SO DO I
A few days after the events last narrated, Transome Kent called at the
boarding-house of Miss Alice Delary. The young Investigator wore a light
grey tweed suit, with a salmon-coloured geranium in his buttonhole.
There was something exultant yet at the same time grave in his
expression, as of one who has taken a momentous decision, affecting his
future life.
"I wonder," he murmured, "whether I am acting for my happiness."
He sat down for a moment on the stone steps and analysed himself.
Then he rose.
"I am," he said, and rang the bell.
"Miss Delary?" said a maid, "she left here two days ago. If you are Mr.
Kent, the note on the mantelpiece is for you."
Without a word (Kent never wasted them) the Investigator opened the note
and read:
"Dear Mr. Kent,
"Peter and I were married yesterday morning, and have taken an
apartment in Java, New Jersey. You will be glad to hear that
Peter's cough is ever so much better. The lawyers have given Peter
his money without the least demur.
"We both feel that your analysis was simply wonderful. Peter says
he doesn't know where he would be without it.
"Very sincerely,
"Alice Kelly.
"P.S.--I forgot to mention to you that I saw Peter in the
billiard-room. But your analysis was marvellous just the same."
That evening Kent sat with Throgton talking over the details of the
tragedy.
"Throgton," he said, "it has occurred to me that there were points about
that solution that we didn't get exactly straight somehow."
"So do I," said Throgton.
V
BROKEN BARRIERS
OR, RED LOVE ON A BLUE ISLAND
(_The kind of thing that has replaced the good Old Sea Story_)
_V.--Broken Barriers; or, Red Love on a Blue Island._
It was on a bright August afternoon that I stepped on board the steamer
_Patagonia_ at Southampton outward bound for the West Indies and the
Port of New Orleans.
I had at the time no presentiment of disaster. I remember remarking to
the ship's purser, as my things were being carried to my state-room,
that I had never in all my travels entered upon any voyage with so
little premonition of accident. "Very good, Mr. Borus," he answered.
"You will find your state-room in the starboard aisle on the right." I
distinctly recall remarking to the Captain that I had never, in any of
my numerous seafarings, seen the sea of a more limpid blue. He agreed
with me so entirely, as I recollect it, that he did not even trouble to
answer.
Had anyone told me on that bright summer afternoon that our ship would
within a week be wrecked among the Dry Tortugas, I should have laughed.
Had anyone informed me that I should find myself alone on a raft in the
Caribbean Sea, I should have gone into hysterics.
We had hardly entered the waters of the Caribbean when a storm of
unprecedented violence broke upon us. Even the Captain had never, so he
said, seen anything to compare with it. For two days and nights we
encountered and endured the full fury of the sea. Our soup plates were
secured with racks and covered with lids. In the smoking-room our
glasses had to be set in brackets, and as our steward came and went, we
were from moment to moment in imminent danger of seeing him washed
overboard.
On the third morning just after daybreak the ship collided with
something, probably either a floating rock or one of the dry Tortugas.
She blew out her four funnels, the bowsprit dropped out of its place,
and the propeller came right off. The Captain, after a brief
consultation, decided to abandon her. The boats were lowered, and, the
sea being now quite calm, the passengers were emptied into them.
By what accident I was left behind I cannot tell. I had been talking to
the second mate and telling him of a rather similar experience of mine
in the China Sea, and holding him by the coat as I did so, when quite
suddenly he took me by the shoulders, and rushing me into the deserted
smoking-room said, "Sit there, Mr. Borus, till I come back for you." The
fellow spoke in such a menacing way that I thought it wiser to comply.
When I came out they were all gone. By good fortune I found one of the
ship's rafts still lying on the deck. I gathered together such articles
as might be of use and contrived, though how I do not know, to launch it
into the sea.
On my second morning on my raft I was sitting quietly polishing my boots
and talking to myself when I became aware of an object floating in the
sea close beside the raft. Judge of my feelings when I realized it to be
the inanimate body of a girl. Hastily finishing my boots and stopping
talking to myself, I made shift as best I could to draw the unhappy girl
towards me with a hook.
After several ineffectual attempts I at last managed to obtain a hold of
the girl's clothing and drew her on to the raft.
She was still unconscious. The heavy lifebelt round her person must (so
I divined) have kept her afloat after the wreck. Her clothes were
sodden, so I reasoned, with the sea-water.
On a handkerchief which was still sticking into the belt of her dress, I
could see letters embroidered. Realizing that this was no time for
hesitation, and that the girl's life might depend on my reading her
name, I plucked it forth. It was Edith Croyden.
As vigorously as I could I now set to work to rub her hands. My idea was
(partly) to restore her circulation. I next removed her boots, which
were now rendered useless, as I argued, by the sea-water, and began to
rub her feet.
I was just considering what to remove next, when the girl opened her
eyes. "Stop rubbing my feet," she said.
"Miss Croyden," I said, "you mistake me."
I rose, with a sense of pique which I did not trouble to conceal, and
walked to the other end of the raft. I turned my back upon the girl and
stood looking out upon the leaden waters of the Caribbean Sea. The ocean
was now calm. There was nothing in sight.
I was still searching the horizon when I heard a soft footstep on the
raft behind me, and a light hand was laid upon my shoulder. "Forgive
me," said the girl's voice.
I turned about. Miss Croyden was standing behind me. She had, so I
argued, removed her stockings and was standing in her bare feet. There
is something, I am free to confess, about a woman in her bare feet which
hits me where I live. With instinctive feminine taste the girl had
twined a piece of seaweed in her hair. Seaweed, as a rule, gets me every
time. But I checked myself.
"Miss Croyden," I said, "there is nothing to forgive."
At the mention of her name the girl blushed for a moment and seemed
about to say something, but stopped.
"Where are we?" she queried presently.
"I don't know," I answered, as cheerily as I could, "but I am going to
find out."
"How brave you are!" Miss Croyden exclaimed.
"Not at all," I said, putting as much heartiness into my voice as I was
able to.
The girl watched my preparations with interest.
With the aid of a bent pin hoisted on a long pole I had no difficulty in
ascertaining our latitude.
"Miss Croydon," I said, "I am now about to ascertain our longitude. To
do this I must lower myself down into the sea. Pray do not be alarmed or
anxious. I shall soon be back."
With the help of a long line I lowered myself deep down into the sea
until I was enabled to ascertain, approximately at any rate, our
longitude. A fierce thrill went through me at the thought that this
longitude was our longitude, hers and mine. On the way up, hand over
hand, I observed a long shark looking at me. Realizing that the fellow
if voracious might prove dangerous, I lost but little time--indeed, I
may say I lost absolutely no time--in coming up the rope.
The girl was waiting for me.
"Oh, I am so glad you have come back," she exclaimed, clasping her
hands.
"It was nothing," I said, wiping the water from my ears, and speaking as
melodiously as I could.
"Have you found our whereabouts?" she asked.
"Yes," I answered. "Our latitude is normal, but our longitude is, I
fear, at least three degrees out of the plumb. I am afraid, Miss
Croyden," I added, speaking as mournfully as I knew how, "that you must
reconcile your mind to spending a few days with me on this raft."
"Is it as bad as that?" she murmured, her eyes upon the sea.
In the long day that followed, I busied myself as much as I could with
my work upon the raft, so as to leave the girl as far as possible to
herself. It was, so I argued, absolutely necessary to let her feel that
she was safe in my keeping. Otherwise she might jump off the raft and I
should lose her.
I sorted out my various cans and tins, tested the oil in my chronometer,
arranged in neat order my various ropes and apparatus, and got my
frying-pan into readiness for any emergency. Of food we had for the
present no lack.
With the approach of night I realized that it was necessary to make
arrangements for the girl's comfort. With the aid of a couple of upright
poles I stretched a grey blanket across the raft so as to make a
complete partition.
"Miss Croyden," I said, "this end of the raft is yours. Here you may
sleep in peace."
"How kind you are," the girl murmured.
"You will be quite safe from interference," I added. "I give you my
word that I will not obtrude upon you in any way."
"How chivalrous you are," she said.
"Not at all," I answered, as musically as I could. "Understand me, I am
now putting my head over this partition for the last time. If there is
anything you want, say so now."
"Nothing," she answered.
"There is a candle and matches beside you. If there is anything that you
want in the night, call me instantly. Remember, at any hour I shall be
here. I promise it."
"Good night," she murmured. In a few minutes her soft regular breathing
told me that she was asleep.
I went forward and seated myself in a tar-bucket, with my head against
the mast, to get what sleep I could.
But for some time--why, I do not know--sleep would not come.
The image of Edith Croyden filled my mind. In vain I told myself that
she was a stranger to me: that--beyond her longitude--I knew nothing of
her. In some strange way this girl had seized hold of me and dominated
my senses.
The night was very calm and still, with great stars in a velvet sky. In
the darkness I could hear the water lapping the edge of the raft.
I remained thus in deep thought, sinking further and further into the
tar-bucket. By the time I reached the bottom of it I realized that I was
in love with Edith Croyden.
Then the thought of my wife occurred to me and perplexed me. Our unhappy
marriage had taken place three years before. We brought to one another
youth, wealth and position. Yet our marriage was a failure. My wife--for
what reason I cannot guess--seemed to find my society irksome. In vain I
tried to interest her with narratives of my travels. They seemed--in
some way that I could not divine--to fatigue her. "Leave me for a
little, Harold," she would say (I forgot to mention that my name is
Harold Borus), "I have a pain in my neck." At her own suggestion I had
taken a trip around the world. On my return she urged me to go round
again. I was going round for the third time when the wrecking of the
steamer had interrupted my trip.
On my own part, too, I am free to confess that my wife's attitude had
aroused in me a sense of pique, not to say injustice. I am not in any
way a vain man. Yet her attitude wounded me. I would no sooner begin,
"When I was in the Himalayas hunting the humpo or humped buffalo," than
she would interrupt and say, "Oh, Harold, would you mind going down to
the billiard-room and seeing if I left my cigarettes under the
billiard-table?" When I returned, she was gone.
By agreement we had arranged for a divorce. On my completion of my third
voyage we were to meet in New Orleans. Clara was to go there on a
separate ship, giving me the choice of oceans.
Had I met Edith Croyden three months later I should have been a man free
to woo and win her. As it was I was bound. I must put a clasp of iron on
my feelings. I must wear a mask. Cheerful, helpful, and full of
narrative, I must yet let fall no word of love to this defenceless girl.
After a great struggle I rose at last from the tar-bucket, feeling, if
not a brighter, at least a cleaner man.
Dawn was already breaking. I looked about me. As the sudden beams of the
tropic sun illumined the placid sea, I saw immediately before me, only a
hundred yards away, an island. A sandy beach sloped back to a rocky
eminence, broken with scrub and jungle. I could see a little stream
leaping among the rocks. With eager haste I paddled the raft close to
the shore till it ground in about ten inches of water.
I leaped into the water.
With the aid of a stout line, I soon made the raft fast to a rock. Then
as I turned I saw that Miss Croyden was standing upon the raft, fully
dressed, and gazing at me. The morning sunlight played in her hair, and
her deep blue eyes were as soft as the Caribbean Sea itself.
"Don't attempt to wade ashore, Miss Croyden," I cried in agitation.
"Pray do nothing rash. The waters are simply infested with bacilli."
"But how can I get ashore?" she asked, with a smile which showed all, or
nearly all, of her pearl-like teeth.
"Miss Croyden," I said, "there is only one way. I must carry you."
In another moment I had walked back to the raft and lifted her as
tenderly and reverently as if she had been my sister--indeed more so--in
my arms.
