HER LADYSHIP'S ELEPHANT

By David Dwight Wells. With cover by Wm. Nicholson, 10th Impression. 12mo. $1.25.

A very humorous story, dealing with English society, growing out of certain experiences of the author while a member of our Embassy in London. The elephant's experiences, also, are based on facts.

The Nation: "He is probably funny because he cannot help it.... Again and again excites spontaneous laughter, is such a boon that its author must consent to be regarded as a benefactor of his kind without responsibility."

New York Tribune: "Mr. Wells allows his sense of humor to play about the personalities of half a dozen men and women whose lives, for a few brief, extraordinary days, are inextricably intertwined with the life of the aforesaid monarch of the jungle.... Smacks of fun which can be created by clever actors placed in excruciatingly droll situations."

Philadelphia Times: "As breezy a bit of fiction as the reading public has lately been offered. Amusing from the first page to the last, unique in conception, and absolutely uproarious in plot."

New York Commercial Advertiser: "A really delicious chain of absurdities which are based upon American independence and impudence; ... exceedingly amusing."

Outlook: "Full of amusing situations."

Buffalo Express: "So amusing is the book that the reader is almost too tired to laugh when the elephant puts in his appearance."

HENRY HOLT & CO.

New York.

HIS LORDSHIP'S LEOPARD

A TRUTHFUL NARRATION OF

SOME IMPOSSIBLE FACTS

BY

DAVID DWIGHT WELLS

Author of "Her Ladyship's Elephant"

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1900

Copyright, 1900,

BY

HENRY HOLT & CO.

WARNING!

The ensuing work is a serious attempt to while away an idle hour. The best criticism that the author received of "Her Ladyship's Elephant" was from an old lady who wrote him that it had made her forget a toothache; the most discouraging, from a critic who approached the book as serious literature and treated it according to the standards of the higher criticism.

The author takes this occasion to state that he has never been guilty of writing literature, serious or otherwise, and that if any one considers this book a fit subject for the application of the higher criticism, he will treat it as a just ground for an action for libel.

If the minimum opus possesses an intrinsic value, it lies in the explanation of the whereabouts of a Spanish gunboat, which, during our late unpleasantness with Spain, the yellow journalists insisted was patrolling the English Channel, in spite of the fact that the U. S. Board of Strategy knew that every available ship belonging to that nation was better employed somewhere else.

Should this exposé ruffle another English see, so much the worse for the Bishop.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

AMERICA.

CHAPTER I.

IN WHICH CECIL BANBOROUGH ACHIEVES FAME AND THE "DAILY LEADER" A "SCOOP."

Cecil Banborough stood at one of the front windows of a club which faced on Fifth Avenue, his hands in his pockets, and a cigarette in his mouth, idly watching the varied life of the great thoroughfare. He had returned to the city that morning after a two weeks' absence in the South, and, having finished his lunch, was wondering how he could manage to put in the time till the 4:30 express left for Meadowbrook. 2 p.m., he reflected ruefully, was an hour when New York had no use and no resources for men of leisure like himself.

Yet even for a mere onlooker the panorama of the street was of unusual interest. The avenue was ablaze with bunting, which hurrying thousands pointed out to their companions, while every street-corner had its little group of citizens, discussing with feverish energy and gestures of ill-concealed disquietude the situation of which the gay flags were the outward and visible sign. For in these latter days of April, 1898, a first-class Republic had, from purely philanthropic motives, announced its intention of licking a third-rate Monarchy into the way it should go. Whereat the good citizens had flung broadcast their national emblem to express a patriotic enthusiasm they did not feel, while the wiser heads among them were already whispering that the war was not merely unjustifiable, but might be expensive.

All these matters, important as they doubtless were, did not interest Cecil Banborough, and indeed were quite dwarfed by the fact that this uncalled-for war had diverted the press from its natural functions, and for the time being had thrown utterly into the shade his new sensational novel, "The Purple Kangaroo." His meditations were, however, interrupted by the sound of voices using perfectly good English, but with an accent which bespoke a European parentage.

"'The Purple Kangaroo,'" said one. "It is sufficiently striking—Si, Señor?"

"It serves the purpose well, mi amigo," replied the other. "It is, as you say, striking; indeed nothing better could be devised; while its reputation—" And the voices died away.

Cecil swung rapidly round. Two gentlemen, slight, swarthy, and evidently of a Latin race, were moving slowly down the long drawing-room. They were foreigners certainly, Spaniards possibly, but they had spoken of his book in no modified terms of praise. He drew a little sigh of satisfied contentment and turned again to the street. Ah, if his father, the Bishop of Blanford, could have heard!

The two foreigners had meanwhile continued their conversation, though out of earshot. The elder was speaking.

"As you say, its reputation is so slight," he said, "one of those ephemeral productions that are forgotten in a day, that it will serve our purpose well. We must have a password—the less noticeable the better. When do you return to Washington?"

"The Legation may be closed at any moment now," replied the younger, seating himself carelessly on the arm of a Morris chair, "and I may be wanted. I go this afternoon, a dios y a ventura."

"Softly; not so loud."

"There's no one to hear. Keep us informed, I say. I'll see to the rest. We've our secret lines of communication nearly complete. They may turn us out of their capital, but—we shall know what passes. Carramba! What is that?" For, in leaning back, the speaker had come against an unresisting body.

Springing up and turning quickly round, he saw that the chair on the arm of which he had been sitting was already occupied by the slumbering form of a youngish man with clear-cut features and a voluminous golden moustache.

"Madre de Dios! Could he have heard?" exclaimed the younger man, moving away.

"Malhaya! No!" replied the other. "These pigs of Americanos who sleep at noonday hear nothing! Come!" And, casting a glance of concentrated contempt at the huddled-up figure, he put his arm through that of his companion, and together they left the room.

A moment later the sleeper sat up, flicked a speck of dust off his coat-sleeve, and, diving into a pocket, produced a note-book and blue pencil and began to write rapidly. Evidently his occupation was a pleasant one, for a broad smile illumined his face.

"Ah, Marchmont," said Banborough, coming towards him, "didn't know you'd waked up."

"Was I asleep?"

"Rather. Don't suppose you saw those Spanish Dons who went out just now?"

"Spaniards?" queried Marchmont, with a preoccupied air. "What about 'em?"

"Oh, nothing in particular, only I supposed that a Spaniard to a yellow journalist was like a red rag to a bull. You should make them into copy—'Conspiracy in a Fifth Avenue Club,' etc."

"Thanks," said the other, "so I might. Valuable suggestion." And he returned his note-book to his pocket.

"They did me a good turn, anyway," resumed Banborough. "They were talking about my book—thought it would serve its purpose, was very striking, said nothing better could be devised; and they were foreigners, too. I tell you what it is, Marchmont, the public will wake up to the merits of 'The Purple Kangaroo' some day. Why doesn't the Daily Leader notice it?"

"My dear Cecil, give me the space and I'll write a critique the fulsome flattery of which will come up to even your exacting demands. But just at present we're so busy arousing popular enthusiasm that we really haven't time."

"You never do have time," replied Banborough, a trifle petulantly, "except for sleeping after lunch."

"Ah, that's all in the day's work. But tell me. You're an Englishman; why didn't you publish your book in your own country?"

"I may be green, but I don't impart confidences to an American journalist."

"Nonsense! I never betray my friends' confidences when it's not worth—I should say, out of business hours."

The Englishman laughed.

"Oh, if you don't think it worth while," he said, "I suppose there's no danger, so I'll confess that my literary exile is purely to oblige my father."

"The Bishop of Blanford?"

"The Bishop of Blanford, who has the bad taste to disapprove of 'The Purple Kangaroo.'"

"Has he ever read it?"

"Of course not; the ecclesiastical mind is nothing if not dogmatic."

"My dear fellow, I was only trying to assign a reason."

"Chaff away, but it's principally my Aunt Matilda."

"The Bishop, I remember, is a widower."

"Rather. My aunt keeps house for him."

"Ah, these aunts!" exclaimed the journalist. "They make no end of trouble—and copy."

"It's not so bad as that," said Cecil; "but she rules the governor with a rod of iron, and she kicked up such a row about my book that I dropped the whole show."

"Don't correspond with 'em?"

"Not on my side. I receive occasional sermons from Blanford."

"Which remain unanswered?"

Cecil nodded, and changed the subject.

"You know my father's cathedral?" he asked.

"Oh, yes. The verger prevented my chipping off a bit of the high altar as a memento the last time I was over. You English are so beastly conservative. Not that the Bishop had anything to do with it."

Banborough laughed, and returned to the charge.

"So I came abroad," he continued, "and approached the most respectable and conservative firm of publishers I could find in New York."

"Was that out of consideration for the Bishop?"

"I thought it might sweeten the pill. But somehow the book doesn't sell."

"Advertising, my boy—that's the word."

"The traditions of the firm forbid it," objected Banborough.

"Traditions! What's any country less than a thousand years old got to do with traditions?" spluttered Marchmont. "I knew a Chicago author who got a divorce every time he produced a new novel. They sold like hot cakes."

"And the wives?"

"Received ten per cent. of the profits as alimony."

"Talk sense, and say something scandalous about me in the Leader. What possessed you, anyway, to join such a disgraceful sheet?"

"If I'd an entailed estate and an hereditary bishopric, I wouldn't. As it is, it pays."

"The bishopric isn't hereditary," said Cecil. "I wish it were. Then I might have a chance of spending my life in the odour of sanctity and idleness, and the entail is—a dream."

"So you write novels," retorted Marchmont, "that are neither indecent nor political, and expect 'em to succeed. Callow youth! Well, I must be off to the office. I've some copy up my sleeve, and if it's a go it'll give your book the biggest boom a novel ever had."

"Are you speaking the truth?" said the Englishman. "I beg your pardon. I forgot it was out of professional hours."

"Wait and see," replied the journalist, as he strolled out of the club.

"Hi, Marchmont, I've got a detail for you!" called the editor, making the last correction on a belated form and attempting to revivify a cigar that had long gone out.

"Yes?" queried Marchmont, slipping off his coat and slipping on a pair of straw cuffs, which was the chief reason why he always sported immaculate linen.

"We're on the track of a big thing. Perhaps you don't know that the President has delivered an ultimatum, and that our Minister at Madrid has received his passports?"

"Saw it on the bulletin-board as I came in," said his subordinate laconically.

"Well, it's a foregone conclusion that the Spanish Legation will establish a secret service in this country, and the paper that shows it up will achieve the biggest scoop on record."

"Naturally. But what then?"

"Why, I give the detail to you. You don't seem to appreciate the situation, man. It's the chance of a lifetime."

"Quite so," replied Marchmont, lighting a cigarette.

"But you can't lose a minute."

"Oh, yes, I can—two or three. Time for a smoke, and then I'll write you a first-column article that'll call for the biggest caps you have in stock."

"But I— What the— Say, you know something!"

"I know that the secret service has been organised, I know the organisers, and I know the password."

Here Marchmont's chief became unquotable, lapsing into unlimited profanity from sheer joy and exultation.

"I'll give you a rise if you pull this off!" he exclaimed, after hearing the recital of the events at the club. "May I be"—several things—"if I don't! Now what are you going to do about it?"

"Suppose we inform the nearest police station, have the crowd arrested, and take all the glory ourselves."

"Suppose we shut up shop and take a holiday," suggested the chief, with a wealth of scorn.

"Well, what have you to propose?"

"We must work the whole thing through our detective agency."

"But we haven't a detective agency," objected Marchmont.

"But we will have before sunset," said the chief. "There's O'Brien—"

"Yes. Chucked from Pinkerton's force for habitual drunkenness," interjected his subordinate.

"Just so," said the editor, "and anxious to get a job in consequence. He'll be only too glad to run the whole show for us. The city shall be watched, and the first time 'The Purple Kangaroo' is used in a suspicious sense we'll arrest the offenders, discover the plot, and the Daily Leader, as the defender of the nation and the people's bulwark, will increase its circulation a hundred thousand copies! It makes me dizzy to think of it! I tell you what it is, Marchmont, that subeditorship is still vacant, and if you put this through, the place is yours."

The reporter grasped his chief's hand.

"That's white of you, boss," he said, "and I'll do it no matter what it costs or who gets hurt in the process."

"Right you are!" cried his employer. "The man who edits this paper has got to hustle. Now don't let the grass grow under your feet, and we'll have a drink to celebrate."

When the chief offers to set up a sub it means business, and Marchmont was elated accordingly.

At the Club the Bishop's son still contemplated the Avenue from the vantage-point of the most comfortable armchair the room possessed. Praise, he reflected, which was not intended for the author's ear was praise indeed. No man could tell to what it might lead. No one indeed, Cecil Banborough least of all, though he was destined to find out before he was many hours older; for down in the editorial sanctum of the Daily Leader O'Brien was being instructed:

"And if you touch a drop during the next week," reiterated the chief, "I'll put a head on you!"

"But supposin' this dago conspiracy should turn out to be a fake?" objected the Irishman.

"Then," said the reporter with determination, "you'll have to hatch one yourself, and I'll discover it. But two things are certain. Something's got to be exposed, and I've got to get that editorship."

CHAPTER II.

IN WHICH CECIL BANBOROUGH ATTEMPTS TO DRIVE PUBLIC OPINION.

It is a trifle chilly in the early morning, even by the first of May, and Cecil shivered slightly as he paced the rustic platform at Meadowbrook with his publisher and host of the night before.

"You see," the great man was saying, "there's an etiquette about all these things. We can't advertise our publications in the elevated trains like tomato catsup or the latest thing in corsets. It's not dignified. The book must succeed, if at all, through the recognised channels of criticism and on its own merits. Of course it's a bad season. But once the war's well under way, people will give up newspapers and return to literature."

"Meantime it wants a boom," contended the young Englishman, with an insistence that apparently jarred on his hearer, who answered shortly:

"And that, Mr. Banborough, it is not in my power to give your book, or any other man's."

There was an element of finality about this remark which seemed to preclude further conversation, and Cecil took refuge in the morning paper till the train pulled into the Grand Central Station, when the two men shook hands and parted hurriedly, the host on his daily rush to the office, the guest to saunter slowly up the long platform, turning over in his mind the problems suggested by his recent conversation.

The busy life of the great terminus grated upon him, and that is perhaps the reason why his eye rested with a sense of relief on a little group of people who, like himself, seemed to have nothing particular to do. They were six in number, two ladies and four gentlemen, and stood quietly discussing some interesting problem, apparently unconscious of the hurrying crowds which were surging about them.

Cecil approached them slowly, and was about to pass on when his attention and footsteps were suddenly arrested by hearing the younger of the two ladies remark in a plaintive voice:

"But that doesn't help us to get any breakfast, Alvy."

"No, or dinner either," added the elder lady.

"Well," rejoined the gentleman addressed as "Alvy," who, in contrast to the frock coats and smart tailor-made gowns of his three companions, wore an outing suit, a short overcoat of box-cloth, a light, soft hat, and a rather pronounced four-in-hand tie. "Well, I'm hungry myself, as far as that goes."

Banborough was astonished. These fashionably dressed people in need of a meal? Impossible! And yet—he turned to look at them again. No, they were not quite gentlefolk. There was something— He stumbled and nearly fell over a dress-suit case, evidently belonging to one of the party, and marked in large letters, "H. Tybalt Smith. A. B. C. Company."

Actors, of course. That explained the situation—and the clothes. Another company gone to pieces, and its members landed penniless and in their costumes. It was too bad, and the young woman was so very good-looking. If only he had some legitimate excuse for going to their assistance.

Suddenly he stood motionless, petrified. An idea had occurred to him, the boldness and originality of which fairly took his breath away. "The Purple Kangaroo" wanted advertising, and his publishers refused to help him. Well, why should he not advertise it himself? To think was to act. Already the company were starting in a listless, dispirited way towards the door. The Englishman summoned all his resolution to his aid, and, overcoming his insular reticence, approached the leader of the party, asking if he were Mr. Smith.

"H. Tybalt Smith, at your service, sir," replied that portly and imposing individual.

Cecil Banborough bowed low.

"I hope you'll not think me intrusive," he said, "but I judge that you're not now engaged, and as I'm at present in want of the services of a first-class theatrical company, I ventured to address you."

"The manager skipped last evening," remarked the man in mufti.

"Alvy," corrected Mr. Smith, "I will conduct these negotiations. As Mr. Spotts says, sir," he continued, indicating the last speaker, "with a colloquialism that is his distinguishing characteristic, our manager is not forthcoming, and—a—er—temporary embarrassment has resulted, so that we should gladly accept the engagement you offer, provided it is not inconsistent with the demands of art."

"Oh, cut it short, Tyb," again interrupted the ingenuous Spotts.

