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New Burlesques

by Bret Harte

August, 2000  [Etext #2278]

Contains:
RUPERT THE RESEMBLER [After Rupert of Hentzau and Prisoner of Zenda]
THE STOLEN CIGAR CASE By A. CO--N D--LE
GOLLY AND THE CHRISTIAN, OR THE MINX AND THE MANXMAN
By H--LL C--NE
THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN LONGBOWE, YEOMAN
BEING A MODERN-ANTIQUE REALISTIC ROMANCE
(COMPILED FROM SEVERAL EMINENT SOURCES)
DAN'L BOREM BY E. N--S W--T--T
STORIES THREE BY R--DY--D K--PL--G
"ZUT-SKI" THE PROBLEM OF A WICKED FEME SOLE BY M--R--E C--R--LLI


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NEW BURLESQUES

by Bret Harte

August, 2000  [Etext #2278]

Contains:
RUPERT THE RESEMBLER [After Rupert of Hentzau and Prisoner of Zenda]
THE STOLEN CIGAR CASE By A. CO--N D--LE
GOLLY AND THE CHRISTIAN, OR THE MINX AND THE MANXMAN
By H--LL C--NE
THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN LONGBOWE, YEOMAN
BEING A MODERN-ANTIQUE REALISTIC ROMANCE
(COMPILED FROM SEVERAL EMINENT SOURCES)
DAN'L BOREM BY E. N--S W--T--T
STORIES THREE BY R--DY--D K--PL--G
"ZUT-SKI" THE PROBLEM OF A WICKED FEME SOLE BY M--R--E C--R--LLI





RUPERT THE RESEMBLER

Br A--TH--Y H--PE




CHAPTER I

RUDOLPH OF TRULYRURALANIA


When I state that I was own brother to Lord Burleydon, had an
income of two thousand a year, could speak all the polite languages
fluently, was a powerful swordsman, a good shot, and could ride
anything from an elephant to a clotheshorse, I really think I have
said enough to satisfy any feminine novel-reader of Bayswater or
South Kensington that I was a hero.  My brother's wife, however,
did not seem to incline to this belief.

"A more conceited, self-satisfied little cad I never met than you,"
she said.  "Why don't you try to do something instead of sneering
at others who do?  You never take anything seriously--except
yourself, which isn't worth it.  You are proud of your red hair and
peaked nose just because you fondly believe that you got them from
the Prince of Trulyruralania, and are willing to think evil of your
ancestress to satisfy your snobbish little soul.  Let me tell you,
sir, that there was no more truth about that than there was in that
silly talk of her partiality for her husband's red-haired
gamekeeper in Scotland.  Ah! that makes you start--don't it?  But I
have always observed that a mule is apt to remember only the horse
side of his ancestry!"

Whenever my pretty sister-in-law talks in this way I always try to
forget that she came of a family far inferior to our own, the
Razorbills.  Indeed, her people--of the Nonconformist stock--really
had nothing but wealth and rectitude, and I think my brother Bob,
in his genuine love for her, was willing to overlook the latter for
the sake of the former.

My pretty sister-in-law's interest in my affairs always made me
believe that she secretly worshiped me--although it was a fact, as
will be seen in the progress of this story, that most women blushed
on my addressing them.  I used to say it "was the reflection of my
red hair on a transparent complexion," which was rather neat--
wasn't it?  And subtle?  But then, I was always saying such subtle
things.

"My dear Rose," I said, laying down my egg spoon (the egg spoon
really had nothing to do with this speech, but it imparted such a
delightfully realistic flavor to the scene), "I'm not to blame if I
resemble the S'helpburgs."

"It's your being so beastly proud of it that I object to!" she
replied.  "And for Heaven's sake, try to BE something, and not
merely resemble things!  The fact is you resemble too much--you're
ALWAYS resembling.  You resemble a man of fashion, and you're not;
a wit, and you're not; a soldier, a sportsman, a hero--and you're
none of 'em.  Altogether, you're not in the least convincing.  Now,
listen!  There's a good chance for you to go as our attache with
Lord Mumblepeg, the new Ambassador to Cochin China.  In all the
novels, you know, attaches are always the confidants of Grand
Duchesses, and know more state secrets than their chiefs; in real
life, I believe they are something like a city clerk with a leaning
to private theatricals.  Say you'll go!  Do!"

"I'll take a few months' holiday first," I replied, "and then," I
added in my gay, dashing way, "if the place is open--hang it if I
don't go!"

"Good old bounder!" she said, "and don't think too much of that
precious Prince Rupert.  He was a bad lot."

She blushed again at me--as her husband entered.

"Take Rose's advice, Rupert, my boy," he said, "and go!"

And that is how I came to go to Trulyruralania.  For I secretly
resolved to take my holiday in traveling in that country and
trying, as dear Lady Burleydon put it, really to be somebody,
instead of resembling anybody in particular.  A precious lot SHE
knew about it!


CHAPTER II

IN WHICH MY HAIR CAUSES A LOT OF THINGS


You go to Trulyruralania from Charing Cross.  In passing through
Paris we picked up Mlle. Beljambe, who was going to Kohlslau, the
capital of Trulyruralania, to marry the Grand Duke Michael, who,
however, as I was informed, was in love with the Princess Flirtia.
She blushed on seeing me--but, I was told afterwards, declined
being introduced to me on any account.  However, I thought nothing
of this, and went on to Bock, the next station to Kohlslau.  At the
little inn in the forest I was informed I was just in time to see
the coronation of the new king the next day.  The landlady and her
daughter were very communicative, and, after the fashion of the
simple, guileless stage peasant, instantly informed me what
everybody was doing, and at once explained the situation.  She told
me that the Grand Duke Michael--or Black Michael as he was called--
himself aspired to the throne, as well as to the hand of the
Princess Flirtia, but was hated by the populace, who preferred the
young heir, Prince Rupert; because he had the hair and features of
the dynasty of the S'helpburgs, "which," she added, "are singularly
like your own."

"But is red hair so very peculiar here?" I asked.

"Among the Jews--yes, sire!  I mean yes, SIR," she corrected
herself.  "You seldom see a red-headed Jew."

"The Jews!" I repeated in astonishment.

"Of course you know the S'helpburgs are descended directly from
Solomon--and have indeed some of his matrimonial peculiarities,"
she said, blushing.

I was amazed--but recalled myself.  "But why do they call the Duke
of Kohlslau Black Michael?" I asked carelessly.

"Because be is nearly black, sir.  You see, when the great Prince
Rupert went abroad in the old time he visited England, Scotland,
and Africa.  They say he married an African lady there--and that
the Duke is really more in the direct line of succession than
Prince Rupert."

But here the daughter showed me to my room.  She blushed, of
course, and apologized for not bringing a candle, as she thought my
hair was sufficiently illuminating.  "But," she added with another
blush, "I do SO like it."

I replied by giving her something of no value,--a Belgian nickel
which wouldn't pass in Bock, as I had found to my cost.  But my
hair had evidently attracted attention from others, for on my
return to the guest-room a stranger approached me, and in the
purest and most precise German--the Court or 'Olland Hof speech--
addressed me:

"Have you the red hair of the fair King or the hair of your
father?"

Luckily I was able to reply with the same purity and precision: "I
have both the hair of the fair King and my own.  But I have not the
hair of my father nor of Black Michael, nor of the innkeeper nor
the innkeeper's wife.  The red HEIR of the fair King would be a
son."

Possibly this delicate mot on the approaching marriage of the King
was lost in the translation, for the stranger strode abruptly away.
I learned, however, that the King was actually then in Bock, at the
castle a few miles distant, in the woods.  I resolved to stroll
thither.

It was a fine old mediaeval structure.  But as the singular
incidents I am about to relate combine the romantic and adventurous
atmosphere of the middle ages with all the appliances of modern
times, I may briefly state that the castle was lit by electricity,
bad fire-escapes on each of the turrets, four lifts, and was fitted
up by one of the best West End establishments.  The sanitary
arrangements were excellent, and the drainage of the most perfect
order, as I had reason to know personally later.  I was so affected
by the peaceful solitude that I lay down under a tree and presently
fell asleep.  I was awakened by the sound of voices, and, looking
up, beheld two men bending over me.  One was a grizzled veteran,
and the other a younger dandyfied man; both were dressed in
shooting suits.

"Never saw such a resemblance before in all my life," said the
elder man.  "'Pon my soul! if the King hadn't got shaved yesterday
because the Princess Flirtia said his beard tickled her, I'd swear
it was he!"

I could not help thinking how lucky it was--for this narrative--
that the King HAD shaved, otherwise my story would have degenerated
into a mere Comedy of Errors.  Opening my eyes, I said boldly:

"Now that you are satisfied who I resemble, gentlemen, perhaps you
will tell me who you are?"

"Certainly," said the elder curtly.  "I am Spitz--a simple colonel
of his Majesty's, yet, nevertheless, the one man who runs this
whole dynasty--and this young gentleman is Fritz, my lieutenant.
And you are--?"

"My name is Razorbill--brother to Lord Burleydon," I replied
calmly.

"Good heavens! another of the lot!" he muttered.  Then, correcting
himself, he said brusquely: "Any relation to that Englishwoman who
was so sweet on the old Rupert centuries ago?"

Here, again, I suppose my sister-in-law would have had me knock
down the foreign insulter of my English ancestress--but I colored
to the roots of my hair, and even farther--with pleasure at this
proof of my royal descent!  And then a cheery voice was heard
calling "Spitz!" and "Fritz!" through the woods.

"The King!" said Spitz to Fritz quickly.  "He must not see him."

"Too late," said Fritz, as a young man bounded lightly out of the
bushes.

I was thunderstruck!  It was as if I had suddenly been confronted
with a mirror--and beheld myself!  Of course he was not quite so
good-looking, or so tall, but he was still a colorable imitation!
I was delighted.

Nevertheless, for a moment he did not seem to reciprocate my
feeling.  He stared at me, staggered back and passed his hand
across his forehead.  "Can it be," he muttered thickly, "that I've
got 'em agin?  Yet I only had--shingle glash!"

But Fritz quickly interposed.

"Your Majesty is all right--though," he added in a lower voice,
"let this be a warning to you for to-morrow!  This gentleman is Mr.
Razorbill--you know the old story of the Razorbills?--Ha! ha!"

But the King did not laugh; he extended his hand and said gently,
"You are welcome--my cousin!"  Indeed, my sister-in-law would have
probably said that--dissipated though he was--he was the only
gentleman there.

"I have come to see the coronation, your Majesty," I said.

"And you shall," said the King heartily, "and shall go with us!
The show can't begin without us--eh, Spitz?" he added playfully,
poking the veteran in the ribs, "whatever Michael may do!"

Then he linked his arms in Spitz's and mine.  "Let's go to the hut--
and have some supper and fizz," he said gayly.

We went to the hut.  We had supper.  We ate and drank heavily.  We
danced madly around the table.  Nevertheless I thought that Spitz
and Fritz were worried by the King's potations, and Spitz at last
went so far as to remind his Majesty that they were to start early
in the morning for Kohlslau.  I noticed also that as the King drank
his speech grew thicker and Spitz and Fritz exchanged glances.  At
last Spitz said with stern significance:

"Your Majesty has not forgotten the test invariably submitted to
the King at his coronation?"

"Shertenly not," replied the King, with his reckless laugh.  "The
King mush be able to pronounsh--name of his country--intel-lillil-
gibly: mush shay (hic!): 'I'm King of--King of--Tootoo-tooral-
looral-anyer.'"  He staggered, laughed, and fell under the table.

"He cannot say it!" gasped Fritz and Spitz in one voice.  "He is
lost!"

"Unless," said Fritz suddenly, pointing at me with a flash of
intelligence, "HE can personate him, and say it.  Can you?" he
turned to me brusquely.

It was an awful moment.  I had been drinking heavily too, but I
resolved to succeed.  "I'm King of Trooly-rooly--" I murmured; but
I could not master it--I staggered and followed the King under the
table.

"Is there no one here," roared Spitz, "who can shave thish dynasty,
and shay 'Tooral--'?  No! ---- it!  I mean 'Trularlooral--'" but
he, too, lurched hopelessly forward.

"No one can say 'Tooral-looral--'" muttered Fritz; and, grasping
Spitz in despair, they both rolled under the table.

How long we lay there, Heaven knows!  I was awakened by Spitz
playing the garden hose on me.  He was booted and spurred, with
Fritz by his side.  The King was lying on a bench, saying feebly:
"Blesh you, my chillen."

"By politely acceding to Black Michael's request to 'try our one-
and-six sherry,' he has been brought to this condition," said Spitz
bitterly.  "It's a trick to keep him from being crowned.  In this
country if the King is crowned while drunk, the kingdom instantly
reverts to a villain--no matter who.  But in this case the villain
is Black Michael.  Ha! What say you, lad?  Shall we frustrate the
rascal, by having YOU personate the King?"

I was--well!--intoxicated at the thought!  But what would my
sister-in-law say?  Would she--in her Nonconformist conscience--
consider it strictly honorable?  But I swept all scruples aside.  A
King was to be saved!  "I will go," I said.  "Let us on to
Kohlslau--riding like the wind!"  We rode like the wind, furiously,
madly.  Mounted on a wild, dashing bay--known familiarly as the
"Bay of Biscay" from its rough turbulence--I easily kept the lead.
But our horses began to fail.  Suddenly Spitz halted, clapped his
hand to his head, and threw himself from his horse.  "Fools!" he
said, "we should have taken the train!  It will get there an hour
before we will!"  He pointed to a wayside station where the 7.15
excursion train for Kohlslau was waiting.

"But how dreadfully unmediaeval!--What will the public say?" I
began.

"Bother the public!" he said gruffly.  "Who's running this dynasty--
you or I?  Come!"  With the assistance of Fritz he tied up my face
with a handkerchief to simulate toothache, and then, with a shout
of defiance, we three rushed madly into a closely packed third-
class carriage.

Never shall I forget the perils, the fatigue, the hopes and fears
of that mad journey.  Panting, perspiring, packed together with
cheap trippers, but exalted with the one hope of saving the King,
we at last staggered out on the Kohlslau platform utterly
exhausted.  As we did so we heard a distant roar from the city.
Fritz turned an ashen gray, Spitz a livid blue.  "Are we too late?"
he gasped, as we madly fought our way into the street, where shouts
of "The King!  The King!" were rending the air.  "Can it be Black
Michael?"  But here the crowd parted, and a procession, preceded by
outriders, flashed into the square.  And there, seated in a
carriage beside the most beautiful red-haired girl I had ever seen,
was the King,--the King whom we had left two hours ago, dead drunk
in the hut in the forest!


CHAPTERS III TO XXII (Inclusive)

IN WHICH THINGS GET MIXED


We reeled against each other aghast!  Spitz recovered himself
first.  "We must fly!" he said hoarsely.  "If the King has
discovered our trick--we are lost!"

"But where shall we go?" I asked.

"Back to the hut."

We caught the next train to Bock.  An hour later we stood panting
within the hut.  Its walls and ceiling were splashed with sinister
red stains.  "Blood!" I exclaimed joyfully.  "At last we have a
real mediaeval adventure!"

"It's Burgundy, you fool," growled Spitz; "good Burgundy wasted!"
At this moment Fritz appeared dragging in the hut-keeper.

"Where is the King?" demanded Spitz fiercely of the trembling
peasant.

"He was carried away an hour ago by Black Michael and taken to the
castle."

"And when did he LEAVE the castle?" roared Spitz.

"He never left the castle, sir, and, alas! I fear never will,
alive!" replied the man, shuddering.

We stared at each other!  Spitz bit his grizzled mustache.  "So,"
he said bitterly, "Black Michael has simply anticipated us with the
same game!  We have been tricked.  I knew it could not be the King
whom they crowned!  No!" he added quickly, "I see it all--it was
Rupert of Glasgow!"

"Who is Rupert of Glasgow?" I cried.

"Oh, I really can't go over all that family rot again," grunted
Spitz.  "Tell him, Fritz."

Then, taking me aside, Fritz delicately informed me that Rupert of
Glasgow--a young Scotchman--claimed equally with myself descent
from the old Rupert, and that equally with myself he resembled the
King.  That Michael had got possession of him on his arrival in the
country, kept him closely guarded in the castle, and had hid his
resemblance in a black wig and false mustache; that the young
Scotchman, however, seemed apparently devoted to Michael and his
plots; and there was undoubtedly some secret understanding between
them.  That it was evidently Michael's trick to have the pretender
crowned, and then, by exposing the fraud and the condition of the
real King, excite the indignation of the duped people, and seat
himself on the throne!  "But," I burst out, "shall this base-born
pretender remain at Kohlslau beside the beautiful Princess Flirtia?
Let us to Kohlslau at once and hurl him from the throne!"

"One pretender is as good as another," said Spitz dryly.  "But
leave HIM to me.  'Tis the King we must protect and succor!  As for
that Scotch springald, before midnight I shall have him kidnaped,
brought back to his master in a close carriage, and you--YOU shall
take his place at Kohlslau."

"I will," I said enthusiastically, drawing my sword; "but I have
done nothing yet.  Please let me kill something!"

"Aye, lad!" said Spitz, with a grim smile at my enthusiasm.
"There's a sheep in your path.  Go out and cleave it to the saddle.
And bring the saddle home!"

My sister-in-law might have thought me cruel--but I did it.


CHAP XXIII AND SOME OTHER CHAPS


I know not how it was compassed, but that night Rupert of Glasgow
was left bound and gagged against the door of the castle, and the
night-bell pulled.  And that night I was seated on the throne of
the S'helpburgs.  As I gazed at the Princess Flirtia, glowing in
the characteristic beauty of the S'helpburgs, and admired her
striking profile, I murmured softly and half audibly: "Her nose is
as a tower that looketh toward Damascus."

She looked puzzled, and knitted her pretty brows.  "Is that
poetry?" she asked.

"No" I said promptly.  "It's only part of a song of our great
Ancestor."  As she blushed slightly, I playfully flung around her
fair neck the jeweled collar of the Order of the S'helpburgs--three
golden spheres pendant, quartered from the arms of Lombardy---with
the ancient Syric motto, El Ess Dee.

She toyed with it a moment, and then said softly: "You have
changed, Rupert.  Do ye no ken hoo?"

I looked at her--as surprised at her dialect as at the imputation.

"You don't talk that way, as you did.  And you don't say, 'It WILL
be twelve o'clock,' when you mean, 'It IS twelve o'clock,' nor 'I
will be going out,' when you mean 'I AM.'  And you didn't say, 'Eh,
sirs!' or 'Eh, mon,' to any of the Court--nor 'Hoot awa!' nor any
of those things.  And," she added with a divine little pout, "you
haven't told me I was 'sonsie' or 'bonnie' once."

I could with difficulty restrain myself.  Rage, indignation, and
jealousy filled my heart almost to bursting.  I understood it all;
that rascally Scotchman had made the most of his time, and dared to
get ahead of me!  I did not mind being taken for the King, but to
be confounded with this infernal descendant of a gamekeeper--was
too much!  Yet with a superhuman effort I remained calm--and even
smiled.

"You are not well?" said the Princess earnestly.  "I thought you
were taking too much of the Strasbourg pie at supper!  And you are
not going, surely--so soon?" she added, as I rose.

"I must go at once," I said.  "I have forgotten some important
business at Bock."

"Not boar hunting again?" she said poutingly.

"No, I'm hunting a red dear," I said with that playful subtlety
which would make her take it as a personal compliment, though I was
only thinking of that impostor, and longing to get at him, as I
bowed and withdrew.