Her weight seemed nothing. When I get a girl like that in my arms I
simply don't feel it. Just for one moment as I clasped her thus in my
arms, a fierce thrill ran through me. But I let it run.
When I had carried her well up the sand close to the little stream, I
set her down. To my surprise, she sank down in a limp heap.
The girl had fainted.
I knew that it was no time for hesitation.
Running to the stream, I filled my hat with water and dashed it in her
face. Then I took up a handful of mud and threw it at her with all my
force. After that I beat her with my hat.
At length she opened her eyes and sat up.
"I must have fainted," she said, with a little shiver. "I am cold. Oh,
if we could only have a fire."
"I will do my best to make one, Miss Croyden," I replied, speaking as
gymnastically as I could. "I will see what I can do with two dry
sticks."
"With dry sticks?" queried the girl. "Can you light a fire with that?
How wonderful you are!"
"I have often seen it done," I replied thoughtfully; "when I was hunting
the humpo, or humped buffalo, in the Himalayas, it was our usual
method."
"Have you really hunted the humpo?" she asked, her eyes large with
interest.
"I have indeed," I said, "but you must rest; later on I will tell you
about it."
"I wish you could tell me now," she said with a little moan.
Meantime I had managed to select from the driftwood on the beach two
sticks that seemed absolutely dry. Placing them carefully together, in
Indian fashion, I then struck a match and found no difficulty in setting
them on fire.
In a few moments the girl was warming herself beside a generous fire.
Together we breakfasted upon the beach beside the fire, discussing our
plans like comrades.
Our meal over, I rose.
"I will leave you here a little," I said, "while I explore."
With no great difficulty I made my way through the scrub and climbed the
eminence of tumbled rocks that shut in the view.
On my return Miss Croyden was still seated by the fire, her head in her
hands.
"Miss Croyden," I said, "we are on an island."
"Is it inhabited?" she asked.
"Once, perhaps, but not now. It is one of the many keys of the West
Indies. Here, in old buccaneering days, the pirates landed and careened
their ships."
"How did they do that?" she asked, fascinated.
"I am not sure," I answered. "I think with white-wash. At any rate, they
gave them a good careening. But since then these solitudes are only the
home of the sea-gull, the sea-mew, and the albatross."
The girl shuddered.
"How lonely!" she said.
"Lonely or not," I said with a laugh (luckily I can speak with a laugh
when I want to), "I must get to work."
I set myself to work to haul up and arrange our effects. With a few
stones I made a rude table and seats. I took care to laugh and sing as
much as possible while at my work. The close of the day found me still
busy with my labours.
"Miss Croyden," I said, "I must now arrange a place for you to sleep."
With the aid of four stakes driven deeply into the ground and with
blankets strung upon them, I managed to fashion a sort of rude tent,
roofless, but otherwise quite sheltered.
"Miss Croyden," I said when all was done, "go in there."
Then, with little straps which I had fastened to the blankets, I buckled
her in reverently.
"Good night, Miss Croyden," I said.
"But you," she exclaimed, "where will you sleep?"
"Oh, I?" I answered, speaking as exuberantly as I could, "I shall do
very well on the ground. But be sure to call me at the slightest sound."
Then I went out and lay down in a patch of cactus plants.
I need not dwell in detail upon the busy and arduous days that followed
our landing upon the island. I had much to do. Each morning I took our
latitude and longitude. By this I then set my watch, cooked porridge,
and picked flowers till Miss Croyden appeared.
With every day the girl came forth from her habitation as a new surprise
in her radiant beauty. One morning she had bound a cluster of wild
arbutus about her brow. Another day she had twisted a band of
convolvulus around her waist. On a third she had wound herself up in a
mat of bulrushes.
With her bare feet and wild bulrushes all around her, she looked as a
cave woman might have looked, her eyes radiant with the Caribbean dawn.
My whole frame thrilled at the sight of her. At times it was all I could
do not to tear the bulrushes off her and beat her with the heads of
them. But I schooled myself to restraint, and handed her a rock to sit
upon, and passed her her porridge on the end of a shovel with the calm
politeness of a friend.
Our breakfast over, my more serious labours of the day began. I busied
myself with hauling rocks or boulders along the sand to build us a house
against the rainy season. With some tackle from the raft I had made
myself a set of harness, by means of which I hitched myself to a
boulder. By getting Miss Croyden to beat me over the back with a stick,
I found that I made fair progress.
But even as I worked thus for our common comfort, my mind was fiercely
filled with the thought of Edith Croyden. I knew that if once the
barriers broke everything would be swept away. Heaven alone knows the
effort that it cost me. At times nothing but the sternest resolution
could hold my fierce impulses in check. Once I came upon the girl
writing in the sand with a stick. I looked to see what she had written.
I read my own name "Harold." With a wild cry I leapt into the sea and
dived to the bottom of it. When I came up I was calmer. Edith came
towards me; all dripping as I was, she placed her hands upon my
shoulders. "How grand you are!" she said. "I am," I answered; then I
added, "Miss Croyden, for Heaven's sake don't touch me on the ear. I
can't stand it." I turned from her and looked out over the sea.
Presently I heard something like a groan behind me. The girl had thrown
herself on the sand and was coiled up in a hoop. "Miss Croyden," I said,
"for God's sake don't coil up in a hoop."
I rushed to the beach and rubbed gravel on my face.
With such activities, alternated with wild bursts of restraint, our life
on the island passed as rapidly as in a dream. Had I not taken care to
notch the days upon a stick and then cover the stick with tar, I could
not have known the passage of the time. The wearing out of our clothing
had threatened a serious difficulty. But by good fortune I had seen a
large black and white goat wandering among the rocks and had chased it
to a standstill. From its skin, leaving the fur still on, Edith had
fashioned us clothes. Our boots we had replaced with alligator hide. I
had, by a lucky chance, found an alligator upon the beach, and attaching
a string to the fellow's neck I had led him to our camp. I had then
poisoned the fellow with tinned salmon and removed his hide.
Our costume was now brought into harmony with our surroundings. For
myself, garbed in goatskin with the hair outside, with alligator sandals
on my feet and with whiskers at least six inches long, I have no doubt
that I resembled the beau ideal of a cave man. With the open-air life a
new agility seemed to have come into my limbs. With a single leap in my
alligator sandals I was enabled to spring into a coco-nut tree.
As for Edith Croyden, I can only say that as she stood beside me on the
beach in her suit of black goatskin (she had chosen the black spots)
there were times when I felt like seizing her in the frenzy of my
passion and hurling her into the sea. Fur always acts on me just like
that.
It was at the opening of the fifth week of our life upon the island that
a new and more surprising turn was given to our adventure. It arose out
of a certain curiosity, harmless enough, on Edith Croyden's part. "Mr.
Borus," she said one morning, "I should like so much to see the rest of
our island. Can we?"
"Alas, Miss Croyden," I said, "I fear that there is but little to see.
Our island, so far as I can judge, is merely one of the uninhabited keys
of the West Indies. It is nothing but rock and sand and scrub. There is
no life upon it. I fear," I added, speaking as jauntily as I could,
"that unless we are taken off it we are destined to stay on it."
"Still I should like to see it," she persisted.
"Come on, then," I answered, "if you are good for a climb we can take a
look over the ridge of rocks where I went up on the first day."
We made our way across the sand of the beach, among the rocks and
through the close matted scrub, beyond which an eminence of rugged
boulders shut out the further view.
Making our way to the top of this we obtained a wide look over the sea.
The island stretched away to a considerable distance to the eastward,
widening as it went, the complete view of it being shut off by similar
and higher ridges of rock.
But it was the nearer view, the foreground, that at once arrested our
attention. Edith seized my arm. "Look, oh, look!" she said.
Down just below us on the right hand was a similar beach to the one
that we had left. A rude hut had been erected on it and various articles
lay strewn about.
Seated on a rock with their backs towards us were a man and a woman. The
man was dressed in goatskins, and his whiskers, so I inferred from what
I could see of them from the side, were at least as exuberant as mine.
The woman was in white fur with a fillet of seaweed round her head. They
were sitting close together as if in earnest colloquy.
"Cave people," whispered Edith, "aborigines of the island."
But I answered nothing. Something in the tall outline of the seated
woman held my eye. A cruel presentiment stabbed me to the heart.
In my agitation my foot overset a stone, which rolled noisily down the
rocks. The noise attracted the attention of the two seated below us.
They turned and looked searchingly towards the place where we were
concealed. Their faces were in plain sight. As I looked at that of the
woman I felt my heart cease beating and the colour leave my face.
I looked into Edith's face. It was as pale as mine.
"What does it mean?" she whispered.
"Miss Croyden," I answered, "Edith--it means this. I have never found
the courage to tell you. I am a married man. The woman seated there is
my wife. And I love you."
Edith put out her arms with a low cry and clasped me about the neck.
"Harold," she murmured, "my Harold."
"Have I done wrong?" I whispered.
"Only what I have done too," she answered. "I, too, am married, Harold,
and the man sitting there below, John Croyden, is my husband."
With a wild cry such as a cave man might have uttered, I had leapt to my
feet.
"Your husband!" I shouted. "Then, by the living God, he or I shall never
leave this place alive."
He saw me coming as I bounded down the rocks. In an instant he had
sprung to his feet. He gave no cry. He asked no question. He stood
erect as a cave man would, waiting for his enemy.
And there upon the sands beside the sea we fought, barehanded and
weaponless. We fought as cave men fight.
For a while we circled round one another, growling. We circled four
times, each watching for an opportunity. Then I picked up a great
handful of sand and threw it flap into his face. He grabbed a coco-nut
and hit me with it in the stomach. Then I seized a twisted strand of wet
seaweed and landed him with it behind the ear. For a moment he
staggered. Before he could recover I jumped forward, seized him by the
hair, slapped his face twice and then leaped behind a rock. Looking from
the side I could see that Croyden, though half dazed, was feeling round
for something to throw. To my horror I saw a great stone lying ready to
his hand. Beside me was nothing. I gave myself up for lost, when at that
very moment I heard Edith's voice behind me saying, "The shovel, quick,
the shovel!" The noble girl had rushed back to our encampment and had
fetched me the shovel. "Swat him with that," she cried. I seized the
shovel, and with the roar of a wounded bull--or as near as I could make
it--I rushed out from the rock, the shovel swung over my head.
But the fight was all out of Croyden.
"Don't strike," he said, "I'm all in. I couldn't stand a crack with that
kind of thing."
He sat down upon the sand, limp. Seen thus, he somehow seemed to be
quite a small man, not a cave man at all. His goatskin suit shrunk in on
him. I could hear his pants as he sat.
"I surrender," he said. "Take both the women. They are yours."
I stood over him leaning upon the shovel. The two women had closed in
near to us.
"I suppose you are _her_ husband, are you?" Croyden went on.
I nodded.
"I thought you were. Take her."
Meantime Clara had drawn nearer to me. She looked somehow very beautiful
with her golden hair in the sunlight, and the white furs draped about
her.
"Harold!" she exclaimed. "Harold, is it you? How strange and masterful
you look. I didn't know you were so strong."
I turned sternly towards her.
"When I was alone," I said, "on the Himalayas hunting the humpo or
humped buffalo----"
Clara clasped her hands, looking into my face.
"Yes," she said, "tell me about it."
Meantime I could see that Edith had gone over to John Croyden.
"John," she said, "you shouldn't sit on the wet sand like that. You will
get a chill. Let me help you to get up."
I looked at Clara and at Croyden.
"How has this happened?" I asked. "Tell me."
