.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 40487
   :PG.Title: Happy-go-lucky
   :PG.Released: 2012-08-12
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Ian Hay
   :MARCREL.ill: \C. \E. Brock
   :DC.Title: Happy-go-lucky
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1913
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
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      Cover

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   .. _`"LET ME GIVE YOU ONE HINT, MY LAD"`:

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      :alt: "LET ME GIVE YOU ONE HINT, MY LAD" (p. 48)

      "LET ME GIVE YOU ONE HINT, MY LAD" (p. `48`_)

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      HAPPY-GO-LUCKY

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      BY

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      IAN HAY

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      WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
      \C. \E. BROCK

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      BOSTON AND NEW YORK
      HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
      The Riverside Press Cambridge

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      COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY IAN HAY BEITH
      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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      *Published August, 1913*

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      TO
      T. S. A. B.

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      CONTENTS

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      *BOOK ONE*

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      YOUTHFUL EXCURSIONS

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      I.  `A Brief Introduction`_
      II.  `The First Freak`_
      III.  `Io Saturnalia!`_

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      *BOOK TWO*

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      A BLIND ALLEY

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      IV.  `Travels with a First Reserve`_
      V.  `Very Odious`_
      VI.  `Forbidden Fruit--A Digression`_
      VII.  `Unearned Increment`_
      VIII.  `A Relapse`_
      IX.  `The Only Way Out`_
      X.  `Still at Large`_
      XI.  `The First Turning to the Right`_

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      *BOOK THREE*

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      THE RIGHT ROAD

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      XII.  `Mice and Men`_
      XIII.  `Lucidity Itself`_
      XIV.  `Another Cosy Chat, with an Interruption`_
      XV.  `A Day of Calm Reflection`_
      XVI.  `An Impossible Family`_
      XVII.  `The Word "Swank"`_
      XVIII.  `De L'Audace, et encore de l'Audace, et toujours de l'Audace!`_
      XIX.  `Sidelights on a Public Character`_
      XX.  `Rehearsed Effects`_
      XXI.  `Unrehearsed`_
      XXII.  `The Real Tilly`_
      XXIII.  `The Real Mr. Welwyn`_
      XXIV.  `A Garden Plot in Russell Square`_
      XXV.  `Purely Commercial`_
      XXVI.  `The Final Freak`_

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      ILLUSTRATIONS

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      `"Let me give you one Hint, my Lad"`_ (p. `48`_) . . . *Frontispiece*

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      `"Chorus once more, please, Gentlemen!"`_

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      `"How do you do, Miss Weller?" said Lady Adela, mystified but well-bred`_

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      `"Reflect!" urged the Broker's Man, gently resisting Percy's Efforts to eject him`_

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      `"This is very naughty," he announced reproachfully`_

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.. _`A BRIEF INTRODUCTION`:

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   HAPPY-GO-LUCKY

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   BOOK ONE

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   YOUTHFUL EXCURSIONS

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   HAPPY-GO-LUCKY

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   CHAPTER I

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   A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

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..

They--that is, the London-and-the-south-thereof
contingent of the Hivite House at
Grandwich--always celebrated the first morning of
the holidays by breakfasting together at the
Imperial Hotel at Oakleigh, as a preliminary to
catching the nine-fifty-two.

A certain stateliness--not to say
pomp--distinguished the function.  Negotiations for
the provision of the feast were opened at an early
date--usually about half-term--the first step
taking the form of a dignified but ungrammatical
communication, cast in that most intricate and
treacherous of moulds, the third person, to the
proprietor of the hotel, intimating, after
compliments, that *Mr. Rumbold* (*major*), *Hivite House,
Grandwich School, would be much obliged if our
party could be supplied with breakfast, and you
usually do it for half-a-crown as there are a lot of
us, and if you don't we shall probably go to the
George, and as the party wishes to catch the train
Mr. Rumbold would be obliged if you can give it
to me punctually*.

To this mine host would reply with a most
gratifying typewritten document addressed
to--*Rumbold, Esq.*,--a form of address which
never fails to please so long as your parents and
other adult correspondents persist in
designating you "Master,"--expressing the utmost
willingness to provide breakfast for Mr. Rumbold's
party at two-and-sixpence per head
(which, by the way, was the normal charge),
and concluding with a tactfully-worded request
for information (inadvertently omitted from
Mr. Rumbold's original communication) upon the
following points:--

\(1) The date of the feast.

\(2) The number of young gentlemen likely to be present.

\(3) The hour of the train which they propose to catch.

During the second half-term Mr. Rumbold's
leisure would be pleasantly occupied in
recruiting the breakfast-party and communicating its
numbers and requirements, intermittently and
piecemeal, together with searching enquiries re
kidneys and ultimatums on the subject of
scrambled eggs, to the rapidly ageing proprietor of
the Imperial Hotel.

On the joyous morning of departure a dozen
emancipated Helots, all glorious in bowler hats
and coloured ties which atoned at a bound for
thirteen weeks of statutory headgear and *subfusc.*
haberdashery, descended upon the Imperial
Hotel and sat down with intense but businesslike
cheerfulness to the half-crown breakfast.  On
these occasions distinctions of caste were
disregarded.  Fag and prefect sat side by side.
Brothers who had religiously cut one another
throughout the term were reunited, even
indulging in Christian names.  Gentlemen who had
fought to a finish behind the fives-court every
alternate Wednesday afternoon since term began,
took sweet counsel together upon the respective
merits of Egyptian and Turkish cigarettes.

On the particular occasion with which we are
concerned--a crisp morning in December--the
party numbered twelve.  It is not necessary
to describe them in detail, for ten of them make
their appearance, in this narrative, at any rate,
for the first and last time.  Let it suffice to say
that Mr. Rumbold major sat at the head of the
table and Mr. Rumbold minor at the foot,
Mr. Rumbold tertius occupying a position about
halfway down.  Among others present might
have been noticed (as the little society papers
say) Mr. "Balmy" Coke, Mr. "Oaf" Sandiford,
Mr. "Buggy" Reid, Mr. "Slimy" Green,
Mr. "Lummy" Law, and Mr. "Adenoid" Smith.
More notable figures were Messrs. "Spangle"
Jerningham and "Tiny" Carmyle--lesser luminaries
than Rumbold himself, but shining lights
in the athletic firmament for all that.

One place only was vacant.  The company,
in accordance with what is probably the most
rigorous social code in existence--schoolboy
etiquette--had divided itself into two groups.
The first, consisting of those whose right to a
place at the head of the table was unquestioned,
settled down at once with loud and confident
anticipations of enjoyment.  The remainder
followed their example with more diffidence,
beginning at the foot of the table and extending
coyly upwards, those whose claim to a place
above the salt was beginning to be more than
considerable punctiliously taking the lowest
places in order to escape the dread stigma of
"side."  Thus, by reason of the forces of mutual
repulsion, a gap occurred in the very middle of
the table, between a nervous little boy in
spectacles, one Buggy Reid, and the magnificent
Mr. Jerningham, Secretary of the Fifteen and the
best racquets-player in the school.

"One short!" announced Rumbold.  "Who is it?"

There was a general counting of heads.  Mr. Reid
timidly offered information.

"I think it is The Freak," he said.

There was a general laugh.

"Wonder what he's up to now," mused
Mr. Jerningham.  "You ought to know, Rummy.
Your fag, is n't he?"

"I gave him the bag two terms ago," replied
the great man contentedly.  "Tiny has him now."

He turned to another of the seniors--a
long-legged youth with a subdued manner.

"Still got him, Tiny?"

"Yes," said Mr. Carmyle gloomily, "I have
still got him.  It's a hard life, though."

"I know," said Rumbold sympathetically.
"Does he cross-question you about the photographs
on your mantelpiece?"

"Yes," said Carmyle.  "He spoke very
favourably of my youngest sister.  Showed me a
photograph of his own, and asked me to come and
stay with them in the holidays.  Said he thought
I would have much in common with his father."

There was general merriment at this, for
Mr. Carmyle was patriarchal, both in appearance and
habits.  But it did nothing to soothe the nerves
of The Freak himself, who happened at the
moment to be standing shyly upon one leg outside
the door, endeavouring to summon up sufficient
courage to walk in.

He was a small sandy-haired boy with shrewd
blue eyes and a most disarming smile, and he
belonged to a not uncommon and distinctly
unlucky class.  There are boys who are shy and
who look shy.  Such are usually left to
themselves, and gradually attain to confidence.  There
are boys who are bumptious and behave
bumptiously.  Such are usually put through a brief
disciplinary course by their friends, and
ultimately achieve respectability.  And there are
boys who are shy, but who, through sheer
self-consciousness and a desire to conceal their
shyness, behave bumptiously.  The way of such is
hard.  Public School disciplinary methods do not
discriminate between the sheep and the goats.
Variations from the normal, whether voluntary
or involuntary, are all corrected by the same
methods.  Unconventionality of every kind is
rebuked by stern moralists who have been
through the mill themselves, and are convinced
that it would be ungenerous to deprive the
succeeding generation of the benefits which have
produced such brilliant results in their own case.

The Freak--Master Richard Mainwaring--entered
the school-world unfairly handicapped.
He had never been from home before.  He was
an only son, and had had few companions but
his parents.  Consequently he was addicted to
language and phraseology which, though meet
and fitting upon the lips of elderly gentlemen,
sounded ineffably pedantic upon those of an
unkempt fag of fourteen.  Finally, he was shy
and sensitive, yet quite unable to indicate that
characteristic by a retiring demeanour.

Life at school, then, did not begin too easily
for him.  He was naturally of a chirpy and
confiding disposition, and the more nervous he felt
the more chirpy and confiding he became.  He
had no instincts, either, upon the subject of
caste.  Instead of confining himself to his own
impossible order of pariahs, he attempted to
fraternise with any boy who interested him.
He addressed great personages by their pet
names; he invited high potentates to come and
partake of refreshment at his expense.  Now,
promiscuous bonhomie in new boys is not usually
encouraged in the great schools of England,
and all the ponderous and relentless machinery
available for the purpose was set in motion to
impress this truth upon the over-demonstrative
Freak.  Most of us know this mighty engine.
Under its operations many sensitive little boys
crumple up into furtive and apathetic nonentities.
Others grow into licensed buffoons, battening
upon their own shame, cadging for cheap
applause, thinking always of things to say and
to do which will make fellows laugh.  The Freak
did neither.  He remained obstinately and
resolutely a Freak.  If chidden for eccentricity he
answered back, sometimes too effectively, and
suffered.  But he never gave in.  At last, finding
that he apparently feared no one,--though
really this was far from being the case: his most
audacious flights were as often as not inspired by
sheer nervous excitement,--the world in which
he moved decided to tolerate him, and finally
ended by extending towards him a sort of amused
respect.

All this time we have left our friend standing
outside the door.  Presently, drawing a deep
breath, he entered, jauntily enough.

"Hallo, Freak, where have you been?" enquired
Mr. Rumbold.

"I felt constrained," replied The Freak, as
one old gentleman to another, "to return to the
House upon an errand of reparation."

A full half of the company present were blankly
ignorant as to the meaning of the word "reparation,"
so they giggled contentedly and decided
that The Freak was in good form this morning.

"What was the trouble?" asked Jerningham.

"As I was counting my change in the cab,"
explained The Freak, "I found that I was a
penny short.  (I'll have fried sole, and then
bacon-and-eggs, please.  And chocolate.)"

"Shylock!" commented the humorous Mr. Jerningham.

The Freak hastened to explain.

"It was the only penny I had," he said: "that
was why I missed it.  The rest was silver.  I saw
what had happened: I had given a penny to
Seagrave by mistake, instead of half-a-crown."

The thought of Mr. Seagrave, the stern and
awful butler of the Hivite House, incredulously
contemplating a solitary copper in his palm,
what time the unconscious Freak drove away
two-and-fivepence to the good, tickled the
company greatly, and the narrator had made
considerable inroads upon the fried sole before he
was called upon to continue.

"What did you do?" asked Rumbold.

"I drove back and apologised, and gave him
two-and-fivepence," said The Freak simply.

"Was he shirty about it?"

"No; he did n't seem at all surprised," was
the rather naïve reply.

There was another laugh at this, and Jerningham
observed:--

"Freak, you are the limit."

"I may be the limit," countered The Freak
hotly,--ordinary chaff he could endure, but
Mr. Jerningham had more than once exceeded
the bounds of recognised fag-baiting that
term,--"but I am wearing my own shirt, Jerningham,
and not one of Carmyle's!"

There was a roar at this unexpected riposte,
for Jerningham, though a dandy of the most
ambitious type, was notoriously addicted to
borrowed plumage, and the cubicle of the
easy-going Carmyle was next his own.

"You will be booted for that afterwards, my
lad," announced the discomfited wearer of
Mr. Carmyle's shirt.

The Freak surveyed his tormentor thoughtfully.
After all, he was safe from reprisals for
nearly five weeks.  He therefore replied,
deliberately and pedantically:--

"I do not dispute the probability of the
occurrence.  But that won't prevent you," he added,
reverting to the vernacular, "from feeling jolly
well scored off, all the same.  And"--after a
brief interval to allow this psychological point
full play--"mind you send the shirt back to
Carmyle.  I have enough trouble looking after
his things as it is.  Get it washed, and then
carefully dis--"

"Carefully *what*?" enquired Mr. Jerningham,
beginning to push back his chair.

The Freak, who had intended to say "disinfected,"
decided not to endanger his clean collar,
carefully brushed hair, and other appurtenances
of the homeward-bound.

--"And carefully despatched per Parcels
Post," he concluded sweetly.  "Hello, you
fellows--finished?"

"Yes: buck up!" commanded Rumbold.

The feast ended in traditional fashion.  No
bill was ever asked for or presented upon these
occasions.  Rumbold major merely took the
sugar-basin and, having emptied it of its
contents, placed therein the sum of
two-and-nine-pence--half-a-crown for his breakfast and
threepence for the waiters.  The bowl was then
sent round the table in the manner of an
offertory plate, and the resulting collection was
handed without ceremony to the fat head-waiter,
who received it with a stately bow and a few
well-chosen and long-familiar phrases upon the
subject of a good holiday and a Merry Christmas;
after which the members of the party
dispersed to the railway station and went their
several ways.

It was characteristic of The Freak that he hung
behind at the last moment, for the purpose of
handing a furtive shilling to the inarticulate
Teuton who had assisted in dispensing breakfast,
and whose underfed appearance had roused
beneath the comfortably distended waistcoat
of our altruistic friend certain suspicions, not
altogether unfounded, as to the principle upon
which head-waiters share tips with their
subordinates.





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.. _`THE FIRST FREAK`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   THE FIRST FREAK

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My name is Carmyle.  Possibly you may have
noticed it in the previous chapter, among the list
of those present at the breakfast at the Imperial.
It was not a particularly hilarious meal for me,
for I was leaving Grandwich for good that
morning; and the schoolboy bids farewell to this, the
first chapter of his life, with a ceremony--not
to say solemnity--sadly at variance with the
cheerfulness or indifference with which he
sometimes turns the page at the close of later epochs.

I parted from the main body of Hivites at
Peterborough, for they were bound for London,
while I had to transfer my person and effects
to the care of the Great Eastern Railway for
conveyance to my home in Essex.

At Ely, a little tired of the company and
conversation of five East Anglian farmers, who
occupied more than their fair share of room and
conducted an extremely dull technical
conversation with quite surprising heat and vehemence
over my head and across my waistcoat, I walked
up the platform in search of a little more cubic
space.  At the very front of the train I found a
third-class compartment containing only a single
occupant.

"Hallo, Freak!" I said.  "I thought you were
bound for London."

"Your surmise," replied my late fag, "is correct.
But there was a slight mishap at Peterborough."

"You got left behind?"

"Practically, yes.  In point of fact, I was
bunged out of the train by Spangle Jerningham."

"Why?"

"He bought some bananas, and I warned him
not to.  I said some people had been prosecuted
only last week for eating fruit in a railway carriage."

"Silly young idiot!" I replied, falling into the
trap, even as Jerningham had done.  "Why--"

"But they *were*," persisted The Freak.  "They
were caught sucking dates--off their tickets!
And as there was no train on for two hours,"
he concluded, neatly dodging "The Strand
Magazine," "I decided to come round this way.
We get to Liverpool Street by four.  How far are
you going?"

I told him, and the train resumed its journey
through the fenland.

The next stop was Cambridge, where The
Freak, suddenly remembering that the railway
ticket in his possession was entirely useless for
his present purpose, got out to buy another.  I
hung out of the carriage window, wondering
which of the Colleges the tall yellow-brick
building just outside the station might be, and gazing
reverentially upon a group of three young men
in tweed jackets and flannel trousers, who had
temporarily torn themselves from the pursuit
of knowledge for the purpose of bidding farewell
to the members of a theatrical touring company.

Presently our engine and brake-van removed
themselves to a place of refreshment down the
line; whereupon a somnolent horse of mountainous
aspect, which had been meekly standing by,
attached by a trace to an empty third-class
coach, took advantage of their absence to tow its
burden to the front of our train and leave it there,
like a foundling on a doorstep, subsequently
departing in search of further practical jokes.

With that instinctive shrinking from publicity
which marks the professions of literature, art,
and the drama, each of the compartments of the
third-class coach bore a label, printed in three
colours, announcing that this accommodation
was reserved for Mr. Wilton Spurge's Number
One Company--I have always desired to meet
a Number Two Company, but have never
succeeded--in "The Sign of the Cross," proceeding
from Cambridge to Liverpool Street, for
Walthamstow.

The majority of Mr. Wilton Spurge's followers
took their seats at once; but three young ladies,
hugging boxes of chocolate, remained in affectionate
conversation with the undergraduates upon
the platform.  Most of the gentlemen of the
company still lingered in the refreshment-room.
Suddenly there was a gentle tremor throughout
the train, as the engine and brake-van reluctantly
backed themselves into a position of contact.
A whistle blew, and a white flag fluttered far
down the platform.

"There's no hurry," observed The Freak, who
had returned from the ticket office and was now
surveying the passing show with his head thrust
out of the window under my arm.  "That white
flag only means that the Westinghouse brake is
working all right."

But the female mind takes no account of
technical trifles, least of all upon a railway
journey.  To a woman flags and whistles all spell
panic.  At the first blast, a lady (whom I took to
be the Empress Poppeia) hastily shepherded
every one within reach into the train, and then
directed a piercing summons in the direction of
the refreshment-room.  She was seconded by an
irregular but impressive chorus of admonition
upon the perils of delay, led by Mercia in person
and supported by a bevy of Christian Martyrs
and Roman Dancing-Girls.

The whistle sounded again, and a second flag
fluttered--a green one this time.  There was a
concerted shriek from the locomotive and the
ladies, followed by a commotion at the door of
the refreshment-room, from which eftsoons the
Emperor Nero, bearing a bag of buns and a copy
of "The Era," shot hastily forth.  He was closely
followed by Marcus Superbus, running rapidly
and carrying two bottles of stout.  Three Roman
Patricians with their mouths full, together with
a Father of the Early Church clinging to a
half-consumed pork-pie, brought up the rear.

Deeply interested in the progress of the race,
and speculating eagerly as to whether Pagan or
Christian would secure the corner-seats, The
Freak and I failed for the moment to note that
our own compartment was in danger of invasion.
But resistance was vain.  At the very last
moment the door was wrenched open by the guard,
and four human beings were projected into our
company just as the train began to move.  A
handbag and two paper parcels hurtled through
the air after them.

"Sorry to hurry you, Mr. Welwyn, sir," said
the guard, standing on the footboard and addressing
the leader of the party through the window,
"but we are behind time as it is, with that
theatrical lot."

"My fault entirely, guard," replied
Mr. Welwyn graciously.  He was a handsome
scholarly man of about forty.  I put him down as a
University Don of the best type--possibly one
of the Tutors of a great college.  "We should
have come earlier.  And--er"--here followed
the indeterminate mumble and sleight-of-hand
performance which accompany the bestowal of
the British tip--"thank you for your trouble."

"Thank you, sir," replied the gratified menial,
and disappeared into space with half-a-crown
in his palm.  Evidently Mr. Welwyn was a man
of substance as well as consequence.

"You did n't ought to have given him so
much, father dear!"

This just but ungrammatical observation
emanated from the female head of the party; and
despite an innate disinclination to risk catching
the eye of strangers in public, I turned and
inspected the speaker.  From her style of address it
was plain that she was either wife or daughter
to Mr. Welwyn.  Daughter she probably was not,
for she must have been quite thirty; and therefore
by a process of exhaustion I was led to the
reluctant conclusion that she was his wife.  I say
reluctant, for it seemed incredible that a suave
polished academic gentleman could be mated with
a lady:--

\(1) Who would initiate a domestic discussion in the presence of strangers.

\(2) Whose syntax was shaky.

\(3) Who wore a crimson blouse, with vermilion feathers in her hat.

But it was so.  Mr. Welwyn waved a hand
deprecatingly.

"One has one's position to consider, dear,"
he said.  "Besides, these poor fellows are not
overpaid, I fear, by their employers."

At this, a grim contraction flitted for a moment
over Mrs. Welwyn's florid good-tempered
features, and I saw suitable retorts crowding to her
lips.  But that admirable and exceptional
woman--as in later days she proved herself over and
over again to be--said nothing.  Instead, she
smiled indulgently upon her extravagant
husband, as upon a child of the largest possible
growth, and accepted from him with nothing
more than a comical little sigh two magazines
which had cost sixpence each.

I now had time to inspect the other two
members of the party.  They were children.  One was
a little boy--a vulgar, overdressed, plebian,
open-mouthed little boy--and I was not in the
least surprised a moment later to hear his mother
address him as "Percy."  (It had to be either
"Percy" or "Douglas.")  He was dressed in a
tight and rather dusty suit of velveteen, with a
crumpled lace collar and a plush jockey-cap.
He looked about seven years old, wore curls down
to his shoulders, and extracted intermittent
nourishment from a long and glutinous stick of
licorice.

The other was a girl--one of the prettiest
little girls I have ever seen.  I was not--and
am not--an expert on children's ages, but I
put her down as four years old.  She was a plump
and well-proportioned child, with an abundance
of brown hair, solemn grey eyes, and a friendly
smile.  She sat curled up on the seat, leaning
her head against her mother's arm, an oasis of
contentment and neatness in that dusty railway
carriage; and I felt dimly conscious that in due
time I should like to possess a little girl of my
own like that.

At present she was engaged in industriously
staring The Freak out of countenance.

The Freak, not at all embarrassed, smiled back
at her.  Miss Welwyn broke into an unmaidenly
chuckle, and her father put down "The Morning Post."

"Why this hilarity, my daughter?" he enquired.

The little girl, who was apparently accustomed
to academically long words, indicated The Freak
with a little nod of her head.

"I like that boy," she said frankly.  "Not the
other.  Too big!"

"Baby *dearie*, don't talk so!" exclaimed
Mrs. Welwyn, highly scandalised.

"I apologise for my daughter's lack of reserve--and
discrimination," said Mr. Welwyn to me,
courteously.  "She will not be so sincere and
unaffected in twenty years' time, I am afraid.
Are you gentlemen going home for the holidays?"

I entered into conversation with him, in the
course of which I learned that he was a member
of the University, off on vacation.  He did not
tell me his College.

"Do you get long holi--vacations, sir, at
Cambridge?" I asked.  "When do you have to
be back?"

Youth is not usually observant, but on this
occasion even my untutored faculties informed
me that Mr. Welwyn was looking suddenly older.

"I am not going back," he said briefly.  Then
he smiled, a little mechanically, and initiated a
discussion on compound locomotives.

Presently his attention was caught by some
occurrence at the other end of the compartment.
He laughed.

"My daughter appears to be pressing her
companionship upon your friend with a distressing
lack of modesty," he said.

I turned.  The Freak had installed his admirer
in the corner-seat beside him, and, having found
paper and pencil, was engaged in turning out
masterpieces of art at her behest.  With a flat
suitcase for a desk, he was executing--so far as
the Great Eastern Railway would permit him--a
portrait of Miss Welwyn herself; his model,
pleasantly thrilled, affectionately clasping one of
his arms in both of hers and breathing heavily
through her small nose, which she held about six
inches from the paper.

Finally the likeness was completed and presented.

"Now draw a cow," said Miss Welwyn immediately.

The Freak meekly set to work again.

Then came the inevitable question.

"What's her name?"

The artist considered.

"Sylvia," he said at length.  Sylvia, I knew,
was the name of his sister.

"Not like that name!" said the child, more
prophetically than she knew.

The Freak apologised and suggested Mary
Ann, which so pleased his patroness that she
immediately lodged an order for twelve more
cows.  The artist executed the commission with
unflagging zeal and care, Miss Welwyn following
every stroke of the pencil with critical interest
and numbering off the animals as they were created.

About this time Master Percy Welwyn, who
had fallen into a fitful slumber, woke up and
loudly expressed a desire for a commodity which
he described as "kike."  His mother supplied
his needs from a string-bag.  Refreshed and
appeased, he slept anew.

Meanwhile the herd of cows had been
completed, and The Freak was, immediately set to
work to find names for each.  The appellation
Mary Ann had established a fatal precedent, for
The Freak's employer ruthlessly demanded a
double title for each of Mary Ann's successors.
Appealed to for a personal contribution, she
shook her small head firmly: to her, evidently, in
common with the rest of her sex, destructive
criticism of male endeavour was woman's true
sphere in life.  But when the despairing Freak,
after submitting Mabel-Maud, Emily-Kate,
Elizabeth-Jane, and Maria-Theresa, made a second
pathetic appeal for assistance, the lady so far
relented as to suggest "Seener Angler"--a form
of address which, though neither bovine nor
feminine, seemed to me to come naturally enough
from the daughter of a Don, but caused Mr. and
Mrs. Welwyn to exchange glances.

At last the tale was completed,--I think the
last cow was christened "Bishop's Stortford,"
through which station we were passing at the
moment,--and the exhausted Freak smilingly
laid down his pencil.  But no one who has ever
embarked upon that most comprehensive and
interminable of enterprises, the entertainment
of a child, will be surprised to hear that Miss
Welwyn now laid a pudgy fore-finger upon the
first cow, and enquired:--

"Where *that* cow going?"

"Cambridge," answered The Freak after consideration.

"Next one?"

"London."

"Next one?"

Freak thought again.

"Grandwich," he said.

The round face puckered.

"Not like it.  Anuvver place!"

"You think of one," said The Freak boldly.

The small despot promptly named a locality
which sounded like "Tumpiton," and passed on
pitilessly to the next cow.

"Where *that* one going?" she enquired.

"It is n't going: it's coming back," replied
The Freak, rather ingeniously.

Strange to say, this answer appeared to satisfy
the hitherto insatiable infant, and the game was
abruptly abandoned.  Picking up The Freak's
pencil, Miss Welwyn projected a seraphic smile
upon its owner.

"You give this to Tilly?" she enquired, in a
voice which most men know.

"Rather."

"Tilly, ducky, don't act so greedy," came the
inevitable maternal correction.  "Give back the
young gentleman--"

"It's all right," said The Freak awkwardly.
"I don't want it, really."

"But--"

There came a shriek from the engine, and the
train slowed down.

"Is this where they collect tickets, father?"
enquired Mrs. Welwyn, breaking off suddenly.

Mr. Welwyn nodded, and his wife rather
hurriedly plucked her daughter from her seat beside
The Freak and transferred her to her own lap, to
that damsel's unfeigned dolour.

"Sit on mother's knee just now, dearie," urged
Mrs. Welwyn--"just for a minute or two!"

Miss Welwyn, who appeared to be a biddable
infant, settled down without further objection.
A moment later the train stopped and the
carriage door was thrown open.

"Tickets, please!"

Mr. Welwyn and I sat next the door, and I
accordingly submitted my ticket for inspection.
It was approved and returned to me by the
collector, an austere person with what Charles
Surface once described as "a damned
disinheriting countenance."

"Change next stop," he remarked.  "Yours, sir?"

Mr. Welwyn handed him three tickets.  The
collector appeared to count them.  Then his
gloomy gaze fell upon the unconscious Miss
Welwyn, who from the safe harbourage of her
mother's arms was endeavouring to administer
to him what is technically known, I believe, as
The Glad Eye.

"Have you a ticket for that child, madam?"
he enquired.  "Too old to be carried."

Mrs. Welwyn looked helplessly at her husband,
who replied for her.

"Yes, surely.  Did n't I give it to you, my man?"

"No, sir," said the collector dryly; "you did not."

Mr. Welwyn began to feel in his pockets.

"That is uncommonly stupid of me," he
said.  "I must have it somewhere.  I thought I
put them all in one pocket."

He pursued his researches further, and the
collector waited grimly.  I looked at Mrs. Welwyn.
She was an honest woman, and a fleeting glance
at her face informed me that the search for this
particular ticket was to be of a purely academic
description.

"I must trouble you," began the man, "for--"

"It must be somewhere!" persisted Mr. Welwyn,
with unruffled cheerfulness.  "Perhaps I
dropped it on the floor."

"Let *me* look!"

Next moment The Freak, who had been a
silent spectator of the scene, dropped upon his
knees and dived under the seat.  The collector,
obviously sceptical, fidgeted impatiently and
stepped back on to the platform, as if to look for
an inspector.  I saw an appealing glance pass from
Mrs. Welwyn to her husband.  He smiled back
airily, and I realised that probably this comedy
had been played once or twice before.

The collector reappeared.

"The fare," he began briskly, "is--"

"Here's the ticket," announced a muffled voice
from beneath the seat, and The Freak, crimson
and dusty, emerged from the depths flourishing
a green pasteboard slip.

The collector took it from his hand and
examined it carefully.

"All right," he snapped.  "Now your own, sir."

The Freak dutifully complied.  At the sight of
his ticket the collector's morose countenance
lightened almost to the point of geniality.  He
was not to go empty away after all.

"Great Northern ticket.  Not available on this
line," he announced.

"It's all right, old man," explained my fag
affably.  "I changed from the Great Northern
at Peterborough.  This line of yours is so much
jollier," he added soothingly.

"Six-and-fourpence," said the collector.

The Freak, who was well endowed with pocket-money
even at the end of term, complied with
the utmost cheerfulness; asked for a receipt;
expressed an earnest hope that the collector's
real state of health belied his appearance; and
resumed his corner-seat with a friendly nod of
farewell.

Two minutes later this curious episode was at
an end, and the train was swinging on its way
to London.  Mrs. Welwyn, looking puzzled and
ashamed, sat silently in her corner; Mr. Welwyn,
who was not the man to question the workings
of Providence when Providence worked the right
way, hummed a cheerful little tune in his.  The
deplorable child Percy slept.  The Freak, with a
scarlet face, industriously perused a newspaper.

As for Miss Tilly Welwyn, she sat happily
upon a suitcase on the floor, still engaged in
making unmaidenly eyes at the quixotic young
gentleman who had just acted, not for the last
time in his life, as her banker.





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.. _`IO SATURNALIA!`:

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   CHAPTER III


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   IO SATURNALIA!

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   I

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Presently my turn came.

A small, spectacled, and entirely inarticulate
gentleman in a very long gown, after a last glance
to assure himself that my coat was sufficiently
funereal and my trousers not turned up, took my
hand in his; and we advanced mincingly, after
the manner of partners in a country dance, over
the tesselated pavement of the Senate House
until we halted before the resplendent figure of
the Vice-Chancellor.

Here my little companion delivered himself
of a hurried and perfunctory harangue, in a
language which I took to be Latin, but may for all
I know have been Esperanto.  The Vice-Chancellor
muttered a response which I could not catch;
impelled by an unseen power, I knelt before him
and placed my two hands between his: an
indistinct benediction fell from his lips, gently
tickling my overheated scalp; and lo! the deed was
done.  I rose to my feet a Master of Arts of
Cambridge University, at the trifling outlay of
some twenty pounds odd.

Thereafter, by means of what the drill-book
calls a "right-incline," I slunk unobtrusively
past two sardonic-looking gentlemen in white
bands, and escaped through the open north door
into the cool solitude of Senate House Passage,
and ultimately into Trinity Street.

I walked straight into the arms of my friend
The Freak--The Freak in cap and gown, twenty-two
years of age, and in his last year at the
University.

"Hallo, Tiny!" was his joyous greeting.  "This
is topping!"

"Hallo, Freak!" I replied, shaking hands.
"You got my wire, then?"

"Yes, what are you up for?  I presume it is a
case of one more shot at the General Examination
for the B.A. Degree--what?"

I explained coldly that I had been receiving
the Degree of Master of Arts.

"As a senior member of the University," I
added severely, "I believe it is my duty to report
you to the Proctors for smoking while in academic
dress."

Freak's repartee was to offer me a cigarette.

"Let us take a walk down Trinity Street,"
he continued.  "I have to go and see The Tut."

"Who?"

"My Tutor.  Don't get fossilised all at once,
old thing!"

I apologised.

"What are you going to see him about?" I
enquired.  "Been sent down?"

"No.  I am going to get leave to hold a
dinner-party consisting of more than four persons,"
replied my friend, quoting pedantically from
the College Statute which seeks (vainly) to regulate
the convivial tendencies of the undergraduate.

"Ah," I remarked airily--"quite so!  For
my part, such rules no longer apply to me."

Fatal vaunt!  Next moment Dicky was frantically
embracing me before all Trinity Street.

"Brave heart," he announced, "this is providential!
You are a godsend--a *deus ex machina*--a
little cherub sent from aloft!  It never
occurred to me: I need not go to The Tut for leave
at all now!  It would have been a forlorn hope
in any case.  But now all is well.  *You* shall come
to the dinner.  In fact, you shall *give* it!  Then no
Tut in the world can interfere.  Come along, host
and honoured guest!  Come and see Wicky about it!"

As The Freak hustled me down All Saints'
Passage, I enquired plaintively who Mr. Wicky
might be.

"Wickham is his name," replied The Freak.
"He is nominally giving the dinner.  We are
going to--"

"Pardon me," I interposed.  "How many people
*are* nominally giving this dinner?  So far, we
have you, Wicky, and myself.  I--"

"It's this way," explained my friend.  "Wicky
is nominally the host; he will do the honours.
But I have dropped out.  The dinner will be
ordered in your name now.  That's all."

"Why is Wicky nominally the host?" I enquired,
still befogged.

"We are all giving the dinner--seven of us,"
explained The Freak; "all except yourself and
The Jebber, in fact.  Wicky has to be host
because he is the only man who is not going to
the dinner disguised as some one else.  Now, do
you understand?"

"There are one or two minor points," I remarked
timidly, "which--"

"Go ahead!" sighed my friend.

"Who," I enquired, "is The Jebber?  And why
should he share with me the privilege of not
paying for his dinner?"

The Freak became suddenly serious.

"The Jebber," he said, "is a poisonous growth
called Jebson.  He is in his first year.  He owns
bags of money, which he squanders in the wrong
manner on every occasion.  He runs after Blues
and other celebrities, but has never caught
one yet.  On the other hand, he is rude to porters
and bedmakers.  He gathers unto himself bands
of admiring smugs and tells them of the fast life
he lives in town.  He plays no games of any kind,
except a little billiards with the marker, but he
buttonholes you outside Hall in the evening and
tells you how much he has won by backing the
winner of the three o'clock race by wire.  I think
he has a kind of vague notion that he is sowing
wild oats; but as he seems quite incapable of
speaking the truth, I have no idea whether he is
the vicious young mug he makes himself out to be
or is merely endeavouring to impress us yokels.
That is the sort of customer The Jebber is."

"And you have invited him to dinner?" I said.

"Yes; it's like this.  We stood him as well as we
could for quite a long while.  Then, one evening,
he turned up in my rooms when half a dozen
of us were there--he is on my staircase, and I
had rashly called upon him his first term--and
after handing out a few fairy tales about his
triumphs as a lady's man, he pulled a photograph
from his pocket and passed it round.  It was a
girl--a jolly pretty girl, too!  He said he was
engaged to her.  Said it as if--"  The Freak's
honest face grew suddenly hot, and his fingers
bit ferociously into my arm.  "Well, he began to
talk about her.  Said she was 'fearfully mashed
on him!'  That fairly turned our stomachs to
begin with, but there was more to come.  He
confided to us that she was a dear little thing,
but not quite up to his form; and he did n't
intend to marry her until he had sown a few
more of his rotten wild oats.  And so on.  That
settled me, Tiny!  So far I had not been so fierce
about him as the other men.  I had considered
him just a harmless bounder, who would tone
down when he got into the ways of the place.
But a fellow who would talk like that before
a roomful of men about a girl--his own girl--My
God, Tiny! what would you do with such a thing?"

"Kill it," I said simply.

"That's what we nearly did, on the spot,"
said Dicky.  "But--well--one feels a delicacy
about even taking notice of that sort of
stuff.  You understand?"

I nodded.  The reserve of the youthful male on
affairs of the heart is much deeper than that of the
female, though the female can never recognise
the fact.

"So we simply sat still, feeling we should like
to be sick.  Then the man Jebson gave himself a
respite and us an idea by going on to talk of his
social ambitions.  He confided to us that he had
come up here to form influential friendships--with
athletic bloods, future statesmen, sons of
peers, and so forth.  He explained that it was
merely a matter of money.  All he wanted was
a start.  As soon as the athletes and peers heard
of him and his wealth, they would be only too
pleased to hobnob with him.  Suddenly old
Wicky, who had been sitting in the corner
absolutely mum, as usual, asked him straight off to
come and dine with him, and said he would get
a few of the most prominent men in the 'Varsity
to come and meet him.  We simply gaped at first,
but presently we saw there was some game on;
and when The Jebber had removed himself,
Wicky explained what he wanted us to do.  He's
a silent bird, Wicky, but he thinks a lot.  Here
are his digs."

We had reached a house in Jesus Lane, which
we now entered, ascending to the first floor.

Dicky rapidly introduced me to Mr. Wickham,
who had just finished luncheon.  He proved to be
a young gentleman of diminutive stature and few
words, in a Leander tie.  He was, it appeared,
a coxswain of high degree, and was only talkative
when afloat.  Then, one learned, he was a terror.
It was credibly reported that on one occasion a
freshman rowing bow in a trial eight, of a
sensitive temperament and privately educated, had
burst into tears and tried to throw away his oar
after listening to Mr. Wickham's blistering
comments upon the crew in general and himself in
particular during a particularly unsteady
half-minute round Grassy Corner.

He silently furnished us with cigarettes, and
my somewhat unexpected inclusion in the
coming revels was explained to him.

"Good egg!" he remarked, when Dicky had
finished.  "Go round to the kitchen presently.
Have dinner in these rooms, Freak.  May be
awkward for the men to get into College all
togged up."

"You see the idea now, Tiny?" said Dicky
to me.  "Wicky is going to be host, and the rest
of us are going to dress up as influential young
members of the University.  We shall pull The
Jebber's leg right off!"

"Do you think you will be able to keep up
your assumed characters all dinner-time?" I
asked.  "You know what sometimes happens
towards the end of--"

"That's all right," said The Freak.  "We are n't
going to keep it up right to the end.  At a given
signal we shall unveil."

"What then?" I enquired, not without concern.

"We shall hold a sort of court martial.  After
that I don't quite know what we will do, but we
ought to be able to think of something pretty
good by then," replied The Freak confidently.

Mr. Wickham summed up the situation.

"The man Jebson," he said briefly, "must die."

"What character are you going to assume?"
I enquired of The Freak.  "Athlete, politician,
peer, scholar--?"

"I am the Marquis of Puddox," said my friend,
with simple dignity.

"Only son," added Mr. Wickham, "of the
Duke of Damsillie.  Scotland for ever!"

"A Highlander?" I asked.

"Yes," said The Freak gleefully.  "I am going
to wear a red beard and talk Gaelic."

"Who are to be the other--inmates?" I asked.

"You'll see when the time comes," replied
Dicky.  "At present we have to decide on a part
for you, my lad."

"I think I had better be Absent Friends," I
said.  "Then I need not come, but you can drink
my health."

Mr. Wickham said nothing, but rose to his
feet and crossed the room to the mantelpiece.
On the corner of the mirror which surmounted
it hung a red Turkish fez, with a long black
tassel.  This my host reached down and handed
to me.

"Wear that," he said briefly--"with your
ordinary evening things."

"What shall I be then?" I enquired meekly.

"Junior Egyptologist to the Fitzwilliam
Museum," replied the fertile Mr. Wickham.



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   II

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That shrinking but helpless puppet, the Junior
Egyptologist to the Fitzwilliam Museum, duly
presented himself at Mr. Wickham's at
seven-thirty that evening, surmounted by the fez.

Here I was introduced to the guest of the
evening, Mr. Jebson.  He was a pasty-faced, pig-eyed
youth of about four-and-twenty, in an extravagantly
cut dress suit with a velvet collar.  He
wore a diamond ring and a soft shirt.  He looked
like an unsuccessful compromise between a
billiard-marker and a casino croupier at a French
watering-place.  His right forefinger was firmly
embedded in the buttonhole of a shaggy monster
in a kilt, whom, from the fact that he spoke a
language which I recognised as that of Mr. Harry
Lauder, I took to be the heir of the Duke of
Damsillie.

The Freak was certainly playing his part as
though he enjoyed it, but the other celebrities,
who stood conversing in a sheepish undertone in
various corners, looked too like stage conspirators
to be entirely convincing.  However, Mr. Jebson
appeared to harbour no suspicion as to the *bona
fides* of the company in which he found himself,
which was the main point.

I was now introduced to the President of the
Cambridge University Boat Club, a magnificent
personage in a made-up bow tie of light-blue satin;
to the Sultan of Cholerabad, a coffee-coloured
potentate in sweeping Oriental robes, in whom
the dignity that doth hedge a king was less
conspicuous than a thoroughly British giggle; and
to the Senior Wrangler of the previous year, who
wore a turn-down collar, trousers the bagginess
of which a music-hall comedian would have
envied, and blue spectacles.

Mesmerised by Mr. Wickham's cold eye and
correct deportment, we greeted one another with
stately courtesy: but the President of the Boat
Club winked at me cheerfully; the Sultan of
Cholerabad, scrutinising my fez, enquired in
broken English the exact date of my escape
from the cigarette factory; and the Senior
Wrangler invited my opinion, *sotto voce*, upon
the cut of his trousers.

In a distant corner of the room, which was
very dimly lighted,--probably for purposes of
theatrical effect,--I descried two more
guests--uncanny figures both.  One was a youth in
semi-clerical attire, with short trousers and white
cotton socks, diligently exercising what is best
described as a Private Secretary voice upon his
companion, a scarlet-faced gentleman in an
exaggerated hunting-kit--horn and all.  The
latter I identified (rightly) as The Master of the
University Bloodhounds, but I was at a loss to
assign a character to The Private Secretary.
I learned during the evening, from his own lips,
that he was the Assistant Professor of
Comparative Theology.

The party was completed by the arrival of a
stout young gentleman with a strong German
accent and fluffy hair.  He was presented to us
as The Baron Guldenschwein.  (He actually was
a Baron, as it turned out, but not a German.
However, he possessed a strong sense of
humour--a more priceless possession than sixty-four
quarterings or a castle on the Rhine.)

Dinner was announced, and we took our places.
Wickham sat at the head of the table, with
Mr. Jebson on his right and the Marquis of Puddox
on his left.  I took the foot, supported on either
hand by the President of the Boat Club and the
Assistant Professor of Comparative Theology.
The other four disposed themselves in the
intervening places, the Sultan taking his seat upon
Jebson's right, with the Baron opposite.

The dinner was served in the immaculate
fashion customary at undergraduate feasts and
other functions where long-suffering parents
loom in the background with cheque-books.
The table decorations had obviously been selected
upon the principle that what is most expensive
must be best, and each guest was confronted
with a much beribboned menu with his title
printed upon it.  Champagne, at the covert but
urgent representation of the Assistant Professor
of Comparative Theology, was served with the
*hors d'oeuvres*.

At first we hardly lived up to our costumes.
A practical joke which begins upon an empty
stomach does not usually speed from the mark.
Fortunately The Freak, who was not as other
men are in these matters, had entered upon his
night's work at the very top of his form, and he
gave us all an invaluable lead.  The fish found
him standing with one foot upon the table,
pledging Mr. Jebson in language which may have
been Gaelic, but more nearly resembled the
baying of one of the University bloodhounds.  This
gave us courage, and presently the Assistant
Theologian and the M.B.H. abandoned a
furtive interchange of Rugby football "shop" and
entered into a heated discussion with the Senior
Wrangler upon certain drastic alterations which,
apparently, the mathematical savants of the day
contemplated making in the multiplication table.

I devoted my attention chiefly to observing
the masterly fashion in which The Freak and
the saturnine Mr. Wickham handled Jebson.  The
latter was without doubt a most unpleasant
creature.  The undergraduate tolerates and, too
often, admires the vicious individual who is
reputed to be a devil of a fellow.  Still, that
individual usually has some redeeming qualities.
In the ordinary way of business he probably pulls
an oar and shoves in the scrimmage as heartily
as his neighbour: his recourses to riotous living
are in the nature of reaction from these strenuous
pursuits.  They arise less from a desire to pose
as a man of the world than from sheer weakness
of the flesh.  He is not in the least proud of them:
indeed, like the rest of us, he is usually very
repentant afterwards.  And above all, he observes
a decent reticence about his follies.  He regards
them as liabilities, not assets; and therein lies
the difference between him and creatures of the
Jebson type.  Jebson took no part in clean open-air
enthusiasms: he had few moments of reckless
self-abandonment: to him the serious business
of life was the methodical establishment of a
reputation as a *viveur*.  He sought to excite the
admiration of his fellows by the recital of his
exploits in what he called "the world."  Such,
naturally, were conspicuous neither for reticence
nor truth.  He was a pitiful transparent fraud,
and I felt rather surprised, as I considered the
elaborate nature of the present scheme for his
discomfiture, that the tolerant easy-going crew
who sat round the table should have thought the
game worth the candle.  I began to feel rather
sorry for Jebson.  After all, he was not the only
noxious insect in the University.  Then I
remembered the story of the girl's photograph, and I
understood.  It was an ill day for The Jebber,
I reflected, when he spoke lightly of his lady-love
in the presence of Dicky Mainwaring.

The banquet ran its course.  Presently dessert
was placed upon the table and the waiters
withdrew.  The Sultan of Cholerabad, I noticed, had
mastered the diffidence which had characterised
his behaviour during the earlier stages of the
proceedings, and was now joining freely in the
conversation at the head of the table.  I
overheard Mr. Jebson extending to him a cordial
invitation to come up with him to town at the
end of the term and be introduced to a galaxy of
music-hall stars, jockeys, and bookmakers--an
invitation which had already been deferentially
accepted by Mr. Wickham and the Marquis of
Puddox.  In return, the Sultan announced that
the harem at Cholerabad was open to inspection
by select parties of visitors on Tuesdays and
Thursdays, on presentation of visiting-card.

The spirits of the party in general were now
rising rapidly, and more than once the tranquillity
of the proceedings was seriously imperilled.
After the Baron Guldenschwein had been
frustrated in an attempt to recite an ode in praise of
the Master of the Bloodhounds (on the somewhat
inadequate grounds that "I myself wear always
bogskin boods"), our nominal host found himself
compelled to cope with the Assistant Professor
of Comparative Theology, who, rising unsteadily
to his legs, proclaimed his intention of giving
imitations of a few celebrated actors, beginning
with Sir Henry Irving.  The Theologian was in a
condition which rendered censure and argument
equally futile.  He had consumed perhaps half
a bottle of champagne and two glasses of port,
so it was obvious that his present exalted
condition was due not so much to the depths of his
potations as to the shallowness of his accommodation
for the same.  I for one, having drunk at
least as much as he and feeling painfully decorous,
forbore to judge him.  The rest of the company
were sober enough, but leniently disposed, and
our theological friend was allowed his way.  He
threw himself into a convulsive attitude, mouthed
out an entirely unintelligible limerick about a
young man from Patagonia, and sat down
abruptly, well pleased with his performance.

