When a Man's Single: A Tale of Literary Life

THE HOUSE-BOAT 'TAWNY OWL'

'Mr. Angus, what is an egotist?'

'Don't you know, Miss Meredith?'

'Well, I know in a general sort of way, but not precisely.'

'An egotist is a person who—but why do you want to know?'

'Because just now Mr. Abinger asked me what I was thinking of, and when I said of nothing he called me an egotist.'

'Ah! that kind of egotist is one whose thoughts are too deep for utterance.'

It was twilight. Rob stood on the deck of the house-boat Tawny Owl, looking down at Nell, who sat in the stern, her mother beside her, amid a blaze of Chinese lanterns. Dick lay near them, prone, as he had fallen from a hammock whose one flaw was that it gave way when any one got into it. Mr. Meredith, looking out from one of the saloon windows across the black water that was now streaked with glistening silver, wondered whether he was enjoying himself, and Mary, in a little blue nautical jacket with a cap to match, lay back in a camp-chair on deck with a silent banjo in her hands. Rob was brazening it out in flannels, and had been at such pains to select colours to suit him that the effect was atrocious. He had spent several afternoons at Molesey during the three weeks the Tawny Owl had lain there, but this time he was to remain overnight at the Island Hotel.

The Tawny Owl was part of the hoop of house-boats that almost girded Tagg's Island, and lights sailed through the trees, telling of launches moving to their moorings near the ferry. Now and again there was the echo of music from a distant house-boat. For a moment the water was loquacious as dingeys or punts shot past. Canadian canoes, the ghosts that haunt the Thames by night, lifted their heads out of the river, gaped, and were gone. An osier-wand dipped into the water under a weight of swallows, all going to bed together. The boy on the next house-boat kissed his hand to a broom on board the Tawny Owl, taking it for Mrs. Meredith's servant, and then retired to his kitchen smiling. From the boat-house across the river came the monotonous tap of a hammer. A reed-warbler rushed through his song. There was a soft splashing along the bank.

'There was once a literary character,' Dick murmured, 'who said that to think of nothing was an impossibility, but he lived before the days of house-boats. I came here a week ago to do some high thinking, and I believe I have only managed four thoughts—first, that the cow on the island is an irate cow; second, that in summer the sun shines brightly; third, that the trouble of lighting a cigar is almost as great as the pleasure of smoking it; and fourth, that swans—the fourth thought referred to swans, but it has slipped my memory.'

He yawned like a man glad to get to the end of his sentence, or sorry that he had begun it.

'But I thought,' said Mrs. Meredith, 'that the reason you walk round and round the island by yourself so frequently is because you can think out articles on it?'

'Yes,' Dick answered, 'the island looks like a capital place to think on, and I always start off on my round meaning to think hard. After that all is a blank till I am back at the Tawny Owl, when I remember that I have forgotten to think.'

'Will ought to enjoy this,' remarked Nell.

'That is my brother, Mr. Angus,' Mary said to Rob; 'he is to spend part of his holidays here.'

'I remember him,' Rob answered, smiling. Mary blushed, however, remembering that the last time Will and Greybrooke met Rob there had been a little scene.

'He will enjoy the fishing,' said Dick. 'I have only fished myself three or four times, and I am confident I hooked a minnow yesterday.'

'I saw a little boy,' Nell said, 'fishing from the island to-day, and his mother had strapped him to a tree in case he might fall in.'

'When I saw your young brother at Silchester,' Rob said to Mary, 'he had a schoolmate with him.'

'Ah, yes,' Dick said; 'that was the man who wanted to horsewhip you, you know.'

'I thought he and Miss Meredith were great friends,' Rob retorted. He sometimes wondered how much Dick cared for Nell.

'It was only the young gentleman's good-nature,' Abinger explained, while Nell drew herself up indignantly; 'he found that he had to give up either Nell or a cricket match, and so Nell was reluctantly dropped.'

'That was not how you spoke,' Nell said to Dick in a low voice, 'when I told you all about him, poor boy, in your chambers.'

'You promised to be a sister to him, I think,' remarked Abinger. 'Ah, Nell, it is not a safe plan that. How many brothers have you now?'

Dick held up his hand for Mary's banjo, and, settling himself comfortably in a corner, twanged and sang, while the lanterns caught myriads of flies, and the bats came and went.

Dick disappeared into the kitchen with Mrs. Meredith to show her how they make a salad at the Wigwam, and Nell and her father went a-fishing from a bedroom window. The night was so silent now that Rob and Mary seemed to have it to themselves. A canoe in a blaze of coloured light drifted past without a sound. The grass on the bank parted, and water-rats peeped out. All at once Mary had nothing to say, and Rob shook on his stool. The moon was out looking at them.

'Oh,' Mary cried, as something dipped suddenly in the water near them.

'It was only a dabchick,' Rob guessed, looking over the rail.

'What is a dabchick?' asked Mary.

Rob did not tell her. She had not the least desire to know.

In the river, on the opposite side from where the Tawny Owl lay, a stream drowns itself. They had not known of its existence before, but it was roaring like a lasher to them now. Mary shuddered slightly, turning her face to the island, and Rob took a great breath as he looked at her. His hand held her brown sunshade that was ribbed with velvet, the sunshade with the preposterous handle that Mary held upside down. Other ladies carried their sunshades so, and Rob resented it. Her back was toward him, and he sat still, gazing at the loose blue jacket that only reached her waist. It was such a slender waist that Rob trembled for it.

The trees that hung over the house-boat were black, but the moon made a fairyland of the sward beyond. Mary could only see the island between heavy branches, but she looked straight before her until tears dimmed her eyes. Who would dare to seek the thoughts of a girl at such a moment? Rob moved nearer her. Her blue cap was tilted back, her chin rested on the rail. All that was good in him was astir when she turned and read his face.

'I think I shall go down now,' Mary said, becoming less pale as she spoke. Rob's eyes followed her as she moved toward the ladder.

'Not yet,' he called after her, and could say no more. It was always so when they were alone; and he made himself suffer for it afterwards.

Mary stood irresolutely at the top of the ladder. She would not turn back, but she did not descend. Mr. Meredith was fishing lazily from the lower deck, and there was a murmur of voices in the saloon. On the road running parallel to the river traps and men were shadows creeping along to Hampton. Lights were going out there. Mary looked up the stretch of water and sighed.

'Was there ever so beautiful a night?' she said.

'Yes,' said Rob, at her elbow, 'once at Dome Castle, the night I saw you first.'

