“Don’t you do it,” advised the others.  “See him ’anged first.”

“Whatsoever you ’ave to say,” declared the foreman steadily, “you’d
better say it here and now.”

“Well, it’s like this.  I’m the detective.”

“Ho!” said the foreman satirically.  “Detective and thief in one, eh?
Vurry ’appy combination, I must say.”

“See here,” said the other, annoyed at the incredulous tone, “I’ll take
off this beard and then you can some of you identify me.”

As he did so the foreman held up his hand lamp, examining the features
carefully.

“Do any of you chaps recognise him?”

The staff replied at once that to the best of their belief they had never
before in this world set eyes on him.

“Don’t play the goat,” he urged anxiously.  “We’ve all got our duties to
perform.”

“That’s true; we shall ’ave to lock you up for the night.”

“Right you are,” said the other gleefully.  “Take me round to the nearest
police station and then—”

“That would mean losing our last train ’ome,” pointed out the foreman.

“I s’pose,” said the boy porter respectfully, “it wouldn’t do to put him
in the lamp room?”

“Chaps,” said the foreman, “my idea is we’d better, I think, put him in
the lamp room.  Get Porter Swan to lend you the keys, my lad.  As for
you, you scoundrel—”

“If you so much as dare to lock me up there I’ll see that you regret it
every day of your lives.”  He argued vehemently.

“Look ’ere, me man,” said the boy porter, returning with the keys, “we
want none of your empty threats.  If you think we’re going to be bluffed
by a chap of your calibre—”

“My what?” shouted the indignant man, struggling to get at the lad.

“Go on, my child,” said the foreman approvingly.  “Let him have some of
your long ones.”  The foreman turned to the others.

“This is where your school teaching comes in ’andy,” he whispered.

“A chap of your calibre,” repeated the boy porter, encouraged; “you’re
labouring under the very worst misapprehension—”

“Good!” said the others.

“Worst misapprehension that you ever suffered from or endured or
tolerated or submitted to or underwent or—”

“That’s enough for him,” interrupted the foreman, “we’d best not overdo
it.  Got his arms tied, lads?”

“You’ll suffer for this,” he cried.

“I’ll take me oath you will,” said the foreman.  “Now then, two of you at
each arm and—march!  Boy, blow out the gas and lock up.”

No one was encountered on the way to the lamp room who had authority to
interfere with the plans of the Up Office, and the unfortunate man was
conducted at a sharp walk to that gloomy, sooty, greasy haven.  The place
reeked with oily waste, and some appeared to have been smouldering,
giving a result that nice people would call displeasing.  The uneven
flooring was laid out with lakes of dirty water; zinc counters did not
permit themselves to be touched.  The foreman turned out the one glimmer
of light as though by accident.

“Got a match on you?” he asked the prisoner in a kindly tone.

“Only one box.”

“Hand it over,” ordered the foreman, “for a moment.  Thanks,” slipping it
into his pocket.  “Now we can catch our twelve-fifteen.  Good night, old
sort.”

“’Appy dreams,” cried the others.

“Don’t be late in the morning,” called out the boy porter.

The imprisoned man, not daring to trust himself to reply, heard the door
close, heard the lock shoot.  He groaned, and began to reckon the black
hours that he would have to endure in the place; at the least, the number
would be six; he did not care to think what it might be at the most.
Throughout the whole of the time he was unable to close his eyes, and his
only relief to the length of the hours came by thinking of the report
that he would indite the following morning.  He polished up in his mind
some of the references to the boy porter, and to the man who gripped his
arm in bringing him from the Up Office; it seemed that his suspicions in
regard to the pilferages were centred, for some reason, on those who had
most aggrieved him.  Before daylight began to grin at him through the
barred window of the lamp room he had mentally completed his report, and
the last paragraph he felt was especially good.

    “I am able to speak with absolute certainty, and I can go so far as
    to say the men who are undoubtedly responsible for the recent
    pilferages are those I have named, and I beg to suggest respectfully
    that steps be taken to relieve them of their present duties at the
    earliest possible moment.  The only alternative is a clean sweep of
    the whole of the Up Office staff, and this, sir, I hesitate to
    recommend.  But for reasons that I have stated, and for others which
    I think it wise not to place upon paper, I earnestly hope that the
    recommendation I have made will be acted upon without delay.

                                                         “W. BELLCHAMBERS.

    “P.S.—Especially the foreman and the junior.”

“Can’t make it hotter for them,” said Sergeant Bellchambers to himself
regretfully, “without it looking as though I’d got some personal spite.”

The night seemed endless, but it proved to have a finish, and
Bellchambers, when the lamp-man opened the door in the morning, went out,
a tired, oil-scented, yawning, but a determined official.  A wash and a
shave increased the last quality, and when the Superintendent arrived at
nine o’clock, morning paper under his arm, Sergeant Bellchambers was
waiting for him in the lobby of the office with confidence written all
over his face in large letters.

“Evening, sir.”

“Good-morning, Sergeant.”

“I mean morning,” corrected Bellchambers.  “I’ve been up all night over
that little affair you spoke about.”

“Ah!” said the Superintendent, sitting down in his arm-chair, “with no
result?”

“On the contrary, sir,” said Sergeant Bellchambers importantly.  “If it
isn’t troubling you too much I’ll trouble you to cast your eyes over this
report of mine.”

The Superintendent let his glasses flick open and adjusted them on his
nose.  The Sergeant, leaning one arm on the mantelpiece, watched his
superior officer, waiting for the sign of gratified approval.  This, to
his great astonishment, did not come, and the Superintendent’s face
remained unchanged when he had thrown the report on the shining table.

“Do you mean to say that you want me to get rid of these men?”

“That was the impression,” said the Sergeant, with a touch of acidity, “I
intended to convey.”

“And you think they’re guilty?”

“I’ll stake my reputation on it, sir,” said Sergeant Bellchambers.

“That is not much of a bet,” remarked the other.

“You can take it from me that these pilferages will never cease until the
men I’ve referred to are turned out.”

“I’m very anxious to do something,” said the Superintendent, taking up a
ruler thoughtfully.

“Like myself, sir,” said Bellchambers.  “That’s me all over.”

“But not,” said the Superintendent, hitting the table, “not in the
direction you suggest.  Read this!”

He handed over the morning paper to Sergeant Bellchambers, pointing to a
letter headed “Recent Complaints of Pilferages.”

“Ah!” said the Sergeant exultingly, “they’re going for us again, then.
‘Dear Sir,’ he read.  ‘With reference to our letters to you complaining
of abstraction from our parcels of cigars sent by railway, we think it
only right to inform you that we have discovered these pilferages were
made by one of our own men.  It appears that after delivering the parcels
at the station here, and after they were weighed, he was in the habit of
offering to take them to the train, and whilst doing this effected the
robberies to which reference has been made.  We need scarcely point out
that if the station had been wisely managed these lamentable occurrences
would in all probability never have taken place; the only question is,
who is responsible?  We are, dear sir, yours faithfully—’”

“A paltry trick to play on anybody,” said the Sergeant.  “At the same
time, sir, I think there’ll be no harm in making a change in the staff.”

“I intend to do so.  Will you keep your eyes open, Sergeant—”

“Ain’t they always?”

“And,” said the Superintendent, “look out for another berth.  Shut the
door quietly after you.”

VIII—QUESTION OF TEMPERATURE

L.O.M. caught sight of M.R. two or three times on the journey, and M.R.
made more than one effort to obtain completer details by inspection of
the blue card label on L.O.M.’s bag.  A certain coolness on M.R.’s side
marked their first meeting, but this was the fault of the English
Channel; it certainly looked like a practical joke, not quite in good
taste, when a sudden lurch of the steamer sent him against her on the
upper deck; despite his apologies, there was about the incident a
suggestion of Holloway Road on Sunday evenings.  M.R. told her married
sister that she considered him a bounder; the married sister replied that
this description could be applied to men in general, with one single
exception.

“Be very careful, Margaret,” she added, “how you make acquaintances.  We
shall run up against all sorts.”

“All sorts,” complained the girl, “seem to be running up against me.”

At the Paris Station of the Lyons railway, L.O.M. appeared in a more
favourable light, rescuing the married sister’s coat which had been taken
from a peg in the buffet by a Frenchwoman who was either short-sighted or
deficient in honesty.  At Vallorbes, it was he who came to the window of
their compartment—the hour being five a.m., and snow on the ground—and
gave the welcome news that their registered luggage was not amongst the
packages selected for examination at the Swiss frontier.

“Do you think I might get you some coffee?” he asked.

“Certainly not!” answered the married sister promptly.

The incident constituted a subject for discussion, the younger girl
contending that the obliging male should never be curtly repulsed; the
other arguing that a difficulty would have been found in persuading the
youth to accept cash for refreshments supplied, and, consequent on this,
the trouble in preventing him from becoming intrusive could scarcely be
measured.  At Lausanne, where passengers took breakfast, he very properly
kept his distance.  At Bex, in the tram-cars, which were to make the
climb with the aid of motive power at the back, he gave up his place to
the elder of the two and sat side by side with the girl in the crowded
luggage van.

“Yes,” she replied, “I skate, and I should like to learn to ski.  Do
you?”

“Moderately good at it,” replied L.O.M.  “Did some in Norway.”

“Then, perhaps—”

“You will find an instructor up there,” he said.

She turned away huffily.

It was not, however, easy to avoid joining in the general conversation.
Everybody had projects for the filling up of the winter holiday; the
conductor, as the car went slowly up the hill, was appealed to for
information concerning weather, and being a man of cheerful temperament,
gave exactly the particulars that were hoped and desired, without
allowing truth to mar the effect.  Thus an atmosphere of hopefulness
pervaded the luggage van, and even retiring military men perched upon
trunks became vivacious, talking of desperate deeds already accomplished
in other places on toboggans, and speaking with relish of the appetite
that came after these exercises.  The two were soon again in
conversation, and the girl mentioned that her sister’s maiden name was
Rodgers, a fact which enabled him to perceive acutely that this must be
also the girl’s name.  Turning the label on his valise, he introduced
himself.

“Masterson,” he said.

“I like names of three syllables,” she remarked.

The hour and a half occupied by the journey was lessened by all this, and
by the increasingly snowy aspect of the mountains on either side of the
track; the conductor derided this as trifling, and endeavoured to give
some idea of the downfall that had taken place up near the summit.  At
Gryon the steep part finished, and the cars went on with the assistance
of overhead wires.

“You play and sing, I suppose?”

“I perform no parlour tricks of any description,” said Miss Rodgers
definitely.  “I leave these accomplishments to others.”

“Really?”  Rather taken back, and the movement of his forehead slightly
lifting his cap.  “I had an idea—I’d got the notion that every girl did.
My sisters—”

“I am the exception,” with pride.  “Outdoor sports constitute my strong
point.  I could live for ever in the open air.”

“What about the bad weather?” inquired Masterson.

“How can you talk of bad weather at a time like this?  Look back and see
that dear, white, delightful little village.  Tell me, do you think there
will be a carnival on the ice rink?  I’ve brought the sweetest fancy
dress you ever saw.  You won’t find me staying indoors, excepting for
meals.”

When the cars reached the destination, the two alone out of the whole
party exhibited scarcely any signs of the twenty-five hours’ journey from
Charing Cross and London; the married sister compensated by showing every
symptom of collapse, and he very courteously assisted her up the wooden
steps and over the bridge to the hotel.  There the flurried manager
checked names as they entered; assigned the double room on the first
floor to Mr. Masterson, and the single room on the third floor to Miss
Rodgers and her exhausted sister; they united forces in protesting
against this, and became more friendly in the presence of a common
grievance.  Despite the warmth of arguments used by visitors, the
thermometer near the pile of brushes and toboggans registered four
degrees of frost.

Lunch was served at once, and immediately after the meal the married
sister, discovering that she had eaten veal under the impression it was
mutton, announced her intention of resting indoors during the afternoon.
The other two came down in jerseys and white caps, and the married sister
gave Masterson gracious permission to escort Miss Rodgers to the rink.

“Mind you bring her back safely,” she commanded.

“I’ll do my best,” he said.

“Quite capable of taking care of myself,” remarked the girl.  “Just lace
up my boots for me, please.”  They left the lady in the vestibule
perusing a Cardiff journal bearing date of a Tuesday in the previous
month.

One could see on their return that the afternoon on the rink had reached
highest expectations; their animation caused some compression of the
eyebrows on the part of sedater folk taking tea.  Everything had happened
as the flushed, excited girl wanted it to happen.  Her ability had
excited favourable comment from other skaters; one of the professionals
gave a compliment; the band played delightfully, and she—not caring for
indoor dancing—completely and thoroughly enjoyed a waltz.  Sun shining
all the time.

“After tea,” she explained, “we are going out to do some ski-ing.”

“Who is meant, pray,” asked her sister carefully, “by the word ‘we’?”

“Mr. Masterson and myself, of course!”

“Oh!” commented her sister, giving an inflection which the printed word
cannot convey.

“What’s your objection, Ellen?”

“It would be useless for me to offer any.  I shall stay in and write.
Does he know that you neither play nor sing?”

“I’ve told him,” snapped the girl.

Folk at the hotel attended meals with regularity, but their impatience
towards the finish was something not easily concealed.  A tall woman
seated opposite at dinner, and possessing a complexion which looked
almost natural, hinted that she was arranging some amateur theatricals,
and Mr. Masterson gave to the announcement an interest which Miss Rodgers
considered so excessive that she turned from him and listened with
attention intended to be equally extravagant to her sister’s talk
concerning Henry.  The lady with the complexion had been searching the
hotels for some one who could sing and act; up to the present, she had
found three able to sing, but not greatly desirous of doing so; they were
more definite in their replies to her invitation in regard to acting.
Also, she required some one who could play the pianoforte readily.

