CHAPTER X

ASPARAGUS AND CATS

Charles Bevan followed his cousin to the house. His orderly mind could

never have imagined of its own volition a _ménage_ like that of the

Lamberts. He revolted at it, yet felt strangely fascinated. It was like

watching people dancing on a tight rope half cut in two, sailors

feasting and merry-making on a sinking wreck, children plucking flowers

on the crumbling edge of a cliff.

Tea was laid in state in the drawing-room, a lovely old room with

tapestried walls, and windows that opened upon the garden; or at least

that part of it which had been robbed of its roses and converted into a

kitchen-garden during one of George Lambert's economical fits.

"That is the asparagus bed," said Fanny proudly.

It was like a badly-ploughed field, and Charles' eye travelled slowly

over its ridges and hollows.

"Have you a potato bed?" he asked, his mind subconsciously estimating

the size of the Lamberts' Highgate estate on the basis that their potato

crop was in proportion to their asparagus.

"Oh, we buy our potatoes and cabbages and things," said Fanny; "they are

cheap."

"But asparagus takes such a time to grow--four years, I think it is."

"Oh, surely not so long as that?" said the girl, taking her seat at the

tea-table. "Why, oak trees would grow quicker than that; besides, James

said we would have splendid asparagus next spring, and he was a

professed gardener before his misfortunes overtook him. Do you take

sugar?"

"Yes, please," said Charles, wearily dropping into a low chair and

wondering vaguely at the angelic beauty of the girl's face.

"And what, may I ask, were the 'misfortunes' that overtook James?"

"His wife, poor thing, took to drink," said she, with so much

commiseration in her tone that she might have been a disciple of the new

criminology, "and that broke his heart and took all his energy away."

"Do you believe him?"

"Why not? He is a most devoted creature; and he is going to give up the

business he is in and stay on when father pays Mr Isaacs. I hope we will

never part with James."

Susannah, in honour of the guest, had produced the best tea service, a

priceless set of old Sèvres. The tray was painted with Cupidons blowing

trumpets as if in honour of the victory of Susannah over mischance, in

that she had conveyed them upstairs by some miracle unsmashed.

There was half a cake by Buszard; the tea, had it been paid for, would

have cost five shillings a pound, but the milk was sky blue.

As Fanny was cutting up the cake in liberal slices as if for a

children's party, two frightful-looking cats walked into the room with

all the air of bandits. One was jet black and one was brindled; both

looked starved, and each wore its tail with a pump-handle curve after

the fashion of a lion's when marauding.

Fanny regarded them lovingly, and poured out a saucerful of the blue

milk which she placed on the floor.

"Aren't they angels?"

"Well, if you ask me," said Charles Bevan, as if he were giving his

opinion on some object of _vértu_, "I'd say they were more like--the

other things."

"I know they are not _pretty_," said Fanny regretfully, "but they are

faithful. They always come to tea just as if they were invited."

"I wonder your poodle--I mean the dog, lets them in."

"Boy-Boy?--Oh, he only barks at things at night when they can't see him;

he would run from a mouse, he's such a dear old coward. Aren't they

thirsty?"

"Where did you get them? I should think they would be hard to match."

"I didn't get them: they are not ours, they just come in."

"Do you mean to say you let stray cats in like that?"

"_I_ don't let them in, they come in through a hole in the scullery

window."

"Goodness gracious!"

"Sometimes the kitchen is full of cats; they seem to know."

"That fools live here," thought Charles.

"And Susannah spends all her time turning them out--all, of course,

except the black ones."

"Why not the black ones?"

"Because they are lucky; did you not know that? It's frightfully

unlucky to turn a black cat out."

"Why not fill up the hole and stop them from getting in?"

"Susannah has stuffed it up with old stockings and things till she's

weary; they butt it in with their heads."

"Why not have a new pane put in?"

"Father has talked of that, but I have always changed the conversation,

and then he forgets."

"You like cats?"

"I love them."

Charles looked gloomily at the grimalkins.

"Seems to me you must have your food stolen."

"We used to, but Susannah locks everything up now before she goes to

bed."

She inverted the milk jug to show the cats that there was no milk left,

and the intelligent creatures comprehending left the room, the black

leading the way.

"Faithful creatures!" sneered Charles.

"Aren't they! Oh, but, Cousin Charles--I mean Mr----"

"No; call me Cousin Charles."

"--I've given the cats all the milk!"

"No matter," said Charles magnanimously. "The poor beggars wanted it

more than I. I never drink more than one cup of tea; it makes me

nervous."

"How good you are!" she murmured. "You remind me of father."

Charles moved uneasily in his chair.

From somewhere in the distance came the sound of Susannah singing and

cleaning a window, a song like a fetish song interrupted by the sound of

the window being closed to see if it was clean enough, and flung up

again with a jerk, that spoke of dissatisfaction. These sounds of a

sudden ceased.

They were succeeded by the murmur of voices, a footstep, then a tap at

the door, followed by the voice of Susannah requesting her mistress to

step outside for a moment.

"I know what _that_ always means," murmured the girl in a resigned

voice, as she rose from the table and left the room.

Charles Bevan rose from his chair and went to the window.

"These people want protecting," he said to himself frowning at the

asparagus bed. "Irresponsibility when it passes a certain point becomes

absolute lunacy. Fanny and her father ought to be in a lunatic asylum

with their ghosts, and cats, and rubbish, only I don't believe any

lunatic asylum would take them in; they would infect the other patients

and make them worse. Good Heavens! it makes me shudder. They must be on

the verge of the workhouse, making asparagus beds, and drinking

champagne, and flying off to Paris, and feeding every filthy stray cat

with food they must want for themselves. Poor devils--I mean damned

fools. Anyhow, I must be going." The recollection of a certain lady

named Pamela Pursehouse arose coldly in his mind now that Miss Lambert

was absent from the room, and the little "still voice," whatever a still

voice may be, said something about duty.

He determined to flee from temptation directly his hostess returned, but

he reckoned without Fate.

The door opened and Fanny entered with a face full of tragedy.

She closed the door.

"What do you think Susannah has told me?" She spoke in a low voice as

if death were in the house.

"What?"

"James has come in and he has--had too much!"

"You don't mean to say that he is intoxicated?"

"I do," said Fanny with her voice filled with tears.

"How _disgraceful_! I will go down and turn him out." Then he remembered

that he could not very well turn him out considering that he was in

possession.

"For goodness sake don't even hint that to him, or he may go," cried

Fanny in alarm, "for, when he gets like this, he always talks of leaving

at once, because his calling is a disgrace to him, and if he went,

Susannah would follow him."

"But, my dear girl," cried Charles, "how dare that wretched

Susannah--ahem--why, he's a married man, you told me so; surely she

knows _that_."

"Yes, she knows that, but she says she can't help herself."

"_I_ never met such people before!" said Charles, addressing a jade

dragon on the mantelpiece--"I mean," he said, putting his hands in his

trousers' pockets and addressing his boots, "such a person as Susannah."

"Her mother ran away with her father," murmured Fanny in extenuation,

"so I suppose it is in the blood. But I wish we could do something with

James. If he would even go to bed, but he sits by the kitchen fire

crying, and that sets Susannah off. She will be ill for days after this.

He said it was a cigar some one gave him that reminded him of his better

days----"

"Bother his better days!"

"----and he went to try and drown the recollection of them. It is so

stupid of him, he _knows_ how drink flies to his head; you would never

imagine if you could see him now that he has only had two glasses of

beer."

"I will go down to the kitchen and speak to him," said Charles.

"But, Cousin Charles," said Fanny, plucking at his coat, "be sure and

speak gently."

"I will," said Mr Bevan.

"Then I'll go with you," said she.

James, a long ill-weedy looking man, was seated before the kitchen fire

on a chair without a back; Susannah, on hearing their footsteps, darted

into the scullery.

"Now, James, now, James," said Charles Bevan, speaking in a paternal

voice, "what is the meaning of all this? How did you get yourself into

this condition?"

James turned his head and regarded Charles. He made a vain endeavour to

speak and rise from his chair at one and the same time, then he

collapsed and his tears returned anew.

At the sound, Susannah in the scullery threw her apron over her head and

joined in, whilst Fanny looked out of the window and sniffled.

"_I_ never saw such a lot of people!" cried Charles in desperation.

"James, James, be a man."

"How can he," said Fanny, controlling her voice, "when he is in this

terrible state? Cousin Charles, don't you think you could induce him to

go to bed?"

"I think I could," said Charles grimly, "if you show me the way to his

room."

_PART II_

CHAPTER I

A REVELATION

"When will your father come back?" asked Charles as he returned to the

kitchen, having deposited the man of law on his bed and shaken his fist

in his face as a token of what he would get if he rose from it.

"Not till this evening, late," said Fanny.

"Then I must wait till he returns, or till this person recovers himself.

I cannot possibly leave you alone in the house with a tipsy man."

"Oh yes, do stay till father returns. I want you to meet him so much,"

said Fanny, all her grief vanishing in smiles.

"Susannah, we'll have supper at eight."

"Yes, miss."

"I am almost glad," said Fanny, as she tripped up the kitchen stairs

before her cousin, "I am almost glad James took it into his head to get

tipsy, you'd have gone away if he hadn't, without seeing father; it

seems almost like Providence. Mercy! it's six o'clock."

She glanced at the great old hall clock ticking away the moments, even

as it had done when George the Third was king, and Charles took his

watch out to verify the time, but he did not catch the old clock

tripping.

"Now we must think about supper," said Fanny, in a busy voice. "You must

be dying of hunger. What do you like best?"

"But you have not dined, Fanny."

"Oh, we always call dinner 'luncheon,' and have it in the middle of the

day; it saves trouble, and it is less worry." Then, after a moment's

pause: "I wish we had a lobster, but I don't think there is one. I

_know_ there is a beefsteak."

She went to the kitchen stairs.

"Susannah!"

"Yes, miss," answered a dolorous voice from below.

"Have you a lobster in the house?"

"No, miss."

"You have a beefsteak?"

A sound came as of search amongst the plates on the dresser.

"The beefsteak is gone, Miss Fanny."

"Now, _where_ can that beefsteak have gone to?" murmured the girl,

whilst Charles called to mind the criminal countenances of the two

faithful cats, and the business-like manner in which they had left the

room.

"Search again, Susannah."

A frightful crash of crockery came as a reply.

"Susannah!"

"Yes, miss."

"Don't look any more, I will go out and buy something."

"Don't mind me," said Charles. "Anything will do for me; I am used--I

mean----"

"I am not going to have father come back and find you starved to death;

he'd kill me. I'm going out marketing; will you come?"

"With pleasure."

"Then wait till I fetch my hat and a basket."

"May I light a cigar?"

"Yes, smoke everywhere, every one does," and she rushed upstairs for her

hat. A moment later she returned, hat on head, and bearing in her hand

a little basket adorned with blue ribbons: a pound of tea would have

freighted it.

"How on earth is she going to get the dinner into that?" thought her

companion, as he unbarred the hall door and followed her down the steps.

Then they found themselves walking down the weed-grown avenue, the birds

twittering overhead in the light of the warm June evening.

That he should be going "a-marketing" in Highgate accompanied by a

pretty girl with a basket did not, strangely enough, impress Charles

Bevan as being an out-of-the-way occurrence.

He felt as if he had known the Lamberts for years--a good many years. He

no longer contemplated the joyous tragedy of their life wholly as a

spectator; he had become suddenly and without volition one of the

actors, a subordinate actor--a thinking part, one might call it.

The fearful fascination exercised by these people seemed, strange to

say, never so potent as when exercised upon hard-headed people, as

Major Sawyer and many another could have told.

"I love marketing," said Fanny, as they trudged along, "at least buying

things."

"Have you any money?"

"Lots," said Miss Lambert, producing a starved-looking purse.

She opened it and peeped in at the three and sixpence it contained, and

then shut it with a snap as if fearful of their escaping.

"What do you like next best to marketing?" asked Charles in the sedate

voice of a heavy father speaking to his favourite child.

"Opening parcels."

"I don't quite----"

"Oh, you know--strange parcels when they come, or when father brings

them, one never knows what may be in them--chocolate creams or what. I

wonder what father will bring me back this time?"

"Where has he gone to?"

"He has gone to get some money."

"He will be back this evening?"

"Yes, unless he finds it difficult getting the money. If he does, he

won't be home till morning." She spoke as an Indian squaw might speak,

whose father or husband has gone a-hunting, whilst Charles marvelled

vaguely.

"But suppose--he doesn't get any money?"

"Oh, he will get it all right, people are so good to him. Poor, dear Mr

Hancock----"

She stopped suddenly.

"Yes, yes."