'I don't remember,' said Mary hastily, but without going down the ladder.

'I might never have met you,' Rob continued grimly, 'if some man in Silchester had not murdered his wife.'

Mary started and looked up at him. Until she ceased to look he could not go on.

'The murder,' he explained, 'was of more importance than Colonel Abinger's dinner, and so I was sent to the castle. It is rather curious to trace these things back a step. The woman enraged her husband into striking her, because she had not prepared his supper. Instead of doing that she had been gossiping with a neighbour, who would not have had time for gossip had she not been laid up with a sprained ankle. It came out in the evidence that this woman had hurt herself by slipping on a marble, so that I might never have seen you had not two boys, whom neither of us ever heard of, challenged each other to a game at marbles.'

'It was stranger that we should meet again in London,' Mary said.

'No,' Rob answered, 'the way we met was strange, but I was expecting you.'

Mary pondered how she should take this, and then pretended not to hear it.

'Was it not rather The Scorn of Scorns that made us know each other?' she asked.

'I knew you after I read it a second time,' he said; 'I have got that copy of it still.'

'You said you had the card.'

'I have never been able to understand,' Rob answered, 'how I lost that card. But,' he added sharply, 'how do you know that I lost it?'

Mary glanced up again.

'I hate being asked questions, Mr. Angus,' she said sweetly.

'Do you remember,' Rob went on, 'saying in that book that men were not to be trusted until they reached their second childhood?'

'I don't know,' Mary replied, laughing, 'that they are to be trusted even then.'

'I should think,' said Rob, rather anxiously, 'that a woman might as well marry a man in his first childhood as in his second. Surely the golden mean——' Rob paused. He was just twenty-seven.

'We should strike the golden mean, you think?' asked Mary demurely. 'But you see it is of such short duration.'

After that there was such a long pause that Mary could easily have gone down the ladder had she wanted to do so.

'I am glad that you and Dick are such friends,' she said at last.

'Why?' asked Rob quickly.

'Oh, well,' said Mary.

'He has been the best friend I have ever made,' Rob continued warmly, 'though he says our only point in common is a hatred of rice pudding.'

'He told me,' said Mary, 'that you write on politics in the Wire.'

'I do a little now, but I have never met any one yet who admitted that he had read my articles. Even your brother won't go so far as that.'

'I have read several of them,' said Mary.

'Have you?' Rob exclaimed, like a big boy.

'Yes,' Mary answered severely; 'but I don't agree with them. I am a Conservative, you know.'

She pursed up her mouth complacently as she spoke, and Rob fell back a step to prevent his going a step closer. He could hear Mr. Meredith's line tearing the water. The boy on the next house-boat was baling the dingey, and whistling a doleful ditty between each canful.

'There will never be such a night again,' Rob said, in a melancholy voice. Then he waited for Mary to ask why, when he would have told her, but she did not ask.

'At least, not to me,' he continued, after a pause, 'for I am not likely to be here again. But there may be many such nights to you.'

Mary was unbuttoning her gloves and then buttoning them again. There is something uncanny about a woman who has a chance to speak and does not take it.

'I am glad to hear,' said Rob, 'that my being away will make no difference to you.'

A light was running along the road to Hampton Court, and Mary watched it.

'Are you glad?' asked Rob desperately.

'You said I was,' answered Mary, without turning her head. Dick was thrumming the banjo below. Her hand touched a camp-chair, and Rob put his over it. He would have liked to stand like that and talk about things in general now.

'Mary,' said Rob.

The boy ceased to whistle. All nature in that quarter was paralysed, except the tumble of water across the river. Mary withdrew her hand, but said nothing. Rob held his breath. He had not even the excuse of having spoken impulsively, for he had been meditating saying it for weeks.

By and by the world began to move again. The boy whistled. A swallow tried another twig. A moor-hen splashed in the river. They had thought it over, and meant to let it pass.

'Are you angry with me?' Rob asked.

Mary nodded her head, but did not speak. Suddenly Rob started.

'You are crying,' he said.

'No, I'm not,' said Mary, looking up now.

There was a strange light in her face that made Rob shake. He was so near her that his hands touched her jacket. At that moment there was a sound of feet on the plank that communicated between the Tawny Owl and the island, and Dick called out—

'You people up there, are you coming once round the island before you have something to eat?'

Rob muttered a reply that Dick fortunately did not catch, but Mary answered 'Yes,' and they descended the ladder.

'You had better put a shawl over your shoulders,' said Rob, in rather a lordly tone.

'No,' Mary answered, thrusting away the shawl he produced from the saloon; 'a wrap on a night like this would be absurd.'

Something caught in her throat at that moment, and she coughed. Rob looked at her anxiously.

'You had better,' he said, putting the shawl over her shoulders.

'No,' said Mary, flinging it off.

'Yes,' said Rob, putting it on again.

Mary stamped her foot.

'How dare you, Mr. Angus?' she exclaimed.

Rob's chest heaved.

'You must do as you are told,' he said.

Mary looked at him while he looked at her, but she did not take off the shawl again, and that was the great moment of Rob's life.

The others had gone on before. Although it was a white night the plank was dark in shadow, and as she stepped off it she slipped back. Rob's arm went round her for a moment. They walked round the island together behind the others, but neither uttered a word. Rob was afraid even to look at her, so he did not see that Mary looked once or twice at him.

Long after he was supposed to be in the hotel Rob was still walking round the island, with no one to see him but the cow. All the Chinese lanterns were out now, but red window-blinds shone warm in several house-boats, and a terrier barked at his footsteps. The grass was silver-tipped, as in an enchanted island, and the impatient fairies might only have been waiting till he was gone. He was wondering if she was offended. While he paced the island she might be vowing never to look at him again, but perhaps she was only thinking that he was very much improved.

At last Rob wandered to the hotel, and reaching his bedroom sat down on a chair to think it out again by candle-light. He rose and opened the window. There was a notice over the mantelpiece announcing that smoking was not allowed in the bedrooms, and having read it thoughtfully he filled his pipe. A piece of crumpled paper lay beneath the dressing-table, and he lifted it up to make a spill of it. It was part of an envelope, and it floated out of Rob's hand as he read the address in Mary Abinger's handwriting, 'Sir Clement Dowton, Island Hotel.'

MARY OF THE STONY HEART

A punt and a rowing-boat were racing lazily toward Sunbury on a day so bright that you might have passed women with their hair in long curls and forgiven them.

'I say, Dick,' said one of the scullers, 'are they engaged?'

