Big Brother Frank's reply was printed below. «Take cold baths and plenty of open air exercise,» said this amiable adviser. «Change your occupation. If you find yourself unable to put aside this degraded and perverse attachment, by all means consult a reliable psychiatrist, and if necessary enter an institution for treatment.»

«So I'm crazy,» said Albert, when the paper was delivered on Friday morning. «All right, then. My plans are made.» There was a touch of braggadocio in this speech. Albert's only plan was to keep quiet and see what he could do.

At half-past seven in the morning there is only one thing a shop assistant can do; that is, hurry off to work as fast as he may, especially if he has to walk from Paddington. To be crazy is one thing; to be late at Rudd & Agnew Ltd. is quite another; Albert was not as mad as all that.

So he started out from his lodgings with his mouth open and his eyes wide. «If I'm late,» said he, «they're bound to get hold of her. They'll bend her over. They'll do anything. I must hurry.»

«I'll be in time,» said Albert to Eva, speaking across the desolate glory of the new day's sunlight, the sunlight, that is, of the day on which he was definitely crazy, and anything was possible; the sunlight in which he and she were utterly and terribly alone. «I wouldn't let you down.»

Unfortunately, Albert now abandoned himself to a dream, the dream of his every morning rush toward Rudd & Agnew's. This was of entering first upon the empty salon, lifting the dust-sheet. «Wake up,» he would say. «Is it all right? Put your arms round my neck. Helpless, aren't you? Here's your brassiere. Here's your things.» (The models at Rudd & Agnew's were life-like to a degree, perfect in almost every particular.) «Come on,» Albert would say. «Nobody can see you. Hurry up, and we'll have a minute before they come in. What did you dream about? Did you dream about the house?»

In abandoning himself to this rehearsal, Albert unconsciously fell into his normal pace. Awakening, he found himself in the glazed brick employee's entrance, devoured by the dry smell of big shops, facing a time clock that stood at three minutes past eight. «They'll be here,» he said.

He fled through the catacombs below, into the main shop, downstairs, upstairs, over an interior bridge. From the gallery on the other side he could look down into the long aisles behind the principal windows. Like laden ants in a disturbed ant-hill, the shop-men ran to and fro with their still, pale burdens. Albert could see the daily joke pass, from the lips of one to the eyes of another, wherever their paths crossed, as they carried their waxen Circassians, these proud, long-suffering, far-eyed, enchanted princesses, out of their mad mysterious night to their odious toilettes, to make them ready for the long slave-market of the day. There was a slap, and a guffaw.

«Here, none of that,» said the shopwalker, himself unable to restrain a scurvy grin at what Clarkie was doing.

But, rounding the gallery, Albert could see three or four gathered in the corner where Eva lay, where he put her to sleep properly, after they had all gone at night. They were out of sight of the shopwalker. They were bending over. Miller's hateful voice sounded out of the middle of the group. «Oh, my God!» cried Albert. «They've got her.»

He went down the stairs as one flies downstairs in a nightmare, heedless of the steps, round the satins, into the French models. «Living statue, number three,» he heard Miller say. «Albert's 'oneymoon, or —» His hands dived out before him, without waiting to be told; his fingers were on the back of Miller's neck. They slipped on the brilliantine. He drove his nails in.

Next moment, Miller was up, facing him. «You think you can do that to me?» said Miller. «You poor loony!» There was a crack, shatteringly loud; Miller had struck him open-handed on the cheek.

«You leave her alone,» said Albert, «or by heaven I'll be the death of you.»

«What in the world is this?» cried the shopwalker, hurrying up.

«Stuck his nails in the back of my neck, that's what,» said Miller, truculent, standing up for his rights, justified. «I reckon I'm bleeding.»

Albert's lower lip was jerking, as if something quite independent of himself had got inside it. «He had hold of her,» he said at last.

They all looked down at Eva, naked, her eyes staring out far beyond her shame, like a lion's eyes staring past the bars and the crowd. Albert bent down, and pressed her into a more seemly position. She ignored him. Properly let down, angry, she ignored him.

«What if he had got hold of her?» said the shopwalker. «You think Rudd & Agnew's waits for you to come in any time and fix the windows?»

«I'm sorry sir,» said Albert.

«I shall have to make a report on you,» said the shopwalker. «Get on with your work.»

Albert was left alone with Eva. «If they give me the sack,» he murmured, «who'll look after you? Don't be hard, Eva. I couldn't help it. And I had something to tell you. Don't you want to know what it is? You do? Really? Well, listen —»

Eva had given him an unmistakable look of understanding and forgiveness. It raised Albert to a precarious exaltation. Twice he actually risked slipping out into the entrance, where he could catch the side-long glance from her eyes. It seemed to him impossible he could get the sack.

After the midday break, however, things took a different turn. Albert spent his lunchtime walking up and down in front of the shop, an exercise which was not forbidden because no one had ever thought it possible. Soon after he got in, Miller entered, full-blown, triumphant, carrying a copy of Tails Up Weekly. As he passed Albert he showed it to him, and grinned.

«What a fool!» said Albert. «What a fool I've been!»

«Look here, boys,» cried Miller as loudly as he dared. «Come in behind here. Clarkie! Sid! Gome on. Just half a tick. It's worth it.»

«Get back to your counters,» said the shopwalker, perceiving the excitement. «What is it now, Miller, for heaven's sake?»

«Only something that proves something,» said Miller with an air of righteousness, handing the shopwalker the fatal page.

«This is serious!» cried the shopwalker, staring at Albert. «This is a matter for the Secretary. I'm taking this paper, Miller. I'm taking it to Mr. Schilberg himself.»

He went, and Albert was left alone; standing, stared at, like a man brought out to be hanged. «It's the sack all right,» he said to himself. «Who knows? They might have me shut up.»

The thought set his legs in motion. «Here, you'd better stand by,» cried a good-natured man. «They'll be sending for you in a minute.»

«Let 'em,» said Albert. «I'm off.»

«Well, I ain't seen you go,» said the other defensively.

«I'm off!» cried Albert aloud, as he passed others^of the department. They all stared at him, then pretended not to notice. He went up the stairs and round the gallery, through the corridors, out past the time-keeper. «I'm off,» said he, punching the clock for the last time.

«You look it,» said the time-keeper indifferently.

He went into the street, and round into Oxford Street, crossing to the other side in the hope of making some undetected signal to Eva. As soon as he saw her, he knew what his real purpose was. He walked on without a change of pace, and entered the farther doorway, into the hardware department, where as yet the news could hardly be known, and where he himself would be unrecognized.

He went through a staff door, into a maze of corridors, and found his way to a nook in a store-room, where he could lie hidden till closing time. There he lay, with his eyes closed and his hands folded, like a dead man, but there was a clock ticking in his brain.

At exactly seven o'clock he got up and stepped out quietly. He was cool, collected, utterly different. The whole place was different. A little daylight leaked in through the blinds at the back of the windows; the high glass dome was blueing, the galleries were drowned in darkness; flying staircases leapt out where the light struck them, and stopped short in mid-air where darkness bit them off. Vast stacks of shadow, the leaning façades of towering dreams, mounted like the skyscrapers of a new-risen city from floor to unsubstantial floor, up to the dome itself. The watchman, a being of the shadows, drifted unhurriedly across the diminishing territories of the light. Albert, a deeper shade, followed him, blacker and quieter than the watchman, more utterly of the dark.

The watchman entered the main hall, crossed the region of the French models, and disappeared into a deep vista of darkness on the farther side. Albert, absolutely master of the situation, knowing exactly how many minutes were his before the watchman could stumble round again, ran noiselessly forward.

He pulled aside the dust-sheets. The models were huddled there, grouped like victims in the sack of some forgotten city. Some stood upright, unable to relax, tense to meet new outrage; some, on hands and knees, bowed their faces to the floor, straining for the relief of tears. Others, their wits wiped out by horror, sat with their legs straight out, their hands flat and dead beside them, staring idiotically into a darkness deeper than that of the night.

«Eva!» whispered Albert. «Where are you?» She was a little apart from the others, sitting as if waiting to be taken away.

«You knew I'd come,» said Albert, lifting her. Her face fell forward on his, her lips touched his cheek. «You're cold,» said Albert. «You're used to your bed.»

He caught up the dust-sheet and tucked it about her neck. Its pale folds fell over her and him.

This cloaked double figure, this walking embrace of life and death, this beautiful nightmare under its carapace of cotton cloud, now ran noiselessly, staggering a little, up the light spirals of fretted iron, over the flying bridges, now to be seen rounding some high gallery, now swallowed by darkness, now seen higher, still mounting like a spider, till at last it reached the uppermost corridors, and the sanctuary of the little store-room.

Albert closed the door, spread a bed of wrapping papers, laid Eva upon it, took her head upon his lap, and spread the dust-sheet over them. Eva gazed up at him. There was still light here, through a little round window like a porthole. He could see her eyes, steady and cool, gazing at him, weighing him up: his weak face with its tremulous, rickety outline, his flossy, inconsiderable hair. All the same, he was her saviour. More than that, for that was a job merely, he was for her the only man in the world. If ever she loved, she must love him. Whatever her memories were, there was no one else now. All the rest were monsters, raging in blindness. In all his unworthiness he was the only living creature she could love. «What can I do?» thought Albert, overwhelmed by the responsibilities laid on him by this tremendous act of chance, which blackmailed her into the necessity of loving him, and left it to him to make himself worthy.

The dawn, with its threat, recalled him from a thousand fine spiritual issues to a very practical one. «I can't leave you here,» said he. «What can I do?»

Albert was not a man of action. His mind was weak, broken, bound by the hundred habits of timid servitude. He crouched, with his head in his hand, conscious, less of the problem than of Eva's blue gaze, which expected a decision.

Suddenly Albert stood up. «I've got it,» said he. «They've driven me to it. Never mind. You do what I tell you. You trust me.» He actually emphasized the word «me.» He lifted Eva, and set her in the corner, as if she were a mere dummy. «Keep quiet,» he said. «I'm going to deliver you, like a chap in a book.»

He went out into the twilight of the vast shop; a dawn twilight, altogether different from that of the evening. Albert was equally changed. He was no longer a shadow scurrying ratlike from dark to dark, but a young man of nerve and decision. He was perfectly prepared, if he met him in the silks, to stun the night-watchman with a roll of art-shade ninon, or to hood him with a girdle if their paths crossed in the lingerie, or gag him with gloves in the gloves, or strangle him with a stocking in the hosiery, or fell him with a cucumber in the fruit. He devoutly hoped the encounter would not take place in the hardware or cutlery, for Albert was the mildest, gentlest creature that ever breathed, and abhorred the sight of blood. As it happened the night-watchman was no believer in burglaries at six o'clock on a June morning, and was now in his cubby-hole far away in the basement, engaged in the nice preparation of a cup of cocoa to keep at bay the ill effects of the night air.

Albert, not knowing this, and resolved to deal with a dozen night-watchmen if necessary, was intoxicated by his only experience of courageous action, and rose from height to height. When he had gathered up a complete wardrobe for Eva, of a rather gayer fashion than she had enjoyed before, he went boldly up to the main office, to a desk where forms were made out for special deliveries, and, finding a block of such forms, he chose a name from a list of customers on the desk: «Raymond Pinckney Esq., 14 Mulberry Grove, Hampstead.» This he scribbled on the form; filled in the words, «One model, special arrangement: deliver 9 A.M. —» «Now what the hell day is this?» murmured Albert. His heart sank; he was done for; he had come upon that blind spot which brings the greatest criminals to their downfall. But no! There was a calendar: yesterday was a Friday because his washing had to be made up; this, therefore, was Saturday. «Who says I'm crazy?» said Albert. «Deliver 9 A.M. Saturday, 14 June, without fail.» Now for the rubber stamp. He looked in the middle drawer, and there it was. Everything was going swimmingly. It was with a light heart that he drew out the cash for expenses and hurried back to Eva.

She looked at him questioningly. «Don't worry,» said he. «I been man enough. Here, I'm going to wrap you up. When I've got you dressed, of course.»

Albert dressed Eva. That was no difficult task. He wrapped the grey-white paper about her, leaving a chink for light and air to come through. Then he set himself to wait for the striking of eight o'clock. In the long interval he was as still as Eva was. He dared not move, nor think, nor scarcely breathe even; he sat holding a tourniquet on his courage, which had already begun to ebb away. He did not hear seven o'clock strike at all, or the clashing of the scrub-women's pails, or the drone of the vacuum cleaners; he heard only one bronzy reverberation, and knew it for the last stroke of eight.

He picked Eva up and ran down the back stairs, out to where a raw service-lift clanked him down into the goods yard, whence, without stopping, he walked straight out, holding up his form to the indifferent custodian. «Special delivery,» he said. «Got to get a cab.»

Albert looked around: he was in the street. «Oh, good heavens!» he said. «What have I done?» People were looking at him, only waiting a split second before they knew and would begin to hound him down. He forgot all about the cab; all his thought and will were concentrated on the single effort of keeping himself from breaking into a run.

Automatically, he took the way to his lodgings. Four times he saw a policeman in the distance, and walked step by leaden step under the awful eyes till he drew abreast of him, crossed the razor edge between brazen approach and guilt-proclaiming flight, felt the eyes on his back, and waited for the shout.

He passed a knot of children on their way to school. «Look what he's got!» they cried. «Hi, Crippen!»

He had had no lunch, no supper, no breakfast, no sleep. The morning sun was already sultry. Eva, whom he could carry like a baron or a brigand when he was in the shop, now became an insupportable weight. He ached in every joint, his knees gave, his head swam; every one of the thousands in the streets was a pursuer: never was creature so universally hunted, nor moved so pitiably slow.

He turned at last into the mean street where he lived. He stumbled into the smelly passage. His landlady, who had spied him from the basement window, now called to him up the kitchen stairs. «Is that you, Mr. Baker?» cried she.

Albert stopped dead. His room was two floors above, but he could already see it as if he were in the doorway: its dimness, its frowsiness, its promise of a few hours' safety with Eva. He had thought of nothing beyond that. All he wanted was just a few hours in that room. He had gone through the hellish streets for that, and now, from the tone of his landlady's voice, he knew he would never see his room again. He began to cry.

«Yes, it's me, Mrs. Budgen,» he said haltingly, using the breaths between his sobs.

«Mr. Baker, there's been inquiries,» shouted the landlady. «Looked like the plain-clothes to me. I'd like a word, now. I —»

«All right, Mrs. Budgen,» said Albert. «I'll be down in half a tick. Just got to go to the W.C.»

He allowed himself a few seconds to breathe, then took up Eva again, and crept out of the front door and into the hideous street. He reached the corner, and saw Praed Street with its taxi-cabs. «Got to take a cab,» he said aloud, as if he were still addressing the man in the goods yard. «I dunno where I'm going.»

«Hi!» called Albert to a passing taxi. It went on unheeding. «Hi!» he called. «Stop, won't you? Are you mad?» He actually galvanized his bending knees into a pitiable stagger, and overtook the taxi a few yards on, where it had stopped at a crossing. The driver looked at him as he panted alongside.

«Here you are,» said Albert, staring at the delivery slip he had held all this time in his hand. «Pinckney, 14 Mulberry Grove, Hampstead.»

«O.K.» said the driver. Albert fell into the cab, and they were off.

Albert held Eva propped against him, and closed his eyes. A jerk, such as the dead will feel on the last day, recalled him to his sense. There was sunlight, altogether unlike the menacing glare in the loud streets: it was filtered through the leaves of lime trees. There was a heavenly quiet, a green iron gate, a gravel drive, a smiling house-front, peaceful, prosperous, and not unfriendly.

Albert stood in a wide porch, with his arm round Eva. A soft-faced man, in blue serge trousers and waistcoat stood in the doorway. «Never 'eard of a tradesman's entrance?» said he mildly.

«This 'ere's special,» said Albert, holding out his slip.

«Well, you've come wrong,» said the man. «Mr. Pinckney's down at the Hall. Two Rivers Hall, Baddingly, Suffolk. They ought to have known at the shop. You take it back quick.»

«Wanted very special,» murmured Albert in despair, proffering his slip.

The man weighed up the situation for a moment. «Hand it over,» said he. «The chauffeur's going down. He'll take it.»

«He'll take me, too,» said Albert. «This is special.»

«All right,» said the man. «You'll have to get back by yourself though.»

«Don't you worry about me,» said Albert.

There followed another dream, with Albert sitting in the back of a large touring car, Eva beside him, and the wrapping dislodged a little so that she could get the fresh air and see the fields go by. Not a word was said. Albert ceased trying to fit things together in his brain. He wished the drive would go on for ever, but, since it had to end, he was glad that it ended at a quiet house, standing on a gentle Suffolk knoll, surrounded by red walls and green gardens, full of the shade of senior trees.

«The master's in the studio,» said an old woman to the chauffeur.

«You come along with me,» said the chauffeur to Albert.

Albert followed with his precious burden into a cobbled stable yard. The chauffeur knocked at a door. «Young man from Rudd & Agnew's. Special delivery,» said he.

«What's that?» said a voice. «Send him in.»

Albert found himself in a giant room. It was a loft and stable knocked into one, with a vast cool window all down one side. A large canvas stood on an easel; there were hundreds of brushes, several palettes, boxes of colours. On a cane sofa was a young man reclining in great comfort, reading a thriller.

This young man looked up at Albert. He was a true monkeyface, hideously ugly, with a quick brown eye, hair fallen over his forehead; cotton jersey, beach trousers, straw shoes, and a pipe. «Well, what is it?» said he.

«I've brought —» said Albert. «I've brought — I've brought this.» He pulled aside a little more of the wrapping.

«I didn't order anything of this sort,» said the young man. «You've brought her to the wrong place.»

«Here it is,» said Albert, offering his slip. «Written down.»

«I don't use that sort of model,» said the young man. «Might be an idea, though. However, you ask them to give you some beer in the kitchen, and then take her back.»

«No,» said Albert. He began to shake and tremble. He stared at Mr. Pinckney with a rabbit desperation. Mr. Pinckney stared back at him. «What is all this?» said he.

«Mister,» said Albert, «have you ever been in love?»

«We won't discuss that,» said the ugly young man.

«If you don't know, it's no good me talking, »said Albert. «All right, I'll get out. Come on, Eva. I can't help it. We got to get out.»

«Wait a little,» said Mr. Pinckney. «Take it easy. Tell me all about it. I shall understand.»

«It's like this,» said Albert, and told, very strangely, his strange story.

«You are quite mad,» said Pinckney at the end of it.

«So they say,» said Albert. «I'm a human being, ain't I? I could be happy.»

«I like your philosophy,» said Pinckney. «Mad but happy.»

«Have I ever been happy?» said Albert.

«Go on,» said Pinckney.

«And what about her?» said Albert. «But you are laughing. You're ribbing me.» His voice rose dangerously.

«What would you do with her?» said Pinckney.

«I'd look after her,» said Albert. «But not to be ribbed. No. I'll get out.»

«Listen you,» said Pinckney. «If you want to look after her, don't leave her propped against the table there. Set her in the armchair comfortably.»

«Yes, sir, I will,» said Albert. «I didn't like to ask.»

«Take off those stuffy wrappings,» said Mr. Pinckney harshly. Albert smiled at Mr. Pinckney.

«So, you're in love with her,» said Mr. Pinckney, «and you want to be happy. What's your name, by the way?»

«Albert Baker. Hers is Eva.»

«Well, Baker,» said Pinckney, in a tone of command. «I'm not making you any promises; you're just here in peace and quiet for the present. How long, depends on a lot of things. Most of all, on how you behave. You're mad. Don't forget it. It doesn't matter a bit, but you've got to be sensible about it. Listen to this. If ever you feel an overpowering impulse — if ever you feel you simply must do something — whatever it is, you're to tell me first. Do you hear?»

«Yes, sir,» cried Albert. «If you please, I must — I must go to the lavatory. I'm so happy.»

«Excellent!» said Pinckney. «Then go and sit under the tree over there. Eva will be perfectly all right. She's resting.»

«She's all right,» said Albert. «She trusts you.»

When he had gone, Pinckney went to the telephone, and he called his lawyer.

«I'm going to keep him here,» said he, in conclusion. «Well, I'm going to, that's all — Yes, but you tell them their damned model's going to be paid for. That's all they care about — Yes. I'm responsible for him — That's it, our respected client — As long as you fix it — Oh, hideous, absolutely hideous — Might do to paint for a lark — Well, you'll let me know? Good man! That's fine.»

Pinckney hung up. «He'll fix it,» said he to himself. «But I'll keep that bit of news, in case he needs calling to order. If he seems depressed, I'll tell him.»

Albert, however, did not seem depressed. The journey through the London streets had left him with some comfortable blanks in his mind. He wore a slightly dazed look; his mouth hung open, and his eyes filled with tears now and then, when a thought came to a happy end, transforming itself into a feeling, like a flower opening inside his mind. To the outward view there was nothing very odd about him. «He's a bit queer, isn't he?» said Mabel the housemaid.

«Nervous breakdown,» said the housekeeper. «That's what Mr. Pinckney says. My sister's boy had one. They put him in a home.»

«He's no trouble,» said Mabel. «Does his own room, anyway. Funny, he locks that door as if he had the Crown Jewels to look after.»