"He said we weren't to tell."

She spoke in a secretive voice which greatly inflamed her companion's

curiosity.

"You might tell me, but don't if you don't want to."

"Yes," said Fanny. "I don't think it matters now that you are friends

with us, and we're all the same family. Father's dividends had not come

in, and he lent us the money to pay the bills."

"_What_ bills?"

"The butcher's bill, and Stokes the baker's bill, and the milk bill, and

some others."

"_Hancock_ lent you the money to pay your bills?" cried Charles, feeling

like a person in a dream.

"Yes, old Mr Hancock, your Mr Hancock."

"But he never told me he was a friend of your father's; besides, he is

_my_ solicitor."

"He never saw us before this week."

"Tell me all about it, and how you came to know him so intimately, and

how he paid your bills," commanded Mr Bevan.

There was, just here on the road, a seat dropped incontinently by the

County Council; they sat upon it whilst she told her tale.

"It was the other day. Father had not slept all night thinking of the

action. He came into my bedroom at two in the morning to tell me that if

he lost it before the House of Lords, he would take it before the Queen

in Council. He had been sitting up reading 'Every Man his Own Lawyer.'

Well, next morning a lot of people came asking for their money, the

butcher and all those, and we hadn't any.

"Father said it was all _your_ fault, and he wished he had never seen

the fish stream. I was so frightened by the way he was bothering himself

about everything--for, as a rule, you know he is the most easy-tempered

man in the world as long as he has got his pipe. Well, a friend advised

me to go privately to your lawyer and try to stop the action. So I went

to Mr Hancock.

"At first he seemed very stiff, and glared at me through his spectacles;

but, after a while, as I told him all about ourselves, he stopped

shuffling his feet, and listened with his hand to his ear as if he were

deaf, and he took a smelling bottle out of a drawer of his desk and

snuffed at it, and said, 'Dear me, how very extraordinary!' Then he

called me his 'Poor child!' and asked me had I had any luncheon. I said

'Yes,' though I hadn't--I wasn't hungry. Well, we talked and talked, and

at last he said he would come back with me home, for that our affairs

were in a dreadful condition and we didn't seem to know it. He said he

would come as a friend and try to forget that he was a lawyer.

"Well, he came here with me. Father was upstairs in his bedroom, and I

poked my head in and told him your lawyer wanted to see him in the

drawing-room.

"I didn't tell him it was I who had fetched him, for I knew he would

simply go mad if he thought I had been meddling with the action;

besides, Mr Hancock said I had better not, as he simply called as a

friend.

"Down came father and went into the drawing-room. I was in an awful

fright, too frightened even to listen at the door. I made Susannah

listen after a while, and she said they were talking about roses--I

felt so relieved.

"I sent Susannah in with wine, and Mr Hancock stayed to supper. After

supper they had cigars and punch, and I played to them on the piano, and

father sang Irish songs, and Mr Hancock told us awfully funny stories

all about the law, and said he was a bachelor and envied father because

he had a daughter like me.

"Then he talked about our affairs, and said he would require more punch

before he could understand them; so he had more punch, and father showed

him the housekeeping books, and he looked over them reading them upside

down and every way. Then he wrote out a cheque to pay the books, with

one eye shut, whilst father wrote out bills, you know, to pay the

cheque, and then he kissed me and said good-bye to father and went away

crying."

"But," cried Charles, utterly astounded at this artless revelation of

another man's folly, "old Hancock never made a joke in his life--at

least to _me_--and he's an awful old skinflint and never lent any man a

penny, so they say."

"He made lots of jokes that night, anyhow," said Fanny, "and lent

father over twenty pounds, too; and only yesterday a great bunch of

hothouse flowers came from Covent Garden with his card for me."

"Old fool!" said Charles.

"He is not an old fool, he's a dear old man, and I love him. Come on, or

the shops will be closed."

"You seem to love everything," said Mr Bevan in a rather stiff tone, as

they meandered along near now to the street where shops were.

"I do--at least everything I don't hate."

"Whom do you hate?"

"No one just now. I never hate people for long, it is too much trouble.

I used to hate you before I knew you. I thought you were a man with a

black beard; you see I hadn't seen you."

"But, why on earth did you think I had a black beard?"

"_I_ don't know. I suppose it was because I hate black beards."

"So you don't hate me?"

"No, _indeed_."

"And as every one you don't hate, you---- I say, what a splendid evening

this is! it is just like Italy. I mean, it reminds me of Italy."

"And here are the shops at last," said Fanny, as if the shops had been

travelling to them and had only just arrived.

She stopped at a stationer's window.

"I want to get some envelopes. Come in, won't you?"

She bought a packet of envelopes for fourpence. Charles turned away to

look at some of the gaudily-bound Kebles, Byrons, and Scotts so dear to

the middle-class heart, and before he could turn again she had bought a

little prayer-book with a cross on it for a shilling. The shopman was

besetting her with a new invention in birthday cards when Charles broke

the spell by touching her elbow with the head of his walking stick.

"Don't you think," said he when they were safely in the street, "it is a

mistake buying prayer-books, these shop-keepers are such awful

swindlers?"

"I bought it for Susannah," explained Fanny. "It's a little present for

her after the way James has gone on. Look at this dear monkey."

A barrel organ of the old type was playing by the pavement, making a

sound as if an old man gone idiotic were humming a tune to himself. A

villainous-looking monkey on the organ-top, held out his hand when it

saw Fanny approaching. It knew the world evidently, or at least

physiognomy, which is almost the same thing.

"He takes it just like a man," she cried, as the creature grabbed one of

her pennies and then nearly broke its chain trying to get at her to tear

the rose from her hat. "Look, it knows the people who are fond of it; it

is just like a child."

Charles tore her from the monkey, only for a milliner's shop to suck her

in.

"I must run in here for a moment, it's only about a corset I ordered; I

won't be three minutes."

He waited ten, thinking how strange it was that this girl saw something

attractive in nearly everything--strange cats, monkeys, and even old

Hancock.

At the end of twenty minutes' walking up and down, he approached the

milliner's window and peeped into the shop.

Fanny was conversing with a tall woman, whose frizzled black hair lent

her somehow the appearance of a Frenchwoman.

The Highgate Frenchwoman was dangling something gaudy and flimsy before

Fanny's eyes, and the girl had her purse in her hand.

Charles gave a sigh, and resumed his beat like a policeman.

At last she came out, carrying a tissue-paper parcel.

"Well, have you got your--what you called for?"

"No, it's not ready yet; but I've got the most beautiful--Oh my goodness

me!--how stupid I am!"

"What?"

"I have only three halfpence left, and I have forgotten the eggs and

things for supper."

"Give me your purse, and let me look into it," he said, taking the

little purse and turning away a moment. Then he handed it back to her;

she opened it and peeped in, and there lay a sovereign.

"It's just what father does," she said, looking up in the lamp-light

with a smile that somehow made Mr Bevan's eyes feel misty. "What makes

you so like him in everything you do?" And somehow these words seemed to

the correct Mr Bevan the sweetest he had ever heard.

Then they marketed after the fashion of youth when it finds itself the

possessor of a whole sovereign. Fanny laying out the money as the fancy

took her, and with the lavishness so conspicuously absent in the

dealings of your mere millionaire.

They then returned to "The Laurels," Charles Bevan carrying the parcels.

The dining-room of "The Laurels" was a huge apartment furnished in the

age of heavy dinners, when a knowledge of comparative anatomy and the

wrist of a butcher were necessary ingredients in the composition of a

successful host.

Here Susannah, to drown her sorrows in labour and give honour to the

guest, had laid the supper things on a lavish scale. The Venetian vase,

before-mentioned, stood filled with roses in the centre of the table,

and places were laid for six--all sorts of places. Some of the

unexpected guests were presumably to sup entirely off fish, to judge by

the knives and forks set out for them, and some were evidently to be

denied the luxury of soup. That there was neither soup nor fish mattered

little to Susannah.

The cellar, to judge by the sideboard, had been seized with a spirit of

emulation begotten of the display made by the plate pantry, and had sent

three representatives from each bin. The sideboard also contained the

jam-pot, the bread tray, and butter on a plate: commestables that had

the abject air of poor relations admitted on sufferance, and come to

look on.

Here entered Fanny, followed by Mr Bevan, laden with parcels.

The girl's hat was tilted slightly sideways, her raven hair was in

revolt, and her cheeks flushed with happiness and the excitement of

marketing.

Susannah followed them. She wore a wonderful white apron adorned with

frills and blue ribbons, a birthday present from her mistress, only

brought out on state occasions.

"Three candles only!" said the mistress of the house, glancing at the

table and the three candles burning on it. "That's not enough; fetch a

couple more, and, Susannah, bring the sardine opener."

"Why don't you light the gas?" asked her cousin, putting his parcels

down and glancing at the great chandelier swinging overhead.

"I would, only father has had a fight with the gas company and they've

cut it off. Now let's open the parcels; put the candles nearer."

Mr Bevan's parcels contained a box of sardines, a paysandu ox tongue,

and a basket of peaches; Fanny's, the before-mentioned prayer-book,

envelopes, and in the tissue-paper parcel a light shawl or fichu of

fleecy silk dyed blue.

She cast her hat off, and throwing the fichu round her neck, hopped upon

a chair, candle in hand, and glanced at herself in a great mirror on the

opposite wall.

"It makes me look beautiful!" she cried. "And I have half a mind to keep

it for myself."

"Why--for whom did you buy it, then?"

"For James' wife, Mrs Regan."

"Oh!"

"She is ill, you know, and I am going to see her again to-morrow. I hate

going to see sick people, but father says whenever we see a lame dog we

should put our shoulders to the wheel and help him over the stile, and

she's a lame dog, if ever there was one. That's right, Susannah, put the

candles here, and give me the can opener; I love opening tins, and

there is a little prayer-book I got for you when I was out."

"Thank you, miss," said Susannah in a muffled voice, putting the little

prayer-book under her apron with one hand, and snuffing a candle with

the finger and thumb of the other. "Can I get you anything more, miss?"

"Nothing. Is James all right?"

"He's asleep now, miss," answered the maid, closing her mouth for once

in her life by some miracle of Love, and catching in her breath through

her nose.

"That will do, Susannah," hastily said her mistress, who knew this

symptom of old, and what it foreboded; "I'll ring if I want you. Bring

up the punch things at ten, just as you always bring them."

Susannah left the room making stifled sounds, and Fanny, with Mrs

Regan's fichu about her neck, attacked the sardine tin with the opener.

"Let me," said Charles.

"No, no; you open the champagne, and put the peaches on a plate, and

I'll open the tins. Bring over the bread and butter and jam. I wish we

had some ice for the champagne, but the fishmonger--forgot to send it.

Bother this knife!"

She laboured away, with her cheeks flushed; a lock of black hair

hanging loose lent her a distracted air, and made her so lovely in the

eyes of Charles that he put the bread platter down on top of the butter

plate, so that the butter pat clung to the bottom of the bread platter,

and they had to scrape it off, one holding the platter, one scraping

with the knife, and both hands touching.

"We have had that bread plate ever since I can remember," she said, as

they seated themselves to the feast, "and I wouldn't have anything

happen to it for earths, not that the butter will do it any harm. Isn't

the text on it nice?"

Charles examined the bread platter gravely.

"'Want not,'" he read. He looked in vain for the "Waste not," but that

part of the maxim was hidden by the carved representation of a full ear

of corn.

"It's a very nice--motto. Have some champagne?"

"No thanks, I only drink water, wine flies to my head; I am like James.

I am going to have a peach--have one."

"Thank you, I am eating sardines. You remind me of the old gentleman--he

was short-sighted--who offered me a pinch of snuff once when I was

eating a sole."

Fanny, with her teeth set in the peach, gave a little shriek of

laughter, but Mr Bevan was perfectly grave. Still, for perhaps the first

time in his life, he felt his possibilities as a humorist, and

determined to exploit them.

"Talking about ghosts"--ghosts and mothers-in-law, to the medium

intellect, are always fair game,--"talking about ghosts," said he, "you

said, I think, Cousin Fanny----"

"Call me Fanny," said that lady, who, having eaten her peach, was now

helping herself to sardines. "I hate that word 'cousin,' it sounds so

stiff. What about ghosts?"

"About ghosts," he answered slowly, his new-found sense of humour

suddenly becoming lost. "Oh yes, you said, Fanny, that a ghost was

haunting this house."

"Yes, Fanny Lambert. I told you she hid her jewels before she hung

herself. When people see her she is always beckoning them to follow her.

We found James insensible one night on the landing upstairs; he told us

next morning he had seen her, and she had beckoned him to follow her,

and after that he remembered nothing more."