Mr. Smith cast a crushing glance at the youth, and, laying one hand across his ample chest, prepared to launch a withering denunciation at him, when Cecil came to the rescue.

"I was about to suggest," he said, "that if you've not yet breakfasted you would all do so with me, and we can then discuss this matter at length."

Mr. Smith's denunciation died upon his lips, and a smile of ineffable contentment lighted up his face.

"Sir," he said, "we are obliged—vastly obliged. I speak collectively." And he waved one flabby hand towards his companions. "I have not, however, the honour of knowing your name."

Cecil handed him his card.

"Ah, thanks. Mr. Banborough. Exactly. Permit me to introduce myself: H. Tybalt Smith, Esq., tragedian of the A. B. C. Company. My companions are Mr. Kerrington, the heavy villain; Mr. Mill, the leading serious. Our juvenile, Mr. G. Alvarado Spotts, has already sufficiently introduced himself. The ladies are Mrs. Mackintosh, our senior legitimate," indicating the elder of the two, who smilingly acknowledged the introduction in such a good-natured, hearty manner that for the moment her plain, almost rugged New England countenance was lighted up and she became nearly handsome. "And," continued Mr. Smith, "our leading lady, the Leopard— I mean Miss Violet Arminster," pointing to the bewitching young person in the tailor-made gown.

Each of the members bowed as his or her name was spoken, and the tragedian continued:

"Ladies and gentlemen of the A. B. C. Company, I have much pleasure in introducing to you—my friend—Mr. Cecil Banborough, who has kindly invited you to breakfast at—the Murray Hill? Shall we say the Murray Hill? Yes."

The ensuing hour having been given up to the serious pursuit of satisfying healthy appetites, the members of the A. B. C. Company heaved sighs of pleasurable repletion, and prepared to listen to their host's proposition in a highly optimistic mood. Banborough, who had already sufficiently breakfasted, employed the interval of the meal in talking to Miss Arminster and in studying his guests. Mrs. Mackintosh, who seemed to take a motherly interest in the charming Violet, and whose honest frankness had appealed to him from the first, appeared to be the good genius of the little company. As he came to know her better during the next few days, under the sharp spur of adversity, he realised more and more how much goodness and strength of character lay hidden under the rough exterior and the sharp tongue, and his liking changed into an honest admiration. Mr. Smith was ponderous and egotistical to the last degree, while Spotts seemed hail-fellow-well-met, the jolliest, brightest, most good-looking and resourceful youth that Cecil had met for many a long day. The other two men were the most reserved of the company, saying little, and devoting themselves to their meal. But it was to Miss Arminster that he found himself especially attracted. From the first moment that he saw her she had exercised a fascination over him, and even his desire for the success of his book gave way to his anxiety for her comfort and happiness. She was by no means difficult to approach; they soon were chatting gaily together, and by the time the repast was finished were quite on the footing of old friends—so much so, indeed, that Cecil ventured to ask her a question which had been uppermost in his mind for some time.

"Why did Mr. Smith call you the Leopard when he introduced you to me at the station?" he said.

"Oh," she answered, laughing, "that's generally the last bit of information my friends get about me. It has terminated my acquaintance with a lot of gentlemen. Do you think you'd better ask it, just when we are beginning to know one another?"

"Are you another Lohengrin," he said, "and will a white swan come and carry you off as soon as you've told me?"

"More probably a cable-car," she replied, "seeing we're in New York."

"Then I shall defer the evil day as long as possible," he answered.

"You seem to forget," she returned, "that I don't know as yet what our business relations are to be."

"And you seem to forget," he replied, "that there are still some strawberries left on that dish."

She sighed regretfully, saying:

"I'm afraid they must go till next time—if there's to be a next time."

Banborough vowed to himself that instead of confining the advertisement of his book to the city alone, he would extend it to Harlem and Brooklyn—yes, and to all New York State, if need be, rather than forego the delight of her society.

"Isn't your father an English bishop?" continued Miss Arminster, interrupting his reverie.

"Now how on earth did you know that?" exclaimed Cecil.

The little actress laughed.

"Oh, I know a lot of things," she said. "But I was merely going to suggest that we call you 'Bishop' for short. Banborough's much too long a name for ordinary use. What do you say, boys?" turning to the men of the company.

A chorus of acclamation greeted this sally, and to the members of the A. B. C. Company Cecil Banborough was 'the Bishop' from that hour.

"And now," said the Englishman, "that you've christened me, suppose we come to the business in hand?"

Every one was at once intently silent.

"I am," he continued, "the author of 'The Purple Kangaroo.'"

The silence became deeper. The audience were politely impressed, and the heavy villain did a bit of dumb show with the leading serious, which only needed to have been a trifle better to have proved convincing.

"Yet," continued the author, "owing to the popular interest in an imminent war and a lack of energy on the part of my publishers, the book doesn't sell."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Mr. Smith. "Impossible! Why, I was saying only the other day to Henry Irving, 'Hen,' I said—I call him 'Hen' for short,—'that book—'"

"What you say doesn't cut any ice," broke in Spotts. "What were you saying, sir?"

"I was about to remark," continued Banborough, "that what the novel needs is advertising. For an author to make the round of the shops is so old an artifice that any tradesman would see through it."

"It is," interjected the tragedian. "I have more than once demanded the lower right-hand box when I was playing the leading rôle."

"And always got it," added Spotts. The silence was appalling, and Cecil rushed into the breach, saying:

"It's occurred to me, however, that if a number of people, apparently in different walks of life, were to call at the various bookshops and department stores of the city, demanding copies of 'The Purple Kangaroo,' and refusing to be satisfied with excuses, it might create a market for the book."

"A first-rate idea!" cried Spotts heartily.

"But supposing it was in stock?" suggested the more cautious duenna.

"I shall of course see you're provided with funds for such an emergency," the author hastened to add; "and if you ladies and gentlemen feel that you could canvass the city thoroughly in my interests at—ten dollars a day and car-fares?" he ventured, fearing he had offered too little.

"I should rather think we do," said Spotts emphatically. "Ten dollars a day and car-fares is downright luxury compared with one-night stands and a salary that doesn't get paid. You're a might good fellow, Mr. Banborough," continued the young actor, "and Violet and I and the rest of the company will do our best to make your book a howling success." And as he spoke he laid his hand familiarly on the little actress's shoulder, an action which did not altogether please Cecil, and made him realise that in the attractive young comedian he had found a strong rival for Miss Arminster's favour.

"Well, then, we'll consider it settled," he said; whereat the company arose and clasped his hands silently. Their satisfaction was too deep for words. Spotts was the first to rouse himself to action.

"Come," he said, "we mustn't lose any time. Your interests are ours now, Mr. Banborough, and the sooner we get to work the more thoroughly we'll earn our salary," and touching a bell, he said to the answering messenger:

"Bring me a New York directory," thereby showing an honest activity which was much appreciated by his employer.

An hour later, the company, fully primed, departed joyfully on their mission.

Banborough, rich in the comforting sense of a good morning's work well accomplished, retired to his club to dream of the success of his book. In spirit he visited the book-stalls, noting the growing concern of the clerks as they were obliged to turn away customer after customer who clamoured for "The Purple Kangaroo.". He saw the hurried consultations with the heads of firms, who at length realised their blind stupidity in neglecting to stock their shelves with the success of the season. He saw the dozens of orders which poured into the publishing house, and heard in fancy that sweetest of all announcements that can fall upon an author's ears: "My dear sir, we have just achieved another edition."

So dreaming, he was rudely awakened by a slap on the shoulder, and the cheerful voice of Marchmont, saying:

"Who's asleep this time?"

"Not I," replied his friend, "only dreaming."

"Of the success of 'The Purple Kangaroo'?" asked the journalist. "Well, you'll have it, old man—see if you don't—and live to bless the name of Marchmont and the Daily Leader. Why, thousands will be reading your book before the week's out."

"What do you mean?" gasped the Englishman. "Surely you don't know—?" For he feared the discovery of his little plot.

"Know!" replied the journalist. "I know that your book has leaped at one bound from fiction to the exalted sphere of politics. Now don't you breathe a word of this, for it's professional, but the Spanish secret-service agents have taken the title of your novel as their password. The city is watched by our own special corps of detectives, and the instant 'The Purple Kangaroo' is used in a suspicious sense we arrest the spies and unravel the plot."

"But, good heavens, man! You don't understand—" began Banborough.

"I understand it all. I tell you the Daily Leader will not shrink from its duty. It'll leave no stone unturned to hound the offenders down. I dare say they may be making arrests even now, and once started, we'll never pause till every Spanish sympathiser who has knowledge of the plot is under lock and key."

"Stop! Stop!" cried Cecil. "You don't know what you're doing!"

"Oh, trust me for that, and think of the boom your book'll get. I'll make it my special care. I tell you 'The Purple Kangaroo' will be all the rage."

"But you're making a ghastly mistake," insisted the author. "You must listen to me—"

"Can't!" cried Marchmont, springing up as the sound of shouts and clanging bells fell upon his ear. "There's a fire! See you later!" and he dashed out of the club and was gone.

Cecil sank back in his chair fairly paralysed.

"Good heavens! Suppose any of the company should be suspected or arrested! Supposing—"

"A gentleman to see you, sir," said a page at his elbow.

"Show him in!" cried Banborough, fearing the worst, as he read Tybalt Smith's name on the card.

There was no need to have given the message. The actor was at the page's heels, dishevelled, distraught.

"Do you know we're taken for Spanish spies?" he gasped.

"Yes, yes; I've just heard—"

"But they've arrested—"

"Not one of your companions—Spotts, Kerrington, or Mill?"

"No," said the tragedian, shaking his head, "they've arrested Miss Arminster."

CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH CECIL BANBOROUGH DRIVES A BLACK MARIA.

Cecil Banborough's feelings can be better imagined than described at the announcement of the calamity which had befallen Miss Arminster. The winsome ways of the charming Violet had impressed the young man more deeply than he knew until he was brought face to face with a realisation of the miseries to which his own folly had exposed her.

"Where have they taken her?" he demanded of Smith as soon as his consternation could find expression.

"She's at the police station round the corner from here."

"Where did this occur?" asked Banborough.

"On Fourteenth Street," replied Smith, "Spotts and I met Miss Arminster, and she called out as she passed me, 'Don't forget "The Purple Kangaroo!"' A minute later the police arrested her, and when the crowd heard that she was a Spanish spy, I swear I think they'd have torn her in pieces if the officers hadn't put her in a prison van and got her away."

The tragedian paused, shivering from his recent agitation, and Cecil, seeing his condition, rang for some brandy.

"But what does it all mean?" asked the actor, tossing off his drink.

"I know what it means," cried Banborough, "but there's no time to talk now. We've not a moment to lose!" and he rushed downstairs.

Spotts met them at the doorway, and, as they walked rapidly along, the young Englishman poured into his companions' ears an account of what he had learned from Marchmont of the Spanish plot and the unforeseen use which had been made of the title of his book, while the tragedian rehearsed again the story of Miss Arminster's arrest, of his own hair-breadth escape from the clutches of the law, of his prodigies of valour in connection with Spotts, whom he had met in his headlong flight, and who, it seemed, had prevailed on his more timid companion to follow the prisoner in a hansom.

"It's a bad business," admitted Cecil; "but what's to be done?"

"Done!" exclaimed Smith in tragic tones. "Why, rescue the lady instantly and leave the city without delay. In the present excited state of the public no amount of explanation will avail. We may all be arrested as confederates. We must act!"

"You're talking sense for once," said Spotts. "Heroic measures are the only ones worth considering, and if you"—turning to Banborough—"will stand by us, we may come out on top after all."

"You can depend on me to any extent," declared the young author. "I've got you into this scrape, and I'll do my best to get you out of it."

"That's just what I expected of you, Bishop!" exclaimed Spotts, grasping his hand. "We can't waste time in talking. You must go and find the other members of the company, Tyb, and warn them of their danger. Now where can we rendezvous outside the city? Speak quickly, some one!"

"The leading hotel in Yonkers," said Smith.

"Right you are," replied Spotts. "Get there as soon as possible and wait for us to turn up. How about funds?"

"I've plenty of ready money with me," volunteered Cecil, "and very fortunately a draft to my credit arrived to-day, which I've not yet cashed."

"Good!" said Spotts. "We're in luck. Give Tyb fifty."

Banborough whipped out a roll of bills and handed the desired amount to the tragedian without demur.

"Now, off you go," cried his brother actor, "and keep your wits about you."

Smith nodded and hailed a passing cab.

"Come," said Spotts to the author, "we've no time to lose."

"What's your plan?" asked Cecil as they swung round the corner and sighted the police station.

"Haven't got any as yet. We'll see how the land lies first. The Black Maria's still before the door. That's lucky!"

Sure enough, there it was, looking gloomily like an undertaker's wagon, minus the plate glass.

"Must be hot inside," commented the actor, directing a glance at the two little grated slits high up in the folding doors at the back, which apparently formed the only means of ventilation.

Cecil shuddered as he thought of the discomforts which the girl must be enduring, and longed to throw himself upon the vehicle and batter it to pieces. But calmer judgment prevailed, and controlling himself he approached the police station, saying:

"Let me go first. You might be recognised. I'll try and find out where she's to be taken."

He accordingly went up to the driver of the Black Maria, who, cap in hand, was wiping his perspiring forehead.

"A fine pair of horses that," he said, indicating the mettlesome bays attached to the vehicle, which, in spite of their brisk run, were tossing their heads and fretting to be off.

"Oh, they're good enough," was the curt reply. "A trifle fresh, but we need that in our business."

"Something interesting on to-day?" queried Cecil.

"Who the devil are you, anyway?" asked the driver abruptly. And the Englishman, lying boldly, replied:

"I'm the new reporter on the Daily Leader. I was here last week with Mr. Marchmont on a burglary case."

"Oh, the New Rochelle robbery," suggested the driver.

Cecil acquiesced, drawing a quiet sigh of relief that his random shot had hit the mark.

"Yes," he said, "that's it. I was introduced round, but I don't remember meeting you."

"Might have been the other driver, Jim?"

"Now I come to think of it, it was Jim."

"Jus' so. Well, there's copy for you in this case."

"So I imagined. It's your first political arrest, isn't it?"

"That's where the hitch comes in," said the man. "I don't know where to deliver the prisoner. When the court's made up its mind they'll let me know, and I'll drive on. Now in the Civil War we sent them politicals to Fort Wadsworth."

"So you have to wait till they decide?"

"You bet I have. And there ain't no superfluity of shade on the sunny side of this street neither," replied the driver, as he slipped off his coat and hung it with his cap on a peg beside the box seat of the Black Maria.

"Suppose you were to run into the court and see how they're getting on," suggested Banborough, slipping a coin into his hand. "I want a word with the police when they've finished. Mention the Daily Leader. I'll watch your horses."

"Oh, they'll stand quiet enough," said the man. Then, suspiciously, jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards Spotts, he asked: "Who's yer pal?"

"Just a green hand whom I'm initiating into the business."

"You're pretty green yourself or you wouldn't have set me up," said the driver. "But if you'll mind them horses I'll just run across to McCafferty's saloon and have a schooner of beer, and then drop into court for you."

"All right," responded Cecil. "Only don't be all day; I've got another detail."

"Say," rejoined the man, "I can put beer down quicker than you can wink." And he ran across the street.

"Well, what's to be done?" demanded Banborough, as the man left them.

"That's easily answered," replied Spotts. "When he's in court we'll jump on the box, drive for all we're worth till we've eluded pursuit, then rescue Miss Arminster and be off to Yonkers."

"But that's laying ourselves open to arrest," expostulated the Englishman.

"We've done that already," said his friend.

"But they'll know we're not officials: we've no uniform."

"What, not when the driver has obligingly left his hat and coat?" said Spotts. "Slip them on. You've dark trousers, and no one will suspect."

"But driving fast—?" protested the author.

"Well, we're going to a 'hurry call,' of course. You've no invention, man! And besides, I can't drive."

"Oh, that doesn't matter," said Banborough. "I understand all about horses."

"So I supposed, as you're an Englishman."

"I don't care much for this business, you know," remonstrated the unfortunate author.

"Neither do I," replied the actor. "But we might as well be killed for a sheep as a lamb, and we've a good chance of winning. Here comes the driver; give him a bluff."

"I ain't lost much time," panted that individual as he passed them, wiping the foam from his moustache with the back of his hand, and adding: "I'll run right into court and be out again in a jiffy!"

"Stay long enough to see how things are going," called Cecil.

"All right! Guess the horses'll stand," he replied, and disappeared within the building.

"Now, Bishop!" cried Spotts. And before the Englishman could think, his coat and hat had been whipped off and thrown on the box seat along with a small handbag which the actor carried, and he was being helped into the very hot and unsavoury clothes of the driver.

