
 of Mr. Korner 's, one Bill Damon, chief 
 mate of the steamship La Fortuna. 
 Until their chance meeting that after- 
 noon in Leadenhall Street, they had not 
 seen each other since they were boys to- 
 gether. The Fortuna was leaving St. 
 Katherine's Docks early the next morn- 
 ing bound for South America, and it 
 might be years before they met again. 
 As Mr. Damon pointed out, Fate, by 
 thus throwing them into each other's 
 arms, clearly intended they should have 
 a cosy dinner together that very evening 
 in the captain's cabin of the Fortuna. 
 Mr. Korner, returning to the office, des-
 
 SINS HER MERCIES 131 
 
 patched to Ravenscourt Park an ex- 
 press letter, announcing the strange 
 news that he might not be home that 
 evening much before ten, and at half- 
 past six, for the first time since his mar- 
 riage, directed his steps away from home 
 and Mrs. Korner. 
 
 The two friends talked of many things. 
 And later on they spoke of sweethearts 
 and of wives. Mate Damon's experi- 
 ences had apparently been wide and 
 varied. They talked or, rather, the 
 mate talked, and Mr. Korner listened 
 of the olive-tinted beauties of the Span- 
 ish Main, of the dark-eyed passionate 
 Creoles, of the blond Junos of the Cali- 
 fornian valleys. The mate had theories 
 concerning the care and management of 
 women: theories that, if the mate's 
 word could be relied upon, had stood 
 the test of studied application. A new 
 world opened out to Mr. Korner ; a world 
 where lovely women worshipped with 
 doglike devotion men who, though lov- 
 ing them in return, knew how to be their 
 masters. Mr. Korner, warmed gradu-
 
 132 MRS. KORNER 
 
 ally from cold disapproval to bub- 
 bling appreciation, sat entranced. Time 
 alone set a limit to the recital of the 
 mate's adventures. At eleven o'clock 
 the cook reminded them that the cap- 
 tain and the pilot might be aboard at any 
 moment. Mr. Korner, surprised at the 
 lateness of the hour, took a long and 
 tender farewell of his cousin, and found 
 St. Katherine's Docks one of the most 
 bewildering places out of which he had 
 ever tried to escape. Under a lamp-post 
 in the Minories, it suddenly occurred to 
 Mr. Korner that he was an unappreci- 
 ated man. Mrs. Korner never said and 
 did the sort of things by means of which 
 the beauties of the Southern Main en- 
 deavoured feebly to express their con- 
 suming passion for gentlemen superior 
 in no way as far as he could see to 
 Mr. Korner himself. Thinking over the 
 sort of things Mrs. Korner did say and 
 did do, tears sprung into Mr. Korner 's 
 eyes. Noticing that a policeman was 
 eyeing him with curiosity, he dashed 
 them aside and hurried on. Pacing the
 
 SINS HER MERCIES 133 
 
 platform of the Mansion House Station, 
 where it is always draughty, the thought 
 of his wrongs returned to him with re- 
 newed force. Why was there no trace of 
 doglike devotion about Mrs. Korner? 
 The fault so he bitterly told himself 
 the fault was his. * ' A woman loves her 
 master; it is her instinct," mused Mr. 
 Korner to himself. ' * Damme, ' ' thought 
 Mr. Korner, " I don't believe that half 
 her time she knows I am her master." 
 
 " Go away," said Mr. Korner to a 
 youth of pasty appearance who, with 
 open mouth, had stopped immediately in 
 front of him. 
 
 "I'm fond o' listening," explained 
 the pasty youth. 
 
 " Who's talking? " demanded Mr. 
 Korner. 
 
 " You are," replied the pasty youth. 
 
 It is a long journey from the city to 
 Kavenscourt Park, but the task of plan- 
 ning out the future life of Mrs. Korner 
 and himself kept Mr. Korner wide awake 
 and interested. When he got out of the 
 train the thing chiefly troubling him was
 
 134 MRS. KORNER 
 
 the three-quarters of a mile of muddy 
 road stretching between him and his de- 
 termination to make things clear to Mrs. 
 Korner then and there. 
 
 The sight of Acacia Villa, suggesting 
 that everybody was in bed and asleep, 
 served to further irritate him. A dog- 
 like wife would have been sitting up to 
 see if there was anything he wanted. 
 Mr. Korner, acting on the advice of his 
 own brass plate, not only knocked but 
 also rang. As the door did not imme- 
 diately fly open, he continued to knock 
 and ring. The window of the best bed- 
 room on the first floor opened. 
 
 " Is that you? " said the voice of Mrs. 
 K^orner. There was, as it happened, a 
 distinct suggestion of passion in Mrs. 
 Korner 's voice, but not of the passion 
 Mr. Korner was wishful to inspire. It 
 made him a little more angry than he 
 was before. 
 
 " Don't you talk to me with your head 
 out of the window as if this were a gal- 
 lanty show. You come down and open 
 the door," commanded Mr. Korner.
 
 SINS HER MERCIES 135 
 
 " Haven't you got your latchkey? ' 
 demanded Mrs. Korner. 
 
 For answer Mr. Korner attacked the 
 door again. The window closed. The 
 next moment but six or seven, the door 
 was opened with such suddenness that 
 Mr. Korner, still gripping the knocker, 
 was borne inward in a flying attitude. 
 Mrs. Korner had descended the stairs 
 ready with a few remarks. She had 
 not anticipated that Mr. Korner, 
 usually slow of speech, could be even 
 readier. 
 
 " Where's my supper? " indignantly 
 demanded Mr. Korner, still supported 
 by the knocker. 
 
 Mrs. Korner, too astonished for 
 words, simply stared. 
 
 " Where's my supper? " repeated Mr, 
 Korner, by this time worked up into 
 genuine astonishment that it was not 
 ready for him. " What's everybody 
 mean, going off to bed, when the mas- 
 terororous hasn't had his supper? ' 
 
 " Is anything the matter, dear? " was 
 heard the voice of Miss Greene, speaking
 
 136 MRS. KORNER 
 
 from the neighbourhood of the first 
 landing. 
 
 " Come in, Christopher," pleaded 
 Mrs. Korner, " please come in, and let 
 me shut the door." 
 
 Mrs. Korner was the type of young 
 lady fond of domineering with a not un- 
 graceful hauteur over those accustomed 
 to yield readily to her; it is a type that 
 is easily frightened. 
 
 " I wan' grilled kinneys-on-toast," ex- 
 plained Mr. Korner, exchanging the 
 knocker for the hat-stand, and wishing 
 the next moment that he had not. 
 " Don' let's 'avareytalk about it. Un- 
 nerstan "? I do wan' any talk about 
 it." 
 
 " What on earth am I to do? " whis- 
 pered the terrified Mrs. Korner to her 
 bosom friend, " there isn't a kidney in 
 the house." 
 
 " I should poach him a couple of 
 eggs," suggested the helpful bosom 
 friend; " put plenty of Cayenne pepper 
 on them. Very likely he won't re- 
 member."
 
 SINS HER MERCIES 137 
 
 Mr. Korner allowed himself to be per- 
 suaded into the dining-room, which was 
 also the breakfast parlour and the li- 
 brary. The two ladies, joined by the 
 hastily clad staff, whose chronic indig- 
 nation seemed to have vanished in face 
 of the first excuse for it that Acacia Villa 
 had afforded her, made haste to light the 
 kitchen fire. 
 