In another hour I was before Black Michael's castle at Bock.  These
are lightning changes, I know--and the sovereignty of
Trulyruralania WAS somewhat itinerant--but when a kingdom and a
beautiful Princess are at stake, what are you to do?  Fritz had
begged me to take him along, but I arranged that he should come
later, and go up unostentatiously in the lift.  I was going by way
of the moat.  I was to succor the King, but I fear my real object
was to get at Rupert of Glasgow.

I had noticed the day before that a large outside drain pipe,
decreed by the Bock County Council, ran from the moat to the third
floor of the donjon keep.  I surmised that the King was imprisoned
on that floor.  Examining the pipe closely, I saw that it was
really a pneumatic dispatch tube, for secretly conveying letters
and dispatches from the castle through the moat beyond the castle
walls.  Its extraordinary size, however, gave me the horrible
conviction that it was to be used to convey the dead body of the
King to the moat.  I grew cold with horror--but I was determined.

I crept up the pipe.  As I expected, it opened funnel-wise into a
room where the poor King was playing poker with Black Michael.  It
took me but a moment to dash through the window into the room, push
the King aside, gag and bind Black Michael, and lower him by a
stout rope into the pipe he had destined for another.  Having him
in my power, I lowered him until I heard his body splash in the
water in the lower part of the pipe.  Then I proceeded to draw him
up again, intending to question him in regard to Rupert of Glasgow.
But this was difficult, as his saturated clothing made him fit the
smooth pipe closely.  At last I had him partly up, when I was
amazed at a rush of water from the pipe which flooded the room.  I
dropped him and pulled him up again with the same result.  Then in
a flash I saw it all.  His body, acting like a piston in the pipe,
had converted it into a powerful pump.  Mad with joy, I rapidly
lowered and pulled him up again and again, until the castle was
flooded--and the moat completely drained!  I had created the
diversion I wished; the tenants of the castle were disorganized and
bewildered in trying to escape from the deluge, and the moat was
accessible to my friends.  Placing the poor King on a table to be
out of the water, and tying up his head in my handkerchief to
disguise him from Michael's guards, I drew my sword and plunged
downstairs with the cataract in search of the miscreant Rupert.  I
reached the drawbridge, when I heard the sounds of tumult and was
twice fired at,--once, as I have since learned, by my friends,
under the impression that I was the escaping Rupert of Glasgow, and
once by Black Michael's myrmidons, under the belief that I was the
King.  I was struck by the fact that these resemblances were
confusing and unfortunate!  At this moment, however, I caught sight
of a kilted figure leaping from a lower window into the moat.  Some
instinct impelled me to follow it.  It rapidly crossed the moat and
plunged into the forest, with me in pursuit.  I gained upon it;
suddenly it turned, and I found myself again confronted with
MYSELF--and apparently the King!  But that very resemblance made me
recognize the Scotch pretender, Rupert of Glasgow.  Yet he would
have been called a "braw laddie," and his handsome face showed a
laughing good humor, even while he opposed me, claymore in hand.

"Bide a wee, Maister Rupert Razorbill," he said lightly, lowering
his sword, "before we slit ane anither's weasands.  I'm no claimin'
any descent frae kings, and I'm no acceptin' any auld wife's
clavers against my women forbears, as ye are!  I'm just paid gude
honest siller by Black Michael for the using of ma face and figure--
sic time as his Majesty is tae worse frae trink!  And I'm
commeesioned frae Michael to ask ye what price YE would take to
join me in performing these duties--turn and turn aboot.  Eh,
laddie--but he would pay ye mair than that daft beggar, Spitz."

Rage and disgust overpowered me.  "And THIS is my answer," I said,
rushing upon him.

I have said earlier in these pages that I was a "strong" swordsman.
In point of fact, I had carefully studied in the transpontine
theatres that form of melodramatic mediaeval sword-play known as
"two up and two down."  To my disgust, however, this wretched
Scotchman did not seem to understand it, but in a twinkling sent my
sword flying over my head.  Before I could recover it, he had
mounted a horse ready saddled in the wood, and, shouting to me that
he would take my "compleements" to the Princess, galloped away.
Even then I would have pursued him afoot, but, hearing shouts
behind me, I turned as Spitz and Fritz rode up.

"Has the King escaped to Kohlslau?" asked Fritz, staring at me.

"No," I said, "but Rupert of Glasgow"--

"--Rupert of Glasgow," growled Spitz.  "We've settled him!  He's
gagged and bound and is now on his way to the frontier in a close
carriage."

"Rupert--on his way to the frontier?" I gasped.

"Yes.  Two of my men found him, disguised with a handkerchief over
his face, trying to escape from the castle.  And while we were
looking for the King, whom we supposed was with you, they have sent
the rascally Scotchman home."

"Fool!" I gasped.  "Rupert of Glasgow has just left me!  YOU HAVE
DEPORTED YOUR OWN KING."  And overcome by my superhuman exertions,
I sank unconscious to the ground.

When I came to, I found myself in a wagon lit, speeding beyond the
Trulyruralania frontier.  On my berth was lying a missive with the
seal of the S'helpburgs.  Tearing it open I recognized the
handwriting of the Princess Flirtia.


MY DEAR RUPERT,--Owing to the confusion that arises from there
being so many of you, I have concluded to accept the hand of the
Duke Michael.  I may not become a Queen, but I shall bring rest to
my country, and Michael assures me in his playful manner that
"three of a kind," "even of the same color," do not always win at
poker.  It will tranquilize you somewhat to know that the Lord
Chancellor assures me that on examining the records of the dynasty
he finds that my ancestor Rupert never left his kingdom during his
entire reign, and that consequently your ancestress has been
grossly maligned.  I am sending typewritten copies of this to
Rupert of Glasgow and the King.  Farewell.

FLIRTIA.


Once a year, at Christmastide, I receive a simple foreign hamper
via Charing Cross, marked "Return empty."  I take it in silence to
my own room, and there, opening it, I find--unseen by any other
eyes but my own--a modest pate de foie gras, of the kind I ate with
the Princess Flirtia.  I take out the pate, replace the label, and
have the hamper reconveyed to Charing Cross.



THE STOLEN CIGAR CASE

By A. CO--N D--LE


I found Hemlock Jones in the old Brook Street lodgings, musing
before the fire.  With the freedom of an old friend I at once threw
myself in my usual familiar attitude at his feet, and gently
caressed his boot.  I was induced to do this for two reasons: one,
that it enabled me to get a good look at his bent, concentrated
face, and the other, that it seemed to indicate my reverence for
his superhuman insight.  So absorbed was he even then, in tracking
some mysterious clue, that he did not seem to notice me.  But
therein I was wrong--as I always was in my attempt to understand
that powerful intellect.

"It is raining," he said, without lifting his head.

"You have been out, then?" I said quickly.

"No.  But I see that your umbrella is wet, and that your overcoat
has drops of water on it."

I sat aghast at his penetration.  After a pause he said carelessly,
as if dismissing the subject: "Besides, I hear the rain on the
window.  Listen."

I listened.  I could scarcely credit my ears, but there was the
soft pattering of drops on the panes.  It was evident there was no
deceiving this man!

"Have you been busy lately?" I asked, changing the subject.  "What
new problem--given up by Scotland Yard as inscrutable--has occupied
that gigantic intellect?"

He drew back his foot slightly, and seemed to hesitate ere he
returned it to its original position.  Then he answered wearily:
"Mere trifles--nothing to speak of.  The Prince Kupoli has been
here to get my advice regarding the disappearance of certain rubies
from the Kremlin; the Rajah of Pootibad, after vainly beheading his
entire bodyguard, has been obliged to seek my assistance to recover
a jeweled sword.  The Grand Duchess of Pretzel-Brauntswig is
desirous of discovering where her husband was on the night of
February 14; and last night"--he lowered his voice slightly--"a
lodger in this very house, meeting me on the stairs, wanted to know
why they didn't answer his bell."

I could not help smiling--until I saw a frown gathering on his
inscrutable forehead.

"Pray remember," he said coldly, "that it was through such an
apparently trivial question that I found out Why Paul Ferroll
Killed His Wife, and What Happened to Jones!"

I became dumb at once.  He paused for a moment, and then suddenly
changing back to his usual pitiless, analytical style, he said:
"When I say these are trifles, they are so in comparison to an
affair that is now before me.  A crime has been committed,--and,
singularly enough, against myself.  You start," he said.  "You
wonder who would have dared to attempt it.  So did I; nevertheless,
it has been done.  I have been ROBBED!"

YOU robbed!  You, Hemlock Jones, the Terror of Peculators!" I
gasped in amazement, arising and gripping the table as I faced him.

"Yes!  Listen.  I would confess it to no other.  But YOU who have
followed my career, who know my methods; you, for whom I have
partly lifted the veil that conceals my plans from ordinary
humanity,--you, who have for years rapturously accepted my
confidences, passionately admired my inductions and inferences,
placed yourself at my beck and call, become my slave, groveled at
my feet, given up your practice except those few unremunerative and
rapidly decreasing patients to whom, in moments of abstraction over
MY problems, you have administered strychnine for quinine and
arsenic for Epsom salts; you, who have sacrificed anything and
everybody to me,--YOU I make my confidant!"

I arose and embraced him warmly, yet he was already so engrossed in
thought that at the same moment he mechanically placed his hand
upon his watch chain as if to consult the time.  "Sit down," he
said.  "Have a cigar?"

"I have given up cigar smoking," I said.

"Why?" he asked.

I hesitated, and perhaps colored.  I had really given it up
because, with my diminished practice, it was too expensive.  I
could afford only a pipe.  "I prefer a pipe," I said laughingly.
"But tell me of this robbery.  What have you lost?"

He arose, and planting himself before the fire with his hands under
his coattails, looked down upon me reflectively for a moment.  "Do
you remember the cigar case presented to me by the Turkish
Ambassador for discovering the missing favorite of the Grand Vizier
in the fifth chorus girl at the Hilarity Theatre?  It was that one.
I mean the cigar case.  It was incrusted with diamonds."

"And the largest one had been supplanted by paste," I said.

"Ah," he said, with a reflective smile, you know that?"

"You told me yourself.  I remember considering it a proof of your
extraordinary perception.  But, by Jove, you don't mean to say you
have lost it?"

He was silent for a moment.  "No; it has been stolen, it is true,
but I shall still find it.  And by myself alone!  In your
profession, my dear fellow, when a member is seriously ill, he does
not prescribe for himself, but calls in a brother doctor.  Therein
we differ.  I shall take this matter in my own hands."

"And where could you find better?" I said enthusiastically.  "I
should say the cigar case is as good as recovered already."

"I shall remind you of that again," he said lightly.  "And now, to
show you my confidence in your judgment, in spite of my
determination to pursue this alone, I am willing to listen to any
suggestions from you."

He drew a memorandum book from his pocket and, with a grave smile,
took up his pencil.

I could scarcely believe my senses.  He, the great Hemlock Jones,
accepting suggestions from a humble individual like myself!  I
kissed his hand reverently, and began in a joyous tone:

"First, I should advertise, offering a reward; I should give the
same intimation in hand-bills, distributed at the 'pubs' and the
pastry-cooks'.  I should next visit the different pawnbrokers; I
should give notice at the police station.  I should examine the
servants.  I should thoroughly search the house and my own pockets.
I speak relatively," I added, with a laugh.  "Of course I mean YOUR
own."

He gravely made an entry of these details.

"Perhaps," I added, "you have already done this?"

"Perhaps," he returned enigmatically.  "Now, my dear friend," he
continued, putting the note-book in his pocket and rising, "would
you excuse me for a few moments?  Make yourself perfectly at home
until I return; there may be some things," he added with a sweep of
his hand toward his heterogeneously filled shelves, "that may
interest you and while away the time.  There are pipes and tobacco
in that corner."

Then nodding to me with the same inscrutable face he left the room.
I was too well accustomed to his methods to think much of his
unceremonious withdrawal, and made no doubt he was off to
investigate some clue which had suddenly occurred to his active
intelligence.

Left to myself I cast a cursory glance over his shelves.  There
were a number of small glass jars containing earthy substances,
labeled "Pavement and Road Sweepings," from the principal
thoroughfares and suburbs of London, with the sub-directions "for
identifying foot-tracks."  There were several other jars, labeled
"Fluff from Omnibus and Road Car Seats," "Cocoanut Fibre and Rope
Strands from Mattings in Public Places," "Cigarette Stumps and
Match Ends from Floor of Palace Theatre, Row A, 1 to 50."
Everywhere were evidences of this wonderful man's system and
perspicacity.

I was thus engaged when I heard the slight creaking of a door, and
I looked up as a stranger entered.  He was a rough-looking man,
with a shabby overcoat and a still more disreputable muffler around
his throat and the lower part of his face.  Considerably annoyed at
his intrusion, I turned upon him rather sharply, when, with a
mumbled, growling apology for mistaking the room, he shuffled out
again and closed the door.  I followed him quickly to the landing
and saw that he disappeared down the stairs.  With my mind full of
the robbery, the incident made a singular impression upon me.  I
knew my friend's habit of hasty absences from his room in his
moments of deep inspiration; it was only too probable that, with
his powerful intellect and magnificent perceptive genius
concentrated on one subject, he should be careless of his own
belongings, and no doubt even forget to take the ordinary
precaution of locking up his drawers.  I tried one or two and found
that I was right, although for some reason I was unable to open one
to its fullest extent.  The handles were sticky, as if some one had
opened them with dirty fingers.  Knowing Hemlock's fastidious
cleanliness, I resolved to inform him of this circumstance, but I
forgot it, alas! until--but I am anticipating my story.

His absence was strangely prolonged.  I at last seated myself by
the fire, and lulled by warmth and the patter of the rain on the
window, I fell asleep.  I may have dreamt, for during my sleep I
had a vague semi-consciousness as of hands being softly pressed on
my pockets--no doubt induced by the story of the robbery.  When I
came fully to my senses, I found Hemlock Jones sitting on the other
side of the hearth, his deeply concentrated gaze fixed on the fire.

"I found you so comfortably asleep that I could not bear to awaken
you," he said, with a smile.

I rubbed my eyes.  "And what news?" I asked.  "How have you
succeeded?"

"Better than I expected," he said, "and I think," he added, tapping
his note-book, "I owe much to YOU."

Deeply gratified, I awaited more.  But in vain.  I ought to have
remembered that in his moods Hemlock Jones was reticence itself.  I
told him simply of the strange intrusion, but he only laughed.

Later, when I arose to go, he looked at me playfully.  "If you were
a married man," he said, "I would advise you not to go home until
you had brushed your sleeve.  There are a few short brown sealskin
hairs on the inner side of your forearm, just where they would have
adhered if your arm had encircled a seal-skin coat with some
pressure!"

"For once you are at fault," I said triumphantly; "the hair is my
own, as you will perceive; I have just had it cut at the
hairdresser's, and no doubt this arm projected beyond the apron."

He frowned slightly, yet, nevertheless, on my turning to go he
embraced me warmly--a rare exhibition in that man of ice.  He even
helped me on with my overcoat and pulled out and smoothed down the
flaps of my pockets.  He was particular, too, in fitting my arm in
my overcoat sleeve, shaking the sleeve down from the armhole to the
cuff with his deft fingers.  "Come again soon!" he said, clapping
me on the back.

"At any and all times," I said enthusiastically; "I only ask ten
minutes twice a day to eat a crust at my office, and four hours'
sleep at night, and the rest of my time is devoted to you always,
as you know."

"It is indeed," he said, with his impenetrable smile.

Nevertheless, I did not find him at home when I next called.  One
afternoon, when nearing my own home, I met him in one of his
favorite disguises,--a long blue swallow-tailed coat, striped
cotton trousers, large turn-over collar, blacked face, and white
hat, carrying a tambourine.  Of course to others the disguise was
perfect, although it was known to myself, and I passed him--
according to an old understanding between us--without the slightest
recognition, trusting to a later explanation.  At another time, as
I was making a professional visit to the wife of a publican at the
East End, I saw him, in the disguise of a broken-down artisan,
looking into the window of an adjacent pawnshop.  I was delighted
to see that he was evidently following my suggestions, and in my
joy I ventured to tip him a wink; it was abstractedly returned.

Two days later I received a note appointing a meeting at his
lodgings that night.  That meeting, alas! was the one memorable
occurrence of my life, and the last meeting I ever had with Hemlock
Jones!  I will try to set it down calmly, though my pulses still
throb with the recollection of it.

I found him standing before the fire, with that look upon his face
which I had seen only once or twice in our acquaintance--a look
which I may call an absolute concatenation of inductive and
deductive ratiocination--from which all that was human, tender, or
sympathetic was absolutely discharged.  He was simply an icy
algebraic symbol!  Indeed, his whole being was concentrated to that
extent that his clothes fitted loosely, and his head was absolutely
so much reduced in size by his mental compression that his hat
tipped back from his forehead and literally hung on his massive
ears.

After I had entered he locked the doors, fastened the windows, and
even placed a chair before the chimney.  As I watched these
significant precautions with absorbing interest, he suddenly drew a
revolver and, presenting it to my temple, said in low, icy tones:

"Hand over that cigar case!"

Even in my bewilderment my reply was truthful, spontaneous, and
involuntary.  "I haven't got it," I said.

He smiled bitterly, and threw down his revolver.  "I expected that
reply!  Then let me now confront you with something more awful,
more deadly, more relentless and convincing than that mere lethal
weapon,--the damning inductive and deductive proofs of your guilt!"
He drew from his pocket a roll of paper and a note-book.

"But surely," I gasped, "you are joking!  You could not for a
moment believe"--

"Silence!  Sit down!"  I obeyed.

"You have condemned yourself," he went on pitilessly.  "Condemned
yourself on my processes,--processes familiar to you, applauded by
you, accepted by you for years!  We will go back to the time when
you first saw the cigar case.  Your expressions," he said in cold,
deliberate tones, consulting his paper, were, 'How beautiful!  I
wish it were mine.'  This was your first step in crime--and my
first indication.  From 'I WISH it were mine' to 'I WILL have it
mine,' and the mere detail, 'HOW CAN I make it mine?' the advance
was obvious.  Silence!  But as in my methods it was necessary that
there should be an overwhelming inducement to the crime, that
unholy admiration of yours for the mere trinket itself was not
enough.  You are a smoker of cigars."

"But," I burst out passionately, "I told you I had given up smoking
cigars."

"Fool!" he said coldly, "that is the SECOND time you have committed
yourself.  Of course you told me!  What more natural than for you
to blazon forth that prepared and unsolicited statement to PREVENT
accusation.  Yet, as I said before, even that wretched attempt to
cover up your tracks was not enough.  I still had to find that
overwhelming, impelling motive necessary to affect a man like you.
That motive I found in the strongest of all impulses--Love, I
suppose you would call it," he added bitterly, "that night you
called!  You had brought the most conclusive proofs of it on your
sleeve."

"But--" I almost screamed.

"Silence!" he thundered.  "I know what you would say.  You would
say that even if you had embraced some Young Person in a sealskin
coat, what had that to do with the robbery?  Let me tell you, then,
that that sealskin coat represented the quality and character of
your fatal entanglement!  You bartered your honor for it--that
stolen cigar case was the purchaser of the sealskin coat!

"Silence!  Having thoroughly established your motive, I now proceed
to the commission of the crime itself.  Ordinary people would have
begun with that--with an attempt to discover the whereabouts of the
missing object.  These are not MY methods."

So overpowering was his penetration that, although I knew myself
innocent, I licked my lips with avidity to hear the further details
of this lucid exposition of my crime.

