CHAPTER VII.

BRIEF RÉSUMÉ OF THE CULPRIT'S CONFESSION.

When you all read this I shall be dead and laughing at you. I have

been hung for my own murder. I am Everard G. Roxdal. I am also Tom

Peters. We two were one. When I was a young man my moustache and beard

wouldn't come. I bought false ones to improve my appearance. One day,

after I had become manager of the City and Suburban Bank, I took off

my beard and moustache at home, and then the thought crossed my mind

that nobody would know me without them. I was another man. Instantly

it flashed upon me that if I ran away from the Bank, that other man

could be left in London, while the police were scouring the world for

a non-existent fugitive. But this was only the crude germ of the idea.

Slowly I matured my plan. The man who was going to be left in London

must be known to a circle of acquaintance beforehand. It would be easy

enough to masquerade in the evenings in my beardless condition, with

other disguises of dress and voice. But this was not brilliant enough.

I conceived the idea of living with him. It was Box and Cox reversed.

We shared rooms at Mrs. Seacon's. It was a great strain, but it was

only for a few weeks. I had trick clothes in my bedroom like those of

quick-change artistes; in a moment I could pass from Roxdal to Peters

and from Peters to Roxdal. Polly had to clean two pairs of boots a

morning, cook two dinners, &c., &c. She and Mrs. Seacon saw one or the

other of us every moment; it never dawned upon them they never saw us

_both together_. At meals I would not be interrupted, ate off two

plates, and conversed with my friend in loud tones. A slight

ventriloquial gift enabled me to hold audible conversations with him

when he was supposed to be in the bedroom. At other times we dined at

different hours. On Sundays he was supposed to be asleep when I was in

church. There is no landlady in the world to whom the idea would have

occurred that one man was troubling himself to be two (and to pay for

two, including washing). I worked up the idea of Roxdal's flight,

asked Polly to go with me, manufactured that feminine letter that

arrived on the morning of my disappearance. As Tom Peters I mixed with

a journalistic set. I had another room where I kept the gold and notes

till I mistakenly thought the thing had blown over. Unfortunately,

returning from here on the night of my disappearance, with Roxdal's

clothes in a bundle I intended to drop into the river, it was stolen

from me in the fog, and the man into whose possession it ultimately

came appears to have committed suicide, so that his body dressed in my

clothes was taken for mine. What, perhaps, ruined me was my desire to

keep Clara's love, and to transfer it to the survivor. Everard told

her I was the best of fellows. Once married to her, I would not have

had much fear. Even if she had discovered the trick, a wife cannot

give evidence against her husband, and often does not want to. I made

none of the usual slips, but no man can guard against a girl's

nightmare after a day up the river and a supper at the Star and

Garter. I might have told the judge he was an ass, but then I should

have had penal servitude for bank robbery, and that is worse than

death. The only thing that puzzles me, though, is whether the law has

committed murder or I suicide. What is certain is that I have cheated

the gallows.

_Santa Claus._

A STORY FOR THE NURSERY.

Although Bob was asleep on the doorstep the children in the passage

talked so loudly that they woke him up. They did not mean to do it,

for they were nice, clean, handsome children. Bob was always pretty

dirty, so nobody knew if he was pretty clean. He was not a dog, though

you might think so from his name and the way he was treated. Nobody

cared for Bob except Tommy whom he could fight one-hand. The lucky

nice clean children had jam to lick, but Bob had only Tommy. Poor

Tommy!

Bob sat up on his stony doorstep, drawing his rags around him. His

toes were freezing. When you have no boots it is awkward to stamp your

feet. That is why they are so cold. Bob's idea of heaven was a place

with a fire in it. He lived before Free Education and his ideas were

mixed.

Bob heard the children inside talking about Santa Claus and the

presents they expected. Bob gathered that he was a kind-hearted old

gentleman, and he thought to himself: "If I could find out Santa

Claus's address, I'd go and arx 'im for some presents too." So he

waited outside, shivering, till a pretty little girl and boy came out,

when he said to them: "Please, can you tell me where Santa Claus

lives?"

The little girl and boy drew back when he spoke to them, because they

had strict orders to keep their pinafores clean. But when they heard

his strange question, they looked at each other with large eyes. Then

their pretty faces filled with smiling sunshine, and they said: "He

lives in the sky. He is a spirit."

Bob's face fell. "Oh, then I carn't call upon 'im," he said. "But 'ow

is it _I_ never gets no presents like I 'ears yer say _you_ does?"

"Perhaps you are not a good child," said the little girl gravely.

"Yes, look how you've torn your clothes," said the little boy

reprovingly.

"Well, but 'ow is _you_ goin' to get presents from the sky?"

"We hang up our stockings to-night, just before Christmas, and in the

night Santa Claus fills them," they explained, and just then the maid

came out and led them away.

Now Bob understood. He had never had any stockings in his life. He

felt mad to think how much else he had missed through the want of a

pair. If he could only get a pair of stockings to hang up, he might be

a rich boy and dine off bread and treacle. He wandered through the

courts and alleys looking for stockings in the gutters and dustbins.

They were not there. Old boots were to be found in abundance though

not in couples (which was odd); but Bob soon discovered that people

never throw away their stockings. At last he plucked up courage and

begged from house to house, but nobody had a pair to spare. What

becomes of all the old stockings? Not everybody hoards treasure in

them. Bob met plenty of kind hearts; they offered him bread when he

asked for a stocking.

At last, weary and footsore, he returned to his doorstep and pondered.

He wondered if he could cheat Santa Claus by making a pair out of a

piece of newspaper he had picked up. But perhaps Mr. Claus was

particular about the material and admitted nothing under cotton. He

thought of stepping deeply into the mud and caking a pair, but then he

could only remove them at night by brushing them off in little pieces;

he feared they would stick too tight to come off whole. He also

thought of painting his calves with stripes from "wet paint," on the

off chance that Mr. Claus would drop the presents carelessly down

along his legs. But he concluded that if Mr. Claus lived in the sky he

could look down and see all he was doing. So he began to cry instead.

"What are you crying about?" said a quavering voice, and Bob,

startled, became aware of a wretched old creature dining on the

doorstep at his side.

[Illustration: AN OLD WOMAN DINING ON THE DOORSTEP.]

"I ain't got no stockings," he sobbed in answer.

"Well, I'll give you mine," said his neighbour.

Bob hesitated. The poor old woman looked so brokendown herself, it

seemed mean to accept her offer.

"Won't you be cold?" he asked timidly.

"I shan't be warmer," mumbled the old woman. "But then you will."

"No, I won't have them, thank you kindly, mum," said Bob stoutly.

"Then I'll tell you what to do," said the old woman, who was really a

fairy, though she had lost both wings--they had been amputated in a

surgical operation. "It's easy enough to get stockings if you only

know how. Run away now and pick out any person you meet and say, 'I

wish that person's stockings were on my feet.' You can only wish once,

so be careful, especially, not to wish for a pair of blue stockings,

as they won't suit you."

She grinned and vanished. Bob jumped up and was about to wish off

the stockings of the first man he met, when a horrible thought struck

him. The man had nice clothes and looked rich, but what proof was

there he had stockings on? Bob really could not afford to risk wasting

his wish. He walked about and looked at all the people--the men with

their long trousers, the women with their trailing skirts; and the

more he walked, the more grew his doubt and his agony. A terrible

scepticism of humanity seized him. They looked very prim and demure

without, these men and women, with their varnished boots and their

satin gowns, but what if they were all hypocrites, walking about

without stockings! Night came on. Half distracted by distrust of his

kind, he wandered on to the docks, and there to his joy he saw people

coming off a steamer by a narrow plank. As they walked the ladies

lifted up their skirts so as not to tumble over them, and he caught

several glimpses of dainty stockings. At last he selected a lady with

very broad stockings, that looked as if they would hold lots of Mr.

Claus's presents, and wished. Instantly he felt very funny about the

feet, and the lady wobbled about so in her big boots that she

overbalanced herself and fell into the water and was drowned.

Bob ran back to his doorstep, and when it was dark slipped off his

stockings carefully and hung them up on the knocker. And--sure

enough!--in the morning they were fall of fine cigars and Spanish

lace. Bob sold the lace for a penny, but he kept the cigars and smoked

the first with his penn'uth of Christmas plum-duff.

_Moral_:--England expects every man to pay his duty.

_A Rose of the Ghetto._

One day it occurred to Leibel that he ought to get married. He went to

Sugarman the Shadchan forthwith.

"I have the very thing for you," said the great marriage-broker.

"Is she pretty?" asked Leibel.

"Her father has a boot and shoe warehouse," replied Sugarman

enthusiastically.

"Then there ought to be a dowry with her," said Leibel eagerly.

"Certainly a dowry! A fine man like you!"

"How much do you think it would be?"

"Of course it is not a large warehouse; but then you could get your

boots at trade price, and your wife's, perhaps, for the cost of the

leather."

"When could I see her?"

"I will arrange for you to call next Sabbath afternoon."

"You won't charge me more than a sovereign?"