Will was the speaker, and in asking the question he caught a crab. Mary, with her yellow sleeves turned up at the wrist, a great straw hat on her head, ran gaily after her pole, and the punt jerked past. If there are any plain girls let them take to punting and be beautiful.

Dick, who was paddling rather than pulling stroke, turned round on his young brother sharply.

'Whom do you mean?' he asked, speaking low, so that the other occupants of the boat should not hear him, 'Mary and Dowton?'

'No,' said Will, 'Mary and Angus. I wonder what they see in her.'

They were bound for a picnicking resort up the river; Mrs. Meredith, Mary, and Sir Clement in the punt, and the others in the boat. If Rob was engaged he took it gloomily. He sat in the stern with Mr. Meredith, while Nell hid herself away beneath a many-coloured umbrella in the prow; and when he steered the boat into a gondola, he only said vacantly to its occupants, 'It is nothing at all,' as if they had run into him. Nell's father said something about not liking the appearance of the sky, and Rob looked at him earnestly for such a length of time before replying that Mr. Meredith was taken aback. At times the punt came alongside, and Mary addressed every one in the boat except Rob. The only person in the punt whom Rob never looked at was Mary. Dick watched them uneasily, and noticed that once, when Mary nearly followed her pole into the water, Rob, who seemed to be looking in the opposite direction, was the first to see what had happened. Then Dick pulled so savagely that he turned the boat round.

That morning at breakfast in his chambers Rob had no thought of spending the day on the river. He had to be at the Wire office at ten o'clock in the evening, and during the day he meant to finish one of the many articles which he still wrote for other journals that would seldom take them. The knowledge that Sir Clement Dowton had been to Molesey disquieted him, chiefly because Mary Abinger had said nothing about it. Having given himself fifty reasons for her reticence, he pushed them from him, and vowed wearily that he would go to the house-boat no more. Then Dick walked in to suggest that they might run down for an hour or two to Molesey, and Rob agreed at once. He shaped out in the train a subtle question about Sir Clement that he intended asking Mary, but on reaching the plank he saw her feeding the swans, with the baronet by her side. Rob felt like a conjurer whose trick has not worked properly. Giving himself just half a minute to reflect that it was all over, he affected the coldly courteous, and smiled in a way that was meant to be heart-rending. Mary did not mind that, but it annoyed her to see the band of his necktie slipping over his collar.

It was the day of the Sunbury Regatta, but the party from the Tawny Owl twisted past the racers, leaving Dick, who wanted a newspaper, behind. When he rejoined them beyond the village, the boat was towing the punt.

'Why,' said Dick, in some astonishment to Rob, who was rowing now, 'I did not know you could scull like that.'

'I have been practising a little,' answered Rob.

'When he came down here the first time,' Mrs. Meredith explained to Sir Clement, 'he did not know how to hold an oar. I am afraid he is one of those men who like to be best at everything.'

'He certainly knows how to scull now,' admitted the baronet, beginning to think that Rob was perhaps a dangerous man. Sir Clement was a manly gentleman, but his politics were that people should not climb out of the station they were born into.

'No,' Dick said, in answer to a question from Mr. Meredith, 'I could only get a local paper. The woman seemed surprised at my thinking she would take in the Scalping Knife or the Wire, and said, "We've got a paper of our own."'

'Read out the news to us, Richard,' suggested Mrs. Meredith. Dick hesitated.

'Here, Will,' he said to his brother, 'you got that squeaky voice of yours specially to proclaim the news from a boat to a punt ten yards distant. Angus is longing to pull us up the river unaided.'

Will turned the paper round and round.

'Here is a funny thing,' he bawled out, 'about a stick. "A curious story, says a London correspondent, is going the round of the clubs to-day about the walking-stick of a well-known member of Parliament, whose name I am not at liberty to mention. The story has not, so far as I am aware, yet appeared in print, and it conveys a lesson to all persons who carry walking-sticks with knobs for handles, which generate a peculiar disease in the palm of the hand. The member of Parliament referred to, with whom I am on intimate terms——"'

Rob looked at Dick, and they both groaned.

'My stick again,' murmured Rob.

'Read something else,' cried Dick, shivering.

'Eh, what is wrong?' asked Mr. Meredith.

'You must know,' said Dick, 'that the first time I met Angus he told me imprudently some foolish story about a stick that bred a disease in the owner's hand, owing to his pressing so heavily on the ball it had by way of a handle. I touched the story up a little, and made half a guinea out of it. Since then that note has been turning up in a new dress in the most unlikely places. First the London correspondents swooped down on it, and telegraphed it all over the country as something that had happened to well-known Cabinet Ministers. It appeared in the Paris Figaro as a true story about Sir Gladstone, and soon afterwards it was across the Channel as a reminiscence of Thiers. Having done another tour of the provinces, it was taken to America by a lecturer, who exhibited the stick. Next it travelled the Continent, until it was sent home again by Paterfamilias Abroad, writing to the Times, who said that the man who owned the stick was a well-known Alpine guide. Since then we have heard of it fitfully as doing well in Melbourne and Arkansas. It figured in the last volume, or rather two volumes, of autobiography published, and now, you see, it is going the round of the clubs again, preparatory to starting on another tour. I wish you had kept your stick to yourself, Angus.'

'That story will never die,' Rob said, in a tone of conviction. 'It will go round and round the world till the crack of doom. Our children's children will tell it to each other.'

'Yes,' said Dick, 'and say it happened to a friend of theirs.'

A field falls into the river above Sunbury, in which there is a clump of trees of which many boating parties know. Under the shadow of these Mrs. Meredith cast a table-cloth and pegged it down with salt-cellars.

'As we are rather in a hurry,' she said to the gentlemen, 'I should prefer you not to help us.'

Rob wandered to the river-side with Will, who would have liked to know whether he could jump a gate without putting his hands on it; and the other men leant against the trees, wondering a little, perhaps, why ladies enjoy in the summer-time making chairs and tables of the ground.

Rob was recovering from his scare, and made friends with Mary's young brother. By particular request he not only leapt the gate, but lifted it off its hinges, and this feat of strength so impressed Will that he would have brought the whole party down to see it done. Will was as fond of Mary as a proper respect for himself would allow, but he thought she would be a lucky girl if she got a fellow who could play with a heavy gate like that.

Being a sharp boy, Will noticed a cloud settle on Rob's face, and looking toward the clump of trees, he observed that Mary and the baronet were no longer there. In the next field two figures were disappearing, the taller, a man in a tennis jacket, carrying a pail. Sir Clement had been sent for water, and Mary had gone with him to show him the spring. Rob stared after them; and if Will could have got hold of Mary he would have shaken her for spoiling everything.