"You committed that theft the night I showed you the cigar case,
and after I had carelessly thrown it in that drawer.  You were
sitting in that chair, and I had arisen to take something from that
shelf.  In that instant you secured your booty without rising.
Silence!  Do you remember when I helped you on with your overcoat
the other night?  I was particular about fitting your arm in.
While doing so I measured your arm with a spring tape measure, from
the shoulder to the cuff.  A later visit to your tailor confirmed
that measurement.  It proved to be THE EXACT DISTANCE BETWEEN YOUR
CHAIR AND THAT DRAWER!"

I sat stunned.

"The rest are mere corroborative details!  You were again tampering
with the drawer when I discovered you doing so!  Do not start!  The
stranger that blundered into the room with a muffler on--was
myself!  More, I had placed a little soap on the drawer handles
when I purposely left you alone.  The soap was on your hand when I
shook it at parting.  I softly felt your pockets, when you were
asleep, for further developments.  I embraced you when you left--
that I might feel if you had the cigar case or any other articles
hidden on your body.  This confirmed me in the belief that you had
already disposed of it in the manner and for the purpose I have
shown you.  As I still believed you capable of remorse and
confession, I twice allowed you to see I was on your track: once in
the garb of an itinerant negro minstrel, and the second time as a
workman looking in the window of the pawnshop where you pledged
your booty."

"But," I burst out, "if you had asked the pawnbroker, you would
have seen how unjust"--

"Fool!" he hissed, "that was one of YOUR suggestions--to search the
pawnshops!  Do you suppose I followed any of your suggestions, the
suggestions of the thief?  On the contrary, they told me what to
avoid."

"And I suppose," I said bitterly, "you have not even searched your
drawer?"

"No," he said calmly.

I was for the first time really vexed.  I went to the nearest
drawer and pulled it out sharply.  It stuck as it had before,
leaving a part of the drawer unopened.  By working it, however, I
discovered that it was impeded by some obstacle that had slipped to
the upper part of the drawer, and held it firmly fast.  Inserting
my hand, I pulled out the impeding object.  It was the missing
cigar case!  I turned to him with a cry of joy.

But I was appalled at his expression.  A look of contempt was now
added to his acute, penetrating gaze.  "I have been mistaken," he
said slowly; "I had not allowed for your weakness and cowardice!  I
thought too highly of you even in your guilt!  But I see now why
you tampered with that drawer the other night.  By some
inexplicable means--possibly another theft--you took the cigar case
out of pawn and, like a whipped hound, restored it to me in this
feeble, clumsy fashion.  You thought to deceive me, Hemlock Jones!
More, you thought to destroy my infallibility.  Go!  I give you
your liberty.  I shall not summon the three policemen who wait in
the adjoining room--but out of my sight forever!"

As I stood once more dazed and petrified, he took me firmly by the
ear and led me into the hall, closing the door behind him.  This
reopened presently, wide enough to permit him to thrust out my hat,
overcoat, umbrella, and overshoes, and then closed against me
forever!

I never saw him again.  I am bound to say, however, that thereafter
my business increased, I recovered much of my old practice, and a
few of my patients recovered also.  I became rich.  I had a
brougham and a house in the West End.  But I often wondered,
pondering on that wonderful man's penetration and insight, if, in
some lapse of consciousness, I had not really stolen his cigar
case!



GOLLY AND THE CHRISTIAN,

OR

THE MINX AND THE MANXMAN

By H--LL C--NE


BOOK I


Golly Coyle was the only granddaughter of a vague and somewhat
simple clergyman who existed, with an aunt, solely for Golly's
epistolary purposes.  There was, of course, intermediate ancestry,--
notably a dead mother who was French, and therefore responsible
for any later naughtiness in Golly,--but they have no purpose here.
They lived in the Isle of Man.  Golly knew a good deal of Man, for
even at the age of twelve she was in love with John Gale--only son
of Lord Gale, who was connected with the Tempests.  Gales, however,
were frequent and remarkable along the coast, so that it was not
singular that one day she found John "coming on" on a headland
where she was sitting.  His dog had "pointed" her.  "It's
exceedingly impolite to point to anything you want," said Golly.
Touched by this, and overcome by a strange emotion, John Gale
turned away and went to Canada.  Slight as the incident was, it
showed that inborn chivalry to women, that desire for the Perfect
Life, that intense eagerness to incarnate Christianity in modern
society, which afterward distinguished him.  Golly loved him!  For
all that, she still remained a "tomboy" as she was,--robbing
orchards, mimicking tramps and policemen, buttering the stairs and
the steps of houses, tying kettles to dogs' tails, and marching in
a white jersey, with the curate's hat on, through the streets of
the village.  "Gol dern my skin!" said the dear old clergyman, as
he tried to emerge from a surplice which Golly had stitched
together; "what spirits the child DO have!"  Yet everybody loved
her!  And when John Gale returned from Canada, and looked into her
big blue eyes one day at church, small wonder that he immediately
went off again to Paris, and an extended Continental sojourn, with
a serious leaning to theology!  Golly bore his absence meekly but
characteristically; got a boat, disported like a duck in the water,
attempted to elope with a boy appropriately named Drake, but
encountered a half gale at sea and a whole Gale in John on a yacht,
who rescued them both.  Convinced now that there was but one way to
escape from his Fate--Golly!--John Gale took holy orders and at
once started for London.  As he stood on the deck of the steamer he
heard an imbecile chuckle in his ear.  It was the simple old
clergyman: "You are going to London to join the Church, John; Golly
is going there, too, as hospital nurse.  There's a pair of you!
He! he!  Look after her, John, and protect her Manx simplicity."
Before John could recover himself, Golly was at his side executing
the final steps of a "cellar-door flap jig" to the light-hearted
refrain:--


     "We are a simple family--we are--we are--we are!"


And even as her pure young voice arose above the screams of the
departure whistle, she threw a double back-somersault on the
quarterdeck, cleverly alighting on the spikes of the wheel before
the delighted captain.

"Jingle my electric bells," be said, looking at the bright young
thing, "but you're a regular minx--"

"I beg your pardon," interrupted John Gale, with a quick flush.

"I mean a regular MANX," said the captain hurriedly.

A singular paleness crossed the deeply religious face of John.  As
the vessel rose on the waves, he passed his hand hurriedly first
across his brows and then over his high-buttoned clerical
waistcoat, that visible sign of a devoted ascetic life!  Then
murmuring in his low, deep voice, "Brandy, steward," he disappeared
below.


BOOK II


Glorious as were Golly's spirits, exquisitely simple her worldly
ignorance, and irresistible her powers of mimicry, strangely enough
they were considered out of place in St. Barabbas' Hospital.  A
light-hearted disposition to mistake a blister for a poultice; that
rare Manx conscientiousness which made her give double doses to the
patients as a compensation when she had omitted to give them a
single one, and the faculty of bursting into song at the bedside of
a dying patient, produced some liveliness not unmixed with
perplexity among the hospital staff.  It is true, however, that her
performance of clog-dancing during the night-watches drew a larger
and more persistent attendance of students and young surgeons than
ever was seen before.  Yet everybody loved her!  Even her patients!
"If it amooses you, miss, to make me tyke the pills wot's meant for
the lydy in the next ward, I ain't complyning," said an East End
newsboy.  "When ye tyke off the style of the doctor wot wisits me,
miss, and imitates his wyes, Lawd! it does me as much good as his
mixtures," said a consumptive charwoman.  Even thus, old and young
basked in the radiant youth of Golly.  She found time to write to
her family:--


DEAR OLD PALS!  I'm here.  J'y suis! bet your boots!  While you're
wondering what has become of the Bright Young Thing, the B. Y. T.
is lookin' out of the winder of St. Barabbas' Hospital--just taking
in all of dear, roaring, dirty London in one gulp!  Such a place--
Lordy!  I've been waiting three hours to see the crowd go by, and
they haven't gone yet!  Such crowds, such busses,--all green and
blue, only a penny fare, and you can ride on top if you want to!
Think of that, you dear old Manx people!  But there--"the bell goes
a-ringing for Sarah!"--they're calling for Nurse!  That's the worst
of this job: they're always a-dyin' just as you're getting
interested in something else!  Ta-ta!

GOLLY!


Then her dear old grandfather wrote:


I'm wondering where my diddleums, Golly, is!  We all miss you so
much, deary, though we don't miss so many little things as when you
were here.  My dear, conscientious, unselfish little girl!  You
don't say where John Gale is.  Is he still protecting you--he-he!--
you giddy, naughty thing!  People wonder on the island why I let
you go alone to London--they forget your dear mother was a
Frenchwoman!  If you see anything your dear old grandfather would
like--send it on.                                GRANFER.


Later, her aunt wrote:--


Have you seen the Queen yet, and does she wear her crown at
breakfast?  You might get over the area railing at Buckingham
Palace--it would be nothing for a girl like you to do--and see if
you can find out.


To these letters Golly answered, in her own light-hearted way:--


DEAR GRANKINS,--I haven't seen John much--but I think he's like the
Private Secretary at the play--he "don't like London."  Lordy!
there--I've let it out!  I've been to a theayter.  Nurse Jinny
Jones and me scrouged into the pit one night without paying,
"pertendin'," as we were in uniform, we had come to take out a
"Lydy" that had fainted.  Such larks! and such a glorious theayter!
I'll tell you another time.  Tell aunty the Queen's always out when
I call.  But that's nothing, everybody else is so affable and
polite in London.  Gentlemen--"real toffs," they call 'em--whom you
don't know from Adam--think nothing of speaking to you in the
street.  Why, Nurse Jinny says--but there another patient's going
off who by rights oughter have died only to-morrow.  "To-morrow and
to-morrow and to-morrow," as that barn-stormer actor said.  But
they're always calling for that giddy young thing,

Your GOLLY.


Meantime, John Gale, having abruptly left Golly at the door of St.
Barabbas' hospital, tactfully avoiding an unseemly altercation with
the cab-driver regarding her exact fare, pursued his way
thoughtfully to the residence of his uncle, the First Lord of the
Admiralty.  He found his Lordship in his bath-room.  He was leaning
over the bath-tub, which was half full of water, contemplating with
some anxiety the model of a line-of-battle ship which was floating
on it, bottom upward.  "I don't think it can be quite right--do
you?" he said, nervously grasping his nephew's hand as he pointed
to the capsized vessel; "yet they always do it.  Tell me!" he went
on appealingly, "tell me, as a professing Christian and a Perfect
Man--is it quite right?"

"I should think, sir," responded John Gale, with uncompromising
truthfulness, "that the average vessel of commerce is not built in
that way."

"Yet," said the First Lord of the Admiralty, with a far-off look,
"they all do it!  And they don't steer!  The larger they are and
the more recent the model, the less they steer.  Dear me--you ought
to see 'em go round and round in that tub."  Then, apparently
recalling the probable purpose of John's visit, he led the way into
his dressing-room.  "So you are in London, dear boy.  Is there any
little thing you want?  I have," he continued, absently fumbling in
the drawers of his dressing-table, "a few curacies and a bishopric
somewhere, but with these blessed models--I can't think where they
are.  Or what would you say to a nice chaplaincy in the navy, with
a becoming uniform, on one of those thingummies?"  He pointed to
the bath-room.  "Stay," he continued, as he passed his hand over
his perplexed brows, "now I think of it--you're quite unorthodox!
Dear me! that wouldn't do.  You see, Drake,"--he paused, as John
Gale started,--"I mean Sir Francis Drake, once suspended his
chaplain for unorthodoxy, according to Froude's book.  These
admirals are dreadfully strict Churchmen.  No matter!  Come again
some other time," he added, gently pushing his nephew downstairs
and into the street, "and we'll see about it."

With a sinking heart, John turned his steps toward Westminster.  He
would go and see Golly; perhaps he had not looked after her as he
ought.  Suddenly a remembered voice, in mimicking accents, fell
upon his ear with the quotation, "Do you know?"  Then, in a hansom
passing swiftly by him, Golly, in hospital dress with flying
ribbons, appeared, sitting between Lord Brownstone Ewer and Francis
Horatio Nelson Drake, completely grown up.  And from behind floated
the inexpressibly sad refrain, "Hi tiddli hi!"

This is how it happened.  One morning, Jinny Jones, another
hospital nurse, had said to her, "Have you any objection, dear, to
seeing a friend of another gent, a friend of mine?"

"None in the least, dear," said Golly.  "I want to see all that can
be seen, and do all that can be done in London, and know the glory
thereof.  I only require that I shall be allowed to love John Gale
whenever he permits it, which isn't often, and that I may be
permitted to write simple letters to my doting relations at the
rate of twelve pages a day, giving an account--MY OWN account--of
my doings.  There!  Go on now!  Bring on your bears."

They had visited the chambers which Lord Brownstone and Drake
occupied together, and in girlish innocence had put on the
gentlemen's clothes and danced before them.  Then they all went to
the theatre, where Golly's delightful simplicity and childish
ignorance of the world had charmed them.  Everything to her was
new, strange, and thrilling.  She even leaned from the carriage
windows to see the "wheels go round."  She was surprised at the
number of people in the theatre, and insisted on knowing if it was
church, because they all sat there in their best clothes so
quietly.  She believed that the play was real, and frequently, from
a stage box, interrupted the acting with explanations.  She
informed the heroine of the design of the villain waiting at the
wings.  And when the aged mother of the heroine was dying of
starvation in a hovel, and she threw a bag of bonbons on the stage,
with the vociferous declaration that "Lord Brownstone had just
given them to her--but--Lordy!--SHE didn't want them," they were
obliged to lead her away, closely followed by an usher and a
policeman.  "To think," she wrote to John Gale, "that the audience
only laughed and shouted, and never offered to help!  And yet look
at the churches in London, where they dare to preach the gospel!"

Fired by this simple letter, and alarmed by Golly's simplicity,
John Gale went to his clerical chief, Archdeacon Luxury, and
demanded permission to preach next Sunday.  "Certainly," said the
Archdeacon; "you shall take my curate's place.  I shall inform the
congregation that you are the son of Lord Gale.  They are very
particular churchmen--all society people--and of course will be
satisfied with the work of the Lord, especially," he added, with a
polite smile, "when that work happens to be--the Lord Gale's son."
Accordingly, the next Sunday, John Gale occupied the pulpit of St.
Swithin.  But an unexpected event happened.  His pent-up eagerness
to denounce the present methods of Christianity, his fullness of
utterance, defeated his purpose.  He was overcome with a kind of
pulpit fright.  His ideas of time and place fled him.  After
beginning, "Mr. Chairman, in rising to propose the toast of our
worthy Archdeacon--Fellow Manxmen--the present moment--er--er--the
proudest in my--er--life--Dearly beloved Golly--unaccustomed as I
am to public speaking," he abruptly delivered the benediction and
sat down.  The incident, however, provoked little attention.  The
congregation, accustomed to sleep through the sermon, awoke at the
usual time and went home.  Only a single Scotchwoman said to him in
passing: "Verra weel for a beginning, laddie.  But give it hotter
to 'em next time."  Discomfited and bewildered, he communed with
himself gloomily.  "I can't marry Golly.  I can't talk.  I hate
society.  What's to be done?  I have it!  I'll go into a
monastery."

He went into a monastery in Bishopsgate Street, reached by a
threepenny 'bus.  He gave out vaguely that he had got into
"Something Good, in the City."  Society was satisfied.  Only Golly
suspected the truth.  She wrote to her grandfather:--

"I saw John Gale the other day with a crowd following him in the
Strand.  He had on only a kind of brown serge dressing-gown, tied
around his waist by a rope, and a hood on his head.  I think his
poor 'toe-toes' were in sandals, and I dare say his legs were cold,
poor dear.  However, if he calls THAT protection of Golly--I don't!
I might be run off at any moment--for all he'd help.  No matter!
If this Court understands herself, and she thinks she do, Golly can
take care of herself--you bet."

Nevertheless, Golly lost her place at the hospital through her
heroic defense of her friend Jinny Jones, who had been deceived by
Lord Brownstone Ewer.  "You would drive that poor girl into the
street," she said furiously to the Chairman of the Board, throwing
her cap and apron in their faces.  "You're a lot of rotten old
hypocrites, and I'm glad to get shut of you."  Not content with
that, she went to Drake and demanded that he should make his friend
Lord Brownstone marry Jinny.

"Sorry--awfully sorry--my dear Golly, but he's engaged to a rich
American girl who is to pay his debts; but I'll see that he does
something handsome for Jinny.  And YOU, my child, what are YOU
going to do without a situation?" he added, with touching sympathy.
"You see, I've some vague idea of marrying you myself," he
concluded meditatively.

"Thank you for nothing," interrupted Golly gayly, "but I can take
care of myself and follow out my mission like John Gale."

"There's a pair of you, certainly," said Drake, with a tinge of
jealous bitterness.

"You bet it's 'a pair' that will take your 'two knaves,' you and
your Lord Brownstone," returned Golly, dropping a mock courtesy.
"Ta-ta; I'm going on the stage."


BOOK III


She went first into a tobacconist's--and sold cigarettes.
Sometimes she suffered from actual want, and ate fried fish.  "Do
you know how nice fried fish tastes in London,--you on 'the
Oilan'?" she wrote gayly.  "I'm getting on splendidly; so's John
Gale, I suppose, though he's looking cadaverous from starving
himself all round.  Tell aunty I haven't seen the Queen yet, though
after all I really believe she has not seen me."

Then, after a severe struggle, she succeeded in getting on the
stage as a song and dance girl.  She sang melodiously and danced
divinely, so remarkably that the ignorant public, knowing her to be
a Manx girl, and vaguely associating her with the symbol of the
Isle of Man, supposed she had three legs.  She was the success of
the season; her cup of ambition was filled.  It was slightly
embittered by the news that her friend Jinny Jones had killed
herself in the church at the wedding of her recreant lover and the
American heiress.  But the affair was scarcely alluded to by the
Society papers--who were naturally shocked at the bad taste of the
deceased.  And even Golly forgot it all--on the stage.


BOOK IV


Meanwhile John Gale, or Brother Boreas, as he was known in the
monastery, was submitting--among other rigors--to an exceptionally
severe winter in Bishopsgate Street, which seemed to have an Arctic
climate of its own,--possibly induced by the "freezing-out" process
of certain stock companies in its vicinity.

"You are miserable, and eager to get out in the wicked world again,
my son, said the delightful old Superior, as he sat by the only
fire, sipping a glass of mulled port, when John came in from
shoveling snow outside.  "I, therefore, merely to try you, shall
make you gatekeeper.  The keys of the monastery front door are
under the door-mat in my cell, but I am a sound sleeper."  He
smiled seraphically, and winked casually as he sipped his port.
"We will call it, if you please--a penance."

John threw himself in an agony of remorse and shame at the feet of
the Superior.  "It isn't of myself I'm thinking," he confessed
wildly, "but of that poor young man, Brother Bones, in the next
cell to mine.  He is a living skeleton, has got only one lung and
an atrophied brain.  A night out might do him good."

The Father Superior frowned.  "Do you know who he is?"

"No."

"His real name is Jones.  Why do you start?  You have heard it
before?"

John had started, thinking of Jinny Jones, Golly's deserted and
self-immolated friend.

"It is an uncommon name," he stammered--"for a monastery, I mean."

"He is or was an uncommon man!" said the Superior gravely.  "But,"
he added resignedly, "we cannot pick and choose our company here.
Most of us have done something and have our own reasons for this
retreat.  Brother Polygamus escaped here from the persecutions of
his sixth wife.  Even I," continued the Superior with a gentle
smile, putting his feet comfortably on the mantelpiece, "have had
my little fling, and the dear boys used to say--ahem!--but this is
mere worldly vanity.  You alone, my dear son, he went on with
slight severity, "seem to be wanting in some criminality, or--shall
I say?--some appropriate besetting sin to qualify you for this holy
retreat.  An absolutely gratuitous and blameless idiocy appears to
be your only peculiarity, and for this you must do penance.  From
this day henceforth, I make you doorkeeper!  Go on with your
shoveling at present, and shut the door behind you; there's a
terrible draught in these corridors."