«He's very willing and obliging,» said the housekeeper. «And he's got to be let alone.»

Albert had an old chauffeur's room, away over the end of the stables. He shone the shoes, he fetched and carried for the housekeeper, who was told never to send him down to the village. Most of the time he helped the gardeners in the green gardens that were almost all lawn and trees. From the dusty window Eva watched him working for her in the yellow shade of the limes, in the black shade of the mulberries, and in the green shade of the mighty beech.

In the evening Albert had his supper in the housekeeper's room. At the end of it, «Thank you, ma'am,» said he, and, «Thank you, miss,» to Mabel. He was very polite; to him they were lesser angels, instruments of the great power that kept the world at bay. Then he hurried away to his room, to tell Eva all about it.

«He came up to me today,» he would say, «Oh he's so nice, Eva. I can't tell you how nice he is. Always speaks rough, only it's in a joking way. But when he mentions you — it's most respectful. He knows what you are. I ought to have told you: it was his idea about bringing up the roses. Only I thought you'd like it to be me.»

This was only the beginning of their evening, which stretched far into the light summer night, for Albert slept very little, and when he did Eva came to life in his dreams. «Are you miserable?» he asked her. «Are you still longing for the Riveera?»

«Not me,» she replied softly.

«It's better than the shop, isn't it?» said he, anxiously.

«It's nice being with you,» said Eva.

«Do you mean it ?» cried Albert eagerly. «With me?»

These tender passages passed between them in dreams so mingled with his summer wakefulness that he passed from one to another as easily and unnoticingly as he passed from one shade of beech to shade of lime on the lawn. Sometimes Albert and Eva never lay down at all, but passed the night at the window, watching the glow fade from the red roofs of the village at the foot of the slope, and not moving till the dawn brought them into sight again.

One evening, under one of these friendly red roofs, a meeting was in progress. The proceedings were concerned with the organization of the village flower-show and fête. Officials were appointed to the charge of the show-tent, the gate, the sideshows, and the collection of subscriptions. «I propose Mr. Ely be asked to go round for subscriptions,» said the vicar's gardener. «I beg to second that,» said the blacksmith. «If Mr. Ely will be so kind,» said the secretary, cocking an inquiring eye at the village constable, whose official position marked him out for this responsible office. Mr. Ely nodded formidable assent, the proposal was unanimously accepted, entered in the minutes, and the meeting was adjourned.

Next morning Mr. Ely mounted his bicycle, and pedaled slowly in the direction of the Hall.

«Oh, God!» cried Albert, peering from behind a hedge. «They've tracked us down.»

Bending double, he ran to his little stable-room. «Come on, Eva,» he said. «It's no good. It couldn't last. He can't save us this time. It's the police.»

He took Eva in his arms and ran down under the field hedges to a wood in the bottom, and there across country, along the edges of dusty summer fallows, crawling through standing corn, taking to the woods whenever possible, scuttling across the roads when he came to them, shouted at by one or two men in the fields, flown at by a dog when he blundered on a keeper's hut in a clearing, stared at by an awful eye from above. All around he could sense a network of cars and men, policemen, shopwalkers, the Secretary himself, searching for him and Eva.

Night came. He could now creep only a hundred yards at a time, and then must lie still a long time, feeling the earth turn over and over, and the network of pursuit close in. «Eva,» said he, «we've got to go on all night. Can you stand it?»

Eva made no response. «You're weak,» said he. «Your head's going round. You can feel your heart giving way. But we've got to go on. I've let you down again, Eva. We've got to go on.»

The last part of that night journey was a blank to Albert. They must have come to a common. He found himself sprawled in a deep bay in a clump of furze. Eva lay tumbled beside him, in a horrible attitude, as she had lain that fatal morning in the shop. «Stretch yourself out,» he said. «I'll come to in a minute. I'll look after you.»

But the sun was already high when he sat up, and Eva was still sprawled as she had been before. A yellow fly crawled on her cheek: before he could move, it had crawled right over her unwinking blue eye. «Eva!» he cried. «What's up? Wake up. Has it been too much for you? Say something, do.»

«She's dead!» he cried to the world at large. «Carrying her about like that — I've killed her.»

He flung himself upon the sprawling figure. He opened her dress, he listened for her heart. He lay like that for a long time. The sun poured down, glimmering on the worn blue suit, parching the flossy hair, devouring the waxen cheeks, fading the staring blue eyes.

Albert's face was as dead as Eva's, till suddenly it was galvanized by an expression too distracted and too fleeting to be called hope. Thump, thump, thump, he heard: he thought it was her heart beating again. Then he realized it was footsteps coming near.

He raised his head. Someone was on the other side of the bushes. «They shan't disturb you, my darling,» he said to Eva, and got up and stumbled round to face the intruders.

It was not policemen: it was two ordinary men, filthy, unshaven, looking at Albert out of wicked eyes.

«Nice goings on,» said one of them.

«We seen you,» said the other.

«There's a law against that sort of thing,» said the first. He gazed up at the sky. «Might be worth a couple of quid, not to be run in for that sort of thing.»

«For a decent girl it would,» said the other.

«Not to be dragged along to the copper-station with her thin-gummys hanging round her ankles,» said the first.

«You keep off,» said Albert. «I haven't got no money. Straight. You can search me if you like.»

«Perhaps the young lady 'as,» said the first man, having verified this point.

«If she is a young lady, she 'as,» said the second.

«And if not,» said the first. «If not, Alf — What do you say? Looked O.K. to me. Nice bit of goods!»

«I'm game,» said Alf, glancing round.

The men made a move. Albert got in front of them, his arms spread wide. «Keep back,» he said again, feeling how light and flat and useless the words were.

«Sit on him, Alf,» said the first man. «Then I will.»

There was a scuffle. Albert, heaven knows how, tore himself away from Alf, and rushed after the first man, seizing him by the collar and raining blows on his hard head. «Strewth!» cried the man. «'Ere, take him off, Alf, 'e's stinging me.»

Albert felt a hand seize him. He turned; there was Alf's grinning face. «Come on, dearie,» said Alf. Albert, yielding for a moment, suddenly kicked as hard and viciously as he could. There was a terrifying howl. Alf was rolling on the ground.

«What'll they do to me?» thought Albert. «Eva! I did it for you.»

«He's done it to me!» cried Alf. «He's done it to me. Kill the — Kill 'im!»

Something hit Albert on the side of the jaw, and a bombshell burst in his brain. «The knock-out,» said the first man, turning again to go round to where Eva lay.

«Let me get my boots on him,» said Alf, scrambling to his feet.

«Gawd's trewth! Look here, Alf,» cried the first man from the other side of the bushes. «It's a bloody dummy.»

«You come back here,» said Alf. «You 'it 'im. I didn't!»

«What's up?» cried the other, hurrying round.

«He's a goner,» said Alf. «I'm off.»

«Wait a minute, pal,» cried the first man. «Have some sense. You're in it as much as me. Look here, you kicked him. Do you think I can't see? Never mind. Let's get him hid; that's the main thing.»

«Chuck 'em down in the chalk pit, both of 'em,» said the other. «Come on! It'll look as if he fell in of his own accord. We've never seen him, have we?»

A few minutes later the men were gone. The sun poured down on the glinting common, scorching everywhere except in the cool bottom of the chalk pit, where Eva and Albert lay unsought and undisturbed. His head lay limp on her neck; her stiff arm was arched over him. In the autumn, when the over-hang crumbled down on them, it pressed him close to her for ever.

ROPE ENOUGH

Henry Fraser, well assured that almost everything is done by mirrors, was given a job in India. No sooner had he set foot on shore than he burst into a horse-laugh. Those who were meeting him asked in some alarm the cause of this merriment. He replied he was laughing at the mere idea of the Indian Rope Trick.

He emitted similar startling sounds, and gave the same explanation, at a tiffin where he was officially made welcome; likewise on the Maidan, over chota peg, in rickshaws, in bazaars, in the Club, and on the polo ground. Soon he was known from Bombay to Calcutta as the man who laughed at the Indian Rope Trick, and he gloried in the well-deserved publicity.

There came a day, however, when he was sitting in his bungalow, bored to death. His boy entered, and, with suitable salaams, announced that a mountebank was outside, who craved the honour of entertaining the sahib with a performance of the Indian Rope Trick. Laughing heartily, Henry consented, and moved out to his chair upon the veranda.

Below, in the dusty compound, stood a native who was emaciated to a degree, and who had with him a spry youngster, a huge mat basket, and a monstrous great sword. Out of the basket he dragged some thirty feet of stout rope, made a pass or two, and slung it up into the air. It stayed there. Henry chuckled.

The boy then, with a caper, sprang at the rope, clutched it, and went up hand over hand, like a monkey. When he reached the top he vanished into thin air. Henry guffawed.

Soon the man, looking upwards with an anxious expression, began to hoot and holler after the boy. He called him down, he ordered him down, he begged him down, he began to swear and curse horribly. The boy, it seemed, took no notice at all. Henry roared.

Now the black, clapping his abominable great scimitar between his teeth, took hold of the rope himself, and went up it like a sailor. He, also, disappeared at the top. Henry's mirth increased.

Pretty soon some yelps and squeals were heard coming out of the empty air, and then a blood-curdling scream. Down came a leg, thump onto the ground, then an arm, a thigh, a head and other joints, and finally (no ladies being present) a bare backside, which struck the earth like a bomb. Henry went into fits.

Then the black came sliding down, holding on with one hand, fairly gibbering with excitement. He presented to Henry, with a salaam, his reeking blade for inspection. Henry locked in his chair.

The black, seemingly overwhelmed with remorse, gathered up the fragments of his little stooge, lavishing a hundred lamentations and endearments upon each grisly member, and he stowed them all in the giant basket.

At that moment Henry, feeling the time had come for a showdown, and willing to bet a thousand to one they'd planted the whole compound full of mirrors before calling him out there, pulled out his revolver, and blazed away all six chambers in different directions, in the expectation of splintering at least one of those deceiving glasses.

Nothing of that sort happened, but the black, doing a quick pirouette in alarm, looked down in the dust at his feet, and held up a villainous little snake, no thicker than a lead pencil, which had been killed by one of Henry's stray bullets. He gave a gasp of relief, touched his turban very civilly, turned round again, and made a pass or two over the basket. At once, with a wriggle and a frisk, the boy sprang out, whole, alive, smiling, full of health and wickedness.

The black hastily hauled down the rope, and came cringing up to Henry, overflowing with gratitude for having been saved from that villainous little snake, which was nothing more nor less than a krait — one nip and a man goes round and round like a Catherine wheel for eleven seconds; then he is as dead as mutton.

«But for the Heavenborn,» said the black, «I should have been a goner, and my wicked little boy here, who is my pride and delight, must have lain dismembered in the basket till the sahib's servants condescended to throw him to the crocodiles. Our worthless lives, our scanty goods, are all at the sahib's disposal.»

«That's all right,» said Henry. «All I ask is, show me how the trick is worked, or the laugh will be on me from now on.»

«Would not the sahib,» said the blade diffidently, «prefer the secret of a superb hair-restorer?»

«No. No,» said Henry. «Nothing but the trick.»

«I have,» said the black, «the secret of a very peculiar tonic, which the sahib (not now, of course, but in later life) might find —»

«The trick,» said Henry, «and without further delay.»

«Very well,» said the black. «Nothing in the world could be more simple. You make a pass, Like that —»

«Wait a minute,» said Henry. «Like that?»

«Exactly,» said the black. «You then throw up the rope — so. You see? It sticks.»

«So it does,» said Henry.

«Any boy can climb,» said the black. «Up boy! Show the sahib.»

The boy, smiling, climbed up and disappeared.

«Now,» said the black, «if the sahib will excuse me, I shall be back immediately.» And with that he climbed up himself, threw down the boy in sections, and speedily rejoined Henry on the ground.

«All that,» said he, scooping up legs and arms as he spoke, «all that can be done by anyone. There is a little knack, however, to the pass I make at this juncture. If the sahib will deign to observe closely — like that.»

«Like that?» said Henry.

«You have it to perfection,» said the black.

«Very interesting,» said Henry. «Tell me, what's up there at the top of the rope?»

«Ah, sahib,» said the black with a smile, «that is something truly delightful.»

With that he salaamed and departed, taking with him his rope, his giant basket, his tremendous great scimitar, and his wicked little boy. Henry was left feeling rather morose: he was known from, the Deccan to the Khyber Pass as the man who laughed at the Indian Rope Trick, and now he could laugh no more.

He decided to keep very quiet about it, but this unfortunately was not enough. At tiffin, at chota peg, at the Club, on the Maidan, in the bazaar, and at polo, he was expected to laugh like a horse, and in India one has to do what is expected of one. Henry became extremely unpopular, cabals were formed against him, and soon he was hoofed out of the Service.

This was the more distressing as in the meantime he had married a wife, strong-featured, upstanding, well groomed, straight-eyed, a little peremptory in manner, and as jealous as a demon, but in all respects a memsahib of the highest type, who knew very well what was due to her. She told Henry he had better go to America and make a fortune. He agreed, they packed up, and off they went to America.

«I hope,» said Henry, as they stood looking at the skyline of New York, «I hope I shall make that fortune.»

«Of course,» said she. «You must insist upon it»

«Very well, my dear,» said he.

On landing, however, he discovered that all the fortunes had already been made, a discovery which very generally awaits those who visit America on this errand, and after some weeks of drifting about from place to place, he was prepared to cut his demand down to a mere job, then to a lesser job, and finally to the price of a meal and a bed for the night.

They reached this extremity in a certain small town in the Middle West «There is nothing for it, my dear,» said Henry. «We shall have to do the Indian Rope Trick.»

His wife cried out very bitterly at the idea of a memsahib performing this native feat in a Middle Western town, before a Middle Western audience. She reproached him with the loss of his job, the poor quality of his manhood, with the time he let her little dog get run over on the bund, and with a glance he had cast at a Parsee maiden at Bombay. Nevertheless, reason and hunger prevailed; they pawned her last trinket and invested in a rope, a roomy grip, and a monstrous old rusty scimitar they discovered in a junk-shop.

When she saw this last, Henry's wife flatly refused to go on, unless she was given the star part and Henry took that of the stooge. «But» said Henry, drawing an apprehensive thumb down the notched and jagged edge of the grim and rusty bilbo. «But,» said he, «you don't know how to make the passes.»

«You shall teach me,» she said, «and if anything goes wrong you will have only yourself to blame.»

So Henry showed her. You may be sure he was very thorough in his instructions. In the end she mastered them perfectly, and there was nothing left to do but to stain themselves with coffee. Henry improvised a turban and loincloth; she wore a sari and a pair of ash-trays borrowed from the hotel. They sought out a convenient waste lot, a large crowd collected, and the show began.

Up went the rope. Sure enough, it stuck. The crowd, with a multiple snigger, whispered that everything was done by mirrors. Henry, not without a good deal of puffing, went up hand over hand. When he got to the top, he forgot the crowd, the act, his wife, and even himself, so surprised and delighted was he by the sight that met his eyes.

He found himself crawling out of something like a well, onto what seemed to be solid ground. The landscape about him was not at all like that below; it was like an Indian paradise, full of dells, bowers, scarlet ibises, and heaven knows what all. However, his surprise and delight came less from these features of the background than from the presence of a young female in the nearest of these bowers or arbours, which happened to be all wreathed, canopied, overgrown, and intertwined with passion flowers. This delightful creature, who was a positive houri, and very lightly attired, seemed to be expecting Henry, and greeted him with rapture.

Henry, who had a sufficiently affectionate nature, flung his arms round her neck and gazed deeply into her eyes. These were surprisingly eloquent They seemed to say, «Why not make hey hey while the sun shines?»

He found the notion entirely agreeable, and planted a lingering kiss on her lips, noting only with a dim and careless annoyance that his wife was hooting and hollering from below. «What person of any tact or delicacy,» thought he, «could hoot and holler at such a moment?» and he dismissed her from his mind.

You may imagine his mortification when his delicious damsel suddenly repulsed him from her arms. He looked over his shoulder, and there was his wife, clambering over the edge, terribly red in the face, with the fury of a demon in her eye, and the mighty scimitar gripped firmly between her teeth.

Henry tried to rise, but she was beforehand with him, and while yet he had but his left foot on the ground, she caught him one across the loins with the huge and jagged bilbo, which effectually hamstrung him, so that he fell grovelling at her feet. «For heaven's sake!» he cried. «It's all a trick. Part of the act. It means nothing. Remember our public. The show must go on.»

«It shall,» said she, striking at his arms and legs.

«Oh, those notches!» cried he. «To oblige me, my dear, please sharpen it a little upon a stone.»

«It is good enough for you, you viper,» said she, hacking away all the time. Pretty soon Henry was a limbless trunk.

«For the love of God,» said he, «I hope you remember the passes. I can explain everything.»

«To hell with the passes!» said she, and with a last swipe she sent his head rolling like a football.

She was not long in picking up the scattered fragments of poor Henry, and flinging them down to earth, amid the applause and laughter of the crowd, who were more than ever convinced it was all done by mirrors.

Then, gripping her scimitar, she was about to swarm down after him, not from any soft-hearted intention of reassembling her unfortunate spouse, but rather to have another hack or two at some of the larger joints. At that moment she became aware of someone behind her, and, looking round, there was a divine young man, with the appearance of a Maharaja of the highest caste, an absolute Valentino, in whose eyes she seemed to read the words, «It is better to bum upon the Bed of Passion than in the Chair of Electricity.»

This idea presented itself with an overwhelming appeal. She paused only to thrust her head through the aperture, and cry, «That's what happens to a pig of a man who betrays his wife with a beastly native,» before hauling up the rope and entering into conversation with her charmer.

The police soon appeared upon the scene. There was nothing but a cooing sound above, as if invisible turtle doves were circling in amorous flight Below, the various portions of Henry were scattered in the dust, and the bluebottle flies were already settling upon them.

The crowd explained it was nothing but a trick, done with, mirrors.

«It looks to me,» said the sergeant, «as if the biggest one most have splintered right on top of him.»

LITTLE MEMENTO

A young man who was walking fast came out of a deep lane onto a wide hilltop space, where there was a hamlet clustered about a green. The setting encompassed a pond, ducks, the Waggoner Inn, with white paint and swinging sign; in fact, all the fresh, clean, quiet, ordinary appurtenances of an upland Somerset hamlet.

The road went on, and so did the young man, over to the very brink of the upland, where a white gate gave upon a long garden well furnished with fruit trees, and at the end of it a snug little house sheltered by a coppice and enjoying a view over the vast vale below. An old man of astonishingly benevolent appearance was pottering about in the garden. He looked up as the walker, Eric Gaskell, approached his gate.

«Good morning,» said he. «A fine September morning!»

«Good morning,» said Eric Gaskell.

«I have had my telescope out this morning,» said the old man. «I don't often get down the hill these days. The way back is a little too steep for me. Still, I have my view and my telescope. I think I know all that goes on.»

«Well, that's very nice,» said Eric.

«It is,» said the old man. «You are Mr. Gaskell?»

«Yes,» said Eric. «I know. We met at the vicarage.»

«We did,» said the old man. «You often take your walk this way. I see you go by. Today I thought, 'Now this is the day for a little chat with young Mr. Gaskell!' Come in.»

«Thanks,» said Eric. «I will, for a spell.»

«And how,» said the old man, opening his gate, «do you and Mrs. Gaskell like Somerset?»

«Enormously,» said Eric.

«My housekeeper tells me,» said the old man, «that you come from the East Coast. Very bracing. Her niece is your little maid. You don't find it too dull here? Too backward? Too old-fashioned?»

«We like that part of it best,» said Eric, sitting with his host on a white seat under one of the apple trees.

«In these days,» said the old man, «young people like old-fashioned things. That's a change from my day. Now most of us who live about here are old codgers, you know. There's Captain Felton, of course, but the Vicar, the Admiral, Mr. Coperus, and the rest — all old codgers. You don't mind that?»

«I like it,» said Eric.

«We have our hobbies,» said the old man. «Coperus is by way of being an antiquarian; the Admiral has his roses.»

«And you have your telescope,» said Eric.

«Ah, my telescope,» said the old man. «Yes, yes, I have my telescope. But my principal pastime — what I really plume myself on — is my museum.»

«You have a museum?» said Eric.

«Yes, a museum,» said the old man. «I should like you to have a look at it and tell me what you think.»

«I shall be delighted,» said Eric.

«Then come right in,» said the old man, leading him toward the house. «I seldom have the chance of showing my collection to a newcomer. You must bring Mrs. Gaskell one of these days. Does she find enough entertainment in this quiet part, would you say?»

«She loves it,» said Eric. «She can't see too much of the country here. She drives out almost every day.»

«All by herself in that little red roadster of hers,» said the old man. «Does she like the house?»

«Well, I don't know,» said Eric. «She did when we chose it last spring. She liked it very much.»

«It is a very nice house,» said the old man.

«She finds it a little oppressive lately, I'm afraid,» said Eric. «She says she has to get out to breathe.»

«It is the difference in the air,» said the old man. «After living on the East Coast.»

«Probably it's that,» said Eric.

