Foe-Farrell

FOE-FARRELL.

By

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch.

1918.

This etext prepared from a reprint of a version published in 1918.

TO ANYONE WHO SUPPOSES THAT HE HAS A WORSE ENEMY THAN HIMSELF.

CONTENTS.

BOOK I—INGREDIENTS.

	[PROLOGUE.]
	[NIGHT THE FIRST—John Foe.]
	[NIGHT THE SECOND—The Meeting at the Baths.]
	[NIGHT THE THIRD—The Grand research.]
	[NIGHT THE FOURTH—Adventure of the Police Station.]
	[NIGHT THE FIFTH—Adventure of the "Catalafina".]
	[NIGHT THE SIXTH—Adventure of the Picturedrome.]
	[NIGHT THE SEVENTH—The Outrage.]

BOOK II—THE CHASE.

	[NIGHT THE EIGHTH—Vendetta.]
	[NIGHT THE NINTH—The Hunt is Up.]
	[NIGHT THE TENTH—Pilgrimage of Hate.]
	[NIGHT THE ELEVENTH—Science of the Chase.]
	[NIGHT THE TWELFTH—The Emania.]
	[NIGHT THE THIRTEENTH—Escape.]

BOOK III—THE RETRIEVE.

	[NIGHT THE FOURTEENTH—San Ramon.]
	[NIGHT THE FIFTEENTH—Redivivus.]
	[NIGHT THE SIXTEENTH—Captain Macnaughten.]
	[NIGHT THE SEVENTEENTH—No. 2 Boat.]
	[NIGHT THE EIGHTEENTH—"And so they came to the Island…."]
	[NIGHT THE NINETEENTH—The Castaways.]
	[NIGHT THE TWENTIETH—One Man Escapes.]

BOOK IV—THE COUNTERCHASE.

	[NIGHT THE TWENTY-FIRST—The Yellow Dog.]
	[NIGHT THE TWENTY-SECOND—The Second Man escapes.]
	[NIGHT THE TWENTY-THIRD—Counterchase.]
	[NIGHT THE TWENTY-FOURTH—Constantia.]
	[NIGHT THE TWENTY-FIFTH—The Paying of the Score]
	[EPILOGUE.]

BOOK I.

INGREDIENTS.

If the red slayer thinks he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
EMERSON: Brahma.

The best kind of revenge is not to become like him.
MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS.

PROLOGUE.

Otway told this story in a dug-out which served for officers' mess of a field-battery somewhere near the Aisne: but it has nothing to do with the War. He told it in snatches, night by night, after the manner of Scheherazade in the Arabian Nights Entertainments, and as a rule to an auditory of two. Here is a full list of:

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE

NARRATOR.

Major Sir Roderick Otway, Bart., M.C., R.F.A.

AUDIENCE AND INTERLOCUTORS.

Lieut. John Polkinghorne. R.F.A., of the Battery.
Sec. Lieut. Samuel Barham, M.C. R.F.A., of the Battery.
Sec. Lieut. Percy Yarrell-Smith. R.F.A., of the Battery
Sec Lieut. Noel Williams, R.F.A., attached for instruction.

But military duties usually restricted the audience to two at a time, though there were three on the night when Barham (Sammy) set his C.O. going with a paragraph from an old newspaper. The captain—one McInnes, promoted from the ranks—attended one stance only. He dwelt down at the wagon-lines along with the Veterinary Officer, and brought up the ammunition most nights, vanishing back in the small hours like a ghost before cock-crow.

The battery lay somewhat wide to the right of its fellows in the brigade; in a saucer-shaped hollow on the hill-side, well screened with scrub. Roughly it curved back from the straight lip overlooking the slope, in a three-fifths segment of a circle; and the officers' mess made a short arc in it, some way in rear of the guns. You descended, by steps, cut in the soil and well pounded, into a dwelling rather commodious than large: for Otway—who knew about yachts—had taken a fancy to construct it nautical-wise, with lockers that served for seats at a narrow saloon table, sleeping bunks excavated along the sides, and air-holes like cabin top-lights, cunningly curtained by night, under the shell-proof cover.

"It cost us a week," he wrote home to his sister, "to get the place to my mind. Since then we have been adding fancy touches almost daily, and now the other batteries froth with envy. You see, it had to be contrived, like the poet's chest of drawers."

A double debt to pay:
Doss-house by night and bag-of-tricks by day.

And here we have lived now, shooting and sleeping (very little sleeping) for five solid weeks. All leave being off, I have fallen into this way of life, almost without a thought that there ever had been, or could be, another, and feel as if my destiny were to go on at it for ever and ever. And this at thirty-five, Sally!

"It must be ever so much worse for the youngsters, one would say. Anyway I have had ten good years that they are missing… Cambridge, Henley, Lord's; Ascot, and home-to-tidy, and afterwards the little Mercedes, and you and I rolling in to Prince's and the theatre, whilst good old Bob is for the House, to take his exercises walking the lobbies; clean linen after the bath, and my own sister beside me—she that always knew how to dress—and the summer evening over Hyde Park Corner and the Green Park.… No, I mustn't go on. It is verboten even to think of a white shirt until the Bosch hangs out the tail of his.

"My youngsters are missing all this, I tell myself. Yet they are a cheerful crowd, and keep smiling on their Papa. The worst is, a kind of paralysis seems to have smitten our home mails and general transport for close upon a fortnight. No letters, no parcels—but one case of wine, six weeks overdue, with half the bottles in shards: no newspapers. This last specially afflicts young Sammy Barham, who is a glutton for the halfpenny press: which again is odd, because his comments on it are vitriolic.

"No books—that's the very worst. Our mess library went astray in the last move: no great loss perhaps except for the Irish R.M., which I was reading for the nth time. The only relic that survives, and follows us everywhere like an intelligent hound, is a novel of Scottish sentiment, entitled But and Ben. The heroine wears (p. 2) a dress of 'some soft white clinging material'—which may account for it. Young Y.-Smith, who professes to have read the work from cover to cover, asserts that this material clings to her throughout: but I doubt the thoroughness of his perusal since he explained to us that 'Ben' and 'But' were the play-names of the lad and his lassie.… For our personal libraries we possess:

"R.O.—A hulking big copy of the International Code of Signals: a putrid bad book, of which I am preparing, in odd moments, a recension, to submit to the Board of Trade. Y.-Smith borrows this off me now and then, to learn up the flags at the beginning. He gloats on crude colours.

"Polkinghorne—A Bible, which I borrow, sometimes for private study, sometimes (you understand?) for professional purposes. It contains a Book of Common Prayer as well as the Apocrypha. P. (a Cornishman, something of a mystic, two years my senior and full of mining experiences in Nevada and S. America) always finds a difficulty in parting with this, his one book. He is deep in it, this moment, at the far end of the table.

"Sammy Barham, so far as anyone can discover, has never read a book in his life nor wanted to. He was educated at Harrow. Lacking the Daily Mail, he is miserable just now, poor boy! I almost forgave the Code upon discovering that his initials, S.B., spell, for a distress signal, 'Can you lend (or give) me a newspaper?'

"Yarrell-Smith reads Penny Dreadfuls. He owns four, and was kind enough, the other day, to lend me one: but it's a trifle too artless even for my artless mind.

"Young Williams—a promising puppy sent up to me to be walked—reads nothing at all. He brought two packs of Patience cards and a Todhunter's Euclid; the one to rest, the other to stimulate, his mind; and I've commandeered the Euclid. A great writer, Sally! He's not juicy, and he don't palpitate, but he's an angel for style. 'Therefore the triangle DBC is equal to the triangle ABC—pause and count three—'the less to the greater'—pause—'which is absurd.' Neat and demure: and you're constantly coming on little things like that. 'Two straight lines cannot enclose a space'—so broad and convincing, when once pointed out!—and why is it not in The Soldiers' Pocket-Book under 'Staff Axioms'?

"When you make up the next parcel, stick in a few of the unlikeliest books. I don't want Paley's Evidences of Christianity: I have tackled that for my Little-Go, and, besides, we have plenty of 'em out here: but books about Ireland, and the Near East, and local government, and farm-labourers' wages, and the future life, and all that sort of thing. "Two nights ago, Polkinghorne got going on our chances in another world. Polkinghorne is a thoughtful man in his way, rising forty—don't know his religion. I had an idea somehow that he was interested in such things. But to my astonishment the boys took him up and were off in full cry. It appeared that each one had been nursing his own thoughts on the subject. The trouble was, none of us knew very much about it—"

Otway, writing beneath the hurricane-lamp, had reached this point in his letter when young Barham exclaimed to the world at large:

"Hallo! here's a tall story!"

The C.O. looked up. So did Polkinghorne, from his Bible. Sammy held a torn sheet of newspaper.

"Don't keep it to yourself, my son," said Otway, laying down his pen and leaning back, so that his face passed out of the inner circle of the lamplight.

Sammy bent forward, pushed the paper nearer to this pool of light, smoothed it and read:

"'THAMES-SIDE MYSTERY'"

"'A Coroner's jury at C—, a 'village' on the south bank of the Thames, not a hundred miles below Gravesend—'"

"Seems a lot of mystery about it already," observed Polkinghorne. "Don't they give the name of the village?"

"No; they just call it 'C—,' and, what's more, they put 'village' into inverted commas. Don't know why: but there's a hint at the end."

"Proceed."

Sammy proceeded.

"'—Was engaged yesterday in holding an inquest on the body of an unknown man, found lying at highwater mark in a creek some way below the village. A local constable had discovered the body: but neither the officer who attended nor the river police could afford any clue to the deceased's identity. Medical evidence proved that death was due to drowning, although the corpse had not been long immersed: but a sensation was caused when the evidence further disclosed that it bore an incised wound over the left breast, in itself sufficient to cause death had not suffocation quickly supervened.
"'The body was further described, in the police evidence, as that of a middle-aged man, presumably a gentleman. It was clad in a black 'evening-dress' suit, and two pearl studs of some value remained in the limp shirt-front; from which, however, a third and fellow stud was missing. The Police Inspector—who asked for an open verdict, pending further inquiry—added that the linen, and the clothing generally, bore no mark leading to identification. Further, if a crime had been committed, the motive had not been robbery. The trousers-pockets contained a sovereign, and eighteen shillings in silver. In the waistcoat was a gold watch (which had stopped at 10.55), with a chain and a sovereign-purse containing two sovereigns and a half-sovereign: in the left-hand breast pocket of the dinner-jacket a handkerchief, unmarked: in the right-hand pocket a bundle of notes and a worn bean-shaped case for a pair of eyeglasses. The glasses were missing. The Police had carefully dried the notes and separated them. They were nine one pound notes; all numbered, of course. Beyond this and the number on the watch there was nothing to afford a clue.'—"

Here Barham paused for a glance up at the roof of the dug-out, as two explosions sounded pretty near at hand. "Huns saying good-night," he interpolated. "Can't have spotted us. Nothing doing aloft these three days."

Polkinghorne looked across the light at the C.O., who sat unaccountably silent, his face inscrutable in the penumbra. Taking silence for "yes," Polkinghorne arose and put his head outside for a look around.

"Queer story, you'll admit, sir?" put in Sammy Barham during this pause. "Shall I go on, or wait for the rollicking Polly to hear it out?—for the queerest part is to come."

"I know," said Otway, after some two or three seconds' silence.

"Eh?… But it's just here, sir, the thing of a sudden gets mysteriouser and mysteriouser—"

Polkinghorne came back. "Nerves," he reported. "They're potting all over the place.… Here, Sammy, pass over that scrap of paper if you've finished reading. I want to hear the end."

"It hasn't any," said Otway from the shadow.

"But, sir, when I was just warning you—"

"Dashed good beginning, anyway," said Polkinghorne; "something like Our Mutual Friend."

"Who's he?" asked Sammy.

"Ingenuous youth, continue," Otway commanded. "Polky wants to hear the rest of the paragraph, and so do I."

"It goes on just like a detective story," promised Sammy. "Just you listen to this:—

"'An incident which may eventually throw some light on the mystery interrupted the Coroner's summing up and caused something of a sensation. This was the appearance of an individual, evidently labouring under strong excitement, who, having thrust his way past the police, advanced to the Coroner's table and demanded to have sight of the body. The man's gestures were wild, and on being asked his name he answered incoherently. His manner seriously affected one of the jury, who swooned and had to be removed from Court.
"'While restoratives were being applied at the 'Plume and Feathers' Inn (adjacent to the building in which the inquest was held), the Coroner held consultation with Police and Foreman of the Jury, and eventually adjourned for a second inspection of the body, the stranger accompanying them. From this inspection, as from the first, representatives of the Press were excluded.
"'Returning to Court at the expiration of forty minutes—by which time the absent juror had recovered sufficiently to take his seat—the Coroner directed an open verdict to be entered and the inquiry closed.
"'The intrusive visitor did not reappear. We understand that he was found to be suffering from acute mental derangement and is at present under medical treatment as well as under supervision of the police, who are closely watching the case. They preserve great reticence on the whole subject and very rightly so in these days, considering the number of enemy plotters in our midst, and that the neighbourhood of 'C—' in particular is known to be infested with their activities.'"

"Is that all?" asked Polkinghorne.

"That's all; and about enough, I should say, for this Penny Reading."

"When did it happen?"

"Can't tell. The top of the sheet's torn off." Barham pushed the paper across. "By the look, it's a bit of an old Daily Chronicle. I found it wrapping one of my old riding boots, that I haven't worn since I took to a sedentary life. Higgs must have picked it up at our last move—"

"Do you want the date?" put in Otway. "If so, it was in January last—January the 18th, to be exact."

"But—"

"I mean the date of the inquest. The paper would be next morning's— Wednesday the 19th," Otway went on in a curious level voice, as though spelling the information for them out of the lamplight on the table.

Barham stared. "But—" he began again—"but how, sir?"

Polkinghorne, who also had stared for a moment, broke in with a laugh. "The C.O. is pulling your leg, Sammy. He tore off the top of your paper—it was lying around all this morning—noted the date and thought he might safely make a pipe-spill."

"That won't do," retorted Barham, still searching Otway's face on which there seemed to rest a double shadow. "For when I turned it out of my valise this morning I carefully looked for the date—I'll swear I did—and it was missing."

"Then you tore the thing in unpacking, and the C.O. picked up the scrap you overlooked. Isn't that the explanation, sir?"

"No," said Otway after a pause, still as if he spoke under control of a muted pedal. He checked himself, apparently on the point of telling more; but the pause grew into a long silence.

Barham tried back. "January, you said, sir?… and now we're close upon the end of October—"

He could get nothing out of the C.O.'s eyes, which were bent on the table; and little enough could he read in his face, save that it was sombre with thought and at the same time abstracted to a degree that gave the boy a sudden uncanny feeling. It was like watching a man in the travail of second sight, and all the queerer because he had never seen an expression even remotely resembling it on the face of this hero of his, with whose praise he filled his home-letters—"One of the best: never flurried: and, what's more, you never catch him off his game by any chance."

Otway's jaw twitched once, very slightly. He put out a hand to pick up his pen and resume writing; but in the act fell back into the brown study, the trance, the rapt gaze at a knot in the woodwork of the table. His hand rested for a moment by the ink-pot around which his fingers felt, like a blind man's softly making sure of its outline and shape. He withdrew it to his tunic-pocket, pulled out pipe and tobacco-pouch and began to fill.…

At this point in came young Yarrell-Smith. Young Yarrell-Smith wore a useful cloak—French cavalry pattern—of black mackintosh, with a hood. It dripped and shone in the lamplight.

"Beastly night," he announced to the company in general and turned to report to Otway, who had sat up alert on the instant.

"Yes," quoted Otway,

"'Thou comest from thy voyage—
Yes, the spray is on thy cloak and hair.'"

That's Matthew Arnold, if the information conveys anything to you. Everything quiet?"

"Quite quiet, sir, for the last twenty minutes; and the Captain just come in and unloading. No accidents, though they very nearly met their match, five hundred yards down the road."

"We heard," said Polkinghorne.

"I tucked the Infant into his little O.P., and left him comfy. He won't see anything there to-night."

"He'll think he does," said Sammy Barham with conviction.

"The Infant is quite a good Infant," Otway observed; and then, sinking his voice a tone, "Lord, if at his age I'd had his sense of responsibility…"

Barham noted the change of tone, though he could not catch the words. Again he threw a quick look towards his senior. Something was wrong with him, something unaccountable.…

Yarrell-Smith noted nothing. "Well, he won't see anything to-night, sir; and if Sammy will pull himself together and pity the sorrows of a poor young man whose trembling knees—"

"Sorry," said Sammy, turning to the locker and fishing forth a bottle.

"—I'll tell you why," Yarrell-Smith went on as the tot was filled. "First place, the Bosch has finished hating us for to-night and gone to bye-bye. Secondly, it's starting to sleet—and that vicious, a man can't see five yards in front of him."

"I love my love with a B because he's Boschy," said Sammy lightly: "I'll take him to Berlin—or say, Bapaume to begin with—and feed him on Substitutes.… Do you know that parlour-game, Yarrell dear? Are you a performer at Musical Chairs? Were you by any chance brought up on a book called What Shall We do Now? The fact is—" Sammy, who could be irreverent, but so as never to offend, stole a look at Otway—"we're a trifle hipped in the old log cabin. I started a guessing-competition just now, and our Commanding Officer won't play. Turn up the reference, Polky—Ecclesiastes something-or-other. It runs: 'We are become as a skittle-alley in a garden of cucumbers, forasmuch as our centurion will not come out to play with us.'"

Otway laughed. "And it goes on that the grasshopper is a burden.… But Y.-S. has given you the name, just now."

"I, sir?" Yarrell-Smith gazed, in the more astonishment to find that Otway, after his laugh, reaching up to trim the lamp, looked strangely serious. "I'm blest if I understand a word of all this.… What name, sir?"

"Hate," said Otway, dropping back into his chair and drawing at his pipe. "But you're warm; as they say in the nursery-game. Try 'Foe,' if you prefer it."

"Oh, I see," protested Yarrell-Smith, after a bewildered look around. "You've all agreed to be funny with a poor orphan that has just come in from the cold."

Barham paid no heed to this. "'Foe' might be the name of a man. It's unusual.… But what was the Johnny called who wrote Robinson Crusoe?"

"It was the name of a man," answered Otway.

"This man?" Barham tapped his finger on the newspaper.

Otway nodded.

"The man the inquest was held on?"

"That—or the other." Otway looked around at them queerly. "I think the other. But upon my soul I won't swear."

"The other? You mean the stranger—the man who interrupted—"

At this point Yarrell-Smith sank upon a locker. "I beg your pardon, all of you," he moaned helplessly; "but if there's such a thing about as First Aid—"

"Sammy had better read you this thing he's unearthed," said Polkinghorne kindly.

Barham picked up the newspaper.

"No, you don't," Otway commanded. "Put it down.… If you fellows don't mind listening, I'll tell you the story. It's about Hate; real Hate, too; not the Bosch variety."

NIGHT THE FIRST.

JOHN FOE.

John Foe and I entered Rugby together at fourteen, and shared a study for a year and a term. Pretty soon he climbed out of my reach and finally attained to the Sixth. I never got beyond the Lower Fifth, having no brains to mention. Cricket happened to be my strong point; and when you're in the Eleven you can keep on fairly level terms with a push man in the Sixth. So he and I were friends—"Jack" and "Roddy" to one another—all the way up. We went through the school together and went up to Cambridge together.

He was a whale at Chemistry (otherwise Stinks), and took a Tancred Scholarship at Caius. I had beaten the examiner in Little-go at second shot, and went up in the same term, to Trinity; where I played what is called the flannelled fool at cricket—an old-fashioned game which I will describe to you one of these days—

"Cricket? But I thought you rowed, sir?" put in Yarrell Smith. "Yes, surely—"

"Hush! tread softly," Barham interrupted. "Our Major won't mind your not knowing he was a double Blue—don't stare at him like that; it's rude. But he will not like it forgotten that he once knocked up a century for England v Australia.… You'll forgive our young friend, sir; he left school early, when the war broke out."

Otway looked across at Yarrell-Smith with a twinkle. "I took up rowing in my second year," he explained modestly, "to enlarge my mind. And this story, my good Sammy, is not about me—though I come into it incidentally because by a pure fluke I happened to set it going. All the autobiography that's wanted for our present purpose is that I went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, in the footsteps (among others) of Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, and—well, you see the result. May I go on?"

But although they were listening, Otway did not at once go on. Sammy had spoken in his usual light way and yet with something of a pang in his voice, and something of a transient cloud still rested on the boy's face. Otway noted it, and understood. When the war broke out, Sammy had been on the point of going up to Oxford.…

Before the cloudlet passed, Otway had a vision behind it, though the vision came from his own brain, out of his own memory—a vision of green turf and of boys in white on it, a small regiment set orderly against a background of English elms, and moving orderly, intent on the game of games.

O thou, that dear and happy Isle,
The garden of the world erstwhile.…
Unhappy! shall we nevermore
That sweet militia restore?

Snatches of an old parody floated in his brain with the vision—a parody of Walt Whitman—

Far off a grey-brown thrush warbling in hedge or in marsh; Down there in the blossoming bushes, my brother, what is that you are saying?…

The perfect feel of a "fourer "!…

The jubilant cry from the flowering thorn to the flowerless willow, "smite, smite, smite."

(Flowerless willow no more but every run a late-shed perfect bloom.)

The fierce chant of my demon brother issuing forth against the demon bowler, "hit him, hit him, hit him."

The thousand melodious cracks, delicious cracks, the responsive echoes of my comrades and the hundred thence-resulting runs, passionately yearned for, never, never again to be forgotten.

Overhead meanwhile the splendid silent sun, blending all, fusing all, bathing all in floods of soft ecstatic perspiration.

Otway lifted his stare from the rough table.

They have skinned the turf off Trinity cricket-ground… Such turf, too! I wonder who bought it, and what he paid for it. … They have turned the field into a big Base Hospital—all tin sheds, like a great kraal of scientific Kaffirs. Which reminds me…

Foe read medicine. Caius, you must know, is a great college for training doctors, and in the way of scholarships and prizes he annexed most of the mugs on the board. All the same I want you to understand that he wasn't a pot-hunter. I don't quite know how to explain.… His father had died while he was at Rugby, leaving him a competence; but he certainly was not over-burdened with money. Of that I am sure.… Can't say why. He never talked of his private affairs, even with me, though we were friends, "Jack" and "Roddy" to each other still, and inhabited lodgings together in Jesus Lane. He owed money to no one. Unsociable habit, I used to call it; destructive of confidence between man and man.

But he was no pot-hunter. I think—I am sure—that so long as he kept upsides with money he rather despised it. He had a handsome face—rather curiously like the pictures you see of Dante—and his mind answered to it, up to a point. Fastidious is the word,… gave you the impression he had attached himself to Natural Science much as an old Florentine attached himself to theology or anatomy or classics, with a kind of cold passion.

The queerest thing about him was that anything like "intellectual society," as they call it, bored him stiff. Now you may believe it or not, but I've always had a kind of crawling reverence for things of the mind, and for men who go in for 'em. You can't think the amount of poetry, for instance, I've read in my time, just wondering how the devil it was done. But it's no use; it never was any use, even in those days. No man of the kind I wanted to worship could ever take me seriously. I remember once being introduced to a poet whose stuff I knew by heart, almost every line of it, and when I blurted out some silly enthusiasm—sort of thing a well-meaning Philistine does say, don't you know?—he put the lid down on me with "Now, that's most interesting. I've often wondered if what I write appealed to one of your—er—interests, and if so, how."

Well that's where I always felt Foe could help. And yet he didn't help very much. He read a heap of poetry—on the sly, as it were; and one night I coaxed him off to a talk about Browning. His language on the way home was three-parts blasphemy.

Am I making him at all clear to you? He kept his intellect in a cage all to itself, so to speak.… What's more—and you'll see the point of this by and by—he liked to keep his few friends in separate cages. I won't say he was jealous: but if he liked A and B, it was odds he'd be uneasy at A's liking B, or at any rate getting to like him intimately.

This secretiveness had its value, to be sure. It gave you a sense of being privileged by his friendship.… Or, no; that's too priggish for my meaning. Foe wasn't a bit of a prig. It was only because he had, on his record already, so much brains that the ordinary man who met him in my rooms was disposed to wonder how he could be so good a fellow. Get into your minds, please, that he was a good fellow, and that no one doubted it; of the sort that listens and doesn't speak out of his turn.

He had a great capacity for silence; and it's queer to me—since I've thought over it—what a large share of our friendship consisted in just sitting up into the small hours and smoking, and saying next to nothing. I talked, no doubt: Foe didn't.

I shall go on calling him Foe. He was Jack to me, always; but Foe suits better with the story; and besides… well, I suppose there's always something in friendship that one chooses to keep in a cage.… The only cage-mate that Jack—I mean Foe—ever allowed me was Jimmy Caldecott, and that happened after we had both moved to London.

He—Foe—had taken a first-class in the Tripos, of course; and a fellowship on top of that. But he did not stay up at Cambridge. He put in the next few years at different London hospitals, published some papers on the nervous system of animals, got appointed Professor of Animal Morphology, in the South London University College (the Silversmiths' College), and might wake up any morning to find himself a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was already—I am talking of 1907, when the tale starts—a Corresponding Member of three or four learned Societies in Europe and the U.S.A., and had put a couple of honorary doctorates to his account besides his Cambridge DSc.

As for me, I had rooms at first in Jermyn Street, then chambers in the Inner Temple—my father, who had been Chairman of Quarter Sessions, holding the opinion that I ought to read for the Bar, that I might be better qualified in due time to deal out local justice down in Warwickshire. I read a little, played cricket a good deal, stuck out three or four London Seasons, travelled a bit, shot a bit in East Africa (Oh, I forgot to say I'd put in a year in the South African War); climbed a bit, in Switzerland, and afterwards in the Himalayas; come home to write a paper for the Geographical Society; got bitten with Socialism and certain Fabian notions, and put in some time with an East-End Settlement besides attending many crowded and unsavoury public meetings to urge what was vaguely known as Betterment. When I took courage and made a clean breast of my new opinions to my father, the old man answered very composedly that he too had been a Radical in his time, and had come out of it all right. … By all means let me go on with my spouting: capital practice for public life: hoped I should take my place one of these days in the County Council at home: wouldn't even mind seeing me in Parliament, etc.—all with the wise calm of one who has passed his three-score years and ten, found the world good, made it a little better, hunted his own harriers and learnt, long since, every way in which hares run. So I returned and somehow found myself pledged to compete as a Progressive for the next London County Council—for a constituency down Bethnal Green way. In all this, you see, my orbit and Foe's wouldn't often intersect. But we dined together on birthdays and other occasions. One year I took him down to the Derby, on the ground that it was part of a liberal education. In the paddock he nodded at a horse in blinkers and said, "What's the matter with that fellow?" "St. Amant," said I, and began to explain why Hayhoe had put blinkers on him. "Where does he stand in the betting?" asked Foe. "Why, man," said I, "at 5 to 1. You can't risk good money on a horse of that temper. I've put mine on the French horse over there—Gouvernant—easy favourite—7 to 4 on." "Oh," said he, in a silly sort of way, "I thought St. Amant might be your French horse—it's a French name isn't it?… As for your Gouvernant, I advise you to run for your life and hedge: the animal is working up for a stage fright. A touch more and he's dished before the flag drops. Now, whether the blinkers have done it or not, that St. Amant is firm as a rock." "How the devil—" I began. "That's a fine horse, too, over yonder," he said, pointing one out with his umbrella. "John o' Gaunt," said I: "ran second to St. Amant for the Guineas, and second to Henry the First in the Newmarket, with St. Amant third. The running has been all in-and-out this season. But how the devil you spotted him, when I didn't know you could tell a horse's head from his stern—" "I don't profess to much more," said Foe; "but it's my job to read an animal's eye, and what he's fit for by the quiver under his skin. Now, I'd only a glimpse of St. Amant's eye, across his blinkers, and your John o' Gaunt is a stout one—inclined, you tell me, to run in second place. But if your money's on Gouvernant, hurry while there's time and set it right. If you've thirty seconds to spare when you've done that," he added, "you may put up a tenner for me on St. Amant—but don't bother. Your book may want some arranging."

The way he said it impressed me, and I fairly shinned back to the Ring. I hadn't made my book on any reasoned conviction, you understand; for the horses had been playing at cat's-cradle all along, and as I went it broke on me that, after all, my faith in Gouvernant mainly rested on my knowing less of him than of the others—that I was really going with the crowd. But really I was running to back a superstition—my belief in Foe, who knew nothing about horse-racing and cared less.

Well, the race was run that year in a thunderstorm—a drencher; and if Foe was right, I guess that finished Gouvernant, who never looked like a winner. St. Amant romped home, with John o' Gaunt second, in the place he could be trusted for. Thanks to Foe I had saved myself more than a pony in three strenuous minutes, and he pocketed his few sovereigns and smiled.

That was also the day—June 1st, 1904—"Glorious First of June" as Jimmy Collingwood called it—that Foe first made Jimmy's acquaintance. Young Collingwood was a neighbour of mine, down in the country; an artless, irresponsible, engaging youth, of powerful build and as pretty an oarsman and as neat a waterman as you could watch. Eton and B.N.C. Oxford were his nursing mothers. His friends (including the dons) at this latter house of learning knew him as the Malefactor; it being a tradition that he poisoned an aunt or a grandparent annually, towards the close of May. He was attending the obsequies of one that afternoon on the edge of the hill, in a hansom, with a plate of foie gras on his knees and a bottle of champagne between his ankles. His cabby reclined on the turf with a bottle of Bass and the remains of a pigeon pie. His horse had its head in a nose-bag.

"Hallo, Jimmy!" I hailed, pausing before the pastoral scene. "Funeral bake-meats?"

"Hallo!" Jimmy answered, and shook his head very solemnly. "Sister-in-law this time. It had to be."

"Sister-in-law! Why you haven't one!"

"Course not," said Jimmy. "That's the whole trouble. Ain't I breaking it to you gently?… Case of angina pectoris, if you know what that means. It sounds like a pick-me-up—'try Angostura bitters to keep up your Pecker.' But it isn't. Angina—short 'i'; I know because I tried it on the Dean with a long one and he corrected me. He said that angina might be forgiven, for once, in a young man bereaved and labouring under strong emotion, but that if I apprehended its running in the family I had better get the quantity right. He also remarked rather pointedly that he hoped his memory was at fault and that my poor brother hadn't really lost his deceased wife's sister."

"Do you know where bad boys go?" I asked him.

"Silly question," said Jimmy, with his mouth full of foie gras. "Why, to the Derby, of course. Have something to eat."

I told him that we had lunched, introduced him to Foe as the Malefactor, and invited him to come back and dine with us at Prince's before catching the late train for Oxford. He answered that fate always smiled on him at these funerals, paid off his cabby, and joined us.

Our dinner that evening was a brilliant success; and we left it to drive to Paddington to see the boy off. He had dropped a few pounds over the Derby but made the most of it up by a plunge on the last race: "and what with your standing me a dinner, I'm all up on the day's working and that cheerful I could kiss the guard." He wasn't in the least drunk, either; but explained to me very lucidly, on my taxing him with his real offence—cutting Oxford for a day when, the Eights being a short week off, he should have been in strict training—that all the strength of the B.N.C. boat that year lying on stroke side (he rowed at "six"), one might look on a Peche Melba and a Corona almost in the light of a prescription. "Friend of my youth," he added—addressing me, "and"—addressing Foe—"prop, sole prop, of my declining years—as you love me, be cruel to be kind and restrain me when I show a disposition to kiss yon bearded guard."

As the tail of the train swung out of the station Foe said meditatively, "I like that boy,"… And so it was. That autumn, when Jimmy Collingwood, having achieved a pass degree—"by means," as he put it, "only known to myself"—came up to share my chambers and read for the Bar, he and Foe struck up a warm affection. For once, moreover, Foe broke his habit of keeping his friends in separate cages. He was too busy a man to join us often; but when we met we were the Three Musketeers.

My father died in the Autumn of 1906; and this kept me down in the country until the New Year; although he had left his affairs as straight as a balance-sheet. Death duties and other things.… His account-books, note-books, filed references and dockets; his diaries kept, for years back, with records of rents and tithe-charges, of farms duly visited and crops examined field by field; appraisements of growing timber, memoranda for new plantings, queer charitable jottings about his tenants, their families, prospects, and ways to help them; all this tally, kept under God's eye by one who had never suffered man to interfere with him, gave my Radicalism a pretty severe jerk.