“Please help me if you can,” she begged, passing the French mustard
across to Mr. Masterson, and assuming an ingratiating smile.  “I shall be
so grateful.”

“There’s a good deal to do out-of-doors,” he mentioned.

“Then,” said the lady, with resolution, “I must pray for mild weather!”

The concierge announced in the vestibule, as folk returned who had been
out for moonlight tobogganing after dinner, that the frost was hard, the
thermometer promising well; bridge players ordered him to close the
doors, and keep them closed, but Masterson and Miss Rodgers coming in,
flushed with exercise on the snow run, congratulated each other on the
good news, and in the corridor, before saying good-night, made full and
complete plans for the following day.

Masterson slept the sleep of a well-tired man until six o’clock, when the
bell rang to arouse servants.  He heard a drip, drip, drip from the
roofs, and turning over dreamt of an amazing leap on skis from the top of
Mont Blanc to the Dent du Midi, an exploit that created in his mind, not
surprise, but genuine satisfaction.  When he awoke again, it was to find
the hour late, and in dressing hastily, to avoid the fifty centimes fine
inflicted on those who took breakfast after ten, he shared the blame
between himself and the heating apparatus which kept the room at a too
comfortable temperature.

“Really very sorry,” he cried, entering the dining-room.  Severe faces
looked up from the tables; young Miss Rodgers helped her sister to honey
and sighed.  “You can’t think how full of regret I am.”

“It is a pity,” she said.

“I was awake early, mind you,” he went on eagerly.  “Wide awake as I am
now.  And then I dozed off, and when I—”

The waiting maid brought his coffee and he poured it into the cup with
the air of a man not deserving refreshment.

“You have been out alone, I suppose?” he remarked.

“Apparently,” interposed the married sister, “you are not aware that
there has been a most wonderful thaw during the night, and that there is
now a thick mist.”

The weather was not the only thing affected by the change.  After
breakfast, folk stood about in the corridor examining the notices there
with a doleful expression.  “Rink Closed” stood out in definite capital
letters, and eyes turned from the stern announcement to gain some comfort
from the slips which recorded loss of decorative articles.  A few
proclaimed intention of devoting the morning to sending postcards, and to
the clearing off of arrears in correspondence, and stalked resolutely up
to the drawing-room; others went to see if they could induce the
concierge to make a cheerful prophecy concerning the weather, returning
with the news that the official, discouraged by failure, refused to hold
out anything that looked like hope.  One or two inspected time tables and
talked of going back to Lausanne.

“Why don’t you suggest something, Mr. Masterson?”

“Wish I had the necessary intelligence, Miss Rodgers.  Is there anything
we can arrange indoors, I wonder, to make the time go quickly whilst the
weather is sorting itself?  Think of something that you’re good at!”

“If you possessed a memory,” retorted the girl warmly, “you would
recollect that I distinctly told you—”

The lady with the very fresh complexion interposed, with an apology.
Would Mr. Masterson give her three minutes of his time in a corner of the
vestibule?  Masterson looked at the girl for directions, but she turned
away, and he followed the other obediently.

Great mystery surrounded the ball-room, and especially the stage of the
ball-room, that day, with janitors at doors, asking those who arrived:
“Excuse me, but are you taking part?” and when a negative answer was
given, adding: “Then will you kindly stay outside, please?”  The
pianoforte could be heard being played with the soft pedal down, and a
sound came of choruses; occasionally, the voice of the made-up lady
crying: “Oh, that’s not a bit like it!” and “We must try the first act
all over again!” and “Do take up your cues smartly, please!”

At lunch she escorted Masterson into the dining-room, conveying him past
the chairs occupied by Miss Rodgers and the married sister, and induced
him to sit beside her during the meal.  The doyen of the guests rapped
three times on the table between the veal and the chicken course, and
made an announcement.  Volunteers were required to sing in the church
choir.  A bracelet had been found on the billiard table.  To-morrow
evening there would be a theatrical entertainment in the ball-room under
the joint superintendence of Miss Ellicott and Mr. Masterson.  Ladies
willing to sing in the chorus were requested to communicate immediately
with Mr. Masterson.  The doyen sat down; the buzz of conversation
recommenced.

Masterson, note-book in hand, stood at the doorway when the meal was
over, taking names.  As Miss Rodgers and her sister came near, he looked
up inquiringly, but the girl stared at him in a distant manner, and went
past, ignoring the half-completed question which he put to her; Masterson
gazed after them with the abashed look of one who has discovered that he
does not fully understand women, and to the next offer replied, rather
brusquely, that the list was now complete.  He proceeded to the ball-room
and gave up the afternoon to rehearsal, interspersed with gusty arguments
with the leading lady.  Outside, the rain came down in a quiet, orderly
manner, as though it were doing exactly what was required, and the
concierge went about assuring visitors that the fault was not his.

Young Miss Rodgers, wearing defiance as a cloak to nervousness, knocked
at the door of the ball-room and asked to see Mr. Masterson.  The amateur
door-keeper replied that the gentleman was busy.  Miss Rodgers, with a
smile that would have persuaded even a professional, induced the
door-keeper to go and make further inquiries, and immediately that he had
started on this errand, not only slipped inside the room, but at once
slipped up on the polished floor.  Now, she was a sure-footed girl, not
accustomed to tumble, and it was fortunate, in view of her record, that
no one happened to witness the incident.  She had resumed an upright
position when the doorkeeper returned.

“You go across to the drawing-room,” he whispered importantly, “and in
about ten minutes he’ll see you!  Quarter of an hour at the outside.”

The entire strength of the company was on the stage, and as she walked up
and down the carpeted room, snatches of the dialogue came to her ears.
The leading lady, and Masterson were about to go through once again the
scene which had startled the girl on entering the ball-room; the lady
suggested improvements.  “When I rush into your arms,” she said, “how
would it be for you to catch me like this—” here evidently followed an
illustration—“and I’ll lean my hand on your shoulder like this”—another
illustration—“and then we can start the duet.”  Masterman’s voice said he
was ready to try this plan.  “That’s better,” remarked the lady
presently, “but I think we may as well do it again.  Give me the word,
somebody.”

The girl peered through the cracks of the set scenery on the stage, and,
her hand at her throat, watched and listened.

“That’s about right.  Now for the duet.  Play the symphony, please, Miss
Jenner.”  After this, “Thank you.  Just once more.”

Masterson’s voice, a strong baritone, started:

    “As I look into eyes that gaze up into mine,
       I know that your dear heart is beating for me.
    I know you’re as true as the stars that do shine,
       As the sun and the moon and the earth and the sea.
    Yet I ask for one word—”

Miss Rodgers, fearful of being discovered and unable to endure
contemplation of the scene any longer, crept away to the other end of the
drawing-room, where, regarding herself in the mirror, she found an
extremely cross-looking face with a line or two on the forehead.  As the
lady’s reply rang out, the girl took up an illustrated journal from the
table and endeavoured to divert her thoughts by concentrating on fashion,
only to find that she could not be quite sure whether she was inspecting
a page of drawings or a page of letterpress.

             “For I love thee, I love thee, ’tis all I can say.”

The chorus, standing around with a strange want of delicacy during this
affectionate argument, now threw off all restraint, and acknowledged the
interest they had taken in the proceedings by singing confidentially to
each other:

    “She loves him, she loves him, ’tis all he can say,
       He loves her, he loves for a year and a day.
    Pray see how affection has come their direction,
       Oh, thrice happy twain to be wedded in May.”

“Hullo!” cried Masterson, astonished, coming off, “you here?”

The question seemed to be one of those not requiring a reply, and Miss
Rodgers ignored it.

“I wanted to know whether there was a chance of being able to help,” she
said.

“Rather!” he declared readily.  “We’ll soon see about that.  I’ll go and
arrange.”

He went at a good rate; returned with leaden footsteps.

“I’m sorry!” she said, receiving his message.

“If you had only offered earlier,” he remarked apologetically.  “You see,
I’m not in charge of the affair, or else I’d manage it like a shot.  And
I thought you said—”

“It occurred to me,” explained Miss Rodgers, her voice faltering
slightly, “that I’d like to try.  But it doesn’t really matter in the
least.”

                              *  *  *  *  *

Her sister was in a convalescent state, ready to talk of subjects other
than Henry, and when the girl burst into the room which they jointly
occupied, and throwing herself on the red couch, gave way to tears,
comfort was close at hand.  The sister wisely refrained at first from
putting questions, allowed the girl to have her cry out, and only said
soothingly, “It’s all right, dearie.  Don’t worry more than you can
help.”  When composure returned, the solace of the confessional was
utilised and the married sister listened, interjecting now and again,
“Yes, I understand,” and “I quite see what you mean.”

“You don’t mind, I hope, if I point out,” she remarked, when the last
word had been said, “that mother and I have always been persuading you to
take up music or singing or some accomplishment of the kind.”

“I know,” admitted the girl penitently.

“And you have always said there were plenty of girls who could do these
things, and that you were not going to bother about them.  Now you see
how important it is that you should keep them level with others.  You
must make hay whilst the sun shines,” quoted the married sister.

“I shall have to make a start.”

“And when we get back to London, you are going to set to work at once and
learn some of these useful accomplishments?”

“I promise,” declared Miss Rodgers resolutely.  “And I think, too, I
should like to take up cooking.  One never knows when it may come in
handy.”

                              *  *  *  *  *

The performance went well, and nothing could have exceeded the
graciousness of young Miss Rodgers towards the leading lady; few of the
later compliments exceeded hers.  Indeed, when, on the following day, the
frost returned succeeded by a pleasant sprinkling of snow, she offered to
take the leading lady out on the rink and charge herself with the
responsibility of teaching the art of skating.

“No, dear,” replied the other.  “Thank you very much, but no.  As a
matter of fact, although I try my best not to look it, I’m too old.  Look
after Mr. Masterson, instead.  He admires you, and you mustn’t lose any
chance of persuading him to continue to do so, indoors or out.  I know
what men are!”

IX—FOREIGN AFFAIRS

WE parted from Mr. Peter A. Chasemore at Bologna owing to a slight
difference of opinion.  Carolyn Stokes and myself had the notion that we
should find Venice damp and possibly cold; Mr. Chasemore declared that to
go home without seeing a gondola would give him a pain compared with
which rheumatism might be considered a sensation of acute delight.  There
is no use denying the fact that we two women missed Mr. Chasemore a good
deal.  Confusion took place on the journey, for which I blamed Carolyn
Stokes, and she blamed me.  When with the assistance of luck we did reach
the Belvedere our tempers were not improved by the fact that a young man
and an elderly lady occupied, for the moment, the attention of the hotel
people.

“Norman,” she said to him, as the proprietor eventually came to us, “you
can consider yourself free for the remainder of the day.”  He bowed.
“Give me that; I will take charge of it.”  Both Carolyn Stokes and myself
noticed the name on the label as the leather case was being transferred.

I suppose the fact that there are no such titles where we come from
caused the encounter to make an impression upon us; we watched her as she
went up in the elevator, and noticed the special consideration paid by
attendants.  At home we reckon everybody to be equal, with a few
exceptions, but here it was evident that to be called Lady Mirrible
counted for something, and we naturally fell in with the local view.
When you are in Rome you should do as the Romans do; the remark applies
equally well to Florence.  The young man gave way to us at the desk of
the concierge, and Carolyn Stokes offered him a large smile.

“Have you come far?” she asked.

“Fairly good distance.”

“Are you going soon?”

“That doesn’t quite depend upon me,” he replied.

I mentioned when we were in our room that a considerable amount of
information had not been extracted, and Carolyn Stokes said no doubt I
should prove more successful in the game.  I replied that this seemed
highly probable, and we did not speak to each other again until the gong
sounded in the corridor announcing that the meal was almost ready.
Downstairs in the reading-room we encountered a nasty jar in the
discovery that none of the rest of the people had dressed specially for
dinner.  This was one of the small difficulties caused by the absence of
a man capable of making inquiries beforehand.

“I beg your pardon,” he remarked.  He had taken the _Herald_ from the
table just as my hand went out; he replaced it and selected a London
journal.  I was determined to let Carolyn Stokes see that I could manage
the situation better than she had done.

“You are not an American?” I asked.

“I am only English.”

“We have met several very pleasant folk from your country in the course
of our travels.”

“How extremely fortunate.”

“What startles us amongst you is your class distinctions.  You should, I
think, make an endeavour to break down the barriers.”

“Something ought certainly to be done,” he agreed.  And went off with his
newspaper.

Carolyn Stokes mentioned—not for the first time—that she was old enough
to be my mother, and went on to argue that whereas it was quite
permissible for a woman of her age to speak at an hotel to a stranger,
the case was entirely different where a girl of twenty was concerned.
All the same when she found him seated at the next table in the
dining-room she allowed me to take the chair which enabled me to speak
across to him without twisting my neck.  From what I heard him say to the
waiter I gained that her ladyship was taking the meal in her own room.

Carolyn Stokes has many estimable qualities, but I have more than once
had to point out to her that she does not exercise a sufficient amount of
restraint over her conversational powers.  Also she pitches her voice
somewhat high, rather as though she, being at Liverpool, were addressing
a public meeting in New York.  I am myself a good and fluent talker, but
my chances are small if I enter into competition with Carolyn.  It was
difficult, however, to overlook the fact that he preferred listening to
me, and when we both spoke at once it was I who secured his attention.  I
asked him what there was to be seen in Florence of an evening when the
picture galleries were closed, and he said we could not do better than
stroll down the Lung ’Arno, see the Vecchio bridge, returning by way of
the Piazza Vittore Emmanuele.

“We should scarcely dare to go out alone,” I remarked.

He crumbled his bread for a moment.

“I think,” he said, “it will be possible for me to place myself at your
disposal.”

“That is perfectly sweet of you,” cried Carolyn Stokes.  We arranged to
meet at nine o’clock in the entrance hall.