By this time they had reached the front door. The old man ushered Eric in. They entered a very snug, trim little room, the furniture all well polished and everything meticulously arranged. «This is my little sitting-room,» the old man said. «My dining-room, too, these days. The drawing-room and the little study beyond I have given over entirely to my museum. Here we are.»

He threw open a door. Eric stepped in, looked around, and stared in amazement. He had been expecting the usual sort of thing: a neat cabinet or two with Roman coins, flint implements, a snake in alcohol, perhaps a stuffed bird or some eggs. But this room and the study, seen through the connecting doorway, were piled high with the most broken, battered, frowzy, gimcrack collection of junk he had ever seen in his life. What was oddest of all was that no item in this muddle of rubbish had even the excuse of a decent antiquity. It was as if several cartloads of miscellaneous material had been collected from the village dump and spilled over the tables, sideboards, chairs, and floors of these two rooms.

The old man observed Eric's astonishment with the greatest good humour. «You are thinking,» said he, «that this collection is not the sort of thing one usually finds in a museum. You are right. But let me tell you, Mr. Gaskell, that every object here has a history. These pieces are pebbles rolled and broken by the stream of time as it flows over the villages in our quiet little district. Taken together, they are a — a record. Here is a souvenir from the War: a telegram to the Bristows in Upper Medium, saying their boy was killed. It was years before I could get that from poor Mrs. Bristow. I gave her a pound for it.»

«Very interesting,» said Eric.

«That wheelbarrow,» said the old man, pointing out a splintered wreck, «was the cause of two deaths. It rolled down a bank into the lane here just as a car was coming along. It was in all the papers. 'Local Tragedy.'»

«Extraordinary!» said Eric.

«It all makes up life,» said the old man. «Here is a belt dropped by one of the Irish haymakers when they fought the gipsies. This hat belonged to the man who had Church Farm, near you. He won a prize in the Irish Sweep and drank himself to death, poor fellow! These are bricks from my gardener's cottage. It burned down, you know, and nobody knows how the fire started. This is a snake which somehow got into the church during service last year. Captain Felton killed it. He's a very handsome man, don't you think?»

«Yes. I suppose so. I hardly know him.»

«That's funny. I thought you and Mrs. Gaskell were very great friends of Captain Felton.»

«What gave you that idea?»

«Perhaps it was just my fancy. Here is a rather sad exhibit. These horns came from a bull that Farmer Lawson put into my meadow. Somebody left the gate open; it got out and gored a man on the road.»

«We scarcely know Captain Felton,» said Eric. «We met him when first we came here, but —»

«Quite, quite,» said the old man. «Here is an anonymous letter. We have them now and then in this district, as in most places. Mr. Coperus gave me this.»

«Are they usually well founded, the hints in your local brand of anonymous letters?» asked Eric.

«I believe they are,» said the old man. «Someone seems to know what goes on. Here's something that I fear won't last very long: a giant puffball from the graveyard. They grow larger there than anywhere else. Feel how light it is.»

He thrust it toward Eric. Eric had been fumbling with his pipe and tobacco pouch and now put them down to take the puffball. «Very light, »said he. «Wonderful.»

«Come through here,» cried the old man eagerly. «I was forgetting my boots.» Eric followed him, still carrying the giant fungus. «These boots,» said the old man, «came off a tramp found drowned in a pond. That little pond near Captain Felton's house.»

«What does Felton do?» asked Eric.

«He has an income,» said the old man. «He amuses himself.»

«What is his amusement?» said Eric very casually.

«I'm afraid,» said the old man, with a twinkle, «that Captain Felton is rather one for the ladies.»

«Indeed?» said Eric.

«There are stories,» said the old man. «The Captain is very discreet, but — you know how it is. That big crystal up there — that was found in the quarry half a mile down our little road here. Well now, that quarry has been out of use for many years. You can drive into it from the road, and I'm told the Captain finds it a very secluded rendez-vous. Dear me, I ought not to gossip. But the fact is the shepherd boys have been known to look over the top, and of course stories get around. People love to chuckle over such matters. I'm afraid that some day one of the worthy gentlemen whose domestic relations the Captain has, so to speak, trespassed upon will look over the top and — well, there are some very large stones lying about. Here is a cat I had stuffed. Now there is a very extraordinary story connected with this cat.»

«Tell me,» said Eric, «is Felton here now or is he away?»

«He's here,» said the old man. «I saw his car go by only an hour ago. It's a red car. One doesn't often see a red car, though as a matter of fact another red one came by just after his.»

«I — I think I must be off,» said Eric.

«Must you go?» said the old man. «I was just going to tell you about this unhappy cat.»

«Another time,» said Eric.

«Another time then,» said the old man. «I shall always be delighted. Let me see you to the gate.»

Eric hurried through the gate.

«You are not going back the way you came?» said the old man. «It's quicker.»

«No. No. I have to go round this way,» said Eric.

«That will lead you past the Captain's quarry,» said the old man. «Well, goodbye. Come again soon.»

He watched Eric stride rapidly down the road and even climbed a bank to watch him farther. When he saw him leave the road and strike over the face of the down, toward the up lip of the quarry, he went placidly back to his museum.

There he took up Eric's pipe and tobacco pouch and fondled them with infinite affection. It was quite a long time before he could bring himself to place them carefully on a shelf and return to his pottering in the garden.

GREEN THOUGHTS

The orchid had been sent among the effects of his friend, who had come by a lonely and mysterious death on the expedition. Or he had brought it among a miscellaneous lot, «unclassified,» at the close of the auction. I forget which it was, but it was certainly one or the other of these. Moreover, even in its dry, brown, dormant root state, this orchid had a certain sinister quality. It looked, with its bunched and ragged projections, like a rigid yet a gripping hand, hideously gnarled, or a grotesquely whiskered, threatening face. Would you not have known what sort of an orchid it was?

Mr. Mannering did not know. He read nothing but catalogues and books on fertilizers. He unpacked the new acquisition with a solicitude absurd enough in any case toward any orchid, or primrose either, in the twentieth century, but idiotic, foolhardy, doom-eager, when extended to an orchid thus come by, in appearance thus. And in his traditional obtuseness he at once planted it in what he called the «Observation Ward,» a hothouse built against the south wall of his dumpy red dwelling. Here he set always the most interesting additions to his collection, and especially weak and sickly plants, for there was a glass door in his study wall through which he could see into this hothouse, so that the weak and sickly plants could encounter no crisis without his immediate knowledge and his tender care.

This plant, however, proved hardy enough. At the ends of thick and stringy stalks it opened out bunches of darkly shining leaves, and soon it spread in every direction, usurping so much space that first one, then another, then all its neighbours had to be removed to a hothouse at the end of the garden. It was, Cousin Jane said, a regular hop-vine. At the ends of the stalks, just before the leaves began, were set groups of tendrils, which hung idly, serving no apparent purpose. Mr. Mannering thought that very probably these were vestigial organs, a heritage from some period when the plant had been a climber. But when were the vestigial tendrils of an ex-climber half or quarter so thick and strong?

After a long time sets of tiny buds appeared here and there among the extravagant foliage. Soon they opened into small flowers, miserable little things; they looked like flies' heads. One naturally expects a large, garish, sinister bloom, like a sea anemone, or a Chinese lantern, or a hippopotamus yawning, on any important orchid; and should it be an unclassified one as well, I think one has every right to insist on a sickly and overpowering scent into the bargain.

Mr. Mannering did not mind at all. Indeed, apart from his joy and happiness in being the discoverer and godfather of a new sort of orchid, he felt only a mild and scientific interest in the fact that the paltry blossoms were so very much like flies' heads. Could it be to attract other flies for food or as fertilizers? But then, why like their heads?

It was a few days later that Cousin Jane's cat disappeared. This was a great blow to Cousin Jane, but Mr. Mannering was not, in his heart of hearts, greatly sorry. He was not fond of the cat, for he could not open the smallest chink in a glass roof for ventilation but the creature would squeeze through somehow to enjoy the warmth, and in this way it had broken many a tender shoot. But before poor Cousin Jane had lamented two days something happened which so engrossed Mr. Mannering that he had no mind left at all with which to sympathize with her affliction, or to make at breakfast kind and hypocritical inquiries after the lost cat. A strange new bud appeared on the orchid. It was clearly evident that there would be two quite different sorts of bloom on this one plant, as sometimes happens in such fantastic corners of the vegetable world, and that the new flower would be very different in size and structure from the earlier ones. It grew bigger and bigger, till it was as big as one's fist.

And just then — it could never have been more inopportune — an affair of the most unpleasant, the most distressing nature summoned Mr. Mannering to town. It was his wretched nephew, in trouble again, and this time so deeply and so very disgracefully that it took all Mr. Mannering's generosity, and all his influence, too, to extricate the worthless young man. Indeed, as soon as he saw the state of affairs, he told the prodigal that this was the very last time he might expect assistance, that his vices and his ingratitude had long ago cancelled all affection between them, and that for this last helping hand he was indebted only to his mother's memory, and to no faith on the part of his uncle either in his repentance or his reformation. He wrote, moreover, to Cousin Jane, to relieve his feelings, telling her of the whole business, and adding that the only thing left to do was to cut the young man off entirely.

When he got back to Torquay, Cousin Jane was nowhere to be found. The situation was extremely annoying. Their only servant was a cook who was very old and very stupid and very deaf. She suffered besides from an obsession, owing to the fact that for many years Mr. Mannering had had no conversation with her in which he had not included an impressive reminder that she must always, no matter what might happen, keep the big kitchen stove up to a certain pitch of activity. For this stove, besides supplying the house with hot water, heated the pipes in the «Observation Ward,» to which the daily gardener who had charge of the other hothouses had no access. By this time she had come to regard her duties as stoker as her chief raison d'être, and it was difficult to penetrate her deafness with any question which her stupidity and her obsession did not somehow transmute into an inquiry after the stove, and this, of course, was especially the case when Mr. Mannering spoke to her. All he could disentangle was what she had volunteered on first seeing him, that his cousin had not been seen for three days, that she had left without saying a word. Mr. Mannering was perplexed and annoyed, but, being a man of method, he thought it best to postpone further inquiries until he had refreshed himself a little after his long and tiring journey. A full supply of energy was necessary to extract any information from the old cook; besides, there was probably a note somewhere. It was only natural that before he went to his room Mr. Mannering should peep into the hothouse, just to make sure that the wonderful orchid had come to no harm during the inconsiderate absence of Cousin Jane. As soon as he opened the door his eyes fell upon the bud; it had now changed in shape very considerably, and had increased in size to the bigness of a human head. It is no exaggeration to state that Mr. Mannering remained rooted to the spot, with his eyes fixed upon this wonderful bud, for fully five minutes.

But, you will ask, why did he not see her clothes on the floor? Well, as a matter of fact (it is a delicate point), there were no clothes on the floor. Cousin Jane, though of course she was entirely estimable in every respect, though she was well over forty, too, was given to the practice of the very latest ideas on the dual culture of the soul and body — Swedish, German, neo-Greek and all that. And the orchid house was the warmest place available. I must proceed with the order of events.

Mr. Mannering at length withdrew his eyes from this stupendous bud, and decided that he must devote his attention to the grey exigencies of everyday life. But although his body dutifully ascended the stairs, heart, mind, and soul all remained in adoration of the plant. Although he was philosophical to the point of insensibility over the miserable smallness of the earlier flowers, yet he was now as much gratified by the magnitude of the great new bud as you or I might be. Hence it was not unnatural that Mr. Mannering while in his bath should be full of the most exalted visions of the blossoming of his heart's darling, his vegetable godchild. It would be by far the largest known, complex as a dream, or dazzlingly simple. It would open like a dancer, or like the sun rising. Why, it might be opening at this very moment! Mr. Mannering could restrain himself no longer; he rose from the steamy water, and, wrapping his bathrobe about him, hurried down to the hothouse, scarcely staying to dry himself, though he was subject to colds.

The bud had not yet opened; it still reared its unbroken head among the glossy, fleshy foliage, and he now saw, what he had had no eyes for previously, how very exuberant that foliage had grown. Suddenly he realized with astonishment that this huge bud was not the one which had appeared before he went away. That one had been lower down on the plant. Where was it now, then? Why, this new thrust and spread of foliage concealed it from him. He walked across, and discovered it. It had opened into a bloom. And as he looked at this bloom his astonishment grew to stupefaction, one might say to petrification, for it is a fact that Mr. Mannering remained rooted to the spot, with his eyes fixed on the flower, for fully fifteen minutes. The flower was an exact replica of the head of Cousin Jane's lost cat. The similitude was so exact, so life-like, that Mr. Mannering's first movement, after the fifteen minutes, was to seize his bathrobe and draw it about him, for he was a modest man, and the cat, though bought for a Tom, had proved to be quite the reverse. I relate this to show how much character, spirit, presence — call it what you will — there was upon this floral cat's face. But although he made to seize his bathrobe, it was too late. He could not move. The new lusty foliage had closed in unperceived; the too lightly dismissed tendrils were everywhere upon him; he gave a few weak cries and sank to the ground, and there, as the Mr. Mannering of ordinary life, he passes out of this story.

Mr. Mannering sank into a coma, into an insensibility so deep that a black eternity passed before the first faint elements of his consciousness reassembled themselves in his brain. For of his brain was the centre of a new bud being made. Indeed, it was two or three days before this at first almost hopeless and quite primitive lump of organic matter had become sufficiently mature to be called Mr. Mannering at all. These days, which passed quickly enough, in a certain mild, not unpleasant excitement, in the outer world, seemed to the dimly working mind within the bud to resume the whole history of the development of our species, in a great many epochal parts.

A process analogous to the mutations of the embryo was being enacted here. At last the entity which was thus being rushed down an absurdly foreshortened vista of the ages slowed up and came almost to a stop in the present. It became recognizable. The Seven Ages of Mr. Mannering were presented, as it were, in a series of close-ups, as in an educational film; his consciousness settled and cleared. The bud was mature, ready to open. At this point, I believe, Mr. Mannering's state of mind was exactly that of a patient who, wakening from under an anaesthetic, struggling up from vague dreams, asks plaintively, «Where am I?» Then the bud opened, and he knew.

There was the hothouse, but seen from an unfamiliar angle. There, through the glass door, was his study. There below him was the cat's head, and there — there beside him was Cousin Jane. He could not say a word, but then, neither could she. Perhaps it was as well. At the very least, he would have been forced to own that she had been in the right in an argument of long standing; she had always maintained that in the end no good would come of his preoccupation with «those unnatural flowers.»

It must be admitted that Mr. Mannering was not at first greatly upset by this extraordinary upheaval in his daily life. This, I think, was because he was interested, not only in private and personal matters, but in the wider and more general, one might say the biological, aspects of his metamorphosis. For the rest, simply because he was now a vegetable, he responded with a vegetable reaction. The impossibility of locomotion, for example, did not trouble him in the least, or even the absence of body and limbs, any more than the cessation of that stream of rashers and tea, biscuits and glasses of milk, luncheon cutlets, and so forth, that had flowed in at his mouth for over fifty years, but which had now been reversed to a gentle, continuous, scarcely noticeable feeding from below. All the powerful influence of the physical upon the mental, therefore, inclined him to tranquillity. But the physical is not all. Although no longer a man, he was still Mr. Mannering. And from this anomaly, as soon as his scientific interest had subsided, issued a host of woes, mainly subjective in origin.

He was fretted, for instance, by the thought that he would now have no opportunity to name his orchid, or to write a paper upon it, and, still worse, there grew up in his mind the abominable conviction that, as soon as his plight was discovered, it was he who would be named and classified, and that he himself would be the subject of a paper, possibly even of comment and criticism in the lay press. Like all orchid collectors, he was excessively shy and sensitive, and in his present situation these qualities were very naturally exaggerated, so that the bare idea of such attentions brought him to the verge of wilting. Worse yet was the fear of being transplanted, thrust into some unfamiliar, draughty, probably public place. Being dug up! Ugh! A violent shudder pulsated through all the heavy foliage that sprang from Mr. Mannering's division of the plant. He became conscious of ghostly and remote sensations in the stem below, and in certain tufts of leaves that sprouted from it; they were somehow reminiscent of spine and heart and limbs. He felt quite a dryad.

In spite of all, however, the sunshine was very pleasant. The rich odour of hot, spicy earth filled the hothouse. From a special fixture on the hot-water pipes a little warm steam oozed into the air. Mr. Mannering began to abandon himself of a feeling of laissez-aller. Just then, up in a corner of the glass roof, at the ventilator, he heard a persistent buzzing. Soon the note changed from one of irritation to a more complacent sound; a bee had managed, after some difficulty, to find his way through one of the tiny chinks in the metal work. The visitor came drifting down and down through the still, green air, as if into some subaqueous world, and he came to rest on one of those petals which were Mr. Mannering's eyebrows. Thence he commenced to explore one feature after another, and at last he settled heavily on the lower lip, which drooped under his weight and allowed him to crawl right into Mr. Mannering's mouth. This was quite a considerable shock, of course, but on the whole the sensation was neither as alarming nor as unpleasant as might have been expected. «Indeed,» thought the vegetable gentleman, «it seems quite agreeable.»

But Mr. Mannering soon ceased the drowsy analysis of his sensations when he saw the departed bee, after one or two lazy circlings, settle directly upon the maiden lip of Cousin Jane. Ominous as lightning, a simple botanical principle flashed across the mind of her wretched relative. Cousin Jane was aware of it also, although, being the product of an earlier age, she might have remained still blessedly ignorant had not her cousin — vain, garrulous, proselytizing fool! — attempted for years past to interest her in the rudiments of botany. How the miserable man upbraided himself now! He saw two bunches of leaves just below the flower tremble and flutter, and rear themselves painfully upwards into the very likeness of two shocked and protesting hands. He saw the soft and orderly petals of his cousin's face ruffle and incarnadine with rage and embarrassment, then turn sickly as a gardenia with horror and dismay. But what was he to do? All the rectitude implanted by his careful training, all the chivalry proper to an orchid-collector, boiled and surged beneath a paralytically calm exterior. He positively travailed in the effort to activate the muscles of his face, to assume an expression of grief, manly contrition, helplessness in the face of fate, willingness to make honourable amends, all suffused with the light of a vague but solacing optimism; but it was in vain. When he had strained till his nerves seemed likely to tear under the tension, the only movement he could achieve was a trivial flutter of the left eyelid — worse than nothing.

This incident completely aroused Mr. Mannering from his vegetable lethargy. He rebelled against the limitations of the form into which he had thus been cast while subjectively he remained all too human. Was he not still at heart a man, with a man's hopes, ideals, aspirations — and capacity for suffering?

When dusk came, and the opulent and sinister shapes of the great plant dimmed to a suggestiveness more powerfully impressive than had been its bright noonday luxuriance, and the atmosphere of a tropical forest filled the orchid-house like an exile's dream or the nostalgia of the saxophone; when the cat's whiskers drooped, and even Cousin Jane's eyes slowly closed, the unhappy man remained wide awake, staring into the gathering darkness. Suddenly the light in the study was switched on. Two men entered the room. One of them was his lawyer, the other was his nephew.

«This is his study, as you know, of course,» said the wicked nephew. «There's nothing here. I looked when I came over on Wednesday.»

«I've sat in this room many an evening,» said the lawyer with an expression of distaste. «I'd sit on this side of the fireplace and he on that. 'Mannering,' I'd think to myself, 'I wonder how you'll end up. Drugs? Sexual perversion? Or murder?' Well, maybe we'll soon know the answer. Until we do, I suppose you, as next of kin, had better take charge here.»

Saying this, the lawyer turned, about to go, and Mr. Mannering saw a malicious smile overspread the young man's face. The uneasiness which had overcome him at first sight of his nephew was intensified to fear and trembling at the sight of this smile.

When he had shown the lawyer out, the nephew returned to the study and looked round him with lively and sinister satisfaction. Then he cut a caper on the hearth-rug. Mr. Mannering thought he had never seen anything so diabolical as this solitary expression of the glee of a venomous nature at the prospect of unchecked sway, here whence he had been outcast. How vulgar petty triumph appeared, beheld thus; how disgusting petty spite, how appalling revengefulness and hardness of heart! He remembered suddenly that his nephew had been notable, in his repulsive childhood, for his cruelty to flies, tearing their wings off, and for his barbarity toward cats. A sort of dew might have been noticed upon the good man's forehead. It seemed to him that his nephew had only to glance that way, and all would be discovered, although he might have remembered that it was impossible to see from the lighted room into the darkness of the hothouse.

On the mantelpiece stood a large unframed photograph of Mr. Mannering. His nephew soon caught sight of this, and strode across to confront it with a triumphant and insolent sneer. «What? You old Pharisee,» said he, «taken her off for a trip to Brighton, have you? My God! How I hope you'll never come back! How I hope you've fallen over the cliffs, or got swept off by the tide or something! Anyway — I'll make hay while the sun shines. Ugh! you old skinflint, you!» And he reached forward his hand, and bestowed a contemptuous fillip upon the nose in the photograph. Then the usurping rascal left the room, leaving all the lights on, presumably preferring the dining-room with its cellarette to the scholarly austerities of the study.

All night long the glare of electric light from the study fell upon Mr. Mannering and his Cousin Jane, like the glare of a cheap and artificial sun. You who have seen at midnight in the park a few insomniac asters standing stiff and startled under an arc light, all their weak colour bleached out of them by the drenching chemical radiance, neither asleep nor awake, but held fast in a tense, a neurasthenic trance, you can form an idea of how the night passed with this unhappy pair.