You see, here, worked out admirably in practice, was the rural side of that very landlordism which I had been denouncing up and down the East-End. The difference was plain enough, of course; but when you worked down to principle, it became for me a pretty delicate difference to explain. I was pledged, however, to return to London after Christmas and run (as Jimmy Collingwood put it) for those Bethnal Green Stakes: and in due time—that's to say, about the middle of January—up I came.

I won't bore you with my political campaign. One day in the middle of it Jimmy said, "To-night's a night off and we're dining with Jack Foe down in Chelsea. Eight o'clock: no theatre afterwards: 'no band, no promenade, no nozzing.' We've arranged between us to give your poor tired brain a rest."

"When you do happen to be thoughtful," said I "you might give me a little longer warning. As it is, I made a half-promise yesterday, to speak for that man of ours, Farrell, across the water."

"No, you don't," said Jimmy. "Who's Farrell? Friend of yours?"

"Tottenham Court Road," I said. "Only met him yesterday."

"What? Peter Farrell's Hire System?… And you met him there, in the Tottenham Court Road—by appointment, I suppose, with a coy carnation in your buttonhole. A bad young baronet, unmarried, intellectual, with a craving for human sympathy, on the Hire System'—"

"Don't be an ass, Jimmy," said I. "He's a Progressive, and they tell me his seat's dicky."

"They mostly are in the Tottenham Court Road," said Jimmy. "But if you've made half a promise, I was a week ahead of you with a whole one. We dine with Jack Foe."

The night was a beast. Foe's flat, high up on a block overlooking the Chelsea embankment, fairly rocked under squalls of a cross-river wind. He had moved into these new quarters while I was down in Warwickshire, and the man who put in the windows had scamped his job. The sashes rattled diabolically. Now that's just the sort of thing he'd have asked me to see to before he installed himself, if I had been up at the time: or, rather, I should have seen to it without being asked. That kind of noise never affected him: he could just withdraw himself into his work and forget it. But different noises get on different men's nerves, and, next to the scratching of a slate-pencil, a window on the rattle or the distant slam-slam of a door left ajar makes me craziest. You'd think a man out here would get accustomed to anything in the way of racket. Not a bit of it! Home on leave those particular sounds rasp me as badly as ever.… Moreover I have rather an eye for scamped carpentry: learned it off my father, going about the property with him. His own eye was a hawk's for loose fences, loose slates, badly-hung gates, even a broken sash-cord.

Foe's notions of furnishing, too, had always been bleak. He had hung his few pictures in the wrong places, and askew at that. He understood dining, though, and no doubt the dinner was good, though I gave very little attention to it.

"Otty's hipped to-night," said Collingwood, over the coffee. "Politics are all he can talk in these days. Wake up, Otty, and don't sit thinking out a speech."

I woke up. "I don't need to think out a speech," said I. "After a fortnight's campaigning a fellow can make speeches in his sleep."

"That's just what you're doing; and my fear is, you'll stand up presently and make one in ours."

"I'm sorry, Jack," I apologised. "Fact is, I'm worried by a half-promise I made to your man Farrell, over the river—"

"My man Farrell?" says Foe. "Farrell?… Farrell?… Never heard of him. Who's Farrell?"

"Never heard of him?… Why, Farrell's our candidate over there! … Your candidate; because, if elected, he'll represent you; because your College and—if you choose to narrow it down—your own laboratories and lecture-rooms—will belong to his constituency. The rates on your buildings, the trams that bring your poorer students, the public money that pays their scholarships—"

"My dear Roddy," he broke in. "You know that I never could get up an interest in politics. As for local politics—"

That fired me up at once. "Pretty silly sneer, that! Doesn't there lurk, somewhere down in your consciousness, some sense of belonging to the first city in the world?… Oh, yes, you use it, fast enough, whenever you go back to Cambridge and play the condescending metropolitan in Combination Room. There, seventy minutes from Liverpool Street, you pose—yes, pose, Jack—as the urbane man, Horatius Flaccus life-size; whereas your job as a citizen is confined to cursing the rates, swearing if a pit in the wood pavement jolts you on the way home from the theatre, supposing it's somebody's business, supposing there's graft in it, and talking superciliously of Glasgow and Birmingham, provincial towns, while you can't help to cheapen the price of a cabbage in Covent Garden!"

"Dear Roddy," Foe answered—very tolerantly, I'll admit—"you'll get elected, to a dead certainty."

"Oh, I'm all right," said I, cooling down. "Wish I could be so sure of your man Farrell, across the bridge."

"Farrell?"

"That's his name.… Think you'll be able to remember it?"

Here Jimmy dropped the ash of his cigar into his coffee-cup and chipped in judiciously.

"Otty has the right of it, Professor—though we shall have to cure him of his platform style. Somebody has to look after this country and look after London; and if you despise the fellows who run the show, then it's up to you, my intellectuals, to come in and do the business better. But you won't. It bores you. 'Oh, go away—can't you see I'm busy? I've got a malignant growth here, potted in a glass bottle with a diet of sterilised fat and an occasional whisky and soda, and we're sitting around until the joker develops D.T. He's an empyema, from South America, fully-grown male—'"

"Heavens alive!"

"I dare say I haven't the exact name," confessed Jimmy. "Fact is, I happened on it in the dictionary when I was turning up 'Empiricist' in a bit of a hurry. Some Moderate fellow down at Bethnal Green had called Otty in one of his speeches 'an ignorant empiricist'; so naturally I had to look up the word. I'd a hope it meant something connected with Empire-building, and then Otty could have scored off him. But apparently it doesn't."

"Are you sure?" asks Foe.

"Well, I used the dictionary they keep at Boodle's, not having one of my own. If you tell me it's not up to date, I'll write something sarcastic in the Complaint-Book."

Foe dropped the end of his cigar into the ash-tray and pushed back his chair. "Well", said he, "it's about time we got into our coats, eh?"

"My dear fellow—" I began. "You don't tell us—" I began again.

He understood, of course. What he said was, "The late Mr. Gladstone, they tell me, used to address Queen Victoria as if she were a public meeting. She complained that she didn't like it… and anyway, if you two can't help it, I can't help the acoustic defects of this flat.… Some more brandy? You'd better. It's a beast of a night; but your faithful dog shall bear you company."

NIGHT THE SECOND.

THE MEETING AT THE BATHS.

Foe's man, after whistling ten minutes or so for a taxi, returned upstairs, powdered with sleet. There wasn't, he said, so much as a four-wheeler crawling in the street. We went down and waited in the hall while he whistled again.

"Where is this show of yours being held?" Foe asked, after a bit.

"In the Baths," I told him, "just across the bridge. Yes, actually in the great Swimming Bath.… You needn't be afraid, though. They drain it."

"I don't care if they omitted that precaution," said he. "This is an adventure, and I'm for taking it in the proper spirit. Let's walk."

He pushed back the catch of the lock. The door burst open, hurling him back against the wall, as his man came flying through, fairly projected into our arms by the pressure of wind in the porch.

"Make up the fire, put out the whisky, and go to bed," Foe bawled at him. "Eh?… Yes, that's all right; I have my latch-key."

I couldn't have expostulated if I'd wanted to. The wind filled my mouth. We butted out after him into the gale, Jimmy turning in the doorway to let out a skirling war-whoop—"just to brace up the flat-dwellers," he explained afterwards. "I wanted to tell 'em that St. George was for Merry England, but there wasn't time."

We didn't say much on the way. The wind took care of that. On the bridge we had to claw the parapet to pull ourselves along; and just as we won to the portico of the Baths there came a squall that knocked us all sideways. Foe and Jimmy cast their arms about one pillar, I clung to another; and the policeman, who at that moment shot his lantern upon us from his shelter in the doorway, pardonably mistook our condition. He advised us—as a friend, if he might say so—to go home quietly.

"But there's a public meeting inside," said I.

"There might be, or there might not be," he allowed. "It's a thin one anyway. You'll get no fun out of it."

"And I am due to make a speech there," I went on. "That's to say, they want me to propose or second a vote of thanks or something of the sort."

"If I was you, sir," advised the constable, kindness itself, "I wouldn't, however much they wanted it."

I gave him my card. He held it close under the ray of his bull's-eye and altered his manner with a jerk. "Begging your pardon, Sir Roderick—"

"Not at all," I assured him. "Most natural mistake in the world. If there's a side entrance, now, near the platform—"

He led us up a gusty by-street and tapped for us on the side door. It was opened at once, though cautiously, by a little frock-coated man ornamented with a large blue-and-white favour. After an instant's parley he received us obsequiously, and the constable pocketed our blessing.

"Of course," he said by way of Good night, "I knew from the first I was dealing with gentlemen. I made no mistake about that."

The little steward admitted us to a sort of lobby or improvised cloak-room stowed somewhere beneath the platform. While helping us off with our coats he told us that the audience was satisfactory "considering the weather." "A night like this isn't calculated to fetch out doubtfuls."

"It has fetched out one, anyhow," said I. "This is Professor Foe, of your University College."

"Greatly honoured, sir, I am sure!" The little man bowed to Foe, and turned again to me: "Your friends, Sir Roderick, will accompany you on the platform, of course. Shall we go in at once? Or—at this moment Mr. Jenkinson is up. He has been speaking for twenty minutes."

"—And has just started his peroration," said I; for though it came muffled through the boarding, I had recognised Mr. Jenkinson's voice, and the oration to which in other parts of London I had already listened twice. I could time it. "There's no hurry," I said. "Jenkinson—good man, Jenkinson—has finished with the tram-service statistics, and will now for a brief two minutes lift the whole question on to a higher plane. Then he'll sit down, and that's where we'll slip in, covered by the thunder of applause."

He divided a grin between us and a couple of assistants who had been hanging up our coats and now came forward.

"To tell you the truth, Sir Roderick, our candidate wants strengthening a bit, for platform purposes; though they tell me he's improving steadily. The kinder of you to come, sir, and help us. As for Jenkinson, he's the popular pet over here, as a speaker or when he comes across to play at the Oval. As a cricketer yourself, Sir Roderick, you'll know what Jenkinson does with his summer?"

"Certainly," said I. "Being on the Committee of the M.C.C.—"

"You don't mean to say that it's Jenko?" Jimmy chipped in. "You don't tell me it's our long left and left-handed Jenko, that has bowled me at the nets a hundred times?—alas, poor Jenko!"

"Why, of course, it is," said I. "Didn't you know?… How the deuce else do you suppose that a cricket pro. supports himself during the winter?"

"I'd never thought of that," said Jimmy. "One half of the world never knows how the other half lives."

"Well," said I, "that's Jenkinson's winter occupation—public oratory—advocacy of social and municipal reform—mostly on Fabian lines. The man's honest, mind you.… But he's finishing.… Come along! Are you for the platform, Jack?"

"Not if I can sit somewhere at your feet and look up at you," said Foe. "I'm not at all certain that I approve of your candidate, either, or his political platform—"

"Our Mr. Farrell, Professor? Oh, surely!—" the little steward expostulated. "But maybe you've never made Mr. Farrell's acquaintance, sir?"

"Never set eyes on him, to my knowledge," Foe assured him.

"Then, Professor—if I may make bold to say so—it's impossible to disapprove of Mr. Farrell. He's a bit what-you-might-call opportunist in his views; but, for the gentleman himself, he wouldn't hurt a fly—not a headache in a hogshead of him, as the saying goes.… Certainly, Sir Roderick, if you're ready.… Mr. Byles, here, will conduct the Professor to a chair close under the platform. We usually keep a few front seats vacant, for friends and—er—eventualities."

"I'm an eventuality," said Foe.

"You'll be one of us, sir, before you've finished, never fear!" the little steward promised genially.

We entered amid salvos of applause, again and again renewed. It was none of our earning nor intended for us. Jenkinson (I was afterwards told) had varied his peroration with a local allusion very cleverly introduced. "They probably knew him" (he said)—"those, at any rate, who happened to live near Kennington probably knew him—for one who earned his living by a form of sport, by a mere game, if they preferred so to call it." (Cheers.) "He was not there to defend himself, still less to defend cricket." (Hear, hear.) "He would only say that cricket was a game which demanded some skill and— especially when one bowled at the Oval" (loud cheers) "against Surrey" (cheers loud and prolonged)—"often some endurance." (Laughter.) "He would add that cricket was a thoroughly English game." (Renewed cheers.) "Why do I mention cricket to-night, sir?"—Jenkinson swung round and demanded it of the Chairman, who hadn't a notion. "I mention it, sir, because players have sometimes said to me, 'Jenkinson, I wonder you always seem to enjoy yourself at the Oval.' 'Why not?' says I; 'the crowd's friendly and the pitch perfect.' 'That's just it,' they say; 'perfect to break a bowler's heart.' 'Never you mind.' I answers: 'Tom Jenkinson, when he gets into Surrey, isn't out for averages.'" (Can't you hear the cheers at that?) "'He's out for fine art and a long day at it in pleasant surroundings: and,' I winds up, 'if you reckon I sometimes take a while, down there, to bowl a man out, just you wait till I come down and help to bowl a man in!' Your servant, Mr. Farrell!"

Neat, eh? Well, we made our entrance right on top of it: and though the great Bath was no more than three-parts full, you couldn't see a vacant seat, the audience rocked so.

Now I must tell you a queer thing.… You know what it feels like when you're talking away easily, maybe laughing, and all of a sudden the Bosch puts in one that you feel means business? Something in the sound of the devil makes you scatter.… Well, I can't explain it, but through the noise of the stamping, hand-clapping, cheering, all of a sudden and without rhyme or reason, I seemed to hear the shriek of something distant, sinister, menacing.… Oh, I'm not an imaginative fellow. Very likely it was a note set up by the wind outside. I can't even swear that I heard it; sort of took it down my spine. Shrill it was for a moment—something between a child's wail and the hiss of a snake—and, the next moment, not shrill at all, but dull and heavy, like the flap of a great wing beating the air, heavy with evil.… Yes, that was the sense of it—heavy with evil. I pulled up with a shiver. The Chairman was on his feet, waiting for the applause to cease, ready to announce the next speaker. The little steward touched him by the arm; he wheeled about and shook my hand effusively as I was introduced. "Delighted! Flattered!" he said, and shook me by the hand again. The shiver went out of me: but it took something out of me at the same time. I had a most curious feeling of depression as I found my place.… I looked about for Foe, and spotted him. They had given him a chair close under the platform, a little to my right. He had taken his seat and was scanning the platform attentively. The arc-light shone down on his face, and showed it white, bewildered, a trifle strained.… But this may have been no more than my fancy.

The Chairman asked for silence. He was a bald-headed small man of no particular points and (as Jimmy whispered) seemed to feel his position acutely. He said that, whatever their personal differences, they would all agree that Mr. Jenkinson's speech had uplifted them above ordinary politics. He had felt himself speaking not as their Chairman but as a private individual—or, in other words, as a man— uplifted into a higher plane, and he would now call upon their respected candidate, Mr. Farrell, to address the meeting.

Mr. Farrell stepped forward. I must try to tell you what Mr. Farrell looked like, because it belongs to the story.… You'll find that it becomes pretty important.

He was of medium height and carried a belly. Later on, when I came to know him, I heard him refer to it as his "figure" and say that exercise was good for it. I don't know about that: but he certainly was given exercise to reduce it, later on.… He could not have been ashamed of it either, just yet: for it was clothed in front with sealskin and festooned with two loops of gold chain.

Two or three locks of hair, cultivated to a great length and plastered by means of pomade across his cranium, concealed a certain poverty of undergrowth thereabouts; while a pair of whiskers, sandy in colour and stiff in texture, and a clean-shaven upper lip and chin, threw out a challenge that Mr. Peter Farrell could grow hair if and where he chose. His eyes bulged like gooseberries. They were colourless, and lustreless in comparison with the diamond pin in his neckcloth. His frock-coat and pepper-and-salt trousers were of superfine material and flashy cut. They fitted him like a skin in all the wrong places. Get it into your heads—Here was a prosperous reach-me-down person of the sort you will find on any political platform, standing for Parliament or seconding a vote of thanks.

He was not in the least bumptious. He began very nervously with a carefully prepared Shakespearean quotation—"'I am no orator as Brutus is,'" in compliment to Jenkinson. Then he gave me a lift. He said that my presence there was a proof, if proof were needed, of the solidarity—he would repeat the word—of the solidarity existing in the Progressive ranks. He was sure—he might even say, confident—that this graceful act on the part of the right honourable baronet (as he chose to call me) would give the lie to certain reports—hints, rather—emanating from certain quarters which called themselves newspapers. He would not soil his mouth by giving them their true name, which was Rags. "We are all solid here," announced Mr. Farrell, and was answered with applause.

After this spirited opening he consulted a sheaf of notes, and was straightway mired in a ploughland of tramway finance and sticky statistics. After ten minutes of this he turned a furrow, so to speak, and zigzagged off into Education "Provided" and "Non-Provided," lunging and floundering with the Church Catechism and the Rate-Book until I dare say his audience mistook the two for one single composition.

"Poor old Jack!" I thought. "This will be boring him stiff."… And with that I sat up of a sudden, listening. Sure as fate I heard the damned thing coming… coming…

"This brings me," said Mr. Farrell, "to the subject of Grants—Grants from the Imperial Exchequer and Special Grants from the London County Council to certain University Colleges, of which you have one in your midst—" It was at this point that I sat up.

"I may claim," went on Mr. Farrell, "to be no foe of Higher Education. I am all for the Advancement of Science. In my own way of business I have frequently had occasion to consult scientific experts, and have derived benefit—practical benefit—from their advice. I freely own it. What's more, ladies and gentlemen, I am all for Research, provided you keep it within limits.

"What do I mean by limits?… I have here, in my hand, ladies and gentlemen, a document. It is signed by a number of influential persons, including several ladies of title. This document alleges— er—certain practices going on in a certain University College not five hundred yards from where I stand at this moment; and it asks me what I think of them, and if public money—your money and mine— should be voted to encourage that and similar forms of Research—"

"Great Scott!" groaned Jimmy, and touched my arm. "Otty, look at the Professor's face! To think we—"

"I have also," pursued Mr. Farrell, "a supplementary paper, extensively signed in the constituency, supporting the document mentioned and asking for a Public Inquiry; asking me if I am willing to press for a Royal Commission. It was put into my hands as I entered the hall; but I have no hesitation whatever in answering that question.

"A certain Professor is mentioned—I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance—and a certain—er—" Mr. Farrell consulted his papers— "Laboratory of Physiological Research. I made my own way in the world. But I am an Englishman, I hope; and when such a document as this, influentially signed, is put into my hands and an answer demanded of me, what sort of answer do I give? The answer I give, ladies and gentlemen, is that I keep a spaniel at home, though not for sporting purposes, and still less for purposes of Physiological Research"—Every time the ass came to these two words he made elaborate pretence of consulting his papers.

"Nine times out of ten this dumb friend and dependent of mine greets me in the hall as I reach home after a hard day's business, wagging his tail in a way almost more than human. And when I think of me going home to-night, with this document—signed, as I say, by persons of title and supported by this influential body of rate-payers—and look into his dumb eyes and think it might happen to my Dash to be laid on a board in the interests of this so-called Research, and there vivisected alive, then I say—"

"It's a lie!"

Foe was on his legs, and he fairly shouted it. Shell-shock? Phut!—It exploded right at our feet below the platform. Farrell came staggering back, right on top of us; but the reason may have been partly that Jimmy had reached forward, too late, and gripped his coat-tails. Of course the man's offence was unpardonable; but I could hardly recognise Jack's face, so drawn it was and twisted in white-hot hate.

There was silence while you might count five, perhaps. The audience, taken right aback for that space, had begun to rise and crane forward. "Who is it?"—you could almost hear the question starting to run.

Then again, for a few seconds, things happened just as they do in rowdy public meetings. While the Chairman thumped the table, Farrell wrenched his coat-tails from Jimmy's grip and stepped to the edge of the platform.

"Who are you?" he demanded. There was a queer throaty sound in his voice; yet he held himself (I thought) in fair control.

"My name is Foe," came the answer. Jack was still on his feet, his face ashen, his eyes blazing behind his glasses. I had known him all these years and never guessed him capable of such a white rage. But the words came very slowly and deliberately. "My name is Foe. I am the Professor with whom, just now, you said you hadn't the pleasure to be acquainted—"

"Throw him out!" called a voice from one of the back rows.

I had expected that; had, as you might say, been waiting for it. What caught me unprepared was its instant effect on Mr. Farrell.

He raised a fist and shook it. He fairly capered. "Yes, throw him out! Throw him out!" He choked, spluttered and let it out almost in a scream. I leaned forward for a sideways sight of his face.

"Gad! he's going to have a fit and tumble off the platform. Stand by, Otty." Jimmy, reaching out a hand again for Mr. Farrell's coat-tails, spoke the warning close in my ear, for by this time twenty or thirty voices had taken up the cry, "Throw him out!" the Chairman was hammering like mad for Order, and there was an ugly shuffle of feet at the far end of the hall.

"Throw him out! Throw him out!" Farrell kept screaming above the hubbub. "How would he treat a dog?—"

"The man's demented," said I—and with that I heard a bench or a chair go crack like a revolver-shot. It might have been a shot starting a sprint; for close on top of it about a dozen fellows leapt out into the gangway, while three or four charged forward through the audience, where the women had already started to scream.

There was nothing for it but prompt action. Jimmy and I swung ourselves down over the front of the platform. This gave us a fair start of the crowd, but it didn't give us any time to argue with Foe, who still stood glaring up at Farrell, ready to put in another retort as soon as he could get a hearing. Of the danger rushing down on him either he wasn't aware or he cared nothing for it. Jimmy caught him by the waist, and grinned intelligently as I pointed to the emergency exit around the corner of the platform.

"Right-O! Hold the curtain aside for me.… Along you come, Professor! Be a good child and don't kick nursy…"

"Take him home," said I. "Policeman will help if there's a row outside."

Then I dropped the curtain on them and faced about. The audience by this time were standing on benches and chairs, but of course my first job was with the hustlers who had reached the end of the gangway and were coming on under the lee of the platform. They looked ugly at first, but the job turned out to be a soft one.

"You wanted him turned out," said I, "and we've obliged you. Rather neatly, eh?—You can't say no to that."

I wanted someone to laugh, and by the mercy of Heaven someone did— someone back in the third or fourth row. In five seconds or so quite a lot of people were laughing and applauding.

"Now stand where you are," said I, catching hold of this advantage; "and one of you give me a leg up to the platform. I'm going to propose a vote of thanks.… Won't keep you standing long. But please don't go back to your seats; because some of the women are frightened."

Well, they gave me a leg up, and somebody above gave me a hand, and there I was, none the worse, on the platform.

Farrell had collapsed in his seat by the Chairman's table and sat with his face in his hands. The Chairman was paralytic. So I did the only thing that seemed possible: started to propose a vote of thanks. Pretty fair rubbish I must have started with, too: but by and by I slipped into my own election speech and after that it was pretty plain sailing. You see, when a man runs for candidate, he begins by preparing half a dozen speeches; but by the time he's half through he has them pretty well boiled down into one, and he can speak that one in his sleep. After ten minutes or so I forgot that I was moving a vote of thanks to somebody and moved a vote of confidence instead—confidence in Mr. Farrell.

Nobody minded. Two or three speakers followed me and moved and seconded all sorts of things at random. We were all in a hopeless muddle, and all quite good-humoured about it; and we wound up by singing "God Save the King!"

NIGHT THE THIRD.

THE GRAND RESEARCH.

The little Chairman followed me into the lobby and thanked me effusively, while a couple of stewards helped me into my great-coat. He threw a meaning glance over his shoulder at Farrell, who stood in a corner nervously winding and unwinding a long silk comforter about his neck and throat. He seemed to be muttering, saying something over to himself. His face twitched—it was still red and congested— and he kept his eyes on the floor. He had not spoken to either of us since the meeting dissolved. Very likely he did not see us.

"A bit rattled," I suggested quietly.

"You may bet on that, Sir Roderick." The steward, who was turning up my coat collar, said this almost in my ear. "You don't think, now—"

He did not finish the sentence, and I faced about on him for the rest of it. He tapped his forehead gently.

"Oh, nonsense!" said I. "He's not broken to public life and he doesn't ruffle well, that's all; and, after all, it isn't every man who enjoys being called a liar to his face and before some hundreds of people."

"His face, sir," the steward persisted. "That's it; you've given me the word. Did you see his face? No, of course you didn't, for you were sitting sideways to him—and so was you, Mr. Chairman, sir. But I was standing by the main door when it happened, and had him in full view, and—Well!" he wound up.

"Well?" said I.

He dropped his voice to a whisper almost. "It frightened me, sir.… I think it must have frightened a good few of the audience, and that's what held the rush back and gave you and the other gentleman time. You wouldn't think, to look at his face now"— with a glance across at Farrell, who was sending out to inquire if his car had arrived, and looking at his watch (for, you'll understand, the meeting had broken up early in spite of my oratorical effort)—"you wouldn't believe, Sir Roderick, that there was anything deep in the man. Nor perhaps there isn't. It didn't seem to me, just half a minute, that it was Mr. Farrell inside Mr. Farrell's clothes and looking out of his eyes."

"Then who, in the world?" I asked.

The steward gave himself a shake. "Speak low, sir, and don't turn round.… I was a fool to mention his name—folks always hear their own names quicker than anything else. He's looking our way, suspicious-like.… Now if I was to say 'Satan,' or if I was to say that he was a party possessed—Well, any way, Sir Roderick, I wish we had someone else for a candidate, and I don't see myself happy, these next few days, working on Committee for him."

"Well, you have the advantage of me," said I. "You saw him full-face, whereas I had to study him from the rear. From the rear he looked funny enough.… But look here," I went on; "if there were any slate loose on the man's roof, as you're hinting, you may bet that a great Furnishing Company in Tottenham Court Road wouldn't be taking any risks with him as Chairman of Directors."

"All I can say, sir," he muttered, shaking his head, "is that I don't like it. And, anyway, he isn't a gentleman."

The Chairman had left us to say good night to Mr. Farrell, whose car was just then announced. I went across, too, to shake hands and wish him good luck on polling-day. As our eyes met he started, came out of the torpor in which he had been gazing about him, and bowed to me in best shop-walker fashion.

"Ah, Sir Roderick!" he said, not very coherently. "You must excuse me—remiss, very. Owe you many thanks, sir—not only for coming— great honour—But saved very awkward situation. Overwrought, sir— that's what I'm suffering from—overstrain: not used to this sort of thing.… My God, I am tired… all of a sudden, too; so tired you can't think.… Can I have the pleasure of driving you a part of the way, Sir Roderick?"

"Thank you, Mr. Farrell," said I. "But you're for Wimbledon, I believe, and I'm for Chelsea. Fact is"—I ventured it on an impulse—"I'm going to call on that friend of mine, Professor Foe, who so unhappily interrupted you to-night, and tell him that he made a fool of himself." I watched his eyes. They were merely dull— heavy. "You did provoke him, you know, Mr. Farrell," I went on: "I'm morally certain he is guiltless of the practices alleged in that document of yours; and, if I can persuade him to receive you in his laboratory and show you his work and his methods—"

By George, I had called back that look into Mr. Farrell's gooseberry eyes! This time it lasted for about two seconds.

"Meet him?—him? Your pardon, Sir Roderick." He brushed his hand over his eyes, but they were dull again.… "No, thank you"—he turned to the Chairman—"It's only two steps to the car; I don't want anyone's arm.… Well, yes, I'm obliged to you. Queer, how tired I feel.… Good night, gentlemen!"

The car purred and glided away. "I feel a bit uneasy about our Candidate," said the Chairman as we watched the rear-light turn the corner. "He's had a shock.… Well, we live in stirring times, and one more evening's over!"

"But it isn't!" I cried out on a sudden thought. "Man, we've forgotten the reporters! If they've left the building the whole town will be red before we're well out of our beauty-sleep."

We made a plunge back for the hall and, as luck would have it, found three of the four reporters at the table. The early close had left them ahead of time, and two were copying out their shorthand while the third was engaged on a pithy paragraph or two under the headline of "Stormy Proceedings—A Professor Ejected. What happens to Dogs in the Silversmiths' College?"

I won't say how we prevailed with the Fourth Estate, except that it wasn't by bribery. The man writing the Pithy Pars did some cricket reporting at Lord's during the summer—some of the best, too. I was taking bread out of his mouth, and knew it. But it had to be done, and it was done, as a favour between gentlemen. He saw to the others.… God help those people who run down Cricket!

I knocked in at Foe's flat well on the virtuous side of midnight. Jimmy was in charge of the patient. Foe had got into an old Caius blazer and sat very far back in a wicker chair—lolled, in fact, on his shoulder-pins, sucking at a pipe and brooding.

"Give me a whisky-and-soda," said I. "If ever a man has earned it!"

"I somehow knew you'd turn up," said Jimmy, mixing. "Not a scratch? Tell us."

So I told. I didn't tell all, of course. I left out all the business in the lobby, what the steward had said, what Farrell had said, and my traffic with the reporters. I humped myself on my display of oratory.

I must have thrown this—necessarily thrown it—somewhat out of proportion.

Jimmy said, "Rats! I know all about Caesar's funeral, and you couldn't do it. You can't come it over us with your spellbound audience. What you've done is you've kept the bridge ever since the proud Professor and I started back, and, when they cut it behind you, you swam the river."

"Have it which way you like," said I, dropping into a chair. "Now tell me how you two have been getting along."

"Our motto," said Jimmy, "has been Plain Living and High Thinking. We have fleeted the time in earnest discourse. It began on the way home with the Professor asking me some innocent question concerning what he called the 'Science' of Ju-Jitsu. I told him that it was of Japanese origin, as its name implied, and further that he did wrong to call it a Science; it was really an Art. I engaged that I could prove this to him in thirty seconds, but said I would wait until we reached home, lest he might be trying his discovery on the Police. This led to a discussion on the Art of Self-Defence, in the course of which he let fall the incredible remark that he had never been inside the National Sporting Club."

"Give him time," said I. "Jack's a methodical worker, as every man of science should be. He'll come to it; but, so far, his researches have been confined to the lower animals."

Jimmy looked puzzled. "Eh?… Oh, you mean politicians. Well, it occurred to me that if he meant to attend any more political meetings, there was no time to be lost. So—"

"But I don't," Jack growled.

Jimmy corrected himself. "Perhaps we'd better say, then, that I thought it well he should know the difference between some public gatherings and others. So we've been talking about the N.S.C. and the Professor is under promise to visit it with me, one night, and see how an argument ought to be conducted."

I lit a pipe and looked at Foe over the match. "Jack," said I, "a holiday for you is indicated. With Jimmy's leave I'm going to speak seriously for a moment.… Down in the country, among other jobs, I have to sit on an Asylum Committee: and from the start I've been struck by the number of officials in charge of lunatics who seem, after some while at it, to go a bit dotty themselves. Doctors, male attendants—it doesn't seem to affect the women so much—even chaplains—after a time I wouldn't give more than short odds on the complete sanity of any of 'em. Why, even our Chairman… I must tell you about our Chairman.… He's old, and you may put it down to senile decay. Before we discharge a patient, or let him out as harmless, it's our custom to have him up before the Committee with a relative who undertakes to be answerable for him. Well, our Chairman, of late, can't be trusted to tell t'other from which: and it's pretty painful when he starts on the vacant-looking patient and says, pointing a finger at the astonished relative, 'You see, Mr. So-and-so, the apparent condition of this poor creature. It is with some hesitation that we have given this case the benefit of the doubt; and we cannot hand him over unless satisfied that you feel your responsibility to be a grave one.'"

Foe got up, smiling dourly, knocked out his pipe, and chose a fresh one from the mantelpiece. "You'll make quite a good story of that, Roddy," he said, "with a little practice. But, as I don't work among lunatics, what's the bearing of it?"

"You're working," said I, "—for years now you've been working and overworking—on these wretched animals, and neglecting the society of your fellow-men. You pore over animals, you probe into animals, you're always thinking about animals; which amounts to consorting with animals—at their worst, too.… I tell you, Jack, it won't do. I've had my doubts for some time, but to-night I'm sure of it. If you go on as you're going, there'll be a smash, my boy."