Then came an ominous silence.  The time for
business was at hand.  Mr. Jebson, still impervious
to atmospheric influence, selected this moment
for weaving his own shroud.  He rose to his
feet and made a speech.  He addressed us as
"fellow-sports"; he referred to Mr. Wickham
as "our worthy Chair," and to myself as "our
young friend Mr. Vice."  The company as a
whole he designated "hot stuff."  After
expressing, with evident sincerity, the pleasure with
which he found himself in his present company,
he revealed to us the true purport of his uprising,
which was to propose the toast of "The Girls."  Under
the circumstances a more unfortunate
selection of subject could not have been made.
The speaker had barely concluded his opening
sentence when the Marquis of Puddox, speaking
in his natural tone of voice, rose to his feet and
brought what promised to be a rather nauseous
eulogy to a summary conclusion.

"Dry up," he rapped out, "and sit down at
once.  Clear the table, you fellows, and get the
tablecloth off."

Without further ado the distinguished
company present, with the exception of the
Theologian, who had retired into a corner by himself
to rehearse an imitation, obeyed Dicky's behest.
The decanters and glasses were removed to the
sideboard, and the cloth was whipped off.

"Take this loathsome sweep," continued the
Marquis in the same dispassionate voice,
indicating the guest of the evening, now as white
as his own shirt-front, "and tie him up with
table-napkins."

The dazed Jebson offered no resistance.  Presently
he found himself lying flat on his back upon
the table, his arms and legs pinioned by
Mr. Wickham's table-linen.

"Roll him up in the tablecloth," was The
Freak's next order, "and set him on a chair."

This time Jebson found his tongue.

"Gentlemen all," he gasped between revolutions--the
Master of the Bloodhounds and Baron
Guldenschwein were swiftly converting him into
a snowy cocoon--"a joke's all very well in its
way between pals; but--"

"Put him on that chair," continued Dicky,
taking not the slightest notice.

Willing hands dumped the mummified and
inanimate form of Jebson into an armchair, and
the unique collection of Sports sat round him in
a ring.

Then suddenly Dicky laughed.

"That's all, Jebson," he said.  "We are n't
going to do anything else with you.  You are not
worth it."

Mr. Jebson, who had been expecting the Death
by a Thousand Cuts at the very least, merely
gaped like a stranded carp.  He was utterly
demoralised.  To a coward, fear of pain is worse
than pain itself.

Dicky continued:--

"We merely want to inform you that we think
you are not suited to University life.  The great
world without is calling you.  You are wasted
here: in fact, you have been a bit of a failure.
You mean well, but you are lacking in
perception.  There is too much Ego in your Cosmos.
Napoleon, you will remember, suffered from the
same infirmity.  For nearly two terms you have
deluded yourself into the belief that we think you
a devil of a fellow.  We have sat and listened
politely to your reminiscences: we have permitted
you to refer to all the Strand loafers that one has
ever heard of by their pet names.  And all the
time you have entirely failed to realise that we
see through you.  For a while you rather amused
us, but now we are fed up with you.  You are
getting the College a bad name, too.  We are not
a very big College, but we are a very old and very
proud one, and we have always kept our end up
against larger and less particular establishments.
So I'm afraid we must part with you.  You are
too high for us.  That is all, I think.  Would any
one else like to say anything?"

"Are n't we going to toy with him a little?"
asked the Senior Wrangler.  "We might
bastinado him, or shave one side of his head."

But Dicky would have none of it.

.. _48:

"Too childish," he said.  "We will just leave
him as he is, and finish our evening.  Then he
can go home and pack his carpet-bag.  But"--The
Freak turned suddenly and savagely upon
the gently perspiring Jebson--"let me give you
one hint, my lad.  Never again mention ladies'
names before a roomful of men, or, by God,
you'll get a lesson from some one some day that
you will remember to the end of your life!  That
is all.  I have finished.  The Committee for
Dealing with Public Nuisances is dissolved.  Let us--"

"I will now," suddenly remarked a confidential
but slightly vinous voice from the other end
of the room, "have great pleasure in giving you
an imitation of Mr. Beerbohm Tree."

And the Assistant Professor of Comparative
Theology, who had been neglecting the rôle of
avenging angel in order to prime himself at the
sideboard for another excursion into the realms
of mimetic art, struck exactly the same attitude
as before, and began to mouth out, with
precisely similar intonation and gesture, the
limerick which had already done duty in the case of
Sir Henry Irving.

After this the proceedings degenerated rapidly
into a "rag" of the most ordinary and healthy
type.  The company, having dined, had ceased
to feel vindictive, and The Freak's admirably
appropriate handling of the situation met with
their entire appreciation.  With relief they
proceeded from labour to recreation.  Mr. Jebson
was unceremoniously bundled into a corner;
some one opened Mr. Wickham's piano, and in
two minutes an impromptu dance was in full
swing.  I first found myself involved in an
extravagant perversion of the Lancers, danced by
the entire strength of the company with the
exception of Baron Guldenschwein, who
presided at the piano.  After this the Theologian,
amid prolonged cries of dissent, gave another
imitation--I think it was of Sarah Bernhardt--which
was terminated by a happy suggestion of
Dicky's that the entertainer should be "forcibly
fed"--an overripe banana being employed as
the medium of nourishment.  Then the Baron
struck up "The Eton Boating Song."  Next
moment I found myself (under strict injunctions
to remember that I was "lady") waltzing madly
round in the embrace of the Senior Wrangler,
dimly wondering whether the rôle of battering-ram
which I found thrust upon me during the
next ten minutes was an inevitable one for all
female partners, and if so, why girls ever went
to balls.

Presently my partner suggested a rest, and
having propped me with exaggerated gallantry
against the window-ledge, took off his dickey and
fanned me with it.

After that we played "Nuts in May."

The fun grew more uproarious.  Each man was
enjoying himself with that priceless *abandon*
which only youth can confer, little recking
that with the passing of a very few years he
would look back from the world-weary heights of,
say, twenty-five, upon such a memory as this
with pained and incredulous amazement.  Later
still, say at forty, he would look back again, and
the retrospect would warm his heart.  For the
present, however, our warmth was of a purely
material nature, and the only Master of Arts
present mopped his streaming brow and felt glad
that he was alive.  To a man who has worked
without a holiday for three years either in a
drawing-office or an engineering-shop in South
London, an undergraduate riot of the most
primitive description is not without its points.

"The Eton Boating Song" is an infectious
measure: in a short time we were all singing as
well as dancing.  The floor trembled: the
chandelier rattled: the windows shook: Jesus Lane
quaked.

   |   "Swing, swing, together,"

we roared,

   |   "With your bodies between your--"
   |

*Crash!*

The flowing tartan plaid which adorned the
shoulders of the scion of the house of Damsillie
had spread itself abroad, and, encircling in a
clinging embrace the trussed and pinioned form
of the much-enduring Jebson, had whipped him
from his stool of penance and caused him, from no
volition of his own, to join the glad throng of
waltzers, much as a derelict tree-trunk joins a
whirlpool.  In a trice the Assistant Professor of
Comparative Theology and the President of the
University Boat Club, who were performing an
intricate reversing movement at the moment,
tripped heavily backwards over his prostrate
form, while the Most Noble the Marquis of
Puddox (and lady), brought up in full career by
the stoutly resisting plaid, fell side by side upon
the field.  The Senior Wrangler and the Junior
Egyptologist, whirling like dervishes, topped the
heap a moment later.  The Baron Guldenschwein
and the Master of the Bloodhounds leavened
the whole lump.

My head struck the floor with a dull thud.
Simultaneously some one (I think it was the
Senior Wrangler) put his foot into my left ear.
Even at this excruciating moment I remember
reflecting that it would be a difficult matter,
after this, to maintain a distant or stand-offish
attitude towards the gentleman who at this
moment was acting as the foundation-stone of
our pyramid.

The music ceased, with a suddenness that
suggested musical chairs, and I was aware of an
ominous silence.  Disengaging my neck from the
embrace of a leg clad in a baggy silk
trousering,--evidently it belonged to the Sultan: how he
got into that galley I have no conception, for
he had recently relieved the Baron at the piano,--I
struggled to my hands and knees and crawled
out of the turmoil upon the floor.

Set amid the constellation of stars which still
danced round my ringing head, I beheld a sleek
but burly gentleman in sober black, silk hat in
hand, standing in the doorway.  He was a University
bull-dog.  We were in the clutches of the Law.

"Proctor's compliments, gentlemen, and will
the gentleman what these rooms belong to kindly
step--"

It was a familiar formula.  Wickham, who had
struggled to his feet, answered at once:--

"All right; I'll come down.  Wait till I put my
collar on.  Is the Proctor downstairs?"

"Yes, sir," said the man.

"Who is it?"

"Mr. Sandeman, sir."

"Sandy?  Golly!" commented Mr. Wickham,
swiftly correcting the disorder of his array.
Several people whistled lugubriously.  Wickham
turned to Dicky.

"I'll go down," he said.  "You sort out those
chaps on the floor."

He disappeared with the bull-dog, leaving
Dicky and myself to disintegrate the happy heap
of arms and legs upon the carpet.  Ultimately
we uncovered our foundation-stone, black in the
face, but resigned.  We unrolled his winding-sheet,
cut his bonds, and were administering
first aid of a hearty but unscientific description
when there was a cry from Dicky--

"Ducker, you young fool, where are you going to?"

Ducker, it appeared, was the real name of the
Assistant Theologian.  (As a matter of fact, it
was Duckworth.)  He was already at the door.
Finding his exit detected, he drew himself up
with an air of rather precarious dignity, and replied:--

"I am going to speak to Sandy."

"What for?"

"Sandy," explained Mr. Ducker rapidly, "has
never seen my imitation of George Alexander as
the Prisoner of Zenda.  He has got to have it now!"

Next moment the persevering pantomimist had
disappeared, and we heard him descending the
stairs in a series of kangaroo-like leaps.

"Come on, Bill," said Dicky to me.  "We
must follow him quick, or there will be trouble."

We raced downstairs into the entrance-hall.
The open doorway framed the dishevelled figure
of Mr. Duckworth.  He was calling aloud the
name of one Sandy, beseeching him to behold
George Alexander.  Outside in the gloom of Jesus
Lane we beheld Mr. Wickham arguing respectfully
with a majestic figure in a black gown, white
bands, and baleful spectacles.  With a sinking
heart I recognised one of the two saturnine
clerical gentlemen in whose presence I had been
presented for my M.A. degree only a few hours
before.

"Sandy, old son," bellowed Mr. Duckworth
perseveringly, "be a sportsman and look at me a
minute!"  He was now out upon the doorstep,
posturing.  "Flavia!  Fla-a-a-via!" he yowled.

"It's no good our pulling him back into the
house," said Dicky, "or Sandy will have him for
certain.  Let's rush him down the street, and hide
somewhere."

Next moment, with a hand upon each of the
histrionic Theologian's shoulders, we were flying
down Jesus Lane.  Behind us thundered the feet
of one of the minions of the Reverend Hugo
Sandeman.  (The other had apparently been
retained to guard the door.)  Mr. Duckworth,
suddenly awake to the reality of the situation
and enjoying himself hugely, required no
propulsion.  In fact, he was soon towing us--so
fast that Dicky, encumbered by his chieftain's
costume, and I, who had not sprinted for three
years, had much ado to hold on to him.  The
bull-dog, who was corpulent and more than
middle-aged, presently fell behind.

It was raining slightly and there were not many
people about, for it was close on ten o'clock.  We
emerged at the double from Jesus Lane into
Sidney Street, and dashed down the first
available opening.  It brought us into a narrow
alley--one of the innumerable "passages" with
which Cambridge is honeycombed.  Here we
halted and listened intently.



.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium

   III

.. vspace:: 2

Having now leisure to review the incredible
sequence of events which had resulted in my
being hounded through the streets of Cambridge
by the University authorities,--when by
University law I should have been one of the
hounds,--in company with two undergraduates,
one attired as a sort of burlesque Rob Roy and
the other in a state of more than doubtful
sobriety, I embarked upon a series of gloomy but
useless reflections upon my imbecility.  My only
consolation was derived from the knowledge that
I no longer wore the insignia of the Junior
Egyptologist, having mislaid that accursed ornament
in the course of the evening's revels.

My meditations were interrupted by the voice
of The Freak.

"What shall we do next?" he enquired, with
great gusto.

"Go home," said I, without hesitation.

"How?"

"Straight on: this passage must lead somewhere."

"Does it?  Have you ever been down it before?"

"I can't remember; but--"

"Well, I have, and it does n't lead anywhere,
young feller-my-lad.  That's why that blamed
bull-dog of Sandy's has n't followed us up harder.
He knows he has got us on toast.  I expect they 're
all waiting for us at the mouth of this rat-hole
now."

Certainly we were in a tight corner.  But even
now The Freak's amazing resource did not fail
him.  We were standing at the moment outside
a building of rather forbidding aspect, which had
the appearance of a parish institute.  The
windows of one of the rooms on the ground-floor
were brightly lighted, and even as we looked a
large podgy young man, of the Sunday-School
superintendent type, appeared on the front
steps.  We feigned absorption in a large printed
notice which stood outside the door.

The podgy man addressed us.

"Are you coming in, gentlemen?  You'll find
it worth your while.  The professor is only just
'ere, 'avin' missed 'is train from King's Cross; so
we are goin' to begin at once."  He spoke in the
honeyed--not to say oily--accents of a
certain type of "townee" who sees a chance of
making something out of a 'Varsity man, and his
conversation was naturally addressed to me.  My
two companions kept modestly in the shadows.
"First lecture free to all," continued the podgy
young man, smiling invitingly.  "Members of
the University specially welcomed."

At this moment The Freak emerged into the
full glare of the electric light, and nudged me
meaningly in the ribs.

"I have two friends with me," I said--"one
from Scotland--er--the North of Scotland.
I am taking them for an after-dinner stroll, to
view the Colleges, and--er--so on."

"All are welcome," repeated the young man
faintly, gazing in a dazed fashion at the Marquis
of Puddox.  "Step inside."

What we were in for we did not know.  But
it was a case of any port in a storm, and we all
three allowed ourselves to be shepherded into a
room containing some fifteen people, who, to
judge by the state of the atmosphere, had been
there some time.  Our entrance caused an obvious
flutter, and distracted the attention of the room
from a diminutive foreigner in a frayed frock-coat,
with a little pointed beard and pathetic
brown eyes, who was sitting nervously on the
edge of a chair, endeavouring to look collected
under the blighting influence of a good honest
British stare.  The three newcomers at once
retired to the only unoccupied corner of the room,
where it was observed that the clerical member
of the party immediately adopted a somewhat
unconventional attitude and composed himself
to slumber.

At this point the podgy young man, who
appeared to be the secretary of the club,--some
society for mutual improvement,--rose to his
feet and announced that he had great pleasure
in introducing "the professor" to the company.
Apparently we were to have a French lesson.
We had arrived just in time for the opening
ceremony, which we might enjoy free gratis and for
nothing; but if we desired to come again--a
highly improbable contingency, I thought--we
were at liberty to do so every Thursday evening
throughout the quarter, at a fee of one guinea.

"I think, gentlemen," concluded the secretary,
"that you will find your money 'as been well laid
out.  We 'ave very 'igh reports of the professor's
abilities, and I am glad to see that the fame of 'is
teaching 'as been sufficient to attract a member
of the University here to-night."

At this he bowed deferentially in our direction,
and there was some faint applause.  To my horror
Dicky promptly rose to his feet, and, returning
the podgy young man's bow, delivered himself
in a resonant Gaelic whinny of the following
outrageous flight of fancy:--

"Hech-na hoch-na hoy ah hoo!"

As delivered, I am bound to admit that it
sounded like a perfectly genuine expression of
Celtic fervour.  Dicky sat down, amid an interested
murmur, and whispered hurriedly to me:--

"Interpret, old soul!"

I rose miserably to my feet.

"My friend," I announced, wondering dimly
how long it would be before the podgy young
man and his satellites uprose and cast us forth,
"has replied to your very kind welcome by a
quotation from one of his national poets,--er,
Ossian,--which, roughly translated, means that,
however uncouth his exterior may be, he never
forgets a kindness!"

Which was rather good, I think.

There was more applause, which had the
disastrous effect of rousing Mr. Duckworth from
his slumbers.  Finding that every one present was
clapping his hands and looking in his direction,
he struggled to his feet.

"Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen," he
began cheerfully, "in response to your most
flattering encore I shall have great pleasure, with
your attention and permission, in givin' you my
celebrated imitation"--here he began to stiffen
into the old familiar epileptic attitude--"of Sir
George Irving--"

We drew him down, as gently as possible, into
his seat, and the secretary, slightly disconcerted,
called upon the lecturer to begin.

The professor rose, and having bowed gallantly
to the secretary's wife, the only lady present,--a
courtesy which was acknowledged by that
young woman, with true British politeness, by
a convulsive giggle,--proceeded, in language
which betrayed the fact that although he might
be able to teach French he could not pronounce
English, to explain his *modus operandi*.  He
proposed, we discovered, to describe in his own
tongue some familiar scene of everyday life,
suiting his action to the word, and laying his
hand, whenever possible, upon the objects
mentioned in his discourse, in order to assist us in
grasping his meaning.

"*Par exemple*," he explained, "if I touch ze
'at of madam, so"--here he darted across the
room and laid a playful finger on the brim of
Mrs. Secretary's rather flamboyant headgear, a
familiarity which that paragon of British propriety
greeted with an hysterical "Ow, George!"--"and
say *chapeau*, den you vill onnerstand vat
I mean."

"I doubt it, old son," observed Mr. Duckworth gravely.

"To-night," continued the professor, who had
fortunately been unable to understand this
innuendo, "I vill describe a simple scene zat you all
know--*n'est-ce pas*?"

Here he struck an attitude, as if to imply that
they must be careful not to miss this bit, and
declaimed:--

"*Ze postman, 'ow 'e brings ze letters.*"

This announcement was greeted with a stony
silence.

"I tell you ze title," he added in warning
tones, "but after now I spik no more Engleesh."

"Quite right; I would n't if I were you,"
remarked Mr. Duckworth approvingly.

The professor bowed politely at this
commendation from such an exalted quarter, and
plunged into his subject.

"*Le facteur, comment il apporte les lettres!*"

The audience, composed exclusively of podgy
young men like the secretary, received this
exordium with different degrees of self-consciousness,
after the manner of the Englishman when a
foreign language is spoken in his presence.  Some
looked extremely knowing, while others stirred
uneasily in their seats, and regarded each other
with shamefaced grins.

The professor meanwhile had advanced to the
window, and was gazing excitedly out into the
darkness.

"*Regardez le facteur qui s'approche!*" he cried,
pointing with his finger in the direction where I
calculated that the Reverend Hugo and his
attendant fiends were probably still waiting for
us; "*dans la rue, là-bas!  Il m'apporte peut-être une
lettre!  Mais de qui?  Ah, de--*"  Here he clutched
his heart convulsively, evidently bent upon a
touch of humorous sentiment: but a glance at
the adamantine countenances of his audience
caused him to change his mind, and he continued,
rather lamely:--

"*Je descendrai au rez-de-chaussée.  Je m'approche
à la porte*--pardon, m'sieur!"

The last remark was addressed to Mr. Duckworth,
the professor having stumbled over his
legs on his way to the door.  The Theologian
responded politely with an imitation of a man
drawing a cork, and the demonstration proceeded.

"*Je saisis le bouton,*" continued our instructor,
convulsively clutching the door-handle.  "*Je
tour-r-r-rne le bouton!  J'ouvre la porte!  Je
m'éloigne dans le corridor*--Oh, pardon, m'sieur!
Je vous--"

He had torn open the door with a flourish and
hurled himself into the passage in faithful
pursuance of his system, only to collide heavily and
audibly with some unyielding body outside.

"Proctor's compliments, sir," said a deep
voice, "but if you are in charge 'ere, will you
kindly come and speak to 'im a minute?"

The Frenchman's answering flood of
incomprehensible explanation was cut short by the
secretary, who rose from his seat and hurried out.
A few questions and answers passed between him
and the bull-dog, and then we heard their
footsteps dying away in the direction of the front
door, where the Reverend Hugo was doubtless
waiting.

Next moment the company in the room were
surprised, and I firmly believe disappointed,
when the three last-joined recruits, after a
hurried glance round the walls as if for a humbler
means of exit, rose and unostentatiously quitted
the apartment by the door.

----

Once in the passage, we turned hastily and
blindly to the left, leaving behind us the front
door, which was blocked by an animated group
composed of the secretary, the professor,--what
he was doing there I do not know: perhaps
he thought that three more pupils were applying
for admission,--and the larger of the Reverend
Hugo's two bull-dogs, while that avenging angel's
voice could be heard uplifted in a stately
harangue outside.

We scuttled up the passage and dived through
the first door that presented itself, closing and
locking it behind us.  On turning up the electric
light we found ourselves in a large deserted
room, occupied by two bagatelle tables.  It was
unfortunately lighted from the roof, which put
escape by the window out of the question.
However, at the far end we spied another door.
Through this we rushed, into what appeared to
be a recreation-room, occupied solely by two
spectacled gentlemen immersed in a game of
chess.  Their surprise when three total strangers,
two in unusual dress and all in an obvious hurry,
invaded the privacy of their apartment, only to
make a hasty and undignified exit by the
window, must have been considerable, but we did
not stay to observe it.



.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium

   IV

.. vspace:: 2

Three weeks later The Freak came up to town
for his Easter vacation, and dined with me at my
club, and I heard the end of the tale.

Nothing very dreadful had happened, it
appeared.  Mr. Wickham, having laconically
accepted full responsibility for the riot in his
rooms, had been gated at eight for the rest of the
term.  The fact that I had ordered the dinner
was unknown to the Proctors, and the College
cook had not enlightened them.  The identity of
the Marquis of Puddox, the Junior Egyptologist,
and the Assistant Professor of Comparative
Theology had never been discovered.

"So your guilty secret, old thing," concluded
Dicky, "is safe.  And now I want to invite you
to another function."

"Thank you," I said gruffly, "but I think not.
What sort of function is it this time?"

"A wedding," replied Dicky unexpectedly.

"Great Scott!  Yours?"

"No--The Jebber's!  He has grown quite a
white man.  The little homily which I took the
liberty of delivering to him that evening, coupled
with the very light sentence imposed, quite won
his heart, it appears.  He never leaves me now.
Eats out of my hand.  He is going down at the
end of the May term like a sensible Jebber, and
he is to be married to his girl in June."

"The girl of the photograph?"

"Yes.  He has quite got over his wild-oats
theories, and his girl now has him completely in
hand.  I have seen them together, and I know.
They are very happy."

My romantic friend sighed comfortably, and
concluded:--

"I have promised to be best man."

"You?"

"Yes; he asked me, and one can't decline.
You are coming with me, fellow-sport, to
represent the Senior Members of the University!"

I went.  No one ever refuses anything to The Freak.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`TRAVELS WITH A FIRST RESERVE`:

.. class:: center large

   BOOK TWO

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center large

   A BLIND ALLEY

.. vspace:: 2


.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER IV

.. class:: center medium

   TRAVELS WITH A FIRST RESERVE

.. vspace:: 2

I arrived at Shotley Beauchamp (for
Widgerley and the Sludyard Valley Branch) with my
heart gradually settling into my boots.

Most of us--men, not women: a woman, I
fancy, provided she knows that her hat is on
straight, is prepared to look the whole world in
the face at any moment--are familiar with the
sinking sensation which accompanies us to the
door of a house to which we have been bidden
as a guest for the first time.  We foresee ahead
of us a long vista of explanations, and for the
moment we hate explanations more than anything on earth.

First, we shall have to explain ourselves to the
butler.  Then, pending the tardy appearance
of our host and hostess, we shall have to explain
ourselves to uninterested fellow-guests.  At tea,
knowing no one, we shall stand miserably aloof,
endeavouring *faute de mieux* to explain our
presence to ourself, and wondering whether it would
be decent to leave before breakfast next morning.
After dressing for dinner we shall come down too
early, and have to explain ourselves to an embarrassed
governess and a critical little girl of twelve.
There for the present our imagination boggles.
Pondering these things, we enquire bitterly why
we ever left the club, where, though life may be
colourless, no questions are asked.

It is true that these illusions dispel themselves
with the first grip of our host's hand, but they
usually cling to us right up to the opening of the
front door; and as I on this particular occasion
had only got as far as the platform of the local
station, my soul *adhæsit pavimento*.

After the habit of shy persons, I compiled a
list of my own special handicaps as I sat in my
solitary smoking-compartment.  As far as I can
remember they ran something like this:--

\(1) I have been roaming about the waste
places of the earth for more than ten years,
and have entirely lost any social qualities
that I ever possessed.

\(2) For people who like that sort of thing,
house-parties are well enough.  But I do
not understand the young man of the
present day, and he apparently does not
understand me.  As for the modern young
woman, I simply shrink from her in fear.

\(3) I have never met my host and hostess in my life.

\(4) It is quite possible that The Freak has
forgotten to tell his parents that he has invited me.

\(5) In any case I probably shall not be met
at the station, and there are never any
conveyances to be had at these places.  Altogether--

At this moment the train drew up at Shotley
Beauchamp, and a smiling groom opened the
door and enquired if I were for The Towers.
Item Number Five was accordingly deleted from
my catalogue of woes.  Two minutes later Items
One to Four slipped silently away into the limbo
of those things that do not matter.  A girl was
sitting in the brougham outside the station.

"Lady goin' up, too, sir," remarked the groom
into my ear.  "Her maid," he added, "is in the
dogcart.  You got a man, sir?"

"No."

The groom touched his hat and departed,
doubtless to comfort the maid.

I paused at the carriage-door, and by means of
a terrifying cough intimated that I, too, had been
invited to The Towers, and, although a stranger
and unintroduced, begged leave in the humblest
manner possible to assert my right to a seat in
the brougham.

I was greeted with a friendly smile.

"Come in!  I expect you are Mr. Carmyle."

I admitted guardedly that this was so, and
proceeded to install myself in that part of the
brougham not already occupied by the lady's hat.

"My name is Constance Damer," said my
companion, as the brougham started.  "Perhaps
you have heard of me?"

"No," I replied, "I have not."

"Not very well put!" said Miss Damer
reprovingly.

"I have been abroad for several years," I
murmured in extenuation.

"I know," said my companion, nodding her
head.  "You have been building a dam across
something in Africa."

I accepted this precise summary of my professional
career with becoming meekness.  Miss
Damer continued:--

"And I suppose you are feeling a little bit lost
at present."

"Yes," I said heartily, "I am."

"You should have said 'Not *now*!'" explained
my companion gently.

I apologised again.

"I shall make allowances for you until you
find your feet," said Miss Damer kindly.

I thanked her, and asked whom I was likely
to meet at The Towers.

Miss Damer ticked off the names of the party
on her small gloved fingers.  (Have I mentioned
that she was *petite*?)

"Mr. Mainwaring and Lady Adela," she said.
"You know *them*, of course?"

"No.  I saw them once on Speech Day at
school fifteen years ago.  That is all."

"Well, they are your host and hostess."

"Thank you: I had gathered that," I replied
deferentially.

"Then Dicky."

"Dicky?  Who is--  Oh, The Frea--  Yes.
Quite so!  Proceed!"

"What did you call him?" asked Miss Damer,
frankly curious.

"I--well--at school we used to call him The
Freak," I explained.  "Men very often never
know the Christian names of their closest
friends," I added feebly.  "Who else?"

"There is Hilda Beverley, of course.  You have
heard of her?"

"N--no.  Ought I to have done?"

Miss Damer's brown eyes grew quite circular
with surprise.

"Do you mean to tell me," she asked incredulously,
"that Dicky never informed you that he
was engaged?"

"No.  You see," I pointed out, anxious to
clear my friend of all appearance of lukewarmness
as a lover, "I only met him the other day
for the first time in fifteen years, and we
naturally had a good deal to tell one another; and so,
as it happened--that is--"  I tailed off
miserably under Miss Damer's implacable eye.

"You are his greatest friend, aren't you?"
she enquired.

On reflection I agreed that this was so, although
I had never seriously considered the matter
before.  Women have a curious habit of cataloguing
their friends into a sort of order of merit--"My
greatest friend, my greatest friend but six,"
and so on.  The more sensitive male shrinks from
such an invidious undertaking.  Dicky and I had
corresponded with one another with comparative
regularity ever since our University days; and
when two Englishmen, one hopelessly casual and
the other entirely immersed in his profession,
achieve this feat, I suppose they rather lay
themselves open to accusations of this sort.

"And he never told you he was engaged?"

I shook my head apologetically.

"Ah, well," said Miss Damer charitably, "I
dare say he would have remembered later.  One
can't think of everything in a single conversation,
can one?" she added with an indulgent smile.

I was still pondering a suitable and sprightly
defence of masculine reserve where the heart is
concerned, when the carriage swung round
through lodge-gates, and the gravel of the drive
crunched beneath our wheels.

"I hope the old Freak and his girl will be very
happy together," I said, rather impulsively for
me.  "He deserves a real prize."

"You are right," said Miss Damer, "he does."

My heart warmed to this little lady.  She knew
a good man when she saw one.

"Have they been engaged long?" I asked.

"About a month."

"Where did he come across her?"

"He did not come across her," replied Miss
Damer with gentle reproof, as a Mother Superior
to a novice.  "They were brought together."

"That means," I said, "that it is what is called
an entirely suitable match?"

Miss Damer nodded her small wise head.

"From a parental point of view," I added.

"From Lady Adela's point of view," corrected
Miss Damer.  "Mr. Mainwaring, poor old dear,
has not got one."

"But what about The Freak's point of view?"
I enquired.

"I can hear you quite well in your ordinary
tone of voice," Miss Damer assured me.

I apologised, and repeated the question.

The girl considered.  Obviously, it was a delicate subject.

"He seems quite content," she said at last.
"But then, he never could bear to disappoint any
one who had taken the trouble to make
arrangements for his happiness."

"Would you mind telling me," I said, "without
any mental reservation whatsoever, whether you
consider that this engagement is the right one for
him?"

Miss Damer's eyes met mine with perfect
frankness.

"No," she said, "I don't.  What is more, the
engagement is beginning to wear rather thin.
In fact,"--her eyes twinkled,--"I believe
that Lady Adela is thinking of calling out her
First Reserve."

"You mean--"

"I mean," said Miss Damer, "that Lady Adela
is thinking of calling out her First Reserve."

A natural but most impertinent query sprang
to my lips, to be stifled just in time.

"You were going to say?" enquired Miss Damer.

"I was going to say what a pretty carriage
drive this is," I replied rapidly.  "You will be
glad of a cup of tea, though?"

"Yes, indeed," replied my companion brightly;
but her attitude said "Coward!" as plainly as
could be.

Still, there are some questions which one can
hardly ask a lady after an acquaintance of only
ten minutes.

"There is the house," continued Miss Damer,
as our conveyance weathered a great clump of
rhododendrons.  "Are n't you glad that this long
and dusty journey is over?"

"Not *now*!" I replied.

My little preceptress turned and bestowed
on me a beaming smile.

"That is *much* better!" she remarked approvingly.





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.. _`VERY ODIOUS`:

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   CHAPTER V


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   VERY ODIOUS

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.. class:: center medium

   I

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We found the house-party at tea in the hall of
The Towers.  The Mainwaring parents proved
to be a little old gentleman, with grey
side-whiskers and a subdued manner, and an imposing
matron of fifty, who deliberately filled the teapot
to the brim with lukewarm water upon our
approach and then gave me two fingers to shake.
To Miss Damer was accorded a "Constance--dear
child!" and a cold peck upon the right cheek.

After that I was introduced to Dicky's sister
Sylvia--a tall and picturesque young woman,
dressed in black velvet with a lace collar.  She
wore the air of a tragedy queen--not, it struck
me, because she felt like a tragedy queen, but
because she considered that the pose suited her.

The party was completed by a subaltern
named Crick--a jovial youth with a *penchant*
for comic songs, obviously attached to the person
of Miss Sylvia Mainwaring--and of course, The
Freak's lady-love, Miss Hilda Beverley, to whom
I was shortly presented.

I am afraid our conversation was not a
conspicuous success.  Miss Beverley was tall,
handsome, patrician, and cultivated, obviously
well-off and an admirable talker.  Still, it takes two
to make a dialogue, and when one's own
contributions to the same, however unprovocative,
are taken up *seriatim*, analysed, turned inside
out, and set aside with an amused smile by a lady
who evidently regards a conversation with one
of her *fiancé's* former associates as a chastening
but beneficial form of intellectual discipline,
a man may be excused for not sparkling.

Half an hour later, perspiring gently, I was
rescued by The Freak and conducted to the
smoking-room.

"You never told me you were engaged, old
man," I said, as we settled down to a little
much-needed refreshment.

"It's a fact, though," replied The Freak
proudly.  "*A marriage has been arranged*--and
all that.  Say when."

"*And will shortly take place*, I suppose?"

"No immediate hurry," said The Freak easily.
"There are one or two things that Hilda wants
to cure me of before we face the starter.  This,
for instance."  He held up an extremely dilute
whiskey-and-soda.  "Between meals, that is.
Likewise my--er--casual outlook on life in
general."

"Miss Beverley will have her hands full," I
observed.

"Think so?  She will do it, though," replied
my renegade friend confidently.  "She is a very
capable girl.  Regards me as her mission in life.
I feel jolly proud about it, I can tell you--like
one of those reformed drunkards they stand up
on the platform to tell people what a Nut he used
to be in the old days, and look at him now!  By
the way, I promised Hilda I would n't use the
word 'Nut' any more.  Check me if I become too
colloquial, old son.  Hilda is rather down on what
she calls my 'inability to express myself in
rational English.'"

"Colloquialism was not formerly a failing of
yours, Freak," I said.  "As a small boy you were
rather inclined the other way."

"As a small boy, yes," agreed The Freak.
"But it is not easy to maintain the pedantic
habit at a public school," he added feelingly.

"Do you remember once," I continued, "telling
old Hanbury, when he dropped upon you for
giggling in form, that your 'risible faculties had
been unduly excited by the bovine immobility
of Bailey minor'?"

"Yes, I remember.  Hilda would have been
proud of me that day," replied The Freak,
sighing over his lost talent.  "Now she thinks me too
flippant and easy-going.  Lacking in dignity, and
so forth.  But if you watch me carefully during
your stay here you will find that I have very
largely regained my old form.  I am getting
frightfully intellectual.  You ought to see us
reading Browning together before breakfast.  It
is a sublime spectacle.  Talking of sublime
spectacles, we are all going to Laxley Races on
Tuesday, and I can give you an absolutely dead snip
for the Cup."

The next ten minutes were devoted to a
conversation which, from the point of view both of
subject-matter and expression, must have undone
the regenerative work of several weeks.
Fortunately Miss Beverley was adorning herself for
dinner at the time--the most austere feminine
intellect goes into *mufti*, so to speak, between
the hours of seven and eight P.M.--and we made
our provisional selections for Tuesday's
programme undisturbed.

The student of Browning finished scribbling
down the names of horses on the back of an
envelope.

"That is all right," he said.  "Plumstone for
the Shotley Stakes, Little Emily for the Maiden
Plate, and Gigadibs or Jedfoot for the big race.
The others can keep.  Shall we go up and dress
for dinner?"

I agreed, and we knocked out our pipes.

"What do you think, by the way," enquired
The Freak casually, "of little Connie Damer?"

I told him.

We were late for dinner.



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   II

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A shy but observant male, set down in an
English country-house, soon realises, especially when
he has been compelled for a period of years to
rely for amusement almost entirely upon his own
society, the truth of the saying that the proper
study of mankind is Man--with which is
incorporated Woman.

At The Towers I became an interested and
uneasy spectator of the continued reformation of
my friend Dicky Mainwaring.  During the same
period I had constant opportunities of comparing
the characters and dispositions of his first
and (presumably) second choices, Mesdames
Beverley and Damer, and in a lesser degree of
his sister Sylvia.

Further acquaintance with Miss Beverley
confirmed my first impression of her.  She struck me
more and more as exactly the kind of girl whom
a careful mother would select as a helpmeet for
a somewhat erratic son.  She was cool, aloof,
capable, and decided, with very distinct ideas
upon the subject of personal dignity and good
form.  She had already cured her fiancé of many
regrettable habits.  Dicky, I found, no longer
greeted under-housemaids upon the stairs with
"Hallo, Annie!  How is your bad knee getting
on?"  Instead, he hurried past the expectant
damsel with averted eyes.  He no longer slipped
warm shillings into the hands of beggar-women
who assailed him with impossible tales of woe in
the back drive: instead, he apologetically handed
them tickets of introduction to the Charity
Organisation Society, with a packet of which
Miss Beverley had relentlessly provided him.
He kept accounts.  He answered letters by
return of post.  He perused closely printed
volumes, and became enrolled in intellectual
societies with mysterious aims and titles difficult to
remember.

"Tiny, my bonny boy," he enquired of me one
morning after breakfast, "do you happen to
have any sort of notion what Eugenics is--or are?"

"I believe," I replied hazily, "that it is some
sort of scheme for improving the physique of the
race."

Dicky nodded appreciatively.

"I see," he said.  "One of old Sandow's
schemes.  His name is Eugen.  That is better
than I thought.  I was afraid it was going to be
another kind of political economy.  Hilda wants
me to become a local vice-president of the
Eugenic Society; and as it seems to be a less
pois--complicated business than most of her enterprises,
I think I will plank down five bob and win a good
mark."

And off he went, money in hand, to gain an
indulgent smile from his Minerva.

Of Sylvia Mainwaring I need only say at
present that she was a pale shade of Miss
Beverley.

Miss Constance Damer was the exact opposite
of Miss Beverley, physically, mentally, and
spiritually.  Miss Beverley was tall, dark, and
stately; Miss Damer small, fair, and vivacious.
Miss Beverley was patronising and gracious in
her manner; Miss Damer's prevailing note was
unaffected bonhomie.  But where Miss Beverley
slew her thousands, Miss Damer slew her tens of
thousands; for she possessed what the other did
not, that supreme gift of the
gods--charm--magnetism--personality--whatever you like
to call it.  In all my life I have never known a
human being who attracted her fellow-creatures
with so little effort and so little intention,
and who inspired love and affection so
readily and lastingly, as Constance Damer.  She
never angled for admiration; she bestowed no
favours; she responded to no advances; but she
drew all the world after her like Orpheus with
his lute.

That is all I need say about Miss Damer.  This
narrative concerns itself with the career of my
good friend The Freak, Dicky Mainwaring; and
the persevering reader will ultimately discover
(if he has not already guessed) that Fate had
arranged The Freak's future on a basis which did
not include the lady whom I have just described.

With masculine admiration Miss Damer did
not concern herself overmuch.  We all think
lightly of what can be had in abundance.  Not
that she did not take a most healthy interest in
noting what mankind thought of her; but her
interest would undoubtedly have been heightened
if she could have felt less certain what the verdict
was going to be.  I honestly believe she would
have been thrilled and gratified if some one had
passed an unfavourable opinion upon her.  But
no one ever did.

She had no sisters of her own, so large families
of girls were an abiding joy to her.  These received
her with rapture--especially the shy and gawky
members thereof--and made much of her,
sunning themselves in the unaffected kindliness
of her nature and gloating over her clothes for
as long as they could keep her.  She was greatly
in request, too, among small boys, for purposes
of football and the like; but her chief passion in
life, as I discovered one afternoon when Dicky
and I surprised her at tea with the coachman's
family, was a fat, good-tempered, accommodating,
responsive baby.

As for her character in general, I think its
outstanding feature was a sort of fearless
friendliness.  (Miss Beverley may have been fearless,
but she certainly was not friendly.)  Constance
Damer's was the absolute fearlessness of a child
who has never yet encountered anything to be
afraid of.  It is given to few of us to walk through
life without coming face to face at times with
some of its ugliness.  Apparently this had never
happened to Miss Damer.  I say "apparently,"
but such a wise and discerning young person as I
ultimately found her to be could never really
have been blind or indifferent to the sadder facts
of this world of ours.  Consequently I often found
myself enquiring why her attitude towards her
fellow-creatures as a whole was so entirely
fearless and trustful, when she must have known that
so many of them were to be feared and so few
to be trusted.  I fancy the reason must have been
that she possessed the power of compelling every
one--man, woman, child, horse, and dog--to
turn only their best side towards her.  Rough folk
answered her gently, silent folk became chatty,
surly folk smiled, fretful folk cheered up,
awkward folk felt at home in her presence; children
summed up the general attitude by clinging to
her skirts and begging her to play with them.  It
was impossible to imagine any one being rude to
her, and certainly I never knew any one who
was--not even Miss Beverley.

But she never abused her power.  She never
domineered, never put on airs, never ordered us
about, never revealed her consciousness that we
were all her servants.  That is true greatness.

----

As you very properly observe, this is a book
about Dicky Mainwaring.  *Revenons à nos
moutons*!





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.. _`FORBIDDEN FRUIT--A DIGRESSION`:

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   CHAPTER VI


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   FORBIDDEN FRUIT--A DIGRESSION

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Lady Adela stood in the hall, engaged in her
favourite pursuit of guest-dragooning.

"Mr. Mainwaring is not coming," she
announced.  "Dick, Hilda, Constance, Sylvia, and
Mr. Crick will go in the motor.  Mr. Carmyle,
will you give me your company in the victoria?"

I smiled wanly and thanked her.  Perhaps the
punishment fitted the crime, but it was none the
less a heavy one.  Still, one should not seek out
forbidden fruit, or tamper with First Reserves.

Briefly, the facts of the case were these.

After breakfast on the day of Laxley Races--a
blazing August morning--Miss Constance
Damer invited me to accompany her to the
orchard to pick green apples.

"I have a clean white frock on," she explained,
"or I would not trouble you."

I assured her that it was no trouble.

We duly reached the orchard, where Miss
Damer ate three green apples and presented me
with a fourth, which, fearing a fifth, I consumed
as slowly as possible, hoping for the sake of our
first parents that Eve's historic indiscretion took
place in late September and not early August.

Presently we came to a red-brick wall with a
south aspect, upon which the noonday sun beat
warmly.  High up upon its face grew plums, fat,
ripe, and yellow.

Miss Damer threw away the core of an apple
and turned to me.

"I should like a plum," she said, with a seraphic smile.

The wall was fifteen feet high, and the plums
grew near the top.

"I will find a ladder," I replied obediently.

"That would be bothering you too much,"
said the considerate Miss Damer.  "Can't you
put your foot in that root and pull yourself up by
the branches?"

The branches, be it said, were gnarled and
fragile, and lay flat against the wall.

"I think the ladder would be better," I
repeated.  "My weight might pull the whole thing
away from the wall, and then we should have a
few observations from Lady Adela."

"You are right; that would never do," replied
my right-minded companion gravely.  "But I
don't know where they keep the ladder, and in
any case it would probably be locked up.  What
a pity I have this white skirt on!"

She turned away.  A low tremulous sigh escaped her.

Next moment, feeling utterly and despicably
weak-minded, I found myself ascending the wall,
much as a blue-bottle ascends a window-pane.
Miss Damer stood below with clasped hands.

"Do be careful, Mr. Carmyle," she besought
me.  "You might hurt yourself very seriously if
you fell.  I will have that big one, please, just
above your head."

I secured the object indicated and threw it
down to her.  She caught it deftly.

"There is another one on your left," continued
Eve.  "Can you reach it?"

I could, and did.

"I will keep this one for you, Mr. Carmyle,"
said my thoughtful companion as she caught it.
"I think I will have one more.  There is a
perfectly lovely one there, out to your right.  You
can just get it if you stretch.  Throw it down."

The plum in question was a monster, and looked
ripe to the moment.  I straddled myself athwart
the plum tree, much in the attitude of a man who
is about to receive five hundred lashes, and
reached far out to the right.

"Another two inches will do it," called out
Miss Damer encouragingly.

She was right.  I strained two inches further,
and my fingers closed upon the fruit.  Simultaneously
the greater part of the plum tree abandoned
its adherence to the wall, and in due
course,--about four-fifths of a second, I should
say,--I found myself lying on my back in a
gooseberry-bush, clasping to my bosom the
greater part of a valuable fruit tree, dimly
conscious, from glimpses through the interstices of
my leafy bower, of the presence of a towering
and majestic figure upon the gravel walk beside
Miss Damer.

It was Lady Adela Mainwaring, my hostess,
armed *cap-à-pie* in gauntlets, green baize apron,
and garden hat, for a murderous morning among
the slugs.

I struggled to a sitting position, slightly dazed,
and not a little apprehensive lest I should be
mistaken for a slug.

Neither Miss Damer nor my hostess uttered a
word, Lady Adela because her high breeding and
immense self-control restrained her; Miss Damer,
I shrewdly suspect, because she was engaged in
bolting the last evidence of her complicity.  But
both ladies were regarding me with an expression
of pained reproach.

I shook myself free from my arboreal surroundings,
and smiled weakly.

"Have you hurt yourself, Mr. Carmyle?"
enquired Lady Adela.

"No, thank you," I replied, wondering if I
would have received a lighter sentence if I had
said yes.

"If you should desire to eat fruit at any time,"
continued Lady Adela in a gentle voice, much as
one might address an imbecile subject to sudden
attacks of eccentric mania, "one of the gardeners
will always be glad to get it for you.  You had
better go in now and dress, as we start for the
races in half an hour.  Constance, dearest, run
and find Puttick, and ask him if anything can be
done for this tree."

Miss Damer tripped obediently away in search
of the head-gardener, and Lady Adela led me
kindly but firmly past the gooseberry-bushes and
other sources of temptation to the house.

I did not see Miss Damer again until I met her
with the others in the hall half an hour later.

She projected a sad smile upon me through her
motor-veil, and shook her head.

"I hope you did n't hurt yourself," she said
softly.

"I hope the last plumstone did n't choke you!"
I replied sternly.

At this moment Lady Adela joined the party,
and pronounced sentence as recorded at the
beginning of this chapter.  The other five
accordingly descended the steps and began to
pack themselves into the motor.

"May I drive, Dicky?" enquired Miss Damer.

No one ever thought of refusing Miss Damer
anything.  Her request was evidently the merest
matter of form, for she was at the wheel almost
as soon as she made it.  Even Lady Adela merely
smiled indulgently.

"Constance, *dear child*!" she murmured.

Dicky carefully packed his *fiancée* into the
back seat, where his sister had already taken her
place.

"You had better sit between us, I think," said
Miss Beverley.

"I am going to sit in front," said Dicky, "in
case Connie does anything specially
crack-brained with the car.  Crick, old friend, just
separate these two fair ladies, will you?"

Mr. Crick obeyed with alacrity.  The Freak,
heedless of a tiny cloud upon Miss Beverley's
usually serene brow, stepped up beside Miss
Damer.  That lady released her clutch-pedal, and
the car, spurting up gravel with its back wheels,
shot convulsively forward and then began to
crawl heavily on its way.

"We'll put something on for you if you aren't
in time for the first race, Bill," called The Freak
to me.  "What do you want to back?"

I inflated my lungs, and replied *fortissimo*:--

"Plumstone!"

Miss Damer's small foot came heavily down
upon the accelerator, and the car whizzed down
the drive.





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.. _`UNEARNED INCREMENT`:

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   CHAPTER VII


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   UNEARNED INCREMENT

.. vspace:: 2

Lady Adela and I studiously avoided all reference
to gardening or diet upon our six-mile drive
to Laxley, and reached the course in a condition
of comparative amicability.

We arrived just in time to hear the roar that
greeted the result of the first race.

"I wonder what has won," I said, as the
victoria bumped over the grass.

"I have never been greatly interested in
racing," said Lady Adela majestically.  "My father
was devoted to it, and so is my brother
Rumborough.  But I never know one horse from
another.  For instance, I have not the faintest
notion which of the two animals now drawing us
is Romulus and which is Remus, although Dick
says it is impossible to mistake them.  But then
Dick has a name for every animal in the estate.
Ah! there is the motor, against the railings!  That
is rather a relief.  Dear Constance is an excellent
driver, Dick says, but she is inclined to be
venturesome."

"Miss Damer appears to be a lady of exceptional
talents," I observed.