And toward morning an incident occurred, trivial in itself no doubt, but sufficient then and there to add the last drop to poor Cousin Jane's discomfiture and to her relative's embarrassment and remorse. Along the edge of the great earthbox in which the orchid was planted, ran a small black mouse. It had wicked red eyes, a naked, evil snout, and huge, repellent ears, queer as a bat's. This creature ran straight over the lower leaves of Cousin Jane's part of the plant. It was simply appalling. The stringy main stem writhed like a hair on a coal-fire, the leaves contracted in an agonized spasm, like seared mimosa; the terrified lady nearly uprooted herself in her convulsive horror. I think she would actually have done so, had not the mouse hurried on past her.

But it had not gone more than a foot or so when it looked up and saw, bending over it, and seeming positively to bristle with life, that flower which had once been called Tib. There was a breathless pause. The mouse was obviously paralyzed with terror, the cat could only look and long. Suddenly the more human watchers saw a sly frond of foliage curve softly outward and close in behind the hypnotized creature. Cousin Jane, who had been thinking exultantly, «Well, now it'll go away and never, never, never come back,» suddenly became aware of hideous possibilities. Summoning all her energy, she achieved a spasmodic flutter, enough to break the trance that held the mouse, so that, like a clock-work toy, it swung round and fled. But already the fell arm of the orchid had cut off its retreat. The mouse leaped straight at it. Like a flash five tendrils at the end caught the fugitive and held it fast, and soon its body dwindled and was gone. Now the heart of Cousin Jane was troubled with horrid fears, and slowly and painfully she turned her weary face first to one side, then to the other, in a fever of anxiety as to where the new bud would appear. A sort of sucker, green and sappy, which twisted lightly about her main stem, and reared a blunt head, much like a tip of asparagus, close to her own, suddenly began to swell in the most suspicious manner. She squinted at it, fascinated and appalled. Could it be her imagination? It was not.

Next evening the door opened again, and again the nephew entered the study. This time he was alone, and it was evident that he had come straight from table. He carried in his hand a decanter of whiskey capped by an inverted glass. Under his arm was a siphon. His face was distinctly flushed, and such a smile as is often seen in saloon bars played about his lips. He put down his burdens and, turning to Mr. Mannering's cigar cabinet, produced a bunch of keys, which he proceeded to try upon the lock, muttering vindictively at each abortive attempt, until it opened, when he helped himself from the best of its contents. Annoying as it was to witness this insolent appropriation of his property, and mortifying to see the contempt with which the cigar was smoked, the good gentleman found deeper cause for uneasiness in the thought that, with the possession of the keys, his abominable nephew had access to every private corner that was his.

At present, however, the usurper seemed indisposed to carry on investigations; he splashed a great deal of whiskey into the tumbler and relaxed into an attitude of extravagant comfort. But after a while the young man began to tire of his own company. He had not yet had time to gather any of his pothouse companions into his uncle's home, and repeated recourse to the whiskey bottle only increased his longing for something to relieve the monotony. His eye fell upon the door of the orchid-house. Sooner or later it was bound to have happened. Does this thought greatly console the condemned man when the fatal knock sounds upon the door of his cell? No. Nor were the hearts of the trembling pair in the hothouse at all comforted by the reflection.

As the nephew fumbled with the handle of the glass door, Cousin Jane slowly raised two fronds of leaves that grew on each side, high upon her stem, and sank her troubled head behind them. Mr. Mannering observed, in a sudden rapture of hope, that by this device she was fairly well concealed from any casual glance. Hastily he strove to follow her example. Unfortunately, he had not yet gained sufficient control of his — his limbs? — and all his tortured efforts could not raise them beyond an agonized horizontal. The door had opened, the nephew was feeling for the electric light switch just inside. It was a moment for one of the superlative achievements of panic. Mr. Mannering was well equipped for the occasion. Suddenly, at the cost of indescribable effort, he succeeded in raising the right frond, not straight upwards, it is true, but in a series of painful jerks along a curve outward and backward, and ascending by slow degrees till it attained the position of an arm held over the possessor's head from behind. Then, as the light flashed on, a spray of leaves at the very end of this frond spread out into a fan, rather like a very fleshy horse-chestnut leaf in structure, and covered the anxious face below. What a relief! And now the nephew advanced into the orchid-house, and now the hidden pair simultaneously remembered the fatal presence of the cat. Simultaneously also, their very sap stood still in their veins. The nephew was walking along by the plant. The cat, a sagacious beast, «knew» with the infallible intuition of its kind that this was an idler, a parasite, a sensualist, gross and brutal, disrespectful of age, insolent to weakness, barbarous to cats. Therefore it remained very still, trusting to its low and somewhat retired position on the plant, and to protective mimicry and such things, and to the half-drunken condition of the nephew, to avoid his notice. But all in vain.

«What?» said the nephew. «What, a cat?» And he raised his hand to offer a blow at the harmless creature. Something in the dignified and unflinching demeanour of his victim must have penetrated into his besotted mind, for the blow never fell, and the bully, a coward at heart, as bullies invariably are, shifted his gaze from side to side to escape the steady, contemptuous stare of the courageous cat. Alas! His eye fell on something glimmering whitely behind the dark foliage. He brushed aside the intervening leaves that he might see what it was. It was Cousin Jane.

«Oh! Ah!» said the young man, in great confusion. «You're back. But what are you hiding there for?»

His sheepish stare became fixed, his mouth opened in bewilderment; then the true condition of things dawned upon his mind. Most of us would have at once instituted some attempt at communication, or at assistance of some kind, or at least have knelt down to thank our Creator that we had, by His grace, been spared such a fate, or perhaps have made haste from the orchid-house to ensure against accidents. But alcohol had so inflamed the young man's hardened nature that he felt neither fear, nor awe, nor gratitude. As he grasped the situation a devilish smile overspread his face.

«Ha! Ha! Ha!» said he. «But where's the old man?»

He peered about the plant, looking eagerly for his uncle. In a moment he had located him and, raising the inadequate visor of leaves, discovered beneath it the face of our hero, troubled with a hundred bitter emotions.

«Hullo, Narcissus!» said the nephew.

A long silence ensued. The spiteful wretch was so pleased that he could not say a word. He rubbed his hands together, and licked his lips, and stared and stared as a child might at a new toy.

«Well, you're properly up a tree,» he said. «Yes, the tables are turned now all right, aren't they? Do you remember the last time we met ?»

A flicker of emotion passed over the face of the suffering blossom, betraying consciousness.

«Yes, you can hear what I say,» added the tormentor. «Feel, too, I expect. What about that ?»

As he spoke, he stretched out his hand and, seizing a delicate frill of fine, silvery filaments that grew as whiskers grow around the lower half of the flower, he administered a sharp tug. Without pausing to note, even in the interests of science, the subtler shades of his uncle's reaction, content with the general effort of that devastating wince, the wretch chuckled with satisfaction and, taking a long pull from the reeking butt of the stolen cigar, puffed the vile fumes straight into his victim's centre. The brute!

«How do you like that, John the Baptist?» he asked with a leer. «Good for the blight, you know. Just what you want!»

Something rustled upon his coat sleeve. Looking down, he saw a long stalk, well adorned with the fatal tendrils, groping its way over the arid and unsatisfactory surface. In a moment it had reached his wrist, he felt it fasten, but knocked it off as one would a leech, before it had time to establish its hold.

«Ugh! »said he. «So that's how it happens, is it? I think I'll keep outside till I get the hang of things a bit. I don't want to be made an Aunt Sally of. Though I shouldn't think they could get you with your clothes on.» Struck by a sudden thought, he looked from his uncle to Cousin Jane, and from Cousin Jane back to his uncle again. He scanned the floor, and saw a single crumpled bathrobe lying in the shadow.

«Why!» he said. «Well! — Haw! Haw! Haw!» And with an odious backward leer, he made his way out of the orchid-house.

Mr. Mannering felt that his suffering was capable of no increase. Yet he dreaded the morrow. His fevered imagination patterned the long night with waking nightmares, utterly fantastic visions of humiliation and torture. Torture! It was absurd, of course, for him to fear cold-blooded atrocities on the part of his nephew, but how he dreaded some outrageous whim that might tickle the youth's sense of humour, and lead him to any wanton freak, especially if he were drunk at the time. He thought of slugs and snails, espaliers and topiary. If only the monster would rest content with insulting jests, with wasting his substance, ravaging his cherished possessions before his eyes, with occasional pulling at the whiskers, even! Then it might be possible to turn gradually from all that still remained in him of man, to subdue the passions, no longer to admire or desire, to go native as it were, relapsing into the Nirvana of a vegetable dream. But in the morning he found this was not so easy.

In came the nephew and, pausing only to utter the most perfunctory of jeers at his relatives in the glass house, he sat at the desk and unlocked the top drawer. He was evidently in search of money, his eagerness betrayed that; no doubt he had run through all he had filched from his uncle's pockets, and had not yet worked out a scheme for getting direct control of his bank account. However, the drawer held enough to cause the scoundrel to rub his hands with satisfaction and, summoning the housekeeper, to bellow into her ear a reckless order upon the wine and spirits merchant.

«Get along with you!» he shouted, when he had at last made her understand. «I shall have to get someone a bit more on the spot to wait on me; I can tell you that. Yes,» he added to himself as the poor old woman hobbled away, deeply hurt by his bullying manner, «yes, a nice little parlour-maid.»

He hunted in the telephone book for the number of the local registry office. That afternoon he interviewed a succession of maidservants in his uncle's study. Those that happened to be plain, or too obviously respectable, he treated curtly and coldly; they soon made way for others. It was only when a girl was attractive (according to the young man's depraved tastes, that is) and also bore herself in a fast or brazen manner, that the interview was at all prolonged. In these cases the nephew would conclude in a fashion that left no doubt in the minds of any of his auditors as to his real intentions. Once, for example, leaning forward, he took the girl by the chin, saying with an odious smirk, «There's no one else but me, and so you'd be treated just like one of the family, d'you see, my dear?» To another he would say, slipping his arm round her waist, «Do you think we shall get on well together?»

After this conduct had sent two or three in confusion from the room, there entered a young person of the most regrettable description; one whose character, betrayed as it was in her meretricious finery, her crude cosmetics, and her tinted hair, showed yet more clearly in florid gesture and too facile smile. The nephew lost no time in coming to an arrangement with this creature. Indeed, her true nature was so obvious that the depraved young man only went through the farce of an ordinary interview as a sauce to his anticipations, enjoying the contrast between conventional dialogue and unbridled glances. She was to come next day. Mr. Mannering feared more for his unhappy cousin than for himself. «What scenes may she not have to witness,» he thought, «that yellow cheek of hers to incarnadine?» If only he could have said a few words!

But that evening, when the nephew came to take his ease in the study, it was obvious that he was far more under the influence of liquor than he had been before. His face, flushed patchily by the action of the spirits, wore a sullen sneer; an ominous light burned in that bleared eye; he muttered savagely under his breath. Clearly this fiend in human shape was what is known as «fighting drunk»; clearly some trifle had set his vile temper in a blaze.

It is interesting to note, even at this stage, a sudden change in Mr. Mannering's reactions. They now seemed entirely egotistical, and were to be elicited only by stimuli directly associated with physical matters. The nephew kicked a hole in a screen in his drunken fury, he flung a burning cigar-end down on the carpet, he scratched matches on the polished table. His uncle witnessed this with the calm of one whose sense of property and of dignity has become numbed and paralyzed; he felt neither fury nor mortification. Had he, by one of those sudden strides by which all such development takes place, approached much nearer to his goal, complete vegetation? His concern for the threatened modesty of Cousin Jane, which had moved him so strongly only a few hours earlier, must have been the last dying flicker of exhausted altruism; that most human characteristic had faded from him. The change, however, in its present stage, was not an unmixed blessing. Narrowing in from the wider and more expressly human regions of his being, his consciousness now left outside its focus not only pride and altruism, which had been responsible for much of his woe, but fortitude and detachment also, which, with quotations from the Greek, had been his support before the whole battery of his distresses. Moreover, within its constricted circle, his ego was not reduced but concentrated; his serene, flower-like indifference toward the ill-usage of his furniture was balanced by the absorbed, flower-like single-mindedness of his terror at the thought of similar ill-usage directed toward himself.

Inside the study the nephew still fumed and swore. On the mantelpiece stood an envelope, addressed in Mr. Mannering's handwriting to Cousin Jane. In it was the letter he had written from town, describing his nephew's disgraceful conduct. The young man's eye fell upon this and, unscrupulous, impelled by idle curiosity, he took it up and drew out the letter. As he read, his face grew a hundred times blacker than before.

«What,» he muttered, «'a mere race-course cad … a worthless vulgarian … a scoundrel of the sneaking sort' … and what's this? ' … cut him off absolutely …' What?» said he, with a horrifying oath. «Would you cut me off absolutely? Two can play at that game, you old devil!»

And he snatched up a large pair of scissors that lay on the desk, and burst into the hothouse —

Among fish, the dory, they say, screams when it is seized upon by man; among insects, the caterpillar of the death's-head moth is capable of a still, small shriek of terror; in the vegetable world, only the mandrake could voice its agony — till now.

ROMANCE LINGERS ADVENTURE LIVES

There is a great deal of devilry in a bright and windy midnight in the month of March. A little naked moon rides high over Fairlawn Avenue in the heart of the Sweetholme building development. The new houses are chalk-masked by its light, except for their darkened windows, which glare broodingly, like deep-set eyes, or the sockets of eyes. There are some young almond trees, which ordinarily look as if drawn by a childish hand. Now, as the wind sets their weak branches gibbering, they seem like shamanistic scratches on the white bone of the brittle bright night.

The wind causes a man to tuck his chin into his coat collar, to become a mere rag, curved against the wind. His bowler-hatted moon-shadow, apparently cut from a sheet of tin, scythes its way implacably through the asphalt, and seems the better man of the two, probably the real man, the genuine Mr. Watkins. Around the bend, just out of sight, comes another figure, bowler-hatted also, scythe-curved also, also chopping its way through the icy air. It might be the shadow of the shadow. It might be Death. It is, however, only Mr. Gosport.

The carriage from which he alighted out of the midnight train was the farthest from the station barrier. Also, his shoelace came undone. There is an explanation for everything: sometimes two explanations. These two explain why Mr. Gosport was a hundred yards or so behind Mr. Wat-kins.

Mr. Watkins, with his little grin slipped in like a scarf-pin behind his upturned lapels, observed with a stare of desolate and hopeless superiority the monotony of the houses of Fairlawn Avenue. This was the vilest ingratitude, for the uniformity was due to the fact that each was the best possible house at the figure. Watkins, however, having drunk and sung away the Saturday evening in exclusively male company, was full of blood and villainy, intolerant of caution and incapable of gratitude. He decided that on Monday he would rob the bank at which he was employed, and fly to South America, where he would set up a seraglio.

How different were the thoughts of Mr. Gosport, as out of sight, around the bend, he sheared his way into the wind and also regarded the monotony of Fairlawn Avenue! The good Gosport fully realized that each house was the best possible at the price; he knew that each chalky bump was a vertebra in the backbone of the country; he had read that the life of the little man was as full of romance and high adventure as that of any buccaneer of old; columnists had told him that the Fairlawn Avenues of the world are its very jewels, its necklaces of simple joys and sorrows, its rosaries in which each well matched home is a pearl. The only trouble was, he had no great fondness for jewelry, and wished that he was dead. «I am unfit to appreciate the best of all possible lives in the best of all possible building developments,» said he. «Tomorrow I will put my affairs in order, and be specially nice to Milly. On Monday I will go far away, to where there are trees larger than these little almond trees, and I will hang myself upon the branch of one of them.»

Watkins, away ahead, roller-coastered in imagination over the curves of his future seraglio. He was brought to a halt by the appearance of a dim light behind a hall door. «Here we are,» said he. He went up the little path and opened the door, and was at once received into the warmth of domesticity and greeted by the beauty of a three-piece hallway set of a pattern very popular on Fairlawn Avenue.

In a moment, the vigorous Watkins had hung hat and coat upon the peg, switched out the hall light, and was creeping up the stairs to bed.

Still out in the cold, still shearing with sensitive nose the arctic currents of the wind, Mr. Gosport passed the now darkened house. Four doors farther up, his watering eyes perceived a dim light behind a hall-door pane. «Here I am!» said he with a sigh.

Upstairs in the first house, treading soft so as not to wake his sleeping wife, Watkins flung off his clothing, expanded his chest, scratched his rump, donned his pyjamas, and slipped into the bed. His wife acknowledged his entry with a muted whinny.

Here were two human caterpillars, immobile in a cotton cocoon, awaiting the pupescence of sleep, the wings of dream.

There is, however, a great deal of devilry at midnight on a Saturday. What was the influence that drew the lady up from sleep like Sheba's queen from glowing Africa, and reclaimed the gentleman like Solomon from the contemplation of his seraglio? Was it that which had been moribund three years, or was it something totally different? It felt like something totally different.

Something very much the same — that is to say, something totally different — was happening at the very same time to Mr. Gosport.

Both couples slept late on Sunday morning, and when they woke the ladies did what they had not done since honeymoon days. That is to say, they rose smiling in the darkness of the curtained rooms, and hastened downstairs to prepare a morning cup of coffee.

Watkins, waking to full consciousness, heard the clink of the crockery below. He smiled, stretched, sniffed, expanded his chest, and with a coy smile abandoned himself to a warm flood of happiness. This, like a Gulf Stream, bore his thoughts away from South America and set the almonds all ablossoming on Fairlawn Avenue.

Watkins descended the stairs, and entered the little kitchen. There was the steaming coffee; there was a beloved figure in a fresh and flowery wrapper, bending over the gas stove. He bestowed a jovial but appreciative pinch, and took up the newspaper.

«How manly!» thought she.

At the same moment Mr. Gosport was descending the stairs, and in a similar mood. To him also was accorded the scent of new-made coffee, and the sight of a sweet figure in flowered wrapper bending over the stove. He bestowed a lingering and grateful kiss just where the hair twirls in little tendrils at the back of the neck, and took up the newspaper.

«How refined!» thought she.

«Hey, what's this?» said Mr. Watkins, when he had sipped his coffee, and skimmed smilingly over an account of a fugitive bank clerk being arrested at Southampton. «Hey, what's this? Where is the true detective story feature in this Sunday's Telegram?»

«That is not the Telegram,» said the lady, turning in surprise from the stove. «And you,» said she on a rising note, «And you are not my husband.»

With that she fell to the floor, in a faint of the third intensity. «I got into the wrong house last night,» murmured Watkins. «I had better get off home.»

He quickly assembled his clothes and left the house. On his way along the Avenue he passed Mr. Gosport, with whom he was unacquainted. Each was too busy concocting an excuse for staying in town overnight, to take any notice of the other.

Mr. Watkins found Mrs. Watkins, and Mr. Gosport found Mrs. Gosport, highly agitated at the unaccountable absence of their husbands, and too relieved at their return to scrutinize very closely the likelihood of the excuses they made.

They each had a nice cut of beef for their Sunday lunch, and after lunch they took a nap, while their wives looked out of the window. Their dreams were not unpleasant, and when they woke, Fairlawn Avenue no longer seemed so monotonous as to justify resort to crime or suicide. How long this cheerful mood would have lasted without reinforcement it is impossible to say. Fortunately Mrs. Gosport shortly afterwards made the acquaintance of Mrs. Watkins while seeking a strayed kitten, and the two families became the greatest of friends, and spent most of their evenings, their week ends, and their summer holidays together.

This happy relationship altogether banished monotony from Fairlawn Avenue, and it would have persisted to this day, had not a slight coolness arisen last spring owing to Mr. Gosport refusing Mr. Watkins the loan of his lawn mower.

BIRD OF PREY

The house they call the Engineer's house is now deserted. The new man from Baton Rouge gave it up after living less than a month in it, and built himself a two-room shack with his own money, on the very farthest corner of the company's land.

The roof of the Engineer's house has caved in, and most of the windows are broken. Oddly enough, no birds nest in the shelter of the eaves, or take advantage of the forsaken rooms. An empty house is normally fine harborage for rats and mice and bats, but there is no squeak or rustle or scamper to disturb the quiet of this one. Only creatures utterly foreign, utterly remote from the most distant cousinhood to man, only the termite, the tarantula, and the scorpion indifferently make it their home.

All in a few years Edna Spalding's garden has been wiped out as if it had never existed. The porch where she and Jack sat so happily in the evenings is rotten under its load of wind-blown twigs and sand. A young tree has already burst up the boards outside the living-room window, so that they fan out like the stiff fingers of someone who is afraid. In this corner there still stands a strongly made parrot's perch, the wood of which has been left untouched even by the termite and the boring beetle.

The Spaldings brought a parrot with them when first they came. It was a sort of extra wedding present, given them at the last moment by Edna's mother. It was something from home for Edna to take into the wilds.

The parrot was already old, and he was called Tom, and, like other parrots, he sat on his perch, and whistled and laughed and uttered his few remarks, which were often very appropriate. Edna and Jack were both very fond of him, and they were overwhelmingly fond of each other. They liked their house, and the country, and Jack's colleagues, and everything in life seemed to be delightful.

