THE PRINCIPAL GIRL

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

MRS. FITZ
ARAMINTA
FORTUNE
WILLIAM JORDAN, JUNIOR
HENRY NORTHCOTE
BROKE OF COVENDEN
MISTRESS
DOROTHY MARVIN
etc., etc.

THE
PRINCIPAL GIRL

BY

J. C. SNAITH

NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1912

Copyright, 1912, by
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
New York

All Rights Reserved

CONTENTS

THE PRINCIPAL GIRL

CHAPTER I
A GREAT PROCONSUL; AND OTHER PHENOMENA

The great Proconsul stood on one of Messrs. Maple’s best hearthrugs in Grosvenor Square. A typical payer of the super-tax, a pink and prosperous gentleman in a morning coat and striped trousers, his appearance had long commanded the admiration of his country.

He had not ruled the teeming millions of the Ganges, although the strength of his digestion and his absence of imagination would at any time have enabled him to do so. But for a period of nine weeks he had been the Resident of Barataria North-West; and partly for that reason and partly for a reason even more cogent, he had the distinction of being the last peer created by Mr. Vandeleur’s last government.

The world is familiar with Sir William Richmond’s fine portrait of Walter Augustus, first Baron Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth now, on loan at the National Portrait Gallery. In this the national asset appears as he encountered his Sovereign in knee breeches, silk stockings, shoe buckles and other regalia.

Competent judges consider it an excellent likeness, and of course quite unexceptionable as a work of art. It is the portrait of a happily endowed Englishman in his manly prime, to which the nation at large is able to refer between the hours of ten and four, Fridays excepted.

Eton, Balliol, diplomacy, private means, together with various places of emolument under the Crown, had each a share in raising Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth to his elevation. A first baron certainly, but not a mushroom growth. The honors of a grateful nation had come to him mainly because he had not been able to avoid them. From early youth he had been ranged with those who always do the right thing at the right time in the right way. He had always hit the bull’s-eye so exactly in the centre that public regard had had to strive to keep pace with his progress.

Up till the age of one-and-thirty, Shelmerdine—not then of Potterhanworth—had like humbler mortals just a sporting chance of getting off the target. But at the age of thirty-one he married. By that judicious action he forfeited any little chance he may have had of dying an obscure, private individual.

Sociologists differ as to what is the most portentous phenomenon of the age in which we dwell, but there is a body of the well-informed which awards the palm unhesitatingly to that amiable institution, the Suffolk Colthurst.

The world is under great obligations to this interesting representative of the higher mammalia. The upper reaches of Theology are whitened with the bones of the Suffolk Colthurst. It makes an almost ideal Under-Secretary, it is always so smooth-spoken and well-brushed; it makes a most excellent Judge; there is no place of emolument it is not fitted to grace; and in the unlikely event of a doubt invading your mind as to whether the particular schoolmaster will be inducted to the vacant see of Wincanton, you have only to look up which branch it was of the Suffolk Colthursts into which he married, and at what period of his life he married her.

What would be the Established Order without the Colthurst of Suffolk? What would be the Navy and Army, Law and Medicine, Parliament itself, Art—and yes, gentlemen!—Letters, without the Colthurst of Suffolk?

It is an error, however, to suppose that this pleasant phenomenon confines itself to one little corner of the globe. The Colthurst is indigenous to Suffolk, but for generations there has been quite a colony settled in Kent. There is also the world-famous Scotch variety, and of late traces of the Suffolk Colthurst have been found in America. The Transatlantic mind, never slow at diagnosis, and with its trick of masterful and telling speech, has already ventured to define its creed. In America the creed of the Suffolk Colthurst has been defined as the Art of Getting There with Both Feet.

Please do not assume that there is anything ignoble about the Colthurst of Suffolk. Quite the contrary. It has been laid down as a general principle that the Suffolk Colthurst never makes money but always marries it. That is not to say, of course, that a Suffolk Colthurst has never been known to make money, because such a statement, however pleasant, would be in excess of the truth. But the Suffolk Colthurst, pur sang, sets less store by the making of money than by the spending of money in the way that shows it has always had money to spend.

As a matter of fact it always has had money to spend. As soon as banking, brewing, land-jobbing, share-broking, and other polite arts began to flourish in Suffolk, the Colthurst began to marry and to give in marriage. And to this day if you enter a small private bank in a quiet cathedral city, and you take the trouble to make inquiries, you are quite likely to learn that the local Suffolk Colthurst has the chief proprietary interest in the concern. The family has always been partial to banking. It is such an eminently sensible practice to lend money at double the rate at which you borrow it; and it has the additional advantage that you can’t call it Trade.

Our immediate business, however, is with the blameless gentleman who at the age of one-and-thirty was accepted in marriage by a charming representative of the genus, and at the age of nine-and-fifty was made a peer by Mr. Vandeleur’s government, immediately antecedent to its total and permanent eclipse.

To return, then, to Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth. For nearly an hour had he occupied the tasteful hearthrug provided by Messrs. Maple. A frown chequered his serene front and several times he had recourse to the Leading Morning Journal which lay open on his writing-table at page four.

At the top of the third column was a communication dated from the Helicon Club, S. W. It was signed by himself and had been crowned with the glory of the largest type you could have without having to pay for it. Immediately below, in type equally glorious, were communications veiled in the discreet anonymity of “A Lover of Animals” and “Verax.”

Discreet anonymity is disagreeable as a rule. The fact was the great Proconsul was in the act of rendering a signal service to the Public; and in consequence the Public did not thank him for his interference. To be sure, it was the first time in his life that he had been guilty of such an indiscretion. This was his first single-handed attempt to render a service to society at large; and, as was only to be expected, society at large was not making itself very pleasant about it.

There could be no doubt that at this moment the great Proconsul was the most unpopular man in London. Old ladies in ermine tippets scowled at him as he passed along Park Lane; and a hostess of mark, famous for her wealth and her humanity, had already crossed him out of her dinner list.

CHAPTER II
TOUCHES UPON A MATTER OF GRAVE PUBLIC
IMPORTANCE

Of what crime, do you suppose, has S. of P. been guilty? It was merely that in a public print he had ventured to ask why the payment of the nominal sum of seven and sixpence per annum conferred upon the dogs of London certain privileges in respect of its pavements which society at large, for some little time past, has ceased to claim.

The resources of civilization were ranged already against Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth. Nice-minded women in point lace refused to meet the self-constituted champion of public amenity; the black-velveted mistresses of the Flossies and the Fidos thought the state of his mind must be unpleasant; he was an object of contumely where all that was fair and of good report held sway in the life of the metropolis.