"Yes, indeed!" agreed Lady Adela, with, for
her, quite remarkable enthusiasm.  "It is a pity
she has no money."

I do not know whether the last remark was
intended as a lamentation or an intimation.  But
I understood now why Miss Damer was only
First Reserve.

I changed the subject.

"I suppose you do not bet, Lady Adela?"

"I make it a rule," replied my hostess
precisely, "to put half-a-sovereign on any horse
whose owner we happen to know.  One should
always support one's friends, should not one?"

I was still pondering in my heart Lady Adela's
system of turf speculation, wondering whether if
every animal in the race had belonged to a friend
she would have backed it, and in any case what
benefit or otherwise (beyond shortening the price)
one confers upon an owner by backing his horses
at all, when the victoria, rolling heavily, came to
anchor astern of the motor, and Hilda Beverley,
Sylvia, and Crick, who had been standing upon
the seats to view the race, turned to greet us.

"I had no idea racing was so exciting, dear
Lady Adela," exclaimed Miss Beverley.  "I
came armed with a copy of 'The Nation,'
prepared to spend the afternoon in the back seat of
the car, and here I am quite thrilled."

"I am so glad, dear Hilda," said Lady Adela
graciously.  "Dick would have been disappointed
if you had not enjoyed yourself.  Where is that
boy, by the way?"

"He and Connie have gone to collect Mr. Carmyle's
winnings," said Sylvia.

"Has--ha! h'm!--Plumstone won, then?"
I enquired, timorously avoiding Lady Adela's eye.

"Yes, worse luck!" replied Mr. Crick lugubriously.
"We were all on Mercutio.  But Miss
Damer stuck to it that Plumstone was the right
horse, and made Dicky put on five shillings for
her and five for you.  They got three to one, I
believe."

At this moment Dicky and Miss Damer returned
from the ring, and I was duly presented
with six half-crowns.

"Three-quarters of an hour till the next race,"
announced Dicky.  "Better have lunch."

By this time the whole party had become
infected with that fierce spirit of cupidity which
assails respectable Britons when they find
themselves in the neighbourhood of that singularly
uncorrupt animal, the horse; and the succeeding
half-hour was devoted by seven well-born and
well-to-do persons to an elaborate consideration
of the best means of depriving a hard-working
and mainly deserving section of the community
of as large a sum of money as possible.

Our symposium resulted in a far from unanimous
decision.  Lady Adela, having studied the
list of owners' names upon the card, handed me a
sovereign and instructed me to seek out a
book-maker who should be both cheap and respectable,
and back the Earl of Moddlewick's Extinguisher
and Mr. Hector McCorquodale's Inverary.  Mr. Crick,
the expert of the party, let fall dark hints
on the subject of a quadruped named The
Chicken.  Dicky and I decided to wait until the
numbers went up.

"Dick, you must positively back a horse for
me this time," announced Miss Beverley.

"You are getting on, Hilda!" replied The
Freak, obviously pleased to find his beloved in
sympathy with his simple pleasures.

Miss Beverley handed him five shillings.

"And if the horse does n't win I shall never
speak to you again," she concluded; and from
the tone of her voice I could not help feeling that
she meant what she said.

"What is your selection this time, Connie?"
asked Sylvia.

Miss Damer produced a dirty pink envelope
and began to open it.

Dicky laughed.

"Connie has been patronising a tipster," he said.

"I got this," explained Miss Damer, "from a
man on the course.  His name was Lively.  He
was trying to earn an honest living, he said, by
supplying reliable stable information to
sportsmen; but he did n't seem to be getting on very
well, poor thing!  People were standing all round
him in a ring, laughing, and nobody would buy
any of his envelopes, although he had given lots
of them the winner of the first race for nothing.
Just then he caught sight of Dicky and me
standing on the edge of the crowd.  He pushed his way
towards us, and said that if I bought one of his
tips, he knew it would bring him luck.  He said,"
Miss Damer added with a smile of genuine
gratification, "that I was a beautiful young lady.  So
I bought one of his envelopes, and after that a
lot of other people did, too."

Dicky grinned.

"Yes; that was the point at which we ought to
have passed along quietly," he said.

"Did n't you?" I asked.

"Bless you, no!  Connie had n't nearly finished.
She and her friend were as thick as thieves by
this time.  The conversation was just beginning
to interest them."

"What did you find to talk about, Miss
Damer?" asked Hilda Beverley curiously.

"I could n't help wondering," Connie continued,
"whether he had a wife and children to
support; so I asked him if he was married.  He
said he was afraid he was, but if ever he became
a widower he would let me know.  We left after that."

"Constance, *dear* child!" began Lady Adela,
amid unseemly laughter.

"It was all right, Lady Adela," Miss Damer
assured her.  "They were quite a nice crowd, and
I had Dicky with me."

"You are a great deal better able to take care
of yourself than I am, old lady," said The Freak
admiringly.

I saw Miss Beverley's fine eyes rest disapprovingly
for a moment upon her philogynistic
swain.  Then some one asked:--

"What is your tip, Connie?"

Miss Damer scanned her paper.

"It's not very well written," she said.
"Perry--Perry--something."

"Periander?" I suggested.  "He is on the card."

"Yes--Periander.  I shall back him."

"Rank outsider," said Mr. Crick's warning voice.

"I shall back him all the same," persisted Miss
Damer, with a little nod of finality.  "It would
n't be fair to Lively's luck if I did n't.
Mr. Carmyle, will you come and find a bookmaker
with me?"

We departed together, and pushed our way
through the crowd to the ring.  On our journey
we passed Miss Damer's protégé, still dispensing
reliable information in a costume composed of
check trousers, an officer's scarlet mess-jacket,
stained and bleached almost beyond recognition
by the accidents of many race-courses, and
a large bowler hat adorned with a peacock's
feather.  A broken nose made him conveniently
recognisable by those (if such there were) who
might desire to consult him a second time.  Miss
Damer, for whom castaways and lame dogs in
general seemed to have a peculiar fascination, showed
a disposition to linger again; but a timely reminder
as to the necessity of getting our money on at
once took us past the danger point and saved me
from participating in a public appearance.

Presently we found ourselves amid the book-making
fraternity.  The numbers of the runners
had gone up, and lungs of brass were proclaiming
the odds in fierce competition.

"What does 'six to four the field' mean?"
enquired Miss Damer.  "I always forget."

I turned to answer the question, but found
that it had not been addressed to me.  My
companion was now engaged in animated conversation
with a total stranger, and for the next five
minutes I stood respectfully aloof while the pair
discussed *seriatim* the prospects of each horse
upon the card.

"He says Periander is an outsider," Miss
Damer informed me, as the man moved away,
awkwardly raising his hat.  "But I think I must
back him.  Cornucopia is a certainty for this
race, he told me."  ("A pinch" was what the
gentleman had said: I overheard him.)  "You
had better put something on him."

I meekly assented, and after Miss Damer had
found her bookmaker we adventured ten shillings
upon Periander and Cornucopia respectively.
Public estimation of the former animal's
form was such as to secure odds of ten to one
for Miss Damer.  I was informed that the two
steeds owned by the Earl of Moddlewick and
Mr. Hector McCorquodale were not running,
so a Diogenean search for Lady Adela's cheap
and respectable bookmaker was not required
of me.

Suddenly a bell rang.

"They're off!" exclaimed Miss Damer.  "We
can't cross the course now.  Come on to this
stand."

We raced up a flight of steps, and presently
found ourselves on a long balcony in a position
which commanded a view of the entire course.

"Your jockey," announced Miss Damer to
me, "is pale blue with chocolate sleeves and cap.
Mine is red, with white hoops.  Can you see them
anywhere?"

"I can see mine," I said.  "He is having a chat
with the starter at present, but I have no doubt
he will tear himself away presently."

"But the others are halfway home!" cried
Miss Damer in dismay.

"So I perceive."

"You poor man!"

"Never mind!" I replied quite cheerfully.
There is something very comforting about being
called a poor man by some people.  "Where is
your friend?"

"There, in that bunch of four.  He is going
well, is n't he?  That's the favourite, Mustard
Seed, lying back."

"I expect his jockey will let him out after he
gets into the straight," I said.

"If he isn't very careful," observed Miss
Damer with perfect truth, "he will get shut out
altogether."

The horses swept round the last corner and
headed up the final stretch in a thundering bunch.
Suddenly Miss Damer turned to me.

"This is fearfully dull for you," she said.

"Not at all," I assured her.  "My horse has
just started."

"Come in with me on Periander," pleaded my
companion.  "You can only lose five shillings."

I closed with her offer by a nod.  Some partnerships
can be accepted without negotiation or
guarantee.

Suddenly the crowd gave a roar.  The favourite
had bored his way through the ruck at last.  He
shot ahead.  The noise became deafening.

"There goes our half-sovereign!" shrieked
Miss Damer despairingly in my ear.

"Wait a minute!" I bellowed.  "Periander
is n't done for yet."

There came a yet mightier roar from the crowd,
and as we leaned precariously over the
balustrade and craned our necks up the course, we
perceived that a horse whose jockey wore red
and white hoops was matching the favourite
stride for stride.

"Periander!  Periander!" yelled those who
stood to win at ten to one against.

"Mustard Seed!" howled those who stood to
lose at six to four on.

But they howled in vain.  The flail-like whips
descended for the last time; there was a flash of
red and white; and Periander was first past the
post by a length.

We descended into the ring and sought out
our bookmaker.  There was no crowd round him:
backers of Periander had not been numerous;
and it was with a friendly and indulgent smile
that he handed Miss Damer her half-sovereign
and a five-pound note.

"Can you give me two-pounds-ten for this?"
she asked, handing me the note.

It was useless to protest, so I humbly pocketed
my unearned increment, and we left the ring in
search of the rest of our party.

"I have never won gold before," announced
the small capitalist beside me, slipping the coins
into her chain-purse--"let alone paper."  Her
smiling face was flushed with triumph.

"I think I know who will rejoice at your
victory to-morrow," I said, "and participate in the
fruits thereof."

"Who?"

"The coachman's children, the gardener's
children, the lodge-keeper's children--"

But Miss Damer was not listening.

"Poor Lively!" she said suddenly.  "He gave
me that tip, and yet he could n't afford to back
the horse himself."

"Tipsters do not as a rule follow their own
selections," I said.  "I don't suppose, either, that
Periander's was the only name contained in
those pink envelopes of his.  You really ought
not--"

"Why, there he is!" exclaimed Miss Damer,
upon whom, I fear, my little homily had been
entirely thrown away.

We had made a detour to avoid the crowd on
our way back to the carriage, and were now
crossing an unfrequented part of the course.  My
companion pointed, and following the direction
of her hand I beheld, projecting above a green
hillock twenty yards away, a battered bowler
hat, surmounted by a peacock's feather.

"Come this way," commanded Miss Damer.

I followed her round to the other side of the
hillock.  There lay the retailer of stable secrets,
resting from his labours before the next race.
Apparently business was not prospering.  His
dirty, villainous face looked unutterably pinched
and woe-begone.  His eyes were closed.  Obviously
he had not lunched.  His broken nose appeared
more concave than ever.

At our approach he raised his head listlessly.

"Go on, and wait for me, please," said Miss
Damer in a low voice.

I obeyed.  One always obeyed when Miss
Damer spoke in that tone, and evidently some
particularly private business was in hand.
Already the child's impulsive fingers were
fumbling with the catch of her chain purse.

I took up my stand a considerable distance
away.  I had no fears of Lively.  One does not
snatch at the purse of an angel from heaven.  My
only concern was that the angel's generosity
might outrun her discretion.

I could hear her making a breathless little
speech, but Lively said never a word.  I was not
altogether surprised.  Probably he was afraid of
waking up.

Presently she came back to me, smiling
farewell at her pensioner over her shoulder.

"You'll give one of them to your wife, won't
you?" was the last thing I heard her say.

Then she rejoined me, and we walked on.

"How much money," I enquired severely,
"will you have left out of your winnings, after
providing for me and your other friend and the
families of the coachman and the gardener and
the lodge-keeper?"

Again Miss Damer was not attending.

"Poor Lively!" she said softly.

There were tears in her eyes.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A RELAPSE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER VIII


.. class:: center medium

   A RELAPSE

.. vspace:: 2

The most unpopular man in the group which
we now rejoined was undoubtedly Mr. Crick, a
blind faith in whose prescience had induced Miss
Beverley and Sylvia Mainwaring to adventure
an aggregate sum of ten shillings upon Mustard
Seed.  Ranking a good second in the order of
odium came Dicky, who had executed the
commission.  The fact that he had done so under
protest was deemed to have no bearing on the case.

Miss Damer said nothing about our little
triumph, and I was well content.  There is
something very intimate and comfortable about a
secret of this kind.

The great race of the day, the Laxley Cup,
was now imminent, and, with the exception of
Lady Adela, who issued to me from the depths
of the victoria a distinctly somnolent injunction
to persevere in my support of the property of the
Earl of Moddlewick and Mr. Hector McCorquodale,
we departed in a body to back our respective
fancies.

"Miss Beverley seems a bit put out about
something, my son Richard," I observed, as
The Freak and I strolled along in the rear of the
party.

Dicky nodded.

"Yes," he said, "she is.  She is a dear, but she
hates losing money worse than an eye-tooth.  I
must find a winner for her this time, or I shall
have to listen to a song and chorus.  You noticed
it, too, then?"

"Yes.  But it was before she lost money.  Do
you think she disapproves of--"

"Of the way I trot around after Connie--eh?
No, to do her justice, I don't think she
minds that a bit.  She knows that Connie and I
have been pals ever since we were quite small
nippers.  Besides," concluded my friend with an
entirely gratuitous chuckle, "everybody trots
around after Connie, don't they?"

I admitted briefly that this was so.

"No; it is the loss of cash chiefly that makes
her fractious," continued Dicky.  "That, and
my want of dignity and repose on public occasions."

"What sort of exhibition have you been making
of yourself this time?" I enquired gruffly.
Dicky's last remark still rankled.

"Nothing to signify.  Hilda and I were taking
a stroll on the course together, before you arrived,
and I stopped to have a brief chat with an aged
Irish beggar-woman.  The old dame had a
shilling out of me in no time, and we departed under
a perfect blizzard of benediction.  Hilda seemed
rather miffy about it: said I was making her and
myself conspicuous.  For the Lord's sake, put me
on to a winner for her, old soul!"

"Ask Miss Damer," I said.  "She is the member
of this party who picks up reliable information."

But Miss Damer was nowhere to be seen.

"She is somewhere in that seething mob,
backing horses on her own account," explained Sylvia
later.  "She said she was n't going to bother any
of the men this time.  Do you think it is quite
safe?"

"Connie knows her way about," said Dicky.
"But perhaps we had better go and have a look
for her.  Do you know which bookie she has been
patronising, Tiny?"

"Yes; that gentleman by the railings, with the
gamboge waistcoat," I replied.  "But she is n't
going to him any more.  She has taken money
off him twice, and considers it unfair to fleece
him again.  We shall find her looking for a man
with a large bank-balance and no children."

"How will she be able to tell?" enquired that
simple soul, Mr. Crick.

"From what I know of her," I said, "she will
ask him."

Loaded with injunctions and commissions from
the other two ladies, Dicky and I pushed our
way once more into the crowd of speculators.
Finding that the Earl of Moddlewick's Ginger
Jim figured upon the programme and was
actually proposing to run, I backed that animal on
Lady Adela's behalf, blushing painfully before
the thinly veiled amazement and compassion of
the bookmaker and his clerk.  Myself, I supported
the favourite, for reasons of my own.  Dicky
moved feverishly up and down the line, putting
money on horse after horse.  Apparently Miss
Beverley was to back a winner this time.

As I concluded my business, I caught sight of
Miss Damer's lilac frock and big black hat in the
paddock.  She was engaged in an ardent
conversation with a group of three--two girls and a
man--and I remember wondering whether they
were actual friends of hers or acquaintances of
the moment, drawn unwittingly but perfectly
willingly into the small siren's net.  (As it turned
out, they were old friends, but I think I may be
excused for not feeling certain.)  I was a little
disappointed at her preoccupation, for I had
been hoping for another deed of partnership.

But the starting-bell had rung, and people
were clambering on to the stands.

"Which is my horse, Dick?" enquired Hilda
Beverley, as we took our places.

This was an obvious poser for my friend.

"I'll tell you in a minute," he said, gazing
diligently through his binoculars.  "Yes, yes!"  He
coughed with intense heartiness.  "It is doing
very well--very well, indeed!"

"But which one is it?" asked Miss Beverley
impatiently.

"The one in front," replied The Freak, with
perfect truth.

The finish was imminent.  A hundred yards
from the post the favourite cracked, and his
place was taken by a raking black horse with a
pink jockey, which ultimately won the race with
a length in hand.

The bulk of the crowd naturally received the
defeat of the favourite without enthusiasm, but a
small section near the judge's box raised a loud
and continuous yell of jubilation.  Evidently
some particular stable had "known something"
and kept it dark.

"What is the name of that black animal?" I
enquired of Dicky.

"Malvolio."

"Did you back him?" I enquired loudly.

"Rather!" yelled Dicky.  "Come with me and
help me to collect Hilda's winnings for her.  Back
directly, dear!"

"How many horses did you back in that race?"
I enquired, as we elbowed our way to the ring.

"Seven," said Dicky.  "Expensive game,
executing commissions for your best girl--what?"

"Let us hope this little victory will have the
desired effect," I said piously.

"It will be cheap at the price," replied Dicky
with fervour.

At the foot of the stand we found Miss Damer
taking leave of her three friends.  She joined us.

"Will you chaperon me into the ring, please?"
she asked of me politely.

I stopped short and gazed at her.

"Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that you
have won again?"

Miss Damer nodded brightly.

"Yes," she said.

"You backed Malvolio--that outsider?"

Miss Damer smiled seraphically.  "Yes."

"And where did you get the tip this time?" I
enquired.

"I asked the bookmaker," replied Miss Damer
simply.  "I thought he would know."

"And he gave you Malvolio?"

"Yes.  I had thought of backing the favourite,
but he would n't let me.  He said Malvolio was
'a real snip,' but very few people knew about
him.  He was a kind man.  Come and help me to
find him."

We duly discovered her altruistic friend, who
smiled at me over his client's head in a resigned
and humorous fashion, as if to imply that there
are occasions upon which Homer may be excused
from nodding.  "If this be Vanity," his expression
seemed to ask, "who would be wise?"  Who,
indeed?

Of all Constance Damer's achievements in the
matter of unduly influencing her fellow-creatures,
I hold--and always have held--that this was
the greatest.  I have been present at many of her
triumphs.  I have seen her tackle a half-drunken
ruffian who was ill-treating his wife, not merely
subjugating him, but sending the pair away
reconciled and arm-in-arm; I have seen her
compel crusty and avaricious old gentlemen to pay
not only largely, but cheerfully, for bazaar-goods
for which they could have had no possible use,
and the very purchase of which implicated them
in the furtherance of a scheme of which they
heartily disapproved; and I have seen her soothe
a delirious child into peaceful slumber by the
mere magic of her touch and voice.  But to
interrupt a hard-working, unsentimental,
starting-price bookmaker at the busiest moment of his
day, for the purpose of eliciting from him
information as to the right horse to back, and to
receive from him--a man whose very living
depends upon your backing the wrong one--not
merely reliable but exclusive information, strikes
me as a record even for Miss Constance Damer.

Presently Dicky rejoined us.

"Collected your winnings?" I enquired.

"Yes--and handed them over.  There are
only two runners in the next race.  Come and
have a look at the merry-go-rounds.  I know you
love them, Connie."

Miss Damer admitted the correctness of this
statement, but declined to come.

"I see Lady Adela over there," she said--"all
alone.  That's not fair.  She has a new toque on,
too, poor thing!  I will go and take her for a walk
round the enclosure.  You two can come back
presently and give us tea.  If you discover
anything really exciting in the way of side-shows I
will come and see it before the last race."

She flitted away.  Two minutes later we saw
her, looking like a neat little yacht going for a
walk with a Dreadnought, carefully convoying
Lady Adela across the course into the enclosure.

"What about Miss Beverley and the others,
Freak?" I asked, as we turned away.

"Oh, they are all right," said Dicky shortly.
"Leave them alone for a bit longer."

From which I gathered that Miss Beverley
was still suffering from what is known in nursery
circles as "a little black dog on her back."

A large section of the crowd evidently shared
our opinion that the next race would be a tame
affair, for the merry-go-rounds and other
appurtenances of the meeting were enjoying abundant
patronage as we approached.  We passed slowly
along the fairway, where hoarse persons implored
us, *inter alia*, to be photographed, win cocoanuts,
and indulge in three rounds under Queensberry
Rules with "The Houndsditch Terror."

Dicky, suddenly throwing off his low spirits,
won two cocoanuts; insisted upon being
photographed with me upon the beach of a
*papier-mâché* ocean, and, although he drew the line at
The Houndsditch Terror, submitted his palm to
an unclean and voluble old lady who desired
to tell his fortune.

He was cautioned by the beldame against a
fair man with a black heart--"That's you, old
son!" he remarked affectionately to me--and
received warning of impending trouble with a
dark lady.  ("Thanks; I know all about that,"
he assured her feelingly.)  On the other hand,
he was promised two letters, a journey across the
ocean, and a quantity of gold--precise amount
not specified--within a short period of time.

"You have a very peculiar nature," was the
next announcement.  "You have paid attention
to many ladies, but you have never really loved
any of them.  Your heart--"

"I beg your pardon; I have loved them all!"
replied The Freak emphatically.

"Don't be angry with Gipsy, pretty
gentleman!" pleaded the aged Sibyl.  "Gipsy knows
best.  Gipsy only says what she reads in the hand.
So--but what is this?"  She bent closer.  "Ah!
Very soon, sir, you will meet the lady of your
dreams, and you will love her as you have never
loved before."

"No, really?" exclaimed Dicky, deeply
interested.  "Tell me, shall I marry her?"

"Many difficulties and obstacles will be placed
in your path," chanted the prophetess.  "You
will be misunderstood; you will have to deal
with peculiar people.  Many times you will be
tempted to give up in despair.  But persevere,
and you will triumph in the end.  Now,
gentleman, cross Gipsy's palm with silver--"

Here high prophetic frenzy tailed off into
unabashed mendicancy, and the interview dropped
to a purely commercial level.  My attention
wandered.  Not far away a ring of people had
collected round some fresh object of interest.  I
could hear the sound of a woman's voice singing,
and the thrumming of a harp.  I could even
distinguish the air.  A fresh number was just
beginning.  It was "Annie Laurie"--the most
beautiful love-song, in my humble opinion, ever
written.

   |   "Maxwellton's braes are bonny,
   |     Where early falls the dew--"
   |

Then the voice quavered and ceased, and I
found myself wondering what had happened.

"And now, would the other handsome gentleman
like to show his palm to Gipsy?" enquired
an ingratiating croak at my side.

Realising with difficulty that I was the individual
referred to, I turned, to find that our aged
friend, having satisfactorily arranged Dicky's
future, was now soliciting my patronage.

"No, thanks," I replied.  "Come and see what
is going on over there, Freak."

"Ah, but Gipsy will tell the gentleman *all*,"
promised the old lady.  "He has a wicked eye,"
she added, alluringly but incorrectly.

We escaped at last, at a price, and presently
found ourselves upon the outskirts of the little
crowd which I have already mentioned.

"What is going on inside here?" enquired
Dicky of his nearest neighbour.

"Gel singin' to the 'arp," replied the gentleman
addressed.  He supplemented this information
by adding that the lady was no class, and
had a nasty cough.

He was right.  As he spoke, the voice of the
singer broke again, and we could hear the sound
of a spasm of coughing.

We elbowed our way into the crowd, which
had grown with the easy facility of all
race-course crowds into quite an assemblage; and
presently found ourselves in the inmost ring of
spectators.

In the centre of the ring sat an old man on a
camp-stool, cuddling a big battered harp to his
shoulder.  Beside him stood a tall tired-looking
woman, very handsome in a tawdry fashion, of
about thirty-five.  She was dressed as a Pierrette.
Her right hand rested upon the old man's
shoulder, her left was pressed hard against her
chest.  She was coughing violently, and her
accompanist's hands lay patiently idle in his lap
until she should be ready to continue.  On the
grass beside the old man sat a hollow-eyed little
boy, also in regulation Pierrot costume.

I heard Dicky draw his breath sharply.  Don
Quixote was astir again.

Presently the singer recovered, stood bravely
erect, and prepared herself for another effort.
The old man's hands swept over the strings, and
the harp emitted a gentle arpeggio.

   |   "Like dew on the gowans lying
   |     Is the fall of her fairy feet,
   |   And like winds in summer sighing
   |     Her voice is low and sweet.
   |   Her voice is low and sweet,
   |     And she's all the world to me;
   |   And for bonnie Annie Laurie--"
   |

The song floated up into the blue summer sky,
carrying me with it--possibly in pursuit of the
fairy feet (for which I had already found an
owner).  Exposure, rough usage, mayhap
gin-and-water--all these had robbed the singer's
notes of something of their pristine freshness;
but they rang out pure and limpid for all that.
It was a trained voice, and must once have been
a great voice.  The crowd stood absolutely still.
Never have I beheld a more attentive audience.

"Grand opera, once," said Dicky's voice softly
in my ear.  Then--"Oh, you poor thing!"

I recalled my thoughts from their sentimental
journey, to realise that the verse had broken off
before the end and that the woman was once
more in the throes of another attack of coughing,
the black pompoms on her little white clown cap
vibrating with every spasm.  Impatient
spectators began to drift away.

I was conscious of a sudden movement beside
me, and Dicky's voice exclaimed, in the hoarse
whisper which I knew he reserved for conversations
with himself:--

"Go on!  Be a man!"

Next moment he had left my side and was
standing in the centre of the ring, addressing the
crowd.  He was quite cool and self-possessed,
but I saw his fingers curling and uncurling.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" he shouted.

"Git out of the ring, Elbert!" suggested a
voice, not unkindly.

But The Freak continued:--

"I know we all sympathise with the plucky
attempt this lady is making to entertain us under
very difficult circumstances."

The crowd, suspicious of a hoax of some kind,
surveyed him dumbly.

"I am sure," Dicky went on, "you will agree
with me that with such a bad cough our
entertainer has no right to be working so hard this
afternoon; and I therefore propose, with your kind
permission, in order that she may have a rest and
get her voice back, to sing you one or two songs
myself.  I can't sing for toffee; but I will do my
best, and I know that you, being sportsmen all,
will assist me by singing the choruses!"

He took off his hat, bowed genially, and turned
to the harpist.  There was a buzz of appreciation
and anticipation among the crowd.  Evidently
Dicky had touched the right note when he
appealed to them as sportsmen.

"Can you vamp a few chords, do you think?"
I heard him say to the accompanist.

"Yes, sir," replied the old man quickly.  "Go
on: I'll follow you."

The tired woman sank down upon the trampled
grass beside the little boy; The Freak, hat in
hand, struck an attitude; and the entertainment
began.

I do not know how many songs he sang.  He
passed from one to another with amazing facility,
discoursing between the verses upon topics well
suited to the taste and comprehension of his
audience.  His songs were not new, and the tales that
he told were neither true nor relevant; but they
served their purpose.  He uplifted his voice and
carried us all off our feet.  He conducted us over
the whole of that field of Music Hall humour
which is confined within the following limits:--

\(1) Alcoholic excess.

\(2) Personal deformity (e.g., Policemen's feet).

\(3) Conjugal infelicity; with which is incorporated Mothers-in-law.

\(4) Studies of insect life (e.g., Seaside lodgings).

\(5) Exaggerated metaphor (e.g., "Giddy kipper").

He enlarged upon all these, and illuminated
each.  He was unspeakably vulgar, and
irresistibly amusing.  The crowd took him to their
bosoms.  They roared at his gags; they sang his
choruses; they clamoured for more.

I shouted with the rest.  This was the real
Dicky Mainwaring--the unregenerate,
unrestrained Freak of our undergraduate days--my
friend given back to me in his right mind after a
lamentable period of eclipse.  My heart swelled
foolishly.

"Chorus once more, please, gentlemen!"
shouted Dicky.  "Last time!"

.. _`"CHORUS ONCE MORE, PLEASE, GENTLEMEN!"`:

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   :align: center
   :alt: "CHORUS ONCE MORE, PLEASE, GENTLEMEN!"

   "CHORUS ONCE MORE, PLEASE, GENTLEMEN!"


The refined and elevating pæan rolled forth,
Dicky conducting:--

   |   "Beer, Beer, glorious Beer!
   |   Fill yourself right up to here!
   |       (*Illustrative gesture.*)
   |   Take a good deal of it,
   |   Make a good meal of it--"
   |

With head thrown back and mouth wide open,
I shouted with the rest--and--caught the eye
of Miss Hilda Beverley!  She was standing exactly
opposite to me on the other side of the circle.
Next moment she was gone.

----

It was the accompanist who gave in first.  For
nearly half an hour his aged but nimble fingers
had followed the singer's most extravagant
flights, and he now began obviously to falter.

Dicky seized this opportunity to conclude his
performance.

"That is all, gentlemen," he said, with a
flourish of his hat.  "I know no more.  Thank you for
your kind attention and assistance.  But don't go
away.  I am going to ask the Colonel here to
carry his hat round."

He signalled to the small pale-faced boy to
take up a collection, but the child hung back
shyly.  Evidently he was not accustomed to
enthusiastic audiences.  Dicky accordingly
borrowed his cone-shaped headpiece and set to work
himself.

Touch your neighbour's heart, and his pocket
is at your mercy.  The bell was ringing for the
last race, but not a man in that crowd stirred
until he had contributed to Dicky's collection.
Silver and copper rained into the cap.  I saw one
sturdy old farmer clap Dicky upon the shoulder
with a "Good lad! good lad!" and drop in half-a-crown.

Then the audience melted away as suddenly
as it had collected, and we five were left--Dicky,
myself, the old man, his daughter, and the
recently gazetted Colonel.  The daughter still sat
limply upon the grass.  Dicky crossed over to
her and emptied the collection into her lap.

"You had better tie that up in a handkerchief,"
he said.  He spoke awkwardly.  He was no longer
an inspired comedian--only a shy and
self-conscious schoolboy.  My thoughts flew back to a
somewhat similar scene in a third-class carriage
on the Great Eastern Railway many years
before.

The woman was crying softly.  Her tears--those
blessed faith-restoring tears that come to
people who encounter kindness when they
thought that the world held no more for
them--dropped one by one upon the pile of coins in her
lap.  She caught Dicky's hand, and clung to
it.  The Freak cleared his throat in a distressing
manner, but said nothing.  Far away we could
hear the roar of the crowd, watching the last race.

"I must be going now," said Dicky at length.
"I hope you will soon get rid of your cough and
have good luck again.  We all get under the
weather sometimes, don't we?  Good-bye!  Good-bye, Colonel!"

The officer addressed fixed round and wondering
eyes upon the eccentric stranger, but made no
remark.

"Good-bye, sir," said the woman.  "God--"

Dicky released his hand gently and turned
deferentially to the old gentleman, who was still
sitting patiently at his harp.

"Thank you very much, sir," he said, speaking
like a polite undergraduate to an aged don who
has just entertained him to dinner, "for your
splendid accompaniments.  I can't imagine how
you contrived to follow me as you did.  I'm a
pretty erratic performer, I 'm afraid.  Good-bye!"

He held out his hand.

The old man struggled to his feet, and gave a
little old-fashioned bow, but disregarded Dicky's
proffered hand.

"Good-bye, sir," he said, "and thank you
kindly for what you have done for us."

"Would you mind putting your hand in his,
sir?" said the woman to Dicky.  "He can't see
it.  He's blind," she added apologetically.


Five minutes later we found ourselves back
at the railings.  The motor was already purring,
and Romulus and Remus had been put into the
victoria.

Miss Damer hastened up to us.  Her brown
eyes looked very soft.

"Dicky dear," she said tremulously, "we all
saw you, and I think you are a brick.  But keep
away from Hilda for a bit."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE ONLY WAY OUT`:

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   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium

   THE ONLY WAY OUT

.. vspace:: 2

The ladies, pleading fatigue after their long
day, retired early, bringing a somewhat
oppressive evening to a timely conclusion.  Dinner had
been a constrained function, for Miss Beverley's
aloofness had cast a gloom upon the spirits of her
*fiancé*, and the rest of us had joined with him in a
sort of sympathetic melancholy.  In the drawing-room
afterwards Mr. Crick, whose ebullient soul
chafed beneath what he termed "compulsory
hump," sat down at the piano and treated us to a
musical sketch,--something humorous but
lingering.  Whereupon Lady Adela awoke out of
her sleep, and with a disregard for the performer's
feeling that was almost indecent, cut short the
entertainment and shepherded her flock to the
upper regions.

The four gentlemen adjourned to the billiard-room.
Here Mr. Mainwaring and Crick set about
a game of billiards--fifty up--at which the
latter, with a loftiness of spirit which his
subsequent performance entirely failed to justify,
insisted upon conceding his elderly opponent
twenty-five points.  Aided by this generous
subsidy and by the fact that the scratch player, in
bringing off some delicate long shots into the
top pocket, more than once omitted the formality
of glancing off one of the other balls on the way,
our host made quite surprising progress.  His
own contributions to the score were mainly
derived from a monotonous but profitable system
of potting the white and leaving his opponent a
double balk.  Indeed, the old gentleman reached
his points before Mr. Crick had accomplished a
feat vaguely described by himself as "getting the
strength of the table."  Mr. Mainwaring then
trotted happily upstairs to bed, followed very
shortly afterwards by his highly incensed play-fellow.

As the door closed, Dicky put down his pipe
and turned to me.

"Bill, old man," he said, "I don't often face
facts; but this time I admit that I have fairly
torn the end off things."

"You are in disgrace, my boy," I agreed.
"What are you going to do about it?"

Dicky pondered, and finally summed up.

"The fact is," he said, "I am not up to Hilda's
standard, and never shall be."

I rose, and took my stand upon that tribunal
beloved of the Briton--the hearthrug--and
looked down upon my friend's troubled countenance.

"Dicky," I began, having blown my nose
nervously, "you and I don't usually go deeply into
these matters together; but--do you love that
girl?"

We two regarded one another deliberately for a
minute, and then Dicky shook his head.

"I do not," he said at last.  "Not more, that is,
than I love half a dozen others.  I suppose the
truth is," he continued, relighting his pipe, "that
I don't quite realise the meaning of the word--yet.
Some day, perhaps, the big thing will come
to me; but until it does and wipes out everything
else, I shall go on imagining, as at present, that
I am in love with every girl who happens to
attract me or whom I happen to attract--if such
a thing is possible.  Nature, I suppose--just
Nature!  Just now I am making the instinctive
involuntary experiments that every man must
make, and go on making, until he encounters his
right mate.  Some men, I imagine, are luckier
than others.  They are not inflammable.  They
do not make false starts or get down blind alleys.
I believe you are one, Tiny, but there are not
many.  With women, I believe, it is different.
They have more intuition than men, and can tell
almost immediately whether they have found the
goods this time or not.  But the average man must
just go blundering on, making an ass of himself,
and learning by experience.  I fall into love
readily enough, but have never been able to stay
there.  That is my trouble.  I am therefore forced
to the conclusion that I have never really been in
love at all."

"That is because you have never met *the* girl, Freak."

"Possibly; but there is another explanation,
and that is that I am incapable of a sustained
affection under any circumstances whatever.
However, you may take it from me that such is
not the case.  I *know* that.  I can't explain it or
prove it, but I know it.  What I really want--but
I have n't met one so far--is a girl who will
fall in love with me, and *show* it--show that she
is willing to burn her boats for me.  A good many
young women, estimable creatures, have indicated
that they care for me a little, but not one
has done it in the way I have described.  I don't
believe that I could ever really throw myself
absolutely headlong into love with a girl unless I
knew in my heart that she was prepared to do
the same for me.  They are all so cautious, so
self-contained, so blooming independent,
nowadays, that a man simply cannot let himself go on
one of them for fear she should turn round and
laugh at him.  But if a girl once confided to me
that she wanted to entrust herself to me--body
and soul, for better, for worse, and so on--without
any present-day stipulations about
maintaining her independence and preserving her
individuality, and stuff of that kind--well, good-bye
to all indecision or uncertainty on my part!
What man who called himself a man could resist
such an appeal as that--a genuine whole-hearted
appeal from weakness to strength?  (Not that I
am exactly a model of strength," he commented,
with a disarming smile; "but I know I soon should
be, if such an honour were done me.)  Weakness
to strength!  That's what it comes to in the end,
old man, whatever the modern advanced female
may say.  Male and female created He them--eh?
When I do meet that girl--perhaps she
is the girl the old gipsy foretold for me to-day--I
shall love her, and slave for her, and fight
for her, so long as we both live, just because she
is so utterly dependent on me.  That is what
brings out the best in a man.  Unfortunately, I
have not yet met her.  When I do you may take
it from me that I shall cease to be a Freak.  Amen!
Here endeth the First Lesson.  There will be no
collection."

His discourse thus characteristically concluded,
my friend sat silent and pensive.

This was quite a new Dicky to me.

"You appear to have studied the question deeply
and scientifically," I said, frankly impressed.

"My lad," replied Dicky with feeling, "if you
possessed a disposition as flighty as mine--"

"Quixotic," I amended.

"All right--as quixotic as mine, and were also
blessed with a dear old mother who spent her life
confronting you with attractive young women
with a view to matrimony, you would begin to
study the question deeply and scientifically too.
I am only a Freak, and all that, but I don't want
to make a mess of a girl's life if I can help it;
and that, old friend, owing to my susceptible
nature and gentle maternal pressure from the
rear, is exactly what I am in great danger of
doing.  I have had to mark time pretty resolutely
of late, I can tell you.  And that brings us to the
matter in hand.  Hilda and I seem to have
reached the end of our tether.  Something has got
to be done."

"It is just possible," I said, "that Miss
Beverley has done it already."

"What?"

"It--the only thing that ought to be done."

"What do you mean?"

"When the others went upstairs to bed Miss
Hilda retired into an inner drawing-room and
sat down at a writing-table.  There is no post out
of here until lunch-time to-morrow.  Therefore
she was probably writing to some one in the
house."

Dicky nodded comprehendingly.

"Proceed, Sherlock," he said.

"To whom was she writing?" I enquired.

Dicky thought.

"To me," he announced at length.  "Economical
hobby.  No stamps required.  Well?"

"Supposing," I continued, "that Miss Beverley
has been writing to you to-night--what then?"

"I shall receive a letter from her in the
morning," concluded Dicky.  "Eh?  Wrong answer?
Sorry!  What will happen, then?"

"You will get your letter to-night."

Dicky looked doubtful.

"Where?  When?" he asked.

"That's it.  Where and when?"

Dicky pondered.

"On my pin-cushion, when I go upstairs to
bed," he said at last--"although it strikes me as
a most unmaidenly action for Hilda."

"So unmaidenly," I replied, "that you will
probably find the letter on the hall table by your
candle.  Come and see."

My faith in Miss Beverley's sense of propriety
was fully justified, for we found the letter in the
hall beside the candlesticks exactly as I had
foretold.  Probably it had not lain there more than
five minutes.

"What do you think of that?" I enquired.

"By Heavens, Holmes," exclaimed Dicky,
who after his late lofty flight had characteristically
relapsed into one of his most imbecile moods,
"this is wonderful!"

We bore the letter back to the billiard-room.

"Four sheets!" murmured The Freak dejectedly.
"Well, the longer I look at them the less I
shall like them.  Here goes!"

He began to unfold the crackling document.

"What is that protuberance down there, between
your finger and thumb?" I enquired.  "It
may epitomise the letter for you."

Dicky turned the envelope upside down, and
shook it over the billiard-table.  Something fell
out, rolled a short distance, and lay sparkling
and shimmering on the green cloth.

Dicky picked up the ring very slowly, and
regarded it long and intently.  Then he turned
to me.

"Thank God!" he said, softly and quite reverently;
and I knew he spoke less for himself than
for a certain superior young woman upstairs,
who considered him flippant, lacking in depth,
and altogether unworthy of her.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`STILL AT LARGE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium

   STILL AT LARGE

.. vspace:: 2

I saw very little of The Freak the following
winter.  For one thing, I went abroad again.  The
Government of the Auricula Protectorate had
decided to connect their capital with the sea by
means of a canal.  I happened to know the
district, for I had been engaged eight years
previously upon the great dam, thirty miles from
Auricula, which now holds in beneficent restraint
the turbid waters of the Rumbolo River.  I
accordingly applied for work in connection with
the scheme.  By the greatest luck in the world one
Vandeleur, C.B., a magnate of no small standing
in the Auricula district, happened to be home
on leave.  He had visited my dam in his official
capacity, and had noted that it was still standing.
He spoke the word, and I got my canal.

The next four months I spent upon the continent
of Africa, sketching, surveying, and drawing
up specifications.  Then I came home to be married.

At the very first dinner-party to which we were
bidden on our return from our honeymoon I
encountered The Freak.

I saw him first, so to speak.  Covers had been
laid, as they say in country newspapers, for
twenty-two persons.  My wife, through the
operation of an inscrutable but inexorable law, had
been reft from my side, and was now periodically
visible through a maze of table decorations,
entertaining her host with what I could not help
regarding as the most unfeeling vivacity and
cheerfulness.  I began to take an inventory of the
company.  We had been a little late in arriving--to
be precise, the last--and I had had no opportunity
of observing my fellow-guests.  My own
partner was a Mrs. Botley-Markham, an old
acquaintance of mine.  She combined short sight
and an astonishingly treacherous memory for
names and faces with a rooted conviction that
the one infallible sign of good breeding is never
to forget a name or a face.  ("A truly *Royal*
attribute," she had once announced in my
presence.)  I was therefore agreeably surprised to
find that she remembered not merely my face,
but my name and *métier*.  After putting me at
my ease with a few kindly and encouraging
remarks upon the subject of canals, she turned to
her other neighbour.

"Dear Sir Arthur," I heard her say, "this is
indeed a pleasant surprise!"

"Dear lady," replied a hearty voice, "the
pleasure is entirely mine."

I leaned carelessly forward to inspect the
menu, and shot a sidelong glance in the direction
of Sir Arthur.  I was right.  It was The Freak,
in his most acquiescent mood.  I wondered what
his surname was, and whether he knew it.

"We had such a teeny talk last time we met,"
continued Mrs. Botley-Markham.  "Now we can
chat as long as we please."

Heaving a gentle sigh of relief, Mrs. Botley-Markham's
rightful dinner-partner helped himself
to a double portion of the *entrée* and set to work.

The chat commenced forthwith.

"And how is Gipsy?" enquired Mrs. Botley-Markham.

"Gipsy," replied Sir Arthur without hesitation,
"is top-hole."

"How quaint and original you always are in
your expressions!" cooed my neighbour.  "But
I am so glad to hear about Gipsy.  Then the dear
thing has quite recovered?"

"Absolutely," replied Dicky courageously.

Mrs. Botley-Markham cooed again.  Then she
enquired, confidentially:--

"Now tell me, what *was* it?"

"What *was* it?" echoed The Freak cautiously.  "Ah!"

"Yes; what *was* it?" pursued his interlocutor,
much intrigued.  "Don't tell me they never found
out!"

"Never.  At least," admitted The Freak
guardedly, "not for some time."

"Then they actually operated without being
sure?" exclaimed Mrs. Botley-Markham, shuddering.

Dicky, making up his arrears with a portion of
quail, inclined his head gravely, and the quail
reached its destination.

"And when they did find out," pursued
Mrs. Botley-Markham, clasping her hands--she had
finished her quail--"what *was* it?  Tell me,
dear Sir Arthur!"

Sir Arthur cogitated for a moment, and then
took the plunge.

"It was clavicle," he said solemnly.

Assuming that my friend was labouring under
the same disadvantage as myself--namely,
inability to decide whether Gipsy was a woman,
child, horse, dog, cat, or monkey--to invent a
mysterious and non-committal disease upon the
spur of the moment struck me as quite a stroke
of genius on Dicky's part.  Connie would enjoy
hearing about this.

"How truly terrible!" said Mrs. Botley-Markham,
in an awe-struck voice.  "Clam--clavicle
is a very rare disease, is it not?"

"Rare and mysterious," replied my friend in
the same tone.  "In fact, the doctor--"

"You mean Sir Herbert?"

"No, the other blo--the other gentleman--the
anæsthetist, you know!  He told me that he
had never encountered a case of it before."

"How truly terrible!" said Mrs. Botley-Markham
again.  "And all the time you suspected appendicitis."

The Freak acquiesced readily.  Here was light.
Gipsy apparently was human--not equine,
canine, feline, or simian.

"And the little one?" enquired Mrs. Botley-Markham
tenderly.

I held my breath.  Sir Arthur had reached his
second fence.

"The little one," he replied after consideration,
"is doing nicely.  Not so very little, though,
when you come to think of it," he continued,
boldly taking the initiative.

"Has she grown so big, then?" enquired
Mrs. Botley-Markham, unconsciously giving away
another point.  The little one's sex was determined.
Certainly it was an exhilarating game.

"Quite extraordinary," said Dicky.  "How
big," he continued cunningly, "would you
imagine she was now?"

"Not as big as my Babs?" cried Mrs. Botley-Markham
incredulously.

"That," replied The Freak, "is just exactly
how big she is."  There was the least tinge of
disappointment in his voice.  Evidently he had
hoped for something more tangible.  For
purposes of mensuration Babs was useless to him.

"Why 'just exactly'?" enquired Mrs. Botley-Markham
doubtfully.  "You are very precise about it."

"We met Babs in the Park the other day,"
replied the audacious Dicky, "and compared them."

Mrs. Botley-Markham frankly gaped.

"But, dear Sir Arthur," she exclaimed--"How?"

"How does one compare--er--little ones?"
was the evasive reply of Sir Arthur.

The outraged parent turned upon him.

"You mean to say you laid those two innocents
side by side upon the wet grass," she gasped,
"and--"

"It was nearly dry," said Dicky soothingly.

I choked noisily, for I was rapidly losing
self-control; but neither of the performers in the
duologue took the slightest notice of me.

"I shall speak to my nurse to-morrow morning,"
announced Mrs. Botley-Markham firmly.
"I cannot imagine what she was thinking about."

"Don't be hard on her," begged Dicky.  "It
was my fault entirely."

"It certainly was *very* naughty of you," said
Mrs. Botley-Markham, already relenting, "but I
forgive you--there!"  She tapped the eccentric
Sir Arthur playfully upon the arm.  "Tell me,
though, what does Gwladys weigh?  Mere bigness
in children is so often deceptive."

Even assuming that Gwladys was also the
Little One, it was obvious that Dicky had not yet
cleared his second fence.  I began vaguely to
calculate what a healthy child should weigh.  A
thirty-pound salmon, for instance--how would
that compare with a fat baby?  But Dicky made
a final and really brilliant effort.

"Fourteen point eight," he said promptly.

"I beg your pardon?" replied Mrs. Botley-Markham.

"Fourteen point eight cubic centimetres,"
repeated The Freak in a firm voice.  "That is the
metric system of weights and measures.  It is the
only accurate and scientific method.  All the big
doctors have taken to it, you will find.  I never
allow any other to be employed where Gwladys
is concerned.  I strongly advise you," he added
earnestly, "to have Babs weighed in the same
manner.  Everybody's doing it now," he
concluded lyrically.

Mrs. Botley-Markham quivered with pleasure.
An opportunity of getting ahead of the fashion
does not occur to us every day.

"I will certainly take your advice, dear Sir
Arthur," she replied.  "Tell me, where does one
get it done?"

"At the British Museum, between seven and
eight in the morning," replied The Freak, whose
pheasant was growing cold.  "And now, dear
lady, tell me everything that you have been doing
lately."

Mrs. Botley-Markham, being nothing loath,
launched forth.  She even found time to re-include
me in the conversation, disturbing my meditations
upon the strenuous awakening which awaited poor
Babs upon the morrow with an enquiry as to
whether my canal was to contain salt water or
fresh.  But she had not finished with Dicky yet.
Suddenly she turned upon him, and remarked
point-blank:--

"How pleased the Stantons will be!"