I was half afraid he would fly out on me. But he lit his pipe thoughtfully, dropped the match into the fire, and watched it burn out before he answered.

"And I'm to consort with my fellow-men, eh?—with the sort you led me among to-night?" He laughed harshly, with a not ill-humoured snort. "Is that your prescription? Thank you, I prefer my bad beasts."

"No," I said. "After to-night it's not my prescription. I'll give you another. I know your work, and that your heart's in it. But ease down this term as far as the lecture-list allows, and then at Easter come with Jimmy and me to Wastdale and let me teach your infant footsteps how to mountaineer. There's nothing like a stiff climb and a summit for purging a man's mind.… I've come to like mountains ever so much better than big game. They are the authentic gods, high and clean; they're above desecration; the more you assail them the more you are theirs.… Now there's always a kind of lust, a kind of taint, about big-game hunting. No harm to a man if he's in full health—but beastliness, and menagerie smell, if he's not."

"Mountains!" scoffs he.

"You needn't despise them," said I. "They're apt to be heavenly, just before Easter, with the snow on 'em; and Mickledore or Gable or the Pillar from Ennerdale will easily afford you forty-four ways of breaking your neck.… If you're good and can do a little trick I have in mind on Scawfell I'll reward you by bringing you home past a farm where they keep a couple of savage sheep-dogs. For a good conduct prize, I have a friend up there—a farming clergyman—who will teach you words of cheer by introducing you to a bull that can't pass the Board of Trade test because he's like Lady Macbeth's hand— however you babble to him in a green field he makes the green one red. But these shall be special treats, you understand, held in reserve. Most days you'll just climb till you're tired, and your dinner shall be mutton for three weeks on end.… Now, don't interrupt. I may seem to be on the oratorical lay to-night, but God knows I'm in earnest. If I wasn't, I shouldn't have spoken out like this before Jimmy, who's your friend and will back me up."

"I might," said Jimmy judiciously, "if I understood what you meant by all this chat about savage animals. What is it, at all? Does the Professor keep a menagerie? And, if so, why haven't I been invited?"

"Why, don't you know?" I asked.

"Know what?" asked Jimmy, leaning back and sucking at his pipe. "Whatever it is, I probably don't: that's what a Public School and University education did for me. As I seem to remember one Farrell's remarking in the dim and distant past, for my part I never indulged in Physiological Research—I made my own way in the world…" He murmured it dreamily, and then sat up with a start. "Lord's sake!" he cried out. "You don't tell me that Farrell… that the Professor actually—"

"Don't be a fool," I interrupted. "Of course, Jack doesn't. Jack, tell him about the Grand Research. Enlighten his ignorance, that's a good fellow."

"Enlighten him yourself, if you want to. You'll tell it all wrong: but I'm tired," declared Foe.

"Well, then," said I, "it's this way, dear James.… You behold seated opposite to you on the right of the fireplace, and smoking the beast of a brier pipe with the modesty of true genius, a Scientific Man—a Savant, shall I say?—of European reputation. It isn't quite European just yet: but it's going to be, which is better."

"I always prophesied it," said Jimmy. "What's it going to be for?"

"Listen," said I. "Having received (as you assure us) a liberal education, either at Eton or B.N.C., you probably made acquaintance with that beautiful poem by Dr. Isaac Watts beginning—"

'Let dogs delight to bark and bite—'

"Continue the quotation, with brief notes on any obscurities."

"Certainly," said Jimmy.

'Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
'Tis manners so to do—'

"No, that sounds a bit off."

'Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so;
Let bears and lions growl and fight, For 'tis their nature toe.'

"Good boy!" said I. "Now that's where Dr. Watts—"

"Don't interrupt," said Jimmy. "It isn't manners so to do, when I'm just getting into my stride—"

'But, children, you should never let
Such angry passions rise:
Your little hands were never made
To tear each other's eyes…'

"Please, I don't know any more."

"Nor need you," I assured him, "for, according to Jack, it's completely out of date."

"'M'yes!" Jimmy agreed. "But he won't get a European reputation by discovering that. They don't tear each other's eyes at the N.S.C., even—it's against the rules. Come and see for yourself, Professor."

"Angry passions," I went on patiently; "envy, hatred, and malice— especially hatred—are Jack's special lay; the Grand Research we call it. Take simple anger, for instance. What is it makes a man angry?"

"Lots of things.… Being called a liar, for one."

Foe took the mischief in the boy's eye, and let out a laugh. "I can't be angry with you, anyway. Go on, Roddy. You're doing it quite well so far, though I'm almost too sleepy to listen."

"It isn't as simple as you think," I pursued seriously (but glad enough in my heart to have heard Jack laugh—he wasn't given to laughter at any time). "All sorts of things happen inside you; all sorts of mechanisms start working: nerves and muscles, of course, but even in the blood-vessels there's a change of the corpuscles as per order—you put an insult into the slot and they do the rest. The levers of the machine—the brakes, clutches and the rest are in the forebrain: that's where you change gear when you want to struggle with suppressed emotion, run her slow or let her all out: and that's what Jack means to do with us before he has finished. Does he want us to love or to hate?—He'll press a button, and we shall do the rest, automatically. He will call on a Foreign Minister or an ambassador and make or avert a European War. He will dictate—"

"He's telling you the most atrocious rubbish," cut in Foe, addressing Jimmy.

"I am suiting this explanation to the infant mind," said I, "and I'll trouble you not to interrupt.… You may or may not have heard, my dear child, either at Eton or Oxford, that the brain has two hemispheres—"

"Just like the globe," said Jimmy brightly.

"Aptly observed," I congratulated him: "though that is perhaps no more than a coincidence. Taking the illustration, however, if we can only eliminate the Monroe Doctrine and work the clutch between these two—Jack, you are reaching for the poker. Don't fire, Colonel: I'll come down.… Reverting, then, to the forebrain, you have doubtless observed that in man it is enormously larger than in the lower animals, as in our arrogance we call them—"

"I hadn't," said Jimmy.

"It's a fact, nevertheless," said I. "I assure you.… Well, Jack, so far, has dealt only with the lower animals. I don't say the lowest. I doubt if he can do much with an oyster who has been crossed in love. But by George! you should watch him whispering to a horse! or, if you want something showier, see him walk into a lion's cage with the tamer."

"I say, Professor! Have you really?—" I knew Jimmy would sit up at this point.

"Of course he has," said I. "It began on a trip we took together in Uganda, just after leaving Cambridge. I was after lions: Jack's game was the mosquito and other bugs. One day—oh, well, Jack, we'll keep that story for another occasion.… The long and short was, he found he had a gift—uncanny to me—of dealing with animals in a rage, and raising or lowering their angry passions at will. He switched off bugs, their cause and cure, and on to this new track. He started experimenting, made observations, took records. He's been at it now—how many years, Jack? He'll play on a dog-fight better than you can on a penny-whistle: as soon as he chooses they're sitting one on each side of the gramophone, listening to Their Master's Voice. Vivisection?—Farrell's an ass. The only inhuman thing I've ever known Jack do was to domesticate a wild-cat and restore her to the woods unprotected by her natural amenities. These people hear a shindy going on in the laboratory in `—` Street, and conclude that he's holding the wrong sort of tea-party. Now, if he'd had an ounce of practical wisdom to-night, he'd have arisen quietly, invited Farrell to drop in at 4.30 to-morrow, arranged a moderate dog-fight, and given that upholsterer ten minutes of glorious life. Farrell—"

"I'm going to turn you both out," said Foe, getting up suddenly. "Help yourself to another whisky-and-soda, Roddy.… I'm so beaten with sleep it's odds against getting off my boots." As a fact, too, his face was weary-white. He turned to Jimmy, however, with a ghost of a smile. "Roddy has been talking a deal of nonsense. But if you really care to inspect my little show, come around some morning … . Let me see—to-day's Wednesday. Saturday is my slack morning—What d'you say to breakfasting here on Saturday, nine o'clock? and we'll walk over at half-past ten or thereabouts. I keep a yellow dog there that will go through some tricks for you.… Right? Then so long!… You can come along, too, Roddy, if you'll behave yourself."

NIGHT THE FOURTH.

ADVENTURE OF THE POLICE STATION.

I opened my newspaper next morning in no little anxiety. I ought rather to say "my newspapers": for the L.C.C. campaign was raging at its height, and a candidate cannot afford to neglect in the morning any nasty thing that any nasty fellow has written overnight.

Jephson—yes, he's the same good Jephson who wouldn't exchange my button-stick for a Field-Marshal's baton—Jephson brought in my morning tea and laid across the foot of my bed a bundle of newspapers as thick as a bolster.

I sat up, reached for them and began to read almost as soon as he switched on the light. I was honestly nervous.

I took the hostile papers first, of course. Pretty soon it began to dawn on my grateful soul that all was right with the world. The reporters had stood shoulder to shoulder. Two or three headlines gave me a shake. "BRISK SCENES ACROSS THE WATER," "MR. FARRELL SPEAKS OUT," "AN INTERRUPTER EJECTED." One headline in particular gave me qualms—"WHAT'S WRONG WITH SILVERSMITH'S COLLEGE? PUBLIC ENDOWMENT WITHOUT PUBLIC CONTROL: MR. FARRELL PUTS SOME SEARCHING QUESTIONS." But it had all been toned down in the letterpress and came to very little. The reporters, using their own discretion, had used such phrases as "An interrupter, apparently labouring under some excitement," "At this point a gentleman in the front row caused a diversion by challenging… The audience were in no mood, however,…" "Here an auditor protested warmly. It was understood that he had some official connection with the institution referred to by the candidate," and so on.

I hugged myself over my success. To be sure, the vague impression derivable was that the "scene" had its origin in strong drink. But the name of Professor John Foe nowhere appeared. Greatest blessing of all, there was no leading article, no pithy paragraph, even. I arose and shaved blithely. Across the stairhead I could hear Jimmy shouting music-hall ditties—his custom in his bath. Yes, all was right with the world.

Nothing happened that day, except that I interviewed my agent after breakfast, worked like a nigger until nightfall, canvassing slums; got back to the Bath Club, had a swim, dined, and returned to my constituency for the night's public meeting. Arduous work: but what you might call supererogatory. I could have shot my opponent sitting, and he knew it. My rascal of an agent knew it too, but he was an honest man in his way—and that's politics.

Next morning, same procedure on Jephson's part: similar bolster of papers, neatly folded and laid across the foot of my bed. This time I poured myself a cup of tea and reached for them lazily. The Times was topmost. Jephson always laid the Times topmost.

Five minutes later… But listen to this—

(To-night before resuming his story Otway had laid on the table beside him a small but bulging letter-case, from the contents of which he now selected a newspaper cutting.)

PUBLIC ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH

To the Editor of The Times:—
Sir,
A Memorial, influentially signed by a number of ladies and gentlemen variously eminent in Society, Politics, Literature and Art but united in their friendship for the dumb creation, was recently addressed to the Principal of the South London ("Silversmiths'") University College, situated in the constituency for which I am offering myself as representative in the next London County Council. In this Memorial the Principal was invited to ease the public mind with respect to rumours (widely prevalent) concerning certain practices in the laboratories under his charge, either by denying them or inviting a public inquiry. I was not aware of this document—to which I should have been happy to add my signature—until last night, when a copy of it was put into my hands, with an additional list of signatures by more than a hundred local residents. This morning I have had an opportunity to peruse the answer sent by the Principal (Sir Elkin Travers) to the Hon. Secretary of the Memorialists.
I cannot consider this answer satisfactory. Sir Elkin is content to meet the allegation with a flat denial, and rejects the reasonable request for a public inquiry in language none too courteous. Unfortunately a body of testimony by residents in the close vicinity of the College, as to the noises and outcries heard proceeding from the laboratories from time to time, if not in direct conflict with the denial, at least suggests that, with the growing numbers of his professors and students, Sir Elkin cannot know what is going on, at all times, in every department of the Institution: while his peremptory rejection of an investigation which he might have welcomed as an opportunity for allaying public suspicion will be far from having that effect. If all is well inside his laboratories, why should Sir Elkin fear the light?
May I point out that considerable sums of public money are spent on these University Colleges, and even, indirectly, in promoting the very researches incriminated by the Memorialists. We should insist on knowing what we are paying for and whether it is consistent with the consciences of those among us who look upon dumb animals as the friends and servants of man.
I am, Sir, Your obedient servant,
P. FARRELL.
The Acacias, Wimbledon,
Thursday, March 7, 1907.

I dressed and breakfasted in some haste. I heard Jimmy splashing and carolling in his tub, and for one moment had a mind to knock in and read him the letter, which worried me. But I didn't.… It really wasn't Jimmy's business.… Good Lord! if I'd only acted on that one little impulse, which seemed at the time not to matter two straws!—

I took a taxi to Chelsea, carting the newspapers with me and rooting Farrell's truffles out of a dozen or so on the way. It was just as bad as I feared. The man had used a type-copier and snowed his screed all over Fleet Street. There were one or two small leaders, too, and editorial notes: nasty ones.

I caught Foe on his very doorstep. "Hallo!" said he. "What's wrong? … Looks as if you were suddenly reduced to selling newspapers. I'm not buying any, my good man."

"You'll come upstairs and read a few, anyway," said I; and took him upstairs and showed him the Times. He frowned as he read Farrell's letter. I expected him to break out into strong language at least. But he finished his reading and tossed the paper on to the table with no more than a short laugh—a rather grim short laugh.

"Silly little bounder," was his comment.

"You didn't treat him quite so apathetically, the night before last," said I. "It might be better for you if you had. Look, here's the Morning Post, Standard, Daily News, Mail, Chronicle, Express.… He has plastered it into them all."

"I don't read newspapers," was his answer.

"Other people do," was mine; for I was nettled a bit. "Here are some of the editors asking questions already, and I'll bet the evening papers will be like dogs about a bone. This man may be a damned fool, but he's dangerous: that's to say he has started mischief."

"Oh, surely—not dangerous?" Foe queried, with an odd lift of his eyebrows.

"If I were you, at all events, I'd go straight and consult your man— what's his name? Travers?—at once. My taxi is waiting, and I'll run across in time to interview him before you start your morning's work. Did he show you his answer to these precious Memorialists before he posted it?"

For the moment Foe ignored my question. "Dangerous?" he repeated in a musing, questioning way. "Do you really think… I beg your pardon, Roddy… Eh? You were asking about Travers. Yes, he showed me his answer. Very good answer, I thought. It just told them to mind their own business."

"Did he say that, in so many words?" I asked.

"Let me think.… So far as I remember he put it rather neatly. … Yes, he wrote that he was not prepared to worry his staff with vague charges, or to invite an inquiry on the strength of representations which—so far as he could attach a meaning to them— meant what was false. But he added that if the Memorialists would kindly put these charges into writing, defining the practices complained of, and naming the persons accused, they should be dealt with in the proper way which (he understood) the law provided."

"Capital," said I. "Your Principal is no fool. Go off straight and consult him. Take these papers—the whole bundle—"

Foe took them up and pushed them into the pockets of his great-coat.

"You think he's dangerous?" he asked again, in an absent-minded way.

"Eh?… Oh, you're talking of Farrell?" said I. "Farrell's a fool, and fools are always dangerous."

Thereupon Jack Foe did and said that which I had afterwards some cause to remember. He passed his hand over his forehead, much as a man might brush away a cobweb flung across his evening walk between hedges. "That man makes me tired," he said; "extraordinarily tired. For two nights I've been trying not to dream about him. It was very good of you to come, Roddy. You shall run me over in your taxi and I'll speak to Travers. If the man is a fool—"

"A dangerous fool," I corrected.

"Coward, too, I should judge. Yes, certainly, I'll speak to Travers."

I put down Foe at the gates of his College and speeded home. Jimmy had breakfasted and gone forth to take the air. I sat down to open my letters and answer them. In the middle of this my agent arrived. We lunched together and spent the afternoon canvassing. This lasted until dinner, for which I returned to my Club. Thence a taxi took me East again to Bethnal Green for a meeting. The importance of these details is that they kept me from having word with Jimmy, or seeing fur or feather of him, for more than twenty-four hours.

Nor did I find him in my chambers when I got home, soon after eleven. He was a youth of many engagements. So I mixed myself a drink and whiled away three-quarters of an hour with a solitary pipe and the bundle of evening papers set out for me by Jephson, who lived out with his wife and family and retired to domestic joys at 9.30.

The evening papers had let down the Silversmiths' College pretty easily on the whole. But one of them—an opposition rag which specialised in the politics, especially gutter politics, of South London and was owned by a ring of contractors—had come out with a virulent attack, headed "Vivisection in Our Midst." The article set me hoping that Travers was a strong man and would use the law of libel: it deserved the horsewhip. It left a taste in the mouth that required a second whisky-and-apollinaris before I sought my bed, sleepily promising myself that I would call on Farrell in the morning, however inconvenient it might be, and help to put an end to this nonsense.… I would, if the worst came to the worst, even drag the fool to Jack's laboratory and convince him of his folly.

And this promise, as will be seen, I carried out to the very last letter.

A rapping on my bedroom door fetched me out of my beauty sleep. I started up in bed and switched on the electric light.

"That you, Jimmy?" I called. "Come in, you ass, and say what you want. If it's the corkscrew—"

"If you please, Sir Roderick—sorry to disturb you—" said a voice outside which I recognised as the night-porter's.

"Smithers?" I called. "What's wrong?… Open the door, man.… Is the place on fire?"

The door opened and showed me Smithers with a tall policeman looming behind him.

"Hallo!" said I, sitting up straighter and rubbing my eyes.

"Constable, sir," explained Smithers, "with a message for you. Says he must see you personally."

The constable spoke while I stared at him, my eyes blinking under the bed-light. "It's a dream," I was telling myself. "Silly kind of dream—"

"Gentleman in the Ensor Street Police Court, sir. Requires bail till to-morrow—till ten-thirty this morning, I should have said. Gave your name for surety." The constable announced this in a firm bass voice, respectful but business-like. "Said he was a friend of yours."

"What's his name?" I demanded.

"Gave the name of James Collingwood, sir—and this same address."

I gasped. "Jimmy?—Oh, I beg your pardon, Constable!—What has Mr. Collingwood been doing?"

"He's charged, sir," the constable answered carefully, "with resisting the police in the execution of their duty."

"What duty?"

"There was another gent took up, sir: and I may say, between ourselves, as your friend, sir, put up a bit of a fight for him. Very nimble with his fists he was, sir, or so I heard it mentioned. I wasn't myself mixed up in the affair. But from the faces on them as brought him in I should say, strikly between ourselves, he's lucky the word isn't assault—even aggeravated. But the Inspector took the report… and the Inspector, if I may say so, knows a gentleman when he sees one."

"Was he—" I began, and corrected myself. "Was Mr. Collingwood drunk?—strictly between ourselves, as you put it."

"No, sir." The honest man gave his verdict slowly. "I shan't be called for evidence: but I seen him and talked with him. Sober and bright, sir; and, when I left, in the best of sperrits. But I wouldn't say as how he hadn't been more than happy earlier in the evening."

"Thank you, Constable," said I. "You'll find a decanter, a syphon, and a glass set out for the prodigal's return, all on the table in the next room. Possibly you'll discover what to do with them while I dress. Smithers, turn on the light out there, and get me a taxi if you can. For I suppose," said I to the constable, "this means that I've to turn out and go with you?"

"I am afraid so, sir, and thanking you kindly. But as for the taxi, I came in one and took the liberty to keep it waiting—at this hour."

"Very thoughtful of you," said I, with a look at my watch. The time was 12.50.

"Not at all, sir. Mr. Collingwood turned out the loose change in his pocket and told me not to spare expense. Here it is, sir—one pound, seventeen—and I'd be glad if you took it and paid the whole fare at the end of the run."

"Good," said I, amused. "Jimmy is obviously sober. I never knew him drunk—really drunk—for that matter." I had my legs out of bed by this time, and the constable was bashfully withdrawing, Smithers having turned on the lights in the outer room. "Stop a moment," I commanded. "You may not believe it, but I'm a child at this game. How much money shall I have to take?… I don't know that I have more than a tenner loose about me—unless I can raise something off Smithers."

The constable relaxed his face into a smile, or something approaching one. "There is no money needed—not at this hour of the night. Your recognisances, Sir Roderick—for a fiver or so, if you ask me. But—" and here he hesitated.

"Well?"

"There's the other gentleman, sir. Mr. Collingwood did mention—"

"Oh, did he?" I cut in. "It was silly, maybe, to have forgotten him all this time—I'm a sound sleeper; and even when awake my mind moves slowly. But who the Hades is this other gentleman?"

"When arrested, sir, he gave his name as Martin Frobisher," said the constable with just a tremor of the eyelids, "and his address as North-West Passage; he wouldn't say more definitely. At the station he asked leave to correct this, and said that his real name was Martin Luther, a foreigner, but naturalised for years, and we should find his papers at the Reform Club, S.W."

"I don't seem to have met either of these Martins—or not in life," I said thoughtfully.

"Well, sir, if you ask me," he agreed, "I should be surprised if you had; for between ourselves, as it were, I don't believe he's either of his alleged Martins. And the Station don't think much of his names and addresses."

"Does he want to be bailed out, too?" I asked.

"He didn't ask it. He weren't in no condition, sir—as you might put it—when I left. But Mr. Collingwood, he says to me (I took a note, sir, of the very words he used)"—the man pulled out a note-book from his breast-pocket, and held it forward under the light—"'You go to Sir Roderick,' he says, 'and tell him from me that the prodigal is returned bearing his calf with him.'" The constable read it out carefully, word by word. "I don't know what it means, sir; but that was his message, and he said it twice over."

"There seems to be more in this than meets the eye," said I, pondering the riddle.

"You wouldn't say so, sir, if you'd seen Hagan's," said he, retiring with the last word and, on top of it, a genially open grin.

I was dressed in ten minutes or so, and we sped to Ensor Street. There I found my young reprobate sober and cheerful and unabashed.

"Sorry to give you this trouble, old man," was his greeting. "Sort of thing that happens when a fellow gets mixed up in politics."

"You shall tell me all about it," said I, "when we've gone through the little formalities of release.… What have I to sign?" I asked the sergeant who played escort.

"Oh, but wait a moment," put in Jimmy. "There's another bird. The animals came in two by two—eh, Sergeant Noah? I say, Otty, you'll be in a fearful way when you see him. But I couldn't help it—upon my soul I couldn't: and you'll have to be kind to him."

"Who is it?" I demanded.

"It's—Well, he gave the name of Martin Luther. But you judge for yourself. Sergeant Bostock—or are you Wombwell?—take Sir Haroun Alraschid to the next cage and show him the Great Reformer."

To the next cell I was led in a state of expectancy that indeed justified his allusion to the Arabian Nights. And the door opened and the light shone—upon Mr. Peter Farrell!

It was a swollen eye that Mr. Farrell upturned to us from his low bed, and a swollen and bloodied lip that babbled contrition along with appeals to be "got out of this" and lamentations for the day he was born; and as on that day so on this a mother had found it hard to recognise him. He wore a goodly but disorganised raiment; a fur-lined great-coat, evening dress beneath it; but the tie was missing, the shirt-collar had burst from its stud, the shirt-front showed blood-stains, dirty finger-marks, smears of mud. Mud caked his coat, its fur: apparently he had been rolling in mud. But the worst was that he wept.

He wept copiously. Was it the late Mr. Gladstone who invented the phrase "Reformation in a Flood"? Anyhow, it kept crossing and re-crossing my mind absurdly as I surveyed this wreck that had called itself Martin Luther. All the wine in him had turned to tears of repentance, and he was pretty nauseous. I told him to stand up.

"This—er—gentleman," said I to the police-sergeant, "is called Farrell—Mr. Peter Farrell. He lives," I said, as the address at the foot of the Times letter came to my memory, "at The Acacias, Wimbledon."

The sergeant nodded slowly. "That's right, sir. I knew him well enough. Attended a meeting of his only last Saturday—on duty, that's to say."

We smiled. "He's not precisely a friend of mine," said I. "But we have met in public life, and I'll be answerable for him. We must get him out of this."

"There's no difficulty, sir, since we have the address. There was no card or letter in his pocket, and he said he came from Wittenberg through the Gates of Hell. I looked him up in the Directory and the address is as you state.… But to tell you the truth, sir, I didn't ring up his telephone number, thinking as a nap might bring him round a bit.… We keep a taxi or two on call for these little jobs, and I'll get a driver that can be trusted. I'll call up Sam Hicks. There was a latch-key in the gentleman's pocket, and Sam Hicks is capable of steering a case like this to bed and leaving the summons pinned on his dressing-gown for a reminder.… But perhaps you'll call around for him to-morrow morning, sir, and bring him?"

"I'll be damned if I do," said I. "He must take his risks and I'll risk the bail.… Look here!"—I took Mr. Farrell by the collar and my fingers touched mud. "Pah!" said I. "Can't we clean him up a bit before consigning him?… Look here, Farrell! I'm sending you home. Do you understand? And you're to return here on peril of your life at ten o'clock. Do you understand?"

"I understand, Sir Roderick," sobbed Farrell. "Angels must have sent you, Sir Roderick.… I have unfortunately mislaid my glasses and something seems to be obscuring the sight of my left eye. But I recognised your kindly voice, Sir Roderick. The events of the past few hours are something of a blank to me at present: but may I take the liberty of wringing my deliverer by the hand?"

"Certainly not," said I. "Sit up and attend. Have you a wife? Sit up, I say. Will Mrs. Farrell by any chance be sitting up?"

"I thank God," answered Mr. Farrell fervently, "I am a widower. It is the one bright spot. Could my poor Maria look down from where she is, and see me at this moment—"

"It is a slice of luck," I agreed. "Well, you're in the devil of a mess, and you've goosed yourself besides losing a promising seat for the party. What on earth—but we'll talk of that to-morrow. You must turn up, please, and see it out. I don't know what defence, if any, you can put up: but by to-morrow you'll have a damnatory eye that will spoil the most ingenious. My advice is, don't make any. Cut losses, and face the music. This is a queer country; but the Press, which has been ragging you for weeks, will deal tenderly with you as a drunk and incapable."

"But the scandal, Sir Roderick!" he moaned.

"There won't be any," said I. "You've lost the seat: that's all. … Now stay quiet while I sign a paper or two."

Jimmy (redeemed) and I together packed Mr. Farrell into his taxi. Mr. Samuel Hicks, driver and expert, threw an eye over him as we helped him in and wrapped him in rugs. "There's going to be no trouble with this fare," said Mr. Hicks, as he pocketed his payment-in-advance. "Nigh upon two o'clock in the morning and no more trouble than a lamb in cold storage."

NIGHT THE FIFTH.

ADVENTURE OF THE "CATALAFINA": MR. JAMES COLLINGWOOD'S NARRATIVE.

"Well now," I asked, as my taxi bore us homeward, "what have you to say about all this?"

"I say," answered Jimmy with sententiousness, after a pause, "that you should never take three glasses of champagne on an empty stomach."

"I don't," said I.

"Nor do I," said Jimmy. "I took five, on Farrell's three… eight glasses to the bottle. It was a Christian act, because I saw that was he exceeding. But he insisted on ordering two bottles: so it was all thrown away."

"What was thrown away?"

"The Christian act.… I say, Otty," he reproached me, "wake up! You're not attending."

"On the contrary," I assured him, "I am waiting with some patience for the explanation you owe me. After dragging me out of bed at one o'clock in the morning, it's natural, perhaps, you should assume me to be half-asleep—"

Jimmy broke in with a chuckle. "Poor old Otty! You've been most awfully decent over this."

"Cut that short," I admonished him. "I am waiting for the story: and you provide the requisite lightness of touch; but the trouble is, you don't seem able to provide anything else."

"Don't be stern, Otty," he entreated. "It is past pardon. I know, and to-morrow—later in the morning, I should say—you'll find that the defendant feels his position acutely. Honour bright, I'll do you credit in the dock.… Wish I was as sure of Farrell. But, as for the story, as I am a sober man, I don't know where to begin. There's a wicked uncle mixed up in it, and a wicked nephew and a taxi, and a lady with a reticule, and a picture palace, and a water-pipe, and heaps upon heaps of policemen—they're the worst mixed up of the lot—"

"Begin at the beginning," I commanded. "That is, unless you'd rather defer the whole story for the magistrate's ear."

"The whole story?" He chuckled. "I'd like to see the Beak's face. … No, I couldn't possibly. My good Otty, how many people d'you reckon it would compromise?"

"You've compromised Farrell pretty thoroughly, anyhow," said I grimly: "and you've compromised the cause in which I happen to be interested. Has it occurred to you, my considerate young friend, that Farrell has receded to 1000 to 1 in the betting?—that, in short, you've lost us the seat?"

"I compromise Farrell?"—Jimmy sat up and exclaimed it indignantly. "I lose you his silly seat?… Rats! The little bounder compromised himself! He's been doing it freely—doing it since ten o'clock—two crowded hours of glorious life… 'stonishing, Otty, what a variegated ass a man can make of himself nowadays in two short hours, with the help of a taxi and if he wastes no time. When I think of our simple grandfathers playing at Bloods, wrenching off door-knockers.… Oh, yes—but you're waiting for the story. Well, it happened like this,—

"Farrell called on you this morning, soon after breakfast-time, and found me breakfasting. He was in something of a perspiration. It appeared that he'd fired off a letter to the Times directed against our dear Professor; and, having fired it, had learnt from somebody that the Professor was a close friend of ours. He had come around to make the peace with you, if he could—he's a funny little snob. But you had flown."

"I had gone off," said I, "to catch Jack Foe and warn him that the letter was dangerous."

"Think so? Well, you'd left the Times lying on the floor, and he picked it up and read his composition to me while I dallied with the bacon. It seemed to me pretty fair tosh, and I told him so. I promised that if his second thoughts about it coincided with my first ones, I would pass them on together to you when I saw you next, and added that I had trouble to adapt my hours to political candidates, they were such early risers. That, you might say, verged on a hint: but he didn't take it. He hung about, standing on one leg and then on the other, protesting that he would put things right. I hate people who stand on one leg when you're breakfasting, don't you?… So I gave him a cigar, and he smoked it whilst I went on eating. He said it was a first-class cigar and asked me where I dealt. I said truthfully that it was one of yours, and falsely that you bought them in Leadenhall Market off a man called Huggins. I gave him the address, which he took down with a gold pencil in his pocket-book.… I said they were probably smuggled, and (as I expected) he winked at me and said he rather gathered so from the address. He also said that he knew a good thing wherever he saw it, that you were his bo ideal of a British baronet, and that we had very cosy quarters. This led him on to discourse of his wife, and how lonely he felt since losing her—she had been a martyr to sciatica. But there was much to be said for a bachelor existence, after all. It was so free. His wife had never, in the early days, whole-heartedly taken to his men friends: for which he couldn't altogether blame her—they weren't many of 'em drawing-room company. A good few of them, too, had gone down in the world while he had been going up. He instanced some of these, but I didn't recollect having met any of 'em. There were others he'd lost sight of. He named these too—good old Bill This and Charley That and a Frank Somebody who sang a wonderful tenor in his day and would bring tears to your eyes the way he gave you Annie Laurie when half drunk: but again I couldn't recall that any of them had been passed down to me. 'You see, Mr. Collingwood,' he said, 'when one keeps a little house down at Wimbledon, these things have a way of dropping out as time goes on.' 'Just like the teeth,' said I. He thought over this for a while, and then laughed—oh, he laughed quite a lot—and declared I was a humorist. He hadn't heard anything so quick, not for a long while. 'Mr. Collingwood,' he said, 'I'm a lonely man with it all. I don't mind owning to you that I've taken up these here politics partly for distraction. It used to be different when me and Maria could stick it out over a game of bezique. She used to make me dress for dinner, always. We had a billiard-room, too: but that didn't work so well. I could never bring her up to my standard of play, not within forty in a hundred, by reason that she'd use the rest for almost every stroke. She had a sense of humour, had Maria: you'd have got along with her, Mr. Collingwood, and she'd have got along with you. You'd have struck sparks. One evening I asked her, 'Maria, why are you so fond of the jigger?' 'Because of my figger,' says she, pat as you please. Now, wasn't that humorous, eh? She meant, of course, that being of the buxom sort in later life—and it carried her off in the end—' Why, hallo!" Jimmy exclaimed. "Are we home already?"