"A sure sign there were spirits in the house."

"Wasn't it? But why, do you think, does she beckon people?"

"Perhaps she beckons people to show them where the jewels are hidden."

"Oh!" cried Fanny; "_why_ did we never think of that before? Of _course_

that is the reason--and they are worth two hundred thousand pounds. We

must have the panels in the corridor taken down. I'll make father do it

to-morrow. Two hundred thousand pounds: what is that a year?"

"Ten thousand."

"Fancy father with ten thousand a year!" Mr Bevan shuddered. "We can

have a steam yacht, and everything we want. I feel as if I were going

mad," said Miss Lambert, with the air of a person who had often been mad

before and knew the symptoms.

The door opened and Susannah appeared with the punch things. "Susannah,

guess what's happened--never mind, you'll know soon. Have you got the

lemon and the sugar? That is right."

And Miss Lambert, forgetting for a moment fortune, turned her attention

to the manufacturing of punch.

Susannah withdrew, casting her eyes over Fanny and Charles as she went,

and seeming to draw her under-lip after her.

When the door was shut, Miss Lambert looked into the punch bowl to see

if it was clean, and, having turned a huge spider out of it, went to the

sideboard.

"You are not going to make punch in this great thing?"

"I am," said Fanny, returning with a bottle in each hand and one under

her arm.

"Go on," said Charles resignedly. "May I smoke?"

"Of course, smoke. Open me this champagne."

"You are not going to put champagne in punch?"

"Everything is good in punch. Father learned how to make it in Moscow,

when he was dining with the Hussars there. After dinner a huge bowl was

brought in, and everything went in--champagne, whisky, brandy, all the

fruit from the dessert; then they set it on fire, and drank it,

burning."

"Has your father ever made punch like that?"

"No, but now I've got him away, I am going to try."

Pop went the champagne cork, and the golden wine ran creaming into the

bowl.

"Now the brandy."

"But this will be cold punch."

"Yes, it's just as good; milk punch is always cold."

"I'm blest if this is milk punch," said Mr Bevan, as he looked fearfully

into the bowl; "but go on."

"I am going as quick as I can," she replied. Then the whisky went in,

and half a tumblerfull of curaçoa also, the lemon cut in slices and the

peaches that remained.

"I haven't anything more to throw in," said Fanny, casting her eye over

the sardines and the ox tongue. "We ought to have grapes and things; no

matter, stir it up and set it on fire, and see what it tastes like."

"But, my dear child," said the horrified Charles, as he stirred the

seething mixture with the old silver ladle into whose belly a guinea had

been beaten. "You surely don't expect me to drink this fearful stuff? I

thought you were making it for fun."

"You taste it and see, but set it on fire first."

He struck a match.

"It won't catch fire!" he cried. "Knew it wouldn't."

"Well, taste it cold; it smells delicious."

She plucked a rose from the vase and strewed the petals on the surface

of the liquid to help the taste, whilst Mr Bevan ladled some into a

glass.

"It's not bad, 'pon my word it's not bad; the curaçoa seems to blend all

the other flavours together, but it's fearfully strong."

"Wait"--she ran to the sideboard for a bottle of soda water.

"Mix it half and half, and see how it tastes."

"That's better."

"Then we'll take it into the library, it's more comfortable there. You

carry the bowl, and I will bring the candles."

"What are these?" asked Mr Bevan, as he removed some papers from the

library table to make room for the punch bowl.

"Oh, some papers of father's."

"The Rorkes Drift Gold Mines."

"Yes," she said, glancing over his shoulder. "I remember now; those are

the things I am to get a silk dress out of when they go to twenty.

Father is mad over them; he says nothing will stop them when they begin

to move, whatever that means."

"Well, they have moved with a vengeance, for only yesterday I heard they

had gone into liquidation."

"All the good luck seems coming together," said Fanny with a happy sigh,

as Charles went to the window and looked out at the moon, rising in a

cloudless sky over the forsaken garden and ruined tennis ground. "Not

that it matters much if we get those jewels whether the old mines go up

or down; still, no matter how rich one becomes, more money is always

useful."

"Yes, I suppose it is," said he, looking with a troubled but sentimental

face at the moon. "Tell me, Fanny, do you know much about the Stock

Exchange?"

"Oh, heaps."

"What do you know?"

"I know that Brighton A's are called Doras--no, Berthas--no, I think

it's Doras--and Mexican Railways are going to Par, and the Kneedeep

Mines are going to a hundred and fifty, and father has a thousand of

them he got for sixpence a share, and he gave me fifty for myself, but

I'm not to sell them till they go to a hundred. Aren't stockbrokers

nice-looking, and always so well dressed? I saw hundreds of them one day

father left me for a moment in Angel Court whilst he ran in to see his

broker--Oh yes! and the bears are going to catch it at the next

settlement."

"Do you know what 'bears' are?"

"No," said Fanny, "but they're going to catch it whatever they are, for

I heard father say so--Oh, what a moon! I am sure the fairies must be

out to-night."

"You don't mean to say you believe in such rubbish as fairies?"

"Of course I believe in them; not here in Highgate, perhaps, for there

are too many people, but in woods and places."

"But there are no such things, it has been proved over and over again;

_no_ one believes in them nowadays."

"Did you never see the mushrooms growing in rings? Well, how could they

grow like that if they were not planted, and who'd be bothered planting

umbrella mushrooms in rings but the fairies?"

"Does your father believe in them?"

"Never asked him, but of course he does; every one does--even

Susannah."

She went to the table and blew out the candles.

"What are you doing now?"

"Blowing out the lights; it's so much nicer sitting in the moonlight.

Fill your glass and sit down beside me."

"Extraordinary child," thought Mr Bevan, doing as he was bid, whilst she

opened the window wide to "let the moon in."

Other things came too, a night moth and a perfume of decaying leaves,

the souls of last year's sun-flowers and hollyhocks were abroad

to-night; the distant paddock seemed full of cats, to judge by the

sounds that came from it, and bats were flickering in the air. The voice

of Boy-Boy, metallic and rhythmical as the sound of a trip hammer, came

from a distant corner of the garden where he had treed a cat.

"Quick," said Fanny, drawing in her head and pulling her companion by

the arm, "and you'll be in time to see our tortoise."

Charles regarded the quadruped without emotion.

"I don't see the necessity for such frightful haste."

"Still, if you'd been a moment sooner the moonlight would have been on

him; he was shining a moment ago like silver. Do you know what a

tortoise is? it's a sign of age. You and I will be some day like that

tortoise, without any teeth, wheezing and coughing and grubbing along;

and may-be we will look back and think of this night when we were

young--Oh, dear me, I wish I were dead!"

"Why, why, what's the matter now--Fanny?"

"I don't want to grow old," pouted Miss Lambert.

"When two people grow old together," began Mr Bevan in whose brain the

punch was at work, "they do not notice the--that is to say, age really

does not matter. Besides, a woman is only as old as she feels--I mean as

she looks."

The fumes of the punch of a sudden took on themselves a form as of the

pale phantom of Pamela Pursehouse, and the phantom cried, "Begone, flee

from temptation whilst you may."

Before him the concrete form of Miss Lambert sitting in the corner of

the window-seat and bathed in moonlight, said to him, "Hug me."

Her eyes were resting upon him, then she gazed out at the garden and

sighed.

Charles took her hand: it was not withdrawn. "I must be going now," he

said.

She turned from the garden and gazed at him in silence.

A few minutes later, feeling clouds beneath his feet and all sorts of

new sensations around his heart, he was walking down the weed-grown

avenue, Boy-Boy at his heels barking and snarling, satisfied no doubt by

some preternatural instinct that do what he might he would not be

kicked.

Ere he had reached the middle of the avenue he heard a voice calling,

"Cousin Charley!"

"Yes, Fanny."

"Come back soon!"

CHAPTER II

THE GOD FROM THE MACHINE

"THE LAURELS, 11 P.M.

"I have been going to write for the last few days, but have been so

busy. I could go on the picnic to-day if it would suit you I'll

call at the studio at one o'clock. If you can't come, send me a

wire. Oh, I forgot to say Mr Hancock came home the other day with

me and had a long talk with father, and Mr Bevan called to-day and

was awfully jolly, and I'll tell you all about it when we meet.

Give my love to Mr Verneede.

"In haste to catch the post.

"_P.S._--I'm in such good spirits. F. L."

It was the morning after the day on which Mr Bevan had called at "The

Laurels." Leavesley was in bed, and reading the above, which had come by

the early post, and which Belinda had thrust under his door, together

with a circular and a bill for colours.

"Hurrah!" cried Mr Leavesley, and then "Great Heavens!" He jumped out of

bed, and rummaged wildly in his pockets. He found seven and sixpence in

silver, and a penny and a halfpenny in coppers, a stump of pencil, a

tramway ticket with a hole punched in it, and a Woodbine cigarette

packet containing one cigarette. He placed the money on the

wash-hand-stand, then he sat for a moment on the side of his bed

disconsolate.

The most beautiful day that ever dawned, the most beautiful girl in the

world, a chance of taking her up the river, and seven and six to do it

on!

He curled his toes about. Yesterday, in a fit of righteousness, he had

paid a tailor two pounds ten on account. He contemplated this great

mistake gloomily. Wild ideas of calling on Mark Moses & Sonenshine and

asking for the two pounds ten back crossed his mind, to be instantly

dispelled.

The only two men in London who could possibly help him with a loan were,

to use a Boyle-Rochism, in Paris. Mrs Tugwell, his landlady, was at

Margate, and he was in the middle of his tri-monthly squabble with his

uncle. He called up the ghost of his aunt Patience Hancock, and communed

with her just for the sake of self-torture, and the contemplation of the

hopeless.

Then he rang his bell, which Belinda answered.

"Breakfast at once, Belinda."

"Yessir, and here's another letter as hes just come," she poked a square

envelope under the door. Leavesley seized it with a palpitating heart;

it was unstamped, and had evidently been left in by hand.

"This is the God from the Machine," he thought. "There's money in it, I

know. It always happens like this when things are at their worst."

We all have these instincts at times: the contents of an unopened letter

or parcel seem endowed with a voice; who has not guessed the fateful

news in a telegram before he has broken open the envelope, even as

Leavesley guessed the contents of the letter in his hand?

He tore it open and took out a sheet of paper and a pawnbroker's

duplicate. The letter ran:--

"NO. 150A KING'S ROAD,

"OVER THE BACON SHOP.

"DEAR LEAVESLEY,--I am in bed, not suffering from smallpox, croup,

spinal meningitis, or any wasting or infectious disease. I am in

bed, my dear Leavesley, simply for want of my trousers. Robed in

Jones' long ulster, which reacheth to my heels, I took the

aforesaid garments yester-even after dusk to my uncle. If help does

not come they will have to take me to the workhouse in a blanket. I

enclose duplicate. Three and sevenpence would release me and them.

"'The die is cast

And this is the last.'

"From THE CAPTAIN.

'_P.S_.--If you have no money send me the 'Count of Monte

Cristo'--you have a copy; or the 'Multi-Millionaire.' I have

nothing to read but a _Financial News_ of the day before

yesterday."

Leavesley groaned and laughed, and groaned again. Then he got into his

bath and splashed; as he splashed his spirits rose amazingly.

The Captain's letter had electrified the Bohemian part of his nature;

instead of depressing him it had done the reverse. Here was another poor

devil worse off than himself. Leavesley had six pair of trousers.

The Captain, in parenthesis let me say, has no part in this story. He

wasn't a captain, he was a relic of the South African War, a gentleman

with a taste for drink, amusing, harmless, and amiable. I only introduce

him on account of the telepathic interest of his letter, or rather of

the way in which Leavesley divined its contents.

"Seven and sixpence--I mean seven and sevenpence halfpenny, is not a bit

of use," said the painter to himself when he had finished breakfast, "so

here goes."

He put three and sevenpence in an envelope with the pathetic duplicate,

addressed it to Captain Waring, rang for Belinda; and when that

much-harried maid-of-all-work appeared, told her to take it as soon as

she could to Captain Waring, down the road over the bacon shop, also to

call at Mr Verneede's and ask him to come round at twelve.

Then he reached down a finished picture, wrapped it in brown paper, put

the parcel under his arm and started off.

He took a complication of omnibuses, and arrived in Wardour Street about

half-past nine.

"Mr Fernandez is gone to the country on pizzines," said the Jew-boy

slave of the picture dealer, who came from the interior of the gloomy

shop like a dirty gnome, called forth by the ring of the door bell.

"Oh, d----n!" said Leavesley.

"He's gone on pizzines," replied the other.

"Where's he gone to?"

"Down in the country."

"Look here, I want to sell a picture."