 " I should never have believed it," 
 whispered the white-faced Mrs. Korner, 
 " never." 
 
 " Makes yer know there's a man about 
 the 'ouse, don't it? " chirped the de- 
 lighted staff. Mrs. Korner, for answer, 
 boxed the girl's ears; it relieved her 
 feelings to a slight extent. 
 
 The staff retained its equanimity, but 
 the operations of Mrs. Korner and her 
 bosom friend were retarded rather than 
 assisted by the voice of Mr. Korner, 
 heard every quarter of a minute, roaring 
 out fresh directions. 
 
 " I dare not go in alone," said Mrs. 
 Korner, when all things were in order 
 on the tray. So the bosom friend fol-
 
 138 MRS. KORNER 
 
 lowed her, and the staff brought up the 
 rear. 
 
 " What's this? " frowned Mr. Kor- 
 ner. * ' I told you chops. ' ' 
 
 "I'm so sorry, dear," faltered Mrs. 
 Korner, " but there weren't any in the 
 house." 
 
 " In a perfectly organizedouse, such 
 as for the future I meanterave, " con- 
 tinued Mr. Korner, helping himself 
 to beer, " there should always be 
 chopanteak. Unnerstanme ? chopan- 
 teak!" 
 
 " I'll try and remember, dear," said 
 Mrs. Korner. 
 
 " Pearsterme," said Mr. Korner, be- 
 tween mouthfuls, " you're norrer sort 
 of housekeeper I want." 
 
 "I'll try to be, dear," pleaded Mrs. 
 Korner. 
 
 " Where's your books? " Mr. Korner 
 suddenly demanded. 
 
 " My books? " repeated Mrs. Korner, 
 in astonishment. 
 
 Mr. Korner struck the corner of the 
 table with his fist, which made most
 
 SINS HER MERCIES 139 
 
 things in the room, including Mrs. Kor- 
 ner, jump. 
 
 " Don't you defy me, my girl,'* said 
 Mr. Korner. " You know whatermean, 
 your housekeepin' books." 
 
 They happened to be in the drawer of 
 the chiffonier. Mrs. Korner produced 
 them, and passed them to her husband 
 with a trembling hand. Mr. Korner, 
 opening one by hazard, bent over it with 
 knitted brows. 
 
 1 1 Pearsterme, my girl, you can't add, ' ' 
 said Mr. Korner. 
 
 " I I was always considered rather 
 good at arithmetic, as a girl," stam- 
 mered Mrs. Korner. 
 
 " What you mayabeen as a girl, 
 and what twenner-seven and nine? " 
 fiercely questioned Mr. Korner. 
 
 " Thirty-eight-seven," commenced to 
 blunder the terrified Mrs. Korner. 
 
 " Know your nine tables or don't 
 you? " thundered Mr. Korner. 
 
 " I used to," sobbed Mrs. Korner. 
 
 " Say it," commanded Mr. Korner. 
 
 " Nine times one are nine," sobbed
 
 140 MRS. KORNEB 
 
 the poor little woman, " nine times 
 two " 
 
 " Goron," said Mr. Korner sternly. 
 
 She went on steadily, in a low mono- 
 tone, broken by stifled sobs. The dreary 
 rhythm of the repetition may possibly 
 have assisted. As she mentioned fear- 
 fully that nine times eleven were ninety- 
 nine, Miss Greene pointed stealthily to- 
 ward the table. Mrs. Korner, glancing 
 up fearfully, saw that the eyes of her 
 lord and master were closed; heard the 
 rising snore that issued from his head, 
 resting between the empty beer-jug and 
 the cruet stand. 
 
 " He will be all right, " counselled 
 Miss Greene. " You go to bed and lock 
 yourself in. Harriet and I will see to 
 his breakfast in the morning. It will be 
 just as well for you to be out of the 
 way. ' ' 
 
 And Mrs. Korner, only too thankful 
 for some one to tell her what to do, 
 obeyed in all things. 
 
 Toward seven o'clock the sunlight 
 streaming into the room caused Mr.
 
 SINS HER MERCIES 141 
 
 Korner first to blink, then yawn, then 
 open half an eye. 
 
 " Greet the day with a smile," mur- 
 mured Mr. Korner, sleepily, " and it 
 will 
 
 Mr. Korner sat up suddenly and 
 looked about him. This was not bed. 
 The fragments of a jug and glass lay 
 scattered round his feet. To the table- 
 cloth an overturned cruet-stand mingled 
 with egg gave colour. A tingling sensa- 
 tion about his head called for investiga- 
 tion. Mr. Korner was forced to the con- 
 clusion that somebody had been trying 
 to make a salad of him somebody with 
 an exceptionally heavy hand for mus- 
 tard. A sound directed Mr. Korner 's 
 attention to the door. 
 
 The face of Miss Greene, portent- 
 ously grave, was peeping through the 
 jar. 
 
 Mr. Korner rose. Miss Greene en- 
 tered stealthily, and, closing the door, 
 stood with her back against it. 
 
 " I suppose you know what what 
 you've done? " suggested Miss Greene.
 
 142 MRS. KORNER 
 
 She spoke in a sepulchral tone; 
 it chilled poor Mr. Korner to the 
 bone. 
 
 11 It is beginning to come back to me, 
 but not not very clearly," admitted 
 Mr. Korner. 
 
 " You came home drunk very 
 drunk," Miss Greene informed him, 
 " at two o'clock in the morning. The 
 noise you made must have awakened 
 half the street." 
 
 A groan escaped from his parched 
 lips. 
 
 " You insisted upon Aimee cooking 
 you a hot supper. ' ' 
 
 " I insisted! " Mr. Korner glanced 
 down upon the table. " And and she 
 did it! " 
 
 " You were very violent," explained 
 Miss Greene ; * ' we were terrified at you, 
 all three of us. ' ' Regarding the pathetic 
 object in front of her, Miss Greene found 
 it difficult to recollect that a few hours 
 before she really had been frightened 
 of it. Sense of duty alone restrained her 
 present inclination to laugh.
 
 SINS HER MERCIES 143 
 
 " While you sat there, eating your 
 supper," continued Miss Greene re- 
 morselessly, " you made her bring you 
 her books." 
 
 Mr. Korner had passed the stage when 
 anything could astonish him. 
 
 " You lectured her about her house- 
 keeping." There was a twinkle in the 
 eye of Mrs. Korner 's bosom friend. But 
 lightning could have flashed before Mr. 
 Korner 's eyes without his noticing it 
 just then. 
 
 * ' You told her that she could not add, 
 and you made her say her tables." 
 
 " I made her " Mr. Korner spoke 
 in the emotionless tones of one merely 
 desiring information. " I made Aimee 
 say her tables? " 
 
 " Her nine times," nodded Miss 
 Greene. 
 
 Mr. Korner sat down upon his chair 
 and stared with stony eyes into the 
 future. 
 