It was a pretty quarrel, and both sides were sustaining it with spirit. The Pro-Darlings, with Verax and a Lover of Animals at their head, had rejoined with mannerly vituperation to the polished sarcasm of the Anti-Darlings. What is your remedy? had inquired the Friends of Fido with a rather obvious sneer. Banish the dumb creation from the pavements of great cities, had replied Inspired Commonsense.

And for our own poor part, Commissioners of the Office of Works, we think that reply is worth a statue.

Verax was making merry though at the expense of a public ornament, and the occupant of Messrs. Maple’s best hearthrug, who remembered Verax perfectly well as a grubby infant at his private school, had already formed the pious resolve of putting the fear of God into Verax.

S. of P., having pondered long, sat down at his writing-table; dipped his quill with a certain inherent natural grandeur, and started out on his crushing reply:—“Sir, I have read with amazement the diatribe against my humble and unworthy self which appears under the signature of Verax, to which you have extended the generous hospitality of your columns.”

At this point S. of P. bit his quill with such violence that a large blot was shaken from the end of it upon the monogram which decorated the communication.

“The problem as I envisage it”—S. of P. took a small gold pencil out of his waistcoat pocket and made a note on his blotting pad. “The problem as I envisage it”—but the problem that he did envisage was the Suffolk Colthurst, who at that moment entered the room.

The Suffolk Colthurst was large and blonde—so large and so blonde that to a profane mind she rather conveyed the suggestion of a particularly well-grown cauliflower.

“Wally, please, don’t let me spoil your morning. Don’t let me interrupt you, please.”

The voice of the Suffolk Colthurst was really quite agreeable, although a little light in the upper register. You might even call it flutelike if you cared to indulge in metaphor.

“Not at all, Agatha,” said S. of P. with excellent chest resonance. “I am merely envisaging the problem of the—ah—”

“Don’t, Wally.” The voice of the Suffolk Colthurst was perhaps a shade less flutelike if history really calls for these nuances. “You are making yourself ridiculous. Please drop the subject.”

“No, Agatha.” The sun setting over Africa might be compared to the brow of the great Proconsul. “Man in The Thunderer most impertinent. Signs himself Verax. Suspect it’s that fellow—”

“Wally.” The Suffolk Colthurst roared here a little less gently than usual. “I will not uphold you! Everybody thinks it is most injudicious.”

“Everybody, Agatha?”

“Paul and Millicent consider—”

“Public health, Agatha, public dec—”

“Wally, once for all, I absolutely refuse to discuss the subject. I will not have you make yourself ridiculous.”

The Suffolk Colthurst, with an approximation to natural majesty, put on a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses which were suspended round her neck by a cord, and took the Leading Morning Journal off the First Baron’s table.

“Impertinent, certainly. Sarcasm, I suppose.”

“Suspect it’s that fellow Huffham, because I declined to propose him under Rule Two.”

“Certainly you do appear to have laid yourself open, but the letter is most ill-natured.”

“As though I should be likely to propose him. Known the man all my life.”

The Suffolk Colthurst gathered her majestic inches for the ultimatum.

“Wally, you must listen to me. This matter has already gone too far. Let it drop. It is the first time I have known you go out of your way to make yourself ridiculous.”

“Public health, Agatha, public decency.”

“Leave it to the County Council.”

“They are not competent to envisage such a problem as this. And I am determined, in the face of that letter—”

“Paul says that no man can afford to make himself a public laughing-stock.”

“Paul’s a coward.”

“Paul says they are certain to make you an Apostle.”

“Eh?”

“If you don’t make a fool of yourself.”

“Paul said that! Why, pray, should they make me an Apostle?”

“Because there’s nobody else; and people will say the race has already passed its zenith if the vacancy is not filled up at once.”

“I will say this for Paul—he is well-informed as a rule.”

“Wait, Wally, until you are an Apostle.”

“Very well then, with the greatest possible reluctance I yield the point for the present. Verax shall wait until—Tell me, Agatha, what have you to say to me?”

The good, the noble—forgive our fervor, O ye Liberal organs of opinion, even if your bosoms be not thrilled by this whole-souled devotion to the public weal—the good and noble Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth flung the offending print upon Messrs. Maple’s expensive carpet in a sudden uncontrollable access of private pique.

“Agatha.” The accents of the great Proconsul were choked with emotion. “Tell me, Agatha, what you have to say to me?”

“Wally,” said the Suffolk Colthurst, “what I have to say to you is this.”

CHAPTER III
IS DOMESTIC IN THE MAIN, BUT WE HOPE
NOT UNWORTHY OF A GREAT CONSTITUTIONAL
STATESMAN

When you are up against a serious anticlimax it is a golden rule to begin a fresh chapter.

The Suffolk Colthurst paused, and sat with a further access of natural majesty upon a chair Louis Quinze, supplied, like the hearthrug, by Tottenham Court Road.

“Wally, Philip has declined to come to the Queen’s Hall this afternoon to hear Busoni.”

Doing his best even in this dangerous anticlimax, S. of P. retrieved the Leading Morning Journal from the carpet, straightened out its crumpled folds with patient humility, laid it on the table, sat down in his own chair—Tottenham Court Road of the best period—put up his eyeglass—by Cary of Pall Mall, maker to the Admiralty—and, in the voice of one pronouncing a benediction, said, “Well, Agatha?”

“Actually declined. Tells me he’s engaged to a pantomime at Drury Lane.”

“Matter of taste, I suppose.”

“Taste, Wally! Dear Adela is coming, and I have taken such trouble to arrange this.”

The Proconsul showed a little perturbation.

“No accounting for taste, I presume. Why a man of his age, rising twenty-eight, should prefer—”

“Wally, it is very wrong, and you must speak to him. It is not kind to dear Adela. Please ring the bell.”

The Proconsul rang the bell, and a young and very good-looking footman attended the summons.

“Joseph,” said his mistress, “if Mr. Philip has not gone yet, tell him, please, that his father would like to see him.”

After a lapse of about five minutes, a young man sauntered into the library. He was a somewhat somber-looking young man in a chocolate-colored suiting.

“Good morning, Philip,” said the First Baron.

“Mornin’, father,” said the heir to the barony.

“Philip,” said the First Baron, “your mother tells me that you have declined to accompany her and Adela Rocklaw to the Albert Hall this afternoon to hear Paderewski.”

The heir to the barony knitted the intellectual forehead that was his by inheritance.