"Not a _groschen_ more! Such a pious maiden! I'm sure you will be

happy. She has so much way-of-the-country [breeding]. And, of course,

five per cent on the dowry?"

"H'm! Well, I don't mind!" "Perhaps they won't give a dowry," he

thought, with a consolatory sense of outwitting the Shadchan.

On the Saturday Leibel went to see the damsel, and on the Sunday he

went to see Sugarman the Shadchan.

"But your maiden squints!" he cried resentfully.

"An excellent thing!" said Sugarman. "A wife who squints can never

look her husband straight in the face and overwhelm him. Who would

quail before a woman with a squint?"

"I could endure the squint," went on Leibel dubiously, "but she also

stammers."

"Well, what is better, in the event of a quarrel? The difficulty she

has in talking will keep her far more silent than most wives. You had

best secure her while you have the chance."

"But she halts on the left leg," cried Leibel, exasperated.

"_Gott in Himmel!_ Do you mean to say you do not see what an advantage

it is to have a wife unable to accompany you in all your goings?"

Leibel lost patience.

"Why, the girl is a hunchback!" he protested furiously.

"My dear Leibel," said the marriage-broker, deprecatingly shrugging

his shoulders and spreading out his palms. "You can't expect

perfection!"

Nevertheless, Leibel persisted in his unreasonable attitude. He

accused Sugarman of wasting his time, of making a fool of him.

"A fool of you!" echoed the Shadchan indignantly, "when I give you a

chance of a boot and shoe manufacturer's daughter. You will make a

fool of yourself if you refuse. I daresay her dowry would be enough to

set you up as a master-tailor. At present you are compelled to slave

away as a cutter for thirty shillings a week. It is most unjust. If

you only had a few machines you would be able to employ your own

cutters. And they can be got so cheap nowadays."

This gave Leibel pause, and he departed without having definitely

broken the negotiations. His whole week was befogged by doubt, his

work became uncertain, his chalk-marks lacked their usual decision,

and he did not always cut his coat according to his cloth. His

aberrations became so marked that pretty Rose Green, the sweater's

eldest daughter, who managed a machine in the same room, divined, with

all a woman's intuition, that he was in love.

"What is the matter?" she said in rallying Yiddish, when they were

taking their lunch of bread and cheese and ginger-beer, amid the

clatter of machines, whose serfs had not yet knocked off work.

"They are proposing me a match," he answered sullenly.

"A match!" ejaculated Rose. "Thou!" She had worked by his side for

years, and familiarity bred the second person singular. Leibel nodded

his head, and put a mouthful of Dutch cheese into it.

"With whom?" asked Rose. Somehow he felt ashamed. He gurgled the

answer into the stone ginger-beer bottle, which he put to his thirsty

lips.

"With Leah Volcovitch!"

"Leah Volcovitch!" gasped Rose. "Leah, the boot and shoe

manufacturer's daughter?"

Leibel hung his head--he scarce knew why. He did not dare meet her

gaze. His droop said "Yes." There was a long pause.

"And why dost thou not have her?" said Rose. It was more than an

enquiry. There was contempt in it, and perhaps even pique.

Leibel did not reply. The embarrassing silence reigned again, and

reigned long. Rose broke it at last.

"Is it that thou likest me better?" she asked.

Leibel seemed to see a ball of lightning in the air; it burst, and he

felt the electric current strike right through his heart. The shock

threw his head up with a jerk, so that his eyes gazed into a face

whose beauty and tenderness were revealed to him for the first time.

The face of his old acquaintance had vanished--this was a cajoling,

coquettish, smiling face, suggesting undreamed-of things.

"_Nu_, yes," he replied, without perceptible pause.

"_Nu_, good!" she rejoined as quickly.

And in the ecstasy of that moment of mutual understanding Leibel

forgot to wonder why he had never thought of Rose before. Afterwards

he remembered that she had always been his social superior.

The situation seemed too dreamlike for explanation to the room just

yet. Leibel lovingly passed the bottle of ginger-beer and Rose took a

sip, with a beautiful air of plighting troth, understood only of those

two. When Leibel quaffed the remnant it intoxicated him. The relics of

the bread and cheese were the ambrosia to this nectar. They did not

dare kiss--the suddenness of it all left them bashful, and the smack

of lips would have been like a cannon-peal announcing their

engagement. There was a subtler sweetness in this sense of a secret,

apart from the fact that neither cared to break the news to the

master-tailor--a stern little old man. Leibel's chalk-marks continued

indecisive that afternoon; which shows how correctly Rose had

connected them with love.

Before he left that night Rose said to him: "Art thou sure thou

wouldst not rather have Leah Volcovitch?"

"Not for all the boots and shoes in the world," replied Leibel

vehemently.

"And I," protested Rose, "would rather go without my own than without

thee."

The landing outside the workshop was so badly lighted that their lips

came together in the darkness.

"Nay, nay, thou must not yet," said Rose. "Thou art still courting

Leah Volcovitch. For aught thou knowest, Sugarman the Shadchan may

have entangled thee beyond redemption."

"Not so," asserted Leibel. "I have only seen the maiden once."

"Yes. But Sugarman has seen her father several times," persisted Rose.

"For so misshapen a maiden his commission would be large. Thou must go

to Sugarman to-night, and tell him that thou canst not find it in thy

heart to go on with the match."

"Kiss me, and I will go," pleaded Leibel.

"Go, and I will kiss thee," said Rose resolutely.

"And when shall we tell thy father?" he asked, pressing her hand, as

the next best thing to her lips.

"As soon as thou art free from Leah."

"But will he consent?"

"He will not be glad," said Rose frankly. "But after mother's

death--peace be upon her--the rule passed from her hands into mine."

"Ah, that is well," said Leibel. He was a superficial thinker.

Leibel found Sugarman at supper. The great Shadchan offered him a

chair, but nothing else. Hospitality was associated in his mind with

special occasions only, and involved lemonade and "stuffed monkeys."

He was very put out--almost to the point of indigestion--to hear of

Leibel's final determination, and plied him with reproachful

enquiries.

"You don't mean to say that you give up a boot and shoe manufacturer

merely because his daughter has round shoulders!" he exclaimed

incredulously.

"It is more than round shoulders--it is a hump!" cried Leibel.

"And suppose? See how much better off you will be when you get your

own machines! We do not refuse to let camels carry our burdens because

they have humps."

"Ah, but a wife is not a camel," said Leibel, with a sage air.

"And a cutter is not a master-tailor," retorted Sugarman.

"Enough, enough!" cried Leibel. "I tell you I would not have her if

she were a machine warehouse."

"There sticks something behind," persisted Sugarman, unconvinced.

Leibel shook his head. "Only her hump," he said, with a flash of

humour.

"Moses Mendelssohn had a hump," expostulated Sugarman reproachfully.

"Yes, but he was a heretic," rejoined Leibel, who was not without

reading. "And then he was a man! A man with two humps could find a

wife for each. But a woman with a hump cannot expect a husband in

addition."

"Guard your tongue from evil," quoth the Shadchan angrily. "If

everybody were to talk like you, Leah Volcovitch would never be

married at all."

Leibel shrugged his shoulders, and reminded him that hunchbacked girls

who stammered and squinted and halted on left legs were not usually

led under the canopy.

"Nonsense! Stuff!" cried Sugarman angrily. "That is because they do

not come to me."

"Leah Volcovitch _has_ come to you," said Leibel, "but she shall not

come to me." And he rose, anxious to escape.

Instantly Sugarman gave a sigh of resignation. "Be it so! Then I shall

have to look out for another, that's all."

"No, I don't want any," replied Leibel quickly.

Sugarman stopped eating. "You don't want any?" he cried. "But you came

to me for one?"

"I--I--know," stammered Leibel. "But I've--I've altered my mind."

"One needs Hillel's patience to deal with you!" cried Sugarman. "But I

shall charge you all the same for my trouble. You cannot cancel an

order like this in the middle! No, no! You can play fast and loose

with Leah Volcovitch. But you shall not make a fool of me."

"But if I don't want one?" said Leibel sullenly.

Sugarman gazed at him with a cunning look of suspicion. "Didn't I say

there was something sticking behind?"

Leibel felt guilty. "But whom have you got in your eye?" he enquired

desperately.

"Perhaps you may have some one in yours!" naïvely answered Sugarman.

Leibel gave a hypocritic long-drawn, "U-m-m-m. I wonder if Rose

Green--where I work--" he said, and stopped.

"I fear not," said Sugarman. "She is on my list. Her father gave her

to me some months ago, but he is hard to please. Even the maiden

herself is not easy, being pretty."

"Perhaps she has waited for some one," suggested Leibel.

Sugarman's keen ear caught the note of complacent triumph.

"You have been asking her yourself!" he exclaimed in horror-stricken

accents.

"And if I have?" said Leibel defiantly.

"You have cheated me! And so has Eliphaz Green--I always knew he was

tricky! You have both defrauded me!"

"I did not mean to," said Leibel mildly.

"You _did_ mean to. You had no business to take the matter out of my

hands. What right had you to propose to Rose Green?"

"I did not," cried Leibel excitedly.