 " What's to be done? " said Mr. Kor- 
 ner, " she'll never forgive me; I know 
 her. You are not chaffing me ? " he cried
 
 144 MRS. KORNER 
 
 with a momentary gleam of hope. " I 
 really did it? " 
 
 * * You sat in that very chair where you 
 are sitting now and ate poached eggs, 
 while she stood opposite to you and said 
 her nine times table. At the end of it, 
 seeing you had gone to sleep yourself, I 
 persuaded her to go to bed. It was three 
 o'clock, and we thought you would not 
 mind." Miss Greene drew up a chair, 
 and, with her elbows on the table, looked 
 across at Mr. Korner. Decidedly there 
 was a twinkle in the eyes of Mrs. Kor- 
 ner 's bosom friend. 
 
 " You'll never do it again," suggested 
 Miss Greene. 
 
 " Do you think it possible," cried 
 Mr. Korner, " that she may forgive 
 
 " No, I don't," replied Miss Greene. 
 At which Mr. Korner 's face fell back 
 to zero. " I think the best way out will 
 be for you to forgive her." 
 
 The idea did not even amuse him. 
 Miss Greene glanced round to satisfy 
 herself that the door was still closed, and
 
 SINS HER MERCIES 145 
 
 listened a moment to assure herself of 
 the silence. 
 
 " Don't you remember," Miss Greene 
 took the extra precaution to whisper it, 
 " the talk we had at breakfast-time the 
 first morning of my visit, when Aimee 
 said you would be all the better for ' go- 
 ing it ' occasionally? " 
 
 Yes, slowly it came back to Mr. 
 Korner. But she only said " going 
 it," Mr. Korner recollected to his 
 dismay. 
 
 " Well, you've been ' going it,' : ' per- 
 sisted Miss Greene. " Besides, she did 
 not mean ' going it. ' She meant the real 
 thing, only she did not like to say the 
 word. We talked about it after you had 
 gone. She said she would give anything 
 to see you more like the ordinary man. 
 And that is her idea of the ordinary 
 man. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Korner 's sluggishness of compre- 
 hension irritated Miss Greene. She 
 leaned across the table and shook him. 
 " Don't you understand? You have 
 done it on purpose to teach her a lesson.
 
 146 MRS. KORNER 
 
 It is she who has got to ask you to for- 
 give her." 
 
 " You think ! " 
 
 " I think, if you manage it properly, 
 it will be the best day's work you have 
 ever done. Get out of the house before 
 she wakes. I shall say nothing to her. 
 Indeed, I shall not have the time ; I must 
 catch the ten o'clock from Paddington. 
 When you come home this evening, you 
 talk first; that's what you've got to do." 
 And Mr. Korner, in his excitement, 
 kissed the bosom friend before he knew 
 what he had done. 
 
 Mrs. Korner sat waiting for her hus- 
 band that evening in the drawing-room. 
 She was dressed as for a journey, and 
 about the corners of her mouth were 
 lines familiar to Christopher, the sight 
 of which sent his heart into his boots. 
 Fortunately, he recovered himself in 
 time to greet her with a smile. It was 
 not the smile he had been rehearsing half 
 the day, but that it was a smile of 
 any sort astonished the words away 
 from Mrs. Korner 's lips, and gave
 
 SINS HER MERCIES 147 
 
 him the inestimable advantage of first 
 speech. 
 
 " Well/' said Mr. Korner cheerily, 
 " and how did you like it? " 
 
 For the moment Mrs. Korner feared 
 her husband's new complaint had al- 
 ready reached the chronic stage, but his 
 still smiling face reassured her to that 
 extent at all events. 
 
 " When would you like me to ' go it ' 
 again? Oh, come," continued Mr. Kor- 
 ner in response to his wife's bewilder- 
 ment, " you surely have not forgotten 
 the talk we had at breakfast-time the 
 first morning of Mildred's visit. You 
 hinted how much more attractive I 
 should be for occasionally f letting my- 
 self go! ' " 
 
 Mr. Korner, watching intently, per- 
 ceived that upon Mrs. Korner recollec- 
 tion was slowly forcing itself. 
 
 ' ' I was unable to oblige you before, ' ' 
 explained Mr. Korner, " having to keep 
 my head clear for business, and not 
 knowing what the effect upon one might 
 be. Yesterday I did my best, and I hope
 
 148 MRS. KORNER 
 
 you are pleased with me. Though, if 
 you could see your way to being content 
 just for the present and until I get 
 more used to it with a similar per- 
 formance not oftener than once a fort- 
 night, say, I should be grateful," added 
 Mr. Korner. 
 
 " You mean " said Mrs. Korner, 
 rising. 
 
 1 ' I mean, my dear, ' ' said Mr. Korner, 
 " that almost from the day of our mar- 
 riage you have made it clear that you 
 regard me as a milksop. You have got 
 your notion of men from silly books and 
 sillier plays, and your trouble is that 
 I am not like them. "Well, I've shown 
 you that, if you insist upon it, I can be 
 like them." 
 
 " But you weren't," argued Mrs. 
 Korner, " not a bit like them." 
 
 11 I did my best," repeated Mr. Kor- 
 ner; " we are not all made alike. That 
 was my drunk." 
 
 "I didn't say ' drunk.' " 
 
 " But you meant it," interrupted Mr. 
 Korner. " We were talking about
 
 SINS HER MERCIES 149 
 
 drunken men. The man in the play 
 was drunk. You thought him amus- 
 ing. " 
 
 11 He was amusing," persisted Mrs. 
 Korner, now in tears. " I meant that 
 sort of drunk." 
 
 " His wife," Mr. Korner reminded 
 her, " didn't find him amusing. In the 
 third act she was threatening to return 
 home to her mother, which, if I may 
 judge from finding you here with all 
 your clothes on, is also the idea that has 
 occurred to you." 
 
 " But you you were so awful," 
 whimpered Mrs. Korner. 
 
 " What did I do? " questioned Mr. 
 Korner. 
 
 " You came hammering at the 
 door " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I remember that. I 
 wanted my supper, and you poached me 
 a couple of eggs. What happened after 
 that? " 
 
 The recollection of that crowning in- 
 dignity lent to her voice the true note 
 of tragedy.
 
 150 MRS. KORNER SINS HER MERCIES 
 
 " You made me say my tables my 
 nine times ! ' ' 
 
 Mr. Korner looked at Mrs. Korner, 
 and Mrs. Korner looked at Mr. Korner, 
 and for a while there was silence. 
 
 " Were you were you really a little 
 bit on, ' ' faltered Mrs. Korner, ' l or only 
 pretending 1 ? " 
 
 11 Eeally," confessed Mr. Korner. 
 " For the first time in my life. If you 
 are content, for the last time also." 
 
 " I am sorry," said Mrs. Korner, 
 ' ' I have been very silly. Please forgive 
 me."
 
 THE COST OF KINDNESS 
 
 " KINDNESS," argued little Mrs. Penny- 
 coop, " costs nothing." 
 
 " And, speaking generally, my dear, 
 is valued precisely at cost price," re- 
 torted Mr. Pennycoop, who, as an auc- 
 tioneer of twenty years ' experience, had 
 enjoyed much opportunity of testing the 
 attitude of the public towards sentiment. 
 
 " I don't care what you say, George," 
 persisted his wife; " he may be a dis- 
 agreeable, cantankerous old brute I 
 don't say he isn't. All the same, the 
 man is going away, and we may never 
 see him again." 
 