"Lucky they fit you," said his friend. "Lead the horses carefully to the corner, and see they don't make more noise than necessary. If the driver should come out, you let 'em go; otherwise wait for me. Know where to drive?"

"Along the park?"

"No," said Spotts. "Double several times, then try one of the avenues to the Harlem River. There are plenty of bridges. Now, careful!" And as Cecil moved slowly off, leading the horses towards the upper corner, the actor lounged up to the entrance of the court, blocking the doorway with his athletic figure.

After what seemed an eternity, Banborough achieved the corner of the block, and, mounting the box, turned the horses' heads down the side street, keeping an eagle eye upon the entrance of the court-room, within which his companion had now disappeared. Perhaps three minutes had elapsed when the actor came out, running quietly towards him so as not to attract attention. The street was well-nigh deserted, and no one seemed to have noticed the movements of the Black Maria.

"Walk slowly till we're round the corner, and then drive for all you're worth!" gasped Spotts, springing on to the seat beside him.

Cecil followed his directions implicitly, and a moment later they went tearing down the side street, and swung round the corner into an avenue, nearly colliding with a cable-car in the process, and causing a wild scatteration of passengers and pedestrians.

"Here, that won't do!" cried the actor above the rattle occasioned by their rapid progress over the cobblestones. "Ring the bell, or we'll be arrested!"

"Where?" called Banborough.

"That knob under your feet. Press it!"

The Englishman did as directed, and instantly the most hideous clamour arose beneath the carriage. The horses, which had been flying before, excited by the noise, put down their heads and tore blindly forward. The vehicle rocked and swayed, and the avenue and its occupants swept by in an indistinguishable blur.

"They'll surely track us by the noise!" screamed Cecil, trying to make himself heard above the horrible din.

"We're too far off by this time," returned Spotts. "Can you manage the horses?"

"Oh, they're all right so long as we've a clear road!" yelled Banborough in reply.

They were now well under way, the traffic ahead of them swerving wildly to right and left at the insistent clamour of the bell. They rushed forward by leaps and bounds, an occasional stretch of asphalt giving them an instant's respite from the dreadful shaking of the cobblestones. They spoke but little, excitement keeping them quiet, but the Englishman suffered keenly in spirit at the thought of what the delicate girl, shut up in that dark stifling prison behind them, must be undergoing.

Suddenly in front of them loomed up the helmeted figure of a policeman, swinging his club and gesticulating wildly.

"Run him down!" howled Spotts; and Cecil, who had caught some of the madness of their wild flight, lashed the horses afresh and hurled the Black Maria straight at the officer of the law.

The constable, still gesticulating, made a hasty leap to one side, and they swept by a huge express-wagon which was coming up the cross-street, nearly grazing the noses of the rearing horses, and catching a glimpse of the driver's startled face.

So they ran on and on, faster and faster as the traffic became less, and the pair of bays settled down in earnest to the race. Suddenly the street narrowed, and a confused mass of carts and horses seemed to block up the farther end. Banborough put on the brake, and with considerable difficulty succeeded in bringing his team to a standstill on the outer edge of the throng.

"It's the Harlem River," cried Spotts, "and the drawbridge is up, curse the luck!"

There was nothing for it but wait, and Cecil, jumping down, patted the horses and examined the harness to make sure that everything was all right.

"You seem in a rush," said a neighbouring driver.

"Hurry call to Harlem," replied Banborough brusquely.

"Whereabouts?"

"Oh, police station."

"What station?"

The Englishman grunted an inaudible reply as a forward movement of the crowd betokened that the bridge was again in position. A moment later they were trotting towards freedom and the open country, Cecil making the horses go slower now, wishing to reserve their strength for any unforeseen emergency.

As the buildings grew more scattered, and patches of woodland appeared here and there, the actor began to discuss with his companion their plan of campaign.

"The sooner we get Violet out of her prison," he said, "and leave this confounded vehicle behind, the better."

"It's rather too well populated about here to suit me," replied Banborough. "But the police haven't been idle since we started, and our flight has probably been telegraphed all over the countryside. Perhaps we'd better run the risk, for if we're caught red-handed with the Black Maria we'll find some difficulty in proving our innocence."

"Besides which, I'm anxious to get Miss Arminster out of durance vile as soon as possible, for I think the Leopard's been caged long enough," said Spotts, laughing.

"Why do you people insist on calling Miss Arminster the Leopard?" asked Banborough.

"Oh," said his companion, "I think I'd better let you find that out for yourself. It would hardly be fair to Violet, and besides—" Then, breaking off suddenly as they entered a strip of woodland, he changed the conversation abruptly, saying: "Here's as good a place as we're likely to find—no houses in sight, and a clear view of the road in either direction." And as Cecil drew up the horses he jumped off the box.

"How are you going to open the confounded thing?" asked the author.

"Well," replied his companion, "I should think a key would be as good a method as any other."

"The best, provided you've got the key."

"I imagine you'll find it in the right-hand outside pocket of the driver's coat," said Spotts. "I thought I heard something jingle as I was helping you on with it."

"Right you are," said the Englishman. "Here it is!" producing two nickel-plated keys on a ring. "Now we'll have her out in no time." And running round to the back of the vehicle, he unlocked the folding doors and threw them wide open, crying:

"My dear Miss Arminster, accept your freedom and a thousand pardons for such rough treatment. What the—!" And he stopped short, too surprised to finish; for, instead of the petite form of the fascinating Violet, there shambled out on to the road the slouching figure of a disreputable tramp, clothed in nondescript garments of uncertain age and colour, terminating in a pair of broken boots, out of which protruded sockless feet. He had a rough shock of hair, surmounted by a soft hat full of holes, and a fat German face, whose ugliness was further enhanced by the red stubbly growth of a week's beard.

"I guess youse gents has rescued me unbeknownst, and I'm much obleeged, though I don't know but what I'd rather break stones up to Sing Sing than be chucked round the way I has been for the last hour."

"Who are you?" demanded Banborough.

"Me?" said the figure. "Oh, I'm a anarchist."

CHAPTER IV.

IN WHICH THE BLACK MARIA RECEIVES A NEW INMATE.

At the sight of this astonishing and utterly unlooked-for personage, the actor and the Englishman stood for a moment gaping at each other in surprised silence. Then, as the full force of what they had done occurred to them, and they realised that, at great risk of life, limb, and freedom, they had rescued from the clutches of the law an utterly worthless tramp, they burst into peals of uncontrollable laughter.

"But where's Violet?" gasped Spotts, who was the first to recover himself.

"Oh, there's a lady in there, if you mean her," said the tramp, indicating the cavernous depths of the Black Maria.

"Yes, I'm here all right," came the welcome tones of the little actress's voice. "I'll be out in just a moment, as soon as I've put myself straight. You're the most reckless drivers I ever saw."

"I'm awfully sorry," said Banborough, approaching the door to help her out. "But circumstances didn't leave us much choice."

"Apparently not," she replied, and a moment later stood in their midst, looking even more bewitching than usual in her dishevelled condition. Then as she drew a long breath, inhaling the fresh woodland air, and realising all the joy of her restored freedom, the eternal feminine reasserted itself, and, seizing both of Spotts's hands, she cried impetuously: "Look at me, Alvy, and tell me if my hat is straight."

They all laughed, which broke the tension of the situation.

"I don't know what you must think of us," said Banborough.

"I thought I was being run away with at first," she said; "but when I heard Alvy's voice on the box I knew it must be all right."

"Of course," continued Cecil, "we hadn't the least idea there was anybody else in the van."

"Oh, I didn't mind so much," she said. "He was quite nice and respectful, and very soft to fall on. I guess he must be all black and blue from the number of times I hit him."

"Well, you're safe, and that's the main thing," said Spotts.

"But what does it all mean?" she demanded.

"Oh, there's time enough for explanations later on," returned the actor. "We're not out of the woods yet."

"Of course we aren't, stupid! Any one can see that."

"Metaphorically, he means," said Cecil. "But, joking apart, this Black Maria is, so to speak particeps criminis, and the sooner we lose it the better."

"Which way shall we go?" she asked.

"Oh, that's been all arranged beforehand with the other members of the party," said Spotts, purposely omitting to mention their destination in the presence of their undesirable companion. "It can't be more than a mile or two across country to the Hudson River Railroad, and we'd better make for the nearest station. Do you feel up to walking?"

"Do I feel up to walking!" she exclaimed. "Well, if you'd been chucked round for an hour without being consulted, I guess you'd feel like doing a little locomotion on your own account." And without another word the three turned to get their belongings.

"Say," interjected the tramp, "where do I come in?"

"Oh, but you don't," said Spotts. "We're going to leave you this beautiful carriage and pair with our blessing. Better take a drive in the country and enjoy the fresh air."

"Yah!" snarled the disreputable one in reply. "That don't go! It's too thin! Why, look here, boss," he continued, addressing Banborough, "you went and 'scaped with me without so much as sayin' by your leave, and now, when you've gone and laid me open to extra time for evadin' of my penalty, you've got the cheek to propose to leave me alone in a cold world with that!" And he pointed expressively at the Black Maria.

"It is rather hard lines," admitted Cecil. "But, you see, it would never do to have you with us, my man. Why, your clothes would give us away directly."

"And I'll give yer away directly to the cops if you don't take me along."

Banborough and Spotts looked at each other in redoubled perplexity.

"You see," continued the anarchist, "I don't go for to blow on no blokes as has stood by me as youse has, but it's sink or swim together. Besides, you'd get lost in this country in no time, while I knows it well. Why, I burgled here as a boy."

"What's to be done?" asked Cecil.

"Oh, I suppose we've got to take him along," replied the actor. "We're all in the same boat, if it comes to that."

"Now if youse gents," suggested the tramp, "could find an extra pair of pants between you, this coat and hat would suit me down to the ground." And he laid a dirty paw on Banborough's discarded garments.

"No you don't!" cried that gentleman, hastily recovering his possessions. "Haven't you got any clothes in that bag of yours, Spotts?"

"Well, I have got a costume, Bishop, and that's a fact," replied the actor; "but it's hardly in his line, I should think."

"What is it?" asked the Englishman. "You seem about of a size."

"It's a Quaker outfit. I used it in a curtain-raiser we were playing."

"That would do very well," said Cecil, "if it isn't too pronounced."

"Oh, it's tame enough," replied the actor, who exercised a restraint in his art for which those who met him casually did not give him credit. Indeed, among the many admirable qualities which led people to predict a brilliant future for Spotts was the fact that he never overdid anything.

"Huh!" grunted the tramp, "I dunno but what I'd as lieve sport a shovel hat as the suit of bedticking they give yer up the river. I used to work round Philidelphy some, and I guess I could do the lingo."

"Give them to him," said Banborough. "I'll make it good to you."

"Well, take them, then," replied Spotts regretfully, handing their unwelcome companion the outfit which he produced from his bag, adding as he pointed to the woods: "Get in there and change quickly. We ought to be moving."

The tramp made one step towards the underbrush, and then, pausing doubtfully, said:

"You don't happen to have a razor and a bit of looking-glass about yer, do yer? I see there's a brook here, and there ain't nothin' Quakery about my beard."

The actor's face was a study.

"I'm afraid there's no escape from it, old man," remarked Cecil. "If you've your shaving materials with you, let him have them."

"There they are. You needn't trouble to return them."

Their recipient grinned appreciatively, and as the last rustle of his retirement into privacy died away, Miss Arminster turned to Banborough and demanded:

"Now tell me what I was arrested for, why you two ran away with me, and where I'm being taken."

"I can answer the first of those questions," broke in Spotts. "You're a Spanish sympathiser and a political spy."

"I'm nothing of the sort, as you know very well!" she replied, colouring violently. "I'm the leading lady of the A. B. C. Company."

"Of course we know it," returned the actor; "but the police have chosen to take a different view of the matter."

"Why is he chaffing me like this?" she said, appealing to Cecil.

"I'm afraid it's a grim reality," he replied. "You see, when the Spanish officials were turned out of Washington, they'd the impertinence to take the title of my book as their password."

"Well, then," she said, "they did what they'd no right to do."

"I suppose that would be a question of international copyright," he replied. "But 'The Purple Kangaroo' has proved itself a most troublesome animal, and as I thought you wouldn't care for quarters down the bay till the war was over, I took the liberty of running off with you."

"I'm very much obliged to you, I'm sure; but what next?"

"We're all to rendezvous at Yonkers."

"And then?"

"Well, unless the situation improves, I'm afraid it'll become a question of seeking a refuge in another country."

"If you think," she cried, "that I'm going to spend the rest of my existence in the forests of Yucatan or on the plains of Patagonia, you're mightily mistaken!"

"Oh," he said, laughing, "it isn't as bad as all that. Ours is only a political crime, and Canada will afford a safe harbour from the extradition laws."

"But the war won't be finished in a day," she contended, her eyes beginning to fill with tears.

"Won't you trust me?" asked Cecil, taking both her hands. "Won't you let me prove my repentance by guarding your welfare? Won't you—"

Indeed there is no knowing to what he might have committed himself in the face of such beauty and sorrow had not Spotts broken in with a cry of:

"It's all up now! We're done for, and no mistake!" And he pointed to the figure of a short, fat, red-faced man, very much out of breath, who was bustling down the road, waving his hands at them and shouting "Hi!"

"You'd better go and warn the tramp," said Banborough; and the actor plunged into the woods.

A moment later the stranger came up to them, and panted out:

"I arrest you both, in the name of the law!"

Neither said anything, but Banborough took one of Miss Arminster's tiny gloved hands in his own and gave it a little squeeze just by way of reassuring her.

"Well," said the new arrival, as soon as he had recovered his breath, "what have you got to say for yourselves?"

"I don't know that we've anything to say," replied Cecil sheepishly.

"I should think not!" said the other. "Here, take off that coat!" And he stripped the official garment from the Englishman's shoulders. "The cap, too!"

Banborough handed it to him, saying as he did so:

"You're a police official, I suppose?"

"I'm the Justice of the Peace from the next town. They just missed catching you at the last place you drove through, and telegraphed on to me. Knowing there was a cross-road here, I wasn't going to take any chance of losing you. I left the police to follow. They'll be along in a minute. Now what do you mean by it?"

"I don't suppose any explanations of mine would persuade you that you're making a mistake," said Banborough.

"No, I don't suppose they would. Now you put on that coat accidentally, didn't you? Just absent-mindedly—"

"I don't know you," broke in the Englishman, "and I don't—"

"That'll do," said the Justice of the Peace. "I don't know you either, and—yes, I do know the woman." Then turning to Miss Arminster, he continued: "Didn't I perform the marriage ceremony over you the year before last?"

"Yes," she said softly. And Cecil relinquished her hand. This, he considered, was worse than being arrested.

"I thought I did," went on the magistrate. "I don't often forget a face, and I'm sorry to see you in such bad company."

The young girl began to show signs of breaking down, and the situation was fast becoming acute, when the unexpected tones of an unctuous voice suddenly diverted everybody's attention.

"Why is thee so violent, friend?" said some one behind them. And turning quickly, they perceived the sleek, clean-shaven, well-groomed figure of a Quaker, dressed in a shad-bellied brown coat, a low black silk hat with a curved brim, and square shoes.

"Who the devil—!" began the officer.

"Fie! fie!" said the stranger. "Abstain from cursings and revilings in thy speech. But I am glad thee hast come, for verily I feared the workers of iniquity were abroad."

"Oh, you know something about it, do you?" asked the Justice of the Peace.

"I was returning from a meeting of the Friends," continued the Quaker blandly, "when I came upon these two misguided souls. As my counsellings were not heeded, and I am a man of peace, I had retired into the woods to pursue my way uninterrupted, when I heard thee approach."

"Well, I'll be glad of your assistance, though I daresay I could have managed them until the police came. They're a dangerous pair.

"And what will thee do with the other prisoner, friend?"

"Eh? What other prisoner?"

"The one that lies in a debauched sleep at the farther end of the van. I have striven to arouse him, but in vain."

"Where is he?" said the magistrate, peering into the black depths of the waggon.

"In the far corner. Thee canst not see him from here."

"I'll have him out in no time!" exclaimed the officer, springing into the van, with the driver's hat and coat still in his hand.

"Not if I knows it, you old bloke!" cried the sometime Quaker, slamming the door and turning the key with vicious enjoyment, while his three companions, for Spotts had emerged from the wood, executed a war-dance round the vehicle out of sheer joy and exultation. From within proceeded a variety of curses and imprecations, while the Black Maria bounced upon its springs as if a young elephant had gone mad inside.

Suddenly the Quaker laid a detaining hand upon Banborough's shoulder, saying:

"Take care, boss; here come the cops! I'll play the leading rôle, and you follow the cues."

They all paused and stood listening, while the rapid beat of a horse's hoofs came to their ears, and a second later a Concord waggon, loaded down with policemen, swung into view round the corner of the road, and presently drew up beside them.

"Thee hast come in good time, friend," said the Quaker to the chief officer. "We have watched thy prisoners overlong already."

"Where's the boss?" demanded the official.

"Dost thee mean the worldly man with the red face, much given to profane speaking?"

"I guess that's him," laughed one of the subordinates.

"As I was returning from a meeting of the Friends with these good people," pursued the Quaker, indicating his companions, "we came upon this vehicle standing in the road, the horses being held by two men, who, when they saw us, ran into the woods towards the river."

"How were they dressed?" asked the chief officer.

"One of them had garments like thine, friend."

"That's our man, sure!"

"Very presently," resumed the Quaker, "came thy master, using much unseemly language, who, having heard our story, followed the men in the direction we indicated, begging that we guard this carriage till you came, and bidding us tell you to return with it to the town."

"Well, I guess the boss knows his own business best," said the leader of the party; "so we'd better be getting back to the station. I suppose you'll come and give your evidence."

"I am a man of peace," said the Quaker; "but if my testimony is required I and my friends will walk behind thee to the next town and give it."

"It's only half a mile from here, a straight road—you can't miss it. You'll be there as soon as we want you."

The Quaker nodded.

"Then we'd better be moving," said the chief officer. "I'll drive Maria, and you fellows go ahead in the cart."

The remarks which were now proceeding from the interior of that vehicle were much too dreadful to record. But as it was about to start, the man of peace, lifting his hands, checked the driver and said:

"I will, with thy permission, approach the grating and speak a word of counsel." And going to the door, he said in a loud voice:

"Peace, friend. Remember what the good Benjamin Franklin has said: 'He that speaks much is much mistaken.'"

The reply elicited by these remarks was of such a nature that Miss Arminster was obliged to put her hands over her ears, and the police drove off with loud guffaws, enjoying immensely the good Quaker's confusion.

"That bloke," remarked the tramp, as the Black Maria disappeared in a cloud of dust, "give me three months once, an' I feels better."

And without another word he led the party across the road and into the woods in the direction of the river.

CHAPTER V.

IN WHICH THE PARTY RECEIVES A NEW IMPETUS.

An hour later, when the little party of four, weary and dusty, walked up to the hotel at Yonkers, they perceived Tybalt Smith in his shirt-sleeves, with his hat tipped over his eyes as a protection from the rays of the declining sun, lying fast asleep in a large garden chair which was tilted back on its hind legs against the side of the house. Spotts lost no time in poking him in the ribs with his cane, whereupon the tragedian, rousing himself from slumber, hastily assumed a more upright position, bringing the chair down on its front legs with a bang. Having thus been fully awakened, he became at once the master of the situation.

"We are here," he said.

"So I see," replied Spotts, "and a pretty show you've made of yourself. There's nothing private or retiring about your methods. Now where are the rest of the party?"

Mr. Smith at once assumed an air of mysterious solemnity.

"Mrs. Mackintosh," he said in a stage whisper, "is above. I reserved an apartment for her and the Leop—Miss Arminster, I mean, and a private sitting-room for us all. Mrs. Mackintosh is disturbed. Mrs. Mackintosh requires an explanation. Mrs. Mackintosh," turning to Banborough, "is a woman of great character, of great force, and she requires an explanation of you!"

"Ha!" said Spotts, casting a look of mock commiseration at the Englishman.

"Perhaps it might be better," suggested the tragedian, "if Miss Arminster saw her first."

"Perhaps it might," acquiesced Spotts.

"All right, I'll go," said Violet; adding to Cecil, as she passed him: "Don't be frightened; her bark's worse than her bite." And she entered the house laughing.

"But where are the others?" asked the author.

"Sh!" whispered the tragedian, casting a suspicious glance at the Quaker. "We're not alone."

"Yes," said Spotts, "the Bishop's got a new convert."

"Oh," returned Banborough, "I forgot you hadn't met this gentleman. We inadvertently rescued him, and since then he's done us a similar service twice over. I really don't know what he's called. The clothes belong to Spotts."

"I thought I recognised the costume," said Smith. Then, turning to the stranger, he demanded, abruptly: "What's your name?"

"I have been known by many," came the suave tones of the Quaker, "but for the purposes of our brief acquaintance thee mayst call me Friend Othniel."

The tragedian gave a grunt of disapproval.

"I think he can be trusted," remarked Spotts. "He's certainly stood by us well, so far. Now tell us about Kerrington and Mill."

"Yes, I'm most anxious to know what's become of them," said the Englishman. And the three drew nearer together, while the Quaker, turning to the road, stood basking in the sunshine, his broad flabby hands clasped complacently before him.

Tybalt Smith, after casting another furtive glance in Friend Othniel's direction, murmured the words:

"Shoe-strings and a sandwich!"

"Eh? What?" queried Banborough.

"Our two friends," continued the tragedian, "through the powerful aid of a member of our fraternity, whose merits the public have hitherto failed to recognise, have sought refuge in the more humble walks of life to escape the undesirable publicity forced upon them by you! Mr. Kerrington, disguised as a Jew pedlar, is now dispensing shoe-strings and collar-buttons on lower Broadway, while Mr. Mill is at present taking a constitutional down Fifth Avenue encased in a sandwich frame calling attention to the merits of Backer's Tar Soap. He is, if I may so express it, between the boards instead of on the boards—a little pleasantry of my own, you will observe."

The tragedian paused, but failing to elicit the desired laugh, continued his narration:

"Mrs. Mackintosh, though having been offered a most desirable position to hawk apples and chewing-gum on Madison Square, has preferred to share the rigours of an unknown exile, that she might protect the youthful innocence of our leading lady."

"All of which means," said Spotts shortly, "that Mill and Kerrington chose to fake it out in town, while you and the old girl bolted."

"Our friend," remarked Smith, casting an aggrieved look at the last speaker, "is lamentably terse. But let us join Mrs. Mackintosh. She will support my remarks, not perhaps in such chaste diction, but—"

"Oh, shut it off!" interrupted Mr. Spotts. "Come along, Othniel. I guess you're in this, too." And he led the way into the house.

When they entered the private parlour they found Mrs. Mackintosh and Miss Arminster waiting to receive them, the old lady with mingled feelings of righteous indignation and amusement at the ludicrous position in which they were placed, which latter she strove hard to conceal.

"Well, Bishop," she began, as soon as Banborough was fairly in the room, "you've carried off an innocent and unsuspecting young lady in a Black Maria, imprisoned an officer of the law, deceived his agents, reduced two of the members of our company to walking the streets, forced us to consort with thieves and criminals," pointing to the bland form of the Quaker, who had just appeared in the doorway, "laid us all under the imputation of plotting against our country, exiled us from our native land, brought me away from New York in my declining years, with only the clothes I stand up in, and deposited me in a small room on the third floor of a second-class hotel, which is probably full of fleas! And now I ask you, sir, in the name of Christian decency, which you're supposed to represent, and common sense, of which you've very little, what you're going to do with us?"

Banborough sat down suddenly on the nearest available chair, made a weak attempt at a smile, gave it up, and blurted out:

"Well, I'm blessed if I know! But permit me to decline the declining years," he murmured gallantly.

"I have," continued the lady, with a twinkle in her eye, "for the past thirty years played blameless parts on the metropolitan stage, and I'm too old to assume with any degree of success the rôle of a political criminal."

"Madam," said the author, making a desperate effort to compose himself, "I'm the first to admit the lack of foresight on my part which has placed us in this deplorable predicament; but the fact remains that we're suspected of a serious crime against this Government, and until we can prove ourselves innocent it's necessary to protect our liberties as best we may. I fortunately have ample funds, and I can only say that it will be a duty as well as a privilege to take you all to a place of safety, and keep you there, as my guests, till happier times."

"Hear, hear!" said the tragedian from the back of the room, while the Quaker settled himself into the most comfortable armchair with a sigh of contentment.

"Very nicely spoken, young man," replied the older lady, whose suspicions were only partially allayed, "but words aren't deeds, and Canada, where I'm informed we're to be dumped, is a long way off; and if you imagine you can go cavorting round the country with a Black Maria for a whole afternoon without bringing the police down on you, you're vastly mistaken!"

"Thee speaketh words of wisdom, but a full stomach fortifieth a stout heart," said Friend Othniel.

"Yes," replied Smith, who took this remark to himself. "I ordered dinner at six, thinking you'd be in then, and if I'm not mistaken it's here now." And as he spoke the door opened and a waiter entered to lay the table.

Conversation of a private nature was naturally suspended forthwith, and the members of the A. B. C. Company sat in silence, hungrily eyeing the board.

"Thee mayst lay a place for me, friend," said the Quaker to the waiter, as he watched the preparations with bland enjoyment.

"Did you order any drinks?" asked Banborough of the tragedian.

"No, Bishop, I didn't," replied the latter. "As you're paying for the show, I thought I'd leave you that privilege."

"Order six soda lemonades," said Banborough to the waiter, adding behind his hand to Spotts, as he noted the gloom spread over the company: "No liquor to-night. We need to keep our wits about us."

"Stop, friend," came the unctuous tones of the Quaker, arresting the waiter as he was about to leave the room. "For myself I never take strong waters, but thee forgettest, Bishop," giving Banborough the title he had heard the others use, "thee forgettest that our revered friend," with a wave of his hand in Mrs. Mackintosh's direction, "hath an affection of her lungs which requires her to take a brandy and soda for her body's good before meals. Let it be brought at once!"

"Why, you impudent upstart!" gasped the old lady, as the door closed behind the waiter. "How dare you say I drink!"

"Shoo!" returned Friend Othniel, lapsing from the Quaker into the tramp; "I ain't orderin' it for youse. I've a throat like a Sahara."

Then turning to the other members of the company, he continued:

"Now seein' as we've a moment alone, and bein' all criminals, I votes we has a session o' the committee o' ways and means."

A chorus of indignant protest arose from every side.

"Youse ain't criminals, eh? What's liberatin' prisoners, an' stealin' two hosses an' a kerridge, an' the driver's hat an' coat, with a five-dollar bill in the pocket?"

Banborough rose to deny vehemently the last assertion.

"Oh, yes, ther' was," continued the tramp. "I got that." And he produced a crisp note at the sight of which the Englishman groaned, as he realised the damning chain of evidence which circumstance was building up around them.

"An' lockin' up officers of the law," Friend Othniel went on, "an' runnin' off with prisoners, specially a tough like me, one o' your pals, what's wanted particular." And he winked villainously.

"I do not see," began Banborough, who was fast losing his temper, "that there's any need of discussing the moral aspect of this affair. You," turning to the tramp, "will have your dinner and your drink, and a certain sum of money, and you'll then kindly leave us. Though your nature may be incapable of appreciating the difference between a crime knowingly committed and one innocently entered into, a difference exists, and renders further association between us undesirable, to say the least."

"Oh, it does, does it?" said Friend Othniel. "Well, that's where youse blokes is mistook. This mornin' my dearest ambition was to blow up Madison Square Garden, but what's that to wreckin' a whole nation? No, Bishop, I'm a political conspirator from this time on, and I'll stand by yer through thick and thin! Why, you people ain't no more fitted to run a show o' this sort than a parcel of three-weeks-old babies. I wouldn't give yer ten hours to land the whole crowd in jail; but you just trust to me, and I'll see yer safe, if it can be done. I tell yer, it ain't the fust time I ben in a hurry to view Niagary Falls from the Canadian side."

Just then the door opened, and the waiter entered with the brandy and soda in a long glass.

"Thee mayst put it here, friend, till the lady is ready to take it," said Othniel, indicating the table at his side.

"Nothing of the kind," snapped Mrs. Mackintosh. "I guess I'm as ready to take it now's I ever shall be." And she grasped the glass and, setting her face, proceeded to drain the tumbler to the amusement of the company.

"There," she said, wiping her lips with her handkerchief, as the waiter left the room, "that tasted about as bad as anything I've had for a long time; but if it had been castor oil, I'd have drunk every drop rather than that you'd had it."

A general laugh greeted this sally, and the tramp remarked sheepishly that he guessed he'd know it the next time he ran up against her.

Then, waxing serious, he resumed his former topic.

"We ain't got no time to waste in frivolity," he said, "and if we're to get out of this hole, the sooner we makes our plans the better, and perhaps, as I know more about this business than youse, I'll do the talking."

Receiving the silent assent of the company, he continued: "I remembers in the days o' my innocent youth, before I burgled my first watch, a-playin' of a Sunday-school game, where we went out of the room, and the bloke what teached us put a quarter somewhere in plain sight, and when we come in again not one on us could find it, 'cause it was just under our noses; which the same is the game I'm proposing to play."

"I think I see what you mean," said Banborough. "I've heard it said that the destruction of most criminals is their cleverness."

"That's just what I'm a-tryin' to point out," replied the tramp. "The cops gives you the credit of allus tryin' to do the out-o'-the-way thing, so as to put 'em off the track, while if yer only acted as yer naturally would if yer hadn't done nothin' to be cotched for, yer could walk before their eyes and they'd never see yer."

"That sounds all right," said Spotts. "Now what's your advice?"

"To go back to New York," replied the tramp shortly.

"But," objected Miss Arminster, "we can't stay in the United States."

"Who said we could?" retorted the tramp. "Don't yer see, the cops'll reckon on our takin' some train along hereabouts for the North, and they'll watch all the little stations on the up line, but they won't trouble 'bout the down line, 'cause they know we've left the city. So all we has to do, after we've had our dinner comfortable-like, is to take a local back to town, and catch the White Mountain Express for Montreal."

"Why the White Mountain Express?" asked Mrs. Mackintosh.

"'Cause it's the longest route," replied the tramp, "an' they'll reckon on our takin' the shortest. Besides which, we'll cross the border in the early morning, havin' the baggage, which we ain't got, examined on arrival."

The company expressed hearty approval of the plan, and it was easy to see, in the case of the ladies at least, that Friend Othniel's sagacity had won him a much-improved position in their estimation.

The waiter now came bustling in and out of the room, and Mrs. Mackintosh drew Cecil apart into the embrasure of a window.

"You mustn't think I'm too hard on you, young man," she said, "though I can talk like a house afire when I once get r'iled. I know you didn't mean to get us into this scrape. You're a good-hearted chap, or you wouldn't have given us all a breakfast when you didn't need to, and I want you to understand that I'll stand by you whatever happens. I've taken a real liking to you, because you can look me straight in the eye, and I know you're worth a dozen of those chaps one sees hanging round a theatre; and if you behave yourself nicely, you won't find you've got a better friend than Betsy Mackintosh." And she squeezed his hand with an honest fervour that many a man might have envied.

Cecil thanked her for her confidence in him, and turned to have a few words with Miss Arminster, who had been constantly in his mind. When she had admitted to the Justice of the Peace that she was a married woman, he felt as if somebody had poured a pitcher of ice-water down his back. Of course he hardly considered his sentiment for her as serious, but he was at the age when a young man feels it a personal grievance if he discovers that a pretty girl is married. Indeed, the fact that the little actress had been so blind to her own interests as not to keep her heart and hand free till he came along first caused him to realise how hard he was hit.

"I do hope you've not been too much fatigued?" he said, sitting down beside her.

"Oh, you mustn't bother about that," she replied, raising her eyes to his in a decidedly disconcerting manner. "I'm afraid you must have thought me very selfish and ungrateful for seeming to care so much about my own appearance and so little about all you've done for me."

"Oh, don't speak of that," he protested.

"But I must speak of it," she insisted. "I can't begin to tell you how I appreciated it. It was plucky and just splendid, and some day or other I want you to take me out driving again, in another sort of trap. You're the best whip I ever knew."

He flushed under her praise, and began to say pretty things which he had better have omitted; but she presently became absent-minded in the face of his attentions, and interpreting this as an unfavourable sign, he ventured to ask her why she was so pensive.

"I'm afraid you must think me awfully rude," she said, "and really I've listened to all the nice things you've been saying, half of which I don't deserve, but the fact is, this place, and even this very room, are full of sweet associations for me. It was in that little church, just across the road, that I was married four years ago."

"But I thought," he began, "that the Justice of the Peace said that he married you."

"So he did," she returned softly, "but that was different—it was later."

"Eh? What!" he said, "later?"

"Yes," she replied dreamily, not noticing the interruption. "But it was here that the few sweet days of my first honeymoon were passed. 'Twas here I became the bride of the only man I've ever loved, the bride of—"

"Hist!" cried the tramp, who had been looking out of the window. "The house is watched!" And with this announcement Banborough's tête-à-tête came to an abrupt close.

"Are you sure?" cried Spotts.

"Positive. There are three cops fooling round in front now."

"What shall we do?" cried Smith.

"Git," rejoined the tramp.

"But how?" queried Banborough.

"Oh, I'll fix that all right," said the Quaker. "I bagged a plated tea-service here five years ago, and if they ain't changed the arrangements of the house, this side door leads into an unused passage, which, barrin' the climbin' of a picket fence, is very handy for escape."

"But how about the waiter?" suggested Mrs. Mackintosh, who was always practical.

"Right you are," said Friend Othniel. "We'll lock the door before we get out. They'll waste time enough over trying to open it, to give us a chance."

To speak was to act, and the tramp softly turned the key and slipped it into his pocket.

"As a memento," he said. "It's all I'm likely to git. They don't even use plate now." And he fingered the spoons and forks on the table regretfully.

"Come," said Spotts shortly. "We've no time to lose."

"Look here," said Banborough to the company, "I may be a criminal, but I'm not a sneak, and I don't order meals and apartments without paying for them. How much ought I to leave behind?"

Spotts laughed.

"If you put it that way, I guess ten dollars'll cover it," he said.

The Englishman threw a bill on the table.

"Now," cried Smith, "let's be off!"

"Out this way," said the tramp, opening a side door. "You others go first, and I'll wait here till I sees you're all safe."

"Not if I know it," said Cecil. "You go first, or you'll get kicked."

The tramp looked longingly at the crisp note, and led the way, remarking:

"Thee castest thy pearls before swine, friend."

"Ah, that's just what I'm trying to avoid," said Banborough cheerfully, bringing up the rear.

CHAPTER VI.

IN WHICH THE BISHOP OF BLANFORD RECEIVES A BLACK EYE.

"The Bishop of Blanford!" announced the page, as he threw open the door of Sir Joseph Westmoreland's private consulting-room.

Sir Joseph came forward to meet his distinguished patient, and said a few tactful words about having long known his Lordship by reputation. The Bishop smiled amiably, and surveyed the great London physician through his glasses. The two men were of thoroughly opposite types: Sir Joseph tall, thin, wiry, his high forehead and piercing blue eye proclaiming a powerful mind well trained for the purposes of science; the Bishop short and broad of stature, with an amiable, rounded, ruddy face, and the low forehead which is typical of a complacent dogmatism.

An ecclesiastic had come to humbug a man of science. Could he do it? Not really, he told himself; but then Sir Joseph was so courteous.

"I ventured to consult you," said his Lordship, in reply to the physician's questions, "because I feel the need of rest, absolute rest. The duties of my diocese are so onerous—and—er—in short—you understand."

"Quite so, quite so," said Sir Joseph, who understood that there was nothing whatever the matter with his patient.

"To be entirely alone," continued the Bishop, "for a space of time, without any distractions—not even letters."

"Most certainly not letters, your Lordship."

"How wonderful you men of science are!" murmured the ecclesiastic. "You understand me exactly. Now if I could have six weeks—or even a month."

"A month, I should say," replied Sir Joseph. "After that you might begin to receive your correspondence."

"Yes, a month would do—that is—er—where would you advise me to go?"

"What climate generally suits you best?"

"I—er—was thinking of Scotland."

"In May?" queried the physician.

"A friend would lend me his country place—and I—er—should be so entirely alone."

"Quite so. Nothing could be better," replied his adviser, who, like all men who have risen in their profession, had attained an infinite knowledge of human nature.

"And you will be so kind as to write me a note, stating your opinion—about the rest—and—er—immunity from letters—and all that," said the Bishop, depositing with studied thoughtlessness a double fee on the table, "for the benefit of my—my family. She is—they are—I mean—that is, she might not realise the importance of absolute rest, and"—as a brilliant thought occurred to him—"and you'll give me a prescription."

"Certainly," said Sir Joseph. "I'll do both now."

"Thanks," murmured the Bishop, and, receiving the precious documents, he took his leave.

The great physician's letter he put carefully in an inside pocket; the prescription he never remembered to get filled.

"A month," he said to himself; "that ought to be time enough." And he hailed a cab, and driving promptly to the nearest American steamship office, he engaged a passage forthwith.

"I wonder what Sir Joseph thought about it," he meditated, as he paid for his ticket. In this respect, however, he did his adviser an injustice. Sir Joseph never thought about it at all. It was not part of his profession.

Most people would have united in saying that the Bishop of Blanford was an exceedingly fortunate man. No one was possessed of an estate boasting fairer lawns or more noble beeches, and the palace was a singularly successful combination of ecclesiastical antiquity and nineteenth-century comfort. The cathedral was a gem, and its boy choir the despair of three neighbouring sees, while, owing to a certain amount of worldly wisdom on the part of former investors of the revenues, the bishopric was among the most handsomely endowed in England. Yet his Lordship was not happy. All his life long there had been a blot upon his enjoyment, and that blot was his sister, Miss Matilda Banborough.

Miss Matilda was blatantly good, an intolerant virtue that accounted for multitudes of sins in other people. Her one ambition was to bring up the Bishop in the way she thought he should go, and hitherto she had been wonderfully successful. All through his married life she had resided at the palace and been the ruling power, and when his wife had died twenty years before, snuffed out by the cold austerity of the Bishop's sister and the ecclesiastical monotony of Blanford, Miss Matilda had assumed the reins of power, and had never laid them down.

The Bishop's wife had been a weak, amiable woman, and her last conscious request was to be buried in the sunlight, but her sister-in-law remarked that "her mind must have been wandering, for though Sarah was vacillating, she was never sacrilegious." So they buried her in the shadiest corner of the cloisters, and put up a memorial brass setting forth all the virtues for which she was not particularly noted, and entirely omitting to mention her saving grace of patience under great provocation.

Since that time the Bishop's son, Cecil, had been a bone of contention at Blanford. His aunt had attempted to apply the same rigorous treatment to him that had been meted out to his father; but the lad, whose spirit had not been broken, refused to submit. At first, in his boyhood days, his feeling was chiefly one of awe of Miss Matilda, who always seemed to be interfering with his pleasure, and who made the Sabbath anything but a day of peace for the restless child. Then came long terms at school, with vacations to which he never looked forward, and then four years at the university, when the periods spent at Blanford became more dreaded.

Cecil tried bringing home friends, but there were too many restrictions. So, after graduation, he drifted off to London, where his aunt prophesied speedy damnation for him, and never quite forgave him because he did not achieve it. During these years his visits to the palace became fewer and fewer. Then he wrote his novel, which proved the breaking-point, for Miss Matilda forced his good-natured, easy-going father to protest against its publication in England, and the young man, in impatient scorn, had shaken the dust of his native country from his feet and departed to the United States, bearing his manuscript with him.

That was a year ago, and Cecil had never written once. His publishers would not give his address, and if he received the letters sent through their agency, he never answered them. His father pined for him. His aunt waxed spiteful, and so firm was her domination over the Bishop that he never dared tell her of his secretly formed plan of going to America to find his son. Hence his visit to the great London physician.

The little plot worked out better than he could have hoped. Sir Joseph's letter proved convincing, for Miss Matilda had a holy awe of constituted authority, and would no more have thought of disobeying its injunctions than she would of saying her prayers backwards. His Lordship accordingly went to London, and disappeared for a month—ostensibly to Scotland, in reality to America; and no one on the Allan liner suspected for a moment that the little man in civilian's clothes, whose name appeared on the passenger-list as Mr. Banborough, was the Bishop of Blanford.

His thirty days of grace allowed him but two weeks in the States, and here fortune seemed to have deserted him, for, on his arrival, he learned that his son had gone South. A wild-goose chase to Washington consumed much valuable time, and, with only forty-eight hours to spare, he arrived at Cecil's quarters in New York on the day when that young gentleman was madly driving a Black Maria out of the city.

Discouraged and disheartened at his lack of success, the Bishop took a train for Montreal, and found himself, about ten o'clock on that evening, owing to faulty orders and a misplaced switch, stranded at a little station just on the dividing line between Canada and the United States.

"And when can I proceed on my journey to Montreal?" he queried of the station-master.

"Sure I don't know," responded that individual briefly. "We're bound to get things cleared for the White Mountain Express if possible."

"And when is it due?" asked his Lordship.

"Eleven forty-five a.m., if she's on time."

"I think," said the Bishop, "that I'll remain for the night, and go on at a more seasonable hour to-morrow. Is there any one here who can put me up?"

The station-master scratched his head in perplexity, glancing off to the horizon where glimmered a few lights from scattered farmhouses.

"I dunno what to say," he replied. "I reckon Deacon Perkins would have put you up," pointing to the nearest light, some mile and a half distant, which at that moment disappeared, "but," added the official, "it looks as if he'd gone to bed. Folks don't stay up late round here. There ain't much to do."

"But," protested his Lordship, "there's a story over this office. Surely you can arrange something for me."

"Well, you see it's this way," said the man. "There's two police officers and a journalist has reserved it for to-night, 'cause they's on the lookout for a batch of prisoners 'scaping to Canada. But if so be's you wouldn't mind sleeping in the refreshment-room, I could let you have a mattress, and make you up a tidy bed under the bar."

The Bishop reflected that, though such quarters were hardly in keeping with the dignity of an episcopal prince, they were better than nothing, and as he was travelling incognito it did not much matter. So he cheerfully accepted, and going out on the platform took a seat on the narrow wooden bench that ran along the front of the station, and lighted a cigar to while away the time till the preparations for his retirement were completed.

It was pitch-dark outside, and the presence of three glimmering points of light were the only indication of any other occupants of the bench. But he rightly conjectured that the smokers were the policemen and the journalist of whom he had heard, and, having nothing better to do, he entered into conversation with them.

"Oh, yes," said Marchmont, for it was none other, "we've got a big job on hand to-night, sir, if we pull it off."

"Is it uncertain, then?" asked the Bishop.

"Well, of course we don't know which way they're coming. There was a sensational escape of a lot of Spanish spies from New York this noon. When I left we only knew they'd gone North. Since then they've been heard of near the Hudson River. Of course it's practically certain they'll make for Montreal, as it's the nearest point at which they have a consul, and my knowledge of human nature leads me to think they'll take the most indirect route; so I came on here by the first train, and if we can catch them when the Express comes through to-night, it'll be a great scoop, and certain promotion for me."

"Who compose the party?" asked his Lordship.

"The whole thing seems to be rather mysterious," said the journalist. "There's a woman conspirator in it, and one or two men, but the identity of the leader, the man who planned the rescue and had the unparalleled audacity to represent himself as one of our reporters, is quite unknown to the police."

"But you?" said the Bishop.

"Oh, I," replied Marchmont, "of course I could hazard a guess as to his identity." And putting his hand before his mouth, so that his two companions should not hear his words, he added, with a tone of triumph in his voice: "There's not the remotest doubt in my mind that the young man who ran off with the Black Maria was none other than the Secretary of the Spanish Legation."

"Ah," said his Lordship, who was getting bored, "very interesting, I'm sure. I think I'll turn in now. Good-night." And a few minutes later he was safely ensconced under the bar and in the land of dreams, where Miss Matilda and a prison-van figured conspicuously.

After an interval of time, the Bishop was sleepily conscious of the arrival of a train, accompanied by a certain amount of excitement, but it was not till several hours later, when dawn was just beginning to break, that he was rudely awakened by some one attempting to appropriate his resting-place. At the same moment he became conscious that a considerable uproar was going on in the station, and a voice from above, which he recognised as the journalist's, called out:

"Say! One of that gang's in the bar! I saw him come up to the door as I was lying in bed!"

Before the Bishop, however, became sufficiently wide awake to assimilate thoroughly these astonishing facts, the intruder, who was grotesquely armed with a can of hot coffee and a loaf of bread, deposited his burdens, and falling upon the recumbent ecclesiastic, proceeded to sit upon his head, forcing his face into the pillow, and rendering it impossible for him to utter a single sound. The half light and the suddenness of the attack had not permitted his Lordship to see the features of his aggressor. He had, however, no intention of submitting tamely to such an unpardonable outrage; and when the station-master and the two policemen, unaware of the proximity of the object of their pursuit, had rushed through the room and out at the back door, and the stranger, releasing the Bishop, was preparing to fly also, his Lordship, forgetful of the professions of peace which his calling assumed, smote the intruder lustily in the ribs. He received in return a smashing blow in the eye which made him see a multitude of stars, and before he could recover himself the stranger had seized the coffee and the loaf and dashed through to the front of the station.

The Bishop staggered to his feet, groping blindly about, while he heard the voice of the journalist, who was leaning over the banisters in night attire, calling vociferously to his companions that the man was escaping by the front.

"Did he hurt you?" he asked of the Bishop.

"Yes," replied his Lordship, still blinded by the force of the blow. "But he got as good as he gave. I didn't have four years of athletics at the 'varsity for nothing."

"Oh, they're sure to catch him," said the journalist

"I hope so," cried the Bishop, "for he richly deserves it."

It is probable, however, that his Lordship would have modified his desire for vengeance had he known that his aggressor was his own son.

CHAPTER VII.

IN WHICH A LINE IS DRAWN AND CROSSED.

"Say, are you asleep?" came the low voice of the tramp at the side of Banborough's berth in the early hours of the morning.

The speaker stood in the aisle of the sleeper and was bending over him, half dressed, the contrast between the sleek outer garments of the Quaker and the rough underwear of the tramp giving him a most grotesque appearance.

"Eh? what?" said Cecil, rousing himself, and noting, as he did so, that it was still dark. A moment later he was fully awake, saying, as he sat up in his bunk: "Is anything the matter?"

"I'm afraid so. We've stopped here more'n ten minutes already, and we're scheduled to run through."

"Well, what of it?" said the Englishman, somewhat testily, for he was very weary, and resented having his rest broken. "I suppose it's only a hot box."

"Hot box be blowed! It's us they're after. If you looks round the corner of your curtain, you can see the cops on the platform."

Cecil did as he was bidden, and, drawing back hastily, said:

"You're right. I'm afraid the game is up. Where are we, anyway?"

"If this is the station I take it to be, we're just on the line between the two countries. But whether our car's in Canady or the States is more'n I can tell."

"Is there anything to be done?" asked Banborough, turning to Smith and Spotts, who at this moment quietly joined the Quaker at the Englishman's bedside.

"Plenty," replied Spotts. "It's only a question of going North. Ten feet may mean the difference between a prison and the 'Windsor.'"

"Well, what shall we do?"

"Are you dressed?"

"All but my boots and coat," answered Cecil. "I'm not enough of a gymnast to disrobe in a space six feet by two, and besides I thought something of this sort might occur."

"Well, get into your boots, then, and don't make any more noise than necessary," said Spotts. "The ladies must be ready by this time. You were called last."

"Are you going to make a bolt for it?" queried Banborough, as he put one foot out of bed.

"Sh!" returned Spotts. "Not so loud! The officials out there on the platform are not sure that we're on board. My suggestion that Mrs. Mackintosh should buy the tickets was a lucky move, as she was not known. I'm going to pull the bell-cord as a sign to start, in the hopes that the engineer will get going before the conductor has time to reverse the signal, which means we'll run to the next station. If we don't succeed in pulling out, we'll just have to jump off and sprint for it."

"Go ahead," said Banborough. "I'll have my boots on by the time I want them."

The actor took a cautious look round the sleeper. Quiet reigned, except for their own little party, who were by this time all gathered together, the ladies having joined them.

"Now!" said Friend Othniel. And Spotts, reaching up, gave two sharp jerks to the cord which swung from the centre of the car.

Instantly the air-brakes were relaxed, the engine gave forth a series of mighty exhausts, the great driving-wheels spun round for a second on the rails, then caught their grip, and the train began to move out of the station.

A perfect pandemonium at once arose without. Shouts, gesticulations, and the waving of a multitude of lights, but the train still kept on moving, and the last car, in which the fugitives were, was sweeping past the station building, when the conductor, capless, but lantern in hand, emerged from the ticket-office and sprang for the rear platform of the train. A second later the quick jerk of the bell-cord and an answering whistle from the engine told them that he had succeeded in boarding the train and signalling it to stop.

The Quaker, forgetful of his cloth, swore lustily.

"Come on!" cried Spotts, "we'll have to run for it. They'll back into the station in a minute, and then we're done for." And suiting the action to the word, he rushed down the car towards the front of the train. The rest followed him with the best speed they could muster, falling over boxes and bundles, getting entangled in stray shoes, and running foul of swinging portières. Fortunately the cars were vestibuled, so the platforms offered no impediment. The train seemed absolutely interminable, for as they dashed through sleeper after sleeper, one more always appeared ahead, and Banborough could not help feeling as he ran, hatless and in his shirt-sleeves, with his coat under his arm and one shoe-string untied, that the whole thing must after all be some wildly improbable dream from which he would awake in due course.

Now they felt the train stand still and then begin slowly to move backwards, which only hastened their flight. But there is an end to everything, and presently the last sleeper had been passed through, and they emerged, hot and breathless, into the baggage-car, immediately behind the engine. Here for the first time they found an open door, the vestibules having all been tightly closed.

Spotts, who led the way, wasted no time in explanation, but making one dash at the burly baggage-master who confronted him, gave him a blow that sent him flying backwards. At the same instant he managed to trip up his assistant, causing the two men to come down on the floor together, bringing with them in their fall two bicycles and half a dozen crates of eggs.

Grasping any light luggage he could seize, Friend Othniel added this to the heap, while Spotts, throwing open the great door in the side of the car, cried:

"Jump for all you're worth!"

Smith stood cowering on the edge of the door-sill, little relishing the prospect of a wild leap into the night. But the Quaker, who had no time to waste on arguments, smashed down the top bicycle with one hand, thus placing his two opponents on their backs on the floor, and swinging round at the same moment, delivered a kick to the tragedian which sent him flying into outer darkness after the manner of a spread eagle.

The train was only just moving, and Spotts sprang quickly to the ground, and, running alongside the car, called to Miss Arminster to jump into his arms, which she promptly did. Putting her to one side out of the reach of the train, he ran forward to receive Mrs. Mackintosh; but that good lady, being unaccustomed to such acrobatic feats, and arriving with more force than precision, completely bowled him over, and they went flying into space together. Banborough and Friend Othniel followed almost immediately, and, both trying to get out of the door at the same time, collided with considerable force, and performed a series of somersaults, landing with safety, but emphasis, in a potato-patch.

As the engine swept by them, Cecil sat up and surveyed the scene. It certainly was an unusual situation, and the half-light of the early morning only served to make their attitudes the more grotesque. The party was scattered at large over the field in question. Smith, on one knee, was rubbing the bruised portions of his body. Miss Arminster, who had landed safely on her feet, was standing with both hands clasped to her head, an attitude suggesting concussion of the brain, but which in reality betokened nothing more dreadful than an utter disarrangement of her hair. Spotts had assumed an unconventional attitude at her feet, while the Quaker, face down, with hands and legs outspread, seemed to be trying to swim due north.

Directly opposite the Englishman, seated erect and prim on what had once been a hill of potatoes, her bonnet perched rakishly on one ear, and her grey toupée partially disarranged, hanging with its sustaining hairpins over her eyes, was Mrs. Mackintosh, firmly grasping in one hand her green silk parasol which she had never relinquished.

As Banborough met her gaze, she demanded sternly:

"What next, young man, I should like to know?"

"Really, Mrs. Mackintosh," he replied, "if for no other reason, you ought to be deeply indebted to me as a purveyor of new sensations."

"This is not a time for levity, sir," remarked that lady sternly, dropping her parasol and hastily restoring her toupée to its original position, "and I consider it perfectly disgraceful that you should cause a lady of my character to be arrested in a potato-patch at four o'clock in the morning!"

"That's just what I've been endeavouring to prevent," he said. "I believe this to be Canada."

"Then Canada's a very poor sort of a country," she replied snappishly.

The others now approached them, and all eyes were turned to the railroad station a few hundred yards distant, which was alive with bobbing lanterns. Presently a cluster of lights detached itself from the rest and came towards them.

"Do you think they're going to arrest us?" asked Miss Arminster timidly.

"Don't you be afraid, miss," returned Friend Othniel. "You just let me run this circus, and I'll get you out all right and no mistake."

The party now came up to them. It consisted of the station-master, the conductor, several trainmen, and the two policemen.

"Here!" said the conductor. "What did you mean by pulling the cord and starting the train?"

"Because we was anxious to see the beauties of Canady," replied the tramp.

"Ah, I thought as much," said one of the policemen.

"I am afraid," added the other, "we shall be obliged to persuade you and your party to stay in the United States for a while. You may consider yourselves under arrest."

"Thank yer," said the tramp sweetly.

"So, to save trouble," continued the officer, "you might as well come back quietly with us to the station."

"Yah!" retorted the tramp. "'Will yer walk into my parlour?' said the spider to the fly. I knows that game, and I guess the climate o' Canady suits my constitution."

"Nonsense!" replied the policeman. "You aren't over the border by about two miles."

"Oh, ain't we?" said the tramp. "Just oblige me, then, by putting them bracelets which I sees hangin' out o' your pocket on my wrists." And he held out his hands.

The policeman looked sheepish, whispered something to his companion, and presently they turned their backs on the party and walked away in the direction of the station.

"We's so stuck on this piece o' land," called Friend Othniel after them, "that we thinks o' farmin' it permanently. Come back and spend Christmas with us, won't yer?"

The officers did not deign to notice these remarks, and a few moments later the train swept by them on its way to Montreal, the baggage-master and his assistant giving their views on the party in general as they passed.

The day now really began to break in earnest, bringing with it a cold, damp chill, which seemed to penetrate to their very marrow. Spotts took off his coat and wrapped it around the shivering Violet—an act of chivalry which made Banborough curse his own thoughtlessness. But Spotts's endeavours to promote the comfort of the company did not end here. He roused Friend Othniel into action, and succeeded in collecting a little stubble and underbrush, and with the aid of a few matches they made an apology for a fire, round which the forlorn party huddled. But, damp with the early dews, the brush gave out more smoke than flame, only serving to emphasize their discomfort.

The increasing light showed them something of their surroundings. At distances varying from a mile to a mile and a half a few dilapidated dwellings peeped out of a fringe of woods. Everything else was pine-swamp, with the exception of the one small field of potatoes in which they were encamped, and which stood out as an oasis in the wilderness. Through the midst of the landscape straggled a muddy road, hopelessly impassable for foot-travellers. Certainly the outlook was not cheering.

It was therefore with a feeling of positive relief that they perceived shambling towards them the uncouth figure of the station-master. He paused on the edge of the patch, with one hand embedded in his shock of hair, and the other grasping a large piece of chalk, and surveyed the party critically.

"Say," he began after a few moments' silence, "them's my potatoes you're a-settin' on."

The tramp growled something unintelligible, and the others vouchsafed no reply whatsoever.

"I guess it must be purty damp out in that field," continued the station-master, "specially for the ladies, and I thought as how I'd let yer know as I was a-makin' some coffee over to the station, and yer could come and get it if yer liked."

"Yes, and get arrested into the bargain," said Spotts.

"I thought of that," replied the man, "and so I've drawed a line onto the platform with this piece of chalk, jest where the boundary be, and so long as yer stays to the northard of it yer can't be ketched."

"How are we to know that that is just the boundary?" asked Banborough.

"'Pears to me you're mighty 'spicious. Anyhow, thar's the line and thar's the coffee. Yer can take it or leave it, jest as yer likes."

"I'd make it worth your while to bring it to us down here," said Cecil.

"Humph!" returned the maker of beverages. "I don't go totin' coffee all round the country, and I'd like to remind yer as potatoes ain't eggs and don't need no hatchin', so the sooner you gets through settin' on 'em the better I'll be pleased." And turning his back he slouched away to the station.

"What do you think about it?" said Banborough to Spotts.

"I think it's a plan," replied the actor. "A New England farmer never misses a chance of making a penny when he can do so, and that fellow would have been glad enough to sell his coffee to us at a fancy price anywhere we chose to drink it if he hadn't been offered more to entice us up to the station."

"Well, I'm not going to pass the rest of my days on top of a potato-hill," said Mrs. Mackintosh spitefully. "I'm so stiff now I can hardly move."

"Yes, I don't think there's much to wait for," agreed Cecil. "But where shall we go?"

"To the next station, I guess," said the tramp. "But in Canady that's as likely to be thirteen miles as it is two, and this track ain't ballasted for a walking-tour."

The fair Violet heaved a deep sigh.

"What is it?" asked Banborough anxiously. "Don't you feel well?"

"I do feel a little faint," she replied, "but I dare say I'll be better in a minute. I shouldn't have sighed, only I was thinking what an old wretch that station-master is, and how good that coffee would have tasted."

"You shall have some," he said, determined not to be outdone again by Spotts, "and I'll get it for you myself."

"No, no!" she protested. "I didn't mean that. I shouldn't have said it. I wouldn't have you go for worlds. You'd surely be arrested."

"Nonsense!" he replied. "I think I can manage it and get back safely, and you and Mrs. Mackintosh must have something sustaining, for you've a long walk before you." And, in spite of all remonstrances, he prepared to set out on his delicate and dangerous mission.

"What's your plan?" asked Friend Othniel, immensely interested now there was a chance of an adventure.

"I'm going to crawl along in the dry ditch beside the railroad track till I get up to the station, and then trust to luck. I used to be able to do a hundred yards in pretty decent time in my Oxford days, and if I can get into the refreshment-room without being seen, I don't think they'll catch me."

"Well, good luck to yer," said the tramp, "and if yer should come across a hunk of pumpkin pie, don't forget your friend Othniel."

Banborough slipped off his overcoat, and donning a pair of heavy dogskin gloves, the property of the driver of the Black Maria, which the tramp produced, he watched his opportunity when no one was in sight at the station, and, cautioning the rest of the party not to betray by their actions that anything unusual was going on, stole across the open field and, dropping into the shallow ditch, began his perilous journey.

Within three feet of the edge of the platform all means of concealment ceased; but feeling that a bold course was the only one which gave any hope of success, Cecil rose quickly, and, slipping across the exposed place in an instant, glided into the great woodshed which in that part of the world, where coal is expensive, forms an important adjunct to every station. He felt himself practically secure here, as no one was likely to come for logs so early in the morning; and after waiting for a few moments to make certain that his presence had not been discovered, he threw himself down on his face, and, crawling noiselessly on all-fours across the twenty feet of open platform which intervened between the woodshed and the main building, achieved the precarious shelter afforded by the side wall of the house. He then wormed himself forward till he was close to the front corner; and here his patient efforts were at last rewarded, for he heard a few scraps of a conversation which, had he been in a less dangerous position, would have afforded him infinite amusement.

"I tell you what it is," came the strident voice of the station-master. "It ain't no mortal manner of use. Why, they spotted me to onct; said how was they to know I drawed the line correct."

"Ha!" said one of the policemen. "Couldn't you go out and dicker with them some more?"

"Nope," rejoined the other shortly. "And there's that whole tin o' coffee in the back room goin' to waste, and I guess they'd have paid more'n a dollar for it."

"Where's Mr. Marchmont?" asked the second speaker, a remark which caused Banborough considerable surprise.

"He's been keepin' out o' the way o' them Spaniards," said the station-master, "lest they should get a sight of him, 'cause he may have to shadow 'em in Canady, and he don't want 'em to get on to who he is. He's gone upstairs now to get a snooze, an' that's where I'm goin', too. There ain't no train for three hours, and I've had enough o' this durned foolishness."

"What's that?" cried the policeman, as a sharp sound smote their ears.

"Tain't nothin' but the back door slammin'," replied the other. "I must ha' forgot to latch it. The wind's riz a bit."

"Yes," said the officer, "and it's going to rain presently."

"I guess I'd better go and shet that door."

"No, you stay here; I want to talk to you. We'll let them get thoroughly drenched, and you can offer them the hospitality of the woodshed. Maybe we could alter the boundary-line a few feet in the interests of justice."

Banborough waited to hear no more, but, drawing softly back, sprang to his feet and ran noiselessly along the side of the house and round to the unlatched door behind. Now, if ever, was his chance. He dashed into a room which seemed to be a combination of kitchen and bar, but on the stove stood a steaming tin can of savoury coffee, while among the bottles on the shelf, just showing out of its paper wrappings, was a goodly loaf of white bread. Had he left well alone, and been satisfied with the coffee, he would have been all right; but the bread tempted him, and to obtain possession of it he must go behind the bar. This he hastened to do, unlatching the little swinging gate at the end, when a scuffling sound from the room above gave place to heavy foot-falls on the boards, and a moment later Marchmont called down the stairs which evidently led into the front room:

"Say! One of that gang's in the bar! I saw him come up to the door as I was lying in bed!" A bit of information which was instantly followed by a clatter of chairs on the front platform.

Wedged in behind the bar, Banborough felt himself trapped. But a happy inspiration seizing him, he possessed himself of the can of coffee and, with the loaf of bread in his other hand, crawled under the protecting shelf, while just at that moment a particularly strong gust of wind blew the unlatched door wide open, banging it back against the wall.

To his intense astonishment, Cecil found his hiding-place already occupied by the recumbent and sleeping form of a man, and, jumping to the conclusion that he must be either a policeman or a detective, he promptly sat upon his head with a view to suppressing any inopportune remarks. A second later three men rushed into the room, and Banborough held his breath. But luck was with him, for one glance at the empty stove and the open door satisfied the station-master, who cried:

"Those fellows has bolted with the coffee!" and dashed out at the back, followed by the policemen.

In a second Cecil was up and out of the bar, but not before he had received a smashing blow in the ribs from the stranger he had so rudely awakened. He promptly struck out in return, and from the sputtering and thrashing sounds which emanated from under the shelf he judged that his blow had gone home.

Snatching up the coffee and the bread, he dashed through to the front of the house, and, emerging on the platform, saw a sight which filled his heart with joy. On the track stood one of those little flat cars, employed by section-men, which is propelled by means of a wheel and crank in the centre turned by hand, on the same principle as a velocipede.

He sprang upon it, deposited his precious burden, and began turning the crank with feverish energy. To his joy, the car at once started forward, and under his well-directed pressure went rattling out of the station, shooting by his three astonished pursuers as they rounded the corner of the woodshed. Two minutes later he arrived in triumph at the potato-patch, being warmly welcomed by his admiring companions, who forthwith fell to and made a satisfying, if frugal, meal.

Just as they were finishing, the station-master came up, and, being rendered thoroughly amiable by a liberal recompense for the stolen viands, so far forgot himself, in his appreciation of Banborough's pluck, as to admit that there was no objection to their taking the flat car on to the next station, provided they could square it with the superintendent on arrival, as there were no trains due either way.

"How far is the next station?" asked Cecil, as the party clambered on to the car.

"About twelve miles," said Miss Arminster.

"Do you know it?" asked Banborough, still glowing under her praises of his prowess.

"Oh, yes," she replied softly. "I was married there last June."

The Englishman, muttering something under his breath, seized the handles and, giving them a vicious turn, sent the car spinning northwards.

CHAPTER VIII.

IN WHICH A LOCKET IS ACCEPTED AND A RING REFUSED.

Something over a week after the events narrated in the last chapter, Banborough was lounging in the office of the Windsor Hotel at Montreal. The course of events had run more smoothly for the party since the day they arrived in the city, weary and travel-stained with their adventurous trip. Montreal in general, and the manager of the Windsor in particular, were accustomed to see travellers from the States appear in all sorts of garbs and all kinds of conditions incident to a hasty departure, so their coming occasioned little comment; and as Cecil never did things by halves, they were soon rehabilitated and installed in the best apartments the hotel could offer.

The various members of the party, after the first excitement was over, had relapsed into a listless existence, which, however, was destined to be rudely disturbed, for while the Englishman's thoughts were wandering in anything but a practical direction, he was aroused from his reverie by a well-known voice, and, turning, found himself face to face with Marchmont.

"Well, who on earth would have thought of seeing you here?" exclaimed the journalist. "Have you fled to Canada to escape being lionised?"

"No," said Banborough cautiously, "not exactly for that reason."

"We couldn't imagine what had become of you," continued his friend. "You're the hero of the hour in New York, I can tell you, and 'The Purple Kangaroo' is achieving the greatest success of the decade."

"Oh, confound 'The Purple Kangaroo—'!"

"That's right; run it down. Your modesty becomes you. But seriously, old man, let me congratulate you. You must be making heaps out of it."

"Let's talk about something else," said Banborough wearily, for he was heartily sick of his unfortunate novel. "You ask me why I'm here. I'll return the compliment. Why are you?"

"Why," returned Marchmont, "you're partially to blame for it, you know. I'm after those Spanish conspirators. Of course you've heard the story?"

"No," said Banborough. "I haven't been in town for a fortnight. What is it?"

"Well, we arrested a lovely señorita on Fourteenth Street who was using the title of your novel as a password. I can tell you confidentially that there's no doubt that she's one of the cleverest and most unscrupulous female spies in the Spanish secret service; and while they were deciding where to take her, a stranger, who we're certain was one of the Secretaries of their Legation, eloped with her, Black Maria and all, with the recklessness of a true hidalgo. They were joined by a band outside the city, where they overcame a Justice of the Peace who arrested them, after a desperate resistance on his part. The story of this unequal battle was one of the finest bits of bravery we've had for years.

"After dining at a hotel at Yonkers they held up the waiter with revolvers and escaped. Similar audacities were perpetrated at the boundary-line between the United States and Canada, and in spite of the most intelligent and valiant efforts on the part of the police, aided by our own special corps of detectives, they've so far eluded us. Their leader's said to be a perfect devil, who, as I tell you, is certainly a Secretary of the Spanish Legation."

"How do you know that?" asked Banborough.

"Ah," said Marchmont, looking wise and shaking his head, "the Daily Leader has private sources of information. I wonder you've not heard anything of this."

"Yes," acquiesced the Englishman, "it is curious, isn't it?"

"But," continued his friend, "you haven't told me yet why you came to Montreal."

"Well," said Cecil, laughing, "I can at least assure you that my trip here has been much less eventful than the one you described."

"By the way," said the journalist, "have you seen the last editorial about your book in the Daily Leader?"

The Englishman shook his head.

"No? Well, here goes." And Marchmont began to read forthwith:

"'English conservatism has recently received a shock from the scion of Blanford, and the Bishop's son, in connection with 'The Purple Kangaroo,' has caused the British lion to hump himself into the hotbed of American politics—'"

"Oh, shut up!" said Cecil, with more force than politeness.

"Don't you like it?" exclaimed the journalist. "There's a column and a half more. I blue-pencilled a copy and sent it over to your old man."

Banborough groaned.

"But," continued Marchmont, "this isn't anything to what we'll do when we've hounded the Dons out of Canada."

"What?" cried the author.

"Yes," went on his friend. "We've complained to your Foreign Office, and within a week every Spanish conspirator will receive notice to quit Her Majesty's North American colonies on pain of instant arrest and deportation."

Cecil waited to hear no more, but, pleading an imperative engagement, rushed away to summon the members of his party to a hurried council of war in their private sitting-room. All were present with the exception of Miss Arminster, who had gone to spend the day at a convent in the suburbs, where she had been brought up as a child.

After an hour of useless debating the council ended, as Banborough might have foreseen from the first, in the party giving up any solution of the problem as hopeless, and putting themselves unreservedly in his hands to lead them out of their difficulties. Cecil, who felt himself ill equipped for the rôle of a Moses, jammed his hat on his head, lit his pipe, and, thrusting his hands in his pockets, said he was going out where he could be quiet and think about it.

"Going to the Blue Nunnery, he means," said Smith, laughing, and nudging Spotts.

The actor grunted. Apparently the author's attentions to the fascinating Violet did not meet with his unqualified approval.

An hour later Banborough stood in the grey old garden of the nunnery, the sister who was his guide silently pointing out to him the figure of the little actress, whose bright garments were in striking contrast to the severe simplicity of her surroundings. When the Englishman turned to thank the nun, she had disappeared, and he and Miss Arminster had the garden to themselves.

She stood with her back to him, bending over some roses, unconscious of his presence, and for a few moments he remained silent, watching her unobserved. The ten days which had passed had done much to alter his position towards her, and he had come to fully realise that he was honestly in love with this woman. Even the fact of her having been married at Ste. Anne de Beau Pré, which information he had elicited from her on the occasion of their pilgrimage to that shrine a few days before, had not served to cool his ardour. Indeed, the fact that his suit seemed hopeless made him all the more anxious to win her for his wife.

After he had been watching her for some minutes, a subtle intuition seemed to tell her of his presence, and he approached her as she raised her face from the roses to greet him.

"I came to see you—" he began, and paused, hardly knowing how to continue.

"Am I not then allowed even one holiday?" she asked.

"Is my presence so much of a burden?" he inquired, realising for the first time the full force of what her statement implied, as a hurried mental review of the past fortnight showed him that he had scarcely ever been absent from her side. Indeed, it no longer seemed natural not to be with her.

"Oh, I didn't mean to be rude," she said, "but I do like a day out of the world occasionally. You know, when I come back here I forget for the time that I've ever lived any other life than that which is associated with this dear old place."

He thought grimly that a young lady who had been married four times before she was twenty-five must have to undergo a considerable amount of mental obliteration.

"I think you'd tire of it very soon if you had to live here always," he said.

"I'm not sure," she replied. "I think—but of course you wouldn't understand that—only, life on the stage isn't all bright and amusing, and there are times when one simply longs for a quiet, old-world place like this."

"I believe you'd like Blanford," he suggested.

"I should love it," she assured him. "But what would your father say to me? I'd probably shock him out of his gaiters—if he wears them. Does he?"

"I suppose so," said Cecil. The fact was that the raiment of the Bishop of Blanford did not particularly interest him at that moment. He had more important things to talk about, things that had no connection whatsoever with the immediate future of the A. B. C. Company. Yet the mention of his father caused him to stop and think, and thought, in this case, proved fatal to sentiment. He thrust his hands into his pockets and addressed himself to the more prosaic topics of life, saying:

"My excuse for intruding on you is that our troubles are by no means over. The authorities, not content with driving us out of the United States, are preparing to order us out of Canada as well, and the question of where we are to go is decidedly perplexing."

"Oh, dear!" said the little woman, "I think I'll go into the convent after all."

"That settles the difficulty as far as you're concerned. Do you think they'd admit me?"

"Don't talk nonsense. What do the others say?"

"Oh, they say a good many things, but nothing practical, so I came to you for advice."

"Well, to speak frankly," she replied, "if I were you, I'd drop us all and run away home. It's much the easiest solution of the difficulty."

"Excuse me," he said. "I'm a gentleman, and besides—"

"Well, what?"

"Besides," he continued, thinking it better to be discreet, "I doubt if I should be welcome. I've a letter from the governor in my pocket, which I haven't yet had courage to open. I dare say it won't be pleasant reading; besides which, it's been chasing me round the country for the last five or six weeks, and must be rather ancient history."

"Look at it and see," she advised. "They may be ready to kill the fatted calf for you, after all."

"I'm afraid they do regard me rather in the light of a prodigal," he admitted. "However, here goes." And breaking the seal of the envelope, he read the letter aloud:

"The Palace, Blanford.

"My dear Son:

"Do you realise that it is nearly a year since your Aunt Matilda and I have received news of you? This has been a source of great grief and pain to both of us, but it has not moved me to anger. It has rather caused me to devote such hours as I could spare from the preparation of my series of sermons on the miracle of Jonah to personal introspection, in the endeavour to discover, if possible, whether the cause of our estrangement lay in any defect of my own.

"It may be that you achieve a certain degree of spiritual enlightenment in producing a book entitled 'The Purple Kangaroo.' I hope so, though I have not read it. Nor do I wholly agree with your good aunt, who contends that the title savours too much of the Apocrypha, and I say nothing of the undesirable popularity you seem to have attained in the United States. I only ask you to come home.

"As a proof of her reconciliation, your aunt included a copy of your book in her last mission box to the Ojibway Indians. I shall always be glad to receive and make welcome any of your friends at the palace, no matter how different their tastes and principles may be to my own well-defined course of action.

"In the hope of better things,

"Your affectionate Father."

"Of course you'll go," Violet said softly.

"Oh, I don't know about that," he replied.

"I do," she returned. "It's your duty. What a dear old chap he must be!—so thoroughly prosy and honest. I'm sure I should love him. I know just the sort of man he is. A downright Nonconformist minister of the midland counties, who was consecrated a Bishop by mistake."

Cecil paused a minute, thinking it over.

"How about the others?" he said.

"Ah, yes," she replied, "the others. But perhaps you don't class them as your friends."

"Oh, it isn't that," he answered. "Only I was wondering—"

"What the Bishop would say?" she asked, looking at him with a roguish smile. "Well, why not take him at his word and find out."

"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "I will! I believe you've hit on the very best possible solution of our difficulty. The episcopal palace at Blanford is absolutely the last place in the world where any one would think of looking for a political conspirator, and, by some freak of fortune, the police are entirely ignorant that I'm in any way connected with your flight."

"Good! then it's settled!" she cried. "And we'll all accompany you."

"Ye-es, only the governor wouldn't go within a hundred yards of a theatre, and my aunt calls actors children of—I forget whom—some one in the Old Testament."

"Belial," suggested Miss Arminster.

"That's it. How did you know?"

"You forget," she said, "I was brought up in a convent."

"It'll never do," he continued, "for them to suspect who you really are."

"Are we not actors?"

"Of course. We must have a dress rehearsal at once, and cast you for your parts. But there's Friend Othniel—"

"Ah, yes," she said. "He's impossible."

"We must drop him somehow."

"That's easily managed," she replied. "Pay his hotel bill, and leave him a note with a nice little cheque in it to be delivered after we've gone."

"Then we must get away quickly, or he'll suspect."

"The sooner the better."

"I noticed that there was a ship sailing from Montreal for England this afternoon."

"That'll just suit our purpose," she said. "Friend Othniel told me he was going to walk up Mount Royal after lunch and wouldn't be back before six."

"And you'll really come to Blanford?" he asked, taking her hand.

"Of course," she said. "Why should you doubt it?"

"Because," he replied, "it seems too good to be true. I was thinking, hoping, that perhaps I might persuade you to come there for good, and never go away."

"Ah," she interrupted him, "you're not going to say that?"

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because we've been such friends," she answered, "and it's quite impossible."

"Are you sure?"

"Perfectly. And oh, I didn't want you to say it."

"But can't we be friends still?" he insisted.

"With all my heart, if you'll forget this mad dream. It would have been impossible, even if I were free. Your people would never have accepted me, and I would only have been a drag on you."

"No, no!" he denied vehemently.

"There," she said, "we won't talk about it. You've been one of the best friends I ever had, and—what's in that locket you wear?"

"That?" he replied, touching a little blue-enamelled case that hung from his watch-chain. "It has nothing more interesting in it at present than a picture of myself. But I'd hoped—"

"Give it to me, will you," she asked, "in remembrance of to-day?"

He detached it silently from his chain, and, pressing it to his lips, placed it in her hand.

"I'll always wear it," she said.

There was an awkward silence for a moment, and then, pulling himself together, he remarked brusquely:

"I suppose we'd better be starting for town."

"I'll join you later," she replied. "I want to go to mid-day service in the little church next to this convent. Such a pretty little church. I was married there once."

"You were what? Are you really serious, Miss Arminster?"

"Perfectly," she answered, giving him a bewitching little smile as she tripped out of the garden.

PART II.

ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I.

IN WHICH MRS. MACKINTOSH ADMIRES JONAH.

"I think, Matilda, that you must have neglected to put any sugar in my tea," said the Bishop of Blanford, pushing his cup towards his sister, after tasting the first mouthful.

"You're quite right, Josephus, I did," she replied.

"And," continued his Lordship, who, being near-sighted, was poking about, after the manner of a mole, in the three-storied brass bird-cage which held the more substantial portion of the repast, "there doesn't seem to be any cake."

"You forget," said Miss Matilda sternly, "that it's an ember-day."

Her brother said nothing, and took a mouthful of the tea, which, like the morality of the palace, was strong and bitter. But his ample chest expanded with just the slightest sigh of regret, causing the massive episcopal cross of gold filigree, set with a single sapphire, which rested thereon, to rise and fall gently. Miss Matilda's hawklike eye saw and noted this as the first slight sign of rebellion, and she hastened to mete out justice swift and stern, saying:

"You remember, Josephus, that there's a special service at the mission church at five, at which I consider you ought to be present."

His Lordship had not forgotten it, or the circumstance that the afternoon was exceedingly hot, and that the mission church, which was situated in an outlying slum, was made of corrugated tin. The palace garden would have been infinitely preferable, and he knew that had he accepted sugarless tea without a murmur, his chaplain would have sweltered in his place. As it was, he submitted meekly, and his sister gazed at him with a satisfied expression of triumph across her bright green tea-cloth. If Miss Matilda had a weakness, it was for ecclesiastical tea-cloths. White was reserved for Sundays and feast-days; on ordinary occasions, at this time of the year, her ritual prescribed green.

They were seated in the garden of the palace, a peaceful Arcadia which it was difficult to realise was only separated from a dusty and concrete world by a battlemented wall which formed the horizon. The sky overhead was so blue and cloudless that it might have formed the background for an Italian landscape, and framed against it was the massive tower of the cathedral, its silver-greys darkening almost to black, as a buttress here and there brought it in shadow. Among its pinnacles a few wise old rooks flapped lazily in the still air, as much a part of their surroundings as the stately swans that floated on the stream which lapped the foot of the tower, while on all sides there stretched away a great sweep of that perfect verdure which only England knows.

"It's nearly two months since I last wrote to Cecil," said the Bishop, judging it wise to change the trend of the conversation, "and I've not heard a word."

"I'm sure I should be surprised if you had," snapped Miss Matilda. "And what your sainted Sarah would have felt, had she lived to see her son's disgraceful career, makes me shudder."

The Bishop started to sigh again. Then, thinking better of it, stopped. He had returned to Blanford from his rest-cure a week before, and apparently the air of Scotland had not proved as beneficial as he had expected.

"I believe that Cecil will come back to us," he said, ignoring his sister's last remark. "I told him that his friends would be welcome here in future, and I particularly mentioned that you'd put a copy of his book in your last missionary box."

"I hope you didn't neglect to say that I tore out all the pictures. A more scandalous collection—"

But she never finished her denunciation of the novel, for just at that moment the Bishop sprang to his feet with a glad cry of "Cecil!"

The young man came running across the lawn to meet his father, seizing him warmly by the hand, and having administered a dutiful peck to his aunt, turned to introduce the little group of strangers who had accompanied him.

"Father," he said, "these are my friends. On the strength of your letter I've taken the liberty of asking them to be my guests as well."

"They're very welcome to the palace," said the Bishop.

Cecil turned, and leading the two ladies forward, presented them to his father and his aunt. Miss Matilda swept them both with a comprehensive glance, and addressing Mrs. Mackintosh, remarked:

"Your daughter, I presume," indicating Miss Arminster. Whereupon the good lady coloured violently and denied the fact.

"Your niece?" insisted Miss Matilda, who was an excellent catechist, as generations of unfortunate children could bear witness.

"A young lady whom I'm chaperoning in Europe," replied Mrs. Mackintosh stiffly, in an effort to be truthful, and at the same time to furnish Violet with a desirable status in the party.

The tragedian was now brought forward.

"Allow me," said Banborough, in pursuance of a prearranged scheme of action—"allow me to introduce my friend Professor Tybalt Smith. You, father, are of course acquainted with his scholarly work on monumental brasses."

The Bishop naturally was not conversant with the book in question, because it had never been written, but he was entirely too pedantic to admit the fact; so he smiled, and congratulated the Professor most affably on what he termed "his well-known attainments," assuring him that he would find in the cathedral a rich field of research in his particular line of work.

Spotts was now brought up, and introduced as a rising young architect of ecclesiastical tendencies, which delighted his Lordship immensely as there was nothing he liked better than to explain every detail of his cathedral to an appreciative listener.

"I've a bit of old dog-tooth I shall want you to look at to-morrow," said his host, "and there's some Roman tiling in the north transept that absolutely demands your attention."

Spotts smiled assent, but was evidently bewildered, and seizing the first opportunity that offered, asked Cecil in a low voice if his father took him for a dentist or a mason.

"For a dentist or a mason?" queried Banborough. "I don't understand."

"Well, anyway, he said something about looking after his old dog's teeth and attending to his tiles."

Cecil exploded in a burst of laughter, saying:

"That's only the architectural jargon, man. You must play the game."

"Oh, I see," said the actor. "It's about his ramshackle old church. Well, I'll do my best—" But his assurances were cut short by the flow of his Lordship's conversation.

"As I was saying, Mr. Spotts," he continued, "I should be much interested to hear your American views on the subject of a clerestory."

"Sure," replied the actor, plunging recklessly. "I always believe in having four clear stories at least, and in New York and Chicago we run 'em up as high as—" But here a premonitory kick from Cecil brought his speech to an abrupt termination.

"Most astonishing," commented his Lordship. "I've never heard of more than one."

"Oh, our Western churches are chock-full of new wrinkles."

"Of new—what? I don't understand. Another cup' of tea for you, Mrs. Mackintosh? Certainly. We must pursue this subject at leisure, Mr. Spotts."

The party now turned their attention to the repast, and the Bishop proceeded to devote himself to Mrs. Mackintosh.

"I'm afraid," he said, when he had seen her sufficiently fortified with tea containing a due allowance of sugar, and supplemented by a plateful of cake which he had ordered to be brought as a practical substitute for the scriptural calf—"I'm afraid you will find our simple life at Blanford very dull."

"Dear sakes, no!" said that lady, hitching her chair up closer to the Bishop for a confidential chat—an action on her part which elicited a flashing glance of disapproval from Miss Matilda.