One night they had just fallen asleep when they were awakened by a tremendous squawking and fluttering outside on the porch. «Oh, Jack!» cried Edna. «Get up! Hurry! Run! It's one of those cats from the men's camp has got hold of poor Tom!»

Jack sprang out of bed, but caught his foot in the sheet, and landed on his elbow on the floor. Between rubbing his elbow and disentangling his foot, he wasted a good many seconds before he was up again. Then he dashed through the living-room and out upon the porch.

All this time, which seemed an age, the squawking and fluttering increased, but as he flung open the door it ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The whole porch was bathed in the brightest moonlight, and at the farther end the perch was clearly visible, and on the floor beneath it was poor old Tom parrot, gasping amid a litter of his own feathers, and crying, «Oh! Oh! Oh!»

At any rate he was alive. Jack looked right and left for traces of his assailant, and at once noticed the long, heavy trailers of the trumpet vine were swinging violently, although there was not a breath of wind. He went to the rail and looked out and around, but there was no sign of a cat. Of course, it was not likely there would be. Jack was more interested in the fact that the swaying vines were spread over a length of several feet, which seemed a very great deal of disturbance for a fleeing cat to make. Finally he looked up, and he thought he saw a bird — a big bird, an enormous bird — flying away. He just caught a glimpse of it as it crossed the brightness of the moon.

He turned back and picked up old Tom. The poor parrot's chain was broken, and his heart was pounding away like mad, and still, like a creature hurt and shocked beyond all endurance, he cried, «Oh! Oh! Oh!»

This was all the more odd, for it was seldom the old fellow came out with a new phrase, and Jack would have laughed heartily, except it sounded too pathetic. So he carefully examined the poor bird, and finding no injury beyond the loss of a handful of feathers from his neck, he replaced him on the perch, and turned to reassure Edna, who now appeared in the doorway.

«Is he dead?» cried she.

«No,» said Jack. «He's had a bit of shock, though. Something got hold of him.»

«I'll bring him a piece of sugar,» said Edna. «That's what he loves. That'll make him feel better.»

She soon brought the sugar, which Tom took in his claw, but though usually he would nibble it up with the greatest avidity, this time he turned his lack-lustre eye only once upon it, and gave a short, bitter, despairing sort of laugh, and let it fall to the ground.

«Let him rest,» said Jack. «He has had a bad tousling.»

«It was a cat,» said Edna. «It was one of those beastly cats the men have at the camp.»

«Maybe,» said Jack. «On the other hand — I don't know. I thought I saw an enormous bird flying away.»

«It couldn't be an eagle,» said Edna. «There are none ever seen here.»

«I know,» said Jack. «Besides, they don't fly at night. Nor do the buzzards. It might have been an owl, I suppose. But —»

«But what?» said Edna.

«But it looked very much larger than an owl,» said Jack.

«It was your fancy,» said Edna. «It was one of those beastly cats that did it.»

This point was discussed very frequently during the next few days. Everybody was consulted, and everybody had an opinion. Jack might have been a little doubtful at first, for he had caught only the briefest glimpse as the creature crossed the moon, but opposition made him more certain, and the discussions sometimes got rather heated.

«Charlie says it was all your imagination,» said Edna. «He says no owl would ever attack a parrot.»

«How the devil does he know?» said Jack. «Besides, I said it was bigger than an owl.»

«He says that shows you imagine things,» said Edna.

«Perhaps he would like me to think I do,» said Jack. «Perhaps you both would.»

«Oh, Jack!» cried Edna. She was deeply hurt, and not without reason, for it showed that Jack was still thinking of a ridiculous mistake he had made, a real mistake, of the sort that young husbands sometimes do make, when they come suddenly into a room and people are startled without any real reason for it. Charlie was young and free and easy and good-looking, and he would put his hand on your shoulder without even thinking about it, and nobody minded.

«I should not have said that,» said Jack.

«No, indeed you shouldn't,» said Edna, and she was right.

The parrot said nothing at all. All these days he had been moping and ailing, and seemed to have forgotten even how to ask for sugar. He only groaned and moaned to himself, ruffled up his feathers, and every now and then shook his head in the most rueful, miserable way you can possibly imagine.

One day, however, when Jack came home from work, Edna put her finger to her lips and beckoned him to the window. «Watch Tom,» she whispered.

Jack peered out. There was the old bird, lugubriously climbing down from his perch and picking some dead stalks from the vine, which he carried up till he gained a corner where the balustrade ran into the wall, and added his gatherings to others that were already there. He trod round and round, twisted his stalks in and out, and, always with the same doleful expression, paid great attention to the nice disposition of a feather or two, a piece of wood, a fragment of cellophane. There was no doubt about it.

«There's no doubt about it,» said Jack.

«He's making a nest!» cried Edna.

«He!» cried Jack. «He! I like that. The old impostor! The old male impersonator! She's going to lay an egg. Thomasina — that's her name from now on.»

Thomasina it was. Two or three days later the matter was settled beyond the shadow of a doubt. There, one morning, in the ramshackle nest, was an egg.

«I thought she was sick because of that shaking she got,» said Jack. «She was broody, that's all.»

«It's a monstrous egg,» said Edna. «Poor birdie.»

«What do you expect, after God knows how many years?» said Jack, laughing. «Some birds lay eggs nearly as big as themselves — the kiwi or something. Still, I must admit it's a whopper.»

«She doesn't look well,» said Edna.

Indeed, the old parrot looked almost as sick as a parrot can be, which is several times sicker than any other living creature. Her eyes closed up, her head sank, and if a finger was put out to scratch her she turned her beak miserably away. However, she sat conscientiously on the prodigious egg she had laid, though every day she seemed a little feebler than before.

«Perhaps we ought to take the egg away,» said Jack. «We could get it blown, and keep it as a memento.»

«No,» said Edna. «Let her have it. It's all she's had in all these years.»

Here Edna made a mistake, and she realized it a few mornings later. «Jack,» she called. «Do come. It's Tom — Thomasina, I mean. I'm afraid she's going to die.»

«We ought to have taken the egg away,» said Jack, coming out with his mouth full of breakfast. «She's exhausted herself. It's no good, anyway. It's bound to be sterile.»

«Look at her!» cried Edna.

«She's done for,» said Jack, and at that moment the poor old bird keeled over and gasped her last.

«The egg killed her,» said Jack, picking it up. «I said it would. Do you want to keep it? Oh, good Lord!» He put the egg down very quickly. «It's alive,» he said.

«What?» said Edna. «What do you mean?»

«It gave me a turn,» said Jack. «It's most extraordinary. It's against nature. There's a chick inside that egg, tapping.»

«Let it out,» said Edna. «Break the shell.»

«I was right,» said Jack. «It was a bird I saw. It must have been a stray parrot. Only it looked so big.»

«I'm going to break the shell with a spoon,» said Edna, running to fetch one.

«It'll be a lucky bird,» said Jack when she returned. «Born with a silver spoon in its beak, so to speak. Be careful.»

«I will,» said Edna. «Oh, I do hope it lives!»

With that she gingerly cracked the shell, the tapping increased, and soon they saw a well-developed beak tearing its way through. In another moment the chick was born.

«Golly!» cried Jack. «What a monster!»

«It's because it's young,» said Edna. «It'll grow lovely. Like its mother.»

«Maybe,»said Jack. «I must be off. Put it in the nest. Feed it pap. Keep it warm. Don't monkey with it too much. Goodbye, my love.»

That morning Jack telephoned home two or three times to find out how the chick was, and if it ate. He rushed home at lunchtime. In the evening everyone came round to peep at the nestling and offer advice.

Charlie was there. «It ought to be fed every hour at least,» said he. «That's how it is in nature.»

«He's right,» said Jack. «For the first month at least, that's how it should be.»

«It looks as if I'm going to be tied down a bit,» said Edna ruefully.

«I'll look in when I pass and relieve your solitude,» said Charlie.

«I'll manage to rush home now and then in the afternoons,» said Jack, a little too thoughtfully.

Certainly the hourly feeding seemed to agree with the chick, which grew at an almost alarming speed. It became covered with down, feathers sprouted; in a few months it was fully grown, and not in the least like its mother. For one thing, it was coal-black.

«It must be a hybrid,» said Jack. «There is a black parrot; I've seen them in zoos. They didn't look much like this, though. I've half a mind to send a photograph of him somewhere.»

«He looks so wicked,» said Edna.

«He looks cunning,» said Jack. «That bird knows everything, believe me. I bet he'll talk soon.»

«It gave a sort of laugh, »said Edna. «I forgot to tell you.»

«When?» cried Jack. «A laugh?»

«Sort of,» said Edna. «But it was horrible. It made Charlie nearly jump out of his skin.»

«Charlie?» cried Jack. «You didn't say he'd been here.»

«Well, you know how often he drops in,» said Edna.

«Do I?» said Jack. «I hope I do. God! What was that?»

«That's what I meant,» said Edna. «A sort of laugh.»

«What a horrible sound!» said Jack.

«Listen, Jack,» said Edna. «I wish you wouldn't be silly about Charlie. You are, you know.»

Jack looked at her. «I know I am,» said he. «I know it when I look at you. And then I think I never will be again. But somehow it's got stuck in my mind, and the least little thing brings it out. Maybe I'm just a bit crazy, on that one subject.»

«Well, he'll be transferred soon,» said Edna. «And that'11 be the end of it.»

«Where did you hear that?» said Jack.

«He told me this afternoon,» said Edna. «He was on his way back from getting the mail when he dropped in. That's why he told me first. Otherwise he'd have told you first. Only he hasn't seen you yet. Do you see?»

«Yes, I see,» said Jack. «I wish I could be psychoanalyzed or something.»

Soon Charlie made his farewells, and departed for his job on the company's other project. Edna was secretly glad to see him go. She wanted no problems, however groundless, to exist between herself and Jack. A few days later she felt sure that all the problems were solved forever.

«Jack,» said she when he came home in the evening.

«Yes, »said he.

«Something new,» said she. «Don't play with that bird. Listen to me.»

«Call him Polly,» said Jack. They had named it Polly to be on the safe side. «You don't want to call him 'that bird.' The missus doesn't love you, Poll.»

«Do you know, I don't!» said Edna, with quite startling vehemence. «I don't like him at all, Jack. Let's give him away.»

«What? For heaven's sake!» cried Jack. «This rare, black, specially hatched Poll? This parrot of romantic origin? The cleverest Poll that ever —»

«That's it,» said Edna. «He's too darned clever. Jack, I hate him. He's horrible.»

«What? Has he said something you don't like?» said Jack, laughing. «I bet he will, when he talks. But what's the news, anyway?»

«Come inside,» said Edna. «I'm not going to tell you with that creature listening.» She led the way into the bedroom. «The news is,» said she, «that I've got to be humoured. And if I don't like anything, it's got to be given away. It's not going to be born with a beak because its mother was frightened by a hateful monstrosity of a parrot.»

«What?» said Jack.

«That's what,» said Edna, smiling and nodding.

«A brat?» cried Jack in delight. «A boy! Or a, girl! It's bound to be one or the other. Listen, I was afraid to tell you how much I wanted one, Edna. Oh, boy! This is going to make everything very, very fine. Lie down. You're delicate. Put your feet up. I'm going to fix dinner. This is practice. Stay still. Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Or girl as the case maybe!»

He went out through the living-room on his way to the kitchen. As he passed the window he caught sight of the parrot on the dark porch outside, and he put his head through to speak to it.

«Have you heard the news?» said he. «Behold a father! You're going to be cut right out, my bird. You're going to be given away. Yes, sir, it's a baby.»

The parrot gave a long low whistle. «You don't say so?» said he in a husky voice, a voice of apprehension, a quite astonishing imitation of Charlie's voice. «What about Jack?»

«What's that?» said Jack, startled.

«He'll think it's his,» whispered the parrot in Edna's voice. «He's fool enough for anything. Kiss me, darling. Phew-w-w! You don't say so? What about Jack? He'll think it's his, he's fool enough for anything. Kiss me, darling. Phew-w-w!»

Jack went out into the kitchen, and sat down with his head in his hands for several minutes.

«Hurry up!» cried Edna from the bedroom. «Hurry up — Father!»

«I'm coming,» said Jack.

He went to his desk, and took out the revolver. Then he went into the bedroom.

At the sound of the cry and the shot, the parrot laughed. Then, lifting its claw, it took the chain in its beak, and bit through it as if it were paper.

Jack came out, holding the gun, his hand over his eyes. «Fool enough for anything!» said the parrot, and laughed.

Jack turned the gun on himself. As he did so, in the infinitesimal interval between the beginning and the end of the movement of his finger on the trigger, he saw the bird grow, spread its dark wings, and its eyes flamed, and it changed, and it launched itself toward him.

The gun went off. Jack dropped to the floor. The parrot, or whatever it was, sailing down, seized what came out of his ruined mouth, and wheeled back through the window, and was soon far away, visible for a moment only as it swept on broader wings past the new-arisen moon.

VARIATION ON A THEME

A young man, with a bowler hat, cane, flaxen mustache, and blue suit, was looking at a gorilla in a zoo. All about him were cages floored with squares of desert. On these yellow flats, like precise false statements of equatorial latitudes, lay the shadows of bars. There were nutshells, banana skins, fading lettuce; there were the cries of birds who believed themselves mewed up because they were mad, the obeisances of giraffes, the yawns of lions. In an imitation of moon crags, mountain goats bore about ignobly eyes that were pieces of moon. The elephants, grey in a humidity of grass and dung, shifted from one foot to another. Jurassic days, it seemed, would quite definitely never be here again. Mice, moving with the speed of a nervous twitch, were bold in the freedom of a catastrophe of values.

Perceiving that they were alone, the gorilla addressed the young man in an imitation of the American accent, which he affected for reasons of his own. «Pal, you look a decent sort of guy. Get me a suit like yours, only larger, a bowler hat, and a cane. I guess I can do without the mustache. I want to get out of here. I got ambitions.»

The young man was greatly taken aback to hear a gorilla speak. However, common sense reminded him that he was in a city in which many creatures enjoyed that faculty, whom, at first sight, or at any hearing, one would hardly credit with sufficient intelligence to have attained it. He therefore recovered from his wonder, but, having a nice sense of distinctions, he replied to the gorilla, «I do not see that I can do that, for the place for a gorilla is either a cage or the Congo. In the society of men you would be like a fish out of water, a bull in a china shop, or a round peg in a square hole. You would be a cause of embarrassment, and would therefore yourself be embarrassed. You would be treated as an alien, disdained on account of your complexion, and slighted because of your facial angle.»

The gorilla was very much mortified by this reply, for he was extremely vain. «Here,» he said, «you don't want to say that sort of thing. I'm a writer. Write you anything you like. I've written a novel.»

«That alters the situation entirely!» cried the young man with enthusiasm. «I am a novelist myself, and am always ready to lend a hand to a struggling fellow author. Tell me one thing only, and my services are yours. Have you genius?»

«Yes,» said the gorilla, «I certainly have.»

«In that case,» said the young man, «I shall bring your suit, hat, cane, shoes, and body-linen at this hour tomorrow. I will also bring you a file, and you will find me awaiting you under the large chestnut tree by the West Gate, at the hour of dusk.»

The gorilla had not expected the file. As a matter of fact, he had asked for the outfit, not for purposes of escape, but in order to cut a figure before the public. He was rather like one of those prisoners who wrote from old Spain, and who were more interested in what they got in than in how they got out. However, he hated to waste anything, so, having received the file, he put it to such use as enabled him to join his benefactor under the dark and summer tree.

The young man, intoxicated by his own good action, shook the gorilla warmly by the hand. «My dear fellow,» said he, «I cannot say how glad I am to see you out here among us. I am sure you have written a great novel in there; all the same, bars are very dangerous to literary men in the long run. You will find my little house altogether more propitious to your genius. Don't think that we are too desperately dull, however; everyone drops in on Sundays, and during the week we have a little dinner or two, at which you will meet the sort of people you should know. By the way, I hope you have not forgotten your manuscript.»

«Fellow came snooping in just as I was making my getaway,» said the gorilla. «So I had to dump it. See?» This was the most villainous lie in the world, for the unscrupulous ape had never written so much as a word.

«What a terrible pity!» cried the young man in dismay. «I suppose you feel you will have to return to it.»

«Not me,» said the gorilla, who had been watching some singularly handsome limousines pass the spot where they were standing, and had noticed the faultless complexions and attractive toilettes of the ladies whom these limousines were conveying from one party to another. «No,» said he. «Never mind. I got the whole thing in my head. You put me up; I'll write it out all over again. So don't worry.»

«Upon my word, I admire your spirit!» cried his deliverer enthusiastically. «There is something uncommercial about that, which appeals to me more than I can say. I am sure you are right; the work will be even more masterly for being written over again. A thousand little felicities, necessarily brushed aside in the first headlong torrent of creativeness, will now assert their claims. Your characters will appear, so to speak, more in the round than formerly. You will forget some little details, though of course you will invent others even more telling; very well, those that you forget will be the real shadows, which will impart this superior roundness to your characters. Oh, there is nothing like literature! You shall have a little study on the second floor, quiet, austere, but not uncomfortable, where you shall reconstruct your great work undisturbed. It will undoubtedly be the choice of the Book Society, and I really don't see why we should not hope for the Hawthornden as well.»

By this time they were strolling along under the dozing trees, each of which was full-gorged with a large block of the day's heat, still undigested, and breathed spicily upon them as they passed below.

«We live quite near here,» said the enthusiast. «My wife will be delighted to make your acquaintance. You two are going to be great friends. Here is the house. It is small, but luckily it is of just the right period, and, as you see, we have the finest wisteria in London.» Saying this, he pushed open a little wooden gate, one of some half-dozen in a quiet cul-de-sac, which still preserved its Queen Anne serenity and charm. The gorilla, looking discontentedly at certain blocks of smart modern flats that towered up on either hand, said never a word.

The front garden was very small. It had flagstones, irises, and an amusing urn, overflowing with the smouldering red of geraniums, which burned in the velvet dark like the cigarette ends of the lesser gods.

«We have a larger patch behind,» said the young man, «where there is a grass plot, nicotianas, and deck chairs in the shade of a fig tree. Come in, my dear fellow, come in! Joanna, where are you? Here is our new friend.»

«I hope,» said the gorilla in a low voice, «you ain't given her the low-down on you know what.»

«No, no,» whispered his host. «I have kept our little secret. A gentleman from Africa, I said — who has genius.»

There was no time for more. Mrs. Grantly was descending the stairs. She was tall, with pale hair caught up in an unstudied knot behind, and a full-skirted gown which was artistic but not unfashionable.

«This is Ernest Simpson,» said her husband. «My dear, Mr. Simpson has written a book which is going to create more than a passing stir. Unfortunately he has lost the manuscript, but (what do you think?) he has consented to stay with us while he rewrites it. He has it all in his head.»

«How perfectly delightful!» cried Mrs. Grantly. «We live terribly simply here, I'm afraid, but at least you will be quiet. Will you wash your hands? There is a little supper waiting for us in the dining-room.»

The gorilla, not accustomed to being treated with so much consideration, took refuge in an almost sullen silence. During the meal he spoke mostly in monosyllables, and devoured a prodigious number of bananas, and his hostess, with teeth and eyes respectively.

The young couple were as delighted by their visitor as children with a new toy. «He is unquestionably dynamic, original, and full of that true simplicity which is perhaps the clearest hall-mark of genius,» said the young man when they were in bed together. «Did you notice him with the bananas?»

Mrs. Grantly folded her husband in her arms, which were delightfully long and round. «It will be wonderful,» she said. «How I look forward to the day when both your books are published! He must meet the Booles and the Terrys. What discussions you will have! How delightful life is, to those who care for art!» They gave each other a score of kisses, talked of the days when first they had met, and fell happily asleep.

In the morning there was a fine breakfast, with fruit juice, cereals, bacon and mushrooms, and the morning papers. The gorilla was shown his little study; he tried the chairs and the sofa, and looked at himself in the glass.

«Do you think you will be happy here?» asked Mr. Grantly very anxiously. «Is the room conducive to the right mood, do you think? There are cigarettes in that box; there's a lavatory across the landing. If you'd care to try a pipe, I have a tobacco jar I'll send up here. What about the desk? Is there everything on it that you'll require?»

«I shall manage. I shall manage,» said the gorilla, still looking at himself in the glass.

«If there's anything you want, don't hesitate to ring that bell,» said his host. «I've told the maids that you are now one of the family. I'm in the front room on the floor below if you want me. Well, I suppose you are burning to get to work. Till lunchtime, then!» And with that he took his leave of the gorilla, who continued to stare at himself in the glass.

When he was tired of this, which was not for some time, he ate a few of the cigarettes, opened all the drawers, had a look up the chimney, estimated the value of the furniture, exposed his teeth very abominably, scratched, and finally flung himself on the sofa and began to make his plans.

He was of that nature which sets down every disinterested civility as a sign of weakness. Moreover, he regarded his host as a ham novelist as well as a milksop, for he had not heard a single word about percentages since he entered the house. «A washout! A highbrow!» he said. «A guy like that giving the handout to a guy like me, eh? We'll soon alter that. The question is, how?»