Taking our coffee in the drawing-room Carolyn and myself came to the
conclusion that there was more in the wisdom of Providence than some
people care to admit.  If Mr. Chasemore had decided to come on with us to
Florence the likelihood was that we should have had no opportunity of
making this very fortunate and delightful acquaintance; there would have
been less to record in our diaries under the heading of that day.
Carolyn’s impression was that the son of a titled lady was a viscount,
but she could not be certain; she had on some far-distant occasion
studied the matter thoroughly, but most of the information then acquired
seemed to have been erased from her mind.  Anyway the chance was too good
to lose, and Carolyn Stokes said the great thing was to exhibit not too
much eagerness, but to allow friendship to ripen, so to speak, in the
course of the next twenty-four hours.  Carolyn has a distinct streak of
sentimentality in her character, and she spoke of the influence of blue
Italian skies and the moon shining on the water, and Dante and Beatrice,
and the new hat I had purchased in the Via Condotti at Rome.  We went
upstairs to put on some wraps.

In the passage her ladyship’s head was out of her door, and she was
calling in an imperative kind of way.

“Norman, Norman!  Where on earth has he got to again?  Never here somehow
when he’s wanted.”  One of the hotel maids came along and she gave her a
message.  “The lad really,” she said, taking her head in, “is perfectly
useless.”

Carolyn Stokes was occupying a few minutes later a central position at
the mirror in our room when she suddenly gave a shriek; I assumed it was
only the presence of a moth in the room.  As she did not shriek again I
considered the hideous danger was past and done with, and I requested her
to permit me to share the mirror for a moment.

“Child,” she announced in a subdued sort of voice and still gazing into
the glass, “I have seen it all in a flash.  You are under the impression
that he is some sort of a nobleman.  He is nothing of the kind.  He is
merely a footman or a courier, paid a moderate amount per week to attend
on this Lady Somebody.  That’s what he is,” she said, striking the
dressing table, “and I am more thankful than I can express that I have
discovered it in time.”

“The question can be easily decided,” I mentioned.  “We have only to
glance in the book kept at the desk below.”

“I did that, but they have not yet registered.”

“Then a question must be put to the people of the hotel.”

“That I also did,” replied Carolyn Stokes, “and their acquaintance with
the American language made them assume that I required a postcard with a
view of the cathedral.  They have no right,” she went on vehemently, “in
these foreign hotels to allow a footman to dine with the other guests.  I
know it is done, but no one will persuade me that it is right or fair to
respectable visitors.  It ought to be stopped.”

I sat on the rocking chair and took some violent exercise for a few
minutes in order to collect my thoughts.  It seemed we were in a somewhat
difficult corner.  To stay in our room only meant that he would come and
knock at the door; the wisest plan appeared to be to effect an escape.
Carolyn Stokes, for once, agreed with me.

“I wish Mr. Chasemore were here,” she said.

We went along the corridor very quietly and crept down the staircase.
From the last landing we could see him waiting near the desk of the
concierge.  There was no means of slipping past without being seen.

“I tell you what to do!” I whispered.  “You must go and inform him that I
have been taken suddenly ill.”

“A good idea,” she said, “but I would so much rather you went and told
him that I was ill.”

He tapped with his walking-stick impatiently on the floor, moved to
examine letters in the rack.  I pulled at Carolyn Stokes’s arm in order
to persuade her to make a run for it; before I could arouse her dormant
intelligence he had returned to his former position.  He glanced at the
clock and at his watch; Carolyn Stokes sat on the stairs.

“Meanwhile,” I grumbled, “we are missing valuable moments in a most
interesting and historical city.”

“Think,” she said impressively, “think of the fate from which I have
saved you.”

The call of “Norman!” came again, but apparently it did not reach his
ears.  I am a creature of impulse and, without thinking, I imitated the
call.  He whipped off his cap at once, laid down his walking-stick and
started up, taking two steps at a time and coming near to us.

Carolyn Stokes and myself will never be able to decide which of us took
the initiative, which gripped at the other and used some amount of force.
We discovered ourselves in the nearest room, where an elderly gentleman
was about to retire to rest; I had never thought the time would come when
I should be thankful for not understanding a foreign language.  The young
man rushed by; we made our escape just as the aged person was about to
throw a hair brush.

We tried to persuade ourselves, in walking along the side of the river,
that all was well that ended well.  Carolyn Stokes said the experience
was one she wished never to undergo again, and for some reason reproached
me.  We walked as far as the Trinity Bridge, turned to the left, found
ourselves in the Via del Moro, came later to the Piazza de St. Maria
Novello, took what we thought would be a short cut for the hotel, and
lost ourselves.  Carolyn Stokes asked the way of two or three people in
tones quite loud enough to enable them to understand, but success did not
crown her efforts.

“Why, here you are!” cried an English voice.  We turned, and for the
moment we both forgot how anxious we had been not to meet him.  “Now, how
in the world did I manage to miss you?  My fault, I’m sure.”

“It would be kind of you,” said Carolyn Stokes with reserve, “to put us
in the right direction for our hotel.”

“But, of course, I’ll see you back there with the greatest pleasure.
Unless you like to allow me, even now, to show you round the town.  As a
matter of fact, the hotel is just round the corner.  There’s the
Garibaldi statue.”

“I am somewhat fatigued,” she said, “and I would prefer to return.”

“And you?” he said, turning to me.

“There has been a mistake made,” I answered resolutely.  “We took you for
somebody else.  You must allow us to close the acquaintance here and
now.”

“No idea I had a double,” he remarked.  “This matter must be looked into
or complications may ensue.”

“We jumped to the conclusion that you were the son of the lady you are
travelling with.”

“I am,” he answered.  Carolyn Stokes and I began to talk together; he
appeared to do his best to understand us, but presently gave up the
attempt and led the way to the hotel.  There in the entrance hall he
spoke again.

“So it was because I showed some attention to my dear mother that you
thought I was a courier.”

We interrupted, and endeavoured once more to explain.

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “Had an idea this was going to be quite a pleasant
friendship.  Goodbye.”

I kept awake half that night making my plans.  But in the morning fresh
English visitors—more titles—had arrived, and some of them knew him, and
they surrounded him, and the girls made a fuss of him, and there was no
chance of my getting near.  A letter came for me from Venice saying that
the writer would be in Milan on Wednesday.  “Yours with affectionate
regards, P. A. C.”

I have now to rely upon my tact and my industry and my own bright,
intelligent young mind to assist me in marrying Mr. Peter A. Chasemore.

X—BEFORE LUNCH

OTHER travellers were becoming jammed in the corridor of the train, their
tempers taking the tone of acerbity easy to those about to start on a
railway journey.  A determined young woman came up the step, and
supported the conductor in an appeal for order, addressing herself more
particularly to the English passengers; quiet obtained, she took the
first advantage of it by presenting her ticket.  The conductor showed
gratitude by escorting her at once to her place.

“You don’t mean to say—” stammered the occupant of seat Number Twenty.
“It can’t be!  I shall begin to think I’m losing my senses.”

“If you’re Mr. Chiswell,” she replied briskly, “there’s no reason to be
afraid of that.”

“A remark,” protested Mr. Chiswell, “so unkind that I can tell it comes
from nobody but Miss Everitt.”  She lifted her bag to the rack, and when
she had succeeded in placing it there, he made a gesture of assistance.
Glancing at herself in the mirror below the rack, she remarked that she
looked a perfect bird frightener.

“I don’t agree with you,” he said.

“So far as I remember,” she said, “you seldom did.”

“We won’t exaggerate,” urged Mr. Chiswell.  “For my part, I’m very glad
that we’re to be fellow travellers, and I trust we shall have a pleasant
journey.  It’s clear enough to me, Miss Everitt, that fate has brought us
together again.”

“Then I wish to goodness fate would mind its own business.”

The last passenger came into the saloon; the conductor’s forehead cleared
of wrinkles, and he hung up his brown peaked cap with a sigh of relief.
The train moved out from the Gare de Lyon in a casual way, as though it
were going for a short stroll, and giving no indication that it intended
to occupy the day by racing down the map of France.  Folk on the low
platform of the station waved handkerchiefs, blew kisses, cried.

“Is Freddy with you?” asked Miss Everitt.

“Need you ask!  Is Emily with you?”

“Course she is.”

“Neither of ’em married?”

“Neither of them married,” agreed Miss Everitt.  “Just as well perhaps.
There are people who, so long as they remain single, can keep up a
certain style and position; once they get spliced, first thing they do is
to cut down expenses.”

“Exactly the view I took of it,” he cried eagerly.  He leaned forward,
and gave a glance around the saloon to make certain that no one listened.
“Just the way I looked at the matter.  Between ourselves, it was because
of that I acted as I did.”

The attendant from the dining-car came to inquire whether the passengers
wished to lunch in the first series, or in the second series; the two,
after consultation, settled to take the meal together at the later hour.
They found new grounds for agreement in the view that coffee and rolls at
half-past seven in the morning, at a Paris hotel, formed but a mere
imitation of a breakfast.

“I know perfectly well that what I’m going to tell you,” said Chiswell
confidentially, “won’t go any further.  I recollect how in the old days
when we were—well, friends—you always knew when to keep your mouth shut.
A great quality, that, in a girl, and I don’t want to flatter you when I
say that one very seldom comes across it.  What I’m about to tell you
refers to—”

He jerked his head, and she nodded.

“They might meet,” she said.

“It wouldn’t matter,” he replied confidently.  “They’re not on speaking
terms now.”

“Fire away with what you were going to tell me.”

“As a Member of Parliament,” began Mr. Chiswell, “Freddy was not what the
world might call a roaring success.  Used to take a lot of trouble, and
the Duke, his old father, was always getting at him, and asking when he
was going to be asked to join the Cabinet.  As a matter of fact, his
speeches sounded all right when he said ’em off to me in Curzon Street,
but apparently when he tried ’em in the House they didn’t go for nuts.  I
never went down there to hear him—got too much respect for myself to go
near the place—but I always read the Parliamentary reports, and there,
when he did get the chance of speaking, the papers mentioned his name
amongst the ‘Also spokes,’ and that was about all.  Whatever faults he
may have had as a Member of Parliament, he was, and he is, a first-class
chap to valet, and I don’t care”—Mr. Chiswell gave a resolute gesture—“I
don’t care where the next comes from.  I’ve only to say one word against
a suit of clothes, and that suit of clothes is virtually handed over to
me on the spot.  I know to a penny what his income is, and I know to a
penny what his expenses amount to.  A peculiar chap, mind you, in some
ways; never able, for instance, to bear the idea of being in debt.  Most
extraordinary, with people of his class.”

Chiswell dismissed this problem.

“Now you must understand—you know me well enough to realise it—that I’m
not one of those who want to be always chopping and changing.  If I’m in
a nice comfortable easy-chair like this, I’m not the kind of chap to give
it up, and go and sit out there in the corridor on a tip-up wooden seat.
I’m the sort that—”

“Leave off bragging as soon as you’re tired,” suggested Miss Everitt,
“and get on with your story.”

The young man, an elbow resting on the ledge of the window, and giving no
attention to the scenery which flew past, with a straight road curling up
like a length of white ribbon, applied himself to the task of describing
the course of procedure adopted.  The girl gave now and again a cough of
criticism, here and there a slightly astonished lift of the eyebrows.
Occasionally she sniffed at a bottle of Eau de Cologne with the
air—obviously copied from some superior model—the air of having
temporarily lost interest in the subject.  Stated with a brevity that
Chiswell, the day before him and personal exultation behind, could not be
induced to show, the particulars might be fairly stated thus.  Chiswell—

“Mind you,” he said firmly, “no one can call me a Paul Pryer.  I look
after myself; I don’t profess to look after others.”

—Chiswell happened, by chance, to come across a note addressed to his
master which, so far as he could judge, had no reference to his master’s
Parliamentary duties, or to any scheme for improvement of the masses; he
founded his opinion on the fact that it commenced “My dearest.”
Chiswell, a man of the world, would have been prepared to exercise
tolerance and to pass it by with a wink, but for the fact that the
communication was dated from an exclusive ladies’ club; the fact that the
writer adopted a pen name baffled him and aroused his curiosity.  He left
the letter on the table, and concealed inquisitiveness until he should be
entrusted with letters for the post.  Looking through the bundle handed
to him at four o’clock he felt pained and grieved to find that his master
had not trusted him fully and entirely; the envelopes were addressed
either to Esquires or to ladies known to the world as seriously
interested in the work of the party.  He particularly asked whether there
were any other communications to be placed in the pillar box for
despatch, and his master, on the point of running off to the House,
distinctly and formally answered:

“No, Chiswell.  That’s the lot.  Don’t forget to post them.”

“Quite sure, sir?”

The reply to this polite and deferential question came in the form of a
request, first that Chiswell should not be a fool, second that if he
could not help being a fool, he would at any rate take steps to hide and
to mask the circumstance.  Chiswell was affected by these remarks as a
duck is concerned by water running over its back; what did perturb him
was the want of confidence shown between master and man after an
acquaintance that had lasted for years.  Chiswell, pondering on this, was
placing the letters singly in the pillar box and giving to each a final
examination when he discovered that one, addressed to—

“I know!” said Miss Everitt, much interested.

—Bore a special sign on the flap of the envelope.  Mr. Chiswell, scarce
hoping that he had struck the trail, retained this and kept it back for
further consideration.

The custom of placing scarlet wax on the flap of an envelope and
impressing the wax with a seal is probably an old-fashioned tradition
dating from the days when gum could not be trusted.  In the case of an
envelope fastened in the ordinary way, Chiswell would have had to take
the trouble of placing a kettle on the gas stove; in the present instance
his work was rendered easy by the help of a penknife and, later, the use
of a stick of wax and the seal.  The matter appeared to be serious.  A
passing flirtation Chiswell might have permitted, although that he would
have held undignified in a Member of the House of Commons, but within the
few lines of the letter before him there seemed a plain hint of marriage.
He was about to tear up the letter in the hope of thus giving a start to
a misunderstanding when it suddenly occurred to him—

“An inspiration,” said Chiswell contentedly.  “That’s what you may call
it.”