"We have arrived at the Temple, E.C.," said I gently, "but scarcely yet at the beginning of the story."

He resumed it in our chambers, while I operated on the hearth with a firelighter.

"Well," said Jimmy, smoking, "to cut a long story short"—and I grunted my thanks—"he told me he was a lonely man, but that he knew a thing or two yet. Had I by any chance made acquaintance with the 'Catalafina,' in Soho? 'Oh, come!' said I bashfully, 'who is she?' 'It's a restarong,' said he: 'Italian: where the cook does things you can't guess what they're made of. Just as well, perhaps.' But the results, he undertook to say, were excellent."

"Do I see one?" I asked.

"No, you don't," answered Jimmy, sipping his whisky-and-soda. "That's just it, if you'll let me proceed.… He said that they kept some marvellous Lagrima Christi—if I liked Lagrima Christi. For his part, it always soured on his stomach. But we could send out for a bottle of fizz—I'm using his expression, Otty—"

"I trust so," said I.

"He called it that. He said he would take it as an honour if I'd join him in a little supper this very evening at the 'Catalafina.' He had a meeting at 7.30, at which he would do his best to soften down this letter of his in the Times; he would get it over by 9.30. Could we meet (say) on the steps of the 'Empire' at ten o'clock? He would hurry thither straight from the Baths, report progress—for me to set your mind at rest—and afterwards take me off to this damned eating-house. I should never find it by myself, he assured me. He was right there; but I'm not anxious to try. My hope is that it, or the management, won't find me.… Well, weakly-and partly for your sake, Otty—I consented. He said, by the way, he would be greatly honoured if I'd persuade you to come along too. 'It's Bohemian,' he said; 'if Sir Roderick will overlook it.' 'You told me it was Italian,' said I: 'but never mind. Sir Roderick, as it happens, is a bit of a Bohemian himself and is dining to-night with a club of them—the Lost Dogs, if you've ever heard of that Society.' I saved you, anyway. You may put it that I flung myself into the breach. They found you, but it was literally over my prostrate body… and here we are."

"Is that the story?" said I.

Jimmy leaned back on his shoulder-blades in the armchair. "It is the preliminary canter," he announced. "Now we're off, and you watch me getting into my stride,—

"Farrell turned up, on time. He was somewhat agitated, and I suspect—yes, in the light of later events I strongly suspect—he had picked up a drink somewhere on the way. I got into his taxi, and we swung up Rupert Street, and out of Rupert Street into what the novelists, when they haven't a handy map or the energy to use it, describe as a labyrinth leading to questionable purlieus. I am content to leave it at purlieus. The driver, as it seemed to me, had as foggy a notion as I of what, without infringing Messrs. Swan and Edgar's lingerie copyright, we'll call the 'Catalafina's' whereabouts. Farrell spent two-thirds of the passage with his head out of window. I don't mean to convey that he was seasick: and he certainly wasn't drunk, or approaching it. He kept his head out to shout directions. He was pardonably excited—maybe a bit nervous in a channel that seemed to be buoyed all the way with pawnbrokers' signs. But he brought us through. We alighted at the entrance of the 'Catalafina'; Farrell paid the driver, and I advised him to find his way back before daylight overtook him.

"I will not attempt to describe the interior of the 'Catalafina.' Farrell saved me that trouble on the threshold. 'Twenty years or so,' he said, pausing and inhaling garlic, 'often makes a difference in these places. One mustn't expect this to be quite what it used to be."… Well, I hadn't, of course, and I dare say it wasn't. It had sand on the floor, and spittoons. It was crowded, between the spittoons, with little cast-iron tables, covered with dirty table-cloths spread upon American cloth and garnished with artificial flowers and napkins of Japanese paper. Farrell called them 'serviettes.' He also said he felt 'peckish.' I—well, I had taken the precaution of dining at Boodle's, and responded that I was rather for the bucket than the manger. He considered this for some time and then laughed so loudly that all the anarchists in the room looked up as if one of their bombs had gone off by mistake.… Oh, I omitted to mention that all the space left unoccupied by cigarette-smoke and the smell of garlic was crowded with anarchists, all dressed for the part. They wore black ties with loose ends, fed with their hats on, and read Italian newspapers—like a musical comedy. The waiters looked like stage-anarchists, too; but you could easily tell them from the others because they went about in their shirt-sleeves.

"Farrell caught the eye of one of these bandits, who came along with a great neuter cat rubbing against his legs. Farrell began with two jocose remarks which didn't quite hit the mark he intended them for. 'Hallo, Jovanny!' he said pretty loudly, 'I don't seem to remember your face, and yet it's familiar somehow.'—Whereat Giovanni, or whatever his name was, flung a look over his shoulder that was equal to an alarm, and all the anarchists looked up uneasily too—for Farrell's voice carries, as you may have observed. He followed this up by smiling at me over the carte du jour and observing in a jovial stentorian voice that he felt like a man returned from exile. Fifteen years—and it must be fifteen years—is a long stretch.… 'Oh, damn your Italian,' said Farrell suddenly, dropping the card. 'In the old days we used to make orders on our fingers, in the dumb alphabet, and risk what came.'

"By this time he had Giovanni, and several anarchists at the nearer tables, properly scared. But he picked up the card and went on, innocent as a judge,' We used to have a code in those days. For instance, you crooked one finger over your nose and that meant 'sea-urchins.'' 'Why?' I asked. 'That was the code,' Farrell explained. 'They used to have a speciality in sea-urchins, straight from the Mediterranean. You rubbed a soupsong of garlic into them with three drops of paprika.… Now what do you say to sea-urchins?'

"'Nothing, as a rule,' said I. 'Safer with oysters, isn't it? They don't explode.' I dropped this out just to try its effect on the waiter, and he blanched. One or two of our convives began to clear.

"Farrell ordered two dozen of oysters, to start with, and sent a runner out for—no, Otty, I won't say it again—for two bottles of Perrier-Jouet; two bottles and '96, mark you. On hearing this command about a dozen habitues of the 'Catalafina' arose hastily, drained their glasses and vanished.

"Farrell perceived it not. He had picked up the card again and was ordering some infernal broth made of mussels and I-don't-know-what. 'What do you say to follow?' he asked me.

"'Something light,' I suggested. 'Liver of blaspheming Jew, for choice: it sounds like another speciality of this kitchen.'

"In the interval before the wine was brought Farrell gave me a short account of the meeting he had just left: and he didn't lighten the atmosphere of suspicion around us by suddenly sinking his voice to a kind of conspirator's whisper. The meeting (it appeared) had been lively, and more than lively. Our small incursion—or the Professor's, rather—had been a fool to it. For the Professor's loyal pupils, stung by that letter in the Times, had organised a counter-demonstration. 'Their behaviour,' Farrell reported, 'was unbridled.' They would hardly allow me a hearing. I give you my word—and I wish Sir Roderick to know it—I was prepared to tell them that information had come to me which put a different complexion on the whole case. I was even prepared to tell them that, while I should ever insist on the South London University College and all similar institutions being subject to a more public control with an increased representation of local rate-payers on their governing bodies, I was confident that in this particular case the charge had been too hasty.… I have the notes of my speech in my great-coat pocket; I'll give them to you later and beg you as a favour to show them to Sir Roderick. But what was the use, when they started booing me because I wore evening dress?'

"'Why did you?' I asked.

"'Because, as I tried to explain, I had another engagement to keep immediately after the Meeting—a Conversatsiony, as I put it to them.'

"'Then perhaps,' said I, 'they took exception to some details of the costume—for instance, your wearing a silk handkerchief, and crimson at that, tucked in between your shirt-front and your white waistcoat.'

"'Is that wrong?' Farrell asked anxiously. 'Maria used to insist on it. She said it looked neglijay.… But I suppose fashions alter in these little details.' He stood up, removed the handkerchief, and stowed it in a tail-pocket.

"'That's better,' said I.

"'I'm not above taking a hint,' said he, 'from one as knows. It'll be harder to get at.… But I don't believe, if you'll excuse me, that any one of these students, as they call themselves, ever wore an evening suit in his life—unless 'twas a hired one. No, sir; they came prepared for mischief. They meant to wreck the Meeting, and had brought along bags of cayenne pepper, and pots of chemicals to stink us out. They opened one—phew! And I have another, captured from them, in the pocket of my greatcoat on the rack, there. I'll show it to you by and by. Luckily our stewards had wind, early in the afternoon, that some such game was afoot, and had posted a body of bruisers conveniently, here and there, about the hall. So in the end they were thrown out, one by one—yes, sir, ignominiously. It don't add to one's respect for public life, though.'

"At this point the wine made its appearance, and—if you'll believe me—it was genuine: Perrier-Jouet, '96. A little while on the ice might have improved it, but we gave it no time. The oysters arrived too; but they were tired, I think. Something was wrong with them, anyhow.… Then—as I seem to remember having told you—Farrell put down three glasses of champagne on an empty stomach."

"You did mention it," said I; "somewhere in the dim and distant past."

"For my part," went on Jimmy seriously, "my potations were moderate. After trying the first oyster, I was sober enough to let the others alone. Then came on the alleged mussel-soup. I tried it and laid down my spoon.… Do you happen to know, Otty, which develops the quicker typhoid or ptomaine? and if they are, by any chance, mutually exclusive? Farrell will like to know.

"He swallowed it all. But when he had done he looked full in the eyes and said in a loud, unfaltering voice, 'This restarong is no longer what it was.'

"'The champagne is, and better,' I consoled him.

"'Well, what do you say now,' he asked,' to a pig's trotter farced with pimento? That sounds appetising, at any rate.'

"I think it was at this point, accurately, that I began to suspect him of having exceeded or of being on the verge of excess. But the suspicion no sooner crossed my mind than he set it at rest by getting up and walking across the room to his great-coat, on the rack by the door. His gait was perfectly steady. He drew certain articles from the pockets, returned with them, and laid them on the table: a cigar-case, a mysterious round box of white metal—sort of box you buy 'Blanco' in—and another round object concealed in a crushed paper-bag. He opened the first.

"'Have a cigar,' he invited me. 'They smoke between the courses in this place—proper thing to do.'

"'Sanitary precaution,' I suggested. 'I'll be content with a cigarette for the present. What are your other disinfectants?'

"He laughed, very suddenly and violently. 'Disinfectants?' he chortled; 'that's a good 'un! They're exhibits, my dear sir—pardon-liberty-calling-you-Dear-sir. Stewards collected a dozen, these infernal machines—'

"'There's no need to shout,' said I. No, Otty I was sober. … But I looked around and it struck me that the faces at the near tables were bright, and white, and curiously distinct in the cigarette-smoke.

"'I am not shouting,' Farrell protested: but he was, and at that moment. 'Disinfectants? That box, there—there's a bottle inside— sulphuretted hydrogen. T'other joker's a firework of sorts. I brought 'em along for evidence.… Wha's that?' He jerked himself bolt upright, staring at a dish the waiter held under his nose.

"'It's the tete de veau en spaghetti you ordered, sir,' said Giovanni.

"'Did I? I don't remember it. Do you remember my ordering tait-de-whatever it calls itself?' he asked me earnestly.

"Well, I couldn't, and I said so.

"'If I did,' commanded Farrell, 'take it away and let me forget it. This place is not what it was.… Take it away, you Corsican Brother, and bring me the bill! Look here,' said he as Giovanni departed. 'We'll get out of this and try something better. What do you say to looking in at the Ritz?' He lit his cigar and poured out more champagne.

"'As you like,' said I. 'Let's get out of this anyway. For my part, I've had enough.'

"'Well, I haven't,' said he, and fixed a stare on me. 'Oh, I see what you mean. I'm drunk.… It's no use your pretending,' he caught me up argumentatively. 'I've taken too much t'drink. Tiring day. Hope you're not a prude?'

"'Well then,' I confessed, 'it did strike me you were punishing the other fellow a bit too fast in the opening rounds. But you walked over to your corner, just now, steady as a soldier—'

"'Peculiarity of mine,' he explained. 'Ought t'have warned you. Takes me in head, long before legs. Do you a sprint down the street—even money—when we're outside.… Wha's this? Oh, the bill.… Thought it was more spaghetti.… Yes, I know.… Custom of house… pay the signora in the brass cage. My dear sir, if you'll 'scuse fam'liarity—'

"'Right,' said I, as he dived a hand into his pocket and fetched out a fistful of coin. 'Here's half-a-crown for Giovanni—he will now run along and poison somebody else. This being your show, I further abstract two sovereigns for the bill. I shall, I perceive, have to hand you ninepence in cash with the receipt.… But since you are intoxicated and I am what in any less sepulchral caravanserai might be described as merry, let us order our retreat with military precision. First, then, I fetch you yonder magnificent garment which has been drawing revolutionary hatred upon us ever since we entered…'

"'It was a present from Maria,' he said, as I helped him into it. 'Her last. She said it was a real sable.'

"'She spoke truthfully,' I assured him. 'Now gather up these light articles and steer for the door as accurately as you can, while I gather up my inexpensive paletot and pay at the desk.'

"'If I had my way with this blasted restarong,' he observed with sudden venom,' I'd raze it to the ground!'

"I walked over to the desk. I was right in supposing that ninepence was the sum I should receive from the Esmeralda behind the brass barrier. But her eyes were bright and interrogated me: the brass trellis between us shone also with an unnatural lustre: I was dealing with another man's money, and it seemed incumbent on me to count the change twice, with care.

"While I was thus engaged, Farrell went past me for the door with the shuffle and hard breathing of an elephant pursued by a forest fire.

"'Hurry!' he gasped.

"'What is it?' I demanded, catching him up on the fifth stair.

"He panted. 'I couldn't help it.… Sodom and Gomorrah … basaltic, I've heard… we'd better run!'

"'What the devil have you done?' I asked, close to his ear.

"'Opened that stink-pot,' Farrell answered, taking two steps at a time. He gained the pavement and paused, turning on me.

"'Lucky they can't afford to keep a commissionaire.—How long do these things take, as a rule, before going off?'

"'What things?' I asked.

"'Maroons, don't you call 'em?' said he, feeling in a foolish sort of way at his breast-pocket, as if for his pince-nez. 'I got the slow-match going with the end of my cigar, careless-like. How long do they take as a rule?'

"Well, a handsome detonation below-stairs answered him upon that instant.

"Farrell clutched my arm, and we ran."

NIGHT THE SIXTH.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE PICTUREDROME.

"Farrell could sprint," continued Jimmy. "You may have noticed that a lot of these round-bellied men have quite a good turn of speed for a short course. In spite of his fur coat he led by a yard or two: but this was partly because I hung back a little, on the chance of having to fight a rear-guard action.

"I could hear no shouts or footsteps in our wake, and this struck me as strange at the time. On second thoughts, however, I dare say the management and frequenters of the 'Catalafina' have more than a bowing acquaintance with infernal machines. A daisy by the river's brim… to them a simple maroon would be nothing to write home about, nor the sort of incident to justify telephoning for an inquisitive police. By the mercy of Heaven, too, we encountered no member of the Force in our flight. I suppose that constables are rare in Soho.

"Farrell led for a couple of blocks as an American writer would put it; dived down a side street to the right; sped like an arrow for a couple of hundred yards; then darted around another turning, again to the right. I put on a spurt and caught him by his fur collar. 'Look here,' I said, 'I don't hear anyone in chase. We are the wicked fleeing, whom no man pursueth. I don't quite understand why. Maybe sulphuretted hydrogen's their favourite perfume. They don't use it in their bath, because… well, never mind. What I have to talk at this moment is mathematics. I don't know how you reason it out; but to me it's demonstrable that if we keep turning to the right like this we shall find ourselves back at the door of your infernal 'Catalafina.' Inevitably,' I said, nodding at him in a way calculated to convince.

"'Allow me,' he answered, and promptly wrung my hand. 'I ought t'have warned you—I always run in circles, this condish'n. Bad habit: never could break myself. 'Scuse me; haven't been drunk for years.' He pulled himself up and eyed me earnestly. 'Wha's your suggest'n under shirkumstanches? Retrace steps?'

"'As I figure it out,' said I, sweet and reasonable, 'that also would lead us back to the 'Catalafina.''

"'Quite so,' he agreed, nodding back as I nodded. 'Case hopelesh, then. No posh'ble way out.'

"'Well, I don't know,' said I. 'If we go straight on until we find a turning to the left.… And look here,' I put in, grabbing him again, for he was starting to run. 'Since there's no one in chase apparently, I suggest that we walk. It looks better, if we meet a constable: though there seems to be none about ... so far.'

"'Scand'lous!' said Farrell.

"'What's scandalous?' I asked.

"'Lax'ty Metr'pl't'n P'lice.' He took me by a buttonhole, finger and thumb. 'Dish—district notorious. One-worst-Lond'n. Dish—damn the word—distr'ck like this, anything might happen any moment. Mus' speak about it.… You just wait till I'm on County Counshle.'

"I took him by the arm and steered him. I did it beautifully, though it's undeniable that I had taken wine to excess. I did it so beautifully that we met not a living soul—or if we did, Otty, I failed to remark it.… I don't suppose it was really happening as I felt it was happening. I just tell how it felt.… Farrell and I were ranging arm-in-arm through a quarter that had mysteriously hushed and hidden itself at our approach. There were pianos tinkling from upper storeys: there were muffled choruses with banjo or guitar accompaniments humming up from the bowels of the earth: there were chinks of light between blinds, under doorways, down areas. There was even a flare of light, now and again, blaring to gramophone accompaniment across the street from a gin-palace or a corner public. But the glass of these places of entertainment was all opaque, and there were no loungers on the kerb in front of any.… I held Farrell tightly beneath the elbow, and steered through this enchanted purlieu.

"'S'pose you know where you're heading?' said Farrell after a while.

"'On these occasions,' said I, 'one steers by the pole-star.'

"'Where is it?' he demanded.

"'At this moment, so far as I can judge,' I assured him, 'it is shining accurately on the back of your neck.'

"Of a sudden we found ourselves at the head of a pavement lined with the red stern-lights of a rank of cabs and taxis. I had not the vaguest notion of its name: but the street was obviously one of those curious ones, unsuspected, and probably non-existent by day, in which lurk the vehicles that can't be discovered when it's raining and you want to get home from a theatre. 'Glow-worms!' announced Farrell.

"I tightened my grip under his funny-bone, and hailed the first vehicle. It was a hansom. 'Engaged?' I asked.

"'All depends where you're going, sir,' said the cabby.

"'Wimbledon,' shouted Farrell, and broke away from me. 'Wimbledon for pleasure and the simple life!… You'll excuse me—' he dodged towards the back of the cab: 'on these occasions— always make a point take number.'

"'It's all right,' I spoke up to the cabman. 'My friend means the Ritz. I'm taking him there.'

"'I shouldn't, if I was you,' said the man sourly; 'not unless he's an American.'

"'He is,' said I, 'and from Texas. I am charged to deliver him at the Ritz, where all will be explained': and I dashed around to the rear of the cab, collared Farrell, and hoicked him inboard.…

"The cab was no sooner under way and steering west-by-south than Farrell clutched hold of me and burst into tears on my shoulder. It appeared, as I coaxed it from him, that his mind had cast back, and he was lamenting the dearth of policemen in Soho.

"The hole above us opened, and the cabman spoke down.

"'Are you sure you meant the Ritz, sir—really?'

"'I don't want to compromise you,' said I. 'Drop us at the head of St. James's Street.'

"He did so; took his fee, and hesitated for a moment before turning his horse. 'Sure you can manage the gentleman, sir?' he asked.

"'Sure, thank you,' said I, and he drove away slowly. I steered Farrell into the shelter of the Ritz's portico, facing Piccadilly."

"They draw the blinds now (put in Otway) under the Lighting Order: but in those days the Ritz was given—I won't say to advertising its opulence—but to allowing a glimpse of real comfort to the itinerant millionaire. Jimmy resumes:—

"'Now, look here,' said I, indicating the show inside: 'I wasn't hungry to start with: and I suggest we've both inhaled enough garlic to put us off the manger for a fortnight. As for the bucket, you've exceeded already, and I have taken more than is going to be good for me—a subtle difference which I won't pause here and now to explain. It's a kindly suggestion of yours," said I; 'but I put it to you that it's time for good little Progressives to be in their beds, and you'll just take a taxi from the rank on the slope, trundle home to Wimbledon and go bye-bye.'

"Farrell wasn't listening. He had his shoulders planted against a pillar of the portico, and had fallen into a brown study, staring in upon the giddy throng.

"'When we look,' said he slowly, like an orator in a dream—'when we are privileged to contemplate, as we are at this moment, such a spectacle of the idle Ritz—excuse me, the idle Rich—and their goings on, and countless poor folk in the East End with nothing but a herring—if that—between them and to-morrow's sunrise— well, I don't know how it strikes you, but to me it is an Object Lesson. You'll excuse me, Mr.—I haven't the pleasure to remember your name at this moment. I connect it with my Maria's two pianners—something between the Broadwood and the Collard and Collard—you'll excuse me, but putting myself in the place of the angel Gabriel, merely for the sake of argument, this is the sort of way it would take me!'

"Before I could jump for him, Otty, he lifted his hand and flung something—I don't know what it was, for a certainty, but I believe it was the 'Blanco' tin of sulphuretted hydrogen, that he had been nursing all the way from the 'Catalafina.'… At any rate the missile hit. There was an agreeable crash of plate glass, and we ran for our lives.

"You know the long rank of taxis on the slope of Piccadilly. We pelted for it. Before an alarm whistle sounded I had gained the fifth in the row. The drivers were all gathered in their shelter, probably discussing politics. I made for a car, cried to Farrell to jump in, hoicked up the works like mad, and made a spring for the seat and the steering-gear. Amid the alarm-whistles sounding from the Ritz I seemed to catch a shrill scream close behind me, and looked around to make sure that my man was inside. The door slammed-to, and I steered out for a fair roadway.

"There was a certain amount of outcry in the rear. But I opened-out down the slope and soon had it well astern. We sailed past Hyde Park Corner, down Knightsbridge, and cut along Brompton Road into Fulham Road, and rounded into King's Road, cutting the kerb a trifle too fine. Speed rather than direction being my object for the moment, Otty, I rejoiced in a clear thoroughfare and let her rip for Putney Bridge. There was a communication tube in the taxi, and for some while it had been whistling in my ear, with calls and outcries in high falsetto interjected between the blasts. 'Funny dog's ventriloquising,' thought I, and paid no further attention to the noises. Our pace was such, I couldn't be distracted from the steering.… I was quite sober by this time: sober, but considerably exhilarated.

"My spirit soared as we took the bridge with a rush, cleared the High Street and breasted Putney Hill for the Heath. The night was clear, with a southerly breeze. The stars shone, and I seemed to inhale all the scents of a limitless prairie, wafted past the wind-screen from the heath and the stretch of Wimbledon Common beyond.… Why should I miss anything of this glorious chance? Why should I tamely deliver Farrell at a house the name of which I had forgotten, the situation of which was unknown to me, the domestics of which, when I found it by painful inquiry, would probably receive me with cold suspicion, as a misleader of middle-age? In fine, why should I not strike the Common and roam there, letting the good car have her head while Farrell slept himself sober. A line or two of the late Robert Browning's waltzed in my head:"

'What if we still ride on, we two?'
—Ride, ride together, for ever ride.'

"I brought the car gently to a halt on the edge of the heath, under the stars, climbed out, and opened the door briskly.

"'Look here, Farrell,' I announced. 'I've a notion—'

"'Then it's more than I have, of the way you're treating a lady!' answered a voice; and out stepped a figure in skirts! By George, Otty, you might have knocked me down with a—with a feather boa: which was just what this apparition seemed preparing to do. I had brought the taxi to rest close under a gas-lamp, and in the light of it she confronted me, slightly swaying the hand which grasped the boa.

"'Good Lord! ma'am,' I gasped,' how in the world… ?'

"'That's what I want to know,' said she, with more show of menace. 'What is your game, young man? Abduction?'

"'I swear to you, ma'am,' I stammered, 'that my intentions would be strictly honourable if I happened to have any.… I may be more intoxicated than I felt up to a moment ago.… But let us, at all events, keep our heads. It seems the only way out of this predicament, that we keep strictly in touch with reality. Very well, then.… You entered this vehicle, a middle-aged gentleman something more than three sheets in the wind. You emerge from it apparently sober and of the opposite sex. If any explanation be necessary,' I wound up hardily, 'I imagine it to be due to me, who have driven you thus far under a false impression—and, I may add, at no little risk to the transpontine traffic.'

"'Look here!' said this astonishing female. 'I don't know how it's happened, but I believe I am addressing a gentleman—'

"'I hope so,' said I, as she paused.

"'Well, then,' she demanded, smoothing her skirt, and seating herself on the edge of the grass, under the lamplight. 'The question is, what do you propose to do? I place myself in your hands, unreservedly.'

"I managed to murmur that she did me honour. 'But with your leave, ma'am,' said I, 'we'll defer that point for a moment while you tell me how on earth you have managed to change places with my friend, whom with my own eyes I saw enter this vehicle. It must have been a lightning change anyhow: for all the way from Piccadilly I have been priding myself on our speed.'

"'Change places?' she exclaimed. 'Change places? I'm a respectable married woman, young sir: and as such I'd ask you what else was due to myself when he sat down on my lap without even being interjuiced?'

"I made a step to the door of the taxi, but turned and came back. 'He's inside, then?' I asked.

"'Of course he's inside,' she retorted. 'What d'you take me for? A body-snatcher? Inside he is, and snoring like a pig. Wake him up and ask him if I've be'aved short of a lady from the first.'

"'He's incapable of it, ma'am,' said I. 'Or, rather, I should say, you are incapable of it. By which I mean that my friend is incapable of—er—involving you otherwise than innocently in a situation of which—er—you are both incapable, respectively. Appearances may be against us—'

"'Look here,' she chipped in. 'Have you been drinking too?'

"'A little,' I admitted. 'But you may trust me to be discreet. How this responsibility comes to be mine, I can't guess: but it is urgent that I restore you to your home, or at any rate find you a decent lodging for the night. Where is your home?' I asked.

"'Walsall,' said she. 'And I wish I had never left it!'

"'Well, ma'am,' said I, 'I won't be so ungallant as to echo that regret. But, speaking for the moment as a taxi-driver, I put it that Walsall is a tidy distance. Were you, by some process that passes my guessing, on your way to Walsall when we, as it seems, intercepted you in Piccadilly?'

"'Not at all,' she answered. 'On the contrary, I was wanting to get to Shorncliffe Camp.'

"I mused. 'From Walsall?… They must have opened a new route lately.'

"'It's this way,' she told me. 'My husband's a sergeant in the Royal Artillery. He's stationed at Shorncliffe: and I was to meet him there to-night, travelling through London. When I got to London, what with the shops and staring at Buckingham Palace, and one thing and another, I missed the last train down. So, happening to find myself by a line of taxis, I had a mind to ask what the fare might be down to Shorncliffe and tell the man that my husband was expecting me and would pay at the other end. I was that tired, I got into the handiest taxi—that looked smart and comfortable, with a little lamp inside and a nice bunch of artificial flowers made up to look like my Christian name—And what do you think that is? Guess.'

"'I'm hopeless with plants, ma'am," said I, looking hard at the taxi. 'Might it be Daisy?'

"'No, it ain't,' said she. 'There now, you'll take a long time guessing, at that rate. It's Petunia.… Well, then as I was saying, I got in and sat back in the cushions, waiting for the Shofer, if that's how you pronounce it; and I reckon I must have closed my eyes, for the next thing I remember was this friend of yours sitting plump in my lap without so much as asking leave. Before I could recover myself we were off. And now, I put it to you as a gentleman, What's to become of me? For, as perhaps I ought to warn you, my husband's a terror when he's roused.'

"'He's at Shorncliffe. We won't rouse him to-night,' I assured her. 'It's funny,' I went on, 'how often the simplest explanation will—' But I left that sentence unfinished. 'Have you any relatives in London?' I asked brightly.

"She hesitated, but at length confessed she had a sister resident in Pimlico.

"'Ah!' said I. 'She married beneath her, perhaps?'

"Mrs. Petunia looked at me suspiciously in the lamplight. 'How did you guess that?' she asked.

"'Simplicity itself, ma'am,' I answered. 'She could hardly have done less. And from Eaton Square to Pimlico, what is it but a step?… Or, you may put it down to a brain-wave. Yes, ma'am. And I'm going to have another."

"I stepped to the door of the taxi, threw it open, and shouted to Farrell to tumble out.

"'Wha's matter?' he asked sleepily. 'Where are we?'

"'We're on the edge of Putney Heath,' said I.

"'Ri'!' said he in a murmur. 'You're true friend. First turning to the left and keep straight on. Second gate on Common pasht pillar-box.'

"I haled him forth. 'Look here,' said I. 'Pull yourself together. I find that we've, in our innocence, abducted this lady, who happened to be resting in the taxi when you jumped in.'

"Farrell, making a mental effort, blinked hard. 'That accounts for it,' said he. 'Thought I felt something wrong when I sat down.'

"'That being so,' I went on, 'you will agree that our first duty, as we are chivalrous men, is to restore her to her relatives.'

"'B'all means,' he agreed heartily. 'R'shtore her. Why not?'

"'As it happens, she has a sister living in Pimlico.'

"'They all—' he began: but I was on the watch and fielded the ball smartly.

"'And you, unless I'm mistaken,' said I, 'are a member of the National Liberal Club?'

"'We all—' he began again, and checked himself to gaze on me with admiration. 'Shay that again,' he demanded. "'You are a member of the National Liberal Club?' I repeated.

"'I am,' he owned; 'but I couldn' pr'nounce it just at this moment, not for a tenner. An' you've said it twice! Tha's what I call carryin' liquor like a gentleman: or else you've studied voice-producsh'n. Wish I'd studied voice-producsh'n, your age. Usheful, County Council.'

"'County Council!' put in the lady sharply. 'Don't tell me!'

"'He's but a candidate at present, ma'am,' I explained.

"She eyed us both suspiciously. 'No kid, is it?' she asked. 'You ain't a dress-clothes detective? What?… Then, as between a lady and a gentleman, why haven't you introduced him? It's usual.'

"'So it is, ma'am. Forgive me, this is Mr. Peter Farrell. Mr. Farrell, the—the—Lady Petunia.'

"'And very delicately you done it, young man.' The Lady Petunia bowed amiably. 'This ain't no—this isn't—no time nor place for taking advantages and compromising.' She pitched her voice higher and addressed Farrell. 'I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, if I caught your name correctly. Mr. Farrell?—and of the National Liberal Club? The address is sufficient, sir. It carries its own recommendation—though I had hoped for the Constitutional.'

"'It's still harder to pronounce, ma'am,' I assured her. 'That is my friend's only reason.'

"'It was you that started my-ladying me,' she claimed. 'Why don't you keep it up? I like it.'

"'My dear Lady Petunia,' said I, 'as you so well put it, the National Liberal Club carries its own recommendation. What's more, it's going to be the saving of us.'

"'I don't see connecshun,' objected Farrell. 'They don't admit—'

"'They'll admit you,' I said; 'and that's where you'll sleep to-night. The night porter will hunt out a pair of pyjamas and escort you up the lift. Oh, he's used to it. He gets politicians from Bradford and such places dropping in at all hours. Don't try the marble staircase—it's winding and slippery at the edge.… And don't stand gaping at me in that helpless fashion, but get a move on your intelligence.… We're dealing with a lady in distress, and that's our first consideration. Now I can't take you on to Wimbledon, however willing to be shut of you: first, because it would take time, and next because I'm not sure how much petrol's left in the machine. So back we turn for be lights of merry London. We deposit the Lady Petunia at—what's the address, ma'am?"

"'Never you mind,' said she helpfully. 'Put me down somewhere near the end of Vauxhall Bridge, and I'll find my way.'

"'Spoken like an angel,' said I. 'And then, Farrell, you're for the National Liberal Club. The servants there are not known to me, but I'll bet on their asking fewer questions than I should have to answer your housekeeper.'

"I think Farrell was about to demand time for consideration. But the Lady Petunia gripped him by the arm. 'Loveadove!' she exclaimed. 'There's a copper coming down the road!' We bundled him back into the taxi. 'It's a real copper, too,' she warned me as she sprang in at his heels. 'Spark her up, and hurry!—I can tell the sound of their boots at fifty yards.'