Mrs. Meredith was meditating sending some one to the spring to show them the way back, when Sir Clement and Mary again came into sight. They did not seem to be saying much, yet were so engrossed that they zigzagged toward the rest of the party like persons seeking their destination in a mist. Just as they reached the trees Mary looked up so softly at her companion that Rob turned away in an agony.

'It is a long way to the spring,' were Mary's first words, as if she expected to be taken to task for their lengthened absence.

'So it seems,' said Dick.

The baronet crossed with the pail to Mrs. Meredith, and stopped half-way like one waking from a dream. Mrs. Meredith held out her hand for the pail, and the baronet stammered with vexation. Simultaneously the whole party saw what was wrong, but Will only was so merciless as to put the discovery into words.

'Why,' cried the boy, pausing to whistle in the middle of his sentence, 'you have forgotten the water!'

It was true. The pail was empty. Sir Clement turned it upside down, and made a seat of it.

'I am so sorry,' he said to Mrs. Meredith, trying to speak lightly. 'I assure you I thought I had filled the pail at the spring. It is entirely my fault, for I told Miss Abinger I had done so.'

Mary's face was turned from the others, so that they could not see how she took the incident. It gave them so much to think of that Will was the only one of the whole party who saw its ridiculous aspect.

'Put it down to sunstroke, Miss Meredith,' the baronet said to Nell; 'I shall never allow myself to be placed in a position of trust again.'

'Does that mean,' asked Dick, 'that you object to being sent back again to the spring?'

'Ah, I forgot,' said Sir Clement. 'You may depend on me this time.'

He seized the pail once more, glad to get away by himself to some place where he could denounce his stupidity unheard, but Mrs. Meredith would not let him go. As for Mary, she was looking so haughty now that no one would have dared to mention the pail again.

During the meal Dick felt compelled to talk so much that he was unusually dull company for the remainder of the week. The others were only genial now and again. Sir Clement sought in vain to gather from Mary's eyes that she had forgiven him for making the rest of the party couple him and her in their thoughts. Mrs. Meredith would have liked to take her daughter aside and discuss the situation, and Nell was looking covertly at Rob, who, she thought, bore it bravely. Rob had lately learned carving from a handbook, and was dissecting a fowl, murmuring to himself, 'Cut from a to b along the line f g, taking care to sever the wing at the point k.' Like all the others, he thought that Mary had promised to be the baronet's wife, and Nell's heart palpitated for him when she saw how gently he passed Sir Clement the mustard. Such a load lay on Rob that he felt suffocated. Nell noticed indignantly that Mary was not even 'nice' to him. For the first time in her life, or at least for several weeks, Miss Meredith was wroth with Miss Abinger. Mary might have been on the rack, but she went on proudly eating bread and chicken. Relieved of his fears, Dick raged internally at Mary for treating Angus cruelly, and Nell, who had always dreaded lest things should not go as they had gone, sat sorrowfully because she had not been disappointed. They all knew how much they cared for Rob now, all except Mary of the stony heart.

Sir Clement began to tell some travellers' tales, omitting many things that were creditable to his bravery, and Rob found himself listening with a show of interest, wondering a little at his own audacity in competing with such a candidate. By and by some members of the little party drifted away from the others, and an accident left Mary and Rob together. Mary was aimlessly plucking the berries from a twig in her hand, and all the sign she gave that she knew of Rob's presence was in not raising her head. If love is ever unselfish his was at that moment. He took a step forward, and then Mary, starting back, looked round hurriedly in the direction of Sir Clement. What Rob thought was her meaning flashed through him, and he stood still in pain.

'I am sorry you think so meanly of me,' he said, and passed on. He did not see Mary's arms rise involuntarily, as if they would call him back. But even then she did not realise what Rob's thoughts were. A few yards away Rob, moving blindly, struck against Dick.

'Ah, I see Mary there,' her brother said, 'I want to speak to her. Why, how white you are, man!'

'Abinger,' Rob answered hoarsely, 'tell me. I must know. Is she engaged to Dowton?'

Dick hesitated. He felt sore for Rob. 'Yes, she is,' he replied. 'You remember I spoke of this to you before.' Then Dick moved on to have it out with Mary. She was standing with the twig in her hand, just as Rob had left her.

'Mary,' said her brother bluntly, 'this is too bad. I would have expected it from any one sooner than from you.'

'What are you talking about?' asked Mary frigidly.

'I am talking about Angus, my friend. Yes, you may smile, but it is not play to him.'

'What have I done to your friend?' said Mary, looking Dick in the face.

'You have crushed the life for the time being out of as fine a fellow as I ever knew. You might at least have amused yourself with some one a little more experienced in the ways of women.'

'How dare you, Dick!' exclaimed Mary, stamping her foot. All at once Dick saw that though she spoke bravely her lips were trembling. A sudden fear seized him.

'I presume that you are engaged to Dowton?' he said quickly.

'It is presumption certainly,' replied Mary.

'Why, what else could any one think after that ridiculous affair of the water?'

'I shall never forgive him for that,' Mary said, flushing.

'But he——'

'No. Yes, he did, but we are not engaged.'

'You mean to say that you refused him?'

'Yes.'

Dick thought it over, tapping the while on a tree-trunk like a woodpecker.

'Why?' he asked at last.

Mary shrugged her shoulders, but said nothing.

'You seemed exceedingly friendly,' said Dick, 'when you returned here together.'

'I suppose,' Mary said bitterly, 'that the proper thing in the circumstances would have been to wound his feelings unnecessarily as much as possible?'

'Forgive me, dear,' Dick said kindly; 'of course I misunderstood—but this will be a blow to our father.'

Mary looked troubled.

'I could not marry him, you know, Dick,' she faltered.

'Certainly not,' Dick said, 'if you don't care sufficiently for him; and yet he seems a man that a girl might care for.'

'Oh, he is,' Mary exclaimed. 'He was so manly and kind that I wanted to be nice to him.'

'You have evidently made up your mind, sister mine,' Dick said, 'to die a spinster.'

'Yes,' said Mary, with a white face.

Suddenly Dick took both her hands, and looked her in the face.

'Do you care for any other person, Mary?' he asked sharply.

Mary shook her head, but she did not return her brother's gaze. Her hands were trembling. She tried to pull them from him, but he held her firmly until she looked at him. Then she drew up her head proudly. Her hands ceased to shake. She had become marble again.