—It suddenly occurred to him that the insertion of two words in the brief
note, just two words in a space that seemed to have been left temptingly
for them, would entirely alter the meaning: changing it from a hurried
message of affection into a hasty intimation of dislike.  “Do not” were
the two words, and Chiswell took the pen and wrote them as quickly as he
now, in the Cote d’Azur express, spoke them.

“You’re not blaming me,” urged Mr. Chiswell apprehensively.

“Go on,” she ordered.

Little else to go on about.  The letter, resealed, went to its
destination; the General Election came, and that meant a quick departure
for the country.  Freddy, greatly worried with one matter and another,
seemed, so far as his valet could judge, to enter upon the contest in
anything but a whole-hearted fashion; Chiswell managed to intercept and
cancel a telegram sent to the same young party, urgently begging her to
come and help.  The meetings were noisy, and the candidate, who but a few
years before made retorts which became classical, and delivered speeches
the reports of which had to be decorated by reporters with “Loud
laughter” and “Long and continued cheering,” gave no signs of alertness,
falling back on dreary statistics which he himself could not understand,
and his audiences declined to accept.  Now that it was all over, they
were on their way to Nice, where Chiswell hoped to meet no one but other
defeated candidates and attendants who, it might be hoped, would, in
their own interests, abstain from the vulgar chaff to which he and his
master had been subjected in town.

“But what I want to point out to you, my dear—beg pardon—what I want to
say is that I managed to stop him from entering upon marriage, and in
doing so, I reckon I did a good turn for myself, and that I did a good
turn for you.”

“She was very much worried and upset.”

Chiswell stretched himself luxuriously.

“It don’t do to share other people’s anxieties,” he said.  “Great thing
in this world is to keep trouble off your own shoulders.  Do that, and
you may reckon you’ve done pretty well.  How have you been getting along
since—since—”

“Since you dropped me?”

“Mutual consent,” he argued, rather uneasily, “mutual consent.”  Both
looked out of the window for a time.  “By the by, do you ever see
anything of that chap Miller?  You don’t remember him perhaps; he was in
Grosvenor Gardens when last I heard of him.”

“I believe he’s there still,” she answered, examining the tips of her
boots.

“When did you—”

“Oh, don’t bother me!” cried Miss Everitt sharply.  “You’re always
wanting to know everything about everybody.  A nuisance, that’s what you
are.”

“I’ve got no grievance against Miller,” contended Chiswell.  “You’re
doing me an injustice.  Me and Miller are good friends enough.  Last time
I met him he gave me some information, and we parted on what I may call
the most amicable terms.  I shouldn’t at all mind,” he went on
generously, “I shouldn’t object in the least to running across poor
Miller again.”

“You needn’t call him ‘poor.’”

“I’m not using the term,” said Mr. Chiswell, “in a monetary sense.”

“The monetary sense, as you call it, is about the only one you possess.”

Noting that she tapped the side of her easy-chair and that her head
trembled, he decided to say nothing more on the subject, reverting
instead to the matter already discussed.  In going over some of the
circumstances he found excuse for increased content; the swiftness of his
action, and the general dexterity he had displayed made his eyes grow
round and bulgy.  The dining-car attendant came through to announce that
the first series for lunch was ready, and Chiswell said he would smoke
one cigarette and then go along and see whether his services were
required by Freddy.  Miss Everitt rose, remarking that it would be well,
perhaps, for her to ascertain, at once, whether she could be of any use
to Emily.

They returned to their chairs in less than five minutes: one perturbed,
the other calm.

“Well, of all the—” he spluttered.  “What I mean to say is, what in the
world is going to happen next, I wonder?”

“That’s more than either of us can tell,” remarked Miss Everitt
composedly.  “What I know is that I do want my lunch.  Sight of food in
the dining-car has made me feel hungry.”

“The two of them!  The two of them sitting there at a small table
opposite each other!”

“I caught sight through the glass door of the bill of fare,” said Miss
Everitt.  “The name of the fish I couldn’t quite make out, but there were
côtes de boeuf rôtis, and poularde, and haricots verts—”

“They were sharing a bottle of Chablis together.  And he—he’d placed his
hand on the top of her hand.  Did you notice?”

“Wonder whether they’ll give us an ice?”

Chiswell found a handkerchief and rubbed his forehead.

“All very well for you to sit there and talk about food; how do you know
that now they’ve met and made it up, that she won’t get rid of you in the
same way that he’s jolly well certain to manage without me?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied, with calm.  “I’ve saved!”

“The amount you’ve saved, my girl,” he declared, “will last you for just
about five weeks.”

“What do you know about how much I’ve put by?” she demanded.

“I can tell you the sum to within a pound.  I can write it down now, if
you’ll lend me a lead pencil.”

He scribbled some figures on the margin of his newspaper, and handed it
across to her.

“Guess again!” she said.

“It isn’t a question of guessing,” he said.  “I happen to know.  Unless
you’ve made a considerable sum within the last three months, that’s the
exact amount.”

“You really believed, then, what Mr. Miller told you?”

The conductor came, and returned to each the green cardboard covers
enclosing their tickets.  Under the impression that Chiswell was still a
blade, a chum, a jovial companion, the conductor aimed at him a cheerful
blow on the shoulder, and the train giving at this moment a lurch, the
action took something of a more aggressive nature.  Chiswell blazed up,
trying to disengage himself from his coat.  Other passengers in the
saloon looked around interestedly; Miss Everitt interposed and ordered
Chiswell to behave himself, to remember that he was in the presence of
ladies.  The conductor apologised and went on; the French passengers
remarked to each other that the English formed an excitable nation.

“Pardon me,” said Chiswell to his companion, “but I should like to know
your facts.  I should be very glad indeed if you’ll kindly place me in
possession of the true circumstances.  To put it plainly—here’s your
pencil—how much have you actually got in the bank on deposit, or on
current account at the present moment?  That’s all I want to know.”

She struck out his figures and wrote underneath.  Leaning over he gave a
whistle of astonishment.

“My dear,” he said deferentially.  “There’s been a misunderstanding, due
to the interference of outsiders.  It’s not too late to put it all smooth
and right again, but at the same time I’m bound to say such conduct is
altogether inexcusable.  When I come across Miller, I shall tell him so
to his face.  Who asked him to come to me, and give me wrong information,
I should like to know?”

“I did!” she remarked.  “But I’ve just made up for it by giving correct
information on another subject to my young mistress.”

Chiswell threw himself back in his chair, and gazed severely at the roof
of the saloon carriage.

“All I can say is,” he declared, “it’s absolutely ruined my lunch.”

XI—COUNTER ATTRACTIONS

HALF the time I don’t trouble to look up at them, especially when I
happen to be busy.  They put their money underneath the brass wire; they
ask for what they want; it’s given to them, and off they go.  If any
other plan was adopted we should never get through the work at our
office, and there would be complaints to answer, and the superintendent
might send some one along to kick up a row.  As Miss Maitland says, when
all the customers are made on one pattern everything will be much easier
to manage; meanwhile we can’t do better than to do the best we can, and
to recognise that some are in a hurry, some are just the reverse.

“Above all,” mentioned Miss Maitland, when I first came here, “no
carrying on across the counter with young gentlemen.”

“When you’ve known me longer, Miss Maitland,” I said, “you’ll see how
unnecessary it is to make a remark like that.”

“I’m only warning you for your own good.”

“I can behave myself,” I said, “as well as most girls.  The fact that I’m
a bit above the average in regard to looks—”

“Is that really a fact?” inquired Miss Maitland.

The very queer thing about it all was that he came in on the afternoon of
the very second day I was there.  I was having an argument about a
halfpenny with a lady sending a telegram, and she said that she always
understood we were well paid, and if that was true we ought not to try to
make anything extra.  I kept my temper, but I daresay I managed to say
what I wanted to say—I generally do—and eventually she took the telegram
back and decided to take a cab to Charing Cross and send it from there.

“Shilling’sworth of your best stamps,” he requested; “I want them to
match my necktie.”

“Pennies or halfpennies?” I asked.  You can understand I wasn’t in the
mood for nonsense just then.

“Which are most fashionable just now, miss?  I don’t want to look odd or
conspicuous.”

“You’ll do that in any case.  Kindly say what you want.”

“Perhaps I’ll try sixpennyworth of each,” he said.

I tore them off and pushed them underneath the trellis.

“Are these absolutely fresh?  I may not be cooking them at once, you see.
They’ll be all right, I suppose, if I keep them on ice?”

“You may as well put your head there at the same time,” I said.

The other girls on my side of the counter looked around, and Miss
Maitland gave a cough.

“Heavens!” he said, putting on a deep voice, “how I adore the fair
creature!  Ere yonder sun sinks to its rest she must, she shall, be
mine.”

I glanced up at him, prepared to give him such a haughty look, but I
found he was a good-tempered-looking young fellow with his straw hat
tipped to the back of his head, and somehow I couldn’t manage my cold
stare quite so well as usual.  Two or three people entered through the
swing doors at that moment and came straight to my part of the counter.

“Very well then,” he said loudly, “that’s arranged.  Outside the British
Museum Tube Station half-past eight to-night.  Mind, I shan’t wait more
than ten minutes.”

The fuss Miss Maitland made just because I’d answered him back!  I had a
good mind to say something about old maids, but I stopped it just in
time; instead I thought it the best plan to say he was a great friend of
my brother’s and that he was one of those peculiar young gentlemen who
had the impression that he ought to keep up his reputation for being
comic.

“If he comes in again,” said Miss Maitland, “call me, and I’ll show you
how to deal with him.”

The next day at about the same time I noticed out of the corner of my eye
his lordship at the doors.  He came in and I knew he was looking for me;
to please Miss Maitland I went along to deal with some registered
letters; she left her stool and took my place.  “Now,” I said to myself,
“now he’ll get his head bitten off.”  I was engaged with work for about
five minutes, and to my surprise, when I had finished, there was Miss
Maitland chatting away with him as amiably as possible.  “I like to go
somewhere fresh every year,” she was saying.  “That’s why I went to
Windermere last summer.”  He said, “Not in July by any chance?” and she
said, “Yes, the middle of July.”  It appeared he had been there at that
date; not exactly Windermere but at Bowness, and he remarked—talking to
her in a very different way from the one he had adopted with me—that it
would have greatly improved his holiday if he had been so fortunate as to
meet her.  Maity gave a sort of smile and was about to make some further
remark when he took out his watch, lifted his straw hat, hurried away.

“Really,” she said to me, still flushed with the conversation and looking
quite young, “really a very well-spoken gentleman.  Depends a good deal
on how we approach them.  If they think we want silly talk, why naturally
enough they give it.  In a general way,” concluded Maity, as though she
possessed a wide and considerable experience, “in a general way men treat
us as we deserve to be treated.”

He came in again that afternoon to use the telephone; the box was
occupied and he had to wait.  We were all watching to see how he would
behave this time; lo and behold if he didn’t take a big book from
underneath his arm called The Horse and his Health and read carefully,
taking no notice of any of us.  Maity looked disappointed, and one of the
girls said the great drawback about men was that they were never twice
alike.

That was the evening I found him waiting outside.  It always rains when I
leave my umbrella at home, and I couldn’t very well refuse his offer to
see me into the motor omnibus, and it was certainly kind of him to
suggest that I should take his gamp.  I told him that the bus took me
within a minute and a half of mother’s house.

At the time I was in the habit of telling mother everything, and she
decided—not often she praised me—that I had behaved in a ladylike manner,
and mentioned it would be a good thing if every mother brought up
children as she had treated me.  Mother told me about one or two
half-engagements that occurred before she married poor father, and gave
me one piece of advice which she said was worth its weight in gold,
namely, that the moment you saw a young man getting fond of you the best
plan was to pretend to be indifferent and in this way to make him see
that there was a lot of hard work in front of him.  Mother said this
three times to impress it on my memory.

How in the world he found out the name it was not easy to see, but, as
every one is aware, people spare themselves no trouble when they become
fond of anybody.  However that may be, the fact remains that a letter
came, signed W. J. C., saying the writer would be at the statue on a
certain day and at a certain hour, and, just for fun, I kept the
appointment.  Maity was very nice about giving me leave, and I waited
there ten minutes.  For a full ten minutes nothing happened, and I had to
look at the omnibuses as they stopped in order to pretend I wanted to
catch one of them.  Presently I caught sight of him looking in a
newspaper shop, and taking his time over it too.  I became so mad that if
there had been a pebble about I think I should have picked it up and
thrown it at him.  He turned, and I had to wave my muff in order to gain
his attention.

“Hullo,” he said, coming across.  “Taking up express messenger-boy work?
Where’s your parcel?”

“I came here,” I said coldly, “because I was asked to do so, and for no
other reason.  I’ve no desire to be made to look like an idiot.”

“Plenty of easier tasks than that,” he mentioned.  “I should reckon you
were one of the most sensible girls going.”

“People say that about a lady when they can’t think of any other
compliment to pay her.”

“Are you waiting for anybody, I wonder?”

“I wish you wouldn’t try to make jokes.”

“My dear girl,” he cried, and he seemed greatly concerned, “please
forgive me.  And now that we’re here, what shall we do?”  He looked
around, glanced at his watch, and sighed.  “Come along and see a bioscope
show.”