This gorilla wanted suits of a very light grey, pearl tie-pins, a noticeable automobile, blondes, and the society of the boys. Nevertheless, his vanity itself was greedy, and snatched at every crumb; he was unable to resist the young man's enthusiasm for his nonexistent novel, and instead of seeking his fortune as a heavyweight pug, he convinced himself in good earnest that he was a writer, unjustly hindered by the patronage and fussing of a bloodsucking so-called intellectual. He turned the pages of half the books in the bookcase to see the sort of thing he should do, but found it rather hard to make a start. «This goddam place stifles me,» he said.

«What's your plot like?» said he to the young man, one day soon afterwards, when they were sitting in the shade of the fig tree.

Grantly was good enough to recite the whole of his plot. «It sounds very trifling,» he said, «but of course a lot depends on the style.»

«Style? Style, the hell!» observed the gorilla with a toothy sneer.

«I thought you'd say that!» cried his entertainer. «No doubt you have all the vitality that I so consciously lack. I imagine your work as being very close to the mainsprings of life, the sultry passions, the crude lusts, the vital urges, the stark, the raw, the dynamic, the essentially fecund and primitive.»

«That's it,» said the gorilla.

«The sentence,» continued the rhapsodist, «short to the point of curtness, attuned by a self-concealing art to the grunts, groans, and screams of women with great primeval paps, and men —»

«Sure,» said the gorilla.

«They knock each other down,» went on his admirer. «As they taste the salt blood flowing over their lips, or see the female form suddenly grow tender under the influence of innumerable upper-cuts, right hooks, straight lefts, they become aware of another emotion —»

«Yes!» cried the gorilla with enthusiasm.

«And with a cry that is half a sob—»

«Attaboy!» cried the gorilla.

«They leap, clutch, grapple, and in an ecstasy that is half sheer bursting, burning, grinding, soul-shattering pain —»

The gorilla, unable to contain himself any longer, bit through the best branch of Mr. Grantly's fig tree. «You said it! That's my book, sir!» said he, with a mouthful of splinters.

I hate to have to record it: this gorilla then rushed into the house and seized his hostess in a grip of iron. «I'm in a creative mood,» he muttered thickly.

Mrs. Grantly was not altogether free from hero worship. She had taken her husband's word for it that the gorilla was a genius of the fiercest description. She admired both his complexion and his eyes, and she, too, observed that his grip was of iron.

At the same time, she was a young woman of exquisite refinement. «I can't help thinking of Dennis,» said she. «I should hate to hurt him.»

«Yeah?» cried the ill-bred anthropoid. «That poor fish? That ham writer? That bum artist? Don't you worry about him. I'll beat him up, baby! I'll —»

Mrs. Grantly interrupted him with some dignity. She was one of those truly noble women who would never dream of betraying their husbands, except at the bidding of a genuine passion, and with expressions of the most tender esteem.

«Let me go, Ernest,» she said, with such an air as compelled the vain ape to obey her. This ape, like all vulgarians, was very sensitive to any hint that he appeared low. «You do not raise yourself in my opinion by disparaging Dennis,» she continued. «It merely shows you are lacking in judgment, not only of men but of women.»

«Aw, cut it out, Joanna,» begged the humiliated gorilla. «See here: I only forgot myself. You know what we geniuses are!»

«If you were not a genius,» said Joanna, «I should have you turned out of the house. As it is — you shall have another chance.»

The gorilla had not the spirit to interpret these last words as liberally as some of us might. Perhaps it was because he had lived so long behind bars, but they fell upon his ear as upon that of some brutalized coward snuffling in the dock. The timid husky saw no invitation in Mrs. Grantly's smile, and he was panic-stricken at the thought of losing his snug quarters.

«Say, you won't split on me, sister?» he muttered.

«No, no,» said Mrs. Grantly. «One takes the commonsense view of these trifles. But you must behave more nicely in future.»

«Sure,» said he, much relieved. «I'll start in working right now.»

He went straightaway up to his room, looked at himself in the glass, and thus, oddly enough, recovered his damaged self-esteem. «I'll show those po' whites how to treat a gentleman,» said he.

«What did that poor worm say? 'Leap-clutch-grapple —' Oh, boy! Oh, boy! This book's goin' to sell like hot cakes.»

He scribbled away like the very devil. His handwriting was atrocious, but what of that? His style was not the best in the world, but he was writing about life in the raw. A succession of iron grips, such as the one he had been forced to loosen, of violent consummations, interruptions, beatings-up, flowed from his pen, interspersed with some bitter attacks on effete civilization, and many eulogies of the primitive.

«This'll make 'em sit up,» said he. «This'll go big.»

When he went down to supper, he noticed some little chilliness in Mrs. Grantly's demeanour. This was no doubt due to his cowardly behaviour in the afternoon. He trusted no one, and now became damnably afraid she would report his conduct to her husband; consequently he was the more eager to get his book done, so that he should be independent and in a position to revenge himself. He went upstairs immediately after the meal, and toiled away till past midnight, writing like one who confesses to a Sunday newspaper.

Before many days had passed in this fashion, he was drawing near the end of his work, when the Grantlys announced to him, with all the appearance of repressed excitement, that the best selling of all novelists was coming to dine with them. The gorilla looked forward to the evening with equal eagerness; he looked forward to gleaning a tip or two.

The great man arrived; his limousine was sufficiently resplendent. The big ape eyed him with the very greatest respect all through the meal. Afterwards they sat about and took coffee, just as ordinary people do. «I hear,» said the Best-Seller to Grantly, «that you are just finishing a novel.»

«Oh, a poor thing!» said the good-natured fellow. «Simpson, here, is the man who's going to set the Thames on fire. I fear my stuff is altogether too niggling. It is a sort of social satire, I touch a little on the Church, War, Peace, Fascism, Communism — one or two things of that sort, but hardly in a full-blooded fashion. I wish I could write something more primitive — fecund women, the urge of lust, blood hatred, all that, you know.»

«Good heavens, my dear Grantly!» cried the great man. «This comes of living so far out of the world. You really must move to some place more central. Public taste is on the change. I can assure you, that before your book can be printed, Mr. P—» (he mentioned the critic who makes or breaks) «will no longer be engaged, but married, and to a young woman of Junoesque proportions. What chance do you think the urge of lust will have with poor P—, after a month of his marriage to this magnificently proportioned young woman? No, no, my boy, stick to social satire. Put a little in about feminism, if you can find room for it. Guy the cult of the he-man, and its effect on deluded women, and you're safe for a record review. You'll be made.»

«I've got something of that sort in it,» said Grantly with much gratification, for authors are like beds; even the most artistic requires to be made.

«Who's doing the book for you?» continued his benevolent mentor. «You must let me give you a letter to my publisher. Nothing is more disheartening than hawking a book round the market, and having it returned unread. But Sykes is good enough to set some weight on my judgment; in fact, I think I may say, without boasting, you can look on the matter as settled.»

«Say, you might give me a letter, tool» cried the gorilla, who had been listening in consternation to the great man's discourse.

«I should be delighted, Mr. Simpson,» returned that worthy with great suavity. «But you know what these publishers are. Pigheaded isn't the word for them. Well, Grantly, I must be getting along. A delightful evening! Mrs. Grantly,» said he, slapping his host on the shoulder, «this is the man who is going to make us old fossils sit up. Take care of him. Give him some more of that delicious zabaglione. Good night! Good night!»

The gorilla was tremendously impressed by the great man's manner, his confidence, his pronouncements, his spectacles, his limousine, and above all by the snub he had given him, for such creatures are always impressed by that sort of thing. «That guy knows the works,» he murmured in dismay. «Say, I been barking up the wrong tree! I oughta gone in for style.»

The Grantlys returned from the hall, where they had accompanied their visitor, and it was obvious from their faces that they, too, placed great reliance on what they had heard. I am not sure that Mr. Grantly did not rub his hands.

«Upon my word!» he said. «It certainly sounds likely enough. Have you seen poor P—'s fiancée? His views will certainly change. Ha! Ha! Supposing, my dear, I became a best-seller?»

«It's terribly exciting!» cried Joanna. «Will it change your idea of going on a cruise when first the book comes out?»

«No, no,» said he. «I think an author should detach himself from that side, however gratifyingly it may develop. I want to know nothing of the book from the moment it appears till it is forgotten.»

«What? You going to spend a coupla days at Brighton?» struck in the gorilla bitterly.

«Ha! Ha! What a satirist you would make!» cried Grantly with the greatest good nature. «No. We thought of going for a trip round the world. I agree a shorter absence would outlast whatever stir the book may make; however, we want to see the sights.»

The gorilla wrote never a word that night. He was overcome with mortification. He could not bear to think of the Grantlys sailing around the world, while the book he had despised piled up enormous royalties at home. Still less could he bear the thought of staying behind, left without a patron, and with his own book piling up no royalties at all. He saw a species of insult in his host's «striking gold,» as he termed it, and then turning his back on it in this fashion.

«That guy don't deserve the boodle!» he cried in anguish of spirit. In fact, he uttered this sentiment so very often during the night that in the end an idea was born of its mere repetition.

During the next few days he hastily and carelessly finished his own masterpiece, to have it ready against the coup he planned. In a word, this vile ape had resolved to change the manuscripts. He had alternative title pages, on which the names of the authors were transposed, typed in readiness. When at last the good Grantly announced that his work was complete, the gorilla announced the same; the two parcels were done up on the same evening, and the plotter was insistent in his offers to take them to the post

Grantly was the more willing to permit this, as he and his wife were already busy with preparations for their departure. Shortly afterwards, they took their farewell of the gorilla, and, pressing into his hand a tidy sum to meet his immediate necessities, they wished his book every success, and advised that his next should be a satire.

The cunning ape bade them enjoy themselves, and took up his quarters in Bloomsbury, where he shortly had the pleasure of receiving a letter from the publishers to say that they were accepting the satirical novel which he had sent them.

He now gave himself airs as a writer, and got all the publicity he could. On one occasion, however, he was at a party, where he beheld a woman of Junoesque proportions in the company of a bilious weakling. The party was a wild one, and he had no scruples about seizing her in a grip of iron, regardless of the fury of her companion. This incident made little impression on his memory, for he attended a great many Bloomsbury parties.

All the same, nothing is entirely unimportant. It so happened that the bilious weakling was no other than P—, the greatest of critics, and the Junoesque lady was his promised spouse. The critic reviewed her behaviour very bitterly, the engagement was broken off, and you may be sure he noted the name of the author of his misfortunes.

Very well, the two books came out: Grantly's, which the gorilla had stolen, and the gorilla's own raw outpourings, which now appeared under the name of Dennis Grantly. By a coincidence, they appeared on the same day. The gorilla opened the most influential of the Sunday newspapers, and saw the stimulating headline, «Book of the Century.»

«That's me!» said he, smacking his lips, and, fixing a hungry gaze on the letter-press, he discovered to his horror that it actually was. The critic, still a celibate, and by now an embittered one also, had selected the anthropoid's original tough stuff as being «raw, revealing, sometimes dangerously frank, at all times a masterpiece of insight and passion.» Farther down, in fact at the very bottom of the column, the stolen satire was dismissed in two words only —«unreadably dull.»

As if this misfortune was not sufficient, the next day, when the poor gorilla was leaving his lodgings, a young man in a black shirt tapped him on the shoulder and asked him if he was Mr. Simpson. The gorilla replying in the affirmative, the black shirt introduced him to a dozen or so friends of his, similarly attired and armed with black jacks and knuckle dusters. It appeared that these young gentlemen disapproved of certain references Grantly had made to their association, and had decided to give the wretched Simpson a beating-up by way of acknowledgment.

The gorilla fought like a demon, but was overpowered by numbers. In the end he was battered insensible and left lying in the mews where the ceremony had taken place. It was not until the next morning that he was able to drag himself home. When he arrived there, he found a bevy of lawyers' clerks and policemen inquiring for him. It appeared that Dennis, for all his delicacy and restraint, bad been guilty of blasphemy, ordinary libel, obscene libel, criminal libel, sedition, and other things, in his references to the State, the Church, and so forth. «Who would have thought,» the gorilla moaned bitterly, «that there was all that in a little bit of style?»

During the various trials, he sat in a sullen silence, caring only to look at the newspapers, which contained advertisements of the book he had substituted for Grantly's. When the sales passed a hundred thousand, he became violent, and insulted the judge. When they reached double that figure he made a despairing attempt at confession, but this was put down as a clumsy simulation of insanity. In the end his sentences amounted to a book in themselves, and were issued in serial form. He was carted off, and put behind the bars.

«All this,» said he, «comes of wanting a suit of clothes for the public to see me in. I've got the clothes, but I don't like them, and the public aren't allowed in anyway.» This gave him a positive hatred of literature, and one who hates literature, and is moreover in prison for an interminable period of years, is in a truly miserable condition.

As for Dennis Grantly: by the time he returned he was so much the fashionable author that he never found a moment in which to open a book again, and thus he remained happily ignorant of the fraud. His wife, when she reflected on the fame and riches won by her husband, and remembered that afternoon when she had been almost too favourably impressed by the iron grip of the primitive, frequently went up to him and gave him art uninvited hug and kiss, and these hugs and kisses afforded him a very delicious gratification.

NIGHT YOUTH PARIS AND THE MOON

Annoyed with the world, I took a large studio in Hampstead. Here I resolved to live in utter aloofness, until the world should approach me on its knees, whining its apologies.

The studio was large and high; so was the rent. Fortunately my suit was strongly made, and I had a tireless appetite for herrings. I lived here happily and frugally, pleased with the vast and shadowy room, and with the absurd little musicians' gallery, on which I set my phonograph a-playing. I approved also of the little kitchen, the bathroom, the tiny garden, and even the damp path, sad with evergreens, that led to the street beyond. I saw no one. My mood was that of a small bomb, but one which had no immediate intention of going off.

Although I had no immediate intention of going off, I was unable to resist buying a large trunk, which I saw standing outside a junkshop. I was attracted by its old-fashioned appearance, for I myself hoped to become old-fashioned; by its size, because I am rather small; by its curved lid, for I was always fond of curves, and most of all by a remark on the part of the dealer, who stood picking his nose in the disillusioned doorway of his shop. «A thing like that,» said he, «is always useful.»

I paid four pounds, and had the large black incubus taken to my studio on a hand-barrow. There I stood it on the little gallery, which, for no reason, ran along the farther end.

This transaction having left me without money, I felt it necessary to sublet my studio. This was a wrench. I telephoned the agents; soon they arranged to bring a client of theirs, one Stewart Musgrave, to inspect my harmless refuge. I agreed, with some reserve. «I propose to absent myself during this inspection. You will find the key in the door. Later you can inform me if my studio is taken.»

Later they informed me that my studio was taken. «I win leave,» I said, «at four o'clock on Friday. The interloper can come at four-thirty. He will find the key in the door.»

Just before four on Friday, I found myself confronted with a problem. On letting one's studio, one locks one's clothes in a press reserved for the purpose. This I did, but was then nude. One has to pack one's trunk. I had a trunk but nothing to put in it. I had bidden the world farewell. Here was my studio — sublet. There was the world. For practical purposes there is very little else anywhere.

The hour struck. I cut the Gordian knot, crossed the Rubicon, burned my boats, opened my trunk, and climbed inside. At four-thirty the interloper arrived. With bated breath I looked out through my little air-and-peep-hole. This was a surprise. I had bargained for a young man of no personal attractions. Stewart Musgrave was a young woman of many.

She had a good look around, pulled out every drawer, peeped into every corner. She bounced herself on the big divan-bed. She even came up onto the little useless gallery, leaned over, recited a line or two of Juliet, and then she approached my modest retreat. «I won't open you,» she said. «There might be a body in you.» I thought this showed a fine instinct. Her complexion was divine.

There is a great deal of interest in watching a handsome young woman who imagines herself to be alone in a large studio. One never knows what she will do next. Often, when lying there alone, I had not known what I would do next. But then I was alone. She, too, thought she was alone, but I knew better. This gave me a sense of mastery, of power.

On the other hand, I soon loved her to distraction. The hell of it was, I had a shrewd suspicion she did not love me. How could she?

At night, while she slept in an appealing attitude, I crept downstairs, and into the kitchen, where I cleaned up the crockery, her shoes, and some chicken I found in the icebox. «There is,» she said to a friend, «a pixie in this studio.» «Leave out some milk,» said her friend.

Everything went swimmingly. Nothing could have been more delicate than the unspoken love that grew up between the disillusioned world-weary poet and the beautiful young girl-artist, so fresh, so natural, and so utterly devoid of self-consciousness.

On one occasion, I must admit, I tripped over the corner of a rug. «Who is there?» she cried, waking suddenly from a dream of having her etchings lovingly appraised by a connoisseur.

«A mouse,» I telepathed squeakingly, standing very still. She sank into sleep again.

She was more rudely put to sleep some days later. She came in, after being absent most of the evening, accompanied by a man to whom I took an immediate dislike. My instinct never fails me; he had not been in the studio half an hour before he gave her occasion to say, «Pray don't!»

«Yes,» said he.

«No,» said she.

«I must,» said he.

«You mustn't,» said she.

«I will,» said he.

«You won't,» said she.

A vestige of refined feeling would have assured him that there was no possibility of happiness between people so at variance on every point. There should be at least some zone of enthusiastic agreement between every couple; for example, the milk. But whatever his feelings were, they were not refined.

«Why did you bring me here?» said he with a sneer.

«To see my etchings,» she replied, biting her lip.

«Well, then — I thought you were a customer.»

«I am. A tough customer.» With that he struck her on the temple. She fell, mute, inanimate, crumpled.

«Damn it!» said he. «I've killed her. I've done her in. I shall swing. Unless — I escape.»

I was forced to admire the cold logic of it. It was, momentarily, the poet's unreasoning prostration before the man of action, the worldling.

Quickly he undressed her. «Gosh!» he said. «What a pity I hit so hard!» He flung her over his shoulder, retaining her legs in his grasp. He bore her up the stairs, onto the shadowy balcony. He opened the trunk and thrust her inside. «Here is a fine thing!» I thought. «Here she is, in her condition, alone with me, in my condition. If she knew she was dead she'd be glad.» The thought was bitter.

With the dawn he went for a taxi. The driver came in with him; together they bore the trunk to the vehicle waiting outside.

«Strewth, it's heavy!» said the driver. «What yer got in it?»

«Books,» said the murderer, with the utmost calm.

If I had thought of saying, «Paradise Lost, in two volumes,» I should have said it, then and there, and this story would have come to an end. As it was, we were hoisted on to the cab, which drove off in the direction of Victoria.

A jet of cool night air flowed through the air-hole. She, whom I had mourned as dead, inhaled it, and breathed a sigh. Soon she was fully conscious.

«Who are you?» she asked in alarm.

«My name,» I said tactfully, «is Emily.»

She said, «You are kidding me.»

I said, «What is your name?»

She said, «Stewart.»

I could not resist the reply, «Then I am Flora MacDonald.»

Thus by easy stages I approached the ticklish question of my hitherto hopeless love.

She said, «I would rather die.»

I said, «In a sense you have died already. Besides, I am your pixie. Or it may be only a dream, and you could hardly blame yourself for that. Anyway, I expect he will take us to Paris.»

«It is true,» she said, «that I have always dreamed of a honeymoon in Paris.»

«The Paris moon!» I said. «The bookstalls on the quais. The little restaurants on the Left Bank!»

«The Cirque Medrano!» she cried.

«L'Opéra!»

«Le Louvre! Le Petit Palais!»

«Le Bœuf sur le Toit!»

«Darling,» she cried, «if it were not so dark, I would show you my etchings, if I had them with me.»

We were in absolute raptures; we heard the ticket being taken, for Paris. We were registered; it was next door to being married, and we laughed at the rolling of the vessel. Soon, however, we were carried up an endless flight of stairs.

«Mon Dieu, mais que c'est lourd!» gasped the hotel porter. «Qu'est-ce qu'il y a dans cette malle?»

«Des livres,» said the murderer, with the utmost sang-froid.

«Paradis Retrouvé, édition complète,» I whispered, and was rewarded with a kiss.

Alone, as he thought, with his lifeless victim, the murderer sneered, «H'ya keeping?» said he coarsely, as he approached the trunk.

He lifted the lid a little, and thrust his head within. A rim ran round inside: while yet he blinked, we seized it, and brought the lid down with a crash.

«La guillotine?» I said cuttingly.

«La Defarge!» observed my adored one, knitting her brows.

«Vive la France!»

We stepped out; we put him inside. I retained his clothes. With a sheet from the bed, the bell rope, and a strip of carpet from before the washstand, she made a fetching Arab lass. Together we slipped out into the street.

Night! Youth! Paris! And the moon!

THE STEEL CAT

The Hotel Bixbee is as commercial an hotel as any in Chicago. The brass-rail surmounts the banisters; the cuspidor gleams dimly in the shade of the potted palm. The air in the corridors is very still, and appears to have been de-odorized a few days ago. The rates are moderate.