Dick was not deceived. He dropped her hands, and leant despondently against a tree.

'Angus——' he began.

'You must not,' Mary cried; and he stopped abruptly.

'It is worse than I could have feared,' Dick said.

'No, it is not,' said Mary quickly. 'It is nothing. I don't know what you mean.'

'It was my fault bringing you together. I should have been more——'

'No, it was not. I met him before. Whom are you speaking about?'

'Think of our father, Mary.'

'Oh, I have!'

'He is not like you. How could he dare——'

'Dick, don't.'

Will bounced towards them with a hop, step, and jump, and Mrs. Meredith was signalling that she wanted both.

'Never speak of this again,' Mary said in a low voice to Dick as they walked toward the others.

'I hope I shall never feel forced to do so,' Dick replied.

'You will not,' Mary said, in her haste. 'But, Dick,' she added anxiously, 'surely the others did not think what you thought? It would be so unpleasant for Sir Clement.'

'Well, I can't say,' Dick answered.

'At all events, he did not?'

'Who is he?'

'Oh, Dick, I mean Mr. Angus?'

Dick bit his lip, and would have replied angrily; but perhaps he loved this sister of his more than any other person in the world.

'Angus, I suppose, noticed nothing,' he answered, in order to save Mary pain, 'except that you and Dowton seemed very good friends.'

Dick knew that this was untrue. He did not remember then that the good-natured lies live for ever like the others.

Evening came on before they returned to the river, and Sunbury, now blazing with fireworks, was shooting flaming arrows at the sky. The sweep of water at the village was one broad bridge of boats, lighted by torches and Chinese lanterns of every hue. Stars broke overhead, and fell in showers. It was only possible to creep ahead by pulling in the oars and holding on to the stream of craft of all kinds that moved along by inches. Rob, who was punting Dick and Mary, had to lay down his pole and adopt the same tactics, but boat and punt were driven apart, and soon tangled hopelessly in different knots.

'It is nearly eight o'clock,' Dick said, after he had given up looking for the rest of the party. 'You must not lose your train, Angus.'

'I thought you were to stay overnight, Mr. Angus,' Mary said.

Possibly she meant that had she known he had to return to London, she would have begun to treat him better earlier in the day, but Rob thought she only wanted to be polite for the last time.

'I have to be at the Wire,' he replied, 'before ten.'

Mary, who had not much patience with business, and fancied that it could always be deferred until next day if one wanted to defer it very much, said, 'Oh!' and then asked, 'Is there not a train that would suit from Sunbury?'

Rob, blinder now than ever, thought that she wanted to get rid of him.

'If I could catch the 8.15 here,' he said, 'I would reach Waterloo before half-past nine.'

'What do you think?' asked Dick. 'There is no time to lose.'

Rob waited for Mary to speak, but she said nothing.

'I had better try it,' he said.

With difficulty the punt was brought near a landing-stage, and Rob jumped out.

'Good-bye,' he said to Mary.

'Good-night,' she replied. Her mouth was quivering, but how could he know?

'Wait a moment,' Dick exclaimed. 'We might see him off, Mary?' Mary hesitated.

'The others might wonder what had become of us,' she said.

'Oh, we need not attempt to look for them in this maze,' her brother answered. 'We shall only meet them again at the Tawny Owl.'

The punt was left in charge of a boatman, and the three set off silently for the station, Mary walking between the two men. They might have been soldiers guarding a deserter.

What were Mary's feelings? She did not fully realise as yet that Rob thought she was engaged to Dowton. She fancied that he was sulky because a circumstance of which he knew nothing made her wish to treat Sir Clement with more than usual consideration; and now she thought that Rob, having brought it on himself, deserved to remain miserable until he saw that it was entirely his own fault. But she only wanted to be cruel to him now to forgive him for it afterwards.

Rob had ceased to ask himself if it was possible that she had not promised to be Dowton's wife. His anger had passed away. Her tender heart, he thought, made her wish to be good to him—for the last time.

As for Dick, he read the thoughts of both, and inwardly called himself a villain for not reading them out aloud. Yet by his merely remaining silent these two lovers would probably never meet again, and was not that what would be best for Mary?

Rob leant out of the carriage window to say good-bye, and Dick, ill at ease, turned his back on the train. It had been a hard day for Mary, and, as Rob pressed her hand warmly, a film came over her eyes. Rob saw it, and still he thought that she was only sorry for him. There are far better and nobler things than loving a woman and getting her, but Rob wanted Mary to know, by the last look he gave her, that so long as it meant her happiness his misery was only an unusual form of joy.

COLONEL ABINGER TAKES COMMAND

One misty morning, about three weeks after the picnic, Dick found himself a prisoner in the quadrangle of Frobisher's Inn. He had risen to catch an early train, but the gates were locked, and the porter in charge had vanished from his box. Dick chafed, and tore round the Inn in search of him. It was barely six o'clock; which is three hours after midnight in London. The windows of the Inn had darkened one by one, until for hours the black building had slept heavily with only one eye open. Dick recognised the window, and saw Rob's shadow cast on its white blind. He was standing there, looking up a little uneasily, when the porter tramped into sight.

'Is Mr. Angus often as late as this?' Mary's brother paused to ask at the gate.

'Why, sir,' the porter answered, 'I am on duty until eight o'clock, and as likely as not he will still be sitting there when I go. His shadow up there has become a sort of companion to me in the long nights, but I sometimes wonder what has come over the gentleman of late.'

'He is busy, I suppose; that is all,' Dick said sharply.

The porter shook his head doubtfully, like one who knew the ways of literary hands. He probably wrote himself.

'Mr. Angus only came in from his office at three o'clock,' he said, 'and you would think he would have had enough of writing by that time. You can see his arm going on the blind though yet, and it won't be out of his common if he has another long walk before he goes to bed.'

'Does he walk so late as this?' asked Dick, to whom six in the morning was an hour of the night.

'I never knew such a gentleman for walking,' replied the porter, 'and when I open the gate to him he is off at six miles an hour. I can hear the echo of his feet two or three streets off. He doesn't look as if he did it for pleasure either.'

'What else would he do it for?'

'I can't say. He looks as if he wanted to run away from himself.'