"Mr Fernandez is gone on pizzines."

"Oh, dash Mr Fernandez! Is there no one here I can show the thing to? He

knows me."

"There's only me," said the grimy sphinx.

"Can you buy it?"

"No, I ain't no use for buying. Mr Fernandez is gone on----"

"Oh, go to the devil!"

"This is a nice sort of thing," said Leavesley to himself as he stood in

Wardour Street perspiring. "There's nothing for it now but a frontal

attack on uncle."

He made for Southampton Row, reaching the office at ten o'clock, about

five minutes after James Hancock.

Hancock was dealing with his morning correspondence. A most unbendable

old gentleman he looked as he sat at his table before a pile of letters,

backed by the numerous tin boxes Leavesley knew so well. Boxes marked

"The Gleeson Estate," "Sir H. Tempest, Bart," etc. Boxes that spoke of

wealth and business in mocking tones to the unfortunate artist, who felt

very much as the grasshopper must have felt in the presence of the

industrious ant. Despite this he noticed that his uncle was more

sprucely dressed than usual, and that he had on a lilac satin tie.

Hancock looked at his nephew over his spectacles, then through his

spectacles, then he pushed his spectacles up on his forehead.

"Good morning, uncle."

"Good morning."

"I just looked in," said Leavesley, in a light-hearted way, "as I was

going by, to see how you were."

This was a very bad opening.

"Sit down," said Hancock. "Um--I wasn't aware that there was anything

the matter with me."

"You were complaining of the gout last time."

"Oh, bother the gout!" said the old gentleman, who hated to be reminded

of his infirmity. "It isn't gout--Garrod says it's Rheumatoid

Arthritis."

Leavesley repented of having played the gout gambit.

"--Rheumatoid Arthritis. Well, what are you doing?"

"Oh, I'm painting."

"Are you _selling_?" said Hancock, "that's more to the point."

"Oh yes, I'm selling--mildly."

"Um!"

"I sold two pictures quite recently."

"I always told you," said the lawyer, ignoring the last statement in a

most irritating way, and speaking as if Leavesley were made of glass and

all his affairs were arranged inside him for view like damaged goods in

a shop window--"I always told you painting doesn't pay. If you had come

into the office you might have got on well; but there you are, you've

made your bed, and on it you must lie," then in a voice three shades

gloomier, "on it you must lie."

Leavesley glanced at the office clock, it pointed to quarter past ten,

and Fanny was due at one.

"I had a little business to talk to you about," he said. "Look here,

will you give me a commission?"

"A what?"

"A commission for a picture."

"And five pounds on account," was in his brain, but it did not pass his

tongue.

"A picture?" said Hancock. "What on earth do I want with pictures?"

"Let me paint your portrait."

Hancock made a movement with his hand as if to say "Pish!"

"Well, look here," said Leavesley, with the cynicism of despair, "let me

paint Bridgewater, let me paint the office, whitewash the ceilings, only

give me a show."

"I would not mind the money I have spent on you," said Hancock, ignoring

all this, "the bills I have paid, if, to use your own expression, there

was any show for it; but, as far as I can see, you are like a man in a

quagmire, the only advance you are making, the only advance visible to

mortal eye, is that you are getting deeper into debt;" then two tones

lower, "deeper into debt."

"Well, see here, lend me a fiver," cried Leavesley, now grown desperate

and impudent.

James Hancock put his fingers into the upper pocket of his waistcoat,

and Leavesley's heart made a spring for his throat.

But Mr Hancock did not produce a five-pound note. He produced a small

piece of chamois leather with which he polished his glasses, which he

had taken off, in a reflective manner.

"I'm awfully hard up for the moment, and I have pressing need of it. I

don't want you to give me the money, I'll pay it back."

Mr Hancock put on his glasses again.

"You come to me as one would come to a milch cow, as one would come to a

bank in which he had a large deposit."

He put his hand in his breast-pocket and took out a note-case that

seemed simply bursting with bank-notes.

"Now if I accommodate you with a five-pound note I must know, at least,

what the pressing need is you speak of."

"I want to take a girl up the river, for one thing," answered his

nephew, who could no more tell him a lie about the matter, than he could

steal a note from that plethoric note-case.

James Hancock replaced the case in his pocket and made a motion with his

hands as if to say "that ends everything."

Leavesley rose to go.

"I'd have paid you it back. No matter. I'm going to write a book, and

make money out of it. I'll call it the 'Art of Being an Uncle.'"

Hancock made a motion with his hands that said, "Go away, I want to read

my letters."

"Now, look here," said Leavesley, with his hand on the door handle, and

inspired with another accession of impudence, "if you'd take _ten_

pounds and put it in your pocket, and come with me and her, and have a

jolly good day on the river, wouldn't it be better than sitting in this

stuffy old office making money that is no use to any one--you can only

live once."

"Go away!" said his uncle.

"I'm going. Tell me, if I went round to aunt would she accommodate me,

do you think?"

"Accommodate you to make a fool of yourself with a girl? I hope not, I

sincerely hope not."

"Well, I'll try. Good day."

"Good day."

Leavesley went out, and shut the door. Then he suddenly turned, opened

the door and looked in.

"I say, uncle!"

"Well?" replied the unfortunate Mr Hancock, in a testy voice.

"Did _you_ never make a fool of yourself with a girl?"

The old gentleman grew suddenly so crimson that his nephew shut the door

and bolted. He little guessed how _àpropos_ that question was.

CHAPTER III

TRIBULATIONS OF AN AUNT

He had scarcely gone a hundred yards down Southampton Row, when he heard

his name called.

"Mr Frank!"

He turned. Bridgewater was pursuing him with something in his hand.

"Mr James told me to give you this."

Leavesley took the envelope presented to him, and Bridgewater bolted

back to the office like a fat old rabbit, returning to its burrow.

In the envelope was a sovereign wrapped up in a half sheet of notepaper.

"Well, of all the meannesses!" said the dutiful nephew, pocketing the

coin. "Still, it's decent of the old boy after my cheeking him like

that. I have now one pound four. I'll go now and cheek aunt."

Miss Hancock was in; she had a handkerchief tied round her head, a

duster in her hand; she had just given the cook warning and was in a

debatable temper. She was also in a dusting mood. She had plenty of

servants, yet the inspiration came on her at times to tie a handkerchief

round her head and dust.

"Well?" she said, as she led the way into the dining-room, and continued

an attack she was making on the sideboard with her duster.

Leavesley had scarcely the slightest hope of financial assistance from

this quarter. Patience had given him half-a-crown for a birthday present

once when he was a little boy, and then worried it back from him and

popped it into a missionary box for the Wallibooboo Islanders.

He never forgot that half-crown.

"I've come round to borrow some money from you," he said.

Patience sniffed, and went on with her dusting. Then suddenly she

stopped, and, duster in hand, addressed him.

"Are you never going to do anything for a living? Have you no idea of

the responsibilities of life? What are you going to _do_?"

"I'm going for a holiday in the country if I can scrape up money

enough."

"You won't scrape it up here," said his aunt, continuing her dusting;

then, for she was as inquisitive as a mongoose: "And what part of the

country do you propose to take a holiday in?"

"Sonning-on-Thames."

"And where, may I ask, is Sonning-on-Thames?"

"It's on the Thames. See here, will you lend me five pounds?"

"Five _what_?"

"Pounds."

"What for?"

"To take a girl for a trip to Sonning-on-Thames."

Miss Hancock was sweeping with her duster round a glass arrangement made

to hold flowers, in the convulsion incident on this statement she upset

the thing and smashed it, much to Leavesley's delight.

He made for the door, and stood for a moment with the handle in his

hand.

"I'm awfully sorry. Can I help you to pick it up?"

"Go away," said Miss Hancock, who was on her knees collecting the

fragments of glass; "I want to see nothing more of you. If you are lost

to respectability you might retain at least common decency."

"Decency!"

"Yes, decency."

"I don't know that I've said anything indecent, or that there is

anything indecent in going for a day on the river with a girl. Well, I'm

going----" A luminous idea suddenly struck him. He knew the old maid's

mind, and the terror she had of the bare idea of her brother marrying;

he remembered the spruce appearance of his uncle that morning and the

lavender satin necktie. "I say----"

"Well?"

"Talking of girls, how about uncle and _his_ girl?"

"_What's that you say!_"

"Nothing, nothing; I oughtn't to have said anything about it. Well, I'm

off."

He left the room hurriedly and shut the door, before she could call him

back he was out of the house.

His random remark had hit the target plumb in the centre of the

bull's-eye, and could he have known the agitation and irritation in the

mind of his aunt he would have written off as paid his debt against the

Wallibooboo Islanders.

The river was impossible now, and the whole thing had shrunk to

luncheon at the studio and a visit to Madame Tussaud's or the Tower.

He reached the studio before twelve, and there he found waiting for him

Mr Verneede and the Captain.

The Captain was in his trousers; he had come to show them as a proof of

good faith and incidentally to get a glass of whisky. Leavesley gave him

the whisky and sent him off, then he turned to Verneede.

"The whole thing has bust up. Miss Lambert is coming at one to go up the

river and I have no money. Stoney broke; isn't it the deuce?"

"How very unfortunate!" said Mr Verneede. "How very unfortunate!"

"Unfortunate isn't the name for it."

"Did Miss Lambert write?"

"Yes--Oh, she told me to remember her to you, sent her love to you."

"Ah!"

"I've only got one pound four."

"But surely, my dear Leavesley--one pound four--why, it is quite a

little sum of money."

"It's not enough to go up the river on--three of us."

"Why go up the river?"

"Where else can we go?"

"I have an idea," said Mr Verneede. "May I propound it?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever heard of Epping Forest?"

"Yes."

"Why not go there and spend a day amidst the trees, the greenery, the

blue sky, the----"

"What would it cost?"

"A fractional sum; one takes the train to Woodford."

Leavesley reached for an A.B.C. guide and plunged into details.

"There are hamlets in the forest, where tea may be obtained in cottages

at a reasonable cost----"

"We can just do it, I think," said Leavesley, who had been making

distracted calculations on paper. He darted to the bell and rang it.

"Belinda," he said, when the slave of the bell made answer, "there's a

lady coming here to luncheon, have you anything in the house?"

Belinda, with a far-away look in her eyes, made a mental survey of the

larder, twiddling the door-handle to assist thought.

"There's a pie, sir, and sassiges, and a cold mutton chop. There's half

a chicken----"

"That'll do, and get a salad. I'll run out and get some flowers and a

bottle of claret."

CHAPTER IV

THE DAISY CHAIN

They were seated in a dusty glade near a road, near Woodford, and they

had lost Verneede.

The loss did not seem to affect them. Fanny had picked some daisies and

was making a chain of them. Leavesley was making and smoking cigarettes.

"But what I can't make out," said Leavesley--"This fellow Bevan, you

said he was a beast, and now you seem quite gone on him."

"I'm not," said Fanny indignantly.

"Well, I can only judge from your words."

"I'm _not_!"--pouting.

"Well, there, I won't say any more. He stayed to luncheon, you said?"

"Yes," defiantly, "and tea and supper; why shouldn't he?"

"Oh, I don't see why he shouldn't, only it must have been a visitation.

I should think your father was rather bored."

Fanny said nothing, but went on with her chain.

"What sort of looking fellow is he?"

"He's very nice-looking; at least he's rather fat--you know the sort of

man I mean."

"And awfully rich?"

"Awfully."

Leavesley tore up grass leisurely and viciously.

"Your uncle is awfully rich too, isn't he?" asked Miss Lambert after a

moment's silence.

"Yes; why?"

"I was only thinking."

"What were you only thinking?"

"I was thinking if I had to marry one or the other, which I'd chose."

Leavesley squirmed with pleasure: that was one for Bevan. He

instinctively hated Bevan. He, little knowing the mind of Miss Lambert,

thought this indecision of choice between his uncle and another man an

exquisitely veiled method of describing the other man's undesirability.

"Marry uncle," he said with a laugh. "And then we can all live together

in Gordon Square, uncle, and you, and I, and aunt, and old Verneede. The

house would hold the lot of us."

"And father."

"Of course," said Leavesley, thinking she spoke in fun, "and a few

more--the Captain: you don't know the Captain; he's a treasure, and

would make the menagerie quite complete."

"And we could go for picnics," said Fanny.

"Rather!"

She had finished her daisy-chain, and with a charming and child-like

movement she suddenly leaned forward and threw it round his neck.

"Oh, Fanny," he cried, taking both her little hands in his, "what's the

good of talking nonsense? I _love_ you, and you'll never marry any one

but me."

Fanny began to cry just like a little child, and he crept up to her and

put his arm round her waist.

