UC-NRLF 
 
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 ^HIPPOLYTE 
 
 / AND 
 
 .OLDEN-BEAK 
 
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HIPPOLYTE 
 
 AND 
 
 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 Stories 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE BASSETT 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 1895 
 
Copyright, 1894, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 HIPPOLYTE 3 
 
 GOLDEN -BEAK 113 
 
 ivi578535 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "LEDYARD WAS TRYING TO PERSUADE 
 
 HER TO LEAVE THE TABLE" . . Frontispiece. 
 
 "HE PRESENTED HIMSELF IN AN INFA 
 MOUS CRAVAT OF WHITE SATIN " Facing p. $6 
 
 " WON T YOU LET ME GIVE YOU ONE 
 
 OF THESE CUSHIONS ? " . . . . 114 
 
 "A VERY RARE AND PRECIOUS SORT OF 
 
 COCKTAIL" " 122 
 
 THE JAPANESE BOY 132 
 
 "HE WOULD SIT AND PLAY ON THE 
 
 BANJO" " 148 
 
 " YOU BAD WOMAN! " " 150 
 
 " I DON T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT 
 
 THAT, REPLIED MRS. POTWIN " . " l62 
 
 "HER LITTLE HOME WAS FURNISHED 
 
 IN THE BEST JAPANESE TASTE" . " I7O 
 
 "THEY USED TO RUN MAD RACES " " 1 82 
 
J 
 
 viii ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 IN THE FIELDS Facing p. 190 
 
 "IN WALKED YSONDE POTWIN " . . " igS 
 "ON THE QUIET, COMFORTABLE ENG 
 LISH RIVER" " 216 
 
 " IT WAS A GREAT BIRD S HEAD, WITH 
 
 GARNET EYES" " 224 
 
HIPPOLYTE 
 
MR. JAMES MCNEILL WHISTLER: 
 
 To you, cher Maitre, who knew Hippolyte in the flesh, 
 1 send this little portrait to you whose brush renders 
 your friends immortal, and whose pen reduces to their last 
 mortality the enemies it is your gentle art to make per 
 ceptible. For us, who have only black and white upon 
 our palettes, it remains to link our wagons to your star 
 as best we can. 
 
 It is a far cast to darkened Chelsea and the bright garden 
 of the rue du Eac from the lake-gemmed forests of Wis 
 consin in whose shades I made these pages. But Rajon s 
 picture of your face is pinned upon my canvas wall, and 
 to those who love you the little miles and the little months 
 seem very short. 
 
 G. B. 
 
 Lake Tired-Canoe, September, 1893. 
 
H1PPOLYTE 
 
 IT was in Paris that I found the valet 
 with whom this little narrative concerns it 
 self found him there and lost him there; 
 and all so recently that it is almost an in 
 delicacy to talk about him. I had told the 
 maitrc d hbtel of my club that I was look 
 ing for a servant, and he permitted himself 
 to entertain the hope that he might assist 
 monsieur in his search. 
 
 " It is only a boy," he said, "but he is a 
 boy with a long head. It is my nephew, 
 monsieur, and my poor brother has not 
 been happy this year. They are working 
 jewellers in the Faubourg St. Denis, and, 
 what with all the cheap trinkets stamped 
 out by the machine these days, there isn t 
 
4 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 enough work to keep the lad busy at home, 
 and he must find some other trade. He s a 
 good boy, monsieur, and if you try him you 
 will find I m not wrong when I say he has 
 an old head on young shoulders. But I 
 can t give him a place here in the club. 
 Monsieur can understand that I couldn t 
 do right by him. I d have to be harder 
 with him than with any of the other pages, 
 or there d be fusses every night." 
 
 Now I had a great respect for the vener 
 able Francois, and I was sure he could de 
 tect the clay from which a good servant 
 might be made. The making, if I took this 
 untried lad, would, however, be my task, 
 not his, and of my own powers in such a 
 direction I had the most profound distrust. 
 But just as my little " no," which is the 
 weakest-sounding word in my vocabulary, 
 was trying to make itself heard, Francois 
 took my cup of coffee from a footman, 
 placed it on the table, and left me with a 
 discreet air of having sown his seed, and 
 being ready to trustfully await its germina 
 tion. And then the coffee did its work. 
 There is one short quarter of an hour in 
 
HIPPOLYTE 5 
 
 every day I live the quarter of an hour 
 after I know that I have had dinner enough, 
 and before I know that I have had too 
 much dinner, during which the summer 
 calm of contentment lets insidious currents 
 draw me towards what shoals they serve. 
 If a horse has ever turned out badly on my 
 hands, if a bit of money lent has not come 
 back to me again, if a small bet has proved 
 to be an altogether hopeless cast, the horse 
 has been bought, and the money lent, and 
 the bet made, during one of these quarters 
 of an hour. It poisons me, too, the coffee. 
 It s worse than the bread, and the red wine, 
 and the fourth cigar, and all the other for 
 bidden fruits ; but for that little quarter of 
 an hour it lulls to sleep every doubt of 
 other men s clear rectitude and of my own 
 sagacity. 
 
 The excellent Francois knew all this, of 
 course. And he was not at all surprised 
 when I told him, half an hour later, that 
 the boy might come to see me in the morn 
 ing. 
 
 It was raining when he came, and he 
 seemed to be a mere leaf blown from a 
 
6 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 curb-stone tree. He was undersized and 
 lean, and his eyes were too close together, 
 and two monstrous ears sprang affrighted 
 from his lanky fox-red hair. But he was 
 very willing; that was all he had to say 
 for himself. And he was ready to show 
 that it was no idle boast. In the one mo 
 ment during which he had stood before me 
 his volition had fallen helpless before mine, 
 like the fabulous bird at the gaze of the 
 fabulous snake. His whole horizon was 
 bounded by my wishes. His only estimate 
 of what a fair beginner s wage would be 
 was " as monsieur should wish." I don t 
 think he used another phrase than that in 
 all the course of our preliminary interview, 
 except when he gave me to understand that 
 his uncle had sent him to me with an inti 
 mation that if he failed to find favor in my 
 eyes he need never hope for another rec 
 ommendation. And then of course I was 
 helpless. I told him that I would try him 
 for a day or two, in order that we might see 
 how we got on together, and that his first 
 employment would be to help me move 
 from the apartment I then occupied to the 
 
HIPPOLYTE 7 
 
 rooms I had taken in a hotel for the rest of 
 the Paris season. I stood over him while 
 he packed my boxes, or tried to make my 
 self believe I did. As a matter of fact, I 
 folded all my clothes, with a running com 
 mentary on the use and abuse of creases, 
 and laid them one upon another with a 
 disquisition on the art of packing trunks 
 just full enough and not too full. When it 
 was all done, and he had said " Oui, mon 
 sieur," some hundred times or more, he 
 buckled all the straps, and then I thought 
 the time had come to see what resources he 
 had within himself. " I am going to break 
 fast now," said I, " and you must fetch an 
 omnibus from the nearest railway station 
 and move my luggage to the hotel, where 
 the concierge will pay the driver, ajid where 
 you may wait for me." 
 
 I met old Ledyard at Paillard s, and be 
 fore we had finisheoj our melon I had ex 
 posed myself to his unmeasured scorn. 
 
 " You are an owl, my dear fellow," said 
 he "an owl of the Apennines; you will 
 never see your things again. I am glad 
 of it, for they are all abominable, and now 
 
8 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 perhaps you will let me choose some decent 
 clothes for you, instead of leaping about 
 looking like a fiend of the woods." I bore 
 this abuse meekly, for Ledyard really is one 
 of the best-dressed men in Europe, and his 
 friends are all accustomed to his innocent 
 belief that they look like either book-mak 
 ers or dissenting preachers. 
 
 " Yes, my poor foolish friend," he con 
 tinued, " this boy will lose all your atrocious 
 trousers and all your obscene coats, and as 
 soon as we have finished our steak we will 
 go to your hotel, and we will have a fire, 
 and you will give me some whiskey and 
 Vals, and I will win all your money playing 
 at ecarte while you are fussing and fuming 
 because your ragamuffin doesn t appear." 
 
 And, as it proved, he did win four games 
 running before one of the hotel people came 
 to the room to tell me that my servant and 
 my luggage had arrived. The man said 
 " the servant of monsieur " with a little 
 look of astonishment, and when Hippolyte 
 for Hippolyte was his unhappy name 
 appeared, I forgave the impertinence. He 
 had been by no means a smart - looking 
 
HIPPOLYTE 9 
 
 youth when I first saw him in the morning. 
 His trousers were very much too short, 
 and clung so closely to his lean shanks 
 that they seemed to fade raggedly into the 
 drooping elastic sides of his rusty shoes. 
 His coat was as much too high in the neck 
 as his shirt-collar was too low, and its high- 
 waisted skirts were abbreviated in that 
 strange fashion which makes a Frenchman 
 of his class look like some absurd sort of 
 little bird. But now the effects were all 
 heightened. He was dripping with rain ; 
 up to his knees the black liquid mud lay 
 as thick as if he had emerged from a bog 
 in the Landes, and from his knees up he 
 resembled one of those ingenious wall or 
 naments of spatter-work which school-girls 
 used to make when I was a boy. But his 
 hat was in his hand, and he waited respect 
 fully for permission to explain himself. I 
 asked him, carefully avoiding Ledyard s 
 eye. if the luggage was all there. 
 
 Yes, it was ; and he regretted that he 
 could not have had it there two hours, or 
 perhaps even two hours and a half, earlier. 
 But there had been difficulties. It was rain- 
 
10 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 ing so hard, and so many of the cabmen were 
 on strike, that all the omnibuses at the rail 
 way yard had been taken, and he had been 
 obliged to go to the central market and hire 
 one of the small hand-carts kept to be let 
 out to the hawkers of fruit, and then to 
 another loueur who kept tents to let for the 
 suburban fairs, in order to hire a tarpaulin 
 with which to cover the luggage. And on 
 the cart he had pushed his load all the way 
 through the wet streets. 
 
 Beaming beneath the rays of monsieur s 
 approbation, he went down-stairs to super 
 intend the mounting of the boxes, and then 
 I had my little word back at Ledyard. 
 
 " You are no doubt in the right," said I, 
 " when you say that the only good servant 
 is a thoroughly trained English valet, and if 
 you only move from your place in the coun 
 try to your house in London, he is never at 
 fault; but when you come to messing about 
 all over the Continent, and sometimes a far 
 ther shot than that, I am not so sure that 
 I m an ass to prefer a man who doesn t 
 need to be handcuffed to an interpreter, 
 and who won t be forever telling me that 
 
HIPPOLYTE II 
 
 what I ask him to do isn t his work. A fel 
 low like yours would have let those trunks 
 crumble to dust before he would have 
 dreamed of bringing them here himself." 
 
 "That s all very well," said Ledyard, 
 "but chaps like that are too clever by half. 
 You may think it s all very funny to pay six 
 teen guineas a dozen for your beastly batiste 
 shirts, and then let a young monkey like 
 that count them for the wash. But you ll 
 be sorry yet that you ever saw his dirty 
 face." 
 
 This I did not mind very much, for it is 
 always Ledyard s way to be disagreeable 
 when he has been winning at ecarte, in 
 order to disguise his pitiful exultation. 
 
 The next morning, when Hippolyte came 
 to draw my curtains and prepare my bath, 
 the contemptible pleasure which every one 
 afflicted with moral cowardice finds in do 
 ing and saying amiable things lay smiling 
 in my path. I told him that I thought he 
 
12 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 had the making of a very good servant in 
 him ; and he repeated his little " Oui, mon 
 sieur," tacking to it the rider, " Soyez tran- 
 quille, monsieur" a locution with which I 
 was afterwards to become painfully familiar. 
 But it was new to me as yet, and did not 
 jar upon my beatific sense of satisfaction 
 with myself and all the world. Life is, in 
 deed, a series of so trifling joys and sorrows 
 that even now I can recall to my face the 
 serene smile with which I awoke that morn 
 ing. I had sternly refused my after-dinner 
 cup of coffee the night before. I had only 
 taken one glass of hock-and-seltzer in the 
 course of the evening, and I had left the 
 club with a few louis of my friends losings 
 in my pocket. 
 
 "You cannot, of course," I continued, 
 " expect a very large wage at first ; I will 
 give you forty-five francs a month, and I 
 will furnish your clothing of every sort. 
 You will, indeed, be able, if you are thrifty, 
 to put by every sou of your earnings." Hip- 
 polyte, with his stereotyped formula of as 
 sent and reassurance, gave me to under 
 stand that it would be his pride and his joy 
 
HIPPOLYTE 13 
 
 to avail himself of so magnificent an op 
 portunity to become a capitalist. 
 
 "You will," I continued, wanning to my 
 subject as I saw that it was a sunny day, 
 and observed that the morning s post had 
 brought me no tiresome letters to answer 
 "you will be lodged and nourished at my 
 cost. The cost of your washing I will also 
 defray. You will learn all that a gentle 
 man s servant ought to learn, and I hope 
 you will not be as ungrateful as most ser 
 vants are." 
 
 Later in the day I put him by the driver s 
 side on the box-seat of my coupe (an unpre 
 tentious but highly respectable vehicle sup 
 plied by a job-master), and drove off to an 
 enormous emporium distinguished by the 
 sign of the "Belle Jardiniere." I had never 
 before entered one of these gigantic outfit 
 ters establishments, and it was not without 
 a certain timidity that I alighted at its glit 
 tering portals. 
 
 Hippolyte, who had either been seeking 
 enlightenment at the hands of the coach 
 man, or had arrived by his unaided powers 
 of reasoning at some theory of the functions 
 
I 4 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 of a servant on the box of a carriage, had 
 leaped to the pavement with astounding agil 
 ity, and stood with uncovered head awaiting 
 my pleasure. He was still in his rags, and 
 his bearing combined the dignity of a hun 
 gry dog with the elegance of a suburban 
 footpad. At that moment I regarded nei 
 ther Hippolyte nor myself with content 
 ment, nor was I the better pleased when the 
 affable person who received us in the vesti 
 bule of the " Belle Jardiniere " gave me to 
 understand that he supposed me to be a 
 dutiful father in search of raiment for his 
 son. 
 
 I never knew before how cheap clothing 
 could be, or howexpeditiously a man could 
 attire himself, if he were not absurdly fastid 
 ious about the cut and fit of his garments. 
 Hippolyte certainly was not. His coat and 
 his waistcoat and his trousers and his over 
 coat and his mackintosh and his cravat and 
 his gloves and his shirts and his collars and 
 his wristbands and his underwear and his 
 hosiery and his boots and his hat and his 
 umbrella were, in his eyes, the most prodig 
 ious gifts that fortune could have brought 
 
HIPPOLYTE 15 
 
 him. He would, I think, have preferred a 
 cravat of somewhat less sombre hue ; and 
 an overcoat of a military cut profusely be- 
 frogged seemed to him more desirable than 
 that which I had selected. But he was 
 happy. He failed to see why he should 
 have garments especially designed to be 
 worn when he was in his bed, and explained 
 to me that it had always been his habit to 
 wear by night the linen that was no longer 
 immaculate enough to be worn by day. He 
 seemed to think, too, that I was unneces 
 sarily lavish in the matter of toilet requi 
 sites, but I told him that it was my wish 
 that he should have absolutely nothing at 
 the hotel except what I selected for him, 
 and that I expected him to take his morn 
 ing bath as regularly as I took mine. It 
 was probably at the moment when I laid 
 this injunction upon him, and chose for him 
 a travelling-tub, that he arrived at the con 
 clusion that I was a well-meaning person of 
 unsound mind. That this was his indul 
 gent generalization I have been convinced 
 by certain of his subsequent methods and 
 achievements. 
 
16 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 Ledyard, whose privilege it is to play the 
 part of chorus to the simple drama of my 
 life, heard all about it before the day was 
 over. I knew that he would enjoy it, and I 
 am afraid I take a shameful pleasure in bar 
 ing my breast to his attacks. 
 
 "You will observe," he said to two or 
 three of the Frenchmen who stood about 
 the club fireplace patiently suffering his 
 strange distortions of their language, " that 
 our friend imagines he can make this lean 
 and wretched lizard shiver in a bath-tub 
 every morning. You are, my dear fellows, 
 as a nation, the very dirtiest people in the 
 world." Here Ledyard paused with the air 
 of challenging the whole Gallic race to join 
 issue with him. But no one answered ; it 
 only encourages Ledyard to contradict him. 
 " You are, I say, dirty. I don t mean you 
 fellows personally, because you and the 
 other men in your position in life have 
 learned from us Englishmen to wash your 
 selves." This generous qualification of his 
 abuse, I am bound in justice to say, he ex 
 pressly disclaimed when we were alone to 
 gether. They were all filthy, every man Jack 
 
HIPPOLYTE 17 
 
 of them, but he couldn t be uncivil about it. 
 It was, he said, an idiosyncrasy of his that 
 he never could bear to be uncivil to any 
 body, even Frenchmen. 
 
 "And when you come to the working- 
 classes, and people of that sort, they simply 
 cannot wash. It is not that they won t 
 they cannot. When they are run over by 
 omnibuses and that sort of thing, and have 
 to go to the hospital, and the hospital peo 
 ple wash them, they die ; that s all there is 
 of it ; and that s what makes the death-rate 
 in a hospital so high. I was talking to one 
 of the biggest medical men in Paris the 
 other night, and I told him the same thing. 
 He said he had never thought of it before. 
 That s the way with all your doctors here : 
 they never use their common-sense. They re 
 altogether too scientific. As for this poor 
 devil of a boy, he ll have hydrophobia, that s 
 what he ll have; and he ll bite you, my buck, 
 and you ll go bounding up the Champs 
 Elysees with your horrid great tongue loll 
 ing out of your mouth, and the gendarmes 
 will hack you to pieces with their little dull 
 swords." 
 
IS HIPPOLYTE 
 
 Within a few weeks, however, Hippolyte 
 had learned, if not to take his bath every 
 morning, at least to put on a look of agree 
 able freshness with which to begin the day. 
 And he took so evident a pride in keeping 
 himself smart that I let him put away his 
 ready-made clothing from the " Belle Jardi 
 niere," and had some decent things made 
 for him by a tailor. The great Napoleon 
 is said to have begun to bully his friends 
 and antagonize his marshals from the mo 
 ment that he first wore an imperial robe 
 bedizened with his short-lived golden bees. 
 And from the moment that Hippolyte per 
 ceived himself to have risen to the plane of 
 those who have their clothes adjusted to 
 their persons he entertained a fine scorn 
 for the unhappy wretches who are obliged 
 to adjust their persons to their clothes. 
 With me he was as mild as a May morn 
 ing. His voice was low and pleasant, and 
 he taught himself a small deprecatory 
 cough, which he executed behind his hand 
 whenever he was overcome by his sense of 
 my surpassing splendor and his own un- 
 worth. But I heard him sometimes crying 
 
HIPPOLYTE I9 
 
 in the waste places for hot water and for 
 towels and other matters, which it is the pe 
 culiar province of chamber-maids at inns to 
 forget and neglect. Then he was another 
 Hippolyte, and not a very nice Hippolyte. 
 His face was, indeed, the sort of face that 
 always looks as if it might, were it lifted 
 up, disclose a less civilized visage behind 
 it. His father the working jeweller of the 
 Faubourg St. Denis had come one morn 
 ing to thank me for having taken Hippolyte 
 beneath my magnificent protection, and I 
 knew since then where the lad had found 
 his shifty eyes. I think that with another 
 look in them he used to glare wolf-like at 
 the poor stupid maids of the hotel. His 
 voice, I know, was the snarl of a beast of 
 prey when he pursued them to seek for 
 what I needed. I told him one day that he 
 would find a milder form of coercion equal 
 ly effective, and much more conducive to 
 his personal popularity. 
 
 " Oui, monsieur. Soyez tranquille, mon 
 sieur. Monsieur knows that they are all 
 Prussians, and more stupid than the pigs. 
 When monsieur does not like to be kept 
 
2o HIPPOLYTE 
 
 waiting for his hot water it is then that 
 they are impossible, these Prussians." 
 
 One merit he certainly had, and that was 
 that he was rigorously honest. I hate to 
 have to lock things up, and as for mak 
 ing a practice of counting the small money 
 in my clothes at night, I should go mad 
 over it. There were always some billets 
 de banque in my note-case, and more or 
 less loose gold and silver in my pock 
 ets. And I thought it would be wise to 
 make a little test to see whether anything 
 stuck to Hippolyte s fingers when he emp 
 tied out my pockets in the morning be 
 fore he took my clothes to brush. I tried 
 him every now and then by making a la 
 borious count at night, and solemnly noting 
 down my total, and I always found when I 
 made my comparisons next morning that 
 every sou was there. When one stops to 
 think what temptations such opportunities 
 for petty thieving must present, one marvels 
 that there are any honest servants in the 
 world, and wonders, too, if it is altogether 
 fair to them to try their probity so far. 
 
HIPPOLYTE 21 
 
 III 
 
 The cold weather had come now, and I 
 began to make my plans for the South. If 
 I had carried them all out, these projects that 
 I make at every year s end for three months 
 sojourn in the sunshine, I should have been 
 able by now to write a guide-book to the 
 south of Europe and the Orient. Some 
 times I manage to get as far as Algiers, and 
 once or twice I have accomplished a winter 
 stay in Cairo, one of the most delightful 
 places I know to think about. It is al 
 ways with a sense of virtue that I contem 
 plate such flights as these. They are al 
 most as heroic as a hunting winter in 
 England. But somehow I always find my 
 self at Monte Carlo before the end of Janu 
 ary. I am ashamed of going there, and I 
 make April vows each time that I will not 
 go back again. Not that I lose money 
 there, for I am a cold, half-hearted player, 
 pleased to win a little, and never losing 
 much, but because the atmosphere of the 
 place reeks with vulgarity. I play games of 
 
22 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 chance because the men I know best and 
 like best are always to be found where play 
 is going. But the moment the play ceases 
 to be one of the lesser incidents of life it is 
 abominable. One might as well keep a 
 shop and be done with it as always to be 
 counting money and jetons, and think of 
 nothing but gains and losses. 
 
 So I resolved to try Algiers again, and 
 put quite out of mind the thought that it 
 was, after all, only thirty-six hours across to 
 Marseilles and down to Monaco, if Musta- 
 pha proved too wet. And as I was bent 
 upon taking a little run into the desert, I 
 thought it would be well for Hippolyte to 
 learn to sit a horse, in order that he might 
 go with me. I asked him if he would like 
 to take riding-lessons, and he told me that 
 it had always been his heart s most cher 
 ished hope that he might some day find a 
 horse between his legs. I made the neces 
 sary arrangement at the manege where I 
 stable my own hack ; and the senior riding- 
 master, who had often seen me trotting 
 around his piste when the mornings had 
 been too rainy for the Bois, assured me that 
 
HIPPOLYTE 23 
 
 he would make a horseman of Hippolyte 
 in the shortest possible time. I was not 
 riding that month, for I am of a slightly 
 arthritic temperament, and I was at the 
 moment suffering from one of my occa 
 sional touches of accidental gout a mere 
 form of rheumatism, of course, but uncom 
 fortable when one has one s feet in stir 
 rup-irons. 
 
 Hippolyte was to take his lessons in the 
 early morning, and every day for a fort 
 night, when he came to wake me, I used to 
 ask him what progress he had made. And 
 every morning he used to tell me that he 
 felt a trifle stiff about the knees, but was 
 learning not to roll about much in the sad 
 dle. There even began to be perceptible, 
 after the first week, a horsy fashion in his 
 gait. And one day he came to my room in 
 breeches and leggings, apologizing for hav 
 ing been detained a little later than usual 
 at the manege. 
 
 11 How many lessons have you had ?" I 
 asked him. " You ought to have accom 
 plished something by now, and it is only 
 necessary that you should be able to make 
 
24 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 a journey in the saddle from time to time 
 without falling off your horse." 
 
 Hippolyte went through a little panto 
 mime of counting his lessons on one hand 
 and the Sundays he had missed upon the 
 other, and announced that he had taken 
 twelve in all, and that he thought he could 
 ride well enough for practical purposes. So 
 I told him that he need not go to the rid 
 ing-school again. A day or two after, my 
 foot was so much better that I- told him to 
 lay out my riding things. I noticed as he 
 fastened the straps on my trousers that he 
 seemed ill at ease, and I could not seem to 
 teach him how to slip the spurs into their 
 boxes. I asked him if he were ill, and told 
 him that he must not sit up too late at night 
 gossiping with the other servants, for lads 
 of his age needed sleep. And then I drove 
 up to the Rue Chalgrin to take my horse. 
 While I was waiting for him to be saddled, 
 I told the man behind the guichet to let me 
 know how much I owed for the lessons, 
 and asked if the riding-master was satisfied 
 with the progress Hippolyte had made. 
 
 " The servant of monsieur has accom- 
 
HIPPOLYTE 25 
 
 plished about as much as a beginner usu 
 ally does," he replied) "but a gentleman so 
 profoundly versed in the art of equitation 
 as is monsieur knows that in only three or 
 four lessons but little can be done." 
 
 "Three or four lessons!" said I. "But 
 he s had a dozen, hasn t he ?" 
 
 Just then the bell of the telephone be 
 hind his chair attracted his attention, and 
 he begged me to excuse him for a moment 
 while he answered the call. When he had 
 received the message he turned to me again 
 and said : 
 
 " I hope monsieur will not let the young 
 man know that I have said what I am about 
 to say, but the truth is that there have been 
 only four lessons, and that the young man 
 has this moment telephoned to me asking 
 that I should disguise from monsieur the 
 fact that there have not been twelve. I re 
 gret very much to be obliged to tell mon 
 sieur, but I do not see how I can well do 
 otherwise." 
 
 " Of course you couldn t, unless you were 
 going to rob me of the price of eight les 
 sons, and leave me to discover in Algiers 
 
26 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 that the young rogue doesn t know a horse s 
 head from his tail," I replied ; for nothing 
 annoys me more than the sneaking way 
 Frenchmen of that class have of trying to 
 shield a servant who has misbehaved. And 
 then I rode down to the Porte Dauphine 
 and turned into the Allee des Poteaux, very 
 much out of humor at this absurd discovery. 
 But it s an old rule of mine never to chide 
 a servant while I am out of temper, and I 
 resolved to say nothing to Hippolyte until 
 the next morning. I think he hoped the 
 people at the riding-school had not betrayed 
 him, for, although his hands shook so that 
 he could hardly pull my boots off when I 
 came in from the Bois, he was as smiling 
 as ever when he dressed me for dinner that 
 night. I was dining at an English house 
 in the Avenue Kle ber, and Ledyard was 
 there. At first I thought I would keep my 
 discomfiture to myself, but I cannot for the 
 life of me resist telling a story that seems 
 to me to be droll, even if it is against my 
 self, and by the time fish was served I had 
 made a butt of myself. 
 
 " I know it s all very funny," I said to 
 
HIPPOLYII 27 
 
 Ledyard, as we drove away from the house, 
 " but it s a nasty business all the same. I 
 have had the young monkey for a couple of 
 months now, and he s begun to learn my 
 ways, and I ve really taken a lot of trouble 
 with him, not to speak of what his clothes 
 and all that sort of thing have cost me. 
 I ve had him taught to press hats and how 
 to take care of clothes, and I gave a man 
 from my boot-maker s half a louis to spend 
 the whole of one Sunday morning showing 
 him how to do all kinds of boots. And 
 now, after his making a fool of me in this 
 fashion, he ll have no respect for me if I 
 keep him, and he ll think he can play such 
 pranks every day." 
 
 " It s a serious business," said Ledyard ; 
 "but in the meantime you might give me a 
 light for my cigar." 
 
 " It is a serious business, whether you 
 think so or not," I replied. Ledyard is the 
 sort of man who imagines the winds of 
 heaven ought to cease to blow when he has 
 a cold in his head, but thinks nothing of 
 another man s yacht having the sticks blown 
 out of her ; although I will say that he is a 
 
28 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 good fellow when you are ill. " It s a very 
 serious business," I continued. " I don t 
 know anything that makes more difference 
 to a man than having a really good valet. 
 The last fellow I had was a slow, hulking 
 brute, and this boy is small and quiet and 
 quick, and never under one s feet. It s all 
 very well to talk about the important events 
 in one s life, but it isn t being mentioned in 
 General Orders or falling off your horse at 
 a review that makes you happy or unhap 
 py in the long-run. It s the smoothness of 
 every-day existence, like having a good di 
 gestion, and if I have to break in a new 
 man I sha n t dare to look at a glass of Bur 
 gundy for a week." 
 