 11 If I thought there was any fear of 
 our doing so," observed Mr. Pennycoop, 
 "I'd turn my back on the Church of 
 England to-morrow and become a 
 Methodist." 
 
 " Don't talk like that, George," his 
 
 151
 
 152 THE COST OF KINDNESS 
 
 wife admonished him, reprovingly ; ' ' the 
 Lord might be listening to you. ' ' 
 
 11 If the Lord had to listen to old 
 Cracklethorpe He'd sympathize with 
 me, ' ' was the opinion of Mr. Pennycoop. 
 
 " The Lord sends us our trials, and 
 they are meant for our good, ' ' explained 
 his wife. " They are meant to teach us 
 patience." 
 
 " You are not churchwarden," re- 
 torted her husband ; ' ' you can get away 
 from him. You hear him when he is in 
 the pulpit, where, to a certain extent, he 
 is bound to keep his temper." 
 
 " You forget the rummage sale, 
 George," Mrs. Pennycoop reminded 
 him; " to say nothing of the church 
 decorations." 
 
 " The rummage sale," Mr. Pennycoop 
 pointed out to her, " occurs only once a 
 year, and at that time your own temper, 
 I have noticed " 
 
 " I always try to remember I am a 
 Christian," interrupted little Mrs. Pen- 
 nycoop. ' ' I do not pretend to be a saint, 
 but whatever I say I am always sorry
 
 THE COST OF KINDNESS 153 
 
 for it afterwards you know I am, 
 George. ' ' 
 
 " It's what I am saying," explained 
 her husband. " A vicar who has con- 
 trived in three years to make every mem- 
 ber of his congregation hate the very 
 sight of a church well, there's some- 
 thing wrong about it somewhere." 
 
 Mrs. Pennycoop, gentlest of little 
 women, laid her plump and still pretty 
 hands upon her husband's shoulders. 
 11 Don't think, dear, I haven't sympa- 
 thized with you. You have borne it 
 nobly. I have marvelled sometimes that 
 you have been able to control yourself 
 as you have done, most times ; the things 
 that he has said to you." 
 
 Mr. Pennycoop had slid unconsciously 
 into an attitude suggestive of petrified 
 virtue, lately discovered. 
 
 " One's own poor self," observed Mr. 
 Pennycoop, in accents of proud humility 
 ' ' insults that are merely personal one 
 can put up with. Though even there," 
 added the senior churchwarden, with 
 momentary descent towards the plane
 
 154 THE COST OF KINDNESS 
 
 of human nature, * * nobody cares to have 
 it hinted publicly across the vestry table 
 that one has chosen to collect from 
 the left side for the express purpose 
 of artfully passing over one's own 
 family. ' ' 
 
 " The children have always had their 
 three-penny-bits ready waiting in their 
 hands," explained Mrs. Pennycoop, 
 indignantly. 
 
 ' ' It 's the sort of thing he says merely 
 for the sake of making a disturbance," 
 continued the senior churchwarden. 
 " It's the things he does I draw the 
 line at." 
 
 " The things he has done, you mean, 
 dear," laughed the little woman, with 
 the accent on the " has. " " It is all over 
 now, and we are going to be rid of him. 
 I expect, dear, if we only knew, we 
 should find it was his liver. You know, 
 George, I remarked to you the first day 
 that he came how pasty he looked and 
 what a singularly unpleasant mouth he 
 had. People can't help these things, you 
 know, dear. One should look upon them
 
 THE COST OF KINDNESS 155 
 
 in the light of afflictions and be sorry 
 for them." 
 
 " I could forgive him doing what he 
 does if he didn't seem to enjoy it," said 
 the senior churchwarden. " But, as you 
 say, dear, he is going, and all I hope and 
 pray is that we never see his like again." 
 
 " And you'll come with me to call 
 upon him, George," urged kind little 
 Mrs. Pennycoop. " After all, he has 
 been our vicar for three years, and he 
 must be feeling it, poor man whatever 
 he may pretend going away like this, 
 knowing that everybody is glad to see 
 the back of him. ' ' 
 
 " Well, I sha'n't say anything I don't 
 really feel," stipulated Mr. Pennycoop. 
 
 " That will be all right, dear," 
 laughed his wife, " so long as you don't 
 say what you do feel. And we'll both 
 of us keep our temper," further sug- 
 gested the little woman, ' ' whatever hap- 
 pens. Eemember, it will be for the last 
 time. ' ' 
 
 Little Mrs. Pennycoop 's intention 
 was kind and Christianlike. The Eev.
 
 Augustus Crackletkorpe would be quit- 
 ting Wychwood-on-the-Heath the follow- 
 ing Monday, never to set foot so the 
 Eev. Augustus Cracklethorpe himself 
 and every single member of his congre- 
 gation hoped sincerely in the neigh- 
 bourhood again. Hitherto no pains had 
 been taken on either side to disguise the 
 mutual joy with which the parting was 
 looked forward to. The Rev. Augustus 
 Cracklethorpe, M.A., might possibly 
 have been of service to his Church in, 
 say, some East-end parish of unsavoury 
 reputation, some mission station far ad- 
 vanced amid the hordes of heathendom. 
 There his inborn instinct of antagonism 
 to everybody and everything surround- 
 ing him, his unconquerable disregard for 
 other people's views and feelings, his in- 
 spired conviction that everybody but 
 himself was bound to be always wrong 
 about everything, combined with deter- 
 mination to act and speak fearlessly in 
 such belief, might have found their uses. 
 In picturesque little Wychwood-on-the- 
 Heath, among the Kentish hills, retreat
 
 THE COST OF KINDNESS 157 
 
 beloved of the retired tradesman, the 
 spinster of moderate means, the re- 
 formed Bohemian developing latent in- 
 stincts towards respectability, these 
 qualities made only for scandal and 
 disunion. 
 
 For the past two years the Eev. 
 Cracklethorpe's parishioners, assisted 
 by such other of the inhabitants of 
 "Wychwood-on-the-Heath as had hap- 
 pened to come into personal contact with 
 the reverend gentleman, had sought to 
 impress upon him, by hints and innuen- 
 does difficult to misunderstand, their cor- 
 dial and daily-increasing dislike of him, 
 both as a parson and a man. Matters 
 had come to a head by the determina- 
 tion officially announced to him that, fail- 
 ing other alternatives, a deputation of 
 his leading parishioners would wait 
 upon his bishop. This it was that had 
 brought it home to the Rev. Augustus 
 Cracklethorpe that, as the spiritual 
 guide and comforter of Wychwood-on- 
 the Heath, he had proved a failure. The 
 Eev. Augustus had sought and secured
 
 158 THE COST OF KINDNESS 
 
 the care of other souls. The following 
 Sunday morning he had arranged to 
 preach his farewell sermon, and the oc- 
 casion promised to be a success from 
 every point of view. Churchgoers who 
 had not visited St. Jude's for months 
 had promised themselves the luxury of 
 feeling they were listening to the Rev. 
 Augustus Cracklethorpe for the last 
 time. The Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe 
 had prepared a sermon that for plain 
 speaking and directness was likely to 
 leave an impression. The parishioners 
 of St. Jude's, Wychwood-on-the-Heath, 
 had their failings, as we all have. The 
 Eev. Augustus flattered himself that he 
 had not missed out a single one, and was 
 looking forward with pleasurable antici- 
 pation to the sensation that his remarks, 
 from his * ' firstly " to his ' * sixthly and 
 lastly," were likely to create. 
 