For three days John Gale underwent an agony of doubt and
determination, and it still snowed in Bishopsgate Street.

On the fourth evening he went to Brother Bones.

"Would you like to have an evening out?"

"I would," said Brother Bones.

"What would you do?"

"I would go to see my remaining sister."  His left eyelid trembled
slowly in his cadaverous face.

"But if you should hear she was ruined like the other?  What would
you do?"

A shudder passed over the man.  "I have not got my little knife,"
he said vacantly.

True, he had not!  The Brotherhood had no pockets,--or rather only
a corporate one, which belonged to the Superior.  John Gale lifted
his eyes in sublime exaltation.  "You shall go out," he said with
decision.  "Muffle up until you are well out of Bishopsgate Street,
where it still snows."

"But how did you get the keys?" said Brother Bones.

"From under the Father Superior's door-mat."

"But that was wrong, Brother."

"The mat bore the inscription, 'Salve,' which you know in Latin
means 'Welcome,'" returned John Gale.  "It was logically a
permission."

The two men gazed at each other silently.  A shudder passed over
the two left eyelids of their wan spiritual faces.

"But I have no money," said Brother Bones.

"Nor have I.  But here is a 'bus ticket and a free pass to the
Gaiety.  You will probably find Golly somewhere about.  Tell her,"
he said in a hollow voice, "that I'm getting on."

"I will," said Brother Bones, with a deep cough.

The gate opened and he disappeared in the falling snow.  The
bloodhound kept by the monastery--one of the real Bishopsgate
breed--bayed twice, and licked its huge jaws in ghastly
anticipation.  "I wonder," said John Gale as he resumed his
shoveling, "if I have done exactly right.  Candor compels me to
admit that it is an open question."


BOOK V


Early the next morning, Brother Bones was brought home by Policeman
X, his hat crushed, his face haggard, his voice husky and
unintelligible.  He only said vaguely, "Washertime?"

"It is," said John Gale timidly, in explanation to Policeman X, "a
case of spiritual exhaustion following a vigil."

"That warn't her name," said Policeman X sternly.  "But don't let
this 'ere appen again."

John Gale turned to Brother Bones.  "Then you saw her--Golly?"

"No," said Brother Bones.

"Why?  What on earth have you been doing?"

"Dunno!  Found myself in stashun--zis morning!  Thashall!"

Then John Gale sought the Superior in an agony of remorse, and
confessed all.  "I am unfit to remain doorkeeper.  Remove me," he
groaned bitterly.

The old man smiled gently.  "On the contrary, I should have given
you the keys myself.  Hereafter you can keep them.  The ways of our
Brotherhood are mysterious,--indeed, you may think idiotic,--but we
are not responsible for them.  It's all Brother Caine's doing--it's
'All Caine!"


BOOK VI


Nevertheless, John Gale left the monastery.  "The Bishopsgate
Street winter does not suit me," he briefly explained to the
Superior.  "I must go south or southwest."

But he did neither.  He saw Golly, who was living west.  He
upbraided her for going on the stage.  She retorted: "Whose life is
the more artificial, yours or mine?  It is true that we are both
imperfectly clothed," she added, glancing at a photograph of
herself in a short skirt, "and not always in our right mind--but
you've caught nothing but a cold!  Nevertheless, I love you and you
love me."

Then he begged her to go with him to the South Seas and take the
place of Father Damien among the colony of lepers.  "It is a
beautiful place, and inexpensive, for we shall live only a few
weeks.  What do you say, dearest?  You know," he added, with a
faint, sad smile, glancing at another photograph of her,--executing
the high kick,--"you're quite a leaper yourself."

But that night she received an offer of a new engagement.  She
wrote to John Gale: "The South Seas is rather an expensive trip to
take simply to die.  Couldn't we do it as cheaply at home?  Or
couldn't you prevail on your Father Superior to set up his
monastery there?  I'm afraid I'm not up to it.  Why don't you try
the old 'Oilan,' nearer home?  There's lots of measles and
diphtheria about there lately."

When the heartbroken John Gale received this epistle, he also
received a letter from his uncle, the First Lord of the Admiralty.
"I don't fancy this Damien whim of yours.  If you're really in
earnest about killing yourself, why not take a brief trial trip in
one of our latest ironclads?  It's just as risky, although--as we
are obliged to keep these things quiet in the Office--you will not
of course get that publicity your noble soul craves."

Abandoned by all in his noble purposes, John Gale took the first
steamer to the Isle of Man.


BOOK VII


But he did not remain there long.  Once back in that epistolary
island, he wrote interminable letters to Golly.  When they began to
bore each other, he returned to London and entered the Salvation
Army.  Crowds flocked to hear him preach.  He inveighed against
Society and Wickedness as represented in his mind by Golly and her
friends, and praised a perfect Christianity represented by himself
and HIS friends.  A panic of the same remarkable character as the
Bishopsgate Street winter took possession of London.  Old Moore's,
Zadkiel's, and Mother Shipton's prophecies were to be fulfilled at
an early and fixed date, with no postponement on account of
weather.  Suddenly Society, John Drake, and Antichrist generally
combined by ousting him from his church, and turning it into a
music-hall for Golly!  Then John Gale took his last and sublime
resolve.  His duty as a perfect Christian was to kill Golly!  His
logic was at once inscrutable, perfect, and--John Galish!

With this sublime and lofty purpose, he called upon Golly.  The
heroic girl saw his purpose in his eye--an eye at once black,
murderous, and Christian-like.  For an instant she thought it was
better to succumb at once and thus end this remarkable attachment.
Suddenly through this chaos of Spiritual, Religious, Ecstatic,
Super-Egotistic whirl of confused thought, darted a gleam of
Common, Ordinary Horse Sense!  John Gale saw it illumine her blue
eyes, and trembled.  God in Mercy!  If it came to THAT!

"Sit down, John," she said calmly.  Then, in her sweet, clear
voice, she said: "Did it ever occur to you, dearest, that a more
ridiculous, unconvincing, purposeless, insane, God-forsaken idiot
than you never existed?  That you eclipse the wildest dreams of
insanity?  That you are a mental and moral 'What-is-it?'"

"It has occurred to me," he replied simply.  "I began life with
vast asinine possibilities which fall to the lot of few men; yet I
cannot say that I have carried even THEM to a logical conclusion!
But YOU, love! YOU, darling! conceived in extravagance, born to
impossibility, a challenge to credulity, a problem to the
intellect, a 'missing word' for all ages,--are you aware of any one
as utterly unsympathetic, unreal, and untrue to nature as you are,
existing on the face of the earth, or in the waters under the
earth?"

"You are right, dearest; there are none," she returned with the
same calm, level voice.  "It is true that I have at times tried to
do something real and womanly, and not, you know, merely to
complicate a--a"--her voice faltered--"theatrical situation--but I
couldn't!  Something impelled me otherwise.  Now you know why I
became an actress!  But even there I fail!  THEY are allowed
reasoning power off the stage--I have none at any time!  I laugh in
the wrong place--I do the unnecessary, extravagant thing.  Endowed
by some strange power with extraordinary attributes, I am supposed
to make everybody love me, but I don't--I satisfy nobody; I
convince none!  I have no idea what will happen to me next.  I am
doomed to--I know not what."

"And I," he groaned bitterly, "I, in some rare and lucid moments,
have had a glimpse of this too.  We are in the hands of some
inscrutable but awful power.  Tell me, Golly, tell me, darling, who
is it?"

Again that gleam of Common or Ordinary Horse Sense came in her eye.

"I have found out who," she whispered.  "I have found out who has
created us, and made us as puppets in his hands."

"Is it the Almighty?" he asked.

"No; it is"--she said, with a burst of real laughter--"it is--The
'All Caine!"

"What! our countryman the Manxman?  The only great Novelist?  The
beloved of Gladstone?" he gasped.

"Yes--and he intends to kill YOU--and we're only to be married at
your deathbed!"

John Gale arose with a look of stern determination.  "I have
suffered much and idiotically--but I draw a line at this.  I shall
kick!"

Golly clapped her hands joyfully.  "We will!"

"And we'll chuck him."

"We will."

They were choking with laughter.

"And go and get married in a natural, simple way like anybody else--
and try--to do our duty--to God--to each other--and to our fellow-
beings--and quit this--damned--nonsense--and in-fer-nal idiocy
forever!"

"Amen!"


PUBLISHER'S NOTE.--"In that supreme work of my life, 'The
Christian,'" said the gifted novelist to a reporter in speaking of
his methods, "I had endowed the characters of Golly and John Gale
with such superhuman vitality and absolute reality that--as is well
known in the experience of great writers--they became thinking
beings, and actually criticised my work, and even INTERFERED and
REBELLED to the point of altering my climax and the end!"  The
present edition gives that ending, which of course is the only real
one.



THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN LONGBOWE, YEOMAN

BEING A MODERN-ANTIQUE REALISTIC ROMANCE

(COMPILED FROM SEVERAL EMINENT SOURCES)


It seemeth but fair that I, John Longbowe, should set down this
account of such hap and adventure as hath befallen me, without
flourish, vaporing, or cozening of speech, but as becometh one who,
not being a ready writer, goeth straight to the matter in hand in
few words.  So, though I offend some, I shall yet convince all, the
which lieth closer to my purpose.  Thus, it was in the year 1560,
or 1650, or mayhap 1710--for my memory is not what it hath been and
I ever cared little for monkish calendars or such dry-as-dust
matter, being active as becometh one who hath to make his way in
the world--yet I wot well it was after the Great Plague, which I
have great cause to remember, lying at my cozen's in Wardour
Street, London, in that lamentable year, eating of gilly flowers,
sulphur, hartes tongue and many stynking herbes; touching neither
man nor mayd, save with a great tongs steept in pitch; wearing a
fine maske of silk with a mouth piece of aromatic stuff--by reason
of which acts of hardihood and courage I was miraculously
preserved.  This much I shall say as to the time of these
happenings, and no more.  I am a plain, blunt man--mayhap rude of
speech should occasion warrant---so let them who require the
exactness of a scrivener or a pedagogue go elsewhere for their
entertainment and be hanged to them!

Howbeit, though no scholar, I am not one of those who misuse the
English speech, and, being foolishly led by the hasty custom of
scriveners and printers to write the letters "T" and "H" joined
together, which resembleth a "Y," do incontinently jump to the
conclusion the THE is pronounced "Ye,"--the like of which I never
heard in all England.  And though this be little toward those great
enterprises and happenings I shall presently shew, I set it down
for the behoof of such malapert wights as must needs gird at a man
of spirit and action--and yet, in sooth, know not their own
letters.

So to my tale.  There was a great frost when my Lord bade me follow
him to the water gate near our lodgings in the Strand.  When we
reached it we were amazed to see that the Thames was frozen over
and many citizens disporting themselves on the ice--the like of
which no man had seen before.  There were fires built thereon, and
many ships and barges were stuck hard and fast, and my Lord thought
it vastly pretty that the people were walking under their bows and
cabbin windows and climbing of their sides like mermen, but I,
being a plain, blunt man, had no joy in such idlenesse, deeming it
better that in these times of pith and enterprise they should be
more seemly employed.  My Lord, because of one or two misadventures
by reason of the slipperiness of the ice, was fain to go by London
Bridge, which we did; my Lord as suited his humor ruffling the
staid citizens as he passed or peering under the hoods of their
wives and daughters--as became a young gallant of the time.  I,
being a plain, blunt man, assisted in no such folly, but contented
myself, when they complayned to me, with damning their souls for
greasy interfering varlets.  For I shall now make no scruple in
declaring that my Lord was the most noble Earl of Southampton,
being withheld from so saying before through very plainness and
bluntness, desiring as a simple yeoman to make no boast of serving
a man of so high quality.

We fared on over Bankside to the Globe playhouse, where my Lord
bade me dismount and deliver a secret message to the chief player--
which message was, "had he diligently perused and examined that he
wot of, and what said he thereof?"  Which I did.  Thereupon he that
was called the chief player did incontinently proceed to load mine
arms and wallet with many and divers rolls of manuscripts in my
Lord's own hand, and bade me say unto him that there was a great
frost over London, but that if he were to perform those plays and
masques publickly, there would be a greater frost there--to wit, in
the Globe playhouse.  This I did deliver with the Manuscripts to my
Lord, who changed countenance mightily at the sight of them, but
could make nought of the message.  At which the lad who held the
horses before the playhouse--one Will Shakespeare--split with
laughter.  Whereat my Lord cursed him for a deer-stealing, coney-
catching Warwickshire lout, and cuffed him soundly.  I wot there
will be those who remember that this Will Shakespeare afterwards
became a player and did write plays--which were acceptable even to
the Queen's Majesty's self--and I set this down not from vanity to
shew I have held converse with such, nor to give a seemingness and
colour to my story, but to shew what ill-judged, misinformed knaves
were they who did afterwards attribute friendship between my Lord
and this Will Shakespeare, even to the saying that he made sonnets
to my Lord.  Howbeit, my Lord was exceeding wroth, and I, to
beguile him, did propose that we should leave our horses and
cargoes of manuscript behind and cross on the ice afoot, which
conceit pleased him mightily.  In sooth it chanced well with what
followed, for hardly were we on the river when we saw a great crowd
coming from Westminster, before a caravan of strange animals and
savages in masks, capering and capricolling, dragging after them
divers sledges quaintly fashioned like swannes, in which were
ladies attired as fairies and goddesses and such like heathen and
wanton trumpery, which I, as a plain, blunt man, would have fallen
to cursing, had not my Lord himself damned me under his breath to
hold my peace, for that he had recognized my Lord of Leicester's
colours and that he made no doubt they were of the Court.  As
forsooth this did presently appear; also that one of the ladies was
her Gracious Majesty's self--masked to the general eye, the better
to enjoy these miscalled festivities.  I say miscalled, for, though
a loyal subject of her Majesty, and one who hath borne arms at
Tilbury Fort in defence of her Majesty, it inflamed my choler, as a
plain and blunt man, that her Mightiness should so degrade her
dignity.  Howbeit, as a man who hath his way to make in the world,
I kept mine eyes well upon the anticks of the Great, while my Lord
joined the group of maskers and their follies.  I recognized her
Majesty's presence by her discourse in three languages to as many
Ambassadors that were present--though I marked well that she had
not forgotten her own tongue, calling one of her ladies "a sluttish
wench," nor her English spirit in cuffing my Lord of Essex's ears
for some indecorum--which, as a plain man myself, curt in speech
and action, did rejoice me greatly.  But I must relate one feat,
the like of which I never saw in England before or since.  There
was a dance of the maskers, and in the midst of it her Majesty
asked the Ambassador from Spayne if he had seen the latest French
dance.  He replied that he had not.  Whereupon Her Most Excellent
Majesty skipt back a pace and forward a pace, and lifting her hoop,
delivered a kick at his Excellency's hat which sent it flying the
space of a good English ell above his head!  Howbeit so great was
the acclamation that her Majesty was graciously moved to repeat it
to my Lord of Leicester, but, tripping back, her high heels caught
in her farthingale, and she would have fallen on the ice, but for
that my Lord, with exceeding swiftness and dexterity, whisked his
cloak from his shoulder, spreading it under her, and so received
her body in its folds on the ice, without himself touching her
Majesty's person.  Her Majesty was greatly pleased at this, and
bade my Lord buy another cloak at her cost, though it swallowed an
estate; but my Lord replyed, after the lying fashion of the time,
that it was honour enough for him to be permitted to keep it after
"it had received her Royal person."  I know that this hap hath been
partly related of another person--the shipman Raleigh--but I tell
such as deny me that they lie in their teeth, for I, John Longbowe,
have cause--miserable cause enough, I warrant--to remember it, and
my Lord can bear me out!  For, spite of his fair speeches, when he
was quit of the Royal presence, he threw me his wet and bedraggled
cloak and bade me change it with him for mine own, which was dry
and warm.  And it was this simple act which wrought the lamentable
and cruel deed of which I was the victim, for, as I followed my
Lord, thus apparelled, across the ice, I was suddenly set upon and
seized, a choke-pear clapt into my mouth so that I could not cry
aloud, mine eyes bandaged, mine elbows pinioned at my side in that
fatall cloak like to a trussed fowl, and so I was carried to where
the ice was broken, and thrust into a boat.  Thence I was conveyed
in the same rude sort to a ship, dragged up her smooth, wet side,
and clapt under hatches.  Here I lay helpless as in a swoon.  When
I came to, it was with a great trampling on the decks above and the
washing of waves below, and I made that the ship was moving--but
where I knew not.  After a little space the hatch was lifted from
where I lay, the choke-pear taken from my mouth; but not the
bandage from mine eyes, so I could see nought around me.  But I
heard a strange voice say: "What coil is this?  This is my Lord's
cloak in sooth, but not my Lord that lieth in it!  Who is this
fellow?"  At which I did naturally discover the great misprise of
those varlets who had taken me for my dear Lord, whom I now damned
in my heart for changing of the cloaks!  Howbeit, when I had
fetched my breath with difficulty, being well nigh spent by reason
of the gag, I replyed that I was John Longbowe, my Lord's true
yeoman, as good a man as any, as they should presently discover
when they set me ashore.  That I knew--  "Softly, friend," said the
Voice, "thou knowest too much for the good of England and too
little for thine own needs.  Thou shalt be sent where thou mayest
forget the one and improve thy knowledge of the other."  Then as if
turning to those about him, for I could not see by reason of the
blindfold, he next said: "Take him on your voyage, and see that he
escape not till ye are quit of England."  And with that they clapt
to the hatch again, and I heard him cast off from the ship's side.
There was I, John Longbowe, an English yeoman,--I, who but that day
had held converse with Will Shakespeare and been cognizant of the
revels of Her Most Christian Majesty even to the spying of her
garter!--I was kidnapped at the age of forty-five or thereabout--
for I will not be certain of the year--and forced to sea for that
my Lord of Southampton had provoked the jealousie and envy of
divers other great nobles.


CHAPTERS I TO XX


I AM FORCED TO SEA AND TO BECOME A PIRATE!  I SUFFER LAMENTABLY
FROM SICKNESS BY REASON OF THE BIGNESSE OF THE WAVES.  I COMMIT
MANY CRUELTIES AND BLOODSHED.  BUT BY THE DIVINE INTERCESSION I
EVENTUALLY THROW THE WICKED CAPTAIN OVERBOARD AND AM ELECTED IN HIS
STEAD.  I DISCOVER AN ISLAND OF TREASURE, OBTAIN POSSESSION THEREOF
BY A TRICKE, AND PUT THE NATIVES TO THE SWORD.


I marvel much at those who deem it necessary in the setting down of
their adventures to gloze over the whiles between with much matter
of the country, the peoples, and even their own foolish reflections
thereon, hoping in this way to cozen the reader with a belief in
their own truthfulness, and encrease the extravagance of their
deeds.  I, being a plain, blunt man, shall simply say for myself
that for many days after being taken from the bilboes and made free
of the deck, I was grievously distempered by reason of the waves,
and so collapsed in the bowels that I could neither eat, stand, nor
lie.  Being thus in great fear of death, from which I was
miraculously preserved, I, out of sheer gratitude to my Maker, did
incontinently make oath and sign articles to be one of the crew--
which were buccaneers.  I did this the more readily as we were to
attack the ships of Spayne only, and through there being no state
of Warre at that time between England and that country, it was
wisely conceived that this conduct would provoke it, and we should
thus be forearmed, as became a juste man in his quarrel.  For this
we had the precious example of many great Captains.  We did
therefore heave to and burn many ships--the quality of those
engagements I do not set forth, not having a seaman's use of ship
speech, and despising, as a plain, blunt man, those who misuse it,
having it not.