"Indeed, yes!" replied The Freak enthusiastically.

At the sound of his voice I trembled.  We had
reached the dessert, and with port in sight, so to
speak, it was impossible to tell what foolishness
he might not commit.

"In fact," he continued shamelessly, "I happen
to know that they are not merely pleased but
ecstatic.  I saw them yesterday."

"Where?" asked Mrs. Botley-Markham.

"Dear lady," replied Dicky, smiling, "where
does one invariably meet the Stantons?"

"You mean at the Archdeacon's?" said Mrs. Botley-Markham.

"I do," said my reprobate friend.  "They had
all been down the Str--I mean to the
Pan-Mesopotamian Conference," he added quite
gratuitously.

"Ah, of course; they would," assented
Mrs. Botley-Markham hazily, evidently wondering
whether she ought to have heard of the
Pan-Mesopotamian Conference.  "Were they all
there?"

"All but the delicate one," replied The Freak,
abandoning all restraint.

"Do you mean Isobel?"

"Yes," replied the graceless Richard--"I do.
Poor Isobel!" he added gently.

"I am afraid they are not a strong family,"
said Mrs. Botley-Markham, with a sympathetic
glance which rather alarmed me.  I foresaw
complications.

The Freak wagged his head gloomily.

"No; a weak strain, I fear."

"I hope--I *hope*," said Mrs. Botley-Markham,
evidently choosing her words with care and tact,
"that the weakness does not extend to Gipsy."

Then Gipsy was connected with the Stantons!
Freak would have to walk warily.  But at this
moment his attention was wandering in the direction
of our hostess, who was beginning to exhibit
symptoms of upheaval with a view to
withdrawal.  He replied carelessly:--

"No.  Why should it?"

Mrs. Botley-Markham, a little offended and
flustered at being taken up so sharply, replied
with exaggerated humility:--

"I only *meant*, dear Sir Arthur, that if one
sister is delicate, possibly another may be slightly
inclined--"

Then Isobel and Gipsy were sisters.  I knew it!

At this moment the hostess gave the mystic
sign, and the company rose.  Freak turned a sad
and slightly reproachful gaze upon Mrs. Botley-Markham.

"You are forgetting, dear lady," he said gently.
"Isobel and Gipsy are not related.  Isobel was
the sister of my poor first wife."

He drew back Mrs. Botley-Markham's chair
with grave courtesy, and that afflicted lady
tottered down the room and out of the door,
looking like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

.. vspace:: 2

The Freak and I resumed our seats.

"Dear Sir Arthur," I said, "are you a knight
or a baronet?"

Before this point of precedence could be
settled, our host called to us to move up higher.

"I want to introduce you to Sir Arthur Twigg,
Mainwaring," he said, indicating a pleasant-looking
youth strongly resembling Dicky in
appearance and bearing.

"Come to lunch with me to-morrow, Tiny,"
said Dicky hurriedly to me.

A few minutes later I heard him regretfully
explaining to his host that an important legal
consultation in his chambers at ten o'clock that
evening would prevent him from joining the
ladies afterwards in the drawing-room.





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.. _`THE FIRST TURNING TO THE RIGHT`:

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   CHAPTER XI


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   THE FIRST TURNING TO THE RIGHT

.. vspace:: 2

Next day I lunched with The Freak in Hall in
the Inner Temple, where I was introduced by my
host to the surrounding company as a
"distinguished engineer, who had dammed the Nile
several times and was now prepared to speak
disrespectfully of the Equator."

After luncheon Dicky suggested that I should
walk round with him to his chambers in Bolton
Street.  It was a murky December afternoon.
Christmas shopping had set in with its usual
severity, and visitors from the country, armed
with sharp-cornered parcels, surged tumultuously
along the wrong side of every pavement,
while the ordinary citizens of London trudged
resignedly in the gutter.

Dicky, quite undisturbed by the press,
continued the conversation.

"Yes, the family are all very fit," he said.
"You must come and stay with us.  I shall give
myself a week's holiday at Christmas and take
you and Connie down to Shotley Beauchamp,
and we will have a pop at Ethelbert, our
pheasant, and discuss the days that are no more."

"Talking of the days that are no more," I
began, stepping aside to avoid a stout lady
carrying an inverted baby under one arm and an
imperfectly draped rocking-horse under the other,
"what has become--"

"Hilda Beverley--eh?" replied Dicky cheerfully.
"I'll tell you all about her.  (Don't apologise,
sir, really!  After all, I still have an eye left,
and you very nearly lost your umbrella.)  She
is engaged, if not married, to an Oxford Don.  I
believe they are very happy.  They go out and
sing an ode to Apollo every morning before
breakfast, or something of that kind."

A wedge of excursionists clove its way between
us, and it was with a voice unconsciously raised
that I remarked from the gutter:--

"You had an escape that time, my lad."

"Not at all!" yelled Dicky loyally from the
other side of the pavement.  ("Mind that
kiddie's balloon, old son!)  No," he continued, as we
converged once more, "I had a very profitable
six months.  Hilda took immense pains with me,
and it was n't her fault that I turned out a
failure."

Presently I asked a question which always
rose to my lips when I met Dicky after any
considerable interval.

"Have your family any fresh matrimonial
irons in the fire for you at present?" I enquired.

"No," replied my friend, "I rejoice to say
they have not.  The market is utterly flat.  The
Hilda Beverley slump knocked the bottom out of
everything, and for the last half-year I have been
living a life of perfect peace.  I am settling down
to a contented spinsterhood," he added, to the
obvious surprise and consternation of a
grim-looking female in a blue mackintosh who had
become wedged between us.  "In a few years I
shall get a tabby cat and a sampler, and retire to
end my days in the close of some quiet cathedral
city."

The female in the mackintosh, by dint of using
her elbows as levers and our waistcoats as
fulcrums, heaved herself convulsively out of our
company and disappeared in the crowd, probably
in search of police protection.  Dicky and I came
together again.

"Occasionally," he continued fraternally, "I
shall come and stay with you and Connie, and
give you advice as to--Bill!  Tiny!  My son
William!  Look at that girl's face!  Did you catch
her profile?  Did you ever see anything so lovely
in all your life?"

We had reached that spot in the narrowest
part of Piccadilly where all the omnibuses in the
world seem to stop to take up passengers.  Dicky's
fingers had closed round my left biceps muscle
with a grip like iron.  I turned and surveyed him.
His cheery good-tempered face was transfigured:
his eyes blazed.

"Look!" he said again, pointing.  He was
trembling like a nervous schoolgirl.

But I was just too late.  All I saw was a trim
lithe young figure--rather like Connie's, I
thought--stepping on to an omnibus.  (When I
told the story at home I was at once asked how
she was dressed, but naturally could not say.)  I
caught sight of a pair of slim square shoulders,
a good deal of pretty brown hair, and finally a
pair of neat black shoes, as their owner deftly
mounted to the top of the swaying vehicle.

"I just missed her face, old man," I replied.
"Was she pretty?"

Here I stopped.  To address empty air in
Piccadilly for any length of time causes one to
incur the unworthy suspicions of the bystanders.
It also causes a crowd to collect, which is an
indictable offence.

For I was alone.  Afar off, pursuing a motor-omnibus
just getting into its top speed, I beheld
the flying figure of my friend.  Presently he
overtook the unwieldy object of his pursuit, hopped
on board, and proceeded to climb to the top.

At this moment the omnibus reached Bond
Street--the first turning to the right--swung
round the corner, and disappeared.





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.. _`MICE AND MEN`:

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   BOOK THREE


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   THE RIGHT ROAD

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large

   NOTE

.. class:: left medium

The main idea of Book Three was suggested by
a very minor episode in the closing chapters of
'A Man's Man.'  The usual acknowledgments
are therefore made to the author of that work.

.. vspace:: 3


.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XII

.. class:: center medium

   MICE AND MEN

.. vspace:: 2

"Sylvia, is your father in from his walk?"

Miss Sylvia Mainwaring, attired in a
sage-green robe and distressingly rational boots,
turned and surveyed her male parent's recumbent
form upon the sofa.

"Yes, mother mine," she replied.  (Sylvia was
rather addicted to little preciosities of this kind.)

"Is he awake?"

"He is reading 'The Spectator,' Mother," was
the somewhat Delphic response.

"Then ring for tea, dear."

It was a bleak Saturday afternoon in late
February.  Darkness was closing in, and the great
fire in the hall at The Towers flickered lovingly
upon our leading weekly review, which, temporarily
diverted from its original purpose in order
to serve as a supplementary waistcoat for
Mr. Mainwaring, rose and fell with gentle regularity
in the warm glow.

Mr. Mainwaring's daughter rang a bell and
switched on the electric light with remorseless
severity; his wife came rustling down the broad
oak staircase; and Mr. Mainwaring himself,
realising that a further folding of the hands to
sleep was out of the question, peeled off "The
Spectator" and sat up.

"Abel," observed Lady Adela--her husband's
baptismal name was a perpetual thorn in her
ample flesh, but she made a point of employing
it on all occasions, as a sort of reducing exercise to
her family pride--"tea will be here in a moment."

Mr. Mainwaring rose to his feet.  He was an
apologetic little gentleman, verging on sixty,
with a few wisps of grey hair brushed carefully
across his bald head.  At present these were
hanging down upon the wrong side, giving their
owner a mildly leonine appearance.  A kindly,
shy, impulsive man, Abel Mainwaring was
invariably mute and ill at ease beneath the eye of
his wife and daughter.  Their patrician calm
oppressed him; and his genial expansive nature
only blossomed in the presence of his erratic but
affectionate son.

"Tea?" he exclaimed with mild alacrity--"Who
said tea?"

"Abel," announced Lady Adela in tones which
definitely vetoed any further conversational
openings originating in tea, "I think it only right
to tell you that a visitor may arrive at any
moment; and your present appearance, to put it
mildly, is hardly that of the master of a large
household."

"My dear, I fly!" said Mr. Mainwaring
hurriedly, and disappeared.  At the same moment
there was a tinkle in the back premises.

"There goes the front-door bell," said Sylvia.
"I never heard the carriage.  Can it be Connie
already?"

"A caller, probably," sighed her mother.
"How tiresome people are.  See who it is, Milroy,
and then bring tea."

The butler, who had entered from the dining-room,
crossed the hall to the curtained alcove
which screened the front door.

"Hardly a caller on an afternoon like this,"
said Sylvia, shivering delicately.  "It is raining
in sheets."

"My experience," replied Lady Adela peevishly,
"has always been that when one's
neighbours have made up their minds to be
thoroughly annoying, no weather will stop them."

Simultaneously with this truthful but gloomy
reflection Lady Adela composed her fine features
into an hospitable smile of welcome and rose
to her feet.

"Misterilands!" announced Milroy, drawing
back the curtain of the outer hall.

Lady Adela, still smiling, rolled an enquiring
eye in the direction of her daughter.

"New curate!" hissed Sylvia.

Through the curtained archway advanced a
short, sturdy, spectacled young man, dumbly
resisting Mr. Milroy's gracious efforts to relieve
him of his hat and stick.

Lady Adela extended her hand.

"How do you do, Mr. Highlands?" she
enquired, as the ruffled Milroy, shaken off like an
importunate limpet, disappeared into the dining-room.

"My name," replied the visitor apologetically,
"is Rylands--not Highlands."

"How stupid of me!" said Lady Adela
condescendingly.  "But my butler is a most
inarticulate person, and in any case we give him the
benefit of the doubt where H's are concerned."

"It's of no consequence," Mr. Rylands
assured her.  "Oh, I beg your pardon!"

He picked up his walking-stick, which had
fallen upon the polished floor with a shattering
crash, and continued breathlessly:--

"The fact is, Lady Adela, the Archdeacon
asked me to come round this afternoon and warn
Mr.--Mr.--" he was uncertain of Mr. Mainwaring's
exact status and title, so decided to
hedge--"your husband, about the First Lesson
in to-morrow morning's service.  The Arch-deacon--"

"Be seated, Mr. Rylands," said Lady Adela, in
the voice which she reserved for golfers,
politicians, and other people who attempted to talk
shop in her presence.  "My husband will be
downstairs presently.  This is my--"

"The Archdeacon," continued the conscientious
Rylands, "thinks it would be better to
substitute an alternative Lesson--"

At this point his walking-stick, which he had
after several efforts succeeded in leaning against
the corner of the mantelpiece, fell a second time
upon the floor, and a further hail of apology followed.

"--An alternative Lesson to-morrow morning,"
he resumed pertinaciously, "in view of the
fact that certain passages--"

"This is my daughter Sylvia," said Lady
Adela coldly.

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" exclaimed the curate
to Sylvia, starting up and dropping his hat.  "I
did n't see you.  My glasses are rather dimmed
by the rain.  I have come here," he recommenced
rapidly, evidently hoping for a more receptive
auditor this time, "at the request of the
Arch-deacon, to see Mr.--your father--about an
alteration in the First Lesson to-morrow--"

"I don't think you need trouble, Mr. Rylands,"
replied the dutiful Sylvia.  "My father will
probably read the wrong Lesson in any case."

"Who is taking my name in vain?" enquired
the playful voice of Mr. Mainwaring, as its owner,
newly kempt, descended the stairs.

"This is Mr. Rylands, Abel, who has recently
come among us," said Lady Adela.  "To assist
the Archdeacon," she added, with feeling.

Mr. Mainwaring shook hands with characteristic
friendliness.

"Welcome to Shotley Beauchamp, Mr. Rylands!"
he said warmly.

"Thank you, sir, very much," replied the
curate, flushing with pleasure.  "I have called," he
continued with unabated enthusiasm--evidently
he saw port ahead at last--"at the request of
the Archdeacon, with reference to the First
Lesson at Matins to-morrow.  One of those rather
characteristic Old Testament passages--"

"Mr. Rylands," interposed Lady Adela, with
the air of one who cannot stand this sort of thing
much longer, "how many lumps of sugar do you take?"

"Four, please," replied Mr. Rylands absently,
with his finger in Mr. Mainwaring's buttonhole.

Lady Adela's eyebrows rose an eighth of an inch.

"Four, did you say?"

The curate came suddenly to himself.

"I beg your pardon," he said cringingly, "I
meant none."

"Then why did you specify four, Mr. Rylands?"
enquired Sylvia, who disliked what she
called "vague" people.

"Well, the fact is," explained the curate, in a
burst of shy confidence--"I always take four
when I am alone in my lodgings.  But when I
go out to tea anywhere, four always seems such
a fearful lot to ask for, that--oh, I beg your
pardon!"

He had stepped heavily back into a cake-stand,
and *patisserie* strewed the hearthrug.

But both crime and apology passed unnoticed,
for at this moment Milroy, who had crossed the
hall a minute previously, reappeared at the
curtained entrance, and announced, in tones of
intense personal satisfaction:--

"Mrs. Carmyle!"

Even the female Mainwarings had no eyes for
any one else when Connie Carmyle entered a
room.

During the mêlée of greetings and embraces
which ensued, Mr. Rylands, blessing the small
deity who had descended to his aid, found time
to right a capsized plum-cake and restore four
highly-speckled cylinders of bread and butter
to the plate on the bottom storey of the
cake-stand.  He even succeeded in grinding a
hopelessly leaky chocolate *éclair* into the woolly
hearthrug with his heel.  By the time that the
Mainwarings had removed their visitor's furs
and escorted her to the fireplace, no trace of the
outrage remained.  The undetected criminal sat
nervously upon the edge of an *art nouveau*
milking-stool in the chimney-corner, waiting to
be introduced.

"This is Mr. Rylands, Connie," announced
Lady Adela.  "Mrs. Carmyle."

"How do you do, Mr. Rylands?" said Connie,
holding out her hand with a friendly smile.

Mr. Rylands, with an overfull teacup in one
hand and a tiny plate entirely obscured by an
enormous bun in the other, rose cautiously to
his feet, and bestowing a sickly smile upon
Mrs. Carmyle, entered at once upon a series of
perilous feats of legerdemain with a view to getting
a hand free.

"Let me hold your cup for you," suggested
Connie kindly.  "That's better!"

The curate, gratefully adopting this expedient,
ultimately succeeded in wringing his benefactress
by the hand.

"What has the Archdeacon been up to lately?"
enquired Connie, gently massaging her fingers.

The curate's face brightened.

"It is curious that you should mention the
Archdeacon's name," he said.  "The fact is,
I have just come *from* the Arch--"

"Constance dear," enquired Lady Adela in
trumpet tones, "did you see anything of Dick
on your way down?"

"No, Lady Adela," said Connie, extending
a slim foot towards the blazing logs.
("Mr. Rylands, would you mind bringing me one of
those little cakes?  No, not those--the
indigestible-looking ones.  Thank you so much!)  Are
you expecting him for the week-end?"

"Yes, but I am afraid there is a little
disappointment in store for him.  I invited Norah
Puncheon down--a sweet girl, Constance!--but
at the last moment she has had to go to bed
with one of her throats."

"Poor thing!" murmured Mrs. Carmyle
absently.  The reason for her own invitation--by
telegraph--had just been made apparent to her.

"So perhaps you would not mind keeping
Dick amused," concluded Lady Adela.  "You
and he used to be such particular friends," she
added archly.

"Bow-*wow*!" observed Mrs. Carmyle dreamily
into Mr. Rylands's left ear.

The curate choked, then glowed with gentle
gratification.  He realised that he had come face
to face at last with one of the Smart Set, of
which one heard so much nowadays.

"The naughty boy," concluded the fond
mother, "must have missed his train."

"The naughty boy," replied Mrs. Carmyle,
"is probably coming down by the four-fifteen.
It is a much better train.  Mr. Rylands, will you
please choose me a nice heavy crumpet?"

"In that case," said Lady Adela, "he will
probably be here in about half an hour.  Sylvia
dear, will you go upstairs and see if Constance's
room is ready?  I forgot to give orders about a
fire."

Sylvia obediently disappeared, and Lady
Adela crossed the hall to a chair under a lamp,
where her husband was furtively perusing the
evening paper.  Mr. Mainwaring was now
favoured with a brief but masterly display of the
fast dying art of pantomime, from which he
gathered without any difficulty whatever that he was
to remove himself and Mr. Rylands to another
part of the house, and that right speedily.

Mr. Mainwaring coughed submissively, and rose.

"Mr. Rylands, will you come and smoke a
cigarette with me?" he said.

"Second Chronicles?" remarked Connie's clear
voice.  "I shall look it up during the sermon
to-morrow."  The Archdeacon's emissary had
unburdened his soul at last.

Lady Adela extended a stately hand.  "Good-bye,
Mr. Rylands," she said.  "My husband
insists on carrying you off to the smoking-room."

Mr. Rylands, by this time hopelessly enmeshed
in Connie Carmyle's net, sprang guiltily to his
feet.

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed.
"Good-bye!  Good-bye, Mrs. Carmyle!"

He shook hands, gathered together his impedimenta,
and hurried blindly up the staircase.

"Remember I am coming to hear you preach
to-morrow," Connie called after him, with a
dazzling smile.  "Morning or evening?"

The godly but mesmerised youth halted, and
broke out afresh.  "I am preaching at Evensong,"
he began, "but--"

"This way, Mr. Rylands," said Lady Adela
patiently, indicating her husband, who was
standing by a swing door at the opposite side of
the hall.

Mr. Rylands, utterly confounded, pattered
headlong downstairs again, and disappeared
with Mr. Mainwaring, still apologising.

Lady Adela tapped Connie playfully but
heavily upon the cheek.  ("*Like being tickled
by a mastodon*" wrote that lady to her husband
a short time later.)

"Constance dear," she said, with a reproving
smile, "you are incorrigible.  Now let us sit down
and have a cosy chat."

The incorrigible one sat submissively down
upon the sofa and waited.  She knew that her
hostess had not rendered the hall a solitude for
nothing.

Presently the cosy chat began.  Not too
suddenly, though.  Lady Adela first enquired after
the health of Mr. Carmyle, and expressed regret
that he had been prevented from accompanying
his wife to The Towers.

"He was sent for about his wretched canal,"
explained Connie.  "But he saw me off at
Waterloo, and promised to come down on Monday if
he could get away."

"Is it the first time you have been parted?"
asked Lady Adela.

"Yes," said Connie, in quite a small voice.

Her hostess, suddenly human, patted her hand.

"The time will soon pass, dear," she said.
"You will find this house quiet but soothing.
I like it much better than town myself.
Mr. Mainwaring is no trouble, and things are so
cheap.  The only drawback is Sylvia.  She
dislikes the people about here."

"By the way," enquired Connie, recovering
her spirits, "what is Sylvia's exact *line* just at
present?  Last year it was slumming; the year
before it was poker-work, and the year before
that it was Christian Science.  What does that
sage-green gown mean?  Don't tell me she has
become a Futurist, or a Post-Impressionist, or
anything!"

"I never attempt," replied Lady Adela, closing
her eyes resignedly, "to cope with Sylvia's
hobbies.  At present she is a Socialist of some
kind.  She is evolving a scheme, I believe, under
which the masses and classes are to intermarry
for the next twenty years.  By that time, she
considers, social distinctions will have ceased to
exist, and consequently the social problem will
have solved itself."

Mrs. Carmyle nodded her head comprehendingly.

"I see," she said, "it sounds a good idea.  I
shall start looking out in the 'Morning Post' for
the announcement of Sylvia's engagement to a
plumber.  Just half a cup more, please."

Lady Adela now decided to begin the cosy
chat.  She accordingly discharged what is known
on rifle-ranges as a sighting shot.

"By the way, dear Constance, have you and
your husband seen much of Dick lately?"

"Oh, we meet him about occasionally," replied
Connie, casting about for cover--"at parties,
and so on."

"I fear," continued Lady Adela, with what
the police call "intent," "that the poor boy
is lonely."

"The last time I saw him," replied Connie,
"he was entertaining five people to luncheon
at the Trocadero.  He did n't *look* lonely."

"There is a loneliness of spirit, dear," replied
Lady Adela gently, "of which some of us know
nothing.  I think it shows that Dick *must* be
feeling lonely if he requires no less than five
people to cheer him up."

"I am sure you are right," said the obliging
Mrs. Carmyle.

"Was Norah Puncheon of the party, by any
chance?" enquired Lady Adela carelessly.

"No.  I did n't know any of the people.  Is
Norah a friend of Dicky's?"

"They have seen a good deal of one another
of late, I believe," replied the diplomatic Lady
Adela, much as a motorist with his radiator full
of feathers might admit having recently noticed
a hen somewhere.  "Constance dear," she
continued, coming in her maternal solicitude quite
prematurely to the point, "you are always so
discreet.  It is high time Dick was married, and
this time I really do think--no, I *feel* it
instinctively--that Norah Puncheon is the right woman
for him."

"The right woman!" replied the late First
Reserve pensively.  "How awful that always
sounds!  The wrong one is always so much nicer!"

"My dear," exclaimed the horrified Lady
Adela, "whoever put such a notion into your head?"

"Dicky.  He told me so himself."

"Has Norah Puncheon much influence over
him, do you know?" continued Lady Adela,
falling back on to safer ground.

"Yes, lots," replied Connie, stifling the tiniest
of yawns.  "There goes your telephone."

"Milroy will attend to it, dear.  Let me see,"
pursued Lady Adela, with studious vagueness--"what
were we talking about?"

"Norah Puncheon's influence over Dicky,"
replied Connie, popping a lump of sugar into her
mouth and crunching it with all the satisfaction
of a child of six.

"You have noticed it yourself, then?"

Connie, quite speechless, nodded.

Lady Adela beamed.  The scent was growing
stronger.

"In what way, dear?" she asked, with unfeigned
interest.

"Well," said Connie, after an interval of
profound reflection, "Dicky wanted to back Prince
Caramel for the St. Leger, and Norah would n't
let him.  He was so grateful to her afterwards!"

Lady Adela summoned up a lopsided smile--the
smile of a tarpon-fisher who has pulled up a
red herring.

"I think her influence goes deeper than that,
dearest," she rejoined in patient reproof.  "You,
who only knew my son as a rather careless and
light-hearted boy, would hardly credit--"

"A telephone message, my lady!" announced
Milroy, appearing at the dining-room door.

Lady Adela, tripped up on her way to a striking
passage, sighed with an air of pathetic
endurance, and enquired:--

"From whom, Milroy?"

"From Mr. Richard, my lady."

"Mr. Richard?  Where is he?"

"He has telephoned from Shotley Post-Office,
my lady," replied Milroy, keenly appreciating
the mild sensation he was about to create; "to
say that he has arrived by the four-fifteen and is
walking up."

"*Walking*--on a night like this?" cried Lady
Adela, all the mother in her awake at once.
"Tell him to wait, and I will send the motor."

"Mr. Richard said he preferred walking, my
lady," rejoined Milroy, growing more wooden
as he approached the *clou* of his narrative.  "He
said he would explain when he arrived.  But the
luggage-cart was to go down."

"For one portmanteau?"

"For the young lady's trunks, my lady."

"Young lady?"  Lady Adela turned a puzzled
countenance to her companion.  "Constance,
dear, was not your luggage sent up with you?"

"Yes," replied Connie, scenting fun; "it was.
I fancy this must be some other lady."

Light broke in on Lady Adela.

"Norah Puncheon, after all!" she exclaimed
joyfully.  "Her throat must be better, and that
headstrong son of mine has compelled her to
come down by the four-fifteen."

"And walk up in the rain," supplemented Connie.

"The thoughtless boy!" wailed Lady Adela
insincerely.  "He will give her pneumonia."

"Perhaps it is n't Miss Puncheon," suggested
Connie soothingly.

"But, my dear," said Lady Adela, refraining
with great forbearance from slapping the small
but discouraging counsellor by her side, "who
else can it be?"  She turned to Milroy.

"Did Mr. Richard mention if he was bringing
the young lady up with him?" she asked.

"Yes, my lady," replied Milroy with unction--"he did."

"Did he mention her name, Milroy?" enquired Connie.

"No, Miss.  He just said 'the young lady.'  Will
there be anything further, my lady?"

"No," snapped Lady Adela; and her aged
retainer, as feverishly anxious beneath his
perfectly schooled exterior to solve the mystery of
his beloved Master Dick's latest escapade as his
mistress, departed to lay another place for dinner.

In the hall there was a long silence.  The wind
roared round the house, and the rain drummed
softly upon the diamond panes of the big oriel
window.

"It might be some old friend of the family,"
said Lady Adela hopefully--"some one whom
Dick has encountered unexpectedly and invited
down.  You know his impulsive, hospitable way!
Aunt Fanny, perhaps."

"A *young* lady, I think Milroy said," replied
the Job's comforter beside her.

"Perhaps," pursued Lady Adela, still endeavouring
to keep her courage up, "it is only one of
the foolish boy's practical jokes."

These speculations were cut short by the
prolonged buzz of an electric bell, followed by the
sound of a spirited tattoo executed upon the
panels of the front door, apparently by a
walking-stick.  The Freak (and party) had arrived.

Lady Adela sat bolt upright, almost pale.

"Mercy! here they are!" she said.

Milroy, who had appeared from his lair with
uncanny celerity, was already in the outer hall.
There was the sound of a heavy door being
opened; the curtains bulged out with the draught;
and a voice was heard uplifted in cheery greeting.

Then the door banged, and Dicky Mainwaring
appeared through the curtains.

He was alone, and very wet.

"What ho, Mum!" he observed, after the
fashion of the present generation.

"My son!" exclaimed Lady Adela, advancing
with outstretched arms.

Dicky, enduring a somewhat lengthy
embrace, suddenly caught sight of a small alert
figure on the sofa.  Curtailing the maternal
caress as gently as possible, he darted forward.

"Connie!" he cried enthusiastically.  "What
tremendous luck meeting you!"  He shook his
ancient ally by both hands.

"I want you more at this moment," he continued
earnestly, "than at any other period of my life."

Connie Carmyle pointed an accusing finger at him.

"Dicky Mainwaring," she enquired sternly,
"where is your lady friend?"

"I was just going to introduce her," replied
Dicky, with a rapturous smile.  "I wonder where
she has got to, by the way.  Found a mirror, I
expect."

Then he raised his voice and cried:--

"Tilly!"

"Hallo!" replied an extremely small voice;
and a shrinking figure appeared in the opening
of the curtains.





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.. _`LUCIDITY ITSELF`:

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   CHAPTER XIII


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   LUCIDITY ITSELF

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   I

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"This, Mum," announced Dicky in tones of
immense pride, "is Tilly.  Miss Welwyn, you know."

He advanced to the girl, who still stood
hesitatingly in the opening of the curtains, and drew
her forward by the hand.

"Come along, little thing," he said, in a voice
which made Connie Carmyle's heart warm to
him.  "Don't be frightened.  I present to you my
lady mother.  You will know one another
intimately in no time," he added untruthfully.

Miss Tilly Welwyn advanced with faltering
steps.  It was seen now that she was *petite*, almost
the same height and build as Connie Carmyle,
with great grey eyes and a pretty mouth.  She
was wrapped in a man's Burberry coat, and wore
a motor veil tied under her chin.  Rain dripped
from her in all directions.  Timidly she extended
a glistening and froggy paw in the direction of
her hostess.

"How do you do, Miss Weller?" said Lady
Adela, mystified but well-bred.

.. _`"HOW DO YOU DO, MISS WELLER?" SAID LADY ADELA, MYSTIFIED BUT WELL-BRED`:

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   :alt: "HOW DO YOU DO, MISS WELLER?" SAID LADY ADELA, MYSTIFIED BUT WELL-BRED

   "HOW DO YOU DO, MISS WELLER?" SAID LADY ADELA, MYSTIFIED BUT WELL-BRED

"Very well, thank you," replied the visitor
in a frightened squeak.

Dicky cheerfully set his parent right upon the
subject of Miss Welwyn's surname, and then
introduced Mrs. Carmyle.

"Tilly," he said, "this is Connie--one of the
very best that ever stepped!  Don't forget that:
you will never hear a truer word."

The two girls regarded one another for a
moment, and then shook hands with instinctive
friendliness.  The small stranger's face cleared,
and she smiled, first at Connie and then up at
Dicky.

Thereafter came a pause.  The atmosphere was
tense with enquiry.  One could almost feel the
Marconigrams radiating from Lady Adela.  But
apparently The Freak's coherer was out of order.
He merely turned towards the staircase, and
exclaimed:--

"Hallo, here are Dad and Sylvia.  These are
the last two," he added in a reassuring
undertone to Miss Welwyn.  "Quite tame, both of
them."

Mr. Mainwaring's face lit up joyfully at the
sight of his son, and he hurried forward.

"Dick, my boy, you've arrived at last!
Capital!"  He clapped the prodigal on the shoulder.

"Yes, Dad," replied Dicky with equal zest;
"we have arrived.  This is Tilly!"

Mr. Mainwaring, entirely at sea but innately
hospitable, greeted Tilly heartily.  "You must be
terribly cold," he said.  "Come to the fire and let
me take off that wet garment of yours."

He led the girl to the blaze, then turned to
shoot a glance of respectful enquiry in the
direction of his august spouse.  It was ignored.
Meanwhile Dicky had introduced the languid but far
from indifferent Sylvia.

"Now you all know one another," he said.
"Sylvia, be a dear old soul and take Miss
Welwyn up to your room and give her some dry
things, will you?  She is soaking, and her
luggage is n't here yet.  You see," he added a little
lamely--Sylvia's patrician calm had rather
dashed him as usual--"we walked from the
station--did n't we, Tilly?"

Tilly nodded dutifully, eyeing Sylvia the while
with some distrust.

"You will take care of her, won't you?"
concluded the solicitous Dicky.

"Surely!" replied Sylvia, in her grandest
manner.  "This way, Miss Welwyn."

She swept across the hall and up the staircase,
followed by the small, moist, and mysterious
figure of the newcomer.

At the foot of the stair Tilly halted and looked
back.  Dicky, who had been following her with
his eyes, was at her side in a moment.

"What is it?" he asked in a low voice.

The girl laid an appealing hand on his arm.

"Don't leave me, Dicky!" she whispered.

The Freak replied by tucking her arm under
his own and propelling her vigorously up to the
turn of the stair.

"Don't be a little juggins," he said affectionately.
"*I* can't come and change your shoes and
stockings for you, can I?"

Miss Welwyn, acquiescing in this eminently
correct view of the matter, smiled submissively.

"All right," she said.  "Au revoir!"

She ran lightly upstairs after the disappearing
Sylvia, turning to wave her hand to Dicky before
she disappeared.

Dicky, who had waited below for that purpose,
acknowledged the salute, and turned to find
Mrs. Carmyle at his elbow.

"Dicky," announced that small Samaritan,
"I am going up, too.  Sylvia might bite your
ewe lamb."

The Freak smiled gratefully.

"The Lady and the Tiger--eh?" he said.
"Connie, you are a brick!  Be tender with her,
won't you?" he added gently.  "She's scared
to death at present, and no wonder!"

Connie Carmyle, with a reassuring pat upon
the anxious young man's arm, turned and sped
upstairs.  Dicky, hands in pockets and head in
air, strolled happily back into the circle of firelight
and took up his stand upon the hearthrug.  Lady
Adela, looking like a large volcano in the very
last stages of self-suppression, sat simmering
over the teacups.

The heir of the Mainwarings addressed his
parents affectionately.

"Well, dear old things," he enquired, "how
are we?  So sorry to be late for tea, but it was an
eventful and perilous journey."

The long-overdue eruption came at last.

"Dick," demanded Lady Adela explosively,
"why have you brought that young person here?"

"Young per--oh, Tilly?"  Dicky smiled
ecstatically to himself at the very sound of Miss
Welwyn's name.  "Tilly?  Well, I don't see what
else I could have done with her, Mummie dear.
I could n't leave her at the station, could I?
But I must tell you about our adventures.  First
of all we lost Percy."

"Dick," repeated Lady Adela, "*who--is--*?"

"Who is Percy?" asked Dicky readily.  "I
forgot; I have n't told you about Percy.  He is
her brother.  A most amazing fellow: knows
everything.  Can explain to you in two minutes
all the things you have failed to understand for
years.  Teach you something you did n't know,
I should n't wonder, Mother.  He is going to
introduce me to some of his friends, and put me
up for his club."

"What club, my boy?" interposed Mr. Mainwaring,
snatching at this gleam of light in the
general murkiness.

"'The Crouch End Gladiators,' I think they 're
called," said Dicky.  "But I have n't met any of
them yet."

"Where is Crouch End?" enquired Lady
Adela.  "And why should one have a club there?"

"It is a cycling club," explained Dicky.  "You
go out for spins in the country on Saturday
afternoons.  Topping!  I'll bring them down here
one day if you like!  Each member is allowed
to have one lady guest," he added, with a happy
smile.  "But to resume.  We lost friend Percy at
Waterloo.  He went to get a bicycle ticket, or
something, and was no more seen.  The train
started without him.  Tilly was fearfully upset
about it: said she thought it was n't quite proper
for her to come down without a chaperon on her
first visit."

"She proposes to come again, then?" said Lady
Adela, with a short quavering laugh.

Dicky stopped short, and regarded his mother
with unfeigned astonishment.

"Come again?  I should think she was coming
again!  Anyhow, the poor little thing was quite
distressed when we lost Perce."

"That, dear," remarked Lady Adela icily, "is
what I should call straining at a gnat and
swallowing a camel.  And now, my boy, let me beg
you to tell me--"

Dicky, who was too fully occupied with the
recollections of his recent journey to be aware
of the physical and mental strain to which he
was subjecting his revered parents, suddenly
started off down a fresh alley of irrelevant
reminiscence.

"Talking of camels," he said, "there is the goat."

"Bless my soul, my dear lad!" exclaimed
Mr. Mainwaring.  "What goat?"

Dicky was perfectly ready to explain.

"When Tilly and I got out of the train at
Shotley Beauchamp station," he began, "and
found that you two absent-minded old dears had
forgotten to send anything to meet us--"

"But Dick, my boy," interposed the old
gentleman--Lady Adela was rapidly progressing
beyond the stage of articulate remonstrance--"how
could your mother be expected to divine
your intentions with regard to trains, or to know
that you were bringing down--er--a guest?"

"I wrote and told you," said Dicky.

"When, pray?" enquired Lady Adela, finding
speech again.

"The day before yesterday," said Dicky positively;
"breaking the news about Tilly, and when
we were coming, and--"

"We received no letter from you," replied
Lady Adela.

"But I wrote it, Mum!" cried Dicky.  "I spent
three hours over it.  It was the most important
letter I have ever written in my life!  Is it likely
a man could forget--"

"Feel in your pockets, my boy," suggested the
experienced Mr. Mainwaring.

Dicky smiled indulgently upon his resourceful
parent, and pulled out the contents of his
breast-pocket--a handful of old letters and a cigarette
case.

"Anything to oblige you, Dad," he ran on,
scanning the addresses.  "But I know I posted
the thing.  A man does not forget on such an
oc--  No! you are right.  I'm a liar.  Here it is!"

He produced a fat envelope from the bunch,
and threw it down upon the tea-table.



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   II

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"I forgive you both," he said, smiling serenely,
"for not sending to meet us.  Well, to return to
the goat--"

Veins began to stand out upon Lady Adela's
patrician brow.

"Richard," she exclaimed, in a low and vibrant
tone--"for the last time, *who is that young
woman*?"

Dicky stared down upon his afflicted parent
in unaffected surprise, and then dissolved into
happy laughter.

"I must tell Tilly about this," he roared.  "Of
course, now I come to think of it, you don't know
a thing about her.  You never got my letter!
Fancy you two poor old creatures sitting there as
good as gold and wondering why I had brought
her down here at all!  Oh, my sainted Mother!"

"Who is she?" reiterated the sainted Mother,
fighting for breath.

"She is my little girl," replied Dicky proudly.
"We're engaged."

"I knew it," said Lady Adela, in a hollow voice.

"And I have brought her down here to make
your acquaintance, that's all!" concluded the
happy lover, apparently surprised that his
relationship to Miss Welwyn should ever have been
a matter of doubt to any one.  "We met the goat
outside the station--"

Lady Adela uttered a deep groan.  Mr. Mainwaring
rose from his seat and advanced upon his
tall son, who still leaned easily against the
mantel-piece, with his feet upon the hearthrug and his
head above the clouds.

"My dearest boy," he said, patting Dicky
affectionately and coaxingly upon the shoulder,
"do you realise that you are our only son, and
that as such we take a not unreasonable interest
in your welfare?  Would you mind postponing the
goat for a moment and giving us a more explicit
account of the young lady?  I had only the merest
glimpse of her just now," he concluded, doggedly
avoiding his wife's eye, "but she struck me as
charming--charming!"

Dicky's air of cheerful inanity fell from him
like a cloak.  Exultantly he took his father by the
shoulders.

"Dad," he shouted, "she's the most blessed
little darling that ever walked this earth!  She's
a princess!  She's a fairy!  She's a--"

The rhapsodist broke off short, and flushed red.

"Forgive me," he said, "for waffling like that,
but I don't quite know what I 'm doing just at
present.  Dad, I'm the happiest man that ever lived!"

"My boy, my boy," cried little Mr. Mainwaring,
"I'm glad--I'm glad!"

And father and son, regardless of the feelings
of the unfortunate lady upon the sofa, proceeded
to shake one another violently and continuously
by both hands.

At last they desisted, a little sheepishly.

"Abel," said a cold voice, "be seated.  Dick,
take that chair."

Both gentlemen complied meekly.

"I see," said Lady Adela, looking up from a
rapid perusal of her son's letter, "that the girl's
name is Tilly Welwyn.  Tilly, I presume, is an
abbreviation of Matilda?"

"I don't know," confessed Dicky.  "But Tilly
will," he added brightly.  "She knows everything."

"I notice," continued the Counsel for the
Prosecution, still skimming through the letter, "that
you have known one another for a short time--"

"Seven weeks, five days, four hours, and a few
odd minutes," confirmed the defendant, looking
at his watch.

"--And you became engaged as recently as
last Sunday."  Lady Adela laid down the letter.
"Where?"

"On the top of a 'bus."

"H'm!" said Mr. Mainwaring uneasily.

"A rather unusual place, was it not?"
enquired Lady Adela coldly.

"Unusual," agreed Dicky readily, "but not
irregular.  Oh, no!  Besides, Percy was there,
three seats behind.  Perfect dragon of a chaperon,
old Perce!  Yes, the proceedings were most
correct, I promise you."

"I note," continued Lady Adela, taking up the
letter again, "that you do not say where you
made Miss Welwyn's acquaintance."

"That was on the top of another 'bus,"
explained Dicky, with a disarming smile.

"And was her brother," enquired Lady Adela,
ominously calm, "present on *this* occasion?"

"Percy?  Rather not!  Otherwise I need not
have interfered."

"Int--" began both Lady Adela and
Mr. Mainwaring together.

"Yes," said Dicky glibly.  "It was like this.
The rain began to come down hard, and a rather
poisonous-looking bounder sitting beside her
offered her his umbrella."

"Any gentleman would have done the same,
Dick," interposed Mr. Mainwaring quietly.

"Yes, Dad.  But I don't think any gentleman
would have insisted on paying a girl's fare for
her; and I don't think any gentleman would
have considered a half-share in a three-and-ninepenny
brolly an excuse for putting his arm
round a girl's waist," replied Dicky, with sudden
passion.

"He did that?"

"Yes."

"What did you do?"

Dicky grinned cheerfully.

"I did a pretty bright thing," he said.  "It
was no business of mine, of course, and I
naturally did n't want to start a brawl on the top of
a Piccadilly omnibus--"

"Dick, what were you doing on the top of an
omnibus at all?" demanded Lady Adela
unexpectedly.  "Such economies are a new feature
of your character."

Dicky nodded his head sagely.

"Yes," he agreed, "that's a sound point--a
sound point.  What *was* I doing on the top of
that omnibus at all?  That's the mystery.  I was
extremely surprised myself.  I have spent whole
days since, wondering how I got there.  I have
come to the conclusion that it was Fate--just
Fate!  That's it--Fate!"

"My dear boy, don't talk nonsense," said
Lady Adela impatiently.

"But I am quite serious, dear Mum," persisted
Dicky.  "I don't as a rule go following
unprotected young females onto the summits of
omnibuses--"

Lady Adela's fine eyes began to protrude,
crabwise.

"You *followed* her?" she gasped.

"I did.  What else was there to do?" said
Dicky simply.  "I might never have seen her
again if I had n't.  Fate does n't as a rule give a
man two chances.  I got this one, and I took it.
One moment I was walking along Piccadilly,
bucking about something to old Tiny Carmyle.
Next moment there she was, stepping on to that
Piccadilly 'bus.  In about five seconds I found
myself up on top, too, sitting on the seat behind
her.  I tell you, it must--"

"What became of Mr. Carmyle?" asked Lady
Adela, ruthlessly interrupting another rhapsody.

Dicky smiled vaguely, and rubbed his head.

"Upon my soul, I don't know," he confessed.
"It's the first time the matter has occurred to
me.  I expect he went home.  He's a resourceful
old creature."

"How did you dispose of the man with the
umbrella, my boy?" enquired Mr. Mainwaring.

"Ah," said Dicky, abandoning Carmyle to his
fate, "that was where I did the bright thing.  The
fellow looked as if he made rather a hobby of this
sort of game, and that gave me an idea.  When he
started amusing himself, I tapped him on the
shoulder and said, right in his ear: 'Look here, my
man, do you remember what happened to you
the last time you were rude to a lady when you
thought no one was with her?"

Mr. Mainwaring rubbed his hands gently.

"Well?" he said.

"At that," continued The Freak with relish,
"my sportsman went a sort of ripe gorgonzola
colour, grabbed his filthy brolly, and slid heavily
down the back stairs of the 'bus."

"And what did you do then?" enquired Lady Adela.

"I," replied Dicky triumphantly, "got up
and took his seat and gave Tilly my umbrella!"

"Ha! ha! ha!" crowed Mr. Mainwaring delightedly.
"H'm! h'm! h'm!  Honk! honk! honk!"
he concluded hurriedly, coughing laboriously and
patting himself upon the chest, as his consort
turned menacingly in his direction.

"And where did you part company?" asked
Lady Adela.

"Well," explained the culprit, "I offered to
see her home.  She was rather shaken up by what
had happened."

Lady Adela nodded her head as if she had
expected this.

"I see.  And what did the young woman--

"Don't you think, Mum dear, that you might
start calling her 'lady' now?" suggested Dicky
gently.

"--Say to that?" she enquired, without taking
the slightest notice of the interruption.

"She said she was n't going home.  She was
out shopping, it seemed.  In fact, she got down at
a shop in Oxford Street.  I insisted on her
keeping the umbrella, though."

"As a gift?"

"No," said Dicky with a twinkle; "as a hostage."

"And you gave her your address?"

Dicky's radiant countenance clouded for a
moment.

"Not quite," he said.  "I meant to, of course;
but I can't have been quite my own calm self; for
instead of giving her my own address, I asked
for hers."

"She gave it, I suppose?" said Lady Adela dryly.

"No.  She hesitated badly.  I ought to have
realised at once that I was not quite playing the
game; but I was so mad keen to see her again that
the idea never occurred to me.  I simply thought
she had forgotten where she lived, or something,
and waited."

"But finally," said Lady Adela, "the young--lady
did confide her address to you?"

Dicky nodded, and his mother continued:--

"Where does she live?"

"Russell Square," said Dicky rapturously.

"Russell Square?  Ah!  I know it.  One drives
through it on the way to Euston.  In Bloomsbury,
I believe?" said Lady Adela.

Her infatuated son corrected her.  "Not
Bloomsbury," he said reverently; "Heaven."

"Quite so," agreed Lady Adela, entirely
unmoved.  "What number?"

"I have forgotten the number long ago,"
replied Dicky, "but I could find my way to the
place blindfold by this time."

"Don't you ever write to her?" asked his
mother curiously.

"Every day."

"Then you must know her postal address,"
was the crushing rejoinder.

Dicky merely shook his head, and smiled
serenely.

"No, I don't," he said.

"Then where do you address her letters?"

"I walk round every night after bedtime, and
drop the letter into her letter-box.  Is it likely
I would let a postman touch it?  Anyhow, on this
occasion Tilly told me that if I asked for my
umbrella any time I was passing it would be
handed out to me.  Then she thanked me again,
the darling, and went into the shop."

"Front entrance?" enquired Lady Adela swiftly.

"Was it?" said Dicky vaguely.  "I don't
remember.  Yes, I do.  She went round and in
at the side somewhere.  Why?"

"Nothing," said Lady Adela.  "And did you
call at Russell Square?"

"Rather!  I went there next afternoon."

"Were you invited in?"

"As a matter of fact, I met her coming out,
with her father.  A splendid old chap!
Apparently Tilly had told him the whole tale, and he
had expressed a desire to make my acquaintance.
A lucky desire for me, what?  He took us both
out to tea."

"Where?"

"Gunter's.  Said he was sorry he could n't ask
me into the house at present, as they had the
paperhangers in.  After that visitation was over,
I was to come and make the acquaintance of
the rest of the family."

"And did you?"

"Yes."

"What is the house like inside?" was the next
inevitable feminine enquiry.

"To tell you the truth I have n't been inside
yet, except the front hall.  But I met the rest of
the family at a very friendly little luncheon given
in my honour at the Criterion on the following
Saturday afternoon."

"And what are the rest of the family like?"

Dicky pondered.

"Now I come to think it over," he confessed
at length, "I'm not very clear about the rest of
the family.  Collectively they struck me as being
the most charming people I had ever met, but
I don't seem to have noticed them individually,
if you know what I mean.  You see, Tilly was
there."

"How many are there?" pursued his mother,
with exemplary patience.

"Four or five, I should think, but I have never
counted them," replied the exasperating
Richard.  "Tilly--"

Mr. Mainwaring came timidly to his wife's aid.

"Is there a mother, my boy?" he asked.

"Yes, there is a mother," replied Dicky hastily.
"Oh, yes," he repeated with more confidence,
"certainly there is a mother."