“Not declined, you know, exactly. It’s a bit of a mix. I thought the concert was next Saturday.” Mr. Philip was a slow and rather heavy young man, but his air was quite sweet and humble, and not without a sort of tacit deference for both parents. “Fact is, I was keepin’ next Saturday.”

“Why not go this afternoon as you have got wrong in the date? Your mother has been at so much trouble, and I am sure Adela Rocklaw will be disappointed.”

“Unfortunately I’ve fixed up this other thing.”

“Engaged to a music hall, I understand.”

“Pantomime at Drury Lane,” said Philip the sombre.

“Quite so.” The Proconsul, like other great men, was slightly impatient of meticulous detail in affairs outside his orbit. “Hardly right, is it, to disappoint Adela Rocklaw, especially after your mother”—Mother, still mounted on the Louis Quinze, sat with eyelids lowered but very level—“has taken so much trouble? At least I, at your age, should not have thought so.”

Mr. Philip pondered a little.

“A bit awkward perhaps. I say, Mater, don’t you think you could fix up another day?”

The gaze of Mother grew a little less abstract at this invocation.

“Impossible, Phil-ipp”—the Rubens-Minerva countenance, whose ample chin was folded trebly in rolls of adipose tissue was a credit to the Governing Classes—“Dear Adela goes to High Cliff on Wednesday for the shooting.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” said Mr. Philip quite nicely and politely, “that I shall have to go to Drury Lane this afternoon.”

“Have to go, Phil-ipp!” Still ampler grew the Governing Classes. “It is really impossible in the circumstances.”

“What circumstances, Mater?”

“Dear Adela.”

“She won’t mind, if you explain. It’s like this, you see. Teddy Clapham has taken a box for his kids, and I promised ’em I’d be there—and you can’t go back on your word with kids, can you?”

“Why not, Phil-ipp?” inquired the Governing Classes.

“Sort of gives ’em wrong views about things, you know.”

“How absurd,” said Mother. “Much too sentimental about children nowadays. Telephone to Mr. Clapham and explain the circumstances. I am sure he will understand that as dear Adela is going to High Cliff on Wednesday—”

A cloud gathered on the brow of Philip.

“May be wrong, you know, Mater, but I really can’t go back on my word with kids. I promised ’em, you know, and that little Marge is a nailer, and she is only five.”

The statement, in spite of its sincerity, did not seem to carry conviction to either parent.

The heir to the barony was a dutiful young man; at least, in an age which has witnessed a somewhat alarming decline in parental authority, he passed as such. His deference, perhaps, was not of a type aggressively old-fashioned, but he honored his father and his mother.

“I’ll get a box for the ‘Chocolate Soldier’ on Monday if you and Adela will come, Mater, but I don’t see how I can throw over Teddy Clapham’s kids—five of ’em—toddlers—and they ain’t got a mother, you know.”

“Phil-ipp, this is ridiculous. And dear Adela will be so disappointed, and on Monday there is a reception at the Foreign Office.”

“You can go on afterwards.”

“But your father and I are engaged to dinner with the Saxmundhams.”

“Well, Mater, I’m sorry. I hope you’ll explain to Adela. Got mixed in the date and if it hadn’t been kids I really would in the circumstances—”

The door knob was now in the hand of the heir to the barony. Parthian bolts were launched at him, but he made good his escape.

“It’s a nuisance,” he muttered as he closed the door behind him, “but I really don’t see what’s to be done in the circumstances.”

In the entrance hall he put on his hat and was helped by Joseph into an overcoat with an astrachan collar; from the hall stand he took a whanghee cane with massive silver mountings, and sauntered forth pensively to his house of call, that was not very far from the corner of Hamilton Place.

Arrived at that desirable bourn, his first act was to ring up 00494 Wall.

“That you, Teddy? Have you told the kids to feed early to be in time for the risin’ of the curtain? Yes, I’ve bought the Bukit Rajahs. Think so? Yes, not a minute later than a quarter-past one.”

Replacing the receiver, the heir to the barony of Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth recruited exhausted nature with a whisky and apollinaris, and put forth from the chaste portals of the Button Club. Adventures were lying in wait for him, however.

As he rounded the corner into Piccadilly, a little unwarily, it must be confessed, he nearly collided with the Ne Plus Ultra of fashion in the person of a tall and decidedly smart young woman, in a rather tight black velvet hobble and a charming mutch with a small strip of white fur above the left eyelid.

CHAPTER IV
IN WHICH THE GENTLE READER HAS THE
HONOR OF AN INTRODUCTION TO THE
SEVENTH UNMARRIED DAUGHTER OF NOT
QUITE A HUNDRED EARLS

The Ne Plus Ultra had just achieved the feat of crossing from the Green Park in the charge of a quadruped of whom we are at a loss to furnish a description more explicit. How and why it had been allowed to escape a death by violence at the instance of the passing motor and other mechanically propelled vehicles was yet another of the dark secrets which must be left in the keeping of its Maker.

“Hulloa, Adela!”

Jamming the brakes hard on, the heir to the barony was just able to avert a forcible impact with the fearsome four-footed beast which measured eighteen inches and a quarter from the tip of its tail to the end of its muzzle.

“What is it, Adela? Win it in a raffle?”

The seventh unmarried daughter of not quite a hundred earls was a little inclined to stiffen at this freedom with an Honorable Mention at the Crystal Palace.

“It is a pure-bred rough-haired Himalayan Dust Spaniel, and they are very rare.”

“I hope so.”

This ill-timed remark did not seem to help the conversation. The seventh unmarried daughter of not quite a hundred earls—she was the daughter of only three earls really, although for that she cannot accept responsibility—tilted her chin to its most aristocratic angle and displayed considerable reserve of manner.

An eyelash, lengthy and sarcastic, flickered upon her cheek.

“Pure-bred rough-coated Himalayan Dust Spaniel,” said the heir to the barony. “Stick him in your muff, or you might lose him.”

“You are coming to the concert, aren’t you?” said the seventh unmarried daughter in a tone singularly detached and cool.

“No, I’m afraid,” said the heir to the barony. “Awfully sorry, Adela, but fact is I’ve got mixed in the day. Thought it was next Saturday.”

“Oh, really.”

“So I’ve promised five little kidlets I’d take ’em to the Pantomime at Drury Lane. You don’t mind, Adela, do you?—or I say, would you care to come? You’ll find it a deal more amusin’ than Paderewski. We’ve got a box, and there’ll be any amount of room. And you won’t need a chaperone with five kids and their nannas, and the Mater needn’t go to Kubelik then, because she hates all decent music worse than I do. Better come, Adela. Pantomime is awfully amusin’, and you’ll like Clapham if you haven’t met him—chap, you know, that married poor little Bridgit Brady.”