Dick passed out, with a forced laugh. He knew that since saying good-bye to Mary at Sunbury Station, Rob had hardly dared to stop working and face the future. The only rest Rob got was when he was striding along the great thoroughfares, where every one's life seemed to have a purpose except his own. But it was only when he asked himself for what end he worked that he stopped working. There were moments when he could not believe that it was all over. He saw himself dead, and the world going on as usual. When he read what he had written the night before, he wondered how people could be interested in such matters. The editor of the Wire began to think of this stolid Scotsman every time there was a hitch in the office, but Rob scarcely noticed that he was making progress. It could only mean ten or twenty pounds more a month; and what was that to a man who had only himself to think of, and had gathered a library on twenty shillings a week? He bought some good cigars, however.

Dick, who was longing for his father's return from the Continent, so that the responsibility for this miserable business might be transferred to the colonel's shoulders, frequently went into Rob's rooms to comfort him, but did not know how to do it. They sat silently on opposite sides of the very hearthrug which Mary had once made a remark about—Rob had looked interestedly at the rug after she went away—and each thought that, but for the other's sake, he would rather be alone.

What Dick felt most keenly was Rob's increased regard for him. Rob never spoke of the Tawny Owl without an effort, but he showed that he appreciated Dick's unspoken sympathy. If affairs could have righted themselves in that way, Mary's brother would have preferred to be turned with contumely out of Rob's rooms, where, as it was, and despite his friendship for Rob, he seemed now to be only present on false pretences. Dick was formally engaged to Nell now, but he tried at times to have no patience with Rob. Perhaps he thought a little sadly in his own rooms that to be engaged is not all the world.

Dick had hoped that the misunderstanding which parted Rob and Mary at Sunbury would keep them apart without further intervention from him. That was not to be. The next time he went to Molesey he was asked why he had not brought Mr. Angus with him, and though it was not Mary who asked the question, she stopped short on her way out of the saloon to hear his answer.

'He did not seem to want to come,' Dick replied reluctantly.

'I know why Mr. Angus would not come with you,' Nell said to Dick when they were alone; 'he thinks Mary is engaged to Sir Clement.'

'Nonsense,' said Dick.

'I am sure of it,' said Nell; 'you know we all thought so that day we were up the river.'

'Then let him think so if he chooses,' Dick said harshly. 'It is no affair of his.'

'Oh, it is!' Nell exclaimed. 'But I suppose it would never do, Dick?'

'What you are thinking of is quite out of the question,' replied Dick, feeling that it was a cruel fate which compelled him to act a father's part to Mary; 'and besides, Mary does not care for him like that. She told me so herself.'

'Oh, but she does,' Nell replied, in a tone of conviction.

'Did she tell you so?'

'No, she said she didn't,' answered Nell, as if that made no difference.

'Well,' said Dick wearily, 'it is much better that Angus should not come here again.'

Nevertheless, when Dick returned to London he carried in his pocket an invitation to Rob to spend the following Saturday at the Tawny Owl. It was a very nice note in Mary Abinger's handwriting, and Dick would have liked to drop it over the Hungerfield Bridge. He gave it to Rob, however, and stood on the defensive.

The note began, 'Dear Mr. Angus, Mrs. Meredith would be very pleased if you could——'

The blood came to Rob's face as he saw the handwriting, but it went as quickly.

'They ask me down next Saturday,' Rob said bluntly to Dick, 'but you know why I can't go.'

'You had better come,' miserable Dick said, defying himself.

'She is to marry Dowton, is she not?' Rob asked, but with no life in his voice.

Dick turned away his head, to leave the rest to fate.

'So, of course I must not go,' Rob continued bravely.

Dick did not dare to look him in the face, but Rob put his hand on the shoulder of Mary's brother.

'I was a madman,' he said, 'to think that she could ever have cared for me, but this will not interfere with our friendship, Abinger?'

'Surely not,' said Dick, taking Rob's hand.

It was one of those awful moments in men's lives when they allow, face to face, that they like each other.

Rob concluded that Mrs. Meredith, knowing nothing of his attachment for Mary, saw no reason why he should not return to the house-boat, and that circumstances had compelled Mary to write the invitation. His blundering honesty would not let him concoct a polite excuse for declining it, and Mrs. Meredith took his answer amiss, while Nell dared not say what she thought for fear of Dick. Mary read his note over once, and then went for a solitary walk round the island. Rob saw her from the tow-path where he had been prowling about for hours in hopes of catching a last glimpse of her. Her face was shaded beneath her big straw hat, and no baby-yacht, such as the Thames sports, ever glided down the river more prettily than she tripped along the island path. Once her white frock caught in a dilapidated seat, and she had to stoop to loosen it. Rob's heart stopped beating for a moment just then. The way Mary extricated herself was another revelation. He remembered having thought it delightful that she seldom knew what day of the month it was, and having looked on in an ecstasy while she searched for the pocket of her dress. The day before Mrs. Meredith had not been able to find her pocket, and Rob had thought it foolish of ladies not to wear their pockets where they could be more easily got at.

Rob did not know it, but Mary saw him. She had but to beckon, and in three minutes he would have been across the ferry. She gave no sign, however, but sat dreamily on the ramshackle seat that patient anglers have used until the Thames fishes must think seat and angler part of the same vegetable. Though Mary would not for worlds have let him know that she saw him, she did not mind his standing afar off and looking at her. Once after that Rob started involuntarily for Molesey, but realising what he was about by the time he reached Surbiton, he got out of the train there and returned to London.

An uneasy feeling possessed Dick that Mary knew of the misunderstanding which kept Rob away, and possibly even of her brother's share in fostering it. If so, she was too proud to end it. He found that if he mentioned Rob to her she did not answer a word. Nell's verbal experiments in the same direction met with a similar fate, and every one was glad when the colonel reappeared to take command.

Colonel Abinger was only in London for a few days, being on his way to Glen Quharity, the tenant of which was already telegraphing him glorious figures about the grouse. Mary was going too, and the Merediths were shortly to return to Silchester.

'There is a Thrums man on this stair,' Dick said to his father one afternoon in Frobisher's Inn, 'a particular friend of mine, though I have treated him villainously.'

'Ah,' said the colonel, who had just come up from the house-boat, 'then you might have him in, and make your difference up. Perhaps he could give me some information about the shooting.'

'Possibly,' Dick said; 'but we have no difference to make up, because he thinks me as honest as himself. You have met him, I believe.'

'What did you say his name was?'

'His name is Angus.'

'I can't recall any Angus.'

'Ah, you never knew him so well as Mary and I do.'

'Mary?' asked the colonel, looking up quickly.

'Yes,' said Dick. 'Do you remember a man from a Silchester paper who was at the castle last Christmas?'