Walter Davies' cab drew up outside the Bixbee. He was a man with a good deal of grey in his hair, and with a certain care-worn brightness on his face, such as is often to be seen on the faces of rural preachers, if they are poor enough and hopeful enough. Davies, however, was not a preacher. The porter seized his suitcase, and would have taken the black box he held on his knees, but Davies nervously put out his hand. «No,» he said. «Leave this one to me.» He entered the hotel carrying the box as if it were a baby. It was an oblong box, nearly two feet long, and perhaps a foot wide and a foot in depth. It was covered with a high-grade near-leather. It had a handle on the top side, but Davies preferred to cradle it in his arms rather than to swing it by this handle.

As soon as he had checked in and was shown to his room, he set the box on the bureau and made straight for the telephone. He called Room Service. «This is Room 517,» said he. «What sort of cheese have you?»

«Well, we got Camembert, Swiss, Tillamook …»

«Now, the Tillamook,» said Davies. «Is that good and red-looking?»

«Guess so,» said the man at the other end. «It's like it usually is.»

«All right, send me up a portion.»

«What bread with it? Roll? White? Rye?»

«No bread. Just the cheese by itself.»

«Okay. It'11 be right up.»

In a minute or two a bell-hop entered, carrying a platter with the wedge of cheese on it. He was a coloured man of about the same age as Davies, and had a remarkably round face and bullet head. «Is that right, sir? You wanted just a piece of cheese?»

«That's right,» said Davies, who was undoing the clasps of his black box. «Put it right there on the table.»

The bell-hop, waiting for him to sign the check, watched Davies fold down the front side of the box, which carried part of the top with it. Thus opened, it displayed an interior lined with black velvet, against which gleamed an odd-looking skeletal arrangement in chromium-plated metal. «Now look at that!» said the bell-hop, much intrigued. «Wouldn't be surprised if that ain't an invention you got there.»

«Interesting, eh?» said Davies. «Catches the eye?»

«Sure does,» said the bell-hop. «There ain't nothing much more interesting than an invention.» He peered reverently at the odd-looking apparatus in the box. «Now what sort of invention would you say that might be?»

«That,» said Davies proudly, «is the Steel Cat.»

«Steel Cat?» cried the bell-hop. «No kidding?»

He shook his head, a plain man baffled by the wonders of science. «So that's the Steel Cat! Well now, what do you know?»

«Good name, you think?» asked Davies.

«Boy, that's a title!» replied the bell-hop. «Mister, how come I ain't never heard of this here Steel Cat?»

«That's the only one in the world,» said Davies. «So far.»

«I come from Ohio,» said the bell-hop. «And I got folks in Ohio. And they're going to hear from me how I got to see this one and only Steel Cat.»

«Glad you like it,» said Davies. «Wait a minute. Fond of animals? I'll show you something.»

As he spoke, he opened a small compartment that was built into one end of the box. Inside was a round nest of toilet tissues. Davies put his fingers against his nest. «Come on, Georgie,» he said. «Peep! Peep! Come on, Georgie!»

A small, ordinary mouse, fat as a butter-ball, thrust his quick head out of the nest, turned his berry-black eyes in all directions, and ran along Davies' finger, and up his sleeve to his collar, where he craned up to touch his nose to the lobe of Davies' ear.

«Well, sir!» cried the bell-hop in delight. «If that ain't a proper tame, friendly mouse you got there!»

«He knows me,» said Davies. «In fact, this mouse knows pretty near everything.»

«I betcha!» said the bell-hop with conviction.

«He's what you might call a demonstration mouse,» said Davies. «He shows off the Steel Cat. See the idea? You hang the bait on this hook. Mr. Mouse marches up this strip in the middle. He reaches for the bait. His weight tips the beam, and he drops into this jar. Of course, I fill it with water.»

«And that's his name — Georgie?» asked the bell-hop, his eyes still on the mouse.

«That's what I call him,» said Davies.

«You know what?» said the bell-hop thoughtfully. «If I had that mouse, mister, I reckon I'd call him Simpson.»

«D'you know how I came to meet up with this mouse?» said Davies. «I was in Poughkeepsie — that's where I come from — and one night last winter I ran my bath, and somehow I sat on, reading the paper, and forgot all about it. And I felt something sort of urging me to go into the bathroom. So I went in, and there was the bath I'd forgotten all about. And there was Master Georgie in it, just about going down for the third time.»

«Hey! Hey!» cried the bell-hop in urgent distress. «No third time for President Simpson!»

«Oh, no!» said Davies. «Life-guard to the rescue! I picked him out, dried him, and I put him in a box.»

«Can you beat that?» cried the bell-hop. «Say, would it be all right for me to give him just a little bit of the cheese?»

«No. That's just demonstration cheese,» said Davies. «Mice aren't so fond of cheese as most people think. He has his proper meal after the show. A balanced diet. Well, as I was saying, in a couple of days he was just as friendly as could be.»

«Sure thing,» said the bell-hop. «He knows who saved him.»

«You know, a thing like that,» said Davies, «it starts a fellow thinking. And what I thought of — I thought of the Steel Cat.»

«You thought of that cat from seeing that mouse in that bath?» cried the bell-hop, overwhelmed by the processes of the scientific mind.

«I did,» said Davies. «I owe it all to Georgie. Drew it up on paper. Borrowed some money. Got a blue-print made; then this model here. And now we're going around together, demonstrating. Cleveland, Akron, Toledo — everywhere. Nowhere.»

«Just about sweeping the country,» said the bell-hop. «That's a real good-luck mouse, that is. He certainly ought to be called Simpson.»

«Well, I'll tell you,» said Davies. «It needs one really big concern to give the others a lead. Otherwise, they hang back. That's why we're in Chicago. Do you know who's coming here this afternoon? Mr. Hartpick of Lee and Waldron. They don't only manufacture; they own the outlets. Six hundred and fifty stores, all over the country! No middle-man, if you see what I mean. If they push it, oh, boy!»

«Oh, boy!» echoed the bell-hop with enthusiasm.

«He'll be here pretty soon, »said Davies. «Three o'clock. By appointment. And Georgie'll show him the works.»

«He don't never balk?» inquired the bell-hop. «He ain't afraid of being drowned?»

«Not Georgie,» said Davies. «He trusts me.»

«Ah, that's it!» said the bell-hop. «He trusts you.»

«Of course I make the water luke-warm for him,» said Davies. «All the same, it takes some character in a mouse to take the dip every time like that. Never mind — if he puts this deal over, we get him a little collar made.»

«Mister,» cried the bell-hop, «I want to see that mouse in that collar. You ought to get his photo taken. You could give it to anybody. They could send it back home to their families. Yes, sir, their folks 'ud sure be tickled to death to get a photo of that mouse in that collar.»

«Maybe I will,» said Davies, smiling.

«You do that thing, mister,» said the bell-hop. «Well, I got to be getting. Goodbye, Georgie!» He went out, but at once re-opened the door. «All the same,» he said, «if I had that mouse I sure would call him Simpson».

Davies, left alone, set out his apparatus to advantage, washed, even shaved, and powdered his face with talcum. When he had nothing more to do, he took out his billfold, and laid six dollar bills one by one on the top of the bureau, counting them out as if he had hoped to find there were seven. He added thirty-five cents from one pocket, and a nickel from another. «We've got to put it over this time,» said he to the mouse, who was watching him brightly from the top of the box. «Never get down-hearted, Georgie! That gang of short-sighted, narrow-minded, small-town buyers, they just don't mean a thing. This fellow's the guy that counts. And he's our last chance. So do your stuff well, pal, and we'll be on top of the world yet.»

Suddenly the telephone rang. Davies snatched it up. «Mr. Hartpick to see you,» said the desk-clerk.

«Send Mr. Hartpick up right away,» said Davies.

He stowed away the money, put Georgie back in his nest, and dried his moist palms on his handkerchief. He remembered, just as the tap came on the door, to banish the anxious expression from his face and put on a genial smile.

Mr. Hartpick was a square and heavy man, with fingers twice as thick as ordinary fingers, and the lower joints of them were covered with wiry, reddish hair.

«Mr. Hartpick,» said Davies. «I certainly appreciate your coming up here like this.»

«Long as I'm not wasting my time,» returned Mr. Hartpick. «Let's see the goods. I got a rough idea from your letter.»

Davies had set the box on the table. Now getting behind it, he attempted a persuasive, hearty, salesmanlike tone. «Mr. Hartpick, you know the old adage about the better mouse-trap. You've been good enough to beat a path to my door, and …»

«Show me an idea, and I'll beat a path to it,» said Mr. Hartpick. «However nutty it sounds.»

«… and here,» said Davies, «is the Steel Cat.» With that he flung open the box.

«Selling name!» said Hartpick. «Might be able to use the name, anyway.»

«Mr. Hartpick, the idea is this,» said Davies, beginning to count off his points on his fingers. «More mice caught. More humanely. No mutilation of mice as with inferior traps. No mess. No springs to catch the fingers. Some women are just scared to death of those springs. No family disagreements, Mr. Hartpick. That's an important angle. I've gone into that angle psychologically.»

His visitor paused in the rooting out of a back tooth, and stared at Davies. «Eh?» said he.

«Psychologically,» said Davies. «The feminine angle, the masculine angle. Now, the wife doesn't generally like to see a cat playing with a mouse.»

«She can poison 'em,» said Hartpick.

«That's what she says,» said Davies. «That's the woman angle. Poisoners throughout the ages. Lucrezia Borgia — lots of 'em. But a good many husbands are allergic to having their wives playing around with poison. I think a nation-wide poll would show most husbands prefer a cat. Remember, it was Nero — a man — fed the Christians to the lions. So that starts an argument. Besides, you've got to put a cat out, get it fed when on vacation.»

«Any mice we catch, the missus flushes 'em down the toilet,» said Mr. Hartpick, with a shrug.

«Feminine angle again,» said Davies. «Cleopatra fed her slaves to the crocodiles. Only many women haven't the levelheadedness of Mrs. Hartpick to take a mouse out of a trap and get rid of it that way.»

«Oh, I dunno,» said Mr. Hartpick in tones of complete boredom.

«In one way this is the same sort of thing,» said Davies, beginning to talk very fast. «Only more scientific and labour-saving. See — I fill the glass jar here with water, lukewarm water. It's glass in this demonstration model. In the selling product it'd be tin to keep the cost down to what I said in my letter. The frame needn't be chromium either. Well, having filled it, I place it right here in position. Kindly observe the simplicity. I take a morsel of ordinary cheese, and I bait the hook. If economy's the subject, a piece of bread rubbed in bacon fat is equally effective. Now look! Please look, Mr. Hartpick! I'll show you what the mouse does. Come on, Georgie!»

«Live mouse, eh?» observed Hartpick, with a flicker of interest.

«Mus domesticus, the domestic mouse,» said Davies. «Found in every home. Now watch him! He's found the way in. See him go along that strip in the middle! Right to the bait — see? His weight tilts the …»

«He's in!» cried Hartpick, his interest entirely regained.

«And the trap,» said Davies triumphantly, «has automatically set itself for another mouse. In the morning you just remove the dead ones.»

«Not bad! »said Hartpick. «Gosh — he's trying to swim! My friend, I think you may have something there.»

«You know the old adage, Mr. Hartpick,» said Davies, smiling. «It's the better mouse-trap!»

«Like hell it is!» said Hartpick. «Pure nut, that's what it is. But what I always say — there's a nut market for nut inventions. Play up the humane angle … get the old dames het up …»

«Gee, that's great!» said Davies. «I was beginning to … Well, never mind! Excuse me! I'll just get him out.»

«Wait a minute,» said Hartpick, putting his heavy hand on Davies' wrist.

«I think he's getting a bit tired,» said Davies.

«Now look,» said Hartpick, still watching the mouse. «We've got our standard contract for notions of this sort. Standard rate of royalties. Ask your attorney if you like; he'll tell you the same thing.»

«Oh, that'll be all right, I'm sure,» said Davies. «Just let me …»

«Hold on! Hold on!» said Hartpick. «We're talking business, ain't we?»

«Why sure,» said Davies uneasily. «But he's getting tired. You see, he's a demonstration mouse.»

Mr. Hartpick's hand seemed to grow heavier. «And what's this?» he demanded. «A demonstration — or what?»

«A demonstration? Yes,» said Davies.

«Or are you trying to put something over on me?» said Hartpick. «How do I know he won't climb out? I was going to suggest you step around to the office in the morning, and we sign. If you're interested, that is.»

«Of course, I'm interested,» said Davies, actually trembling. «But …»

«Well, if you're interested,» said Hartpick, «let him alone.»

«But, my God, he's drowning!» cried Davies, tugging to free his wrist. Mr. Hartpick turned his massive face toward Davies for a moment, and Davies stopped tugging.

«The show,» said Hartpick, «goes on. There you are! Look! Look! He's going!» His hand fell from Davies' arm. «Going! Going! Gone! Poor little bastard! Okay, Mr. Davies, let's say ten-thirty o'clock then, in the morning.»

With that he strode out. Davies stood stock-still for a little, and then moved toward the Steel Cat. He put out his hand to take up the jar, but turned abruptly away and walked up and down the room. He had been doing this for some time when there came another tap on the door. Davies must have said «come in,» though he wasn't aware of doing so. At all events the bell-hop entered, carrying a covered platter on a tray. «Excuse me,» said he, smiling all over his face. «It's on the house, sir. Buttered corn-cob for Brother George Simpson!»

SLEEPING BEAUTY

Edward Laxton had everything in the world that he wanted except a sweetheart, fiancée, or wife.

He had a very civilized little Regency house, whose ivory façade was reflected in a few acres of ornamental water. There was a small park, as green as moss, and well embowered with sober trees. Outside this, his land ran over some of the shaggiest hills in the south of England. The ploughed fields were on the small side, and lay locked in profound woods. A farmhouse and a cottage or two sent their blue smoke curling into the evening sky.

With all this, his income was very small, but he was blessed with good taste, and was therefore satisfied with simple fare. His dinner was a partridge roasted plain, a bottle of Hermitage, an apple pie, and a crumb of Stilton cheese. His picture was a tiny little Constable left to him by his great-uncle. His gun was his father's old Holland and Holland, which fitted him to a hair. His dogs were curly-coated retrievers, one liver coloured and one black. Such dogs are now considered very old-fashioned, and so, by those who knew him, was their master. He was now over thirty, and had begun to tell his tailor to make him exactly the same suits as last year, and when his friends went abroad it did not occur to him to find out others.

He turned more and more to the placid beauty of his house, and to the rich, harsh beauty of the upland farms. A man should beware of surrendering too much of himself to this sort of thing, for the beauty of a place can be as possessive as other beauties. Believe it or not, when Edward met a girl who attracted him, a certain hill would thrust its big shoulder, furred with oak woods, between them, for all the world like a jealous dog. It would at once be obvious that the girl was weak in the ankles, and wore too much make-up. The bare, prim front of a certain stock-man's cottage, like the disapproving face of an old servant, could make a merry girl seem altogether too smart, and there was a certain faded little nursery room, the memory of which could make any young woman of these days look like something out of the cinema.

Thus Edward was under the necessity of sitting alone after dinner and telling himself, firmly, that he was the most fortunate man in the world. Into this felicity came a letter: it was from his oldest friend, inviting him to spend a season on his ranch in New Mexico. Edward reflected that he had never had the pleasure of seeing his own place after a long and homesick absence. He telegraphed, packed, and set forth.

He arrived in New Mexico, and admired immensely the beautiful immensities of that state. Nevertheless, he soon began to long excruciatingly to see a certain turn in a certain lane at home; a very ordinary corner, of which he had never taken any particular notice when he was there. He said good-bye to his host, and started for New York, but, wishing to see something of the country before leaving it, he bought an old car and set out by road.

His way lay along the northern edge of what was then called the dust-bowl, a landscape from which, after a few hours of driving, the eye seems to recoil in blank disbelief. This is a very dangerous tendency, especially in one who is dreaming of a far-distant lane. Edward followed a gentle curve which happened to be some four thousand miles away, and found himself halted in a back alley, with a severe pain in his ribs, a watermelon by his side, and an impression of having driven through a small country store. «Now I am in trouble,» thought Edward. He was soon to learn that he was also in Heeber's Bluff, Arkansas, and, what with settling up for the damage and getting his car repaired, he was likely to be there some days.

Heeber's Bluff is the dreariest town that ever sweltered on the devastated prairie. Sickly trees, tipsy posts, and rusty wire effectively dissipate the grandeur of the endless plain. The soil has all been blown away in the droughts; the fields are nothing but a hideous clay, with here and there the skeleton of a horse or a cow. A sunken creek, full of tin cans, oozes round a few hundred shacks whose proportions are as mean as the materials of which they are built. The storekeepers have the faces of alligators; all the other people have the faces and voices of frogs.

Edward deposited his bags in Mergler's Hotel, which stands opposite the funeral parlour. After a minute or two he stepped outside and checked up on the signs. He went into the hotel dining-room and was confronted with a corned-beef hash more terrible than the town itself, because, after all, he did not have to eat the town. Emboldened by this consideration, he went out to stroll along the main street

When he had strolled a few yards, he had a strong apprehension that he was losing his mind, so he returned to Mergler's Hotel. Here he soon found himself biting the ends of his fingers, and shaken by a strong impulse to rush out again. He was restrained by a quaking and a dread which seized upon him as he stepped into the doorway. «Here is a place,» said he to himself, «in which one suffers simultaneously from claustrophobia and agoraphobia. Now I see the purpose of the porch, and understand the motion of the rocking chair!»

He hastened to plant himself in one of these agreeable devices, and oscillated every few seconds between the horrors of the hotel and the terrors of the street. On the third day, at about eleven in the morning, this therapy failed of its effect, and something within him broke. «I must get out of this,» said he. «And quickly!»

His money had arrived. His fine was paid, and his ribs were taped. He still had to settle with the owner of the store, but what had seemed disproportionate as damages appeared dirt-cheap when regarded as ransom. He paid it, and was free to go. He went to collect his car from the garage where it was being repaired, and there he met with a little disappointment. He returned to the hotel, packed his bag, and called for his bill. «At what time does the next train leave this town?» he asked.

«Eight o'clock,» said the hotel-keeper calmly.

Edward looked at his watch, which now expressed the hoar of noon. He looked at the hotel-keeper, and then he looked across the street at the funeral parlour. «Eight hours!» said he in the low, broken voice of despair. «What am I to do?»

«If you want to fill in the time,» said the hotel-keeper, «you can always have a look at the Carnival. It opens up at one.»

On the very stroke of one, Edward was at the turnstile, and the first blast of music engulfed him as he passed through.

«I must restrain myself,» he thought, «from dashing too madly at the side-shows. I will see the Calf at half-past one, the Fat Lady at two, and the Pigtailed Boy at half-past, and the Circus itself at three. At four-thirty, I will indulge myself in the glamour of the Fan Dance, the memory of which will colour the Giant Rat at five-thirty, and at half-past six I will see the Sleeping Beauty, whatever she may be, and that will leave me half an hour to pick up my bags, and a happy hour on the place where the platform would be if there was one. I hope the train will not be late.»

At the appointed hours Edward gravely inspected the heads of the Two-headed Calf, the legs of the Fat Lady, and the bottom of the Pigtailed Boy. He was glad of the fans when it came to the Fan Dance. He looked at the Giant Rat, and the Giant Rat looked at Edward. «I,» said Edward, «am leaving on the eight o'clock train.» The Giant Rat bowed its head and turned away.

The tent that housed the Sleeping Beauty was just filling up as Edward approached. «Come on!» cried the barker. «Curtain just going up on the glamorous face and form of the girl who can't wake up. In her night attire. Asleep five years. In bed! In bed! In bed!»

Edward paid his twenty-five cents and entered the crowded tent. An evil-looking rascal, dressed in a white surgical coat, and with a stethoscope hung round his neck, was at that moment signalling for the curtain to be drawn aside.

A low dais was exposed, and on it a hospital bed, at the head of which stood a sinister trollop tricked out in the uniform of a nurse.

«Here we have,» said the pseudo-doctor, «the miracle that has baffled the scientists of the entire world.» He continued his rigmarole. Edward gazed at the face on the pillow. It was, beyond any question at all, the most exquisite face he had ever seen in his life.

«Well, folks,» said the impresario, «I just want you to know, for the sake of the reputation of the scientific profession, that there has been absolutely no deception in the announcement made to you that this young lady is A, asleep, and B, beautiful. Lest you should be speculating on whether her recumbent posture, maintained night and day for five years, has been the cause of shrinkage or wasting of the limbs, hips, or bust — Nurse, be so good as to turn back that sheet.»

The nurse, grinning like a bulldog, pulled back the grubby cotton and revealed the whole form of this wonderful creature, clad in a diaphanous nightgown, and lying in the most graceful, fawn-like posture you can possibly imagine.

«If,» thought Edward, «all my woods and fields, instead of bursting into bluebells and cowslips and wild roses and honeysuckle, had hoarded their essences through the centuries to produce one single flower, this would be the flower.» He paused to allow the genius loci, which had been so arbitrary on other occasions, to voice any objections it might have. None was forthcoming.

«My friends,» the abominable showman was saying, «world science having got nowhere in waking this beautiful young lady from her trance which has lasted five years, I want to remind you of a little story you maybe heard around that dear old Mamma's knee, about how the Sleeping Beauty woke right up saying, 'Yummy,' when Prince Charming happened along with his kiss.»