"Then you asked her father!"

"No; I have not asked her father yet."

"Then how do you know she will have you?"

"I--I know," stammered Leibel, feeling himself somehow a liar as well

as a thief. His brain was in a whirl; he could not remember how the

thing had come about. Certainly he had not proposed; nor could he say

that she had.

"You know she will have you," repeated Sugarman, reflectively. "And

does _she_ know?"

"Yes. In fact," he blurted out, "we arranged it together."

"Ah! You both know. And does her father know?"

"Not yet."

"Ah! then I must get his consent," said Sugarman decisively.

"I--I thought of speaking to him myself."

"Yourself!" echoed Sugarman, in horror. "Are you unsound in the head?

Why, that would be worse than the mistake you have already made!"

"What mistake?" asked Leibel, firing up.

"The mistake of asking the maiden herself. When you quarrel with her

after your marriage, she will always throw it in your teeth that you

wished to marry her. Moreover, if you tell a maiden you love her, her

father will think you ought to marry her as she stands. Still, what is

done is done." And he sighed regretfully.

"And what more do I want? I love her."

"You piece of clay!" cried Sugarman contemptuously. "Love will not

turn machines, much less buy them. You must have a dowry. Her father

has a big stocking--he can well afford it."

Leibel's eyes lit up. There was really no reason why he should not

have bread-and-cheese with his kisses.

"Now, if _you_ went to her father," pursued the Shadchan, "the odds

are that he would not even give you his daughter--to say nothing of

the dowry. After all, it is a cheek of you to aspire so high. As you

told me from the first, you haven't saved a penny. Even my commission

you won't be able to pay till you get the dowry. But if _I_ go, I do

not despair of getting a substantial sum--to say nothing of the

daughter."

"Yes, I think you had better go," said Leibel eagerly.

"But if I do this thing for you I shall want a pound more," rejoined

Sugarman.

"A pound more!" echoed Leibel, in dismay. "Why?"

"Because Rose Green's hump is of gold," replied Sugarman oracularly.

"Also, she is fair to see, and many men desire her."

"But you have always your five per cent on the dowry."

"It will be less than Volcovitch's," explained Sugarman. "You see,

Green has other and less beautiful daughters."

"Yes; but then it settles itself more easily. Say five shillings."

"Eliphaz Green is a hard man," said the Shadchan instead.

"Ten shillings is the most I will give!"

"Twelve and sixpence is the least I will take. Eliphaz Green haggles

so terribly."

They split the difference, and so eleven and threepence represented

the predominance of Eliphaz Green's stinginess over Volcovitch's.

The very next day Sugarman invaded the Green work-room. Rose bent over

her seams, her heart fluttering. Leibel had duly apprised her of the

roundabout manner in which she would have to be won, and she had

acquiesced in the comedy. At the least it would save her the trouble

of father-taming.

Sugarman's entry was brusque and breathless. He was overwhelmed with

joyous emotion. His blue bandanna trailed agitatedly from his

coat-tail.

"At last!" he cried, addressing the little white-haired master-tailor,

"I have the very man for you."

"Yes?" grunted Eliphaz, unimpressed. The monosyllable was packed with

emotion. It said: "Have you really the face to come to me again with

an ideal man?"

"He has all the qualities that you desire," began the Shadchan, in a

tone that repudiated the implications of the monosyllable. "He is

young, strong, God-fearing--"

"Has he any money?" grumpily interrupted Eliphaz.

"He _will_ have money," replied Sugarman unhesitatingly, "when he

marries."

"Ah!" The father's voice relaxed, and his foot lay limp on the

treadle. He worked one of his machines himself, and paid himself the

wages so as to enjoy the profit. "How much will he have?"

"I think he will have fifty pounds; and the least you can do is to let

him have fifty pounds," replied Sugarman, with the same happy

ambiguity.

Eliphaz shook his head on principle.

"Yes, you will," said Sugarman, "when you learn how fine a man he is."

The flush of confusion and trepidation already on Leibel's countenance

became a rosy glow of modesty, for he could not help overhearing what

was being said, owing to the lull of the master-tailor's machine.

"Tell me, then," rejoined Eliphaz.

"Tell me, first, if you will give fifty to a young, healthy,

hard-working, God-fearing man, whose idea it is to start as a

master-tailor on his own account? And you know how profitable that

is!"

"To a man like that," said Eliphaz, in a burst of enthusiasm, "I would

give as much as twenty-seven pounds ten!"

Sugarman groaned inwardly, but Leibel's heart leaped with joy. To get

four months' wages at a stroke! With twenty-seven pounds ten he could

certainly procure several machines, especially on the instalment

system. Out of the corners of his eyes he shot a glance at Rose, who

was beyond earshot.

"Unless you can promise thirty it is waste of time mentioning his

name," said Sugarman.

"Well, well--who is he?"

Sugarman bent down, lowering his voice into the father's ear.

"What! Leibel!" cried Eliphaz, outraged.

"Sh!" said Sugarman, "or he will overhear your delight, and ask more.

He has his nose high enough as it is."

"B--b--b--ut," sputtered the bewildered parent, "I know Leibel myself.

I see him every day. I don't want a Shadchan to find me a man I

know--a mere hand in my own workshop!"

"Your talk has neither face nor figure," answered Sugarman sternly.

"It is just the people one sees every day that one knows least. I

warrant that if I had not put it into your head you would never have

dreamt of Leibel as a son-in-law. Come now, confess."

Eliphaz grunted vaguely, and the Shadchan went on triumphantly. "I

thought as much. And yet where could you find a better man to keep

your daughter?"

"He ought to be content with her alone," grumbled her father.

Sugarman saw the signs of weakening, and dashed in, full strength.

"It's a question whether he will have her at all. I have not been to

him about her yet. I awaited your approval of the idea." Leibel

admired the verbal accuracy of these statements, which he just caught.

"But I didn't know he would be having money," murmured Eliphaz.

"Of course you didn't know. That's what the Shadchan is for--to point

out the things that are under your nose."

"But where will he be getting this money from?"

"From you," said Sugarman frankly.

"From me?"

"From whom else? Are you not his employer? It has been put by for his

marriage-day."

"He has saved it?"

"He has not _spent_ it," said Sugarman, impatiently.

"But do you mean to say he has saved fifty pounds?"

"If he could manage to save fifty pounds out of your wages he would be

indeed a treasure," said Sugarman. "Perhaps it might be thirty."

"But you said fifty."

"Well, _you_ came down to thirty," retorted the Shadchan. "You cannot

expect him to have more than your daughter brings."

"I never said thirty," Eliphaz reminded him. "Twenty-seven ten was my

last bid."

"Very well; that will do as a basis of negotiations," said Sugarman

resignedly. "I will call upon him this evening. If I were to go over

and speak to him now he would perceive you were anxious and raise his

terms, and that will never do. Of course, you will not mind allowing

me a pound more for finding you so economical a son-in-law?"

"Not a penny more."

"You need not fear," said Sugarman resentfully. "It is not likely I

shall be able to persuade him to take so economical a father-in-law.

So you will be none the worse for promising."

"Be it so," said Eliphaz, with a gesture of weariness, and he started

his machine again.

"Twenty-seven pounds ten, remember," said Sugarman, above the whirr.

Eliphaz nodded his head, whirring his wheelwork louder.

"And paid before the wedding, mind?"

The machine took no notice.

"Before the wedding, mind," repeated Sugarman. "Before we go under the

canopy."

"Go now, go now!" grunted Eliphaz, with a gesture of impatience. "It

shall be all well." And the white-haired head bowed immovably over its

work.

In the evening Rose extracted from her father the motive of Sugarman's

visit, and confessed that the idea was to her liking.

"But dost thou think he will have me, little father?" she asked, with

cajoling eyes.

"Anyone would have my Rose."

"Ah, but Leibel is different. So many years he has sat at my side and

said nothing."

"He had his work to think of; he is a good, saving youth."

"At this very moment Sugarman is trying to persuade him--not so? I

suppose he will want much money."

"Be easy, my child." And he passed his discoloured hand over her hair.

Sugarman turned up the next day, and reported that Leibel was

unobtainable under thirty pounds, and Eliphaz, weary of the contest,

called over Leibel, till that moment carefully absorbed in his

scientific chalk-marks, and mentioned the thing to him for the first

time. "I am not a man to bargain," Eliphaz said, and so he gave the

young man his tawny hand, and a bottle of rum sprang from somewhere,

and work was suspended for five minutes, and the "hands" all drank

amid surprised excitement. Sugarman's visits had prepared them to

congratulate Rose. But Leibel was a shock.

The formal engagement was marked by even greater junketing, and at

last the marriage-day came. Leibel was resplendent in a diagonal

frock-coat, cut by his own hand, and Rose stepped from the cab a

medley of flowers, fairness, and white silk, and behind her came two

bridesmaids--her sisters--a trio that glorified the spectator-strewn

pavement outside the Synagogue. Eliphaz looked almost tall in his

shiny high hat and frilled shirt-front. Sugarman arrived on foot,

carrying red-socked little Ebenezer tucked under his arm.