"I love you, Fanny. Listen, darling, I love you----"

"Don't--don't--don't!" sobbed the girl, nestling closer to him at each

"don't."

"Why?"

"I was thinking just the same."

"What?"

"That I----"

"That you----?"

"_Don't!_"

"That you love me?"

Silence interspersed with sobs, then--

"I don't love you, but I--could----"

"What?"

"Love you--but I mustn't."

Leavesley heaved a deep sigh of content, squeezed her closer and rocked

her slightly. She allowed herself to be nursed like this for a few

heavenly moments; then she broke away from him, pushed him away.

"I mustn't, I mustn't--don't!--do leave me alone--go away." She

increased the distance between them. Tears were on her long black

lashes--lashes tipped with brown--and her eyes were like passion flowers

after rain--to use a simile that has never been used before.

Leavesley had got on his hands and knees to crawl closer towards her,

and the intense seriousness of his face, coupled with the attitude of

his body, quite dispelled Miss Lambert's inclination to weep.

"Don't!" she cried, laughing in a helpless sort of way. "Do sit down,

you look so funny like that."

He collapsed, and they sat opposite to each other like two tailors,

whilst Fanny dried her eyes and finished up her few remaining sobs.

A brake full of trippers passed on the road near by, yelling that

romantic and delightful song

"Bedelia!

I wants to steal yer."

"_They're_ happy," said Fanny, listening with a rapt expression as

though she were listening to the music of the heavenly choir. "I wish I

was them."

"Fanny," said her lover, ignoring this comprehensive wish, "why can't

you care for me?"

"I do care for you."

"Yes, but why can't you marry me?"

"We're too poor."

"I'll be making lots of money soon."

"How much?"

"Oh, four or five hundred a year."

"That's not enough," said Fanny with a sigh, "not _nearly_ enough."

Leavesley gazed at the mercenary beauty before him. Had he

miscalculated her? was she after all like other girls, a daughter of the

horse leech?

"I'd marry you to-morrow," resumed she, "if you hadn't a penny--only for

father."

"What about him?"

"I must help him. I must marry a rich man or not marry at all.

There----"

"Do you care for him more than me?"

"Yes."

Leavesley sighed, then he broke out: "But it's dreadful, he never would

ask you to make such a sacrifice----"

"Father?"

"Yes."

"_He!_ why, he doesn't care a button. He believes in people marrying

whoever they like. He'd _like_ me to marry you. He said only the other

day you'd make a good husband because you didn't gamble or drink, and

you had no taste for going to law."

Leavesley's face brightened, he got on his hands and knees again

preparatory to drawing nearer.

"Sit down," said Fanny, drawing away.

"But if you love me," said the lover, collapsing again into the sitting

posture.

"I don't."

"What!"

"Not enough to marry you. I could if I let myself go, but I've just

stopped myself in time. I can't ever marry you."

"But, look here----"

"Yes?"

"Suppose you do marry a rich man, I don't see how it will benefit your

father."

"Won't it! I'll never marry a man who won't help father, and he wants

help. Oh! if you only knew our affairs," said Miss Lambert, picking a

daisy and looking at it, and apparently addressing it, "the hair would

stand up on the top of your head."

"Are they so bad as all that, Fanny?"

"Bad isn't the word," replied Miss Lambert, plucking the petals from the

daisy one by one. "He loves me--he loves me not--he loves me--he loves

me not--he loves me."

"Who?"

"You."

He got on his hands and knees again.

"Sit _down_."

"But, see here, listen to me: are you really serious in what you have

just said?"

"I am."

"Well, promise me one thing: you won't marry any one just yet."

"What do you mean by just yet?"

"Oh, till I have a chance, till I strike oil, till I begin to make a

fortune!"

"How long will that be?" asked Miss Lambert cautiously.

"I don't know," replied the unhappy painter.

"If the Roorkes Drift Mines would only go up to two hundred," said the

girl, plucking another daisy, "I'd marry you; father has a whole

trunkful of them. He got them at sixpence each, and if they went to two

hundred they'd be worth half a million of money."

"Is there any chance, do you think?" asked Leavesley brightening. He

knew something of stock exchange jargon. The Captain was great on stock

exchange matters, when he was not occupied in pawning his clothes and

sending wild messages to his friends for assistance.

"I think so," said Fanny. "Mr Bevan said they were going into

Liqui----something."

"Liquidation."

"Yes--that's it."

Leavesley sighed. An old grey horse cropping the grass near by came and

looked gloomily at the humans, snorted, and resumed his meal.

"What's the time?" asked Miss Lambert, putting on her gloves. Leavesley

looked at his watch.

"Half-past six."

"Gracious! let's go; it will take us hours to get home." She rose to her

feet and shook her dress.

"I wonder where old Mr Verneede can be?" said the girl, looking round as

though to find him lurking amidst the foliage. "It's awful if we've lost

him."

"We have his ticket, too," said Leavesley. "He's very likely gone back

to the station; if we don't find him there I'll leave his ticket with

the station-master."

He rose up, and the daisy-chain round his neck fell all to pieces in

ruin to the ground.

They found Mr Verneede waiting for them at the station, smelling of

beer, and conversing with the station-master on the weather and the

crops.

At Liverpool Street, having seen Miss Lambert into an omnibus (she

refused to be seen home, knowing full well the distance from Highgate to

Chelsea), Leavesley, filled with a great depression of spirits, went

with Verneede and sat in pubs, and smoked clay pipes, and drank beer.

This sorry pastime occupied them till 12.30, when they took leave of

each other in the King's Road, Leavesley miserable, and Verneede

maudlin.

"She sent me her love," said Mr Verneede, clinging to his companion's

hand, and working it like a pump handle. "Bless you--bless you, my

boy--don't take any more--Go--bless you."

When Leavesley looked back he saw Mr Verneede apparently trying to go

home arm-in-arm with a lamp-post.

_PART III_

CHAPTER I

AN ASSIGNATION

So, it would seem from the artless confession of Miss Lambert, that

Patience Hancock had only too much reason for her fears: the lilac silk

necktie had not been bought for the edification of Bridgewater and the

junior clerks.

That the correct James Hancock had fuddled himself with punch, told

droll stories, and lent Mr Lambert twenty pounds, were facts so utterly

at variance with the known character of that gentleman as to be

unbelievable by the people who knew him well.

Not by people well acquainted with human nature, or the fact that a

grain of good-fellowship in the human heart exhibits extraordinary and

radium-like activity under certain conditions: the conditions induced

by punch and beauty and good-fellowship in others, for instance.

One morning, after the day upon which he had refused to assist Frank

Leavesley to "make a fool of himself with a girl," James Hancock arrived

at his office at the usual time, in the usual manner, and, nodding to

Bridgewater as he had nodded to him every morning for the last thirty

years, passed into the inner office and closed the door.

The closing of the door was a new departure; it had generally been left

ajar as an indication that Bridgewater might come in whenever he chose,

to receive instructions and to consult upon the morning letters.

The expression on Bridgewater's face when he heard the closing of the

door was so extraordinarily funny, that one of the younger clerks, who

caught a glimpse of it, hastily stuffed his handkerchief into his mouth

and choked silently behind the lid of his desk.

Quarter of an hour passed, and then the door opened.

"Bridgewater!"

The old gentleman stuck his pen behind his ear and answered the summons.

James Hancock was seated at his desk. On it lay an envelope addressed

in a lady's handwriting; he covered the envelope with a piece of

blotting paper as Bridgewater entered.

"I'm going out this morning, Bridgewater, on some private business."

"Out this morning?" echoed Bridgewater in a tentative tone.

"Yes; I leave you in charge."

"But Purvis, Mr James, Purvis has an appointment with you at twelve."

"Oh, bother Purvis! Tell him to call to-morrow, his affair will wait;

tell him the deed is not drawn and to come again to-morrow."

"How about Isaacs?"

"Solomon Isaacs?"

"Yes, Mr James."

"What time is he coming?"

"Half-past eleven."

"Tell him to come to-morrow."

"I'm afraid he won't. I'm----"

"If he won't," said Mr Hancock with some acerbity, "tell him to go to

the devil. I don't want his business especially--let him find some one

else. Now see here, about these letters."

He went into the morning letters, dictating replies to the more

important ones and leaving the rest to the discretion of his clerk.

"And, Bridgewater," said Mr Hancock, as the senior clerk turned to

depart, "I am expecting a lady to call here at half-past ten or quarter

to eleven: show her in, it's Miss Lambert."

"You have had no word from Mr Charles Bevan, sir, since he called the

other day?"

"Not a word. He is a very hot-headed young man; he inherits the Bevan

temper, the Bevan temper," reiterated James Hancock in a reflective

tone, tapping his snuff-box and taking a leisurely pinch. "I remember

his father John Bevan at Ipswich, during the election, threatening to

horsewhip my father; then when he found he was in the wrong, or rather

that his own rascally solicitor was in the wrong, he apologised very

handsomely and came to us. The family affairs have been in our hands

ever since, as you know, and, though I say it myself, they could not

have been in better."

"May I ask, Mr James, how affairs are with the Lamberts?--a sweetly

pretty young lady is Miss Lambert, and so nice spoken."

"The Lamberts' affairs seem very much involved; but you know,

Bridgewater, I have nothing to do with their affairs. I called to see

Mr Lambert purely as a friend. It would be very unprofessional to call

otherwise. D----n it!" suddenly broke out old Hancock, as if some one

had pricked him with a pin, "a man is not always a business man. I'm

getting on in life. I have money enough and to spare. I've done pretty

much as I liked all my life, and I'll do so to the end; yes, and I'd

break all the laws of professional etiquette one after the other

to-morrow if I chose."

Bridgewater's amazed face was the only amazed part of his anatomy; he

was used to these occasional petulant outbursts, and he looked on them

with equanimity.

Hancock had been threatening to retire from business for the last ten

years, to retire from business and buy a country place and breed horses.

No one knew so well as Bridgewater the impossibility of this and the

extent to which his master was bound up in his business--the business

was his life.

He retired, mumbling something that sounded like an assent, and going to

his desk put the letters in order.

Mr Hancock, left to himself, took a letter from his breast-pocket. It

was addressed in a large careless hand to

"JAMES HANCOCK, ESQ.

GORDON SQUARE.

It ran:--

"DEAR MR HANCOCK,--I'll be delighted to come to-morrow; I haven't

seen the Zoo for years, not since I was quite small. No, don't

trouble to come and fetch me, I will call at the office at

half-past ten or quarter to eleven, that will be simpler.--Yours

very sincerely,

"FANNY LAMBERT."

"I'll be hanged if it's simpler," grumbled James Hancock, as he returned

the letter to his pocket. "Why in the name of all that's sacred couldn't

she have let me call?--the clerks will talk so. No matter, let them--I

don't care."

"Miss Lambert," said Bridgewater, opening the door.

Mr Hancock might have thought that Spring herself stood before him in

the open doorway, such a pleasing and perfect vision did Miss Lambert

make. She was attired in a chip hat, and a dress of something light in

texture and lilac in colour, and, from the vivacity of her manner and

the general sprightliness of her appearance, seemed bent upon a day of

pleasure.

"I'm so awfully sorry to be so soon," said Miss Lambert. "It's only

twenty minutes past ten; the clocks have all gone wrong at home. James

broke out again yesterday; he went out and took far, far too much; isn't

it dreadful? I don't know what we are to do with him, and he wound up

the clocks last night, and I believe he has broken them all, at least

they won't go. Father has gone away again; he is down in Sussex paying a

visit to a Miss Pursehouse, we met her in Paris. She asked me to come

too, but I had to refuse because my dressmaker--I mean, Susannah

couldn't be left by herself, she smashes things so. She fell on the

kitchen stairs this morning, bringing the breakfast things up--are you

busy? and are you sure I'm not bothering you or interfering with clients

and things? I arrived here really at ten minutes past ten, and walked up

and down outside till people began to stare at me, so I came in."

"Not a bit busy," said Mr Hancock; "delighted you've come so early. Is

that chair comfortable?"

"Quite, thanks."

"Sure you won't take this easy-chair?"

"No, no; this is a delightful chair. Who is that nice old man who showed

me in?"

"Bridgewater, my chief clerk. Yes, he is a very good sort of man

Bridgewater; he's been with us now a number of years."

"I like him, because he always smiles at me and looks so friendly and so

funny. He's the kind of man one feels one would like to knit something

for; a--muffler or mittens. I will, next Christmas, if he wouldn't be

offended."

"Offended! Good heavens, no, he'd be delighted--perfectly delighted, I'm

sure, perfectly. Come in!"

"A telegram, sir," spoke Bridgewater's voice. He always "sir'd" his

master in the presence of strangers.