 "Of course the boy was an ass," said 
 Ledyard. "It isn t one man in a hundred 
 who would have been fool enough to take 
 so much trouble over him, and you have 
 certainly made a very smart servant of him 
 in no time at all. But he was in a blue 
 funk when he had to put his leg over a 
 horse, and he lied about it, and thought he 
 could pull wool over your eyes, as these 
 beastly little Frenchmen always do. I don t 
 
HIPPOLYTE 29 
 
 like his coming to your room in breeches 
 and gaiters when he hadn t been to ride. 
 That was what I should want to hide him 
 (or. But I d row him well if I were you, and 
 let it go at that. What do you want him 
 to ride for, after all ? You re not going to Al 
 giers, messing about among a lot of nasty 
 blackamoors. You re coming to Monte 
 Carlo, where I ll be, and where everybody 
 else that is fit to speak to will be. And 
 you want to look sharp about it, too. I m 
 going in three days, and there won t be a 
 tom-cat in this hole a week from now." 
 
 And to Monte Carlo I went, taking Hip- 
 polyte with me, after rating him well. I 
 told him that he had been an ungrateful 
 scoundrel, and that he had tried to conspire 
 with the riding-school people to make me 
 pay them money for nothing, and that if he 
 went on in that fashion he would end up by 
 getting into the hands of the police, and 
 having his papers marked, and being ruined 
 for life. And then he wept copiously, and 
 declared that he had delighted in learning 
 to ride, and only missed his lessons because 
 he overslept himself in the morning, and 
 
30 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 had hoped to make them up afterwards, and 
 all that sort of thing. And by the time we 
 were on board the Mediterranean Express 
 he was quite happy again, and trying to 
 atone for his faults by doing his work with 
 a dexterity and precision altogether remark 
 able. 
 
 IV 
 
 The sun shone brightly on the flowered 
 terraces of Monte Carlo the morning after 
 my arrival, but I had still preserved my 
 lofty tone, and I tried to make myself be 
 lieve that I had only come in order to 
 take care of old Ledyard, who plays him 
 self into a state of picturesque impecuni- 
 osity if there is not some one there to drag 
 him away from the tables when he has 
 made a winning. 
 
 " The whole thing," I said to him that 
 night at dinner, " is disgusting. Here s a 
 duke at the next table to us, a great leader 
 of public opinion and a man who has no 
 right to be in the same room with the worst 
 blackguards in Europe. And there at the 
 
HIPPOLYTE 31 
 
 very next table is a scoundrel who has been 
 kicked out of every club in London. And 
 those people over in the corner ought to 
 know better than to bring an eighteen-year- 
 old girl into such a place. It s a good 
 sound Warwickshire family. I know who 
 they are. And the girl can t look up from 
 her plate without seeing forty women that 
 she must know are wrong. I m not a strait- 
 laced man, but I call .it hideous, Ledyard." 
 "You ve been losing," said Ledyard; 
 " that s what s the matter with you. You re 
 what I call chicken-hearted. When you 
 lose, you lose ; and when you win, you don t 
 follow it up. And then you hate your din 
 ner because the rooms haven t paid for it, 
 and growl because you re not dining at 
 Lambeth Palace. Why shouldn t the duke 
 come here if he wants to ? What s the use 
 of being an English duke if you can t do 
 what you please ? I call it the finest po 
 sition in the world, and that s just what 
 makes it so fine. The royalties always have 
 to be thinking what the radical newspapers 
 will find to say about them ; but a man like 
 that can do anything in reason. There are 
 
32 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 lots of men here I wouldn t play cards with ; 
 but then I don t have to. And as for the 
 women, they wear smart gowns, and they 
 look pretty, and that s all I want to know 
 about em. You re an old woman ; that s 
 what you are. You re always thinking 
 about what you re afraid to eat, and what 
 you re afraid to drink, and now you re set 
 ting up a moral indigestion as well." 
 
 " Monte Carlo wouldn t be worth coming 
 to if the people were all respectable," said 
 little Montgoublin, with whom we were din 
 ing. " You say it s such a fine thing to be 
 one of your English dukes ; and they re 
 certainly better off than our people, most 
 of whom are too poor to come here at all. 
 But it would be no fun for them if everybody 
 in England were a duke. It s just the same 
 way with the other thing. There s no sat 
 isfaction in being an honest man if every 
 body else is as honest as you are. We 
 three men wouldn t set ourselves up as an 
 example to the rising generation in the or 
 dinary way, but we are in this place moral 
 dukes, there are so many others worse than 
 ourselves." 
 
HIPPOLYTE 33 
 
 "I don t see it in that light," said I; 
 "the place is a mire of iniquity, and it is 
 only because we fellows have no personal 
 substance that we don t flounder in over 
 our heads and come to grief. A man who 
 knows how to take care of himself, who 
 knows his way about, as they say, is simply 
 a cool-headed chap who has cooled his heart 
 first. He keeps out of trouble just as a dry 
 leaf blows over the surface of the bog. It s 
 your hearty, full-blooded youngsters, who 
 take everything seriously and themselves 
 most seriously of all, who make fools of 
 themselves." 
 
 "Not a bit of it," said Ledyard ; "it s 
 the dried-up old wretches like you who al 
 ways come to the most dreadful grief. It s 
 like hunting : you ride a young horse that 
 knows nothing about his work, and he ll 
 jump like a fool, and land in all sorts of 
 places ; but he ll scramble out again, be 
 cause he s young and quick and has a good 
 heart in him. An old screw like you, who s 
 supposed to be safe because he s too weak 
 to bolt and too sleepy to kick, will peck 
 from sheer laziness, and once he s missed 
 
 3 
 
34 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 his foot, over he goes without any effort 
 to recover himself. I m not a great many 
 years younger than you, but I m not afraid 
 of anything. Pretty woman that just come 
 in the door. Who is she, Montgoublin ? 
 She s never been here before. She looks 
 like an English woman." 
 
 " She isn t," replied Montgoublin, who 
 had already been at Monte Carlo for a 
 week; "she s a Viennese. Some women 
 speak to her, and some women don t. She 
 calls herself the Baronne Alixe de Seben- 
 wald. But I think that s her maiden name. 
 Her husband was an Italian, and he used 
 to beat her, or she used to beat him, and 
 now he s dead or divorced or something. 
 Lady Dulverton had her over at Cannes the 
 other night, so of course she must be all 
 right. But the Italians make a nose at her. 
 If you want to know all about her, ask old 
 Tournielli ; you re sure to see him over at 
 the rooms to-night, and he ll tell you in a 
 moment." 
 
 Before we had finished our cigars Tour- 
 nielli himself, who had been dining on the 
 balcony, walked through the room, and Led- 
 
HIPPOLYTE 35 
 
 yard beckoned to him. He took a seat at 
 our table, and we asked him about the lady 
 who was said to have beaten her husband. 
 
 Montgoublin had not apparently been 
 very accurately informed. The late hus 
 band had not been an Italian, but an Eng 
 lishman with an Italian twist to the end of 
 his name, who had made his home in Ven 
 ice. And there had been a story, of which 
 the opening chapter had followed the pref 
 atory nuptials without the customary inter 
 val of a blank page or two. The marriage, 
 which had taken place in Italy, had been 
 annulled by the Holy Father, and she had 
 never spent more than two or three hours 
 under her husband s roof. Her father had 
 been an admiral in the Italian navy, and 
 she had but a small fortune, with which she 
 was at the present moment playing ducks 
 and drakes at the tables. The elder lady 
 who was with her in the restaurant was an 
 aunt of hers, a sort of unsalaried compan 
 ion and duenna. 
 
 " If you ask me," Tournielli replied, 
 "whether the baronne is respectable, you 
 leave me no alternative but to reply that 
 
36 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 she is. I know her very slightly, but if it 
 would amuse you to meet her I think she 
 will permit me to present you. Speaking 
 for myself, I would not put my hand in the 
 fire for her. When a lady who is young and 
 good-looking has made a mess of her mar 
 riage, I don t think Monte Carlo is the place 
 for her. But she is received by some of the 
 best English people at Cannes, and they no 
 doubt know more about her than I do." 
 
 After we had finished our cigars we went 
 over to the rooms, and when I had lost the 
 modest ten or fifteen louis which I thought 
 a large enough straw to show that the wind 
 did not blow my way that night, I went to 
 the next trente-et-quarante table to console 
 myself by observing the misfortunes of my 
 friends. The baronne and Ledyard were 
 seated at the table side by side, and Tour- 
 nielli, who was standing behind her chair, 
 had apparently made them acquainted, for 
 I could see that Ledyard was advising her 
 about her play. With the little flush of ex 
 citement in her cheeks, and the bright in- 
 tentness in her eyes, she was much prettier 
 than I had thought her when I saw her in 
 
HIPPOLYTE 37 
 
 the restaurant. Her face had the peculiar 
 softness which is the characteristic beauty 
 of the Viennese, and she did not look more 
 than two or three and twenty. Her hair, 
 which was of the dull straw-color that one 
 sees oftener on a child s head than on a 
 woman s, lay in graceful- undulations a dis 
 position which never fails to please my eye, 
 and which is, I have been told, to be at 
 tained by employing the services of a hair 
 dresser at the cost of some twenty francs a 
 day. She had a little sheaf of five-hundred- 
 franc notes in her hand, and as I took my 
 place among the by-standers at the side of 
 the table opposite to her I saw her put two 
 of them on the red. She lost. Then she 
 staked four notes on the red again. This 
 time she won. And for a number of coups, 
 playing sometimes a smaller and sometimes 
 a larger stake, she continually added to her 
 little capital, which was enlarging itself like 
 a ball of soft snow rolling down a hill. I 
 was glad that she was not losing, but, on the 
 whole, I was sorry that I happened to be in 
 the rooms while she was playing. 
 
 I watched her snow-ball accumulate until 
 
38 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 she had some forty thousand francs before 
 her, and then I saw her waver for a mo 
 ment. Ledyard was evidently advising her 
 to leave the table. Tournielli, too, leaned 
 over and said a word in her ear. She had 
 been playing high, for a woman, and the 
 people at her end of the table all looked to 
 see what she was about to do. While she 
 hesitated, the croupier, who had glanced at 
 her, began to deal without any stake of hers 
 upon the table, and it resulted in what is 
 called a refait. The cards used for trente et 
 quarante are laid upon one line until their 
 pips aggregate thirty-one or more, and then 
 upon the other line. And the red line or 
 the black line wins as the total of one or 
 the other happens to least exceed thirty-one. 
 But both may hit upon this point of thirty- 
 one. This is called the refait, and when it 
 occurs all the stakes upon the table are, as 
 the phrase is, "put in prison," and must 
 remain where they were until the cards are 
 dealt again. If the color upon which you 
 had played loses this second deal, you lose 
 your stake ; and if it wins, you are not paid 
 any profit on your venture, but are only 
 
HIPPOLYTE 39 
 
 permitted to withdraw your stake which had 
 been thus impounded. It is in this law of 
 the game that the advantage of the table 
 lies. Since there is an even chance that 
 you will lose upon the second deal, and 
 since you cannot win, the value of your 
 chance may be said to have been reduced 
 one -half by the occurrence of the refait. 
 And you are permitted, if you wish to do 
 so, to give the croupier half your stake and 
 withdraw the other half, instead of leaving 
 the whole impounded, and waiting for the 
 second deal. The refait occurs, it has been 
 computed, once . in about every fourteen 
 deals. And yet each player hopes that he 
 will be able to make his little profit before 
 it has appeared. And, obviously enough, if 
 there were not some such recurring advan 
 tage for the table, the player, since he is at 
 liberty to increase or decrease his stakes all 
 the way from a coup of one louis to a coup 
 of six hundred louis, would be sure to win 
 eventually. He may, it is true, by paying 
 to the croupier an insurance of a few francs 
 upon every stake, purchase exemption from 
 the rigors of the refait. But the repeated 
 
40 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 insurance premiums amount in themselves 
 to a considerable loss, and Madame cle Se- 
 benwald had not seen fit to pay this black 
 mail to the robber refait. 
 
 And as the refait came while the baronne 
 was still trying to make up her mind what 
 she should stake, the customary sighs and 
 murmurs of vexation and astonishment rose 
 vaguely towards the frescoed ceiling, which 
 ought by now to be stained quite black 
 by all the angry exhalations it has known. 
 Some of the players said "Partagez!" to the 
 croupier, who thereupon confiscated half 
 their stakes, and gave them back the rest. 
 Others, greatly daring, trusted to the hazard 
 of the second deal, which resulted in favor 
 of the black ; so that those who had played 
 the black, and had not compromised by 
 giving the croupier half their stake, recov 
 ered the whole of it, but without receiving 
 any profit ; while those who had staked 
 upon the red, and let their venture wait 
 upon the issue of the second deal, lost. If 
 the baronne had played this coup in pursu 
 ance of the policy she had followed, she 
 would have had her stake upon the red, and 
 
HIPPOLYTE 41 
 
 the happy indecision which had stayed 
 her hand was one of those little favors of 
 fortune which superstitious gamesters espe 
 cially admire. She had won seventeen or 
 eighteen hundred louis, a very tidy sum, 
 and after pushing her luck to the verge, 
 had refrained at the happy moment. I 
 wondered if she would begin again. She 
 rose from her seat, turned as if to leave the 
 table, and then paused. That moment of 
 doubt which comes to every player con 
 tains the essence of a gambler s excitement. 
 Her hands, filled with the crisp blue bank 
 notes, seemed to be drawn towards the 
 slow whirl of money on the table that 
 eddy which twists away one s capital, and 
 at last, if one does not seize the occasion, 
 engulfs it. Ledyard spoke to her again, and 
 with a reluctant look at the cards in the 
 dealer s hands she left the table, and ac 
 companied by Ledyard, Montgoublin, and 
 Tournielli, made her way through the spec 
 tators to a sofa in a corner of the room, 
 where they sat down together to discuss 
 the combat, from which she had borne 
 away the honors and the spoil. I was cu- 
 
42 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 rious to see how she took her success, and 
 catching Tournielli s eye, I went over to 
 the corner, and was authorized by him to 
 make my bow to her. 
 
 " I am telling Mr. Ledyard," she said, 
 " that he was very kind to show me how to 
 play." 
 
 " I can t show you how to play," said 
 Ledyard. " Nobody can do that. All any 
 one can do to help you when you are play 
 ing is to try to keep you cool ; but you 
 were not a bit upset, my dear child, and 
 you were in great luck to stop before that 
 dirty refait came." 
 
 "It was you who saved me," rejoined the 
 baronne, with a grateful upward glance at 
 his bald pate. And then Montgoublin and 
 I grinned at each other, while Ledyard 
 pulled out the swaggering ends of his great 
 gray mustaches. For we are always amused 
 when Ledyard adds another to the long list 
 of the women of all ages, nationalities, and 
 previous conditions of servitude, each of 
 whom he calls "my dear child," and each 
 of whom thinks he is the most charming 
 old gentleman in the world. There clings 
 
HIPPOLYTE 43 
 
 to him, I think, some faint aroma of the clay 
 when he was one of the greatest dogs in 
 all the Household Cavalry a day in mem 
 ory of which some sober dowagers still look 
 askance at him. He is even now as sol 
 dierly, fine-looking a man as one could wish 
 to see, and with his hat on looks fifty at 
 the most. But why young ladies who are 
 young enough to be his daughters call him 
 "Bob," and wreathe his door-knob in the 
 Rue Marbeuf with flowers and pots of jam 
 when he is ill, I do not know. No such 
 engaging flatteries ever fall my way, and I 
 can only suppose that Ledyard s profound 
 belief that he is still a conquering hero 
 gives him the same charm that women find 
 in a precocious boy by whose innocuous 
 audacity they are amused. 
 
 The next day Ledyard took me to tea at 
 Alixe de Sebenwald s apartments in the 
 Villa Constance, and strutted about the 
 sunny room as if he had known her twenty 
 
44 
 
 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 years. The talk soon turned upon play, 
 that inexhaustible subject of conversation 
 at Monte Carlo, and tl*e baronne, who had 
 not been in the rooms that morning, and 
 whose winnings of the night before still re 
 mained intact, again thanked Ledyard for 
 having shown her how to make a snow 
 ball ; for this simple process of letting her 
 winnings increase seemed to hfcr a bottom 
 less mine of wealth. 
 
 " If you take my advice," I said, " which 
 of course you won t, you will consider your 
 self uncommonly lucky to be a bit ahead 
 of the tables, and leave it at that. It s as 
 plain as possible that if you go on playing 
 long enough, and the cards run just as well 
 for you as they do for the tables, you will 
 lose every sou you have in the world. At 
 (rente et quarante the refait makes a con 
 stant advantage of about three per cent, for 
 the tables. At roulette there are thirty-six 
 numbers on the wheel, and the zero as well, 
 making in all thirty-six chances to one that 
 you will not hit upon the right number. 
 And if you do hit upon it, they only pay 
 you thirty -five times the amount of your 
 
HIPPOLYTE 45 
 
 stake. So that in the series of thirty-seven 
 shots, if you hit it once, as you might fairly 
 expect to do, you would at the end of the 
 series have lost your stake once. On the. 
 whole, the percentage against the player is 
 larger at roulette than at trente et quarantc, 
 and the men who play high, and play every 
 season, all play at trente et guaranty. They 
 make a winning, once in a way, which seems 
 enormous if you forget how much they have 
 lost before they make it. But even the 
 three per cent, of the trente- et-quarante ta 
 bles is hard to fight against. Jf they made 
 you play with counters instead of money, 
 and only sold you ninety-seven louis worth 
 of counters for your hundred louis in mon 
 ey, you would think this discount was a 
 monstrous extortion ; and when you remem 
 ber that the shares of the company sell to 
 day for five times what they originally cost, 
 notwithstanding the enormous expenses 
 which have to be paid out of the profits of 
 the rooms before a dividend is declared, you 
 can t help seeing that it is absurd to play." 
 "But it is very nice to win," said Ma 
 dame de Sebenwald. 
 
46 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 " Ask him why he plays if it s so hope 
 less," said Ledyard. 
 
 " I play because I am, like most of the 
 nicest people I know, not so wise as I ought 
 to be. But, on the other hand, I am not 
 so foolish as many of them, because I do 
 not play so high. I shouldn t care to be 
 at Monte Carlo without playing at all. It s 
 the custom of the place ; it s in the air. 
 Not to play at all would be like going 
 about in a frock-coat and a top -hat. One 
 plays because the others play, and if one 
 did not play one would have a cold sense 
 of being an intruder, like a one-legged man 
 at a ball. I never lost more than three or 
 four hundred louis in a season. When I 
 begin to lose, I stop ; and mine is only 
 milk-and-water play at best. I never staked 
 a maximum in my life." 
 
 " I have only been playing for a few days," 
 said the baronne, " and as I am a winner so 
 far, I think it s all delightful." 
 
 " You mustn t be too enthusiastic about 
 it," said Ledyard, " because if you stick to 
 it you ll drop a lot at it some day, and then 
 you ll hate me, and I shall rush madly out 
 
HIPPOLYTE 47 
 
 and hang myself to a tree on the terrace, 
 and dangle in the moonlight like the chaps 
 you read about in the newspaper." 
 
 " It seems to me the most interesting 
 thing I ever saw," said the baronne. " Of 
 course I ve read a lot about Monte Carlo, 
 but when you read in a novel about how a 
 man staked so much and won it, and then 
 staked so much and lost it, it always seems 
 confusing and tiresome. But when you see 
 them play, and when you play yourself, it s 
 wonderful." 
 
 " It s cheaper to read about it," said 
 Leclyard. " But most of those fellows who 
 write about Monte Carlo come down here 
 for a week with a tourist s ticket, and live 
 at a little pension down Mentone way. They 
 play five-franc pieces at roulette, and they 
 don t know any of the men who really punt. 
 So far as playing goes, the only thing to do 
 is to let your winnings run, and cut short 
 your losses. When you do that you are 
 playing with the bank s money. I haven t 
 missed a season here for more than twenty 
 years, and I don t think there has been a 
 single day in them all when I haven t seen 
 
48 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 a series of eight or nine blacks or reds in 
 succession, and counted up what I would 
 have won if I had started with a louis and 
 let it double up. It s a lovely set of figures. 
 I rattle them over in my sleep : two, four, 
 eight, sixteen, thirty -two, sixty -four, one 
 hundred and twenty-eight, two hundred and 
 fifty-six, five hundred and twelve, and then 
 if you win the tenth coup youVe got a thou 
 sand and twenty-four louis, more than a 
 maximum, and have to take your money 
 off and go home. Only ten coups, think of 
 it! How I d love to do it to-night! But 
 it takes an awful lot of pluck to leave it all 
 up. Fancy that tenth coup, when you ve 
 already won over five hundred louis for the 
 one louis you started with, and you could 
 draw it off if you wanted to. You want to 
 howl with rage if you lose it, and yet if you 
 take it off, and then when the coup is played 
 you see that if you had left it on you would 
 have won again, you go and hammer your 
 head against the wall." 
 
 " I simply couldn t do it," said the ba- 
 ronne. " I should have to have my hands 
 tied behind me, or I couldn t leave it." 
 
HIPPOLYTE 49 
 
 " I ve done it two or three times in my 
 life," said Ledyard ; " thrown down a louis 
 for luck, when I was standing up behind 
 somebody, and not meaning to play at all, 
 and then let it run into a maximum. And 
 then how I swaggered out of the rooms and 
 had a lot of people to dine ! But I always 
 say to a young man who asks me about play, 
 * Never touch a card never ! I ve said it 
 a hundred times. I suppose I ve lost, in 
 all, forty or fifty thousand pounds playing 
 here for I used to play like a demon when 
 I was a youngster and there s nothing 
 in it." 
 
 " I suppose it would be better for me not 
 to play any more," said the baronne. " It s 
 delightful to have won what I have, and I 
 should feel dreadfully if I lost." 
 
 "You are quite right," said I ; "but you 
 will play nevertheless. Everybody makes 
 good resolutions, and everybody goes back 
 to the tables." 
 
 " Except," said Ledyard, " the man who 
 won a heap of money and then built a big 
 villa up on the hill, where he sits on his 
 balcony all day and pulls faces at the Casi- 
 
50 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 no, without ever going near it. But he was 
 one man out of a million." 
 
 " And there are people," said I, " who be 
 lieve that he is an employe of the adminis 
 tration, and that the whole performance was 
 a put-up job to encourage people to believe 
 that it is possible to beat the tables in the 
 long-run." 
 
 " It is wonderful," said the baronne, " to 
 think that there are ten millions of francs 
 in the vaults of the Casino, and that the 
 administration could draw on the bankers 
 for as much more if they had to borrow 
 money. Think what one could win in a 
 single day if one only knew beforehand 
 what the coups would be !" 
 
 " It is wonderful," said Ledyard. " And 
 for that matter, I suppose there is hardly 
 any limit to the amount of new capital they 
 could raise if they needed it. But nobody 
 ever has crippled them, and nobody ever 
 will. All the stories you hear about men 
 having broken the bank are the merest rub 
 bish. It of course often happens that the 
 amount of capital with which each table is 
 equipped when the play begins may be ex- 
 
HIPPOLYTE 51 
 
 hausted by a run in favor of the punters; 
 but as soon as the croupiers see that their 
 stock is running low, they send a man rush 
 ing up-stairs to the office for more money. 
 And it has only happened once or twice 
 in the course of all the play I have seen 
 at Monte Carlo that a croupier has been 
 obliged to deal his cards or spin his wheel 
 a little more slowly to gain time until the 
 messenger brings him more money. The 
 administration of the Casino is one of the 
 strongest bodies in the world, and if peo 
 ple only knew more about the inside of its 
 affairs there would not be nearly so many 
 fools ready to lose their money. It is all 
 very well to say that the governments of 
 Europe ought to combine to put a stop to 
 the playing here, but if they could drive a 
 little common-sense into the heads of the 
 idiots who come here, that would serve the 
 purpose quite as well. To men like me it 
 really makes very little difference whether 
 they play or not. When we have a bad year 
 here and the year is almost always bad 
 we have to deprive ourselves of some of the 
 luxuries we like. But of course there are 
 
52 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 silly boys and silly men, too, for that mat 
 ter who cripple themselves for life in the 
 course of a single season. And yet, after 
 all, most of the play is harmless enough. 
 The men who play high are nearly all Eng 
 lishmen, and Englishmen who are in the 
 habit of winning and losing large sums over 
 cards and horses at home. It isn t, after 
 all, the big fish who fill the nets of the Ca 
 sino. The bulk of the money comes from 
 the people who lose four or five louis and 
 then stop. It is wrong, and it is immoral, 
 and it is everything you please, but still the 
 administration give you a good deal in ex 
 change for your money if you don t play too 
 high. And as long as they do that, I don t 
 know that it s anybody s business how big a 
 profit they make out of it. It is the most 
 beautiful spot in the world, and it was noth 
 ing but a bare rock when they took hold of 
 it. Lots of people come here who hardly 
 play at all, and there are the orchestra and 
 the opera and the gardens, and all that, for 
 their benefit just the same." 
 
 " You know as well as I do, my dear fel 
 low," said I, "that you can talk until you 
 
HIPPOLYTE 53 
 
 are blue in the face, and you can t make 
 yourself believe, let alone making anybody 
 else believe, that this place isn t a sink of 
 iniquity. It ought to be blown sky-high, 
 the whole thing." 
 
 " I wonder," said Ledyard, "whether Ma 
 dame de Sebenwald has ever heard the 
 story of the man who threatened to blow it 
 sky-high. They say it s true, but whether 
 it is or not, it s ingenious. He was the 
 commanding officer of a Russian man-of- 
 war, this chap, and while his ship was at 
 Nice he used to come over here every day 
 and play like mad. He lost a lot of money, 
 and then he began to help himself out of 
 the ship s chest, like the bankers clerks 
 and such people, who think they can make 
 good again. Finally he got to the end of 
 the ship s money. He was a man of very 
 good family and all that, and there was 
 nothing for him to do but to write a letter 
 to the navy people at Petersburg, calling 
 himself bad names, and then blow out his 
 brains. But he made up his mind he d 
 have some fun first, and he got up steam 
 and ran down past Villefranche for drill. 
 
54 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 When the ship was off Monte Carlo he 
 went ashore in his launch, and marched up 
 to the upper floor of the Casino, where he 
 sent in his card to the chief of the adminis 
 tration. When he got into his office he said : 
 
 " * I have lost a lot of money at your 
 beastly game, and I have robbed the ship s 
 chest. I am going to kill myself, but first 
 I am going to make it hot for you people. 
 If you look out of the window you can see 
 my ship lying off the port. My crew are 
 not in the habit of asking questions before 
 they obey orders, and I have had all the 
 shore broadside shotted. I am going off 
 there now, and I am going to blow your 
 gingerbread building into so many pieces 
 that the crows up on Turbie will be using 
 thousand-franc notes to line their nests with. 
 Je vous salue, monsieur f 
 
 " And with that he started to walk out of 
 the room. The man grabbed him by his 
 braided coat-tails, and begged him to sit 
 down and talk it over. The end of it was 
 they gave him back all he had lost, and no 
 one ever heard the story until he had re 
 tired from the navy." 
 
HIPPOLYTE 55 
 
 " It would have been money in your 
 pocket if he had blown it up, Ledyard," 
 said I. 
 
 " I don t complain," replied that cheerful 
 philosopher ; " as long as I have enough 
 left to pay my hotel bill when I want to 
 leave I am satisfied, and the administration 
 will always lend you your fare home. And 
 now, my dear child, I must be going over 
 to the rooms. It s the best time of the day 
 to play, for all the little pigs that get the 
 seats at the tables and scream with joy 
 when they win tuppence three farthings 
 have gone to their horrid dinners, and I m 
 going to win a million francs before I 
 dress." 
 
 "She s rather an agreeable young per 
 son, isn t she ?" remarked Ledyard, pulling 
 up his shirt-collar and tucking in his chin, 
 as we crossed the gardens on our way from 
 the Villa Constance to the rooms. 
 