 "What marred the entire business was 
 the impulsiveness of little Mrs. Penny- 
 coop. The Eev. Augustus Crackle- 
 thorpe, informed in his study on the 
 [Wednesday afternoon that Mr. and Mrs.
 
 THE COST OF KINDNESS 159 
 
 Pennycoop had called, entered the draw- 
 ing-room a quarter of an hour later, cold 
 and severe; and, without offering to 
 shake hands, requested to be informed 
 as shortly as possible for what purpose 
 he had been disturbed. Mrs. Pennycoop 
 had had her speech ready to her tongue. 
 It was just what it should have been, and 
 no more. 
 
 It referred casually, without insisting 
 on the point, to the duty incumbent upon 
 all of us to remember on occasion we 
 were Christians; that our privilege it 
 was to forgive and forget; that, gener- 
 ally speaking, there are faults on both 
 sides; that partings should never take 
 place in anger; in short, that little Mrs. 
 Pennycoop and George, her husband, as 
 he was waiting to say for himself, were 
 sorry for everything and anything they 
 may have said or done in the past to hurt 
 the feelings of the Kev. Augustus 
 Cracklethorpe, and would like to shake 
 hands with him and wish him every hap- 
 piness for the future. The chilling atti- 
 tude of the Rev. Augustus scattered that
 
 160 THE COST OF KINDNESS 
 
 carefully-rehearsed speech to the winds. 
 It left Mrs. Pennycoop nothing but to 
 retire in choking silence, or to fling her- 
 self upon the inspiration of the moment 
 and make up something new. She choose 
 the latter alternative. 
 
 At first the words came halting. Her 
 husband, man-like, had deserted her in 
 her hour of utmost need and was fum- 
 bling with the door-knob. The steely 
 stare with which the Eev. Cracklethorpe 
 regarded her, instead of chilling her, 
 acted upon her as a spur. It put her 
 on her mettle. He should listen to her. 
 She would make him understand her 
 kindly feeling towards him if she had 
 to take him by the shoulders and shake 
 it into him. At the end of five minutes 
 the Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe, with- 
 out knowing it, was looking pleased. At 
 the end of another five Mrs. Pennycoop 
 stopped, not for want of words, but for 
 want of breath. The Rev. Augustus 
 Cracklethorpe replied in a voice that, 
 to his own surprise, was trembling with 
 emotion. Mrs. Pennycoop had made his
 
 THE COST OF KINDNESS 161 
 
 task harder for him. He had thought 
 to leave Wychwood-on-the-Heath with- 
 out a regret. The knowledge he now 
 possessed, that at all events one mem- 
 ber of his congregation understood him, 
 as Mrs. Pennycoop had proved to him 
 she understood him, sympathized with 
 him the knowledge that at least one 
 heart, and that heart Mrs. Penny- 
 coop 's, had warmed to him, would trans- 
 form what he had looked forward 
 to as a blessed relief into a lasting 
 grief. 
 
 Mr. Pennycoop, carried away by his 
 wife's eloquence, added a few halting 
 words of his own. It appeared from Mr. 
 Pennycoop 's remarks that he had al- 
 ways regarded the Eev. Augustus 
 Cracklethorpe as the vicar of his 
 dreams, but misunderstandings in some 
 unaccountable way will arise. The Eev. 
 Augustus Cracklethorpe, it appeared, 
 had always secretly respected Mr. Pen- 
 nycoop. If at any time his spoken words 
 might have conveyed the contrary im- 
 pression, that must have arisen from
 
 162 THE COST OF KINDNESS 
 
 the poverty of our language, which does 
 not lend itself to subtle meanings. 
 
 Then following the suggestion of tea. 
 Miss Cracklethorpe, sister to the Rev. 
 Augustus a lady whose likeness to her 
 brother in all respects was startling, 
 the only difference between them being 
 that while he was clean-shaven she wore 
 a slight moustache was called down to 
 grace the board. The visit was ended by 
 Mrs. Pennycoop's remembrance that it 
 was Wilhelmina's night for a hot bath. 
 
 " I said more than I intended to," 
 admitted Mrs. Pennycoop to George, her 
 husband, on the way home ; * ' but he irri- 
 tated me." 
 
 Rumour of the Pennycoops' visit flew 
 through the parish. Other ladies felt it 
 their duty to show to Mrs. Pennycoop 
 that she was not the only Christian in 
 Wychwood-on-the-Heath. Mrs. Penny- 
 coop, it was feared, might be getting a 
 swelled head over this matter. The Rev. 
 Augustus, with pardonable pride, re- 
 peated some of the things that Mrs. 
 Pennycoop had said to him. Mrs. Pen-
 
 THE COST OF KINDNESS 163 
 
 nycoop was not to imagine herself the 
 only person in Wychwood-on-the-Heath 
 capable of generosity that cost nothing. 
 Other ladies could say graceful nothings 
 could say them even better. Hus- 
 bands dressed in their best clothes and 
 carefully rehearsed were brought in to 
 grace the almost endless procession of 
 disconsolate parishioners hammering at 
 the door of St. Jude's parsonage. Be- 
 tween Thursday morning and Saturday 
 night the Rev. Augustus, much to his 
 own astonishment, had been forced to 
 the conclusion that five-sixths of his pa- 
 rishioners had loved him from the first 
 without hitherto having had opportunity 
 of expressing their real feelings. 
 
 The eventful Sunday arrived. The 
 Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe had been 
 kept so busy listening to regrets at his 
 departure, assurances of an esteem 
 hitherto disguised from him, explana- 
 tions of seeming discourtesies that had 
 been intended as tokens of affectionate 
 regard, that no time had been left to him 
 to think of other matters. Not till he
 
 164 THE COST OF KINDNESS 
 
 entered the vestry at five minutes to 
 eleven did recollection of his farewell 
 sermon come to him. It haunted him 
 throughout the service. To deliver it 
 after the revelations of the last three 
 days would be impossible. It was the ser- 
 mon that Moses might have preached to 
 Pharaoh the Sunday prior to the exodus. 
 To crush with it this congregation of 
 broken-hearted adorers sorrowing for 
 his departure would be inhuman. The 
 Eev. Augustus tried to think of passages 
 that might be selected, altered. There 
 were none. From beginning to end it 
 contained not a single sentence capable 
 of being made to sound pleasant by any 
 ingenuity whatsoever. 
 
 The Eev. Augustus Cracklethorpe 
 climbed slowly up the pulpit steps with- 
 out an idea in his head of what he was 
 going to say. The sunlight fell upon the 
 upturned faces of a crowd that filled 
 every corner of the church. So happy, 
 so buoyant a congregation the eyes of 
 the Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe had 
 never till that day looked down upon.
 
 THE COST OF KINDNESS 165 
 
 The feeling came to him that he did not 
 want to leave them. That they did not 
 wish him to go, could he doubt? Only 
 by regarding them as a collection of 
 the most shameless hypocrites ever gath- 
 ered together under one roof. The Rev. 
 Augustus Cracklethorpe dismissed the 
 passing suspicion as a suggestion of the 
 Evil One, folded the neatly- written man- 
 uscript that lay before him on the desk, 
 and put it aside. He had no need of a 
 farewell sermon. The arrangements 
 made could easily be altered. The Rev. 
 Augustus Cracklethorpe spoke from his 
 pulpit for the first time an impromptu. 
 