“Thanks,” said the young madam, “but I think I prefer Busoni.”

The heir to the barony was rather concerned by the tone of Miss Insolence.

“You aren’t rattled, are you, Adela?” said he. “I’ve made a horrid mess of it, and I’m to blame and all that, but you can’t go back on your word with kids, can you? If you come I’m sure you’ll like it, and that little Marge is a nailer, and she is only five.”

The long-lashed orb from beneath the charming mutch showed very cold and blue.

“Thanks, but I think I prefer Busoni. Come, Fritz.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” said the penitent heir; and the rather tight hobble and the charming mutch and the pure-bred Himalayan dust spaniel moved round the corner of Hamilton Place in review order.

Humbled and undone, the heir to the barony sauntered up the street, past the Cavalry, past the Savile and past the Bath, until, broken in spirit he stayed his course before the chocolate shop of B. Venoist.

“She’s as cross as two sticks,” sighed the heir to the barony, as he gazed in at the window. “Always was a muddlin’ fool—but you can’t go back on your word with kids, can you? Now I must be careful which sort I choose. I expect that sort in pink boxes will make ’em as sick as Monday mornin’.”

In this opinion, however, B. Venoist did not concur. He assured the heir to the barony that it was exactly the same quality as that supplied to Buckingham Palace, The Durdans, High Cliff Castle and Eaton Hall.

“If that is so,” said the heir to the barony, “I think I’ll risk a box.” “Looks pretty poisonous,” he added—although not to B. Venoist.

“You’ll find that all right, sir,” said B. Venoist. “Precisely the same quality as supplied to York Cottage.”

“I’m glad o’ that,” said the heir to the barony, disbursing a sum in gold and dangling a large but neat white paper parcel from his index finger.

“Cross as two sticks,” mused the stricken young man, putting forth from the chocolate shop of B. Venoist, and bestowing a nod in passing upon a choice light blue striped necktie.

By some odd association of ideas this article of attire was responsible for his course being stayed before his favorite shop window a little farther along the street: to wit, of Mr. Thomas Ling, whose neckties in the opinion of some are as nice as any in London.

“Have you an Old Etonian Association necktie?” he asked of Mr. Thomas Ling, although he knew quite well that Mr. Thomas Ling had, and a Ramblers’ also if he had required it.

“The narrow or the broad, sir?” said Mr. Thomas Ling.

“The broad,” said the heir to the barony; but at Mr. Thomas Ling’s look of frank incredulity, he corrected it to “the narrow.”

Armed with the narrow, the heir to the barony left the shop of Mr. Thomas Ling poorer by the sum of five and sixpence, and also by a box of the best assorted chocolates from B. Venoist which he had the misfortune to leave upon the counter.

“Cross as two sticks,” muttered the stricken young man as he reached the very end of the celebrated thoroughfare, and gazed an instant into the window of Messrs. Wan & Sedgar to see how their famous annual winter sale was getting on in the absence of the winter.

The mind of the heir to the barony hovered not unpleasantly, for all its unhappiness, over a peculiarly chaste display of silk and woolen pajamas, three pairs for two guineas, guaranteed unshrinkable, when with a shock he awoke to the fact that he was no longer the proud possessor of a box of the best assorted chocolates from B. Venoist.

“I’m all to pieces this mornin’,” registered the vain young man on the inner tablets of his nature. Thereupon he took out his watch, a gold hunting repeater, a present from his mother when he came of age, and in a succinct form apostrophized his Maker.

“My God! nine minutes to one and I’ve got to collect the kids from Eaton Place and the bally show begins at one-thirty. Here, I say!”

The heir to the barony hailed a passing taxi.

“Call at Ling’s up on the right, and then drive like the devil to 300 Eaton Place.”

“Right you are, sir,” said the driver of the taxi, in such flagrant contravention of the spirit of the Public Vehicles Act 9 Edwardus VII Cap III that we much regret being unable to remember his number.

It was the work of two minutes for the heir to the barony to retrieve the box of best assorted chocolates from the custody of Mr. Thomas Ling up on the right, and then the driver of the taxi sat down in the saddle and was just proceeding to let her out a bit, in accordance with instructions, when Constable X held him up peremptorily at the point where Bond Street converges upon B. Venoist. Not, however, we are sorry to say, in order to take the number of this wicked chauffeur, engaged in breaking an Act of Parliament for purposes of private emolument, but merely to enable an old lady in a stole of black mink and a black hat with white trimmings, together with a Pekinese sleeve dog, lately the property of the Empress of China, to cross the street and buy a box of water colors for her youngest nephew.

Certainly she was a very dear old lady; but the heir to the barony cursed her bitterly, as, gold hunting repeater in hand, he vowed that the kids would not be in time for the rising of the curtain. Part of his blame overflowed upon the head of Constable X; and we ourselves concur in this, because we certainly think that, if stop the traffic he must, it behooved him, as the appointed guardian of the public peace, to take the number of this guilty chauffeur.

As it was, the driver of the taxi, owing to this dereliction of duty upon the part of Constable X—a kind man certainly, and about to become a sergeant—sat down again in the saddle and proceeded to let her out a bit further. So that anon, swinging along that perilous place where four-and-twenty metropolitan ways converge, yclept Hyde Park Corner, he came within an ace of running down a perfectly blameless young man in an old bowler hat and a reach-me-down, the author of this narrative, who was on his way to consult with his respected publisher as to whether a work of ripe philosophy would do as well in the autumn as in the spring.

The young man in the old bowler hat—old but good of its kind, purchased of Mr. Lock in the street of Saint James on the strength of “the success of the spring season” (for the reach-me-down no defense is offered)—the young man in the old bowler hat stepped back on to the pavement with as much agility as an old footballer’s knee would permit, and cursed the occupant of the taxi by all his gods for a bloated plutocrat, and in the unworthy spirit of revenge vowed to make him the hero of his very next novel.

A cruel revenge, but not, we think, unjustified. Idle rich young fellow—toiled not, neither did he spin—nursing a gold hunting repeater in a coat with an astrachan collar and one of Messrs. Scott’s latest—with a red face and a suspicion of fur upon the upper lip—taking five kids who had lost their mother to the pantomime without his lunch—how dare he run down a true pillar of democracy at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour!

At nine minutes past one by the gold hunting repeater, in the middle of Victoria Street, the hard thought occurred to the young man that he would get no lunch. Still, let us not overdo our regard for his heroism. He had not finished his breakfast until something after eleven, and his breakfast had consisted of three devilled kidneys on toast, a plate of porridge, a grilled sole, muffins, marmalade and fruit ad libitum, but still the young chap was undoubtedly going to miss his luncheon.