"We were on the same ship," Croyden said. "There came a great storm.
Even the Captain had never seen----"
"I know," I interrupted, "so had ours."
"The ship struck a rock, and blew out her four funnels----"
"Ours did too," I nodded.
"The bowsprit was broken, and the steward's pantry was carried away. The
Captain gave orders to leave the ship----"
"It is enough, Croyden," I said, "I see it all now. You were left behind
when the boats cleared, by what accident you don't know----"
"I don't," said Croyden.
"As best you could, you constructed a raft, and with such haste as you
might you placed on it such few things----"
"Exactly," he said, "a chronometer, a sextant----"
"I know," I continued, "two quadrants, a bucket of water, and a
lightning rod. I presume you picked up Clara floating in the sea."
"I did," Croyden said; "she was unconscious when I got her, but by
rubbing----"
"Croyden," I said, raising the shovel again, "cut that out."
"I'm sorry," he said.
"It's all right. But you needn't go on. I see all the rest of your
adventures plainly enough."
"Well, I'm done with it all anyway," said Croyden gloomily. "You can do
what you like. As for me, I've got a decent suit back there at our camp,
and I've got it dried and pressed and I'm going to put it on."
He rose wearily, Edith standing beside him.
"What's more, Borus," he said, "I'll tell you something. This island is
not uninhabited at all."
"Not uninhabited!" exclaimed Clara and Edith together. I saw each of
them give a rapid look at her goatskin suit.
"Nonsense, Croyden," I said, "this island is one of the West Indian
keys. On such a key as this the pirates used to land. Here they careened
their ships----"
"Did what to them?" asked Croyden.
"Careened them all over from one end to the other," I said. "Here they
got water and buried treasure; but beyond that the island was, and
remained, only the home of the wild gull and the sea-mews----"
"All right," said Croyden, "only it doesn't happen to be that kind of
key. It's a West Indian island all right, but there's a summer hotel on
the other end of it not two miles away."
"A summer hotel!" we exclaimed.
"Yes, a hotel. I suspected it all along. I picked up a tennis racket on
the beach the first day; and after that I walked over the ridge and
through the jungle and I could see the roof of the hotel. Only," he
added rather shamefacedly, "I didn't like to tell her."
"Oh, you coward!" cried Clara. "I could slap you."
"Don't you dare," said Edith. "I'm sure you knew it as well as he did.
And anyway, I was certain of it myself. I picked up a copy of last
week's paper in a lunch-basket on the beach, and hid it from Mr. Borus.
I didn't want to hurt his feelings."
At that moment Croyden pointed with a cry towards the sea.
"Look," he said, "for Heaven's sake, look!"
He turned.
Less than a quarter of a mile away we could see a large white motor
launch coming round the corner. The deck was gay with awnings and bright
dresses and parasols.
"Great Heavens!" said Croyden. "I know that launch. It's the
Appin-Joneses'."
"The Appin-Joneses'!" cried Clara. "Why, we know them too. Don't you
remember, Harold, the Sunday we spent with them on the Hudson?"
Instinctively we had all jumped for cover, behind the rocks.
"Whatever shall we do?" I exclaimed.
"We must get our things," said Edith Croyden. "Jack, if your suit is
ready run and get it and stop the launch. Mrs. Borus and Mr. Borus and I
can get our things straightened up while you keep them talking. My suit
is nearly ready anyway; I thought some one might come. Mr. Borus, would
you mind running and fetching me my things, they're all in a parcel
together? And perhaps if you have a looking-glass and some pins, Mrs.
Borus, I could come over and dress with you."
That same evening we found ourselves all comfortably gathered on the
piazza of the Hotel Christopher Columbus. Appin-Jones insisted on making
himself our host, and the story of our adventures was related again and
again to an admiring audience, with the accompaniment of cigars and iced
champagne. Only one detail was suppressed, by common instinct. Both
Clara and I felt that it would only raise needless comment to explain
that Mr. and Mrs. Croyden had occupied separate encampments.
Nor is it necessary to relate our safe and easy return to New York.
Both Clara and I found Mr. and Mrs. Croyden delightful travelling
companions, though perhaps we were not sorry when the moment came to say
good-bye.
"The word 'good-bye,'" I remarked to Clara, as we drove away, "is always
a painful one. Oddly enough when I was hunting the humpo, or humped
buffalo, of the Himalayas----"
"Do tell me about it, darling," whispered Clara, as she nestled beside
me in the cab.
VI
THE KIDNAPPED PLUMBER
A TALE OF THE NEW TIME
(_Being one chapter--and quite enough---from the Reminiscences of an
Operating Plumber_)
_VI.--The Kidnapped Plumber: A Tale of the New Time._
"Personally," said Thornton, speaking for the first time, "I never care
to take a case that involves cellar work."
We were sitting--a little group of us--round about the fire in a
comfortable corner of the Steam and Air Club. Our talk had turned, as
always happens with a group of professional men, into more or less
technical channels. I will not say that we were talking shop; the word
has an offensive sound and might be misunderstood. But we were talking
as only a group of practising plumbers--including some of the biggest
men in the profession--would talk. With the exception of Everett, who
had a national reputation as a Consulting Barber, and Thomas, who was a
vacuum cleaner expert, I think we all belonged to the same profession.
We had been holding a convention, and Fortescue, who had one of the
biggest furnace practices in the country, had read us a paper that
afternoon--a most revolutionary thing--on External Diagnosis of
Defective Feed Pipes, and naturally the thing had bred discussion.
Fortescue, who is one of the most brilliant men in the profession, had
stoutly maintained his thesis that the only method of diagnosis for
trouble in a furnace is to sit down in front of it and look at it for
three days; others held out for unscrewing it and carrying it home for
consideration; others of us, again, claimed that by tapping the affected
spot with a wrench the pipe might be fractured in such a way as to prove
that it was breakable. It was at this point that Thornton interrupted
with his remark about never being willing to accept a cellar case.
Naturally all the men turned to look at the speaker. Henry Thornton, at
the time of which I relate, was at the height of his reputation.
Beginning, quite literally, at the bottom of the ladder, he had in
twenty years of practice as an operating plumber raised himself to the
top of his profession. There was much in his appearance to suggest the
underlying reasons of his success. His face, as is usual with men of our
calling, had something of the dreamer in it, but the bold set of the jaw
indicated determination of an uncommon kind. Three times President of
the Plumbers' Association, Henry Thornton had enjoyed the highest
honours of his chosen profession. His book on _Nut Coal_ was recognized
as the last word on the subject, and had been crowned by the French
Academy of Nuts.
I suppose that one of the principal reasons for his success was his
singular coolness and resource. I have seen Thornton enter a kitchen,
with that quiet reassuring step of his, and lay out his instruments on
the table, while a kitchen tap with a broken washer was sprizzling
within a few feet of him, as calmly and as quietly as if he were in his
lecture-room of the Plumbers' College.
"You never go into a cellar?" asked Fortescue. "But hang it, man, I
don't see how one can avoid it!"
"Well, I do avoid it," answered Thornton, "at least as far as I possibly
can. I send down my solderist, of course, but personally, unless it is
absolutely necessary, I never go down."
"That's all very well, my dear fellow," Fortescue cut in, "but you know
as well as I do that you get case after case where the cellar diagnosis
is simply vital. I had a case last week, a most interesting thing--" he
turned to the group of us as he spoke--"a double lesion of a gas-pipe
under a cement floor--half a dozen of my colleagues had been absolutely
baffled. They had made an entirely false diagnosis, operated on the
dining-room floor, which they removed and carried home, and when I was
called in they had just obtained permission from the Stone Mason's
Protective Association to knock down one side of the house."
"Excuse me interrupting just a minute," interjected a member of the
group who hailed from a distant city, "have you much trouble about
that? I mean about knocking the sides out of houses?"
"No trouble now," said Fortescue. "We did have. But the public is
getting educated up to it. Our law now allows us to knock the side out
of a house when we feel that we would really like to see what is in it.
We are not allowed, of course, to build it up again."
"No, of course not," said the other speaker. "But I suppose you can
throw the bricks out on the lawn."
"Yes," said Fortescue, "and sit on them to eat lunch. We had a big fight
in the legislature over that, but we got it through."
"Thank you, but I feel I am interrupting."
"Well, I was only saying that, as soon as I had made up my mind that the
trouble was in the cellar, the whole case was simple. I took my
colleagues down at once, and we sat on the floor of the cellar and held
a consultation till the overpowering smell of gas convinced me that
there was nothing for it but an operation on the floor. The whole thing
was most successful. I was very glad, as it happened that the
proprietor of the house was a very decent fellow, employed, I think, as
a manager of a bank, or something of the sort. He was most grateful. It
was he who gave me the engraved monkey wrench that some of you were
admiring before dinner. After we had finished the whole operation--I
forgot to say that we had thrown the coal out on the lawn to avoid any
complication--he quite broke down. He offered us to take his whole house
and keep it."
"You don't do that, do you?" asked the outsider.
"Oh no, never," said Fortescue. "We've made a very strict professional
rule against it. We found that some of the younger men were apt to take
a house when they were given it, and we had to frown down on it. But,
gentlemen, I feel that when Mr. Thornton says that he never goes down
into a cellar there must be a story behind it. I think we should invite
him to relate it to us."
A murmur of assent greeted the speaker's suggestion. For myself I was
particularly pleased, inasmuch as I have long felt that Thornton as a
_raconteur_ was almost as interesting as in the rôle of an operating
plumber. I have often told him that, if he had not happened to meet
success in his chosen profession, he could have earned a living as a day
writer: a suggestion which he has always taken in good part and without
offence.
Those of my readers who have looked through the little volume of
Reminiscences which I have put together, will recall the narrative of
_The Missing Nut_ and the little tale entitled _The Blue Blow Torch_ as
instances in point.
"Not much of a story, perhaps," said Thornton, "but such as it is you
are welcome to it. So, if you will just fill up your glasses with
raspberry vinegar, you may have the tale for what it is worth."
We gladly complied with the suggestion and Thornton continued:
"It happened a good many years ago at a time when I was only a young
fellow fresh from college, very proud of my Plumb. B., and inclined to
think that I knew it all. I had done a little monograph on _Choked Feed
in the Blow Torch_, which had attracted attention, and I suppose that
altogether I was about as conceited a young puppy as one would find in
the profession. I should mention that at this time I was not married,
but had set up a modest apartment of my own with a consulting-room and a
single manservant. Naturally I could not afford the services of a
solderist or a gassist and did everything for myself, though Simmons, my
man, could at a pinch be utilized to tear down plaster and break
furniture."
Thornton paused to take a sip of raspberry vinegar and went on:
"Well, then. I had come home to dinner particularly tired after a long
day. I had sat in an attic the greater part of the afternoon (a case of
top story valvular trouble) and had had to sit in a cramped position
which practically forbade sleep. I was feeling, therefore, none too well
pleased, when a little while after dinner the bell rang and Simmons
brought word to the library that there was a client in the
consulting-room. I reminded the fellow that I could not possibly
consider a case at such an advanced hour unless I were paid emergency
overtime wages with time and a half during the day of recovery."
"One moment," interrupted the outside member. "You don't mention
compensation for mental shock. Do you not draw that here?"
"We do _now_" explained Thornton, "but the time of which I speak is some
years ago and we still got nothing for mental shock, nor disturbance of
equilibrium. Nowadays, of course, one would insist on a substantial
retainer in advance.