We caught a bus and went to one of the swell places in Oxford Street; I
couldn’t help feeling pleased when I noticed that he paid eighteenpence
each for seats.  You can say what you like, and you can talk about the
joys of being independent, but there’s something very gratifying in
discovering for the first time that a gentleman is willing to take your
ticket for you.  Of course the place was all darkened whilst the pictures
were going on, and I thought perhaps he would try to take my hand, and I
was prepared to give him a pretty sharp remark if he did; but nothing
happened, and I couldn’t make it out at all.  It was nothing like what
I’d read in books; nothing like what other girls had told me.

“You seem a very comfortable set in your office,” he said when the lights
went up.  “All on good terms with each other, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so,” I answered.  “It’s my first experience, you see.  What
age do you think I am?”

“I should say that you are young enough to be pleased if I guessed you to
be older than you really are.  Shall we say nineteen?”

“Eighteen next birthday, and that’s on Tuesday of next week.”  (There’s
nothing like giving a hint.)

“What have you been doing all these eighteen years?”

“Improving myself,” I said.

“You can give that up now you are perfect.”

The lights went down again, and there was set of pictures about a girl
who was being loved by two gentlemen—one rather plain with plenty of
money and the other much better-looking but apparently only a clerk.  I
thought over his last remark and tried to discover whether he was still
joking or whether he really meant it—if he did mean it it was a very
gratifying thing to be said, especially in view of the fact that mother
is generally finding fault with me.  She has often said that I’m the
worst girl in the world for leaving my shoes about and not putting a book
away when I have done with it, and all this going on day after day, week
after week, had given me a kind of a lurking suspicion that I wasn’t
quite up to the mark.  When the pictures showed that the plain man’s
money really belonged to the good-looking chap he began to talk again and
went back once more to the subject of the post office.  I would rather he
had spoken of something else; I wanted to forget Maity and the rest of
them for awhile.

“Are many of them engaged?” he asked.

“Two of them say they are,” I replied.  “I should feel inclined to guess
it was only a half-and-half affair in either case.”

“Wonder what their names are?”  I told him and he seemed relieved.  “It’s
very strange,” he went on, speaking in a more serious way than usual,
“how these affairs happen.  Looks as though some one who exercises
control jumbles all the names into two hats and picks out one from each
at random and decides that they shall meet each other and fall in love.”

“A good deal of it is mere luck,” I agreed.  “Mother met father at a
dance at the Athenæum up at the end of Camden Road.  Of course a steward
introduced them, but to all intents and purposes they were strangers.”

“A man goes on,” he said, still thoughtfully, “fighting pretty hard and
not giving much attention to the other sex and all at once he catches
sight of a face, through, say, brass trelliswork, and instantly he
decides ‘That’s the girl for me.’  And he thinks of nothing else, can’t
keep away from the neighbourhood of her, and—”  He put his hands over his
eyes and bent down.

I felt sorry and I felt pleased if you understand that; sorry for him,
pleased for myself—seemed as though I had done him an injustice.  It
showed that you could not reckon any one up correctly by their outside
manner.  At the first I had no idea he was anything but the ordinary
chaffing sort of young gentleman, and here he was obviously upset.  All
very well for mother to say that you ought to keep them at arm’s length
when they are fond of you, but I simply couldn’t help patting his sleeve
gently.

“Thanks very much,” he said gratefully.  “You’re a good little girl and
I’m really obliged to you.”

There was a funny set after this, with a short-sighted old gentleman
blundering over everything he did, getting mixed up with motor cars,
carried up by a balloon, tumbling down the funnel of a ship, and finally
being rolled out flat by a steam roller, and pulling himself together and
walking off.

“Always feel sorry for people who have to wear glasses,” I remarked.

“It improves some people.”

“I don’t agree with you.  See how peculiar our old joker looks at the
office.”

He stared at me.

“Surely you don’t mean that Miss Maitland?” he said.

“Of course I mean that Miss Maitland.  Who else should I be referring
to?”

He pressed the palm of a hand against his forehead.

“Let us get this straight,” he urged.  “We seem to be in a muddle.  Your
name is Maitland, isn’t it?”

“My name is Barnes.  Up to the present.”

“Then that confounded new messenger boy took my shilling and mixed up the
information, and”—he stopped and fanned himself—“and you received the
letter I intended for her.”

“I wish to goodness,” I said forcibly, “that some of you men had got a
little more common sense.”

                              *  *  *  *  *

Mother says everything in this world happens for the best, and in all
probability there’s some one else waiting for me somewhere.  Mother says
I have plenty of time in front of me; mother herself was twenty-eight
before she married.  Mother says there is no need for me to feel nervous
until I get past that age.

XII—HERO OF HAMMERTON STREET

HE had been away so long that few people remembered him, but his last
exploit before leaving ensured that in the minds of those few he remained
clear and definite.  His wife, when she set out to meet him, was
accompanied by a Reception Committee of three, and as they waited outside
the large building where he had been staying for the last few months (his
hosts kept several important establishments in various parts of the
country and he had spent part of the time at one, part at others), as
they waited, I say, under the avenue of trees well away from the front
door—having, as a point of delicacy, no desire to be seen by the servants
about the place—they speculated on the probable improvement in his
personal appearance.  Members of the Committee recalled precedents where
So-and-so went away stout and unhealthy on a vacation of similar length,
and came back so trim and brown that his own sweetheart would not have
known him had she remained in the neighbourhood.

“Here he is!” cried the wife suddenly.  “I could tell him, bless ’is
heart, in a thousan’.”

“That ain’t him!”

“He’s got a short beard, at any rate,” urged the wife, admitting her
error grudgingly as the visitor was claimed and marched off by another
lady.

“They all ’ave.  Try to use your intelligence, why don’t you!”

“Well,” said the wife, pointing her umbrella at a sharp-eyed man, who,
coming out of the large doorway, glanced around suspiciously, “well, at
least that’s not my Jim.”  The sharp-eyed man came across the open space
towards them, still keeping a look-out on either side.  “He’s mistaking
us for his own people.  My Jim’s a better-looking man than him.”

“If you say that again, Meria,” remarked the arriving man in tones that
could not be mistaken, “I shall have to—  Now then, now then!  I don’t
want no kissing!”

He was dressed in a suit for which he had not been measured, and his
boots were scarcely a precise fit; he shambled along with his friends,
responding gruffly to their polite inquiries and complaining
bitterly—first, that they should have come to meet him; second, that so
many friends were absent.  Informed that some of these were no longer
alive, he declined to accept this as a sufficient excuse, describing them
as a cantankerous lot, ever thoughtless where the feelings of others were
concerned.  They stopped quite naturally at the first place of
refreshment, and he criticised the beverage set before him, declaring
that had he known beer could be so bad, he would not have worried his
thoughts so much about it during recent years.  He was equally
dissatisfied with his first pipe of tobacco, which he had some trouble to
light, and when he heard that his sister had married a respectable
fruiterer, off Bethnal Green Road, he made no attempt to conceal his
annoyance with the way the world had been managed during his absence.

“Once I turn my back for a moment—” he said disgustedly.  “Who’s got the
pub at the corner of our street?”

“I’ve moved, James,” explained his wife apologetically.

“Moved?  Who told you to move?”

“The landlord, dear.”

“Don’t you begin ‘dearing’ of me,” he retorted threateningly.  “Why
wasn’t I asked?”

“There was no opportunity, James.”

“Bah!” he said, in the manner of one who can find no other repartee.  He
turned to the men.  “What ’ave you three come all the way down ere’ for?
On the make, I s’pose?”

“We are not on the make,” said the leader precisely.  “Recollecting what
you was put away for, we have come down ’ere to offer you, as something
in the nature of a hero, a ’earty welcome on your return to what we may
venture to term your ’earth and ’ome.”  James relaxed the sternness of
his demeanour, and took another sip from his glass, this time without
making a wry face.  “We’re a-going to make a fuss of you, old man.”

“Don’t go overdoing it,” he said grudgingly.

They reached Hoxton at about noon, not because the way was long, but
because the Committee, possessing funds, desired to do the thing well.  A
neighbour had taken charge of the arrangements for dinner, and the three
men, arrived at the door in Hammerton Street, mentioned gracefully that
the reunited pair would in all probability like to be left alone for a
few hours, and withdrew; first, however, warning James that he would be
expected at the Green Man that evening at eight o’clock precisely, at
which hour a few select friends would be present to wish him success in
his future career.

“Whad ye mean by my future career?” he demanded.  “What are you three
a-getting at now?”

“It’s all right, old chap,” they answered soothingly.  “Only a form of
speech, you know.”

“Be a bit more careful how you pick your words,” he retorted
threateningly.  “I ’aven’t come back to be ragged by such as you.”

He was still rather surly that evening when he made his appearance at the
Green Man; he explained to one who was formerly his closest friend that
he had been enjoying a bit of a talk with the wife.  Surroundings in the
clubroom were, however, so congenial that before long he showed guarded
signs of amiability, albeit he found grounds for annoyance in the fact
that some of his old companions had prospered, and had given up what was
referred to as the old game to engage on sport that, relatively speaking,
was of an honest, law-abiding character.  His best friend indeed owned a
large gold chain and a watch at the end of it; he was now a bookmaker by
profession, not, of course, a literary person, but one who made money.
On James suggesting they might perhaps go into partnership together in
the racecourse business, the closest friend said, with some reserve, that
it was an occupation requiring years of patient study, and the fact of
James having been out of the movement so long barred him both from
participating in the profits or sharing the losses.

“See what I mean, don’t you?” asked the bookmaker.  “Chuck that what
you’re smoking away, and have a real cigar!”

“I shan’t give you another opportunity,” said James curtly.  “Should have
thought you would have been glad of a pretty sharp man for your right
’and.”

“But you’ve been rusting,” pointed out the bookmaker.  (“Now you’ve been
and bitten off the wrong end.”)

Nothing, however, could exceed the geniality of the hosts.  Thick crusty
sandwiches rested on the deal tables; there was no stint, so far as the
guest of the evening was concerned, in regard to liquids.  Everybody
crowded around him in a flattering way and everybody shook him by the
hand several times; a few promising younger men, who were brought up and
introduced, showed themselves highly sensible of the honour, and asked
eagerly what adventure he thought of going in for next.

“’Aven’t quite made up me mind,” he replied cautiously.

The younger men winked knowingly at each other, saying that James was a
deep one and no mistake, adding that an ability to keep one’s head shut
was a gift to be envied.  They had singing later.  Songs were given which
for James (who had no musical tastes) should at least have possessed the
charm of novelty; the slang contained in them and in the public speech of
many of those present was to him quite incomprehensible.  They repeated
unceasingly that they wished him well, and the bookmaker made a speech
just before closing time in which he pointed out that every man-jack
present was prepared to give James a helping hand.  Never should it be
said of them that they had refused a helping hand to one of the best.  A
helping hand was due to such a hero and a helping hand he should have.

“Friends, one and all,” said James.  (He refused for some minutes to make
a speech, but gave in to encouragement.)  “Friends, one and all.”

A cry of “So you said!” and reproving shouts of “Order!”

“I’ve been away from you fer a few year owin’ to—owin’ to circs not
altogether under my control” (the room laughed uproariously), “but I’m
back in the midst of you once more, and I can tell you one thing, and
that ain’t two, I’m jolly glad of it!  I’ve had quite enough penal to
last me my time.  I’m full up of it!  I’ve reached me limit!  It’s no
catch, I tell you!”  (Murmurs of sympathy.)  “If there’s any one ’ere
that’s acquired a taste for it, they’re welcome to my share.  I don’t
know that I have much more to say.  I ’aven’t had much practice at public
speaking of late.  Once you begin to ’old forth in there” (here he gave a
vague jerk of the head), “why, they let you know it.  Anyway, it’s no use
’arping on the past, and in regard to the promise of a ’elping ’and to
which you, Mr. Chairman, have so kindly referred, and to me being a hero,
there’s only one thing I want to say, and that is this: I shall keep you
to it!”

The club-room seemed to think the last sentence had an ungracious sound,
and there would have been an inclination to hedge only that the
white-sleeved potman arrived at that moment with a dictatorial shout of
“Now you cheps!  Time!” and the party had to break up.  Out in the
street, James’s arm was again in request, and his hand was shaken so
often with so many assurances of admiration and enthusiastic comradeship,
that he went off towards Hammerton Street quite dazed and not sure
whether he had won a battle, or saved lives from drowning.  The men
cheered him as he left and began to chant an appropriate song, but a
policeman came up, and the crowd, not wishful for argument with the
force, said respectfully, “It’s all right, Mr. Langley, sir; we’re just
on the move,” and disappeared.

Womenfolk came round to Hammerton Street the next day asking to be
permitted to see him, and James’s wife would have taken another day off,
but James said there had been quite enough gadding about for her already,
and insisted she should go to work.  He sunned himself at the front door
with a fine pretence of not knowing that he was being observed, the while
women on the opposite side of the pavement held up their babies to see
him and whispered admiring comments.

“You’d never think it to look at him, would you, now?”

“I recollect his case as well as anything.  It was before I was married
to my present ’usband, but I can recollect it all just as though it was
only yesterday.  I remember so well saying to my young sister—I was on
speaking terms with her just then—I remember saying, ‘Ah, well!’ I said.
Just like that!”

“She’s kept herself to herself, mind you, all the time he’s been away.  I
will say that for her!”

“Wonder what he’ll be up to now.  He’s turning something over in his
mind, I lay!”

The hero could not help being pleased with all this attention, and after
he had taken his dinner at a coffee-shop, where the waitress, informed of
his distinguished reputation, stood back and watched him over an
illustrated paper, he put on a collar and again lounged at the doorway.
The crowd was not so great now, and consisted for the greater part of
children who played tip-cat, and gave no notice to him excepting when his
presence interfered with the game.  Disappointed with his audience, James
went indoors and, taking off his collar, indulged in the unaccustomed
luxury of an afternoon nap.  When his wife returned from work it struck
him that she was slightly more argumentative in manner than she had been
on the first day; in the course of debate she threw out a most
disconcerting hint in regard to a job of work, news of which had come to
her ears.