Leibel and Rose were not the only couple to be disposed of, for it was

the thirty-third day of the Omer--a day fruitful in marriages.

But at last their turn came. They did not, however, come in their

turn, and their special friends among the audience wondered why they

had lost their precedence. After several later marriages had taken

place, a whisper began to circulate. The rumour of a hitch gained

ground steadily, and the sensation was proportionate. And, indeed, the

rose was not to be picked without a touch of the thorn.

Gradually the facts leaked out, and a buzz of talk and comment ran

through the waiting Synagogue. Eliphaz had not paid up!

At first he declared he would put down the money immediately after

the ceremony. But the wary Sugarman, schooled by experience, demanded

its instant delivery on behalf of his other client. Hard-pressed,

Eliphaz produced ten sovereigns from his trousers' pocket, and

tendered them on account. These Sugarman disdainfully refused, and the

negotiations were suspended. The bridegroom's party was encamped in

one room, the bride's in another, and after a painful delay Eliphaz

sent an emissary to say that half the amount should be forthcoming,

the extra five pounds in a bright new Bank of England note. Leibel,

instructed and encouraged by Sugarman, stood firm.

And then arose a hubbub of voices, a chaos of suggestions; friends

rushed to and fro between the camps, some emerging from their seats in

the Synagogue to add to the confusion. But Eliphaz had taken his stand

upon a rock--he had no more ready money. To-morrow, the next day, he

would have some. And Leibel, pale and dogged, clutched tighter at

those machines that were slipping away momently from him. He had not

yet seen his bride that morning, and so her face was shadowy compared

with the tangibility of those machines. Most of the other maidens were

married women by now, and the situation was growing desperate. From

the female camp came terrible rumours of bridesmaids in hysterics, and

a bride that tore her wreath in a passion of shame and humiliation.

Eliphaz sent word that he would give an I O U for the balance, but

that he really could not muster any more current coin. Sugarman

instructed the ambassador to suggest that Eliphaz should raise the

money among his friends.

And the short spring day slipped away. In vain the minister, apprised

of the block, lengthened out the formulæ for the other pairs, and

blessed them with more reposeful unction. It was impossible to stave

off the Leibel-Green item indefinitely, and at last Rose remained the

only orange-wreathed spinster in the Synagogue. And then there was a

hush of solemn suspense, that swelled gradually into a steady rumble

of babbling tongues as minute succeeded minute and the final bridal

party still failed to appear. The latest bulletin pictured the bride

in a dead faint. The afternoon was waning fast. The minister left his

post near the canopy, under which so many lives had been united, and

came to add his white tie to the forces for compromise. But he fared

no better than the others. Incensed at the obstinacy of the

antagonists, he declared he would close the Synagogue. He gave the

couple ten minutes to marry in or quit. Then chaos came, and

pandemonium--a frantic babel of suggestion and exhortation from the

crowd. When five minutes had passed, a legate from Eliphaz announced

that his side had scraped together twenty pounds, and that this was

their final bid.

Leibel wavered; the long day's combat had told upon him; the reports

of the bride's distress had weakened him. Even Sugarman had lost his

cocksureness of victory. A few minutes more and both commissions might

slip through his fingers. Once the parties left the Synagogue it would

not be easy to drive them there another day. But he cheered on his man

still--one could always surrender at the tenth minute.

At the eighth the buzz of tongues faltered suddenly, to be transposed

into a new key, so to speak. Through the gesticulating assembly swept

that murmur of expectation which crowds know when the procession is

coming at last. By some mysterious magnetism all were aware that the

BRIDE herself--the poor hysteric bride--had left the paternal camp,

was coming in person to plead with her mercenary lover.

And as the glory of her and the flowers and the white draperies loomed

upon Leibel's vision his heart melted in worship, and he knew his

citadel would crumble in ruins at her first glance, at her first

touch. Was it fair fighting? As his troubled vision cleared and as she

came nigh unto him, he saw to his amazement that she was speckless and

composed--no trace of tears dimmed the fairness of her face, there was

no disarray in her bridal wreath.

The clock showed the ninth minute.

She put her hand appealingly on his arm, while a heavenly light came

into her face--the expression of a Joan of Arc animating her country.

"Do not give in, Leibel," she said. "Do not have me! Do not let them

persuade thee. By my life thou must not! Go home!"

[Illustration: "'BY MY LIFE THOU MUST NOT!'"]

So at the eleventh minute the vanquished Eliphaz produced the balance,

and they all lived happily ever afterwards.

_A Double-Barrelled Ghost._

I was ruined. The bank in which I had been a sleeping-partner from my

cradle smashed suddenly, and I was exempted from income tax at one

fell blow. It became necessary to dispose even of the family mansion

and the hereditary furniture. The shame of not contributing to my

country's exchequer spurred me to earnest reflection upon how to earn

an income, and, having mixed myself another lemon-squash, I threw

myself back on the canvas garden-chair, and watched the white, scented

wreaths of my cigar-smoke hanging in the drowsy air, and provoking

inexperienced bees to settle upon them. It was the sort of summer

afternoon on which to eat lotus, and to sip the dew from the lips of

Amaryllises; but although I had an affianced Amaryllis (whose

Christian name was Jenny Grant), I had not the heart to dally with her

in view of my sunk fortunes. She loved me for myself, no doubt, but

then I was not myself since the catastrophe; and although she had

hastened to assure me of her unchanged regard, I was not at all

certain whether _I_ should be able to support a wife in addition to

all my other misfortunes. So that I was not so comfortable that

afternoon as I appeared to my perspiring valet: no rose in the garden

had a pricklier thorn than I. The thought of my poverty weighed me

down; and when the setting sun began flinging bars of gold among the

clouds, the reminder of my past extravagance made my heart heavier

still, and I broke down utterly.

Swearing at the manufacturers of such collapsible garden-chairs, I was

struggling to rise when I perceived my rings of smoke comporting

themselves strangely. They were widening and curving and flowing into

definite outlines, as though the finger of the wind were shaping them

into a rough sketch of the human figure. Sprawling amid the ruins of

my chair, I watched the nebulous contours grow clearer and clearer,

till at last the agitation subsided, and a misty old gentleman, clad

in vapour of an eighteenth-century cut, stood plainly revealed upon

the sun-flecked grass.

"Good afternoon, John," said the old gentleman, courteously removing

his cocked hat.

"Good afternoon!" I gasped. "How do you know my name?"

"Because I have not forgotten my own," he replied. "I am John

Halliwell, your great-grandfather. Don't you remember me?"

A flood of light burst upon my brain. Of course! I ought to have

recognised him at once from the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, just

about to be sold by auction. The artist had gone to full length in

painting him, and here he was complete, from his white wig,

beautifully frizzled by the smoke, to his buckled shoes, from his

knee-breeches to the frills at his wrists.

"Oh! pray pardon my not having recognised you," I cried remorsefully;

"I have such a bad memory for faces. Won't you take a chair?"

"Sir, I have not sat down for a century and a half," he said simply.

"Pray be seated yourself."

[Illustration: "PRAY BE SEATED YOURSELF," SAID THE GHOST SIMPLY.]

Thus reminded of my undignified position, I gathered myself up, and

readjusting the complex apparatus, confided myself again to its canvas

caresses. Then, grown conscious of my shirt-sleeves, I murmured,--

"Excuse my deshabille. I did not expect to see you."

"I am aware the season is inopportune," he said apologetically. "But I

did not care to put off my visit till Christmas. You see, with us

Christmas is a kind of Bank Holiday; and when there is a general

excursion, a refined spirit prefers its own fireside. Moreover, I am

not, as you may see, very robust, and I scarce like to risk exposing

myself to such an extreme change of temperature. Your English

Christmas is so cold. With the pyrometer at three hundred and fifty,

it is hardly prudent to pass to thirty. On a sultry day like this the

contrast is less marked."

"I understand," I said sympathetically.

"But I should hardly have ventured," he went on, "to trespass upon you

at this untimely season merely out of deference to my own

valetudinarian instincts. The fact is, I am a _littérateur_."

"Oh, indeed," I said vaguely; "I was not aware of it."

"Nobody was aware of it," he replied sadly; "but my calling at this

professional hour will, perhaps, go to substantiate my statement."

I looked at him blankly. Was he quite sane? All the apparitions I had

ever heard of spoke with some approach to coherence, however imbecile

their behaviour. The statistics of insanity in the spiritual world

have never been published, but I suspect the percentage of madness is

high. Mere harmless idiocy is doubtless the prevalent form of

dementia, judging by the way the poor unhappy spirits set about

compassing their ends; but some of their actions can only be explained

by the more violent species of mania. My great-grandfather seemed to

read the suspicion in my eye, for he hastily continued:--

"Of course it is only the outside public who imagine that the spirits

of literature really appear at Christmas. It is the annuals that

appear at Christmas. The real season at which we are active on earth

is summer, as every journalist knows. By Christmas the authors of our

being have completely forgotten our existence. As a writer myself, and

calling in connection with a literary matter, I thought it more

professional to pay my visit during the dog days, especially as your

being in trouble supplied me with an excuse for asking permission to

go beyond bounds."