 The Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe 
 wished to acknowledge himself in the 
 wrong. Foolishly founding his judg- 
 ment upon the evidence of a few men, 
 whose names there would be no need to 
 mention, members of the congregation 
 who, he hoped, would one day be sorry 
 for the misunderstandings they had 
 caused, brethren whom it was his duty 
 to forgive, he had assumed the parish- 
 ioners of St. Jude's, Wychwood-on-the-
 
 166 THE COST OF KINDNESS 
 
 Heath, to have taken a personal dislike 
 to him. He wished to publicly apologize 
 for the injustice he had unwittingly done 
 to their heads and to their hearts. He 
 now had it from their own lips that a 
 libel had been put upon them. So far 
 from their wishing his departure, it was 
 self-evident that his going would inflict 
 upon them a great sorrow. With the 
 knowledge he now possessed of the re- 
 spect one might almost say the venera- 
 tion with which the majority of that 
 congregation regarded him knowledge, 
 he admitted, acquired somewhat late 
 it was clear to him he could still be of 
 help to them in their spiritual need. To 
 leave a flock so devoted would stamp him 
 as an unworthy shepherd. The ceaseless 
 stream of regrets at his departure that 
 had been poured into his ear during the 
 last four days he had decided at the last 
 moment to pay heed to. He would re- 
 main with them on one condition. 
 
 There quivered across the sea of hu- 
 manity below him a movement that 
 might have suggested to a more ob-
 
 THE COST OF KINDNESS 167 
 
 servant watcher the convulsive clutch- 
 ings of some drowning man at some 
 chance straw. But the Rev. Augustus 
 Cracklethorpe was thinking of him- 
 self. 
 
 The parish was large and he was no 
 longer a young man. Let them provide 
 him with a conscientious and energetic 
 curate. He had such a one in his mind's 
 eye, a near relation of his own, who, for 
 a small stipend that was hardly worth 
 mentioning, would, he knew it for a fact, 
 accept the post. The pulpit was not the 
 place in which to discuss these matters, 
 but in the vestry afterwards he would 
 be pleased to meet such members of 
 the congregation as might choose to 
 stay. 
 
 The question agitating the majority of 
 the congregation during the singing of 
 the hymn was the time it would take 
 them to get outside the church. There 
 still remained a faint hope that the Kev. 
 Augustus Cracklethorpe, not obtaining 
 his curate, might consider it due to his 
 own dignity to shake from his feet the
 
 168 THE COST OF KINDNESS 
 
 dust of a parish generous in sentiment, 
 but obstinately close-fisted when it came 
 to putting its hands into its pockets. 
 
 But for the parishioners of St. Jude's 
 that Sunday was a day of misfortune. 
 Before there could be any thought of 
 moving, the Rev. Augustus raised his 
 surpliced arm and begged leave to ac- 
 quaint them with the contents of a short 
 note that had just been handed up to 
 him. It would send them all home, he 
 felt sure, with joy and thankfulness in 
 their hearts. An example of Christian 
 benevolence was among them that did 
 honour to the Church. 
 
 Here a retired wholesale clothier from 
 the East-end of London a short, tubby 
 gentleman who had recently taken the 
 Manor House was observed to turn 
 scarlet. 
 
 A gentleman hitherto unknown to 
 them had signalled his advent among 
 them by an act of munificence that 
 should prove a shining example to all 
 rich men. Mr. Horatio Copper the 
 reverend gentleman found some diffi-
 
 THE COST OF KINDNESS 169 
 
 culty, apparently, in deciphering the 
 name. 
 
 " Cooper-Smith, sir, with an hyphen," 
 came in a thin whisper, the voice of the 
 still scarlet-faced clothier. 
 
 Mr. Horatio Cooper-Smith, taking 
 the Rev. Augustus felt confident a not 
 unworthy means of grappling to himself 
 thus early the hearts of his fellow-towns- 
 men, had expressed his desire to pay 
 for the expense of a curate entirely out 
 of his own pocket. Under these circum- 
 stances, there would be no further talk 
 of a farewell between the Rev. Augustus 
 Cracklethorpe and his parishioners. It 
 would be the hope of the Rev. Augustus 
 Cracklethorpe to live and die the pastor 
 of St. Jude's. 
 
 A more solemn-looking, sober congre- 
 gation than the congregation that 
 emerged that Sunday morning from St. 
 Jude's in Wychwood-on-the-Heath had 
 never, perhaps, passed out of a church 
 door. 
 
 11 He'll have more time upon his 
 hands, ' ' said Mr. Biles, retired wholesale
 
 170 THE COST OF KINDNESS 
 
 ironmonger and junior churchwarden, to 
 Mrs. Biles, turning the corner of Acacia 
 Avenue ' ' he '11 have more time to make 
 himself a curse and a stumbling-block." 
 
 ' * And if this ' near relation ' of his is 
 anything like him " 
 
 " Which you may depend upon it is 
 the case, or he'd never have thought of 
 him," was the opinion of Mr. Biles. 
 
 " I shall give that Mrs. Pennycoop," 
 said Mrs. Biles, " a piece of my mind 
 when I meet her." 
 
 But of what use was that?
 
 THE LOVE OF ULRICH 
 NEBENDAHL 
 
 PERHAPS of all, it troubled most the Herr 
 Pfarrer. Was he not the father of the 
 village? And as such did it not fall to 
 him to see his children marry well and 
 suitably? marry in any case. It was the 
 duty of every worthy citizen to keep 
 alive throughout the ages the sacred 
 hearth fire, to rear up sturdy lads and 
 honest lassies that would serve God, and 
 the Fatherland. A true son of Saxon 
 soil was the Herr Pastor Winckelmann 
 kindly, simple, sentimental. 
 
 11 Why, at your age, Ulrich at your 
 age," repeated the Herr Pastor, set- 
 ting down his beer and wiping with the 
 back of his hand his large uneven lips, 
 " I was the father of a family two 
 boys and a girl. You never saw her, 
 Ulrich ; so sweet, so good. We called her 
 
 171
 
 172 THE LOVE OP 
 
 Maria." The Herr Pfarrer sighed and 
 hid his broad red face behind the raised 
 cover of his pewter pot. 
 
 " They must be good fun in a house, 
 the little ones," commented Ulrich, gaz- 
 ing upward with his dreamy eyes at 
 the wreath of smoke ascending from 
 his long-stemmed pipe. " The little 
 ones, always my heart goes out to 
 them." 
 
 ' ' Take to yourself a wife, ' ' urged the 
 Herr Pfarrer. " It is your duty. The 
 good God has given to you ample 
 means. It is not right that you should 
 lead this lonely life. Bachelors make 
 old maids ; things of no use. ' ' 
 
 " That is so," Ulrich agreed. " I 
 have often said the same unto myself. 
 It would be pleasant to feel one was not 
 working merely for oneself." 
 
 " Elsa, now," went on the Herr 
 Pfarrer, ' ' she is a good child, pious and 
 economical. The price of such is above 
 rubies." 
 