“Look ’ere, my gel!” said James definitely.  “You may as well understand
me fust as last.  A man with so many friends as I’ve got won’t want to
work for many a long day yet.”

Nevertheless the idea gave him perturbation and he went round to the
Green Man to meet the friends referred to and receive from them
reinforcement of his hopes and views.  There were only two or three in
sight, and these were outside the house; they hailed him with a casual
cry of, “’Ullo, James!  Your turn to stand drinks, ain’t it?” and having
brought some money out, the savings of his compulsory retreat, he found
himself compelled to entertain them.

“And what you think of doing now, James?” they asked.  (“Here’s luck!”)

“Well,” he said slowly, “I s’pose eventually I shall ’ave to find, as the
missis says, something or other.  But not yet for a month or two.”

“You’ll probably discover a chance of—”

“No,” said James with emphasis.  “Not me!  No more jobs on the cross for
this child.  Risks are too great.”

“But you don’t mean to say that you’re going to chuck it?”  The men were
so much amazed that their glasses remained in mid-air.

“If you guess again,” said James stolidly, “you’ll be wrong.”

He looked about in Hoxton the rest of the evening for friends, and looked
about in vain.  The next day he called on his closest friend, the
bookmaker; the bookmaker was just off to Kempton Park and in peril of
losing a train at Waterloo.  He had heard, it seemed, of James’s
decision, and James could trace no sign of the generous friendship
previously expressed.  To James’s suggestion that he should accompany the
bookmaker to Kempton Park, and enjoy a day at the other’s expense, the
reply came prompt and definite.  “That be ’anged for a tale!” said the
bookmaker.

On the following Monday James went to ask about the job of work to which
his wife had referred; all his worst fears were confirmed when he found
himself successful in obtaining it.

“Drawback of being an ’ero is,” said James gloomily, “that it don’t last
much more than about five minutes.”

XIII—DAMAGES FOR LIBEL

“A RARE rush whilst it lasts,” mentioned Mrs. Crowther, assisting in the
task of clearing tables.  “My dear husband used to reckon up how much we
should be making profit in a year if, instead of being from twelve to
two, it went on from what he called early morn to dewy eve.”  She sighed.
“Mr. Crowther had a lot of poetry in his disposition—much more so than
most eating-house keepers in Millwall.”

“Did he make bits up out of his own ’ead?” asked the girl deferentially.

“Ethel,” said the proprietress, nursing a column of plates and speaking
with resolution, “you’re new to the place, and you’re not full acquainted
with the rules.  Understand, once for all, please, that I don’t allow a
word to be said against my late husband—nor whispered.”

“Here’s a stray customer coming in, ma’am,” remarked the assistant.
“Give me that armful, and you see to him.”

A stout man, after examining the day’s announcement outside, entered and
sat down with the relieved air common to those who have walked a great
distance and to those who find in any form of exercise a source of
trouble; he took off his hat, hung up his overcoat, and said, with
relish, “Here comes the busy part of my day!”

Mrs. Crowther rested one palm on the table and gazed at the reversed
notice on the window: “The Best of Everything and Everything of the
Best,” giving him the space to make up his mind.

“You’ve got a nice little show here.”

“Not bad, sir,” she replied briefly.  “What can I get for you?”

“Been all done up recently, too, if I mistake not.  If it hadn’t been
that I remembered it was exactly opposite the entrance to the works I
shouldn’t have recognised it.  Spent some of the ’appiest hours of my
life, I did, over the way.”

“The steak and kidney pudding is off,” she said, glancing over his
shoulder.  She took the bill of fare from his hand and deleted the entry,
returning the pencil to its position in the fastening of her blouse.
Frowning at the impetuosity exhibited, he gave an order.  She left, and
returned with the liver and bacon and a basket containing squares of
household bread.

“Any idea where my old friend Crowther is at the present moment?” he
asked jovially.  “Him and me were great chums in the old days that are
past and done with.”

“He’s gone.”

“Where to?”

She pointed upward reverently.

“That isn’t exactly the place where I should have thought of looking for
him.”

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded sharply.

“Oh, nothing,” he said, beginning to eat.  “Only very few of us in this
world, ma’am, if you don’t mind putting yourself out of the question, can
be looked upon as perfect.  My name’s Hards,” he went on, his mouth full.
“Hards, with an aitch.  Daresay you’ve heard him mention me.  I’m
speaking now of—what shall I say?—four, or it might be the early part of
five.  We were what they call inseparable, him and me, at that period.”

“Crowther gave up all his former companions when I married him.”

“He used to complain that you ruled him with a rod of iron.”

“I only wish,” she declared vehemently, “that the dear man was here to
contradict you.”

“Crowther was the sort of chap,” said the other, with deliberation,
“who’d contradict anything.  Never better pleased than when he was
arguing that black was white.  I’ve known Crowther say one thing to a
girl one minute, and another the—”

The customer found his plate snatched away, the remainder of his chunk of
bread swept to the floor.

“Go off out of my dining-rooms,” she ordered.  “Don’t you stay here
another minute, or else I may use language that I shall be sorry for
afterwards, and that you’ll be sorry for afterwards.  There’s your hat,
hanging up just behind you.  Now move, sharp!”

The sleeves of his overcoat, owing to some defect in the lining, were
difficult to manage, and this gave him time to protest.  He had come, he
declared, with no other intention than that of giving patronage to an
establishment which he remembered, with affection, in the time of
Crowther’s mother, and to enjoy a talk over the past; if, in the course
of conversation, he had over-stepped the mark, no one regretted it more
acutely than himself.  A plain man, accustomed to speaking his mind, he
often found that he gave offence where none was intended.

“Jack Blunt they used to call me over at the works,” he added penitently.
“Owing to me having the awk’ard trick of always telling the truth!”

Mrs. Crowther so far relented as to call the new girl; she instructed her
to attend to the customer the while she herself retired to the back to
wash up dishes.  Mr. Hards said in a whisper to the attendant: “Don’t
seem to have quite pulled it off, first go!” and Ethel, also in an
undertone, replied: “Mustn’t get discouraged, uncle.  Mother always says
it’s your one fault.  Unsettle her mind about him, that’s what you’ve got
to do.”

He read a newspaper after the meal, and sent to the proprietress a
deferential inquiry, asking whether he might be allowed to smoke, and
presently hit upon a device for securing another interview.

“Your memory seems not quite what it ought to be,” said Mrs. Crowther,
following him to the doorway.  “If I were you I’d see a chemist about
it.”

“I should have recollected that I hadn’t settled up,” he declared, “just
about as I was coming up from the subway at Greenwich.”  He found coins.
“No,” gazing at a shilling reverently, “mustn’t let you have that one
with the hole through it.  I was told it would bring me luck.  Crowther
was wrong for once, but he meant well.”

“Did that really once belong to my dear husband?” she asked, with
eagerness.  “Oh, do let me look.  I’d give almost anything to be allowed
to keep it.”

“Kindly accept it, ma’am, as a present from me, and as a kind of apology
for the blunder I made just now.”

“I treasure everything he left behind,” said Mrs. Crowther tearfully,
“since he went, last December, and I don’t know in the least how to thank
you.  Drop in any day you’re passing by, and let’s have another quiet
chat; I’m never ’appier than when I’m talking about him.”

“My time’s practically my own,” answered Mr. Hards.  “Since I retired
from over opposite, owing to a slight disagreement years ago, I’ve done a
bit of work, book-canvassing, but that don’t take up the entire day.  So
long!”

A few of the men came into the restaurant, after leaving the works; these
were folk who had no expectations of finding tea or supper waiting at
home, and they would have stayed on in comfort, gazing admiringly at the
young proprietress, only that Mrs. Crowther offered a broad hint by
instructing Ethel to find the shutters.  They were drifting off,
reluctantly, and one was saying to the rest that he would certainly make
a dash for it (implying by this that he would make a proposal of
marriage) if the lady were not so obviously devoted to a memory, when Mr.
Hards appeared at the doorway, heated and exhausted by the effort to
arrive before closing-time.  With him a shy-looking companion, who had to
be taken by the arm because he exhibited inclination to refrain, at the
last moment, from entering.  “Be a sport,” urged Mr. Hards.  The other
intimated by his manner that the task was, for him, considerable.

“Looking younger than ever,” declared Mr. Hards effusively.  “How are
you, ma’am, by this time?  Still keeping well?  Allow me to introduce you
to my friend Ashton.”

“Very pleased,” said Mrs. Crowther with a nod.  “What will you gentlemen
take—tea or coffee?”

“Don’t suppose,” he remarked still in complimentary tones, “that we shall
be able to tell any difference.  Ashton, you decide.”

Ashton, looking around, inquired whether the place did not possess a
licence; Mrs. Crowther gave the answer, and he said that perhaps coffee
would do him as little harm as anything.

“Happened to run across him,” explained Mr. Hards, “and mentioned that
I’d met you by chance, ma’am, and he says ‘Not the widow of silly old
Millwall Crowther?’ he says.  Just like that.  Didn’t you, Ashton?”

Mrs. Crowther turned abruptly, and went to furnish the order.  “Mind you
say ‘yes’ to everything,” ordered Hards privately and strenuously, “or
else I’ll make it hot for you.”

The two greeted Mrs. Crowther with frank and open countenances.

“The late lamented,” went on Mr. Hards, with a confidential air, “as you
may or may not be aware, used to be in the ’abit of paying attentions to
my friend Ashton’s sister.”

“I know all about that,” she remarked curtly.  “It was before he met me.”

“And, realising how anxious you was to get hold of everything that once
belonged to him, I persuaded him to hop off home and have a search.  And
lo and behold,” producing a small paper parcel from the inside pocket of
his overcoat, “he found this.”  Mr. Hards untied the string with
deliberation.  “There you are!” triumphantly.  “_Pearls from the Poets_.
And inside, his handwriting.”

“Not sure that I want anything that he gave away to another lady at a
time when him and me were not acquainted.”

“The date’ll settle that,” said Hards.  “Ashton, your eyes are younger
than mine; what do you make of it?”

Ashton recited the entry with an emphasis on the date; Mrs. Crowther
grabbed at the book, glanced at the writing, and sat down on the nearest
chair, gazing steadily at a ginger-ale advertisement.

“Don’t tell me,” begged Hards distressedly, “that I’ve put my foot into
it again.  ’Pon my word, if I ain’t the most unlucky chap alive.  If I’d
had the leastest idea that I was going to be the means of disclosing to
you the circumstance that Crowther gave away presents of this kind, and
with this sort of remark, after he was married to you, why, I’d sooner—”

She started up with the book, and, selecting the fly-page, placed this
between her eyes and the gas-light.

“Some one’s been altering the date,” she said quietly.  She threw the
volume across.  “You gentlemen have got just two minutes and a half
before we close for the night.  And, as the business is doing pretty
well, perhaps you don’t mind if I suggest you never show your faces
inside here again.”  She went.

“Any objection to me offering you a word of advice, old man?” asked
Ashton, on the pavement.  “You’re on the wrong tack.  When a woman’s made
up her mind, the best plan is to agree with her.  What you ought to do—”

“Keep quiet,” ordered the other exasperatedly.  “Can’t you see I’m
thinking?”

They crossed, and walked beside the blank wall of the works.

Ashton was again invited, in plain language, to preserve silence by
putting his head in a bag.  The lights went out in the restaurant
opposite; on the first floor a match was struck and applied to the gas
globes; the music of a pianoforte was heard.

“It’s a shame,” declared Hards, throwing out his arms emphatically, “a
right-down shame for a nice-looking young woman of her sort to be left
alone and neglected.  Here she is, able to cook, able to play, very good
to look at, and she’s no business to be left by herself.”

“Evidently she don’t want to be left with you.”

“You hop off home,” ordered Hards, “soon as ever you like, and take that
book with you, and don’t you ever attempt to interfere again with matters
you’ve got no concern in.  Otherwise—”

His friend hurried away without taking the opportunity to hear the
alternative.

Mr. Hards waited until his niece came out with a letter for the post.  A
whistle brought her to him from the pillar-box.

“Who was it addressed to?” he demanded.  The girl replied that she had
omitted to look.

“’Pon my word,” he cried, “I seem to be surrounded by lunatics.  Nobody’s
got a particle of sense, so far as I can ascertain, excepting myself.  No
wonder I can’t manage matters as I should like.  But, putting all that on
one side, what I want now is another interview with her.”

“Judging by what she said after you left, you’re not likely to get it.”

“Look here, my girl.  It was your own mother’s suggestion at the start,
and she won’t be best pleased if you make yourself a stumbling-block.
She, for some reason, seems to have got tired of me living in her house
at Greenwich, and it was her idea I should marry well, and settle down
somewhere else.  Apart from which, I’ve arrived at a time of life when I
need a woman’s care and good feeding, and enough money in my pocket to
stand treat to friends after they’ve stood treat to me.”  He spoke
distinctly.  “I’m going to knock at that door over there presently, and
you’ve got to let me in, and you can stand by and listen whilst I say a
few words, and put it all on a proper footing.”

“But she hates the very sight of you.”

“The sort of sensation,” he declared, “that can soon be turned to love.”

Mr. Hards thought it wiser, on finding himself outside the door of the
restaurant, to give a sharp double knock.  He smiled contentedly on
hearing young Mrs. Crowther’s voice call out: “It’s all right, Ethel.
Only the postman.  I’ll answer him!”  She opened the door, and faced him
with a look of expectancy that at once vanished.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, taking off his hat, “but I’ve been speaking
my mind to that young fellow, and he asked me to call back and apologise
on his behalf.  I never noticed what he’d been up to, altering that date;
it wanted a lady’s sharpness and a lady’s intelligence to detect that.
What he wants me to say is he acted on the impulse of the moment.”