 " She seems to be an excellent listen 
 er," I replied. " I may be mistaken, but I 
 don t seem to remember her having found 
 a chance to do anything but say yes or 
 no and gape at you." 
 
56 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 " She ought to be uncommonly glad to 
 have the chance, my funny little friend," 
 said Ledyard. " My conversation is always 
 agreeable and entertaining, whereas you sit 
 flooding yourself with tea, and twiddling 
 your thumbs over your poor old stomach 
 like a rhinoceros on a music-stool." 
 
 VI 
 
 However much I disliked or thought I 
 ought to dislike Monte Carlo, Hippolyte 
 found it adorable. The hotel maintained 
 a band of musicians to play for the ladies 
 maids, valets, footmen, and couriers while 
 at table, and gave them champagne three 
 times a week. He began, it seemed to me, 
 in the sunshine of such joys, to blossom 
 a trifle too luxuriantly. One morning he 
 presented himself in an infamous cravat of 
 white satin, bedecked with crimson dots 
 and dashes, and I availed myself of the oc 
 casion to read him a little sermon. " You 
 are," I said, " already provided with cloth 
 ing appropriate to your condition in life, 
 
HE PRESENTED HIMSELF IN AN INFAMOUS CRAVAT 
 OF WHITE SATIN " 
 
HIPPOLYTE 57 
 
 and when you spend your own money in 
 buying so monstrous a thing as that, you 
 do not succeed in making yourself look like 
 a gentleman instead of a servant, but like 
 one of the vulgar little shopkeepers you see 
 arrive here by the cheap trains every day, 
 persons whose position in life is one of much 
 less comfort and elegance than yours." 
 
 " Oui, monsieur ; soyez tranquille, mon 
 sieur," replied Hippolyte. " Cela n arriver- 
 ait plus." Here was a new phrase which 
 was, I plainly saw, about to add itself to 
 the two flowers of speech to which I was 
 already used ; and it seemed to me to mark 
 the appearance of a flaw in the clear crys 
 tal of my treasure among servants. It had 
 the air of lying on the lower slope of a 
 moral declivity. The "Oui, monsieur" was 
 admirable. It was respect, assent, submis 
 sion, everything that could be wished. And 
 then the "soyez tranquille" was a falling 
 away. It implied that there might be rea 
 son for me to need some reassurance. But 
 this new protestation, that what had oc 
 curred should not recur, seemed to smack 
 of the sinner with whom amendment and 
 
58 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 backsliding are a daily habit. It betokened 
 an easy knack of self-condonation, unlike 
 the abject remorse which had followed the 
 incident of the riding-school. 
 
 " You may be sure, my boy," I continued, 
 "that the greatest outward difference be 
 tween gentlemen and people of the middle 
 class lies in the fact that persons of that 
 sort wear showy, tawdry clothes, and do not 
 wash themselves. You have learned to take 
 your bath every day, and you must try to 
 believe that my taste in the matter of dress 
 is better than your own. If you save your 
 money, as I hope you will, and are enabled, 
 after I am dead and have no further oc 
 casion for your services, to set up some 
 little business for yourself, you will find 
 that the experience you have had as a ser 
 vant will have made you greatly superior, 
 in appearance and in manners, to other 
 tradespeople." 
 
 Hippolyte expressed his ardent wish that 
 I might live to be a thousand, and permit 
 ted himself to observe that monsieur had a 
 better mien in Monte Carlo than he had 
 shown in Paris. But, like many other men 
 
HIPPOLYTE 59 
 
 who are dreadfully frightened when they 
 are really ill, I find a melancholy pleasure, 
 when I am at my best, in contemplating 
 my approaching release from this unworthy 
 world s captivity. And I will say for Hip- 
 polyte that he was a servant to whom one 
 could talk, and that is a huge comfort. 
 With many servants you dare hardly ask 
 what the weather is, when you are called in 
 the morning, lest they take it upon them 
 selves to chatter. But Hippolyte was the 
 most deferential of creatures, and yet had 
 none of that sense of personal abasement 
 which marks the manner of the free-born 
 Briton when he has to lace your boots. 
 
 When he had removed the offending cra 
 vat, I bade him run to the hotels which 
 Ledyard and Montgoublin respectively in 
 habited, to ask them if they would not 
 drive over to Nice with me for breakfast. 
 They both accepted the invitation, and 
 when I had ordered the phaeton and pair, 
 which are held at my disposal by one of 
 the millionaires who enrich themselves in 
 the course of letting horses at Monte Carlo, 
 I wrote a little note to ask Madame de 
 
60 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 Sebenwald if three dreary old gentlemen 
 could not prevail on her to make the day a 
 fete by going with them to Nice. And I 
 added that I hoped the cold of madame, 
 her aunt, was already better, and that it 
 would not be many days before that lady 
 would be well enough to go to drive her 
 self. I was not very sure that the baron ne 
 would go, but I did not see that she could 
 take grave offence at my asking her to go 
 without her aunt, notwithstanding that the 
 latter was no more indisposed than I. A 
 man of my age ought surely to have the run 
 of some of the minor audacities. And it 
 did not seem to me that a lady who kept 
 her duenna as severely in the background 
 as did this one hers, could find herself the 
 worse for driving to Nice with three old 
 fogies. 
 
 Apparently the baronne took my view 
 of the matter, for she sent word that she 
 would be ready at noon precisely, and did 
 not keep us waiting a moment at her door. 
 Her punctuality delighted me so much, for 
 I am never late myself and hate to be kept 
 waiting, that I started down the hill in the 
 
HIPPOLYTE 6 I 
 
 highest good-humor, quite unruffled by the 
 stupid chaff of Ledyard, who asked, from 
 the rear seat which he occupied with Mont- 
 goublin, "Who taught you to drive your 
 cornopean player ?" 
 
 The road which runs along the shore 
 from Monte Carlo to Nice is not, perhaps, 
 so picturesque as the lofty route of the Cor 
 nice ; but it is, none the less, one of the 
 prettiest drives in Europe. The stout little 
 horses which ply for hire all through the 
 Riviera season, and in the summer go to 
 climb the hills of the Savoy, make the run 
 in an hour; and it is one of the absurd 
 traditions of life in this little corner of the 
 world, where pleasure-seekers of all races 
 come to find their winter sunshine, that 
 those who stay at Nice shall drive to Monte 
 Carlo every day, and that those who live at 
 Monte Carlo shall go to Nice for lunch 
 eon. 
 
 Short as the road was, I learned a good 
 deal about my pretty companion before we 
 arrived at London House. And if the ac 
 count she gave me of her position and her 
 purposes in life did not tend to raise her 
 
62 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 greatly in my estimation, it at any rate suf 
 ficed to awaken in my mind a curious inter 
 est in her proceedings. Ledyard and Mont- 
 goublin were busily forecasting the results 
 of an approaching pigeon-match, and, left 
 to amuse herself as best she could with me, 
 she passed the time by telling me much 
 more about herself than any well-bred Eng 
 lishwoman would have cared to confide to 
 so casual an acquaintance a garrulity 
 which I took to be one of the forms of that 
 strange want of the sense of privacy that 
 Englishmen observe in almost every sort of 
 foreigners. Her uncompleted marriage had, 
 it seemed, added nothing to her means, 
 and she had made serious inroads upon her 
 modest fortune by ill-advised investments, 
 and by the careless self-indulgence which 
 seemed to be a habit with her. 
 
 " It is a poor life I lead," she said. " My 
 home is in a stupid suburb of Vienna. I 
 have tried living in Florence, and I don t 
 think I like that much better. I can t afford 
 to live in Paris, and if I can win some more 
 money I think I shall make a trip around 
 the world. I don t suppose my aunt will 
 
HIPPOLYTE 63 
 
 like it much ; but I don t think she likes 
 anything. I am sure she doesn t like me. 
 But it is more fitting that I should have her 
 with me than that I should employ a stran 
 ger as my companion. I don t in the least 
 blame you for thinking she has a cold. We 
 shall have a very jolly time as it is, and she 
 would have been a nuisance. It is very 
 nice that you and Mr. Ledyard, who has 
 been so kind to me, are of a certain age, 
 because, if you were younger, I couldn t go 
 about with you. You see, mine is a difficult 
 position. A woman about whose marriage 
 there has been a story, even if she has been 
 as little married as I have been, is supposed 
 to go and live in a quiet place, and read aloud 
 to the rheumatic poor. I hate to read aloud, 
 and I detest the rheumatic poor. But I 
 lead a very prosy life of it, and what thanks 
 do I get ? One or two of the English ladies 
 of whom every one stands in such awe are 
 gracious enough to receive me, but I sup 
 pose they would scold me for coming over 
 here with you. I am almost as entirely de- 
 dassee as if I didn t behave myself ; but I 
 don t want not to behave myself : I want to 
 
64 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 have plenty of money, and to amuse myself 
 like other women of my own age." 
 
 " Why don t you marry ?" I asked her. 
 " You re young enough in all conscience 
 and pretty enough." 
 
 "Will you marry me ?" she asked. 
 
 "That is no reply to what I said. I m 
 too old and too fond of my own way to 
 marry anybody. But the world is full of 
 young fellows with more money and more 
 courage than I have." 
 
 "Of both of which," she said, "you no 
 doubt think you would need an ample sup 
 ply. But they don t want to marry me ; I 
 don t think they even fall in love with me. 
 I have tried to make myself agreeable to 
 one or two whom I thought aur client pu 
 faire man affaire, and they seemed to like 
 me, in a way, but it didn t come to any 
 thing." 
 
 " Perhaps you show your good taste by 
 liking yourself very much ; and I have ob 
 served that women who are what romantic 
 people rudely enough call selfish, rarely 
 arouse any strong interest in a man. One 
 reads a lot about the magnificently cold- 
 
HIPPOLYTE 65 
 
 hearted women who make one man after an 
 other miserable for life ; but when it comes 
 to a man being fond enough of a woman to 
 want to marry her, it is generally a woman of 
 a more or less affectionate and disinterested 
 disposition. She may change after she is 
 married, and lead him an awful life of it, 
 but she must have at any rate an outward 
 softness to begin with." 
 
 "And you think I am hard?" she re 
 torted, with a look out of her clear brown 
 eyes that would have set Ledyard to talking 
 any amount of nonsense. But I was busy 
 avoiding a child that had been set out in 
 the road to get itself run over, and earn 
 dommages int crets for its parents, and I con 
 tented myself with saying that I thought 
 her to be a very charming young woman 
 with a highly-developed capacity for being 
 good to herself in her own fashion. 
 
 She was silent for a moment, and then, 
 as we crossed the Paillon, and turned the 
 corner of the public gardens, she said : " I 
 must wait until I find some old gentleman 
 not a clever old gentleman like you, who re 
 members wise things he has read in books, 
 
 5 
 
66 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 and utterly confuses lone young women with 
 them, but an old, old gentleman who will be 
 pushed about in a wheeled chair, and buy 
 me all the sapphires in the Rue de France, 
 or else some one of your young English 
 milords fresh from the university, and so 
 shy that when I see him coming down the 
 street and give him my parasol to carry and 
 tell him to follow me, I can lead him into a 
 church and marry him before he has the 
 courage to say no." 
 
 " I think the * old, old gentleman would 
 serve the purpose better," said I, " and if 
 he were ever troublesome you could give 
 the wheeled chair a little push over the em 
 bankment there, and let him run comfort 
 ably into the sea." 
 
 It was quite a merry breakfast -party. 
 People may talk about the " Paris " at 
 Monte Carlo, but I believe London House 
 to be the best restaurant in all the south of 
 Europe ; and the maitre d hbtel, who has all 
 the courteous dignity of the Russian grand- 
 dukes he delights to serve, is one of my 
 most cherished friends. Perhaps the air of 
 Nice has something to do with it, for the 
 
HIPPOLYTE 67 
 
 same people and the same plates and dishes 
 go to Aix-les- Bains each summer, and 
 there they poison you. Madame de Seben- 
 wald was good enough to seem very much 
 pleased, and I own I like taking a smartly 
 dressed and pretty woman into a restaurant 
 much better than going in with only men. 
 It s like having a flower in one s coat it 
 makes one look fresher and younger. 
 
 I knew Montgoublin to be fully as fussy 
 as myself at table, and I was amused to see 
 that the baronne listened with discerning 
 interest as I discussed the composition of 
 the menu with the maltre d hbteL It is an 
 old saying among men of the world, and, 
 for all I know, may have been recorded by 
 some of the social philosophers, that a thor 
 oughly good woman always shows the most 
 abysmal ignorance regarding what she eats 
 and drinks. And if, as she had said, Ma 
 dame de Sebenwald s conjugal misadvent 
 ure .had tended to put her apart from other 
 women of her class in life, she had at any 
 rate the consolation of knowing a good 
 breakfast from a bad one. Although the 
 three Sacher restaurants in and about Vi- 
 
68 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 enna are not, to my mind, so fine as their 
 patrons think them, a great number of dis 
 cerning epicures are to be found among the 
 Viennese. The Hungarians, who spend so 
 much of their time in Vienna, are almost as 
 fond of good living as the Russians, and 
 hardly less profuse in their expenditure at 
 table. And they have imparted to the Vi 
 ennese taste a certain amount of romanti 
 cism, derived, no doubt, from the pictu- 
 resqueness of their own cuisine. 
 
 The baronne, I was glad to see, appreci 
 ated the fresh caviar, which is, I think, to 
 be found in greater perfection at Nice than 
 anywhere else out of Russia. It was of the 
 delicate color of a hazel-nut, and each egg 
 large, firm, and well defined. She took but 
 half her glass of vodki, which I thought a 
 most judicious compromise between the ti 
 midity of the woman who eschews so excel 
 lent a digestive and the temerity of one who 
 tries to be as throat- hardened as a man. 
 She had enough regard for local color to 
 eat a little of her nuna salad, and when the 
 bortsch and kacha came, she poured the beet 
 juice on the clotted cream as eagerly as any 
 
HIPPOLYTE 69 
 
 Russian. By the time we had finished our 
 cbtdettes a la victime, and modestly disposed 
 of one magnum of champagne among the 
 four of us, we were all in high good-humor, 
 and Montgoublin and Ledyard, to whom 
 she had confided her ambitious plan of 
 travel, devoted themselves to an elaborate 
 consideration of the precise coups by which 
 she should achieve the preliminary con 
 quest of the tables, and of the details of her 
 itinerary. She took my pencil-case to draw 
 upcn the table-cloth a chart of her pro 
 jected route, and Montgoublin told her that, 
 for a lady who claimed the favor with which 
 the fates are supposed to regard needy 
 gamblers, she did herself uncommonly well 
 in the matter of rings. 
 
 " I love my rings," she said ; " they are 
 my only barbarism ; but, like all barbarians, 
 I neglect my idols. I must give them to 
 the jeweller in the Galerie to clean. 
 
 "You needn t do that," said I. "His 
 charges are based upon the prodigality of 
 winners, and I ll send my servant to you, 
 who used to be a jeweller by trade, and 
 will clean them for you quite as well." 
 
70 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 "Or elope with them," said Ledyard, "and 
 then we ll all have to melt up our watch- 
 chains and have them hammered into new 
 rings for you." 
 
 " If I were you," said Montgoublin, " I 
 should spend at least six months in Japan, 
 and bring away a Japanese house which 
 you can put up at Monte Carlo, and the 
 most beautiful kimonos in the world, and 
 then you shall have us all to dine, and we 
 will sit cross-legged on the floor." 
 
 " Bring a jinrikisha, too," said I, " and you 
 can put Ledyard in the shafts, and make him 
 pull you up and down the hills." 
 
 "You shall put me anywhere you wish, 
 my dear child," said Ledyard, " and I will 
 do anything you bid me. These men lead 
 gluttonous lives, but I am a simple creature, 
 and have kept my heart young. It s eating 
 that ages people, always. And I consider 
 myself very lucky in having made so light a 
 luncheon, for we shall certainly be upset on 
 the way home, and I will seize you delicate 
 ly in my arms, and bound gracefully into a 
 place of safety." 
 
 But no such calamity disturbed our return 
 
HIPPOLYTE 71 
 
 journey, and we all went to the rooms for 
 an hour before dinner, where Ledyard lost 
 furiously, and the rest of us did very little 
 by way of either gain or loss. 
 
 VII 
 
 I sent Hippolyte to the Villa Constance 
 next morning to clean Madame de Seben- 
 wald s rings, as I had told her that I would do. 
 And he was evidently very much impressed 
 by the daintiness of her little belongings. 
 He came back to me quite flushed with en 
 thusiasm. The/emme de chambre of madame 
 la baronne had been very much pleased to 
 be taught the little trick of cleaning the 
 repousse toilet battery of madame, and 
 madame had never known before that 
 mounted brilliants should be boiled from 
 time to time. And madame la baronne had 
 been gcntille " Ah, pour c.a, on peut bien 
 dire qu elle est gentille !" 
 
 It further appeared that the Obliged 
 Lady had offered the Pattern of Servants 
 (all Hippolyte s impressions took an Orien- 
 
72 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 tal cast) a present of a Piece of Gold, the 
 which had been Respectfully Refused,- 
 upon the ground that the Mighty Potentate, 
 whose Slave and Thing the Boiler of Dia 
 monds was, had wished to make the 
 Rose of Beauty a gift and present of the 
 services of his Admirable Artificer. And 
 then there had been discovered, under the 
 trays of a jewel-case (where all manner of 
 worthless rubbish seems to hide itself), a 
 useless morsel of Venetian chain, attached 
 to an absurd old goggling eye-glass, and 
 this Hippolyte had permitted madame la 
 baronne to force upon him as a token of 
 her approbation of his necromantic stew- 
 ings and fryings. And he trusted that 
 monsieur would understand that he could 
 not have well declined a recompense so 
 purely honorific. All this was very well for 
 me to learn, but when Hippolyte attempted 
 to dilate upon the incredible number of lit 
 tle jewelled flagons which stood upon the 
 lady s toilet-table, and upon the unsurpass- 
 ing beauty of her chevelure, as she sat drying 
 in the morning sun, it became necessary to 
 repress him. I suppose the poor lad had 
 
HIPPOLYTE 73 
 
 never seen a lady in so intimate a guise be 
 fore. The simple decency and comfort of 
 my own appurtenances and manner of life 
 had been to him, when he first came to me, 
 a marvel of magnificence. And the delicate 
 confusion and warm perfume of a woman s 
 room, at such a time of day, must indeed 
 have been a revelation to his untutored 
 senses. 
 
 At about eleven, when all the world of 
 Monte Carlo suns itself upon the terrace, 
 pleasingly entertained by the screams and 
 roars of the trains which pass beneath, and 
 the re-echoing gun-shots on the pigeon- 
 ground, I found Madame de Sebenwald in 
 search of Ledyard. 
 
 " I thought I should be sure to find him 
 here," she said, " and he is always so kind 
 and nice that I wanted him to do some 
 thing for me. I entered my little toy terrier 
 Goliath for the dog show at the Condamine, 
 and he was there all day yesterday. I don t 
 see why I should have to leave him there 
 again to-day and to-morrow. The judges 
 looked at all the dogs yesterday. There are 
 only sixty-nine entries, you see, and they 
 
74 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 have announced that there will be seventy- 
 five prizes. I entered poor Goliath because 
 I thought that he would be so pleased and 
 proud if he could get a prize, and I sup 
 pose he will have the prize now whether he 
 stays or not. You see, they charge you half 
 a louis when you enter your dog, and a 
 louis for the cost of the medal when he gets 
 a prize, so by giving all the dogs prizes, and 
 a few of the dogs two prizes each, every 
 body is pleased, and they make a very good 
 thing out of it. So, I fancy, they won t 
 make me leave him there to-day if I tell 
 them he is tired. But Mr. Ledyard is so 
 clever, and they all have such a respect 
 for him, whether they understand what he 
 says or not, that I thought I would ask him 
 to walk down there with me. It s a pleas 
 ant stroll from here, and when one is com 
 ing up the hill again one can talk tremen 
 dously fast, and try to be too much inter 
 ested to notice that it is a climb." 
 
 " My French," I replied, " is not perhaps 
 quite so remarkably constructed and so 
 ornately decorated as his, and I am afraid 
 I lack his splendid fierceness of manner. 
 
HIPPOLYTE 75 
 
 But I incline to believe that even without 
 his assistance we can persuade those grim 
 functionaries to let you keep the terrier at 
 home, without losing the privilege of pay 
 ing them a louis for a silver five-franc piece 
 with the name of your dog engraved upon 
 it. My own experience has been that Eng 
 lishmen can t get anything out of French 
 men by bullying them. As soon as you rub 
 their fur the wrong way they become so ex 
 cited, and they so jabber and sputter, that 
 you can t reason with them. It is for that 
 reason that the police all over France have 
 to be so arbitrary and so rough. If they 
 let a man whom they are about to arrest try 
 to explain that he is innocent, he makes 
 such a noise about it that he breeds a 
 riot." 
 
 " The French are very tiresome in a great 
 many ways," said the baronne. " I am sure 
 that I should like English life much better." 
 
 " English society," said I, " is very like a 
 little green oasis with a lot of hot, disgust 
 ing sand on every side. If you once get 
 under the trees you have an uncommonly 
 jolly time of it, but as your chief occupation 
 
76 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 and amusement is trying to keep other peo 
 ple from getting in, there are a good many 
 left out on the bare sands, and that isn t so 
 funny. I know an old fellow who belongs 
 to three or four of the best clubs in Lon 
 don, and who makes no bones about saying 
 that he blackballs every man who is put up 
 for any of them. I m in, he says, and the 
 harder it is for the other chaps to get in, the 
 more satisfaction I take out of being in my 
 self. And I fancy that a good part of the 
 British pride and exclusiveness that people 
 talk so much about rests upon the same 
 foundation." 
 
 " English people are pleasant enough 
 when they are here," said Madame de Se- 
 benwald. 
 
 "Yes," said I, "because they have left 
 their doctors and parsons and officious 
 friends behind them, and are eating what 
 they please every night, and doing what 
 they please Sunday morning, and giving 
 their morals a general holiday. So, of 
 course, they are good-natured. We should 
 all be good-natured, all the year round, if 
 we didn t have to take care of ourselves, 
 
HII POLYTE 77 
 
 and try to do our duty in the station of life 
 to which we have been called, and the rest 
 of it. Everybody is more or less a slave, 
 one way or another. I knew a man once 
 who devoted a number of years to a labori 
 ous attempt to completely eradicate from 
 his nature all sense of right and wrong, and 
 all sense of shame. He spent the five fort 
 unes of his five sisters, for whom he was 
 trustee, and railed against Heaven for not 
 having blessed him with a sixth sister ; he 
 was caught cheating at cards, and seemed 
 rather delighted than otherwise when people 
 wouldn t speak to him. Take it all around, 
 he enjoyed about as absolute a liberty as 
 any man can, and still keep out of the hands 
 of the police. And then, when he had saved 
 up his ill-gotten gains, he began collecting 
 Louis XVI. clocks, and became such a slave 
 to the habit that he barks like a dog when 
 the Cluny collection is mentioned in his pres 
 ence, and rolls on the floor when he thinks 
 of the clocks at South Kensington. It s a 
 queer world." 
 
 " This is a very bright corner of it, at any 
 rate," said the baronne. 
 
78 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 " That it is," said I. " The days slip by one 
 after another, and there is every day some 
 new story about the tables, and every day 
 pretty women and smart gowns one hasn t 
 seen before. And the best of it all is that 
 you go to bed early, and it s one of the 
 very few places in the world where you do 
 that. A month from now, or two months 
 from now, you and I will probably be where 
 we are now, and you will have won a little 
 on a lucky Tuesday, and lost it on a cruel 
 Wednesday, and won it back again, and 
 lost it back again, and we shall none of us 
 be much the richer, or much the poorer, or 
 much the better, or much the worse in any 
 way." 
 
 Prophecy is but a poor exercise of the 
 imagination when matters of play are at is 
 sue, for the next twenty-four hours were to 
 witness one of the most remarkable exhibi 
 tions of gamblers folly in my experience at 
 Monte Carlo. I strolled into the rooms 
 the next day after breakfast, and saw Ma 
 dame de Sebenwald sitting at one of the 
 trente-et-quarante tables, playing maximums. 
 She lost three coups running, a total of 
 
HIPPOLYTE 79 
 
 thirty-six thousand francs, obstinately back 
 ing her belief that a run upon one color 
 was not likely to continue. And this is 
 beyond any doubt the maddest form the 
 gambling fever ever takes. The third coup 
 I saw her lose left her with only one five- 
 hundred-franc note before her, and this she 
 put upon the red, and lost again. It was 
 all infinitely silly; and it is my belief, 
 grounded upon some knowledge of the 
 course of life at Monte Carlo, that any 
 young and pretty woman who plays high 
 risks more than her money, and is apt to 
 forget more sorts of prudence than the 
 mere sense of caution about louis s and 
 francs. I liked the baronne, if I didn t ap 
 prove of her, and I was sorry to see her 
 launched upon so dangerous a tide. But 
 to give her her due, she had rare pluck for a 
 woman. Her mind had, of course, suffered 
 that strange loss of balance which a suc 
 cession of heavy losses seems almost inva 
 riably to produce, but outwardly she was as 
 cool as you please. I have seen a notorious 
 English money - lender, who is said to be 
 one of the few men the administration real- 
 
8o HIPPOLYTE 
 
 ly fears, lose four and five hundred thou 
 sand francs at a sitting, and rise from the 
 table without a twitch of his knowing old 
 face. And the baronne was, to all appear 
 ances, as unmoved as this giant among 
 players could have been. As I approached 
 her with some purpose of tardy remon 
 strance and useless consolation, she said : 
 " Le voila parti ! All my winnings are 
 gone," and she smiled as prettily as if she 
 had only mislaid a glove. 
 
 " At any rate," said I, " don t be foolish 
 enough to come back to-day." 
 
 " That is certainly good advice," she said, 
 and left the rooms. 
 
 I saw Ledyard at another table, and went 
 to see what he was doing. He hit a little 
 run upon the red, then lost it all, and with 
 only a few louis s in his pocket went over to 
 the roulette, the last resort of every player 
 out of luck. After fiddling about for a few 
 coups, he put three louis s on the thirty-two, 
 en plein, and won. This good-luck flushed 
 him, as good -fortune always does, and for 
 the next few coups he had gold pieces all 
 over the last half-dozen. In a half-hour he 
 
HIPPOLYTE 81 
 
 had, after making several tidy winnings, 
 lost it all again ; and we went back to the 
 trcntc-ct-qiiarctnte room where the baronne 
 had been, half fearing that we should find 
 she had been to the bankers to draw mon 
 ey, and returned to fight against a bad 
 day. And there she was. She must have 
 come to Monte Carlo with the determination 
 sooner or later to risk all she had, in the 
 hope of making a winning that would not 
 only supply her with the funds necessary 
 to make her voyage around the world, but 
 leave her with a little income afterwards. 
 Ignorant, apparently, of the familiar truth 
 that it is fatal to attack the tables with too 
 large a capital, she had at least two hun 
 dred bank-notes of a thousand francs in 
 front of her, and it was evident from the 
 close attention of the croupiers, and the 
 presence of a knot of spectators about her 
 chair, that a battle royal was in progress. 
 
 " Go and tell her not to be such a fool," 
 I said to Ledyard. " From the way she 
 talked to me the other day, I don t believe 
 she has much more than that in the world." 
 
 " I ll try," said Ledyard, " but it s no 
 
82 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 use; I ve been there myself. She ll only 
 swear, when it s all over, that my speaking 
 to her cut her luck." 
 
 "Never mind," said I, "you can stand 
 it. Somebody ought to speak to her, and 
 you know her better than I do." 
 
 I followed Ledyard as he elbowed his way 
 to her chair, and heard her, in reply to his 
 whispered expostulations, say, in a hard, 
 strained voice : " Je vous prie, monsieur, ne 
 me derangez pas." 
 
 " There !" said Ledyard, when we got out 
 of the crowd again ; " I knew I d be jolly 
 well snubbed for my pains." 
 