But this I do know, that, having some conceit of a shipman's ways
and of pirates, I did conceive at this time a pretty song for my
comradoes, whereof the words ran thus:--


     Yo ho! when the Dog Watch bayeth loud
       In the light of a mid-sea moon!
     And the Dead Eyes glare in the stiffening Shroud,
       For that is the Pirate's noon!
     When the Night Mayres sit on the Dead Man's Chest
       Where no manne's breath may come--
     Then hey for a bottle of Rum! Rum! Rum!
       And a passage to Kingdom come!


I take no credit to myself for the same, except so far as it may
shew a touch of my Lord of Southampton's manner--we being intimate--
but this I know, that it was much acclaimed by the crew.  Indeed
they, observing that the Captain was of a cruel nature, would fain
kill him and put me in his stead, but I, objecting to the shedding
of precious blood in such behoof, did prevent such a lamentable and
inhuman action by stealthily throwing him by night from his cabbin
window into the sea--where, owing to the inconceivable distance of
the ship from shore, he was presently drowned.  Which untoward fate
had a great effect upon my fortunes, since, burthening myself with
his goods and effects, I found in his chest a printed proclamation
from an aged and infirm clergyman in the West of England
covenanting that, for the sum of two crowns, he would send to whoso
offered, the chart of an island of great treasure in the Spanish
Main, whereof he had had confession from the lips of a dying
parishioner, and the amount gained thereby he would use for the
restoration of his parish church.  Now I, reading this, was struck
by a great remorse and admiration for our late Captain, for that it
would seem that he was, like myself, a staunch upholder of the
Protestant Faith and the Church thereof, as did appear by his
possession of the chart, for which he had no doubt paid the two
good crowns.  As an act of penance I resolved upon finding the same
island by the aid of the chart, and to that purpose sailed East
many days, and South, and North, and West as many other days--the
manner whereof and the latitude and longitude of which I shall not
burden the reader with, holding it, as a plain, blunt man, mere
padding and impertinence to fill out my narrative, which helpeth
not the general reader.  So, I say, when we sighted the Island,
which seemed to be swarming with savages, I ordered the masts to be
stripped, save but for a single sail which hung sadly and
distractedly, and otherwise put the ship into the likeness of a
forlorn wreck, clapping the men, save one or two, under hatches.
This I did to prevent the shedding of precious blood, knowing full
well that the ignorant savages, believing the ship in sore
distress, would swim off to her with provisions and fruit, bearing
no arms.  Which they did, while we, as fast as they clomb the
sides, despatched them at leisure, without unseemly outcry or
alarms.  Having thus disposed of the most adventurous, we landed
and took possession of the island, finding thereon many kegs of
carbuncles and rubies and pieces of eight--the treasure store of
those lawless pirates who infest the seas, having no colour of war
or teaching of civilisation to atone for their horrid deeds.

I discovered also, by an omission in the chart, that this was not
the Island wot of by the good and aged Devonshire divine--and so we
eased our consciences of accounting for the treasure to him.  We
then sailed away, arriving after many years' absence at the Port of
Bristol in Merrie England, where I took leave of the "Jolly Roger,"
that being the name of my ship; it was a strange conceit of seamen
in after years ever to call the device of my FLAG--to wit, a skull
and bones made in the sign of a Cross--by the NAME my ship bore,
and if I have only corrected the misuse of history by lying knaves,
I shall be content with this writing.  But alas! such are the
uncertainties of time; I found my good Lord of Southampton dead and
most of his friends beheaded, and the blessed King James of
Scotland--if I mistake not, for these also be the uncertainties of
time--on the throne.  In due time I married Mistress Marian
Straitways.  I might have told more of trifling, and how she fared,
poor wench! in mine absence, even to the following of me in another
ship, in a shipboy's disguise, and how I rescued her from a
scheming Pagan villain; but, as a plain, blunt man, I am no hand at
the weaving of puling love tales and such trifling diversions for
lovesick mayds and their puny gallants--having only consideration
for men and their deeds, which I have here set down bluntly and
even at mine advanced years am ready to maintain with the hand that
set it down.



DAN'L BOREM

BY E. N--S W--T--T


I


Dan'l Borem poured half of his second cup of tea abstractedly into
his lap.

"Guess you've got suthin' on yer mind, Dan'l," said his sister.

"Mor'n likely I've got suthin' on my pants," returned Dan'l with
that exquisitely dry, though somewhat protracted humor which at
once thrilled and bored his acquaintances.  "But--speakin' o' that
hoss trade"--

"For goodness' sake, don't!" interrupted his sister wearily; "yer
allus doin' it.  Jest tell me about that young man--the new clerk
ye think o' gettin'."

"Well, I telegraphed him to come over, arter I got this letter from
him," he returned, handing her a letter.  "Read it out loud."

But his sister, having an experienced horror of prolixity, glanced
over it.  "Far as I kin see he takes mor'n two hundred words to say
you've got to take him on trust, and sez it suthin' in a style
betwixt a business circular and them Polite Letter Writers.  I
thought you allowed he was a tony feller."

"Ef he does not brag much, ye see, I kin offer him small wages,"
said Dan'l, with a wink.  "It's kinder takin' him at his own
figger."

"And THAT mightn't pay!  But ye don't think o' bringin' him HERE in
this house?  'Cept you're thinkin' o' tellin' him that yarn o'
yours about the hoss trade to beguile the winter evenings.  I told
ye ye'd hev to pay yet to get folks to listen to it."

"Wrong agin--ez you'll see!  Wot ef I get a hundred thousand folks
to pay me for tellin' it?  But, speakin' o' this young feller, I
calkilated to send him to the Turkey Buzzard Hotel;" and he looked
at his sister with a shrewd yet humorous smile.

"What!" said his sister in alarm.  "The Turkey Buzzard!  Why, he'll
be starved or pizoned!  He won't stay there a week."

"Ef he's pizoned to death he won't be able to demand any wages; ef
he leaves because he can't stand it--it's proof positive he
couldn't stand me.  Ef he's only starved and made weak and
miserable he'll be easy to make terms with.  It may seem hard what
I'm sayin', but what seems hard on the other feller always comes
mighty easy to you.  The thing is NOT to be the 'other feller.'  Ye
ain't listenin'.  Yet these remarks is shrewd and humorous, and hez
bin thought so by literary fellers."

"H'm!" said his sister.  "What's that ye was jest sayin' about folks
bein' willin' to pay ye for tellin' that hoss trade yarn o' yours?"

"Thet's only what one o' them smart New York publishers allowed it
was worth arter hearin' me tell it," said Dan'l dryly.

"Go way!  You or him must be crazy.  Why, it ain't ez good as that
story 'bout a man who had a balky hoss that could be made to go
only by buildin' a fire under him, and arter the man sells that
hoss and the secret, and the man wot bought him tries it on, the
blamed hoss lies down over the fire, and puts it out."

"I've allus allowed that the story ye hev to tell yourself is a
blamed sight funnier than the one ye're listenin' to," said Dan'l.
"Put that down among my sayin's, will ye?"

"But your story was never anythin' more than one o' them snippy
things ye see in the papers, drored out to no end by you.  It's
only one o' them funny paragraphs ye kin read in a minit in the
papers that takes YOU an hour to tell."

To her surprise Dan'l only looked at his sister with complacency.

"That," he said, "is jest what the New York publisher sez.  'The
'Merrikan people,' sez he, 'is ashamed o' bein' short and peart and
funny; it lacks dignity,' sez he; 'it looks funny,' sez he, 'but it
ain't deep-seated nash'nul literature,' sez he.  'Them snips o'
funny stories and short dialogues in the comic papers--they make ye
laff,' sez he, 'but laffin' isn't no sign o' deep morril purpose,'
sez he, 'and it ain't genteel and refined.  Abraham Linkin with his
pat anecdotes ruined our standin' with dignified nashuns,' sez he.
'We cultivated publishers is sick o' hearin' furrin' nashuns
roarin' over funny 'Merrikan stories; we're goin' to show 'em that,
even ef we haven't classes and titles and sich, we kin be dull.
We're workin' the historical racket for all that it's worth,--ef we
can't go back mor'n a hundred years or so, we kin rake in a Lord
and a Lady when we do, and we're gettin' in some ole-fashioned
spellin' and "methinkses" and "peradventures."  We're doin' the
religious bizness ez slick ez Robert Elsmere, and we find lots o'
soul in folks--and heaps o quaint morril characters,' sez he."

"Sakes alive, Dan'l!" broke in his sister; "what's all that got to
do with your yarn 'bout the hoss trade?"

"Everythin'," returned Dan'l.  "'For,' sez he, 'Mr. Borem,' sez he,
'you're a quaint morril character.  You've got protracted humor,'
sez he.  'You've bin an hour tellin' that yarn o' yours!  Ef ye
could spin it out to fill two chapters of a book--yer fortune's
made!  For you'll show that a successful hoss trade involves the
highest nash'nul characteristics.  That what common folk calls
"selfishness," "revenge," "mean lyin'," and "low-down money-
grubbin' ambishun" is really "quaintness," and will go in double
harness with the bizness of a Christian banker,' sez he."

"Created goodness, Dan'l!  You're designin' ter"--

Dan'l Borem rose, coughed, expectorated carefully at the usual spot
in the fender, his general custom of indicating the conclusion of a
subject or an interview, and said dryly: "I'm thar!"


II


To return to the writer of the letter, whose career was momentarily
cut off by the episode of the horse trade (who, if he had
previously received a letter written by somebody else would have
been an entirely different person and not in this novel at all):
John Lummox--known to his family as "the perfect Lummox"--had been
two years in college, but thought it rather fine of himself--a
habit of thought in which he frequently indulged--to become a
clerk, but finally got tired of it, and to his father's relief went
to Europe for a couple of years, returning with some knowledge of
French and German, and the cutting end of a German student's
blunted dueling sword.  Having, as he felt, thus equipped himself
for the hero of an American "Good Society" novel, he went on board
a "liner," where there would naturally be susceptible young ladies.
One he thought he recognized as a girl with whom he used to play
"forfeits" in the vulgar past of his boyhood.  She sat at his
table, accompanied by another lady whose husband seemed to be a
confirmed dyspeptic.  His remarks struck Lummox as peculiar.

"Shall I begin dinner with pudding and cheese or take the ordinary
soup first?  I quite forget which I did last night," he said
anxiously to his wife.

But Mrs. Starling hesitated.

"Tell me, Mary," he said, appealing to Miss Bike, the young lady.

"I should begin with the pudding," said Miss Bike decisively, "and
between that and the arrival of the cheese you can make up your
mind, and then, if you think better, go back to the soup."

"Thank you so much.  Now, as to drink?  Shall I take the
Friedrichshalle first or the Benedictine?  You know the doctor
insists upon the Friedrichshalle, but I don't think I did well to
mix them as I did yesterday.  Or shall I take simply milk and
beer?"

"I should say simplicity was best.  Besides, you can always fill up
with champagne later."

How splendidly this clear-headed, clear-eyed girl dominated the
man!  Lummox felt that REALLY he might renew her acquaintance!  He
did so.

"I remembered you," she said.  "You've not changed a bit since you
were eight years old."

John, wishing to change the subject, said that he thought Mr.
Starling seemed an uncertain man.

"Very!  He's even now in his stateroom sitting in his pyjamas with
a rubber shoe on one foot and a pump on the other, wondering
whether he ought to put on golf knickerbockers with a dressing-gown
and straw hat before he comes on deck.  He has already put on and
taken off about twenty suits."

"He certainly is very trying," returned Lummox.  He paused and
colored deeply.  "I beg," he stammered, "I hope--you don't think me
guilty of a pun!  When I said 'trying' I referred entirely to the
effect on your sensitiveness of these tentative attempts toward
clothing himself."

"I should never accuse YOU of levity, Mr. Lummox," said the young
lady, gazing thoughtfully upon his calm but somewhat heavy
features,--"never."

Yet he would have liked to reclaim himself by a show of lightness.
He was leaning on the rail looking at the sea.  The scene was
beautiful.

"I suppose," he said, rolling with the sea and his early studies of
Doctor Johnson, "that one would in the more superior manner show
his appreciation of all this by refraining from the obvious comment
which must needs be recognized as comparatively commonplace and
vulgar; but really this is so superb that I must express some of my
emotion, even at the risk of lowering your opinion of my good
taste, provided, of course, that you have any opinion on the one
hand or any good taste on the other."

"Without that undue depreciation of one's self which must ever be a
sign of self-conscious demerit," said the young girl lightly, "I
may say that I am not generally good at Johnsonese; but it may
relieve your mind to know that had you kept silence one instant
longer, I should have taken the risk of lowering your opinion of my
taste, provided, of course, that you have one to lower and are
capable of that exertion--if such indeed it may be termed--by
remarking that this is perfectly magnificent."

"Do you think," he said gloomily, still leaning on the rail, "that
we can keep this kind of thing up--perhaps I should say down--much
longer?  For myself, I am feeling far from well; it may have been
the lobster--or that last sentence--but"--

They were both silent.  "Yet," she said, after a pause, "you can at
least take Mr. Starling and his dyspepsia off my hands.  You might
be equal to that exertion."

"I suppose that by this time I ought to be doing something for
somebody," he said thoughtfully.  "Yes, I will."

That evening after dinner he took Mr. Starling into the smoking-
room and card-room.  They had something hot.  At 4 A. M., with the
assistance of the steward, he projected Mr. Starling into Mrs.
Starling's stateroom, delicately withdrawing to evade the lady's
thanks.  At breakfast he saw Miss Bike.  "Thank you so much," she
said; "Mrs. Starling found Starling greatly improved.  He himself
admitted he was 'never berrer' and, far from worrying about what
night-clothes he should wear, went to bed AS HE WAS--even to his
hat.  Mrs. Starling calls you 'her preserver,' and Mr. Starling
distinctly stated that you were a 'jolly-good-fler.'"

"And you?" asked John Lummox.

"In your present condition of abnormal self-consciousness and
apperceptive egotism, I really shouldn't like to say."

When the voyage was ended Mr. Lummox went to see Mary Bike at her
house, and his father--whom he had not seen for ten years--at HIS
house.  With a refined absence of natural affection he contented
himself with inquiring of the servants as to his father's habits,
and if he still wore dress clothes at dinner.  The information thus
elicited forced him to the conclusion that the old gentleman's
circumstances were reduced, and that it was possible that he, John
Lummox, might be actually compelled to earn his own living.  He
communicated that suspicion to his father at dinner, and over the
last bottle of "Mouton," a circumstance which also had determined
him in his resolution.  "You might," said his father thoughtfully,
"offer yourself to some rising American novelist as a study for the
new hero,--one absolutely without ambition, capacity, or energy;
willing, however, to be whatever the novelist chooses to make him,
so long as he hasn't to choose for himself.  If your inordinate
self-consciousness is still in your way, I could give him a few
points about you, myself."

"I had thought," said John, hesitatingly, "of going into your
office and becoming your partner in the business.  You could always
look after me, you know."

A shudder passed over the old man.  Then he tremblingly muttered to
himself:

"Thank heaven!  There is one way it may still be averted!"
Retiring to his room he calmly committed suicide, thoughtfully
leaving the empty poison bottle in the fender.

And this is how John Lummox came to offer himself as a clerk to
Dan'l Borem.  The ways of Providence are indeed strange, yet those
of the novelist are only occasionally novel.


III


John K. Lummox lived for a week at the Turkey Buzzard Hotel
exclusively on doughnuts and innuendoes.  He was informed by Mr.
Borem's clerk--whose place he was to fill--that he wouldn't be able
to stand it, and thus received the character of his employer from
his last employee.

"I suppose," said Dan'l Borem, chuckling, "that he said I was a old
skinflint, good only at a hoss trade, uneddicated, ignorant, and
unable to keep accounts, and an oppressor o' the widder and orphan.
Allowed that my cute sayin's was a kind o' ten-cent parody o' them
proverbs in Poor Richard's Almanack!"

"Omitting a few expletives, he certainly did," returned Lummox with
great delicacy.

"He allowed to me," said Dan'l thoughtfully, "that YOU was a poor
critter that hadn't a single reason to show for livin': that the
fool-killer had bin shadderin' you from your birth, and that you
hadn't paid a cent profit on your father's original investment in
ye, nor on the assessments he'd paid on ye ever since.  He seems to
be a cute feller arter all, and I'm rather sorry he's leavin'."

"I am quite willing to abandon my position in his favor, now," said
Lummox with alacrity.

"No," said Dan'l, rubbing his chin argumentatively; "the only way
for us to do is to circumvent him like in a hoss trade--with
suthin' unexpected.  When he thinks you're goin' to sleep in the
shafts you'll run away; and when he think's I'm vicious I'll let a
woman or a child drive me."


IV


"Well, Dan'l, how's that new clerk o' yours gettin' on?" said Mrs.
Bigby a week later.

"Purty fine!  He's good at accounts and hez got to know the Bank's
customers by this time.  But I allus reckoned he'd get stuck with
some o' them counterfeit notes--and he hez!  Ye see he ain't
accustomed to look at a five or a ten dollar note as sharp as some
men, and he's already taken in two tens and a five counterfeits."

"Gracious!" said Mrs. Bigsby.  "What did the poor feller do?"

"Oh, he ups and tells me, all right, after he discovered it.  And
sez he: 'I've charged my account with 'em,' sez he, 'so the Bank
won't lose it.'"

"Why, Dan'l," said Mrs. Bigsby, "ye didn't let that poor feller"--

"You hol' on!" said her brother; "business is business; but I sez
to him: 'Ye oughter put it down to Profit and Loss account.  Or
perhaps we'll have a chance o' gettin' rid o' them,--not in Noo
York, where folks is sharp, but here in the country, and then ye
kin credit yourself with the amount arter you've got rid o' them.'"

"Laws!  I'm sorry ye did that, Dan'l," said Mrs. Bigsby.

"With that he riz up," continued Dan'l, ignoring his sister, "and,
takin' them counterfeit notes from my hand, sez he: 'Them notes
belong to ME now,' sez he, 'and I'm goin' to destroy 'em.'  And
with that he walks over to the fire as stiff as a poker, and held
them notes in it until they were burnt clean up."

"Well, but that was honest and straightforward in him!" said Mrs.
Bigsby.

"Um! but it wasn't business--and ye see"--  Dan'l paused and rubbed
his chin.

"Well, go on!" said Mrs. Bigsby impatiently.

"Well, ye see, neither him nor me was very smart in detectin'
counterfeits, or even knowin' 'em, and"--

"Well!  For goodness' sake, Dan'l, speak out!"

"Well--THE DUM FOOL BURNT UP THREE GOOD BILLS, and we neither of us
knew it!"


V


The "unexpected" which Dan'l Borem had hinted might characterize
his future conduct was first intimated by his treatment of the
"Widow Cully," an aged and impoverished woman whose property was
heavily mortaged to him.  He had curtly summoned her to come to his
office on Christmas Day and settle up.  Frightened, hopeless, and
in the face of a snowstorm, the old woman attended, but was
surprised by receiving a "satisfaction piece" in full from the
banker, and a gorgeous Christmas dinner.  "All the same," said Mrs.
Bigsby to Lummox, "Dan'l might hev done all this without
frightenin' the poor old critter into a nervous fever, chillin' her
through by makin' her walk two miles through the snow, and keepin'
her on the ragged edge o' despair for two mortal hours!  But it's
his humorous way."