"Excuse me," said Mr Hancock, putting on his glasses and opening the

telegram. He read it carefully, frowned, then smiled, and handed it to

Fanny.

"Am I to read it?" said the girl.

"Please."

Fanny read:--

"I relinquish fishing-rights. Make the best terms with Lambert you

can.--BEVAN."

"Isn't it nice of him?" she said without evincing any surprise; "he

told me he would when he called."

"Told you he would?"

"Yes."

"When did you see Mr Bevan?"

"Why, he called--didn't I tell you?--oh no, I forgot--he called, and he

was _awfully_ nice. Quite the nicest man I've met for a long time. He

stayed to luncheon and tea and supper."

"Was your father at home?"

"No."

"I would rather this had not happened," said Mr Hancock in a slightly

pained voice. "Mr Bevan is a gentleman for whom I have great respect,

but considering the absence of your father, the absence of a

host--er--er--conventionalities, um----"

"Oh, he didn't seem to mind," said Fanny; "he knew father was away, and

took us just as we were. He's awfully rich, I suppose, but he was just

as pleasant as if he were poor--came marketing and carried the basket;

and, I declare to goodness, if I had known we had such a jolly cousin

before, I'd have gone and hunted him up myself in the--'Albany,' isn't

it?"

"Mr Bevan lives in the 'Albany,'" said the lawyer. "It is a bachelors'

residence, and scarcely a place--scarcely a place for a--er--lady to

call--no, scarcely a place for a lady to call. However, what's done is

done, and we must make the best of it."

"If I had only thought," said Fanny, who had not been listening to the

humming and hawing of Mr Hancock, "I'd have asked him to come with us

to-day. Gracious! it's just eleven. Shall we go?"

Mr Hancock took his hat and umbrella, opened the door, and they passed

out.

CHAPTER II

THE EMOTIONS OF MR BRIDGEWATER

Mr Bridgewater's emotions, when he saw his principal following the

pretty Miss Lambert, were mixed.

He saw through the whole thing at once: she had come by appointment, and

they were going somewhere together.

Now, on the day when he had called to lunch with Patience Hancock, and

look over the lease of the Peckham House, the Peckham House had not been

once mentioned; the whole conversation, conducted chiefly by Miss

Hancock, concerned the welfare of her brother. She hinted at certain

news, supposed to have been received by her, that a designing woman had

her eye on her treasure; she implored her listener to let her know if he

saw any indication of the truth of these reports. "For you know,

Bridgewater," said she, indicating that the decanter was at his side,

and that he might help himself to his third glass of port, "there is no

fool like an old fool," to which axiom Bridgewater giggled assent.

He promised to keep a "sharp look-out," and inform her of what he saw

from time to time. And it did not require a very sharp look-out to see

what he saw this morning.

As we have indicated, his emotions were mixed. Fanny's face, her

"sweetly pretty face," appealed to him; that she had fascinated Mr

James, he felt sure; that he ought instantly to inform Miss Hancock he

felt certain; that he had a lot of important letters to write and

business to transact with Mr Purvis and Mr Isaacs were facts. Between

these facts and these fancies the old man sat scratching his head with

the stump of his pen, staring at the letters before him, and pretending

to be busy. Born in the age of valentines and sentiment, he had carried

along with him through life a "feeling" for the other sex; to be frank,

the feeling was compounded mainly of shyness, but not altogether. I

doubt if there lives a man in whose life's history there exists not a

woman in some form or other, either living and active in the present, or

dead and a memory--a leaf in amber.

In old Bridgewater's brain there lived, keeping company with other

futilities of youth, a girl. The winters and the springs of forty-five

years had left her just the same, red-cheeked and buxom, commonplace,

pretty, with an undecided mouth, and a crinoline. As he sat cogitating,

this old mental daguerreotype took on fresh colours. He saw the sunlight

on a certain street in Hoxton, and heard the tinkle of a piano, long

gone to limbo, playing a tune that memory had in some mysterious way

bound up with the perfume of wall-flowers.

He remembered a Christmas card that pulled out like a concertina: a

shocking production of art which gave a vista of a garden in filigree

paper leading to a house.

A feeling of tenderness possessed him. Why should he move in a matter

that did not concern him? He determined to remain neutral, and, with the

object of dismissing the matter from his mind, turned to his letters.

But this kindly, though inferior being was dominated by a strong and

active intelligence, and that intelligence existed in the brain of a

woman.

Whilst he made notes and dictated to a clerk, this alien intelligence

was voicing its commands in the sub-conscious portions of his brain. He

began to hesitate in his dictation and to shuffle his feet, to pause and

to dictate nonsense. Then rising and taking his hat, he asked Mr Wolf,

his second in command, to take charge, as he had business which would

keep him away for half an hour--and made for the door. In Southampton

Row he walked twenty yards, retraced his steps, paused, blew his nose in

a huge bandana handkerchief, and then, travelling as if driven by

clockwork well wound up, he made for Gordon Square.

The servant said that Miss Hancock was dressing to go out, and invited

him into the cave-like dining-room. She then closed the door and left

him to the tender mercies of the place.

Decision was not the most noteworthy characteristic of Mr Bridgewater,

nor tact. He stood, consulting the clock on the mantelpiece, yet, had

you asked him, he could not have told you the time. Having come into the

place of his own volition he was now endeavouring to get up volition

enough to enable him to leave.

"Well, Bridgewater?" said a voice. The old man turned. Miss Hancock,

dressed for going out, stood before him.

"Why, I declare, Miss Patience!" said Bridgewater, as if the woman

before him was the very last person on earth he expected to see.

"You have found me just in time, for I was going out. I am in a hurry,

so I won't ask you to sit down. Can I do anything for you?"

Bridgewater rubbed his nose.

"It's about a little matter, Miss Patience."

"Yes?"

"A little matter concerning Mr James."

"Yes?"

"I am afraid--I am afraid, Miss Patience, there is--well--not to put

too fine a point upon it--a lady."

"What is this you say, Bridgewater? But sit down."

"A lady, Miss Patience."

"You've said that before--_what_ lady, and what about her?" The

recollection of Leavesley's words shot up in her brain.

"Dear me, dear me! I wish I hadn't spoken now. I'm sure it's nothing

wrong. I think, very possibly, I have been mistaken."

"John Bridgewater," said Miss Hancock, "you have known me from my

childhood, you know I hate shuffling, come to the point--there is a

lady--well, I have known it all along, so you need not be afraid to

speak. Just tell me all you know. You are very well aware that no one

cares for Mr James as much as I do. You are very well aware that some

men _need_ protecting. You know very well there is no better-hearted man

in the world than my brother."

"None indeed."

"And you know very well that he is just the man to fall a victim to a

designing woman. Think for a moment. What would a woman see in a man of

his age, except his money."

"Very true; though I'm sure, Miss Patience, no man would make a better

husband for a woman than Mr James."

"Oh, don't talk nonsense! When a man arrives at his age, he is too old

to be made into a husband, but he is not too old to be made into a fool.

Now tell me all you know about this affair. First of all, what is

the--person's name?"

"The person I suspect, Miss Patience, though indeed my suspicions may be

wrong, is a Miss Lambert."

"Surely not any relation of the Highgate Lamberts?"

"The daughter, Miss Patience."

"_That_ broken-down lot! Good heavens! Are you _sure_?"

"Perfectly sure."

"The daughter of the man who is fighting with Mr Bevan about the fish

pond?"

"Stream."

"It's the same. Well, go on."

"Miss Fanny Lambert called some time ago on Mr James. She called in

distress about the action. Mr James interviewed her, and discovered

that her father was in a very bad way, financially speaking. He took

pity on them----"

"Idiot!"

"----and called at Highgate to see Mr Lambert. He became very friendly

with Mr Lambert. Then Miss Fanny Lambert called again."

"What about?"

"I don't know. And to-day, this morning, she called again."

"Called at the office this morning?"

"Yes."

"What did she call for?"

Bridgewater was silent.

"I repeat," said Miss Hancock, speaking as an examiner might speak to a

candidate, "I repeat, what did she call for? You surely must have some

inkling."

"I am afraid she called about nothing. I'm afraid so, very much afraid

so."

"What _do_ you mean?"

"I'm afraid, Miss Patience, it was an assignation."

"How long did she stay?"

"About twenty minutes; but that is not the worst."

"Go on."

"They went out together."

"How long was my brother out with her?"

"He hasn't come back; he has gone for the day--told me to take charge of

the office."

"You mean they went out together like that and you did not follow them

to see where they went?"

"Yes."

"Oh, you _idiot_!"

"How could I, Miss Patience?"

"How could you--yes, that's just it. How could you, when you had such a

chance, let it slip through your fingers?"

"But the office?"

"The office--why, you have left the office to come round here. If you

could leave it to come here, surely you could have left it for a more

important purpose. Well, you may take this from me: soon there will be

no office to leave. It's quite possible that if Mr James makes a fool of

himself, he'll leave business and do what he's always threatening to

do--go in for farming. When a man once begins making a fool of himself,

he goes on doing so, the appetite comes with eating. Well, you had

better go back to the office and remember this for your own sake, for

my sake, for Mr James' sake, keep your eyes open. If you get another

chance, follow them."

Bridgewater left the house walking in a very depressed manner. In Oxford

Street he entered a bar and had a glass of sherry and a biscuit. As he

left the bar, who should he see but James Hancock--James Hancock, and

Fanny side by side. They were looking in at a shop window.

CHAPTER III

AN OLD MAN'S OUTING

On leaving the office, the happy thought had occurred to Fanny of

telegraphing at once to her father apprising him of Charles Bevan's

decision. Accordingly they sought the nearest telegraph office, where

Miss Lambert indited the following despatch:--

"TO LAMBERT,

C/O MISS PURSEHOUSE,

THE ROOST, ROOKHURST.

"Mr Bevan has stopped the action. Isn't it sweet of him?"

"Any name?" asked the clerk.

"Oh yes," replied Fanny, suddenly remembering that her connection with

the matter ought to be kept dark. "Put Hancock."

Then they sought Oxford Street, where Fanny remembered that she had some

shopping to do.

"I won't be a minute," she said, pausing before a draper's. "Will you

come in, or wait outside?"

Mr Hancock elected to wait outside, and he waited.

It was an unfortunate shop for a man to wait before: there was nothing

in the windows but _lingerie_; the shop on the left of it was a bonnet

shop, and the establishment on the right was a bar.

So he had to wait, standing on the kerbstone, in full view of mankind.

In two minutes three men passed who knew him, and in the middle of the

fourth minute old Sir Henry Tempest, one of his best clients, who was

driving by in a hansom, stopped, got out and button-holed him.

"Just the man I want to see, what a piece of luck! I was going to your

office. See here, that d----d scamp of a Sawyer has sent me in a bill

for sixteen pounds--sixteen pounds for those repairs I spoke to you

about. Why! I'd have got 'em done for six if he had left them to me. But

jump into the cab, and come and have luncheon, and we can talk things

over."

"I can't," said Mr Hancock, "I am waiting for a lady--my sister, she has

just gone into that shop. I'll tell you, I will see you, any time you

like, to-morrow."

"Well, I suppose that must do. But sixteen pounds!--people seem to think

I am made of money. I tell you what, Hancock, the great art in getting

through life is to make yourself out a poor man--go about in an old coat

and hat; you are just as comfortable, and you are not pestered by every

beggar and beast that wants money."

"Decidedly, decidedly--I think you are right," said his listener,

standing now on one foot, now on the other.

"Once you get the reputation of being rich you are ruined--what's the

matter with you?"

"Twinges of gout, twinges of gout. I can't get rid of it."

"Gout? Have you been to a doctor for it?"

"Yes."

"Well, don't mind what he says; try my remedy. Gout, my dear sir, is

incurable with drugs, I've tried 'em. You try hot air baths and

vegetarianism; it cured me. I don't say a _strictly_ vegetarian diet,

but just as little meat as you can take. I get it myself. Hancock, we're

not so young as we were, and the wine and women of our youth revisit us;

yes, the wine and women----"

He stopped. Fanny had just emerged from the shop.

The cabman who drove Sir Henry Tempest that day from Oxford Street to

the Raleigh Club has not yet solved the problem as to "what the old

gent, was laughing about."

"I'm awfully sorry to have kept you such a time," said Fanny, as they

wandered away, "but those shopmen are so stupid. Who was that

nice-looking old gentleman you were talking to?"

"That was Sir Henry Tempest; but he never struck me as being especially

nice-looking. He is not a bad man in his way--but a bore; yes, very

decidedly a bore."

"Come here," said Fanny, from whose facile mind the charms of Sir Henry

Tempest had vanished--"Come here, and I will buy you something." She

turned to a jeweller's shop.