"Well, to continue. Simmons, to my surprise, told me that he had already
informed the client of this fact, and that the answer had only been a
plea that the case was too urgent to admit of delay. He also supplied
the further information that the client was a young lady. I am afraid,"
added Thornton, looking round his audience with a sympathetic smile,
"that Simmons (I had got him from Harvard and he had not yet quite
learned his place) even said something about her being strikingly
handsome."
A general laugh greeted Thornton's announcement.
"After all," said Fortescue, "I never could see why an Ice Man should be
supposed to have a monopoly on gallantry."
"Oh, I don't know," said Thornton. "For my part--I say it without
affectation--the moment I am called in professionally, women, as women,
cease to exist for me. I can stand beside them in the kitchen and
explain to them the feed tap of a kitchen range without feeling them to
be anything other than simply clients. And for the most part, I think,
they reciprocate that attention. There are women, of course, who will
call a man in with motives--but that's another story. I must get back to
what I was saying.
"On entering the consulting-room I saw at once that Simmons had
exaggerated nothing in describing my young client as beautiful. I have
seldom, even among our own class, seen a more strikingly handsome girl.
She was dressed in a very plain and simple fashion which showed me at
once that she belonged merely to the capitalist class. I am, as I think
you know, something of an observer, and my eye at once noted the absence
of heavy gold ear-rings and wrist-bangles. The blue feathers at the side
of her hat were none of them more than six inches long, and the buttons
on her jacket were so inconspicuous that one would hardly notice them.
In short, while her dress was no doubt good and serviceable, there was
an absence of _chic_, a lack of noise about it, that told at once the
tale of narrow circumstances.
"She was evidently in great distress.
"'Oh, Mr. Thornton,' she exclaimed, advancing towards me, 'do come to
our house at once. I simply don't know what to do.'
"She spoke with great emotion, and seemed almost on the point of
breaking into tears.
"'Pray, calm yourself, my dear young lady,' I said, 'and try to tell me
what is the trouble.'
"'Oh, don't lose any time,' she said, 'do, do come at once.'
"'We will lose no time' I said reassuringly, as I looked at my watch.
'It is now seven-thirty. We will reckon the time from now, with overtime
at time and a half. But if I am to do anything for you I must have some
idea of what has happened.'
"'The cellar boiler,' she moaned, clasping her hands together, 'the
cellar boiler won't work!'
"'Ah!' I said soothingly. 'The cellar boiler won't work. Now tell me, is
the feed choked, miss?'
"'I don't know,' she exclaimed.
"'Have you tried letting off the exhaust?'
"She shook her head with a doleful look.
"'I don't know what it is,' she said.
"But already I was hastily gathering together a few instruments,
questioning her rapidly as I did so.
"'How's your pressure gauge?' I asked. 'How's your water? Do you draw
from the mains or are you on the high level reservoir?'
"It had occurred to me at once that it might be merely a case of
stoppage of her main feed, complicated, perhaps, with a valvular trouble
in her exhaust. On the other hand it was clear enough that, if her feed
was full and her gauges working, her trouble was more likely a leak
somewhere in her piping.
"But all attempts to draw from the girl any clear idea of the symptoms
were unavailing. All she could tell me was that the cellar boiler
wouldn't work. Beyond that her answers were mere confusion. I gathered
enough, however, to feel sure that her main feed was still working, and
that her top story check valve was probably in order. With that I had to
be content.
"As a young practitioner, I had as yet no motor car. Simmons, however,
summoned me a taxi, into which I hurriedly placed the girl and my basket
of instruments, and was soon speeding in the direction she indicated. It
was a dark, lowering night, with flecks of rain against the windows of
the cab, and there was something in the lateness of the hour (it was now
after half-past eight) and the nature of my mission which gave me a
stimulating sense of adventure. The girl directed me, as I felt sure
she would, towards the capitalist quarter of the town. We had soon sped
away from the brightly lighted streets and tall apartment buildings
among which my usual practice lay, and entered the gloomy and
dilapidated section of the city where the unhappy capitalist class
reside. I need not remind those of you who know it that it is scarcely a
cheerful place to find oneself in after nightfall. The thick growth of
trees, the silent gloom of the ill-lighted houses, and the rank
undergrowth of shrubs give it an air of desolation, not to say danger.
It is certainly not the place that a professional man would choose to be
abroad in after dark. The inhabitants, living, so it is said, on their
scanty dividends and on such parts of their income as our taxation is
still unable to reach, are not people that one would care to fall in
with after nightfall.
"Since the time of which I speak we have done much to introduce a better
state of things. The opening of day schools of carpentry, plumbing and
calcimining for the children of the capitalist is already producing
results. Strange though it may seem, one of the most brilliant of our
boiler fitters of to-day was brought up haphazard in this very quarter
of the town and educated only by a French governess and a university
tutor. But at the time practically nothing had been done. The place was
infested with consumers, and there were still, so it was said, servants
living in some of the older houses. A butler had been caught one night
in a thick shrubbery beside one of the gloomy streets.
"We alighted at one of the most sombre of the houses, and our
taxi-driver, with evident relief, made off in the darkness.
"The girl admitted us into a dark hall, where she turned on an electric
light. 'We have light,' she said, with that peculiar touch of pride that
one sees so often in her class, 'we have four bulbs.'
"Then she called down a flight of stairs that apparently led to the
cellar:
"'Father, the plumber has come. Do come up now, dear, and rest.'
"A step sounded on the stairs, and there appeared beside us one of the
most forbidding-looking men that I have ever beheld. I don't know
whether any of you have ever seen an Anglican Bishop. Probably not.
Outside of the bush, they are now never seen. But at the time of which I
speak there were a few still here and there in the purlieus of the city.
The man before us was tall and ferocious, and his native ferocity was
further enhanced by the heavy black beard which he wore in open defiance
of the compulsory shaving laws. His black shovel-shaped hat and his
black clothes lent him a singularly sinister appearance, while his legs
were bound in tight gaiters, as if ready for an instant spring. He
carried in his hand an enormous monkey wrench, on which his fingers were
clasped in a restless grip.
"'Can you fix the accursed thing?' he asked.
"I was not accustomed to being spoken to in this way, but I was willing
for the girl's sake to strain professional courtesy to the limit.
"'I don't know,' I answered, 'but if you will have the goodness first to
fetch me a little light supper, I shall be glad to see what I can do
afterwards.'
"My firm manner had its effect. With obvious reluctance the fellow
served me some biscuits and some not bad champagne in the dining-room.
"The girl had meantime disappeared upstairs.
"'If you're ready now,' said the Bishop, 'come on down.'
"We went down to the cellar. It was a huge, gloomy place, with a cement
floor, lighted by a dim electric bulb. I could see in the corner the
outline of a large furnace (in those days the poorer classes had still
no central heat) and near it a tall boiler. In front of this a man was
kneeling, evidently trying to unscrew a nut, but twisting it the wrong
way. He was an elderly man with a grey moustache, and was dressed, in
open defiance of the law, in a military costume or uniform.
"He turned round towards us and rose from his knees.
"'I'm dashed if I can make the rotten thing go round,' he said.
"'It's all right, General,' said the Bishop. 'I have brought a plumber.'
"For the next few minutes my professional interest absorbed all my
faculties. I laid out my instruments upon a board, tapped the boiler
with a small hammer, tested the feed-tube, and in a few moments had made
what I was convinced was a correct diagnosis of the trouble.
"But here I encountered the greatest professional dilemma in which I
have ever been placed. There was nothing wrong with the boiler at all.
It connected, as I ascertained at once by a thermo-dynamic valvular
test, with the furnace (in fact, I could see it did), and the furnace
quite evidently had been allowed to go out.
"What was I to do? If I told them this, I broke every professional rule
of our union. If the thing became known I should probably be disbarred
and lose my overalls for it. It was my plain professional duty to take a
large hammer and knock holes in the boiler with it, smash up the furnace
pipes, start a leak of gas, and then call in three or more of my
colleagues.
"But somehow I couldn't find it in my heart to do it. The thought of the
girl's appealing face arose before me.
"'How long has this trouble been going on?' I asked sternly.
"'Quite a time,' answered the Bishop. 'It began, did it not, General,
the same day that the confounded furnace went out? The General here and
Admiral Hay and I have been working at it for three days.'
"'Well, gentlemen,' I said, 'I don't want to read you a lesson on your
own ineptitude, and I don't suppose you would understand it if I did.
But don't you see that the whole trouble is _because_ you let the
furnace out? The boiler itself is all right, but you see, gents, it
feeds off the furnace.'
"'Ah,' said the Bishop in a deep melodious tone, 'it feeds off the
furnace. Now that is most interesting. Let me repeat that; I must try to
remember it; it feeds _off_ the furnace. Just so.'
"The upshot was that in twenty minutes we had the whole thing put to
rights. I set the General breaking up boxes and had the Bishop rake out
the clinkers, and very soon we had the furnace going and the boiler in
operation.
"'But now tell me,' said the Bishop, 'suppose one wanted to let the
furnace out--suppose, I mean to say, that it was summer-time, and
suppose one rather felt that one didn't care about a furnace and yet one
wanted one's boiler going for one's hot water, and that sort of thing,
what would one do?'
"'In that case,' I said, 'you couldn't run your heating off your
furnace: you'd have to connect in your tubing with a gas generator.'
"'Ah, there you get me rather beyond my depth,' said the Bishop.
"The General shook his head. 'Bishop,' he said, 'just step upstairs a
minute; I have an idea.'
"They went up together, leaving me below. To my surprise and
consternation, as they reached the top of the cellar stairs, I saw the
General swing the door shut and heard a key turn in the lock. I rushed
to the top of the stairs and tried in vain to open the door. I was
trapped. In a moment I realized my folly in trusting myself in the hands
of these people.
"I could hear their voices in the hall, apparently in eager discussion.
"'But the fellow is priceless,' the General was saying. 'We could take
him round to all the different houses and make him fix them all. Hang
it, Bishop, I haven't had a decent tap running for two years, and
Admiral Hay's pantry has been flooded since last March.'
"'But one couldn't compel him?'
"'Certainly, why not? I'd compel him bally quick with this.'
"I couldn't see what the General referred to, but had no doubt that it
was the huge wrench that he still carried in his hand.
"'We could gag the fellow,' he went on, 'take him from house to house
and make him put everything right.'
"'Ah, but afterwards?' said the Bishop.
"'Afterwards,' answered the General, 'why kill him! Knock him on the
head and bury him under the cement in the cellar. Hay and I could
easily bury him, or for that matter I imagine one could easily use the
furnace itself to dispose of him.'
"I must confess that my blood ran cold as I listened.
"'But do you think it right?' objected the Bishop. 'You will say, of
course, that it is only killing a plumber; but yet one asks oneself
whether it wouldn't be just a _leetle_ bit unjustifiable.'
"'Nonsense,' said the General. 'You remember that last year, when Hay
strangled the income tax collector, you yourself were very keen on it.'
"'Ah, that was different,' said the Bishop, 'one felt there that there
was an end to serve, but here----'
"'Nonsense,' repeated the General, 'come along and get Hay. He'll make
short work of him.'
"I heard their retreating footsteps and then all was still.
"The horror which filled my mind as I sat in the half darkness waiting
for their return I cannot describe. My fate appeared sealed and I gave
myself up for lost, when presently I heard a light step in the hall and
the key turned in the lock.
"The girl stood in front of me. She was trembling with emotion.
"'Quick, quick, Mr. Thornton,' she said. 'I heard all that they said.
Oh, I think it's dreadful of them, simply dreadful. Mr. Thornton, I'm
really ashamed that Father should act that way.'
"I came out into the hall still half dazed.