"Did he give any reason for being so lenient to the widow?" asked
Lummox.

"He said that her son had given him a core of his apple when they
were boys together.  Dan'l ez mighty thoughtful o' folks that was
kind to him in them days."

"Is that all?" said Lummox, astonished.

"Well--I've kinder thought suthin' else," said Mrs. Bigsby
hesitatingly.

"What?"

"That its bein' Christmas Day--and as I've heard tell that's NO DAY
IN LAW, but just like Sunday--Dan'l mebbe thought that he might
crawl outer that satisfaction piece, ef he ever wanted ter!  Dan'l
is mighty cute."


VI


Mr. John Lummox was not behind his employer in developing
unexpected traits of character.  Hitherto holding aloof from his
neighbors in Old Folksville, he suddenly went to a social
gathering, and distinguished himself as the principal and popular
guest of the evening.  As Dan'l Borem afterward told his sister:
"He was one o' them Combination Minstrels and Variety Shows in one.
He sang through a whole opery, made the pianner jest howl, gave
some recitations, Casabianker and Betsy and I are Out; imitated all
them tragedians; did tricks with cards and fetched rabbits outer
hats, besides liftin' the pianner with two men sittin' on it, jest
by his teeth.  Created snakes!" said Borem, concluding his account,
which here is necessarily abbreviated, "ef he learnt all that in
his two years in Europe I ain't sayin' anythin' more agin'
eddication and furrin' travel after this!  Why, the next day there
was quite a run on the Bank jest to see HIM.  He is makin' the
bizness pop'lar."

"Then ye think ye'll get along together?"

"I reckon we'll hitch hosses," said Dan'l, with a smile.

A few weeks later, one evening, Dan'l Borem sat with his sister
alone.  John Lummox, who was now residing with them, was attending
a social engagement.  Mrs. Bigsby knew that Dan'l had something to
communicate, but knew that he would do so in his own way.

"Speakin' o' hoss trades," he began.

"We WASN'T and we ain't goin' to," said Mrs. Bigsby with great
promptness.  "I've heard enough of 'em."

"But this here one hez suthin' to do with your fr'en', John
Lummox," said Dan'l, with a chuckle.

Mrs. Bigsby stared.  "Go on, then," she said, but, for goodness'
sake, cut it short."

Dan'l threw away his quid and replenished it from his silver
tobacco box.  Mrs. Bigsby shuddered slightly as she recognized the
usual preliminary to prolixity, but determined, as far as possible,
to make her brother brief.

"It mout be two weeks ago," began Dan'l, "that I see John Lummox
over at Palmyra, where he'd bin visitin'.  He was drivin' a hoss,
the beautifulest critter--for color--I ever saw.  It was yaller,
with mane and tail a kinder golden, like the hair o' them British
Blondes that was here in the Variety Show."

"Dan'l!" exclaimed Mrs. Bigsby, horrified.  "And you allowed you
never went thar!"

"Saw 'em on the posters--and mebbe the color was a little brighter
thar," said Dan'l carelessly--"but who's interruptin' now?"

"Go on," said Mrs. Bigsby.

"'Got a fine hoss thar,' sez I; 'reckon I never see such a purty
color,' sez I.  'He is purty,' sez he, 'per'aps too purty for ME to
be a-drivin', but he isn't fast.'  'I ain't speakin' o' that,' sez
I; 'it's his looks that I'm talkin' of; whar might ye hev got him?'
'He was offered to me by a fr'en' o' me boyhood,' sez he; 'he's a
pinto mustang,' sez he, 'from Californy, whar they breed 'em.'
'What's a pinto hoss?' sez I.  'The same ez a calico hoss,' sez he;
'what they have in cirkises, but ye never see 'em that color.'  En
he was right, for when I looked him over I never DID see such a
soft and silky coat, and his mane and tail jest glistened.  'It IS
a little too showy for ye,' sez I, 'but I might take him at a fair
price.  What's your fr'en' askin'?'  'He won't sell him to anybody
but me,' sez Lummox; 'he's a horror o' hoss traders, anyway, and
his price is more like a gift to a fr'en'.'  'What might that price
be, ef it's a fair question?' sez I, for the more I looked at the
hoss the more I liked him.  'A hundred and fifty dollars,' sez he;
'but my fr'en' would ask YOU double that.'  'Couldn't YOU and ME
make a trade?' sez I; 'I'll exchange ye that roan mare, that's
worth two hundred, for this hoss and fifty dollars.'  With that he
drew himself up, and sez he: 'Mr. Borem,' sez he, 'I share my
fr'en's opinion about hoss tradin', and I promised my mother I'd
never swap hosses.  You ought to know me by this time.'"

"That's so!" said Mrs. Bigsby; "I'm wonderin' ye dared to ax him."

Dan'l passed his hand over his mouth, and continued: "'I dunno but
you're right, Lummox,' sez I; 'per'aps it's jest as well as thar
wasn't TWO in the Bank in that bizness.'  But the more I looked at
the hoss the more I hankered arter him.  'Look here,' sez I, 'I
tell ye what I'll do!  I'll LEND you my hoss and you'll LEND me
yourn.  I'll draw up a paper to that effect, and provide that in
case o' accidents, ef I don't return you your hoss, I'll agree to
pay you a hundred and fifty dollars.  You'll give me the same kind
o' paper about my hoss--with the proviso that you pay me two
hundred for him!'  'Excuse me, Mr. Borem,' sez he, 'but that
difference of fifty makes a hoss trade accordin' to my mind.  It's
agin' my principles to make such an agreement.'"

"An' he was right, Dan'l," said Mrs. Bigsby approvingly.

But Dan'l wiped his mouth again, leaving, however, a singular smile
on it.  "Well, ez I wanted that hoss, I jest thought and thought!
I knew I could get two hundred and fifty for him easy, and that
Lummox didn't know anythin' of his valoo, and I finally agreed to
make the swap even.  'What do you call him?' sez I.  'Pegasus,' sez
he,--'the poet's hoss, on account o' his golden mane,' sez he.
That made me laff, for I never knew a poet ez could afford to hev a
hoss,--much less one like that!  But I said: 'I'll borry Pegasus o'
you on those terms.'  The next day I took the hoss to Jonesville;
Lummox was right: he wasn't FAST, but, jest as I expected, he made
a sensation!  Folks crowded round him whenever I stopped; wimmin
followed him and children cried for him.  I could hev sold him for
three hundred without leavin' town!  'So ye call him Pegasus,' sez
Doc Smith, grinnin'; 'I didn't known ye was subject to the divine
afflatus, Dan'l.'  'I don' offen hev it,' sez I, 'but when I do I
find a little straight gin does me good.'  'So did Byron,' sez he,
chucklin'.  But even if I had called him 'Beelzebub' the hull town
would hev bin jest as crazy over him.  Well, as it was comin' on to
rain I started jest after sundown for home.  But it came ter blow,
an' ter pour cats and dogs, an' I was nigh washed out o' the buggy,
besides losin' my way and gettin' inter ditches and puddles, and I
hed to stop at Staples' Half-Way House and put up for the night.
In the mornin' I riz up early and goes into the stable yard, and
the first thing I sees was the 'ostler.  'I hope ye giv' my hoss a
good scrub down,' I sez, 'as I told ye, for his color is that
delicate the smallest spot shows.  It's a very rare color for a
hoss.'  'I was hopin' it might be,' sez he.  I was a little huffed
at that, and I sez: 'It's considered a very beautiful color.'
'Mebbe it is,' sez he, 'but I never cared much for fireworks.'
'What yer mean?' sez I.  'Look here, Squire!' sez he; 'I don't mind
scourin' and rubbin' down a hoss that will stay the same color
TWICE, but when he gets to playin' a kaladeoskope on me, I kick!'
'Trot him out,' sez I, beginnin' to feel queer.  With that he
fetched out the hoss!  For a minit I hed to ketch on to the fence
to keep myself from fallin'.  I swonny! ef he didn't look like a
case of measles on top o' yaller fever--'cept where the harness had
touched him, and that was kinder stenciled out all over him.  Thar
was places whar the 'ostler had washed down to the foundation
color, a kind o' chewed licorice!  Then I knew that somebody had
bin sold terrible, and I reckoned it might be me!  But I said
nothin' to the 'ostler, and waited until dark, when I drove him
over here, and put him in the stables, lettin' no one see him.  In
the mornin' Lummox comes to me, and sez he: 'I'm glad to see you
back,' sez he, 'for my conscience is troublin' me about that hoss
agreement; it looks too much like a hoss trade,' sez he, 'and I'm
goin' to send the hoss back.'  'Mebbe your conscience,' sez I, 'may
trouble you a little more ef you'll step this way;' and with that I
takes his arm and leads him round to the stable and brings out the
hoss.

"Well, Lummox never changes ez much as a hair, ez he puts up his
eyeglasses.  'I'm not good at what's called "Pop'lar Art,"' sez he.
'Is it a chromo, or your own work?' sez he, critical like.

"'It's YOUR HOSS,' sez I.

"He looks at me a minit and then drors a paper from his pocket.
'This paper,' sez he in his quiet way, 'was drored up by you and is
a covenant to return to me a yaller hoss with golden mane and tail--
or a hundred and fifty dollars.  Ez I don't see the hoss anywhere--
mebbe you've got the hundred and fifty dollars handy?' sez he.
'Suppose I hadn't the money?' sez I.  'I should be obliged,' sez he
in a kind o' pained Christian-martyr way, 'ter sell YOUR hoss for
two hundred, and send the money to my fr'en'.'  We looked at each
other steddy for a minit and then I counts him out a hundred and
fifty.  He took the money sad-like and then sez: 'Mr. Borem,' sez
he, 'this is a great morril lesson to us,' and went back to the
office.  In the arternoon I called in an old hoss dealer that I
knew and shows him Pegasus.

"'He wants renewin',' sez he.

"'Wot's that?' sez I.

"'A few more bottles o' that British Blonde Hair Dye to set him up
ag'in.  That's wot they allus do in the cirkis, whar he kem from.'

"Then I went back to the office and I took down my sign.  'What's
that you re doin'?' sez Lummox, with a sickly kind o' smile.  'Are
you goin' out o' the bizness?'

"'No, I'm only goin' to change that sign from "Dan'l Borem" to
"Borem and Lummox,"' sez I.  'I've concluded it's cheaper for me to
take you inter partnership now than to continue in this way, which
would only end in your hevin' to take me in later.  I preferred to
DO IT FUST.'"


VII


A rich man, and settled in business, John Lummox concluded that he
would marry Mary Bike.  With that far-sighted logic which had
always characterized him he reasoned that, having first met her on
a liner, he would find her again on one if he took passage to
Europe.  He did--but she was down on the passenger list as Mrs.
Edwin Wraggles.  The result of their interview was given to Mrs.
Bigsby by Dan'l Borem in his own dialect.

"Ez far as I kin see, it was like the Deacon's Sunday hoss trade,
bein' all 'Ef it wassent.'  'Ef ye wasn't Mrs. Wraggles,' sez
Lummox, sez he, 'I'd be tellin' ye how I've loved ye ever sence I
first seed ye.  Ef ye wasn't Mrs. Wraggles, I'd be squeezin' yer
hand,' sez he; 'ef ye wasn't Mrs. Wraggles, I'd be askin' ye to
marry me.'  Then the gal ups and sez, sez she: 'But I AIN'T Mrs.
Wraggles,' sez she; 'Mrs. Wraggles is my sister, and couldn't come,
so I'm travelin' on her ticket, and that's how my name is Wraggles
on the passenger list.'  'But why didn't ye tell me so at once?'
sez Lummox.  'This is an episoode o' protracted humor,' sez she,
'and I'M bound to have a show in it somehow!'"

"Well!" said Mrs. Bigsby breathlessly; "then he DID marry her?"

"Darned ef I know.  He never said so straight out--but that's like
Lummox."



STORIES THREE

BY R--DY--D K--PL--G


I

FOR SIMLA REASONS


Some people say that improbable things don't necessarily happen in
India--but these people never find improbabilities anywhere.  This
sounds clever, but you will at once perceive that it really means
the opposite of what I intended to say.  So we'll drop it.  What I
am trying to tell you is that after Sparkley had that affair with
Miss Millikens a singular change came over him.  He grew abstracted
and solitary,--holding dark seances with himself,--which was odd,
as everybody knew he never cared a rap for the Millikens girl.  It
was even said that he was off his head--which is rhyme.  But his
reason was undoubtedly affected, for he had been heard to mutter
incoherently at the Club, and, strangest of all, to answer
questions THAT WERE NEVER ASKED!  This was so awkward in that
Branch of the Civil Department of which he was a high official--
where the rule was exactly the reverse--that he was presently
invalided on full pay!  Then he disappeared.  Clever people said it
was because the Department was afraid he had still much to answer
for; stupid people simply envied him.

Mrs. Awksby, whom everybody knew had been the cause of breaking off
the match, was now wild to know the reason of Sparkley's
retirement.  She attacked heaven and earth, and even went a step
higher--to the Viceroy.  At the vice-regal ball I saw, behind the
curtains of a window, her rolling violet-blue eyes with a singular
glitter in them.  It was the reflection of the Viceroy's star,
although the rest of his Excellency was hidden in the curtain.  I
heard him saying, "Come now! really, now, you are--you know you
are!" in reply to her cooing questioning.  Then she made a dash at
me and captured me.

"What did you hear?"

"Nothing I should not have heard."

"Don't be like all the other men--you silly boy!" she answered.  "I
was only trying to find out something about Sparkley.  And I will
find it out too," she said, clinching her thin little hand.  "And
what's more," she added, turning on me suddenly, "YOU shall help
me!"

"I?" I said in surprise.

"Don't pretend!" she said poutingly.  "You're too clever to believe
he's cut up over the Millikens.  No--it's something awful or--
another woman!  Now, if I knew as much of India as you do--and
wasn't a woman, and could go where I liked--I'd go to Bungloore and
find him."

"Oh! You have his address?" I said.

"Certainly!  What did you expect I was behind the curtain with the
Viceroy for?" she said, opening her violet eyes innocently.  "It's
Bungloore--First Turning to the Right--At the End of the passage."

Bungloore--near Ghouli Pass--in the Jungle!  I knew the place, a
spot of dank pestilence and mystery.  "You never could have gone
there," I said.

"You do not know WHAT I could do for a FRIEND," she said sweetly,
veiling her eyes in demure significance.

"Oh, come off the roof!" I said bluntly.

She could be obedient when it was necessary.  She came off.  Not
without her revenge.  "Try to remember you are not at school with
the Stalkies," she said, and turned away.

I went to Bungloore,--not on her account, but my own.  If you don't
know India, you won't know Bungloore.  It's all that and more.  An
egg dropped by a vulture, sat upon and addled by the Department.
But I knew the house and walked boldly in.  A lion walked out of
one door as I came in at another.  We did this two or three times--
and found it amusing.  A large cobra in the hall rose up, bowed as
I passed, and respectfully removed his hood.

I found the poor old boy at the end of the passage.  It might have
been the passage between Calais and Dover,--he looked so green, so
limp and dejected.  I affected not to notice it, and threw myself
in a chair.

He gazed at me for a moment and then said, "Did you hear what the
chair was saying?"

It was an ordinary bamboo armchair, and had creaked after the usual
fashion of bamboo chairs.  I said so.

He cast his eyes to the ceiling.  "He calls it 'creaking,'" he
murmured.  "No matter," he continued aloud, "its remark was not of
a complimentary nature.  It's very difficult to get really polite
furniture."

The man was evidently stark, staring mad.  I still affected not to
observe it, and asked him if that was why he left Simla.

"There were Simla reasons, certainly," he replied.  "But you think
I came here for solitude!  SOLITUDE!" he repeated, with a laugh.
"Why, I hold daily conversations with any blessed thing in this
house, from the veranda to the chimney-stack, with any stick of
furniture, from the footstool to the towel-horse.  I get more out
of it than the gabble at the Club.  You look surprised.  Listen!  I
took this thing up in my leisure hours in the Department.  I had
read much about the conversation of animals.  I argued that if
animals conversed, why shouldn't inanimate things communicate with
each other?  You cannot prove that animals don't converse--neither
can you prove that inanimate objects DO NOT.  See?"

I was thunderstruck with the force of his logic.

"Of course," he continued, "there are degrees of intelligence, and
that makes it difficult.  For instance, a mahogany table would not
talk like a rush-bottomed kitchen chair."  He stopped suddenly,
listened, and replied, "I really couldn't say."

"I didn't speak," I said.

"I know YOU didn't.  But your chair asked me 'how long that fool
was going to stay.'  I replied as you heard.  Pray don't move--I
intend to change that chair for one more accustomed to polite
society.  To continue: I perfected myself in the language, and it
was awfully jolly at first.  Whenever I went by train, I heard not
only all the engines said, but what every blessed carriage thought,
that joined in the conversation.  If you chaps only knew what rot
those whistles can get off!  And as for the brakes, they can beat
any mule driver in cursing.  Then, after a time, it got rather
monotonous, and I took a short sea trip for my health.  But, by
Jove, every blessed inch of the whole ship--from the screw to the
bowsprit--had something to say, and the bad language used by the
garboard strake when the ship rolled was something too awful!  You
don't happen to know what the garboard strake is, do you?"

"No," I replied.

"No more do I.  That's the dreadful thing about it.  You've got to
listen to chaps that you don't know.  Why, coming home on my
bicycle the other day there was an awful row between some infernal
'sprocket' and the 'ball bearings' of the machine, and I never knew
before there were such things in the whole concern.

I thought I had got at his secret, and said carelessly: "Then I
suppose this was the reason why you broke off your engagement with
Miss Millikens?"

"Not at all," he said coolly.  "Nothing to do with it.  That is
quite another affair.  It's a very queer story; would you like to
hear it?"

"By all means."  I took out my notebook.

"You remember that night of the Amateur Theatricals, got up by the
White Hussars, when the lights suddenly went out all over the
house?"

"Yes," I replied, "I heard about it."

"Well, I had gone down there that evening with the determination of
proposing to Mary Millikens the first chance that offered.  She sat
just in front of me, her sister Jane next, and her mother, smart
Widow Millikens,--who was a bit larky on her own account, you
remember,--the next on the bench.  When the lights went out and the
panic and tittering began, I saw my chance!  I leaned forward, and
in a voice that would just reach Mary's ear I said, 'I have long
wished to tell you how my life is bound up with you, dear, and I
never, never can be happy without you'--when just then there was a
mighty big shove down my bench from the fellows beyond me, who were
trying to get out.  But I held on like grim death, and struggled
back again into position, and went on: 'You'll forgive my taking a
chance like this, but I felt I could no longer conceal my love for
you,' when I'm blest if there wasn't another shove, and though I'd
got hold of her little hand and had a kind of squeeze in return, I
was drifted away again and had to fight my way back.  But I managed
to finish, and said, 'If the devotion of a lifetime will atone for
this hurried avowal of my love for you, let me hope for a
response,' and just then the infernal lights were turned on, and
there I was holding the widow's hand and she nestling on my
shoulder, and the two girls in hysterics on the other side.  You
see, I never knew that they were shoved down on their bench every
time, just as I was, and of course when I got back to where I was
I'd just skipped one of them each time!  Yes, sir!  I had made that
proposal in THREE sections--a part to each girl, winding up with
the mother!  No explanation was possible, and I left Simla next
day.  Naturally, it wasn't a thing they could talk about, either!"

"Then you think Mrs. Awksby had nothing to do with it?" I said.