At twelve minutes past one by the gold hunting repeater, the heir to the barony was acclaimed in triumph from the threshold of Number 300 Eaton Place by five kids and their nannas, who were beginning almost to fear that Uncle Phil had forgotten to call for ’em.

“It is only Aunty Cathy that forgets,” said Marge, who, considering that at present she is only five, has excellent powers of observation. “Uncle Phil never forgets nothink.”

Shrill cheers greeted the idle, rich young fellow. Blow, blow thy whistle, Butler. Let us have another taxi up at once. Marge and Timothy and Alice Clara in taxi the first with Uncle Phil; Nannas Helen and Lucy with Dick and the Babe in taxi the second.

“Must be at Drury Lane,” said Uncle Phil to Messieurs les Chauffeurs, “before the risin’ of the curtain at one-thirty.”

Those grim evil-doers nodded darkly, and away they tootle-tootled round the corner into the Buckingham Palace Road. One fourteen, said the gold hunting repeater. Bar accidents, we shall do it on our heads.

“Oh, Uncle Phil,” said Marge, “we’ve forgotten Daddy.”

“Comin’ on from the city,” said Uncle Phil.

CHAPTER V
IN WHICH THE GENTLE READER IS TAKEN
TO THE PANTOMIME IN THE COMPANY OF
MARGE AND TIMOTHY AND ALICE CLARA
AND DICK AND THE BABE AND HELEN
AND LUCY NANNA, AND WE HOPE YOU’LL
ENJOY IT AS MUCH AS THEY DID

The door of Marge’s taxi was opened by a benevolent bewhiskered policeman, who, being himself a family man, lifted her out as if he was pleased to see her. Uncle Phil then handed out Timothy and Alice Clara; and then he got out himself and performed an action which we are forced to view with regret. He opened the little purse which he kept in the pocket opposite to the gold hunting repeater, and presented a whole “bar” to the member of the criminal classes whose number we have so unfortunately omitted to take. And that dark-visaged misdemeanant, who, if every man had had his due would have had the blood of half the West End of London on what he was pleased to call his conscience, spat for luck on his guilty emolument when no one was looking, and thought of the new hat he would be able to buy the missus. At least we hope he did, although Mr. G-lsw-rthy rather has his doubts.

Shoals of other kids were converging upon the portals of Drury; kids in taxis, kids in growlers, kids on foot. It was 1:28, and all were frightfully anxious to be in their places by the time the curtain—the real, not the fireproof curtain—went up. Timothy and Alice Clara were inclined to hustle round a bit, but Marge had such implicit faith in Uncle Phil that to her mind hustling was not called for and was therefore unladylike.

In justice to Marge, it is only fair to say that her faith in Uncle Phil was justified. Crowds of arrivals were in the vestibules; kids with their fathers, kids with their mothers, kids with their nannas, kids with their maiden aunts. But straight as a die Uncle Phil cut out a course for his convoy. In double file his party of seven—five kids and two quite nice-looking nannas—followed in the wake of his astrachan collar and whanghee cane with silver mountings. At 1:29 Marge was seated in Box B, next to the stage and on a level with the dress circle. Timothy and Alice Clara and Dick and the Babe were seated beside her—certainly a great triumph for all concerned, including the criminal eating his dinner out of his handkerchief within a stone’s throw of the editorial office of the Spectator.

Uncle Phil bought a programme and paid a shilling for it, although sixpence was the price.

“Cinderella, I see. Rippin’.”

Marge knew it was Cinderella. She had dreamed that it was. Besides all the best pantomimes are Cinderella. But where was Daddy? Why didn’t he make haste? There was Mr. Lover—loud applause—the orchestra was tuning up. Oh, why didn’t Daddy—

Oh, joy! Oh, providence! Daddy came into Box B just as Marge was inquiring for him, in his tall hat, fresh from Mincing Lane. A rather tired and sad-looking Daddy, a little hollow in the cheeks and with rings under his eyes, although fortunately Marge didn’t notice them. But as soon as he caught sight of the heir to the barony, which his other name is Uncle Phil, a smile seemed to come right over him.

“Damned good of you, old boy,” he said, as he hung up his tall hat beside the very latest performance on the part of Messrs. Scott. “Ungodly hour to begin,” said Daddy. “Hope you got your lunch all right.”

“Ra-ther,” said Uncle Phil. “You?”

“Oh, ye-es.”

We know what Uncle Phil is, and we are afraid we must say the same of Father.

But Mr. Lover is already under way with his overture.

And then Father asked Marge if she could see, and if Timothy could see, and was the Babe comfortable, and other well-meaning but superfluous questions, almost as it were to convey a sense of his importance. And there was the curtain actually going up, on a field of new-mown hay. It was magnificent, but, with all respect to Mr. Hollins, the scent of the hay was only just able to get across the footlights. But don’t let Mr. Hollins take it to heart, because Marge, quite one of the most important people in all his noble theater, was able to smell the scent of the new-mown hay all right.

“A toppin’ good chorus,” said Uncle Phil.

Put that plume in your cap, Mr. Hollins, because no young man of his years in London has had more theatrical experience than the heir to the barony. So lately as the Monday previous he had made his forty-sixth appearance at Our Miss Gibbs. Hunting chorus, too, though what the followers of the chase were doing in a field of new-mown hay—but after all, what’s the use of being in Arcady if you can’t have things exactly as you want ’em?

Dick and the Babe fairly crowed with pleasure. Helen Nanna hoped they would restrain themselves, and whispered to Lucy Nanna that never had she seen anything like it. And while she was whispering this truth to Lucy Nanna there came a roar from the house, and an oldish, middle-aged person sauntered into the field of new-mown hay, immediately tripped over herself, and assured all whom it might concern that she was a perfect lady. She then proceeded to sing a song about a gentleman of the name of Kelly.

The enthusiasm that was caused by her song and behavior would be vain to describe.

“Chap’s a genius,” said Father. “Who is he?”

“Wilkie Bard, of course,” said Uncle Phil.

“Has anybody here seen Kelly?” inquired the old lady. It appeared that every single person there, including the occupants of Box B, either had seen or hoped to see Kelly.

And then quite suddenly the lights went out, the orchestra rolled in semi-darkness, something happened to the scenery, the lights went up again, and there was a kitchen in the ancestral halls of Baron de No-Cash.