"'They've gone over to Admiral Hay's house, there among the trees.
That's their lantern. Please, please, don't lose a minute. Do you mind
not having a cab? I think really you'd prefer not to wait. And look,
won't you please take this?'--she handed me a little packet as she
spoke--'this is a piece of pie: you always get that, don't you? and
there's a bit of cheese with it, but please run.'
"In another moment I had bounded from the door into the darkness. A wild
rush through the darkened streets, and in twenty minutes I was safe
back again in my own consulting-room."
Thornton paused in his narrative, and at that moment one of the stewards
of the club came and whispered something in his ear.
He rose.
"I'm sorry," he said, with a grave face. "I'm called away; a very old
client of mine. Valvular trouble of the worst kind. I doubt if I can do
anything, but I must at least go. Please don't let me break up your
evening, however."
With a courtly bow he left us.
"And do you know the sequel to Thornton's story?" asked Fortescue with a
smile.
We looked expectantly at him.
"Why, he married the girl," explained Fortescue. "You see, he had to go
back to her house for his wrench. One always does."
"Of course," we exclaimed.
"In fact he went three times; and the last time he asked the girl to
marry him and she said 'yes.' He took her out of her surroundings, had
her educated at a cooking school, and had her given lessons on the
parlour organ. She's Mrs. Thornton now."
"And the Bishop?" asked some one.
"Oh, Thornton looked after him. He got him a position heating furnaces
in the synagogues. He worked at it till he died a few years ago. They
say that once he got the trick of it he took the greatest delight in it.
Well, I must go too. Good night."
VII
THE BLUE AND THE GREY
A PRE-WAR WAR STORY
(_The title is selected for its originality. A set of seventy-five maps
will be supplied to any reader free for seventy-five cents. This offer
is only open till it is closed_)
_VII.--The Blue and the Grey: A Pre-War War Story._
CHAPTER I
The scene was a striking one. It was night. Never had the Mississippi
presented a more remarkable appearance. Broad bayous, swollen beyond our
powers of description, swirled to and fro in the darkness under trees
garlanded with Spanish moss. All moss other than Spanish had been swept
away by the angry flood of the river.
Eggleston Lee Carey Randolph, a young Virginian, captain of the ----th
company of the ----th regiment of ----'s brigade--even this is more than
we ought to say, and is hard to pronounce--attached to the Army of the
Tennessee, struggled in vain with the swollen waters. At times he sank.
At other times he went up.
In the intervals he wondered whether it would ever be possible for him
to rejoin the particular platoon of the particular regiment to which he
belonged, and of which's whereabouts (not having the volume of the army
record at hand) he was in ignorance. In the intervals, also, he
reflected on his past life to a sufficient extent to give the reader a
more or less workable idea as to who and to what he was. His father, the
old grey-haired Virginian aristocrat, he could see him still. "Take this
sword, Eggleston," he had said, "use it for the State; never for
anything else: don't cut string with it or open tin cans. Never sheathe
it till the soil of Virginia is free. Keep it bright, my boy: oil it
every now and then, and you'll find it an A 1 sword."
Did Eggleston think, too, in his dire peril of another--younger than his
father and fairer? Necessarily, he did. "Go, Eggleston!" she had
exclaimed, as they said farewell under the portico of his father's house
where she was visiting, "it is your duty. But mine lies elsewhere. I
cannot forget that I am a Northern girl. I must return at once to my
people in Pennsylvania. Oh, Egg, when will this cruel war end?"
So had the lovers parted.
Meanwhile--while Eggleston is going up and down for the third time,
which is of course the last--suppose we leave him, and turn to consider
the general position of the Confederacy. All right: suppose we do.
CHAPTER II
At this date the Confederate Army of the Tennessee was extended in a
line with its right resting on the Tennessee and its left resting on the
Mississippi. Its rear rested on the rugged stone hills of the Chickasaba
range, while its front rested on the marshes and bayous of the Yazoo.
Having thus--as far as we understand military matters--both its flanks
covered and its rear protected, its position was one which we ourselves
consider very comfortable.
It was thus in an admirable situation for holding a review or for
discussing the Constitution of the United States in reference to the
right of secession.
The following generals rode up and down in front of the army, namely,
Mr. A. P. Hill, Mr. Longstreet, and Mr. Joseph Johnston. All these three
celebrated men are thus presented to our readers at one and the same
time without extra charge.
But who is this tall, commanding figure who rides beside them, his head
bent as if listening to what they are saying (he really isn't) while his
eye alternately flashes with animation or softens to its natural
melancholy? (In fact, we can only compare it to an electric light bulb
with the power gone wrong.) Who is it? It is Jefferson C. Davis,
President, as our readers will be gratified to learn, of the Confederate
States.
It being a fine day and altogether suitable for the purpose, General
Longstreet reined in his prancing black charger (during this distressed
period all the horses in both armies were charged: there was no other
way to pay for them), and in a few terse words, about three pages, gave
his views on the Constitution of the United States.
Jefferson Davis, standing up in his stirrups, delivered a stirring
harangue, about six columns, on the powers of the Supreme Court,
admirably calculated to rouse the soldiers to frenzy. After which
General A. P. Hill offered a short address, soldier-like and to the
point, on the fundamental principles of international law, which
inflamed the army to the highest pitch.
At this moment an officer approached the President, saluted and stood
rigidly at attention. Davis, with that nice punctilio which marked the
Southern army, returned the salute.
"Do you speak first?" he said, "or did I?"
"Let me," said the officer. "Your Excellency," he continued, "a young
Virginian officer has just been fished out of the Mississippi."
Davis's eye flashed. "Good!" he said. "Look and see if there are many
more," and then he added with a touch of melancholy, "The South needs
them: fish them all out. Bring this one here."
Eggleston Lee Carey Randolph, still dripping from the waters of the
bayou, was led by the faithful negroes who had rescued him before the
generals. Davis, who kept every thread of the vast panorama of the war
in his intricate brain, eyed him keenly and directed a few searching
questions to him, such as: "Who are you? Where are you? What day of the
week is it? How much is nine times twelve?" and so forth. Satisfied with
Eggleston's answers, Davis sat in thought a moment, and then continued:
"I am anxious to send some one through the entire line of the
Confederate armies in such a way that he will be present at all the
great battles and end up at the battle of Gettysburg. Can you do it?"
Randolph looked at his chief with a flush of pride.
"I can."
"Good!" resumed Davis. "To accomplish this task you must carry
despatches. What they will be about I have not yet decided. But it is
customary in such cases to write them so that they are calculated, if
lost, to endanger the entire Confederate cause. The main thing is, can
you carry them?"
"Sir," said Eggleston, raising his hand in a military salute, "I am a
Randolph."
Davis with soldierly dignity removed his hat. "I am proud to hear it,
Captain Randolph," he said.
"And a Carey," continued our hero.
Davis, with a graciousness all his own, took off his gloves. "I trust
you, _Major_ Randolph," he said.
"And I am a Lee," added Eggleston quickly.
Davis with a courtly bow unbuttoned his jacket. "It is enough," he said.
"I trust you. You shall carry the despatches. You are to carry them on
your person and, as of course you understand, you are to keep on losing
them. You are to drop them into rivers, hide them in old trees, bury
them under moss, talk about them in your sleep. In fact, sir," said
Davis, with a slight gesture of impatience--it was his _one_
fault--"you must act towards them as any bearer of Confederate
despatches is expected to act. The point is, can you do it, or can't
you?"
"Sir," said Randolph, saluting again with simple dignity, "I come from
Virginia."
"Pardon me," said the President, saluting with both hands, "I had
forgotten it."
CHAPTER III
Randolph set out that night, mounted upon the fastest horse, in fact the
fleetest, that the Confederate Army could supply. He was attended only
by a dozen faithful negroes, all devoted to his person.
Riding over the Tennessee mountains by paths known absolutely to no one
and never advertised, he crossed the Tombigbee, the Tahoochie and the
Tallahassee, all frightfully swollen, and arrived at the headquarters of
General Braxton Bragg.
At this moment Bragg was extended over some seven miles of bush and
dense swamp. His front rested on the marshes of the Tahoochie River,
while his rear was doubled sharply back and rested on a dense growth of
cactus plants. Our readers can thus form a fairly accurate idea of
Bragg's position. Over against him, not more than fifty miles to the
north, his indomitable opponent, Grant, lay in a frog-swamp. The space
between them was filled with Union and Confederate pickets,
fraternizing, joking, roasting corn, and firing an occasional shot at
one another.
One glance at Randolph's despatches was enough.
"Take them at once to General Hood," said Bragg.
"Where is he?" asked Eggleston, with military precision.
Bragg waved his sword towards the east. It was characteristic of the man
that even on active service he carried a short sword, while a pistol,
probably loaded, protruded from his belt. But such was Bragg. Anyway, he
waved his sword. "Over there beyond the Tahoochicaba range," he said.
"Do you know it?"
"No," said Randolph, "but I can find it."
"Do," said Bragg, and added, "One thing more. On your present mission
let nothing stop you. Go forward at all costs. If you come to a river,
swim it. If you come to a tree, cut it down. If you strike a fence,
climb over it. But don't stop! If you are killed, never mind. Do you
understand?"
"Almost," said Eggleston.
Two days later Eggleston reached the headquarters of General Hood, and
flung himself, rather than dismounted, from his jaded horse.
"Take me to the General!" he gasped.
They pointed to the log cabin in which General Hood was quartered.
Eggleston flung himself, rather than stepped, through the door.
Hood looked up from the table.
"Who was that flung himself in?" he asked.
Randolph reached out his hand. "Despatches!" he gasped. "Food, whisky!"
"Poor lad," said the General, "you are exhausted. When did you last have
food?"
"Yesterday morning," gasped Eggleston.
"You're lucky," said Hood bitterly. "And when did you last have a
drink?"
"Two weeks ago," answered Randolph.
"Great Heaven!" said Hood, starting up. "Is it possible? Here, quick,
drink it!"
He reached out a bottle of whisky. Randolph drained it to the last drop.
"Now, General," he said, "I am at your service."
Meanwhile Hood had cast his eye over the despatches.
"Major Randolph," he said, "you have seen General Bragg?"
"I have."
"And Generals Johnston and Smith?"
"Yes."
"You have been through Mississippi and Tennessee and seen all the
battles there?"
"I have," said Randolph.
"Then," said Hood, "there is nothing left except to send you at once to
the army in Virginia under General Lee. Remount your horse at once and
ride to Gettysburg. Lose no time."
CHAPTER IV
It was at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania that Randolph found General Lee.
The famous field is too well known to need description. The armies of
the North and the South lay in and around the peaceful village of
Gettysburg. About it the yellow cornfields basked in the summer sun. The
voices of the teachers and the laughter of merry children rose in the
harvest-fields. But already the shadow of war was falling over the
landscape. As soon as the armies arrived, the shrewder of the farmers
suspected that there would be trouble.
General Lee was seated gravely on his horse, looking gravely over the
ground before him.
"Major Randolph," said the Confederate chieftain gravely, "you are just
in time. We are about to go into action. I need your advice."
Randolph bowed. "Ask me anything you like," he said.
"Do you like the way I have the army placed?" asked Lee.
Our hero directed a searching look over the field. "Frankly, I don't,"
he said.
"What's the matter with it?" questioned Lee eagerly. "I felt there was
something wrong myself. What is it?"
"Your left," said Randolph, "is too far advanced. It sticks out."
"By Heaven!" said Lee, turning to General Longstreet, "the boy is right!
Is there anything else?"
"Yes," said Randolph, "your right is crooked. It is all sideways."