 "It makes me sick," said I, "to see her 
 making such an idiot of herself. It s all 
 very well for a man ; if he is an ass, nobody 
 suffers for it, unless he has a family. And 
 a man can always do something for a living 
 if he comes a cropper. But it s awful for 
 a woman who has no one to look after her 
 to lose her money that way. It sickens me. 
 Let s walk over to Cap Martin. It 11 do 
 us both good, and if we stay here she ll 
 swear we flurried her." 
 
 I went to my hotel to get a stick, and 
 
HIPPOLYTE 83 
 
 then Ledyard and I followed the white, 
 sunny road to the pleasant grove of pines, 
 and asked Tournielli s wife to give us a cup 
 of tea. It was very pleasant to get away 
 from the stir and glare of life at Monte 
 Carlo for an hour, and to see the little Tour- 
 niellis teasing their puppies and ponies. 
 The happy, boisterous mirth of children al 
 ways warms my heart when I know that I 
 shall not see them again for a month or two. 
 
 VIII 
 
 \Vhen Ledyard and I returned from our 
 long walk to Cap Martin, we went into 
 Giro s to drink a whiskey-and-soda, and 
 there we found Montgoublin, who told us 
 that the baronne had indeed come to grief. 
 
 " She was simply mad about it," he said, 
 " and she hardly won a single coup. When 
 it was all over she walked out of the rooms 
 looking so white that I went up-stairs and 
 told the head man he had better send one 
 of his people to the Villa Constance to tell 
 her maid to keep an eye on her. She looked 
 
84 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 like doing herself a mischief, if ever any 
 body did." 
 
 I thought, and Ledyard with me, that we 
 ought to go and leave a card upon her, al 
 though, no doubt, she would not want to 
 see us. It isn t easy to know just what to 
 do in such a case. People who have come 
 to grief don t want to be troubled by offi 
 cious friends, and yet it seems heartless not 
 to make some show of interest. 
 
 We were neither of us sorry when her 
 maid told us that she was lying down and 
 had left orders not to be disturbed, for I 
 don t think either of us would have known 
 just what to say if we had seen her. 
 
 I was dining at a house upon the upper 
 hill that night, where there was whist after 
 dinner. But I met Montgo.ublin again on 
 my way back to -the hotel, and he told me 
 he had heard no news from the Villa Con 
 stance. So it seemed pretty clear that if 
 Madame de Sebenwald had made any des 
 perate resolution she had at any rate not 
 attempted to carry it out that night. Peo 
 ple who like to know everything that is 
 going on are sure, at Monte Carlo, that if 
 
HIPPOLYTE 85 
 
 they have heard no news there has been no 
 news to hear ; for all the world is so contin 
 ually rubbing shoulders in the little place 
 that every tale worth carrying is told within 
 an hour. 
 
 " It s been a big day all around," said 
 Montgoublin, "wonderfully high play for so 
 early in the season. There was a young 
 fellow, a Neapolitan, some one said, who 
 came into the rooms just after dinner and 
 put down a louis on the black. I didn t 
 see it, but the fellows who were there say 
 that he didn t seem to have ever played be 
 fore. It seems that he let his louis run for 
 a series of ten blacks, and then complained 
 because the croupiers wouldn t let him leave 
 on more than a maximum. At any rate he 
 seemed to think that what they wanted him 
 to do was to move his money over to the 
 red, and he hit five maximums there, and 
 after losing one switched back to the black. 
 The end of it all was that he got a hun 
 dred and fifty thousand francs, they say. 
 I suppose it s one of those beastly little 
 Jews." 
 
 " I wish it had been the baronne instead," 
 
86 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 said I, and went home to my hotel with 
 rather a heavy heart. I hate to see people 
 I know get into trouble. I fancy it s partly 
 because I know they generally ask one to 
 help them out again, and partly because 
 they are not good company when they are 
 in the blues. How much of a more humane 
 leaven there may be in my regret I don t 
 pretend to say, but at any rate such disas 
 ters always make me dismal. 
 
 The day s surprises were not over yet. 
 I found a note for me at the hotel from 
 Ledyard, enclosing a few lines from the 
 baronne to him. 
 
 "J ose guere niadressera vous, cher Monsieur" 
 her note ran, " mats je suis au de sespoir. J ai fol- 
 lement perdu tout ce que je posse dais au monde 
 jusqiiau dernier sou. II ne me reste qtie de nien 
 alter a Vienne chez des parents, qui in aideraient , 
 sans dotite, d une fa$on ozi d tine autre, mais tou- 
 jours d assez mauvaise grdce. D^abord il y a ma 
 semaine a payer a la villa, et puis il y a les frais du 
 voyage. Pourriez-vous me prefer deux cent louis ? 
 Si je ne trouve pas V argent autrement, je vendrai 
 mes bijoux a Vienne plutdt qiiici, ce qui me ferait 
 subir une grande perte, et des de sagrements que vous 
 comprendrez bien, ALIXE DE SEBENWALD." 
 
H1PPOLYTE 87 
 
 Ledyard had passed on this appeal to 
 me : " I m awfully sorry for the poor child," 
 he wrote. " But she might as well ask me 
 for two hundred moons as for two hundred 
 louis s. I have only about eighty in the 
 world to pull me through till quarter-day. 
 If you are ass enough to want to help her 
 out, you might tell her that I had intimated 
 to you that she was in some temporary want 
 of funds after her bad day." 
 
 It was altogether very disagreeable. If 
 she had written to me instead of Ledyard, 
 I didn t see how I could have very well said 
 no ; and I felt the more kindly disposed 
 towards her that she had not done so. For, 
 after all, she knew him but little better than 
 she knew me, and, if she could make up 
 her mind to ask either of us, I thought I 
 was very lucky that she had not pitched on 
 me. It seemed to be going a little out of 
 my way to offer to lend her the money. If 
 I wanted to be very chivalrous about it 
 I could give Ledyard the four thousand 
 francs, and let him lend it to her, without 
 her knowing that any one else knew she 
 had asked him for it. But after all, a 
 
88 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 hundred and sixty pounds is a good deal 
 of money. According to her own story, as 
 I remembered it, her people in Vienna were 
 not very near relations, and if they didn t 
 help her, and she had to sell her jewelry 
 and go out as a governess, I might or might 
 not get my money back. So far as fifty 
 pounds went, I thought I would be willing 
 to stand that, but at a place like Monte 
 Carlo, where everybody you know is always 
 getting into a hole, a man has to learn not 
 to be too kind-hearted. My general rule 
 is that any man I ll bow to I ll lend ten 
 pounds to. I m not a poor man, any more 
 than I m a rich man. I have what people 
 call a decent income. But I know plenty 
 of things that cost a hundred and sixty 
 pounds that I would like to have, and that 
 I do without. Altogether, I thought I 
 would let the letters lie till morning, and 
 sleep over it. If she hadn t killed herself 
 already I didn t think she would get up in 
 the night to do it, and her note to Ledyard 
 did not impress me as having been written 
 by a woman who was likely to proceed to 
 extremities. And I was making myself 
 
HIPPOLYTE 89 
 
 ready for bed, when Hippolyte came into 
 the room. I never made him sit up for me 
 at night, because I think that if you expect 
 your man to be up early in the morning, so 
 as to do your boots and all that sort of 
 thing before you ring for your bath, you 
 ought to let him get to bed in good time. 
 So I was rather surprised to see him, and 
 not too well pleased to see that he looked 
 flushed and excited. It was a pretty busi 
 ness, I thought, if he was going to begin 
 drinking just as I had him well broken in. 
 I asked him rather sharply what he wanted. 
 
 " I have come," he said, " to say to mon 
 sieur that I have been in the salle de jeu 
 this evening." 
 
 " You did very wrong, then," said I. 
 "You know that it s against the rules for 
 servants to go there, and you had no busi 
 ness to go to such a place, whether there 
 was any rule or not. I wonder they let 
 you in." 
 
 " Monsieur will imagine," said Hippolyte, 
 " that when I asked for my admission-card 
 I did not say that I was a servant." 
 
 "Then you must have told them a lie, 
 
9 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 for they always make a man state his posi 
 tion in life when he applies for a card. I 
 suppose you have lost all your savings, and 
 it serves you quite right. If you go on 
 playing such tricks I shall discharge you 
 one of these fine mornings, and then you ll 
 wish you had put something by to fall back 
 upon. Now don t bother me any more, for 
 I want to go to bed." 
 
 " I beg monsieur s pardon," rejoined Hip- 
 polyte, with a quiet little air of satisfaction, 
 " but if monsieur should see fit to give me 
 my conge, even to-night, I should have some 
 thing to fall back upon. I have a hundred 
 and thirty -four thousand five hundred and 
 sixty francs, fifty centimes." 
 
 " A hundred and thirty - four thousand 
 fiddlesticks!" I exclaimed. "You ve been 
 drinking, Hippolyte, that s what you ve been 
 doing." 
 
 " Monsieur will permit me to say that I 
 never drink anything except at the table, 
 and then wine cut with water," replied Hip 
 polyte, " and I have this moment counted 
 the money." 
 
 And without any air of braggadocio he 
 
HIPPOLYTE 91 
 
 produced from his pockets an enormous 
 roll of notes and a handful of loose gold. 
 
 I was fairly staggered at this, and then 
 I remembered Montgoublin s story of the 
 man who had made a big winning just be 
 fore the rooms closed, and saw that the 
 supposed Neapolitan must have been Hip- 
 polyte. 
 
 "Very well," said I, "you ought not to 
 have gone to the rooms ; but as you did go, 
 I suppose I should be glad you had such 
 good -luck. Of course you don t want to 
 continue to be a servant, when you have as 
 much money as that, and if you take my 
 advice you ll ask the hotel people to put it 
 in the safe for you to-night, and swear on 
 the crucifix never to gamble for a sou again 
 as long as you live." 
 
 "Oui, monsieur. Soyez tranquille, mon 
 sieur. Cela n arriverait plus," said Hippol- 
 yte, with his accustomed docility. " But 
 monsieur will need me until he has had 
 time to find some one else. And if mon 
 sieur could not find a servant here, I would 
 stay with monsieur till he returns to Paris." 
 
 I thought this very decent of the lad, and 
 
rjo HIPPOLYTE 
 
 told him so, and then I sent him away, and 
 composed myself to sleep. But all these ex 
 travagant adventures had upset my nerves 
 a little, and, although I wished Hippolyte 
 well, and was glad that he should have a 
 chance to better himself in life, I was nev 
 ertheless a good deal more put out at the 
 prospect of having to teach a new man 
 my ways than at Alixe de Sebenwald s mis 
 fortunes. Hippolyte had been, after all, 
 very well off as he was, and would probably 
 put his money into a shop and lose it all ; 
 whereas, if she had struck his luck instead 
 of hers, she would have been happy and 
 smiling, as I like a pretty woman to be. 
 
 I read more than half of a tedious French 
 novel before I could sleep, and in the morn 
 ing it was an hour or two later than my 
 wonted time before I rang for Hippolyte. 
 He had put my drawing-room in order, and 
 brought in my boots and clothes as usual. 
 His quiet, neat way of moving about a room 
 seemed very pleasant, as I thought how 
 soon I was about to lose him. And I 
 really felt quite an affection for him as I 
 asked him what the weather was. 
 
HIPPOLYTE 93 
 
 " Monsieur will find it a little cooler than 
 yesterday, but quite fine," he replied. "And 
 here is a letter for monsieur." 
 
 While he went to fetch the water for my 
 bath, I opened the note, and fairly began 
 to think that all the world had gone mad. 
 It was from the baronne, and was as fol 
 lows : 
 
 11 MY DEAR FRIEND, I cannot write your Eng 
 lish, but you will see that I am so touched by your 
 goodness that the French is too cold. You are so 
 generous at me I can say nothing. You send me 
 your relief without a word, and I have no words. 
 I will not rest at Monte Carlo. I will take the 
 train before the play begins to-day, that I will be 
 sure not to be again foolish, and will let my aunt 
 and my maid come later carrying the trunks. Die it 
 votis btnisse ! J ai le cocur plein de votre bonte. 
 
 "ALIXE DE SEBENWALD." 
 
 " Ledyard," thought I, " must have found 
 the two hundred louis s for her somewhere 
 else, and she got some muddling idea in 
 her head that it had come from me. I 
 suppose he told her he didn t have the 
 money himself, and she thought I had let 
 him have it for her. I must write and tell 
 
94 
 
 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 her she is wrong, but I m not sorry she s 
 clear away." With this sage reflection I 
 betook myself to my tub, and after I had 
 disposed of my tea and toast I walked 
 around to Ledyard s rooms. He was already 
 out, and I found him on the terrace. 
 
 " What on earth is Madame de Seben- 
 wald writing to thank me for ?" I asked him, 
 showing him her letter. " I got your note 
 last night, enclosing hers, but I waited until 
 morning to make up my mind what I had 
 better do about it, and now I get this from 
 her." 
 
 " I m sure I don t know," replied Led- 
 yard. " I haven t done anything about it. 
 You might go to the Villa Constance and 
 ask her aunt." 
 
 " Madame the aunt was engaged in mak 
 ing her preparations for departure," the 
 baronne s maid informed me, and I told 
 the woman that I had received a note from 
 madame la baronne concerning which I 
 wished to communicate with her at once, 
 as, although its envelope had been ad 
 dressed to me, it was evidently intended for 
 some one else. 
 
HIPPOLYTE 95 
 
 " I will take to Vienna any letter mon 
 sieur desires to send to madame la ba- 
 ronne, but as for the note which monsieur 
 received this morning, I took it to the hotel 
 myself; and it was in reply to a letter 
 monsieur s servant had left for madame a 
 few moments before." 
 
 I left the villa growling to myself at the 
 stupidity of the woman, who had evidently 
 mistaken some one else s servant for mine, 
 and met old Tournielli. He greeted me 
 with a quizzical look on his face and said : 
 
 "You couldn t give me a few million 
 francs this morning, could you ?" 
 
 " I believe you re as mad as all the rest 
 of them," said I. " What are you talking 
 about ?" 
 
 " It is only that the Baronne Alixe, whom 
 I have just put on the train, tells me you 
 are playing Monte Cristo to everybody, 
 and I might as well have my share of the 
 treasures of the island." 
 
 " My dear Tournielli," said I, taking his 
 arm and drawing him over into the garden, 
 " will you be good enough to tell me pre 
 cisely what you mean ?" 
 
t)6 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 "I mean," said he, "if I must be so 
 categorical, that Madame de Sebenwald 
 told me, not half an hour ago, that you 
 had been so moved by her ill-fortune that 
 you sent her more than half the amount 
 she lost yesterday, and sent it enclosed in 
 a huge envelope without a word. And I 
 mean also to say that I am not quite 
 sure whether you are a very much richer 
 man than I had supposed, or whether my 
 little friend Alixe has quite turned your 
 head." 
 
 " Tournielli," said I, very seriously, "you 
 will be good enough to accept my explicit 
 assurance that I have never, either directly 
 or indirectly, given or lent to Madame de 
 Sebenwald one single sou, that she has 
 never asked me for a sou, and that you, or 
 she, or both of you, are under some extraor 
 dinary delusion. And you will also, I hope, 
 be good enough to never repeat one word 
 of this farrago of nonsense to any one. 
 You and I are old friends, and you can see 
 that a story which, if it were true, would 
 place both the lady and myself in a position 
 of some delicacy in the eyes of the world, 
 
HIPPOLYTE 97 
 
 is the more offensive to me when it is with 
 out foundation." 
 
 I left him there, staring bewildered at a 
 cactus, and went to my rooms, where I 
 found Hippolyte counting my things for the 
 wash. As I walked into the room, he said : 
 
 " If monsieur will retain me in his ser 
 vice I should be grateful. I have lost the 
 money." 
 
 " Lost the money !" I exclaimed. " The 
 rooms were closed when I saw you last 
 night, and they haven t opened yet to 
 day." 
 
 " I have lost it," said Hippolyte. And 
 then repeated, quietly : " Oui, je 1 ai tout 
 perdu." 
 
 And that was the last word which ever 
 passed between us on the subject. 
 
 IX 
 
 After the departure of Madame de Seben- 
 wald, life at Monte Carlo resumed its wont 
 ed course, and, although the season had on 
 the whole been a very pleasant one, I was 
 
98 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 not sorry when the warmer weather of the 
 early part of April called me back to Paris. 
 I think those of us who lead a migratory 
 life are almost as glad to return to the 
 North in the spring as we are to leave it in 
 the autumn. The smiling face of the Ri 
 viera sky becomes a hard-set grin, and one 
 longs for the familiar sights and familiar 
 faces of Paris, of which one had been so 
 consummately weary only a few months be 
 fore. 
 
 And more than all I was glad to get back 
 to my clubs, to see once more the great 
 easy -chairs, and to hear the gossip of the 
 men who know all the latest potins the day 
 before they reach the ears of the world at 
 large. My hack had wintered excellently, 
 and the leafy alleys of the Bois seemed 
 very delightful after the hot sun of Monte 
 Carlo. 
 
 Of the baronne I had heard nothing 
 more. I had written, in as few words as 
 possible, to tell her that the money had 
 not come from me, and let the matter rest 
 at that. To the repeated questions of Led- 
 yard and Montgoublin I had simply replied 
 
HIPPOLYTE 99 
 
 that I had not lent her a sou, and that it 
 did not seem to me to lie within our pur 
 view to make any conjectures as to the 
 source of the deliverance she had found. I 
 had said to myself at Monte Carlo, when 
 Ledyard had asked me to assist her, that if 
 I liked her I did not at any rate approve of 
 her, and now I began to doubt whether I 
 had even liked her. At all events she had 
 now passed out of the narrow limits within 
 which my simple life is spent, and I make 
 and lose too many pleasant acquaintances 
 every year to be seriously concerned about 
 those who have betaken themselves to other 
 fields. 
 
 It was in this agreeable condition of en 
 tire satisfaction with myself and my envi 
 ronment that I passed the first few weeks 
 after my return from Monte Carlo ; and 
 then it became necessary to decide whether 
 I was going out of town for the first of 
 May. There were disquieting rumors in 
 the air. It is the agreeable habit of the 
 working-men of Paris to celebrate " Labor 
 Day" by not doing any labor at all, and by 
 making themselves as unpleasant as they 
 
100 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 possibly can. Sometimes there is dyna 
 mite ; and dynamite is not a pretty thing. 
 And, apart from the possibility that when 
 you cross the Boulevard on the way to 
 your May -Day breakfast you may find 
 yourself between a mob of rioters on the 
 one side and a squadron of the Garde Re- 
 publicaine on the other, there is another 
 excellent reason for passing the day out 
 of town. When the streets of Paris are 
 not watered, the whole city is enveloped in 
 a cloud of dust. And when the municipal 
 authorities anticipate trouble they leave 
 the streets unwatered, partly because cav 
 alry can work to better advantage when the 
 asphalt is not slippery, and partly because 
 the choking dust tends to drive the disor 
 derly classes into the wine -shops, where 
 their enthusiasm expends itself in drinking 
 beer instead of in breaking windows. It 
 lessens, too, the throng of mere spectators 
 who on all such occasions greatly hamper 
 the police in their endeavors to control the 
 enemies of public order. And it is, plainly 
 enough, a prudent man s business to keep 
 out of the streets at such a time. 
 
HIPPOLYTE 101 
 
 But when Ledyard and I discussed the 
 matter the night before Labor Day, we ar 
 rived at the conclusion that there was no 
 where out of town to go. One of the clubs 
 to which we both belonged had a long bal 
 cony on the floor above the level of the 
 street overlooking the Place de 1 Ope ra, and 
 we finally decided that we would breakfast 
 at this club and pass away the afternoon in 
 watching from this point of safety the dem 
 onstrations of the malcontent. 
 
 All the newspapers that morning were 
 filled with more or less alarming prophe 
 cies, and all recounted, to the last detail, 
 the precautions which the ministry had tried 
 to take as secretly as possible. There were, 
 according to these accounts, large bodies 
 of troops posted in ambush everywhere 
 about the quarter. The court-yards of all 
 the public buildings had been occupied by 
 soldiery the night before, and at the first 
 alarm the Boulevard and the neighboring 
 streets would be completely cleared. 
 
 At about two o clock, when we had fin 
 ished breakfast and taken our places on 
 the balcony, the Place was thronged with 
 
102 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 poorly dressed people, of whom lads not 
 over twenty years of age seemed to form 
 the greater number. They seemed well 
 enough disposed, but the police had some 
 trouble to keep them moving, and shrill 
 cries of " Circulez !" arose on every side. 
 There was no attempt on the part of the 
 mob to mass its numbers in any sort of or 
 der; but there was an evident, and appar 
 ently a preconcerted, disposition to impede, 
 rather than to resist, the efforts of the police 
 to prevent a stoppage of street traffic. Ar 
 rests were frequent. If a man did not move 
 on when the police told him to do so he 
 was immediately marched off between two 
 gendarmes. And the captures thus made be 
 came every moment more numerous. There 
 seemed to be no anger and no violence on 
 either side. The police did their work 
 sharply and brusquely, but without, so far 
 as we could see, anything that could be 
 called brutality. Nor were there, as yet, any 
 attempts on the part of the mob to rescue 
 the prisoners captured. Now and then the 
 crowd would obstruct the passage of the po 
 lice towards the post where they were con- 
 
HIPPOLYTE 103 
 
 ducting their prisoners, but even this at 
 tempt to embarrass them in the performance 
 of their functions seemed to be more by 
 way of horse-play than by way of serious 
 disorder. One man would push another in 
 front of the gendarmes so as to block their 
 way for a moment, rather than get in their 
 path himself. On the whole, it began to 
 seem as if the day would pass without any 
 great trouble. 
 
 But when we had been upon the balcony 
 about an hour, there began to be a percep 
 tible change in the attitude of both the police 
 and the mob. Each arrest made entailed 
 a dozen others, for the prisoners began to 
 cry to their friends for assistance, and the 
 latter would push about the police until it 
 became necessary to arrest them in turn. 
 The throng, too, kept pouring in through 
 all the channels which converge at this cen 
 tral point of the city, and it became clear 
 that the Garde Republicaine would have to 
 be employed. This body of cavalry, which 
 performs in the streets and parks of Paris 
 the functions of mounted police rather than 
 of soldiery, has a very summary fashion of 
 
104 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 riding over mobs. And at its first charge 
 the broad open space was cleared alike of 
 gendarmes and of rioters, all of whom fled 
 helter-skelter from under the horses hoofs. 
 For perhaps twenty minutes the Place was 
 quiet, and then the gendarmes proved un 
 equal to the task of holding the streams of 
 men pent in the streets, and for a moment 
 the Place de 1 Opera was again a sea of 
 struggling people. Then there came an 
 other charge of the Garde, and then another 
 interval of quiet. 
 
 " That is all there is of it, now," I said 
 to Ledyard. " These fellows don t mean 
 fighting. We may as well go in and play a 
 chouette" 
 
 " I don t see it," said Ledyard. " Every 
 few minutes there ll be a noise in the 
 streets, and then every man Jack at the 
 table will be jumping up from his chair and 
 flying madly through the window, and there ll 
 be such a beastly confusion that no one 
 will know whether a king has been marked 
 or not." 
 
 " As you like," said I ; " but I don t want 
 to stay here all night." 
 
HIPPOLYTE 105 
 
 " I don t suppose you do," said Ledyard, 
 "but you had better dine here, and then 
 go home quietly in the evening. At nine 
 or ten o clock these idiots will have had 
 enough of it, and the streets will be clear." 
 
 " That s all very well," said I, " but I 
 want to dress before dinner. I m all over 
 dust and filth here, and I m going to look 
 in at a reception in the Avenue Kleber after 
 dinner, so I must dress." 
 
 " Then you had better send a man for 
 your things," said Ledyard, " and dress 
 here. You don t want to be pushed about 
 among these dirty wretches ; and if you re 
 going to do it, you had better do it now, 
 for it may be worse towards dinner-time, 
 and then he won t be able to get through." 
 
 I thought this was a good suggestion, and 
 I sent one of the club commissionaires to 
 my apartment to tell Hippolyte to bring 
 over my dressing - bag with the things I 
 needed. The man had to wait at the door 
 nearly half an hour before he could cross 
 to the Boulevard des Capucines, and then 
 we watched to see how Hippolyte would 
 succeed in crossing when he came. I knew 
 
106 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 that when the gendarmes saw him carrying 
 a bag they would help him make his way 
 through the crowd, and I knew, too, that he 
 was not the sort of lad to get into trou 
 ble. While we were watching for him a cab 
 appeared from the direction of the Gare 
 du Nord, laden with luggage, and stood 
 blocked at the mouth of the Boulevard 
 des Italiens, unable to cross the Place. 
 Ledyard, whose eyes are very keen, said : 
 
 " Do you see the initials on those 
 trunks ?" 
 
 I could not make them out myself, and 
 he said : 
 
 " The things are marked A. de S. I 
 wonder if it s our friend the Baronne 
 Alixe ?" 
 
 As he spoke a lady put her head out of 
 the cab window and called to the driver to 
 try to make his way across the Place. It 
 was Alixe de Sebenwald. 
 
 At this moment a man standing at the 
 corner of the Rue de la Paix got into a 
 scuffle with a gendarme who was trying to 
 arrest him, and the free fight which resulted 
 called down another charge of the cavalry. 
 
HIPPOLYTE 107 
 
 When they had cleared the Place, a police 
 man told the driver of the baronne s cab to 
 cross while he could. But the horse, fright 
 ened by the tumult, reared and balked. 
 
 Just then Hippolyte appeared at the cor 
 ner of the Boulevard des Capucines with 
 my bag in his hand, and, seeing that it was 
 a favorable opportunity, made a run for it 
 to get to the club door. 
 
 Suddenly a man in the front rank of the 
 crowd stooped, and, with a long sweep of 
 his arm, such as one uses in the delivery 
 at bowls, sent a round black kettle whirling 
 through the air towards a group of some 
 hundred gendarmes who stood massed to 
 gether near the cab. I heard the cry, " It s 
 a bomb !" Hippolyte heard it too, and, 
 dropping my bag, stared at the black ob 
 ject as it rolled towards the gendarmes. It 
 caromed against the curb of one of the 
 little refuges in the middle of the Place, 
 and, its course deflected like that of a 
 billiard-ball which has touched a cushion, 
 rolled towards the cab instead of towards 
 the gendarmes. It struck the rim of one 
 of the wheels and stopped. 
 
108 HIPPOLYTE 
 
 I could see the fuse smoking. 
 
 The baronne saw it, too, and cried : " Mon 
 Dicu, la dynamite! 1 
 
 And then I saw Hippolyte run towards 
 the cab. He stooped, and I could see him 
 fumbling with the bomb. The driver had 
 leaped from his seat, and he and all the 
 gendarmes were running for their lives. 
 
 A man beside me on the balcony, quicker 
 witted than I, cried to Hippolyte : " Pull 
 out the fuse !" And I heard Hippolyte, not 
 twenty yards away from us, answer : " C est 
 trap tard T The use had burned so nearly 
 to the iron that he could not get hold of it. 
 
 He picked up the bomb, and, holding it 
 in his two hands, poised at his shoulder, 
 started to run as if to gather impetus to 
 fling it farther from him. While he was 
 still holding it, and when he was about a 
 rod from the cab, his foot slipped on the 
 pavement, and he fell full length upon the 
 bomb, lying like a football player on a 
 ball. 
 
 And then the explosion came. 
 
 I ran from the balcony to the stairway, 
 and as I pushed my way to where I had 
 
HIPI OLYTE 109 
 
 seen him fall, I said to a rough-looking 
 fellow who was in my path : " Let me pass. 
 He is my servant !" 
 
 The man stared at me a moment and 
 said : 
 
 " No, bourgeois, he is no one s servant 
 now." 
 
 It was true. I had lost Hippolyte, there 
 in Paris where I had found him. And all 
 so recently that it is almost an indelicacy 
 to talk about him. 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
LLOYD OSBOURNE 
 
 VAILIMA IN SAMOA 
 
 Give this, my dear Osbourne, to your mother for me. 
 As the old saw has it : " Gratefulness is the poor man s 
 payment." 
 