"Well, Otty, I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and she.—She was right. The policeman came up and drew to a halt as, without an indecent show of haste, I dropped into the driver's seat, started up and slewed the wheel round.

"'Anything wrong?' he asked.

"'There was,' said I. 'Over-succulence in the bivalves: but she'll work home, I think.'

"I pipped him Good night, and we sailed down the hill in some style. Sharp to the right, and by and by I opened a common on my right— Wandsworth? Clapham?—Don't ask me. I named it Clapham. 'To your tents, O Clapham!' I shouted as I went: but the warning was superfluous. As the poet—wasn't it Wordsworth?—remarked on a famous occasion, Dear God! the very houses seemed asleep.…'

"It must have been five or six minutes later that our petrol gave out and my trusted taxi came gently to a halt in the middle of the roadway. I climbed out, opened the door and explained. 'Step out, quick,' said I, 'and make down this street to the left. We must tangle the track a bit, with this piece of evidence behind us.'

"The Lady Petunia considerately took Farrell's arm. 'Why, he can walk!' she announced. 'I'm all ri'!' Farrell assured her. 'You may be yet,' she answered, 'if you keep your head shut.' Farrell asked me if I considered that a ladylike expression. To this she retorted that she couldn't bear for anyone to speak crossly to her: it broke her heart.

"'Capital!' said I. 'Voices a tone lower, please—but keep it up, and you're husband and wife, returning from an evening at the theatre. Taxi broken down—wife peevish at having to walk remaining distance. Keep it up, and I'll undertake to steer you past half the police in London.'

"Well, I steered them past two, and without a question. Not one of us knew our bearings, but we were making excellent weather of it, and at length came out by the by-streets upon a fine broad thoroughfare with an arc-lamp at the corner.

"I stared up at the building on my left, against which he lamp shone. There was no street-sign at the angle, and an inscription in large gilt letters on the facade was not very hopeful—ROYAL SOUTH LONDON PICTUREDROME—yet to some extent reassuring. We were at any rate lost in London; and not in Byzantium, as we might have deduced from other architectural details.

"'And yet I am not wholly sure,' said I. 'We will ask the next policeman. Picturedrome now—barbaric union of West and East.— Surely the word must be somewhere in Gibbon. Ever met it in Gibbon, Farrell?'

"'No, I haven't,' he answered testily. 'Never was in Gibbon, to my knowledge. Where is it?… But I'll tell you what!' he wound up, fierce and sudden; 'I've met with too many policemen to-night; avenuesh, we've been passin'. Seems to me neighb'rhood infested. Not like Soho. 'Nequal dishtribush'n bobbies. 'Nequal distribush'n everything. Cursh—curse—modern shivilzash'n—damn!'

"'Our taxi,' I mused, 'may have been a magic one. We are in a dream, and the Lady Petunia is part of it. She may vanish at any moment—'

"But Petunia had turned about for a glance along the street behind us. Instead of vanishing, she clawed my arm sharply, suppressed a squeal, and pointed.… Fifty yards away stood a taxi, and two policemen beside it, flashing their lanterns over it and into its interior.

"Between two flashes I recognised it.… It was mine, my Arab taxi, my beautiful, my own.… Farrell's fatal propensity for steering to the right had fetched us around, almost full circle.

"There she stood, with her mute appealing headlights. 'Wha's matter?' asked Farrell. 'Oh, I say—Oh, come! More of 'em?'

"'I dragged him and Petunia back into the shadow under the side-wall of the Picturedrome, and leaned back against the edifice while I mopped my brow. My shoulder-blade encountered the sharp edge of a rainwater pipe. A bright and glorious inspiration took hold of me. Farrell had made all the running, so far: it was time for me to assert my manhood.

"'Wait here,' I whispered, 'and all will be well. In three minutes—'

"'Here, I say!' interposed the Lady Petunia. 'You're not going to do a bilk?'

"'Dear lady,' I answered, 'for at least twenty minutes you have been complaining, and pardonably, that my friend and I have enjoyed the pleasure of your company yet repaid it with no form of entertainment. I fear we cannot offer you Grand Opera. But if your taste inclines to the Movies—'

"'Get along, you silly,' she rebuked me. 'Ain't you sober enough to see the place is closed?'

"'If I were sure it wouldn't be used as evidence against me,' I answered gallantly, 'I should say that Love laughs at Locksmiths. Here, take my overcoat; my watch also—as evidence of good faith and because it gets in one's way, climbing.… Wait by this door, which (you can see) is an Emergency Exit, and within five minutes you shall be reposing in a plush seat and admitting that the finish crowns the work.'"

"Well, at this hour, Otty, I won't dwell on my contribution to the evening's pleasure. Besides, it was nothing to boast of. I was a member of the Oxford Alpine Club, you know: and the water-pipe offered no difficulties. The stucco was in poor condition—I should say that it hardens more easily in Byzantium—but for difficulty there was nothing comparable with New College Chapel, or the friable masonry and the dome of the Radcliffe.

"I let myself down through a skylight into the bowels of the place: found, with the help of matches, the operating box and the gallery, switched on the lights, and shinned down a pillar to the stalls. After that, to open the Emergency Exit and admit my audience was what the detective stories call the work of a moment. I re-closed the door carefully, and climbed back to manipulate the lantern.

"I had helped to work one of these shows once, at a Sunday School treat—or a Primrose Fete—forget which—down in the country. It's quite simple when you have the hang of it.… I made a mull with the first reel: got it upside down; and Petunia, from somewhere deep under the gallery, called up 'Gar'n!' It was a Panorama of Pekin, anyway, and dull enough whichever way you took it.

"After that we fairly spun through 'The Cowpuncher's Stunt'—a train robbery—'The Missing Million,' and a man tumbling out of the top storey of Flat-Iron Building, New York. He went down, storey after storey, to the motto of 'Keep on Moving,' and just before he hit the ground he began to tumble up again. On his way up he smacked all the faces looking out at the windows—I often wonder, Otty, how they get people to do these things: but I suppose the risk's taken into account in the pay.

"Farrell took a great fancy to 'Keep on Moving.' Up to this we had been snug as fleas in a blanket; but now he started to make such a noise, encoring, that I had to step down to the gallery and lean over it and request Petunia to take the cover off the piano and play something, if she could, to deaden the outcries. 'Something domestic on the loud pedal,' I suggested. 'Create an impression that we're holding a rehearsal after hours.'

"She came forward, looked up, and said that I reminded her of Romeo and Juliet upside down.

"'Of course!' I explained. 'We're in Pekin. Get to the piano, quick.'

"'I've forgotten my scales,' she answered back, between Farrell's calls of ''Core! 'Core!'—'Will it do if I sit on the keys?'

"She went to the instrument. 'Often, and con expressione!' I shouted; 'and back-pedal for all you are worth!' Then I climbed down and collared Farrell, for the police had begun to hammer on the door. I grabbed for his head: but it must have been by the collar I caught him—that being where he wore most fur.… There was a stairway between the stalls and the gallery. I whirled him up it, and leaned over the gallery rail, calling to Petunia. She had dragged off the piano-cover and was rolling herself up in it.… Then, as the police crashed in, I switched off the lights.

"Somehow or another I hauled Farrell up and on to the flat roof. 'Now,' said I, after prospecting a bit in a hurry, 'the great point is to keep cool. You follow me over this parapet, lower yourself, and drop on to the next roof. It's a matter of sixteen feet at most, and then we'll find a water-pipe.'

"But he wouldn't. He said that he suffered from giddiness on a height and had done so from the age of sixteen, but that he was game for any number of policemen. He'd seen too many policemen, and wanted to reduce the number. I left him clawing at a chimney-pot, and—well, I told you the stucco was brittle, and you saw the state of his clothes. I think he must have got out a brick or two and put up a fight.

"For my part, I slid three-quarters of the way down a pipe, lost my grip somehow and tumbled sock upon the serried ranks of a brutal and licentious constabulary. They broke my fall, and afterwards I did my best. But, as Farrell had justly complained, there were too many of them. So now you know," Jimmy wound up with a yawn.

"What about the Lady Petunia?" I asked.

"Oh!" He woke up with a start and laughed: "I forgot—and it's the cream, too.… The police who grabbed me had been hastily summoned by whistle. They rushed me up two side streets and towards a convenient taxi. It was convenient: it was stationary.… It was my own, own taxi, still sitting. One constable shouted for its driver; another had almost pushed me in when he started to apologise to somebody inside. It was Petunia, wrapped in slumber. She must have slipped out by the Emergency Exit and taken action with great presence of mind. I don't know if they managed to wake her up, or what happened to her." Jimmy yawned again. "What's the time, Otty? It must be any hour of the morning.… I don't know. She forgot to return my watch."

NIGHT THE SEVENTH.

THE OUTRAGE.

Jephson awoke me at 7.30 as usual. But I dozed for another half an hour and should have dropped asleep again had it not been that some little thing—I could not put a name to the worry—kept teasing my brain; some piece of grit in the machine. An engagement forgotten? an engagement to be kept?—Nothing very important.…

Then I remembered, jumped out of bed, and knocked in at Jimmy's room. I expected to find him stretched in heavy slumber. But no: he stood before his dressing-table, tubbed, shaven, half-clothed, and looking as fresh as paint.

"Hallo!" said he. "Anything wrong?"

"Just occurred to me," said I, "this is the morning you were due to breakfast with Jack. Thought I'd remind you, in case you might want to telephone and put him off."

"If I remember," said Jimmy thoughtfully, rummaging in a drawer, "this Jack's other name is Foe. If it were Ketch, I'd be obliged to you for ringing him up with that message.… It's all right. Plenty of time. Breakfast and conversation with the learned prepared for me right on my way to the Seat of Justice. Providence—and you can call it no less—couldn't have ordered it better. Here, help me to choose.—What's the neatest thing in ties when a man's going to feel his position acutely?"

Upon this I observed that his infamous way of life seemed to leave more impression upon his friends than on himself; and stalked back to my bedchamber.

"Ingrate!" he shouted after me. "When you've seen Farrell!"

So I breakfasted alone, read the papers (which reported that Mr. Farrell's meeting overnight had been "accompanied by scenes of considerable disorder "), dealt with some correspondence, and in due time was taxi'd to Ensor Street. There I found Jimmy on the penitents' bench, full of sparkling interest in the proceedings of the court and in the line—a long and variegated one—of his fellow-indictables. Farrell sat beside him, sprucely dressed but woebegone. He wore a sort of lamp-shade, of a green colour, over his eyes, and (as Jimmy put it) "looked the part—Prodigal Son among the Charlottes." By some connivance—on some faked pretence, I make no doubt, that I was his legal adviser—the police allowed Jimmy to cross over and consult me. He informed me that the Professor had put him up an excellent breakfast of grilled sole and devilled kidneys, and had afterwards shown him round the laboratory. "Wonderful man, the Professor! But you should see that dog of his he calls Billy— hairy little yellow beast that flies into rages like a mad thing, and then at a word crawls on its belly. Sort of beast that dies on his master's grave, in the children's books, like any human creature."

The charge was not called on the list until 12.30 or thereabouts. … They say that in England there's one law for the rich and another for the poor. I don't know about that: but there's one for the bright and young and another for the middle-aged and sulky. The police had already let Jimmy down lightly on the charge sheet: they showed further leniency at the hearing. Even the constable who faced the Bench with an eye like a damnatory potato contrived to suggest that he would have left it outside if he could—so benevolently, so appreciatively he made it twinkle as he gave evidence. Jimmy tried to take the blame; but the Magistrate, without relaxing his face, fined him two pounds and mulcted Farrell in five. He added some scathing remarks upon old men who led their juniors astray and called themselves Martin Luther when they were nothing of the sort. I wondered if he knew that he was admonishing a candidate for County Council honours. I had a notion that he did. His address lasted half a minute or less, and during it he kept his gaze implacably fixed on the culprit: but by the working of his under-jaw and of the muscles below it I seemed to surmise—shall we say—a certain process of deglutition.

Their fines paid, Jimmy—staunch to the last—brought Farrell forth to me, who waited outside by the doorstep.

"Look here, Otty; he's in trouble—"

"Of his own making, by all accounts," I put in sternly.

Farrell began to stutter. "A most untoward—er—incident, Sir Roderick—most untoward! Compromising, I fear?"

"You've lost us the seat, that's all," I told him.

"Oh, I trust not—I trust not!" he protested. "Might the reporters be—er—"

"Squared?" I suggested.

"Induced—yes, induced—to omit the—er—personal reference?"

"Like the Scarlet Mr. E's," suggested Jimmy, "or the Scarlet Pimpernel—rather a good name for you, Farrell. Better than Martin Luther, anyway. The Scarlet Pimpernel, or Two in a Taxi, Not to Mention the Lady. Or—wait a bit—Peter and Petunia, or Marooned in Soho. Reader, do you know the 'Catalafina'? If not, let me—"

"Jimmy," I commanded, "don't make an ass of yourself.… As for you, Mr. Farrell, let me remind you of a pretty wise saying of somebody's—that influence is jolly useful until you have used it. If I remember, I strained my little stock of it with these reporters two nights ago."

"I wouldn't jib at expense, Sir Roderick," he whimpered.

"Don't kick him, Otty," Jimmy implored. "He's down. And listen to me, Farrell," he went on, swinging about. "You can't help it: it's the Hire System working out through the pores. You don't perspire what you think you're perspiring, though you're doing it freely enough.… Now, Otty—for my sake—if you don't mind!"

"Well then, Mr. Farrell," said I, "I'm ready to do this much for you.—We'll find a taxi here and now for the Whips' Offices and take their advice. Having taken it, I am willing to drive straight back to your Committee Rooms with the Head Office's decision."

The man's nerves were anywhere. He clung to me for counsel—for mere company—as he would have clung to anybody.

So we found a taxi and climbed in, all three.

But I did not reach the Whips' Office that day.

There was a hold-up as we neared the bridge, and we to came a dead stop. I set it down to some ordinary block of traffic, and with a touch of annoyance: for Farrell by this time was arguing himself out as a victim of circumstances, and with a feebleness of sophistry that tried the patience. I remember saying "The long and short of it is, you've made a fool of yourself.… Why on earth can't this fellow get a move on?"—As though he had heard me, just then the driver slewed about and shot us back a queer half-humorous glance through the glass screen.

Jimmy, lolling crossways on one of the little let-down seats with his leg across the other, caught the glance, sprang up and thrust his head out at the window.

"Hallo!" said he. "Suffragettes? Dog-fight?… Pretty good riot, anyhow,"—and the next moment he was out on the roadway. I craned up for a look through the screen, and stepped out in his wake.

Some thirty yards ahead of us, close by the gates of the South London College, a dense crowd blocked the thoroughfare. It was a curiously quiet crowd, but it swayed violently under some pressure in the centre, and broke as we watched, letting through a small body of police with half a dozen men and youths in firm custody.

My wits gave a leap, and my heart sank on the instant. I stepped to the taxi door and commanded Farrell to tumble out.

"Here's more of your mess-work, unless I'm mistaken," said I.

"Mine?" He looked at me with a dazed face. "Mine?" he quavered. "Oh, but what has happened?… There would seem to be some conspiracy.…"

"Yes, you interfering ass. Out with you, quick! and we'll talk later." I turned my shoulder on him as I handed the driver his fare. "Now follow and keep close to me."

I stepped forward to meet the Sergeant in charge of the convoy. He would have put me aside. "Sorry, sir, but you must tell your man to take you round by the next bridge. Traffic closed here—half an hour, maybe." Then he caught sight of Farrell behind my shoulder, recognised him, and called his party to a halt. "Excuse me," he said, with a fine official manner committing him to no approval of us, "but is this the Candidate?… Well, you've come prompt, sir, but scarcely prompt enough. Situation's in hand, so to speak. Still you might be useful, getting the crowd to clear off peaceable." He pondered for a couple of seconds. "Yes, I'll step back with you to the gate, sirs, and pass you in. You, Wrightson," he spoke up to a second in command, "take over this little lot and deliver them: it's all clear ahead. Get back as fast as you can.… Now, sirs, if you'll follow me—there's no danger—the half of 'em no more than sightseers."

"Just a word, Sergeant," said I, catching up his stride. "I want to know how this started and how far it has gone."

He glanced at me sideways. "Not on oath, sir, nor official, eh? What isn't hearsay is opinion, if you understand. Far as I make it out—but we was caught on the hop, more by ill luck than ill management—it started with an open-air meetin' right yonder, at the corner of the Park. Your friend—that is to say Mr. Farrell, if I make no mistake-"

"Yes, he's Mr. Farrell all right. Go on."

"Well, he was billed to attend, sir; but he didn't turn up."

"He had another engagement," I put in.

"Well, and I did hear some word, too, to that effect," allowed the Sergeant, with another professional glance, subdolent but correct. "But, as reported to me, his absence was unfortunate. One or two of the wrong sort got hold of the mob, and there was a rush for the College gates.… Which the two or three constables did their best and 'phoned me up."

"Much damage?" I asked.

"Can't say, sir. I was given post at the gates, where for ten minutes my fellows was kept pretty busy bashing 'em and throwing 'em out. You see, it being Saturday, most of the students had gone home, and the porter was took of a heap and ran.… Or that's how it was reported. And whiles we was thus occupied, word came out that the game was over without need to call reinforcements, if we could hold the gate. We answered back sayin' if that was all we was doing it comfortably. Whereupon they began to hand us out the arrests, with word that some outbuildings had been wrecked and a considerable deal of glass broken. Lavatories, as I gathered."

"Laboratories," I suggested.

"Very like," the Sergeant agreed; "if you put it so. It struck me as sounding like the sort of place where you wash your hands.… We was pretty busy just then, or up to that moment; but from information that reached me, they was trying to wreck some part of the science buildings."

"One more question," said I—for by this time we had reached the edge of the crowd. "Do you happen to know if Professor Foe was in the building at the time?"

"He was not, sir. He had locked up for the day and gone home to his private house. They fetched him by 'phone.… I know, sir, having received instructions to pass him in: which I did, under escort. You needn't be anxious about him, if he's a friend of yours."

But I was.

The crowd, as the Sergeant had promised, was curious rather than vicious; much the sort of crowd that the King's coach will fetch out, or a big fire; and from this I augured hopefully (correctly, too, as it proved) that the actual rioters had been little more than a handful, excited by Saturday's beer and park-oratory.… The average Londoner takes very little truck in municipal politics, as I'd been deploring for a fortnight on public platforms. It costs you all your time to get one in ten of him to attend a public meeting: he's cynical and sits with his back to the ring where a few earnest men and women, and a number of cranks, are putting it up against the Vested Interests and the Press.

As we came up, some few recognised Farrell, and raised a cheer.… I dare say that helped: but anyhow the Sergeant worked us through with great skill, here and there addressing a man good-naturedly and advising him to go home and take his wages to the missus, because the fun was over and soon there might be pickpockets about. In thirty seconds or so we had reached the gate and were admitted.

The porter's lodge had escaped lightly. A trampled flower-bed, flowerless at this season, and a few broken window-panes, were all the evidence that the rioters had passed. A little farther on where the broad carriage-way, that ran straight to the College portico, threw out branches right and left to the Natural Science Buildings, a number of ornamental shrubs had been mutilated, a few of the smaller uprooted. Foe's laboratory lay to the left, and we were about to take this bend when a tall man came striding across to us from the right; a short way ahead of two others, one round and pursy and of clerical aspect, the other an official in the Silversmiths' uniform. The tall man I guessed at once to be the Principal, returning from a survey of the damage done: and I waited while he approached. He wore an angry frown, and his eyes interrogated us pretty sharply.

"Sir Elkin Travers?" I asked.

"At your service, sir, if you are sent to help in this business?" Sir Elkin's eyes passed on this question to the Police Sergeant and reverted to me. "From Whitehall?" he asked.

"No, sir," I answered. "My name is Otway—Sir Roderick Otway; and our only excuse for being here is that two of us are close friends of Professor Foe. Indeed, sir, for myself, let me say that I have for many years been his closest friend, and I am anxious about him."

"You have need to be, I fear," said Sir Elkin, speaking slowly. "I was going back to him at this moment. Will you come with me.… This, by the way, is Mr. Michelmore, our College Bursar."

"With your leave, gentleman," put in the Sergeant, "I'll be going back now. They've collared most of the ringleaders; but by the sound of it they're beating the shrubberies for the stray birds…"

"Certainly, Sergeant—certainly.… Your men have been most prompt." Sir Elkin dismissed him, and again bent his attention on us. "You are all friends of the Professor's?" he asked.

"Two of us," said I. "This third is Mr. Farrell, who has come to express his sincere regret."

The Principal's eyes, which had been softening, hardened again suddenly with anger and suspicion. What must that ass Farrell do but hold out his hand effusively? "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir Elkin," he began. "Assure you—innocent—slightest intention— quite without my approval—outrage—deplorable—last thing in the world—"

He stammered, wagging a hand at vacancy; for the hand it reached to grasp had swiftly withdrawn itself behind Sir Elkin's back, and remained there.

"We will discuss your innocence later on, sir. Be very sure you will be given occasion to establish it, if you can." Sir Elkin's glare, under his iron-grey eyebrows, promised No Quarter. "Since you have pushed your way in with these gentlemen, it may interest you to follow us and see the results of your ignorant incitement."

He shook Farrell off—as it were—with a hunching movement of the shoulder, and turned to me.

"Come, sir," he said, courteously enough. "I warn you it is a tragedy."

"But my friend is unhurt?" I asked anxiously. "The Sergeant told me—"

"Doctor Foe had left the building—whether fortunately or unfortunately you shall judge—half an hour before the mob arrived. Saturday is, for lecturing, a dies non with him, though he often spends the whole day here at his work." Sir Elkin paused. "By the way, did I catch your name aright, just now? You are Sir Roderick Otway?… Then I ought to have thanked you, before this. It was you who sent me a message yesterday. Foe himself made light of it—"

"I wish I had come with him," said I, with something like a groan.

"I wish to Heaven you had," he agreed very seriously. "For I have a confession to make.… I was a fool. I contented myself with warning a few of the teaching staff to be on their guard, and with setting an extra round of night-watchers. But I neglected to see to it that Foe removed his papers to the College strong-room. I did suggest it; but when he pointed out that it would involve an afternoon's work at least, and went on to grumble that it would probably cost him a month to re-sort them—that he hated all meddling with his records—"

"My God!" I cried. "You don't tell me his records—eight years' close work, as I know—"

"Eight years," repeated the Principal in grave echo as my words failed. "Eight years' work: that would have cost a few hours to secure—a week, perhaps, to rearrange; and in twenty minutes or so—" He broke off. "You see that smoke?" he asked. "Over there by the two tall Wellingtonias?… There, sir, goes up the last trace of those eight years of our friend's devotion. Patience amounting to genius, loyalty to truth for truth's sake so absolute that one careless moment is dishonour, records calculated to a hair, tested, retested, worked over, brooded over—there's what in twenty minutes your Hun and your Goth can make of it in this world!"

"But, sir," I broke in, "books and packed paper don't burn in that way! Foe's Regent-Park notes alone ran to thirty-two letter-cases when I saw them last. He brought home two bullock-trunks from Uganda, stuffed solid—"

Sir Elkin wheeled about sharply. "Mr. Farrell," said he, "you had a letter in yesterday's Times."

"If it had crossed my mind, Sir Elkin," pleaded Farrell with a wagging movement of his whole body, propitiatory, such as dogs make when they see the whip. "I do assure you—"

"I seem to recollect," interrupted Sir Elkin, "your saying that considerable sums of public money were spent on our laboratories. The grant allocated to this College for research was so munificent that, after building a physiological laboratory with a small lecture-theatre, we had to house the professor himself in a match-boarded room covered with corrugated iron. Between them"— he turned to me in swift explanation—"they made a furnace.… Yes, Mr. Farrell, and you asked why, if all is well inside my laboratories, I should fear the light. You would insist on knowing what you were paying for.… Well, here is the answer, sir—if it meet your demand."

In the clearing where Jack's laboratory stood surrounded by turf and a ring of conifers, a dozen firemen were busy coiling and packing lengths of hose. The fire had been beaten; its last gasp was out; and the main building stood, smoke-stained, water-stained, with gaping sockets for windows, but with its roof apparently intact. The trees were scorched to leeward, and the turf was a trampled morass. Charred benches and desks, broken bottles, retorts, and glass cases, bestrewed it. But of Jack's sanctum—of the room in which I had been allowed to sit while he worked, because, as he put it, "I made no noise with my pipe"—nothing remained save a mound of ashes and a few sheets of iron roofing, buckled and contorted. A thin wisp of smoke coiled up from the ruin.

"Jack!" I called.

"Let's try the theatre," Sir Elkin suggested. "I left him there."

We went in.

The rostrum Jack used for his lectures was low, flat-topped and semicircular, with a high raised desk in the middle. Being isolated, it had escaped the fire; as maybe it had proved too cumbrous for removal.

Anyhow, there it was; and Jack stood beside it busy with something he was laying out on the flat desk-top. It looked like some sort of jigsaw puzzle that he was piecing together very carefully, very— what's the word?—meticulously. He had a small heap of oddments on his left, and a silk handkerchief in his right hand. His game was, he picked out an oddment from the heap, polished it, fitted it more or less into the silly puzzle, and stepped back to eye it. He looked up, annoyed-like, as if we were breaking in on a delicate experiment.

"Drop that, Foe!" Sir Elkin commanded, sharp and harsh, but with a human tremble in his voice. His nails clawed into my arm. "It's his dog," he whispered me, "or what's left. The poor brute held the door, they say… sprang at their throats right and left… till someone brained him and they threw his carcass into the fire.… Drop it, Foe—that's a good fellow!"

Jack stayed himself, stared at us dully, and put down the handkerchief after dusting the bench with it.

"Is that you, you fellows?" he asked, with a smile playing about his mouth and twisting it. "Good of you, Roddy—though almost too late for the fun! Jimmy, too?… They've made a bit of a mess here, eh?… Ah, and there's Mr. Farrell! Will somebody introduce Mr. Farrell?… Good-morning, sir! We'll—we'll talk this little matter over—you and I—later."

BOOK II.

THE CHASE.

NIGHT THE EIGHTH.

VENDETTA.

"My dear Roddy,—Don't come around: and for God's sake don't send Jimmy. The word is 'No sympathy, by request.' You will understand.
"I shall call on you at 9 o'clock on Tuesday. Have breakfast ready, for I shall be hungry as a hunter.
"Don't fash yourself, either, with fears that I am 'unhinged' by this business. I am just off to Paddington—thence for the Thames—shan't say where: but it's a backwater, where I propose to think things out. I shall have thought them out, quite definitely, by Tuesday.
"I believe you keep a few bottles of the audit ale. Tell Jephson to open one for a stirrup-cup. You can invite Jimmy.—
Yours truly,
J.F.
"P.S.—I don't know, and can't guess, how you came to tumble in so promptly on the heels of that riot. But you have always been a cherub sitting up aloft and keeping watch over— Poor Jack.
"P.P.S.—This by Special Messenger.… Forgive my breaking away and leaving you all so impolitely. Nothing would do, just then, but to escape and be alone.— Until Tuesday."

A boy-messenger brought this missive at 5.30. I read it over in a hurry, and took cheer: read it over a second time, sentence by sentence, and liked it less. It left no doubt, anyhow, that to search for Jack on the reaches of the river would be idle, as to find him would be mean. So there was nothing to do but wait.

That week-end, as it happened, brought a false promise of spring, with a hard east wind and a clear sky.

Punctually at nine o'clock on Tuesday he arrived, clean and hale and positively bronzed. The old preoccupation of over-work rested no longer upon him. We had made ready with grilled sole, omelette, bacon and a cold game-pie. He ate like a cavalryman, talking all the while of his adventures. It appeared that he had chosen the "Leather Bottle" at Clifton Hampden for headquarters, and had spent a part of Sunday discussing Christian Science with an atheistical bagman. He said not a word of Saturday's happenings—talked away, in fact, as if he had returned to us, on perfect terms of understanding, out of a void. Jimmy played up and mulled some beer for us afterwards, on a recipe of which (he gave us to know) the College of Brasenose, Oxford, alone possessed the secret, to be imparted only to such of its sons as had deserved it by godliness and good learning.

Foe commended the brew, declined a cigar, and pulled out his old pipe.

"Infernal job," he began, "having to talk business, 'specially when you've tasted freedom."

He filled his pipe, lit it carefully, and went on. "I got back to London early yesterday morning. Spent the day clearing up my worldly affairs.… Don't look scared, Roddy. I've thrown up the Professorship—that's all."

"Why, in the world?" I wanted to know.

"You may put it," he answered easily, "that, as the clerics say, I've had a higher call."

"Don't understand," said I; "unless you're telling us that Travers—" "Travers?" His eyebrows went up. "Oh, I see what you mean. No: Travers hasn't been running around and finding me a better-paid job as a solatium. He's a good fellow and quite capable of it. Even hinted at something of the sort when I broke it to him verbally, yesterday afternoon. I thanked him, but wasn't taking any. I get quite as much money as I want at the Silversmiths'; and I've saved a little, too. It's freedom, not money, I want; as a means to my little end. I want complete freedom for a couple of years, perhaps for three, or maybe even for longer. It may be I shall have to buy myself an annuity. I'd ask for absolute independence if it could be had—independence of all my fellow-creatures but one. But it can't be had: so I've come to you for help."

"Say on," I commanded.

"It's this way, Roddy. Like the late General Trochu, I have a Plan. Unlike his, it's a Great Plan.… Yes, I'll give you a glimpse of it by and by. It involves—or may involve—the cutting of all human ties—that is of all but one. Well, as you know, I haven't many, and those clients of Farrell's have lightened me of worldly furniture. What's become of Farrell, by the way?"

"He's retiring from the contest, and has been advised to travel for the good of his health. The Sunday papers settled it with their reports of the Police Court proceedings.… What! Haven't you heard?"

"Now I come to think of it, Travers tried to tell me some story… but I wasn't listening.… In trouble, is he? Good. Not going to hang him, are they? Good."

"The actual decision," said I, "was taken at the Whips' Office yesterday morning. Farrell goes. There's just time to put up a working-man candidate in his stead. But the seat's lost."

"Good," repeated Jack tranquilly. "Eh?… Oh, I beg your pardon, Roddy: I was looking at it from—well, from a different angle.… Let's get back to my plan. Wasn't it Huck Finn who wished it were possible to die temporarily? That's what I'm going to do, anyhow: and I want you to be my executor."

"I should need an inventory of your worldly goods, to start with," said I gravely.

"Drew it up, Sunday night.… Where's my coat?… here, catch!" He pulled out a long legal envelope, well stuffed, and threw it across to me. "Don't open it now. When you do, you'll find everything in order. I've a habit of neatness with my worldly affairs."

"All very well," said I. "But you'll have to tell a lot more before I commit myself. And, anyhow, things can't be done in this easy way. You'll have to see a solicitor and get me power of attorney or something of the sort—"

"Look here," he interrupted; "I thought it was understood that I'd come to you for help. Power of attorney? Bosh! Not going to commit yourself? Why, man, you're committed! The cheque's drawn and paid into your account at Hoare's.… I did it yesterday—caught 'em just before closing-time. You'll be hearing in a post or so. They have all the bonds too, and my written instructions.… I bank there, too, you know."

"Heaven alive!" said I, with a gasp. "Are you telling me you've chucked all you possess into my account?"

"Why not?" he demanded. "Oh, you can make me out an I O U some time, and get Jimmy to witness it, if you're so damned—what's the word?— punctilious. If you can't do me this simple favour, why then you must sign the business over to Jimmy here."

"No, you don't," answered Jimmy, and in accents commendably clear considering that he uttered them with his nose deep in the tankard of mulled ale. "Up to now I have played the good boy who is seen but not heard. I break the self-imposed silence only to say: 'Woe betide the man who attempts to complicate my overdraft!'"

I addressed myself to Jack. "You'll be wanting money sent to you from time to time, and I'm to transmit.—Is that the idea?"

He nodded.

"Where am I to send it?"

"That's the uncertainty, of course. From time to time I shall keep you informed. It may be to a suburban villa, it may be to some Poste Restante in the Sahara. That's as the chase goes. Like Baal I shall be on a journey, or I shall be pursuing. Yes, anyway I shall be pursuing.… All I ask is that, on getting a call, you'll send out, as best you can, such-and-such a sum to the address indicated. You have between £6000 and £7000 to play with. Probably you will be surprised at my moderation in demanding: but anyway I shall keep well within the limit. My memory and the bank-book usually balance to a pound or two."