"You knew I was in trouble?" I murmured, touched by this sympathy from

an unexpected quarter.

"Certainly. And from a selfish point of view I am not sorry. You have

always been so inconsiderately happy that I could never find a seemly

pretext to get out to see you."

"Is it only when your descendants are in trouble that you are allowed

to visit them?" I enquired.

"Even so," he answered. "Of course spirits whose births were tragic,

who were murdered into existence, are allowed to supplement the

inefficient police departments of the upper globe, and a similar

charter is usually extended to those who have hidden treasures on

their conscience; but it is obvious that if all spirits were accorded

what furloughs they pleased, eschatology would become a farce. Sir,

you have no idea of the number of bogus criminal romances tendered

daily by those wishing to enjoy the roving license of avenging

spirits, for the ex-assassinated are the most enviable of immortals,

and cases of personation are of frequent occurrence. Our actresses,

too, are always pretending to have lost jewels; there is no end to the

excuses. The Christmas Bank Holiday is naturally inadequate to our

needs. Sir, I should have been far happier if my descendants had gone

wrong; but in spite of the large fortune I had accumulated, both your

father and your grandfather were of exemplary respectability and

unruffled cheerfulness. The solitary outing I had was when your

father attended a séance, and I was knocked up in the middle of the

night. But I did not enjoy my holiday in the least; the indignity of

having to move the furniture made the blood boil in my veins as in a

spirit-lamp, and exposed me to the malicious badinage of my circle on

my return. I protested that I did not care a rap; but I was mightily

rejoiced when I learnt that your father had denounced the proceedings

as a swindle, and was resolved never to invite me to his table again.

When you were born I thought you were born to trouble, as the sparks

fly upwards from our dwelling-place; but I was mistaken. Up till now

your life has been a long summer afternoon."

"Yes, but now the shades are falling," I said grimly. "It looks as if

my life henceforwards will be a long holiday--for you."

He shook his wig mournfully.

"No, I am only out on parole. I have had to give my word of honour to

try to set you on your legs again as soon as possible."

"You couldn't have come at a more opportune moment," I cried,

remembering how he had found me. "You are a good as well as a

great-grandfather, and I am proud of my descent. Won't you have a

cigar?"

"Thank you, I never smoke--on earth," said the spirit hurriedly, with

a flavour of bitter in his accents. "Let us to the point. You have

been reduced to the painful necessity of earning your living."

I nodded silently, and took a sip of lemon-squash. A strange sense of

salvation lulled my soul.

"How do you propose to do it?" asked my great-grandfather.

"Oh, I leave that to you," I said confidingly.

"Well, what do you say to a literary career?"

"Eh? What?" I gasped.

"A literary career," he repeated. "What makes you so astonished?"

"Well, for one thing it's exactly what Tom Addlestone, the

leader-writer of the _Hurrygraph_, was recommending to me this

morning. He said: 'John, my boy, if I had had your advantages ten

years ago, I should have been spared many a headache and supplied with

many a dinner. It may turn out a lucky thing yet that you gravitated

so to literary society, and that so many press men had free passes to

your suppers. Consider the number of men of letters you have mixed

drinks with! Why, man, you can succeed in any branch of literature you

please.'"

My great-grandfather's face was radiant. Perhaps it was only the

setting sun that touched it.

"A chip of the old block," he murmured. "That was I in my young days.

Johnson, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Burke, Hume, I knew them all--gay dogs,

gay dogs! Except that great hulking brute of a Johnson," he added,

with a sudden savage snarl that showed his white teeth.

"I told Addlestone that I had no literary ability whatever, and he

scoffed at me for my simplicity. All the same, I think he was only

poking fun at me. My friends might puff me out to bull-size; but I am

only a frog, and I should very soon burst. The public might be cajoled

into buying one book; they could not be duped a second time. Don't you

think I was right? I haven't any literary ability, have I?"

"Certainly not, certainly not," replied my great-grandfather with an

alacrity and emphasis that would have seemed suspicious in a mere

mortal. "But it does seem a shame to waste so great an opportunity.

The ball that Addlestone waited years for is at your foot, and it is

grievous to think that there it must remain merely because you do not

know how to kick it."

"Well, but what's a man to do?"

"What's a man to do?" repeated my great-grandfather contemptuously.

"Get a ghost, of course."

"By Jove!" I cried with a whistle. "That's a good idea! Addlestone has

a ghost to do his leaders for him when he's lazy. I've seen the young

fellow myself. Tom pays him six guineas a dozen, and gets three

guineas apiece himself. But of course Tom has to live in much better

style, and that makes it fair all round. You mean that I am to take

advantage of my influence to get some other fellow work, and take a

commission for the use of my name? That seems feasible enough. But

where am I to find a ghost with the requisite talents?"

"Here," said my great-grandfather.

"What! You?"

"Yes, I," he replied calmly.

"But you couldn't write--"

"Not now, certainly not. All I wrote now would be burnt."

"Then how the devil--?" I began.

"Hush!" he interrupted nervously. "Listen, and I will a tale unfold.

It is called _The Learned Pig_. I wrote it in my forty-fifth year, and

it is full of sketches from the life of all the more notable

personages of my time, from Lord Chesterfield to Mrs. Thrale, from Peg

Woffington to Adam Smith and the ingenious Mr. Dibdin. I have painted

the portrait of Sir Joshua quite as faithfully as he has painted mine.

Of course much of the dialogue is real, taken from conversations

preserved in my note-book. It is, I believe, a complete picture of the

period, and being the only book I ever wrote or intended to write, I

put my whole self into it, as well as all my friends."

"It must be, indeed, your masterpiece," I cried enthusiastically. "But

why is it called _The Learned Pig_, and how has it escaped

publication?"

"You shall hear. The learned pig is Dr. Johnson. He refused to take

wine with me. I afterwards learnt that he had given up strong liqueurs

altogether, and I went to see him again, but he received me with

epigrams. He is the pivot of my book, all the other characters

revolving about him. Naturally, I did not care to publish during his

lifetime; not entirely, I admit, out of consideration to his feelings,

but because foolish admirers had placed him on such a pedestal that he

could damn any book he did not relish. I made sure of surviving him,

so many and diverse were his distempers; whereas my manuscript

survived me. In the moment of death I strove to tell your grandfather

of the hiding-place in which I had bestowed it; but I could only make

signs to which he had not the clue. You can imagine how it has

embittered my spirit to have missed the aim of my life and my due

niche in the pantheon of letters. In vain I strove to be registered

among the 'hidden treasure' spirits, with the perambulatory privileges

pertaining to the class. I was told that to recognise manuscripts

under the head of 'treasures' would be to open a fresh door to abuse,

there being few but had scribbled in their time and had a good conceit

of their compositions to boot. I could offer no proofs of the value of

my work, not even printers' proofs, and even the fact that the

manuscript was concealed behind a sliding panel availed not to bring

it into the coveted category. Moreover, not only did I have no other

pretext to call on my descendants, but both my son and grandson were

too respectable to be willingly connected with letters and too

flourishing to be enticed by the prospects of profit. To you, however,

this book will prove the avenue to fresh fortune."

"Do you mean I am to publish it under your name?"

"No, under yours."

"But, then, where does the satisfaction come in?"

"Your name is the same as mine."

"I see; but still, why not tell the truth about it? In a preface, for

instance."

"Who would believe it? In my own day I could not credit that

Macpherson spoke truly about the way Ossian came into his possession,

nor to judge from gossip I have had with the younger ghosts did anyone

attach credence to Sir Walter Scott's introductions."

"True," I said musingly. "It is a played-out dodge. But I am not

certain whether an attack on Dr. Johnson would go down nowadays. We

are aware that the man had porcine traits, but we have almost

canonised him."

"The very reason why the book will be a success," he replied eagerly.

"I understand that in these days of yours the best way of attracting

attention is to fly in the face of all received opinion, and so in the

realm of history to whitewash the villains and tar and feather the

saints. The sliding panel of which I spoke is just behind the picture

of me. Lose no time. Go at once, even as I must."

The shadowy contours of his form waved agitatedly in the wind.

"But how do you know anyone will bring it out?" I said doubtfully. "Am

I to haunt the publishers' offices till--"

"No, no, I will do that," he interrupted in excitement. "Promise me

you will help me."

"But I don't feel at all sure it stands a ghost of a chance," I said,

growing colder in proportion as he grew more enthusiastic.

"It is the only chance of a ghost," he pleaded. "Come, give me your

word. Any of your literary friends will get you a publisher, and

where could you get a more promising ghost?"

"Oh, nonsense!" I said quietly, unconsciously quoting Ibsen. "There

must be ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sand of the sea."

I was determined to put the matter on its proper footing, for I saw

that under pretence of restoring my fortunes he was really trying to

get me to pull his chestnuts out of the fire, and I resented the

deceptive spirit that could put forward such tasks as favours. It was

evident that he cherished a post-mortem grudge against the great

lexicographer, as well as a posthumous craving for fame, and wished to

use me as the instrument of his reputation and his revenge. But I was

a man of the world, and I was not going to be rushed by a mere

phantom.

