I.

"Harold," said Ernest Carnegie to his twin-brother at breakfast one

morning, "have you got a tooth aching slightly to-day?"

"Yes, by Jove, I have!" Harold answered, laying down the _Times_, and

looking across the table with interest to his brother; "which one was

yours?"

"The third from the canine on the upper left side," Ernest replied

quickly. "And yours?"

"Let me see. This is the canine, isn't it? One, two, three; yes. The

same, of course. It's really a very singular coincidence. How about the

time? Was that as usual?"

"I'll tell you in a minute. Mine came on the day of the Guthries' hop. I

was down at Brighton that morning. What date? Let me think; why, the

9th, I'm certain. To-day's what, mother?"

"The 23rd," said Harold, glancing for confirmation at the paper. "The

law works itself out once more as regularly as if by machinery. I'm just

a fortnight later than you, Ernest, as always."

Ernest drummed upon the table with his finger for a minute. "I'm afraid

you'll have it rather badly to-day, Harold," he said, after a pause.

"Mine got unbearable towards midday, and if I hadn't had it looked to

in the afternoon, I couldn't have danced a single dance to save my life

that evening. I advise you to go round to the dentist's immediately, and

try to get it stopped before it goes any further."

Harold finished his cup of coffee, and looked out of the window blankly

at the fog outside. "It's an awful thought," he said at last, "this

living, as we two do, by clockwork! Everybody else lives exactly the

same way, but they don't have their attention called to it, as we do.

Just to think that from the day you and I were born, Ernest, it was

written in the very fabric of our constitutions that when we were

twenty-three years and five months old, the third molar in our upper

left jaws should begin to fail us! It's really appalling in its

unanswerable physical fatalism, when ones comes to think upon it."

"So I said to myself at the Guthries', the morning it began to give me a

twinge," said Ernest, in the self-same tone. "It seemed to me such a

terrible idea that in a fortnight's time, as certain as the sun, the

very same tooth in your head would begin to go, as the one that was

going in mine. It's too appalling, really."

"But do you actually mean to say," asked pretty little Nellie Holt, the

visitor, newly come the day before from Cheshire, "that whenever one of

you gets a toothache, the other one gets a toothache in the same tooth a

fortnight later?"

"Not a toothache only," Ernest answered--he was studying for his degree

as a physician, and took this department upon himself as by right--"but

every other disease or ailment whatsoever. We're like two clocks wound

up to strike at fixed moments; only, we're not wound up to strike

exactly together. I'm fourteen days in advance of Harold, so to speak,

and whatever happens to me to-day will happen to him, in all

probability, exactly a fortnight later."

"How very extraordinary!" said Nellie, looking quickly, from one

handsome clear-cut face to its exact counterpart in the other. "And yet

not so extraordinary, after all,--when one comes to think how very much

alike you both are."

"Ah, that's not all," said Ernest, slowly; "it's something that goes a

good deal deeper than that, Miss Holt. Consider that every one of us is

born with a certain fixed and recognizable constitution, which we

inherit from our fathers and mothers. In us, from our birth upward, are

the seeds of certain diseases, the possibilities of certain actions and

achievements. One man is born with hereditary consumption; another man

with hereditary scrofula; a third with hereditary genius or hereditary

drunkenness, each equally innate in the very threads and strands of his

system. And it's all bound to come out, sooner or later, in its own due

and appointed time. Here's a fellow whose father had gout at forty: he's

born with such a constitution that, as the hands on his life-dial reach

forty, out comes the gout in his feet, wherever he may be, as certain as

fate. It's horrible to think of, but it's the truth, and there's no good

in disguising it."

Nellie Holt shuddered slightly. "What a dreadful materialistic creed,

Mr. Carnegie," she said, looking at him with a half-frightened air.

"It's almost as bad as Mohammedan fatalism."

"No, not so bad as that," Ernest Carnegie answered; "not nearly so bad

as that. The Oriental belief holds that powers above you compel your

life against your will: we modern scientific thinkers only hold that

your own inborn constitution determines your whole life for you, will

included. But whether we like it or dislike it, Miss Holt, there are the

facts, and nobody can deny them. If you'd lived with a twin-sister, as

Harold and I have lived together for twenty-three years, you'd see that

the clocks go as they are set, with fixed and predestined regularity.