 Ulrich 's face lightened with a pleas- 
 ant smile. " Aye, Elsa is a good girl,"
 
 ULRICH NEBENDAHL 173 
 
 he answered. " Her little hands have 
 you ever noticed them, Herr Pastor so 
 soft and dimpled.'* 
 
 The Pfarrer pushed aside his empty 
 pot and leaned his elbows on the table. 
 
 " I think I do not think she would 
 say no. Her mother, I have reason to 
 believe Let me sound them dis- 
 creetly." The old pastor's red face 
 glowed redder, yet with pleasurable an- 
 ticipation; he was a born matchmaker. 
 
 But Ulrich the wheelwright shuffled in 
 his chair uneasily. 
 
 " A little longer," he pleaded. " Let 
 me think it over. A man should not 
 marry without first being sure he loves. 
 Things might happen. It would not be 
 fair to the maiden." 
 
 The Herr Pfarrer stretched his hand 
 across the table and laid it upon Ulrich 's 
 arm. 
 
 "It is Hedwig; twice you walked 
 home with her last week." 
 
 "It is a lonesome way for a timid 
 maiden; and there is the stream to 
 cross," explained the wheelwright.
 
 174 THE LOVE OF 
 
 For a moment the Herr Pastor's face 
 had clouded, but now it cleared again. 
 
 " Well, well, why not? Elsa would 
 have been better in some respects, but 
 Hedwig ah, yes, she, too, is a good girl ; 
 a little wild perhaps it will wear off. 
 Have you spoken with her? " 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 11 But you will? " 
 
 Again there fell that troubled look 
 into those dreamy eyes. This time it was 
 Ulrich who, laying aside his pipe, rested 
 his great arms upon the wooden table. 
 
 ' ' Now, how does a man know when he 
 is in love 1 ' ' asked Ulrich of the Pastor, 
 who, having been married twice, should 
 surely be experienced upon the point. 
 " How should he be sure that it is this 
 woman and no other to whom his heart 
 has gone out? " 
 
 A commonplace-looking man was the 
 Herr Pastor, short and fat and bald. 
 But there had been other days, and these 
 had left to him a voice that still was 
 young; and the evening twilight screen- 
 ing the seared face, Ulrich heard but
 
 ULRICH NEBENDAHL 175 
 
 the pastor's voice, which was the voice 
 of a boy. 
 
 * * She will be dearer to you than your- 
 self. Thinking of her, all else will be as 
 nothing. For her you would lay down 
 your life." 
 
 They sat in silence for a while ; for the 
 fat little Herr Pfarrer was dreaming of 
 the past ; and long, lanky Ulrich Neben- 
 dahl, the wheelwright, of the future. 
 
 That evening, as chance would have it, 
 Ulrich returning to his homestead a 
 rambling mill beside the river, where he 
 dwelt alone with ancient Anna met 
 Elsa of the dimpled hands upon the 
 bridge that spans the murmuring 
 Miihlde, and talked a while with her, 
 and said good-night. 
 
 How sweet it had been to watch her 
 ox-like eyes shyly seeking his, to press 
 her dimpled hand and feel his own great 
 strength. Surely he loved her better 
 than he did himself. There could be no 
 doubt of it. He pictured her in trouble, 
 in danger from the savage soldiery that 
 came and went like evil shadows through
 
 176 THE LOVE OF 
 
 these pleasant Saxon valleys, leaving 
 death and misery behind them: burnt 
 homesteads; wild-eyed women, hiding 
 their faces from the light. Would he not 
 for her sake give his life! 
 
 So it was made clear to him that little 
 Elsa was his love. 
 
 Until next morning, when, raising his 
 eyes from the whirling saw, there stood 
 before him Margot, laughing. Margot, 
 mischief-loving, wayward, that would 
 ever be to him the baby he had played 
 with, nursed, and comforted. Margot 
 weary! Had he not a thousand times 
 carried her sleeping in his arms. Mar- 
 got in danger ! At the mere thought his 
 face flushed an angry scarlet. 
 
 All that afternoon Ulrich communed 
 with himself, tried to understand him- 
 self, and could not. For Elsa and Mar- 
 got and Hedwig were not the only ones 
 by a long way. What girl in the village 
 did he not love, if it came to that : Liesel, 
 who worked so hard and lived so poorly, 
 bullied by her cross-grained granddam. 
 Susanna, plain and a little crotchety,
 
 ULRICH NEBENDAHL 177 
 
 who had never had a sweetheart to coax 
 the thin lips into smiles. The little ones 
 for so they seemed to long, lanky Ul- 
 rich, with their pleasant ways Ulrich 
 smiled as he thought of them how 
 should a man love one more than 
 another? 
 
 The Herr Pfarrer shook his head and 
 sighed. 
 
 " That is not love. Gott in Himmel! 
 think what it would lead to? The good 
 God never would have arranged things 
 so. You love one ; she is the only woman 
 in the world for you." 
 
 * ' But you, yourself, Herr Pastor, you 
 have twice been married," suggested the 
 puzzled wheelwright. 
 
 11 But one at a time, Ulrich one at a 
 time. That is a very different thing." 
 
 Why should it not come to him, alone 
 among men? Surely it was a beautiful 
 thing, this love ; a thing worthy of a man, 
 without which a man was but a useless 
 devourer of food, cumbering the earth. 
 
 So Ulrich pondered, pausing from his 
 work one drowsy summer's afternoon,
 
 178 ^THE LOVE OP 
 
 listening to the low song of the waters. 
 How well he knew the winding Miihlde's 
 merry voice. He had worked beside it, 
 played beside it all his life. Often he 
 would sit and talk to it as to an old 
 friend, reading answers in its changing 
 tones. 
 
 Trudchen, seeing him idle, pushed her 
 cold nose into his hand. Trudchen just 
 now was feeling clever and important. 
 Was she not the mother of the five most 
 wonderful puppies in all Saxony! They 
 swarmed about his legs, pressing him 
 with their little foolish heads. Ulrich 
 stooped and picked up one in each big 
 hand. But this causing jealousy and 
 heartburning, laughing, he lay down 
 upon a log. Then the whole five stormed 
 over him, biting his hair, trampling with 
 their clumsy paws upon his face; till 
 suddenly they raced off in a body to at- 
 tack a floating feather. Ulrich sat up 
 and watched them, the little rogues, the 
 little foolish, helpless things, that called 
 for so much care. A mother thrush twit- 
 tered above his head. Ulrich rose, and,
 
 ULRICH NEBENDAHL 179 
 
 creeping on tiptoe, peeped into the nest. 
 But the mother bird, casting one glance 
 towards him, went on with her work. 
 Whoever was afraid of Ulrich the wheel- 
 wright! The tiny murmuring insects 
 buzzed to and fro about his feet. An old 
 man, passing to his evening rest, gave 
 him " good-day." A zephyr whispered 
 something to the leaves, at which they 
 laughed, then passed upon his way. Here 
 and there a shadow crept out from its 
 hiding-place. 
 