Again crowed the Babe with pleasure, and he had a perfect right to do so; because it was really a remarkable sort of a kitchen, larger by far than the one in Eaton Place where cook kept the marmalade; though, doubtless, what most intrigued the fancy of the Babe was the enormous fireplace which had accommodation for a turnspit and at least twenty-four persons.

In the temporary absence of any single human individual the turnspit had the stage all to itself. This was a subtle device on the part of the management. An air of rapt expectation enfolded the great audience, as of something going to happen.

And something did.

A perfect roar of enthusiasm heralded the happening of the something. Now what do you suppose it was? Nothing less than the arrival of the Principal Girl.

She just wandered in, no-how as it were, with a broom in her hand and her skirt in tatters, and a red cap over her curls and her feet in slippers. She was merely the maid of all work in the kitchen of the Baron de No-Cash, a downtrodden creature according to legend and according to the libretto, but you would hardly have thought so, since she had to stand bowing for two whole minutes over her broom handle before she was allowed to proceed with the business of life.

The roar reverberated from the roof of the gallery to the floor of the pit. Kids in boxes, kids in stalls, kids in the dress circle, and an infant in arms at the back of the pit all did their best; and responsible middle-aged gentlemen from the Kaffir Circus and the Rubber Market, a grandee from the Home Department, a judge of the Court of King’s Bench, a solicitor who had applied the money of his clients to his own purposes, although nobody had found him out at present, a substantial family from Hammersmith, the proprietor of a flourishing Brixton laundry, whose eldest girl was in the ballet, an old charwoman in the front row of the gods, and a thousand and one other heterogeneous elements whom we are only able to refer to in the most general terms, assisted Marge and Timothy and Alice Clara, and Dick and the Babe to make the welkin behave frightfully foolish, over a rather plain-looking girl of twenty-four who had to keep bowing over her broom handle before she could get on with the business of life.

And when at last she was able to get on with the business of life, what do you suppose it was? Why, to sing, of course, “Come with me to Arcadee.” What in the world else do you suppose her business in life could be?

A little well-timed assistance from Mr. Lover, which she really didn’t require, and away she soared straight up through the middle register, and at the same moment something seemed to go ping, ping, beneath the knitted waistcoat of chocolate worsted of the heir to the barony, standing at the back of Box B by the side of Father.

“Come with me to Arcadee.”

Uncle Phil accepted her invitation without the slightest hesitation—we are not so sure as we should like to be about Father—but Nannas Helen and Lucy, and Marge and the rest of ’em, indeed an overwhelming majority of that crowded and representative assembly, went straight to Arcadee with that rather plain young woman who was suffering from a cold in the head.

We call her plain as much out of deference to Mr. G-lsw-rthy, and Mr. H. G. W-lls and Mr. Arnold B-nn-tt as any other reason we can think of. Because in the opinion of the heir to the barony she was already enshrined as “a nailer,” and no girl absolutely and unmistakably plain could possibly have been granted the highest of all diplomas by one of such a ripe experience of all phases and degrees of womanhood.

No, Mr. G-lsw-rthy, perhaps not a patrician beauty, like the daughter of whom we wot, still plain is not the word exactly. Can you call any young woman plain, who, attired in her nondescript manner, hypnotizes the whole of Drury with her tiny handkerchief edged with lace, every time she plucks it out of her tatterdemalia?

Plain?—no, sir, decidedly not. A plain girl could never hypnotize the whole of Drury with her handkerchief, including an austere old gentleman in the second row of the stalls, allowing a question of taxed costs to stand over till the following Tuesday. Plain, Mr. G-lsw-rthy!—we at least, and the heir to the barony are forced to dissent.

“She’s a nailer. What’s her name?” said Uncle Phil.

Father lowered his sombre eyes, and shook his head at Uncle Philip. He had not gone to Arcadee with the Principal Girl, you see. Upon a day another Principal Girl had lured him thither, and Father had had to come back again, and Father was feeling that he wanted never to go any more to Arcadee—except with the Principal, Principal Girl.

Helen Nanna, a good, kind girl and high up in the class at Old Dame Nature’s Select Academy for Young Ladies, handed the programme to Uncle Philip, who perused the same as soon as the vibrations under the chocolate waistcoat would allow him to do so.

“Birdie Brightwing—no, she’s Prince Charming, and this is Cinderella. Mary Caspar is Cinderella.”

Uncle Philip, for all his ripe experience, had never heard of Miss Caspar, and Father hadn’t either. Never been seen at the Gaiety or the Lyric. No wonder a star had had to be placed by the Management opposite the name of Miss Caspar to denote an explanatory footnote at the bottom of the programme.

“By special arrangement with the Royal Italian Opera House, Blackhampton.”

Ha! that explained it. Deep minds were in this. Merely one more stroke of genius on the part of Mr. Hollins. When Florence de Vere had broken her engagement at the eleventh hour in order to take part in the Beauchamp Season, to the dismay of all that was best in the life of the metropolis, what did Mr. Hollins do? Sit down and twiddle his thumbs, did he? Not so, my masters. He called for his coat with the beaver collar, and his new bowler hat from Mr. Lock, and he took a first-class ticket for the Royal Italian Opera House, Blackhampton.

“Not for the King of England, not me,” said the Lessee and Manager haughtily. “We open on Boxin’ Night with Aladdin, and the bills are printed.”

Oh, vain Lessee! Little he recked of the Napoleonic faculty of Mr. Hollins in combination with his cheque-book. Meetings of indignation were held in Blackhampton and its environs, but after all, the loss of the famous midland city was the gain of the great metropolis.

Miss Caspar had come, had been seen, had overcome.

“’Core!” roared the bloods in the stalls.

“’Core!” echoed the cads in the pit.

“’Core!” cried the young ladies in the dress circle.

“’Core!” yelled the members of nature’s nobility, cheek by jowl with the magnificent ceiling.

Mary Caspar’s cold was really frightful, but she couldn’t help herself, poor girl. Once more she took ’em all to Arcadee—Marge and Timothy and Alice Clara and Dick and the Babe and Helen and Lucy Nanna and certainly Uncle Phil. As for poor Father, he leaned back against the wall with his hands in his pockets, and almost wished he hadn’t come. There was something about that girl taking ’em all to Arcadee that somehow—no, dash it all, he must learn to keep that upper lip a bit stiffer.

“’Core!” shouted Father—but so feebly that nobody heard him.

“Only a hundred a week,” said Mr. Hollins in the ear of the Chairman of the Syndicate in the box below. “Dirt cheap.”

“Sign her for five years at double the salary,” said the Chairman of the Syndicate in the ear of the famous manager.

“Nothing like a provincial training,” said Mr. Hollins. “Teaches ’em how to get right home to the heart of the people.”