Twins, you know, are almost exactly alike in all things, and in the

absolute coincidence of their constitutions you can see the inexorable

march of disease, and the inexorable unfolding of the predetermined

life-history far better than in any other conceivable case. I'm a

scientific man myself, you see, and I have such an opportunity of

watching it all as no other man ever yet had before me."

"My dear," said Mrs. Carnegie, the mother, from the head of the table,

"you've no idea how curiously their two lives have always resembled one

other. When they were babies, they were so much alike that we had to tie

red and blue ribbons round their necks to distinguish them. Ernest was

red and Harold blue--no, Ernest was blue and Harold red: at least, I'm

not quite certain which way it was, but I know we have a note of it in

the family Bible, for Mr. Carnegie made it at the time for fear we

should get confused between them when we were bathing them. So we put

the ribbons on the moment they were christened, and never took them both

off together for a second, even to bathe them, so as to prevent

accidents. Well, do you know, dear, from the time they were babies, they

were always alike in everything; but Ernest was always a fortnight

before Harold. He said "Mamma" one day, and just a fortnight later

Harold said the very same word. Then Ernest said "sugar," and so did

Harold in another fortnight. Ernest began to toddle a fortnight the

earliest. They took the whooping cough and the measles in the same

order; and they cut all their teeth so, too, the same teeth first on

each side, and just at a fortnight's distance from one another. It's

really quite an extraordinary coincidence."

"The real difficulty would be," said Harold, "to find anything in which

we didn't exactly resemble one another. Well, now I must be off to this

horrid office with the Pater. Are you ready, Pater? I'll call in at

Estwood's in the course of the morning, Ernest, and tell him to look

after my teeth. I don't want to miss the Balfours' party this evening.

Curious that we should be going to a party this evening too. _That_

isn't fated in our constitutions, anyhow, is it, Ernest? Good morning,

Miss Holt; the first waltz, remember. Come along, Pater." And he went

out, followed immediately by his father.

"I must be going too," said Ernest, looking at his watch; "I have an

appointment with Dowson at Guy's at half-past ten--a very interesting

case: hereditary cataract; three brothers, all of them get it, each as

he reaches twelve years old, and Dowson has performed the operation on

two, and is going to perform it on the other this very day. Good

morning, Miss Holt; the second waltz for me; you won't forget, will

you?"

"How awfully alike they really are, Mrs. Carnegie," said Nellie, as they

were left alone. "I'm sure I shall never be able to tell them apart. I

don't even know their names yet. The one that has just gone out, the one

that's going to be a doctor--that's Mr. Harold, isn't it?"

"Oh no, dear," Mrs. Carnegie answered, putting her arm round Nellie's

waist affectionately, "that's Ernest. Harold's the lawyer. You'll soon

learn the difference between them. You can tell Ernest easily, because

he usually wears a horrid thing for a scarf-pin, an ivory skull and

cross-bones: he wears it, he says, just to distinguish him

professionally from Harold. Indeed, that was partly why Mr. Carnegie was

so anxious that Harold should go into his own office; so as to make a

distinction of profession between them. If Harold had followed his own

bent, he would have been a doctor too; they're both full of what they

call physiological ideas--dreadful things, I think them. But Mr.

Carnegie thought as they were so very much alike already we ought to do

something to give them some individuality, as he says: for if they were

both to be doctors or both solicitors, you know, there'd really be no

knowing them apart, even for ourselves; and I assure you, my dear, as

it is now even they're exactly like one person."

"Are they as alike in character, then, as they are in face?" asked

Nellie.

"Alike in character! My dear, they're absolutely identical. Whatever the

one thinks, or says, or does, the other thinks, says, and does at the

same time, independently. Why, once Ernest went over to Paris for a

week's holiday, while Harold went on some law business of his father's

to Brussels. Would you believe it, when they came back they'd each got a

present for the other. Ernest had seen a particular Indian silver

cigar-case in a shop on the Boulevards, and he brought it home as a

surprise for Harold. Well, Harold had bought an exactly similar one in

the Montagne de la Cour, and brought it home as a surprise for Ernest.

And what was odder still, each of them had had the other's initials

engraved upon the back in some sort of heathenish Oriental characters."

"How very queer," said Nellie. "And yet they seem very fond of one

another. As a rule, one's always told that people who are exactly alike

in character somehow don't get on together."

"My dear child, they're absolutely inseparable. Their devotion to one

another's quite unlimited. You see they've been brought up together,

played together, sympathized with one another in all their troubles and

ailments, and are sure of a response from each other about everything.