 G. B. 
 
 Paris, 1894. 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 LYING back in my long cane-chair, as the 
 steamer swept broadly round the corner of 
 the absurd city of San Francisco and awoke 
 to the slow swing of the sea, I was very glad 
 to have left America behind me. I knew 
 that I was in the wrong ; I knew I ought 
 to have stayed in the United States long 
 enough to live down that first aversion 
 which almost every Englishman who visits 
 the country finds awaiting his arrival, like a 
 letter from home, and of which he possesses 
 himself with a sturdy British satisfaction. 
 But I was on my way to Japan, where I had 
 been before, and was glad to go again, and 
 the journey from New York to California 
 had been a prolonged discomfort. The dust 
 
114 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 and the heat had repeated themselves in the 
 faces of my fellow -passengers, and now I 
 had left all the nastiness behind me, and 
 promised myself three weeks of summer 
 air and summer calm. I had not been well 
 when I left Kngland, and the fatigue and 
 annoyance of the long railway journey must 
 have put a line or two more in my face. 
 For as the ship slipped past the headlands 
 (which are beautiful, and be hanged to 
 them!) I saw some one standing over me, 
 and a pleasant, childish voice said : 
 
 " Won t you let me give you one of these 
 cushions ? You look so ill." 
 
 I looked up, and saw a fair- skinned, 
 yellow -haired little woman regarding me 
 with as much of friendly interest as if she 
 had known me for years. She spoke with 
 a strong American accent, and I was very 
 tired of that manner of speech. Her speak 
 ing to a stranger was in itself audacious, 
 and of the quick audacities of American 
 usage I was more than weary. But she was 
 pretty, and there was clear kindliness in her 
 eyes. I took the cushion, telling her that 
 she was very good, but that I was in fact 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 115 
 
 more tired than ill ; and as I put it behind 
 my head I observed that it was strongly 
 perfumed with eau de Chypre, an odor I pe 
 culiarly dislike. Still, I was glad to have 
 something between my head and the chair- 
 back, and I fell asleep with the convic 
 tion that women were, after all, good-heart 
 ed creatures. When I opened my eyes, an 
 hour later, the deck - steward was running 
 about, laden with particolored rugs, and I 
 told him to send the head-steward to me. 
 When that functionary appeared I made the 
 little speech which I always made to steamer 
 stewards, and which I can confidently com 
 mend to travellers who like to be comforta 
 ble at sea. 
 
 " Here," said I, " are two sovereigns for 
 you. If I find that I am better cared for 
 than the other passengers, you shall have 
 two more at Yokohama. And here is my 
 card, which you will give to the purser, tell 
 ing him that I should be glad to have a seat 
 at his table." 
 
 "Yes, sir thank you, sir," said the 
 steward ; " and is there any one on board 
 you would like to sit by at table ?" 
 
Jl6 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 " No," said I ; " I don t know anybody 
 here but you might give me a seat next to 
 that lady with the blue rug," and I indi 
 cated the owner of the cushion. 
 
 " Mrs. Potwin, sir," said the steward. " I 
 will speak to the purser, sir." Whereupon 
 I went to sleep again, wondering where any 
 one had unearthed so hideous a name as 
 Potwin. 
 
 When my servant came to tell me that it 
 was time to dress for dinner, I asked my 
 self, as I changed my blue jacket for a 
 black one, whether I had done well to de 
 mand a seat near the lady of the yellow 
 hair. In all probability she had a husband 
 with her, and while one may forgive a 
 pretty woman the name of Potwin, as one 
 excuses the monstrous appellation of an or 
 chid, a man with such a name must neces 
 sarily be atrocious. But when I took my 
 place at the table she sat at the purser s 
 right hand and I at hers, and I saw that 
 Potwin must be among the missing or the 
 dead. The purser, although in some ways 
 not a bad sort of fellow, had the affability 
 of his calling quaintly combined with the 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 117 
 
 uneasy pride of station which seems to dis 
 tinguish all Americans who are not day- 
 laborers. His name, he told me, was Cham 
 berlain, and he gave me to understand that 
 the family of Chamberlain occupied about 
 the same position in the United States as 
 the house of Howard in England. There 
 is, no doubt, a certain inconvenience latent 
 in the absence of titular distinctions in 
 America. A man has to be always telling 
 you that he is a duke. This particular cadet 
 of the family of Chamberlain had, he pro 
 ceeded to tell me (with one of those bursts 
 of confidence in which American aristocrats 
 delight), dissipated his patrimony before he 
 left college, and, too proud to toil for a live 
 lihood under the shadow of his ancestral 
 palace in Fifth Avenue, put his broken fort 
 unes to the hazard of the sea. When he 
 had thus conclusively demonstrated that he 
 was no every-day sort of ship s purser, he 
 presented me to Mrs. Potwin, and I thanked 
 her for her kindness in the matter of the 
 cushion. 
 
 " Oh, you needn t be so grateful," she 
 said ; and when she smiled she was certain- 
 
Il8 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 ly very pretty. " It made me feel lonesome 
 to see that we were actually off, and I was 
 glad to have an excuse to speak to some 
 body." 
 
 I sent for some champagne, in compli 
 ance with the inscrutable rule that a pas 
 senger who is distinguished by the purser s 
 consideration shall always keep that gentle 
 man s glass filled, and, after dinner, Mr. 
 Chamberlain asked me to come into his 
 cabin and smoke my cigar. When I saw 
 how liberally the steamship company had 
 provided for his comfort, I perceived that 
 the purser of an American boat in the China 
 trade was a personage of no little impor 
 tance. The room in which he slept was 
 twice as large as that for which I had 
 been made to pay a huge sum of money, 
 and the office in which he received me, and 
 in which he never seemed to have any work 
 to do, was as big as the ship s smoking- 
 room. 
 
 I was very sleepy, but I can vaguely re 
 member learning that he had more white 
 shirts and more suits of white linen clothing 
 than the captain himself, that the owners 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK lig 
 
 winked at his doing a little quiet trading on 
 his own account, that he was an honored 
 guest in the English clubs of Yokohama 
 and Hong- Kong, and that I had shown 
 great knowledge of the fitness of things in 
 sending my card to him, and asking to be 
 placed at his table. The captain was, I 
 further learned, a most ignorant and un 
 mannerly individual, only to be commended 
 for his good sense in recognizing that he 
 had not nearly so great a " pull " with the 
 steamship company as had the purser. I 
 am not sure whether it was on that occasion 
 or later in the voyage that Mr. Chamberlain 
 explained to me that the owners had be 
 come his slaves and things because he 
 knew all about their evasions of the law 
 restricting Chinese immigration ; but I 
 know, at any rate, that he talked to me for 
 a long time, and always of himself, and that 
 I was exceedingly glad when it was time for 
 me to go to my own less magnificent cabin 
 and sleep the sleep of the bored. 
 
 When I went on deck next morning I 
 found that the deck-steward had placed my 
 chair beside that of Mrs. Potwin, and if I 
 
120 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 was somewhat inclined to resent the train 
 of reasoning from which he had inferred 
 that this disposition would meet my views, 
 I was not sorry to be amused by her chat 
 ter. I knew, as soon as I had seated my 
 self in my chair, that I should hear her 
 whole history, and I knew, too, that the 
 opening chapter would be a dissertation on 
 the profound rootage of her family tree. I 
 knew also, since she was young and pretty 
 and travelling alone, that the second chap 
 ter would concern itself with an unhappy 
 marriage. There are, no doubt, young and 
 pretty married women who travel alone on 
 their way to rejoin husbands they adore, 
 but in the course of much going to and fro 
 over the surface of the earth it has never 
 been my fortune to meet one of them. All 
 those I have known have been abused an 
 gels, and most of them victims of the 
 world s unjust censure as well as of marital 
 brutality. 
 
 I had the pleasure of patting my fore 
 sight on the back. It was ten o clock when 
 I came on deck, and by noon, when the 
 purser came to invite Mrs. Potwin and my- 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 121 
 
 self to partake of a very rare and precious 
 sort of cocktail which he was about to com 
 pound, I had the story. As for the gene 
 alogy, it proved, as is often the case with 
 American genealogies, to be rather a record 
 of the political and financial achievements 
 of the uncles and cousins of the narrator 
 than a tale of past ages. They were all 
 rich and great, it appeared, the men, and 
 the women all unhappy and frequently con 
 soled. Mrs. Potwin s father had, like many 
 other rich and great men, sought less simple 
 joys than those afforded by his hearth and 
 home, and the mother of Mrs. Potwin had 
 run away with a gentleman who wore gold 
 lace on the sleeve of his coat. The brilliant 
 creature whose effulgence had cast this dark 
 shadow over Mrs. Potwin s childhood was 
 not very clearly described. At one stage of 
 the narrative I conceived him to have been 
 military attache at one of the embassies in 
 Washington, and at another his portrait 
 seemed rather to be that of an ecuyer in a 
 travelling circus. At any rate, the mother 
 had run away with him, and my young 
 friend had found herself " standing with re- 
 
I22 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 luctant feet" bereft of maternal support. 
 It is a general law that young and pretty 
 women who are travelling alone have never 
 known a mother s love, and perhaps it is be 
 cause they have all lost their mothers early in 
 life that their husbands have been permitted 
 so truculently to ill-use them. Potwin had 
 appeared, and she had promptly disliked 
 him, and as promptly married him. It was 
 a long story, but, accent or no accent, she 
 had a soft little voice. At this hour I can 
 not be sure whether she married Potwin 
 because she had a step -mother, and was 
 unhappy with her, or because she thought 
 she might some time have a step-mother and 
 be unhappy with her. That Potwin was a 
 monster I need not say. We have all been 
 taught in school that if we want to get a 
 clear idea of any character in history we 
 ought to try to imagine him present to our 
 gaze, and to my sight Potwin appeared with 
 a keg of rum in one hand, a cudgel for his 
 shrinking bride in the other, and tender 
 words, addressed to an obese lady, upon 
 his sinful lips. Whether Mrs. Potwin had 
 divorced him because he beat her, or he 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 123 
 
 had divorced her because he was tired of 
 beating her, I was not quite clear ; but they 
 two were twain. I ventured to ask her if it 
 was because she liked the sound of Potwin 
 that she had abstained from resuming her 
 
 O 
 
 maiden name, and she told me it was out of 
 regard for the feelings of her family. Upon 
 this we went to the purser s gilded office, 
 where he poured five different fluids to 
 gether and stirred them up with a broom. 
 
 In the course of a week we had become 
 very friendly, the little Mrs. Potwin and I. 
 Whatever her shortcomings, or long-goings, 
 may have been, she was a young woman of 
 uncommonly quick perception, and it did 
 not take her long to discover that I was by 
 no means inclined to make a fool of my 
 self for the sake of her pretty yellow hair 
 and her soft blue eyes. She told me that 
 she believed Englishmen to be singularly 
 lacking in the imaginative faculty, and I 
 was rather pleased than otherwise that she 
 should excuse my want of enterprise as a 
 racial defect. I liked to hear her talk about 
 herself, but I had no desire to have her 
 set other people talking about me. I was 
 
124 GOLDEN- BEAK 
 
 charmed to fill her wine-glass, as well as the 
 purser s, but I did not want to have her 
 discover when we reached Yokohama that 
 there had been a mistake about her letter 
 of credit, and to have her ask me to lend 
 her a hundred pounds. The young ladies 
 who have never known a mother s love, and 
 whose husbands have behaved like brutes, 
 have a little habit of being unbusinesslike 
 about their letters of credit. In a word, 
 Mrs. Potwin was a delightful acquaintance, 
 but did not impress me as a person with 
 whom I cared to cultivate an enduring 
 friendship ; and as for losing my heart to 
 her, I should as soon have lost it to a fairy 
 in a Christmas pantomime. My generaliza 
 tions were, as I afterwards discovered, more 
 or less unjust. She was not an adventuress. 
 She had a very comfortable income of her 
 own. She wanted somebody to talk to, and 
 accident threw me in her way. She could 
 not help dropping her eye-lashes at me : 
 that was second nature to her, and she was 
 frankly disappointed because I would not 
 fall in love with her. She believed that she 
 was a woman made to disturb the souls of 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 125 
 
 men, and she resented my placidity. Three 
 or four young fellows among our fellow-pas 
 sengers were quite mad about her, and even 
 the purser himself (who gave me to under 
 stand that he not infrequently found favor 
 in ladies 1 eyes, he remaining untouched of 
 heart) followed her about like a large and 
 proud sort of dog before we reached Hono 
 lulu. The steamer was to lie there all one 
 day, and Mrs. Potwin told me it was her 
 pleasure that I should take her for a drive; 
 so we went together to the Pali. I was 
 flattered by her preference, for I knew that 
 the young fellows had one after another in 
 vited her to go, but before the drive was 
 over she explained the compliment away. 
 
 " You see," she said, " they are all in love 
 with me, or anyhow most of them, and the 
 rest will be before we get to Yokohama. 
 They all look at me as if I were a plate of 
 ice-cream, and I like that I like it better 
 than anything else in the world ; and they 
 quarrel about me all the time, and that is 
 perfectly lovely. But if I went off and 
 drove with one of them you wouldn t be 
 miserable at all you wouldn t care a bit. 
 
126 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 I don t blame you for it: it is because you 
 are an Englishman, and you can t help it; 
 but they are not as stupid as you are, and 
 they appreciate me. There ll be awful rows 
 before we get to Yokohama ; you ll see. One 
 of them walked to the stern with me last 
 night, and while we stood looking over at 
 the phosphorus he was holding my hand so 
 I wouldn t fall overboard, and you know it 
 was as calm as calm. I suppose you are 
 horrified at that." 
 
 " No," said I, " I don t know that I am 
 horrified, but I don t think it is a very pretty 
 thing to do. It is quite possible that when 
 you have let the young man hold your hand 
 he goes back to the smoking-room and tells 
 the other youngsters about it. It would cer 
 tainly be wrong if he did, but young ladies 
 who flirt with casual young men do expose 
 themselves to that sort of thing." 
 
 Then I saw Mrs. Potwin in a new phase : 
 Mrs. Potwin in a temper. She jumped out 
 of the carriage (fortunately we were toiling 
 up a hill), and vowed she would go back to 
 Honolulu on foot; that she would never 
 speak to me again ; that no one had ever 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 127 
 
 spoken so rudely to her before ; that I was 
 not a gentleman ; that no Englishman ever 
 was a gentleman, and much more to the 
 same effect. And of course I had to beg 
 her pardon seven times before I was for 
 given. If I had lost my heart to the whim 
 sical little woman I might have thought all 
 this very charming, but as I had not, it 
 seemed very absurd and indecorous for me 
 to be coaxing her back to the carriage within 
 eyesight and earshot of the English-speak 
 ing Kanaka driver, while she was stamping 
 her little shoe-heels into the mud and call 
 ing the whole island to witness that I was 
 no gentleman. 
 
 I was sorry too, when the time came, that 
 we had arranged to dine together at the ho 
 tel that evening, for after a brief visit to the 
 ship she came ashore again, dressed as if 
 to go to a ball, and was delighted to find 
 that every man in the dining-room stared 
 at her all through dinner. And then and 
 there I determined that when we reached 
 Yokohama, where there were civilized Eng 
 lish people who knew me, and whom I did 
 not want to have talk about -me, I would 
 
128 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 not gild my person with the splendor of 
 Mrs. Potwin s rays. This was, no doubt, a 
 wise resolution to make, but when I made 
 it I did not know that Mrs. Potwin s given 
 name was Ysonde, nor did I know that, in 
 stead of being only a flippant, flirting little 
 person, Mrs. Potwin was a lady whose pur 
 pose in life was to occupy a throne, 
 
 It was not until we had crossed the me 
 ridian of one hundred and eighty degrees 
 that I began to be seriously interested in the 
 career of Ysonde Potwin. On the evening 
 of the day when we had first begun to count 
 ourselves east of Greenwich instead of west 
 of Greenwich, I was listening to the purser s 
 stories with a patience born of long prac 
 tice, when I amazed myself with the dis 
 covery that he had something new to say. 
 
 " Have you noticed," he asked me, " that 
 there is anything strange about our friend 
 Mrs. Potwin ?" 
 
 " I can t say that I have," I replied. " She 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 129 
 
 is an American, you see, and I have not 
 known a great many American women ; and 
 I don t think we have women of precisely 
 her sort in England. With us they are either 
 a little more careful or a little less careful." 
 
 " I don t mean that," said Mr. Chamber 
 lain. " She is a dreadful little flirt, and of 
 course she is divorced, and there are all 
 sorts of stories about her. But haven t you 
 seen anything remarkable in the way the 
 Japanese take care of her ?" 
 
 " No, nothing very special," said I. " They 
 are very quick and attentive, as Japanese 
 stewards always are, and I fancy that ser 
 vants, like other people, are always ready 
 to wait on a pretty woman." 
 
 " There s more than that," said the purser. 
 " I have to keep my eyes peeled on board 
 this ship, I can tell you, and there isn t 
 much going on that I don t know. You 
 see, I really have most of the responsibil 
 ity. The engineer tells the stokers to keep 
 the boilers hot, and that s all he has to do. 
 The captain tells the quartermasters to steer 
 the course that the chart shows, and that s 
 all he has to do. And between them they 
 
130 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 keep the boat moving until the time comes 
 to drop anchor. But whether she is mov 
 ing or not, my work goes on all the same. 
 Here are all of you passengers, cooped up 
 on board like animals in a menagerie, and 
 I have to see that you are fed and kept in 
 order. You see, I have two difficult classes 
 to deal with the drunkards and the mission 
 aries. When we touch at Honolulu there is 
 always a lot of men going down there to have 
 a spree. It is a regular Fiddlers Green for 
 the men who keep respectable eleven months 
 out of the year, and then make even with an 
 awful racket. They come from as far east 
 as Chicago, just to go down to Honolulu 
 and let off steam a long way from home. 
 Then there are all the wild young fellows 
 whose families send them off to Japan and 
 China because they have been getting into 
 trouble. And when there is too much whis- 
 key-and-soda in the smoking-room, or when 
 the poker game gets stiff enough to make 
 mischief, I have to remonstrate. Sometimes 
 it s ticklish business. The pursers on the 
 boats from New York to Liverpool are noth 
 ing but baggage-masters. Any fool could 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 131 
 
 do their work. But on these long runs a 
 man has a great deal to think about, I can 
 tell you." 
 
 I expressed my profound respect for the 
 moral sway exercised by Mr. Chamberlain, 
 who continued : 
 
 " As for the missionaries going to China or 
 coming home again, they are always quarrel 
 ling among themselves, and their wives al 
 ways pick on some woman aboard the ship 
 and say she ought to be put down in the 
 steerage because she wears better clothes 
 than they do. And the worst are the mis 
 sionaries wives on the way home from Chi 
 na. They have got in the habit of being 
 waited on by a lot of cheap servants out 
 there, where the converts wash dishes for 
 the sake of being under Christian influences. 
 And when they get on board they have to 
 look after themselves and their babies, and 
 they won t turn out of their cabins in the 
 mornings, and altogether they lead the chief 
 steward a dreadful life. So you see I have 
 to keep a kind of general supervision over 
 everybody s morals and manners. And 
 there is something very queer about Mrs. 
 
132 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 Potwin. I don t mean that she doesn t be 
 have herself she s a lady as far as I know, 
 and I make it a rule to take people as I find 
 em but the steward s Japanese boys are 
 all afraid of her. He knows Japanese ways 
 and Japanese tricks as well as most foreign 
 ers, but he says he can t make it out. You 
 know there is always one steward they call 
 the captain s boy, who stands behind his 
 chair at table and looks after his cabin, and 
 it is always an understood thing, in the pan 
 try aboard a ship, that the server takes care 
 what he gives that boy to take to the skip 
 per. The first thing that the chief steward 
 saw was that the captain s boy was changing 
 plates, after he left the pantry, with the boy 
 that waits on our end of my table, and that 
 Mrs. Potwin was getting the bits put by for 
 the captain. I never heard of such a thing 
 in my life. I have seen young fellows with 
 loads of money what we call high-rollers 
 in California chuck the boys five -dollar 
 gold pieces as if they were quarters, but no 
 one ever saw anybody else get the captain s 
 portion of a turkey before. What do you 
 make of that ?" 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 133 
 
 " If you say it is unusual I have no doubt 
 it is," said I, " but it isn t a very grave mat 
 ter, after all. I hardly think the captain is 
 likely to starve to death." 
 
 "Oh, that is only the beginning of it," 
 said the purser. " You know there is al 
 ways a boy on night-watch, walking through 
 the gangways to see there isn t any sneak- 
 thieving going on ; but, if you can believe 
 it, from the night we left San Francisco the 
 boys seem to have arranged among them 
 selves to stand an extra watch in the little 
 passageway where Mrs. Potwin s cabin is, 
 as if they were afraid something might hap 
 pen to her. We have to do that sort of thing 
 sometimes, when a passenger has a touch of 
 jim-jams, but as for its being done without 
 any orders, in a sly kind of a way, it s un 
 heard-of. I tell you I believe that the whole 
 steward s crew are so devoted to that wom 
 an that if he gave them one order and she 
 gave them another they would do what she 
 said. And it isn t only in the saloon either. 
 I saw her down on the steerage-deck the 
 other morning giving cakes to the children, 
 and all the Japanese down there seemed to 
 
134 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 be afraid of her. She has never been to 
 Japan in her life, and I don t know what 
 there is about her, but they all seem to think 
 that she is some sort of a high cockalorum. 
 I can t make head or tail of it." 
 
 " Why don t you ask her ?" said I. " She 
 must have noticed it." 
 
 "Of course she s noticed it," said the 
 purser ; " and what s more, she takes it as 
 a matter of course ; and more than that, she 
 expects it. Now I ll tell you another funny 
 thing. As I was going on deck the other 
 morning she was standing at the head of the 
 companionway ; one of the Japanese boys 
 was speaking to her, and just as I came up 
 he must have said something she didn t 
 like, for she flashed out with one of those 
 funny little quick tempers of hers, and said 
 a Japanese word to him. It was a word 
 I d never heard before, but I know it was 
 Japanese. I can t remember now what 
 the word was, but I asked my own boy that 
 night what it meant, of course without say 
 ing where I had heard it, and I could not 
 get any satisfaction out of him. He mut 
 tered something about not understanding, 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 135 
 
 and has been looking sulky ever since. 
 And the strangest part of the business is 
 that she can t speak Japanese at all, though 
 she seems to want to learn. I taught her 
 how to say kudasai and arigato and How 
 do you do and Good-by and a few oth 
 er little things like that, and it didn t seem 
 to come easy to her. I ve been kicking 
 myself ever since for having forgotten that 
 word she said to the boy. I know I can 
 talk Japanese as well as the ordinary for 
 eigner, but I don t know any word that will 
 knock a man as cold as that did." 
 
 "Surely," said I, "if you think there is 
 anything mysterious about all this, which 
 seems to me to be a mere series of unim 
 portant coincidences, you might ask her. 
 You are certainly not afraid of her ; on the 
 contrary, you and she are good friends, and 
 she couldn t strike you to the earth by aim 
 ing her terrible Japanese word at you, for 
 you don t know what it means. I d ask her 
 that, before anything else, if I were you." 
 
 The purser put fresh ice in his glass, 
 and then, looking around the room as if he 
 imagined Mrs. Potwin might be hidden be- 
 
136 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 hind a curtain, ready to hurl the dreadful 
 word, said : 
 
 " Between you and me, I m afraid to." 
 
 " Afraid !" said I ; " surely that is too ab 
 surd." 
 
 " Don t you be too cocksure of that," re 
 joined the purser. " I ve been in Japan 
 and China a good deal more than you have, 
 and I tell you that there are a good many 
 things it s dangerous for a foreigner to med 
 dle with." 
 
 " But she is a foreigner herself," I ob 
 jected. 
 
 " She is and she isn t," said the purser. 
 " I believe she s never been to Japan before, 
 and I believe she doesn t know a dozen 
 words of Japanese ; but the Japanese don t 
 treat her as a foreigner. As far as you and 
 I can see she s only a jolly young grass- 
 widow making a trip around the world ; but 
 you take my word for it there is something 
 out of the ordinary going on, and I ll be 
 mighty glad when she s off the ship." 
 
 " But what harm can she do ?" said I. 
 "You don t mean to be preposterous 
 enough to tell me that she has come on 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 137 
 
 board to raise mutiny, seize the steamer, 
 and set up in business as a female pirate ?" 
 
 " No, I don t think that," said he, " and I 
 don t know but what I am more afraid of 
 harm coming to her than to anybody else 
 on board. The chief steward and I were 
 talking it over yesterday, and he thinks the 
 reason they all seem to be devoted to her is 
 because they re afraid of her." 
 
 " Perhaps they think she has the evil 
 eye," I suggested. " I don t remember hear 
 ing that they have a superstition of that sort 
 in Japan, but it may be so. I can t believe 
 you are really afraid to speak to her about 
 it, although I can understand that, as you 
 have an official position on board the ship, 
 you might feel awkward about it. But I 
 don t in the least mind asking her why it is 
 that the Japanese boys take so much more 
 trouble for her than they do for the rest of 
 us. I remember, now you speak of it, that 
 I have noticed it myself, and I see no rea 
 son why I should not ask her." 
 
 " If you take my tip," said the purser, 
 " in the first place, you won t mix yourself 
 up in the business at all, won t say anything 
 
138 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 about it to her ; and, in the second place, if 
 you do speak to her about it, take mighty 
 good care there isn t one of the Japanese 
 within ear-shot when you do. Whether they 
 are stewards or sailors or anything else, 
 there always seems to be some one of them 
 who finds an excuse to have some little job 
 to do around where she is, whether she is 
 in the saloon or on deck. They are the 
 mildest, pleasantest people in the world, the 
 Japs, take them all around, but queer things 
 happen sometimes. Aboard one of the other 
 boats of the line they had a French passen 
 ger one trip who had been obliged to leave 
 Nagasaki because he had maltreated a Jap 
 anese girl there, and one moonlight night 
 when he was leaning over the stern some 
 body must have tipped up his heels, for 
 another passenger who had left him stand 
 ing there a few minutes before found him 
 missing when he came back. There was no 
 reason to believe that he had committed 
 suicide either." 
 
 " If there is any danger of that sort in 
 store for me I must persuade Mrs. Potwin to 
 teach me the necromantic word, and then if 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 139 
 
 one of the enchanted stewards tries to throw 
 me overboard from your spellbound steam 
 er I can wither him on the spot," said I. 
 " And now I think I will go up and get a 
 breath of air before I turn in." 
 
 It was nearly midnight, but I found Mrs. 
 Potwin sitting in her deck-chair, with one of 
 the enamoured youths of the smoking-room 
 elongated at her side, and when I approach 
 ed she bade him go away and leave me his 
 chair. He obeyed her with shame-faced 
 docility, and as I spread his rug over my 
 knees, I asked her why she was not below 
 in her cabin. 
 
 "Because it distresses the missionaries 
 wives when I stay on deck after eleven 
 o clock, and I like it up here in the moon 
 light anyway." 
 
 " But what have the missionaries wives 
 done to you ? They are very worthy people 
 in their way, and I don t see why you want 
 to shock them." 
 
 " Oh, I do it on principle, just as I wear 
 short sleeves in the morning. Women al 
 ways make themselves disagreeable to me, 
 and I always make myself disagreeable to 
 
140 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 women. It has been that way evar since I 
 was a little girl, and I am a perverse child 
 still, you see. I have a big doll down in my 
 steamer -trunk now. I never go anywhere 
 without it. And some evening when I want 
 to tease the missionaries wives very badly, 
 I m going to bring it out in the saloon and 
 play with it. You see, I m only nineteen, 
 and I don t look more than sixteen, so I 
 have a right to do silly things like that if I 
 want to." 
 
 " You might occupy your time more prof 
 itably," said I. " Why don t you try to 
 learn a little Japanese? You would find 
 the country much more interesting if you 
 understood the language." 
 
 " It won t take me long to pick it up once 
 I m there," she replied. " I can learn a 
 language easily enough if I can hear people 
 talking it, but I hate to study it out of a 
 book." 
 