"Nothing--absolutely nothing.  By the way, if you see that lady,
you might tell her that I have possession of that brocade easy-
chair which used to stand in the corner of her boudoir.  You
remember it,--faded white and yellow, with one of the casters off
and a little frayed at the back, but rather soft-spoken and
amiable?  But of course you don't understand THAT.  I bought it
after she moved into her new bungalow."

"But why should I tell her that?" I asked in wonder.

"Nothing--except that I find it very amusing with its reminiscences
of the company she used to entertain, and her confidences
generally.  Good-by--take care of the lion in the hall.  He always
couches on the left for a spring.  Ta-ta!"

I hurried away.  When I returned to Simla I told Mrs. Awksby of my
discoveries, and spoke of the armchair.

I fancied she colored slightly, but quickly recovered.

"Dear old Sparkley," she said sweetly; "he WAS a champion liar!"


II.

A PRIVATE'S HONOR


I had not seen Mulledwiney for several days.  Knowing the man--this
looked bad.  So I dropped in on the Colonel.  I found him in deep
thought.  This looked bad, too, for old Cockey Wax--as he was known
to everybody in the Hill districts but himself--wasn't given to
thinking.  I guessed the cause and told him so.

"Yes," he said wearily, "you are right!  It's the old story.
Mulledwiney, Bleareyed, and Otherwise are at it again,--drink
followed by Clink.  Even now two corporals and a private are
sitting on Mulledwiney's head to keep him quiet, and Bleareyed is
chained to an elephant."

"Perhaps," I suggested, "you are unnecessarily severe."

"Do you really think so?  Thank you so much!  I am always glad to
have a civilian's opinion on military matters--and vice versa--it
broadens one so!  And yet--am I severe?  I am willing, for
instance, to overlook their raid upon a native village, and the
ransom they demanded for a native inspector!  I have overlooked
their taking the horses out of my carriage for their own use.  I am
content also to believe that my fowls meekly succumb to jungle
fever and cholera.  But there are some things I cannot ignore.  The
carrying off of the great god Vishnu from the Sacred Shrine at
Ducidbad by The Three for the sake of the priceless opals in its
eyes"--

"But I never heard of THAT," I interrupted eagerly.  "Tell me."

"Ah!" said the Colonel playfully, "that--as you so often and so
amusingly say--is 'Another Story'!  Yet I would have overlooked the
theft of the opals if they had not substituted two of the Queen's
regimental buttons for the eyes of the god.  This, while it did not
deceive the ignorant priests, had a deep political and racial
significance.  You are aware, of course, that the great mutiny was
occasioned by the issue of cartridges to the native troops greased
with hog's fat--forbidden by their religion."

"But these three men could themselves alone quell a mutiny," I
replied.

The Colonel grasped my hand warmly.  "Thank you.  So they could.  I
never thought of that."  He looked relieved.  For all that, he
presently passed his hand over his forehead and nervously chewed
his cheroot.

"There is something else," I said.

"You are right.  There is.  It is a secret.  Promise me it shall go
no further--than the Press?  Nay, swear that you will KEEP it for
the Press!"

"I promise."

"Thank you SO much.  It is a matter of my own and Mulledwiney's.
The fact is, we have had a PERSONAL difficulty."  He paused,
glanced around him, and continued in a low, agitated voice:
"Yesterday I came upon him as he was sitting leaning against the
barrack wall.  In a spirit of playfulness--mere playfulness, I
assure you, sir--I poked him lightly in the shoulder with my stick,
saying 'Boo!'  He turned--and I shall never forget the look he gave
me."

"Good heavens!" I gasped, "you touched--absolutely TOUCHED--
Mulledwiney?"

"Yes," he said hurriedly, "I knew what you would say; it was
against the Queen's Regulations--and--there was his sensitive
nature which shrinks from even a harsh word; but I did it, and of
course he has me in his power."

"And you have touched him?" I repeated,--"touched his private
honor!"

"Yes!  But I shall atone for it!  I have already arranged with him
that we shall have it out between ourselves alone, in the jungle,
stripped to the buff, with our fists--Queensberry rules!  I haven't
fought since I stood up against Spinks Major--you remember old
Spinks, now of the Bombay Offensibles?--at Eton."  And the old boy
pluckily bared his skinny arm.

"It may be serious," I said.

"I have thought of that.  I have a wife, several children, and an
aged parent in England.  If I fall, they must never know.  You must
invent a story for them.  I have thought of cholera, but that is
played out; you know we have already tried it on The Boy who was
Thrown Away.  Invent something quiet, peaceable and respectable--as
far removed from fighting as possible.  What do you say to
measles?"

"Not half bad," I returned.

"Measles let it be, then!  Say I caught it from Wee Willie Winkie.
You do not think it too incredible?" he added timidly.

"Not more than YOUR story," I said.

He grasped my hand, struggling violently with his emotion.  Then he
struggled with me--and I left hurriedly.  Poor old boy!  The
funeral was well attended, however, and no one knew the truth, not
even myself.


III

JUNGLE FOLK


It was high noon of a warm summer's day when Moo Kow came down to
the watering-place.  Miaow, otherwise known as "Puskat"--the
warmth-loving one--was crouching on a limb that overhung the pool,
sunning herself.  Brer Rabbit--but that is Another Story by Another
Person.

Three or four Gee Gees, already at the pool, moved away on the
approach of Moo Kow.

"Why do ye stand aside?" said the Moo Kow.

"Why do you say 'ye'?" said the Gee Gees together.

"Because it's more impressive than 'you.'  Don't you know that all
animals talk that way in English?" said the Moo Kow.

"And they also say 'thou,' and don't you forget it!" interrupted
Miaow from the tree.  "I learnt that from a Man Cub."

The animals were silent.  They did not like Miaow's slang, and were
jealous of her occasionally sitting on a Man Cub's lap.  Once Dun-
kee, a poor relation of the Gee Gees, had tried it on,
disastrously--but that is also Another and a more Aged Story.

"We are ridden by The English--please to observe the Capital
letters," said Pi Bol, the leader of the Gee Gees, proudly.  "They
are a mighty race who ride anything and everybody.  D'ye mind that--
I mean, look ye well to it!"

"What should they know of England who only England know?" said
Miaow.

"Is that a conundrum?" asked the Moo Kow.

"No; it's poetry," said the Miaow.

"I know England," said Pi Bol prancingly.  "I used to go from the
Bank to Islington three times a day--I mean," he added hurriedly,
"before I became a screw--I should say, a screw-gun horse."

"And I," said the Moo Kow, "am terrible.  When the young women and
children in the village see me approach they fly shriekingly.  My
presence alone has scattered their sacred festival--The Sundes Kool
Piknik.  I strike terror to their inmost souls, and am more feared
by them than even Kreep-mows, the insidious!  And yet, behold!  I
have taken the place of the mothers of men, and I have nourished
the mighty ones of the earth!  But that," said the Moo Kow, turning
her head aside bashfully, "that is Anudder Story."

A dead silence fell on the pool.

"And I," said Miaow, lifting up her voice, "I am the horror and
haunter of the night season.  When I pass like the night wind over
the roofs of the houses men shudder in their beds and tremble.
When they hear my voice as I creep stealthily along their balconies
they cry to their gods for succor.  They arise, and from their
windows they offer me their priceless household treasures--the
sacred vessels dedicated to their great god Shiv--which they call
'Shivin Mugs'--the Kloes Brosh, the Boo-jak, urging me to fly them!
And yet," said Miaow mournfully, "it is but my love-song!  Think ye
what they would do if I were on the war-path."

Another dead silence fell on the pool.  Then arose that strange,
mysterious, indefinable Thing, known as "The Scent."  The animals
sniffed.

"It heralds the approach of the Stalkies--the most famous of
British Skool Boaz," said the Moo Kow.  "They have just placed a
decaying guinea-pig, two white mice in an advanced state of
decomposition, and a single slice of Limburger cheese in the bed of
their tutor.  They had previously skillfully diverted the drains so
that they emptied into the drawing-room of the head-master.  They
have just burned down his house in an access of noble zeal, and are
fighting among themselves for the spoil.  Hark! do ye hear them?"

A wild medley of shrieks and howls had arisen, and an irregular mob
of strange creatures swept out of the distance toward the pool.
Some were like pygmies, some had bloody noses.  Their talk
consisted of feverish, breathless ejaculations,--a gibberish in
which the words "rot," "oach," and "giddy" were preeminent.  Some
were exciting themselves by chewing a kind of "bhang" made from the
plant called pappahmint; others had their faces streaked with djam.

"But who is this they are ducking in the pool?" asked Pi Bol.

"It is one who has foolishly and wantonly conceived that his
parents have sent him here to study," said the Moo Kow; "but that
is against the rules of the Stalkies, who accept study only as a
punishment."

"Then these be surely the 'Bander Log'--the monkey folk--of whom
the good Rhuddyidd has told us," said a Gee Gee--"the ones who have
no purpose--and forget everything."

"Fool!" said the Moo Kow.  "Know ye not that the great Rhuddyidd
has said that the Stalkies become Major-Generals, V. C.'s, and C.
B's of the English?  Truly, they are great.  Look now; ye shall see
one of the greatest traits of the English Stalky."

One of the pygmy Stalkies was offering a bun to a larger one, who
hesitated, but took it coldly.

"Behold! it is one of the greatest traits of this mighty race not
to show any emotion.  He WOULD take the bun--he HAS taken it!  He
is pleased--but he may not show it.  Observe him eat."

The taller Stalky, after eating the bun, quietly kicked the giver,
knocked off his hat, and turned away with a calm, immovable face.

"Good!" said the Moo Kow.  "Ye would not dream that he was
absolutely choking with grateful emotion?"

"We would not," said the animals.

"But why are they all running back the way they came?" asked Pi
Bol.

"They are going back to punishment.  Great is its power.  Have ye
not heard the gospel of Rhuddyidd the mighty?  'Force is
everything!  Gentleness won't wash, courtesy is deceitful.
Politeness is foreign.  Be ye beaten that ye may beat.  Pass the
kick on.'"

But here he was interrupted by the appearance of three soldiers who
were approaching the watering-place.

"Ye are now," said the Moo Kow, "with the main guard.  The first is
Bleareyed, who carries a raven in a cage, which he has stolen from
the wife of a deputy commissioner.  He will paint the bird snow
white and sell it as a dove to the same lady.  The second is
Otherwise, who is dragging a small garden engine, of which he has
despoiled a native gardener, whom he has felled with a single blow.
The third is Mulledwiney, swinging a cut-glass decanter of sherry
which he has just snatched from the table of his colonel.
Mulledwiney and Otherwise will play the engine upon Bleareyed, who
is suffering from heat apoplexy and djim-djams."

The three soldiers seated themselves in the pool.

"They are going to tell awful war stories now," said the Moo Kow,
"stories that are large and strong!  Some people are shocked--
others like 'em."

Then he that was called Mulledwiney told a story.  In the middle of
it Miaow got up from the limb of the tree, coughed slightly, and
put her paw delicately over her mouth.  "You must excuse me," she
said faintly.  "I am taken this way sometimes--and I have left my
salts at home.  Thanks!  I can get down myself!"  The next moment
she had disappeared, but was heard coughing in the distance.

Mulledwiney winked at his companions and continued his story:--

"Wid that we wor in the thick av the foight.  Whin I say 'thick' I
mane it, sorr!  We wor that jammed together, divil a bit cud we
shoot or cut!  At fur-rest, I had lashed two mushkits together wid
the baynits out so, like a hay fork, and getting the haymaker's
lift on thim, I just lifted two Paythians out--one an aych baynit--
and passed 'em, aisy-like, over me head to the rear rank for them
to finish.  But what wid the blud gettin' into me ois, I was
blinded, and the pressure kept incraysin' until me arrums was
thrussed like a fowl to me sides, and sorra a bit cud I move but me
jaws!"

"And bloomin' well you knew how to use them," said Otherwise.

"Thrue for you--though ye don't mane it!" said Mulledwiney,
playfully tapping Otherwise on the head with a decanter till the
cut glass slowly shivered.  "So, begorra! there wor nothing left
for me to do but to ATE thim!  Wirra! but it was the crooel
worruk."

"Excuse me, my lord," interrupted the gasping voice of Pi Bol as he
began to back from the pool, "I am but a horse, I know, and being
built in that way--naturally have the stomach of one--yet, really,
my lord, this--er"--  And his voice was gone.

The next moment he had disappeared.  Mulledwiney looked around with
affected concern.

"Save us!  But we've cleaned out the Jungle!  Sure, there's not a
baste left but ourselves!"

It was true.  The watering-place was empty.  Moo Kow, Miaow, and
the Gee Gees had disappeared.  Presently there was a booming crash
and a long, deep rumbling among the distant hills.  Then they knew
they were near the old Moulmein Pagoda, and the dawn had come up
like thunder out of China 'cross the bay.  It always came up that
way there.  The strain was too great, and day was actually
breaking.



"ZUT-SKI"

THE PROBLEM OF A WICKED FEME SOLE

BY M--R--E C--R--LLI


I


The great pyramid towered up from the desert with its apex toward
the moon which hung in the sky.  For centuries it had stood thus,
disdaining the aid of gods or man, being, as the Sphinx herself
observed, able to stand up for itself.  And this was no small
praise from that sublime yet mysterious female who had seen the
ages come and go, empires rise and fall, novelist succeed novelist,
and who, for eons and cycles the cynosure and centre of admiration
and men's idolatrous worship, had yet--wonderful for a woman--
through it all kept her head, which now alone remained to survey
calmly the present.  Indeed, at that moment that magnificent and
peaceful face seemed to have lost--with a few unimportant features--
its usual expression of speculative wisdom and intense disdain;
its mouth smiled, its left eyelid seemed to droop.  As the opal
tints of dawn deepened upon it, the eyelid seemed to droop lower,
closed, and quickly recovered itself twice.  You would have thought
the Sphinx had winked.

Then arose a voice like a wind on the desert,--but really from the
direction of the Nile, where a hired dahabiyeh lay moored to the
bank,--"'Arry Axes!  'Arry Axes!"  With it came also a flapping,
trailing vision from the water--the sacred Ibis itself--and with
wings aslant drifted mournfully away to its own creaking echo:
"K'raksis!  K'raksis!"  Again arose the weird voice: "'Arry Axes!
Wotcher doin' of?"  And again the Ibis croaked its wild refrain:
"K'raksis!  K'raksis!"  Moonlight and the hour wove their own
mystery (for which the author is not responsible), and the voice
was heard no more.  But when the full day sprang in glory over the
desert, it illuminated the few remaining but sufficiently large
features of the Sphinx with a burning saffron radiance!  The Sphinx
had indeed blushed!


II


It was the full season at Cairo.  The wealth and fashion of
Bayswater, South Kensington, and even the bosky Wood of the
Evangelist had sent their latest luxury and style to flout the
tombs of the past with the ghastly flippancy of to-day.  The cheap
tripper was there--the latest example of the Darwinian theory--
apelike, flea and curio hunting!  Shamelessly inquisitive and
always hungry, what did he know of the Sphinx or the pyramids or
the voice--and, for the matter of that, what did they know of him?
And yet he was not half bad in comparison with the "swagger
people,"--these people who pretend to have lungs and what not, and
instead of galloping on merry hunters through the frost and snow of
Piccadilly and Park, instead of enjoying the roaring fires of piled
logs in the evening, at the first approach of winter steal away to
the Land of the Sun, and decline to die, like honest Britons, on
British soil.  And then they know nothing of the Egyptians and are
horrified at "bakshish," which they really ought to pay for the
privilege of shocking the straight-limbed, naked-footed Arab in his
single rough garment with their baggy elephant-legged trousers!
And they know nothing of the mystic land of the old gods, filled
with profound enigmas of the supernatural, dark secrets yet
unexplored except in this book.  Well might the great Memnon murmur
after this lapse of these thousand years, "They're making me
tired!"

Such was the blissful, self-satisfied ignorance of Sir Midas Pyle,
or as Lord Fitz-Fulke, with his delightful imitation of the East
London accent, called him, Sir "Myde His Pyle," as he leaned back
on his divan in the Grand Cairo Hotel.  He was the vulgar editor
and proprietor of a vulgar London newspaper, and had brought his
wife with him, who was vainly trying to marry off his faded
daughters.  There was to be a fancy-dress ball at the hotel that
night, and Lady Pyle hoped that her girls, if properly disguised,
might have a better chance.  Here, too, was Lady Fitz-Fulke, whose
mother was immortalized by Byron--sixty if a day, yet still
dressing youthfully--who had sought the land of the Sphinx in the
faint hope that in the contiguity of that lady she might pass for
being young.  Alaster McFeckless, a splendid young Scotchman,--
already dressed as a Florentine sailor of the fifteenth century,
which enabled him to show his magnificent calves quite as well as
in his native highland dress, and who had added with characteristic
noble pride a sporran to his costume, was lolling on another divan.

"Oh, those exquisite, those magnificent eyes of hers!  Eh, sirs!"
he murmured suddenly, as waking from a dream.

"Oh, damn her eyes!" said Lord Fitz-Fulke languidly.  "Tell you
what, old man, you're just gone on that girl!"

"Ha!" roared MeFeckless, springing to his feet, "ye will be using
such language of the bonniest"--

"You will excuse me, gentlemen," said Sir Midas,--who hated scenes
unless he had a trusted reporter with him,--"but I think it is time
for me to go upstairs and put on my Windsor uniform, which I find
exceedingly convenient for these mixed assemblies."  He withdrew,
caressing his protuberant paunch with some dignity, as the two men
glanced fiercely at each other.

In another moment they might have sprung at each other's throats.
But luckily at this instant a curtain was pushed aside as if by
some waiting listener, and a thin man entered, dressed in cap and
gown,--which would have been simply academic but for his carrying
in one hand behind him a bundle of birch twigs.  It was Dr. Haustus
Pilgrim, a noted London practitioner and specialist, dressed as "Ye
Olde-fashioned Pedagogue."  He was presumably spending his holiday
on the Nile in a large dahabiyeh with a number of friends, among
whom he counted the two momentary antagonists he had just
interrupted; but those who knew the doctor's far-reaching knowledge
and cryptic researches believed he had his own scientific motives.

The two men turned quickly as he entered; the angry light faded
from their eyes, and an awed and respectful submission to the
intruder took its place.  He walked quietly toward them, put a
lozenge in the mouth of one and felt the pulse of the other, gazing
critically at both.

"We will be all right in a moment," he said with professional
confidence.

"I say!" said Fitz-Fulke, gazing at the doctor's costume, "you look
dooced smart in those togs, don'tcherknow."

"They suit me," said the doctor, with a playful swish of his birch
twigs, at which the two grave men shuddered.  "But you were
speaking of somebody's beautiful eyes."

"The Princess Zut-Ski's," returned McFeckless eagerly; "and this
daft callant said"--

"He didn't like them," put in Fitz-Fulke promptly.

"Ha!" said the doctor sharply, "and why not, sir?"  As Fitz-Fulke
hesitated, he added brusquely: "There!  Run away and play!  I've
business with this young man," pointing to McFeckless.

As Fitz-Fulke escaped gladly from the room, the doctor turned to
McFeckless.  "It won't do, my boy.  The Princess is not for you--
you'll only break your heart and ruin your family over her!  That's
my advice.  Chuck her!"

"But I cannot," said McFeckless humbly.  "Think of her weirdly
beautiful eyes."

"I see," said the doctor meditatively; "sort of makes you feel
creepy?  Kind of all-overishness, eh?  That's like her.  But whom
have we here?"

He was staring at a striking figure that had just entered, closely
followed by a crowd of admiring spectators.  And, indeed, he seemed
worthy of the homage.  His magnificent form was closely attired in
a velveteen jacket and trousers, with a singular display of pearl
buttons along the seams, that were absolutely lavish in their
quantity; a hat adorned with feathers and roses completed his
singularly picturesque equipment.