"Then it's travel you're after?" I asked.

He nodded. "On a journey—and pursuing."

"Big game?"

"You may call it the biggest. Or I'm out to make it the biggest. … Jimmy, pass me the tobacco." He took the jar and, filling his pipe, lay back in the wicker chair with something like a groan. "Roddy, can't you see? These years, as you know, I've been working up my inquiry into rage in animals; beginning, that is, with animals, but always, as you know, intending to carry the inquiry up as soon as I had a solid working basis. Yes, it was all to proceed on induction—laborious tests, classifications—you know the system and that I didn't care if it took a lifetime. Well, all of a sudden, as I'm beginning to realise that, though the process is sound—must be sound—pursuit is probably hopeless because it must take twenty lifetimes—of a sudden, I say, this new way is revealed. Put it that I've come, all of a start, upon a little stream called Rubicon. Put it that I've burnt—no, put it that Farrell's myrmidons have burnt, at a stroke, every boat for me.

"—I might have gone on for years upon years, collecting statistics and ploughing out conclusions.… I begin to believe in the calculated interposition of Providence.… On the critical moment of transference the bridge breaks behind me. I have lost all my baggage. But, on the other shore, I have the jewel.

"—Listen, my boy.… The end of me may be empiricism.… They have destroyed eight years' work, and I have nothing left of it but memories of data which I can't produce for evidence—worthless, that is, for a man of my scientific conscience. En revanche and on the other side of the stream I find I have it; to carry on and test upon a fellow-man I have the diamond to cut all glass. With the brute beasts it was all observation, much of it uncertain. Henceforth it will be clean experiment. Farrell accused me of practising vivisection. As a matter of fact, I never did. Now I'm going to, and on Farrell."

Jimmy arose on pretence of seeking a match, and leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece while he stared into the fire.

"Oh, I say, Professor!" he blurted out. "Farrell, you know! He's no sort of class. He—he deserves punishing, but he don't mean any harm, if you understand." Here Jimmy faced about with an ingenuous smile. "I'm a bit of a fool myself, you see, and must speak up for my order."

"But you speak up too late, my boy," answered Foe. "What's the use of telling me that Farrell is no class? As if I didn't know that! … Why, man, I didn't choose Farrell, to pay my attentions to him. If the gods had paid me the compliment of sending along the late Mr. Gladstone, or the present Archbishop of Canterbury (whoever he may be), or General Booth (if he's alive), to knock out eight years of my life like so many skittles in an alley, I'd have felt flattered, of course. But they didn't: they sent along Farrell, and I bow my head before a higher wisdom which, you'll allow, has been justified of its child. Could the late Mr. Gladstone—since we've instanced him—have done it more expeditiously, more thoroughly, with a neater turn of the wrist?… No. Very well, then! Better men than I have married their cooks and been content to recognise that it just happened so. You can start apologising for Farrell when I start complaining he's inadequate."

Jack's eyes, during this speech, were for Jimmy, of course, and I had used the opportunity to watch his face pretty narrowly. It was a little more than ordinarily pale, but composed, as his tone was light and his manner of speech almost flippant. I wondered.…

"Jimmy meant," said I, "that you're too good to match yourself against Farrell. The harm he's done you is atrocious—I can hardly look you in the face, Jack, and speak about it.… All the same, Jimmy talks sense: an outsider like Farrell isn't worthy of your steel, as the writers say."

"We'll wait till he has felt it." Jack stood up, pushed his hands into his trouser-pockets, took one turn around the room, returned, and came to a halt on the hearth-rug. "There's another point," said he. "You fellows can never get it out of your heads that your thoroughbred is always, and necessarily, more sensitive than your mongrel. It must be so—you don't trouble about evidence: it's fixed in your minds a priori: which means that you're just as unscientific and at least as far from the truth as I should be if I posited the exact opposite… As a matter of fact, some miss in the breeding will usually carry with it an irritable protective nerve and keep the animal sensitive on points which the thoroughbred ignores. Your cripple thinks of his hip, your hunchback of his spine: your well-formed man takes his hip and spine for granted. Your bastard is sensitive on historical fact and predisposed to lying about it.… Stated thus, my counter-proposition is obvious. You won't be so ready to agree when I go on to assure you that sensitiveness in these mongrels and misfits often spreads from the centre over the whole nervous system.—But, anyway, you knew my poor hound, the pair of you. Not much breeding in Billy, eh?… Well, he bit four blackguards before they laid him out: bit 'em deep, too, and I won't answer for the virus. That dog died defending my papers. He fought on his honour, and he knew it, Roddy. He suffered, Jimmy—even if he was dead when they threw him into the fire. And—I'm going to give your Farrell the benefit of the doubt. … Where's the tobacco?"

I passed him the jar. "We'll allow for the moment that you are right, Jack," said I. "At all events, you've made out a case. But where do I come in? What's the part you propose for me in this show? Pull yourself together and admit that I'm asking a sweetly reasonable question."

"Didn't I explain?" Jack answered testily. "Surely I made it clear? All I ask of you is to post me out from time to time the money I ask for travelling expenses.… That doesn't compromise you, eh? … Damn it all, Roddy," he exploded, "I counted you were my friend to that extent!"

"That's all right, Jack," said I. "But a friend is one thing and an accomplice is another. What's your game with Farrell? You haven't told me yet, though you're asking what gives me the right to know."

He picked up his coat and hat and turned on me with a smile, very faint and weary and a trifle absent-minded.

"To tell you the truth," said he, as if searching for something at the back of his mind, "I haven't thought it out quite accurately. It's near enough to warrant what preparations I'm making: but it hasn't the shape of a clean proposition—which is the shape my conscience demands.… Don't hurry me, Roddy: let me come around again to-morrow.… I can't invite you to my flat, because I'm making arrangements to shut it up, and these details get in the way, all the time.… Tell you what.—Meet me, you two, at Prince's Grill-room to-morrow, one-fifteen, and you shall have the plan of campaign on a half-sheet of notepaper. I'm a brute, Roddy, to bother you with these private affairs in the middle of your politics. But one-fifteen to-morrow, if you can manage. Sure? Right, then.— So long!"

He wagged, at the door, a benediction on us with his walking-stick and went down the stairs, I strolled to the window and watched him cross the turfed square of the court. Jimmy had taken up the poker and started raking the lower bars of the grate.

"Queer how quietly the Professor takes it," began Jimmy. "I was half-afraid—Oh, drop it, Otty, old man—I'm sorry!"

We had both wheeled about together, and I held a window cushion, poised, ready to hurl.

"Of course I didn't mean that, really!" pleaded Jimmy, parrying with the poker-point. "Sit down and let's talk. Is he mad?… I don't like it."

NIGHT THE NINTH.

THE HUNT IS UP.

Well, I thought it over, and talked it over with Jimmy, and decided that, much as I loved Jack Foe, he'd have to be more explicit with me before I undertook this stewardship. You will say that, this being the only decent decision open, I might have done without the thinking and the talking.… And that's true enough. But, you see, I had lived with Jack pretty long and pretty close, and this was the first time I'd ever taken a miss with him. If anyone for the past ten or fifteen years had suggested to me, concerning Jack Foe, that a day might come when I shouldn't know where to find him, I—well, I should have lost my temper. It was inconceivable, even now. I told myself that, though he had expressly given me leave to invite Jimmy to the breakfast, he had taken a fit of reticence in Jimmy's presence and had shied off; that I should get more out of him when we were alone together.… Is that good English, by the way? Can two persons be alone?… Thank you, Polkinghorne—of course they can when they're real friends.

But that speculation wouldn't work, either: for again at Prince's, and again at Jack's invitation, we were to be a party of three.… I tell you of these doubts because through them, and (you may say) by way of them, it came to me—my first inkling that something was wrong with the man.

Anyway, as it turned out, Jimmy and I might have spared ourselves the discussion: for when we reached Prince's the head-waiter (an old friend) brought me a letter. It had been delivered by District Messenger almost two hours before. It ran—Here it is: I have all the documents but one, and I've sent home for that.

"Dear Roddy,—Sorry to do a shirk: but circumstances oblige me to take the boat-train, 9.45, ex Victoria. I have locked up the flat. The porter has the keys, with instructions to lend to nobody but you or the landlord.
"Address, for some little while, quite uncertain. I drew out a fair sum in circular notes and cash; enough to keep me solvent for some weeks. So you need not worry about the money.
"You needn't fash your consciences over the Plan, either. I'll tell you about it in my next, written from the first place when I find leisure. I'll unfold—no, the word insults its beautiful simplicity. Apologies to Jimmy. Tell him to buy a copy-book and write in it Experiment is better than Observation.
"So long! A great peace has fallen on me, Roddy. 'I am one with my kind,' like the convalescent gentleman in Maud. 'I embrace the purpose of—whatever Higher Power set Farrell going—'and the doom assigned.'
"Farrell is going strong. Yoicks!—Yours ever,"
"J.F."

I handed the letter across to Jimmy, and set myself to order, thoughtfully, something to eat.

"Well, what do you say to it?" I asked as Jimmy finished his perusal.

"I say," pronounced Jimmy in unfaltering voice, "that the crisis demands a gin-and-vermouth, at once, and that the vermouth should be of the Italian variety."

"Waiter!" I called.

"Nay," said Jimmy, "hear me out. I say further—did you mention a rump-steak underdone?"

"You did," said I.

"And with oysters on the top?"

"It's where they usually go," I pleaded. "I didn't specify. One takes a lot of these little things for granted."

"Then I say further that, this being one of those occasions on which no time should be lost, you will reach for that collection of hors d'oeuvre on the table behind you, and lift your voice for a bottle of Graves to follow the vermouth and quickly, but not so as to gall its kibe.… And I say last of all," he wound up reflectively, helping himself to two stuffed olives and a hareng sauer, "that the Professor is running a grave risk, and I wouldn't be in his shoes at this moment."

"You think—" I began nervously.

"Never did such a thing in my life," said Jimmy. "I know. He's in one of those beastly Restaurant Cars."

Silence descended on Foe for two months and more. Then I received this long letter:—

Grand Hotel, Paris,
May 27th.
"My dear Roddy,—The hunt is up. I took some time getting a move on it: but to-night Farrell has the real spirit of the chase upon him, and is in his room at this moment, packing surreptitiously with intent to give me the slip.
"You will have gathered from a glance at the above address that Farrell is with me; or rather, that I am with Farrell. I give him full scope with his tastes. It is part of the Plan. But to-night—knowing that he had gone to his room to pack surreptitiously, and that his berth in the Wagon-lit is booked for to-morrow night at the Gare d'Orleans—I gave myself what the housemaids call an evening-out. This is Paris, Roddy, in the time of the chestnut bloom. A full moon has been performing above the chestnuts. Beneath their boughs the municipality had hung a thousand reflections of it in the form of Chinese lanterns shaped and coloured like great oranges. The band at the Ambassadeurs—a band of artists and, as I should judge, conducted by somebody who couldn't forget that he had once been a gentleman—saw the moon rise and at once were stricken with Midsummer madness. It had been recklessly, defiantly, blatantly exploiting its collective shame on two-steps and coon song,—shouting its de profundis, each degenerate soul bucking up its lost fellow with a challenge to go one better and mock at its hell—when of a sudden, as I say, the moon rose, and the conductor caught up his stick, and the whole damned crew floated off on The Magic Flute.… It wasn't on the programme. It just happened, and no one paid them the smallest attention.… But there it was: ten minutes of ecstasy.
"They ceased upon the night: and the next news was that after five minutes' interval they were chained again and conscientiously throwing vim into Boum-Poump with the standardised five thumps of jollity on the kettledrum.
"So the champak odours failed—What is champak? Have the Germans synthetised it yet?—and I awoke from dreams of thee. I walked back by way of the Quais—by the river:"
Dissolute man!
Lave in it, drink of it
Then, if you can.

"But I have played for safety and am writing this with the aid of a whisky-and-Perrier to hope that it finds you well as it leaves me at present.
"I dare say it struck you as a poorish kind of trick—my inviting you to Prince's and leaving you to pay for the repast. The reason of my sudden bolt was a sudden report that Farrell intended to start at once for a holiday on the Continent of Europe—that he had been to Cook's and bought himself a circular ticket for the Riviera—Paris, Toulon, Cannes, Nice, etc.—on to Genoa, Paris by Mt. Cenis—that sort of thing. I should tell you that, being chin-deep in winding up my affairs, I had employed a man to watch his movements. Shadowing Farrell is a soft option, even now, when he's painfully learning the rudiments of flight: four months ago he had not even a nascent terror to make him suspicious. Oh, never fear but I'll educate him, dull as he is! Remember your Ancient Mariner, Roddy? Here are two passages purposely set wide apart by the author, that I'll put together for you to choose between 'em,—"
(1) As who, pursued with yell and blow,
Still treads the shadow of his—Foe,
And forward bends his head.…
(2) Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round, walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
"You may urge that Coleridge—a lazy man and a forgetful—is just repeating himself. But there's a shade of difference; and I'll undertake to deliver back Farrell in whichever condition you prefer; or even to split the shade. But you must give me time.
"As it was, I risked nothing in paying an ordinary professional. Farrell walked into the office, and my man followed him. Farrell took some time discussing his route with the clerk. My man borrowed the use of a telephone-box, left the door open and rang me up. By the time he was put through he had heard all he needed. So he closed the door, and reported. I instructed him, of course, to buy me a similar ticket. 'And,' said my man, 'he is inquiring which is the best hotel at Monte Carlo, and it seems he hardly knows any French." 'Right,' said I. 'Come along at once and collect your fee, for I haven't any time to spare.'
"I thought it possible that Farrell might break his journey to dally with the gaieties of Paris. But he didn't. I found out easily enough at Cook's Office there that he had booked a sleeper and gone straight through. So I went to the Opera, listened to Rigoletto, idled most of the next day in the old haunts, and took the usual Sud-Express, with a sleeper, from the Gare de Lyons.
"No: I lie. You can't call it idling when you sit—say in the Bois, on any chance bench anywhere—seeing nothing, letting the carriages go by like an idle show of phenomena, but with your whole soul thrilling to a new idea, drinking it in, pushing out new fibres which grow as they suck in more of it through small new ducts, with a ripple and again a choke and yet again a gurgle, which you orchestrate into a sound of deep waters combining as you draw them home.… Oh, yes—you may laugh: but I know now what conception is: what Shakespeare felt like when he sat one night, in a garden, and the great plot of Othello came teeming.…
"Please bear one thing in mind, my dear Roddy, You are never, now or hereafter, to pity me. Qualis artifex.… I used to smile to myself in a cocksure youthful way when great men hinted in great books that one had to make burnt-sacrifice of the eye's delight, the heart's desire; the lust of the flesh, the pride of the intellect; see them all consumed to a handful of dust, and trample out even the last spark of that, before the true phoenix sprang; that only when half-gods go the gods arrive. But it's true, Roddy! It's true!
"I won't grow dithyrambic—not just yet. I was so sure of my man that it seemed quite worth while to tumble out at Avignon—a place I had never inspected—and fool away another spell among Roman remains, and Petrarch and the rival Popes, and the opening scenes of the Revolution, and just thinking—thinking.
"So I reached Monte Carlo next day, a little after noon; took a bath and a siesta; sauntered into the Casino there, a good forty-eight hours behind time; and caught my man, sitting.
"Are you superstitious, Roddy? Of course you are: and so are all of us who pretend that we are not.… Monte Carlo is the hell of a hole. I had never seen it before: but as I went into the Casino, all of a sudden I had a queer recollection—of a breakfast-party at Cambridge in young La Touche's rooms, in King's (he was killed in the South African War), and of his saying solemnly as we lit cigarettes that he'd had a dream overnight. He dreamed that he walked into the Casino at Monte Carlo, went straight to the first table on the left, put down a five-franc piece on Number 17, and came out a winner of prodigious sums.
"Well, we are all humbugs about superstition. I don't believe there's a man existent—that's to say, a tolerable man, a fellow who isn't a prig—who doesn't touch posts, or count his steps on the pavement, or choose what tie he'll wear on certain days, or give way to some such human weakness when he's alone. We so-called 'men of science' are, I truly believe, the worst of the lot. You can't get rid of one fetish but you have instantly the impulse to kneel to another…
"Anyhow, there was my man sitting, and the number 17 almost straight before him, a little in front of his right arm; and this recollection came to me; and I leaned over his shoulder and laid a five-franc piece on the number.
"It won. I piled my winnings on the original stake, plus all my loose cash; and Number 17 won again.
"That's all. You know my old theory that every scientific man should have a sense of mystery—it's more useful to him than to most of his fellows. Anyway I'd tried my luck on Bob La Touche's long bygone dream.
"Several pairs of eyes began to regard me with interest: and the croupier, as he pushed my spoil across, spared me a glance inscrutable but scrutinising. I make no doubt that had I helped to make up the next game, quite a number of the punters would have backed my infant fortune. But I didn't. Farrell had slewed about in his chair for to look up at the newcomer: and at sight of his dropped jaw, as he recognised me, I smiled, gathered up my wealth and walked out.
"I took a seat in the Casino garden, overlooking the sea. 'Sort of thing,' I found myself murmuring, 'might happen once in a blue moon,' and with that was aware that a sort of blue moonlight was indeed bathing the garden, though the moon's reflection lay yellow enough across the still Mediterranean. [Here, for description, turn up Matt. Arnold's A Southern Night: possibly still copyrighted.]
"Farrell came out. He spotted me at once; for to help the moon, as well as to dispel the heavy scent of the gaming-room, I was lighting a cigar. He took a couple of turns on the terrace and halted in front of me. His manner was nervous.
"'Excuse me, Professor—' he began.
"'Excuse me, Mr. Farrell,' I corrected him; 'I am a Professor no longer. You may call me Doctor Foe, if you like.… Did Number 17 win a third time?'
"'I—I fancy not," he stammered. 'To tell the truth, your sudden appearance here, when I supposed you to be in London—and at Monte Carlo, of all places—But perhaps you are a devotee of the fickle goddess? Men of learning,' he floundered on, 'find relaxation—complete change of interest. Darwin—the great Darwin—used to read novels: the worse the novel, the better he liked it—or so I've heard.'
"'As it happens,' said I, 'this is my first visit to Monte Carlo.'
"'Indeed?' He brightened and became yet more fatuous. 'Then we may call it a coincidence, eh?—a veritable coincidence. When I saw you—But first of all, let me congratulate you on your luck.'
"'Thank you,' I said. 'I will make a note that your first impulse on encountering me was to congratulate me on my luck.'
"This seemed to puzzle him for a moment. Then, 'Oh, I see what you mean,' he said. 'But we're coming to that.… You gave me a fair turn just now, you did, turning up so unexpected. But (says I) this makes an opportunity that I ought to have made for myself before leaving London. Yes, I ought.… But I want to say to you now, Dr. Foe—as between man and man—that I made a mistake. I was misled—that's the long and short of it. I never stirred up that crowd, Doctor, to make the mess they did of your—your premises. But so far as any unguarded words of mine may have set things going in my absence—well, I'm sorry. A man can't say fairer than that, can he?… And I've suffered for it, too,' he added; 'if that's any consolation to you.'
"'Suffered, have you?' I asked.
"'What, haven't you heard?' He was surprised.—Yes, Roddy, genuinely. 'Well, now I won't say it was all owing to that little affair at the Silversmiths' College.… There were other—er—circumstances. In fact there was what-you-might-call a combination of circumstances. The upshot of which was that I had a safe seat and took a bad toss out of it. No, I don't harbour no feelings against you, Doctor Foe. I'm a sociable, easy-going sort of fellow, and not above owning up to a mistake when I've made one.… I stung you up again just now, wishing you joy of your luck: meaning no more than your winnings at the tables. Not being touchy myself, I dessay it comes easy to advise a man not to be touchy. But what I say is, we're both down on our luck for the time, and we're both here to forget it. So why not be sociable?'
"'Suppose on the contrary, Mr. Farrell,' I suggested, 'that I am here to remember. What then?'
"'Then I'd say—No, you interrupted me somewhere when I was going to make myself clear. You won't mind what I'm going to say? … Well, then, I gather those asses did some pretty considerable damage to your scientific 'plant'—is that so? … Well, again, feeling a sort of responsibility in this business, I want to say that if it'll set things on their legs again, five or six thousand pounds won't break Peter Farrell.'
"I didn't strangle him, Roddy. It was the perilous moment: but I sat it out like a statue, and then I knew myself a match for this business. I didn't strangle him, even though he provoked me by adding, 'Yes, and now we're met, out here, you can be useful to me in a lot of little ways. Know French, don't you? Well, I don't, and we'll throw that in.… What I mean is, What d'ye say to our joining forces? I'm fed up with these Cook's men. They do their best, I don't deny. But this business of the lingo is a stiffer fence than I bargained for. Now, with a fellow-countryman to swap talk; and a gentleman, and one that can patter to the waiters and at the railway stations—What do you say to it, Doctor? Shall we let bygones be bygones?'
"I did not strangle him, Roddy, even for that. I sat pretty still for a while, pretending to consider.
"'It's odd, Mr. Farrell,' said I after a bit, 'that you should invite me to be your companion. You'll always remember that you invited me?'
"''Course I shall,' said he. 'Let's be sociable—that's my offer.'
"I threw away my cigar. 'Provided you make no suggestion beyond it, I accept,' said I. 'We will take this trip together. Do you mean to stay long at Monte Carlo?'
"'Pretty place,' said Farrell. 'Been up to La Turbie? No, of course; you've only just arrived. Well, I can recommend it— funny little railway takes you up, and the view from the top is a knock-out. But I'm your man, wherever you'll do the personally-conducting. I'm not wedded to this place. Only came here because I understood it was fast, and I wanted to see.'
"'Where's your hotel?' I asked.
"'Grand Hotel, next door,' he answered. 'What' yours?'
"'The same,' said I. 'We'll meet at dejeuner—same table. Twelve noon, if that suits.'
"'I don't know if you're wedded to this place—' said he.
"'Not one little bit,' I answered.
"'Inside there, for instance?'
"'You saw,' said I. 'I came out because I disliked the smell.'
"'And there's that pigeon-shooting. Goes on all day. I hate taking life—even if I could—'
"'You've once before,' said I, 'suspected me of being careless about the sufferings of animals; and you've, apologised. Shall we call it off? I don't shoot pigeons anyway.'
"'Me either,' Farrell agreed heartily. 'I'm here for fresh air and exercise. Don't mind confessing to you I've no great fancy for this place. Man told me at dayjooney this morning he'd just come in from sitting under the palms before the Casino entrance. … All of a sudden a young fellow walked out and shot himself there, point-blank. Man who told me doesn't take any interest in play—over from Mentone for the day, just to see things.—Well, this young fellow, as I say, shot himself—put revolver to his forehead—there on the steps. And by George, sir, he was mopped up and into a sack within twenty seconds! One porter ready with sack, another to help, third with sponge to mop steps—stage clear almost before you could rub your eyes. … I just tell it to you as it was told to me, and by a man pretty far gone in consumption, so that you'd say he'd be cautious about lying.'
"I lit another cigar. 'With so priceless a fool as this,' I said to myself, 'you must not be in a hurry, John Foe.' Aloud I said, 'I've no passion either, for this place. I wanted to see it, and I've seen it. I'll knock in at your room at eight o'clock, if that will suit you, and we'll discuss plans. For my part, I had a mind to go back to Cannes and start for a ramble among the Esterel.'"
"To be brief, we struck the bargain and—incredible as you may find it—have been running in double harness ever since.… I couldn't have believed it myself, in prediction: but here it is—and until a few hours ago Farrell never guessed.
"No: that is wrong. He never guessed at all. I told him.
"It came to me, after the first week, as habitually as daily bread. We put in a couple of days at Mentone, another couple at Nice; then for a fortnight we made Cannes our centre, with a trip up to Grasse and several long tramps among the mountains. After that came St. Tropez, Costebello, Toulon, Marseilles, Montpellier—with excursions to Aigues-Mortes, the Pont du Gard and the rest of it. From Montpellier we turned right about on our tracks; took Cannes again, Antibes; drove along the whole Corniche in a two-horse barouche. There was a sort of compact that we'd do the whole Riviera—French and Italian—as thoroughly as tourists can do it; and we did—from Montpellier to Bordighera, from Bordighera to Genoa. And he never guessed.
"I had two bad moments; by which I mean moments of unscientific impatience, sudden unworthy impulses to kill him and get rid of the job. Unscientific, unworthy—unsportsmanlike—to kill your priceless fish before he has even felt the hook!
"The second bad moment I overcame (I am proud to report) of my own strength of will. It happened at a bend of the Corniche, when our driver pulled up on the edge of a really nasty precipice and invited us to admire the view. It being the hour for dejeuner, we haled our basket out of the carriage, and spread our meal on the parapet. Farrell sat perched there with his back to the sea, and made unpleasant noises, gnawing at a chicken-bone. I wanted to see how he'd fall backwards and watch him strike the beach.…
"Well, I was glad when the impulse was conquered and I had proved my self-control: because the previous temptation had been a close call, and I believe it would have bowled me out but for a special interposition of—Providence.
"We were following up a path in the Esterel: a little gorge of a path cut by some torrent long since dried. The track had steep sides—fifteen to twenty feet—right and left, and was so narrow that we took it single file. I was leading.
"Now, on our way westward out of Cannes, that morning, we had passed the golf-links, and Farrell had been talking golf ever since. I don't know why golf-talk should have such power to infuriate those who despise that game. But so it is, Roddy.
"I had the weapon in my pocket. I had my fingers on it as I trudged along, and was saying to myself, 'Why not here? In the name of common sense, why not here? Why not here and now?'— when a leveret, that had somehow bungled its footing on the high bank above, came tumbling down, not three yards ahead of us. The poor little brute picked itself up, half-stunned, caught sight of us, and made a bolt up the path ahead. From this side to that it darted, trying to climb and escape; but again and again the bank beat it, and from each spring it toppled back; and we followed relentlessly.
"At the end of two hundred yards it gave in. It just lay down in the path like a thing already dead and waited for what we should choose to do.
"I picked it up. I showed it to Farrell, keeping my fingers on the faint little heart.
"'They say,' said I, 'it's lucky when a hare pops out in your path. What do you think?'
"'Worth carrying home?' said Farrell. 'I'm partial to hare. But he's a bit undersized for Leadenhall Market'—and the fool laughed.
"'We'll let him go,' said I.
"'I guess he's too far scared to crawl,' he suggested doubtfully.
"'Turn about and watch,' said I. 'It may have escaped your memory that you once accused me of being cruel to animals. Turn about, and watch. Don't move.'
"I undid the three upper buttons of my waistcoat, stowed the little fellow down inside, against my shirt, leaving his head free, so that I could stroke his ears and brainpan. I let Farrell see this, stepped past him, and walked slowly back down the path. At the end of twenty paces I lifted the little beast out, set him on the ground, and walked on. He shook his ears twice, then lopped after me like a dog, at a slow canter. At the point where he had tumbled I collected him again by the ears, lifted him, climbed the bank and restored him to his thicket, into which he vanished with a flick of his white scut.
"Then I went back very slowly to Farrell. 'Curious things, animals,' said I. 'If you don't mind, we won't talk any more golf to-day.'"

NIGHT THE TENTH.

PILGRIMAGE OF HATE.