"It is. It is!" said Lee, striking his forehead. "I never noticed it.
I'll have it straightened at once. Major Randolph, if the Confederate
cause is saved, you, and you alone, have saved it."
"One thing more," said Randolph. "Is your artillery loaded?"
"Major Randolph," said Lee, speaking very gravely, "you have saved us
again. I never thought of it."
At this moment a bullet sang past Eggleston's ear. He smiled.
"The battle has begun," he murmured. Another bullet buzzed past his
other ear. He laughed softly to himself. A shell burst close to his
feet. He broke into uncontrolled laughter. This kind of thing always
amused him. Then, turning grave in a moment, "Put General Lee under
cover," he said to those about him, "spread something over him."
In a few moments the battle was raging in all directions. The
Confederate Army was nominally controlled by General Lee, but in reality
by our hero. Eggleston was everywhere. Horses were shot under him. Mules
were shot around him and behind him. Shells exploded all over him; but
with undaunted courage he continued to wave his sword in all directions,
riding wherever the fight was hottest.
The battle raged for three days.
On the third day of the conflict, Randolph, his coat shot to rags, his
hat pierced, his trousers practically useless, still stood at Lee's
side, urging and encouraging him.
Mounted on his charger, he flew to and fro in all parts of the field,
moving the artillery, leading the cavalry, animating and directing the
infantry. In fact, he was the whole battle.
But his efforts were in vain.
He turned sadly to General Lee. "It is bootless," he said.
"What is?" asked Lee.
"The army," said Randolph. "We must withdraw it."
"Major Randolph," said the Confederate chief, "I yield to your superior
knowledge. We must retreat."
A few hours later the Confederate forces, checked but not beaten, were
retiring southward towards Virginia.
Eggleston, his head sunk in thought, rode in the rear.
As he thus slowly neared a farmhouse, a woman--a girl--flew from it
towards him with outstretched arms.
"Eggleston!" she cried.
Randolph flung himself from his horse. "Leonora!" he gasped. "You here!
In all this danger! How comes it? What brings you here?"
"We live here," she said. "This is Pa's house. This is our farm.
Gettysburg is our home. Oh, Egg, it has been dreadful, the noise of the
battle! We couldn't sleep for it. Pa's all upset about it. But come in.
Do come in. Dinner's nearly ready."
Eggleston gazed a moment at the retreating army. Duty and affection
struggled in his heart.
"I will," he said.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
The strife is done. The conflict has ceased. The wounds are healed.
North and South are one. East and West are even less. The Civil War is
over. Lee is dead. Grant is buried in New York. The Union Pacific runs
from Omaha to San Francisco. There is total prohibition in the United
States. The output of dressed beef last year broke all records.
And Eggleston Lee Carey Randolph survives, hale and hearty, bright and
cheery, free and easy--and so forth. There is grey hair upon his temples
(some, not much), and his step has lost something of its elasticity (not
a great deal), and his form is somewhat bowed (though not really
crooked).
But he still lives there in the farmstead at Gettysburg, and Leonora,
now, like himself, an old woman, is still at his side.
You may see him any day. In fact, he is the old man who shows you over
the battlefield for fifty cents and explains how he himself fought and
won the great battle.
VIII
BUGGAM GRANGE
A GOOD OLD GHOST STORY
_VIII.--Buggam Grange: A Good Old Ghost Story._
The evening was already falling as the vehicle in which I was contained
entered upon the long and gloomy avenue that leads to Buggam Grange.
A resounding shriek echoed through the wood as I entered the avenue. I
paid no attention to it at the moment, judging it to be merely one of
those resounding shrieks which one might expect to hear in such a place
at such a time. As my drive continued, however I found myself wondering
in spite of myself why such a shriek should have been uttered at the
very moment of my approach.
I am not by temperament in any degree a nervous man, and yet there was
much in my surroundings to justify a certain feeling of apprehension.
The Grange is situated in the loneliest part of England, the marsh
country of the fens to which civilization has still hardly penetrated.
The inhabitants, of whom there are only one and a half to the square
mile, live here and there among the fens and eke out a miserable
existence by frog-fishing and catching flies. They speak a dialect so
broken as to be practically unintelligible, while the perpetual rain
which falls upon them renders speech itself almost superfluous.
Here and there where the ground rises slightly above the level of the
fens there are dense woods tangled with parasitic creepers and filled
with owls. Bats fly from wood to wood. The air on the lower ground is
charged with the poisonous gases which exude from the marsh, while in
the woods it is heavy with the dank odours of deadly nightshade and
poison ivy.
It had been raining in the afternoon, and as I drove up the avenue the
mournful dripping of the rain from the dark trees accentuated the
cheerlessness of the gloom. The vehicle in which I rode was a fly on
three wheels, the fourth having apparently been broken and taken off,
causing the fly to sag on one side and drag on its axle over the muddy
ground, the fly thus moving only at a foot's pace in a way calculated to
enhance the dreariness of the occasion. The driver on the box in front
of me was so thickly muffled up as to be indistinguishable, while the
horse which drew us was so thickly coated with mist as to be practically
invisible. Seldom, I may say, have I had a drive of so mournful a
character.
The avenue presently opened out upon a lawn with overgrown shrubberies,
and in the half darkness I could see the outline of the Grange itself, a
rambling, dilapidated building. A dim light struggled through the
casement of a window in a tower room. Save for the melancholy cry of a
row of owls sitting on the roof, and croaking of the frogs in the moat
which ran around the grounds, the place was soundless. My driver halted
his horse at the hither side of the moat. I tried in vain to urge him,
by signs, to go further. I could see by the fellow's face that he was
in a paroxysm of fear, and indeed nothing but the extra sixpence which I
had added to his fare would have made him undertake the drive up the
avenue. I had no sooner alighted than he wheeled his cab about and made
off.
Laughing heartily at the fellow's trepidation (I have a way of laughing
heartily in the dark), I made my way to the door and pulled the
bell-handle. I could hear the muffled reverberations of the bell far
within the building. Then all was silent. I bent my ear to listen, but
could hear nothing except, perhaps, the sound of a low moaning as of a
person in pain or in great mental distress. Convinced, however, from
what my friend Sir Jeremy Buggam had told me, that the Grange was not
empty, I raised the ponderous knocker and beat with it loudly against
the door.
But perhaps at this point I may do well to explain to my readers (before
they are too frightened to listen to me) how I came to be beating on the
door of Buggam Grange at nightfall on a gloomy November evening.
A year before I had been sitting with Sir Jeremy Buggam, the present
baronet, on the verandah of his ranch in California.
"So you don't believe in the supernatural?" he was saying.
"Not in the slightest," I answered, lighting a cigar as I spoke. When I
want to speak very positively, I generally light a cigar as I speak.
"Well, at any rate, Digby," said Sir Jeremy, "Buggam Grange is haunted.
If you want to be assured of it go down there any time and spend the
night and you'll see for yourself."
"My dear fellow," I replied, "nothing will give me greater pleasure. I
shall be back in England in six weeks, and I shall be delighted to put
your ideas to the test. Now tell me," I added somewhat cynically, "is
there any particular season or day when your Grange is supposed to be
specially terrible?"
Sir Jeremy looked at me strangely. "Why do you ask that?" he said. "Have
you heard the story of the Grange?"
"Never heard of the place in my life," I answered cheerily. "Till you
mentioned it to-night, my dear fellow, I hadn't the remotest idea that
you still owned property in England."
"The Grange is shut up," said Sir Jeremy, "and has been for twenty
years. But I keep a man there--Horrod--he was butler in my father's time
and before. If you care to go, I'll write him that you're coming. And,
since you are taking your own fate in your hands, the fifteenth of
November is the day."
At that moment Lady Buggam and Clara and the other girls came trooping
out on the verandah, and the whole thing passed clean out of my mind.
Nor did I think of it again until I was back in London. Then, by one of
those strange coincidences or premonitions--call it what you will--it
suddenly occurred to me one morning that it was the fifteenth of
November. Whether Sir Jeremy had written to Horrod or not, I did not
know. But none the less nightfall found me, as I have described,
knocking at the door of Buggam Grange.
The sound of the knocker had scarcely ceased to echo when I heard the
shuffling of feet within, and the sound of chains and bolts being
withdrawn. The door opened. A man stood before me holding a lighted
candle which he shaded with his hand. His faded black clothes, once
apparently a butler's dress, his white hair and advanced age left me in
no doubt that he was Horrod of whom Sir Jeremy had spoken.
Without a word he motioned me to come in, and, still without speech, he
helped me to remove my wet outer garments, and then beckoned me into a
great room, evidently the dining-room of the Grange.
I am not in any degree a nervous man by temperament, as I think I
remarked before, and yet there was something in the vastness of the
wainscoted room, lighted only by a single candle, and in the silence of
the empty house, and still more in the appearance of my speechless
attendant, which gave me a feeling of distinct uneasiness. As Horrod
moved to and fro I took occasion to scrutinize his face more narrowly. I
have seldom seen features more calculated to inspire a nervous dread.
The pallor of his face and the whiteness of his hair (the man was at
least seventy), and still more the peculiar furtiveness of his eyes,
seemed to mark him as one who lived under a great terror. He moved with
a noiseless step and at times he turned his head to glance in the dark
corners of the room.
"Sir Jeremy told me," I said, speaking as loudly and as heartily as I
could, "that he would apprise you of my coming."
I was looking into his face as I spoke.
In answer Horrod laid his finger across his lips and I knew that he was
deaf and dumb. I am not nervous (I think I said that), but the
realization that my sole companion in the empty house was a deaf mute
struck a cold chill to my heart.
Horrod laid in front of me a cold meat pie, a cold goose, a cheese, and
a tall flagon of cider. But my appetite was gone. I ate the goose, but
found that after I had finished the pie I had but little zest for the
cheese, which I finished without enjoyment. The cider had a sour taste,
and after having permitted Horrod to refill the flagon twice I found
that it induced a sense of melancholy and decided to drink no more.
My meal finished, the butler picked up the candle and beckoned me to
follow him. We passed through the empty corridors of the house, a long
line of pictured Buggams looking upon us as we passed, their portraits
in the flickering light of the taper assuming a strange and life-like
appearance, as if leaning forward from their frames to gaze upon the
intruder.
Horrod led me upstairs and I realized that he was taking me to the tower
in the east wing, in which I had observed a light.
The rooms to which the butler conducted me consisted of a sitting-room
with an adjoining bedroom, both of them fitted with antique wainscoting
against which a faded tapestry fluttered. There was a candle burning on
the table in the sitting-room, but its insufficient light only rendered
the surroundings the more dismal. Horrod bent down in front of the
fireplace and endeavoured to light a fire there. But the wood was
evidently damp and the fire flickered feebly on the hearth.
The butler left me, and in the stillness of the house I could hear his
shuffling step echo down the corridor. It may have been fancy, but it
seemed to me that his departure was the signal for a low moan that came
from somewhere behind the wainscot. There was a narrow cupboard door at
one side of the room, and for the moment I wondered whether the moaning
came from within. I am not as a rule lacking in courage (I am sure my
reader will be decent enough to believe this), yet I found myself
entirely unwilling to open the cupboard door and look within. In place
of doing so I seated myself in a great chair in front of the feeble
fire. I must have been seated there for some time when I happened to
lift my eyes to the mantel above and saw, standing upon it, a letter
addressed to myself. I knew the handwriting at once to be that of Sir
Jeremy Buggam.