“’Core!” roared the Chairman of the Syndicate.

“Absolute nailer,” said Uncle Phil.

And then her acting! It was so perfectly easy and natural that it really didn’t seem like acting at all. Her speaking voice, for all that it hurt her so, was clear and low and quite agreeable; and wiser men than Uncle Phil have thought that such a voice as that is the greatest charm in any young woman. Not quite so ultra-refined perhaps as that of the seventh unmarried daughter of not quite a hundred earls; not quite so much torture was inflicted upon the letter “o,” that honest vocable. Icy tones had been Adela’s that morning in the opinion of the heir to the barony; those of the new-risen star of Blackhampton were clear and unaffected and ringing with human sympathy. No wonder that the sensitive mechanism behind the chocolate waistcoat was thrown clean out of gear.

She acted beautifully that fine scene inside the fireplace with a nondescript entity, by the name of Buttons, which his proper name is Mr. Graves and a man of genius; acted it beautifully during the time her wicked sisters had left her at home to work like a menial while they had gone to the Prince Charming’s ball.

After the Principal Girl had sung another ballad, to the entire satisfaction of all that was best in the life of the metropolis, the great and good Mr. Lover handed up to her a noble box of chocolates from an unknown friend in front.

The appearance of this rare box of chocolates struck the heir to the barony with deep dismay. What had happened to the ill-fated box he had bought of B. Venoist!

“I’m hanged,” he said, “if I haven’t left that bally box in the taxi after all!”

The heir to the barony waited until the Principal Girl had retired to get into her famous glass slippers and her ballroom kit, and then like a thief in the night he stole out of Box B, that none should see him go, and crept round the back of the dress circle to the refreshment buffet presided over by a Hebe of three-and-forty summers in an outfit of yellow curls.

He would never be able to forgive himself if the kids should think he had forgotten those chocolates.

“Price o’ those?”

The heir to the barony disbursed the sum with his accustomed munificence.

“Hullo, young feller, what are you doing here?”

This question was asked by a gentleman of prosperous appearance who was holding up a yellow fluid in a tiny glass and looking as though he might presently imbibe it.

“Party o’ kids,” said the heir to the barony. “Toppin’ good show.”

The gentleman of the prosperous appearance quite agreed and invited him civilly to drink.

“Must get back with this,” said the heir to the barony, holding up a very fine performance on the part of good Messrs. Cadbury.

Although the heir to the barony stayed not to partake of liquid refreshment at the expense of the gentleman at the buffet, and rightly so, we think, having regard to the tragedy of B. Venoist, yet the latter, who was engaged in recruiting exhausted nature with a sherry and angostura bitters, was one of the most distinguished men throughout the length and breadth of the metropolis. Arminius Wingrove was the name of him; a man of consequence to this narrative as to many another one; envied by some, yet esteemed by all who knew him, inasmuch as he was one of the leading dramatic authors of the period. More of him anon. But please to remember, when the time arrives, that you have already had the honor of a formal introduction to Arminius Wingrove.

The slave of duty stole back to Box B, and his reappearance with the signal triumph of Messrs. Cadbury went entirely unmarked, his luck being such that he crept in at the moment the Fairy Godmother waved her wand, and the rats and mice, not to mention the lizards, became piebald ponies who bore off Cinderella in her state chariot to the Prince’s Ball.

Helen and Lucy Nanna had never seen anything like it—never; the Babe crowed with pleasure; Marge and Timothy and Alice Clara could merely gasp; and Father confided to Uncle Phil in a sombre undertone that it was the best pantomime he had seen for years.

We give Mr. Hollins our grateful and cordial meed for Part I of his noble annual production, what time the fire-proof curtain falls upon salvos of wild applause, in order that the ladies of the ballet may change their clothing, and the orchestra may remove the froth from a pint of bitter, and Mary Caspar, brave girl and true-blue she-Briton, every inch of her, may drink a much-needed cup of tea; while Marge and Timothy and Alice Clara and Dick and the Babe and the rest of ’em obtain first hand information as to what that box is that Uncle Phil has acquired by barter from good Messieurs Cadburyee for the sum of three half-crowns.

Dick fancies the pink one. Can’t have it, because it ain’t cricket for kids of three to take precedence of grown-up ladies rising five. Pipe his eyes, does he? Not so, my masters—the yellow one is just as agreeable to Master Richard who will probably play for Middlesex in after life. Timothy thinks that the one with the walnuts on it—if Marge don’t mind. Marge don’t mind, because there is another one with walnuts on it; but even if it stood alone she’d say she didn’t, not that there is any particular credit due to her, it simply being that she’s kind of made like that.

Helen Nanna preferred the plain. She had never tasted anything nicer. Lucy Nanna fancied the one with the nougat in it. Daddy didn’t care for choc-o-lates. As for Uncle Phil, the munificent donor who had missed his luncheon, although no one knew it besides himself, he took a peppermint warily, but found it quite all right.

But there is the orchestra blaring like a giant refreshed with wine; and in respect of the great Mr. Lover this is no more than sober verity, since, at the instance of a friend and admirer, he had been to interview Hebe with yellow curls. Boomed and blared the cornets to hail the reappearance of the ladies of the ballet, in canary-colored stockings which had no clocks upon ’em. Austere old gentleman, second row of stalls, letting question of taxed costs, etc., dived for opera glasses, for which he had duly disbursed the fee of sixpence as by law prescribed.

Ping went the clockwork under the chocolate waistcoat of Uncle Philip. There she was again. What a dream she was in her golden chariot with a diadem over her chestnut curls. Bowed and kissed her hand to the admiring multitude; stepped down from her chariot, smiling, smiling in her royal manner at the footmen as she passed them, and followed by all that was best in the life of the metropolis as she crossed the threshold of the Prince’s domicile.

Ping went the heart of Uncle Philip. Austere old gentleman fumbled for his programme—dear old boy lamenting his wretched memory for names. Bald-headed light of the Chancery Bar unfolds his pince-nez; outspoken youth in gallery roars out “Good on yer, Mary!”

In our humble judgment outspoken youth was quite correct. O ye Maries of England, you ought to be proud of her! Trumpets blared, lights went out, transformation to Fairyland, and there again was Mary! Once again she was going to let the painter go.

O ye Maries of England, true heroism is not the private perquisite of the Royal Horse Guards Blue. The precious seed is in you all, my dears. May you always do your respective duties as this particular Mary did when England expects it of you.

