May I point out that considerable sums of public money are spent on these University Colleges, and even, indirectly, in promoting the very researches incriminated by the Memorialists. We should insist on knowing what we are paying for and whether it is consistent with the consciences of those among us who look upon dumb animals as the friends and servants of man.

I am, Sir, Your obedient servant,

P. FARRELL.

The Acacias, Wimbledon, Thursday, March 7, 1907.

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

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

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

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

"Silly little bounder," was his comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"A dangerous fool," I corrected.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What's his name?" I demanded.

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

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

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

"What duty?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Who is it?" I demanded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



NIGHT THE FIFTH.

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

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

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

"I don't," said I.

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

"What was thrown away?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Do I see one?" I asked.

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

"I trust so," said I.

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

"Is that the story?" said I.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"'Why did you?' I asked.

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

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

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

"'That's better,' said I.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"'Hurry!' he gasped.

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

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

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

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

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

"'What things?' I asked.

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

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

"Farrell clutched my arm, and we ran."



NIGHT THE SIXTH.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE PICTUREDROME.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"'Scand'lous!' said Farrell.

"'What's scandalous?' I asked.

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

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

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

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

"'Where is it?' he demanded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"'Anything wrong?' he asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What about the Lady Petunia?" I asked.

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



NIGHT THE SEVENTH.

THE OUTRAGE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Look here, Otty; he's in trouble—"

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

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

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

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

"Squared?" I suggested.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He had another engagement," I put in.

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

"Much damage?" I asked.

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

"Laboratories," I suggested.

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

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

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

But I was.

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

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

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

"Sir Elkin Travers?" I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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