"A map scored with the zigzags of our route would suggest the wanderings of a couple of lunatics. But that was the way of it. I would turn up at breakfast any morning and propound some plan for a new divagation. Farrell never failed to fall in with it. For a time, of course, I had him in places whence, with his ignorance of France, he might have found it hard to escape back to his own form of civilisation. But even when he had picked up enough of the language to ask for a railway ticket and something to eat, his reliance on me continued to be pathetic, dog-like.
"I know something of dogs. I have no experience of marriage. But from time to time I put this question to myself: 'Here is a widower—free, as he tells me, after twenty-seven years of married life almost entirely spent at Wimbledon. It is inconceivable that he did not, during that considerable period, look at least once or twice across the table at the late Mrs. Farrell and ask himself if the business was to go on for ever.' I supposed, Roddy, that the two had been in love, as such creatures feel the emotion. 'Well then,' thought I, 'here are we two, the one hating and hiding his hate, thrown together in constant companionship. How long will it take the other, who has never cut an inch of the ice encasing that hatred, before he finds my society intolerable?'
"That was the question; and I had the answer to-day.
"From Genoa we actually harked back to Cahors, for an aimless two weeks among the upper waters of the Lot and the Tarn. I led him over the roof of France, as they call it. I sweated him down valleys to Ambialet, to Roc-Amadour, I threaded him through limestone caverns wherein I could have cut his throat and left him, never to be missed. We struck up for the provincial gaieties of Toulouse. We attended the Opera there— Il Trovatore—and Farrell wept in his seat. I can see the tears now—oozing out between the finger-stalls of a pair of white-kid gloves he had been inspired to buy at the Bon Marche. We also went to the theatre, where the company performed Les Vivacites du Capitaine Tic.
"At the conclusion of this harmless comedy, Farrell said a really good thing. He said it was funny enough and even instructive if you looked at it from the right point of view; but for his part (and I might call him advanced if I chose) he liked the sort of musical comedy in which you spice a chicken to make 'em all fall in love when they've eaten it; or at least, if it's to be legitimate comedy, one in which they take off their clothes and go to bed by mistake.
"So we came on to Paris, and here we are at the Grand Hotel. Farrell's notion of Paris, was of course, the Moulin Rouge, and the kind of place on Montmartre where they sing some kind of blasphemy while a squint-eyed waiter serves you cocktails on a coffin.
"We were solemnly giving way to this libidinous humbug last night when he leaned back and said to me, 'This is all very well, Doctor; and I'm glad to have had the experience. But do you know what I want at this moment?'
"'Say on,' said I, looking up to return the nod of an acquaintance—a young American, Caffyn by name—who had risen from a table not far from ours and was making his way out. On a sudden impulse I called after him, 'Hi! Caffyn!'
"'Hallo!' Caffyn turned about and came strolling back. He is a long lantern-jawed lad with a sardonic drawl of speech. He has spent two years in the ville lumiere, having come to it moth-like from somewhere afar in Texas. His ambition—no, wait!—the ambition of his father, a 'cattle king,' is that he should acquire the difficult art of painting in oils. 'Want me?' asked Caffyn, as I pushed a chair for him. 'What for? If it's to admire the 'rainbow' you've been mixing, I'm a connoisseur and I don't pass it. Your hand's steady enough, one or two lines admirably defined, but you've gotten the pink noyau and the parfait amour into their wrong billets. If, on the other hand, you want me to drink it, I'll see you to hell first."… Then, as I introduced him, "Good evening, Mr. Farrell. I am pleased to meet you in this meretricious haunt of gaiety. If I may be allowed to say so, you set it off, sir.'
"'Sit down a moment,' said I. 'We didn't intrude upon your solitary table, thinking—'
"'I know,' he caught me up. 'Natural delicacy of Britishers— 'Here's a fellow learning to take his pleasures sadly. We'll give him time.' And I, gentlemen, allowed that it was 'way down in Cupid's garden—Damon and Pythias discovered hand in hand—no gooseberries, by request.… If you'd like to be told how I was occupied, I was chewing—ay, marry and go to— I was one with my distant father's most fatted calf—fed up and chewing.'
"'And if you'd like to know how we were occupied,' said I, 'we were both wanting something—and the same thing. We haven't told one another what it is, and you are called in to guess.'
"'Oh, a thought-reading seance. Right.' He turned the chair about, sat on it straddle-wise and crossed his arms over the curved top bar. 'Let me see,' he mused, leaning forward, pulling at his cigar and bringing his eyes, after they had travelled over the crowd, back firmly to us. ''Two souls with but a single thought,'' he quoted, ''two hearts that beat as one.'… Well, now, if you were of my country and from my parts I'd string you like two jays on one perch—How say'st, prithee, and in sooth yes, sure! I'd sing you The Cowpuncher's Lament, sweet and low, with tears in my voice. As it is, I'll be getting the local colour a bit smudged, maybe: but I guess— I guess,' said Caffyn—and his gaze seemed to turn inward and become far withdrawn—'I guess—'O Hardy, kiss me ere I die!'— No, that's wrong: it isn't the cockpit of the Victory. It's the after-saloon of the Calais-Dover packet—shortest route—and I see you two there at table, eating cold roast beef, underdone, with plain boiled potatoes. With plain boiled potatoes—yes, and mixed pickles.' He passed a hand over his eyes. 'Excuse me, gentlemen; the vision is blurred just here— if someone would kindly shoot that lady on the stage and stop her—it's not much to ask, when she's exposing so much of her personality—How the devil can I tell the difference between mixed pickles and piccalilli while she's committing murder on the high C? Passez outre.… I see you eating like men who haven't seen Christian food for years; yet you are swallowing it in a hurry that almost defeats the blessed taste; because one of you has just shouted up, with his mouth full, a command to be informed as soon as ever the white shore of Albion can be spied from deck. It is a race with Time—Shakespeare's Cliff against a pickled onion.… Oh, have done! have done!'
"'Thank you, Caffyn,' said I. 'You may come out of your trance. You have done admirably.'
"'Wonderful,' breathed Farrell; and he breathed it heavily. 'I won't say I'd actually arrived at a plain-boiled potato—'
"'But it was floating in your brain,' I chimed him down. 'Such is the province of imaginative art, of poetry, as defined by that great Englishman, Samuel Johnson. It reproduces our common thoughts with a great increase of sensibility.'
"'Mr. Caffyn has put it rightways, anyhow,' Farrell insisted. 'Look here, Doctor'—he calls me by that title and none other— 'What's the programme for to-morrow.'
"'Versailles,' said I.
"'Then we'll make it so. But, the day after, I'm for England. … I don't mind telling you, Mr. Caffyn, that the Doctor and me hit it off first-class.'
"'I've noted it,' said Caffyn quietly.
"'And it's the rummier,' Farrell pursued, 'because him and me— or, as I should say, he and I—started this tour upon what you might call a mutual—what's the word? misunderstanding?—no, I have it—antipathy. Is that correct, Doctor?'
"'Perfectly,' I agreed.
"'T'tell the truth,' confessed Farrell, 'I've always been up against schoolmasters; yes, all my life. They've such a—such a—well, as this ain't Wimbledon, one may speak it out—such a bloody superior way of giving you information. Now if there's one thing in th' world I 'bominate, it's information.' Farrell threw a fierce glance around the dining tables as if defiantly making sure of his ground. 'But I'll say this for the Doctor; he never gives you any. That is, you have to pump for it.… But we've had, we two, a daisy of a time. The great thing about travel, Mr. Caffyn, is that it enlarges the mind. Yes, sir, and in Doctor Foe's company you positively can't help it.'
"'I'm sorry, Farrell,' said I.
"'Sorry?' he exclaimed. 'Why should you be sorry? I like having a—a wider outlook on things, provided it ain't banged in a man's eye. In fact, I don't mind confessing to you, Mr. Caffyn, here in the Doctor's presence, that this has been a great experience for me. I've had a good time, as I believe, sir, they say in your country. But I look around me'—here Farrell looked again and almost theatrically around the feast of Comus—'and I say that, be it never so homely, give me Wimbledon to wind up. You and me, Doctor—or, as I might say, you and I, are for home, after all—and the old cooking. Our ways henceforth may lie separate; but we've a bond in common and any time you care to look me up at Wimbledon I shall be most happy. We'll crack a bottle to our travels.'
"'Right,' I agreed. 'Caffyn, will you make a note of at too?'
"'And Mr. Caffyn—at any time—Goes without saying,' pursued Farrell.
"'Right,' agreed Caffyn."
"That was yesterday, Roddy. This morning, as ever is, Farrell and I started, according to programme, for Versailles. I could see that his mind had been running on Caffyn's words; that he was dying to get back to Wimbledon; yes, and almost dying to be quit of me.
"I had been waiting for this. I had known that the moment would come, and wondered a score of times that it took so long in coming. As unmarried men, Roddy, you and I are out of our depth here. But surely—I hark back to it—it must happen to one or other of every married couple to look across the table and realise the words Till death us do part. When it happens to both simultaneously I suppose murder follows; or, at least, divorce.
"Talking about murder, I've to confess that at Versailles I felt the impulse again. You know that infernal Galerie des Glaces? Well, of a sudden the multiplication of Farrell's face and the bald spot at the back of his head came near to overpowering me. We had escaped, too, from the wandering sightseers, and stood isolated at the end of the vast hall.… High sniffing dilettanti may say what they like, but Versailles is what Jimmy would call a 'knock-out.' The very first view of the Grand Avenue had knocked Farrell out, at all events, and he had stared at the great fountains, and followed me through courts and galleries in mere bedazement, speechless, with eyes like a fish's, round and bulging and glassy.… He looked so funny, standing there… so small… and yet actually, I suppose, taller than the late King Louis Quatorze by three inches. … Somewhere outside on a terrace a band was playing things from the Mariage de Figaro—Figaro, at Versailles of all places!… In short the world had gone pretty mad for a moment, and for that moment I felt that, in this bizarrerie of contrast it might dignify our quarrel if Farrell died amid such magnificent surroundings.… But I conquered the impulse all right: and this, the third time, was the easiest."
"I got him away to the Little Trianon: and there in its gardens— as you would lay in the shade a patient suffering from sunstroke—I conducted him to a seat under the spring boughs beside the little lake that reflects the Hameau. He stared on the green turf at our feet, and across at the grouped rustic buildings, all as pretty as paint, and came out of his stupor with a long sigh.
"'A-ah!' he murmured. 'That's better! That does me good.'
"Then I knew that it was coming: that I must break his fate to him. I even gave him the prompt-word.
"'Homelike,' I suggested.
"'You've hit it,' he said, and paused. 'No place like Home! I'm glad enough to have seen all that show yonder.' He waved a hand. 'But I wouldn't be one of these kings, not if you paid me.… Look here, we'll cross to-morrow, eh? Of course, if you prefer to stay behind—'
"'I'm not going to stay behind,' said I, throwing away my cigarette.
"'Capital! We'll wind up with a dinner at the Savoy—'
"'Cold roast beef and mixed pickles,' I put in.
"He chuckled. 'Clever fellow, that Caffyn—made my mouth water, he did. We'll wind up at the Savoy, and talk over another trip that we'll take together, one of these days. For I shall miss your company, Doctor.'
"'No, you won't,' said I, lighting a fresh cigarette.
"He stared at me for a moment as if slightly hurt in his feelings. Then: 'Don't contradict,' he said sharply, and laughed as I stared in my turn. 'Expression of yours,' he said. 'Sounds rude; but all depends how you say it. I reckon I've caught up the accent—eh?—by the quick way you looked up.… I hadn't much school and never went to College: but I've studied you, Doctor, and I'll improve.'
"'Well, then,' said I, nettled and less inclined to spare him,' I'm sorry to contradict you, Mr. Farrell, but you are never going to miss my company—never, until your life's end.'
"'What d'ye mean?' he blurted: and I suppose there was something in my look that made him edge off an inch or two on the rustic seat.
"'Simply this,' I answered. 'Ten or a dozen weeks ago you made yourself the instrument to destroy something twenty times more valuable than yourself. I am not speaking of what you killed in me, nor of the years of application, the records, measurements, analyses which you hoofed into nothing with no more thought than a splay coon's for an ant-heap. Nor will I trouble you with any tale of the personal hopes I had built on them, for you to murder. The gods suffer men of your calibre to exist, and they must know why. But I tell you this, though you may find it even harder to understand. Science has her altars, and her priests. I was one, serving an altar which you defiled. And by God, Peter Farrell, upholsterer, the priest will pursue!'
"He drew back to the end of the seat and fairly wilted. His terror had no more dignity than a sheep's. He cast an eye about for help. There was none. 'You're mad!' he quavered. 'If we were in England now—What is it you're threatening?'
"'Nothing that you could take hold of, to swear information against me,' I answered, 'even if you were in England now—now that April's here. Or is it May? I shall probably end by killing you; but I have tested my forbearance, and now know that it will happen at my own time, place, and convenient opportunity. That's a threat, eh? Well, there's no hurry about it, and you couldn't do anything with it, even at home in merry England. You couldn't put up a case that you go in bodily fear of me—as you're beginning to do—when I can call Caffyn ('Clever fellow, Caffyn!') to witness that only last night you desired no end to our acquaintance. Besides, my acquaintance is all I propose to inflict on you, just yet.'
"He jumped up, and faced me. He was thoroughly scared, and no less thoroughly puzzled. To do him justice, he had pluck enough, too, to be pretty angry.
"'I don't know what you mean!' he broke out. 'I don't know what you're driving at, mad or not.… The moment we crossed one another I hated you—Yes, damn you, first impressions are truest after all! Later, I was weak enough, thinking I'd injured you, to—to—' He broke down feebly. 'What sort of devil are you?' he demanded, mopping his forehead. 'You can't hurt me, I say. What is it you threaten?'
"'Only this,' said I. 'You have been a married man for a number of years, and therefore can probably appreciate better than I what it means. But you know my feeling for you, as I know yours towards me.… Well, I propose to be your companion in this world and until death do us part.… You may dodge, but I shall be faithful; you may slip, run, elude, but I shall quest. But your shadow I am going to be, Mr. Farrell; and ever, when you have hit a place in the sun, it shall be to start and find me—a faithful hound at your side. I have put the fear on you, I see. Waking or sleeping you shall never put that fear off. … And now,' said I, rising and tapping another cigarette on my case, 'let me steer you back to the railway-station. You will prefer to dine alone to-night and think out your plans. I shall be thinking out mine at the Ambassadeurs.'"
"So that's how it happened, Roddy. You might post me £100 to the Grand Hotel, Biarritz: for I'm running short. The hunt is up, and he's breaking for South."
"J. F."

NIGHT THE ELEVENTH.

SCIENCE OF THE CHASE.

I'm an imperfect Christian: but I read Jack's long letter three times over, and at each reading I liked it the less. Before posting an answer I handed the thing to Jimmy; who spent a morning over it, helping himself—a sure sign of a troubled spirit—to tobacco indifferently from his own jar and mine. When nothing troubled him— that is to say, as a rule—he invariably used mine. I left him ruminating; went out, did some business, and met him again at our usual luncheon-table at the Bath Club.

"I believe," said Jimmy reflectively at luncheon, "that my way with Farrell was the better, after all.… You'll admit that it did the trick, and without causing any offence to anybody. Well, if you ask me how to deal with the Professor, I'll be equally practical. Starve him off."

"No good," said I. "If I cut off supply, he'll only come back, demand his money and be off on the trail again. Indeed, he may turn up in these rooms to-morrow: for it's ten to one, on my reckoning, that Farrell will pretty soon break back for home."

"All the easier, then," said Jimmy. "Save you the trouble of writing a letter. When he comes for his money, tell him you're freezing on to it."

"But, man alive! it's Jack's money. You wouldn't have me thieve, would you?… As for the letter, I've written it; in fact you may say that I've written two, or, rather, assisted at their composition. Here is one of them, in copy. It explains the other, which is a half-sheet of instructions now in my lawyer's possession. I shall have to write a third presently, explaining to Jack—"

"I don't like letter-writing," interrupted Jimmy, "and I shun solicitors. Which is anticipatory vengeance: as soon as I'm called, and in practice, they'll be active enough in shunning me. Otty, you need a nurse. What the devil do you want with consulting solicitors, when you can have my advice, legal or illegal, gratis?"

"Listen to this," said I:—

"Thistleton Chambers,"
"29a Essex Street, Strand, W.C.,"
"May 12th, 1907."
"Dear Sir,—Our client, Sir Roderick Otway, Bart., has to-day transferred to our account the sum of £6,500(six thousand, five hundred pounds), representing a sum received by him from you, to be administered on conditions which, after reconsidering them, he finds himself unable to accept.
"Sir Roderick instructs us that you will draw on us at your convenience for any sum or sums under this cover. This, of course, pending notification of your wish that we should transfer the account elsewhere.
"Acting on our client's further instructions, we hereby enclose in registered envelope circular notes value £100. Kindly acknowledge receipt and oblige."
"Yours faithfully,
"B. NORGATE,
"for Wiseman and Norgate,
"Solicitors.
"To
"J. Foe, Esq., D.Sc.,
"Grand Hotel,
"Biarritz."

Jimmy looked me straight, and asked, "Is that letter posted?"

"It is," I answered. "I told Norgate that, as a matter of honour, Jack's letter ought to be answered promptly. That's why I lost no time this morning. Not being quite certain of the earliest post to France, he made sure by sending off the office-boy straight to St. Martin's-le-Grand."

"Then no taxi will avail us," groaned Jimmy, "and I must call for a liqueur brandy instead.… Oh, Otty—you must forgive the old feud: but why did your parents send you to Cambridge? Mine sent me to a place where I had at least to sweat up forty pages or so of a fellow called Plato. Not being able to translate him, I got him more or less by heart. Here's the argument, then.… Supposing a friend makes a deposit with you, that's a debt, eh? Of course it is. But suppose it's a deposit of arms, or of money to buy arms, and he comes to you and asks for it when he's not in his right senses, and you know he's not, and he'll—like as not—play the devil with that deposit, if you restore it. What then?"

"If I thought that Farrell was in danger," I mused; "that's to say, in any immediate danger—"

"Rats!" said Jimmy contemptuously. "Farrell's a third party. Why drag in a third party? The Professor's your friend; and he's made a deposit with you: and you don't need to think of anyone but him. For he's mad.… Now, come along to the smoking-room, where I've ordered them to take the coffee, and where I'll give you ten minutes to pull up your socks and do a bit of thinking."

"Maybe you're right, Jimmy," said I as we lit our cigarettes. "And if so, it's pretty ghastly.… He's had enough to put him off his hinge. But somehow I can't bring myself—No, hang it! I've always looked on Jack as the sanest man I've ever known. If he has a failing it's for working everything out by cold reason."

"Just what he's doing at this moment," answered Jimmy dryly. "If you don't like the word 'mad' I'll take it back and substitute 'balmy,' or anything you like. Madness is a relative term; and I should have thought that what you call working-everything-out-by-cold-reason was a form of it. I know jolly well that if I felt myself taken that way I should go to a doctor about it. And if you're going to practise it on the subject just now before the committee, I shall leave the chair and this meeting breaks up in disorder."

"The point is," said I, "that the letter has gone."

"What address?" he asked pouring out the coffee.

"Biarritz, Grand Hotel—Why surely you read it?"—I stared at him, but he was looking down on the cups. Then of a sudden I understood. "Jimmy," I said humbly, "I've been an ass."

"Ah," said he, "I'm glad you see it in that light.… The afternoon mail has gone: but there's the night boat. You can't telegraph, unfortunately. In his state of mind you mustn't warn him. You must catch him sitting."

"Look here," I proposed. "It will be a nuisance for you, Jimmy—it will probably bore you stiff. But if you'll only come along with me…"

"The implied compliment is noted and accepted," said Jimmy gravely. "The invitation must be declined, with thanks, though. Your mind is working better already. A few hours holiday off the L.C.C., and you'll find yourself the man you were. But the gear wants oiling. … Do you remember your betting me ten to one this morning, in a lucid interval, that Farrell would break for home? Well, I didn't take you up. I don't mind owning that, after you'd left, and after some thought, I told Jephson to pack both suit-cases. But that lawyer, with his infernal notion of dispatch in business, will have put money in the Professor's pocket some hours before you reach Biarritz. Money's his means of pursuit: and it's well on the cards that you'll find both your birds flown. You are going to Biarritz, Otty, for your sins—like Napoleon III. and other eminent persons before you: and you'll have, unlike the historical character just named, to go alone for your sins. For on your ten-to-one odds that Farrell breaks for home it's obvious that I remain and keep goal. Now what you have to do is to make for the bank and get out some money, while I take a swim in the tank here. After that," added Jimmy, relapsing into frivolity, "I'll look up the Trades Directory for a respectable firm dealing in strait-waistcoats."

Well, there is no need to tell of my chase to Biarritz; for I arrived there only to be baulked. The porter who entered my name in elegant script, with many flourishes, in the Hotel Visitors' Book, informed me that the English Doctor had departed—it was four hours ago—to catch the night express for Paris. Here was the entry— "Dr. J. Foe, Chelsea, London." He had left no other address. "Had he a companion?" No, none. He had passed his time in solitary rambles: but on this, the last day, he had spent some time in writing furiously, up to the moment of departure.

The porter moved away to clear the letter-box, which stood pretty near the end of the table. I examined the register. Farrell's name was not among the entries.

They had assigned me my room, and I was about to take the lift and inspect, when I heard the porter say to himself, "Tiens, c'est drole, maintenant." He had the bundle of cleared letters in his hand and held out one. It was addressed to me in Jack's handwriting.

I pounced for it. "C'est a moi—Ceci s'expliquera, sans doute." The porter hesitated. "Une lettre timbree—c'est contre les regies, sinon contre la loi… mais puisque c'est pour monsieur, apparement—"

A ten-franc piece did the rest. I took the letter up to my chamber where I opened it and read—

[FOE to OTWAY]
"Grand Hotel, Biarritz.
"Dear Roddy,—I am obliged to you by receipt of your silly lawyer's letter enclosing £100; though what kind of salve it can spread on your conscience to commission a fellow called Norgate to do what you won't do at first hand I fail to perceive. However, have it your own way. I have an enemy who, with a little training, won't give me time to worry about my friends.
"Farrell is improving. It was difficult at first to get a move on a man of his stupidity, and I could only work on his one sensitive nerve, which is cowardice. He has imagination enough to be terrified of that which hides and doesn't declare itself whether for good or evil.
"My own early experiments have, I admit, been amateurish. But I shall acquire skill, and the appetite shall learn refinements, to keep it in health. I don't think it was bad sport, on the whole, to open with low comedy. It tickled me, anyhow, to watch Farrell emerge from a sort of bathing-machine upon the plage, moderately nude and quite unsuspicious—having given me that artful slip in Paris—and, approaching the machine from the rear, to insert his shirt-collar, with my card, into his left-hand shoe.
"That was the first card I left on him. He was putting up at the Albion—I had no need to search; for the local paper, of course, prints a Visitors' List which it collects from the hotels, and there my gentleman was, under his own name. (Oh, we're in the simple stages of the process, thus far, and he hasn't yet had recourse to so much as an alias.) But I didn't call on him at the Albion.
"I have since learnt from him that the discovery of my card in the bathing-machine shook him up—well, pretty much as the footprint on the sand shook up Robinson Crusoe. But there's a difference, as he'll learn, between being shaken and being scared into fits. At all events, he didn't bolt: for I kept out of sight and molested him no more that day. Next morning he took courage and started off for the golf-links, which lie out to the north, beyond the lighthouse. He was enjoying his liberty, you understand: for I had made him carry his clubs about and up and down the Riviera, but never allowed him to play. That was a part of our understanding. Also he may have had some hazy notion that, golf being to me as holy water to the Devil, he'd be safe out there, within a charmed circle.
"There's something in it, too, Roddy. And I've half a mind, if he doesn't wake up and improve, to offer him a handicap. He shall be safe, all the world over, when he can find a golf-course for sanctuary, and shall play his little game while I wait for him and:"
Sit on a stile
And continue to smile.
"I wonder what sort of a hell it would be, going round and round on endless rounds of golf—with a real Colonel Bogey sitting on the stile and watching.… But I make no promises, no offers, just now.
"He tells me that at the Club House he found a Golf Major of sorts—or, as he puts it, 'a compatriot, a military gentleman, retired, with a remarkable knowledge of India'—and seduced him into playing a round. I should gather that Farrell plays an indifferent game. At all events, the Golf Major was averse from a second round, and retiring to a table in the Club veranda allowed Farrell to call for—catch hold of your French, Roddy— 'Deux bieres, complet.' The waiter understood it to mean liquid refreshment and not a double funeral.… Over the drink the Golf Major, who had known Biarritz for twenty years, explained the difference between its old and its new golf-course, and informed Farrell that in the old one there had used to be the most sporting hole anywhere—for a beginner. You drove slap across a chasm of the sea: if you didn't land your ball neatly you were in the devil of a hole, and if you foozled you saw your ball dropping down, down, to the beach and the Atlantic. 'Too expensive for duffers altogether, especially when the price of balls rose. Only the caddies thrived on it, at the risk of their necks.… After this tiffin we'll stroll over and have a look at it.'
"So thither they strolled, and by and by started to amuse themselves with pot-shot drives from the old tee. The Major whacked his ball across to a neat lie time after time. Farrell muffed and foozled, wasting his substance in riotous slogging. The height of the cliff, maybe, dizzied his head.
"In this way I suppose he expended all his ammunition. At any rate there came a pause, and a small Basque boy in a blue beret began to descend the slope very cautiously, searching for lost balls in the scree. At the foot of the gully, where it funnelled to a sheer drop, I stepped from under my shelter and met the youngster, holding out a golf-ball. 'Here is one more,' said I—'Where are the two gentlemen gone?' He told me that they had gone back to the Club House. 'Then here is a franc for you,' said I, 'and here is a card which you will take with the ball and my compliments to the gentleman who cannot play golf so well as the other gentleman.'
"The lad grinned. We climbed the cliff together, and I saw him speed off to the Club House."
"I had thus left two cards on Farrell, and it was now his turn to call: which he duly did, and next day; not, however, at the Grand Hotel, but at a far more romantic place of entertainment.
"If you don't know this place—and I do not commend it to you for entertainment towards the close of the English season—let me tell you that, walking south from the town by paths that lead around the curves of the foreshore, you quickly lose Biarritz and find yourself in a deserted and melancholy country,—a sort of blasted heath that belongs to a fairy-tale. The great military road for Spain runs hidden, pretty wide on your left, among the lower foothills of the Pyrenees: and from it these foothills undulate down and drop over little cliffs to form a moorland with patches of salt marish. In spring, they tell me, the ground is all gay with scarlet anemones in sheets; but, when I took the path, their glory was over and but a few late flowers lingered. I happen, however, to like flowers for their scent more than for their colour: and the whole of this moor was a spilth of scent from bushes of the purple Daphne—its full flowering time over, but its scent lingering ghostlily on the salt wind from the sea. And the sea was forlorn as it always is in this inner bight of the Bay of Biscay, where no ships have any business and your whole traffic is a fishing-boat or two, or a thread of smoke out on the horizon. You are alone between sea and mountains; and all along the strip that separates them, while the sky is spring, the land and the sense of it are autumn.
"Now I don't know the history of it, but can only guess that once on a time some enterprising speculator, fired by the sudden Third-Empire blaze of Biarritz, conceived the project of starting a rival watering place, here to the South, and that they were to make its beginning with a colossal Hotel. At any rate, here, rounding a desolate point of the foreshore, I came upon a long desolate beach, and a long desolate building, magnificent of facade, new and yet ruinated, fronting the Bay with a hundred empty eye-sockets.
"It broke on the view with a shock. It made me glance over my shoulder to make sure of the real Biarritz not far behind. But three or four spits of land shut off that human, if vulgar, resort. Between me and the Pyrenees this immense ghastly sarcophagus of misdirected enterprise possessed the landscape, and I approached it. Yes, Roddy:"
Dauntless the slughorn to my lips I set,
And blew. Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.
"The horrible place turned out to be a mask—as I hope the Dark Tower did, after all, for Childe Roland. But it was a horrible mask. It had been started on foundations of good stone, with true French lordliness: but it parodied—or, rather, it satirised—the ambitious French tendency to impose architecture upon nature. Behind the facade, through which the wind whistled, all was an unroofed mass of rusted girders and joists; a skeleton framework about which I climbed—the first and last guest—conning and guessing where suites of rooms had been planned, to be adorned with Louis Seize furniture, for a host of fellow-guests that had never come and now would never arrive to make merry. I clambered along a girder, off which my heels scaled the rust in long flakes, and thrust my head through one of the great empty windows to take in the view.
"—Which was indeed magnificent. But my eye switched from it to a mean little human figure, moving along the foreshore with a gait which, even at a goodish distance, I recognised for Farrell's. It looked like a beetle creeping, nearing, across the flats and hummocks. But it was Farrell.
"He halted at some distance, as I had halted; arrested, as I had been arrested, at sight of the incongruous great structure, planted here. He drew close, cast a sort of questioning glance seaward, very deliberately drew a pair of field-glasses from a case slung over his shoulder, and focused them on the building, lifting them slowly.
"I had drawn back behind my window-jamb, yet so as to watch him. As he tilted the glasses upward, I leaned out.
"He stood for a moment, or two motionless. Then his hands sank, with the glasses clutched in them. He walked slowly away. When he judged himself hidden by a spit of the shore—but my window overlooked it—he broke into a run.
"I note that he is already beginning to reduce his figure.
"I returned the call that same evening. I dropped in on him as he took his seat to dine solus at the Albion. The dining-room, I should tell you, was fairly full. Usual ruck of people: sort of too-English; English you see at tables-d'hote and nowhere else in the world, with an end-of-season preponderance of females who stay to look after the British chaplain a little longer than he needs, or to gratify some obscure puritan pride in seeing everybody out, or because there's a bargain to be squeezed with the management to the last ounce, or peradventure because they've planned a series of cheap visits at home for our beautiful summer and one or two of the Idle Rich have remembered to be less idle than they were last year, and more restive.
"To do him credit—and it makes me hopeful for him—Farrell has a certain instinct of self-preservation. Let us never forget that he is a widower. Amid these Amazons he had fenced a bachelor table. I walked up to it straight and said, with a glance around, 'Farrell, you're lonely.'
"He passed a hand over his forehead and murmured, 'Oh, for God's sake—don't drive me like this!…'
"'Nonsense,' said I. 'Forget it, man. Look around you and say if there's one of these spinsters you'd rather have for companion. Don't raise your voice. You started in admirable key.… Let's keep to it and understand one another. I'm dining with you. If you like, we'll toss up later for who pays: but I'm dining with you. I promise not to hurt you to-night, if that helps conviviality.'
"'It does,' said he in a queer way. 'Let's talk.'
"'Well then,' said I confidentially. 'You're a solid man. You've made your way in the world, and I suppose the sort of success you've won implies some grit.… What makes you afraid of me, Farrell?'
"He drank some wine and stared down on the table-cloth, knitting his brows. 'Well,' he answered, 'I might tell you it's because you're mad.'
"'That's nonsense,' I assured him.
"'Oh, is it?' said he. 'I'd like to be sure it is.'
"'My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time," I quoted. 'Feel it, Farrell.'
"I stretched out my wrist. He started back as though it had been a snake.
"'On the whole you're right,' said I, drawing back my hand slowly, watching his eyes. 'If they saw you feeling my pulse the ladies around us would at once solve the doubt they have discussed in the drawing-room. All table-d'hote ladies speculate concerning their fellow-guests in the hotel.… . Thirty pairs of eyes were on the point of detecting you for a fashionable physician, and by this time to-morrow thirty ladies travelling in search of health would have found means to make your acquaintance and pump you for medical advice on the cheap.… Yes, Farrell, you have a lively instinct of self-preservation. I will note it.… Now tell me.—When I walked in just now, that same instinct prompted you to get up and run; to run as you did along the foreshore this afternoon. What restrained you?'
"'Why, hang it all,' he blurted with a look around; 'a fellow couldn't very well show up like that before all these ladies!'
"He meant it too, Roddy. It came out with a flush, plump and honest.
"It makes the chase more interesting. But I am annoyed with myself over the miscalculation.… I could have sworn he was a coward in grain. I marked all the stigmata.… And behold he can show fight!—at any rate in presence of the other sex.… Can something have happened to him, think you, since our talk at Versailles? Is it possible that I am educating the man?
"On top of this complicating discovery I made a simplifying one.
"You know that I have a knack with animals, in the way of handling their passions. I've never tried it on humans: for I've never laid down any basis of knowledge, and I've always detested empiricism. That study, as you remember, was to come.
"Well, I'll write further about it some day.… But I believe I have something like this power over Farrell.… I put out a feeler or two—to change metaphors, I waved a hand gently over the lyre, scarcely touching the strings; and it certainly struck me that they responded. You will understand that a table-d'hote was no place for pushing the experiment. And there were one or two men in the smoking-room when we sought it.
"Farrell found himself; talked, after a while, quite well and easily. In the smoking-room he told me a good deal about his early life: all bourgeois stuff, of course, but recounted in the manner that belongs to it, and quite worth listening to.
"He never wilted once, until I got up to go and drank what remained of my whisky-and-seltzer 'to our next merry meeting.' He followed me out to the hotel doorway to say Good night. We did not shake hands.
"There are indications that he will travel back north to-night. He has left for Pau, to play golf. At Dax this evening—mark my words—a solitary traveller may be observed furtively stealing on board the night express for Paris. He will be observed: but he won't be a solitary traveller.
"Your lawyer's letter—as I started by remarking—has arrived opportunely. If Farrell, as I suspect, intends to go through to London, I may reach you almost as soon as this letter, and shall add a piece of my mind for a postscript.—Yours,"
"J. F."

I slept the night at Biarritz and started back early next morning for London.

I found Jimmy recumbent in what he called his Young Oxford Student's Reading Chair, alone with the racing news in the evening papers.

"Hallo!" he greeted me. "I rather expected you just now. Let's go and dine somewhere."

"Has Jack turned up here?" I asked.

"'Course he has: Farrell too—Farrell first by a short head. Rather a good idea, my stopping at home to keep goal. Hard lines on you, though; all that journey for nothing.… If it's any consolation, the Professor was much affected when I told him of all the trouble you were taking, out of pure friendship, to fit him with a strait-waistcoat. 'Good old Roddy!' he said."

"No, he didn't," I interrupted. "And if he did, we'll cut that out. Tell me what happened."

"He said he had posted a letter to you from Biarritz: that it ought to have arrived by this time. I told him it hadn't, and it hasn't. If it had, I warn you I should have opened it."

"That's all right," I said. "I extracted it from the post-box at Biarritz, and have it here. You shall read it by and by. Go on."

"Well, in my opinion, the Professor's pulling your leg—or he and Farrell between 'em. If either's mad, it's Farrell; or else—which I'm inclined to suspect—Farrell's a born actor."

"Now see here," I threatened, "I've travelled some thousands of miles: I've spent two nights in the train and one in a French bedstead haunted by mosquitoes: I've had the beast of a crossing, and I'm in the worst possible temper. Will you, please tell me exactly what has happened?"

"You shall have the details over dinner," he promised affably. "For you've omitted the one observation that's relevant—your stomach is crying aloud for a meal. The Cafe Royal is prescribed."

"Not until I've had a tub and dressed myself. The dust of coal-brick—"

"That's all right, again.… I admonished Jephson. You'll find the bath spread and your clothes laid out in your bedder, and in five minutes or so Jephson will bring hot water in a lordly can. I, too, will dress.… But meantime, here are the outlines:

"Farrell knocked in early this morning. He was agitated and he perspired. He wished to see you at once. I pointed out that it was impossible and, as they say in examinations, gave reasons for my answer. Hearing it, he showed a disposition to shake at the knees and cling to the furniture. When he went on to discover that I might do in your place, and the furniture's place, and started clinging to me—well, I struck. I pointed out that he was apparently sound in wind and limb, inquired if he owed money, and having his assurance to the contrary, suggested that he should pull himself together and copy the Village Blacksmith.

"While we were arguing it, the Professor butted in. I'll do him the justice to say he wasn't perspiring. But he, too, was in the devil of a hurry to interview you. So I had to play band as before.

"The position was really rather funny. There, by the door, was the Professor, asking questions hard, and seemingly unaware that Farrell was anywhere in the room. Here was I, playing faithful Gelert life-size, but pretty warily, covering Farrell—who, for aught I knew, had gone to earth under the sofa. I couldn't hear him breathing—and he's pretty stertorous, as a rule.

"I kept a pretty straight eye on the Professor, somehow, and told him the facts—that you had sent the money ('Yes, I know,' said he: 'I got it before leaving Biarritz'): that you had actually gone to that health-resort in search of him. ('Good God!' said he. 'That's like old Roddy'—or some words to that effect. You wouldn't let me repeat 'em, just now.) Then he started telling me about this letter he'd posted at Biarritz, and that it should have arrived, by rights. 'Well, it hasn't,' said I, feeling pretty inhospitable for not asking him to sit down and have a drink.… But, you see, I wasn't certain he wouldn't sit down somewhere on top of Farrell.… 'Think he'll be home tonight?' asked the Professor. 'That's what I'm allowing, in the circumstances,' said I. '—But you owe him some apology, you know, because you've led him the devil of a dance.' 'Don't I realise that!' says he, like a man worried and much affected. 'We'll call around to-night, on the chance of his turning up to forgive us. Come along, Farrell!' says he.