"Any sisters?"

"There is a small girl--a dear.  And I have a
kind of notion there are some twins somewhere.
Tilly--"

"Any brothers?"

Dicky smiled, apparently at some amusing
thought.

"Yes," he said, "there is Percy.  A sterling
fellow, Perce!  I wonder where he is, by the way.
If he were here he might be able to do something
with the goat.  Any one would respect Percy--even
a goat."

Lady Adela sighed despairingly.  Mr. Mainwaring,
taking the goat by the horns, so to speak,
asked his son to elucidate the mystery once and
for all.

"Did n't I tell you about the goat?" asked
Dick in surprise.  "Well, it was like this.  When
Tilly and I were hunting for a cab in the rain at
the station just now, we met a woman with a
goat, in tears."

"The goat?" said Lady Adela incredulously.

"No, its mother--I mean, its proprietress.
She had missed the market, or something, owing,
to her pony breaking down, and she had come to
the station as a forlorn hope, to see if she could
catch a departing goat-merchant and unload
Maximilian on him."

"Maximilian?" interjected Lady Adela giddily.

"Yes--the goat.  We had to call him *something*,
you know.  Her husband was very ill in
bed, and Maximilian had to be sold to defray
expenses, it seemed."

"And so you--er--purchased Maximilian?"
said Mr. Mainwaring.

"We did," replied The Freak gravely.  "That
was why we had to walk.  The cabman would not
allow us to take Maximilian inside with us, and
Max absolutely declined to sit on the box beside
the cabman--which did n't altogether surprise
me--so we all three had to come here on our
arched insteps.  I wonder where Tilly is."

"Where is the animal now?" enquired Lady
Adela apprehensively.  She was quite prepared
to hear that Maximilian was already in the best
bedroom.

"We left him on the lawn, tethered to the
rain-gauge," replied Dicky.  "Ah, there she is!"

Forgetting the goat and all other impediments
to the course of true love, he hurried to the foot
of the staircase.



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   III

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Miss Welwyn and Mrs. Carmyle descended
the stairs together, Sylvia stalking majestically
in the rear.  Tilly wore a short navy-blue skirt
and a soft silk shirt belonging to Connie--garments
which, owing to the mysterious readiness
with which the female form accommodates itself
to the wardrobe of its neighbour, fitted her to
perfection.  In this case, however, the miracle
was less noticeable than usual, for the two girls
were of much the same height and build, their
chief points of difference being their hair and eyes.

In reply to her swain's tender enquiries, Miss
Welwyn intimated that she was now warm and dry.

"In that case," replied Dicky, "come and sit
up to the tea-table and take some nourishment."

On her way to her tea Tilly was met by
Mr. Mainwaring senior, with outstretched hands.

"My dear young lady," he said, with shy
cordiality, "we owe you a most humble apology."

Tilly, flushing prettily, asked why.

"For our extremely vague greeting to you just
now," explained her host.  "You see"--he
clapped Dicky fondly on the shoulder--"this
intellectual son of ours forgot to post the letter
announcing your--telling us about you.  We
have only just heard the news.  Now that we
have you, my dear"--the old gentleman's eyes
beamed affectionately--"we are going to make
much of you!"

"Oh, thank you!  You *are* kind!" cried Tilly
impulsively; and smiled gratefully upon her future
father-in-law.  His were the first official words
of welcome that she had received.

"Good old Dad!" said Dicky.

Meanwhile Lady Adela had come to the
conclusion that her male belongings were
overdoing it.

"Do you take sugar, Miss Welwyn?" she
enquired loudly.

"Yes, please," said Tilly, still engaged in
smiling affectionately upon the Mainwarings,
*père et fils*.

"I wonder now," continued Mr. Mainwaring,
"if you are in any way related to an old friend of
mine--or perhaps I should say acquaintance,
for he moved on a higher plane than I--Lucius
Welwyn?  I was at school with him more than
forty years ago, and also at Cambridge."

"Lucius Welwyn?" cried Tilly, her eyes
glowing.  "He is my Daddy--my father!"

"You don't say so?  Capital!"  Abel Mainwaring
turned to his wife.  "Adela, do you hear
that?  Miss Welwyn and I have established a
bond of union already.  Her father was actually
at school with me."

Lady Adela flatly declined to join in the
general enthusiasm.

"Are you sure, dear?" was all she said.  "There
might be two."

Mr. Mainwaring pointed out, with truth, that
Lucius Welwyn was an uncommon name.  "But
we can easily make sure," he said.  "The Lucius
Welwyn whom I remember was a Fellow of his
College.  Did your father--"

"Yes, Dad was a Fellow of his College for some
years," said Tilly.  "I think I will come a little
farther from the fire now, if you don't mind.
I am quite warm."

"Come and sit here by me, dear Miss Welwyn,"
said Lady Adela with sudden affability.  "I
want to have a cosy little chat with you.  Dick,
you are very wet and muddy.  Go and change."

"All right," said Dicky obediently.

As he left the hall he said something in a low
voice to Mrs. Carmyle.  That small champion
of the oppressed nodded comprehendingly, and
established herself at a writing-table under the
curtained window.

"Abel," enquired Lady Adela, in pursuance of
her policy of once more clearing the decks for
action, "what have you done with Mr. Rylands?"

"I quite forgot him," confessed Mr. Mainwaring.
"I was so much occupied with Miss Welwyn.
I fear he is still in the smoking-room."

"Go and let him out--by the side door,"
commanded Lady Adela.

"Come on, Dad!" said Dicky.

Father and son disappeared, arm-in-arm;
Lady Adela and Sylvia closed in upon the
flinching Miss Welwyn; and Mrs. Carmyle, taking up
her pen, addressed herself to the composition of
an epistle to her lord and master.

Lady Adela looked round, and remarked in
solicitous tones:--

"Constance, dear, you have chosen a very
draughty corner for yourself."

"I have put fresh note-paper in your bedroom,
Connie," added Sylvia cordially.

"I'm as right as rain, thanks," said Connie.
"Just scribbling a line to Bill."

And she began:--

*I have arrived quite safely, old man, and the most
tremendously exciting things are happening here.
Listen!*





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.. _`ANOTHER COSY CHAT, WITH AN INTERRUPTION`:

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   CHAPTER XIV


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   ANOTHER COSY CHAT, WITH AN INTERRUPTION

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   I

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*The victim*, continued Connie presently, *is now
upon the sofa, wedged in between the Chief Ogress
and the Assistant Tormentor.  She is scared out of
her wits, poor thing, but has stood up to the pair of
them splendidly so far*.

"It was good of you to come down to this poky
little corner of the country, Miss Welwyn," Lady
Adela was saying, handing Tilly a second cup of
tea.  "It is so nice when one's friends take one as
they find one, is it not?"

Tilly, wide-eyed and quaking, was understood
to assent to this proposition.

"You live in town, I understand?" continued
Lady Adela cautiously.

Tilly took a deep breath, and began:--

"Yes--in Russell Square.  The house," she
continued rapidly, "is very old-fashioned.  It
belonged to my grandfather.  My father inherited
from him, and we have lived there ever since we
left Cambridge.  We have often talked of
leaving, but Dad says he can't bear transplanting at
his time of life.  So," concluded Tilly, with an
hysterical little gasp--Lady Adela and Sylvia
were listening with the dispassionate immobility
of a pair of well-nourished sphinxes--"we just
stay on."

*She has confessed that she lives in Bloomsbury*,
wrote Mrs. Carmyle.  *The Inquisition are one up*.

"Russell Square!" cooed Lady Adela.  "How
charming and old-fashioned!  So handy for the
British Museum, too!"

"And Euston Road!" added Sylvia enthusiastically.

*Cats!  Cats!!  Cats!!!* recorded Connie furiously.

Lady Adela offered Tilly a bun, and resumed
her long-distance fire.

"You are quite a small family, I imagine?"

"Well," began Tilly readily--they had reached
a topic that lay very near her heart--"there
are Father and Mother, of course, and my
brother Percy, and my sister, and two quite tiny
ones.  My grandmother--"

"How nice," murmured Lady Adela indulgently,
closing her eyes as if to mitigate the
strain of this enumeration.  "And what is your
little sister's name?"

"Amelia."

"Amelia?  Delightful!  Perfect!  It suits
Russell Square exactly."

"One feels," corroborated Sylvia, "as if the
Sedleys and the Osbornes and the Rawdon
Crawleys all lived next door."

*Why don't they smack people like Sylvia more
in their youth?* enquired Mrs. Carmyle's letter
plaintively.

"I don't think we have met any of *them*," said
Miss Welwyn doubtfully.  "The Mossops live on
one side of us and the Rosenbaums on the other.
We don't call on them, of course," she added
apprehensively.  "And oh, Lady Adela, I have
an invitation for you from my mother, to come
and have tea with us."

"That is very kind of your mother," said Lady
Adela graciously.  "You shall give me the
invitation when you have unpacked your boxes."

"It's--it's not a written invitation," said
Tilly.  "Mother just asked me to ask you, any
day you happen to be coming into town.  Then
you would meet my father and the others."

"That will be charming," replied Lady Adela.
"I think we have no engagement on Monday."  (*Lady
A. is simply bursting with curiosity about
the girl's family*, observed Connie at this point.)  "I
will write a little note to your mother, and
you shall take it back with you on Monday
morning.  Are you the eldest of the family?"

"No.  Perce--Percy is the eldest.  He is
twenty-two."

"Is he at the University?"

Miss Welwyn shook her head.

"Not now," she said.  She spoke with more
freedom.  The restraint of her surroundings was
wearing off, and her courage, which was
considerable, was beginning to assert itself.  "He is in
the City.  He dislikes it very much, poor boy.
He is so fond of open-air sports, and he finds an
office very trying.  My father was a great
sportsman, too.  He used to go racing a good deal at one
time, but he has given it up now.  He says he is
on the shelf."

"And he was a Fellow of his College, I think
you said?" remarked Lady Adela, a little bored
with this prattle.

"Yes--Fellow and Tutor."

"But he is no longer in residence, you say?"

"No," said Tilly briefly.

*There is something shady about the poor child's
father*, wrote Mrs. Carmyle, *but Lady A. has got
no change out of her so far*.

"I am looking forward greatly to making your
father's acquaintance, Miss Welwyn," said Lady
Adela, with absolute sincerity.  "Now, I wonder
if I know any of your mother's people.  I don't
think you have mentioned her maiden name."

"She was a Banks," replied Miss Welwyn readily.

*Bill, dear, this little girl is splendid!* recorded
Connie enthusiastically.

"I beg your pardon?" said Lady Adela.

"A Banks," repeated Tilly politely.

Lady Adela nodded her head intelligently.

"Ah, to be sure!" she said.  "Let me see.  Are
they a Warwickshire family, now?"

"Or is it a Cornish name?" queried Sylvia,
with an encouraging smile.

"No," said Tilly.  "Mother came from
Bedfordshire--or else Cambridgeshire," she added
rather breathlessly, for the four eyes of the
sphinxes were upon her once more.

"But, dear Miss Welwyn--" began Sylvia.

*I can stand this no longer!* scribbled Connie,
and threw down her pen.

"Thank goodness, that's over!" she exclaimed,
rising and coming over to the fire.  "What a
nuisance affectionate husbands are!  Talking of
husbands, Sylvia, I hear you are going to marry
a plumber."

Lady Adela and Sylvia, taken in flank, both
turned and eyed the frivolous interloper severely.
Had they not done so, they would have noted
that Miss Welwyn's teacup had almost leaped
from its saucer.

"Dear Connie, you are priceless," commented
Sylvia patronisingly.  "I wonder where you got
your quaint sense of humour."

"Lady Adela was my informant," said Connie,
quite unruffled.  She had drawn the enemy's fire
upon herself, which was precisely what she had
intended to do.  "Jolly sensible of you, too!  A
plumber is a useful little thing to have about a
house.  My Bill is practically one, you know,
although he calls himself something grander.
Now, what about a four-handed game of billiards
before dinner?  Do you feel inclined to play,
Miss Welwyn?"

"I am rather out of practice," said Tilly
dubiously.

"Never mind!" said Connie.  "You can play
with Dicky against Mr. Mainwaring and me."

She walked to the foot of the staircase, and
called up: "Mr. Richard, forward!"

"In one moment, Miss!" replied a voice far
up the height.  "I'm just attending to a lady
at the ribbon counter.  I'll step down
directly."  Then a stentorian bawl: "Sign, please!"

During this characteristic exchange of inanities
an electric bell purred faintly in the distance,
with the usual result that the dining-room door
opened, to emit the jinnee-like presence of Mr. Milroy.

"What is it, Milroy?" enquired Lady Adela.

"Front door bell, my lady," replied Milroy,
and disappeared like a corpulent wraith through
the curtains.

"Heavens, not *another* caller!" exclaimed the
overwrought mistress of the household.

"Probably Mr. Rylands come back for his
goloshes," said Sylvia.  At the same moment
Dicky and his father appeared, descending the
staircase together.

"*And* the next article, madam?" continued
Dick lustily, addressing Mrs. Carmyle, who
stood below.

He was answered, not by the lady to whom his
query was addressed, but by Milroy, who
appeared holding back one of the curtains which
covered the entrance to the vestibule, to
announce, in the resigned tones of a man for whom
life holds no further surprises:--

"Mr. Percy Welwyn!"



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   II

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Mr. Percy Welwyn entered.  He was a slender
young man with an insufficient chin and a small
moustache.  He looked like a shop assistant; and
Dicky's last remark, still ringing through the
hall, emphasised rather than suggested the
comparison.  His hair was brushed low down upon
his forehead, with an elaborate curl over his right
eyebrow.  His eyes were bulgy.  He wore a
tight-fitting cycling suit, splashed with mud, and
carried in his hand a small tweed cap bearing a metal
badge.  Altogether an impartial observer might
have been excused for not feeling greatly
surprised that Dicky and Tilly had mislaid him.

Mr. Welwyn advanced to the fire, with the
easy grace of one who is habitually a success in
whatever grade of society he finds himself, and
remarked: "Good-evenin', all!"

For a moment there was a frozen silence.
Then Dicky hurried forward.

"My dear Percy," he exclaimed, wringing the
newcomer by the hand, "here you are, after all!
Dear old soul!  Let me present the rest of my
family."

He linked his arm in that of the travel-stained
cyclist, and led him towards the petrified Lady
Adela.

"Mother," he announced, "this is my friend
Percy Welwyn."

"Mr. Percy Welwyn," said a gentle voice in
his ear.

"Sorry, old man!" said Dicky hastily.

"No offence taken," Mr. Welwyn assured him,
"where none intended.  This, I presume,"--he
waved his dripping tweed cap in the face of
the speechless matron before him,--"is your
hostess."

"Yes," said Dicky.  "My mother, Lady Adela
Mainwaring."

Mr. Welwyn shook hands affably.

"How de do, your ladyship?" he said.  "Very
pleased to make your ladyship's acquaintance,
I'm sure."

"And this," continued Dicky, swiftly wheeling
his guest out of the danger zone, "is my old Dad."

"How do you do, Mr. Welwyn?" said Mr. Mainwaring,
with a courteous little bow.  "We
make you welcome."

"How de do, your lordship?" replied Mr. Welwyn,
repeating his hand-shaking performance.
"Very pleased to make your lordship's acquaintance."

"That's an error on your part, Percy," said
Dicky smoothly.  "Dad's only a commoner.
But we'll work it out afterwards.  This is my
little sister Sylvia."

Mr. Welwyn greeted the statuesque Miss
Mainwaring as he had greeted her parents,
throwing in an ingratiating ogle which plainly
intimated that he intended to make an
impression in this quarter.

"Very pleased to make *your* acquaintance,
Miss," he said.  "We shall be calling each other
Perce and Sylvie in no time, I can see.  And now,"
he continued, turning his back upon the quivering
figure of his future playmate, "I should like
to address a few observations to the happy couple.
You're a nice pair of turtle-doves to come and
play gooseberry to, I don't suppose!  Here I give
up a whole Saturday afternoon to come and
chaperon our Tilly and her young gentleman
down to his ancestral home; and the first thing
I know is the pair of them give me the slip at
Waterloo!  Chronic, I call it!"

"What else did you expect, Mr. Welwyn?"
interposed Connie, coming characteristically to
the rescue, the majority of the Mainwaring
family being in no condition to cope with
Percy.  "Have n't you ever been engaged yourself?"

Her unsolicited intrusion into the conversation
was plainly a shock to Percy's sense of
decorum.  He coughed reprovingly behind his
hand, and turning to Dicky, remarked:--

"Introdooce me!"

Dicky, humble and apologetic, complied.
Mr. Welwyn went through his usual performance,
and continued:--

"Engaged, Mrs. Carmyle?  Not me!  Not
that I might n't have bin, mark you, if I had n't
been born careful.  Be born careful, and you
need n't be born lucky.  The Proverbs of
Perce--Number one!" he added, in a humorous aside.
"Well, to resume.  Luckily I had the old
push-bike with me, and I managed to find my way
down here in a matter of an hour and a half or
so.  And then what happens?  Just as I am doing
a final spin up your kerridge-drive, your
ladyship--*bing! bang!* and I get bowled over in the
dark by a charging rhinoceros!"

Mr. Welwyn concluded this dramatic narrative
with a few appropriate gestures, and paused
to note its effect upon his auditors.

"That was Maximilian, I fancy," explained
Dicky cheerfully.  "The little fellow must have
got loose.  Did you notice which way he was
going?"

"I did," replied Percy with feeling.  "He was
going the opposite way to me."

"In that case," replied Dicky reflectively, "he
must be halfway back to mother by this time.
Well, perhaps it is just as well.  Did you happen
to observe whether he had the rain-gauge with
him?"

"All I remarked," replied Mr. Welwyn bitterly,
"was about half a mudguard.  But that,"
he continued, with a winning smile to the ladies,
"is neither here nor there, is it?  Seeing as you
are safe, Tilly, old girl, I think I may now resign
the post of chaperon into her ladyship's hands.
And perhaps," he added with a graceful bow,
"I may be permitted to remark that in my
humble opinion a more capable pair of hands could
not be found for the job."

Lady Adela had suffered severely that day, and
her spirit for the time being was almost broken.
She merely smiled weakly.

Mr. Welwyn, now at the very top of his form,
struck an attitude.

"My trusty iron steed," he declaimed, "waits
without the battlements--all but a few spokes,
that is, accounted for by the aforesaid rhinoceros--and
I must hence, to ketch the seven-fifteen
back to Londinium."

"Does that mean he is going?" murmured
Lady Adela to her daughter, with a flutter of
hope upon her drawn features.

Sylvia was nodding reassuringly, when the
tactless Dicky broke in:--

"Percy, old son, you really must stay for
dinner, if not for the night."

"We can't send you away empty in weather
like this, Mr. Welwyn," added Mr. Mainwaring
hospitably.  "My dear--"

He turned to his wife, but the words froze upon
his lips, for Lady Adela presented an appearance
that can only be described as terrible.  But the
impervious Percy noticed nothing.

"By my halidom," he exclaimed, highly
gratified, "that was well spoken!  Yet it cannot be.
I thank you, ladies and gentles all, for your
courtly hospitality; but, as the bard observes:
'I *must* get home to-night!'"  (Here he broke
into song, and indulged in what are known in
theatrical circles as "a few steps.")  "The club
has an important run billed for to-morrow, and
if little Percy is missing, there will be enquiries.
Still, rather than disoblige, I'll split the
difference.  I will drain a stirrup-cup of foaming Bass
with ye ere I depart.  Then, forward across
the drawbridge!  Yoicks!  Likewise Tally Ho!
Which way, fair sir," concluded this high-spirited
youth, turning to his host, "to the Saloon Bar?"

"Percy," remarked Dicky hurriedly, "you are
immense!  You ought to go on the Halls.  Come
along!  This way!"

"I have bin approached, mind you," began
the comedian, taking Dicky's arm, "but!"

"Are you coming too, Tilly?" asked Dicky,
looking back.

Tilly, who had been apprehensively regarding
the flinty countenances of her future relatives-in-law,
assented hurriedly and gratefully.

"Yes, please," she said.  "I will come and see
Percy off."

She took Dicky's free arm.

"'T is meet and fitting," observed the ebullient
Percy.  "We will drain a tankard jointly.
Right away!  Pip, pip!  Good-morrow, knights
and ladies all!"

The trio disappeared into the dining-room,
leaving a most uncanny silence behind them!

Mr. Mainwaring hastily picked up the evening
paper and enshrouded himself in its folds.  Lady
Adela feebly signalled to Sylvia for the smelling-salts.

"A perfectly *appalling* young man!" she announced.

"And a perfectly sweet little girl!" quoth
loyal Connie.





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   CHAPTER XV


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   A DAY OF CALM REFLECTION

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   I

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At half-past eight next morning Connie
Carmyle, wearing a tweed coat and skirt and neat
brown brogues, came whistling downstairs, intent
upon a constitutional before breakfast.

Upon the sofa in front of the hall-fire,
self-consciously perusing a Sunday newspaper, sat a large
man of slightly sheepish appearance.  At the
sight of Connie he rose guiltily to his feet.
Mrs. Carmyle embraced him in a motherly fashion.

"And may I ask what you are doing here, my
man?" she enquired.

"Finished things off last night after all,"
replied her husband; "so thought I might as
well run down this morning and spend the day."

"Why?" asked Mrs. Carmyle wonderingly.
She knew perfectly well; but being a woman and
the possessor of an undemonstrative husband, it
pleased her to spur him into making an exhibition
of himself.

"Thought I should like a rest," said
Mr. Carmyle gruffly.  "Had a pretty tough week,"
he added, in a pusillanimous attempt to excite
compassion.

"Is that the only reason?" persisted his
heartless spouse.

"Having a wife, thought I might as well come
and see her for an hour or two," conceded
Carmyle grudgingly.

"You must put it better than that, darling,"
said Connie inexorably.  "Now, be a little man!
You came because--because--"

The sorely-harrassed husband, driven into a
corner, turned a deep plum-colour.

"Because I love you!" he growled.  "Now
chuck it, Connie, for goodness' sake!"

He was rewarded by a radiant smile.

"That is much better," said Connie approvingly.
"Now you shall have some breakfast.
After that I have a great deal for you to do."

"What?"

"You can take us for a drive in the car."

"Us?"

"Yes--us.  Me, Dicky, and his fiancée,"
answered Connie very distinctly.

"Righto!" replied this maddening man unconcernedly.

Connie heaved a patient little sigh, and
repeated:--

"Me, Dicky, and--his fiancée."

This effort was more successful.

"Righto!" said Carmyle once more.  "Freak
engaged again?" he added as an afterthought.

Connie cast up her eyes in a piteous fashion,
as if to imply that it is better to have a
husband like this than none at all, and replied
resignedly:--

"Yes.  It's a long story.  I wrote you a letter
about it last night.  Here it is in the post-basket.
Read it now; while I run and break the news
of your visitation to Lady Adela."

By the time that Connie returned, her taciturn
but capable husband had mastered the contents
of her letter--parentheses, italics, notes of
exclamation, and all--and was ready to receive
the orders of the day.

"Now, listen," commanded Connie swiftly.
"At breakfast you will invite Dicky and Tilly
to come for a run in the motor.  I don't know
anything about that girl, but I had a long talk with
her last night when we were getting ready for
bed, and she is the right sort.  She seemed to like
me, too.  What did you say?"

"Nothing," replied the exasperating William.
"Go on."

"Anyhow," continued Connie, ignoring a
mysterious chuckle, "I am not going to have her
pumped and bullied by Lady Adela and Sylvia
before she has found her feet.  Therefore we will
take her and Dicky away for the day.  Get your
invitation off at breakfast, before Lady Adela
begins organising a party for church.  The young
couple can have the back seat to themselves, and
I will come in front with you."

"Anything you like," replied Carmyle cheerfully.
He had been looking forward to an indolent
morning with Connie in the smoking-room, for
he really had had a hard week; but he never
questioned the dispositions of the small goddess who
controlled his movements.  Whatever she
ordained was right.

"Thank you, Bill darling!  I love you very much."

Mrs. Carmyle stood upon tiptoe, and with an
affectionate sigh endeavoured to lay her head
upon her husband's left shoulder.  Mr. Carmyle
gave her no assistance.  He merely removed his
sovereign-purse with some ostentation from his
left-hand waistcoat-pocket to his right.



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   II

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"This is the first time that you and I have
been out in a motor together, Tilly," remarked
Dicky a few hours later, taking advantage of a
jolt on the part of the car to annihilate a portion
of the space which separated him from his beloved.

Tilly, availing herself of a margin which
instinct and experience had taught her to provide
for such contingencies as this, moved a
corresponding number of inches farther away, and
pointed out that they had enjoyed a motor-ride
together only three days previously.

"On a motor-'bus," she explained.

"Motor-'bus?  Not a bit.  Fairy coach!"
declared her highly imaginative swain.

"Fairy coaches don't as a rule carry eighteen
inside and twenty-two outside, dear," replied the
matter-of-fact Miss Welwyn.

"No, you are right," admitted Dicky.  "Fairy
coaches are invariably two-seaters.  This one
is n't a bad substitute, though--what?"

He lolled luxuriously, and turned to survey the
profile beside him.  Tilly was wearing a
saxe-blue *suède* hat, secured to her head by a filmy
motor-veil--both the property of the
open-handed Mrs. Carmyle, who was sitting in front
driving the car under the complacent contemplation
of her husband.  The fur rug which Tilly
shared with Dicky enveloped her to the chin: her
cheeks glowed; her lips were parted in a smile of
utter content; and her eyes were closed.  Dicky
tried to count the long lashes that swept her
cheek.  She was his!  His--to keep, to cherish,
to protect, to pamper, to spoil!  Something very
tremendous stirred within him--something that
had never found a place in that receptive and
elastic organ, his heart, before.  All the dormant
tenderness and chivalry of his nature seemed to
heap itself up into a mighty tidal wave, topple
over, and inundate his very soul.  Foolish tears
came into his eyes.  Very reverently he reached
for Tilly's hand under the rug.  She surrendered
it, smiling lazily, without raising her lashes.
Dicky wondered what she was thinking about.

Tilly, on her part, was trying to summon up
courage to tell him.

By this time the car had cleared the village of
Shotley Beauchamp, filled with parties of
worshippers hastening in what Connie described as
"rival directions," and was spinning along the
open road bound for the Surrey hills.  It was a
crisp and sunny morning.  There was a touch
of spring in the air, quickening the pulse.

"I wonder," began Dicky, whose conversation
at this period, like that of all healthy young men
in a similar condition, wandered round in a clearly
defined and most constricted circle, "if I had not
had that row with the umbrella-merchant on the
top of the Piccadilly 'bus, whether you and I
would ever--"

*Bang!*

Mr. Carmyle said something distressingly
audible.  Mrs. Carmyle applied the brakes; and the
car, bumping uncomfortably, came to a standstill
at the side of the road, under the lee of a pine wood.

"Was that your collar-stud at last, Tiny, old
man?" enquired The Freak anxiously.

"Back tyre," replied Mr. Carmyle shortly,
disencumbering himself of his rug.

They stepped out upon the muddy road and
examined the off-hind wheel.  The tyre was flat,
but apparently whole.

"It is the valve," announced Carmyle, after
unscrewing the dust-cap.  "Blown himself clean
out of bed.  That means a fresh inner tube.  And
I lent the Stepney wheel to a broken-down car
coming along this morning!"

"Bad luck!" said Dicky speciously, glancing
up at the pine wood.  "Can Tilly and I help?"

"No, better run away and play."

Dicky and Tilly, without further insincerities,
obeyed at once.

"I fear you will besmirch yourself, comrade,"
said Dicky over his shoulder, as they departed.

"Bet you half-a-crown I don't even dirty my
gloves," replied Carmyle.

"No: you'll take them off," replied the astute
Richard.

"No, kid!" persisted Carmyle.  "I undertake
to get a new inner tube put into this tyre without
laying a finger on it.  Is it a bet?"

"Is Connie going to do it?" asked Dicky
incredulously.

"She is and she is n't.  She won't lay a finger
on the tyre either, though.  Will you stake your
half-crown like a man?"

"I suppose there is a catch about it somewhere,"
said The Freak resignedly.  "Still, I
fancy we must humour the young people, Tilly.
All right, my lad."

Mr. Carmyle turned to his wife.

"Show them, Connie," he said.

His dutiful helpmeet selected a large tyre-lever,
and sitting down in the midst of the King's
highway upon the tool-box, in a position which
combined the maximum of discomfort with the
minimum of leverage, began to pick helplessly
at the rim of the wheel.  Occasionally she looked
up and smiled pathetically.

"Will that do, Bill dear?" she enquired.

"Yes; but try and look a bit more of an idiot."

Mrs. Carmyle complied.

"Now you're overdoing it," said her stage-manager
severely.  "Don't loll your tongue out
like a poodle's!  *That's* better.  Hallo, I believe
I can hear a car already!  Come on, you two--into
this wood!"

Next moment Tilly, beginning dimly to
comprehend, was propelled over a split-rail fence
by two muscular gentlemen and bustled into the
fastnesses of the pine wood.  The Casabianca-like
Connie remained in an attitude of appealing
helplessness upon the tool-box.

The pine wood ran up the side of a hill.  The
trio climbed a short distance, and then turned
to survey the scene below them.  Round the bend
of the road came a car--a bulky, heavy, opulent
limousine, going thirty-five miles an hour, and
carrying a cargo of fur coats and diamonds.

"Rolls-Royce.  Something-in-the-City going
down to lunch at Brighton," commented Dicky.
"That's the wrong sort, anyhow."

"Connie will be run over," cried Tilly apprehensively.

"Not she," replied the callous Carmyle.

He was right.  Connie, diagnosing the
character of the approaching vehicle from afar, had
already stepped round to the near side of her own,
escaping a shower bath of mud and possibly a
compound fracture.

"Do you always get your running repairs
done this way, Tiny?" enquired Dicky of Carmyle.

"As a rule.  Connie loves it.  Gives her a chance
of talking prettily to people and smiling upon
them, and all that.  She thinks her smile is her
strong point."

"I should be afraid," said Tilly.

"Connie is afraid of nothing on earth," said
Carmyle.  "Why, she--" he flushed red and
broke off, realizing that he had been guilty of the
solecism of paying a public tribute to his own
wife.  "Here's another car coming," he said.
"This looks more like what we want."

A long, lean, two-seated apparition, with a
bonnet like the bow of a battleship, had swung round
the bend, and was already slowing down at the
spectacle of beauty in distress.  It contained two
goggled and recumbent figures.  Presently it slid
to a standstill beside the stranded car, and its
occupants leaped eagerly forth.

"Metallurgique, twenty-forty," announced
Dicky, with technical precision.

"Undergraduates--or subalterns," added
Carmyle contentedly, beginning to fill his pipe.
"That's all right.  You two had better go for a
little walk, while I stay here and keep an eye on
the breakdown gang."

He produced from his greatcoat pocket a copy
of "The Sunday Times," and having spread it
on the ground at the foot of a convenient tree,
sat down upon it with every appearance of cheerful
anticipation, already intent upon the, to him,
never-palling spectacle of his wife adding further
scalps to her collection.

Dicky and Tilly, nothing loath, wandered
farther along the hillside, under strict injunctions
not to return for twenty minutes.  It was the first
time that they had found themselves alone since
their arrival on the previous evening, and they
had long arrears of sweet counsel to make up.

"Dicky," said Tilly, suddenly breaking one of
those long silences that all lovers know, "have
you ever--loved any one before me?"

Most men are asked this question at some time
in their lives, and few there be that have ever
answered it without some mental reservation.
But The Freak merely looked surprised--almost hurt.

"Loved any one *before*?  I should think I had!"
he replied.  "Who has n't?"

"I have not," said Tilly,

Dicky was quite prepared for this.

"I meant men--not girls," he said.  "Girls
are different.  Not that some of them don't fall
in and out of love rather easily, but they only do
it as a sort of pleasant emotional exercise.  The
average male lover, however youthful, means
business all the time.  Quite right, too!  It is a
healthy masculine instinct for an Englishman to
want to found a household of his own just as soon
as he grows up.  But it is this very instinct which
often sends him after the wrong girl.  He is full of
natural affection and sentiment, and so on, and
he wants some one to pour it out upon.  So he
picks out the first nice girl he meets, endows her
in his mind with all the virtues, and tries to marry
her.  Usually it comes to nothing--the girl sees
to that; for she is gifted by nature with a power
of selection denied to men--and in any case it
is hardly likely that he will meet the right girl
straight off.  So he goes on seeking for his mate,
this child of nature, in a groping, instinctive
sort of way, until at last he finds his pearl of
great price.  Then he sells all that he has, which
being interpreted means that he straightway
forgets all about every other girl he ever knew,
and loves his Pearl forever and ever.  Therefore,
Tilly, if ever a man comes to you and tells you
that you are the only girl he ever loved, trust
him not.  It is not likely.  It is against nature."

"A girl likes to believe it, all the same, dear,"
answered Tilly, voicing an age-long truth.

"I don't see why she should," argued the
ingenious Dicky.  "It is no compliment to be loved
by a man who has had no experience.  Now *I* can
love and appreciate you properly, because I am
able to compare you with about"--he counted
upon his fingers, finally having recourse to a
supplementary estimate on his waistcoat-buttons--"with
about fourteen other ladies, of all ages,
whom I have admired at one time and another;
and can unhesitatingly place you in Class One,
Division One, all by your own dear self, so far as
they are concerned.  Is n't that something?"

But Tilly was not quite satisfied.

"I should like to feel," she said, instinctively
giving utterance to that point of view which
makes a woman's love such an intensely personal
and jealously exacting thing in comparison with
a man's, "that you could never have been happy
with any woman in the world but me.  Could
you, Dicky?"

Dicky pondered.

"It depends," he said, "on what you mean by
happy.  Our measure of happiness, it seems to me,
depends entirely on what we *have* compared
with what we want.  If I had never met you, I
could never have missed you; and so I dare say
I might have settled down happily enough--or
what I considered happily enough--with some
other girl.  But that is impossible now.  I have
met you, you see.  If I were to lose you"--Tilly
caught her breath sharply--"no one else could
ever take your place.  Love like ours makes all
substitutes tasteless and colourless, as they say
in chemical laboratories.  You have raised my
standard of love so high that no one but yourself
can ever attain to it.  So," concluded the
philosopher, with a smile which brought more
happiness and reassurance into Tilly's heart than all
the laborious logic-chopping in the world could
have done, "though I don't know that I never
*could* have been happy with any one but you, I
can truly say this, that I never *can* be happy
with any one but you.  It's merely a matter of
the difference between two conditional sentences,
that's all."

But a girl talking with her lover is not
interested in points of syntax.

"And will you go on loving me?" asked Tilly,
putting a small but unerring finger upon the joint
in Dicky's harness.

Dicky glanced down upon the eager, wistful
face beside him, and smiled whimsically.

"Madam," he said, "your fears are groundless."

"How do you know?" enquired Madam, convinced
in her heart, but anxious to be reassured.

"Because," said Dicky simply, "you love me.
You have said it.  Don't you see how that binds
me to you?  The mere fact of your love for me
makes mine for you imperishable.  The moment
a man discovers that the woman he loves loves
him in return, he is hers, body and soul.  Previous
to that something has held him back.
Pride--reserve--caution--call it what you like--it *has*
held him back.  He has not let himself go *utterly*.
After all, we can only give of our best once in this
life, and usually some instinct inside us makes us
refuse to surrender that best, however prodigal
we may have been of the inferior article, until
we know that we are going to get the best in
return."  Dicky was talking very earnestly now.
"I have been keeping my best for you all these
years, little maid, though neither of us knew it.
Such as it is, you have it.  That is why I *know*
I can never go back on you.  Besides, what man
worthy of the name could let a girl down, once
she had abandoned her reserve--her beautiful
woman's reserve--and confessed her great
secret to him?  Why, I once nearly married a girl
whom I could not stand at any price, just because
the little idiot gave herself away one day when
we were alone together."

"Why should you have married her," asked
single-minded, feminine Tilly wonderingly, "if
you did n't love her?"

"It seemed so mean not to," said Dicky.

Tilly nodded her head gravely.

"Yes," she said, "I think I understand."  (As
a matter of fact, she did not.  To her, as to
most women, such a quixotic piece of folly as
that to which Dicky had just confessed was
incomprehensible.  But she desired to please her
lover.)  "It was like you to do it, but I hate the
girl.  I expect she was a designing minx.  But go
on, dear.  Go on convincing me.  I love it.  Say
it over and over again."

"Say what?" enquired Dicky, who was not
aware that he had been saying anything unusual.

"Pearls, and things like that," replied Tilly
shyly.

"Oh!" said Dicky dubiously, "that takes a bit
of doing.  Wait a minute!"

Tilly obediently refrained from speech while
her beloved dredged his imagination for further
metaphors.  They were a curiously old-fashioned
couple, these two.  That uncanny blend of
off-hand *camaraderie* and jealously guarded
independence which constitutes a modern engagement
meant nothing to them.  They loved one another
heart and soul, and were not in the least ashamed
of saying so.

Presently Dicky took up his parable.

"Hearken, O my Daughter," he began
characteristically, "to the words of the Prophet.
Behold, I tell you an allegory!  Do you know
what riveting is?"

"No, dear.  Women don't understand machinery,"
replied Tilly resignedly, in the tones of a
young mother threatened with an exposition of
the mechanism of her firstborn's clockwork
engine.

"Well, a rivet," pursued the Prophet, "is a
metal thing like a small mushroom.  It is used
for binding steel plates together, and requires
two people to handle it properly.  First of all
the rivet is heated red-hot, and then a grimy
man (called the holder-on) pops the stalk of the
mushroom into a hole bored through two over-lapping
plates and keeps the little fellow in
position with a sort of gripping-machine, while
another grimy man (called the riveter) whangs his
end of the stalk with a sledge-hammer.  That
punches the poor little rivet into the shape of a
double mushroom, and the two plates are gripped
together for good and all."

Tilly nodded her head.  The allegory was
beginning to emerge from a cloud of incorrect
technical detail.

"Now it seems to me," continued Dicky,
"that love is very like that.  Men are the
holders-on and women the riveters.  I have occupied the
position of holder-on several times in my life.
I fancy most men do: it is their nature to
experiment.  (I have also had the post of riveter thrust
upon me, but we need not talk about that.  One
tries to forget these things as soon as possible,"
he added, with a little wriggle.)  "But the point
which I want to bring out is this--a rivet can
only be used *once*.  It may be slipped through
various plates by its holder-on in a happy-go-lucky
sort of way over and over again; but once it
meets the hammer fairly, good-bye to its career
as a gallivanting, peripatetic little rivet!  It is
spread-eagled in a moment, Tilly--fixed,
secured, and settled for life.  And if it is the right
stuff, sound metal all through, it will never
wriggle or struggle or endeavour to back upon its
appointed task of holding together its two steel
plates.  It won't *want* to.  It will endure so long as
the two plates endure.  Nothing can shake him,
that little rivet--nothing!  Poverty, sickness,
misunderstanding, outside interference--nothing
will have any effect.  That is the allegory.
The wanderings of Dicky Mainwaring are over.
He has flitted about long enough, poking his
inquisitive little head into places that were not
intended for him; and he has come to the right
place at last.  One neat straight crack on his
impressionable little cranium, and the deed is done!
The Freak's place in life is fixed at last.  Mutual
love has double-ended him, and he is going to
hold on now for keeps."

Dicky was silent for a moment, and then continued:--

"No one but you could have dealt that stroke,
Tilly, or I should have been fixed up long ago.
I could never have remained engaged to Hilda
Beverley, for instance.  She was a fine girl, but
she did not happen to be my riveter or I her
holder-on--that's all.  I should have dropped
out of my place at the first rattle.  Lucky little
rivet!  Some poor beggars don't get off so cheap.
They pop their impulsive little heads into the
first opening, and never come out again.  But
Providence has been good to me, Freak though
I am.  I have come safe through, to the spot
where the Only Possible Riveter in the World
was waiting for me.  Here we are together at last,
settled for life.  Launch the ship!  *Ting-a-ling*!
Full speed ahead!  I have spoken!  What are you
trembling for, little thing?"

"I was only thinking," replied Miss Welwyn
shakily, "how awful it would have been if one of
the other girls had been a better riveter."  Then
she took a deep breath as of resolution.

"Dicky," she began, "I want to talk to you
about something.  I think I ought to tell you--"

But as she spoke, the figure of Mr. Carmyle,
heralded by unnecessary but well-intentioned
symptoms of what sounded like a deep-seated
affection of the lungs, appeared among the trees,
and announced:--

"Off directly, you two!  Connie is just having
a last farewell with her mechanics.  She has
collected quite a bunch of them by this time."

"They have n't taken long over the job," said
Dicky, in a slightly injured tone.

Carmyle, who too had once dwelt in Arcady, smiled.

"An hour and ten minutes," he said concisely.

Dicky and Tilly said no more, but meekly
uprose from the fallen tree upon which they
had been sitting and accompanied their host to
the road.

All signs of disaster had disappeared.  The
punctured back tyre stood up once more, fully
inflated; the tool-box had been repacked and put
away; and Connie, smiling indulgently, sat
waiting at the wheel.  Far away in the distance could
be descried two other cars, rapidly receding
from view.  They contained in all five knights of
the road--grotesquely attired and extremely
muddy, but very perfect gentle knights after
their kind--who were now endeavouring, in
defiance of the laws of the land, to overtake the
time lost by their recent excursion into the realms
of romantic adventure; all wishing in their hearts,
I dare swear, that life's highway contained a few
more such halts as this.

"Connie is going to write a book one day,"
observed Mr. Carmyle, as they climbed into the
car, "called 'Hims Who Have Helped Me.'  All
right behind there?"

The car set off once more.



.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium

   III

.. vspace:: 2

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, and
as it was spent *à quatre* need not be described
at length.

They sped home in the gathering darkness of
a frosty evening.  Connie, who had relinquished
the wheel to her husband, with instructions to
get the car home as speedily as possible--she
had not forgotten her promise to go and hear
Mr. Rylands's evening sermon--now shared the back
seat with Tilly; and the two ladies snuggled
contentedly together under the warm rug, silently
contemplating the outlines of their squires against
the wintry sky.

The car swung in at the lodge gates and began
to run along the crackling gravel of the drive.
Presently, as they rounded a bend, the lights
of the house sprang into view.

"Tea--and a big fire!" murmured Connie
contentedly.

To Tilly the sight of the house suggested other
thoughts.  Suddenly she removed her gaze from
Dicky's broad back and slipped a cold hand into
Connie's.

"Will they try to take him from me?" she
whispered passionately.

One of Connie Carmyle's many gifts was her
ability to catch an allusion without tiresome
explanations.  Straightway she turned and looked
deep into the appealing grey eyes beside her.
Her own brown ones glowed indomitably.

"If they do, dear," she answered--"fight
for him."

"I will," said Tilly, setting her teeth.

The two girls gripped hands in the darkness.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AN IMPOSSIBLE FAMILY`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium

   AN IMPOSSIBLE FAMILY

.. vspace:: 2

Amelia Welwyn, grievously overweighted by
a tray containing her father's breakfast, tacked
unsteadily across the floor of the drawing-room
at Russell Square; and, having reached the door
of her parent's bedroom, proceeded to arouse
the attention of its occupant by permitting the
teapot to toboggan heavily into one of the panels.

"Don't come in!" said a muffled voice.

"Half-past eleven, Daddy," announced Amelia
cheerily.  "Your breakfast!"

"In the fender, my child," replied the voice.

Amelia obediently put over her helm, and
despite a heavy list to starboard induced by a
sudden shifting of ballast (in the form of the
hot-water jug) ultimately weathered the sofa and
deposited the breakfast tray in the fender,
without throwing overboard anything of greater
moment than a piece of buttered toast.

By the fireside, in a very large armchair, sat
a small, alert, wizened, and querulous old lady
of eighty-one.

"Cup of tea, Grannie?" said Amelia.

"What's that?" enquired Mrs. Josiah Banks--late
of Bedfordshire (or Cambridgeshire).

"Will you have a cup of tea?" repeated the
child in a louder voice.

"No," replied her aged relative; "I won't."

"Very well, then," said Amelia good-temperedly.
"Now you two, not so much of it, if you
please!"

This warning was addressed to her younger
brother and sister, who, together with herself,
had joined the Welwyn family at a date
subsequent to that upon which we first made its
acquaintance.  Amelia was twelve years of age, The
Caution five, and The Cure some twenty minutes
younger.  At present the latter young lady, in
the course of a life-and-death struggle for the
possession of the jettisoned piece of buttered
toast, had become involved in an embrace with
her brother, so involved that it seemed as if no
one unfamiliar with the use of letter-locks could
ever unravel them.  However, the experienced
Amelia succeeded; and having shaken the skirts
of The Cure a little lower and pulled the
knicker-bockers of The Caution a little higher, dumped
both combatants upon the sofa and divided
the now hopelessly mangled booty between them.

"And don't let me catch you at it again," she
added magisterially.  "Only Monday morning,
and your pinnies no more use than nothing!
Come in!"

At the sight of the figure which appeared in
the doorway in response to this invitation The
Caution and The Cure set up a combined howl
of apprehension, only to be quelled by a dole of
lump-sugar--hush-money in the most literal
sense of the word--supplied by the resourceful
Amelia.

"Come in, Mr. Mehta Ram!  What can we do
for you this morning?" she enquired maternally.
"Never mind those two"--indicating the quaking
infants on the sofa.  "It's their consciences,
that's all.  You see, I always threaten to give
them to you when they are naughty, and now
they think that you have really come for them.
It's all right," she added, turning reassuringly
to the culprits.  "Mr. Ram won't eat you this time."

Benevolent Mr. Mehta Ram beamed upon the
chubby buccaneers through his gold spectacles.

"Believe me, Miss Amelia," he replied, "I
could cherish no cannibalistic designs upon such
jolly kids.  Is your excellent mother within her
domicile, or has she gone for a tata?"  (Mr. Ram
prided himself upon his knowledge of
colloquial English.)

"She is out--shopping.  Tell me your trouble,"
said businesslike Amelia.

"I came here," began the Bengalee, "to
address your mother in her offeecial capacity."

"I know," said Amelia swiftly.  "It was that
kipper you had for breakfast.  I thought it was
wearing a worried look while mother was
cooking it.  Well, you shan't be charged for it."

Mr. Mehta Ram waved a fat and deprecating hand.

"Far be it from me," he replied, "to reflect
upon the culinary ability of your excellent mother
Welwyn.  I came about a very different pair of
shoes."

Mr. Ram then proceeded, in the curious blend
of Johnsonian English and street-boy slang
which constitutes the vocabulary of that
all-too-precocious linguist, the Babu, with all the
forensic earnestness and technical verbiage of
the student who has spent the past six months
grappling with the intricacies of English Law,
to bring a weighty indictment against the
gentleman on the second-floor back.

"In brief," he concluded, "Mr. Pumpherston
has impounded my sugar-basin."

"Broken it, you mean?"

"No, Miss Amelia.  He has confiscated
it--pinched it, in fact.  And"--Mr. Ram swept
onward to his peroration, his brown face glistening
with mild indignation--"although I have
assured him upon my word of honour that there
will be father and mother of a row if same is not
returned forthwith, he merely projects the sneer
of scorn upon my humble petition."

"Oh, does he?" exclaimed Miss Amelia, with
heat.  "Mr. Pumpherston has been enquiring for
trouble for a long while now, and this time he is
going to get it.  Mother"--as Mrs. Welwyn,
humming a cheerful air, entered the room and
began to deposit parcels upon the table, much as
a mountain deposits an avalanche--"here is
Mr. Ram says Mr. Pumpherston has sneaked
his sugar-basin and won't give it back."