I opened it, and spreading it out within reach of the feeble
candlelight, I read as follows:
"My dear Digby,
"In our talk that you will remember, I had no time to finish
telling you about the mystery of Buggam Grange. I take for granted,
however, that you will go there and that Horrod will put you in the
tower rooms, which are the only ones that make any pretence of
being habitable. I have, therefore, sent him this letter to deliver
at the Grange itself.
"The story is this:
"On the night of the fifteenth of November, fifty years ago, my
grandfather was murdered in the room in which you are sitting, by
his cousin, Sir Duggam Buggam. He was stabbed from behind while
seated at the little table at which you are probably reading this
letter. The two had been playing cards at the table and my
grandfather's body was found lying in a litter of cards and gold
sovereigns on the floor. Sir Duggam Buggam, insensible from drink,
lay beside him, the fatal knife at his hand, his fingers smeared
with blood. My grandfather, though of the younger branch,
possessed a part of the estates which were to revert to Sir Duggam
on his death. Sir Duggam Buggam was tried at the Assizes and was
hanged. On the day of his execution he was permitted by the
authorities, out of respect for his rank, to wear a mask to the
scaffold. The clothes in which he was executed are hanging at full
length in the little cupboard to your right, and the mask is above
them. It is said that on every fifteenth of November at midnight
the cupboard door opens and Sir Duggam Buggam walks out into the
room. It has been found impossible to get servants to remain at the
Grange, and the place--except for the presence of Horrod--has been
unoccupied for a generation. At the time of the murder Horrod was a
young man of twenty-two, newly entered into the service of the
family. It was he who entered the room and discovered the crime. On
the day of the execution he was stricken with paralysis and has
never spoken since. From that time to this he has never consented
to leave the Grange, where he lives in isolation.
"Wishing you a pleasant night after your tiring journey,
"I remain,
"Very faithfully,
"Jeremy Buggam."
I leave my reader to imagine my state of mind when I completed the
perusal of the letter.
I have as little belief in the supernatural as anyone, yet I must
confess that there was something in the surroundings in which I now
found myself which rendered me at least uncomfortable. My reader may
smile if he will, but I assure him that it was with a very distinct
feeling of uneasiness that I at length managed to rise to my feet, and,
grasping my candle in my hand, to move backward into the bedroom. As I
backed into it something so like a moan seemed to proceed from the
closed cupboard that I accelerated my backward movement to a
considerable degree. I hastily blew out the candle, threw myself upon
the bed and drew the bedclothes over my head, keeping, however, one eye
and one ear still out and available.
How long I lay thus listening to every sound, I cannot tell. The
stillness had become absolute. From time to time I could dimly hear the
distant cry of an owl, and once far away in the building below a sound
as of some one dragging a chain along a floor. More than once I was
certain that I heard the sound of moaning behind the wainscot. Meantime
I realized that the hour must now be drawing close upon the fatal moment
of midnight. My watch I could not see in the darkness, but by reckoning
the time that must have elapsed I knew that midnight could not be far
away. Then presently my ear, alert to every sound, could just
distinguish far away across the fens the striking of a church bell, in
the clock tower of Buggam village church, no doubt, tolling the hour of
twelve.
On the last stroke of twelve, the cupboard door in the next room opened.
There is no need to ask me how I knew it. I couldn't, of course, see it,
but I could hear, or sense in some way, the sound of it. I could feel
my hair, all of it, rising upon my head. I was aware that there was a
_presence_ in the adjoining room, I will not say a person, a living
soul, but a _presence_. Anyone who has been in the next room to a
presence will know just how I felt. I could hear a sound as of some one
groping on the floor and the faint rattle as of coins.
My hair was now perpendicular. My reader can blame it or not, but it
was.
Then at this very moment from somewhere below in the building there came
the sound of a prolonged and piercing cry, a cry as of a soul passing in
agony. My reader may censure me or not, but right at this moment I
decided to beat it. Whether I should have remained to see what was
happening is a question that I will not discuss. My one idea was to get
out, and to get out quickly. The window of the tower room was some
twenty-five feet above the ground. I sprang out through the casement in
one leap and landed on the grass below. I jumped over the shrubbery in
one bound and cleared the moat in one jump. I went down the avenue in
about six strides and ran five miles along the road through the fens in
three minutes. This at least is an accurate transcription of my
sensations. It may have taken longer. I never stopped till I found
myself on the threshold of the _Buggam Arms_ in Little Buggam, beating
on the door for the landlord.
I returned to Buggam Grange on the next day in the bright sunlight of a
frosty November morning, in a seven-cylinder motor car with six local
constables and a physician. It makes all the difference. We carried
revolvers, spades, pickaxes, shotguns and an ouija board.
What we found cleared up for ever the mystery of the Grange. We
discovered Horrod the butler lying on the dining-room floor quite dead.
The physician said that he had died from heart failure. There was
evidence from the marks of his shoes in the dust that he had come in the
night to the tower room. On the table he had placed a paper which
contained a full confession of his having murdered Jeremy Buggam fifty
years before. The circumstances of the murder had rendered it easy for
him to fasten the crime upon Sir Duggam, already insensible from drink.
A few minutes with the ouija board enabled us to get a full
corroboration from Sir Duggam. He promised, moreover, now that his name
was cleared, to go away from the premises for ever.
My friend, the present Sir Jeremy, has rehabilitated Buggam Grange. The
place is rebuilt. The moat is drained. The whole house is lit with
electricity. There are beautiful motor drives in all directions in the
woods. He has had the bats shot and the owls stuffed. His daughter,
Clara Buggam, became my wife. She is looking over my shoulder as I
write. What more do you want?
THE END
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
LITERARY LAPSES
_Twelfth Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s. net_
_Spectator._--"This little book is a happy example of the way in
which the double life can be lived blamelessly and to the great
advantage of the community. The book fairly entitles Mr. Leacock to
be considered not only a humorist but a benefactor. The contents
should appeal to English readers with the double virtue that
attaches to work which is at once new and richly humorous."
_Globe._--"One specimen of Mr. Leacock's humour, 'Boarding-House
Geometry,' has long been treasured on this side."
_The Guardian._--"Much to be welcomed is Professor Stephen Leacock's
'Literary Lapses,'--this charming and humorous work. All the
sketches have a freshness and a new personal touch. Mr. Leacock is,
as the politicians say, 'a national asset,' and Mr. Leacock is a
Canadian to be proud of. One has the comfortable feeling as one
reads that one is in the company of a cultured person capable of
attractive varieties of foolishness."
_Pall Mall Gazette._--"The appearance of 'Literary Lapses' is
practically the English début of a young Canadian writer who is
turning from medicine to literature with every success. Dr. Stephen
Leacock is at least the equal of many who are likely to be long
remembered for their short comic sketches and essays; he has
already shown that he has the high spirits of 'Max Adeler' and the
fine sense of quick fun. There are many sketches in 'Literary
Lapses' that are worthy of comparison with the best American
humour."
_Morning Post._--"The close connection between imagination, humour,
and the mathematical faculty has never been so delightfully
demonstrated."
_Outlook._--"Mr. John Lane must be credited with the desire of
associating the Bodley Head with the discovery of new humorists.
Mr. Leacock sets out to make people laugh. He succeeds and makes
them laugh at the right thing. He has a wide range of new subjects;
the world will gain in cheerfulness if Mr. Leacock continues to
produce so many excellent jests to the book as there are in the one
under notice."
_Truth._--"By the publication of Mr. Stephen Leacock's 'Literary
Lapses' Mr. John Lane has introduced to the British Public a new
American humorist for whom a widespread popularity can be
confidently predicted."
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
NONSENSE NOVELS
_THIRTEENTH EDITION_
_Crown 8vo. 5s. net_
_Spectator._--"We can assure our readers who delight in mere joyous
desipience that they will find a rich harvest of laughter in the
purely irresponsible outpourings of Professor Leacock's fancy."
_Pall Mall Gazette._--"It is all not only healthy satire, but
healthy humour as well, and shows that the author of 'Literary
Lapses' is capable of producing a steady flow of high spirits put
into a form which is equal to the best traditions of contemporary
humour. Mr. Leacock certainly bids fair to rival the immortal
'Lewis Carroll' in combining the irreconcilable--exact science with
perfect humour--and making the amusement better the instruction."
_Daily Mail._--"In his 'Literary Lapses' Mr. Stephen Leacock gave
the laughter-loving world assurance of a new humorist of
irresistible high spirits and rare spontaneity and freshness. By
this rollicking collection of 'Nonsense Novels,' in tabloid form,
he not only confirms the excellent impression of his earlier work,
but establishes his reputation as a master of the art of literary
burlesque. The whole collection is a sheer delight, and places its
author in the front rank as a literary humorist."
Mr. JAMES DOUGLAS in _The Star_.--"We have all laughed
over Mr. Stephen Leacock's 'Literary Lapses.' It is one of those
books one would die rather than lend, for to lend it is to lose it
for ever. Mr. Leacock's new book, 'Nonsense Novels,' is more
humorous than 'Literary Lapses.' That is to say, it is the most
humorous book we have had since Mr. Dooley swum into our ken. Its
humour is so rich that it places Mr. Leacock beside Mark Twain."
_Morning Leader._--"Mr. Leacock possesses infinite verbal
dexterity.... Mr. Leacock must be added as a recognized humorist."
_Daily Express._--"Mr. Stephen Leacock's 'Nonsense Novels' is the
best collection of parodies I have read for many a day. The whole
book is a scream, witty, ingenious, irresistible."
_Public Opinion._--"A most entertaining book."
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
SUNSHINE SKETCHES OF A LITTLE TOWN
WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY CYRUS CUNEO
_Ninth Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s. net_
_The Times._--"His real hard work, for which no emolument would be
a fitting reward, is distilling sunshine. This new book is full of
it--the sunshine of humour, the thin keen sunshine of irony, the
mellow evening sunshine of sentiment."
_Spectator._--"This is not the first but the third volume in which
he has contributed to the gaiety of the Old as well as the New
World.... A most welcome freedom from the pessimism of Old-World
fiction."
_Academy._--"One of the best and most enjoyable series of sketches
that we have read for some time ... they are all bright and
sparkling, and bristle with wit and humour."
_Pall Mall Gazette._--"Like all real humorists Mr. Leacock steps at
once into his proper position.... His touch of humour will make the
Anglo-Saxon world his reader.... We cannot recall a more laughable
book."
_Globe._--"Professor Leacock never fails to provide a feast of
enjoyment.... No one who wishes to dispose intellectually of a few
hours should neglect Professor Leacock's admirable contribution to
English literature. It is warranted to bring sunshine into every
home."
_Country Life._--"Informed by a droll humour, quite unforced, Mr.
Leacock reviews his little community for the sport of the thing,
and the result is a natural and delightful piece of work."
_Daily Telegraph._--"His Sketches are so fresh and delightful in
the manner of their presentation.... Allowing for differences of
theme, and of the human materials for study, Mr. Leacock strikes us
as a sort of Americanised Mr. W. W. Jacobs. Like the English
humorist, the Canadian one has a delightfully fresh and amusing way
of putting things, of suggesting more than he says, of narrating
more or less ordinary happenings in an irresistibly comical
fashion.... Mr. Leacock should be popular with readers who can
appreciate fun shot with kindly satire."