"I whipped about; and there was Farrell, seated in that chair of yours, bolt upright, smirking as foolish as a wet-nurse at a christening! I couldn't have believed my eyes.… But there it was—and after what I'd been listening to, five minutes before!

"As I'm describing it, it staggered me—and the more when the Professor, looking past me, said, 'If you're ready, Farrell?' and Farrell stood up, smiling and ready, and moved to join him. But I kept what face I could.

"'You're going to look in again, you two?' I asked. The Professor said 'Yes, on the chance that Roddy may turn up'; and he looked at Farrell; and Farrell blinked and said, 'Yes, we owe him an explanation, of course.'

"'Well,' said I,' you'll be lucky if he don't throw you both downstairs for a pair of knockabout artists astray. I've a sense of humour that can stretch some distance, and with the permission of our kind friends in front this matinee performance will be repeated to-night, when Otty's sense of humour will gape for it, no doubt, after being stretched to the Pyrenees and back.'

"The Professor motioned Farrell out to the staircase. Then he came forward to me and said, pretty low and serious, 'You're a good boy, Jimmy. You're so good a boy that I want you to keep out of this. If Roddy turns up to-night, tell him that my man's for Wimbledon, safe and sound. On second thoughts, we won't bother a tired man, to-night, with any excuses or apologies. By to-morrow he will probably have had my letter, and will understand. He may or may not decide to show it to you. I hope he won't. I hope you'll let us see him alone to-morrow. Good-bye.'

"—Now what do you make of that?" demanded Jimmy helplessly.

"I make it out to be no jest, but pretty serious," said I. "But luckily Farrell's located at Wimbledon. Where's Jack?" I asked.

"Don't know," answered Jimmy.

"I'm tired enough for this night, anyhow," said I. "And here's Jephson.—'Evening, Jephson."

Jephson came in with a can in one hand and in the other a tray with a telegram upon it.

"Good evening, Sir Roderick! Glad to see you safe home, sir," said Jephson. "Telegram just delivered at the Lodge for Mr. Collingwood."

"For me?" said Jimmy. "I've backed nothing to-day. Been too busy."

He tore upon the envelope, read the message, and after a pause handed it to me, whistling softly. It had been handed in at the Docks Station, Liverpool, and it ran—

"Tell O. that F. and I sail to-night New York S.S. Emania.

"Foe."

NIGHT THE TWELFTH.

THE "EMANIA".

I am going to spin the next stretch of this yarn—and maybe the next after it—in my own way. You will wonder how I happened by certain scraps of information: but you will understand before we come to the end.

It comes mainly from later report, but partly from documents which I have been too busy, of late, to sift. Here they are, all mixed: and I choose one only out of the heap—and that a passage which doesn't help the actual story much, though it may help the understanding of it. It occurs in a letter of Foe's written at sea and posted from New York—

"She had been reading a magazine, borrowed from the ship's library, and when she left me, she left it lying beside her deck-chair. The wind ruffled its pages and threatened to tear them: so I picked the thing up, and was about to close it, and to stow it behind her cushion, when a story-title caught my eye and agreeably whetted my curiosity. It was 'The Head Hunter.'

"I don't care greatly for short stories. Fiction as a rule bores me in inverse proportion to its length—which seems a paradox and liable to be reduced to the absurd by any moderately expert logician. Yet you will find it experimentally true of five readers out of six.… Moreover the yarn had little or nothing to do with real head-hunting—except in its preamble. I soon glanced at the end, and had no further use for the story.

"But I turned my attention back to the preamble and reread it twice. The fellow, an American, has a queer cocky irregular style: but he can write when he chooses: and in one shot he so fairly hit me between wind and water that I had to steal the book, carry it down to my cabin and copy out the passage for your benefit.… Yes, for yours: because it conveys something I've been wanting you to understand about this chase of mine, something I couldn't have put into words though I'd tried for a month. I enclose it herewith.…

"When I had finished my copying, I took the thing back, meaning to slip it under Miss Denistoun's cushion. But she had returned to her chair, and so I was caught red-handed. 'So it was you?' said she. 'What have you been doing with my magazine?' 'Skimming it,' said I—which was true enough, literally, but I didn't manage it very well. 'Did you find anything to interest you specially?' she asked. 'Well, yes,' I admitted;' I picked it up and lit on something that promised well: but the story came to nothing.' She gave me a glance and I felt sure she had spotted my awkwardness and was going to pursue the catechism. But she didn't. To my relief she harked back to our previous talk. At tea-time, however, she remembered to take the magazine away with her.… It has not yet been returned to store.…"

(ENCLOSURE)

"'Particularly during my stay in Mindanao had I been fascinated and attracted by that delightfully original tribe of heathen known as the head-hunters. Those grim, flinty, relentless little men, never seen, but chilling the warmest noonday by the subtle terror of their concealed presence, paralleling the trail of their prey through unmapped forests, across perilous mountain-tops, adown bottomless chasms, into uninhabitable jungles, always near, with the inevitable hand of death uplifted, betraying their pursuits only by such signs as a beast or a bird or a gliding serpent might make—a twig crackling in the awful sweat-soaked night, a drench of dew showering from the screening foliage of a giant tree, a whisper at even from the rushes of a water-level—a hint of death for every mile and every hour—they amused me greatly, those little fellows of one idea.'"

You observe that a lady has come into the story at last, as she was bound to do. (You will hear of another and a very different one by and by.) It is not my fault that she enters it so late—I tell of things as they occurred—though a clever writer would have dragged her in long before this. I wish to God I hadn't to bring her into it at all. I slipped out her surname just now.…

It was through being a friend of mine that she comes into it. Constantia Denistoun and I had ridden ponies, tickled for trout, bird-nested, tumbled off trees, out of duck-punts, through forbidden ice, and into every form of juvenile disgrace, together as boy and girl. Her father and mine had been college friends, and (I believe) had both fallen in love with my mother, at a College ball, and my father won—but all on an understanding of honourable combat. Denistoun set out to travel, quite in the traditional way of the Rejected One. He was a Yorkshire squire with plenty of money, and could afford the prescribed cure. He travelled as far as to Virginia, U.S.A., where he halted, and wooed and won the heiress of a wide estate of cotton and tobacco and a great Palladian house, all devastated and ruined by the War, in which her father had fallen, one of Lee's pet leaders of cavalry.… Yes, I know it sounds like a tale out of Ouida: but such things happen, and this thing happened.… Denistoun scaled the twenty steps of the Ionic portico, cleft his way through the cobwebs and briers that were living and dying for Dixie, kicked over the grand piano that Dinah's duster still reverentially spared, and carried off the enchanted Princess across the seas to Yorkshire: where in due course she bore him a daughter, Constantia, and, some years later, a son who eventually came into the property but doesn't come into the story.

In the meantime it had happened that I saw the light.… My mother died, a year later: and after seven years of widowhood my father married again. My sister Sally—the recipient of those long letters you see me inditing o' nights—is my step-sister, and an adored one at that.

There you have the family history, or enough of it. The old friendship between my father and Squire Denistoun had never been broken; and now that death had taken away the last excuse for a rivalry which had been felt but to be renounced, Constantia and I— unconscious brats—shared holidays, as it chanced at my home or hers, in nefarious poaching beside Avon or in gallops between her northern moors and the sea.

That is all, or almost all. I have to add that, having fallen into most scrapes with her, I ended by proposing one in which she gently but decisively declined to share the risk.… I am inclined to think that, having been so frank with her, and so frequent, in confidences about others to whom my heart was lost, she may have missed the bloom on the recital.… But there it was; and that's that, as they say.

I accused her at the time of a priggish, unnatural craving for things of the intellect. All my excuse was that at a certain time of her life she took a sudden turn for reading and setting queer new values on things. But she was always a sportswoman, a woman of the open air, and—here's the point—always knowledgeable with animals and always beloved by them, but always (as it seemed to me) inclined to be severe and disciplinary. To a lean pack she was Diana; they fawned behind her for no pay but hope of her word to let slip. But she would beat them off the piled platter, and from a fed lap-dog she could scarcely restrain her hands. If you think this hasn't to do with the story, I can only assure you that it has.

One thing more—She had met Foe; for the first time at a luncheon-party in my rooms at Cambridge, in May Week; a second time, it may be, at a May Week ball—but that wouldn't count, for she danced divinely and Foe couldn't compete for nuts. She may have met him once or twice afterwards, in London. It's not likely.

Anyhow (as she has told me since) she recognised him at once when he turned up on the Emania.

She and her mother were bound out to visit some friends at Washington, thence to fare South and stay a while with a cousin who held the old homestead in which her mother retained some sort of dower share.

Thus she recognised Foe as soon as he appeared on deck.

But he did not appear on deck until the Emania was well out from Queenstown; having made sure that Farrell didn't bolt there. The two—need I tell it?—had not taken passage in collusion. Farrell was escaping, Foe on his trail. But Foe had no idea of any dramatic surprise on board. Having made sure of his man, he just took a remnant first-class berth at the last moment, turned in, and went to sleep.

In all their commerce (you will have begun to remark) Foe and Farrell were apt to yield, at intervals, to an abandonment of weariness, but so that they alternated, the exhaustion of one seeming ever to double the other's fever. Foe sought his bunk and lay there like a log. Farrell, after the first shock of reading his pursuer's name in the Passengers' Book—where it sprang to his eyes fair and square—fell to haunting the passage-way, low down in the vessel, on which one dreadful door refused to open. His terror of it so preoccupied him that he forgot to feel sea-sick. But the steward of those nether regions marked him, by the electric lamps, as a lurking passenger to be watched; and wondered who, at that depth in the ship, could be carrying valuables to tempt a middle-aged gentleman who (if looks were any guide) ought to be up and losing money to the regular card-sharpers.

It was not until the second day out, and pretty late in the afternoon, that Foe emerged from his cabin, neatly dressed and hale. (Unlike some Professors I have known, Jack kept his clothes brushed and his hair cut.) As he opened his door his ear caught a slight shuffling sound; whereupon he smiled and stepped quickly down the passage to the turn of the companion way.

"No hurry, Farrell!" he called; and Farrell, arrested, turned slowly about on the stair. "Man, you're like the swain in Thackeray:"

Although I enter not,
Yet round about the spot
Oft-times I hover—

"Solicitous, were you?—thought I might be sea-sick?"

"I was wondering," Farrell stammered. "Seeing that you didn't turn up at meals—"

(Here I must read you a queer remark from the letter in which Jack reported this encounter. Here's the extract:—)

"Do you know, Roddy, that silly simple answer gave me half a fright for a moment, or a fright for half a moment—I forget which.… What I had to remember then was my discovery that I had my second keyboard in reserve and could pull certain stops out of him at will.… But seriously, I wouldn't, without that power, back myself in this experiment against a man who obstinately persisted in forgiving. It came on me with a flash—and I offer this tribute to the Christian religion."

Foe's answer was, "Very kind of you. As a fact, I have been subsisting on hard biscuit and weak whisky-and-water: though I'm an excellent sailor, as they say.… It's a diet that suits me when I'm working hard."

"Working?" exclaimed Farrell. "What? Head-work, d'you mean?… Doctor, this is the best news you could have told me. If only I could know that you were picking up your interests—getting back to yourself—"

Foe took him by the arm. "It's no good, unfortunately," he answered. "Come up on deck, and I'll tell you."

On deck he repeated, "It's no good. I've been hard at it, working on my memory, trying to sketch out a kind of monograph—summary of conclusions—salvage from the wreck. But it won't do. It was an edifice to be built up on data, bit by bit, like an atoll.… Ever seen a coral reef, by the way? We'll inspect one—many perhaps—on our travels.… I'd burn in the pit rather than smatter out popular guess-work. Yes, all personal pride apart, I couldn't do it. But however badly I set down conclusions, they've all rested on data, they've all grown up on data, and I haven't the data.… I wrote out half a dozen pages and then asked myself, 'What would you say if a man came along professing to have made this discovery? You'd demand his evidence, and you'd be right. Of course you'd be right. And if he didn't produce it, you'd call him a quack. Right again.'… From this personal point of view, to be sure, I might take this sorry way out—print my conclusions, and anticipate the demand for evidence by throwing myself overboard.… In the dim and distant future some fellow might strike the lost path, take the pains that I've taken, work out the theory, yes, and (it's even possible) be generous enough to add that, by some freak of guessing, in the year 1907, a certain Dr. John Foe, of whom nothing further is known, did, in unscientific fashion, hit on the truth, or a part of the truth. Oh, damn! Why should I burn in the pit, or throw myself overboard, or go down to the shades for a quack, because a thing like you has crawled out of the Tottenham Court Road.… Eh? Well, I won't, anyhow: and so you see how it is, and how it's going to be."

Farrell leaned against the rail, and held to a boat's davit, while his gaze wandered vaguely out over the Atlantic as if it would capture some wireless message. ("I knew how it would be," adds Foe in his letter reporting this talk. "He was going to try the forgive-and-forget with me: but by this time I was sure of myself.")

"Listen to me, Doctor," Farrell began. "Listen to me, for God's pity! I didn't get off at Queenstown, though I knew you were on board—"

"No use if you had," put in Foe. "You don't think I had overlooked that possibility, do you?"

"Well, I didn't, anyway," was the answer. "And I'll tell you why. Honest I will.… We're both here and bound for America, ain't we? And, from what I've heard, there's no such expensive, bright, up-to-date laboratories—if that's the way to pronounce it—as you'll find in the States, in every walk of Science. Now, I never meant you an injury, Doctor; but I did you one—that I freely own.… What I say is, if money can make any amends, and if there's an outfit for science to be found in the States to your mind, why, I'll improve on it, sir. And I'm not saying it, as you might suppose, under any threat, but because I've been thinking it out and I mean it. I'm a childless man—"

Foe cut him short here. "My only trouble with you, Farrell," said he, "is that you may reach your grave without understanding. If I thought that wasn't preventible somehow, it would save me trouble to wring your neck here and now and throw you overboard. As it is—"

But, as it was, along the deck just then came Constantia Denistoun, with her mother leaning on her arm and a maid following. She recognised Foe and halted.

"Why, good Heavens!… and I'd no idea that you were on the Emania," said she. "Mother, this is Mr. Foe—Roddy's friend, you know.… Or ought I to call you Doctor, or Professor, or what?… You weren't anything of that sort anyhow, when we met— how many years ago? at Cambridge."

—That, or to that effect.… Constantia told me afterwards that she didn't remember throwing more than a glance at Farrell, whom she took, very pardonably, to be a chance acquaintance from the smoking-room, picked up as such acquaintances are picked up on ship-board. And Farrell stood back a couple of paces. To do him justice, he was in no wise a thruster.

"It's odd," she went on, "that we haven't run across one another until this moment. What's your business, over yonder? if that's not a rude question."

"It's a natural one, anyhow," Foe answered. "My business? Well, it has been suggested to me that a trip in the States, to see what they're doing in the way of scientific outfit and, maybe, get hints for a new laboratory, might not be waste of time."

"Yes, I know; I've heard," she said softly. "It's splendid to find you taking it like this… picking up the pieces, eh?… I wonder if"—she hesitated—"if I might ask you some questions? … Just as much as you choose to tell: but something to put into a letter to our Roddy, you know. Any news of you will be honey to him.… You'll be writing from New York, of course. But one man doesn't tell another that he's looking brave and well; and yet that's often what the other may be most wanting to know."

Foe was touched (so he's told me). He said some ordinary thing that tried to show he was grateful, and Constantia and her mother passed on. He had not introduced Farrell.

Constantia told me most of the rest, some months later, pouring tea for me in her flat. There is not much in it. She said that she had taken very little account of Jack's companion; had just reckoned him up for a chance idler in his company—"a sort of super-commercial traveller"; so she described him; "not at all bad-looking though."

She went on to tell that she had been mildly surprised to see them at dinner, seated together; further surprised and even intrigued, to see them at breakfast together, next morning.

"Later," said she, "I asked him, 'Who's your friend that you didn't introduce yesterday?' 'Well,' said Dr. Foe, 'I didn't introduce him because I thought you mightn't like it. He's rather an outsider. His name's Farrell.' 'Farrell,' I said—'But isn't that—wasn't he—?' 'Yes, he is, and he was,' Dr. Foe told me very gravely. 'That's just it.' I couldn't help asking how, after what had happened, they came to be travelling in company. 'That's the funny part of it,' was the answer; 'he's trying to make some kind of—well, of a reparation.' I thought better of Dr. Foe, Roddy.… It seems so mean, somehow, that after what you've told me, Dr. Foe should be-what shall I say?—accepting this reparation from a man who happens to be rich!"

Constantia repeated this, in effect, some two or three nights later. We had danced through a waltz together and agreed to sit out another. We sat it out, under a palm. It was somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood of Queen's Gate, and a fashionable band, tired of modernist tunes, was throbbing out the old Wiener Blatter.… If Constantia remembered that sacred tune, she gave no sign of it.

"I thought better—somehow—of your friend," said Constantia.

I gave her a sort of guessing look. "You may take it from me, Con," I said, "that the trouble's not there. I'm worried about Jack. I haven't heard from him for months. But he's not of that make, whatever he is."

"Are you sure?" she asked. "I feel that I'd like to know. If you are right, why were he and this Mr. Farrell such close friends?"

"Farrell's pretty impossible, I agree," said I.

Constantia opened her fan and snapped it. "Impossible?" said she. "Well, I don't know.… Dr. Foe introduced him, later on… and what do you think Mamma said? She said that she had supposed them at first sight to be relatives. There was a trick about the eyes and the corner of the brow.… You are quite sure," she added irrelevantly, "that Dr.—that your friend—would be above—?"

"I swear to you, Con," I assured her. "I know Jack Foe inside and out."

She had opened her fan again very deliberately; and as deliberately she closed it.

"No man ever knew that of a man," she said; "nor no woman either. … You're a rotter, Roddy—but you're rather a dear."

NIGHT THE THIRTEENTH.

ESCAPE.

Somewhere in the bustle of landing and scrimmage past the Customs, Miss Denistoun lost sight of the two travellers; and with that, for a time, she goes out of the story.

You may almost put it that for a time they do the same. At all events for the next few weeks the record keeps a very slight hold on them and their doings. Jack knew, you see, that—though not a disapproving sort, as a rule, and in those days (though you children will hardly believe it) inclined to like my friends the better for doing what they jolly well pleased—I barred this vendetta-game of his, and would have called him off if I could. Folk were a bit more squeamish, if you remember, in those dear old pre-War days.

But please note this, for it is a part of his story. Jack wrote seldom, having a sense that I didn't want to hear. When he did write, however, he was liable at any time to break away from the light, half-jesting, half-defiant tone which he had purposely chosen to cover our disagreement, and to give me a sentence or two, or even a page, of cold-blooded confession. It may have been that his purpose, at that point, suddenly absorbed him, sucked him under. It may have been that his fixed idea had begun to spread like a disease over his other sensibilities, hardening and deadening the tissue, so that he did this kind of thing unconsciously. It may have been both. You shall judge before we have finished.

I will give you just one specimen. It occurs in the very first letter addressed from America. He and Farrell had spent five days in New York:

"I am going to ease the chain—to run it out several lengths, in fact. I shall still keep pretty close in attendance on the patient, but my professional visits will be rarer. A new and more strenuous course of treatment requires these holidays, if his nerves are not to break down under it.

"The suggestion, after all, came from him, and I am merely improving on it.… This continent has started a small heat-wave—the first of the summer. Now Farrell, who perspires freely, tells me that he doesn't mind any amount of heat, so that it isn't accompanied by noise: but noise and heat combined drive him crazy. I had myself noted that while the tall buildings here excited no curiosity in him, he acted as the veriest rubberneck under the clang and roar of the overhead trains; and the din of Broadway, he confessed, gave him vertigo after the soft tide of traffic that moves broad and full— 'strong without rage, without o'erflowing full'—down Tottenham Court Road, embanked with antique furniture or colourable imitations.

"He made this confession to me in the entr'acte of a silly vaudeville, to witness which we had been carried by an elevator some sixteen storeys and landed on a roof crowded with palms and funny people behaving like millionaires. In the entr'acte the band sank its blare suddenly to a sort of 'Home, Sweet Home' adagio, and after a minute of it Farrell put up a hand, covering his eyes, and I saw the tears welling—yes, positively—between his fingers. He's sentimental, of course.

"I asked what was the matter? He turned me a face like poor Susan's when at the thrush's song she beheld:"

Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide
And a river flow on through the vale of Cheapside.

He said pitiably that he wanted—that he wanted very much—to go home; and gave as his reason that New York was too noisy for him.… A sudden notion took me at this. 'If that's the trouble,' I answered, 'one voice in this city shall cease its small contribution to the din.… We will try,' I said, 'the sedative of silence.'

"For three days now I have been applying this treatment. At breakfast, luncheon, dinner; in the street, at the theatre; I sit or walk with him, saying never a word, silent as a shadow. He desires nothing so little, I need not tell you. In the infernal din of this town he looks at me and would sell his soul for the sound of an English voice—even his worst enemy's. It is torture, and he will break down if I don't give him a holiday. The curious part of it is that, under this twist of the screw, he has apparently found some resource of pluck. He doesn't entreat, though it is killing him with quite curious rapidity. I must give him a holiday to-morrow."

I piece it out from later letters that from New York they harked out and harked back, to and from various excursions—quite ordinary ones. I might, if it were worth while, construct the itinerary; but it would take a lot of useless labour and yield nothing of importance. If Farrell, under this careful slackness of pursuit, had made a bolt for Texas or Alaska, the chronicle just here might be worth reciting. But he didn't, and it isn't. Buffalo—Long Island—Newport—and, in one of Jack's letters, Chicago for farthest West—occur in a miz-maze fashion. It is obvious to me that during these months Farrell, kept on the run, ran like a hare (and a pretty tame one); that twice or thrice he headed back for New York, and was headed off.

I passed over each letter, as it came, to Jimmy, It was over some later letter, pretty much like the one I've just read to you, that Jimmy, frowning thoughtfully, put the sudden question, "I say, Otty, are we fond enough of him to start on another wild-goose chase?—to America this time, and together?"

"Jack's my best friend, of course," I answered after a moment. "You don't tell me—" and here I broke off, for he was eyeing me queerly.

"The Professor is, or was, a pretty good friend of mine," said he. "But you hesitated a moment. Why?… Oh, you needn't answer: I'll tell you. When I asked, 'Are you so fond of him?' for a moment—just for a flash—you hadn't Jack Foe in your mind, but Farrell."

"Well, that's true," I owned. "I'm pretty angry with Jack: he's playing it outside the touch-line, in my opinion. Except that I detest cruelty, Farrell's nothing to me, of course."

"I wonder," Jimmy mused. "Sometimes, when I'm thinking over this affair—but let us confine ourselves to the Professor. He's in some danger, if you think that worth the journey. They shoot pretty quick in the States, and they don't value human life a bit as we value it in England: or so I've always heard. If it's true—and it would be rather interesting to run across and find this out for oneself—one of these days Farrell will be pushed outside his touch-line—outside the British conventions in which he lives and moves and has his poor being—and a second later the Professor will get six pellets of lead pumped into him."

"Oh, as for that," said I, "Jack must look after himself, as he's well able to. When a man takes to head-hunting, it's no job for his friends to save him risks."

"Glad you look at it so," said Jimmy. "Then, so far as the Professor's concerned, it's from himself we're not protecting him, just now?"

"Or from the self which is not himself," I suggested.

"That's better," Jimmy agreed, and again fell a-musing. "Sometimes I think we might get closer to it yet". . . But he did not supply the definition. After half-a-minute's brooding he woke up, as it were, with a start. "Could you sail this next week?" he asked.

Well, we sailed, five days later; and there is no need to say more of this trip than that it panned out a fiasco worse than my first. At New York we beat up the police; and, later on, worried Mulberry Street and the great detective service for which the city is famous. Police and detectives availed us nothing. I knew that by the same mail which brought his latest letter to me, Foe had drawn £600 on Norgate; and Norgate had dispatched the money without delay, five days ahead of us. The address was a hotel at the then fashionable end of Third Avenue. There we found their names on the register. Plain sailing enough. Farrell had left, as we calculated (the detectives helping us), on the day the money presumably arrived, and at about six in the evening; Foe some fifteen or sixteen hours later. And, with that, we were up against a wall. Not a trace could be discovered of either from the moment he had walked out of the hotel. Farrell, having paid his bill, had walked out, carrying a small handbag (or 'grip,' as the porter termed it), leaving a portmanteau behind, with word that he would return next day and fetch it. We were allowed to examine the portmanteau. It contained some shirts and collars and two suits of clothes, but no clue whatever—not a scrap of paper in any of the pockets. Foe had departed leisurably next morning, with his slight baggage.

Our detective (to do him justice) did his best to earn his money. He carefully traced out and documented the movements of the two travellers from one to another of the various addresses I was able to supply: and he handed in a report, which attested not only his calligraphy but a high degree of professional zeal. It corresponded with everything I knew already and decorated it with details which could only have been accumulated by conscientious research. They tallied with—they corroborated—they substantiated—they touched up—the bald facts we already knew. But they did not advance us one foot beyond the portals of the Flaxman Building Hotel, out of which Farrell and Foe had walked, at fifteen hours' interval, and walked straight into vacancy.

In short, Jimmy and I sailed for home, a fortnight later, utterly beaten.

Now I'm telling the story in my own way. A novelist, who knew how to work it, would (I'm pretty sure) keep up the mystery just about here. But I'm going to put in what happened, though I didn't hear about it until two years later.

What happened was that, one evening, Jack drove Farrell too far, and over a trifle. Without knowing it, too, he had been teaching Farrell to learn cunning. They were back in New York and (it seems almost too silly to repeat) seated in a restaurant, ordering dinner. Jack held the carte du jour: the waiter was at his elbow; Farrell sat opposite, waiting. For some twenty-four hours—that is, since their return to New York City—Jack had chosen to be talkative. Farrell was even encouraged to hope that he had broken the spell of his hatred, and that the next boat for England might carry them home in company and forgiving. Just then the devil put it into Jack to resume his torture. He laid down the card and sat silent, the waiter still at his elbow. "Well, what shall it be?" asked Farrell, a trifle faintly. Jack, like the Tar-Baby, kept on saying nothing. The waiter looked about him, and fetched back his attention politely. "What shall it be?" Farrell repeated. Then, as Jack stared quietly at the table, not answering, "Go and attend to the next table," said he to the man. "You can come back in three minutes." The waiter went. "Now," said Farrell, laying down the napkin he had unfolded, "are you going to speak?"

Foe picked up the card again and studied it.

"Yes or no, damn you?" demanded Farrell. "Here and now I'll have an end to this monkeying—Yes, or no?" he cried explosively.

Foe pointed a finger at the chair from which Farrell had sprung up.

"I won't!" protested Farrell, and wrenched himself away. "Here's the end of it, and I'm shut of you!"

He dragged himself to the door. Foe, still studying the card through his glasses, did not even trouble to throw a glance after him. Once in the street, Farrell felt his chain broken: he hailed a cab, and was driven off to his hotel. There he packed, paid his bill, and vanished with his grip into the night, leaving his portmanteau behind with a word that he would return for it.

Foe had taught him cunning.

He bethought him of Renton, an old foreman of his; a highly intelligent fellow, who had come out to New York, some years before, to better himself, and had so far succeeded that he now controlled and practically owned a mammoth furnishing emporium—The Home Circle Store—in Twenty-Third Street. Farrell was pretty sure of the address; because Renton, who had long since taken out his papers of naturalisation, regularly remembered his old employer on Thanksgiving Day and sent him a report of his prosperity, mixed up with no little sentiment. To this Farrell had for some years responded with a note of his good wishes, cordial, but brief and businesslike. Of late, however, this acknowledgment, though still punctual, had tended to express itself in the form of a Christmas-card.

Farrell confirmed his recollection of the address by checking it in the Telephone Book, and paid a call on the Home Circle Store next afternoon, while Foe was enjoying a siesta in that state of lassitude which (as I've told you) almost always in one or other of the men followed their crises of animosity.

Renton was unaffectedly glad to see Farrell. "Well, Mr. Farrell," he said, as they shook hands, "well, sir! If this isn't a sight for sore eyes! And—when I've been meaning, every fall, to step across home and see your luck—to think that it should be you first dropping in upon me!" He rushed Farrell up and down elevators, over floor after floor of his great establishment, perspiring (for the afternoon was hot), swelling with hospitality and pardonable pride. "And when we've done, sir, I must take you to my little place up town and make you acquainted with Mrs. Renton. She's not by any means the least part of my luck, sir. She'll be all over it when I present you, having so often heard tell—You've aged, Mr. Farrell! And yet, in a way, you haven't.… You were putting on waist when I saw you last, and now you're what-one-might-call in good condition—almost thin. Yes, sir, I heard about your poor lady… I wrote about it, if you remember. Sudden, as I understand?… But if you look at it in one way, that's often for the best: and in the midst of life— You'll be taking dinner with us. That's understood."

"Look here, Ned," Farrell interrupted. "It's done me good to shake you by the hand and see you so flourishing. But I've looked you up because—well, because I'm in a tight place, and I wonder if you could anyways help."

"Eh?" Renton pulled up and looked at him shrewdly. "What's wrong? Nothing to do with the old firm, now, surely?… I get the London Times sent over, and your last Shareholders' Meeting was a perfect Hallelujah Chorus. Why, you're quoted—"

Now you'll know Farrell, by this time, for a man of his class—and a pretty good class it is, in England, when all's said and done; for a man of the sort that resents a suspicion on his business about as quickly as he'd resent one on his private and domestic honour— perhaps even a trifle more smartly. His business, in short, is the first home and hearth of his honour. So Farrell cut in, very quick and hot,—

"If my business were only twice as solid as yours, Ned Renton, I might be worrying you about it.… There, don't take me amiss! … I've come to trouble you about myself. Fact is, I'm in a hole. There's a man after me; and I want you to get me out of this place pretty quick and without drawing any attention more than you can avoid."

"O-oh!" said Renton, rubbing his chin, and looking serious. "And what about the lady?"

"There's no woman in this," Farrell assured him. "No, Ned; nor the trace of one."

"That's curious," said Renton, still reflective. "You being a widower, I thought, maybe… But as between friends, you'll understand, I'm not asking."

"I'll tell you the gist of it later," said Farrell. "It started over politics."

"So?… We've a way with that trouble over here," said Renton. "Now you mention it, I'd read in the London Times that you were running for municipal government, and then somehow you seemed to fade out.… I wondered why.… Is that part of the story?"

Farrell answered that it was. They were seated in Renton's private office, and Renton picked up a small square block of wood from his desk. It looked like a paper-weight.

"I've a certain amount of—well, we'll call it influence—hereabouts, if any man happens to be troubling you," he suggested musingly, and glanced at Farrell. "But you're not taking it that way, I see."

Farrell nodded.

"You just want to be cleared out.… That's all right. You shall tell me all about it later, boss—any time that suits you." He handed the paperweight across to Farrell. "Ever come across that kind of wood?" he asked.

Farrell examined it. "Never," he answered. "It looks like mahogany—if 'tweren't for the colour. Dyed, is it?"

"Not a bit. I could show you with a chisel in two minutes.… But you're right. Mahogany it is, and cuts like mahogany.… I keep a high-class warehouse of stuff lower down-town, and there I'll show you a log of it, seven-by-four. It's from Costa Rica. Would you care to prospect?… I don't mind sharing secrets with the old firm, as you always dealt with me honourably and we're both growing old enough to remember old kindness."

"I'd make a holiday of it," said Farrell heartily, fingering the wood. "Comes from Costa Rica, eh?"

"There's not much of it going, even there," said Renton. "Not enough, I'm afraid, to start a fashionable craze. It was brought to me, as a sample, by an enterprising skipper from Puerto Limon, and I was going to send back a man with him, to prospect. … But it's not detracting from his character to say that he can't tell mahogany from walnut with his finger-tips in the dark—as you could, boss. If it's a holiday you want, with a trifle of high cabinet-science thrown in, what about taking his place?"

"It's the loveliest stuff," said Farrell, rapt, fingering the wood delicately.