"What's that, Ducky?" enquired Mrs. Welwyn,
breaking off her little tune.  She was a
large, still handsome, and most unsuitably attired
matron of about forty-five.  Her task (and be it
added, her joy) in life was the support of a rather
useless husband, of whom she was inordinately
proud because he happened to have been born a
gentleman; and all the energy and resource of
her honest simple nature had been devoted to the
single aim of raising her children to what she
considered his level rather than permit them to
remain upon her own.  In the case of the girls she
had been singularly successful.  Percy was her
failure, but fortunately she regarded him as her
greatest triumph.  (Providence is very merciful
to mothers in this respect.)  And her love had
not been utterly vain, for although her taste in
dress was disastrous and her control of the letter
"h" uncertain, her family were devoted to her.

"You ask Mr. Mehta Ram all about it!"
replied Amelia darkly.

"The aforesaid Pumpherston," resumed Mr. Ram
at once, "has threatened me with personal
violence--to wit, a damn good skelp in the
eyeball.  I quote his *ipsissima verba*."

"Oh, *has* he?" replied Mrs. Welwyn, with
decision.  "Well that puts the lid on
Pumpherston, anyway.  He's behind with his rent as it
is; so the moment our Perce gets home to-night,
up goes Perce to the second-floor back, and out
goes my lord Pumpherston!  I never could abide
Scotchies, anyhow."

"Martha," enquired a piping but painfully
distinct voice from the fireside, "what does that
black 'eathen want in 'ere?"

"All right, Mother," replied Mrs. Welwyn.
She turned soothingly to the Babu.  "We'll put
things straight for you, Mr. Ram," she said
reassuringly.  "You'll get justice in this country,
never fear!  Good-morning!"

Mr. Mehta Ram, inarticulate with gratitude,
salaamed himself out of the room, to the
manifest relief of The Caution and The Cure.
Mrs. Welwyn followed him onto the landing.

"You'll get your sugar-basin back, double-quick!"
she announced in a loud voice.  "That'll
frighten Pumpherston," she observed grimly,
re-entering the room and shutting the double doors
behind her.

"It's a pity losing a lodger, Mother," said
Amelia.

"Yes, dearie, it is," agreed Mrs. Welwyn with
a sigh.  "But it can't be helped.  I'll tell you
what, though.  Run after that blackamoor and
ask him if he has n't got a friend wants a room--a
nice peaceable creature like himself.  The
Museum Reading-Room is full of them, Father
says.  Tell him to pick us a good one.  Take the
children up with you.  Father will be in here for
his breakfast in a minute."

As the door closed upon Amelia and her
charges, Mrs. Welwyn crossed the room to her
surviving parent's side.

"Well, Mother," she enquired cheerily, arranging
the old lady's shawl, "how goes it to-day?
World a bit wrong?"

The genial Mrs. Banks did not answer immediately.
Obviously she was meditating a suitable
repartee.  Presently it came.

"When is that good-for-nothing 'usband of
yours going to get up?" she enquired.

Mrs. Welwyn flushed red, but patted her
cantankerous parent good-humouredly on the shoulder.

"That's all right, Mother," she said.  "You
mind your business and I'll mind mine.  Lucius
sits up very late at night, working,--long after
you and I have gone to bed,--so he's entitled to
a good long lay in the morning."

"Pack o' nonsense!" observed Mr. Welwyn's
mother-in-law.  "I'd learn 'im!"

"Good-morning, good people!"

Lucius Welwyn strode into the room with all
the buoyancy and cheerfulness of a successful
man of forty.  As a matter of fact he was a failure
of fifty-nine, but he still posed to himself with
fair success as a retired man of letters.  His rôle
was that of the philosophic onlooker, who prefers
scholarly ease and detachment to the sordid
strivings of a commercial age.  In reality he was
an idle, shiftless, slightly dissipated, but
thoroughly charming humbug.  He was genuinely
attached to his wife, and in his more candid
moments readily and bitterly acknowledged the
magnitude and completeness of his debt to her.
He possessed a quick smile and considerable
charm of manner; and when he was attired, not
as now in a dressing-gown and slippers, but in the
garments of ceremony, he still looked what he
undoubtedly was--a scholar and gentleman.

"Good-morning, Father.  Your breakfast is
all ready.  Sit down, do, and take it while it's
hot," Mrs. Welwyn besought him.

"Breakfast?" exclaimed Mr. Welwyn with
infectious heartiness.  "Capital!"  He seated
himself before the tray.  "A good wife and a good
breakfast--some men are born lucky!"

"Some men," remarked an acid voice, "are
born a deal luckier than what they deserve to be."

Mr. Welwyn, who was sitting with his back to
the oracle, did not turn round.

"That you, Grandma?" he said lightly, pouring
out his tea.  "You are in your usual beatific
frame of mind, I am glad to note."

"None of your long words with me, Lucius
Welwyn!" countered his aged relative with
spirit.  "I never 'ad no schooling, but I knows a
waster when I sees 'un."

"Kidneys?  Delicious!" remarked Mr. Welwyn,
lifting the dish-cover.  "Martha, you spoil me."

This pronouncement received such hearty
endorsement from the fireside that Mrs. Welwyn
crossed the room and laid a firm hand upon her
sprightly parent's palsied shoulder.

"Now then, Mother," she said briskly, "you
trot across the landing to your own room.  I'm
going to turn this one out presently.  I've lit a
fire for you."

Mrs. Banks, who knew full well that behind
a smiling face her daughter masked a hopelessly
partisan spirit, rose to her infirm feet and
departed, grumbling.  At the door she paused to
glare malignantly upon the back of her
well-connected son-in-law.  But that unworthy
favourite of fortune was helping himself to kidneys.

"Seems to me," remarked Mrs. Welwyn
apologetically, as the door closed with a vicious
snap, "that Mother got up on the wrong side of
her bed this morning.  You don't mind, do you,
Father dear?"

"I?  Not in the least," replied Mr. Welwyn
with much cheerfulness.  "I find your worthy
mother, if anything, a tonic.  You are a good
soul, Martha.  Sit down and have a cup of tea
with me: it must be some time since you
breakfasted.  Take mine."

He pushed his brimming cup towards his wife.

"Oh, no, Father!" said Mrs. Welwyn, quite
distressed.  "I'll get one for myself."

She rose, and went to the sideboard.

"On consideration," interposed her husband,
as if struck by a sudden idea, "I think--yes,
I think--I should prefer a tumbler.  I was
working late last night; and possibly--I rather
feel--You know what the doctor said.  A man of
letters--thank you, dearest.  You anticipate every
wish!"

The man of letters helped himself from the
decanter and siphon which his prescient spouse
had already laid beside the tray, and attacked
the kidneys with renewed confidence.

"Father," observed Mrs. Welwyn presently,
nervously sipping her second-hand cup of tea,
"there's trouble among the lodgers again."

Mr. Welwyn gave her a reproving little glance.

"I think, dearest," he said gently, "that we
agreed to call them paying guests."

"That," retorted Mrs. Welwyn with sudden
indignation, "is just what they're not.
Pumpherston has paid nothing for three weeks, and
now he is threatening to murder poor old Mehta Ram."

"In my house?" exclaimed Mr. Welwyn grandly.
"Impossible!  This must stop.  Where is Percy?"

"Percy," replied matter-of-fact Mrs. Welwyn,
"is where you would expect him to be at this
hour, you dear old silly--earning his living
at Cratchett and Raikes's!"

"Talking of Cratchett and Raikes," said
Mr. Welwyn, characteristically forgetting all about
Mr. Pumpherston, "is there a letter this morning
from Gandy and Cox?"

"No," said Mrs. Welwyn quickly.  "Why?"

"Nothing, nothing," said Mr. Welwyn, rising
to look for his cigarette-case.  "They have been
rather pressing over their little account lately.
In fact, they have had the presumption to
threaten me with distraint."

"How much was the bill, dear?" enquired
Mrs. Welwyn, removing the breakfast-tray to the
sideboard.

"A mere trifle," was the airy reply.  "Seven
pounds odd, I fancy, for a case of champagne
which I had a year or two ago, when my
heart was a little--you recollect?  The doctor--"

"Yes, lovey," said Mrs. Welwyn.  "It was an
anxious time for all of us.  But"--her brow
puckered--"did n't you pay cash for it?  I seem
to remember giving you the money."

"Now you mention it," said Mr. Welwyn,
lighting a cigarette, "I believe you did--ah--hand
me the money.  But I fear I was weak--quixotic,
if you will.  I gave it away."  He raised
a deprecating hand.  "No!  Please!  I beg!  Do
not ask me more, dearest.  It was one of those
private disbursements for which a man with a
weakness for his fellow-creatures often finds
himself made liable.  A little nameless charity.
It will appear upon no subscription-list; no
public acknowledgment will be made.  But--I
have my reward.  Do not embarrass me,
Martha, by alluding to the matter again."

Mr. Welwyn, quite affected by the memory of
his own generosity, took his wife tenderly in his
arms and kissed her upon the forehead.  He then
blew his nose violently, evidently ashamed of his
own weakness, and sat down by the fire with the
newspaper.

Mrs. Welwyn knew only too well what the
little nameless charity had been; but, after all,
seven pounds odd was a small price to pay for the
affection of such a husband as hers.  She accepted
the embrace gratefully, sighed, and said:--

"Very well, dearie.  It's a good thing," she
added inconsequently, "that the house is our
own and we don't have to bother about rent.
Rates are bad enough.  The butcher has been a
bit crusty of late; and what with Pumpherston
not paying for his room and Tilly giving up her
blouse-designing, I don't believe there's change
for a sovereign in the house."

Mr. Welwyn arose from his armchair, finished
the refreshment contained in the tumbler (which
he had placed conveniently upon the mantel-piece),
and smiled indulgently upon his care-worn helpmeet.

"You women, you women!" he said, shaking
his handsome head in playful reproach.  "No
breadth of view!  No sense of proportion!
Martha, dearest, how often have I begged you
never to judge a situation by its momentary
aspect?  Cultivate a sense of perspective.  Step
back--"

Suiting the action to the word, Mr. Welwyn
trod heavily upon the fire-irons in the fender.
These resentfully retaliated, the knob of the
shovel springing up and striking him a sharp rap
upon the knuckles, while the tongs nipped him
viciously in the ankle.

After the clatter had subsided and Mr. Welwyn
had said what many a less distinguished man
would have said under similar circumstances, his
habitual placidity of temper returned, and he
resumed his lecture where it had been interrupted.

"I was about to urge you, Martha," he
continued, "to cast your mind *forward*--forward
to the time when you will possess a wealthy
son-in-law."

Mrs. Welwyn, who was endeavouring to remove
from the sofa certain traces of its recent
occupancy by the glutinous Caution and the adhesive
Cure, turned suddenly and faced her husband.

"Lucius," she said gravely, "I have a feeling
that there is going to be trouble over this business."

"Over what business?" enquired Mr. Welwyn.

"Over this son-in-law business," said
Mrs. Welwyn doggedly.  "Mr. Mainwaring--"

"Richard, dear--Richard!"

"All right--Richard!  I don't think Richard
will take very kindly to us when he sees us at
home, and he'll have to see us here sometime,
you know.  Things look different in Russell
Square from what they do at the Trocadero.
And if he sheers off after all--well, it'll break
our Tilly's heart."

At this moment the door burst open, to admit
the sisters Welwyn, locked in an affectionate
embrace and dancing a two-step to a whistled
accompaniment.  Tilly had returned.





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.. _`THE WORD "SWANK"`:

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   CHAPTER XVII


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   THE WORD "SWANK"

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"That's how it goes, 'Melia," panted Tilly,
whirling her partner into an armchair.  "It's
quite easy, really; Dicky taught me in the
billiard-room on Saturday night in ten minutes.  Hallo,
hallo, hallo!  Here I am, everybody!  Hallo,
Mother darling!"

Mrs. Welwyn gently parried the approaching
embrace.

"Here's your father, dear," she remarked,
with the least tinge of reproof in her voice.

"Hallo, Dad!  I did n't see you," exclaimed
Tilly, kissing her male parent excitedly.

"Welcome home, my daughter!" said Mr. Welwyn.
"Now kiss your mother."

Tilly had already begun to do so, and an eager
conversation followed.

"Of course, we've heard a bit from Perce,"
began Mrs. Welwyn at once, drawing the pins
out of her daughter's hat, "and my word! you
seem to have got into the very thick of it this
time, and no mistake!"

"I should just think so," gabbled Tilly.  "Such
a place, Mother!  Billiard-rooms, and garages,
and butlers, and a fire in your bedroom and a
hot bottle in your bed, and a maid to put you into
your clothes, and I don't know what all!  And
I was introduced to a lot of future relations.
There was Lady Adela.  She tried to patronise
me, but was n't much good.  Then Sylvia, the
daughter.  I hate her--she is a cat.  And
Connie Carmyle.  She is no relation, but I love her.
And Father Mainwaring, he is a dear.  He says
he was at Cambridge with you, Dad."

Mr. Welwyn put down the newspaper.

"What is that?" he enquired in a sharp voice.
"Cambridge?"

"Yes.  He does n't remember you at all distinctly,"
said Tilly, "but says he has an impression
that you were the most brilliant man of
your year."

"If that," remarked Mr. Welwyn, in a distinctly
relieved tone, "is all that he recollects
about me, I shall be pleased to meet him again."

"How is Dicky, Tilly?" enquired Amelia.

Tilly's merry face softened.

"Dicky," she said, half to herself, "is just
Dicky.  He brought me as far as the door, but
I would n't let him come in."

"And are they all coming to tea?" enquired
Mrs. Welwyn anxiously.

"Yes--the whole boiling of them, at five this
afternoon--a state call!" replied Tilly.  "By
the way, Mother, that was a bloomer we made
about the invitation.  I knew at the time we
talked about it that you ought to have written
a note and chanced the spelling.  Her ladyship
made that *quite* plain to me."

"Oh dear!" said Mrs. Welwyn in distress.
"What did she say?"

"She did n't say anything in particular,"
admitted Tilly, crinkling her brow.  "Nothing
one could take hold of, you know.  Just--just--"

"Sort of snacks," suggested her mother sympathetically.

Tilly nodded her head.

"That's it," she said.  "Anyhow, she has sent
you a written reply.  Here it is."

Mrs. Welwyn and Amelia breathed hard and
respectfully at the sight of the large thin grey
envelope, addressed by Lady Adela's own
compelling hand.

"You read it, dearie," said Mrs. Welwyn.

"No; I'll tell you what," exclaimed Tilly.
"We'll let little 'Melia read it.  She does n't get
much fun."

"Oh, Tilly!" cried Amelia gratefully.

She took the letter, opened it with an air, and
began:--

"*My deah Mrs. Welwyn--haw!*"

There was great merriment at this, for in her
own family circle Miss Amelia enjoyed a great
reputation as a wit and mimic.  The fact that
neither she nor any of her audience, save Tilly,
had ever beheld Lady Adela in the flesh detracted
not a whit from their enjoyment of her performance.

"*It is really too good of you,*" continued Amelia,
in the high-pitched and even tones of a lady of
exceptional breeding, "*to invite us all--such a
crowd of us--to come to tea on Monday.  As it
happens, we shall be in town that day, so Mr. Mainwaring
and I propose to take you at your word, and
shall be charmed to come with our son and daughter
at five o'clock.*"

"That'll be four cups," murmured Mrs. Welwyn
abstractedly.  "We can get Mehta Ram's.
Go on, Ducky."

"*After our recent experience of your daughter's
society--*"

Here Amelia broke off, to observe that in her
opinion the last phrase sounded tabbyish.

"Never mind!  Go on!" urged Mrs. Welwyn.

"*--Daughter's society, we are naturally anxious
to make the acquaintance of her forbears.*"

"Her four what?" asked Mrs. Welwyn in a
dazed voice.

Amelia carefully examined the passage, and
repeated:--

"It says 'four bears'--written as one word.
Does that mean you and Dad and me and Perce?"

"If her ladyship," began Mrs. Welwyn warmly,
"is going to start naming names from the Zoo--"

Tilly laid a quick hand upon her mother's arm
and turned in the direction of the fireplace.

"Dad," she enquired, "what does 'forbears' mean?"

A chuckling voice from behind "The Daily
Mail" enlightened her.

"The laugh is on your mother, children," said
Mrs. Welwyn good-temperedly.  "Finish it,
'Melia."

Amelia did so.  "*What weather!  Sincerely yours,
Adela Mainwaring*.  That's all."

"Quite enough, too!" commented Mrs. Welwyn,
who still had her doubts about the four bears.

"Any way," remarked Tilly energetically, "they
are coming; and we have till five o'clock to get
ready for them.  Hallo, Perce!"

To the company assembled entered Mr. Percy
Welwyn, immaculate in frock coat, brown boots,
and a rakish bowler hat.

"What oh, Sis!" he exclaimed, kissing Tilly
affectionately.  "Back again from the Moated
Grange--eh?  My dinner ready, Mother?"

"Wait a minute, Percy dear," said Tilly
quickly.  "I want to talk to you--all of you.
Sit down, everybody.  Father!"

"My daughter?"

"Come and sit here, please!"

"A round-table conference?" enquired Mr. Welwyn
amiably.  "Capital!"

Tilly upon her own quarter-deck was a very
different being from the frightened little alien whom
we saw at Shotley Beauchamp.  In two minutes
the Welwyn family had meekly packed themselves
round the octagonal table.  Tilly took the chair.

"Now, then, all of you," she began, with a
suspicion of a high-strung quaver in her
voice--"Father, Mother, Percy, and little 'Melia--listen
to me!  You know, no one better, that when
I went down to Shotley Beauchamp on Saturday
I meant to act perfectly square to Dicky's
people--tell them who I was and what I was, and that
I worked for my living and so on; and generally
make sure that they did n't take me in on false
pretences.  Is that correct?"

"Yes--quite correct," chorused the family.

"Well," continued Tilly defiantly--"I have n't
done it!  I have n't said a word!  There!  I *couldn't*!
I have seen Dicky's people, and their house, and
their prosperity, and the way they look at things.
They're a pretty tough proposition, the Mainwarings.
They are no better born than we are;
but they are rich, and stupid, and conceited, and
purse-proud--"

"Tilly!  Tilly!" said Mrs. Welwyn, scandalised
to hear the gentry so miscalled.

"Yes, they *are*, Mother!" cried the girl
passionately.  "You don't know what I have had to
put up with this week-end, when Dicky was n't
by.  Why--"

"Dicky," observed Mr. Welwyn dryly, "is
also a Mainwaring, Tilly."

"Dicky," replied Tilly, with feminine contempt
for the laws of heredity and environment, "may
be a Mainwaring, but he does n't take after the
rest of the family.  But never mind Dicky for a
moment.  What I want to say is this.  In dealing
with people of this kind--people who regard those
who have no money as so much dirt beneath their
feet--there is only one thing that pays; and
that thing," she concluded with intense
conviction, "is--swank, swank, swank!"

"Good old Tilly!" shouted Percy enthusiastically;
and the rest of the Welwyns, quite carried
away by their small despot's earnestness, beat
upon the table with their fists.

"The Mainwarings swanked for my benefit, I
can tell you," continued Tilly, with cheeks
glowing hotly.  "They laid off to me about their town
house and their country house and their shooting
and their hunting and their grand relations; and
they did their best--especially the daughter--to
make me feel like a little dressmaker who has
come in for the day."

"I bet you stood up to them, Sis," said the
admiring Percy.

Tilly smiled in a dreamy, reminiscent fashion.

"I did," she said.  "I matched them, brag for
brag.  They asked who you were, Mother.  I said
you were a Banks--one of *the* Bankses--of Bedfordshire!"

Unseemly but sympathetic laughter greeted
this announcement, and Mrs. Welwyn was made
the recipient of several congratulatory thumps
from her son and younger daughter.

"I wasn't quite sure whether it was Bedfordshire
or Cambridgeshire," continued Tilly.
"Where is Hitchin, anyway?"

"Hertfordshire," replied Amelia, and every
one laughed again.  They had all things in
common, the Welwyns, especially their jokes.

"Then," Tilly proceeded, "I told them a
lovely fairy-tale about our old town house.  Been
in the family for generations, and so on."

"So it has," said Mr. Welwyn.

"And I also told them," continued the unfilial
Tilly, "that Dad was a bit of an antique
himself, and could n't bear to move.  Has his roots
in the cellar, so to speak.  You don't mind, do you,
dear?" she enquired eagerly.

"My child," replied Mr. Welwyn, "I feel
proud to have figured as one of your assets."

"And finally," concluded Tilly, "as I began to
warm up to my work a bit, I added a few things,
looking as sweet as anything all the time--like
this!"  (Here she treated her enraptured audience
to a very creditable reproduction of Sylvia
Mainwaring's languid and superior smile.)  "I chatted
about our billiard-room, and our old family
butler, and our motor, and so on.  I am afraid I lost
my head a bit.  I have a notion that I gave them
to understand that we went yachting in the
summer!"

There was more laughter, but Mrs. Welwyn
added anxiously:--

"You did n't mention anything about Southend,
did you, dearie?"

"Not me!" said Tilly; "though I was feeling
utterly reckless by that time.  For two pins I
would have told them that I had been presented
at Court!"

She rose to her feet.

"That is all I have to say," she announced.
"I just mention these little facts to you so that
when the Mainwarings come to tea this afternoon
you may know what to talk about.  See?"

The other members of the conference, avoiding
the eager eye of the chairwoman, began to
regard one another uneasily.  Then Percy said:--

"Tilly, old girl, you've landed us with a bit of
a shipping order, ain't you?"

Tilly nodded.  "You are right," she said.  "But
it will only be for an afternoon.  We need not
invite them again."

But Percy, who was an honest youth, although
he wore a dickey, hesitated.

"How about the gallant Ricardo?" he enquired.
"What's his position in this glee-party?
Is he with us or them?"

"Oh--Dicky?" said Tilly, with less confidence.
"I have been quite square with him.  I
have told him everything."

"Everything?" enquired several people at once.

"A good deal, anyhow," maintained Tilly.  "I
have warned him that I shan't have a penny to
my name; and that I have had very few of the
advantages that the ordinary girl gets; and that
he must take me and my people as he finds us.
And he says he prefers me that way.  In fact"--Tilly's
thoughts flew back to Sunday's idyll in the
pine wood--"he has said a good deal more than
that.  And if I want him and he wants me," she
added eagerly, like one anxious to struggle on to
less debatable ground, "what does it matter what
we say or do to his silly old mother and sister?
I want my Dicky!"  Her eyes shone.  "He loves
me and I love him, and that is all there is to be
said about it.  Father, Mother, Percy, 'Melia"--Tilly's
hands went forth appealingly--"promise
that you will stand by me and see me through!"

Eight impulsive Welwyn hands closed upon Tilly's two.

"We'll see you through, Sis," said Percy
reassuringly.  His eye swept round the board in
presidential fashion.  "Those in favour?"

Four hands flew up.

"Carried unanimously!" announced Percy;
while Tilly, reassured, ran round the table
showering promiscuous embraces upon her relatives.

"There's the front-door bell, 'Melia," said
Mrs. Welwyn, whose provident instinct never
deserted her in her most exalted moments.  "It
may be a new lodger.  Run down and see."

Amelia obeyed, and the rest of the House of
Welwyn went into Committee.

"I say," remarked the far-seeing Percy; "may
I enquire who is going to open the front door to
our guests this afternoon?"

The Committee surveyed one another in
consternation.

"None of us can't do it, that's quite plain,"
said Mrs. Welwyn.  "They would think we
had n't got a servant."

"They would be right, first time," confirmed
Percy.

"The old family butler must do it," said
Mr. Welwyn with a dry chuckle.

"You certainly overreached yourself in the
matter of the butler, Sis," observed Percy.

"We could get the charwoman, or borrow the
girl from the Rosenbaums," suggested Mrs. Welwyn.

"But I said a *butler*, Mumsie," objected Tilly
dismally.

"Oh, dear, so you did," sighed Mrs. Welwyn.

Tilly pondered.

"I know what we can do," she said.  "Percy
must meet them, quite casually, outside in the
Square, on his way home from the City--"

"And let them in with my latch-key--eh?"
cried Percy.  "That's the ticket!"

Mrs. Welwyn, greatly relieved, smiled upon
her fertile offspring.  Mr. Welwyn coughed
gently.

"The word 'swank,'" he observed, "is unfamiliar
to me; but as we have decided to incorporate
it in our plan of campaign, may I suggest,
Percy, that you allow your guests to ring the
front-door bell before overtaking them?"

"Righto, Dad," said Percy.  "But why?"

"Well," continued Mr. Welwyn diffidently,
"it has occurred to me that when you have
ushered the party into the hall, you might call
down the staircase into the basement, distinctly
but not ostentatiously, to some one--James, or
Thomas--you can address him by any name
you please--that there is no need to come up.
You see the idea?"

"Dad," declared Percy, shaking his parent
affectionately by the hand, "you are a marvel!
Why, 'Melia, what's the trouble?"

Amelia, wide-eyed and frightened, was standing
in the doorway.





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.. _`DE L'AUDACE, ET ENCORE DE L'AUDACE, ET TOUJOURS DE L'AUDACE!`:

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   CHAPTER XVIII


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   DE L'AUDACE, ET ENCORE DE L'AUDACE, ET TOUJOURS DE L'AUDACE!

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"Daddy," announced Amelia in a stage
whisper, "there's a man downstairs."

"What sort of man?" enquired Mr. Welwyn,
rising from his seat and edging carelessly in the
direction of his bedroom door.

"A rough-looking man."

"Tell him," said Mr. Welwyn with his hand on
the door-handle, "that I am not at home.  Percy!
Quick!  Keep that fellow out!"

But it was too late.  A stranger stood in the
midst of the House of Welwyn.

He was an elderly, undersized, seedy-looking
individual, with a blue chin, a red nose, and a
faded theatrical manner.  In his hand he held a
blue-grey slip of paper.  He smiled amiably upon
the shrinking figure of the master of the house.

"Don't trouble to exit on my account, sir," he
remarked wheezily.

"Who are you?" stammered Mr. Welwyn.
"What is the meaning of this intrusion?"

"Name of Welwyn?" enquired the stranger briskly.

"Yes."

"Loosius?"

"Yes."

"Then," announced the stranger, proffering
the blue paper, "I must arsk you for your
hospitality for a short time--a mere matter o' *form*,
of course--until this small account is settled.
It's Gandy and Cox," he continued chattily:
"seventeen-seventeen-six; and I 'm put in possession
until it's settled.  In other words, 'ere I am,
and 'ere I stays until I gets what I came for."

Depositing his frayed headgear upon the
piano, the emissary of Gandy and Cox was upon
the point of selecting a chair, when he became
conscious of a sudden pressure upon the nape of
his neck.

"Outside!" intimated Percy's voice.

"Pardon me," replied the visitor without
moving, "but you touch me at your own risk.  I'm
put in by the law."

There was a stifled cry from Mrs. Welwyn and
the girls.

"The warrant was signed and 'anded to me
this morning," continued the representative of
Justice, "at ten-thirty exact.  It is now in the
'ands of your Pa, young ladies--"

"Law be damned!  Out you go!" shouted
Percy, whirling the speaker round towards the
door.

"Reflect!" urged the broker's man, gently
resisting Percy's efforts to eject him by leaning
back and digging his heels into the carpet.
"What's the good?  If you dot me one and fling
me out, it merely means fourteen days without
the option for assaulting a sheriff's officer in the
execution of his duty, on top of the distraint.  If
you don't believe me," he added, clinging
affectionately to the leg of the piano, which he was
passing at the moment, "go and read the warrant."

.. _`"REFLECT!" URGED THE BROKER'S MAN, GENTLY RESISTING PERCY'S EFFORTS TO EJECT HIM`:

.. figure:: images/img-258.jpg
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   :alt: "REFLECT!" URGED THE BROKER'S MAN, GENTLY RESISTING PERCY'S EFFORTS TO EJECT HIM

   "REFLECT!" URGED THE BROKER'S MAN, GENTLY RESISTING PERCY'S EFFORTS TO EJECT HIM

"He is right, Percy," said Mr. Welwyn.
"Leave him alone.  A sheriff's officer!" he
muttered brokenly to himself, as his son relinquished
his endeavour to speed the parting guest.  "And
I was once Fellow and Tutor!"

"A broker's man!" wailed Mrs. Welwyn, putting
an arm round each of her daughters.  "And
I brought you up respectable, dearies!"

"A broker's man!" echoed Tilly, "and Lady
Adela coming here this afternoon!"

This was too much for that unpolished but
chivalrous youth Percy.  Something must be
done, for Tilly's sake.

"Dad," he said desperately, laying a hand on
his father's shoulder, "ain't you got no money
nowhere?"

Mr. Welwyn shook his head helplessly.

"Mother?" said Percy.

"I've got about fifteen shillings," said
Mrs. Welwyn, brightening up at the prospect of action.
"How much did that insect"--she indicated
the minion of the law, now warming himself at
the fireplace--"say it was?"

"Seventeen-seventeen-six," replied the insect,
with the air of one letting off a telling repartee.

"There is n't so much money in all the world!"
whispered Amelia despairingly.

"I've got six-and-threepence," said Percy,
diving into his pockets.

A thought occurred to Mrs. Welwyn.

"Father," she enquired of the motionless figure
on the sofa, "did n't you tell me that Gandy and
Cox's bill was only a matter of seven pounds?"

"It was, it was," said Mr. Welwyn, "but--I
ordered a little more, to keep them quiet."

Mrs. Welwyn, admirable woman, wasted no
time in useless reproaches.  Instead, she turned
once more upon the broker's man.

"Now, look here," she said; "I want to ask a
favour of you.  We're expecting company here
this afternoon.  Will you go away, and come
back in the evening?"

"And find the front door bolted!" replied the
broker's man affably.  "No, I don't *think*!  I
prefer to remain.  I've been in this profession for
some time now--ever since I abandoned *the*
profession, in fact--and I know a thing or two.
I'm sorry," he added, "to disoblige a lady, and
I hope you won't take offence where none was
intended.  Try to look on the bright side of
things.  I might 'ave been a auction."

Percy broke in upon these comfortable words.

"Look here," he said; "will you go away for a
quid?"

"There is nothing," replied the visitor, "that I
should like at this present moment better than
a quid; but I'm afraid it's my duty to stay.
I shan't do nobody any 'arm, beyond taking a
inventory of the furniture.  You'll find me quite
a confidential family friend in a day or two,
I should n't wonder.  Oh, dear, 'ere's another of
'em coming to 'ave a go!"

He closed his eyes resignedly.  Before him stood
Tilly--small, slim, white to the lips, with all
her world tottering on the brink of the abyss.  In
her hands she held a cigar-box.

"What is your name?" she asked.

"Surname," replied the broker's man pedantically,
"Stillbottle.  Christian ditto, Samuel.  Net
result, Samuel Stillbottle."

"Have a cigar, Mr. Stillbottle," said Tilly,
with a ghost of a smile.

Mr. Stillbottle helped himself without comment.
He was a man for whom life held few surprises.
"Thank you.  But I won't go, mind you,"
was all he said.

Next moment Tilly motioned him to a chair
beside the table, and set the decanter and a glass
beside him.  "Have something to drink,
Mr. Stillbottle," she said.

"I shall be pleased to do so," replied Mr. Stillbottle
graciously.  "Without prejudice, of course,"
he added, filling his glass.

By this time the others, astonished and
interrogative, had gathered round Tilly.

"Tilly," burst out Percy, "what's the good?
He won't go--don't you think it!"

"Young man," corroborated Mr. Stillbottle,
"you are right.  I won't.  You 've done it in one."

Tilly took an arm of Percy and another of her
mother and drew both in the direction of the
sofa.  Her breath came fast.

"Listen," she said rapidly--"you too, Dad!
We *will* have our tea-party.  We won't throw up
a single item in the programme.  We'll entertain
the Mainwarings, and we'll show them that we
know how to do things in proper style, and we'll
make them all enjoy themselves--even Sylvia--and
I'll get my Dicky yet!"

She paused, and surveyed her mystified
audience with shining eyes.

"But, Sis," enquired the dubious Percy, indicating
the fully occupied Mr. Stillbottle, "what
about Rockefeller over there?"

The indomitable Tilly laughed.

"He is our old family butler!" she said simply.





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.. _`SIDELIGHTS ON A PUBLIC CHARACTER`:

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   CHAPTER XIX


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   SIDELIGHTS ON A PUBLIC CHARACTER

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Mr. Samuel Stillbottle, notebook in hand,
with a look of professional severity upon his
pinched features, slowly circumnavigated the
drawing-room, making an inventory of the
furniture.  He was followed, step for step, by the
deeply interested Caution and Cure, who, finding
the bonds of discipline unusually relaxed, owing
to the preoccupation of their elders, had seized
an early opportunity of escaping from the region
belowstairs in which they were supposed to be
enjoying their afternoon siesta, in order to pursue
their acquaintance with the gentleman whom they
had christened, on sight, "the funny man."  They
had encountered Mr. Stillbottle in the kitchen,
and had conceived a liking for him at once.  As
appraisers of character their point of view was
circumscribed and their judgment immature; but
Mr. Stillbottle's performance at dinner had won their
unqualified respect and admiration.  They had
accordingly decided to spend the rest of their
lives in his company, and with that intent in view
had laboriously scaled the staircase, and were
now doing their best, by a series of ill-timed
demonstrations of cordiality, to obstruct their
new friend in the execution of his duty.

"Chesterfield sofa--two castors loose--one-fifteen,"
murmured Mr. Stillbottle, plying his
pencil.  ("Run away, that's good children.)  Me'ogany
whatnot"--he slipped his hand round
behind the piece of furniture in question--"with
deal back, two-ten.  Armchair, with off 'ind leg
cracked, twelve-and-six.  (Run away, that's little
dears.  Run away and drown the kitten, or give the
canary a shampoo; but don't stand there starin'
at me like a pair of images.  I don't like it, so
don't do it.)  Now for the 'arpsichord!"

The harassed Mr. Stillbottle began to examine
the Welwyns' piano.  The Cure turned to The
Caution.

"Funny man!" she reiterated ecstatically.

"Yesh," assented The Caution, who suffered
from a slight palatal affection.  "Funny
man! Lesh fight him a little bit!"

As an intimation that the approaching combat
was to be of the friendliest description, he first
smiled seraphically upon Mr. Stillbottle (who
was looking the other way at the moment), and
then dealt that gentleman a well-directed blow
in the back of each knee simultaneously with his
pudgy fists.  Mr. Stillbottle, who, owing to his
ignorance of infantile patois, was entirely
unprepared for this onslaught, promptly fell head-first
into the arm-chair with the damaged hind leg,
reducing its value by a further one-and-ninepence.
Before he could extricate himself his enraptured
admirers had conceived and partially put into
execution the happy design of tickling him to death.

"Now, look 'ere," he exclaimed indignantly,
when he was sufficiently recovered from the
suddenness of this outrage to resume an upright
position, "you must drop it!  Pop off!  I won't 'ave
it!  If I ketch 'old of either of you--if I ketch--all
right, say no more about it!  I believe that
little girl 'as got the evil eye," he muttered weakly
to himself.  Mr. Stillbottle's nerves were not in
good order, and The Cure had regarded him with
unwinking steadfastness for something like five
minutes.  "Go and play over there," he urged,
almost piteously, "and let me do my job.  Now,
where was I?  Ho, yes--the pianner."

He submitted that venerable instrument to a
further scrutiny.

"*Collard and Collard*," he observed.  ("A very
appropriate title, too, for this 'ouse!)  Date,
about seventy-four or five, I should say."  He
lifted the lid and struck a few inharmonious
chords.  "Not been tooned since bought.  Loud
pedal broke, and ivories off three keys.  Mouse-'ole
in the back.  Say thirty-five bob, or two
p--Will you *drop* it?"

Mr. Stillbottle made this request from the
floor, upon which he had suddenly adopted a
recumbent attitude.  The Caution and the Cure,
having decided to initiate their idol into what
they had always considered the most consummate
jest in existence, had placed a heavy footstool
close behind his heels; and Mr. Stillbottle, stepping
back a pace in order to view the *tout ensemble*
of the piano, had carried the joke to a successful
and rapturous conclusion.

Amid appreciative shrieks of merriment from
the twins, their fermenting playfellow rose
solemnly to his feet, and was pausing dramatically
for the double purpose of recovering his breath
and deciding upon an effective scheme of reprisal,
when he became aware that the door was open
and that the master of the house was smilingly
contemplating the entertainment.

"You three appear to be having a romp," said
Mr. Welwyn genially.  "You are evidently a lover
of children, Mr. Stillbottle!"

Fortunately for the delicate ears of The
Caution and The Cure, Mr. Stillbottle was still
incapable of utterance.  By the time that his two
admirers had been escorted to the door by their
progenitor and bidden to return to their own place,
his power of speech had returned; but
perceiving that the time for explanation was now
past, the misjudged romper decided to postpone
the refutation of the libel until some other
occasion.

"Be seated, Mr. Stillbottle," said Mr. Welwyn
politely.

Mr. Stillbottle selected the sofa, which it will
be remembered had been marked as high as one
pound fifteen.

"I hope you had a comfortable dinner,"
continued Mr. Welwyn.

"Thank you," replied Mr. Stillbottle briefly--"I 'ad."

Mr. Welwyn produced half-a-sovereign.

"I make a point of being punctilious over
money matters," he said, handing the coin to the
broker's man.  "When our little--er--contract
has been carried to a successful conclusion I shall
be happy to hand you another."

Mr. Stillbottle pocketed the money.

"When may I expect the other?" he enquired.

"If all goes well, about six o'clock this evening."

"I see," said Mr. Stillbottle comprehendingly.
"Carriages at five-forty-five--eh?"

"Precisely," said Mr. Welwyn.  "You have
hit off the situation to a nicety."  He laughed, in
high spirits.  His resilient nature had entirely
recovered from the humiliation of the morning.
"Meanwhile"--he produced a sheet of
note-paper--"I shall be obliged if you will kindly
commit these notes to memory."

Mr. Stillbottle laboriously perused the document.

"Lord love a duck!" he observed in a dazed
voice--"What's this?"

"A list of--let us say, your entrances and
exits this afternoon," explained Mr. Welwyn
smoothly.  "You understand theatrical terms, I
believe."

He had struck the right chord.  Mr. Stillbottle's
rheumy eye lit up.

"Entrances and ex-- oho!  Now I begin to
take you," he said.  "We 're agoin' to do drawing-room
theatricals, are we?  Kind o' benefit matinée--eh?"

"In a sense, yes," replied Mr. Welwyn.  "Are
you endowed with the dramatic instinct?"

"Come again!" said Mr. Stillbottle politely.

"Could you play a part, do you think?"

"Could I play a part?" repeated Mr. Stillbottle
witheringly.  "Could a duck swim?  Why,
I was *in* the profession, off and on, for a matter
of fourteen years."

"In what capacity?" asked Mr. Welwyn,
much interested.

"Well, I've bin a good many things," said the
versatile Stillbottle, putting his feet up on the
sofa.  "I've bin a guest in the palace of the Dook
of Alsatia; I 've bin the middle bit of the
sea-serpent--what you might call the prime cut--in
a ballet of fish; and I was once the second wave on
the O.P. side of the storm what wrecked Sinbad
the Sailor."

Mr. Welwyn smiled sympathetically.  Here was
another rolling stone.

"What made you abandon such a promising
career, Mr. Stillbottle?" he asked.

The late prime cut of the sea-serpent shook his
head gloomily.

"The old story," he said--"professional
jealousy.  It started with my bein' cast for the
front legs of a elephant in a pantomime.  That
was the stage-manager's bit of spite.  My usual
place is the *'ind* legs--and that takes a bit of
doing, I can tell you.  (The 'ind legs 'as to wag the
tail, you see.)  If I was to tell you the number of
'ind legs I'd played, you'd be surprised," he
continued, plunging into an orgy of irrelevant
reminiscence.  "Why, I recollect in eighty-four,
at the Old Brit., 'Oxton way--"

"But what was the matter with the front legs
you were speaking of?" enquired Mr. Welwyn
opportunely.

"The matter," replied Mr. Stillbottle testily,
"was that they was n't *'ind* legs.  Not bein' used
to them, I stepped in wrong way round on the
first night.  We got shoved on the stage somehow,
but every time we started to move I ran straight
into the 'ind legs.  In the end we broke the
elephant's back between us.  What was more, we
spoiled the Principal Boy's best song.  The
audience was much too occupied watchin' a elephant
givin' a imitation of a camel to listen to *'er*.
Besides, she was sittin' on the elephant 'erself at the
time, and bein' rather stout, 'ad 'er work cut out
to 'old on.  She got me fired next day.  Said I
was n't sober."

"That was a libel, of course," said Mr. Welwyn
soothingly.

"In a manner of speakin'," replied Mr. Stillbottle
guardedly--"yes."  He took up Mr. Welwyn's
sheet of note-paper again.

"What is all this?" he enquired rather querulously.
"Stage directions, or cues, or what?"

"Everything," said Mr. Welwyn.  "Your
lines and business, in fact."

Mr. Stillbottle nodded comprehendingly, and
proceeded to read aloud:--

"*When front-door bell rings, answer door and
show party up, asking their names and announcing
them distinctly.*"

"You can do that?"

"I'll 'ave a dash for it, anyway.  Then: *Bring
in tea and put it on tea-table*."

Mr. Stillbottle's unsteady gaze wandered round
the apartment until it encountered the table.

"Tea-table, left centre," he remarked to
himself.  "*Then, at irregular intervals, come in and
make the following remarks to me*:--that's you,
I suppose?"

Mr. Welwyn nodded, and Mr. Stillbottle read
the paper aloud to the end.  Then he slowly folded
it up, and remarked, not altogether unreasonably,
that he was damned.  He added a respectful
rider in the French tongue, to the effect that
Mr. Welwyn was *très moutarde*.

"You understand," said his employer with
great seriousness--he had crossed the Rubicon
now, and was determined to risk nothing by
imperfect rehearsal--"you must use your own
discretion as to when you come in with your
messages.  About once every ten minutes, I should say."

"Don't you think, governor," suggested
Mr. Stillbottle, almost timidly, "that that last
stretcher--the one about the shover--is just
a bit *too* thick?  Suppose your guests start askin'
to see the car--what, then?  You'll be in the
cart, you know!"

"It is all right," said Mr. Welwyn.  "I am
giving the car up, on account of recent taxation,
and so on.  It is in the market now, and may be
sold at any moment--to-day, perhaps."

"I beg pardon," said Mr. Stillbottle humbly.
"I see I can teach you nothing."  Then he added,
conversationally: "Did you ever know a Captain
Slingsby, by any chance?"

"No.  Who was he?"

"Another of the lads, like yourself.  I thought
perhaps you might have been workin' with him
at some time.  I came acrost him once or twice.
He was a pretty tough nut.  His line was to dress
up as a curate and get himself adopted by rich
widders; but he was n't the artist you are, sir.  He
'ad n't your education, I should say.  Are the
whole family in this, may I enquire?"

"Er--yes," replied Mr. Welwyn helplessly.

"Ah!" Mr. Stillbottle nodded his head.  "I
thought somehow that I had come on a happy
visit to the Nut Family as soon as I got acquainted
with your two youngest.  Well, it's a pleasure to
work with people at the top of their profession,
and I'll see you through."

Mr. Welwyn thanked him, almost inaudibly.

"But when do you suppose," pursued Mr. Stillbottle,
transferring his feet from the sofa to the
floor, "that I shall get out of this Dramatic
Academy of yours?  I 'ave n't come 'ere for a
*course*, you know.  Are you going to touch the
tea-party for the money, or let me distrain on
the furniture, or what?"

"I can't tell you at present," said Mr. Welwyn;
"but I will endeavour to arrange something
by the evening."

"Well, let me know soon, ole sport," said
Mr. Stillbottle--"that's all.  I 'ave my
arrangements to make, too, remember.  My *word*, look
at Mother!"

This interjection was occasioned by the
entrance of Mrs. Welwyn and Amelia, dressed for
the party.  Mrs. Welwyn was arrayed in a quieter
and more tasteful fashion than might have been
expected.  Her costume, which had been designed
and constructed by her eldest daughter, would
have struck an impartial critic as one which
made the very best of her age and figure.  Amelia
wore a short white frock, with a blue sash.
Her long coppery hair flowed to her waist,
and her hazel eyes were aglow with excitement.

"Father dear, what do you think of the way
Tilly has turned me out?" enquired Mrs. Welwyn gaily.

For the moment her troubles were behind her.
For once she was suitably--and to the outward
eye expensively--attired; and the knowledge of
the fact had induced in her humble but feminine
soul that degree of minor intoxication which the
materially-minded male usually achieves, more
grossly but less extravagantly, by means of a
pint of champagne.

Slowly gyrating for the delectation of her
husband, Mrs. Welwyn unexpectedly encountered
the unsympathetic gaze of Mr. Stillbottle.  She
blushed red, and ceased to revolve.

"Oh, that you?" she exclaimed, in an embarrassed voice.

"Yes, it's me--what's left of me," replied
Mr. Stillbottle lugubriously.  "Wearing me out,
this job is."

He displayed his paper of cues.

Mrs. Welwyn regarded him severely.

"It's time you dressed yourself," she said.  "I
have put my son's evening clothes out for
you--in the bathroom," she added pointedly.  "You
had better go and put them on.  He is bigger than
you, but you'll manage."

Mr. Stillbottle acquiesced.

"Very good," he remarked graciously.  "Wardrobe
mistress must be obeyed, I suppose.  I'm
beginning to warm up to this part.  I shall
surprise you all yet."

"I hope not," murmured Mr. Welwyn devoutly.

"Did you tell him about the name, Father?"
prompted Amelia.

"No, I forgot," said Mr. Welwyn.  "Mr. Stillbottle,
I think this afternoon that we had better
address you by some other name than your own."

"What," enquired Mr. Stillbottle, with a touch
of hauteur, "is the matter with me own little
patteronymic?"

"Just to sustain the character, you know,"
urged Mr. Welwyn.

Mr. Stillbottle sighed, in humorous resignation.

"All right," he said.  "Confer the title."

Mr. Welwyn turned to his wife.

"What do you say to 'Howard,' Mother?" he
asked.

"Nothing with an H in front of it for *me*,
dearie, if you please," announced Mrs. Welwyn
firmly.  "I can see enough rocks of that kind
ahead of me this afternoon as it is."

"Why not 'Russell'?" suggested Amelia.
"Russell Square, you know."

Mrs. Welwyn stroked her resourceful little
daughter's hair gratefully.

"That will do finely," she said. "You are
Russell," she announced briefly to Mr. Stillbottle.

The newly christened infant acquiesced
listlessly, and rose from the sofa.

"Now I must tear myself away," he said, "to
don me trunks and 'ose and get up this patter.
I'm a slow study.  No promptin', I presume?"

"No," said Mr. Welwyn.

"Gaggin' permitted?" enquired Mr. Stillbottle,
without much hope.

"Certainly not."

"Very good.  So long, everybody.  *Exit Russell*,
door in back."

With a theatrical gesture, the ci-devant
impersonator of elephants' hind legs disappeared.
The Welwyns regarded one another apprehensively.

"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Welwyn.

"We must make the best of him, Martha,"
said her husband.  "After all, we did not invite
him here of our own accord: he *has* to be present
in the house in some capacity.  Still, I admit he is
the weak spot in our enterprise--the heel of
Achilles, so to speak."

But Mr. Welwyn was wrong.





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.. _`REHEARSED EFFECTS`:

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   CHAPTER XX


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   REHEARSED EFFECTS

.. vspace:: 2

"*H*\as *H*\erbert," enquired Mrs. Welwyn,
taking a deep breath, "*h*\urt *H*\orace?"  She choked.
"Oh, dear!"

"Very good, Mumsie," said Amelia encouragingly.
"Go on."

"But it puts me out of breath so, child, as soon
as I begin to think of it," complained her pupil.
"I shall never learn."

"Yes, you will," said Amelia confidently.
"H's are just a matter of proper breathing,
Daddy says.  Now try the next sentence, and
remember there's a trap in it!"

Miss Amelia seated herself upon the floor,
clasping her long black legs with her arms and resting
her chin on her knees.

"Now," she said, with a little nod.

Conscientious Mrs. Welwyn, having audibly
recharged her lungs, now began to emit another
heavily aspirated sentence.