'What!' cried the colonel, 'an underbred, poaching fellow who——'

'Not at all,' said Dick, 'an excellent gentleman, who is to make his mark here, and, as I have said, my very particular friend.'

'That fellow turned up again,' groaned the colonel.

'I have something more to tell you of him,' continued Dick remorselessly. 'I have reason to believe, as we say on the Press when hard up for copy, that he is in love with Mary.'

The colonel sprang from his seat. 'Be calm,' said Dick.

'I am calm,' cried the colonel, not saying another word, so fearful was he of what Dick might tell him next.

'That would not, perhaps, so much matter,' Dick said, coming to rest at the back of a chair, 'if it were not that Mary seems to have an equal regard for him.'

Colonel Abinger's hands clutched the edge of the table, and it was not a look of love he cast at Dick.

'If this be true,' he exclaimed, his voice breaking in agitation, 'I shall never forgive you, Richard, never. But I don't believe it.'

Dick felt sorry for his father.

'It is a fact that has to be faced,' he said, more gently.

'Why, why, why, the man is a pauper!'

'Not a bit of it,' said Dick. 'He may be on the regular staff of the Wire any day now.'

'You dare to look me in the face, and tell me you have encouraged this, this——' cried the colonel, choking in a rush of words.

'Quite the contrary,' Dick said; 'I have done more than I had any right to do to put an end to it.'

'Then it is ended?'

'I can't say.'

'It shall be ended,' shouted the colonel, making the table groan under his fist.

'In a manner,' Dick said, 'you are responsible for the whole affair. Do you remember when you were at Glen Quharity two or three years ago asking a parson called Rorrison, father of Rorrison the war correspondent, to use his son's Press influence on behalf of a Thrums man? Well, Angus is that man. Is it not strange how this has come about?'

'It is enough to make me hate myself,' replied the irate colonel, though it had not quite such an effect as that.

When his father had subsided a little, Dick told him of what had been happening in England during the last month or two. There had been a change of Government, but the chief event was the audacity of a plebeian in casting his eyes on a patrician's daughter. What are politics when the pipes in the bath-room burst?

'So you see,' Dick said in conclusion, 'I have acted the part of the unrelenting parent fairly well, and I don't like it.'

'Had I been in your place,' replied the colonel, 'I would have acted it a good deal better.'

'You would have told Angus that you considered him, upon the whole, the meanest thing that crawls, and that if he came within a radius of five miles of your daughter you would have the law of him? Yes; but that sort of trespassing is not actionable nowadays; and besides, I don't know what Mary might have said.'

'Trespassing!' echoed the colonel; 'I could have had the law of him for trespassing nearly a year ago.'

'You mean that time you caught him fishing in the Dome? I only heard of that at second-hand, but I have at least no doubt that he fished to some effect.'

'He can fish,' admitted the colonel; 'I should like to know what flies he used.'

Dick laughed.

'Angus,' he said, 'is a man with a natural aptitude for things. He does not, I suspect, even make love like a beginner.'

'You are on his side, Richard.'

'It has not seemed like it so far, but, I confess, I have certainly had enough of shuffling.'

'There will be no more shuffling,' said the colonel fiercely. 'I shall see this man and tell him what I think of him. As for Mary——'

He paused.

'Yes,' said Dick, 'Mary is the difficulty. At present I cannot even tell you what she is thinking of it all. Mary is the one person I could never look in the face when I meditated an underhand action—I remember how that sense of honour of hers used to annoy me when I was a boy—and so I have not studied her countenance much of late.'

'She shall marry Dowton,' said the colonel decisively.

'It is probably a pity, but I don't think she will,' replied Dick. 'Of course you can prevent her marrying Angus by simply refusing your consent.'

'Yes, and I shall refuse it.'

'Though it should break her heart she will never complain,' said Dick, 'but it does seem a little hard on Mary that we should mar her life rather than endure a disappointment ourselves.'

'You don't look at it in the proper light,' said the colonel, who, like most persons, made the proper light himself; 'in saving her from this man we do her the greatest kindness in our power.'

'Um,' said Dick, 'of course. That was how I put it to myself, but just consider Angus calmly, and see what case we have against him.'

'He is not a gentleman,' said the colonel.

'He ought not to be, according to the proper light, but he is.'

'Pshaw!' the colonel exclaimed pettishly. 'He may have worked himself up into some sort of position, like other discontented men of his class, but he never had a father.'

'He says he had a very good one. Weigh him, if you like, against Dowton, who is a good fellow in his way, but never, so far as I know, did an honest day's work in his life. Dowton's whole existence has been devoted to pleasure-seeking, while Angus has been climbing up ever since he was born, and with a heavy load on his back, too, most of the time. If he goes on as he is doing, he will have both a good income and a good position shortly.'

'Dowton's position is made,' said the colonel.

'Exactly,' said Dick, 'and Angus is making his for himself. Whatever other distinction we draw between them is a selfish one, and I question if it does us much credit.'

'I have no doubt,' said the colonel, 'that Mary's pride will make her see this matter as I do.'

'It will at least make her sacrifice herself for our pride, if you insist on that.'

Mary's father loved her as he had loved her mother, though he liked to have his own way with both of them. His voice broke a little as he answered Dick.

'You have a poor opinion of your father, my boy,' he said. 'I think I would endure a good deal if Mary were to be the happier for it.'

Dick felt a little ashamed of himself.

'Whatever I may say,' he answered, 'I have at least acted much as you would have done yourself. Forgive me, father.'

The colonel looked up with a wan smile.

'Let us talk of your affairs rather, Richard,' he said. 'I have at least nothing to say against Miss Meredith.'

Dick moved uncomfortably in his chair, and then stood up, thinking he heard a knock at the door.

'Are you there, Abinger?' some one called out. 'I have something very extraordinary to tell you.'

Dick looked at his father, and hesitated. 'It is Angus,' he said.

'Let him in,' said the colonel.

THE BARBER OF ROTTEN ROW

Rob started when he saw Mary's father.

'We have met before, Mr. Angus,' said the colonel courteously.

'Yes,' answered Rob, without a tremor; 'at Dome Castle, was it not?'

This was the Angus who had once been unable to salute anybody without wondering what on earth he ought to say next. This was the colonel whose hand had gaped five minutes before for Rob's throat. The frown on the face of Mary's father was only a protest against her lover's improved appearance. Rob was no longer the hobbledehoy of last Christmas. He was rather particular about the cut of his coat. He had forgotten that he was not a colonel's social equal. In short, when he entered a room now he knew what to do with his hat. Their host saw the two men measuring each other. Dick never smiled, but sometimes his mouth twitched, as now.