 I thought I had made my opportunity 
 then, and was on the point of asking her 
 about the wonderful Japanese word, when I 
 saw one of the stewards standing outside 
 the chart-room, well within ear-shot of us ; 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 141 
 
 and, although I was half ashamed to pay 
 any heed to the purser s caution, I thought 
 I would wait to put my question until we 
 were quite alone. I knew, too, that it would 
 be a long story, if she told me anything at 
 all, and I didn t want to stay on deck until 
 two o clock in the morning, even for the 
 sake of scandalizing the missionaries wives. 
 So, after I had let her talk about nothing at 
 all for a little while, I went below, leaving 
 her alone in her chair with the moonlight 
 shining full on her yellow hair, and the Jap 
 anese boy standing near, like a little wood 
 en soldier on sentry duty. 
 
 in 
 
 The pleasures of life are not so hot or so 
 frequent that one can afford to treat lightly 
 the promise of their coming, and I prepared 
 myself to hear the story which I knew 
 Ysonde Potwin had to tell as thoughtfully 
 as an epicure prepares himself for a feast. 
 For a whole day I let her severely alone, 
 knowing that her theory of life was one of 
 
142 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 oscillation, and that she would be the more 
 friendly and confidential the day after my 
 abstention. And when the time came, and 
 our chairs extended themselves side by 
 side in a remote corner of the deck, I 
 asked her, direct enough, why all the Jap 
 anese on board made so much fuss about 
 her. 
 
 " Oh, I can t tell you that !" she exclaim 
 ed. " It s a secret, and you know women 
 love secrets !" 
 
 " Yes, they love secrets as much as they 
 love their rings," I replied. " But if you 
 keep your diamonds shut up in a little tin 
 box at your banker s, you get no joy out of 
 them ; and if you don t tell your secrets, 
 you might as well not have any." 
 
 " Oh, it wouldn t make you like me any 
 better if I told you," she said. 
 
 " I don t believe the secret is as black as 
 that," I replied. " You know I told you, 
 long ago, that I was too lazy to lose my 
 heart to you, as those other fellows do, and 
 you said we would be frank and loyal ship 
 mates. And if you have secrets from me, 
 I shall hide all sorts of thrilling and tremu- 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 143 
 
 lous mysteries from you, and see what a loss 
 that would be all around." 
 
 " Well," said she, " I suppose I must tell 
 you. It would be rather a relief to tell 
 somebody, and no one knows about it, not 
 even my maid. I ll tell you all about it ; 
 but if I find you don t like me any more, 
 and neglect me the rest of the voyage as 
 you did yesterday, it will be real mean of 
 you." 
 
 Playing with the rings on her soft white 
 fingers, and looking out over the silvered 
 waves of the summer sea, she told me the 
 story of Temehichi. 
 
 " Once upon a time, to begin with, I was 
 divorced. I told you that before. And 
 Mr. Potwin went off to Europe or some 
 where ; and that s the end of him. And I 
 couldn t go to Europe or anywhere, because 
 it was in May, and I had given the lawyers 
 nearly all my money, and I wasn t going to 
 have any more till October. So I took a 
 little flat in San Francisco, and I lived there 
 alone with old Delia, who is here with me 
 now, and whom I am going to send back 
 to America as soon as we get to Japan, and 
 
144 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 who has been with me ever since I was a 
 little girl, and who is the dearest old woman 
 in the world, only that she will drink too 
 much, sometimes ; and when she drinks too 
 much she keens all night because her friends 
 in Ireland are dead. And Delia got an 
 Irish girl to do the house-work and to cook 
 my breakfast in the morning. I always 
 used to go out for lunch and for dinner, it 
 was so much brighter and gayer in the res 
 taurants than being alone at home. Delia 
 and the Irish girl quarrelled about Home- 
 Rule, and I got a Swedish girl. She stamped 
 about like a cart-horse, and broke every 
 thing she touched, and I couldn t have her 
 any more. So I thought I d try a Japanese 
 boy. You know we have a great many 
 Japanese and Chinese boys for servants in 
 San Francisco, more Chinese than Japan 
 ese, but this was a Japanese boy. They re 
 always called boys, but they re grown up, 
 you know. He was very quiet and very 
 quick, and got his work done in no time at 
 all ; and he used to sit in the little kitchen 
 and write letters all day; and he was al 
 ways out at night, nearly. It didn t make 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 145 
 
 any difference to me, as long as his work 
 was done ; but Delia used to hear him come 
 in at five o clock in the morning. She told 
 him once that if he didn t sleep more he d 
 be sick and die ; and he told her people 
 had different ways of sleeping, and that he 
 slept while he was cleaning up the flat. He 
 made beautiful buckwheat cakes, and he 
 didn t care a cent if I had my breakfast 
 one morning at nine o clock and the next 
 morning at eleven ; he never complained the 
 least little bit, and everything was as nice 
 as could be. And one afternoon Char 
 ley Hart came to take me down to the 
 Maison Riche for dinner. You know the 
 Maison Riche is one of the French restau 
 rants in San Francisco, and Charley Hart 
 was a great friend of mine. He is in the 
 insurance business, and he plays the banjo 
 splendidly, and he belongs to one of the 
 clubs, and he is a great society man. Well, 
 it was raining so hard that I thought it 
 would be fun to send a messenger-boy out 
 and have something brought in from a res 
 taurant, and have our dinner there. So I 
 told Temehichi Temehichi was the Japan- 
 
146 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 ese boy s name to call a district messen 
 ger and order enough for two. Temehichi 
 asked me what time I wanted it, and I told 
 him in about an hour. We had a lovely 
 dinner, and I found out afterwards that in 
 stead of having things from a restaurant, 
 Temehichi had cooked it all himself. He 
 was the handiest human bein<r I ever saw ; 
 
 o 
 
 he could just do anything; so after that, 
 when I was alone, I often used to have my 
 meals at the flat instead of going out ; and 
 every one who came to see me said there 
 never was such a boy as Temehichi. You 
 see, I have a lot of gentlemen friends in 
 San Francisco. They used to be Mr. Pot- 
 win s friends, but they all took my side 
 about the divorce, and they used to come 
 to see me all the time. But Charley Hart 
 came oftener than any of the others. If you 
 knew anything about San Francisco you d 
 understand it better, because everybody 
 there knows him. You see, he is such a 
 society favorite, and yet he is lonesome, 
 after all. He always leads the german ev 
 erywhere ; and when any of the rich people 
 want to give a big party, they get Charley 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 147 
 
 to come and arrange everything. He knows 
 whom to ask and whom to leave out, and 
 all about ordering the supper and the mu 
 sic ; and he has had lots of lovely things 
 given him by people he has been nice to in 
 that way. One of them gave him an ele 
 gant gold watch with his monogram on it in 
 diamonds. And when a young lady first 
 goes into society in San Francisco, if he 
 isn t on her side she can t do anything at 
 all. He is asked out to dine nearly every 
 night, and of course it all helps him in his 
 business, because he is agent for both life 
 and fire companies, and lots of people who 
 are trying to get into society do their insur 
 ing through him. Well, everybody thinks 
 he has such a lovely time, but he isn t so 
 very happy, after all. He is nearly forty 
 now ; and last fall he began to get so fat 
 that it was awful for him to have to dance. 
 But of course it wouldn t do for him not to 
 dance, so he had to go without eating lots 
 of things he likes. And whenever there 
 happened to be an evening when he wasn t 
 asked to a dinner-party anywhere, it was 
 awfully stupid for him, because he hasn t 
 
I 4 8 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 any real friends they are all society friends 
 so he got into the way of coming to see 
 me a great deal. We would go to dine to 
 gether somewhere, and perhaps go to the 
 theatre afterwards. He can always have 
 seats at any theatre he wants, because the 
 managers like to have him go to see all the 
 new attractions, he s such a society man. 
 And then, after the theatre, we would go up 
 on the car together to my flat, and sit down 
 and eat pickled limes and lady -fingers: 
 that s about the only thing he can eat for 
 supper. And then he would sit and play on 
 the banjo, and tell me what he had been 
 doing the night before, for ever so long. Of 
 course going to so many parties he had got 
 into the way of staying up late, and I never 
 used to think anything of his being there 
 till one o clock. 
 
 "One Monday about three months ago 
 one of the most prominent men in San Fran 
 cisco died, and it just so happened that 
 different people who were going to give par 
 ties or have companies to dinner Tuesday, 
 Wednesday, and Thursday were all distant 
 relations of his, or else were so much con- 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 149 
 
 nected with him in their business, through 
 the railroad or something like that, that ev 
 erything had to be postponed, and there 
 were hardly any theatre parties either. So 
 that all Charley s engagements were broken 
 off; and instead of only getting orchestra 
 seats, he had proscenium boxes given to him 
 for two different theatres one for Tuesday 
 night and one for Wednesday night. We 
 went out to dinner together both nights, 
 and then to the theatre afterwards ; and 
 Thursday night I said I was tired going out, 
 and I got Temehichi to cook dinner for us 
 at the flat. And Charley brought up a lot 
 of new songs, and after dinner he played 
 his banjo and I played my hired upright, 
 and we sang and had lots of fun, and he 
 stayed awfully late. I told him he was silly 
 not to go home, because he was at so many 
 parties he ought to be glad to go to bed 
 early when he got the chance. But he said 
 he wasn t a bit sleepy, and I don t know 
 what time it was when he went home at 
 last ; but it was ridiculous of him to stay so 
 long, anyhow. When I went to let him out, 
 I saw that the kitchen door was ajar and 
 
150 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 the gas was burning; so I knew Temehichi, 
 instead of going out that night, must have 
 stayed there writing his letters. I went to 
 bed, humming over to myself one of the 
 songs Charley and I had been learning. I 
 should think I must have been asleep about 
 an hour before I heard a noise in my room 
 that woke me up. I always turn the gas 
 down low when I go to bed, but it was 
 turned on full now, and there in the middle 
 of the room, right near the corner of my 
 bed, stood Temehichi, dressed in a magnif 
 icent Japanese costume, embroidered all 
 over with dragons and snakes. And fast 
 ened in his belt there were two curved scab 
 bards for swords, but the swords were not 
 in them. He had one in each hand great, 
 long, crooked swords. He looked just like 
 one of the pictures of ancient Japanese sol 
 diers that you see on a fan. At first I 
 thought I must be dreaming, and I was no 
 ticing how beautifully his things were em 
 broidered, when he took a step nearer to 
 me, and said : 
 
 " You bad woman ; now you die / 
 
 "It was so much like a crazy kind of a 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 151 
 
 dream that at first I wasn t frightened at 
 all. If a man had come in there with a 
 revolver, I suppose I d have screamed ; 
 but this was so different from anything I 
 ever thought could happen to me, that I 
 couldn t realize it enough to be scared. I 
 didn t say anything just lay there without 
 taking my head off the pillow, and he said 
 over again, very slowly : 
 
 "* You bad woman ; now you die / 
 "And he rattled together the two swords 
 like a man sharpening knives. That woke 
 me up more, but I didn t say a word ; I just 
 looked at him in a stupid kind of way, 
 thinking all the while how cute his Jap 
 anese things were. Then he made a long 
 speech, not in as good English as he used 
 to speak when he wasn t excited, and his 
 eyes looked as if he were out of his head, 
 but every other way he was quiet enough, 
 only you could see he was awfully angry. 
 I can remember every word of it, nearly, 
 just the way he said it. 
 
 " Yes, you bad woman, he began. * I 
 thought you good woman, but to-night your 
 Charley-dog he stay too late. You think 
 
152 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 I only a common servant - boy, you bad 
 woman ! Now I tell you who I am. My 
 people all daimio, what you call princes. I 
 belong Tokugawa family. Tokugawa lye- 
 yasu was my fifteen times grandfather, and 
 he was shogun, what you call king, three 
 hundred years before now. All my people 
 kings or brothers of kings. Then you born. 
 Very year you born everything in Japan 
 change. Just to-day I ask Delia how old 
 you are you born same day Tokugawa 
 soldiers lose Wakamatsu Castle. Since 
 that war all Japan change no more sho- 
 guns now; all government different. Hun 
 dred years ago, priests say some day beau 
 tiful white bird be born with Gold Beak, 
 and that day Tokugawa kings end. You 
 that bird with Gold Beak bad woman ! 
 When you born you bring trouble my 
 people but that not enough for you 
 Gold Beak ! You listen : I speak your 
 dog-English very slow I remember all I 
 learn at school. Tokugawa people great 
 people, every way great when they fight, 
 great when they make uta poems, great 
 when they try to learn. Now I speak slow, 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 153 
 
 like a dog- English book, and you listen 
 every word I say for you never hear any 
 body else talk any more. Listen, Gold Beak 
 listen both your ears ! My grandfather 
 was not shogun shogun s brother, and when 
 revolution come he was killed, and my 
 father had to go north what we call Yezo 
 very wild island, where very poor wild 
 people live what we call Ainos people 
 all hairy like bears, and very cruel, My 
 father so kind, so good, so brave, all the 
 Ainos learn to love him, and he live there 
 quiet. For long time I was hidden for I 
 was born wartime, Gold Beak, three months 
 before you, and my mother was afraid Sat- 
 suma people kill me if they find me. But 
 by-and-by my father send for me to come 
 to him in Yezo and he bring me up to be 
 strong. He teach me to use a sword, he 
 give me these swords here, swords of my 
 family, same swords that will now cut off 
 head of Bird with Golden Beak. When I 
 am older my father say to me : " You see 
 that mountain, Komaga-take, all stiow, snow 
 up to shoulders ? Our family is like tliat 
 -mountain under snow. The mikado sees the 
 
154 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 snow, and he says : i Very cold, very cold ! 
 Tokugawa people all under snow like last 
 spring cherry blossoms? Then he laughs. 
 But look again, my boy. If you go up through 
 snow to top of mountain, you find there small 
 ponds of boiling water, and if yon step too 
 hard the ground gives way, and you go through 
 where all inside mountain is fire. Sometimes 
 top of mountain opens, and hot stones and all 
 hot things fly out, and the snow is all steam, and 
 people in villages at the foot of the mountain 
 who laugh when they look at the snow are 
 all killed. Tokugawa family same way : we 
 lie cold now, snow over us, but still have fire 
 at heart and some day the mikado and the 
 Satsuma people and the Choshiu people and 
 the Tosa people all find the snow can change to 
 steam very quick and they see old Tokugawa 
 swords swing again. But you must learn, my 
 boy. Japan is full of new ways European 
 ways dog-ways. I hate those ways, and you 
 must hate them but you must learn them. I 
 am going to send you far from Japan, where 
 you learn a new language dog - language 
 where you learn all the Choshiu and the Sat 
 suma people learn ; and when you have learned 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 155 
 
 all this you and all the others who had dai- 
 mio fathers some day there come another 
 war, and some day another Tokugawa shogun 
 have Japan." 
 
 " That is how my father talked to me, 
 Golden - Beak that is why I came to 
 America. I came alone with one servant 
 his grandfathers had been servants of my 
 grandfathers for three hundred years. I 
 went to your schools, I learned your dog- 
 language. I can speak your English when 
 I speak slowly plenty of it. But you die 
 bad woman ! We are all alone I tell 
 you all my story very slowly so you see I 
 can speak your English. After the schools 
 I go to Washington. I study law, to learn 
 how English laws, American laws, dog-laws, 
 are made and then I had no more money, 
 and my father was dead. But I wanted not 
 to go back to Japan. I wanted to learn 
 more ; I said I stay here until I go back 
 with my two swords in my hands. I left 
 Washington ; I come here San Francisco. 
 I find it very hard to live here. My old 
 servant could carve out of the wood, and he 
 carve the wood to keep us alive, then he 
 
I 5 6 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 die. Now listen bad woman ! You think 
 because I am your servant that I am noth 
 ing here. You say : " In Japan maybe so 
 his people great people but here he no 
 money, no friends he nobody." Big mis 
 take, Golden-Beak big mistake. I have 
 friends, good many hundreds, Japanese 
 friends, who love me and believe in me 
 and believe that before my hair is gray I 
 perhaps be sJwgun. We are a few hundreds 
 in your dog-town here, together in a club 
 we are many thousands in Japan. We don t 
 speak yet we only whisper. But some day 
 we speak, and all Japan will hear mikado 
 will hear Satsuma people will hear all 
 will hear and shoguns will rule Japan again. 
 All those others in this club here, they poor 
 boys like me but in Japan we have for our 
 side people who have some money left, 
 after the mikado and the Choshiu people 
 and the Tosa people and the Satsuma peo 
 ple have robbed them. They still have 
 money, and they offer me money. They 
 say : " Sons of Tokugawa no work like 
 coolies ; you must not sweep a floor we 
 give you all you need." I say : "No. A 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 157 
 
 son of Tokugawa will sweep a floor, but no 
 son of Tokugawa will let you give him 
 food when he is poor. When he is a great 
 man, then, yes, you shall give it to him, and 
 he will have it ; but now never !" So you 
 see, Golden - Beak, I sweep your floor, I 
 clean the mat where clog-Charley wipes his 
 feet and you laugh. You laugh, all of 
 you. You say : " Oh, very clean ; oh, very 
 good boy." But the snow is only on the 
 skin of Komaga-take. When Charley-dog 
 have dinner here, I spit in his soup. You 
 think I am a broom ; you think I am an 
 iron to stir the fire with ; but all the while 
 I am a man, Golden-Beak, and all the while 
 you are a woman. And I love you, bad 
 woman ! One day you left your door open 
 I see you with your hair all down your 
 breast, and I see your breast under your hair 
 bad woman ! After that I often stand at 
 your door. I think you know it all the time 
 bad woman ! I think you laugh ; I think 
 you say : " Poor Japanese boy, he look at 
 me ; he may look he not a man, he only a 
 broom, an iron to stir the fire with." And 
 every time I look I love you more, bad 
 
I 5 8 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 woman ! And now it is Charley-dog who 
 looks at your hair all down your breast, 
 and you no laugh at him. I know, Golden- 
 Beak, he stay too late to-night. And now 
 you die ! I think you don t have much 
 religion, even your dog-religion. You sleep 
 all the Sunday morning, you don t go to 
 church. But all you dog-Christians very 
 religious when you going to die. If you 
 want to be religious now bad woman ! 
 you make a prayer ; you never make an 
 other. 
 
 " That was what the boy said to me, stand 
 ing there dressed in the embroidered robes 
 of a Japanese nobleman, and with his two 
 swords in his hands. Of course I was scared. 
 Anybody would have been, let alone me. 
 But as soon as the boy told me that he was 
 in love with me, and I remembered that I 
 sometimes had seen him hanging around 
 my door, I wasn t so much scared. When 
 a man is in love with you he s a fool. That 
 is what I always think. He will threaten to 
 murder you, and he will do all sorts of awful 
 things, but you can manage him. And I 
 was sure that I could manage Temehichi. 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 159 
 
 I told him he must be crazy. I told him 
 that Charley Hart and I were very good 
 friends, and that was all ; and that if Char 
 ley had stayed later than usual that night, 
 it was only because we had a lot of new 
 songs to learn. And I told him that if he 
 was to be a great man and a great soldier, 
 it was a poor way for him to begin by kill 
 ing a helpless woman. And I told him that 
 he ought to have let me know his story 
 long before, and have let me try to be his 
 friend. He stood quite still for a long time, 
 looking at the blue edges of the swords, and 
 then he said to me : 
 
 " Bad woman, if I let you live, would 
 you try to be good ? 
 
 " I said I didn t think I had been very 
 bad, but that of course I would try to be 
 good if he would not murder me. 
 
 " * After you have got to be a good woman, 
 will you love me ? said he. 
 
 "I told him that I didn t know, that he 
 couldn t expect to make me love him by 
 threatening to chop my head off, that he 
 must wait and see. 
 
 " Finally he said he would not kill me 
 
l6o GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 that night, he would wait, and that if I 
 would be a good woman he would marry 
 me, and when he went back to Japan, and 
 the revolution came, and he was a great 
 man, I should be his wife. And he told me 
 that he knew he was doing wrong, that it 
 had been his father s idea that when the 
 new government was established all foreign 
 ers should be driven out of Japan, and that 
 for him to have a foreign consort when he 
 was made shoguii would be very inconsistent. 
 But he hoped, he said, that if I tried hard I 
 could grow to become almost like a Japan 
 ese. Then he made me a low bow, put his 
 swords back in his scabbards, and marched 
 out of the room. 
 
 " When I got up the next morning he 
 cooked my breakfast for me as usual, and 
 then I went down to Charley Hart s office 
 to ask him what I had better do. He was 
 awfully frightened, and said that if I didn t 
 complain to the police and have Temehichi 
 locked up we would both probably be killed. 
 But I told him that I couldn t do that that 
 it would make an awful scandal, and people 
 would say all sorts of things about me and 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 161 
 
 about him, and that anyhow I wouldn t do 
 it. I said that as long as I didn t allow my 
 friends to stay too late in the evening, I 
 didn t believe the boy would murder me or 
 give me any more trouble, and that it was 
 all his fault for having stayed so late, any 
 way. Charley said : 
 
 " All right, have your own way about it; 
 but I am never going up to your flat again 
 while you have that raving maniac there. 
 
 "And he didn t ; he was frightened near 
 ly to death. Well, for a month or so Teme- 
 hichi never said a word to me except about 
 his work. I didn t know whether to believe 
 his story or to think that he was out of his 
 head. And about that time I began to get 
 awfully tired of San Francisco. I had given 
 one of my friends who was on the Stock 
 Exchange three hundred and fifty dollars to 
 speculate with for me, and he had been so 
 lucky with it that I made up my mind that 
 I would go off to Europe. Then I thought 
 how much I would like to take a trip around 
 the world, and I thought that if I went by 
 the way of Japan I would stop there for a 
 while, and see what kind of a place it was. 
 
162 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 I sort of half believed what Temehichi had 
 told me. It sounded kind of crazy, but with 
 his Japanese dress and his swords and all 
 that, he really seemed to be somebody very 
 wonderful. And, anyhow, I thought I would 
 speak to him about it. So one morning I 
 told him that I had made up my mind to 
 go to Japan and see what kind of a country 
 it was, and see if I would like to live there, 
 and that in the meantime he and his friends 
 could go on getting ready their revolution. 
 Then he asked me if I really loved him, and 
 was going to marry him, and I told him it 
 was too early to talk about that, because I 
 didn t know until I had seen Japan whether 
 I could turn myself into a Japanese or not. 
 He said that when I got to Japan the mem 
 bers of his Reactionary Society would do 
 everything in the world for me, and that I 
 should see what a lot of power he really had. 
 Of course I don t know how much of all his 
 talk is nonsense, but, anyhow, I know that 
 all the Japanese on the steamer are as sweet 
 as pie to me, and wait on me hand and foot. 
 The only thing I don t like about it is that 
 he seems to have arranged things so that I 
 
I DON T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT, 
 REPLIED MRS. POTWIN " 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 163 
 
 can t talk to a man five minutes without one 
 of his Japanese coming sneaking up to see 
 what is going on." 
 
 " But surely," said I, " my dear Mrs. Pot- 
 win, you don t mean to tell me that every 
 Jap on the ship belongs to this wonderful 
 society, and takes his orders from your 
 friend Temehichi ?" 
 
 " I don t know anything about that," re 
 plied Mrs. Potwin, " but perhaps those who 
 are not in it are afraid of those who are 
 and that is why it is that they all look after 
 me so much." 
 
 This, then, was the secret which had per 
 plexed the purser, and as I said good-night 
 to Mrs. Potwin, I had an eye over my 
 shoulder to see if any of the Japanese were 
 watching us. But so far as I could see we 
 were not observed. 
 
 The whole story was wild and fantastic, 
 and yet I couldn t for the moment make up 
 my mind altogether to disbelieve it. I was, 
 at any rate, enough interested to wonder 
 very much what the Beautiful Bird with the 
 Golden Beak would do in Japan. 
 
164 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 IV 
 
 The morning after Mrs. Potwin had told 
 me the story of Temehichi, the purser called 
 me into his office as I rose from the break 
 fast-table and said : 
 
 " Well, did you pump Mrs. Potwin last 
 night ? You had her in a corner long 
 enough." 
 
 " I did my best," I replied, " and she 
 talked about all sorts of things, but I failed 
 to learn the mysterious Japanese word. I 
 wish I knew it. It would be as good as a 
 railway pass or a cart-load of money all 
 through Japan." 
 
 " I suppose that is as much as to say that 
 you know all about it, but had to promise to 
 keep your mouth shut," said the purser. 
 " Well, we have only got a few more days 
 to Yokohama, and I hope there will be no 
 bedevilments in the meantime." 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain s prayer was answered, 
 for nothing more tremendous than one or 
 two quarrels among the young men of the 
 smoking-room disturbed the latter days of 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 165 
 
 the passage. Then there began to be a 
 great stirring about, and the steerage pas 
 sengers were busily engaged in dropping 
 many-colored fragments of paper and little 
 handfuls of rice into the sea, seeking to 
 propitiate the gods, and praying that they 
 might find their friends in safety, and pros 
 per in their undertakings. A noisy gull 
 came out to show us the way to the bar at 
 Yokokama, and early the next morning the 
 chain was rattling from the hawse-hole, and 
 the white dome of Fuji-san loomed vaguely 
 through the clouds. 
 
 I had Mrs. Potwin somewhat on my con 
 science. I did not want to bear her ashore 
 with me like a bird of brilliant plumage I 
 had killed at sea, and yet it would be heart 
 less to leave her to the mercy of the boatmen 
 and the hotel runners. And she seemed to 
 me a pitiful little figure, arriving there in a 
 strange country, with her bright blue eyes 
 and her bright yellow hair, to involve her 
 self in I knew not what plots and intrigues. 
 I had made a good many English friends 
 when I had been in Japan before, and there 
 is a pleasant little knot of exiles living on 
 
166 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 the Bluff beyond the town always very ready 
 to be kind to strangers. But I couldn t 
 quite see myself asking Mrs. This or Mrs. 
 That to call on a " Mrs. Potwin, an Ameri 
 can lady whose acquaintance I had made on 
 board the steamer." I could have warned 
 them that her gowns were very surprising, 
 and that her manners were very American. 
 But there would be more than that to ex 
 plain. English people, even if they are living 
 at the world s end, entertain a belief, and 
 perhaps not an altogether mistaken one, 
 that young ladies whose marriages have mis 
 carried should not travel about the world 
 without the protection of some older woman 
 whose life has been more commonplace. 
 And it never seemed to enter Mrs. Potwin s 
 head that her drunken Irish maid was not a 
 sufficient chaperon. 
 
 I learned long ago that it is always foolish 
 for a man to try to help any woman about 
 her social position, even in the miscellaneous 
 society of a minor colony. A woman who 
 is herself in a good position can, if she be 
 comes interested in an eccentric creature 
 like Mrs. Potwin, do a great deal to set her 
 
GOLDEN BEAK 167 
 
 afloat ; but the mere fact that a man is try 
 ing to help a woman in that way gives her 
 a black eye at the outset. And, after all, 
 English people who are living in out-of-the- 
 way corners of the world have very good 
 reason to be more suspicious than people 
 at home. Every woman s first instinct when 
 she finds that she is being talked about is 
 to go somewhere where no one has ever 
 heard of her. A man may do the same 
 thing, but it is infinitely easier to know 
 when a man is wrong. If he has been 
 caught cheating at cards in England, it is a 
 moral certainty that he cannot go to a co 
 lonial club more than three or four times 
 without encountering some one who knows 
 all about him. Men travel about more than 
 women, and the gossips of the outlying clubs 
 manage to keep themselves very well post 
 ed about the happenings in the clubs at 
 home. An undesirable traveller may some 
 times be given the freedom of a colonial 
 club by a too confiding acquaintance, but 
 he never lasts long. With women it is a 
 very different matter. As long as a woman 
 doesn t pretend to be anybody extraordi- 
 
168 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 narily smart, it is by no means so simple a 
 matter to trace her antecedents, and this 
 tends to make people more cautious. I 
 knew, too, apart from all these general 
 principles, that if I induced anyone I knew 
 in Yokohama to give Mrs. Potwin the free 
 dom of the Bluff, she would inevitably flirt 
 with all the men and set all the women by 
 the ears. Plainly enough it was the path 
 of wisdom for me to let her shift for her 
 self from the start. 
 