Right up she went through the middle register, tearing her poor throat to pieces at every note she took. Fairly launched the painter—“Nelson and his Gentlemen in Blue.” Don’t know whose the words are—Swinburne maybe, or Campbell Thomas, or Dibdin, or Gilbert W. S.; music may have been by Brahms or Schubert, or Strauss or Wagner or Debussy, but critics of Leading Morning Journal seem to think by none of these.

“’Core!” roared the cads in the stalls.

“’Core!” yelled the bloods in the pit.

“’Core!” cried the young ladies in the dress circle.

“’Core!” roared the members of nature’s nobility all over the house.

“Right on the spot all the time,” said the Chairman of the Syndicate. “Hollins, have that five years’ contract put in hand at once.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Hollins, forgetting the degree to which it had pleased providence to call him in the lilt of that nautical tune.

“Good on yer, Mary,” proclaimed outspoken youth with almost pathetic enthusiasm from the front row of the gods.

At the end of the twenty-fourth verse Mr. Lover presented a bouquet of lilies of the valley, smilax and maidenhair fern to this national heroine. Paid for by the management, saith young friend of the Standard News. May be, young sir, but Marge waved frantically; and the Babe crowed shrilly, and Uncle Philip deplored the fact that he had not had the sense to bring one himself.

We pray of your patience, gentles all, to retain your seats until the Principal Girl has married the Prince. She won’t be long now, that good, brave girl. How she has done it we don’t quite know; and remember, people, what British pluck has already done this afternoon, British pluck will have to do all over again this evening.

“Girl ought to be in bed,” says Harley Street Physician in box, opposite Box B, to old college friend the house surgeon at Bart’s. “She’ll have a temperature if she isn’t careful.”

“She’s given the house a temperature all right,” said the house surgeon at Bart’s, mingling refined humor with grave thoughts like the American judge at the funeral of his mother-in-law.

Kids staying of course for the end of it all. Details much too banal to inflict upon the overwrought patience of the gentle reader. But Father and Uncle Phil, lunchless and thirsty, patient and uncomplaining, though bored to tears, stand as ever at the back of Box B, at the post of duty. Whole-hoggers these upright citizens, though one was the eldest son of a peer and the other connected by marriage with several. But let justice be done to ’em. They would see it all out to the end, in order that Marge and Timothy and Alice Clara and the Babe and Helen and Lucy Nanna should be sent back in taxis to Number 300 Eaton Place, just as they ought to be.

Father’s handicap was four at Prince’s, and he would have much preferred to spend his only free afternoon that week at Mitcham where the common is, and where you can lose a golf ball about as soon as in any other rural spot in Surrey. As for the heir to the barony, as all the world doth know, his path as designed for him that afternoon by the lady his mother, was the Queen’s Hall by Portland Place—that temple of elevated and serious energy, wherein Busoni had designed to charm—and we hope he would be able to do so—the seventh unmarried daughter of not quite a hundred earls.

Don’t think us forward, O ye Liberal organs of opinion, for mentioning details so trite as these; but observe that young plutocrat, that idle, rich young fellow, with astrachan collar and whanghee cane, white spats by Grant and Cockburn, bowler hat by Messrs. Scott—observe him conducting that convoy of motherless kids and their nannas, as simply and politely as though he was the father of ’em—and may he one day have five kids and two quite nice-looking nannas of his own!—conducting ’em through kids in cloaks, kids in mufflers, kids in hats and kids without ’em; through the seething vestibule of Drury, down the steps and round the corner; watch him hail an honest but ill-favored, likewise a dishonest but better favored, motor man. Watch him pack ’em in and give directions, assisted by the unsought attentions of a Distinguished Member of the Great Unwashed.

“Three hundred Eaton Place. Drive slowly.”

Oh, Irony!

Seeks to find a small piece of silver for the Great Unwashed. Can discover four pence merely. Tempered gratitude on part of Great Unwashed. A real Toff never condescends beneath a tanner; and if he hasn’t got one, why, what’s the matter with a bob?

“Time for a game of pills before dinner?” says the heir to the barony.

“’Fraid there won’t be time, old boy,” says Father. “Letters to attend to.”

“Time for a drink at the Betterton, anyhow,” says Uncle Philip.

That temple of aristocratic Bohemia, at which monarchs sup and which actor managers frequent, is in such close proximity to Drury, that only plutocracy in its most aggravated form would have called for a taxi in order to get to it. But what can you expect, O ye Liberal organs of opinion, from the heir to a Tory peerage!

CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH WE DINE OUT IN GROSVENOR
SQUARE

Father sat down to write a letter, and Uncle Philip smoked a cigarette in a meerschaum holder and read the Sporting Times. But the unfortunate young man could hardly bring his mind to bear upon those chaste pink pages for all that the Dwarf and Mr. Pitcher were quite at the top of their form this week.

Was it that his conscience hurt him? Fretting about Busoni do you suppose? Wondering whether the seventh unmarried daughter and the dearest mother had got to Queen’s Hall unscathed, and had also managed to get back again all right?

May have been so. If there is a doubt about it, conscientious fellow is entitled to benefit thereby; but we are bound to admit there is a doubt upon the subject.

And our reasons be these, lieges all and masterful men. At twenty to seven, long before Father had finished his letters, who should deign to enter the silence room but the identical Arminius Wingrove, to whom the gentle reader has already had the honor of a formal introduction.

Ping went the heart of the heir to the barony. He rose from his chair of russia leather, lately recovered at the behest of the Committee, and trod softly across the turkey carpet, old but good.

“Fathead,” said the heir to the barony—for this coarse familiarity we can only offer the excuse that the Great Man had always been Fathead to his familiars since his Oxford days—“Fathead,” said the heir to the barony, “I want to talk to you.”

Fathead almost looked as though he had no desire to converse with the too-familiar groundling, being due to take the Dowager Duchess of Bayswater to dine at the Ritz Hotel.

But on all occasions Arminius knew how to assume the air of the bon camarade.

“Fire away. Only five minutes. Dining old Polly Bayswater at the Ritz.”

“More fool you,” said the profane young man.

Alas! that nothing is sacred to the helots of the Button Club.

“Come into the smoking-room, where we can talk a bit.”

“Five minutes only,” said Arminius Wingrove, fixing his eyeglass with his accustomed air of mental power.

The heir to the barony laid hold of the arm of the famous dramatist, as though he didn’t intend to let it go; hustled him into a room adjoining, deposited him in the emptiest corner, ordered two sherries and angostura bitters, and straightway proceeded to show what comes of spending Saturday afternoon in places licensed by the Lord Chamberlain for stage performances.

“Do you know by any chance the girl who was Cinderella?”