'You had something special to tell me, had you not?' he asked Rob.

'Well,' Rob replied, with hesitation, 'I have something for you in my rooms.'

'Suppose my father,' began Dick, meaning to invite the colonel upstairs, but pausing as he saw Rob's brows contract. The colonel saw too, and resented it. No man likes to be left on the outskirts of a secret.

'Run up yourself, Abinger,' Rob said, seating himself near Mary's father; 'and, stop, here are my keys. I locked it in.'

'Why,' asked Dick, while his father also looked up, 'have you some savage animal up there?'

'No,' Rob said, 'it is very tame.'

Dick climbed the stair, after casting a quizzical look behind him, which meant that he wondered how long the colonel and Rob would last in a small room together. He unlocked the door of Rob's chambers more quickly than he opened it, for he had no notion of what might be caged up inside, and as soon as he had entered he stopped, amazed. All men of course are amazed once in their lives—when they can get a girl to look at them. This was Dick's second time.

It was the hour of the evening when another ten minutes can be stolen from the day by a readjustment of one's window curtains. Rob's blind, however, had given way in the cords, and instead of being pulled up was twisted into two triangles. Just sufficient light straggled through the window to let Dick see the man who was standing on the hearthrug looking sullenly at his boots. There was a smell of oil in the room.

Dowton!' Dick exclaimed; 'what masquerade is this?'

The other put up his elbow as if to ward off a blow, and then Dick opened the eyes of anger.

'Oh,' he said, 'it is you, is it?'

They stood looking at each other in silence.

'Just stand there, my fine fellow,' Dick said, 'until I light the gas. I must have a better look at you.'

The stranger turned longing eyes on the door as the light struck him.

'Not a single step in that direction,' said Dick, 'unless you want to go over the banisters.'

Abinger came closer to the man who was Sir Clement Dowton's double, and looked him over. He wore a white linen jacket, and an apron to match, and it would have been less easy to mistake him for a baronet aping the barber than it had been for the barber to ape the baronet.

'Your name?' asked Dick.

'Josephs,' the other mumbled.

'You are a barber, I presume?'

'I follow the profession of hair-dressing,' replied Josephs, with his first show of spirit.

Had Dick not possessed an inscrutable face, Josephs would have known that his inquisitor was suffering from a sense of the ludicrous. Dick had just remembered that his father was downstairs.

'Well, Josephs, I shall have to hand you over to the police.'

'I think not,' said Josephs, in his gentlemanly voice.

'Why not?' asked Dick.

'Because then it would all come out.'

'What would all come out?'

'The way your father was deceived. The society papers would make a great deal of it, and he would not like that.'

Dick groaned, though the other did not hear him.

'You read the society journals, Josephs?'

'Rather!' said Josephs.

'Perhaps you write for them?'

Josephs did not say.

'Well, how were you brought here?' Dick asked.

'Your friend,' said Josephs sulkily, 'came into our place of business in Southampton Row half an hour ago, and saw me. He insisted on bringing me here at once in a cab. I wanted to put on a black coat, but he would not hear of it.'

'Ah, then, I suppose you gave Mr. Angus the full confession of your roguery as you came along?'

'He would not let me speak,' said Josephs. 'He said it was no affair of his.'

'No? Then you will be so good as to favour me with the pretty story.'

Dick lit a cigar and seated himself. The sham baronet looked undecidedly at a chair.

'Certainly not,' said Dick; 'you can stand.'

Josephs told his tale demurely, occasionally with a gleam of humour, and sometimes with a sigh. His ambition to be a gentleman, but with no desire to know the way, had come to him one day in his youth when another gentleman flung a sixpence at him. In a moment Josephs saw what it was to belong to the upper circles. He hurried to a street corner to get his boots blacked, tossed the menial the sixpence, telling him to keep the change, and returned home in an ecstasy, penniless, but with an object in life. That object was to do it again.

At the age of eighteen Josephs slaved merrily during the week, but had never any money by Monday morning. He was a gentleman every Saturday evening. Then he lived; for the remainder of the week he was a barber. One of his delights at this period was to have his hair cut at Truefitt's and complain that it was badly done. Having reproved his attendant in a gentlemanly way, he tipped him handsomely and retired in a glory. It was about this time that he joined a Conservative association.

Soon afterwards Josephs was to be seen in Rotten Row, in elegant apparel, hanging over the railing. He bowed and raised his hat to the ladies who took his fancy, and, though they did not respond, glowed with the sensation of being practically a man of fashion. Then he returned to the shop.

The years glided by, and Josephs discovered that he was perfectly content to remain a hairdresser if he could be a gentleman now and again. Having supped once in a fashionable restaurant, he was satisfied for a fortnight or so with a sausage and onions at home. Then the craving came back. He saved up for two months on one occasion, and then took Saturday to Monday at Cookham, where he passed as Henry K. Talbot Devereux. He was known to the waiters and boatmen there as the gentleman who had quite a pleasure in tossing them half-crowns, and for a month afterwards he had sausage without onions. So far this holiday had been the memory of his life. He studied the manners and language of the gentlemen who came to the shop in which he was employed, and began to dream of a big thing annually. He had learnt long ago that he was remarkably good-looking.

For a whole year Josephs abstained from being a gentleman except in the smallest way, for he was burning to have a handle to his name, and feared that it could not be done at less than twenty pounds. His week's holiday came, and found Josephs not ready for it. He had only twelve pounds. With a self-denial that was magnificent he crushed his aspirations, took only two days of delight at Brighton, and continued to save up for the title. Next summer saw him at the Anglers' Retreat, near Dome Castle. 'Sir Clement Dowton' was the name on his Gladstone bag. A dozen times a day he looked at it till it frightened him, and then he tore the label off. Having done so, he put on a fresh one.

Josephs had selected his baronetcy with due care. Years previously he had been told that he looked like the twin-brother of Sir Clement Dowton, and on inquiry he had learned that the baronet was not in England. As for the Anglers' Retreat, he went there because he had heard that it was frequented by persons in the rank of life to which it was his intention to belong for the next week. He had never heard of Colonel Abinger until they met. The rest is known. Josephs dwelt on his residence at Dome Castle with his eyes shut, like a street-arab lingering lovingly over the grating of a bakery.

'Well, you are a very admirable rogue,' Dick said, when Josephs had brought his story to an end, 'and, though I shall never be proud again, your fluency excuses our blindness. Where did you pick it up?' The barber glowed with gratification.