 On the whole I was not a little relieved 
 when a very respectable young Japanese 
 came out to us on the health officer s 
 launch and told Mrs. Potwin that he had 
 been asked by friends in California to do 
 what he could to be of use to her. Directed 
 by him, she went to the hotel which I had 
 selected for myself, but I did not see her 
 again that night, as I was dining at the 
 club. The next day she told me that she 
 had made up her mind to try the experi 
 ment of taking a little Japanese house for 
 a month or two, and living altogether in 
 the Japanese fashion. I told her that she 
 must let me go and ask her for a cup of tea 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 169 
 
 when she had settled herself, and she said 
 that she would make an exception in my 
 favor, although she had resolved to have 
 nothing to do with the European colony. 
 So I no longer had to trouble myself about 
 trying to find some one to be kind to her, 
 and for a fortnight I only saw her once or 
 twice, and then when she was flying through 
 the streets in a very smart jinrikisha, with 
 two excellent runners. 
 
 I was amusing myself very well, but still 
 I was pleased when one day I found a little 
 note from her at the club to tell me that 
 she had made her home in one of the Jap 
 anese quarters, half-way up the hill, and 
 asking me to come and eat a Japanese din 
 ner with her that night. I had travelled 
 enough in the interior of Japan to be quite 
 able to eat native food when nothing else 
 was to be had, but I must have liked Mrs. 
 Potvvin very much to have been willing to 
 put up with that sort, of fare in Yokohama. 
 At any rate, she did it all uncommonly 
 well. She had three or four Japanese maids, 
 much prettier than one usually sees any 
 where but in a tea-house, and her little 
 
170 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 home was furnished in the very best Jap 
 anese taste. I had to drink tea and saki, and 
 I had to eat raw fish, and everything was 
 flavored with the inexhaustible soy. Mrs. 
 Potvvin herself was exquisitely dressed in the 
 Japanese fashion, and had already learned 
 the rudiments of Japanese etiquette. It 
 was, of course, absurd to see so fair-haired 
 and fair-skinned an American woman mas 
 querading as a Japanese, but she was a lit 
 tle creature, and the dress looked better 
 on her than it ever does on a foreign wom 
 an of ordinary stature. After dinner she 
 played her samisen for me, and told me 
 how much in earnest she was about adopt 
 ing Japanese manners and customs. She 
 was in the first flush of that enthusiasm 
 which Japan always excites in a stranger, 
 and sat cross-legged on her mat with heroic 
 perseverance. I asked her what she had 
 heard from Temehichi, and she told me she 
 had only received one short letter, but that 
 his friends in Yokohama had shown every 
 wish to be of service to her, and had taken 
 a great deal of trouble to install her com 
 fortably in her Japanese abode. 
 
I 7 2 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 in San Francisco, people say, and the Euro 
 peans learn it from the Chinese. Perhaps 
 your friend the Japanese boy took to the 
 habit, and it has affected his head. I won t 
 say positively that I know he can t be of the 
 great Tokugawa clan, because the Euro 
 peans to whom I have talked take no interest 
 at all in the descendants of a fallen dynasty, 
 and the Japanese themselves are very shy of 
 talking about the Tokugawa people. You 
 see the affair of sixty-eight isn t a mere epi 
 sode in the history of Japan. It is still so 
 recent an event that the Japanese don t like 
 to talk about it. But I have my doubts all 
 the same. And I can t understand all that 
 stuff about his using the two swords. So far 
 as I can make out, the daimio and the sa- 
 murai classes used to wear two swords, partly 
 for show, and partly to have a spare weap 
 on in reserve, but I don t believe they ever 
 used them both." 
 
 " I don t call that any argument," said 
 Mrs. Potwin. " Poor Temehichi might very 
 easily have got muddled about a little detail 
 like that. According to his own story, he 
 wasn t born until the old customs were all 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 173 
 
 done away with, and he may have mixed 
 up what his father taught him." 
 
 " It s a queer business altogether," said 
 I, "and the queerest part of it all is that I 
 can t quite make up my own mind what to 
 believe and what not to believe. I have 
 asked one or two very well-informed men 
 here about the political situation of the 
 country, of course without saying a word 
 about this extraordinary story of yours, and 
 from what they tell me there is nothing less 
 likely than even an unsuccessful insurrec 
 tion, let alone an accomplished revolution. 
 There have been one or two little disturb 
 ances since the establishment of the mika 
 do s government, but there is no serious 
 political party in Japan which wants to re 
 store the old order of things. I asked one 
 of these men whether he believed there 
 were any revolutionary or reactionary soci 
 eties at work, and he told me that, although 
 there might be some small associations of 
 ambitious and hare-brained young men, 
 there was certainly no organization of any 
 importance." 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Potwin, " if you believe 
 
174 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 that, I don t see how you are to explain what 
 I have seen with my own eyes, and what you 
 have seen too, for that matter. How could 
 a poor Japanese servant-boy like Temehichi 
 get the stewards on board the steamer to 
 take so much trouble about me, and how 
 could he have friends here to do all sorts 
 of things for me unless they all belonged to 
 some secret society?" 
 
 " I know," said I, " that I can t account 
 for what happened on board the steamer, 
 but it is easy enough to explain what you 
 have seen here in Yokohama. He writes 
 to some man here he knows, saying you are 
 going to hire a house and buy a lot of Jap 
 anese things, and of course the shopkeep 
 ers, and the people who get a commission 
 from the shopkeepers for bringing custom 
 ers to them, are all very glad to help you 
 find what you want." 
 
 " But there is more than that to be ex 
 plained," said Mrs. Potwin. " It isn t only 
 in the way of helping me to buy things that 
 these people have been kind to me. They 
 pay me all sorts of little attentions, and ev 
 erything is made as easy as can be for me. 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 175 
 
 I don t say that I really believe there will 
 ever be another shogun in Japan, and they 
 may have to wait for years and years before 
 they even try to get up a revolution, but I 
 am quite sure that Temehichi is more than 
 an ordinary boy, and that there are a lot of 
 people here ready to do anything he asks 
 them to." 
 
 " If that is the case," said I, " it is quite 
 clear to me that you are very unwise to have 
 anything to do with them. You may be sure 
 that the police in Japan, like the police in 
 any other country, know pretty well every 
 thing there is going on in the way of agita 
 tion against the government, and that if 
 these people are attempting anything of 
 the sort they will all be brought up with a 
 round turn one of these days, and if you 
 mix yourself up with them it will be made 
 uncommonly disagreeable for you at the 
 same time." 
 
 " But the police can t do anything to me," 
 said Mrs. Potwin. " No one here has said 
 a word to me about any secret society or 
 anything else of the kind. They come here 
 to see me, and ask if they can be of any use. 
 
176 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 One of them is a Japanese lawyer, and an 
 other is a clerk in one of the government 
 offices at Tokio, who came all the way down 
 here expressly to see me. They don t even 
 mention Temehichi s name to me. They 
 come and call on me, just so, and drink a 
 great deal of tea out of very small cups, 
 like anybody else, and want to know if they 
 can do anything to make my stay in Yoko 
 hama more agreeable. There isn t anything 
 out of the way about it. It is just as if I had 
 come here with a lot of letters of introduc 
 tion. Perhaps Temehichi hasn t anything 
 at all to do with it ; perhaps every stranger 
 who comes and hires a little native house 
 here is treated in the same way how do I 
 know ? I never was in Japan before." 
 
 " As for other strangers being treated as 
 you are," said I, " no one ever heard of an 
 American lady, or a lady of any other coun 
 try, coming here and making her home in 
 the Japanese quarter, and living in Japanese 
 fashion. However, it will be very good fun 
 for you for a while, and you have certainly 
 got a charming little house here and the 
 prettiest maids I ever saw. I am going up- 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 177 
 
 country, shooting for a month with a man, 
 and I hope I will find you all right when I 
 come back. In the meantime, if you should 
 get yourself into any sort of trouble here, go 
 to the American consul and tell him the 
 whole story." 
 
 " All right," said she, " I will. But you 
 needn t be anxious about me. And by the 
 time you get back I shall be able to speak 
 Japanese beautifully." 
 
 When I was a lad at school there were 
 three or four excellent bathing-places indi 
 cated by the authorities ; one in a shallow 
 back-water for the smaller boys, and other 
 more extensive reaches for those who had 
 proved their ability to take care of them 
 selves. But there were, I remember, not a 
 few among us who used to sneak away to a 
 muddy little bit of river where there were 
 no diving-boards and no conveniences of 
 any sort, because we thought that swimming 
 ceased to be a pastime as soon as it was 
 
I 7 8 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 recognized and organized as a part of our 
 education. And it was not, perhaps, with 
 out some trace of our school -boy perver 
 sity that Frank Scarlett and I set out for 
 a month s shooting in the northern part of 
 the main island of Japan. Foreigners are 
 not permitted to shoot over land more than 
 ten miles from a treaty port, and it was only 
 after chivvying the whole staff of the British 
 Legation for a week that we succeeded in 
 obtaining a special permission from the 
 government, and even then we each had to 
 keep a native policeman at our heels to ex 
 plain to the country people that we were 
 exalted beings, exempt from the customary 
 restrictions. Scarlett, who is a keen sports 
 man and has excellent shooting of his own 
 in England, would, I knew, be disgusted, 
 but his obstinacy carried everything before 
 it. He wanted to " do " Japan, and it was 
 impossible for him to believe that he could 
 see any new country without having a gun 
 under his arm. We got a few deer, one 
 lean and miserable boar, and very fair bags 
 of duck and green pheasant, but we walked 
 a ri for every head of game we saw. And 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 179 
 
 it is an extraordinary fact that all the geog 
 raphers and all the makers of dictionaries 
 and guide-books are profoundly incapable 
 of translating any sort of foreign measure 
 into English. These wiseacres tell you that 
 a Japanese ri is two miles and a half in a 
 flat country and three miles and a half in 
 the hills, and expect you to be attended by 
 a surveying expedition in order that you 
 may ascertain with precision whether your 
 morning s walk lies over country hilly enough 
 to be measured by a long ri or flat enough 
 to be measured by a short ri. Scarlett and 
 I ultimately hit upon the expedient of count 
 ing every ri five miles and then dividing 
 each ri into ten whistling distances, for the 
 dogs we had borrowed in Yokohama were 
 always precisely half a mile away from 
 us. It was all very ridiculous as far as 
 the shooting went, but I killed time well 
 enough, for Scarlett had never been in 
 Japan before, and the agonies he suffered 
 in the native inns were to me vastly enter 
 taining. 
 
 When we returned to Yokohama I took 
 him to see Mrs. Potwin. It seemed to me 
 
I8o GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 that she was the nearest approach to any 
 thing genuinely Japanese which he could be 
 expected to appreciate, and before he had 
 known her a week it was plainly to be seen 
 that he did appreciate her. I have laughed 
 at not a few things in my life, but I have 
 never seen anything so ridiculous as the 
 wooing of Mrs. Ysonde Potwin, American 
 divorcee and Japaneseyfo;/^, by Sir Francis 
 Scarlett. At the end of a fortnight he put a 
 stop to my chaffing him, telling me that he 
 meant to marry Mrs. Potwin if Mrs. Potwin 
 would marry him, and that he hoped I 
 would have the good taste if I had any 
 comments to make to make them elsewhere 
 than in his presence. He v/as old enough to 
 take care of himself, or, at any rate, of such 
 an age that he ought to have been able to 
 take care of himself, but I could not help 
 feeling that if I had not taken him to see 
 her he would never have met her, and that I 
 was in some degree responsible for his pre 
 posterous conduct. We came from the same 
 county; his people had always been great 
 friends of my people ; and I had known, 
 ever since we had been at school together, 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK l8l 
 
 that he was a fool. As long as he confined 
 himself to the groove in which his late la 
 mented father had set him running he did 
 very well. He had plenty of money, and 
 did not throw it away. His shooting in Nor 
 folk cost him a good deal, but it was very 
 good shooting. He always had two or three 
 horses in training, and they won him nearly 
 enough to pay for their keep. He was by 
 no means the sort of man whom a card- 
 sharper would have selected as a likely vic 
 tim. But the moment he lost sight of his 
 customary social landmarks he was as help 
 less as a child astray on a moor. There was 
 no reason that he should marry for some 
 years to come, and when the time came for 
 him to marry he ought to marry a woman 
 like one of my sisters or any other man s 
 sisters, not a \voman who seemed to have 
 composed herself out of jumbled reminis 
 cences of the cheap novels she had read. 
 But there he was, as much in earnest as any 
 man could be, and there was Ysonde Potwin, 
 charmed to have a second string to her 
 bow. He took an infinite amount of trouble 
 to find better runners for his jinrikisha than 
 
182 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 she had for hers and hers were uncom 
 monly good and they used to run mad 
 races every evening out beyond the cricket- 
 ground, she in her Japanese dress, quite 
 without head-gear, and her short yellow hair 
 flying in the wind. They were like two 
 children. I remembered her having told 
 me on the steamer that she never travelled 
 without a doll, and it seemed to me that 
 Scarlett had set up a doll in his turn, and 
 that she was the doll. They bought each 
 other endless presents for the most part 
 wooden cooking utensils and Japanese artif 
 icers tools they didn t know how to use. 
 He had been a dull boy at school and an 
 idle one, but she made him stick to his 
 Japanese lessons until they could manage 
 to keep up some kind of halting conversa 
 tion. Then, to my horror, they announced 
 that they were going off to Kioto together. 
 I expostulated. I told Scarlett that she 
 would of course get herself talked about if 
 she went flying around the country with him 
 without any chaperon ; whereupon Scarlett 
 told me that I was a low-minded beast, and 
 that Japan was not England, and that 
 
-i^r<2 
 -wT?~ 
 
 s. 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 183 
 
 American women were not English women, 
 and that in America women were taught to 
 take care of themselves, and that if I didn t 
 think Mrs. Potwin knew how to take care 
 of herself I had better not say so to him. I 
 didn t want to come to blows with Scarlett, 
 because I liked him, and because I thought 
 it highly probable that he could punch my 
 head several times before I could punch his 
 once, so I addressed my remonstrances to 
 the lady herself. She didn t lose her tem 
 per. She seemed to think it was a new and 
 delightful sort of joke. 
 
 " If you knew," she said, " how much 
 you look like my grandmother when you 
 raise your eyebrows that way, you wouldn t 
 do it. It s the simplest thing in the world, 
 my friend. I am going to Kioto because I 
 want to feed the carp at Kinkakuji. You d 
 go miles and miles to try to catch fish, and 
 I have a mania for feeding fish. When I 
 was three years old I used to take a globe 
 full of goldfish to bed with me always. One 
 person likes one kind of amusement, and 
 another person likes another. And Frank 
 is going to Kioto because he wants to shoot 
 
184 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 the rapids of the Hozu. If he went all 
 the way to Aomori to shoot ducks, why 
 shouldn t he go to Kioto to shoot rapids ? 
 I suppose you think I ought to wait till he 
 comes back to Yokohama before I go, or 
 let him wait till I come back before he 
 goes. That s your way of looking at it. 
 And you get your eyebrows away over to 
 the back of your head because I call him 
 Frank. If he were a man I had only seen 
 two or three times, you wouldn t be horri 
 fied at my going to Kioto because he hap 
 pened to be going there, and yet you talk 
 about my going with Frank, who s quite an 
 old friend of mine now. Why, he s been 
 to see me every day for a month ! Anyhow, 
 if you think it s so awful, why don t you 
 go along too ? I ll tell everybody you are 
 my grandmother dressed up in a man s 
 clothes." 
 
 " Thank you very much for the invita 
 tion," said I, " but I think I won t go. Do 
 try to be serious for five minutes, won t 
 you ? You know it s only because I like 
 you and take an interest in you that I 
 speak." 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 185 
 
 " I don t know whether it is or not," said 
 she. " I think you re half afraid Frank 
 and I will get married before we come 
 back. Why shouldn t I marry him, for that 
 matter ? You are always talking about re 
 spectability, and he s respectable, isn t he ?" 
 
 " Yes," said I. 
 
 " And I m not ? What s the reason I m 
 not ? I m divorced, but I divorced my 
 husband , he didn t divorce me. Is it my 
 being engaged to Temehichi that makes it 
 so dreadful ? Because if it is, I m not en 
 gaged to him. He asked me to marry him, 
 and I told him I d think about it. The 
 Queen of England couldn t give him a more 
 respectable answer than that, could she ? 
 And as for Temehichi, he belongs to a very 
 old family, and he s awfully poor, and I 
 hear you and Frank say the same things 
 about lots of your friends in England." 
 
 " It is not your marrying Temehichi that 
 we are talking about," said I. 
 
 " And perhaps Temehichi is good enough 
 for me, but I m not good enough for Sir 
 Francis Scarlett I suppose that is what 
 you mean ?" said the little woman. 
 
186 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 " I mean that you will get yourself talked 
 about if you go off to Kioto with him, after 
 the way you two have been larking about 
 Yokohama. That is what I mean," said I. 
 
 " And; if you please, who is going to talk 
 about us ?" asked Mrs. Potwin. " You ! 
 There isn t anybody else here who knows 
 us both. So the worst of it is you ll have 
 to talk to yourself. I can see you locking 
 yourself up. in a room and wagging your 
 head at yourself and saying ; Really, my 
 dear fellow, it s a most shocking busi 
 ness, and then agreeing with yourself that 
 it is." 
 
 " Do you want to marry Scarlett ?" said I. 
 
 " One question deserves another," said 
 Mrs. Potwin. " Do you think it would be 
 a very hard thing for me to do if I did 
 want to ?" 
 
 " I think, if you ask me," I replied, " that 
 it would be easy enough for you to get mar 
 ried. I fancy that the consuls or the mis 
 sionaries or some of those people are in the 
 habit of marrying foreigners here. But as 
 for the future, I am not sure that you 
 wouldn t find it harder to turn yourself into 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 187 
 
 an English woman and lead the life you 
 would have to lead as Lady Scarlett, than 
 to turn yourself into a Japanese woman 
 and be the consort of a shogun." 
 
 " I don t know how that would be," she 
 replied, "for Tve never been to England; 
 but I ll promise you one thing, if it will 
 make your mind any easier : that if I do 
 marry Frank, it won t be until after I have 
 been over to his country and see how I 
 like it." 
 
 " It is an original way of acquainting 
 yourself with the various countries of the 
 world," said I, " to engage yourself to men 
 of one nationality after another, and make 
 trial trips to their respective homes. Only 
 you will have to draw the line somewhere, 
 or you will be experimenting with a canni 
 bal tribe one of these days, and have your 
 pursuit of knowledge brought to an untime 
 ly end." 
 
 "You needn t worry about that," said 
 she. " But, as you seem to be so worked 
 up about it, I don t mind telling you one 
 thing : that the man I marry will be either 
 an Englishman or a Japanese." 
 
188 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 "And you haven t made up your mind 
 whether it is to be Scarlett or Temehichi ?" 
 I asked. 
 
 "If I have, I haven t told you," said Mrs. 
 Potwin. 
 
 And I walked down the hill again to my 
 hotel with no more definite information 
 than that. 
 
 I saw them start on their journey, these 
 two extraordinary young people. Their 
 suite consisted of Scarlett s man, a native 
 courier, and two of Mrs. Potwin s little Jap 
 anese maids. I saw the procession passing 
 along the Bund on its way to the railway 
 station, and Mrs. Potwin was kind enough 
 to arrest the wild flight of her jinrikisha to 
 bid me good-bye. I asked her why she was 
 not taking a third maid with her, and also 
 the little white donkey which I had bought 
 for her one day, and which she sometimes 
 used to drive in a cart. They might as well 
 have a good big caravan while they are 
 about it, I remarked. She told me that she 
 hoped the two maids would chaperon one 
 another, and that if she had taken the third 
 maid she would also have needed a fourth 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 189 
 
 to chaperon the third ; as for the donkey, 
 she didn t know what English manners and 
 customs might be, but that American ladies 
 considered it highly indecorous to travel 
 about with a donkey. And with this part 
 ing jeer, off she went. 
 
 I heard of the party s movements from 
 time to time, and I did not by any means 
 find it necessary to talk to myself about 
 them, as she had prophesied I should, for 
 within a few days every man in the club 
 knew about Scarlett s journey. An Ameri 
 can woman whom nobody knows can do all 
 sorts of eccentric things without arousing 
 any one s interest or attention, but a man 
 with a position in the world such as Scar 
 lett enjoyed does not possess the same im 
 munity. Every one seemed to know that 
 Mrs. Potwin was a friend of mine, and I 
 was heartily weary of being questioned 
 about them before they came back to Yo 
 kohama and they certainly did not hurry 
 themselves. From Kioto they went all the 
 way to Nikko, and from there both of them 
 wrote to me. Scarlett said he was having a 
 very good time, but that he still thought the 
 
IQO GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 inns abominable, and that was about all he 
 had to say. 
 
 Mrs. Potwin was more communicative. 
 She said she had greatly enjoyed feeding 
 the fish at Kinkakuji, and that she had 
 gone to Nikko because she had heard that 
 the Japanese government was feeding the 
 fish with which Lake Chuzenji had been 
 stocked; and, as feeding fish was her great 
 object in life, she wanted to see how it was 
 being done. And Scarlett, she said, had 
 gone on to Nikko because, after shooting 
 the rapids of the Hozu, he wanted to see 
 the Daiyagawa. She hoped, she said, that 
 I would clearly understand that no affairs 
 of lesser moment would have induced them 
 to disturb my equanimity by travelling over 
 the same roads at the same time. And in 
 the meantime she was engaged to be mar 
 ried to Scarlett ! It was not, she said, a 
 regular engagement : it was the species of 
 engagement called in America an "under 
 standing" a modified form of betrothal 
 which she considered exceedingly conven 
 ient. She had told Scarlett that she was 
 " sort of half engaged " to somebody else, 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 191 
 
 and that, such being the case, she couldn t 
 accept him outright, but that if this other 
 conditional engagement should not result in 
 a permanent and binding engagement, she 
 would consider herself conditionally en 
 gaged to Scarlett. She didn t say what the 
 conditions of this doubly conditional en 
 gagement were, but it seemed, as far as I 
 could make it out, to be a solemn agree 
 ment that they would marry one another if 
 they wanted to, and wouldn t marry one 
 another if they didn t want to. And in the 
 meanwhile, she said, she did not want to 
 have it " announced." This remarkable 
 letter ended with the statement that they 
 expected to be in Yokohama again at the 
 end of the month. 
 
 As a matter of fact, they didn t come back 
 at the end of the month, nor until half-way 
 through the next month. And when they 
 did come back, Scarlett told me in all seri 
 ousness that Mrs. Potwin was going to 
 marry him, and that he thought she was 
 the sweetest, brightest, prettiest little wom 
 an he had ever seen, and that he was as 
 happy as could be, and that perhaps his 
 
IQ2 GOLDEN BEAK 
 
 people at home wouldn t like it, but that he 
 didn t care whether they liked it or not. 
 
 I offered him a cigar. 
 
 To ask him to smoke seemed a good, 
 safe, conservative sort of thing to say, and 
 I could not think of anything more definite 
 that I thought it would be well to put into 
 words. 
 
 He went on to tell me that he knew that 
 in a great many respects Mrs. Potwin s 
 ideas of life were different from the ideas 
 of life entertained by our women at home ; 
 but that she was so sweet and so kind and 
 so bright that he was sure she would get on 
 with any sort of people anywhere in the 
 world. 
 
 I gave him a match. 
 
 He next recited to me a long list of the 
 names of Englishmen who had married 
 Americans, and remarked that all of these 
 American women had shown themselves 
 pretty well able to hold their own in Eng 
 land, and that many of them had, for that 
 matter, acquired no small degree of popu 
 larity in society. 
 
 I asked him to have a drink. 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK Ig3 
 
 If he wanted any expression of opinion 
 from me, he was disappointed. I was de 
 termined that, if he crowded me into a cor 
 ner and I had to say what I thought about 
 his projected marriage, that I would tell 
 him I thought him altogether out of his 
 mind ; but I preferred not to say so as long 
 as I could hold my peace. 
 
 But I talked to Mrs. Potwin. I told her 
 it was not a thing to be joked about ; that 
 Scarlett was a very honest fellow, and a 
 very kind fellow, and a very good fellow, 
 and a fellow I liked very much, and that he 
 seemed to have put it into her hands to 
 make him very unhappy if she saw fit so to 
 do. I told her frankly enough that I was 
 by no means sure that it lay equally in her 
 power to make him happy, and that, as for 
 her own chances of happiness, I thought 
 that England would be about the last place 
 in the world in which she would like to live. 
 Then I asked her what she had heard from 
 Temehichi. She showed me the last letter 
 she had received from him. It was quite 
 respectful and quite well expressed. It did 
 not allude to the Reactionary Society, and 
 
I 9 4 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 it occupied itself chiefly with suggestions 
 for the furtherance of her health and com 
 fort in Japan. Apparently Temehichi had, 
 as yet, heard nothing about her flying about 
 with Scarlett, and he seemed to be quite at 
 peace with himself and with her. 
 
 Only a few days later, on Mrs. Potwin s 
 birthday, she received a strange sort of 
 present, which Temehichi must have had 
 made for her in Japan. It was a little 
 bronze helmet, and was clamped upon the 
 head of a large French -wax doll, which 
 came with it. It entirely covered the head 
 of the doll, but was furnished with hinges 
 at one side ; and, when a spring was touched 
 and the joint opened, the little helmet could 
 be removed. The helmet itself was in the 
 form of a bird s head, the feathers being 
 simulated in white enamel. The eyes were 
 two small garnets, and the bill, which was 
 shaped like that of a hawk, was made of 
 gold. Mrs. Potwin was delighted with this 
 new toy, which was indeed most ingeniously 
 constructed and most exquisitely finished ; 
 and it was a droll sight to see the doll, with 
 its pink cheeks and staring blue eyes, sud- 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 195 
 
 denly transformed into a mythic monster, 
 like the sun-god of the Nile, when its head 
 was covered by the casque. I didn t see 
 how Temehichi could have found the money 
 to pay for so elaborate a toy, but I was tired 
 of speculating about his mysteries. So far 
 as I knew she hadn t told Scarlett anything 
 about Temehichi, and I didn t think it was 
 my business to enlighten him. But she used, 
 when I found her alone, to put the helmet 
 on the doll, and, solemnly shaking her finger 
 at its golden beak, upbraid it after the man 
 ner of Temehichi, calling it " Gold Beak " 
 and " Bad Woman/ a performance in which 
 she delighted. 
 
 Take it altogether, the little woman s 
 Japanese home was a pleasant place to go 
 for an hour or two, and I was sorry when 
 it was time for me to say good-bye to her. 
 
 VI 
 
 It was black March weather when I 
 found myself in England again, and it was 
 not until May that Scarlett came home. A 
 
196 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 few days after I had heard of his return he 
 wrote to ask me to spend a week with him 
 at his place in Oxfordshire. I had made 
 up my mind to go up to town about the 
 time his letter came, but I am not one of 
 those men who cannot live unless they pass 
 the gates of St. James s Palace a certain 
 number of times every day for a certain 
 number of weeks in every year, and I love 
 the upper river. Scarlett s place is about 
 half-way between Oxford and Lechlade, on 
 the river-side, a great rambling old Eliza 
 bethan house, without any such architect 
 ural pretensions as to hinder his making it 
 thoroughly comfortable. Scarlett himself 
 came to meet me at Oxford, and told me as 
 we drove out that he had prevailed upon 
 several other men to impinge upon the 
 London season, and that he thought we 
 should have a very jolly time of it. 
 
 " And how did you leave Mrs. Pot- 
 win ?" I asked him. " Is she still flying 
 up and down the Bund at Yokohama in 
 her rikisha ?" 
 
 " I can t drive tandem and talk about 
 Mrs. Potwin at the same time," said Scar- 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 197 
 
 lett. " You shall hear all about her this 
 evening." And then he talked horse a 
 subject which always bores me to death 
 until we turned into the long avenue of 
 Dunkin House, just as the sunset was 
 reddening the lustrous lily -pads in the 
 river. 
 
 When I went down to the drawing-room 
 at dinner-time, old Lady Scarlett, who used 
 to give me half-crowns, and beg Frank not 
 to thrash me, twenty years ago, told me that 
 she was very glad to see me, and that she 
 wanted to have a little quiet talk with me 
 in the morning, and show me the new 
 kitchen-garden. I am not a great hand at 
 kitchen-gardening, and I never knew any 
 one yet to promise you a quiet little talk 
 unless there was something unpleasant to 
 say. I thought I knew pretty well what she 
 wanted, and was resigning myself to the 
 prospect of a cross-examination upon Scar 
 lett s doings in Japan, when George Elphin- 
 stone, who had been at school with Scarlett 
 and with me, seized upon me as she released 
 me, and said : 
 
 ** You will tell me all about it to-night, 
 
198 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 won t you, old chap ? I never heard such 
 a rum thing in my life." 
 