 " If only I could marry the whole 
 village ! ' : laughed Ulrich to himself. 
 4 ' But that, of course, is nonsense ! ' : 
 
 The spring that followed let loose the 
 dogs of war again upon the blood-stained 
 land, for now all Germany, taught late 
 by common suffering forgetfulness of 
 local rivalries, was rushing together in 
 a mighty wave that would sweep French 
 feet for ever from their hold on German 
 soil. Ulrich, for whom the love of 
 woman seemed not, would at least be the 
 lover of his country. He, too, would 
 march among those brave stern hearts
 
 180 THE LOVE OF 
 
 that, stealing like a thousand rivulets 
 from every German valley, were flowing 
 north and west to join the Prussian 
 eagles. 
 
 But even love of country seemed de- 
 nied to Ulrich of the dreamy eyes. His 
 wheelwright's business had called him 
 to a town far off. He had been walking 
 all the day. Towards evening, passing 
 the outskirts of a wood, a feeble cry for 
 help, sounding from the shadows, fell 
 upon his ear. Ulrich paused, and again 
 from the sombre wood crept that weary 
 cry of pain. Ulrich ran and came at last 
 to where, among the wild flowers and 
 the grass, lay prone five human figures. 
 Two of them were of the German Land- 
 wehr, the other three Frenchmen in the 
 hated uniform of Napoleon's famous 
 scouts. It had been some unimportant 
 " affair of outposts," one of those com- 
 mon incidents of warfare that are never 
 recorded never remembered save here 
 and there by some sad face unnoticed in 
 the crowd. Four of the men were dead ; 
 one, a Frenchman, was still alive, though
 
 ULEICH NEBENDAHL 181 
 
 bleeding copiously from a deep wound in 
 the chest that with a handful of dank 
 grass he was trying to staunch. 
 
 Ulrich raised him in his arms. The 
 man spoke no German, and Ulrich knew 
 but his mother tongue; but when the 
 man, turning towards the neighbouring 
 village with a look of terror in his half- 
 glazed eyes, pleaded with his hands, Ul- 
 rich understood, and lifting him gently 
 carried him further into the wood. 
 
 He found a small deserted shelter that 
 had been made by charcoal-burners, and 
 there on a bed of grass and leaves Ulrich 
 laid him; and there for a week all but 
 a day Ulrich tended him and nursed him 
 back to life, coming and going stealthily 
 like a thief in the darkness. Then Ul- 
 rich, who had thought his one desire in 
 life to be to kill all Frenchmen, put food 
 and drink into the Frenchman's knap- 
 sack and guided him half through the 
 night and took his hand; and so they 
 parted. 
 
 Ulrich did not return to Alt Waldnitz, 
 that lies hidden in the forest beside the
 
 182 THE LOVE OF 
 
 murmuring Miihlde. They would think 
 he had gone to the war; he would let 
 them think so. He was too great a 
 coward to go back to them and tell them 
 that he no longer wanted to fight; that 
 the sound of the drum brought to him 
 only the thought of trampled grass 
 where dead men lay with curses in their 
 eyes. 
 
 So, with head bowed down in shame, 
 to and fro about the moaning land, Ul- 
 rich of the dreamy eyes came and went, 
 guiding his solitary footsteps by the 
 sounds of sorrow, driving away the 
 things of evil where they crawled among 
 the wounded, making his way swiftly to 
 the side of pain, heedless of the uni- 
 form. 
 
 Thus one day he found himself by 
 chance near again to forest-girdled 
 Waldnitz. He would push his way 
 across the hills, wander through its 
 quiet ways in the moonlight while the 
 good folks all lay sleeping. His foot- 
 steps quickened as he drew nearer. 
 Where the trees broke he would be able
 
 ULRICH NEBENDAHL 183 
 
 to look down upon it, see every roof he 
 knew so well the church, the mill, the 
 winding Miihlde the green, worn grey 
 with dancing feet, where, when the hate- 
 ful war was over, would be heard again 
 the Saxon folk-songs. 
 
 Another was there, where the forest 
 halts on the brow of the hill a figure 
 kneeling on the ground with his face to- 
 wards the village. Ulrich stole closer. 
 It was the Herr Pf arrer, praying volubly 
 but inaudibly. He scrambled to his 
 feet as Ulrich touched him, and his first 
 astonishment over, poured forth his tale 
 of woe. 
 
 There had been trouble since Ulrich 's 
 departure. A French corps of observa- 
 tion had been camped upon the hill, and 
 twice within the month had a French 
 soldier been found murdered in the 
 woods. Heavy had been the penalties 
 exacted from the village, and terrible 
 had been the Colonel's threats of ven- 
 geance. Now, for a third time, a soldier 
 stabbed in the back had been borne into 
 camp by his raging comrades, and this
 
 184 THE LOVE OF 
 
 very afternoon the Colonel had sworn 
 that if the murderer were not handed 
 over to him within an hour from dawn, 
 when the camp was to break up, he would 
 before marching burn the village to the 
 ground. The Herr Pfarrer was on his 
 way back from the camp where he had 
 been to plead for mercy, but it had been 
 in vain. 
 
 " Such are foul deeds!" said Ul- 
 rich. 
 
 " The people are mad with hatred of 
 the French, ' ' answered the Herr Pastor. 
 " It may be one, it may be a dozen who 
 have taken vengeance into their own 
 hands. May God forgive them." 
 
 ' ' They will not come forward not to 
 save the village? " 
 
 " Can you expect it of them! There 
 is no hope for us; the village will burn 
 as a hundred others have burned." 
 
 Aye, that was true; Ulrich had seen 
 their blackened ruins; the old sitting 
 with white faces among the wreckage of 
 their homes, the little children wailing 
 round their knees, the tiny broods
 
 ULRICH NEBENDAHL 185 
 
 burned in their nests. He had picked 
 their corpses from beneath the charred 
 trunks of the dead elms. 
 
 The Herr Pfarrer had gone forward 
 on his melancholy mission to prepare 
 the people for their doom. 
 
 Ulrich stood alone, looking down upon 
 Alt Waldnitz bathed in moonlight. And 
 there came to him the words of the old 
 pastor : * * She will be dearer to you than 
 yourself. For her you would lay down 
 your life." And Ulrich knew that his 
 love was the village of Alt Waldnitz, 
 where dwelt his people, the old and 
 wrinkled, the laughing " little ones," 
 where dwelt the helpless dumb things 
 with their deep pathetic eyes, where the 
 bees hummed drowsily, and the thou- 
 sand tiny creatures of the day. 
 
 They hanged him high upon a with- 
 ered elm, with his face towards Alt 
 Waldnitz, that all the village, old and 
 young, might see; and then to the beat 
 of drum and scream of fife they marched 
 away ; and forest-hidden Waldnitz gath- 
 ered up once more its many threads of
 
 186 LOVE OF ULRICH NEBENDAHL 
 
 quiet life and wove them into homely 
 pattern. 
 
 They talked and argued many a time, 
 and some there were who praised and 
 some who blamed. But the Herr Pf arrer 
 could not understand. 
 
 Until years later a dying man unbur- 
 dened his soul so that the truth became 
 known. 
 
 Then they raised Ulrich's coffin rever- 
 ently, and the young men Carried it into 
 the village and laid it in the churchyard 
 that it might always be among them. 
 They reared above him what in their 
 eyes was a grand monument, and carved 
 upon it: 
 
 " Greater love hath no man than 
 this."
 
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