“He’d better give up acting altogether,” she remarked.  “Did you really
know my husband well, or was it all gas?”

“Didn’t I never tell you about that affair poor Crowther and me had with
a bobby down near the London Docks one night in November?  A fine chap,”
went on Hards reminiscently, “if ever there was one.  The way he could
put up his dooks whenever there was trouble about!  I seldom met a fellow
who was his equal.  He was what I call a manly man.  When they told me
he’d gone and left you a widow I cried like a child, I did.”

“I was upset at the time,” remarked Mrs. Crowther, “but it soon wore
off.”

“It’s often struck me,” he went on, surprised, “that perhaps you didn’t
appreciate him at his true value whilst he was alive.  Very likely you
don’t know, as I know, the way he used to talk about you behind your
back.”

“If it was anything like the way he talked in front of my face, I’d
rather not hear.”

“Anyway, I daresay, ma’am, you often find yourself looking about for his
successor?”

“To tell you the truth, I do.”

He tried to take her hand, but failed.

“I can see him now,” he remarked sentimentally.  “We was walking together
in Stratford Broadway, and suddenly he turned to me and he says,
‘Ernest,’ he says, ‘something seems to tell me I’m not long for this
world.  I want you to make me a promise,’ he says.  ‘If anything amiss
happens to me, I look to you to be a friend to the wife.  And if so be,’
he says, with a sort of a kind of a break in his voice, ‘if so be as you
should take a fancy to her, and she should take a fancy to you, nothing
would give me more pleasure looking down on you both,’ he says, ‘than
to—’”

“Bequeathed me to you, did he?”

“It amounts to that, ma’am.”

“All this is news to me,” she remarked.  “About what date was it?”

“About what date?” echoed Hards, rubbing his chin.  “I can give it you
within a very little.  It was the night before I met William Humphries,
and him and me had a few friendly words about football, and I was in the
horspital for three weeks.  That was the early part of December.  I think
it was December you said that poor Crowther drew his last breath.  Must
have been only a few days—three at the utmost—that he had his talk with
me.”

“That seems strange.”

“Strange things do occur in this world.”

“Because Crowther was laid up in his last illness for four months inside
this house, and never went outside until the undertaker’s man carried
him.  And a pretty tidy nuisance he was, too, then, and, in fact, all the
time I was married to him.  Is that a constable-coming along, or a
postman?”

Hards, having ascertained that the approaching man did not represent the
law, remained, searching his mind busily.  The postman stopped, gave Mrs.
Crowther a letter with a foreign postmark, and remarked that the evening
was fine.

“His ship will be home here within a fortnight,” she cried excitedly,
glancing at the first words of the communication.  “Two weeks from
to-day.”

“Who?”

“Nobody you know,” said Mrs. Crowther.  “And then we shall be married,
and I shan’t have to keep the men at the works off by pretending to be so
fond of my first.  It’s taken a bit of doing.  Let me think, now.  You
want to see Ethel, I expect, don’t you?”

“I don’t want to see no one,” he declared with an emphatic gesture, “no
one on this side of the river ever again, so long as I jolly well live!”

XIV—THE REST CURE

“KNEW you’d like it, dear,” said Mr. Gleeson confidently.  “I declared
the moment I saw the place, ‘Now this,’ I said to myself, ‘this will suit
the dear wife down to the ground.’  Just look at that bit over there.
(Wait a moment, driver.)  Isn’t that simply—”

He gave a gesture which meant that the English language provided no
adequate words.  His wife, with one hand upon his shoulder, offered an
“Ah!” of content.

“You must paint this,” he went on, recovering powers of speech.  “You
must bring your easel and your white umbrella some morning when I’m busy,
and try to get this effect.  See the top of the church spire above the
trees?”

“That there’s a oast house,” interrupted the driver.

“You will not forget that I shall have my duties in the village,” she
reminded him.  “We are going to make life brighter, you know, for
everybody.”

“True!” he admitted.  “It will require discretion.”

“And diplomacy.”

“Still, we’re not exactly amateurs.  We bring something like a ripe
experience to the task.  This will be child’s play after London.  Think
of the difference in numbers.  Driver, how many inhabitants are there in
Murford Green?”

“Can’t say as I ever counted ’em.”

“But speaking approximately.”

“Well,” said the driver, with deliberation, “speaking approximately, I
should say they was no better than they ought to be.  And you’ll excuse
me, but I’ve got to get back to meet the five-eight, and if you and your
lady could give me what you may call permission to go on now without any
more pulling up, I shall jest do it.  Otherwise I shan’t, and then Miss
Bulwer won’t let me never hear the last of it.  That’s what she won’t!”

“Who is Miss Bulwer?”

“Look ’ere,” argued the driver, half turning in his seat.  “I’ve answered
a pretty tidy number of questions sence we started from the railway
station, and I’m beginning to lose my voice, and I’m not far off from
losing my temper.  But in reference to your question concerning, or
regarding, or affecting Miss Bulwer, my answer is, you’ll jolly soon find
out!  Is that good enough for you, or isn’t it?”

“Merely a surface manner,” explained Mr. Gleeson, as the open fly
trundled on again.  “You don’t know these people, my dear.  A certain
veneer of brusqueness, but underneath that good pure gold.  Simple
natures, I admit, but as honest and straightforward—Wonder,” dropping his
voice, “wonder how much he expects for this journey?”

“Pay him well,” suggested young Mrs. Gleeson, also in a whisper.  “We
must make a good impression at the start.  Say eighteen-pence.”

“Fortunately,” resuming ordinary tones, “both you and I will be protected
and saved by our keen sense of humour.”  He smiled.  “I expect our
arrival will flutter Murford Green pretty considerably.  On an even
surface the slightest ripple shows.”

Both stood up in the open carriage on finding that the prophecy seemed to
receive full justification.  Twenty or thirty men and lads were rushing
across the triangle of green, shouting wildly; in their hands they
carried stout hammers and long-handled axes; women cheered from doorways
of cottages.  A few were distracted temporarily by sight of the station
fly, but, reproved by the others, they went on, atoning for the slight
delay by shrieking more loudly than the rest.

“Anything on, driver?”

“Something coming off,” answered the man.  “I said what’d ’appen when
people began to lock up gates that’d been open for gen’rations and
gen’rations.  I warned ’em, but they wouldn’t take no notice.  And I
ain’t of’en wrong, neither,” concluded the driver.

“Don’t be frightened, dear,” urged Mr. Gleeson.  “I’ll go out presently
and set it to rights.  One wise word from an impartial person, and it
will all be over.”

The driver said at the destination that, times without number, he had
received three and six for the service, paid willingly; if the gentleman
had no more silver he supposed he would have to be content with three
shillings.  In reply to contentions, the driver asked whether Mr. Gleeson
was aware of the price being asked, at the present moment, for oats, and
Mr. Gleeson having to admit that his knowledge on this subject was
incomplete, the driver retorted, “Very well then, what’s the use of
arguing?  Why not pay up and look pleasant over it?”  The fare obeyed the
first part of this recommendation.  The two maids (sent on in advance
from Kensington) stood inside the gate, and caught the driver’s farewell
remark.

“Really, ma’am,” said the elder primly, “the manners of these people!  I
thought I knew something about language, but I’ve learnt something the
three days we’ve been down here.  Had a pleasant journey?  Me and Sarah
have both been feeling humpish.  I told her it would be all right soon as
ever you and the master came.”

Mr. Gleeson set out, immediately after a meal, to arrange the question
that was troubling Murford Green.  He had changed into a Norfolk suit,
and as a further concession smoked a briar pipe; with a thick
walking-stick he prodded at dock-leaves on the green.  Near one corner of
the triangle a meeting was being held, with a large-faced man shouting
excitedly from a Windsor chair.  Mr. Gleeson, crossing over, added
himself to the audience.

“Well spoke,” sang the crowd, as the large man appeared to finish.  “Very
well putt!”

“There’s my shop ’cross there,” shouted the orator, pointing to windows
that had “Crutchley, Butcher,” in marble letters overhead.  “If any one
thinks I’ve broke the law, that’s where they can serve a summons.”

The crowd looked around at the village constable.  The constable frowned
with the air of a man who had not entirely succeeded in making up his
mind.

“We’ve got our rights,” the butcher went on, “and I defy any one to say
the contrairy.  If there’s anybody here who don’t agree with me, now’s
the time for him to step up and express his opinion.  Free speech is our
motto and—   What name, please?”

“My name is Gleeson,” announced the newcomer, “and I should like to say a
few words.”

“For the agitation, may I ask, or against?”

“My attitude,” said Mr. Gleeson, “is that of a peace-maker.”

The crowd grumbled; the butcher called for order.  Mr. Gleeson ascended
the chair.

When, at the end of ten minutes, he stepped down, only the constable was
there to give him a hand.  The constable accounted for the dispersal of
the crowd by pointing out that supper time was near, and on Mr. Gleeson
asking whether he thought the words spoken had produced any effect,
replied, cautiously, that it was difficult to say.  The constable, as one
who had looked on at many struggles, gave the opinion that you could not
do better than let the parties fight it out and, this done, then
possibly, but not certainly, came the moment for you to interfere.  Mr.
Gleeson felt bound, in reply, to mention that he had in his time been
called to the bar; intimated that, in circumstances such as these, it
seemed more fitting that he should give advice than take it.

“Now,” admitted the constable, “now you’re putting a different light,
sir, on the matter.  To tell the truth, I wasn’t quite aweer who I was
talking to.  I look on your arrival here, sir, as particular fortunate,
because you can back me up in any action I see fit to take.”

“Any correct action.”

“That’s the only way I’ve got of doing things.  I’ve never yet made a
blunder, and I don’t suppose now I ever shall.”

“We are all of us liable to err,” pointed out Mr. Gleeson.

“Being liable to do a thing,” retorted the constable judicially, “and
actually doing it, is two entirely different matters.  Shall I tell you,
sir, what idea has just come into my head?”

Permission given.

“This is the way I get ’old of notions,” went on the other
self-exultantly.  “I may be walking along a quiet lane, or standing here,
as I am now, and all at once they come into my noddle like a—well, more
like a flash of lightning than anything else.  It’s won’erful.  Gives me
quite a turn for the moment.  Guess what the notion is that I’ve just
thought of.”

The gentleman from London excused himself from making the attempt, and
found his arm hooked confidentially by the handle of the policeman’s
stick.

“I’ll bring over to your ’ouse this very evening two of the leaders of
this movement, or agitation, or whatever you like to call it.  You take
down their evidence and to-morrow you go and call on Miss Bulwer.  She’s
the lady who’s been trying to stop up this path.  You talk it over with
her, you do, and settle it, and then announce your decision.  As easy,”
concluded the policeman, detecting hesitation, “as easy as saying the
A.B.C.”

Two days later the constable, on receiving news from Crutchley, Butcher,
that the affair had been amicably settled, was able to state that the
village could reckon itself once more in debt to him, and mentioned the
case of a colleague at Middlesham who had recently been presented by
grateful inhabitants with a bicycle.  Later came information that Miss
Bulwer had discharged her housemaid, with a month’s wages in lieu of
notice; the driver of the station fly, in the course of a chat with his
fare, ascertained the cause for her dismissal was that Miss Bulwer had
understood her (the housemaid) to say, before the Londoner’s call, that
she believed Mr. Gleeson was a bachelor, whereas the departing housemaid
declared she had only mentioned that he was clean-shaven.  All the same
the decision of the arbitrator stood; Miss Bulwer was declared to be the
owner of the right of way, but graciously permitted the inhabitants to
use it.  Few of the villagers had walked along the path before the locked
gate was placed there, and no one showed any anxiety to do so now that it
was thrown open.

“A most satisfactory beginning,” said Mr. Gleeson to his young wife.
“Nothing could be more auspicious.  Now, we are about to take up the task
of breaking down some barriers on our own account.  Your help, dear, will
be specially needed.”

“I haven’t your tact.”

“You have something better, my love,” he replied gallantly.  “You have
charm.  Together we ought to do a great work.”

“The place is beautifully quiet now,” she remarked.

“‘If there’s peace to be found in the world,’” quoted Mr. Gleeson, “‘a
heart that is humble may hope for it here.’”

“The girls are complaining.”

“They will soon become accustomed to the village and its surroundings.
It takes time for a Londoner to settle down.  The silence,” he went on,
going to the window, “is to me most impressive.”

“It appears to strike them as being dull.”

That evening, when the two were consulting the local directory, taking
down names and perfecting arrangements, a sudden uproar started near the
open windows, and the servants came hurrying in to make protest against
the noise; Mary and Emma urged that the master ought to go out and see
what was happening.  Looking through the open window the group could see
that every man, every lad, every woman carried articles capable of
producing clamour: some bore dustpans, some toy drums, some fire-irons.
Mr. Gleeson felt able to give an explanation to the affrighted woman.  It
had, he believed, to do with bees; not quite certain about details, he
felt sure it concerned bees—swarming or something of the kind.

“I don’t want to be stung,” said cook nervously.  “Wasps always make
straight for me!”

The crowd stopped at a house facing the green, and there the hullabaloo
increased to such an extent that Mr. Gleeson, finding his cap, announced
an intention of putting a stop to the row without further delay.  The
women expected the turmoil would cease directly he reached the scene;
they observed that he spoke to one or two, remonstrating with them; the
folk seemed to be making an explanation, and he again used argumentative
gestures; they appeared to order him to go away and, after one or two
further efforts, he retired.  The uproar continued.

“Not bees,” he announced, entering the room.  “No!  My dear, just send
the maids to the kitchen.”

The girls went.

“A primitive custom,” he explained, “with which I was not previously
acquainted.  It seems a retired farmer living at the house in question
lost his wife three months ago.”

“Surely a strange way of expressing sympathy.”

“That is not exactly the idea.  The retired farmer has married
again—married the nurse, and the village thinks it not quite right.”