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
BEHIND THE BEYOND
AND OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS TO HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. With 16 Illustrations by
A. H. FISH.
_Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s. net_
_Punch._--"In his latest book, 'Behind the Beyond,' he is in
brilliant scoring form. I can see 'Behind the Beyond' breaking up
many homes; for no family will be able to stand the sudden sharp
yelps of laughter which must infallibly punctuate the decent
after-dinner silence when one of its members gets hold of this
book. It is Mr. Leacock's peculiar gift that he makes you laugh out
loud. When Mr. Leacock's literal translation of Homer, on p. 193,
met my eye, a howl of mirth broke from me. I also forgot myself
over the interview with the photographer. As for the sketch which
gives its title, to the book, it is the last word in polished
satire. The present volume is Mr. Leacock at his best."
_Spectator._--"Beneficent contributions to the gaiety of nations.
The longest and best thing in the book is the delightful burlesque
of a modern problem play. Miss Fish's illustrations are decidedly
clever."
_Observer._--"There are delicious touches in it."
_Queen._--"All through the book the author furnishes a continual
feast of enjoyment."
_Dundee Advertiser._--"'Behind the Beyond' is a brilliant parody,
and the other sketches are all of Mr. Leacock's very best, 'Homer
and Humbug' being as fine a piece of raillery as Mr. Leacock has
written. Mr. Leacock is a humorist of the first rank, unique in his
own sphere, and this volume will add yet more to his reputation."
_Aberdeen Free Press._--"Exquisite quality ... amazingly funny."
_Yorkshire Daily Post._--"In the skit on the problem play which
gives the book its title the author reaches his high-water mark."
_Glasgow Herald._--"Another welcome addition to the gaiety of the
nations. The title-piece is an inimitably clever skit. It is both
genial and realistic, and there is a genuine laugh in every line of
it. Humour and artistry are finely blended in the drawings."
_Daily Express._--"The pictures have genuine and rare distinction."
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
ARCADIAN ADVENTURES WITH THE IDLE RICH
_FOURTH EDITION_
_Crown 8vo. 5s. net_
_Spectator._--"A blend of delicious fooling and excellent satire.
Once more the author of 'Literary Lapses' has proved himself a
benefactor of his kind."
_Morning Post._--"All the 'Adventures' are full of the fuel of the
laughter which is an intellectual thing."
_Pall Mall Gazette._--"Professor Leacock shows no falling off
either in his fund of social observation or his power of turning it
to sarcasm and humour. The book is full to the brim with honest
laughter and clever ideas."
_Bystander._--"It is necessary to laugh, now even more necessary
than at ordinary times. Fortunately, Professor Leacock produces a
new book at the right moment. It will cause many chuckles. He is
simply irresistible."
_Westminster Gazette._--"Marks a distinct advance in Mr. Leacock's
artistic development."
_Daily Chronicle._--"This altogether delightful and brilliant
comedy of life.... Mr. Leacock's humour comes from the very depths
of a strong personality, and in the midst of a thousand
whimsicalities, a thousand searchlights on the puerilities of human
nature he never loses touch with the essential bite of life."
_Saturday Review._--"Professor Leacock is a delightful writer of
irresponsible nonsense with a fresh and original touch. These
'Arcadian Adventures' are things of sheer delight."
_Tatler._--"I have not felt so full of eagerness and life since the
war began as after I had read this delightfully humorous and clever
book."
_Evening Standard._--"In this book the satire is brilliantly
conspicuous."
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
MOONBEAMS FROM THE LARGER LUNACY
_FOURTH EDITION_
_Crown 8vo. 5s. net_
_Times._--"Such a perfect piece of social observation and joyful
castigation as the description of the last man in Europe ... the
portrait of So-and-so is not likely to be forgotten ... it is so
funny and so true."
_Morning Post._--"Excellent fooling ... wisdom made laughable."
_Daily Chronicle._--"Here is wit, fun, frolic, nonsense, verse,
satire, comedy, criticism--a perfect gold mine for those who love
laughter."
_Sunday Times._--"Very pungent and telling satire. Buy the book--it
will give you a happy hour."
_Standard._--"Under the beams of the moon of his delight, the
author never fails to be amusing."
_Pall Mall Gazette._--"Mr. Leacock's humour is a credit to Canada,
for it has a depth and a polish such as are both rare in the
literature of a young nation."
_Land and Water._--"Unlike a number of so-called humorists, Mr.
Leacock is really funny, as these sketches prove."
_Field._--"Indeed a very pleasant hour can be spent with this
author, who is full of humour, wit, and cleverness, and by his work
adds much to the gaiety of life."
_Spectator._--"Mr. Leacock has added to our indebtedness by his new
budget of refreshing absurdities.... In shooting folly as it flies,
he launches darts that find their billet on both sides of the
Atlantic."
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
ESSAYS AND LITERARY STUDIES
_Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s. net_
_Truth._--"Full of practical wisdom, as sober as it is sound."
_Morning Post._--"He is the subtlest of all transatlantic
humorists, and, as we have pointed out before, might almost be
defined as the discoverer of a method combining English and
American humour. But he never takes either his subject or himself
too seriously, and the result is a book which is as readable as any
of its mirthful predecessors."
_World._--"Those readers who fail to find pleasure in this new
volume of Essays will be difficult to please. Here are discourses
in the author's happiest vein."
_Daily News._--"All are delightful."
_Bystander._--"No sane person will object to Professor Leacock
professing, so long as he periodically issues such good
entertainment as 'Essays and Literary Studies.'"
_Daily Telegraph._--"The engaging talent of this Canadian author
has hitherto been exercised in the lighter realm of wit and fancy.
In his latest volume there is the same irresistible humour, the
same delicate satire, the same joyous freshness; but the wisdom he
distils is concerned more with realities of our changing age."
_Outlook._--"Mr. Leacock's humour is his own, whimsical with the
ease of a self-confident personality, far-sighted, quick-witted,
and invariably humane."
_Times._--"Professor Leacock's paper on American humour is quite
the best that we know upon the subject."
_Spectator._--"Those of us who are grateful to Mr. Leacock as an
intrepid purveyor of wholesome food for laughter have not failed to
recognize that he mingles shrewdness with levity--that he is, in
short, wise as well as merry."
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Further Foolishness
SKETCHES AND SATIRES ON THE FOLLIES OF THE DAY
With Coloured Frontispiece by "Fish," and five other Plates by
M. Blood
_Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s. net_
_Morning Post._--"An excellent antidote to war worry."
_Evening Standard._--"You will acknowledge, if you have not done so
before, the satirical keenness of Mr. Leacock."
_Daily Graphic._--"The book is a joy all through, laughter on every
page."
_Times._--"Further examples of the diverting humour of Professor
Leacock."
_Bystander._--"'Further Foolishness,' in a word, is the most
admirable tonic which I can prescribe to-day ... the jolliest
possible medley."
_Daily Chronicle._--"Mr. Leacock's fun is fine and delicate, full
of quaint surprises; guaranteed to provoke cheerfulness in the
dullest. He is a master-humorist, and this book is one of the
cleverest examples of honest humour and witty satire ever
produced."
_Spectator._--"In this new budget of absurdities we are more than
ever reminded of Mr. Leacock's essential affinity with Artemus
Ward, in whose wildest extravagances there was nearly always a core
of wholesome sanity, who was always on the side of the angels, and
who was a true patriot as well as a great humorist."
_Pall Mall Gazette._--"A humorist of high excellence."
_Daily Express._--"Really clever and admirably good fun."
_Star._--"Some day there will be a Leacock Club. Its members will
all possess a sense of humour."
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FRENZIED FICTION
_FOURTH EDITION_
_Crown 8vo. 5s. net_
"Everything in 'Frenzied Fiction' is exhilarating. Full of good
things."--_Morning Post._
"More delightful samples of Leacock humour. These delightful
chapters show Mr. Leacock at his best."
_Daily Graphic._
"Stephen Leacock has firmly established himself in public favour as
one of our greatest humorists. His readers will be more than
pleased with 'Frenzied Fiction.'"--_Evening Standard._
"It is enough to say that Mr. Leacock retains an unimpaired command
of his happy gift of disguising sanity in the garb of the
ludicrous. There is always an ultimate core of shrewd common-sense
in his burlesques."--_Spectator._
"Full of mellow humour."--_Daily Mail._
"From beginning to end the book is one long gurgle of
delight."--_World._
"If it is your first venture into the Leacockian world read that
delicious parody 'My Revelations as a Spy,' and we will be sworn
that before you've turned half a dozen pages you will have become a
life-member of the Leacock Lodge."--_Town Topics._
"When humour is such as you get in 'Frenzied Fiction' it is a very
good thing indeed."--_Sketch._
"There is always sufficient sense under Stephen Leacock's nonsense
to enable one to read him at least twice."--_Land and Water._
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN AMERICA
AND OTHER IMPOSSIBILITIES
_Crown 8vo. 5s. net_
"Equal in gay humour and deft satire to any of its predecessors,
and no holiday will be so gay but this volume will make it
gayer.... It is a book of rollicking good humour that will keep you
chuckling long past summer-time."--_Daily Chronicle._
"At his best, full of whims and oddities ... the most cheerful of
humorists and the wisest of wayside philosophers."--_Daily
Telegraph._
"He has never provided finer food for quiet enjoyment ... his
precious quality of Rabelaisian humanism has matured and broadened
in its sympathy."--_Globe._
"In the author's merriest mood. All of it is distilled wit and
wisdom of the best brand, full of honest laughter, fun and frolic,
comedy and criticism."--_Daily Graphic._
"The book is inspired by that spirit of broad farce which runs
glorious riot through nearly all that Stephen Leacock has
written."--_Bookman._
"He has all the energy and exuberance of the born humorist.... All
admirers will recognize it as typical of Mr. Leacock's best
work."--_Manchester Guardian._
"An entertaining volume."--_Scotsman._
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE UNSOLVED RIDDLE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
_Crown 8vo. 5s. net_
A discussion of the new social unrest, the transformation of
society which it portends and the social catastrophe which it might
precipitate.
The point of view taken by the author leads towards the conclusion
that the safety of the future lies in a progressive movement of
social control alleviating at least the misery it cannot
obliterate, and based upon the broad general principle of equality
of opportunity, and a fair start. The chief immediate opportunities
for social betterment, as the writer sees them, lie in the attempt
to give every human being in childhood, education and opportunity.
"His book is short, lucid, always to the point, and sometimes
witty."--_Times._
"A book for the times, suggestive, critical and highly stimulating.
Mr. Leacock surveys the troubled hour and discusses the popular
palliatives with a keen, unbiassed intelligence and splendid
sympathy. I hope it will have as large a circulation as any of his
humorous books, for it has much wisdom in it."--_Daily Chronicle._
"The charm of Mr. Leacock's book is ... that it deals tersely and
clearly with the problem of Social Justice without technical jargon
or any abuse of generalities."--_Morning Post._
* * * * *
THE HUMOROUS NOVELS OF HARRY LEON WILSON
BUNKER BEAN
MA PETTENGILL
SOMEWHERE IN RED GAP
RUGGLES OF RED GAP
_Crown 8vo. 7s. net_
Harry Leon Wilson is one of the first of American humorists, and in
popularity he is a close rival of O. Henry. His "Ruggles of Red
Gap," published at the beginning of the war, achieved a distinct
success in England, while the raciness and vivacity of "Ma
Pettengill" have furthered the author's reputation as an inimitable
delineator of Western comedy. An English edition of this author's
works is in course of preparation, of which the above are the first
volumes.
"The author has the rare and precious gift of original
humour."--_Daily Graphic._
"Thackeray would have enjoyed Mr. Wilson's merry tale of 'Ruggles
of Red Gap.' A very triumph of farce."--_Sunday Times._
"Mr. Wilson is an American humorist of the first water. We have not
for a long time seen anything so clever in its way and so
outrageously funny."--_Literary World._
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD