Happy-go-lucky

Cover

"LET ME GIVE YOU ONE HINT, MY LAD" (p. [48])

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY

IAN HAY

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
C. E. BROCK

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

Published August, 1913

TO
T. S. A. B.

CONTENTS

BOOK ONE

YOUTHFUL EXCURSIONS

[A Brief Introduction]
[The First Freak]
[Io Saturnalia!]

BOOK TWO

A BLIND ALLEY

[Travels with a First Reserve]
[Very Odious]
[Forbidden Fruit--A Digression]
[Unearned Increment]
[A Relapse]
[The Only Way Out]
[Still at Large]
[The First Turning to the Right]

BOOK THREE

THE RIGHT ROAD

[Mice and Men]
[Lucidity Itself]
[Another Cosy Chat, with an Interruption]
[A Day of Calm Reflection]
[An Impossible Family]
[The Word "Swank"]
[De L'Audace, et encore de l'Audace, et toujours de l'Audace!]
[Sidelights on a Public Character]
[Rehearsed Effects]
[Unrehearsed]
[The Real Tilly]
[The Real Mr. Welwyn]
[A Garden Plot in Russell Square]
[Purely Commercial]
[The Final Freak]

ILLUSTRATIONS

["Let me give you one Hint, my Lad"] (p. [48]) . . . Frontispiece

["Chorus once more, please, Gentlemen!"]

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

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

["This is very naughty," he announced reproachfully]

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY

BOOK ONE

YOUTHFUL EXCURSIONS

HAPPY-GO-LUCKY

CHAPTER I

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

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

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

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

(1) The date of the feast.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was a general laugh.

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

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

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

"Still got him, Tiny?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What was the trouble?" asked Jerningham.

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

"Shylock!" commented the humorous Mr. Jerningham.

The Freak hastened to explain.

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

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

"What did you do?" asked Rumbold.

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

"Was he shirty about it?"

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

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

"Freak, you are the limit."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes: buck up!" commanded Rumbold.

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

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

CHAPTER II

THE FIRST FREAK

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

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

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

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

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

"You got left behind?"

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

"Why?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(2) Whose syntax was shaky.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally the likeness was completed and presented.

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

The Freak meekly set to work again.

Then came the inevitable question.

"What's her name?"

The artist considered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Where that cow going?"

"Cambridge," answered The Freak after consideration.

"Next one?"

"London."

"Next one?"

Freak thought again.

"Grandwich," he said.

The round face puckered.

"Not like it. Anuvver place!"

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

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

"Where that one going?" she enquired.

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

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

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

"Rather."

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

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

"But--"

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

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

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

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

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

"Tickets, please!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Welwyn began to feel in his pockets.

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

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

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

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

"Let me look!"

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

The collector reappeared.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER III

IO SATURNALIA!

Presently my turn came.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Freak's repartee was to offer me a cigarette.

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

"Who?"

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

I apologised.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Go ahead!" sighed my friend.

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

The Freak became suddenly serious.

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

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

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

"Kill it," I said simply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Wickham summed up the situation.

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

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

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

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

"A Highlander?" I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This time Jebson found his tongue.

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

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

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

Then suddenly Dicky laughed.

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

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

Dicky continued:--

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

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

But Dicky would have none of it.

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

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

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

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

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

After that we played "Nuts in May."

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

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

"Swing, swing, together,"

we roared,

"With your bodies between your--"

Crash!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, sir," said the man.

"Who is it?"

"Mr. Sandeman, sir."

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

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

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

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

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

"I am going to speak to Sandy."

"What for?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III

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

My meditations were interrupted by the voice of The Freak.

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

"Go home," said I, without hesitation.

"How?"

"Straight on: this passage must lead somewhere."

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

"I can't remember; but--"

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

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

The podgy man addressed us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Interpret, old soul!"

I rose miserably to my feet.

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

Which was rather good, I think.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This announcement was greeted with a stony silence.

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

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

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

"Le facteur, comment il apporte les lettres!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

————

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

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

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

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

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

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

"A wedding," replied Dicky unexpectedly.

"Great Scott! Yours?"

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

"The girl of the photograph?"

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

My romantic friend sighed comfortably, and concluded:--

"I have promised to be best man."

"You?"

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

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

BOOK TWO

A BLIND ALLEY

CHAPTER IV

TRAVELS WITH A FIRST RESERVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No."

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

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

I was greeted with a friendly smile.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I apologised again.

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, they are your host and hostess."

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

"Then Dicky."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And he never told you he was engaged?"

I shook my head apologetically.

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

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

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

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

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

"Have they been engaged long?" I asked.

"About a month."

"Where did he come across her?"

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

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

Miss Damer nodded her small wise head.

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

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

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

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

I apologised, and repeated the question.

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

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

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

Miss Damer's eyes met mine with perfect frankness.

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

"You mean--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Not now!" I replied.

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

"That is much better!" she remarked approvingly.

CHAPTER V

VERY ODIOUS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And will shortly take place, I suppose?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I agreed, and we knocked out our pipes.

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

I told him.

We were late for dinner.

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

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

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

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

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

Dicky nodded appreciatively.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

————

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

CHAPTER VI

FORBIDDEN FRUIT--A DIGRESSION

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

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

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

Briefly, the facts of the case were these.

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

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

I assured her that it was no trouble.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She turned away. A low tremulous sigh escaped her.

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

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

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

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

I could, and did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Constance, dear child!" she murmured.

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

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

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

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

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

I inflated my lungs, and replied fortissimo:--

"Plumstone!"

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

CHAPTER VII

UNEARNED INCREMENT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I changed the subject.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Miss Beverley handed him five shillings.

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

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

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

Dicky laughed.

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

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

Dicky grinned.

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

"Did n't you?" I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What is your tip, Connie?"

Miss Damer scanned her paper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suddenly a bell rang.

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

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

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

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

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

"So I perceive."

"You poor man!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Who?"

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

But Miss Damer was not listening.

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

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

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

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

"Come this way," commanded Miss Damer.

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

At our approach he raised his head listlessly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then she rejoined me, and we walked on.

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

Again Miss Damer was not attending.

"Poor Lively!" she said softly.

There were tears in her eyes.

CHAPTER VIII

A RELAPSE

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

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

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

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

Dicky nodded.

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

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

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

I admitted briefly that this was so.

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

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

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

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

But Miss Damer was nowhere to be seen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This was an obvious poser for my friend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Malvolio."

"Did you back him?" I enquired loudly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I stopped short and gazed at her.

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

Miss Damer nodded brightly.

"Yes," she said.

"You backed Malvolio--that outsider?"

Miss Damer smiled seraphically. "Yes."

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

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

"And he gave you Malvolio?"

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

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

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

Presently Dicky rejoined us.

"Collected your winnings?" I enquired.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Maxwellton's braes are bonny,

Where early falls the dew--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Like dew on the gowans lying

Is the fall of her fairy feet,

And like winds in summer sighing

Her voice is low and sweet.

Her voice is low and sweet,

And she's all the world to me;

And for bonnie Annie Laurie--"

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

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

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

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

"Go on! Be a man!"

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

"Ladies and gentlemen!" he shouted.

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

But The Freak continued:--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(1) Alcoholic excess.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"CHORUS ONCE MORE, PLEASE, GENTLEMEN!"

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

"Beer, Beer, glorious Beer!

Fill yourself right up to here!

(Illustrative gesture.)

Take a good deal of it,

Make a good meal of it--"

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

————

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

Dicky seized this opportunity to conclude his performance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He held out his hand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER IX

THE ONLY WAY OUT

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

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

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

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

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

Dicky pondered, and finally summed up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This was quite a new Dicky to me.

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

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

"Quixotic," I amended.

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

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

"What?"

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

"What do you mean?"

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

Dicky nodded comprehendingly.

"Proceed, Sherlock," he said.

"To whom was she writing?" I enquired.

Dicky thought.

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

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

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

"You will get your letter to-night."

Dicky looked doubtful.

"Where? When?" he asked.

"That's it. Where and when?"

Dicky pondered.

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

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

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

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

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

We bore the letter back to the billiard-room.

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

He began to unfold the crackling document.

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER X

STILL AT LARGE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The chat commenced forthwith.

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

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

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

"Absolutely," replied Dicky courageously.

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

"Now tell me, what was it?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It was clavicle," he said solemnly.

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

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

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

"You mean Sir Herbert?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mrs. Botley-Markham frankly gaped.

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

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

The outraged parent turned upon him.

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

"It was nearly dry," said Dicky soothingly.

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

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

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

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

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

"Fourteen point eight," he said promptly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How pleased the Stantons will be!"

"Indeed, yes!" replied The Freak enthusiastically.

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

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

"Where?" asked Mrs. Botley-Markham.

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

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

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

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

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

"Do you mean Isobel?"

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

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

The Freak wagged his head gloomily.

"No; a weak strain, I fear."

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

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

"No. Why should it?"

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

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

Then Isobel and Gipsy were sisters. I knew it!

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

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

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

The Freak and I resumed our seats.

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XI

THE FIRST TURNING TO THE RIGHT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BOOK THREE

THE RIGHT ROAD

NOTE

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

CHAPTER XII

MICE AND MEN

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

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

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

"Is he awake?"

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

"Then ring for tea, dear."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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