"*H*\ildebrand," she announced, "*h*\as *h*\it *H*\enry
*h*\ard *h*\intentionally.  There, that's done it!"  She
sighed despairingly.

"And I warned you, Mother," said Amelia
reproachfully.  "That last word is put in on
purpose to trip you up."

"Yes, I know," replied her mother with an
apologetic smile.  "And it always does.  You
can't teach an old dog new tricks, ducky, and
that's a fact.  I have always been common in my
talk, and common in my talk I always will be.  All
I can promise is that I will do my best this
afternoon; and I hope, for all of your sakes, that your
old mother won't go and disgrace you."

Little 'Melia's reply to this humble aspiration
was an embrace which entirely disorganised the
hooks and eyes at the back of Martha Welwyn's
festal garment.  While the disaster was being
repaired, Tilly entered briskly.  In her hand she
held a printed card, bearing the legend

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   APARTMENTS

.. class:: left medium

.. vspace:: 1

in staring letters.  This she dropped behind the
piano.

"Hook me up behind, 'Melia, will you," she
said, "when you have finished Mother?  No, I'll
do Mother and you do me.  Your hair-ribbon is
wrong.  Let me get hold of it."

The Welwyns, *mère et filles*, formed themselves
into a voluble equilateral triangle.

"I found that 'Apartments' card lying on the
hall table," said Tilly with a shiver.  "I suppose
Russell took it out of the drawer when he was
making his inventory.  A nice thing if they had
all marched in through the front door at that
very moment!  Still," she added cheerily, "there's
no harm done.  Am I all right, do you think?"

"Tilly, you look lovely," said Amelia.

"One thing about being a dress-designer," admitted
Tilly, kissing her little sister, "is that you
can design yourself a dress.  'Melia, you look a
little duck.  Mother, your hair is n't quite right.  Let
me pull it out a bit here."

She tweaked the coiffure of her much-enduring
parent into position, whistling blithely.  Her
cheeks were pink, her eyes sparkled.  She was
determined to look her best for Dicky that day.
And to do her justice, she did.

"Tilly dear," remarked Mrs. Welwyn dubiously,
"can we all get round that table for tea?"

"Gracious!" cried Tilly, observing the heavily
loaded table for the first time.  "You are never
going to plant everybody round *that*, like
nursery tea?"

"Ain't we?" said Mrs. Welwyn blankly.

"Certainly not," replied Tilly.

Swiftly she sketched out the fundamentals of
that meal which combines the maximum of discomfort
with the minimum of nourishment--afternoon-tea
as consumed by high society in the
present period--and in three minutes the great
round table, tipped onto its edge, was trundled
rapidly into Mr. Welwyn's bedroom, to the
surprise and discomfort of Mr. Welwyn, who was
dressing at the time.

"Now a small tea-table," commanded Tilly.

"There is n't such a thing in the house, love,"
panted her overheated parent.

"Yes, there is," said little 'Melia, the
ever-ready.  "In Mr. Pumpherston's room.  He keeps
a text framed in fir-cones on it."

"You're right, dear; I had forgotten,"
admitted Mrs. Welwyn.  "Well, Pumpherston is
going to get bounced this evening anyway, so
we might as well have his table now as then.
Come with me and get it.  He's out."

Left alone, Tilly flitted about the room,
reviving its faded glories as far as she was able by
deft touches here and there; straightening
curtains, patting cushions, and confiding to various
unresponsive articles of upholstery the information
that her Love was like a Red, Red Rose.

"Tea-table here, I think," she said, pausing.
"Probably Lady Adela would have hers nearer
the fire; but then Lady Adela's drawing-room
carpet has not got a hole in it.  Come in!"

The door opened, and an eerie figure appeared.
It was Mr. Russell--*né* Stillbottle--in his
shirt-sleeves, wearing an insecurely fastened
dickey.  His black trousers, being much too long
for him, presented a corrugated appearance.  In
his hand he carried a great bunch of pink carnations.

"These 'ave just been 'anded in, Miss," he
announced.  "No name, and"--with a slight
note of congratulation in his voice--"nothing
to pay."

Tilly thanked him, and, taking the flowers,
buried her face in the heart of the bunch.  When
she withdrew it she found that Mr. Stillbottle
was still present.

"If you could find him, Miss," he said deferentially,
"I should like to 'ave a word with the Chief Nut."

"Who?"

"The old feller that's running this fake."

"Oh, my father?" said Tilly, biting her lip.
"He is dressing, I think."  She tucked three or
four carnations into her belt and began to
arrange the others in a bowl.

"Then, perhaps," said Mr. Russell, "you could
advise me on a purely personal matter."

"Certainly," replied Tilly absently.  Dicky's
gift still claimed all her attention.

"It's these trousers, Miss," explained Russell
confidentially.  "They are the pair supplied by
the management; and between ourselves I don't
think they suit me.  Brother Perce may 'ave a
faithful 'eart, but 'e 's *built* all wrong.  These
trousers are six or eight inches too long in the leg.  I feel
as if I was wearin' a pair of concertinas.  Now--"

This sartorial jeremiad was cut short by the
entrance of Mrs. Welwyn, who, travelling
full-speed astern and towing Amelia and the tea-table
of Pumpherston in her wake, butted the double
doors open, and backed heavily into the orator.
Mr. Russell, looking deeply injured, retired to
complete his toilet.

"That's better," said Tilly, when the small
tea-table had been placed over the hole in the
carpet, and the tea-tray had been placed over a
hole in the tablecloth.  "Is everything ready?"

"Yes," said Amelia.

"What about the babies?"

"I have washed and dressed them," said
Mrs. Welwyn.  "Melia will fetch them down for a
few minutes about a quarter-to-six."

"That's all right," said Tilly approvingly.
"They are darlings, both of them, and I should
like to have them down all the time, but it's too
risky.  What time is it now?"

"Ten minutes to five," said Amelia.

"Mercy!" exclaimed Mrs. Welwyn, greatly
agitated at the proximity of her hour.  "Where
shall I sit, Tilly dear?"

"On the sofa, Mumsie; and don't get hot, because
you are looking very nice," said Tilly soothingly.
"Hallo, Dad--just in time!"

Mr. Welwyn in a frock-coat, looking quite the
scholar and gentleman, had entered from his
bedroom.

"I perceive the feast is spread," he observed
jauntily.  "Mistress of Ceremonies, how do we
dispose ourselves?"

"Mother here," replied meticulous Tilly--"on
the sofa with the 'Morning Post.'  I picked
it up off the floor of the railway-carriage this
morning.  Don't read it; just be glancing at it
carelessly.  Father, sit by the fire with a book.
Here's one.  'Melia, you had better be on a
footstool at Mother's feet, with your head against
her knee.  Don't fall over her when you get up,
Mother.  And don't come forward more than
three steps to meet Lady Adela: you 're as good
as she is, remember.  Say it's very sweet of her to
come all this way.  And if you call her 'your
Ladyship,' I shall walk straight across the room
and kill you--see?"

"Yes, lovey," sighed the flustered Mrs. Welwyn.
"What *do* I call her?"

"Lady Adela--not Lady Mainwaring, mind!"

"It sounds so familiar, starting Christian
names right off," objected Mrs. Welwyn feebly.

"Never mind; you've got to do it," said Tilly
ruthlessly.  "I shall be here by the tea-table, and
if any of you get on to thin ice I shall drop a
teaspoon.  Do you all understand?"

"Yes, Tilly," replied a respectful chorus.

"Very well, then," replied the Mistress of
Ceremonies.  "Now let me see you all in your
places.  Attention!"

Tilly clapped her hands, and her well-drilled
retinue froze into their appointed attitudes.

"Don't hold the 'Morning Post' as if you were
trying to lick butter off it, Mother," said Tilly.
"'Melia, pull up your stocking.  Dad, you are
splendid, but you are laughing.  This is a serious
business, remember.  Now, all keep like that for
two minutes, to see if--Mercy on us, here they are!"

But she was wrong.

The door creaked, and swung slowly open, to
admit the attenuated figure of Grandma Banks,
who in the most unconcerned fashion possible
hobbled across the room to the fireplace and
seated herself in the vacant armchair opposite
to her son-in-law, with every appearance of
having come to anchor for the evening.

----

Grandma's descendants gathered into a
panic-stricken knot in the corner.

"She *can't* stay!" whispered Tilly frantically.
"Mother, get her to bed."

"My dearie," responded Mrs. Welwyn helplessly,
"you know what she is when she smells a rat!"

"Try, anyhow!" urged Tilly, glancing feverishly
at the clock.

Mrs. Welwyn approached her aged parent much
as a small boy approaches a reputed wasp's nest.

"Mother," she said nervously.

"Eh?" replied Mrs. Banks, looking up
sharply and scrutinising her daughter over her
glasses.  "What 'ave you got them things on for?
Goin' out somewhere?  At your age, too!" she
added irrelevantly.

"Yes--no--yes," stammered Martha Welwyn,
who tampered with the truth with difficulty.
"I've arranged for you to have your tea
in your own room this afternoon, Mother."

"Why?" enquired Mrs. Banks at once.

"You are not looking very well," interposed
Mr. Welwyn rashly.

"I'm eighty-one," retorted the old lady with
great spirit, "and as 'earty as ever I was,
Welwyn.  I shall 'ave my tea in 'ere."

"We rather want this room this afternoon,
dear," resumed Mrs. Welwyn gallantly.  "Father
has some people coming in on business."

"Is Father going to get a job of work to do?"
riposted Grandma Banks, in tones of gratified
surprise.

Mr. Welwyn blew his nose sheepishly, and the
clock struck five.  Tilly came forward and knelt
by her grandmother's chair.

"It is very important for all of us, Granny,"
she pleaded, "that Father should have an
undisturbed talk with these people; so we thought we
would keep this room clear this afternoon.  You
don't want to be troubled with strangers, do you?
Nasty, loud-voiced people."

"I likes people with loud voices," replied the
old lady cantankerously.  "I can 'ear what they
says."

"But they're only going to talk business,"
urged Tilly.  "Come along, there's a dear old
Grandma.  You'll be much more comfortable in
your own room.  There's a nice fire there, and
I'll bring you in a lovely tea.  Take my arm."

By this time Mrs. Banks had been raised to
her feet, and now found herself being gently
but inexorably propelled in the direction of the
door.

"You don't *want* me, that's the truth," she
observed, getting reluctantly under way.  "You 're
ashamed of your old Grandma, that's what it is."

"Nonsense, darling," said Tilly.  "You know
how fond we all are of you.  But you would only
be tired out by a lot of people."

"No," persisted the old lady, "you don't want me."

She hobbled through the door on her
grand-daughter's arm, still speaking the truth.

"Poor old Granny!" Tilly's voice said very
gently.  "I promise to make it all up to you some
day."

The bedroom door on the other side of the
landing was heard to open and shut, and there
was momentary silence.  Then the front-door bell
emitted a majestic peal.  The sound thrilled the
Welwyns like a tocsin.  Tilly darted in.

"Get to your places," she whispered.

The troupe hastily resumed their proper poses,
and a tense silence ensued.

Mrs. Welwyn took a deep breath.

"*H*\as *H*\orace," she enquired in a hoarse and
hysterical whisper, "*h*\urt *H*\erbert?  No, but
*H*\ildebrand--"

"They are in the hall," hissed Amelia.

"They are coming up," said Mr. Welwyn
calmly.

Suddenly Tilly's fortitude deserted her.

"I can't bear it!" she wailed, and bolted
incontinently through the inner door into her
father's room.

"Tilly darling, don't leave us!" was the
agonised cry of Mrs. Welwyn and Amelia....

Next moment Mr. Welwyn, finding himself
alone in his own drawing-room, rose to his feet
and, as rapidly as was compatible with the
dignity of a scholar and a gentleman, joined the
panic-stricken mob in his bedroom.

Almost simultaneously the door onto the
landing was thrown open, and Mr. Stillbottle's
wheezy voice announced:--

"Lord Mainwaring, Lady Mainwaring, and
party!"  Then in a surprised and informal tone:--

"Hallo!  Stage clear?"





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   CHAPTER XXI


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   UNREHEARSED

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Mr. Mainwaring, Lady Adela, and party--the
latter comprised Sylvia, Connie Carmyle, and
Dicky--came to a standstill in the middle of
the vast and empty drawing-room and looked
enquiringly about them.  Lady Adela, upon whom
the labour of climbing the staircase had told
heavily, first deleted from her features the stately
smile which she had mechanically assumed before
crossing the threshold, and then began to sit
down upon the piece of furniture which
Mr. Stillbottle had recently valued at
twelve-and-six-pence.

"I would n't set in that chair, mum, not if I
was you," remarked a husky voice in her ear.
"The off 'hid leg is a trifle dicky."

Lady Adela, suspended in mid-air like Mahomet's
coffin, started violently upwards into a
vertical position, and then, having, on the advice of
the officious Mr. Stillbottle, selected the sofa,
took in the drawing-room with one comprehensive
sweep of her lorgnette.

Mr. Stillbottle withdrew, doubtless to con his lines.

"H'm," remarked Lady Adela.  "This is
evidently not one of the rooms that has just been
in the hands of the painters and decorators."

"Dick," enquired Sylvia, who had been superciliously
inspecting the mahogany whatnot with
the deal back, "who was that furtive Oriental
person who slipped past us on the staircase?  Not
another future relative-in-law, I trust."

"The stout nigger gentleman, you mean?" said
Dicky, with unimpaired good humour.  "I fancy
he must have been calling on Mr. Welwyn about
his studies.  I have a notion that London
University is somewhere about here."

"What a jolly old-fashioned house this is," said
Connie from the window-seat.  "How nice and
shady this big square must be in summer."

"It is a fairly shady locality all the year round,
I fancy," observed Sylvia sweetly.

Kind-hearted Mr. Mainwaring coughed, and
looked unhappily towards his son.  But Dicky
did not appear to have heard.  He had just
discovered his carnations.

Lady Adela took up the tale.

"There was a small but ferocious-looking
creature with red whiskers," she announced,
"hanging over the banisters on the top floor.
Who would he be, now?"

"Don't ask me, Mum," said Dicky.  "I've
never been in the house before, remember, except
downstairs.  Probably a paper-hanger, or--"

He was interrupted by the entrance of a stately
procession headed by Mrs. Welwyn, the rest
following in single file.

Tilly effected the necessary introductions
prettily and with perfect composure; and presently
the company assorted itself into what we will
call Tableau Number One.  Mr. Welwyn led Lady
Adela back to the seat which she had vacated.

"Most of the furniture in this mansion of ours
is Early Victorian," he announced with a ready
laugh; "but I think you will find this sofa
comfortably Edwardian, Lady Adela."

Lady Adela, favourably impressed with her
host's appearance and manner, smiled graciously
and once more cautiously lowered herself onto
the sofa.  Here, in obedience to an almost
imperceptible sign from her husband, the quaking
Mrs. Welwyn joined her, and announced, in a voice
which she entirely failed to recognise as her own,
that it was very sweet of them all to come so far.

Amelia ran impulsively to Dicky and kissed
him.  Mrs. Carmyle, Sylvia, and Tilly fell into a
chattering group round the tea-table.  Mr. Welwyn
and Mr. Mainwaring shook hands warmly
and exchanged greetings.  The tea-party was
launched.

"How many years is it, Welwyn?" asked Mr. Mainwaring.

"Let us not rake up the past, my dear
Mainwaring," said Mr. Welwyn.  "More years than
we care to count--eh?  We'll leave it at that.
But I am delighted to meet you again.  I wonder
how the old College prospers.  Foster was your
tutor, was n't he?"

"Yes," replied Mr. Mainwaring, pleasantly
flattered to find that a man who had been two
years senior to him should remember so much
about him.

"Mine, too," mentioned Mr. Welwyn, as if
determined to put his guest at his ease.

"He's a bishop now, I hear," said Mr. Mainwaring.

"*Eheu, fugaces*!" sighed Mr. Welwyn.  "Come
and sit by the fire."

"I think we had better have tea, Tilly," said
Mrs. Welwyn, as per programme.

The Welwyn family, recognising a cue, began
to bestir themselves for Tableau Number Two.

"I seem to hear it coming up, Mother," replied
Tilly.

She was right.  Portentous rattlings and
puffings were now audible without.  Next moment
the doors were bumped open and Mr. Stillbottle
appeared, carrying the tea-pot on a tray.

Apparently something was on his mind.  His
appearance was that of a righteous man deeply
wronged.  His was the demeanour of a British
artisan compelled by forces which he cannot
control to perform a task not included in his
contract.

A moment later the situation explained itself.
Behind Mr. Stillbottle, clinging affectionately to
his flowing coat-tails, marched The Caution and
The Cure.  They were dressed in white, and
looked exactly alike except that The Caution
wore abbreviated white knickerbockers and The
Cure a little white skirt.  Their socks were white,
their sashes and chubby legs were a radiant pink,
and the angelic countenance of each was wreathed
in smiles.

The procession drew up at the tea-table, where
its leader proceeded to deposit the tea-pot.  For a
moment there was a pause in the conversation,
while the hearts of the Welwyns stood still.  The
Twins, uncontrolled, sometimes erred on the
side of originality.

"He's the Queen," explained The Cure, indicating
the flinching figure of Mr. Stillbottle.

"Yesh; and we're holdin' up of his train,"
added The Caution.

Next moment Connie Carmyle had captured them both.

"You darlings!" she cried, and carried them
off to the window-seat.  The situation was saved.

"Little pets!" observed Lady Adela, smiling.

Even Sylvia forgot to pose for a moment.  Tea
was served amid a hum of cheerful conversation.
The children had evoked the maternal instinct,
and all was well.

Only Mr. Stillbottle remained cold.

"You oughter 'ave kep' them locked up somewhere,"
he announced severely to Tilly; and left
the room.

"I don't see your son here, Mrs. Welwyn,"
said Lady Adela.  "We had the pleasure of his
company for a few minutes on Saturday."

"He will be here any minute, your--Lady
Adela," replied Mrs. Welwyn with a jerk.  "He
is usually kept in the City till close on five, poor
boy."

"That aged retainer of yours seems to be a bit
of an autocrat, Tilly," said Dicky, taking
Mrs. Carmyle's chair at the tea-table.

"Yes," agreed Tilly, feeling rather miserable
at having to talk to Dicky in this strain; "but
you know what old servants are.  In their eyes
we never grow up."

"Has he been with you for long, then?"
enquired Sylvia, with a deep appearance of interest.

"How long has Russell been with us, Mother?"
said Tilly, noting that Mrs. Welwyn's
conversation with Lady Adela was beginning to flag.

"I can't remember, dear.  It seems a long time,
anyhow," replied Mrs. Welwyn with sincerity.
"Ah, here is Percy.  Come in, my boy.  Just in
time to hand round the cakes!"

"You can trust little Perce," observed that
engaging youth, entirely at his ease, "to be on
the spot at the right moment.  How de do, Lady
Adela?  I hope this finds you as it leaves me."

He shook the very limp hand of Lady Adela,
and having bestowed an ingratiating smile upon
Sylvia, proceeded amid a slowly intensifying
silence to offer a humorous greeting to Mr. Mainwaring.
Finally he turned to Dicky, and slapped
him boisterously upon the shoulder.

"Well, my brave Ricardo," he enquired, "how goes it?"

"Percy, dear old thing," responded Dicky
promptly, with his most vacant laugh, "how
splendid to see you again!  Come and tell me all
about your club run on Sunday."

He drew the flamboyant cyclist to a place of
safety, and Tilly breathed again.

"There is sugar and cream in this cup, Lady
Adela," said Amelia, with a neat bob-curtsey.

"Thank you, little girl," said Lady Adela,
taking the cup and smiling indulgently.  ("Like a
Duchess out slumming," Amelia told Tilly
afterwards.)  "What pretty manners!" she
continued, turning to Mrs. Welwyn.  "Where do
you send her to school?  I used to find it so
difficult--"

"She has left school," replied Mrs. Welwyn.
"I suppose we ought to send her somewhere to get
finished later on, but there--we can't do
without her, and that's the truth.  Can we, dear?"

Martha Welwyn put an arm round her little
daughter.  She was talking with greater freedom
and confidence now, with her aspirates under
perfect control.

"I can quite understand *that*," said Lady Adela
affably.  "I dare say you find her indispensable."

"I should think so," replied Mrs. Welwyn,
lowering her guard.  "What with all the
staircases, and a basement kitchen, and separate
meals--"

Tilly dropped a teaspoon with a clatter on to
the tray.

"I'm so sorry, Sylvia," she said.  "Did I make
you jump?"

"No," responded Sylvia absently.  "I was
looking at your butler.  He seems to have
something on his mind."

Mr. Stillbottle, who had entered the room two
minutes previously, and had been awaiting an
opportunity of gaining the ear of the company,
took advantage of the partial silence which now
ensued.

"A person has called, sir," he announced to
Mr. Welwyn, "for to iron the billiard table."

Mr. Welwyn broke off his conversation with
Mr. Mainwaring.

"Thank you," he said in an undertone.  "Let
him do so by all means."

"Yes, sir," replied Mr. Stillbottle, turning to go.

"Tell him," added Percy, highly pleased with
the manner in which the little comedy was unfolding
itself, "to see if any of the cues want tips."

"Very good," said Mr. Stillbottle, in a voice
which plainly asked why Percy should "gag,"
when he might not.

The door closed once more, and another hurdle
was negotiated.  The Welwyns heaved little sighs
of relief: Russell's was an unnerving presence.
But Tilly glanced at the honest, laughing face
of the man who loved her, and felt suddenly
ashamed.

"Quite a character, that old fellow," said
Mr. Welwyn breezily.  "Incorrigibly idle; painfully
outspoken; a domestic tyrant of the most oppressive
type; but honest as the day.  I must get some
one to put him in a book.  Lady Adela, you have
nothing to eat."

Mr. Welwyn deftly changed places with his
wife, who gratefully engaged in a conversation
with Mr. Mainwaring; and the rest of the
company performed one of those complicated
evolutions which children call a "general post," and
which affords persons of mature years but
intellectual poverty the inestimable boon of being
able to employ the same topics of conversation
several times over.  Tableau Number Three was
now set.

For a moment Dicky and Tilly found themselves
together.

"Tea, old man?" asked Tilly, offering a cup.

"Thanks, little thing," replied Dicky, touching
her hand under the saucer.

"Did you send these?" Tilly looked down at
her pink carnations.

Dicky nodded, and his gaze became suddenly
ecstatic.

"Tilly," he said in tones of exultant pride, "you
are looking perfectly beautiful."

"This is a strictly business meeting," smiled
Tilly; but her heart bumped foolishly.  For a
moment nothing seemed to matter save the
knowledge that Dicky loved her and she loved Dicky.

The next event of any importance was the
discovery that Mrs. Carmyle, engrossed with the
twins, had had no tea.  There were cries of
contrition from the Welwyn family, and Connie was
hurried to the tea-table, followed by the
desolating howls of her youthful admirers--howls which
increased to yells when Mrs. Welwyn announced
that it was time for them to return whence they
came.  However, they were pacified by an offer
from their new friend to accompany them part of
the way; and after submitting with a sweetness
as adorable as it was unexpected to an embrace
from Lady Adela, they left the room clinging to
Connie's skirts, having contributed to the
programme the one unassailably successful item of
the whole afternoon.

Amelia went with them, but returned almost
immediately.

"Mrs. Carmyle is telling them a story in the
dining-room," she said to her mother.  "They
are as good as gold with her."

"Dear Constance!  She is a fairy godmother to
all children," remarked Lady Adela, who was
feeling quite remarkably beatific.

"Yes--children of all ages," corroborated
Dicky, catching Tilly's eye.

"I declare," cried Mrs. Welwyn suddenly, as
this pleasant episode terminated, "I had almost
forgotten.  Tilly dear, you had better take your
grandmother's tea in to her."

"All right, Mother," assented Tilly blithely.
The party was shaping into a success.

"I am so sorry, Lady Adela," said Mr. Welwyn,
picking up the new topic with the readiness
of a practised conversationalist, "that you will
not meet my wife's mother this afternoon.  She
spends a good deal of her time with us.  A dear
old lady--quite of the Early Victorian school."

"She is not unwell, I hope," said Lady Adela
politely.

"A slight chill--a mere nothing," Mr. Welwyn
assured her; "but at that age one has to be
careful.  The doctor is keeping her in bed to-day.
I regret it, because I think you would have
enjoyed a conversation with her.  She is a mistress
of the rounded phrase and polished diction of
two generations ago.  So unlike the staccato stuff
that passes for conversation nowadays."

"Too true, too true!" agreed Lady Adela,
eagerly mounting one of her pet hobby-horses.
"She sounds most stimulating.  It is unfashionable
to-day to be elderly.  My daughter informs
me that no one--not even a grandmother--should
have any recollection of anything that
happened previous to the period when people
wore bustles.  All time before that she sums up
as the chignon age.  No, there is no sense of
perspective nowadays.  We are all for the present."

"Admirably put, dear Lady Adela," cooed
Mr. Welwyn.  "I remember--"

What Mr. Welwyn remembered will never be
known, for at that moment the door opened,
slowly but inexorably, and Grandma Banks
appeared.  She advanced into the room with a few
uncertain and tottering steps, peered round her,
and nodded her head with great vigour.

"I thought so," she observed triumphantly.
"Company!  No wonder I were sent to bed."

There was a paralysed silence.  Mr. Welwyn
was the first to recover his presence of mind.  He
advanced upon his infirm but irrepressible
relative shaking a playful finger.

"This is very, very naughty," he announced
reproachfully.  "What will the doctor say?"

.. _`"THIS IS VERY NAUGHTY," HE ANNOUNCED REPROACHFULLY`:

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   "THIS IS VERY NAUGHTY," HE ANNOUNCED REPROACHFULLY

"Eh?" enquired Grandma.

"You were told to stay in bed, you know,
dear," said Mrs. Welwyn, coming to her
husband's assistance.

"I were n't never told no such thing by
nobody," replied the old lady explicitly.

Tilly, avoiding Sylvia's eye, decided to make
the best of the situation.

"Well, now you are here, Granny," she interposed
brightly, "you must come and sit snugly
by the fire and have some tea.  'Melia, bring that
little three-legged table and put it by Granny's
chair, and bring a footstool."

The Welwyns, swiftly taking their cue from
Tilly, bestirred themselves in fulsome
desperation, and in a few minutes Grandma Banks, a
trifle flustered by her sudden and most unusual
popularity, found herself tucked into her armchair
by the assiduous efforts of the entire family.

"This is my grandmother, Mrs. Banks," said
Tilly to Mr. Mainwaring, who happened to be
sitting nearest.

"I trust, Mrs. Banks," began Mr. Mainwaring
with a deferential bow, "that you are not
allowing your sense of hospitality to overtax your
strength."

"Eh?" enquired Mrs. Banks, as ever.

"She is rather deaf," explained Tilly in an
undertone.  "Don't strain your voice by talking to
her too long."

"The gentleman," announced Grandma
unexpectedly, "shall talk to me as long as he
likes."

"Aha, Tilly, old lady!  That's one for you,"
cried the watchful Percy, and the Welwyn
family laughed, hurriedly and tumultuously.
Grandma's octogenarian heart glowed.  Social success
had come to her at last.  She began to enjoy
herself hugely.  Tilly cast an anxious glance round
her.  Grandma's entrance had sensibly lowered
the temperature of the tea-party, and worse
threatened.  Already Lady Adela was exhibiting
a tendency to edge towards the fireplace.  It was
only too plain that she contemplated yet another
"cosy chat."  Tilly decided to fall back upon the
one trustworthy person in the room.

"Granny," she said, taking Dicky by the arm
and leading him forward, "I want to introduce
Mr. Dick Mainwaring.  You have heard of him,
have n't you?"

Mrs. Banks surveyed Dicky over her spectacles.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Banks with deliberation,
"I 'ave 'eard of you.  You and our Tilly are walking out."

Dicky assented with a happy laugh, and
dropped into the only chair in Grandma's
vicinity.  Tilly breathed again: Lady Adela's further
advance was checked.  The party settled down
once more, and talk broke out afresh.

Grandma Banks, whose conversational flights
were not as a rule encouraged by her relatives,
availed herself of her present emancipation to
embark upon a brief homily to Dicky.

"I tells you this, young man," she said in a
hectoring voice, "you've got a treasure in our
Tilly.  Don't you forget it."

"I made that discovery for myself a long time
ago," said Dicky.  He smiled up at his treasure,
who was sitting upon the arm of his chair.

The treasure's grandmother, having in the
mean time been supplied with refreshment by
Amelia, took a piece of bread-and-butter and
rolled it up into a convenient cylinder.

"Yes," she continued, dipping the end of the
cylinder into her tea, "she takes after her mother,
does Tilly.  She may get some of her looks from
her father's side, but when it comes to character,
she's a Banks."  Her aged voice rose higher.
"Always been respectable, 'as the Bankses," she
announced shrilly.  "Very different from--"

At this point not less than three persons
enquired of Lady Adela if she would not take
another cup of tea; and in the hospitable mêlée
which ensued Grandma's further utterances were
obscured.

Percy was holding Lady Adela's cup, and Tilly
was re-filling it, when the door opened and
Mr. Stillbottle made his second entrance.  As before,
he came to a halt immediately on appearing, and
coughed in a distressing fashion without making
any attempt to deliver his lines.

"There is that quaint old retainer of yours
again, Tilly," said Sylvia.

Tilly turned quickly.

"Well, Russell?" she asked.

Mr. Stillbottle, ignoring her entirely, addressed
himself to the master of the house.

"A message has came through on the telephone,
sir," he chanted, fixing his eyes upon an
imaginary prompt-book on the opposite wall, "askin' for
you to be so kind as to attend a meetin' of the
Club C'mittee at three o'clock on Toosday next."

"I think I am engaged," replied Mr. Welwyn,
with an anxious glance in the direction of his
mother-in-law (who was fortunately busily
occupied in masticating a cylinder); "but say I will
let them know."

"Right," said Mr. Stillbottle, and departed.

The Welwyns, who during the time occupied
by their butler's second "turn," had been
inclining uneasy ears in the direction of the open
doorway, surveyed one another in a frightened
fashion.  All was not well on the second floor:
evidence to that effect was plainly audible.

"Great bore, these committee meetings,"
commented Mr. Welwyn.  "I expect you have your
fill of them, Mainwaring."

"Alas, yes!" said Mr. Mainwaring.  "They
are all the same.  Everybody sits and looks
portentously solemn--"

"All sorts of non-controversial business is
brought forward as a matter of pressing importance--"

"Everybody disagrees with everybody else--"

"And ultimately everything is left to the
Secretary, who arranges matters quite satisfactorily
without any assistance whatsoever!"

The two elderly gentlemen laughed happily
at their own spirited little dialogue, and
Mr. Welwyn rose to lay down his cup.  It was a
tactical blunder of capital magnitude.  Lady Adela,
left momentarily unguarded, immediately slipped
her moorings, rose to her feet, and sailed with
great stateliness in the direction of the fireplace.

"I am going to have a chat with your dear
mother," she observed graciously to Mrs. Welwyn
in passing.  "Dick dear, let me have your chair."

Dicky, feeling that it was not for him to
participate in a battle of giants, obeyed, and Lady
Adela sank down opposite Grandma Banks.
Simultaneously sounds of further disturbances
penetrated from the regions above, and a small
lump of plaster fell from the ceiling.  Grandma,
still intent upon a hearty and unwholesome
tea, made no acknowledgment of Lady Adela's
presence until Mrs. Welwyn effected an introduction.

"Mother," she explained, "this is Lady Adela,
Mr. Dick's mother."

Mrs. Banks nodded curtly.

"It is very kind of you, Mrs. Banks,"
intimated Lady Adela in the voice of one who
meditates producing soup-tickets later on, "to make
this special effort on our behalf.  I hope we are
not too much for you."

The relict of the departed Banks poured some
tea from her cup into her saucer, took a hearty
and sibilant sip, and replied:--

"Very few folks 'as ever bin too much for me.
I 'ear as 'ow you have come on business."

"We told her," Mrs. Welwyn explained to Lady
Adela, who was watching Grandma's performance
with the saucer with hypnotic fascination,
"that you and Mr. Mainwaring were coming
to-day to have a talk about Tilly and Mr. Dick.
That is what she meant by business, I expect."

But the explanation fell on inattentive ears.

Lady Adela's gaze had now risen from the saucer
to the ceiling, which was vibrating madly,
apparently under the repeated impact of one or more
heavy bodies.  The rest of the company had given
up all pretence at conversation some time ago.

It was Dicky who supplied a line of explanation.

"Mrs. Welwyn," he said gravely, "your paper-hangers
seem to be skylarking a little bit--what?"

"That's it," agreed Mrs. Welwyn, transparently
grateful.  "But what can one do?" she
continued, speaking with pathetic solicitude
in Lady Adela's direction.  "You know what
paperhangers are!"

"A playful race!  A playful race!" cooed
Mr. Welwyn helpfully.

There was another heavy bump overhead.
The prism-decked chandelier rattled, and the
ceiling shed another regretful flake.

"Sounds as if some one had tried to walk up
the wall and failed," observed Percy, with that
courageous facetiousness which comes proverbially
to Britons at moments of great peril.

"How exasperating it must be for you all,
Tilly," said Sylvia sympathetically.  "I wonder
you don't go and live somewhere else while it is
going on."

Tilly, whose powers of endurance were fast
coming to an end, made no reply.  Kindly
Mr. Mainwaring bridged the gulf of silence.

"It is extraordinary," he began chattily to the
company at large, "how completely one is at
the mercy of the British workman.  Once you
get him into your house he sticks.  I suppose the
title of arch-limpet must be awarded to the
plumber; but I should think the paperhanger--"

He was interrupted by the querulous but
arresting voice of Grandma Banks.

"What's that?" she enquired with ominous
distinctness, "about plumbers?"

"I was awarding the palm for general iniquity,
dear Mrs. Banks," explained Mr. Mainwaring
smilingly, "to the plumbing fraternity.  Plumbers--"

Mrs. Welwyn made a hasty movement, but it
was too late.  Grandma's bowed and shrivelled
form suddenly swelled and stiffened.

"Ho, was you?" she enquired with rising
indignation.  "Then let me tell you that my late
'usband, Mr. Josiah Banks, what was very 'ighly
respected in 'Itchin--"

Tilly dropped two teaspoons despairingly, and
there was another and more timely bump overhead.

"Percy dear," interposed Mrs. Welwyn hastily,
"don't you think you had better run up and
see what those wretches are doing?"

"Righto, Mother," said Percy, rising with
alacrity.

"My late 'usband--" resumed Mrs. Banks,
*crescendo*.

"It certainly is an extraordinary noise,"
remarked Mr. Welwyn loudly.  "They appear to
be on the staircase now."

"Sliding down the banisters, no doubt," said
Dicky.  "Playful little fellows!  Shall I come with
you, Percy?"

Percy Welwyn paused, a little embarrassed.

"Don't trouble," he said.  "You see--"

He paused again--fatally.

"My late 'usband," proclaimed Grandma
Banks on the top note of her register, "was a
plumber 'imself."

Next moment the double doors burst open,
and Mr. Mehta Ram, frantic with terror, hurled
himself into the room.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE REAL TILLY`:

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   CHAPTER XXII


.. class:: center medium

   THE REAL TILLY

.. vspace:: 2

Mr. Mehta Ram promptly fell at the feet of
Mr. Welwyn, and attempted, in true Old
Testament fashion, to embrace that embarrassed
scholar and gentleman by the knees.

"Keep him out!" he shrieked.  "Great snakes,
I implore you!  Lock the door!"

In the absence of the snakes this office was
performed by Percy and Dicky.  Directly
afterwards there was a rush of feet down the
staircase, and a fusilade of blows began to rain upon
the panels.

"Open the door!" commanded a voice, in a
frenzied Paisley accent.  "I'm wanting in!
Tae break his neck," it added in explanation.

Dicky and Percy promptly put their backs
against the door.  Mrs. Welwyn crossed hastily
to her husband's side.

"It's that Pumpherston," she announced in
a low voice.  "What are we to do?"

Mr. Welwyn addressed the suppliant at his feet.

"Come, Mr. Mehta Ram," he said, "don't
be frightened.  He can't get in.  What is the
trouble?"

Mr. Mehta Ram lifted his face from Mr. Welwyn's
boots and addressed the company at large.

"Mr. Welwyn, Mrs. Welwyn, and general
public," he began--the latter designation was
apparently intended for the Mainwaring family,
who, with the exception of Dicky, had ranged
themselves into a compact group on the further
side of the room--"I appeal to you as British
subject--as a member of that great Empire
upon which the sun never sits--"

"Sets, old comrade!" corrected Dicky from
the door.

"Shed your tears!" commanded Mr. Ram,
disregarding the interruption.  "Give us a look
in!  I am in jeopardy--in a damtight place!
My adversary knocks upon the door--the
avenging Pumpherston!  He arraigns me of petty
larceny.  He accuses me that I have confiscated
his table.  But I am innocent!  I make my
defence!  I throw myself--Ah-a-a-a-a-h!  Help!"

The other door--that leading into Mr. Welwyn's
bedroom, which itself communicated with
the landing outside--burst open, and a small,
red-whiskered, and intensely ferocious gentleman
bounded in.  It was the avenging Pumpherston.

Mr. Ram bolted across the room like an obese
rabbit, and took refuge behind the hostile but
protective form of Lady Adela.

The avenger paused, obviously nonplussed
by the size of the assembly.

"I beg your paurdon," he said awkwardly.
"I wis not aware--"

He turned, to find Percy and Dicky standing
beside him, one at each shoulder.

"We were half expecting you, Mr. Pumpherston,"
said Dicky, with a friendly smile.  "But
if you and this gentleman are playing
hide-and-seek, the den is upstairs."

"I beg your paurdon," repeated Mr. Pumpherston,
whose bellicosity was fast evaporating,
"but yon fat heathen has robbed me.  He has
lifted a piece of furniture--Heh!  Let me get
at him!"

With a convulsive bound he wrenched himself
free from his interlocutors and made a dash for
the door.  But he was too late.  Mr. Mehta
Ram, keeping under the lee of Lady Adela and
the furniture, had made use of the brief respite
afforded by the recital of his assailant's
grievances to effect an unostentatious departure, and
was now halfway up the staircase again.  The
baffled Pumpherston followed him with a
long-drawn howl.

"Come on, Percy!" said Dicky.

The pair raced out in pursuit, banging the
door behind them.  Presently from abovestairs
came the sound of renewed conflict; a few
dull thuds and muffled crashes; and then--silence.

----

Lady Adela rose to her feet in awful majesty,
and addressed the stunned and demoralised
remnants of the tea-party.

"Is this a private asylum," she enquired in
trumpet tones, "or is it not?"

Grandma Banks was the only member of her
audience who replied.

"My late 'usband," she whimpered--"my
late 'usband, Mr. Josiah Banks!  Greatly
respected in 'Itchin--greatly respec--"

Tears coursed slowly down her furrowed
cheeks.

In a moment Tilly was kneeling beside her,
with her arms round the frail old body,
whispering gently and caressingly into her ear.
There was a long silence, and Sylvia began to
pull on her gloves.

"I think we had better be going," said Lady
Adela.

"I suppose so," said Mrs. Welwyn helplessly.

But Lucius Welwyn made a last effort.  All
seemed lost, yet his inherent polish and *savoir
faire* rebelled against such an inglorious and
ignominious end as this.

"I must apologise most sincerely for this
*contretemps*, Lady Adela," he said with a ready
smile.  "Those fellows are two disciples of mine.
Law students--British Museum--and so on.
They come here periodically to receive
instruction from me in my library upstairs"--Lady
Adela looked up and regarded him steadily, but
he continued with perfect coolness--"but I
fear that on this occasion racial animosity has
proved stronger than academic unity of purpose.
You will understand, I am sure."

"Perfectly," replied Lady Adela.  "Come, Sylvia."

Sylvia was quite ready, but at this moment the
door flew open once more, and Dicky and Percy
reappeared, flushed, panting, but triumphant.

"It's all right, Mrs. Welwyn," announced
Dicky reassuringly.  "The brunette gentleman
has bolted himself into the bathroom, and we
have locked up the blonde in a broom-cupboard.
Hallo, Mum--going?"

"Yes.  Come, Sylvia."

"Certainly, Mother," said Sylvia.

Dicky's ear caught the danger-note in his
sister's voice.  He stood transfixed, with dismay
written across his frank but heated features.

"I say," he stammered.  "Mum--Sylvia--what
does all this mean?"

"Good-bye, Mrs. Welwyn," said Lady Adela
calmly.  "Thank you for--ah--entertaining
us.  I suppose one can get a cab here?"

She shook Mrs. Welwyn's nerveless hand and
turned to Mr. Mainwaring, who stood awkwardly
smoothing his hat.

"Are you ready, Abel?" she enquired.

Suddenly Tilly Welwyn rose from her knees
by her grandmother's side, and, to employ a
dramatic expression, took the centre of the stage.
She stood face to face with her departing guests,
her head thrown back and her hands clenched--a
very slim, very upright, very dignified little
figure.

"Sit down, please, everybody, if you will be
so kind," she said quietly.  "I shan't keep you
long."

Lady Adela, looking like a boa-constrictor
which has been challenged to mortal combat by
a small and inexperienced chicken, stood stockstill,
with her head oscillating from side to side
in a slightly uncertain fashion.  Then, recovering
herself, she fell back in good order upon her
supporters.

The Welwyns, closing loyally upon their small
champion, spoke in anxious undertones.

"Don't chuck up the sponge, Sis," whispered
Percy encouragingly.  "We'll pull you through."

"Don't lose your head, my child," counselled
her father.  "You may make things worse."

"Tilly, dearie, can you ever forgive me?" was
all Mrs. Welwyn said.  She forgot, in her selfless
grief for the destruction of her daughter's
castle-in-the-air, that she herself had predicted its fall.

Little 'Melia said nothing, but passionately
squeezed her sister's hand.

"You are all dears," said Tilly in a clear voice,
"and I love you for the way you have stood by
me to-day; but I want to speak to the others just
now."

She took a step forward towards the Mainwarings,
who were grouped beside the tea-table.
But before she could speak, Dicky, who had been
hovering silently on the outer wing of his own
party, crossed the floor and joined her.

"I'll come and stand over here, Tilly," he said,
"if you don't mind.  There's a nasty draught in
that corner."

Tilly smiled faintly.

"I would rather you did n't," she said, with
the suspicion of a tremor in her voice.  "Please
go over there."

Dicky responded by standing-at-ease, military
fashion.

"Carry on," he said briefly.

"Please, Dicky!" urged Tilly, "It only makes
it harder for me."

Dicky glanced at her white face, and retired
one pace backward.

"That is my limit," he said.

Meanwhile Lady Adela had come to the
conclusion that all this was very emotional and
undignified.

"Miss Welwyn," she enquired, "what does this mean?"

"I will tell you," said Tilly.  "But first of all
I must say one thing.  I did not try to trap your
son, as you seem to think.  We fell--we came to
care for one another quite naturally.  I made no
attempt to catch him.  I knew nothing whatever
about him.  It--it just happened."  She turned
wistfully to Dicky.  "Did n't it?" she asked.

Dicky nodded his head gravely.

"It just happened," he said.

"And since we cared for one another--or
thought we did"--continued Tilly with a little
choke, "it never came into my head that
anything else could matter.  But last Saturday, when
I went to stay at your house, and saw your grand
ways and your grand servants, and all the
commotion you made about Members of Parliament,
and county families, and all that--well, I began
to see rocks ahead.  I felt common.  My courage
began to fail.  I began to be afraid that you would
not take kindly to the Family--"

"It was n't you that was afraid, dearie," said a
respectful voice behind her.  "It was the Family."

"I saw, too, Lady Adela," continued Tilly,
"that *you* were against me--dead against me--and
that as soon as you got hold of a
decent-excuse I should be bundled out of your son's life,
like--like an entanglement.  That put my back
up.  I had meant to be perfectly straight and
unpretentious with you, but when I saw what
you were after, I determined to fight.  So I have
deceived you."

"We all have," murmured a loyal chorus.

"You have been *done*!" proclaimed Tilly
defiantly.  She was fast losing control of herself.
She felt dimly that she was behaving in an
hysterical and theatrical manner; but when one's world
is tumbling about one's ears, one may be excused
for stating the truth rather more explicitly than
is usual.  "Yes--*done*!" she repeated.  "I will
tell you just exactly who we are and what we are.
Father is a gentleman, right enough"--her
voice rang out proudly--"as well-born a gentleman
as any of the land; but he has followed no
regular profession for twenty years, and he lives
on Mother.  Mother keeps lodgings.  This house
is a lodging-house, and those two men you saw
were lodgers.  Percy works in a wholesale haberdasher's
in Holborn.  I do a little dress-designing.
'Melia helps Mother with the lodgers.  So you see
you have been imposed on: we work for a
living!  But you must n't blame the Family for what
has happened.  It was my idea from start to
finish: the Family only backed me up.  And they did
back me up!  No girl ever had such a splendid
father or mother, or brother or sister."  Tilly
stepped back into the heart of her bodyguard,
feeling for friendly hands.  "I 'm proud of them,"
she cried passionately, "proud to belong to them!
I'm proud that my name is Tilly Welwyn, and
I never wish to change it for any other.  We
Welwyns may be nobodies but we stick together.
There!  You may go now."

The drawing-room door creaked and opened,
but no one noticed.

"I have told you everything, I think," said
Tilly, more calmly.  "I know now that I should
have told you in any case.  That's all....  No,
it's not."

She swung round towards the doorway, and
pointed to the grotesque figure of that earnest
student of the drama, Samuel Stillbottle, who
was myopically deciphering a small but tattered
document, all but concealed in the palm of his
hand.

"We're paupers!" she cried.  "We're in debt!
We're broke!  There's a distraint on the
furniture; and that creature"--Mr. Stillbottle,
hazily conscious that a cue was coming, furtively
thrust his manuscript into his waistcoat
pocket--"that creature is a broker's man!  Oh, Mother,
Mother, Mother!"

In an instant Martha Welwyn's arms closed
round her daughter.

"There, there!" she crooned.  "My lamb, my
pretty, my precious, my dearie--don't you cry!"

There was a deathlike stillness, broken only by
Tilly's sobs.  The Mainwarings stood like statues.
Mr. Welwyn sat on the sofa, his head bowed
between his hands.  Grandma Banks slumbered
peacefully.  The bewildered but conscientious
Stillbottle seized his opportunity, and cleared his
throat.

"The shover, sir," he announced huskily, "is
below, a-waitin' for--"

Next moment a hand like a vice closed upon
the herald's collar, and Dicky Mainwaring's voice
remarked concisely into his ear:--

"Go to the devil."

Mr. Stillbottle, utterly dazed, raised his head
and surveyed the company.  Then he smiled
apologetically.

"Wrong entrance," he observed.  "My error!
*Exit hastily!*"

He turned, and shuffled out.





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.. _`THE REAL MR. WELWYN`:

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   CHAPTER XXIII


.. class:: center medium

   THE REAL MR. WELWYN

.. vspace:: 2

..

   |   "*There is an evenin' paper--*"

quavered Mr. Stillbottle blithely, with his feet
upon the kitchen hob,--

   |     --"*which is published in the mornin'!*
   |   *Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, little Star!*"
   |

He unfolded the early edition of the organ in
question and devoted himself to a laboured
perusal of the list of probable starters for the
Lincolnshire Handicap, now looming in the immediate
future; for he was anxious to ascertain whether
his premonitions as to the identity of the winner
coincided with those of the prophet retained by
the management.  Apparently they did; for
presently the paper was laid aside with a contented
sigh, and the student of form resumed the hoary
lay which anxiety connected with the investment
of his newly acquired capital had caused him
momentarily to abandon.

   |         "*Twinkle, Star!*
   |         *Tiddley Wink!*
   |   *Twinkle on till you dunno where you are!*
   |     *Oh, we 'll make things warm for 'Arcourt,*
   |     If 'e ever comes down our court!*
   |   *Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, little St--*"
   |

Conscious of a draught upon the back of his
neck, the vocalist turned uneasily in the
direction of the door.  It had opened some six inches,
revealing to view a pair of cherubic heads, set
one above the other.  Each head was furnished
with a pair of quite circular blue eyes, which
surveyed Mr. Stillbottle, with unwinking and
unnerving ecstasy.