"But, my dear child," said James, "I never wear jewellery--never."

"Oh, I don't mean _really_ to buy you something, I only mean make

belief--window-shopping, you know. I often go out by myself and buy

heaps of things like that, watches and carriages, and all sorts of

things. I enjoy it just as much as if I were buying them really; more, I

think, for I don't get tired of them. Do you know that when I want a

thing and get it I don't want it any more? I often get married like

that."

"Like what?" asked the astonished Mr Hancock.

"Window-shopping. I see sometimes _such_ a nice-looking man in the

street or the park, then I marry him and he's ever so nice; but if I

married him really I'm sure I'd hate him, or at least be tired of him in

a day or two. Now, see here! I will buy you--let me see--let me

see--_that_!" She pointed suddenly to an atrocious carbuncle scarf-pin.

"That, and that watch with the long hand that goes hopping round. You

can have the whole window," said Fanny, suddenly becoming lavishly

generous. "But the scarf-pin would suit you, and the watch would be

useful for--for--well, it looks like a business man's watch."

Mr Hancock sighed. "Say an old man's watch, Fanny--may I call you

Fanny?"

"Of course, if you like. But you're not old, you're quite young; at

least you're just as jolly as if you were. But come, or we will be late

for the Zoo."

"Wait," said Mr Hancock; "there is lots of time for the Zoo. Now look at

the window and buy yourself a present."

"I'll buy that," said Miss Lambert promptly, pointing to a little watch

crusted with brilliants.

Mr Hancock noted the watch and the name and number of the shop, and they

passed on.

Mr Hancock found that progress with such a companion in Oxford Street

was a slow affair. The extraordinary fascination exercised by the shops

upon his charge astonished him; everything seemed to interest her, even

churns. The normal state of her brain seemed only comparable to that of

a person's who is recovering from an illness.

It was after twelve when they reached Mudie's library.

"Now," said Mr Hancock, pausing and resting on his umbrella, "I am

rather perplexed."

"What about?"

"Luncheon. If we take a cab to the Zoo now, we will have to lunch there

or in the neighbourhood. I do not know whether they provide luncheons at

the Zoo or whether there is even a refreshment room there."

"You can buy buns," said Fanny; "at least, I have a dim recollection of

buns when I was there last. We bought them for the bears; but whether

they were meant for people to eat, or only made on purpose for the

animals, I don't know."

"Just so. I think we had better defer our visit till after luncheon;

but, meanwhile, what shall we do? It is now ten minutes past twelve; we

cannot possibly lunch till one. Shall we explore the Museum?"

"Oh! not the Museum," said Fanny; "it always takes my appetite away. I

suppose it's the mummies. I'll tell you what, we will go and have ices

in that café over there."

They crossed to the Vienna Café, and seated themselves at a little

marble table.

"Father and I come here often," said Fanny, "when we are in this part of

the town; we know every one here." She bowed and smiled to the lady who

sits in the little glass counting house, who smiled and bowed in return.

"That was Hermann--the man who went for our ices; and that's Fritz, the

waiter, over there, with the bald head." She caught Fritz's eye, who

smiled and bowed. "I don't see Henri--I suppose he's married; he told us

he was going to get married the last time we were here, to a girl who

keeps the accounts in a café in Soho, somewhere, and I promised him to

send them a wedding present. He was such a nice man, like a Count in

disguise; you know the sort of looking man I mean. What shall I send

him?"

James Hancock ran over all the wedding presents he could remember in his

mind; he thought of clocks, candlesticks, silver-plated mustard pots.

"Send him a--clock."

"Yes, I'll send him a clock. Wait till I ask where they live."

She rose and approached the lady at the counting-house; a brisk

conversation ensued, the lady speaking much with her hands and eyes,

which she raised alternately to heaven.

Fanny came back looking sorrowful. "He's gone," she said; "I never

could have thought it!"

"Why should he not go?"

"Yes, but he went with the spoons and forks and things, and there was no

girl at Soho."

"Never trust those plausible gentlemen who look like Italian Counts,"

said James Hancock, not entirely displeased with the melodramatic news.

"Whom _is_ one to trust?" asked Fanny, with the air of a woman whose

life's illusion is shattered.

James Hancock couldn't quite say. "Trust _me_," rose to his lips, but

the sentiment was not uttered, partly because it would have been too

previous, and partly because Hermann had just placed before him an

enormous ice-cream.

"You are not eating your ice!"

"It's too hot--ah, um--I mean it's too cold," said Mr Hancock, waking

from a moment's reverie. "That is to say, I scarcely ever eat ices." The

fact that a sweet vanilla ice was simply food and drink to the gout was

a dietetic truism he did not care to utter.

"If," said Fanny, with the air of a mother speaking to her child, "if

you don't eat your ice I will never take you shopping with me again.

_Please_ eat it, I feel so greedy eating alone."

Mr Hancock seized a spoon and attacked the formidable structure before

him.

"I hope I'll never grow old," sighed Miss Lambert, as Hermann approached

them with a huge dish of fantastic-looking cakes--cakes crusted with

sugar and chocolate, Moscow Gâteaux simply sodden with rum, and

Merangues filled with cream rich as Devonshire could make it.

"We must all grow old," said Hancock, staring with ghastly eyes at these

atrocities. "But why do you specially fear age? Age has its beauties, it

must come to us all."

"I don't want to grow old," said his companion, "because then I would

not care for sweets any more. Father says the older he grows the less he

cares for sweets, and that every one loses their sweet tooth at fifty. I

hope I'll never lose mine; if I do I'll--get a false one."

Mr Hancock leisurely helped himself to one of the largest and

sweetest-looking of the specimens of "Italian confectionery" before

him; Fanny helped herself to its twin, and there was silence for a

moment.

It is strange that whilst a man may admit his age to a woman he cares

for, by word of mouth, he will do much before he admits it by his

actions.

CHAPTER IV

A MEETING

Of all places in the world the Zoo is, perhaps, the most uninspiring to

your diffident lover, but Mr Hancock was fond of zoology. It was a mild

sort of hobby which he cultivated in his few leisure moments, and he was

not displeased to air his knowledge before his pretty friend, and to

show her that he had a taste for things other than forensic. Accordingly

in the Bird House he began to show off. This was a mistake. If you have

a hobby, conceal it till after marriage. The man with a hobby, once he

lets himself loose upon his pet subject or occupation, always bores. He

is like a man in drink, he does not know the extent of his own

stupidity; lost in his own paradise he is unconscious of the trouble

and weariness he is inflicting on the unfortunates who happen to be his

companions--unlike a man in drink, he is rarely amusing.

There were birds with legs without end, and birds apparently with no

legs at all, nutcracker-billed birds, birds without tails, and things

that seemed simply tails without birds.

Before a long-tailed bird that bore a dim resemblance to himself, Mr

Hancock paused and began to instruct his companion. When he had bored

her sufficiently they passed to the great Ape House, and from there to

the Monkey House.

They had paused to consider the Dog-faced Ape, when Fanny, whose eyes

were wandering about the place, gave a little start and plucked her

companion by the sleeve. "Look," she said, "there's old Mr Bridgewater!"

"Why! God bless my soul, so it is!" cried Hancock. "What the--what

the--what the----"

CHAPTER V

THE ADVENTURES OF BRIDGEWATER

The appearance of shame and conscious guilt that suffused the face and

person of Bridgewater caused the wild idea to rush through his

employer's mind that the old man had, vulgarly speaking, "scooped the

till" and was attempting evasion.

Defaulters bound for America or France do not, however, as a rule, take

the Monkey House at the Zoo _en route_, and the practical mind of James

Hancock rejected the idea at once, and gripped the truth of the matter.

Bridgewater had been following him for the purpose of spying upon him.

The unhappy Bridgewater had indeed been following him.

When, emerging from the bar, he had perceived his quarry he had followed

them at a safe distance. When they went into the Vienna Café he waited;

it seemed to him that he waited three hours: it was, in fact, an hour

and a quarter. For, having finished her ice and its accompaniments,

Fanny had declared that she was quite ready for luncheon, and had

proposed that they should proceed to the meal at once without seeking a

new café.

When they came out, Bridgewater took up the pursuit. They got into a

hansom: he got into another, and ordered the driver to pursue the first

vehicle at a safe distance. He did this from instinct, not as a result

of having read Gaboriau, or the "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes."

The long wait, the upset of all his usual ways, and the fact that he had

not lunched, coupled with his dread of a hansom--hitherto when he had

moved on wheels it had always been on those of a four-wheeler or

omnibus--conspired to reduce him mentally to the condition of an

over-driven sheep.

They left the part of the town he knew, and passed through streets he

knew not of, streets upon streets, and still the first vehicle pursued

its way with undiminished speed. He felt now a dim certainty that his

employer was going to be married, and now he tried to occupy his

scattered wits in attempting to compute what this frightful cab journey

would cost.

At the Zoo gates the first hansom stopped.

"Pull up," cried Bridgewater, poking his umbrella through the trap.

He alighted a hundred yards from the gates. At the turnstile he paid his

shilling and went in, but Fanny and her companion had vanished as

completely as if the polar bear had swallowed them up.

He wandered away through the gardens aimlessly, but keeping a sharp

look-out. He had never been to the Zoo before, but guessed it was the

Zoo because of the animals. The whole adventure had the complexion of a

nightmare, a complexion not brightened by the melancholy appearance of

the eagles and vultures and the distant roaring and lowing of unknown

beasts.

He saw an elephant advancing towards him swinging its trunk like a

pendulum; to avoid it he took a path that led to the Fish House. His one

desire now was to get out of the gardens and get home. He recognised now

that he had made a serious mistake in entering the gardens at all. To

have returned at once to Miss Hancock with the information that her

brother had simply taken Miss Lambert to the Zoo would have been the

proper and sensible course to have pursued.

Now at any moment he might find himself confronted with the two people

he dreaded to meet. What should he say suppose he met them? What _could_

he say? The anguish of this thought drove him from the Fish House, where

he had taken temporary refuge. He took a path which ended in an

elephant; it was the same elephant he had seen before, but he did not

know it. A side path, which he pursued hastily, brought him to the polar

bear. Here he asked his way to the nearest gate of a young man and

maiden who were gazing at the bear. The young man promptly pointed out a

path; he took it, and found himself at the Monkey House.

He took off his hat and mopped his head with his bandana handkerchief.

Looking round in bewilderment after this refreshing operation he saw

something approaching far worse than an elephant; it was Mr Hancock, and

with Mr Hancock, Fanny, making directly for him.

He did not hesitate a moment in doing the worst thing possible; as an

animal enters a trap, he entered the Monkey House. He would have shut

and bolted the door behind him had such a proceeding been feasible.

Bridgewater had a horror of monkeys; he had always considered the common

organ-grinder's monkey to be the representative of all its kind, and the

last production of nature in frightfulness; but here were monkeys of

every shape, size, and colour, a symphony of monkeys, each "note" more

horrible than the last.

If you have ever studied monkeys and their ways you will know that they

have their likes and dislikes just like men. That some people "appeal"

to them at first sight, and some people do not. Bridgewater did not.

When he saw Fanny entering at the door he retreated to the furthest

limits of the place and pretended to be engaged in contemplation of a

peculiarly sinister-looking ape, upon which, to judge from its

appearance, a schoolboy had been at work with a brushful of blue paint.

The azure and sinister one endured the human's gaze for a few mutterful

moments, and then bursting into loud yells flew at the bars and

attempted to tear them from their sockets; the mandrills shrieked and

chattered, the lemur added his note, and Bridgewater beat a retreat.

It was at this moment that Fanny's wandering gaze caught him.

CHAPTER VI

A CONFESSION

Mr Hancock, asking Fanny to wait for him for a short time, took

Bridgewater by the arm and led him outside.

"Now, Bridgewater, what is the meaning of this? Why have you left the

office? Why have you followed me? What earthly reason had you for doing

such a thing? Speak out, man--are you dumb?"

"I declare to God, Mr James," said the unhappy Bridgewater, "I had no

reason----"

"No reason!--are you mad? Bridgewater, you haven't been--drinking?"

"Drinking!" cried Bridgewater, with what your melodramatist would call a

hollow laugh. "Drinking!--oh yes--drinking? No! No!--don't mind me, Mr

James. Drinking! One blessed glass of sherry, and not a bite have I

had--waiting two hours and more--following you in a cab--three shillings

the fare was--nearly torn in pieces by an ape--following you and hiding

in all sorts of places, and then told I've been drinking. Do I look as

if I had been drinking, Mr James? Am I given to drinking, Mr James? Have

you known me for forty years, Mr James, and have you ever seen me do

such a thing? Answer me that, Mr James----"

"Hush, hush!--don't talk so loud," said Hancock, rather alarmed at the

old man's hysterical manner. "No, you are the last person to do such a

thing, but tell me, all the same, why you followed me."