 " All about what ?" said I. 
 
 " All about the Japanese lady," said he, 
 as his wife took charge of him, and left me 
 to wonder how Mrs. Potwin had become a 
 subject of such widespread interest. I 
 could understand that Lady Scarlett might 
 have heard about the trip to Tokio and 
 Nikko, or even that Frank might have writ 
 ten and told her that he contemplated 
 marrying a Mrs. Nobody, of Nowhere. But 
 I couldn t see how Elphinstone, or Tom or 
 Dick or Harry, could be so well informed. 
 I was not, however, left long in doubt. A 
 dozen or so of people came into the room, 
 most of whom I knew, and then there was 
 the moment s wait which betokens that 
 somebody has failed to heed the dressing- 
 bell. 
 
 The door opened, and in walked Ysonde 
 Potwin, gorgeously apparelled in a gown as 
 nearly Japanese as a European gown can 
 be. As soon as she had told Lady Scarlett 
 that she hoped she was not too late, she 
 came up to me and gave me both her 
 
IX WALKED YSONDE I O IWIX " 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 199 
 
 hands, over which I fumbled helplessly. I 
 know of nothing more distressing than to 
 have a woman give you both her hands, 
 unless it is to suddenly find that you are 
 expected to kiss her hand. 
 
 " You didn t know I was here, did you ?" 
 she said. " I made Frank promise not to 
 tell you." And then, dropping her voice a 
 little, she added, " I haven t made up my 
 mind whether I am going to marry him, but 
 we are supposed to be regularly engaged, 
 and everybody is just lovely to me." 
 
 I was told off to take her to dinner, and 
 I do not mind confessing that I was ex 
 ceedingly uncomfortable. I knew that 
 every one in the house must think she was 
 mad, and Scarlett more mad to think of 
 marrying her. I felt sure that every one 
 had heard her described as being a friend 
 of mine. To say that in an English coun 
 try-house Ysonde Potwin was absolutely 
 impossible is putting it very mildly. She 
 chattered like a magpie all through dinner, 
 and it seemed to me that she made a de 
 liberate effort to be as exotic as possible. 
 I saw poor old Lady Scarlett drop her eyes 
 
202 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 no one of them has ever shaken my belief 
 that an Englishman who is fortunate enough 
 to have the privilege of taking an English 
 gentleman s daughter for his wife is most 
 ill-advised if he marries an alien. But in 
 the case of Mrs. Potvvin there was more 
 than this. I know that the American wom 
 en who have made a footing in London 
 and I don t for a moment mean to say that 
 it isn t a firm footing would say, if they 
 were asked, that Mrs. Potwin was not as 
 they were. She was, however, quite pleased 
 with herself. She thought, as she told me 
 after dinner was over, that such a marriage 
 was just the surprising sort of thing that 
 would be -likely to happen to her. 
 
 " I am so glad," she said, " to have you 
 to talk to. You see, all these people here 
 think I am regularly engaged to Frank. He 
 didn t want any one to know that it was only 
 a kind of an understanding ; but it is, just 
 the same. I have come over here to see 
 how I like living in England, just the same 
 as I went to Japan to see how I liked living 
 there. I think Frank is the kindest, most 
 good-natured man I ever saw, and if I didn t 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 203 
 
 think about anything but what was easy to 
 do and pleasant to do, I d make up my mind 
 to marry him and have it over with. But if 
 Temehichi is going to be a shogun, I think I 
 ought to marry him, whether I want to or 
 not. It s like having a chance to live in a 
 fairy story. When I used to read about the 
 little girl who married the prince made out 
 of nougat, I used to vow I d never marry an 
 ordinary human being. And it seems like 
 throwing away my only chance if I don t 
 marry Temehichi. Most people never get 
 a show to do anything so improbable." 
 
 " Is he making any headway with his rev 
 olution ?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh, I suppose he is working at it all the 
 time," she said. "I haven t had a letter 
 from him for ever so long, and the last time 
 he wrote to me he was perfectly furious. 
 He called me Bad Woman and Gold Beak, 
 and called Frank a dog, just the way he 
 used to go on about poor Charley Hart. 
 You see, he had heard all about my going 
 to Nikko at the same time Frank was going 
 there, and besides that, he was in an awful 
 rage because I didn t go up to Yezo to see 
 
204 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 some of his relations. I thought if he was 
 in such a fury, Td just let him walk up and 
 down till he cooled off, and so I came over 
 to England. He said in his letter that he 
 was going to Japan, but I don t believe it, 
 and if he does he won t come here. Any 
 how, I don t want to talk about him any 
 more now. While I was in Japan I was all 
 the while thinking about Japanese things, 
 and now I m in England I want to think 
 about English things. One thing I can t 
 make out is, why they don t dance in the 
 evening after dinner. In America, when 
 there are a lot of people together in the 
 evening, they always dance. There are four 
 or five couples here, anyway, and I think it 
 is the most ridiculous thing I ever saw with 
 that splendid wax floor not to make the 
 most of it. But Frank says that somebody 
 who lives over on the other side of the river 
 is going to give a ball in two or three days, 
 and then I am going to dance until I can t 
 stand. And now you had better go and 
 talk to somebody else. I want to get better 
 acquainted with that girl with the white eye 
 lashes over in the corner there, so I can tell 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 205 
 
 her to put something on them. She makes 
 me so nervous, the way she is now, I don t 
 know what to do." 
 
 And when Mrs. Potwin left me I saw 
 that the other men had already made their 
 way to the billiard -room, where I soon 
 found myself playing pool ; and I had 
 no chance to talk with Scarlett that 
 night. 
 
 But it was easy enough to have all the 
 talk I wanted with his mother in the morn 
 ing. She was very nice about it ; I will say 
 that for her. She didn t abuse Mrs. Pot- 
 win. She was unhappy, and the more un 
 happy because she didn t know just how 
 unhappy she ought to be. I think that 
 Frank had perhaps been a little rough 
 about it. He didn t want to be asked a 
 lot of questions, which he would, indeed, 
 have been at a loss to answer, and, I fancy, 
 he had put his head down, like a bull at a 
 gate, and told his mother he wanted to 
 marry Mrs. Potwin, and would marry her, 
 whether anybody liked it or not. And now 
 the poor good creature had got me to cross- 
 question. The first thing she wished to 
 
206 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 know was if Mrs. Potwin had ever been 
 connected with the stage. On this point I 
 was enabled to reassure her. Then she 
 asked if Mrs. Potwin was received by nice 
 people in California, and whether the nice 
 people in California were nice. As I don t 
 know three people in the whole State of 
 California by name, I felt justified in say 
 ing that there were very nice people in Cal 
 ifornia, and that none of the Californians 
 who honored me with their friendship would 
 dream of making a wry face at Mrs. Potwin ; 
 that she was very young, almost childish, in 
 deed, and that it was highly probable that 
 some of her little eccentricities would dis 
 appear in the course of a few years quiet 
 life in England. 
 
 " Ah, if it were only that she is eccen 
 tric !" said Lady Scarlett. "One doesn t 
 mind that in the least. People may be 
 quite mad, for that matter. One of my 
 dearest friends firmly believes that Mary of 
 Modena ought to be on the throne, and 
 shakes her head every Sunday morning 
 when the prayers for the Queen and the 
 royal family are read. One quite under- 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 207 
 
 stands people being odd in that way; but 
 I don t mind speaking to you very openly, 
 you are such an old friend of Frank s I 
 think Mrs. Potwin is vulgar. I could ac 
 custom myself to her ; she isn t quarrel 
 some ; she isn t disagreeable ; but I know 
 that, sooner or later, it will make Frank un 
 happy to feel that she isn t like other peo 
 ple. She is so young now, and all the 
 strange things she says are said in such a 
 graceful little way, that she seems like a 
 naughty child. And, I fancy, Frank likes 
 her all the better because she is different 
 from other people. Ten years from now, 
 when she has four or five children, it will 
 be dreadful to hear her talk as she does 
 to-day; and the worst of it is that the chil 
 dren will learn to say the same unheard-of 
 things that she does." 
 
 I tried my best to comfort the poor lady, 
 but she returned to the charge with an evi 
 dent determination to know the worst and 
 have it over. 
 
 " Frank," she said, has not seen fit to 
 talk very freely to me, but from something 
 which Mrs. Potwin herself said it seems that 
 
2o8 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 it was not Mr. Potwin s death that took 
 him from her." 
 
 I could not, of course, pronounce the 
 fatal word " divorce " after she had dodged 
 it so gracefully, but I gave her to under 
 stand, as delicately as I could, that the 
 courts of the State of California not infre 
 quently put asunder those whose joining 
 together had proved inauspicious. And so 
 Lady Scarlett knew the worst. She didn t 
 ask why or how Mrs. Potwin s marriage had 
 been broken. It was enough for her to 
 know that it had been dissolved by process 
 of law, and not by the death of one of the 
 contracting parties. If her son was going 
 to marry a divorced woman, she, at any 
 rate, would try to do her duty by him, and 
 by any one who bore his father s name. 
 But I knew, as I left the old lady standing 
 there among the bean-poles, that I had 
 dealt her a cruel blow the day I first took 
 her son to Ysonde Potwin s house in Yoko 
 hama. 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 209 
 
 VII 
 
 If the morning had been given up to 
 kitchen -gardening and remorse, the after 
 noon, at any rate, promised to be a pleasant 
 one. Mrs. Potwin was, naturally, having 
 very much her own way with Dunkin House 
 and its inmates, and it was her pleasure to 
 take possession of an old cedar-wood punt 
 that lay idly among the lily -pads. After 
 appointing herself captain of the lazy craft, 
 she ordained that Scarlett should serve for 
 crew and I for freight. She had selected 
 from among the mass of Japanese cushions 
 and draperies which he had brought from 
 Japan those which pleased her best, and 
 when she herself, dressed in a charming 
 little frock of Japanese silk, took her place 
 in the punt, her lap filled with apple blos 
 soms, she looked like a stray leaf from a 
 Japanese picture - book dropped by some 
 persistent breeze upon the sober English 
 surface of the Thames. But she had not 
 proposed to herself an afternoon of summer 
 idleness, and I don t think I ever heard so 
 
210 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 earnest a tone in her voice as when she 
 told Scarlett to let the punt drift, and then 
 said to me : 
 
 " I want to talk to you seriously. Some 
 times you laugh at what I say and some 
 times you scold me, but you always treat 
 me as if I were a naughty little child who 
 ought to be at school. But to-day I want 
 to be serious, and I want you to help me 
 decide and help Frank decide what he and 
 I ought to do. If I were here alone with 
 him, it would be no use for me to try to be 
 wise. He just takes it for granted that 
 everything is going to run smoothly, and 
 that we are going to be married, and live 
 happily ever after. Now will you listen to 
 what I am going to say and tell me truly 
 what you think ?" 
 
 I told her that I would do my best, and 
 then she made Frank promise in his turn 
 that he "would not take everything for 
 granted." 
 
 " Well," began Mrs. Potwin, when she 
 had assured herself an attentive hearing, 
 " in the first place, I don t think it is right 
 for me to go on being conditionally engaged 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 2 II 
 
 to Frank, and having all his friends think 
 it s a regular engagement. I told him be 
 fore we left Japan that I didn t consider he 
 was any more held to it than I was, and 
 that he could back out whenever he want 
 ed to. But he won t want to, because he is 
 obstinate, and even if he did want to he 
 wouldn t, because he d be ashamed, and I 
 think we have got to make up our minds 
 about it one way or the other. In America 
 it is as easy as anything to break off an un 
 derstanding like that, or even a regular en 
 gagement. I know lots of girls who have 
 been engaged five or six times, and they 
 don t think anything of it ; but here in 
 England everybody seems to think it is a 
 very serious thing. It is just like getting 
 into one of your express trains. They lock 
 the doors of the car, and you have to stay 
 there until you get to where you have 
 bought your ticket for. If I go on staying 
 here with his mother and all his friends, 
 and then, afterwards, I tell him that I 
 don t think it is going to do, they will 
 all say I was a flirt and that I made a 
 fool of him, and he would hate that, be- 
 
212 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 cause he is awfully proud. Wouldn t you, 
 Frank ?" 
 
 " I don t like to look like, a fool, if that s 
 what you mean, my dear," said Scarlett. 
 " But I don t see what you want to talk all 
 this nonsense for. Of course we are going 
 to be married sooner or later. I m not 
 hurrying you ; I will give you all the time 
 you want. It seems to me the simplest 
 thing in the world. You and I had an aw 
 fully good time out in Japan together, and 
 we have a good time here. Why shouldn t 
 we be married and go on having a good 
 time ?" 
 
 " I will tell you why," said Mrs. Potwin. 
 " You know that man we saw the day we 
 went over to Woodstock the man who was 
 driving what you call a piebald horse ? We 
 call them paint horses in America. Well, 
 I didn t see anything out of the way about 
 it. I think a spotted horse is awfully pretty. 
 But you and all the other men on the coach 
 laughed at it, and said that the horse looked 
 as if it came out of a circus. Well, now, I 
 am like a spotted horse. I am very pretty, 
 but I am not the correct thing in England. 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 213 
 
 Japan was a kind of a circus to you, and 
 when you saw me out there you thought 
 I was lovely ; but if we got married, you 
 would find out, sooner or later, that all your 
 friends wondered why you harnessed up a 
 piebald horse instead of choosing a regular 
 every-day color like other people. I didn t 
 know it was going to be like that until 
 I came over to England. That is what I 
 wanted to come here for to find out. It 
 isn t because I am a flirt ; truly it isn t. I 
 haven t flirted with you the least bit, Frank. 
 I like you ever so much, and the only rea 
 son I don t want to marry you is, that I 
 don t believe it would work. Your mother s 
 awfully nice and kind to me, but I can see 
 that she doesn t think it is going to work 
 either. Do you think it would work ?" said 
 the little woman, turning to me. 
 
 " I don t know what I think, my dear 
 Mrs. Potwin," I replied. " Sometimes I 
 fancy you are rather too feather-headed a 
 small person to marry anybody, but when 
 you talk like this you don t seem feather- 
 headed at all. I don t see that, after all, 
 it is anybody s business but yours and 
 
214 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 Frank s, or that anybody else but you two 
 can judge about it. If you both believe 
 that you can be happy together, it is half 
 the battle over already." 
 
 I felt rather a sneak as I said this, for, 
 although I had been very careful not to ex 
 press an opinion of any sort when I had 
 been talking with Lady Scarlett that morn 
 ing, I knew quite well that I had left her 
 with the impression that I did not approve 
 of her son s matrimonial project. But I 
 was touched by what Mrs. Potwin said, 
 and I was beginning to think that perhaps 
 I had been unjust to her, and that she had 
 more unselfishness and good feeling than I 
 had given her credit for. 
 
 " If it is my turn now," said Scarlett, 
 " perhaps I might say what I think, be 
 cause, after all, I have something to do 
 with it, you know. And what I ve got to 
 say is this : If the only reason you are 
 afraid to marry me is that you think I will 
 be ashamed of you, it s all rubbish. I am 
 not a hand to be always arguing about 
 things and talking politics and all that, and 
 I know a great many people seem to think 
 
GOLDEN BEAK 215 
 
 I have no brains ; but I know what I want 
 as well as the next man---and what I want 
 is you. I suppose what you are driving at 
 is that if we had a house in town, and went 
 up there every season, people would say I 
 hadn t made a smart marriage. But what 
 difference does that make to me ? If I were 
 a parson it might do me some good to 
 marry a girl whose people were great swells 
 and all that sort of thing. But I m not. I 
 don t want anything of anybody, and, as for 
 being up in town and dining out every 
 night, I hate all that. I like to be com 
 fortable, and I think you and I would have 
 the jolliest sort of a life together. If you 
 have any real reason for thinking that we 
 wouldn t, tell me what it is, but if it s only 
 that you think you re a skewbald horse, I 
 call it wasting time to talk about that." 
 
 "Well, that isn t all there is to it," said 
 Mrs. Potwin, "but it all conies to the same 
 thing" ; then, turning to me, she said : 
 
 " Don t you think I ought to tell Frank 
 about Temehichi? I have tried to tell him 
 two or three times, but he won t let me." 
 
 " What s Temehichi ?" said Scarlett. 
 
216 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 " Some place in Japan where you were riding 
 what you call a paint horse in a circus? 
 What do I care about that ? Haven t I seen 
 you often enough flying about Yokohama 
 with no hat on, and wasn t I flying about 
 with you, for that matter? I wouldn t want 
 to go down Piccadilly that way, and I don t 
 suppose you would either, and after we are 
 married and settled I don t suppose either 
 of us will want to do that sort of thing. 
 And, as for your trying to tell me some 
 story of yours, I know that one evening up 
 in Nikko you wanted to tell me all about 
 some man you had been engaged to, and I 
 told you I didn t want to hear it. I know 
 well enough you were married before, for 
 that matter, and of course I wish you hadn t 
 been; but I don t see any use in talking 
 about it." 
 
 Mrs. Potwin asked me again if I didn t 
 think she ought to teH Scarlett all about 
 Temehichi, and in common honesty I had 
 to say that I thought she ought. 
 
 And she did. There in the broad, square- 
 shouldered punt, on the quiet, comfortable 
 English river, she told him the whole story. 
 
OX THE QUIET, COMFORTABLE ENGLISH RIVER 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 217 
 
 I knew, as soon as she began, that Scarlett 
 would not laugh at that. And when I saw 
 that she wasn t trying to tone it down at all, 
 that she meant to make him clearly under 
 stand that she had seriously thought of 
 marrying a little copper-colored servant-boy, 
 who was either a lunatic or worse either 
 out of his head or engaged in some mad 
 scheme of getting up a twopenny-ha penny 
 insurrection in Japan I liked her better 
 than I had ever liked her before. Scarlett 
 heard her story to the end, leaning on his 
 long punt-pole, and from time to time 
 thoughtfully stirring the mud in the river- 
 bottom and watching the black clouds rise 
 through the clear water. When she had 
 said her say she looked up at him to see 
 how he was taking it, and I looked the oth 
 er way. I wished more than ever that they 
 had not brought me with them. The punt 
 shot ahead vigorously, and we were half a 
 mile down the stream before Scarlett spoke. 
 Then, letting his pole drag idly through the 
 water, he said to Mrs. Potwin : 
 
 " I suppose you expect to have me tell 
 you what I think of all this, but I can t do 
 
2l8 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 it yet. You see, I am one of the slow kind 
 so now we will talk about something else, 
 if you don t mind." I saw in his face that 
 the story of Temehichi was gall to him. A 
 moment later he let the punt run up to the 
 bank, and said : 
 
 " If you people will amuse each other for 
 a moment, there is a cottage just a hundred 
 yards from the shore that my agent s been 
 talking to me about, and I want to have a 
 look at it for myself." 
 
 It was as good an excuse as another, and 
 I could very well understand that he wanted 
 to be alone for a moment. When we were 
 left there together in the punt, Mrs. Potwin 
 said, quietly enough : 
 
 " He sees now that I am a paint horse. 
 I guess, now that he knows about Temehi 
 chi, it will be easy enough to persuade him 
 that he had better not marry me. Do you 
 know what I believe ? I believe it was be 
 cause Temehichi used to clean up the flat 
 that Frank thinks it is so awful. It seems 
 just the same to him as if it were one of the 
 big footmen up at the house. He doesn t 
 see the difference the least bit." 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 219 
 
 " It is a singular story, you know, when a 
 man hears it for the first time," said I, a 
 little sharply perhaps, for at the moment I 
 felt much more sorry for Scarlett than for 
 her. 
 
 " Oh, it s singular enough," replied Mrs. 
 Potwin ; " anybody would say that. But 
 when you call it singular, that s a kind of 
 a half-polite way of calling it disgusting. 
 I supposed you d be disgusted when I 
 told you the story on board the steamer 
 last year, only you didn t like me enough 
 to care anything about it one way or the 
 other ; but it disgusts Frank ; anybody can 
 see that easy enough. There isn t any cot 
 tage up there. He s just gone off to cool 
 down, that s all." 
 
 " That is quite likely," said I. " It can t 
 flatter a man s vanity much to have Tem- 
 ehichi for a rival." 
 
 " It is so hard to make you Englishmen 
 understand !" cried Mrs. Potwin. " With 
 us, people s ideas are so different. You 
 can t expect it to be any other way. There 
 are a few people in New York and in Bal 
 timore and one or two other big cities who 
 
220 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 bring up their children on the English plan, 
 but a good many people laugh at them for it." 
 
 " And you were not brought up on the 
 English plan ?" I asked. 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Potwin, " I wasn t. My 
 father was rich, and of course he had a 
 splendid position in Washington ; but he 
 thought all those old-fashioned European 
 ideas were ridiculous, and I guess my moth 
 er thought so too. It s awfully hard to ex 
 plain it, but if I could only make you un 
 derstand, you wouldn t blame me half so 
 much. Why, you take it there in Califor 
 nia : nearly all the old ladies whose hus 
 bands have so much money now the old 
 ladies that everybody looks up to they 
 worked with their hands thirty or forty 
 years ago. Maybe they weren t servants 
 in anybody else s houses, but they were 
 servants in their own houses, anyhow. They 
 worked like servants, they ate like servants, 
 they talked like servants, and they thought 
 like servants. According to our American 
 ideas they re commoner than the ladies in 
 the East, but I don t see but that it is just 
 the same everywhere. I have been up, 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 221 
 
 when I was a little girl, to stay with some 
 cousins of mine in Vermont people who 
 were as proud as could be but it was a 
 farm, and the ladies used to do most of 
 the cooking themselves. They had only 
 one hired girl, and they used to have to 
 get the men s dinner ready, hired men and 
 all, and wait on them at table, too. Do 
 you suppose that when a child sees such 
 things, that child will grow up with Eng 
 lish ideas about social distinctions and all 
 that ? Why, those old ladies up in Ver 
 mont would have thought any such talk 
 as that worse than nonsense ; they would 
 have said it was downright wickedness. 
 They had a kind of a Puritan idea that 
 one person was just as good as another, 
 and that it was wrong to be worldly, as 
 they called it. That s the way all our 
 grandmothers were in America. And we 
 grow up to be as worldly as can be, and 
 to want to spend lots of money, and to wear 
 good clothes, and everything like that, but 
 we still have their ideas about one person 
 being just as good as another. I know I 
 was wrong to encourage Temehichi to think 
 
222 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 about me, but if I had been in earnest it 
 wouldn t have been wrong, according to the 
 old American idea of things. You English 
 people think it s awful bad manners for 
 girls to flirt, in the joking kind of way our 
 girls do, without trying to hide it ; but I 
 guess English girls brought up the way we 
 are girls in what you call the middle 
 classes are just the same. It isn t fair to 
 judge me as if I had been brought up like 
 your sisters. We don t have governesses 
 tagging after us when we go out to walk : 
 we go around alone, and of course we don t 
 grow up so prim. It is very well for you 
 Englishmen to be surprised at our Ameri 
 can ways, but I have seen Australian girls 
 come to America, and they carry on with 
 everybody just as American girls do. They 
 are not a bit more proud, and yet they 
 are real English stock, aren t they ? It isn t 
 a mixture of Germans and Italians and 
 French and everything else, as it is in 
 America. They are all of them English 
 enough, but Lady Scarlett would find their 
 manners and everything else about them 
 just as queer as anything I do." 
 
GOLDEN BEAK 223 
 
 " That may all very well be," said I, " but 
 you must remember that the young ladies 
 from Australia have not had just the sort of 
 fathers and grandfathers that women like 
 Lady Scarlett have had. They were Eng 
 lish, if you please, but they were a very 
 different sort of English, and a sort of Eng 
 lish we don t know. A good many of their 
 grandfathers were transported English con 
 victs, and for that matter most of the men 
 who go out to the colonies even nowadays 
 are a worthless, shiftless lot, or else are the 
 sons of worthless, shiftless people in Eng 
 land. If they were well off they d stay at 
 home. The emigration of the unfit is inci 
 dental to the survival of the fittest." 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Potwin, " if you come 
 down to that I suppose it was the same way 
 with our grandfathers who went to America. 
 If they hadn t been paupers or criminals or 
 religious cranks like the Salvation Army or 
 some other kind of no-account people they 
 wouldn t have gone. And how can you ex 
 pect me to have the same ideas that an 
 English lady has when all her people have 
 been taken care of like the gardens at 
 
224 GOLDEN-BEAK. 
 
 Dunkin House, for generation after genera 
 tion?" And Mrs. Potwin, turning her head 
 away, and nestling down in the cushions, 
 added : 
 
 " I wish you would go and look at that 
 cottage, too. I m a little bit upset, and I d 
 like to be alone for a while." I stepped out 
 of the punt, and as I walked up the green 
 slope of the bank I heard her crying softly. 
 
 Scarlett was already far ahead of me, 
 skirting the edge of a field of corn. No cot 
 tage was in sight. He had marched off, as 
 Mrs. Potwin said, because he wanted to 
 be alone. I was thoroughly uncomfortable. 
 There was a wall at the farther end of the 
 field, and when he came to it he put his el 
 bows on it, and stood there with his hands 
 crossed under his chin and his head bowed. 
 As I came up behind him, I said : 
 
 " You had better come back to the punt, 
 old chap. She feels just as bad as you do, 
 and it s not very civil to leave her there all 
 alone." 
 
 " Why didn t you stay with her, then ?" 
 asked Scarlett. " I wanted to be quiet for 
 five minutes. I was afraid I might say 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 225 
 
 something I would be sorry for afterwards. 
 It s a beastly story a beastly story." 
 
 It s not her fault that you didn t hear it 
 long ago," said I. 
 
 " Oh, you needn t make excuses for her," 
 said Scarlett. " I m not blaming her. She 
 doesn t look at things just the way you and 
 I do-that s all. It s filthy ! That s what I 
 call it." 
 
 I made no reply, and we walked slowly 
 back across the field. As we neared the 
 river-bank I thought I saw the bushes move, 
 and wondered if Mrs. Potwin had left the 
 punt. But she was lying there, half hid 
 den in the soft Japanese cushions. Scarlett 
 stepped into the punt, and, picking up his 
 pole, said : 
 
 " I fancy we d better be making our way 
 up stream again, hadn t we ?" 
 
 There was no answer, and, as I followed 
 him into the punt, I remarked that I had 
 gone to have a look at the cottage too. Still 
 there was no answer from Mrs. Potwin. I 
 leaned over the side of the punt to look at 
 her eyes and see if she were still crying, and 
 as I did so Scarlett looked, too. 
 
226 GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 Over her head, quite covering her face 
 and her yellow hair, and clasped tightly 
 around her throat, was a bronze helmet, a 
 larger copy of the one Temehichi had sent 
 her with the doll. It was a great bird s 
 head, with garnet eyes, and a beak like a 
 hawk s, made of gold. I thought at first 
 that it was a toy she had put on to make us 
 laugh. It seemed an ill-timed farce, and I 
 had it on the end of my tongue to ask her 
 to take it off, when I saw something in the 
 position of her arms that made me reach 
 out to remove it myself. But it was clamped 
 on, shut like a trap with a strong spring. 
 
 I jumped out of the punt and up the 
 bank. Far away down the road I saw the 
 receding figure of a man, undersized, no 
 taller than a boy. 
 
 I turned to the punt again. Scarlett was 
 holding her in his arms, the grotesque met 
 al head, with its golden beak, hanging on 
 his breast. 
 
 He was picking at the joint in the side of 
 the helmet, and at last he found the spring 
 and lifted the casque from her shoulders. 
 
 Her yellow hair was matted by the weight 
 
GOLDEN-BEAK 
 
 227 
 
 of the bronze, and a gray line encircled her 
 throat where the collar of the helmet had 
 compressed her soft flesh. Her eyes were 
 staring, as the blue eyes of the wax doll had 
 stared. And she was quite dead, suffocat 
 ed by the monstrous thing that the Son of 
 Tokugawa had locked upon her head. 
 
 THE END 
 
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