"I don't deny there are plenty of ghosts about," he answered with

insinuative deference. "Only will any of the others work for nothing?"

He saw he had scored a point, and his eyes twinkled.

"Yes, but I don't know that I approve of black-legs," I answered

sternly. "You are taking the bread and butter out of some honest

ghost's mouth."

The corners of his own mouth drooped; his eyes grew misty; he looked

fading away. "Most true," he faltered; "but be pitiful. Have you no

great-grand-filial feelings?"

"No, I lost everything in the crash," I answered coldly. "Suppose the

book's a frost?"

"I shan't mind," he said eagerly.

"No, I don't suppose you _would_ mind a frost," I retorted

witheringly. "But look at the chaff you'd be letting me in for. Hadn't

you better put off publication for a century or two?"

"No, no," he cried wildly; "our mansion will pass into strange hands.

I shall not have the right of calling on the new proprietors."

"Phew!" I whistled; "perhaps that's why you timed your visit now, you

artful old codger. I have always heard appearances are deceptive.

However, I have ever been a patron of letters; and although I cannot

approve of post-mundane malice, and think the dead past should be let

bury its dead, still, if you are set upon it, I will try and use my

influence to get your book published."

"Bless you!" he cried tremulously, with all the effusiveness natural

to an author about to see himself in print, and trembled so violently

that he dissipated himself away.

I stood staring a moment at the spot where he had stood, pleased at

having out-manoeuvred him; then my chair gave way with another

crash, and I picked myself up painfully, together with the dead stump

of my cigar, and brushed the ash off my trousers, and rubbed my eyes

and wondered if I had been dreaming. But no! when I ran into the

cheerless dining-room, with its pervading sense of imminent auction, I

found the sliding panel behind the portrait by Reynolds, which seemed

to beam kindly encouragement upon me, and, lo! _The Learned Pig_ was

there in a mass of musty manuscript.

As everybody knows, the book made a hit. The _Acadæum_ was unusually

generous in its praise: "A lively picture of the century of

farthingales and stomachers, marred only by numerous anachronisms and

that stilted air of faked-up archæological knowledge which is, we

suppose, inevitable in historical novels. The conversations are

particularly artificial. Still, we can forgive Mr. Halliwell a good

deal of inaccuracy and inacquaintance with the period, in view of the

graphic picture of the literary dictator from the novel point of view

of a contemporary who was not among the worshippers. It is curious

how the honest, sterling character of the man is brought out all the

more clearly from the incapacity of the narrator to comprehend its

greatness--to show this was a task that called for no little skill and

subtlety. If it were only for this one ingenious idea, Mr. Halliwell's

book would stand out from the mass of abortive attempts to resuscitate

the past. He has failed to picture the times, but he has done what is

better--he has given us human beings who are alive, instead of the

futile shadows that flit through the Walhalla of the average

historical novel."

All the leading critics were at one as to the cleverness with which

the great soul of Dr. Johnson was made to stand out on the background

of detraction, and the public was universally agreed that this was the

only readable historical novel published for many years, and that the

anachronisms didn't matter a pin. I don't know what I had done to Tom

Addlestone; but when everybody was talking about me, he went about

saying that I kept a ghost. I was annoyed, for I did not keep one in

any sense, and I openly defied the world to produce him. Why, I never

saw him again myself--I believe he was too disgusted with the fillip

he had given Dr. Johnson's reputation, and did not even take advantage

of the Christmas Bank Holiday. But Addlestone's libel got to Jenny

Grant's ears, and she came to me indignantly, and said: "I won't have

it. You must either give up me or the ghost."

"To give up you would be to give up the ghost, darling," I answered

soothingly. "But you, and you alone, have a right to the truth. It is

not my ghost at all, it is my great-grandfather's."

"Do you mean to say he bequeathed him to you?"

"It came to that."

I then told her the truth, and showed how in any case the profits of

my ancestor's book rightfully reverted backwards to me. So we were

married on them, and Jenny, fired by my success, tried _her_ hand on a

novel, and published it, truthfully enough, under the name of J.

Halliwell. She has written all my stories ever since, including this

one; which, if it be necessarily false in the letter, is true in the

spirit.

_Vagaries of a Viscount._

That every man has a romance in his life has always been a pet theory

of mine, so I was not surprised to find the immaculate Dorking smoking

a clay pipe in Cable Street (late Ratcliff Highway) at half-past eight

of a winter's morning. Nor was I surprised to find myself there,

because, as a romancer, I have a poetic license to go anywhere and see

everything. Viscount Dorking had just come out of an old clo' shop,

and was got up like a sailor. Under his arm was a bundle. He lurched

against me without recognising me, for I, too, was masquerading in my

shabbiest and roughest attire, and the morning was bleak and foggy,

the round red sun flaming in the forehead of the morning sky like the

eye of a cyclop. But there could be no doubt it was Dorking--even if I

had not been acquainted with the sedate Viscount (that paradox of the

peerage, whose treatises on pure mathematics were the joy of Senior

Wranglers) I should have suspected something shady from the whiteness

of my sailor's hands.

Dorking was a dapper little man, almost dissociable from gloves and a

chimneypot. The sight of him shambling along like one of the crew of

H. M. S. _Pinafore_ gave me a pleasant thrill of excitement. I turned,

and followed him along the narrow yellow street. He made towards the

Docks, turning down King David Lane. He was apparently without any

instrument of protection, though I, for my part, was glad to feel the

grasp of the old umbrella that walks always with me, hand in knob.

Hard by the Shadwell Basin he came to a halt before a frowsy

coffee-house, reflectively removed his pipe from his mouth, and

whistled a bar of a once popular air in a peculiar manner. Then he

pushed open the bleared glass door, and was lost to view.

After an instant's hesitation I pulled my sombrero over my eyes and

strode in after him, plunging into a wave of musty warmth not entirely

disagreeable after the frigid street. The boxes were full of queer

waterside characters, among whom flitted a young woman robustly

beautiful. The Viscount was already smiling at her when I entered.

"Bring us the usual," he said, in a rough accent.

"Come along, Jenny, pint and one," impatiently growled a

weather-beaten old ruffian in a pilot's cap.

"Pawn your face!" murmured Jenny, turning to me with an enquiring air.

"Pint and one," I said boldly, in as husky a tone as I could squeeze

out.

Several battered visages, evidently belonging to _habitués_ of the

place, were bent suspiciously in my direction; perhaps because my

rig-out, though rough, had no flavour of sea-salt or river-mud, for no

one took the least notice of Dorking, except the comely attendant. I

waited with some curiosity for my fare, which turned out to be nothing

more mysterious than a pint of coffee and one thick slice of bread and

butter. Not to appear ignorant of the prices ruling, I tendered Jenny

a sixpence, whereupon she returned me fourpence-halfpenny. This

appeared to me so ridiculously cheap that I had not the courage to

offer her the change as I had intended, nor did she seem to expect it.

The pint of coffee was served in one great hulking cup such as

Gargantua might have quaffed. I took a sip, and found it of the

flavour of chalybeate springs. But it was hot, and I made shift to

drink a little, casting furtive glances at Dorking, three boxes off

across the gangway.

My gentleman sailor seemed quite at home, swallowing stolidly as

though at his own breakfast-table. I grew impatient for him to have

done, and beguiled the time by studying a placard on the wall offering

a reward for information as to the whereabouts of a certain ship's

cook who was wanted for knifing human flesh. And presently, curiously

enough, in comes a police-sergeant on this very matter, and out goes

Dorking (rather hastily, I thought), with me at his heels.

No sooner had he got round a corner than he started running at a rate

that gave me a stitch in the side. He did not stop till he reached a

cab-rank. There was only one vehicle on it, and the coughing,

red-nosed driver, unpleasantly suggesting a mixture of grog and fog,

was climbing to his seat when I came cautiously and breathlessly up,

and Dorking was returning to his trousers' pocket a jingling mass of

gold and silver coins, which he had evidently been exhibiting to the

sceptical cabman. He seemed to walk these regions with the

fearlessness of Una in the enchanted forest. I had no resource but to

hang on to the rear, despite the alarums of "whip behind," raised by

envious and inconsiderate urchins.