"I've heard all about you," she went on, "from your son Cecil. You don't mind if I call him Cecil, do you? for I'm almost old enough to be his mother. Well, as I was saying, when he told me about the cathedral and the beeches and the rooks and you, all being here, hundreds of years old—"

"Excuse me, madam," said his Lordship, "I'm hardly as aged as that."

"Of course I didn't mean you, stupid! How literal you English are!"

It is highly probable that in all the sixty years of his well-ordered existence the Bishop of Blanford had never been called "stupid" by anybody. He gasped, and the episcopal cross, and even the heavy gold chain by which it depended from his neck, were unduly agitated. Then he decided that he liked it, and determined to continue the conversation.

"When I thought of all that," said Mrs. Mackintosh, "I said to your son: 'Cecil,' said I, 'your father's like that old board fence in my back yard; he needs a coat of whitewash to freshen him up, and I'm going over to put it on.'"

"Cromwell," remarked the Bishop, "applied enough whitewash to Blanford to last it for several centuries. Indeed, we've not succeeded in restoring all the frescoes yet."

"Nonsense, man," said Mrs. Mackintosh, "you don't see the point at all. Now what do you take when your liver's out of order?"

"Really, madam," faltered the Bishop, thoroughly aghast at this new turn in the conversation, "I—er—generally consult my medical adviser."

"Well, you shouldn't!" said Mrs. Mackintosh with determination. "You should take what we call in my country a pick-me-up. Now I said to your son: 'I'm going to be a mental and moral pick-me-up for your father. What he needs is a new point of view. If you don't take care, he'll fossilise, and you'll have to put him in the British Museum.'"

The Bishop's reflections during this conversation were many and varied. What he was pleased to term his inner moral consciousness told him he ought to be shocked at its flippancy; the rest of his mental make-up was distinctly refreshed. Besides, a certain tension in the social atmosphere suggested that Miss Matilda was about to go forth to battle, so he smiled graciously, saying:

"It's certainly very considerate of you to undertake all this on my account, but I should not like to be in any one's debt, and I hardly see how I can repay my obligations."

"I'm just coming to that," said Mrs. Mackintosh. "I don't say that I shouldn't be doing a Christian act by taking you in hand, but I'm free to admit that I've a personal interest in the matter, for you're the one man in England I most wanted to meet."

"But what can there possibly be about me—" began the Bishop.

"It isn't about you," replied his guest. "It's about Jonah."

"Josephus," broke in the harsh voice of his sister, "the bell of the mission chapel has been ringing for some time."

The Bishop drew a long breath and formed a mighty resolve. At last he had met a person who took an intelligent interest in Jonah, a Biblical character to whose history he had devoted exhaustive research. It was a golden opportunity not to be let slip. So, turning to his sister and looking her squarely in the eyes, he replied boldly that he was quite aware of the fact.

"If you do not go at once you'll be late," remarked that lady.

"I've not the slightest intention of going at all," said the Bishop. "I'm talking to Mrs. Mackintosh, who is, it seems, much interested in Jonah."

There came a sound as of spluttering from the upraised tea-cup of Professor Tybalt Smith, and Miss Matilda gave a distinctly aggressive sniff.

"If you're not going, Josephus," she retorted, "I must send word to one of the chaplains, though after what you had said I naturally—" But there she paused, arrested by the incredible fact that for the first time in her experience her brother was not listening to what she was saying. Her silence commanded his attention.

"Oh," he replied, looking up vacantly, "do what you think proper," and turned again to Mrs. Mackintosh, who proceeded placidly with her theme.

"Of course," she said, "you hear a lot about seeing with the eye of faith, but I like to see with the eye of understanding, too, and I never yet sat under a preacher who was what I should call 'up to Jonah.' I read your book when it came out. It was one of the prizes they offered for selling on commission fifty packets of Tinker's Tannin Tea, and I've been wild to meet you ever since. I have been a-whaling, so to speak, for years, but I expect you to carry me safely into port."

"Madam," said the Bishop, "you overwhelm me." He was immensely flattered by her appreciative, if outspoken, commendation. "I'm now," he continued, "at work on a set of supplementary sermons on this very subject; and if it wouldn't be imposing too much on your good nature to let me read them to you, or parts of them—they embrace some six hundred pages."

Mrs. Mackintosh looked at him regretfully.

"Isn't there any more than that?" she said. "I wanted three volumes at least."

The Bishop beamed with gratification.

"I trust," he replied, "that they'll be worthy of your attention. But my treatment of the subject is—er—slightly doctrinal, and perhaps you're not a member of the Church of England."

"Well, no," said Mrs. Mackintosh. "I can't say as I am. I was baptised a Methodist, brought up in a Roman Catholic convent, finished at a Presbyterian boarding-school, and married before a Justice of the Peace to a Unitarian, and since I've been a widow I've attended a Baptist church regularly; but I don't believe I'd mind a few weeks of an Episcopalian, specially seeing he's a Bishop, which I haven't experienced before."

"I shall endeavour to do my best, madam," said his Lordship. "Perhaps I may even lead you—in time—"

"Well, I shouldn't be surprised but what you might," replied Mrs. Mackintosh, "but I mustn't take up all your time. I want you to know my little friend Miss Arminster. She's one of the nicest girls that ever was."

"I shall be delighted," said his Lordship. "Arminster," he continued reflectively. "Does she come from the Arminsters of Shropshire?"

Mrs. Mackintosh laughed.

"I'm sure I don't know," she replied, "but from the way her friends speak of her, you'd think she came from Noah's Ark."

"Dear me!" said the Bishop. "That's very curious."

"They call her the Leopard," she went on, "and I must say for my part that I'm 'most as fond of the Leopard as I am of Jonah's whale." And she rose and joined the group about the tea-table, for she did not wish to try Miss Matilda's patience too far.

"I don't know what you'll think of our quiet life. I fear it'll seem very strange to you," said his Lordship, addressing himself to Miss Arminster.

"I think it'll be jolly," she replied promptly, looking up at him playfully to see whether he would bear chaffing, "and," she added, after due deliberation, "I think you're a dear, and your uniform is just sweet. I always did love a uniform. I used to be awfully gone, as a child, on a policeman at the corner of our block, but you're much more nicely dressed than he was."

His Lordship started to say something crushing in regard to the sanctity of ecclesiastical trappings, but another glance at the bewitching little figure that confronted him caused him to remark instead that he was glad she approved of him, and that he would try to take better care of her than even a guardian of the law.

"Oh, I'm afraid I've said something shocking!" she exclaimed in a delightfully naïve manner, "and I did mean to be so good and decorous. I'm sure I'll need a lot of teaching."

"I shall be delighted to undertake the task," he replied gallantly. "Suppose we begin by going to evensong. Would you like to do so?"

"Rather," she returned; "but I'm afraid," looking at her travelling-costume, "that I'm hardly dressed for the part—I mean the occasion."

"Dear me!" said the Bishop, scrutinizing her keenly, "it seems to be a very pretty gown."

"Oh, that's all right," she said. "Then we'll go at once."

"So we shall," he replied, "and you shall sit in the stalls."

"How jolly!" she exclaimed. "I almost always have to sit in the balcony."

"Really?" said his Lordship. "You don't say so. But from what Mr. Spotts says, I should judge that the architecture of American churches was novel." And they walked across the lawn to the cathedral.

A few moments later, Miss Matilda, having dismissed her guests to their rooms, found herself alone with her nephew.

"Well," she said, turning on him sharply, "perhaps at last you'll condescend to tell me who these friends of yours are?"

"They're a party of ladies and gentlemen with whom I've been travelling in America," Cecil replied. "And as we'd agreed to join forces for the rest of the summer, I'd no option but to invite them here as my guests. The gentlemen I've already introduced to you—"

"Oh, the gentlemen!" snapped his aunt. "I've no concern about them. It's the women I—"

"The ladies, Aunt Matilda."

"The ladies, then. Your father, in what he is pleased to call his wisdom, has seen fit to allow you to introduce these persons into his house. I'm sure I hope he won't regret it! But I must insist on knowing something about the people whom I'm entertaining."

"As I've told you already," he replied very quietly, "they're ladies whom I've met in America. I might also add that they've good manners and are uniformly courteous."

Miss Matilda tilted her nose till its tip pointed straight at the spire of the cathedral, and, without any reply, swept past him into the house.

Dinner, that night, in spite of his aunt's efforts to the contrary, was an unqualified success. The Bishop hailed with joy any interruption in the monotony of his daily life, and made himself most agreeable, while his guests seconded him to the best of their ability.

The meal being over, his Lordship proposed a rubber of whist, a relaxation of which he was very fond, but which, in the reduced state of his family, he was seldom able to enjoy. Mrs. Mackintosh and Smith, as the two best players of the party, expressed themselves as willing to take a hand, and Miss Matilda made up the fourth.

"You'll excuse me," said his Lordship apologetically to Mrs. Mackintosh, "if we play only for threepenny points. Were I a curate I could play for sixpence, but in my position the stakes are necessarily limited."

"You don't ever mean to say," exclaimed the old lady, "that you're a gambling Bishop!"

"My brother," interrupted Miss Matilda, "is a pattern of upright living to his day and generation. But of course if you're incapable of understanding the difference between a sinful wager of money and the few pence necessary to keep up the interest of the game—"

"Gambling is gambling, to my mind," said Mrs. Mackintosh, "whether you play for dollars or doughnuts!"

"The point seems well taken," remarked the Bishop meditatively. "It's certainly never struck me in that light before; but if you think—"

"I think," said the old lady decidedly, "that it's lucky for you that there are no whales in Blanford!"

Miss Matilda threw down her cards.

"If I'm to be called a gambler under my own brother's roof," she said, "I shall refuse to play. Besides I've a headache." And she rose majestically from the table.

"But, my dear," began the Bishop meekly, "if we cannot find a fourth hand—"

"If Miss Banborough doesn't feel up to playing," came the sweet tones of Violet's voice, "I'll be delighted to take her place." And a moment later she was ensconced at the table.

The Bishop's sister retired to a corner with the largest and most aggressive volume of sermons she could find, and sniffed loudly at intervals all the evening. And when at ten o'clock, in response to the summons of an impressive functionary clad in black and bearing a wand surmounted by a silver cross, the little party filed out to evening devotions in the chapel, Miss Matilda gathered her skirts around her as if she feared contagion.

"I'm afraid of that old cat," Mrs. Mackintosh confided to Violet, when they had reached the haven of their apartments. "I'm sure she suspects us already; and if we're not careful, she'll find us out."

CHAPTER II.

IN WHICH THE ENEMY ARRIVES.

"I say, boss," remarked the tramp, as he paused for a moment in the process of stuffing himself to repletion with cold game-pie, "this is a rum trip, and no mistake."

"What's that got to do with you?" retorted Marchmont sharply, appropriating the remaining fragments of the pasty to his own use.

The two men were seated in the shady angle of a ruined buttress, a portion of a stately abbey, which in pre-Norman days had flourished at a spot some half-dozen miles from the site of Blanford.

"Well," said the tramp, "if this ain't a wild-goose chase I dunno what you calls it. Here you've gone an' took me away from my happy home, an' brought me across the ragin' Atlantic, an' dumped me in a moth-eaten little village where there ain't nothin' fit to drink, all because I happened to chum with a Bishop."

"You seem to forget," said Marchmont, "that it was you who came to me, offering to sell your friends and their secrets for a sufficient remuneration."

"So I did," said the tramp; "but it was revenge, that's what it was—revenge. I was deserted in a furrin land, with just my board-bill paid, and not a penny to bless myself with."

"Ah," said Marchmont. "That's the reason, I suppose, why you came from Montreal to New York in a parlour car."

The tramp sighed despondently, saying:

"Now whoever told you that, boss?"

"Nobody. I found the Pullman check in your coat-pocket when I was looking for my diamond ring, which you'd absent-mindedly placed there."

"Humph!" replied the other. "There ain't no foolin' you!"

"I should be a pretty poor journalist if there were," said his employer. "Now give me the story again, and see if you can get it straight."

"Well, there ain't nothin' much to tell, 'cept I was carried off by them Spanish conspirators in mistake for a lady, which I in no-wise resembles, an' the bloke as was the head of the gang was allus called the Bishop, and a pretty rum Bishop he was."

"Never mind about his qualifications," interrupted Marchmont shortly; adding to himself, "That explains his son's presence in Montreal."

"Well, this Bishop," continued the tramp, "used to talk about his palace at Blanford; and when the party give me the go-by, I gathered from the porter as took their traps that they'd gone to England; and the elevator-boy, he heard the Bishop say to the little actress as they'd be as safe at the palace as they would anywhere. And then I come on to New York and blew it into you."

"Yes," said Marchmont, "and I've given you a first-class passage to England, paid your board and lodging, and kept you full for the best part of three weeks; and what do I get out of it?"

"I admit as we haven't had much results as yet," said the tramp. "But now things is goin' to hum. The Bishop and his whole gang's coming over to these very ruins to-day."

"How did you find that out?" demanded the journalist.

"Footman up to the palace told me. I give him a little jamboree last night at the 'Three Jolly Sailor-boys.'"

"Yes, and had to be carried home dead-drunk. Nice one you are to keep a secret."

"Well, I was only a-doin' me duty," said the tramp in an aggrieved tone of voice, "and if they don't know you're after 'em, and you should happen to be inspectin' the ruins at the same time as they are, you could get chummy with 'em without half tryin'."

"I'll attend to that," said the newspaper man. "I've just had a cable from the Daily Leader telling me to hustle if I want to get that position, and I've got to do something, and do it quick. But it'll never do for you to be seen. Once they know we're together, the game's up. I can't have you larking round with the servants either. You'll spoil the whole show. You've got to go back to Dullhampton this afternoon."

"What! that little one-horse fishing-town?"

"Yes, that's where you're wanted. It's the nearest port to Blanford, and it's where they'll try and get out of the country if they're hard pressed. You just stay there and keep your eyes open till you hear from me."

The tramp growled surlily, and reluctantly prepared to obey.

"Now, then," said Marchmont shortly, "get a move on. Yes, you can take the provender with you. It'll help to keep your mouth shut."

As the tramp slouched round the corner and out of sight, his master stretched himself comfortably on the ground, and supporting his head on one arm, with his straw hat tilted over his eyes to protect them from the sun, he proceeded to go peacefully to sleep.

Scarcely had the journalist composed himself to slumber, when the ruins were invaded by the party from the palace. It was now about a month since Cecil and his friends had arrived at Blanford, and though this expedition to the old abbey had been often discussed, one thing and another had intervened to prevent its being put into execution.

After her first burst of antagonism, Miss Matilda had settled down to a formal hospitality which was, if anything, more disconcerting. Tybalt Smith alone had achieved a favourable position in her eyes, and this only as the result of a very considerable amount of flattery and attention. At first his friends were at a loss to account for his attitude, but as time went on it appeared that the tragedian had not exerted himself for nothing. "The dear Professor" frequently had his breakfast in bed when he was too lazy to get up, and Miss Matilda considered the delicate state of his health required the daily stimulus of a pint of champagne. He also had the exclusive use of her victoria in the afternoon, and even if this did necessitate an occasional attendance at missionary meetings and penny readings, it was after all but a fair return for value received. On this occasion he had begged off going to the picnic, and was spending a luxurious day at the palace, waited on by the Bishop's sister.

The party, having arrived at the abbey, promptly separated to explore the ruins, his Lordship gallantly offering to play the part of cicerone to the ladies. Miss Violet, however, for reasons of her own, preferred seclusion and a quiet chat with Spotts to any amount of architectural antiquities, so her host was enabled to devote his entire time to Mrs. Mackintosh.

"Does it strike you," remarked the Bishop, a few moments later, pausing in his wanderings to inspect critically a fragment of Roman brick—"does it strike you how absolutely peaceful this spot is?"

"Well," returned Mrs. Mackintosh, "I don't know as it does. I should have said your palace was about as good a sample of all-round peacefulness as there is going."

"Ha," said his Lordship, "it hadn't occurred to me."

"That's just like you men. You never know when you're well off. Now with your palace and Jonah you ought to be content."

The Bishop sighed.

"Dear lady," he said, "I admit my faults. The palace I indeed possess temporarily, but Jonah—ah, what would Jonah be without you! If I have left my work once in the past month to ask your advice, I have left it a hundred times."

"You have," admitted Mrs. Mackintosh with decision.

"Then it is to you that Jonah owes his debt of gratitude, not to me. You have lightened my labour in more senses of the word than one."

"Well, I've had a very pleasant visit. Blanford's a little paradise."

The Bishop sighed again, and remarked:

"Paradise I have always regarded as being peaceful."

"Yes," acquiesced his companion reflectively, "with all that Jonah went through, I don't remember as he had an unmarried sister."

There was silence for a moment, and then his Lordship abruptly changed the subject.