"Chevalier!" burst out McFeckless in breathless greeting.

"Ah, mon ami!  What good chance?" returned the newcomer, rushing to
him and kissing him on both cheeks, to the British horror of Sir
Midas, who had followed.  "Ah, but you are perfect!" he added,
kissing his fingers in admiration of McFeckless's Florentine dress.

"But you?--what is this ravishing costume?" asked McFeckless, with
a pang of jealousy.  "You are god-like."

"It is the dress of what you call the Koster, a transplanted
Phenician tribe," answered the other.  "They who knocked 'em in the
road of Old Kent--know you not the legend?"  As he spoke, he lifted
his superb form to a warrior's height and gesture.

"But is this quite correct?" asked Fitz-Fulke of the doctor.

"Perfectly," said the doctor oracularly.  "The renowned ''Arry
Axes'--I beg his pardon," he interrupted himself hastily, "I mean
the Chevalier--is perfect in his archaeology and ethnology.  The
Koster is originally a Gypsy, which is but a corruption of the word
'Egyptian,' and, if I mistake not, that gentleman is a lineal
descendant."

"But he is called 'Chevalier,' and he speaks like a Frenchman,"
said Fluffy.

"And, being a Frenchman, of course knows nothing outside of Paris,"
said Sir Midas.

"We are in the Land of Mystery," said the doctor gravely in a low
voice.  "You have heard of the Egyptian Hall and the Temple of
Mystery?"

A shudder passed through many that were there; but the majority
were following with wild adulation the superb Koster, who, with
elbows slightly outward and hands turned inward, was passing toward
the ballroom.  McFeckless accompanied him with conflicting
emotions.  Would he see the incomparable Princess, who was lovelier
and even still more a mystery than the Chevalier?  Would she--
terrible thought!--succumb to his perfections?


III


The Princess was already there, surrounded by a crowd of admirers,
equal if not superior to those who were following the superb
Chevalier.  Indeed, they met almost as rivals!  Their eyes sought
each other in splendid competition.  The Chevalier turned away,
dazzled and incoherent.  "She is adorable, magnificent!" he gasped
to McFeckless.  "I love her on the instant!  Behold, I am
transported, ravished!  Present me."

Indeed, as she stood there in a strange gauzy garment of exquisite
colors, apparently shapeless, yet now and then revealing her
perfect figure like a bather seen through undulating billows, she
was lovely.  Two wands were held in her taper fingers, whose
mystery only added to the general curiosity, but whose weird and
cabalistic uses were to be seen later.  Her magnificent face--
strange in its beauty--was stranger still, since, with perfect
archaeological Egyptian correctness, she presented it only in
profile, at whatever angle the spectator stood.  But such a
profile!  The words of the great Poet-King rose to McFeckless's
lips: "Her nose is as a tower that looketh toward Damascus."

He hesitated a moment, torn with love and jealousy, and then
presented his friend.  "You will fall in love with her--and then--
you will fall also by my hand," he hissed in his rival's ear, and
fled tumultuously.

"Voulez-vous danser, mademoiselle?" whispered the Chevalier in the
perfect accent of the boulevardier.

"Merci, beaucoup," she replied in the diplomatic courtesies of the
Ambassadeurs.

They danced together, not once, but many times, to the admiration,
the wonder and envy of all; to the scandalized reprobation of a
proper few.  Who was she?  Who was he?  It was easy to answer the
last question: the world rang with the reputation of "Chevalier the
Artist."  But she was still a mystery.

Perhaps they were not so to each other!  He was gazing deliriously
into her eyes.  She was looking at him in disdainful curiosity.
"I've seen you before somewhere, haven't I?" she said at last, with
a crushing significance.

He shuddered, he knew not why, and passed his hand over his high
forehead.  "Yes, I go there very often," he replied vacantly.  "But
you, mademoiselle--you--I have met before?"

"Oh, ages, ages ago!"  There was something weird in her emphasis.

"Ha!" said a voice near them, "I thought so!"  It was the doctor,
peering at them curiously.  "And you both feel rather dazed and
creepy?"  He suddenly felt their pulses, lingering, however, as the
Chevalier fancied, somewhat longer than necessary over the lady's
wrist and beautiful arm.  He then put a small round box in the
Chevalier's hand, saying, "One before each meal," and turning to
the lady with caressing professional accents said, "We must wrap
ourselves closely and endeavor to induce perspiration," and hurried
away, dragging the Chevalier with him.  When they reached a
secluded corner, he said, "You had just now a kind of feeling,
don't you know, as if you'd sort of been there before, didn't you?"

"Yes, what you call a--preexistence," said the Chevalier
wonderingly.

"Yes; I have often observed that those who doubt a future state of
existence have no hesitation in accepting a previous one," said the
doctor dryly.  "But come, I see from the way the crowd are hurrying
that your divinity's number is up--I mean," he corrected himself
hastily, "that she is probably dancing again."

"Aha! with him, the imbecile McFeckless?" gasped the Chevalier.

"No, alone."

She was indeed alone, in the centre of the ballroom--with
outstretched arms revolving in an occult, weird, dreamy, mystic,
druidical, cabalistic circle.  They now for the first time
perceived the meaning of those strange wands which appeared to be
attached to the many folds of her diaphanous skirts and involved
her in a fleecy, whirling cloud.  Yet in the wild convolutions of
her garments and the mad gyrations of her figure, her face was
upturned with the seraphic intensity of a devotee, and her lips
parted as with the impassioned appeal for "Light! more light!"  And
the appeal was answered.  A flood of blue, crimson, yellow, and
green radiance was alternately poured upon her from the black box
of a mysterious Nubian slave in the gallery.  The effect was
marvelous; at one moment she appeared as a martyr in a sheet of
flame, at another as an angel wrapped in white and muffled purity,
and again as a nymph of the cerulean sea, and then suddenly a cloud
of darkness seemed to descend upon her, through which for an
instant her figure, as immaculate and perfect as a marble statue,
showed distinctly--then the light went out and she vanished!

The whole assembly burst into a rapturous cry.  Even the common
Arab attendants who were peeping in at the doors raised their
melodious native cry, "Alloe, Fullah!  Aloe, Fullah!" again and
again.

A shocked silence followed.  Then the voice of Sir Midas Pyle was
heard addressing Dr. Haustus Pilgrim:

"May we not presume, sir, that what we have just seen is not unlike
that remarkable exhibition when I was pained to meet you one
evening at the Alhambra?"

The doctor coughed slightly.  "The Alhambra--ah, yes!--you--er--
refer, I presume, to Granada and the Land of the Moor, where we
last met.  The music and dance are both distinctly Moorish--which,
after all, is akin to the Egyptian.  I am gratified indeed that
your memory should be so retentive and your archaeological
comparison so accurate.  But see! the ladies are retiring.  Let us
follow."


IV


The intoxication produced by the performance of the Princess
naturally had its reaction.  The British moral soul, startled out
of its hypocrisy the night before, demanded the bitter beer of
self-consciousness and remorse the next morning.  The ladies were
now openly shocked at what they had secretly envied.  Lady Pyle
was, however, propitiated by the doctor's assurance that the
Princess was a friend of Lady Fitz-Fulke, who had promised to lend
her youthful age and aristocratic prestige to the return ball which
the Princess had determined to give at her own home.  "Still, I
think the Princess open to criticism," said Sir Midas oracularly.

"Damn all criticism and critics!" burst out McFeckless, with the
noble frankness of a passionate and yet unfettered soul.  Sir
Midas, who employed critics in his business, as he did other base
and ignoble slaves, drew up himself and his paunch and walked away.

The Chevalier cast a superb look at McFeckless.  "Voila!  Regard me
well!  I shall seek out this Princess when she is with herself!
Alone, comprenez?  I shall seek her at her hotel in the Egyptian
Hall!  Ha! ha!  I shall seek Zut-Ski!  Zut!"  And he made that
rapid yet graceful motion of his palm against his thigh known only
to the true Parisian.

"It's a rum hole where she lives, and nobody gets a sight of her,"
said Flossy.  "It's like a beastly family vault, don't you know,
outside, and there's a kind of nigger doorkeeper that vises you and
chucks you out if you haven't the straight tip.  I'll show you the
way, if you like."

"Allons, en avant!" said the Chevalier gayly.  "I precipitate
myself there on the instant."

"Remember!" hissed McFeckless, grasping his arm, "you shall account
to me!"

"Bien!" said the Chevalier, shaking him off lightly.  "All a-r-r-
right."  Then, in that incomparable baritone, which had so often
enthralled thousands, he moved away, trolling the first verse of
the Princess's own faint, sweet, sad song of the "Lotus Lily," that
thrilled McFeckless even through the Chevalier's marked French
accent:--


     "Oh, a hard zing to get is ze Lotus Lillee!
      She lif in ze swamp--in ze watair chillee;
      She make your foot wet--and you look so sillee,
      But you buy her for sixpence in Piccadillee!"


In half an hour the two men reached the remote suburb where the
Princess lived, a gloomy, windowless building.  Pausing under a low
archway over which in Egyptian characters appeared the faded
legend, "Sta Ged Oor," they found a Nubian slave blocking the dim
entrance.

"I leave you here," said Flossy hurriedly, "as even I left once
before--only then I was lightly assisted by his sandaled foot," he
added, rubbing himself thoughtfully.  "But better luck to you."

As his companion retreated swiftly, the Chevalier turned to the
slave and would have passed in, but the man stopped him.  "Got a
pass, boss?"

"No," said the Chevalier.

The man looked at him keenly.  "Oh, I see! one of de profesh."

The Chevalier nodded haughtily.  The man preceded him by devious,
narrow ways and dark staircases, coming abruptly upon a small
apartment where the Princess sat on a low divan.  A single lamp
inclosed in an ominous wire cage flared above her.  Strange things
lay about the floor and shelves, and from another door he could see
hideous masks, frightful heads, and disproportionate faces.  He
shuddered slightly, but recovered himself and fell on his knees
before her.  "I lofe you," he said madly.  "I have always lofed
you!"

"For how long?" she asked, with a strange smile.

He covertly consulted his shirt cuff.  "For tree tousand fife
hundred and sixty-two years," he said rapidly.

She looked at him disdainfully.  "The doctor has been putting you
up to that!  It won't wash!  I don't refer to your shirt cuff," she
added with deep satire.

"Adorable one!" he broke out passionately, attempting to embrace
her, "I have come to take you."  Without moving, she touched a knob
in the wall.  A trap-door beyond him sank, and out of the bowels of
the earth leaped three indescribable demons.  Then, rising, she
took a cake of chalk from the table and, drawing a mystic half
circle on the floor, returned to the divan, lit a cigarette, and
leaning comfortably back, said in a low, monotonous voice, "Advance
one foot within that magic line, and on that head, although it wore
a crown, I launch the curse of Rome."

"I--only wanted to take you--with a kodak," he said, with a light
laugh to conceal his confusion, as he produced the instrument from
his coat-tail pocket.

"Not with that cheap box," she said, rising with magnificent
disdain.  "Come again with a decent instrument--and perhaps"--
Then, lightly humming in a pure contralto, "I've been photographed
like this--I've been photographed like that," she summoned the
slave to conduct him back, and vanished through a canvas screen,
which nevertheless seemed to the dazed Chevalier to be the stony
front of the pyramids.


V


"And you saw her?" said the doctor in French.

"Yes; but the three-thousand-year gag did not work!  She spotted
you, cher ami, on the instant.  And she wouldn't let me take her
with my kodak."

The doctor looked grave. "I see," he mused thoughtfully.  "You must
have my camera, a larger one and more bulky perhaps to carry; but
she will not object to that,--she who has stood for full lengths.
I will give you some private instructions."

"But, cher doctor, this previous-existence idea--at what do you
arrive?"

"There is much to say for it," said the doctor oracularly.  "It has
survived in the belief of all ages.  Who can tell?  That some men
in a previous existence may have been goats or apes," continued the
doctor, looking at him curiously, "does not seem improbable!  From
the time of Pythagoras we have known that; but that the individual
as an individual ego has been remanded or projected, has harked
back or anticipated himself, is, we may say, with our powers of
apperception,--that is, the perception that we are perceiving,--
is"--

But the Chevalier had fled.  "No matter," said the doctor, "I will
see McFeckless."  He did.  He found him gloomy, distraught,
baleful.  He felt his pulse.  "The mixture as before," he said
briefly, "and a little innocent diversion.  There is an Aunt Sally
on the esplanade--two throws for a penny.  It will do you good.
Think no more of this woman!  Listen,--I wish you well; your family
have always been good patients of mine.  Marry some good Scotch
girl; I know one with fifty thousand pounds.  Let the Princess go!"

"To him--never!  I will marry her!  Yet," he murmured softly to
himself, "feefty thousand pun' is nae small sum.  Aye!  Not that I
care for siller--but feefty thousand pun'!  Eh, sirs!"


VI


Dr. Haustus knew that the Chevalier had again visited the Princess,
although he had kept the visit a secret,--and indeed was himself
invisible for a day or two afterwards.  At last the doctor's
curiosity induced him to visit the Chevalier's apartment.
Entering, he was surprised--even in that Land of Mystery--to find
the room profoundly dark, smelling of Eastern drugs, and the
Chevalier sitting before a large plate of glass which he was
examining by the aid of a lurid ruby lamp,--the only light in the
weird gloom.  His face was pale and distraught, his locks were
disheveled.

"Voila!" he said.  "Mon Dieu!  It is my third attempt.  Always the
same--hideous, monstrous, unearthly!  It is she, and yet it is not
she!"

The doctor, professional man as he was and inured to such
spectacles, was startled!  The plate before him showed the
Princess's face in all its beautiful contour, but only dimly
veiling a ghastly death's-head below.  There was the whole bony
structure of the head and the eyeless sockets; even the graceful,
swan-like neck showed the articulated vertebral column that
supported it in all its hideous reality.  The beautiful shoulders
were there, dimly as in a dream--but beneath was the empty
clavicle, the knotty joint, the hollow sternum, and the ribs of a
skeleton half length!

The doctor's voice broke the silence.  "My friend," he said dryly,
"you see only the truth!  You see what she really is, this peerless
Princess of yours.  You see her as she is to-day, and you see her
kinship to the bones that have lain for centuries in yonder
pyramid.  Yet they were once as fair as this, and this was as fair
as they--in effect the same!  You that have madly, impiously adored
her superficial beauty, the mere dust of tomorrow, let this be a
warning to you!  You that have no soul to speak of, let that
suffice you!  Take her and be happy.  Adieu!"

Yet, as he passed out of the fitting tomblike gloom of the
apartment and descended the stairs, he murmured to himself: "Odd
that I should have lent him my camera with the Rontgen-ray
attachment still on.  No matter!  It is not the first time that the
Princess has appeared in two parts the same evening."


VII


In spite of envy, jealousy, and malice, a certain curiosity greater
than all these drew everybody to the Princess Zut-Ski's ball.  Lady
Fitz-Fulke was there in virgin white, looking more youthful than
ever, in spite of her sixty-five years and the card labeled "Fresh
Paint" which somebody had playfully placed upon her enameled
shoulder.  The McFecklesses, the Pyles, Flossy, the doctor, and the
Chevalier--looking still anxious--were in attendance.

The mysterious Nubian doorkeeper admitted the guests through the
same narrow passages, much to the disgust of Lady Pyle and the
discomfiture of her paunchy husband; but on reaching a large
circular interior hall, a greater surprise was in store for them.
It was found that the only entrance to the body of the hall was
along a narrow ledge against the bare wall some distance from the
floor, which obliged the guests to walk slowly, in single file,
along this precarious strip, giving them the attitudes of an
Egyptian frieze, which was suggested in the original plaster above
them.  It is needless to say that, while the effect was ingenious
and striking from the centre of the room, where the Princess stood
with a few personal friends, it was exceedingly uncomfortable to
the figures themselves, in their enforced march along the ledge,--
especially a figure of Sir Midas Pyle's proportions.  Suddenly an
exclamation broke from the doctor.

"Do you see," he said to the Princess, pointing to the figure of
the Chevalier, who was filing along with his sinewy hands slightly
turned inward, "how surprisingly like he is to the first attendant
on the King in the real frieze above?  And that," added the doctor,
"was none other than 'Arry Axes, the Egyptian you are always
thinking of."  And he peered curiously at her.

"Goodness me!" murmured the Princess, in an Arabic much more soft
and fluent than the original gum.  "So he does--look like him."

"And do you know you look like him, too?  Would you mind taking a
walk around together?"

They did, amid the acclamations of the crowd.  The likeness was
perfect.  The Princess, however, was quite white as she eagerly
rejoined the doctor.

"And this means--?" she hissed in a low whisper.

"That he is the real 'Arry Axes!  Hush, not a word now!  We join
the dahabiyeh to-night.  At daybreak you will meet him at the
fourth angle of the pyramid, first turning from the Nile!"


VIII


The crescent moon hung again over the apex of the Great Pyramid,
like a silver cutting from the rosy nail of a houri.  The Sphinx--
mighty guesser of riddles, reader of rebuses and universal solver
of missing words--looked over the unfathomable desert and these few
pages, with the worried, hopeless expression of one who is obliged
at last to give it up.  And then the wailing voice of a woman,
toiling up the steep steps of the pyramid, was heard above the
creaking of the Ibis: "'Arry Axes!  Where are you?  Wait for me."

"J'y suis," said a voice from the very summit of the stupendous
granite bulk, "yet I cannot reach it."

And in that faint light the figure of a man was seen, lifting his
arms wildly toward the moon.

"'Arry Axes," persisted the voice, drifting higher, "wait for me;
we are pursued."

And indeed it was true.  A band of Nubians, headed by the doctor,
was already swarming like ants up the pyramid, and the unhappy pair
were secured.  And when the sun rose, it was upon the white sails
of the dahabiyeh, the vacant pyramid, and the slumbering Sphinx.


There was great excitement at the Cairo Hotel the next morning.
The Princess and the Chevalier had disappeared, and with them
Alaster McFeckless, Lady Fitz-Fulke, the doctor, and even his
dahabiyeh!  A thousand rumors had been in circulation.  Sir Midas
Pyle looked up from the "Times" with his usual I-told-you-so
expression.

"It is the most extraordinary thing, don'tcherknow," said Fitz-
Fulke.  "It seems that Dr. Haustus Pilgrim was here professionally--
as a nerve specialist--in the treatment of hallucinations produced
by neurotic conditions, you know."

"A mad doctor, here!" gasped Sir Midas.

"Yes.  The Princess, the Chevalier, McFeckless, and even my mother
were all patients of his on the dahabiyeh.  He believed,
don'tcherknow, in humoring them and letting them follow out their
cranks, under his management.  The Princess was a music-hall artist
who imagined she was a dead and gone Egyptian Princess; and the
queerest of all, 'Arry Axes was also a music-hall singer who
imagined himself Chevalier--you know, the great Koster artist--and
that's how we took him for a Frenchman.  McFeckless and my poor old
mother were the only ones with any real rank and position--but you
know what a beastly bounder Mac was, and the poor mater DID overdo
the youthful!  We never called the doctor in until the day she
wanted to go to a swell ball in London as Little Red Riding-hood.
But the doctor writes me that the experiment was a success, and
they'll be all right when they get back to London."

"Then, it seems, sir, that you and I were the only sane ones here,"
said Sir Midas furiously.

"Really it's as much as I can do to be certain about myself, old
chappie," said Fitz-Fulke, turning away.





End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of New Burlesques, by Bret Harte