And in this manner, defiantly dodging the cabman, who several times

struck me unfairly behind his back, I drove through a labyrinth of

sordid streets to the Bethnal Green Museum. Here we alighted, and the

Viscount strolled about outside the iron railings, from time to time

anxiously scrutinising the church clock and looking towards the

fountain which only performs in the summer, and was then wearing its

winter night-cap. At last, as if weary of waiting, he walked with

sudden precipitation towards the turnstile, and was lost to view

within. After a moment I followed him, but was stopped by the janitor,

who, with an air of astonishment, informed me there was sixpence to

pay, it being a Wednesday. I understood at once why the Viscount had

selected this day, for there was no one to be seen inside, and it was

five minutes ere I discovered him. He was in the National Portrait

Gallery, before one of Sir Peter Lely's insipid beauties, which to my

surprise he was copying in pencil. Evidently he was trying to while

away the time. At eleven o'clock to the second he scribbled something

underneath the sketch, folded it up carefully, picked up his bundle

and walked unhesitatingly downstairs into the second gallery, where,

after glancing about to assure himself that the policeman's head was

turned away, he deposited the paper between two bottles of tape-worms,

and stole out through the back door. Feverishly seizing the sketch, I

followed him, but the policeman's eye was now upon me, and I had to

walk with dignified slowness, though I was in agonies lest I should

lose my man. My anxiety was justified; when I reached the grounds, the

Viscount was nowhere to be seen. I ran hither and thither like a

madman, along the back street and about the grounds, hacking my shins

against a perambulator, and at last sank upon a frigid garden seat,

breathless and exhausted. I now bethought me of the paper clenched in

my fist, and, smoothing it out, deciphered these words faintly

pencilled beneath a caricature of the Court beauty:--

"Not my fault you missed me. If you are still set on your folly, you

will find me lunching at the Chingford Hotel."

I sprang up exultant, new fire in my veins. True, the mystery was

darkening, but it was the darkness that precedes the dawn.

"_Cherchez la femme!_" I muttered, and darting down Three Colts Lane I

reached the Junction, only to find the barrier dashed in my face. But

half-a-crown drove it back, and I sprang into the guard's van on his

very heels. A shilling stifled the oath on his lips, and transferred

it to mine when I discovered I had jumped into the Enfield Fast.

Before I really got to Chingford it was long past noon. But I found

him.

The Viscount was toying with a Chartreuse in the dining-room. The

waiters eyed me suspiciously, for I was shabby and dusty and

haggard-looking. To my surprise Dorking had doffed the sailor, and

wore a loud checked suit! He looked up as I entered, but did not

appear to recognise me. There was no one with him. Still I had found

him. That was the prime thing.

Becoming conscious I was faint with hunger, I took up the menu, when

to my vexation I saw the Viscount pay his bill, and don an overcoat

and a billy-cock, and ere I could snatch bite or sup I was striding

along the slimy forest paths, among the gaunt, fog-wrapped trees,

following the Viscount by his footprints whenever I lost him for a

moment among the avenues. Dorking marched with quick, decisive steps.

In the heart of the forest, by a great oak, whose roots sprawled in

every direction, he came to a standstill. Hidden behind some

brushwood, I awaited the sequel with beating heart.

The Viscount took out a great coloured handkerchief, and spread it

carefully over the roots of the oak; then he sat down on the

handkerchief, and whistled the same bar of the same once popular air

he had whistled outside the coffee-house. Immediately a broken-nosed

man emerged from behind a bush, and addressed the Viscount. I strained

my ears, but could not catch their conversation, but I heard Dorking

laugh heartily, as he sprang up and clapped the man on the shoulder.

They walked off together.

I was now excited to the wildest degree; I forgot the pangs of baffled

appetite; my whole being was strung to find a key to the strange

proceedings of the mathematical Viscount. Tracking their double

footsteps through the mist, I found them hobnobbing in a public-house

on the forest border. After peeping in, I ran round to another door,

and stood in an adjoining bar, where, without being seen, I could have

a snack of bread and cheese, and hear all.

"Could you bring her round to my house to-night?" said Dorking, in a

hoarse whisper. "You shall have the money down."

"Right, sir!" said the man. And then their pewters clinked.

To my chagrin this was all the conversation. The Viscount strode out

alone--except for my company. The fog had grown deeper, and I was glad

to be conducted to the station. This time we went to Liverpool Street.

Dorking lingered at the book-stall, and at last enquired if they had

yesterday's _Times_. Receiving a reply in the negative, he clucked his

tongue impatiently. Then, as with a sudden thought, he ran up to the

North London Railway book-stall, only to be again disappointed. He

took out the great coloured handkerchief, and wiped his forehead. Then

he entered into confidential conversation with an undistinguished

stranger, fat and foreign, who had been looking eagerly up and down at

the extreme end of the platform. Re-descending into the street, he

jumped into a Charing Cross 'bus. As he went inside I had no option

but to go outside, though the air was yellow and I felt chilled to the

bone.

[Illustration: IN CONFIDENTIAL CONVERSATION WITH AN UNDISTINGUISHED

FOREIGNER.]

Alighting at Charing Cross, he went into the telegraph office, and

wrote a telegram. The composition seemed to cause him great

difficulty. Standing outside the door, I saw him discard two

half-begun forms. When he came out I made a swift calculation of the

chances, and determined to secure the two forms, even at the risk of

losing him. Neither had an address. One read: "If you are still set on

your fol--"; the other: "Come to-night if you are still--" Bolting out

with these precious scraps of evidence, that only added fuel to the

flame of curiosity that was consuming me, I turned cold to find the

Viscount swallowed up in the crowd. After an instant's agonised

hesitation, I hailed a hansom, and drove to his flat in Victoria

Street. The valet told me the Viscount was ill in bed, and could not

see me. I read in his face that it was a lie. I resolved to loiter

outside the building till Dorking's return.

I had not long to wait. In less than ten minutes a hansom discharged

him at my feet. Had I not been prepared for anything, I should not

have recognised him again in his red whiskers, white hat, and blue

spectacles. He rang the bell, and enquired of his own valet if

Viscount Dorking was at home. The man said he was ill in bed.

"Oh, we'll soon put him on his legs again," interrupted Dorking, with

a professional air, and pushed his valet aside. In that moment the

solution dawned upon me. _Dorking was mad!_ Nothing but insanity would

account for his day's vagaries. I felt it was my duty, as a

fellow-creature, to look to him. I followed him, to the open-eyed

consternation of the valet. Suddenly he turned upon me, and seized me

savagely by the throat. I felt choking. My worst fear was confirmed.

"No further, my man," he cried, flinging me back. "Now go, and tell

her ladyship how you have earned your fee!"

"Dorking! are you mad?" I gasped. "Don't you remember me--Mr.

Pry--from the Bachelor's Club?"

"Great heavens, Paul!" he cried. Then he fell back on an ottoman, and

laughed till the whiskers ran down his sides. He always had a sense of

humour, I remembered.

We explained the situation to each other. Dorking had an eccentric

aunt who wished to leave her money to him. Suddenly Dorking learnt

from his valet, who was betrothed to her ladyship's maid, that she had

taken it into her head he could not be so virtuous and so devoted to

pure mathematics as he appeared, and so she had commissioned a

private detective agency to watch her nephew, and discover how deep

the still waters ran. Incensed at the suspicion, he had that day

started a course of action calculated to bamboozle the agency, and

having no other meaning whatever.

When he caught sight of me gazing at him so curiously he mistook me

for one of its minions, and determined to lead me a dance; the mistake

was confirmed by my patient obedience to his piping.

The broken-nosed man was an accident. Anticipating his value as a

beautiful false clue, Dorking laughed uproariously at the sight of

him, and readily agreed to buy a French poodle.

The Queen's Triplets, a Nursery Tale for the old.

[Illustration: The Queen's Triplets, a Nursery Tale for the old]

Once upon a time there was a Queen who unexpectedly gave birth to

three Princes. They were all so exactly alike that after a moment or

two it was impossible to remember which was the eldest or which was

the youngest. Any two of them, sort them how you pleased, were always

twins. They all cried in the same key and with the same comic

grimaces. In short, there was not a hair's-breadth of difference

between them--not that they had a hair's-breadth between them, for,

like most babies, they were prematurely bald.

The King was very much put out. He did not mind the expense of keeping

three Heir Apparents, for that fell on the country, and was defrayed

by an impost called "The Queen's Tax." But it was the consecrated

custom of the kingdom that the crown should pass over to the eldest

son, and the absence of accurate knowledge upon this point was

perplexing. A triumvirate was out of the question; the multiplication

of monarchs would be vexation to the people, and the rule of three

would drive them mad.

The Queen was just as annoyed, though on different grounds. She felt

it hard enough to be the one mother in the realm who could not get the

Queen's bounty, without having to suffer the King's reproaches. Her

heart was broken, and she died soon after of laryngitis.

To distinguish the triplets (when it was too late) they were always

dressed one in green, one in blue, and one in black, the colours of

the national standard, and naturally got to be popularly known by the

sobriquets of the Green Prince, the Blue Prince, and the Black Prince.

Every year they got older and older till at last they became young

men. And every year the King got older and older till at last he

became an old man, and the fear crept into his heart that he might be

restored to his wife and leave the kingdom embroiled in civil feud

unless he settled straightway who should be the heir. But, being

human, notwithstanding his court laureates, he put off the

disagreeable duty from day to day, and might have died without an

heir, if the envoys from Paphlagonia had not aroused him to the

necessity of a decision. For they announced that the Princess of

Paphlagonia, being suddenly orphaned, would be sent to him in the

twelfth moon that she might marry his eldest son as covenanted by

ancient treaty. This was the last straw. "But I don't know who is my

eldest son!" yelled the King, who had a vast respect for covenants and

the Constitution.

In great perturbation he repaired to a famous Oracle, at that time

worked by a priestess with her hair let down her back. The King asked

her a plain question: "Which is my eldest son?"