Bridgewater was dumb. Hungry, thirsty, frightened at being caught

spying, startled by elephants and addled by apes as he was, still his

manhood revolted at the idea of betraying Patience and sheltering

himself at her expense. All the same, he attempted very feminine tactics

in endeavouring to evade a direct reply.

"Drinking! I have been in the office, man and boy, this fifty years and

more come next Michaelmas; it's fifty-one years, fifty-one years next

Michaelmas Day, every day at my place but Sundays and holidays, year

in, year out----"

"Bridgewater," repeated Mr Hancock, "will you answer me the question I

just asked you? Why did you follow me to-day?"

"Oh Lord," said Bridgewater, "I wish I had never seen this day! Follow

you, Mr James? do you think I followed you for pleasure? Why, the

office--God bless my soul! it makes my hair stand on end--no one there

but Wolf to take charge, and I have been away hours and hours. It's

three o'clock now, and here am I miles and miles away; and I ought to

have called at the law courts at 3.20, and there's those bills to file.

It seems all like a horrible nightmare, that it does; it seems----"

"I don't want to know what it seems. You have left your duty and come

away--for what purpose?"

Silence.

"Ah well!" said Hancock, speaking not in the least angrily, "I see there

is a secret of some sort. I regret that a man in whom I have always

placed implicit trust should keep from me a secret that concerns me;

evidently--no matter, I am not curious. Yes, it is three o'clock; it

might be as well for you to return and look after things, though it is

too late for the law courts now."

This tone and manner completely floored Bridgewater. The fountains of

his great deep were broken up, and if Patience Hancock could have seen

the damage done to his confidential reservoir, she would have shuddered.

"I'll tell you the truth, Mr James. It's not my fault--she put me to the

work. I'll tell you the truth. I've been following you and spying upon

you, but it was for your own good, she said----"

"Who said?"

"Miss Patience."

"Miss Patience told you to follow me to-day?"

"Yes."

"But what on earth--how on earth did she know I was--er--coming here?"

"She didn't know."

"Well, how the _devil_ did she tell you to follow me, then?"

"She wanted to know where you were going to."

"But," roared Hancock, whose face had been slowly crimsoning, or

purpling rather, since the mention of his sister's name, "how the

_blazes_ did she know I was going _anywhere_?"

"When I saw you going out of the office with Miss Lambert I ran round

and told her."

"When you saw me going out of the office with Miss Lambert you ran round

and told her!" said Hancock, spacing each word and speaking with such a

change from fire to ice that his listener shivered. "Oh, this is too

good! I pay you a large salary to spy upon me and to run round and tell

my sister my doings. Am I mad, or am I dreaming? And what--what--WHAT

led you, sir, to leave the office and run round and tell my sister?"

"For God's sake, Mr James, don't talk so loud!" said Bridgewater; "the

people are turning round to look at us. I didn't leave the office of my

own accord; it was Miss Patience, who said to me, she said,

'Bridgewater, I trust you for your master's sake to let me know if you

see him with a lady, for,' she said, 'there is a woman who has designs

on him.'"

"Ah!"

"Those were her words. So when I saw you going out with Miss Lambert I

ran round and told her."

"Ah!"

Mr Hancock had fallen from fury into a thoughtful mood: one of the

sharpest brains in London was engaged in unravelling the meaning to get

at the inner-meaning of all this.

"My sister came round to the office some time ago asking me to spare you

for an hour as she wished for your advice about a lease. That, of

course, was all humbug: she wanted you for the purpose of talking about

me?"

"That is true."

"The lease was never mentioned?"

"Not once, Mr James."

"All the conversation was about me and my welfare?"

"That it was."

"Now see here, Bridgewater, cast your memory back. Is this the first

time in your life that my sister has invited you to my house in Gordon

Square to discuss my welfare?"

"No indeed, sir. I've been there before."

"How many times?"

Bridgewater assumed the cast of countenance he always assumed when

engaged in reckoning.

"That's enough," said Hancock, "don't count. Now tell me, when did she

first begin to take you into her confidence--twenty years ago?"

"Yes, Mr James, fully that."

Hancock made a sound like a groan.

"And twenty years ago it was the same tale: 'Protect my brother from a

designing woman.'"

"Why, it was, and that's the truth," said Bridgewater, as if the fact

had just been discovered by him.

"And you did your best, told her all about me and my movements, as far

as you knew them, and mixed and muddled, and made an ass of yourself and

a fool of me----"

"Oh, Mr James!"

"Hold your tongue!--a fool of me. Do you know, John Bridgewater, that

you have been aiding and abetting in a conspiracy--a conspiracy

unpunishable by law, but still a conspiracy--hold your tongue!--you are

innocent of everything but of being a fool; indeed, I ought not to call

any man a fool, for I have been a fool myself, and I ought to have seen

that the one end and aim of my sister's life was to secure her position

as my keeper, and her tenure of my house. You have shown me at one

flash a worm that has crawled through my past, cankering and corroding

all it touched. Money, money, money--that is my sister's creed. I am not

young, Bridgewater, and it seems to me that if instead of living all

these years side by side with this money-grub, I had lived side by side

with a wife, my lot would have been a better one. I might have had

children, grown-up sons now, daughters--things that make an interest for

us in our old age. Between me and all that has come my sister. That

woman has a very strong will. I see many things in the past now, ay,

twenty years ago, that I can explain. Bridgewater, you have done me a

great injury, but you did it for the best, and I forgive you. Half the

people in this world are pawns and chess-pieces, moved about by the men

and women of intellect who form the other half. If you had possessed

eyes to see, you might have seen that the really designing woman against

whom I should have been protected, was the woman with whom you leagued

yourself--my sister."

The expression on Bridgewater's face was so wonderfully funny that

Hancock would have laughed had he not been in such a serious mood.

"However, what's done is done, and there is no use in crying over spilt

milk. You have at least done me a service by your stupidity in following

me to-day, for you have shown me the light. Miss Lambert pleases me, and

if I choose to make her mistress of my house, instead of my sister,

mistress of my house she will be. We will return now to--where I left

Miss Lambert, and we will all go home to Gordon Square and have dinner

with my sister."

"Not me, Mr James," gasped Bridgewater, "I don't feel well."

"Nonsense! you need not fear my sister. She is no longer mistress of my

house; next week she shall pack bag and baggage. Come."

He turned towards the Monkey House, and Bridgewater followed him, so

mazed in his intellect that it would be hard to tell whether monkeys,

men, Fanny Lambert, Patience Hancock, or elephants, were uppermost in

his brain.

CHAPTER VII

IN GORDON SQUARE

It was James Hancock's rule that a dinner should be served every night

at Gordon Square, to which he could invite any one, even a city

alderman.

On this especial day a dinner, even better than usual, was in prospect.

Miss Hancock had a large circle of acquaintances of her own; she

belonged to several anti-societies. As before hinted, she was not

destitute of a certain kindness of heart, and the counterfoils of her

cheque book disclosed not inconsiderable sums subscribed to the Society

for the Total Abolition of Vivisection and Kindred Bodies.

To-day she expected to dinner a person, a gentleman of the female

persuasion--that is to say, a sort of man. Mr Bulders, the person in

question, a member of the Anti-Tobacco League, was a crank of the

crankiest description. He wrote letters to the paper on every

conceivable subject, and in this way had obtained a dim and unholy sort

of notoriety. Fox hunting was his especial detestation, and his grand

hobby was cremation. "Why Fear the Flames?" by Emanuel Bulders, a

pamphlet of fifteen pages, privately printed, reposed in Miss Hancock's

private bookcase. But Mr Bulders has no place in this story; he is dead

and--cremated, let us hope. I shadow him forth as the reason why Miss

Hancock was sitting this evening by the drawing-room fireplace, dressed

in the dress she assumed when she expected visitors, and engaged in

crochet-work.

The clock pointed to half-past six, Bulders was due--over-due, like the

Spanish galleon that was destined never to come into port. She had said

in her note, "Come early, I wish to talk over the last report of the

---- Society, and my brother has little sympathy with such subjects."

Suddenly her trained ear distinguished the sound of her brother's

latchkey in the door below. Some women are strangely like dogs in so far

as regards the senses of hearing and smell.

Patience Hancock, as she sat by the drawing-room fireplace, could tell

that her brother had not entered the house alone. She made out his

voice, and then the voice of Bridgewater. She supposed that James had

brought his clerk home to dinner to talk business matters over, as he

sometimes did; and she was relapsing from the attitude of strained

attention when a sound struck her, hit her, and caused her to drop her

crochet-work and rise to her feet.

She heard the laughter of a girl.

Almost instantly upon the laughter the door opened, and it seemed to

Miss Hancock that a dozen people entered the room.

"This is my sister Patience--Patience, Miss Lambert. We've all come back

to dinner. Sit down, Bridgewater. By the way, Patience, there's a letter

for you; I took it from the postman at the hall door." He handed the

letter; it was from Mr Bulders, excusing himself for not coming to dine,

and alleging for reason a sore throat.

Patience extended a frigid hand to Miss Lambert, who just touched it;

all the girl's light-heartedness and vivacity had vanished for the

moment, Patience Hancock acted upon her like a draught of cold air.

"I think you have heard me mention Miss Lambert's name, Patience. We

have been to the Zoo, the whole three of us. Immensely amusing place

the Zoo--makes one feel quite a boy again. Hey, Bridgewater!"

"I hope you enjoyed it," said Miss Hancock in a perfunctory tone,

glancing at Fanny, who was seated in a huge rocking-chair, the only

really comfortable chair in the room, and then at Bridgewater, who had

taken his seat on the ottoman.

"Pretty well, thanks," said Fanny, speaking in a languid tone. She had

assumed very much the air of a fine lady all of a sudden: she was not

going to be patronised by a solicitor's daughter, and she had divined in

Patience Hancock an enemy. "The Zoo is very much like the world: there

is much to laugh at and much to endure. Taken as a whole, it is not an

unmixed blessing."

James Hancock opened his mouth at these sage utterances, and then shut

it again and turned away to smile. Bridgewater had the bad manners to

scratch his head. Miss Hancock said, "Indeed?"

"Don't you think so?"

"I think the world is exactly what we choose to make it," said Patience

Hancock, quoting Bulders.

"You think _that_?" said Fanny, suddenly forgetting her fine lady

languors. "Well, I wish some one would show me how to make the world

just as I'd choose to make it. Oh, it would be such a world--no poor

people, and no rain, and no misery, and no debts."

"You mean no debtors," said Patience, seizing her opportunity. "It is

the debtors that make debts, just as it is the drunken people who make

drunkenness."

"Yes, I suppose it is," said Fanny, suddenly abandoning her

argumentative tone for one of reverie. "It's the people in the world

that make it so horrid and so nice."

"That's exactly it," said Hancock, who was standing on the hearthrug

listening to these banalities of thought, and contemplating Bridgewater.

"Miss Lambert is a true philosopher. It is the people who make the world

what it is; could we banish the meddlers and spies and traitors"--he

looked fixedly at his sister--"the world would not be an unpleasant

place to live in."

"I hate spies," said Fanny, totally unconscious of the delicate ground

she was stepping upon--"people who poke about into other people's

business, and open letters, and that sort of thing." Miss Hancock

flushed scarlet, and her brother noted the fact. "James opens letters, I

caught him."

"Who is James?" asked Miss Hancock.

"He's our butler," said Fanny, looking imploringly at Mr Hancock as if

to say "Don't tell."

Miss Hancock rose. "May I show you to my room? you would like to remove

your hat."

The dinner was not a success, intellectually speaking. James Hancock's

temper half broke down over the soles, the sauce was not to his liking;

the sweet cakes, ices, and other horrors he had consumed during the day

had induced a mild attack of dyspepsia. His nose was red, and he knew

it; and, worst of all, faint twinges of gout made themselves felt. His

right great toe was saying to him, "Wait till you see what you'll have

to-morrow." Then Boffins, the old butler, tripped on the cat, broke a

dish, and James Hancock's temper flew out.

I have described James Hancock badly, if you have not perceived that he

was a man with a temper. The evil demons in the Merangues and ices, the

irritation caused by Bridgewater's confession, the provoking calmness

of his sister, the uric acid in his blood, and the smash of the broken

dish, all combined of a sudden and were too much for him.

"Damn that cat!" he cried. "Cats, cats, cats! How often have I told

you"--to his sister--"that I will not have my house filled with those

sneaking, prowling beasts? Chase her out; where is she?"