«There's no doubt,» thought Edward, «that if all the good-night kisses and candlelight visions and dreams and desires that have gleamed and faded in that faded little nursery ever since the day it was built were fused into one angelic presence, this is she.»

«Top medical attention costing plenty, as you very well know,» continued the showman, «we are prepared, for the fee of one quarter deposited in the bowl on the bedside table, to allow any gentleman in the audience to step up and take his try at being Prince Charming. Take your places in the queue, boys, and avoid the crush.»

Shaking his head, Edward pushed his way out of the tent and returned to Mergler's Hotel, where he sat in his bedroom devoured by rage and shame. «Why should I be ashamed? Because I didn't try to make a fight of it? No,» said he, «that would be ridiculous. All the same, there's something . . . something disgusting. It isn't — it can't be — that I want to kiss her myself! That would be vile, base, despicable! Then why, in the name of all that's shy, wild, lovely, and innocent, am I walking back to this unspeakable spectacle?»

«I'll turn back in a moment. This time I'll take my bags to the station, and sit on them, and wait for that train. In an hour I'll be on my way home.»

«But what is my home?» he cried almost aloud. «What was it made for, but to be a shell, a dwelling place for this creature and no other? Or the image of her, the dream of her, the memory of her, that I could take home on my lips and live with forever, if I kissed her just once. And that, by God, is what I will do!»

At this moment he had arrived at the booth, just as a lip-licking audience was issuing forth. «Very good,» said Edward. «The curtain will be lowered while the tent fills up again, I'll arrange to have a moment alone with her.»

He found the back entrance, and squeezed through a narrow flap in the canvas. The doctor and the nurse were taking a little refreshment between shows.

«Other way in, Buddy,» said the doctor. «Unless you're the Press, that is.»

«Listen,» said Edward, «I want to spend a few minutes alone with this girl.»

«Yeah?» said the doctor, observing Edward's flushed face and breathless speech.

«I can pay you,» said Edward.

«Stool-pigeon — vice-squad,» observed the nurse in a level tone.

«Listen, Buddy,» said the doctor, «you don't want to muscle in here with a low-down immoral proposition like that.»

«I'm an Englishman!» cried Edward. «How can I be a member of the vice-squad or anything else?»

The nurse examined Edward with prolonged and expert attention. «O.K.,» she said at last.

«O.K. nothing,» said the doctor.

«O.K. a hundred bucks,» said the nurse.

«A hundred bucks?» said the doctor. «Listen, son, we all been young once. You want a private interview — maybe you are the Press — with this interesting young lady. Well, could be. A hundred bucks, cash on the barrel head, for — what do you say, Nurse?»

The nurse examined Edward again. «Ten minutes,» said she.

«Ten minutes,» continued the doctor to Edward. «After twelve o'clock tonight, when we close down.»

«No. Now,» said Edward. «I've got to catch a tram.»

«Yeah?» said the doctor. «And have some guy sticking his long nose in to see why we don't begin on time. No, sir! There's ethics in this profession — the show goes on. Scram! Twelve o'clock. Open up, Dave!»

Edward filled in part of the time by watching the thickening crowds file into the booth. At nightfall he went away and sat down by the stinking creek, holding his head in his hands and waiting for the endless hours to drag by. The sunken water oozed past, darkly. The night over the great flat of lifeless clay was heavy with a stale and sterile heat, the lights of the fair glared in the distance, and the dark water crept on.

At last the blaze of lights was extinguished. A few were left; even these began to wink out one by one, like sparks on a piece of smouldering paper. Edward got up like a somnambulist and made his way back to the fair.

The doctor and the nurse were eating silently and voraciously when he entered. The single harsh light in the tent, falling on their ill-coloured faces and their fake uniforms, gave them the appearance of waxworks, or corpses come to fife, while the girl lying in the bed, with the flush of health on her cheeks and her hair in a lovely disorder, looked like a creature of the fresh wind, caught in this hideous stagnation by some enchantment, waiting for a deliverer.

«Here is the money,» said Edward. «Where can I be alone with her?»

«Push the bed through the curtain,» said the doctor. «We'll turn the radio on.»

Edward was alone with the beauty for which he, and his whole life, and his house, and his land, were made. He moistened his handkerchief and wiped away the blurred lipstick from her mouth.

He tried to clear his mind, to make it as blank as a negative film, so that he could photograph upon it each infinitely fine curve of cheek and lip, the sweep of the dreaming lashes and the tendrils of the enchanted hair.

Suddenly, to his horror, he found his eyes were dimming with tears. He had made his mind a blank in order to photograph a goddess, and now his whole being was flooded with pity for a girl. He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips.

It is the fate of those who kiss sleeping beauties to be awakened themselves: Edward jerked aside the curtain and went through.

«On time,» said the doctor approvingly.

«How much,» said Edward, «will you take for that girl?»

«Hear that?» said the doctor to the nurse. «He wants to buy the act»

«Sell,» said the nurse.

«Never did like her, did you?» said the doctor.

«Twelve grand,» said the nurse.

«Twelve thousand dollars?» said Edward.

«She said it,» said the doctor.

This was not a matter for haggling over. Edward cabled his lawyer to raise the money. It arrived, and that evening Edward and his wonderful charge set off for Chicago. There he took a hotel room for her to rest in between trams. He wrote some letters, and went downstairs to mail them. He noticed a man and a woman standing by the desk. He thought they looked extremely unsavoury.

«This is the gentleman,» said the receptionist

«Mr. Laxton?» said the man.

«My daughter!» cried the woman in a heartrending tone. «Where's my little girl? My baby!»

«What does this mean?» cried Edward, moving with them to a deserted side-hall

«Kidnapping, white-slave trade, and violation of the Mann Act,» said the man.

«Sold like a chattel!» cried the woman. «Like a white slave!»

«What is the Mann Act?» asked Edward.

«You move a dame, any dame but your wife or daughter, outa one state into another,» said the man, «and that's the Mann Act Two years.»

«Prove she's your daughter,» said Edward.

«Listen, wise guy,» said the man, «if half a dozen of the hometown folks aren't enough for you, they'll be enough for the district attorney. Do you see that guy standing by the desk in there? He's the hotel dick. Boy, I've only got to whistle.»

«You want money,» said Edward at last

«I want my Rosie,» said the woman.

«We drew twenty per for Rosie,» said the man. «Yeah, she kept her folks.»

Edward argued with them for a time. Their demand was for twenty thousand dollars. He cabled once more to England, and soon afterwards paid over the money, and received in exchange a document surrendering all parental rights and appointing him the true and legal guardian of the sleeping girl.

Edward was stunned. He moved on to New York in a sort of dream. The phrases of that appalling interview repeated themselves constantly in his mind. It was with a horrible shock that he realized the same phrases, or others very like them, were being launched at him from outside. A seedy but very businesslike-looking clergyman had buttonholed him in the foyer of his hotel.

He was talking about young American womanhood, purity, two humble members of his flock, the moral standards of the State of Tennessee, and a girl called Susie-May. Behind him stood two figures, which, speechless themselves, were calculated to take away the power of speech from any man.

«It is true, then,» said Edward, «about hillbillies?»

«That name, sir,» said the clergyman, «is not appreciated in the mountain country of ——————.»

«And so her real name is Susie-May?» said Edward. «And I have her upstairs? Then the other parents were crooks. I knew it! And these want their daughter back. How did they hear of it?»

«Your immoral act, sir,» said the clergyman, «has had nationwide press publicity for the last three days.»

«I should read the papers,» said Edward. «These people want to take the girl back to some filthy cabin …»

«Humble,» said the clergyman, «but pure.»

«… and no doubt sell her to the next rascally showman that passes.» He spoke at length of the purity of his intentions, and the excellent care he proposed to take of Susie-May.

«Mr. Laxton,» said the clergyman, «have you ever thought what a mother's heart really means?»

«Last time,» said Edward, «it meant twenty thousand dollars.»

One should never be witty, even when in the depths of despair. The words twenty thousand were rumblingly echoed, as from a mountain cavern, from the deep mouth of the male parent, whose aged eye took on a forbidding gleam.

From that moment the conversation was mere persiflage. Edward asked leave to walk up and down by himself for a little time, in order to think and breathe more freely.

«This will take the last penny of my capital,» he thought «I shall have nothing to live on. Susie will need the most expensive doctors. Ah, well, I can be happy with her if I sell the estate and retain only the keeper's cottage. We shall then have four or five hundred a year, as many stars as before, and the deep woods all round us. I'll do it.»

He did not do quite that for he found that hasty sales do not usually result in prices proportionate to the beauty and the value of estates. There were also some legal fees to be paid, one or two little presents to be made in the interests of haste, and some heavy hotel and travelling expenses.

When all was done, Edward found his fortune had dwindled to a very little more than two hundred a year, but he had the cottage, with Orion towering above it and the mighty woods all round. He would walk up and down outside, and watch the treacly yellow candlelight shine through the tiny pane, and exult in knowing that all the beauty of the world was casketed there. At such moments he was the happiest of men.

There was only one fly in his ointment. The man who had bought the estate turned out to be something less than simpatico.

He seemed, somehow, hardly right for the place. Edward was no doubt a little prejudiced, but it seemed to him that this man had the loudest, most hectoring and boastful voice ever heard, that his clothes were too new, his manicure too conspicuous, his signet ring too massive and too bright. His features, also, lacked delicacy. But if, as Edward maintained, he had the appearance of a hog, he made it very obvious that he was an extremely wealthy one. He had some blood-chilling intentions for what he called little improvements on the estate.

Compared with the fate of his beloved land, Edward's other troubles were of no great importance. In spite of his legal guardianship of his lovely charge, one of the local papers condemned him as a libertine, while the other treated the matter with revolting levity. His richer relations disclaimed further acquaintance with him; his poorer ones called to expostulate. A lady of strong moral principle struck him several times with an umbrella in the High Street at Shepton-Mallet.

While all this was going on, he had by diligent enquiry found out an endocrinologist of acknowledged genius. The great man proved to be an enthusiast, and was always throwing up important engagements in London to rush down and take another look at Susie-May. Edward trembled to think of what the bill would be.

At last a day arrived when the doctor came down the narrow little stairway, and, brushing a cobweb from his sleeve, regarded Edward with a complacent smile. «I have some good news for you,» said he. «Yesterday I heard from Vienna, from Wertheimer.»

«Good news, you say?» said Edward, his heart beginning to beat very fast «Do you mean you can wake her?»

«Not only wake her,» rejoined the specialist, «but keep her awake. Here's the preparation, made up by Wertheimer's people in accordance with the reports I've been sending in. Very ordinary-looking capsules, as you see; nevertheless, they mark an epoch. Do you see the label? To be administered at 9 A.M. and 6 P.M. Not about nine, or around six. Is that quite comprehensible to you?» demanded the doctor.

«I understand you,» said Edward. «These have to be given at exactly the right time.»

«Or she will very quickly fall asleep again,» continued the doctor sternly.

«Now tell me when she will wake,» demanded Edward.

«It may be twenty-four hours, or it may be forty-eight,» replied the doctor. «Or it may be even longer.»

He added a good many little instructions, repeated his admonition as to punctual dosage some half a dozen times or so, brushed another cobweb from his sleeve, and departed.

Edward passed the next two days in a state of exaltation, qualified by certain misgivings. Most of all he feared she might be frightened at waking and finding herself in a strange place, alone with a strange man. He thought of asking the village girl, who attended to her by day, to stay overnight and sit by her, but he could not give up the right to be with her when she woke.

On the second night and the third he sat by her bedside, dizzy and red-eyed from lack of sleep, but watching every moment for the faintest flicker of her lowered eyelids. The third night wore on; the candle guttered and went out. The window was already pale with the coming dawn. Soon the first rays of the sun struck through the little window and fell aslant on the bed. The sleeper stirred, sighed, and opened her eyes. They were certainly the most beautiful eyes in the world. They dwelt upon Edward.

«Hey!» said Susie-May uncertainly.

«How do you do?» said Edward. «At least … I mean to say … I expect you wonder where you are.»

«Where I am, and how I goddam well got here,» said his lovely guest sitting up on the bed. She rubbed her brow, obviously trying hard to remember. «I must have passed right out,» she said. And then, pointing at him accusingly: «And you look like a son of a bitch who'd take advantage of me.»

«I assure you,» said Edward faintly, «you are utterly mistaken.»

«I hope I am,» responded the young lady. «But, boy, if you have, you're going to pay through the nose for it»

«I think you'd better let me tell you exactly what has happened,» said Edward.

He proceeded to do so.

«You mean to say,» said Susie-May, when he had finished. «You mean to say you took me out of show business and brought me to this dump?»

«But my dear girl, you were asleep, you were sick …» expostulated Edward.

«Aw, phooey!» said she, «I'd have woke up. I betcha I'd have woke up the minute that show hit Hollywood. And now what am I going to do?»

«I can answer that question very easily,» said Edward. «You will eat the food that's set before you, or you'll go hungry. You'll spend a few days learning to walk again, or you'll spend the rest of your life sitting on your backside. As soon as you can look after yourself, we'll talk about what you shall do. By that time you'll know this place, and you'll know me, a great deal better than you do at present.»

These words were uttered with a forcefulness that surprised both of them. Susie, somewhat daunted, and perhaps fatigued by the liveliness of her first waking impressions, said nothing in reply, but soon drooped her delectable eyelids and fell into a light doze.

Watching her, Edward found all his tender feelings, so rudely scattered, come fluttering home again: «I have just seen,» thought he, «the scars of an appalling childhood. Somewhere, far, far below the pathetic surface, there must be a mind to match that lovely face. That is the real sleeper, and it's going to be devilish hard to awaken her.»

In the days that followed he buckled to his task, and enfolded her in a warm and cheerful affection. He offered her, as one lays one toy after another to the hand of a sullen child, a smile, a flower, a word of endearment, or an American cigarette procured especially from London. He invited her to note the flavour of the speckled trout he caught for her, the fragrance on the September honeycomb, and the lustre of the beaded raindrops on the windowpane as they sparkled under the returning sun with a brightness exceeding that of diamonds.

Had any cynical person told him he was wasting his time, Edward would have replied with terrifying logic. «Look at that face!» he would have said. «It seems suitable to this place, does it not? It should, for it was made here. That, my dear sir, is a face straight out of eighteenth-century England, and it has been preserved unchanged (as if in a sleep two or three hundred years long) in the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky. Depend upon it, her sleeping soul is of the same order of beauty, and will awaken, if it wakes at all, in response to surroundings like these, from which it originally sprung. Wait till I take her into the woods!»

The days went by, and her strength returned rapidly, and she was able to walk around the little garden patch, where the straggled flowers of late summer leaned out to catch her eye, but without success. At last Edward was able to take her by the arm, and lead her out into the great woods which had once been his own.

He took her down a mile-long ride, over rabbit-nibbled turf as smooth as green velvet. Immense beeches walled it on either side; behind them the summer trunks stood hushed in a silvery dimness, regardful of the dryad. Farther down, towards where his old house stood, the beeches gave place to mighty oaks, bronzed, lichened, antlered, Virgilian. He had her peep into glades aflame with willow-herb, and others rusty with the turning bracken. The rabbits scuttled off in all directions; the hare limped away with many a backward glance; the coppery pheasant rose, clattering like a dragon, its long tail rippling dragon-like behind it. The great woodpecker, laughing heartily over something or other, swooped on from tree to tree before them all the way home.

All this time Edward had said scarcely a word, and had hardly dared to look into her face to see what she was feeling. Now, on the threshold of the cottage, he took her hands in his, and, gazing deep into her eyes, he asked her: «Well? How did you like it?»

She replied: «Lousy.»

Edward's chagrin was so sudden and so fierce that for a moment he was bereft of his senses. Recovering them, he saw Susie cowering away in the very likeness of a spitting cat, and he realised his right hand was raised menacingly in the air. He lowered it. «Don't be afraid,» he said breathlessly. «I am incapable of striking a woman.»

Susie must have believed him, for she did not hesitate to offer some very unflattering reasons for this incapacity. Oddly enough, he himself was not so convinced, and his conscience so bit and tore at him that he scarcely heard what she was saying. He waited till six, gave her her capsule, and then strode out of the cottage and off over the dark and windy hills like a man pursued. After several miles at a very high speed, the turmoil within him abated a little, and he came to his conclusion. «I was enraged because she would not accept my standards: the standards of a man who is capable (for I lied when I said I wasn't) of striking a helpless girl. There is only one thing to do.»

It is a sad reflection on life that when there is only one thing to do it is always extremely unpleasant. Next day, Edward arranged for the little daily maid to stay with Susie overnight, while he himself went up to town to see his lawyer.

«How much would I get if I sold everything I have?» asked Edward, in a somewhat grating voice.

«Including the little place you are living in?»

«The whole damned shoot»

The lawyer consulted his files, scribbled on a pad, deprecated the state of the market, and finally told Edward he might expect between four and five thousand pounds.

«Then sell,» said Edward, and, brushing aside all expostulation, he repaired to a hotel, and next day took the train back home.

Just as he approached the cottage, he saw his Susie coming towards him along the path that led from the woods. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright, her hair was a little disordered.

«What is this?» said he, as they met «Don't tell me you have been in the woods!»

«I don't know where else there is to go,» she replied.

«Come inside,» said Edward, «and I will tell you of somewhere else. How would you like us to go to Hollywood, California?»

«Are you kidding?» she asked in astonishment «I thought yon was broke.»

«I am selling what I have left,» said Edward. «It will not bring enough to live there very long, or on a very grand scale, but since that is what you want it seems to me you should have it»

Susie was silent for a little. «Aw, shucks!» she said at last «Not if it's your last cent.»

Edward, astounded at her magnanimity, tried to explain the reasons for his change of heart. However, she cut him short. «Forget it,» she said. «I'd just as soon stick around here. For a while, anyway.»

Edward heard this with the emotions of a man reprieved, if not from the gallows, at least from transportation. «What has happened?» cried he. «Is it possible we have both changed, only in opposite directions? Ah, I know! You have been in the woods. Something there has touched you.»

«You'd better shut your big trap,» said she almost angrily. «You don't know what the hell you're talking about»

«I know,» said he, «that these feelings can be very delicate and private ones; vague gropings that one prefers not to discuss. For example, I think you would not have felt what you felt today had I been there. My presence on Monday was a mistake, much as I hoped to share these sensations with you. In future you shall go alone.»

So thereafter she went every afternoon alone into the woods, and Edward remained at home, and every day she came back smiling more sweetly than before.

«The woods are working for me,» thought Edward, and his imagination followed her like a dog. He seemed to see her in the dappled sun and shade under the great trees, or paddling in the brook, or fanning herself with a fern frond, or staining her mouth with blackberries. Finally he felt he could live no longer without seeing these pretty things with his own eyes, so one afternoon he slyly followed her among the trees.

He kept a good way behind her, thinking to come up quietly when she stopped to rest, but instead of stopping she went on faster and faster, and at last broke into a run, and for a while he lost her altogether. He pressed on to where he heard a jay scolding in the distance, and when he got there he looked all around, but saw no sign of her. Suddenly he heard her laugh. «She must have seen me all the time!» he thought.

Her laugh had a low, sweet, inviting quality that made his heart beat fast. It came from a little dell near by, where the ground fell away at the wood's edge. Edward stepped softly to the upper edge of this dell, half-expecting, yet not daring to expect, that he'd see her there looking up at him, and with her arms spread wide. He parted the twigs and looked down. She was there indeed, and her arms were spread wide, but it was the better to embrace Edward's corpulent and detested neighbour.

Edward walked quietly away, and returned to the cottage. There he awaited Susie, who came back very late, and smiling more sweetly than ever.

«You may take that smile off your face,» said Edward. «You dirty, double-crossing little harlot… .»

She at once obliged him in the matter of the smile. «Why, you low-down, snooping bastard,» she began, and the conversation continued with the utmost vivacity. Edward so far forgot himself as to utter a threat or two, which she treated with the most galling derision, as if secure in the protection of her paramour.

«He's got a big film company up in London,» she said, «and he's promised to put me in a picture.»

«You forget,» said Edward, «that I happen to hold your contract.»

«You mean to say you'd stop me?»

«Why not?»

«Because I'm going to the cops right now,» said Susie. «And do you know what I'm going to tell 'em? About when I was asleep?» She was about to supply the information when she was interrupted by an enormous yawn.

Edward glanced at his watch, and saw that the hour of six had long ago slipped by unnoticed.

«Well?» said he. «What?»

«Enough to … put you in jail for …» she muttered, in a voice like a slowing phonograph record, and she yawned again. Her head drooped down and down till her cheek rested on the table.

«Pleasant dreams!» said Edward, and taking the little box of capsules from the mantelpiece, he pitched it into the fire. Susie observed this operation with a glazing eye. A little flame of fury flickered up in it to match the leaping flame on the hearth. It died, and the eye closed. She looked ravishing.

Edward put her to bed, and came downstairs and wrote a letter to a firm that advertised motor caravans and trailers. Next summer he was at Blackpool, in a spotless white coat, addressing the multitude from under a sign that read:

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

_Dr. von Stangelberg presents

the Wonder of Modem Science

Adults only._

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

Admission sixpence.