After foaming at the mouth like an open champagne bottle, she

replied:--

"The eldest is he that the Princess shall wed."

[Illustration: "'THE ELDEST IS HE THAT THE PRINCESS SHALL WED.'"]

The King said he knew that already, and was curtly told that if the

replies did not give satisfaction he could go elsewhere. So he went to

the wise men and the magicians, and held a levée of them, and they

gave him such goodly counsel that the Chief Magician was henceforth

honoured with the privilege of holding the Green, Black, and Blue

Tricolour over the King's head at mealtimes. Soon after, it being the

twelfth moon, the King set forward with a little retinue to meet the

Princess of Paphlagonia, whose coming had got abroad; but returned two

days later with the news that the Princess was confined to her room,

and would not arrive in the city till next year.

[Illustration: "THE CHIEF MAGICIAN."]

On the last day of the year the King summoned the three Princes to the

Presence Chamber. And they came, the Green Prince, and the Blue

Prince, and the Black Prince, and made obeisance to the Monarch, who

sat in moiré antique robes, on the old gold throne, with his courtiers

all around him.

"My sons," he said, "ye are aware that, according to the immemorial

laws of the realm, one of you is to be my heir, only I know not which

of you he is; the difficulty is complicated by the fact that I have

covenanted to espouse him to the Princess of Paphlagonia, of whose

imminent arrival ye have heard. In this dilemma there are those who

would set the sovereignty of the State upon the hazard of a die. But

not by such undignified methods do I deem it prudent to extort the

designs of the gods. There are ways alike more honourable to you and

to me of ascertaining the intentions of the fates. And first, the wise

men and the magicians recommend that ye be all three sent forth upon

an arduous emprise. As all men know, somewhere in the great seas that

engirdle our dominion, somewhere beyond the Ultimate Thule, there

rangeth a vast monster, intolerable, not to be borne. Every ninth moon

this creature approacheth our coasts, deluging the land with an inky

vomit. This plaguy Serpent cannot be slain, for the soothsayers aver

it beareth a charmed life, but it were a mighty achievement, if for

only one year, the realm could be relieved of its oppression. Are ye

willing to set forth separately upon this knightly quest?"

[Illustration: "'THERE RANGETH A VAST MONSTER.'"]

Then the three Princes made enthusiastic answer, entreating to be sped

on the journey forthwith, and a great gladness ran through the

Presence Chamber, for all had suffered much from the annual incursions

of the monster. And the King's heart was fain of the gallant spirit of

the Princes.

"'Tis well," said he. "To-morrow, at the first dawn of the new year,

shall ye fare forth together; when ye reach the river ye shall part,

and for eight moons shall ye wander whither ye will; only, when the

ninth moon rises, shall ye return and tell me how ye have fared.

Hasten now, therefore, and equip yourselves as ye desire, and if there

be aught that will help you in the task, ye have but to ask for it."

Then, answering quickly before his brothers could speak, the Black

Prince cried: "Sire, I would crave the magic boat which saileth under

the sea and destroyeth mighty armaments."

"It is thine," replied the King.

Then the Green Prince said: "Sire, grant me the magic car which

saileth through the air over the great seas."

The Black Prince started and frowned, but the King answered, "It is

granted." Then, turning to the Blue Prince, who seemed lost in

meditation, the King said: "Why art thou silent, my son? Is there

nothing I can give thee?"

"Thanks, I will take a little pigeon," answered the Blue Prince

abstractedly.

The courtiers stared and giggled, and the Black Prince chuckled, but

the Blue Prince was seemingly too proud to back out of his request.

So at sunrise on the morrow the three Princes set forth, journeying

together till they came to the river where they had agreed to part

company. Here the magic boat was floating at anchor, while the magic

car was tied to the trunk of a plane-tree upon the bank, and the

little pigeon, fastened by a thread, was fluttering among the

branches.

Now, when the Green Prince saw the puny pigeon, he was like to die of

laughing.

"Dost thou think to feed the Serpent with thy pigeon?" he sneered. "I

fear me thou wilt not choke him off thus."

"And what hast thou to laugh at?" retorted the Black Prince,

interposing. "Dost thou think to find the Serpent of the Sea in the

air?"

"He is always in the air," murmured the Blue Prince, inaudibly.

"Nay," said the Green Prince, scratching his head dubiously. "But thou

didst so hastily annex the magic boat, I had to take the next best

thing."

"Dost thou accuse me of unfairness?" cried the Black Prince in a

pained voice. "Sooner than thou shouldst say that, I would change with

thee."

"Wouldst thou, indeed?" enquired the Green Prince eagerly.

"Ay, that would I," said the Black Prince indignantly. "Take the magic

boat, and may the gods speed thee." So saying he jumped briskly into

the magic car, cut the rope, and sailed aloft. Then, looking down

contemptuously upon the Blue Prince, he shouted: "Come, mount thy

pigeon, and be off in search of the monster."

But the Blue Prince replied, "I will await you here."

Then the Green Prince pushed off his boat, chuckling louder than ever.

"Dost thou expect to keep the creature off our coasts by guarding the

head of the river?" he scoffed.

But the Blue Prince replied, "I will await you both here till the

ninth moon."

No sooner were his brothers gone than the Blue Prince set about

building a hut. Here he lived happily, fishing his meals out of the

river or snaring them out of the sky. The pigeon was never for a

moment in danger of being eaten. It was employed more agreeably to

itself and its master in operations which will appear anon. Most of

the time the Blue Prince lay on his back among the wild flowers,

watching the river rippling to the sea or counting the passing of the

eight moons, that alternately swelled and dwindled, now showing like

the orb of the Black Prince's car, now like the Green Prince's boat.

Sometimes he read scraps of papyrus, and his face shone.

One lovely starry night, as the Blue Prince was watching the heavens,

it seemed to him as if the eighth moon in dying had dropped out of the

firmament and was falling upon him. But it was only the Black Prince

come back. His garments were powdered with snow, his brows were

knitted gloomily, he had a dejected, despondent aspect.

"Thou here!" he snapped.

"Of course," said the Blue Prince cheerfully, though he seemed a

little embarrassed all the same. "Haven't I been here all the time?

But go into my hut, I've kept supper hot for thee."

"Has the Green Prince had his?"

"No, I haven't seen anything of him. Hast thou scotched the Serpent?"

"No, I haven't seen anything of him," growled the Black Prince. "I've

passed backwards and forwards over the entire face of the ocean, but

nowhere have I caught the slightest glimpse of him. What a fool I was

to give up the magic boat! He never seems to come to the surface."

All this while the Blue Prince was dragging his brother with

suspicious solicitude towards the hut, where he sat him down to his

own supper of ortolans and oysters. But the host had no sooner run

outside again, on the pretext of seeing if the Green Prince was

coming, than there was a disturbance and eddying in the stream as of a

rally of water-rats, and the magic boat shot up like a catapult, and

the Green Prince stepped on deck all dry and dusty, and with the air

of a draggled dragon-fly.

"Good evening, hast thou er--scotched the Serpent?" stammered the Blue

Prince, taken aback.

"No, I haven't even seen anything of him," growled the Green Prince.

"I have skimmed along the entire surface of the ocean, and sailed

every inch beneath it, but nowhere have I caught the slightest

glimpse of him. What a fool I was to give up the magic car! From a

height I could have commanded an ampler area of ocean. Perhaps he was

up the river."

"No, I haven't seen anything of him," replied the Blue Prince hastily.

"But go into my hut, thy supper must be getting quite cold." He

hurried his verdant brother into the hut, and gave him some chestnuts

out of the oven (it was the best he could do for him), and then rushed

outside again, on the plea of seeing if the Serpent was coming. But he

seemed to expect him to come from the sky, for, leaning against the

trunk of the plane-tree by the river, he resumed his anxious scrutiny

of the constellations. Presently there was a gentle whirring in the

air, and a white bird became visible, flying rapidly downwards in his

direction. Almost at the same instant he felt himself pinioned by a

rope to the tree-trunk, and saw the legs of the alighting pigeon

neatly prisoned in the Black Prince's fist.

"Aha!" croaked the Black Prince triumphantly. "Now we shall see

through thy little schemes."

He detached the slip of papyrus which dangled from the pigeon's neck.

"How darest thou read my letters?" gasped the Blue Prince.

"If I dare to rob the mail, I shall certainly not hesitate to read the

letters," answered the Black Prince coolly, and went on to enunciate

slowly (for the light was bad) the following lines:--

"Heart-sick I watch the old moon's ling'ring death,

And long upon my face to feel thy breath;

I burn to see its final flicker die,

And greet our moon of honey in the sky."

"What is all this moonshine?" he concluded in bewilderment.

Now the Blue Prince was the soul of candour, and seeing that nothing

could now be lost by telling the truth, he answered:--

"This is a letter from a damsel who resideth in the Tower of

Telifonia, on the outskirts of the capital; we are engaged. No doubt

the language seemeth to thee a little overdone, but wait till thy turn

cometh."

[Illustration: THE DAMSEL OF THE TOWER.]