"The Funny Man!" proclaimed The Cure joyously.

"Yesh," agreed The Caution.  "Lesh box him."

The pair entered the room hand in hand, and
advanced grimly to the attack.

Mr. Stillbottle hastily removed his feet from
the hob.

"You two," he announced, "can get on out
of this.  I ain't never done you no 'arm, 'ave I?"
he added appealingly; "so why---"

At this point The Caution dealt him a playful
but disabling blow in the waistcoat.  The Cure,
with a shriek of rapture, seized Mr. Stillbottle's
frayed coat by the tails and whirled its owner
round three times upon his axis.

"Now catch me!" she shrieked.

"If I *do*--" gasped Mr. Stillbottle, clutching
dizzily at the mantelpiece.  Further words failed
him, and entrenching himself behind a table, he
waited like a hunted animal for the further
assaults of his enemies.

He was not kept long in suspense.  Having
armed themselves with the fire-irons, the two
affectionate but boisterous infants were upon the
point of inaugurating a game of what they called
"beat-the-carpet"--it is hardly necessary to
specify the rôle assigned to Mr. Stillbottle--when
the door opened, revealing the welcome
figure of Dicky Mainwaring.

Straightway weapons were thrown down, and
the newcomer found himself the centre of a cloud
of embraces.  Dicky was a prime favourite with
children and dogs--no bad test of character,
either.

Presently, having shaken himself free from
the unmaidenly caresses of the youngest Miss
Welwyn, Dicky became aware of the pathetic
presence of Mr. Stillbottle.

"Good-morning, Mr. Russell," he said.  "You
are just the man I want to see."

"You can see me as often and as long as you
like, sir," replied the afflicted Russell fervently,
"if only you'll put those two imps on the other
side of that door."

"Certainly," said Dicky.  "Now you two, skedaddle!"

To the amazement and admiration of their
late victim the two freebooters departed
immediately, merely pausing to receive a valedictory
salute from their evictor.  Dicky closed the door
upon them, and motioning the broker's man to
a chair, enquired:--

"Where is everybody this morning, Mr. Russell?"

"My name, in mufti, to my friends," replied
the grateful Russell, "is Stillbottle.  But you was
asking about 'everybody.'  Meanin' the Barcelona
Troupe of Performing Nuts?"

Dicky nodded.

"Upstairs, most of 'em," said Stillbottle.
"All but your little bit.  She 'as gone out."

Dicky looked up sharply.

"For long?" he asked.

"I could n't say," replied the broker's man.
"Perce has gone to the City.  Mother and the
little 'un are a-makin' of the beds.  The Principal
Filbert is still between the sheets.  I'm the
only member of the cast visible at present.  But
as you say it's me you came to see, perhaps you'll
kindly state your business."

Dicky did so.

A quarter of an hour later he ascended to the
drawing-room, restored to its usual aspect of
dingy propriety after yesterday's junketings.  He
noticed that his carnations had disappeared.

Mr. Welwyn was just entering from his
bedroom.  At the sight of Dicky he started, but
recovering himself with his usual readiness, shook
hands.

"Good-morning, Mr. Mainwaring," he said.
"Be seated."

Dicky complied.  "You seem surprised to see
me, sir," he said.

"Frankly," replied Mr. Welwyn, "I am.  After
our treatment of you yesterday I hardly expected
you to return.  I can only extenuate our performance
by assuring you that what looked like a carefully
graduated series of insults was nothing more
than the logical, if unforeseen, development of
a somewhat childish attempt upon our part to
delude your family into the impression that our
circumstances were not so straitened as, in point
of fact, they are.  We meant well, but--"

Mr. Welwyn concluded this explanation with
a rather helpless gesture.  It was an awkward
and difficult moment.  With all his faults he was
a man of feeling, with a gentleman's inherent
distaste for anything savouring of sharp
practice; and he knew that the boy before him felt
the situation as acutely as himself.  There are
few sadder sights than that of an old man eating
humble pie to a young man.

But Dicky, The Freak, was equal to the occasion.
He answered gravely:--

"The point of view which I prefer to take,
Mr. Welwyn, is this--that you were all trying
to do a good turn to Tilly."

"Thank you, Dick," said Mr. Welwyn simply.
"Still, there was a second reason which I thought
might perhaps keep you away."

"What was that?"

"Well--the presence in one's abode of a
sheriff's officer is apt to exercise a dispersive
influence upon one's calling acquaintance."

"On this occasion, however," replied Dicky
serenely, "you will find that a calling acquaintance
has dispersed the sheriff's officer."

Mr. Welwyn, who had been perambulating
the room, stopped dead.

"You don't mean to tell me," he exclaimed,
"that the fellow is gone?"

Dicky nodded.  "Five minutes ago," he said.

"But--I don't understand," muttered the
elder man.  "Did you *kick* him out?  If so, the fat
is in the fire with a--"

"He left this behind him," interposed Dicky
awkwardly.  "Under the circumstances--I took
the liberty."

Mr. Welwyn gazed long and silently at the
stamped document which lay beneath his eyes.
Then he looked up at Dicky and made a movement
as if to shake hands; then drew back and
bowed, not without dignity.

"Mr. Mainwaring," he said, "I thank you.  I
will leave it at that.  If I possessed a less intimate
knowledge of my own character, I should hasten
to give utterance to the sentiment which at this
moment dominates my mind--namely, a sincere
determination never to rest until I have
repaid you this sum.  But I have not arrived at
my present estate without learning that any such
impulse on my part would be entirely transitory.
From the age of five I can never recollect
having formed a single resolution that I was able
to keep.  I therefore accept your very generous
aid without protest or false pride.  My wife, of
course, would not approve.  She comes of a class
whose sole criterion of respectability is a
laborious solvency during life and an expensive funeral
after death.  Do not imagine that I am belittling
her.  She is the one sound investment I ever made.
I need not trouble you with the facts of our
courtship and marriage; but I will tell you this, my
boy, that if a man had real cause to be grateful
for and proud of his wife, that man is Lucius
Welwyn.  And the extraordinary part of it all is
that she is proud of me--*me*!  Instead of acting
like a sensible woman and deploring me as a
commercial and domestic liability, she persists in
exalting me into a social asset of the first water.
I do not attempt to dispel these illusions of hers.
In a woman's hands an illusion, after she has
fashioned it to the shape that pleases her,
hardens into a solid, enduring, and comforting fact.
Perhaps, then, things are best as they are.  But
I cherish no illusions about myself.  I know my
limits.  I am a considerate husband and an
affectionate father.  My temper, except at times of
the severest domestic stringency, is irreproachable;
and I find myself generally regarded as
good company by my friends.  But I am not a
worldly success.  I take life too easily, perhaps.
I allow others to step over my head.  I am too
ready to stand by and watch the passing show,
rather than plunge in and take my part."

The speaker paused, and for a moment his
glance rested upon the honest, rather puzzled,
but deeply interested eyes of the young man upon
the sofa.  Suddenly an exposition of candour
came upon Mr. Welwyn.

"There was a time," he said in a less buoyant
tone, "when these propensities of mine used to
distress me.  The day I was deprived of my
Fellowship, for instance--"

His voice shook suddenly.

"Don't tell me about it, sir, if you would
rather not," said Dicky quietly.

"For drunkenness, Mr. Mainwaring--for
drunkenness!" burst out Mr. Welwyn.  "Not for
chronic, sordid soaking--that has never been
a foible of mine--but for characteristic inability
to do things in their right order.  Take warning
by me, Dick, and never put the cart before the
horse.  I had been invited to lecture to a very
learned body upon a very special occasion.  A
successful appearance would have gained me my
F.R.S.  The natural and proper course for me to pursue
was to deliver the lecture first and treat myself
to a magnum of champagne afterwards.  What I
actually did was to treat myself to the magnum
of champagne and then deliver the lecture.  I
may say with all modesty that that lecture caused
a profound sensation.  It is still quoted--but not
in textbooks; and it ended my University career.
My life since has been a series of similar
incidents--disaster arising from my inherent inability
to distinguish between the time to be merry and
the time to sing psalms.  Still, I keep on smiling.
Fortune has not touched me for many years now.
Fortune likes fresh blood: once you get used to
her she leaves you alone.  You see the manner of
man I now am--a seasoned philosopher--a
man who takes life as it comes--a man who
never meets trouble halfway--a man
unburdened by the sentimental craving, so prevalent
in this hysterical age, to confer unsolicited
benefits upon his fellows--a man unhampered at the
same time by narrow scruples about accepting,
in the spirit in which it is offered, the occasional
assistance of his friends.  In short, a sane,
dispassionate, evenly balanced man of the world,
insured against sudden upheaval by a sense of
proportion, and against depression of spirits by a
sense of humour."

Mr. Welwyn paused again, and there was
another silence, punctuated by the rattle of traffic
outside.  Presently he continued, in yet
another mood:--

"Sometimes my point of view changes.  I look
at myself, and what do I see?  An elderly,
shabby-genteel inhabitant of Bloomsbury, with
not a single memory of the past to fall back on,
save that of a youth utterly wasted--a youth
hung about with golden opportunities, each
and all successively disregarded from a fatuous,
childish belief that the supply was inexhaustible--and
with nothing to look forward to but a
further period of dependence upon a wife who
is as much my moral superior as she is my social
inferior.  An earner of casual guineas--a
picker-up of stray newspapers--the recipient of
refreshment respectfully proffered by unintellectual
but infinitely more worthy associates in
bar parlours.  A loafer--a waster--a *failure*!
That, Mr. Mainwaring, is the father of the girl
whom you desire to marry....  I am not what
you would call religious, but sometimes the
impulse comes upon me--and I obey it forthwith--to
go down upon my knees and thank God from
the bottom of my heart that my children take
after their mother."

The broken scholar dropped wearily into his
chair.

"Youth!  Youth!  Youth!  Youth!" he murmured.
"Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth!"

His head slipped down between his hands.

Dicky, curiously stirred, attempted to say
some word, but nothing came.

Suddenly Mr. Welwyn sprang to his feet.  The
cloud had lifted, or else pride had come to the
rescue.  It is often difficult to tell which.

"Dick," he said, "I perceive from your attitude
that you are about to be sympathetic.  Don't!
Sympathy is wasted on me.  In five minutes from
now this mood will have passed.  In half an hour
I shall be as happy as an ostrich with its head in
the sand.  That has been my lifelong posture, and
a very comfortable posture, too, once you get
used to it!  It is only when one comes up to
breathe that things hurt a bit.  Now, if you will
excuse me, I must go out.  I have had a letter this
morning offering me some exceedingly welcome
and possibly permanent work.  I do not know
where Tilly is, but she should be in presently.  I
do not ask what your business with her may be.
I have no right--and no need."

The two men shook hands.

"Good-bye, dear Dick," said Mr. Welwyn,
"and thank you for the very unobtrusive manner
in which you have helped a lame dog over a stile."

Next moment the door closed, and he was gone.

"We are queer mixtures," mused philosophic
Dicky....  "I wonder where Tilly is!"

----

Five minutes later the drawing-room door
opened again, this time to admit little 'Melia.
She paused and drew back, at the spectacle of her
late ally sprawling at ease before the scanty fire.

"Hallo, 'Melia!" said Dicky cheerfully.

"Hallo!" replied Amelia cautiously.  "Have
you come to--see mother?"

"Not to-day, thank you," said Dicky.  He regarded
the little girl curiously.  "I say, 'Melia,
have I offended you in any way?"

"You?  Me?  No!" replied Amelia, in
wide-eyed surprise.  "Why?"

Dicky smiled coyly.

"There used to be a pleasant little form of
greeting," he intimated.

"You still want to?" cried 'Melia in a flutter.

"Please."

Next moment Miss Amelia Welwyn, feeling
that the bottom had not dropped out of the
universe after all, was giving Mr. Richard
Mainwaring a kiss.

"Where is Tilly this morning?" asked Dicky
carelessly.

"Gone out," said Amelia--"to look for a job.
She gave up the other one when she got--engaged."

"I see," said Dicky, nodding his head.

"I suppose you have come to break it off,"
continued the experienced Amelia.  "They all
said last night you were bound to do it, after
what had happened."

"That sort of thing," explained Dicky, "is
done for one by one's parents, I believe.  I am
rather young, you see," he added apologetically.

He rose, gently displacing his small admirer
from his knee.

"Now I must be off," he said.  "Give this to
Tilly for me, will you?"

Amelia was still twisting and turning the letter
in her hands when the bang of the front door
signalled Dicky's departure.

"If his parents are going to break it off for
him," said Amelia to herself in a puzzled whisper,
"what does he want to go writing to her for?"





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.. _`A GARDEN PLOT IN RUSSELL SQUARE`:

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   CHAPTER XXIV


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   A GARDEN PLOT IN RUSSELL SQUARE

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Outside, leaning contentedly against the
railings of the garden opposite to the Maison
Welwyn, and enjoying the spring sunshine, Dicky
encountered the Carmyles.

"Hallo, you two!" he said.  "What are you
doing here?  Liable to get run in for loitering,
hanging about like this."

"We have followed you, Dicky," began Connie
rapidly, "to tell you that your mother is coming
up to town, and--"

"Mother--already?"

Connie nodded.

"Fourth speed in," confirmed Mr. Carmyle.
"Live axle--direct drive--open exhaust."

"Trailing your father behind her," added
Connie.  "I understand you had an interview with
them this morning."

The Freak gave a wry smile.

"I did," he said.  "It was rather a heated
interview, I'm afraid.  Words passed.  But we can't
stand here dodging taxis.  Come into the garden,
Maud!"

"Don't we require a key?" enquired the
re-christened Connie, surveying the iron railings
which enclosed the Bloomsbury Eden.

"I have one," said Dicky.  "It belongs to the
Welwyns.  Tilly and I used to use it a good deal,"
he explained, in a subdued voice.

He led the way into the dingy but romantic
pleasance which had sheltered himself and his
beloved, and the trio sat down upon a damp seat.
Mrs. Carmyle, looking rather like one of the
sparrows which hopped inquisitively about her
daintily shod feet, established herself between
her two large companions.  Her husband, who
was a creature of homely instincts, hung his silk
hat upon an adjacent bough with a sigh of content,
and began to fill a large briar pipe.  Dicky,
a prey to melancholy, kicked the grass with his
heels.

"Where is Tilly this morning?" asked Connie.

"Gone out--to look for a job!" replied Dicky
through his clenched teeth.  "Just as if a snug
home and the life of a lady were things she had
never dreamed of!"  His eyes blazed.  "Great
Heavens, Connie--the pluck of the child!  What
a brute it makes me feel!"

Connie patted his hand maternally, but said
nothing.  There was nothing to say.  Presently
Dicky continued, in a more even voice:--

"So my mother is coming up this morning--to
strike while the iron is hot--eh?"

"'To make a direct appeal to Miss Welwyn's
better nature,' was what she *said*," replied
Mrs. Carmyle cautiously.

"I am afraid there will be a bit of a scrap,"
said Dicky thoughtfully.  "My dear mother's
normal attitude towards her fellow-creatures is
that of a righteous person compelled to travel
third-class with a first-class ticket; but when she
goes on the warpath into the bargain--well,
that is where I take cover."

"She'll roll the Welwyns out flat," observed
Mr. Carmyle, with that conviction which only
painful experience can instill.

"She won't roll Tilly out flat," said Dicky.

"Nor Mrs. Welwyn either," added Connie;
"so kindly refrain from putting in your oar, Bill!
We are n't all terrified of Lady Adela.  *Cowardy,
cowardy, cus--*"

Mr. Carmyle, flushing with shame, abruptly
invited his small oppressor to switch off; and
Dicky proceeded to review the situation.

"I don't think my dear parent will get much
change out of any of the Welwyns," he said.
"They are a fairly competent lot.  Moreover,
they have burned their boats and have nothing
to lose; so I expect there will be some very pretty
work.  My lady mother is an undoubted champion
in her class, I admit, but she has got a bit out of
condition lately.  Managing Dad and harrying
the County are n't really sufficient to keep a
woman of her fighting-weight up to the mark.
Still, I don't particularly want her big guns let
loose on Tilly."

"Tilly has gone out for the day, I suppose?"
said Connie.

"So I was told.  But how did you guess?"

Connie Carmyle flapped her small hands despairingly.

"Oh, what creatures!" she cried, apparently
apostrophising the male sex in general.  "Can't
you understand anything or anybody--not
even the girl you love?  Of course, she is out for
the day; and if you go there to-morrow she will
be out for the day, too!"

"Why?" asked Dicky blankly.

"Yes--why?" echoed that sympathetic but
obtuse Philistine, Bill Carmyle.

His wife turned upon him like lightning.

"Bill," she said, "keep perfectly quiet, or I
shall send you off to meet Lady Adela's train at
Waterloo!  I want to talk to Dicky.  Now, Dicky,
listen to me.  That little girl"--Connie's eyes
grew suddenly tender, for she loved her sex--"cares
for you, old man--quite a lot.  Quite
enough, in fact, to draw back if she thinks she is
going to stand in your way during life.  That
pathetic little fraud of a tea-party yesterday has
set her thinking.  She has suddenly realised that
although she might *get* you by false pretences, she
could not *keep* you by false pretences--nor want
to.  She has also realised that her Family are
impossible.  That means that she will have to give
up either you or the Family.  And you are the
one she will give up, Dicky.  She loves you too
much to pull you down to their level.  She won't
give that as her reason--women are built like
that--but she will give you up, all the same."

The usually placid Dicky had grown excessively
agitated during this homily.

"Connie," he burst out, "for goodness' sake
don't try to frighten me like that!  Tilly's Family
are not impossible.  They 're only a bit improbable.
And besides, talking of impossible families,
look at mine!  Do you know who my grandfather
was?  He was a Lancashire cotton operative--a
hand in a mill.  He invented something--a
shuttle, or a bobbin, or something of that kind--and
made a fortune out of it.  He ultimately died
worth a hundred thousand pounds; but to the
end of his days he dined without his coat, and, if
he could possibly escape detection, without his
collar either.  I never saw him, but my Dad says
he was a dear old chap, and I can quite believe it.
As a father-in-law he was a sore trial to my poor
mother, whose ancestors had worn their collars
at meals for quite a considerable period; but the
hundred thousand overcame her susceptibilities
in the end, and she and Dad have lived happily
ever since."

Dicky rose restlessly to his feet, and continued
his address standing.

"Now I think," he said, "that we can set my
grandfather, cotton operative, against the late
lamented Banks, plumber and gas-fitter.  Banks,
of course, was the bigger man socially--you
know how plumbers get asked simply *everywhere*--but
Mainwaring's son married the daughter of
an Earl; so we will call them quits.  Anyway,
Tilly is quite as good as I am--miles better, in
fact."

"Dear Dicky!" murmured Connie approvingly.
Here was a lover of the right metal.

"What about friend Perce?" enquired a gruff voice.

It was a telling question.  If Dicky could clothe
such an uncompromising fact as Percy Welwyn
in a garment of romance, he was capable of
making a success of any marriage.  Mr. Carmyle
waited grimly for his answer.

"Ah--Percy!" replied Dicky thoughtfully.
"Yes, Tiny, old soul, that's a sound question.
Well, Percy is n't exactly polished--in fact, one
might almost be forgiven for describing him as a
holy terror--"

"He wants losing," said Carmyle with conviction.

"But listen," pursued Dicky.  "Percy may be
all we say, but he cheerfully hands over half his
weekly screw, which is n't a fabulous one, to the
common fund of the Family.  It is not every
young man who would do that, especially such a
social success as Percy.  Oh, yes, Connie, he is a
social success; so don't look incredulous.  I tell
you he is a regular Apollo at shilling hops.  He
took me to one a few weeks ago."

"Where?" asked Connie.

"Somewhere near Kennington Oval.  The girls
simply swarmed over him.  But he is not in the
least stuck up about it; and--well, he is kind to
Tilly.  I am, therefore," concluded Dicky stoutly,
"an upholder of Percy."

Mr. Carmyle, encouraged by the silence of his
wife, felt emboldened to continue his cross-examination.

"What about mother-in-law?" he queried.

It was a foolish question.

"She is a woman in a thousand," said Dicky
promptly, and Mrs. Carmyle, with a withering
side-glance at her unfortunate lord, nodded her
head vigorously in affirmation.

"Mrs. Welwyn is not what we call a lady,"
proceeded Dicky, "but she is the right stuff all
through.  I admit that she has not been quite
successful in her efforts to polish Percy, but look
at the others!  The little sister, 'Melia, is a dear.
The twins are rippers.  Old Welwyn--well, he's
a rotter, but he's a gentlemanly rotter; which
pretty well describes the majority of my friends,
now I come to think of it.  And he is no
hypocrite: he is quite frank about his weaknesses.
Now, to sum up.  On her father's side Tilly is a
lady; on her mother's side she is a brick.  That's
a pretty good combination.  Anyhow, it's good
enough for me; and if she'll have me I'm going
to marry her."

Dicky concluded the unburdening of his soul
with a shout and a wave of his hat, and all the
sparrows flew away.

"Now," said Connie, patting the seat in a
soothing fashion, "sit down and tell me how you
are going to do it."

Dicky resumed his place beside her and said
meekly:--

"I'm looking to you to tell me that, Connie."

Apparently he had made the remark that was
expected of him, for Connie immediately assumed
a little air of profound wisdom, and her
unregenerate husband emitted an unseemly gurgle.

"Your first difficulty, of course," she said to
Dicky, ignoring her wretched and ill-controlled
spouse, "will be to see Tilly.  After the humiliation
of yesterday her only instinct will be to hide
herself.  She will be not-at-home to you every time
you call; and of course, it is n't fair that you
should hang about in the hopes of catching her
outside."

"No," agreed Dicky.  "Not the game."

"You have written to her, I suppose?" said
Connie.

"Yes.  Left a note this morning," replied
Dicky, brightening up.

"Well, of course, that is no use.  It will make
her happier, poor little soul, but it won't change
her decision.  Letters never do.  You've simply
got to see her, Dicky!  Bill, run away for a minute,
there's a dear.  Go and think about a cantilever,
or something, over there."

Mr. Carmyle, puffing smoke, obediently
withdrew to the other side of a clump of sooty
rhododendrons.  Connie turned eagerly to Dicky.  Her
face was flushed and eager, like a child's.

"Dicky," she whispered earnestly, "*see* her!
*See* her!  See her alone!  Take her in your arms
and tell her that you will never, never, never let
her go!  She will struggle and try to break away;
but hold on.  Hold on tight!  Go on telling her
that you love her and will never leave her.  When
she sees that you mean it, she will give in.  I
know.  I'm a woman, and I know!"  Connie
squeezed Dicky's arm violently.  "I *know*!" she
repeated....  "You can come back now, Bill dear."

"Nice goings-on, I don't think," observed
Mr. Carmyle severely, reappearing round the
rhododendron.  "Shouting all over the garden--what?"

But the two conspirators, still in the clouds
together, took no notice of him.  Instead, Connie
rose to her feet and began to walk towards the
nearest gate.  The two men followed.

"Connie, how am I going to do it?" asked
Dicky deferentially.

"I have a plan," replied Connie, with portentous
solemnity.  She was launched on an enterprise
after her own heart.  "Listen!  Have you a
portmanteau?"

"Yes, at my rooms."

"Well, go there and pack it."

"Why?" asked Dicky in a dazed voice.

Mrs. Carmyle replied by quoting a famous and
oracular phrase which had lately fallen from the
lips of a prominent statesman, and the party
reached the railings.

"Hallo, there's a taxi at the Welwyns' door,"
said Carmyle.  "I wonder--oh, Lord!"

He fell hastily to the rear, his knees knocking
together.  Two figures were ascending the steps
of the house.  One was majestic and purposeful;
the other small and reluctant.  The front door
opened and closed upon them.

"My mother--already!" exclaimed Dicky in dismay.

That burned child, William Carmyle, broke
into a gentle perspiration.

"Never mind," said Connie reassuringly.  "She
was bound to come.  She can't do any harm."

"Supposing she gets Tilly to agree never to
see me again?" said Dicky feverishly.  "Supposing
she insults her with money?"  He ground
his teeth, and Carmyle groaned sympathetically.

Connie patted his arm soothingly.

"The last word is the only thing that matters
in this case," she said with great confidence;
"and you are going to have that, Dicky, my
friend.  Now, run away and pack your portmanteau.
Then come and lunch with us at Prince's.
I must fly.  I have an appointment with a gentleman
at Russell Square Tube Station at twelve-thirty.
It is after that now."

Dicky glanced at Bill Carmyle for an
explanation of this mysterious assignation, but that
gentleman merely shook his head in a bewildered
fashion.

"Don't ask me, old man," he said.

"Who is the gentleman, Connie?" Dicky enquired.

"An admirer of mine," replied Mrs. Carmyle,
with a gratified smile.  "I met him in the train
this morning."

"For the first time?"

"No--second.  When I saw him I had an idea,
so we arranged to meet again at twelve-thirty.
He has another engagement, but he said it did n't
matter when I asked him.  After he has done
what I want, he is coming to lunch, too.  Now
run and pack.  Au revoir!"

Revelling in every turn of the highly
complicated plot which she was weaving, little
Mrs. Carmyle, followed by her inarticulate but inflated
husband, pattered swiftly away round the
corner--and incidentally out of this narrative--turning
to wave a reassuring hand to her client
before disappearing.

The Freak, puzzled but confident, went home
to pack his portmanteau.





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.. _`PURELY COMMERCIAL`:

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   CHAPTER XXV


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   PURELY COMMERCIAL

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   I

.. vspace:: 2

"Well," said Mrs. Welwyn, taking off her
apron, "the beds are done, anyway.  One less to
make," she added philosophically, "now that
Pumpherston has hopped it.  That's something."

"We could do with the rent of his room for all
that, Mother," commented practical Amelia.

"That's true, dearie," sighed Mrs. Welwyn.
"Well, perhaps we shall get another lodger.
Where's your father, by the way?"

"He went out half an hour ago.  I expect he's
at the Museum."

"Did Mr. Dick see him?"

"I don't know."

"And Mr. Dick said he did n't want to see
me?" Mrs. Welwyn spoke rather wistfully.

"That was what he said," admitted 'Melia in a
respectful tone.

"I don't suppose he's very anxious to see any
of us much," said Mrs. Welwyn candidly.  "We
must just get the idea out of our heads, that's
all.  Forget it!  Then, there's that broker's
insect.  We are going to get *him* paid off
double-quick, or I 'm a Dutchman.  I don't know how
it's going to be done.  Still, we have got round
worse corners than this, have n't we, duckie?"

"Yes, Mother," said Amelia bravely.

Martha Welwyn suddenly flung her arms round
her little daughter.

"My precious," she whispered impulsively, "I
would n't mind if it was n't for you
children."  Her voice broke.  "God pity women!"

"Mother, Mother!" cried little 'Melia reprovingly.
"That's not like you!"  And she hugged
her tearful but contrite parent back to
cheerfulness again.

A door banged downstairs, and the two fell
apart guiltily.

"That's Tilly," said Mrs. Welwyn.  "We
must n't be downhearted, or she'll scold us.
Bustle about!"

With great vigour and presence of mind this
excellent woman snatched the cloth off the table
and shook it severely.  Amelia, having hastily
removed a tear from her mother's cheek with a
duster, opened the piano and began to wipe down
the keys, to the accompaniment of an
inharmonious chromatic scale.

The door flew open and Tilly marched in,
humming a cheerful air.

"Such luck, Mother!" she cried.

For a moment Martha Welwyn was deceived.
She whirled round excitedly.

"What do you mean, dearie?" she exclaimed.

"I've got a berth--with Madame Amelie--old
Mrs. Crump, you know--in Earl's Court
Road.  One of her girls is leaving--"

"Got the sack?" enquired Mrs. Welwyn,
rearranging the tablecloth.

"No.  She's only"--Tilly's voice quavered
ever so slightly--"going to be married.  I've
got her place, and I 'm once more an independent
lady."

"That's capital news, Tilly," said Mrs. Welwyn
heartily.  At any rate, her daughter would
have something to occupy her mind.

"Now the next thing to do," proceeded Tilly
with great animation, "is to get rid of the
broker's man.  We ought to be able to raise the
money all right.  I'm at work again.  Dad has
had an offer of newspaper articles; and if only we
can get Mr. Pumpherston's room let--"

"The broker's man has gone, Sis," said Amelia.

"Gone?" cried Tilly and Mrs. Welwyn in a breath.

"Well, gone out, anyhow.  I saw him shuffling
across the Square half an hour ago."

"My lord will find the chain up when he comes
back," said Mrs. Welwyn grimly.

"Still, we must find the money," persisted
Tilly.  "We have never been in debt yet, and we
are never going to be."  Her slight figure stiffened
proudly.  "Independence!  That's the only thing
worth having in this world.  Be independent!
Owe nothing to nobody!"

Certainly, whether she derived it from her
father's ancestry or her mother's solid worth,
Tilly Welwyn was composed of good fibre.  With
flushed cheeks and unnaturally bright eyes she
turned to the mirror over the drawing-room
mantelpiece and began to take off her hat.

"It's a mystery to me," ruminated the puzzled
Mrs. Welwyn, "why that creature went out.
He must have known we would n't let him in
again."

"Perhaps Dicky kicked him out," suggested
that small hero-worshipper, Amelia, with relish.

Tilly turned sharply.

"Who?" she asked.  A hatpin tinkled into the fender.

Little 'Melia bit her lip, and turned scarlet.

"Mr. Dick, dearie," said Mrs. Welwyn,
coming to the rescue.  "He looked in this morning."

"What for?" asked Tilly, groping for the hatpin.

"I don't know.  I did n't see him," admitted
her mother reluctantly.

"I do," said 'Melia, having decided to get things
over at once.  "He left a letter for you, Sis."

Tilly rose to her feet again, keeping her back
to her audience.

"Where is it?" she enquired unsteadily.

"Here," said Amelia, with a hand in the pocket
of her pinafore.

"Put it on the table," said Tilly, standing on
tiptoe while she patted her brown hair into
position before the glass.  "I'll read it presently."

"There's the front-door bell!" said Mrs. Welwyn
nervously.  "What are we to do if it's Russell again?"

"Lock the door," said Amelia promptly.

"I don't know, I'm sure," said Mrs. Welwyn
doubtfully.  "I wonder what the law is.  I wish
Daddy was in."  She considered, perplexed.
"Anyhow, I'll go down and see.  Come with
me, 'Melia," she added tactfully.

The pair slipped out of the room and went
downstairs, leaving Tilly alone with her letter.

"Supposing he rushes in the moment we open
the door?" whispered Amelia, as they consulted
on the mat.  "What then?"

"We'll put the chain up first, and then open
the door a crack," said Mrs. Welwyn.

This procedure was adopted, with the result
that Mr. Mainwaring and Lady Adela, waiting
patiently upon the steps outside, were eventually
confronted, after certain mysterious clankings
had taken place within, with a vision of two
apprehensive countenances, one childish and the
other middle-aged, set one upon another against
a black background in a frame eight feet high and
three inches wide.  It was but a glimpse, for the
vision was hardly embodied when it faded from
view with uncanny suddenness: and after a
further fantasia upon the chain, the door was
tugged open, to reveal the shrinking figures of
Mrs. Welwyn and Amelia.

"Good-morning, Mrs. Welwyn," said Lady
Adela.  "I hope you will forgive this early call,
but we are anxious to have a talk with--er--Miss Welwyn."

Miss Welwyn's agitated parent ushered the
visitors into the dining-room, bidding Amelia run
upstairs and give warning of the coming
interview.  Resistance did not occur to her.

Amelia found her sister sitting motionless on
the edge of a chair, with her arms upon the table.
In her hands she held an open letter, which she
was not reading.  Her grey eyes, wide open,
unblinking, were fixed on vacancy.  Her lips moved,
as if repeating some formula.

Amelia touched her softly on the arm.

"Tilly," she whispered, "they want to see you."

Tilly roused herself.

"Who?" she asked dreamily.

The question was answered by the appearance
in the doorway of Lady Adela, followed by her
husband.  Tilly rose, thrust the letter into her
belt, and greeted her visitors.

"How do you do?" she said mechanically.
"Won't you sit down?"

Lady Adela, singling out that well-tried friend
of yesterday, the sofa, sank down upon it.
Mr. Mainwaring remained standing behind.  Little
'Melia, after one sympathetic glance in the
direction of her sister, gently closed the door and
joined her mother on the landing outside.

"'Melia," announced that harassed châtelaine,
"there's the front door again!  It must be
Stillbottle this time.  Supposing he meets *them*?"

"It don't signify if he does," replied her shrewd
little daughter.  "They have met once already.
Still, we may as well keep him out."

Mother and daughter accordingly proceeded
to a repetition of their previous performance
with the door-chain.  As before, the front door
was ultimately flung open with abject expressions
of regret.

On the steps stood a small, sturdy, spectacled
young clergyman.

"Oh, good-morning," he exclaimed.  "I am
so sorry to trouble you, but I have been asked by
a friend to look at your vacant room.  Might I
do it now?"

This was familiar ground, and Mrs. Welwyn
escorted the stranger upstairs with a sigh of
relief.

"My friend proposes to move in almost
immediately," explained Mr. Rylands, mounting at a
distressingly rapid pace, "if they are
satisfactory.  That is--of course"--he added in a
panic--"I am sure they will be satisfactory.
But my friend proposes to move in at once."

His approval of the late lair of the bellicose
Pumpherston when--almost before--the panting
Mrs. Welwyn had pulled up the blind and
unveiled its glories, erred on the side of the
ecstatic.  The terms asked for the dingy but
speckless apartment were not excessive, and
Mr. Rylands agreed to them at once.

"May I ask, sir," enquired Mrs. Welwyn, as
they descended the staircase--"did some one
recommend us?  We like to know who our friends are."

Mr. Rylands was quite prepared for this question.

"As a matter of fact," he explained volubly,
"I believe the gentleman saw the card in the
window; and being particularly fond of Russell
Square, and--and its associations, and so on, he
decided to come and reside here.  He will send his
luggage round this afternoon."

By this time they had passed the closed
drawing-room door and were in the hall again.

"Will you give me the gentleman's name, sir,
please?" asked Mrs. Welwyn, in obedience to a
reminding gleam in the eye of her small daughter,
who was standing full in the open doorway,
apparently with the intention of collaring
Mr. Rylands low.  "I suppose he can give a reference,
or pay a week in advance?  That's our usual--"

"Certainly, by all means," said Rylands
hurriedly.  Like most men, he found it almost as
delicate and embarrassing an undertaking to
discuss money matters with a woman as to make
love to her.  "In point of fact," he continued,
searching furtively in his pocket, "my friend
would like to pay a month in advance.  He is
anxious to make quite sure of the rooms,
so--oh, I beg your pardon!"  (This to little 'Melia,
into whom he had cannoned heavily in a
misguided but characteristic attempt to walk out
of the house backwards.)  "*Good*-morning!"

And the Reverend Godfrey Rylands, thrusting
a warm bank-note into Mrs. Welwyn's palm,
stumbled down the steps into the Square, and
set off at a most unclerical pace in the direction of
Piccadilly.  He was going to lunch, it will be
remembered, with Connie Carmyle.

"He never left the new lodger's name," recollected
Mrs. Welwyn, too late.

"No, but he left a five-pound note," said
practical Amelia.



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   II

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Meanwhile, upstairs, Lady Adela was concluding
a stately and well-balanced harangue.  Of her
two auditors Mr. Mainwaring appeared to be
paying more attention.  He looked supremely
unhappy.

Tilly sat bolt upright on a hard chair, staring
straight through Lady Adela at the opposite wall.
Occasionally her hand stole to her belt.  It is
regrettable to have to add, in the interests of
strict veracity, that the greater part of Lady
Adela's carefully reasoned and studiously
moderate address was flowing in at one ear and out at
the other.  Tilly had no clear idea that she was
being spoken to; she was only vaguely conscious
that any one was speaking at all.  All her thoughts
were concentrated on the last page of Dicky's
letter--all she had read so far.  She sat quite
still, occasionally nodding intelligently to put
her visitors at their ease.  Once or twice her lips
moved, as if repeating some formula.

"Do not imagine, Miss Welwyn," Lady Adela
was saying, "that we are in any way angry or
resentful at what has occurred.  We are merely
grieved, but at the same time *relieved*.  So far from
wishing you ill in consequence of this attempt
upon your part to--to better yourself, my
husband and I are here to offer to do something for
you.  You must not think that we want to be
unkind or harsh.  This is a difficult and painful
interview for both of us--"

"For all of us, Miss Welwyn," murmured Mr. Mainwaring.

"You appreciate that fact, I hope, Miss Welwyn,"
said Lady Adela in a slightly louder tone;
for the girl made no sign.

Tilly nodded her head absently.

"He loves me!  He loves me!" she murmured
to herself.  "He loves me still!"

Lady Adela ploughed on.  She was a kindly
woman, and in her heart she felt sorry for Tilly.
Not that this fact assisted her to understand
Tilly's point of view, or to remember what Dicky
had never forgotten, namely, that the girl before
her was a lady.  She laboured, too, under a
grievous disadvantage.  Deep feeling was to her a
thing unknown.  She had never thrilled with
tremulous rapture.  The sighing of a wounded
spirit had no meaning for her.  Her heart was a
well-regulated and rhythmatic organ, and had
always beaten in accordance with the laws of what
its owner called common sense.  It had never
fluttered or stood still.

Lady Adela had married her husband because
he was rich and she was the youngest daughter of
a great but impoverished house; and after the
singular but ineradicable habit of her sex, she
had founded her entire conception of life upon
her own experience of it.  To her, marriage was a
matter neither of romance nor affinity.  It was
a contract: a sacred contract, perhaps,--in her
own case it had even been fully choral,--but a
mere matter of business for all that.  To her, her
son's ideal bride was a well-bred young woman
with the same tastes and social circle as himself,
and possibly a little money of her own.  It had
never occurred to her that Love contained any
other elements.  Accordingly she ploughed on;
trying to be fair; quite prepared to be generous.
She offered to "advance" Tilly in life.  She talked
vaguely of setting her up "in a little business."  She
remarked several times that she was anxious
to do the right thing, adding as in duty bound
that certain conditions would be attached to any
arrangement which might be made, "the nature
of which you can probably imagine for yourself,
my dear."  She begged Tilly to think things over,
and assured her that no reasonable request would
be refused.  Altogether Lady Adela's was a very
conciliatory and well-balanced proposition.  Had
it been made by an encroaching railway company
to a landed proprietor in compensation for
compulsory ejection from his property, or by a
repentant motorist to an irate henwife, it might
fairly have been regarded as a model of justice
and equity.  As a scheme for snatching an amiable
but weak-minded young man from the clutches
of a designing harpy, it erred if anything on the
side of generosity.  But as a tactful attempt to
convey to a young girl the information that she
could never marry the man she loved, it was a
piece of gross brutality.  But Lady Adela did not
know this.

Fortunately Tilly heard little or nothing.
Occasionally a stray sentence focused itself on her
mind.  "My husband and I communicated our
views to our son this morning," was one.
"Impart our decision *ourselves* ... avoid the
necessity of a painful interview ... unnecessary
correspondence," and the like--the disconnected
phrases fell upon her ears; but throughout it all the
girl sat with her head in the clouds, fingering her
letter and hugging her secret.  Once Lady Adela,
in a flight of oratory, half-rose from her seat.
Tilly, with a vague hope that the call was over,
put out a hand, which was ignored.

But the interview came to an end at last; and
Lady Adela, conscious of a difficult task
adequately and tactfully performed, but secretly
troubled by Tilly's continuous apathy, rose to
her feet.  Tilly mechanically stood up, too.

"Good-morning, Miss Welwyn," said Lady
Adela, offering her hand.  "We have to thank you
for a patient hearing."

Tilly smiled politely, shook hands, but said
nothing.  Mr. Mainwaring, his heart sore for the
girl, timidly signalled to his wife to leave her in
peace.

"Do not trouble to show us out," said Lady
Adela; and departed imposingly through the door.

With a long sigh of relief Tilly dropped back
into her seat.  Suddenly she was aware that she
was not yet alone.  Mr. Mainwaring had lingered
in the room.  He came forward now, and took
the girl's hand in both of his.

"My dear, my dear!" he said quickly.  "I
wish you were my daughter.  God give you a
good husband!"

There was an ominous cough upon the landing
outside; and the old gentleman, recalled to a
sense of duty, trotted obediently out of the room,
closing the door behind him.

Tilly snatched the letter from her belt.

"He loves me!" she murmured.  "He loves
me!  He loves me still!"

She was not referring to Mr. Mainwaring senior.





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.. _`THE FINAL FREAK`:

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   CHAPTER XXVI


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   THE FINAL FREAK

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Tilly finished writing her letter, signed and
addressed it, and leaned back in her chair.

She had just declined to marry Dicky Mainwaring.

"That's done, anyhow," she said to herself,
with the instinctive cheerfulness of those who are
born plucky.  "Now I'll go out and post it before
the Family come home, and then perhaps a
little walk round Bloomsbury will give me an
appetite for tea."  But as Tilly rose briskly to
her feet her eye fell upon the letter from Dicky,
lying beside the answer to it which she had just
written.  For the tenth time she picked it up and
re-read certain passages.

*I don't think I ever loved you as I did yesterday
afternoon.  As I watched you fighting that brave,
uphill battle of yours in the face of the most awful
odds--Mother and Sylvia are awfully odd, you
know--I suddenly realised how utterly and
entirely I had become part of you--or you of me, if
you like.  I was on your side in that plucky,
preposterous, transparent little conspiracy from start
to finish, and when the crash came I think I was
harder hit than anybody.  The only complaint I
have to make is that you did not take me into your
confidence.  I could have put you up to one or two
tips which might have made all the difference--you
see, I have known Mother and Sylvia longer than
you have--and we could have enjoyed the fruits of
victory together.  Still, I forgive you for your
obstinacy in trying to put the enterprise through
single-handed.  It was very characteristic of you, and
anything that is characteristic of you is naturally extra
precious to me.  So don't imagine that yesterday's
little interparental unpleasantness is going to make
any difference to you and me--to You and Me!*

"To You--and Me!" echoed Tilly softly.

*... You will probably receive a call from my
esteemed parents.  They mean well, but I mistrust
their judgment.  They will probably intimate that
we must never see one another again, or something
of that kind.  I am afraid it is just possible that my
dear old mother will offer you compensation, of a
sort.  If she does, try to forgive her.  She does not
understand.  Not at present, that is.  One day she
will laugh at herself--which will establish a
record--and apologise to you for having entertained
the idea.*

"No, she won't!" observed Tilly at this point.

*... It seems ridiculous, does n't it, that any one
should seriously set out to appeal to you to "abandon
your demands" upon me?  As if things were not
entirely the other way.  It is I who am making
demands upon you, dearest.  The idea!  To lecture you
as if you were some designing little adventuress,
instead of the most wonderful worker of miracles
that ever lived--the girl who made bricks without
straw--the girl who made a man of Dicky Mainwaring!*

*... So do not be afraid with any amazement--do
you know where that quotation comes from?--at
anything my mother may say.  She will probably
pile on the agony a bit about the various kinds of
trouble that await a couple who marry out of different
social circles, and punk of that kind.  She is a
dear thing, my old mother, but very feminine.  When
she wants to argue about anything she always
begins by begging the question.  Besides, our love is
big enough to square any circle, social or otherwise.
So don't you worry, little girl.  Leave things to me,
and--*

Tilly read more slowly and yet more slowly, and
then stopped reading altogether.  Then she rose
slowly to her feet, crossed the room, and stood
gazing into the fire.  She did not know what
begging the question meant, but she had other food
for reflection.  Connie Carmyle was right.  When
it comes to a pinch, letters are useless things, and
being useless are, more often than not, dangerous.

On the mantelpiece stood two framed
photographs--one of Tilly, the other of Dicky.  The
original of the first addressed the second.

"I wish you had n't put in that last bit, Dicky
dear ... '*Abandon my demands*' ... '*A little
adventuress*.' ... That's what I am, when all is
said and done.  A little adventuress, trying to
better herself!  Lady Adela is right and we were
wrong.  What else could you think of me, Dicky,
once you married me and found me out--a silly,
hysterical, common little chit? ... There's your
letter, dear.  I dare say I could have got quite a
lot for it in a court of law; but some adventuresses
are n't up to sample.  They have no spirit."

Dicky's much-read epistle dropped into the
flames, and Tilly turned with sudden briskness
from her lover's photograph to her own.

"As for you, Tilly Welwyn," she observed
severely, "just remember that you are only an
ordinary, hard-working, matter-of-fact little
London work-girl.  You can put all fancy notions
about fairy princes and happy-ever-after out of
your head.  You are getting a big girl now, you
know.  You must live your life and go your own
way; and sometimes--only sometimes, mind!--when
you are feeling downhearted and up against
it, I'll allow you to let your thoughts go back to
the best man that ever walked; and although you
may cry a bit, you will thank God you did not
spoil his life by marrying him."

The doors leading onto the landing creaked,
and Amelia peeped cautiously in.  Tilly started
guiltily.  None of us like to be caught talking to
ourselves.  The habit savours of exclusiveness--and
other things.

"Tilly dear," said little 'Melia listlessly, "the
new lodger has come with his luggage.  Could you
give him a hand with it?  Everybody is out, and
it's rather heavy for me."

"All right," said Tilly readily.  "I'll be down in
half a minute."

Amelia disappeared, leaving the doors open;
and Tilly hastily assumed a business-like yet
hospitable expression, suitable for the welcoming
of a second-floor.

"One thing more, though, my girl," she
remarked sternly, releasing her features for a
moment in order to address her own reflection in the
overmantle mirror.  "Just remember that this
will require a real *effort*.  It's all very well to feel
heroic just now, and talk about giving him up,
and living your own life, and so on; but it won't
be easy.  You will have to put your back into it.
Supposing you meet him in the street one day?
What then?  Can you walk past him?  You know
you are as weak as water where he is concerned.
What are you going to do about it?"

Tilly met her own eyes in the glass, and looked
very determined.  The eyes in the glass responded
by filling with tears.  Tilly turned away
impatiently from this disloyal exhibition.

"Very well, then," she said.  "If you are as
weak as that about it, you must just make up
your mind to *avoid* him--that's all.  There's
nothing else for it.  You must never see him
again....  And I love him so!" she added
inconsequently....  "Poor Tilly!"

Little 'Melia appeared in the doorway again.

"He's bringing up his portmanteau," she
announced breathlessly, and vanished.

Tilly turned towards the door.  Laborious steps
were audible upon the staircase, as of one
ascending with a heavy load.  Presently a man in a
great-coat passed the open doorway.  On his left
shoulder he carried a large portmanteau, which hid his
face.  He passed up the second-floor staircase and
out of sight.

Tilly, hot and cold by turns, stood shaking in
the middle of the floor.

There was a bump overhead.  Then steps
descending, slowly.  He was coming back.

Tilly shut her eyes tight for a full half-minute;
then opened them and tottered forward with a
cry.

In the doorway--laughing, joyous,
open-armed--stood The Freak.

"You foolish, foolish Tilly!" he said; and
caught her as she fell.

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   THE END

.. vspace:: 4

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   The Riverside Press
   CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
   U . S . A

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   By Ian Hay

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: left medium white-space-pre-line

   THE FIRST HUNDRED THOUSAND.
   SCALLY: THE STORY OF A PERFECT GENTLEMAN.  With Frontispiece.
   A KNIGHT ON WHEELS.
   HAPPY-GO-LUCKY.  Illustrated by Charles E. Brock.
   A SAFETY MATCH.  With frontispiece.
   A MAN'S MAN.  With frontispiece.
   THE RIGHT STUFF.  With frontispiece.

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.. class:: center medium white-space-pre-line

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   BOSTON AND NEW YORK

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