“It isn’t right,” she declared warmly.  “I consider the villagers are
quite justified in their action.”

“I don’t agree with you, dear.”

“If I died,” she contended, “and you married again in such a short time,
I should be very much gratified in looking down to find that people—”

“Why do you say ‘down’?”  The contention in the Gleesons’ house rivalled
the demonstration in the roadway.

Mutual apologies having been made the next morning—

“I spoke without thinking of what I was saying, my love.”

“I suppose, dear, I am too sensitive.”

—The great task came up before them to be tackled.  Mr. Gleeson made a
short speech to his wife on the subject, calling it a scheme for welding
the village into one harmonious whole, and they were both gratified by
this neat way of putting the case.  One harmonious whole, echoed Mrs.
Gleeson.  One harmonious whole, he repeated firmly.

So the two set out, furnished with cards, to call upon residents; an
undertaking the more necessary and excusable because residents had made
no attempt to call upon them.  They divided the task, arranging to meet
two hours later and report progress of affairs, and meanwhile said
farewell in an affectionate style outside the house; two little girls,
looking on with a scandalised air, prepared to run off to tell their
respective mothers.

“Good luck, dear,” said Mrs. Gleeson.

“Bon voyage, ma cherie,” he replied.  They kissed again.

At the time appointed she returned with satisfaction and triumph
announced on her attractive young features.  Her husband had not arrived,
and she strolled across to some children who were fixing wickets for a
game; they drew the stumps and retired to another corner of the green.

“Shy little things,” remarked Mrs. Gleeson.

She flag-signalled with a lace handkerchief to her husband, who could be
seen walking slowly in the distance, but he was gazing at the dusty road
in a thoughtful manner and did not respond; she ran to meet him and to
take his arm.

“Well?” he asked shortly.

Everybody had said yes, she answered with enthusiasm.  No sooner had she
given the invitation than they accepted.  The vicar, the
Congregationalist minister, the auctioneer (who was also insurance agent,
and local representative for Chipley’s Celebrated Guanos), the
schoolmaster, Crutchley, the postman, two labourers, and the man who
usually stood outside the Three Bells with a wisp of straw between his
teeth—every one of these and others she had secured, every one had made
careful note of the date.

“And you?” she asked.

Mr. Gleeson confessed his record was not so excellent.  Miss Bulwer
delayed him for thirty-five minutes, and, a grievance still rankling,
managed in that time to intimate that she bossed the village.

“Her own phrase,” he said excusingly.

Miss Bulwer flattered herself she performed the task well, and certainly
did not propose to allow new-comers to interfere.  Miss Bulwer agreed
that the barriers of class should be broken down; she came of a Liberal
stock, and her father sat in Parliament once for nearly a year, but
rather than meet Crutchley or any of his set on friendly terms, she would
willingly be burnt at the stake.

“But surely, dear, it was an error, if you don’t mind my saying so, to
tell her that we had invited anybody else.”

“Thought it fairer,” he replied.

“I said nothing of the kind to some of mine.”

“You should have done.”

“Pardon me,” said Mrs. Gleeson, “but perhaps you will admit that my plan
proved more successful.”

“Those two sisters, the dressmakers, are coming,” he went on, declining
to argue the point, “and three other women accepted and promised to be
with us providing nothing better turned up in the meantime.  Singularly
frank and open in their speech,” he remarked, with a sigh.  “They went so
far as to ask me what we expected to make out of it.”

“I like people to be genuine.”

“There are limits,” he said, “which should not be exceeded.  Let us go in
and reckon up the number of guests.”

The two small girls who had seen them kiss each other took up a position
near the fence, watching with undisguised curiosity as Mr. and Mrs.
Gleeson sat at the window completing arrangements.  As these proceeded
Mr. Gleeson regained something of his early enthusiasm.  He intended to
make a speech to the company, once the visitors were assembled, and his
wife suggested that if his mind was made up in this regard, he had better
rehearse; he walked up and down the room, using appropriate gestures, the
while the two little spectators held on to the fence in their anxiety to
miss nothing.

“Did you remember to telegraph to the Stores?” he demanded, breaking off.

“I did.”

“And have the things arrived?”

“Not yet.  But they never fail.”

“Find a man,” he ordered, “the one outside the Three Bells, and send him
off at once.  Unless I see to everything, there is always a muddle!”

Full justification for the issuing of this command was found when the man
returned with the case; it had duly arrived by the mid-day train and
would, he reported, have remained at the station until goodness knew when
if he had not been sent to fetch it.  The man offered to prise open the
lid, and on seeing the contents made the announcement that the two shops
of the village would not be best pleased to hear that goods similar to
those which might have been purchased at their establishments had been
imported from town.  Asked by the anxious young hostess to give his own
opinion, the man said he was all for liberty and freedom, and letting
people do as they liked, but he felt bound to say that home industries
ought to be patronised.  He had often argued this in the Three Bells, and
felt he ought not to say behind people’s backs anything he did not dare
to speak in front of their faces.

“All the same,” he added, accepting the shilling, “I shall pop round in
good time this evening.  You can rely upon me.  My word’s as good as me
bond.”

Now the two maids began to fly to and fro.  Now Mr. Gleeson set out
chairs on the lawn at the back in preparation for an overflow meeting.
Now furniture was moved and the pianoforte opened.  Now one of the maids
ran across to hire twenty cups and saucers, and returned from the shop
with the message that only regular customers were obliged in this way;
the cups and saucers could be purchased, or they could be let alone, but
no third alternative existed.  Mr. Gleeson went over his speech once more
and, on the suggestion of his wife, introduced a more pronounced tone of
geniality, leaving out some of the sterner views concerning the value of
friendship.  Mrs. Gleeson’s sketches were set in a good position.  Mr.
Gleeson tried “I am a Jolly Mariner,” and decided he had found himself in
worse voice.  At seven o’clock they were ready for the thirty-five
guests, and Mr. Gleeson snatched a few moments to practise a smile of
welcome, one that would indicate gratification without degenerating into
a broad grin.

“We shall find them rather difficult at first,” he mentioned.  “I must
get you to help me, my dear, to make them feel thoroughly at home from
the very outset.  Wish you had thought to order some crackers.”

“Sorry!”

“In Stepney, if you remember, the pulling of these and the wearing of
paper caps at once put everybody at their ease.  What’s the time now?”

She exhibited her watch.

“Mary asked the constable just now whether anything of the kind had ever
been arranged before and he said ‘No.’”

“Did he say anything else?” asked Mr. Gleeson.

“He added ‘And never won’t again, neither.’”

“The ability of peering into the future,” he remarked, nettled, “is a
gift denied even to the village policeman.  He seems to have the idea
that no one can do right excepting himself.”

“There’s a knock.”

Please, ma’am (announced Mary), Mr. Crutchley, the butcher, has sent over
to know whether we want a joint for Sunday, because if so we had better
say so in good time.  Ask the messenger (replied Mrs. Gleeson) to tell
Crutchley that we shall only trouble him in the case of chops and steaks;
the larger orders have been placed in town.  Very well, ma’am.  Mary,
returning three minutes later, apologised for the message she had now to
deliver; Crutchley sent word that where the Gleesons procured their
joints there they could procure their chops and steaks; Crutchley told
the messenger to add that he was not in the habit of being under an
obligation to any one.

“I disliked the man,” declared Mr. Gleeson warmly, “from the very first.
Understand, my dear, please, that not another penny of mine is to be
spent in his shop—not another halfpenny.”

Another ring, and Mary, with a look of greater satisfaction, announced
the vicar.

“Ah,” said the visitor, entering breezily, “Liberty Hall, Liberty Hall.
This is extremely satisfactory.  How are we this evening?  Settling down
to country life?  That’s good.  Before I forget it, there are two or
three funds under my control, the finances of which are in rather—what
shall I say?”

“Low water.”

“Capital!” declared the vicar, with enthusiasm.  “The very phrase!  Now
I’m not going to bother you, and hate above all things any suspicion of
begging, but if you have your cheque-book handy—  How very, very kind of
you!  A great day, for Murford Green—here’s a fountain pen—for Murford
Green when you two delightful people decided to take up your residence
here.  Thank you so much: I’ll blot it.  Equally divided, shall we say?
A thousand obligations.  I have a number of letters to write; will you
forgive me if I run off?  Pray give my sincere regards to all the dear
people.  All the dear people.  The dear people.  Dear people.  People.”
The voice disappeared in the manner of a ventriloquist’s entertainment.

A note from the schoolmaster.  The schoolmaster was sorry, but he had
only just ascertained that the Rev. Mr. Barton, Congregationalist
minister, had been asked, and in these circumstances the schoolmaster
begged to be excused.  A note from Mr. Barton.  Mr. Barton, having
ascertained that the schoolmaster had been invited, felt it impossible to
meet that gentleman until he had withdrawn certain remarks concerning
Passive Resisters, and hoped Mrs. Gleeson would permit him to defer his
visit.  The postman called at the back door to say that he could have
spared an hour, and would have spared an hour, but talk was going on in
the village, and until this received contradiction it was more than his
position, as a Government official, was worth to set foot inside the
house.  Mary, answering her master’s impatient reprimand, declared she
had asked for further particulars; the postman, with a deep blush,
assured her it was not a subject he could discuss with a single young
woman; on Mary insisting, he referred her to a Mrs. Larch, living in one
of a row of cottages not far away.  The Gleesons, greatly disturbed,
requested the maid to fly in that direction and obtain details.  As Mary
went out of the front gate they noticed the two invited labourers,
dressed in black suits.

“Beg pardon, missy,” they heard one of them say, “but if it ent a rude
question, is there going to be any beer purvided at this affair what’s to
come off this evening?”  The maid gave an answer and ran on.  “Not?” they
echoed amazedly.  “Very well then!  No bloomin’ beer; no bloomin’ us!”

Other excuses came.  The odd man of the Three Bells alone remained
unaccounted for, and he arrived, pulling at the garden gate, which he
should have pushed, and solving the difficulty by climbing over.
Approaching the open window, he lurched across the flower-bed, took off
his hat to Mr. Gleeson, blew a clumsy kiss to Mrs. Gleeson.

“Not coming in,” he said, with a wink.  “No fear!  Not me!  Got my
rep’tation to consider.  I sh’d never ’old up my ’ead again.  Warm lot,
you Londoners.  Thank goodness I was born ’n bred in the country.  Honest
man, that’s what I am, and I don’t care who says I’m not.  You never
catch me ’ugging a girl in middle of the roadway.  Not me!”

A council was held so soon as the maid came back.  Mary had assured Mrs.
Larch that her master and her mistress were married, for she herself was
present at the wedding, and the lady offered two suggestions: one that
Mary’s eyesight was defective, the other that people only used a foreign
language when they desired to say something that could not be spoken in
decent English.  Mary, having delivered the news, stood back and waited.

“Have you no suggestion to make, my dear?” asked the worried Mr. Gleeson.
His wife shook her head despondently.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the maid, with respect, “but me and Emma have been
talking it over, and as she says the doctor ordered you quiet, and you
haven’t yet succeeded in letting the house at Kensington, what’s to
prevent us from—”

“Get the A.B.C.,” he ordered.  “We’ll find out what time there’s a train
back to town in the morning.”

XV—REWARD FOR COURAGE

THE Committee gave Mr. Mayor the time to put on, with the aid of his man,
the official garments.  One member asked who was looking after Enderby,
and the agitated young secretary ran into the largest room in the Town
Hall, returned with the satisfactory assurance that the man was seated in
the front row, well guarded by friends.

“These brave chaps,” remarked the member who had put the alarming
inquiry, “often have a peculiar strain of—er—modesty in their
disposition.  You can never quite depend upon them as you would on
ordinary people.  Mr. Secretary, what’s the programme for the afternoon?
Have you drawn up an agenda?  Don’t call on me, if you can help it, but
if it’s absolutely necessary, of course—”

Mr. Secretary exhibited the sheet of foolscap paper; members of the
Committee whose names figured there expressed approval; the rest
mentioned a fear that they might not be able to stay until the end.

“Mr. Mayor!”

His Worship came forward to be greeted by those acquainted with him, to
be introduced to others.  Everybody said it was good of the Mayor to give
up so much of his time, and he declared it was good of them to do so.

“But some one,” he went on, with determination, “some one must give me a
sort of a notion of an idea of what I’m supposed to talk about.  I want a
few facts pencilled down, just to go on with, as it were.”  The secretary
produced a type-written document, tendered a case containing a medal.  “I
see!” nodding as he glanced at the sheet.  “Jumped in at risk of life.
Brought child to bank.  Persuaded with difficulty to give name and
address.  Very fine, indeed.  Capital.  First-rate.  Now, how long shall
I take?  Thirty minutes?”

“Less than that, Mr. Mayor, if you like.”

“As you please,” said his Worship, rather nettled.  “I’m never a believer
in long speechifying.  Time we made a start, isn’t it?   Look in, and
tell them I’m coming, and they’ll be ready to applaud.  What’s the chap’s
name again?  Enderby.  George Enderby.  Right you are!”

A good audience had assembled, and several ladies, subscribers to the
gift, were present.  Two were talking deferentially to a puffed-faced man
in the front row; they scuttled off to their seats as the platform people
arrived.  The man inspected his boots, shifting them uneasily.  Mr. Mayor
rapped the table with an ebony hammer, and said, in his most genial
manner, that of all the duties imposed upon him during his year of office
not one had given so much pleasure as this.  They were probably
acquainted with the facts and he would give them briefly.  George
Enderby, residing at 42, William Street, by occupation a house decorator,
but at present out of work, was walking near the canal on the evening of
Friday, the seventeenth of June.  Some children were playing near the
bank, and, in the endeavour to reach a piece of wood that was floating on
the water, one little girl of six years of age suddenly slipped and—.