It was the greatest trouble of their lives when Mr. Carnegie decided

that Harold must become a solicitor for the sake of the practice. They

couldn't bear at first to be separated all day; and when they got home

in the evening, Ernest from the hospital and Harold from the office,

they met almost like a pair of lovers. They've talked together about

their work so much that Harold knows almost as much medicine now as

Ernest, while Ernest's quite at home, his father declares, in 'Benjamin

on Sales,' and 'Chitty on Contract.' It's quite delightful to see how

fond they are of one another."

At five o'clock Ernest Carnegie returned from his hospital. He brought

two little bunches of flowers with him--some lilies of the valley and a

carnation--and he handed them with a smile, one to his sister and one to

pretty little Nellie. "I thought you'd like them for this evening, Miss

Holt," he said. "I chose a carnation on purpose, because I fancied it

would suit your hair."

"Oh, Ernest," said his sister, "you ought to have got a red camelia.

That's the proper thing for a brunette like Nellie."

"Nonsense, Edie," Ernest answered, "I hate camelias. Ugliest flowers

out: so stiff and artificial. One might as well wear a starchy gauze

thing from the milliner's."

"I'm so glad you brought Nellie Holt a flower. She's a sweet girl,

Ernest, isn't she?" said Mrs. Carnegie a minute or two later, as Edie

and Nelly ran upstairs. "I wish either of you two boys could take a

fancy to a nice girl like her, now."

"My dear mother," Ernest answered, turning up his eyes appealingly. "A

little empty-headed, pink-and-white thing like that! I don't know what

Harold thinks, but she'd never do for me, at any rate. Very pretty to

look at, very timid to talk to, very nice and shrinking, and all that

kind of thing, I grant you; but nothing in her. Whenever I marry, I

shall marry a real live woman, not a dainty piece of delicate empty

drapery."

At six o'clock, Mr. Carnegie and Harold came in from the office. Harold

carried in his hand two little button-hole bouquets, of a few white

lilies and a carnation. "Miss Holt," he said, as he entered the

drawing-room, "I've brought you and Edie a flower to wear at the

Balfours' this evening. This is for you, Edie, with the pale pink; the

dark will suit Miss Holt's hair best."

Edie looked at Ernest, and smiled significantly. "Why didn't you get us

camelias, Harold?" she asked, with a faint touch of mischief in her

tone.

"Camelias! My dear girl, what a question! I gave Miss Holt credit for

better taste than liking camelias. Beastly things, as stiff and

conventional as dahlias or sunflowers. You might just as well have a wax

rose from an artificial flower-maker while you are about it."

Edie laughed and looked at Nellie. "See here," she said, taking up

Ernest's bunches from the little specimen vases where she had put them

to keep them fresh in water, "somebody else has thought of the flowers

already."

Harold laughed, too, a little uneasily. "Aha," he said, "I see Ernest

has been beforehand with me as usual. I'm always a day too late. It

seems to me I'm the Esau of this duet, and Ernest's the Jacob. Well,

Miss Holt, you must take the will for the deed; and after all, one will

do for your dress and the other for your hair, won't they?"

"Harold," said his father, as they went upstairs together to dress for

dinner, "Nellie Holt's a very nice girl, and I've reason to believe--you

know I don't judge these matters without documentary evidence--I have

reason to believe that she'll come into the greater part of old Stanley

Holt's money. She's his favourite niece, and she benefits largely, as I

happen to know, under his will. _Verbum sap._, my dear boy; she's a

pretty girl, and has sweet manners. In my opinion, she'd make----"

"My dear Pater," Harold exclaimed, interrupting him, "for Heaven's sake

don't say so. Pretty enough, I grant you; and no doubt old Stanley

Holt's money would be a very nice thing in its way; but just seriously

consider now, if you were a young man yourself, what on earth could you

see in Nellie Holt to attract your love or admiration? Why, she shrinks

and blushes every time she speaks to you. No, no, whenever I marry I

should like to marry a girl of some presence and some character."

"Well, well," said his father, pausing a second at his bedroom door,

"perhaps if she don't suit you, Harold, she'll suit Ernest."

"I should have thought, Pater, you knew us two better than that by this

time."

"But, my dear Harold, you can't both marry the same woman!"

"No, we can't, Pater, but it's my opinion we shall both fall unanimously

in love with her, at any rate, whenever we happen to see her."