"Morning, Mr. Peters," said Mr. Bennett. "Very good of you to run down. Take a seat, and I'll just go through the few notes I have made about the matter."

"Mr. Bennett," exclaimed Jno. Peters. "May—may I speak?"

"What do you mean? Eh? What? Something to say? What is it?"

Mr. Peters cleared his throat awkwardly. He was feeling embarrassed at the unpleasantness of the duty which he had to perform, but it was a duty, and he did not intend to shrink from performing it. Ever since, gazing appreciatively through the drawing-room windows at the charming scene outside, he had caught sight of the unforgettable form of Billie, seated in her chair with the sketching-block on her knee, he had realised that he could not go away in silence, leaving Mr. Bennett ignorant of what he was up against.

One almost inclines to fancy that there must have been a curse of some kind on this house of Windles. Certainly everybody who entered it seemed to leave his peace of mind behind him. Jno. Peters had been feeling notably happy during his journey in the train from London, and the subsequent walk from the station. The splendour of the morning had soothed his nerves, and the faint wind that blew inshore from the sea spoke to him hearteningly of adventure and romance. There was a jar of pot-pourri on the drawing-room table, and he had derived considerable pleasure from sniffing at it. In short, Jno. Peters was in the pink, without a care in the world, until he had looked out of the window and seen Billie.

"Mr. Bennett," he said, "I don't want to do anybody any harm, and, if you know all about it, and she suits you, well and good; but I think it is my duty to inform you that your stenographer is not quite right in her head. I don't say she's dangerous, but she isn't compos. She decidedly is not compos, Mr. Bennett!"

Mr. Bennett stared at his well-wisher dumbly for a moment. The thought crossed his mind that, if ever there was a case of the pot calling the kettle black, this was it. His opinion of Jno. Peters' sanity went down to zero.

"What are you talking about? My stenographer? What stenographer?"

It occurred to Mr. Peters that a man of the other's wealth and business connections might well have a troupe of these useful females. He particularised.

"I mean the young lady out in the garden there, to whom you were dictating just now. The young lady with the writing-pad on her knee."

"What! What!" Mr. Bennett spluttered. "Do you know who that is?" he exclaimed.

"Oh, yes, indeed!" said Jno. Peters. "I have only met her once, when she came into our office to see Mr. Samuel, but her personality and appearance stamped themselves so forcibly on my mind, that I know I am not mistaken. I am sure it is my duty to tell you exactly what happened when I was left alone with her in the office. We had hardly exchanged a dozen words, Mr. Bennett, when—"—here Jno. Peters, modest to the core, turned vividly pink—"when she told me—she told me that I was the only man she loved!"

Mr. Bennett uttered a loud cry.

"Sweet spirits of nitre! What!"

"Those were her exact words."

"Five!" ejaculated Mr. Bennett, in a strangled voice. "By the great horn spoon, number five!"

Mr. Peters could make nothing of this exclamation, and he was deterred from seeking light by the sudden action of his host, who, bounding from his seat with a vivacity of which one would not have believed him capable, charged to the French window and emitted a bellow.

"Wilhelmina!"

Billie looked up from her sketching-block with a start. It seemed to her that there was a note of anguish, of panic, in that voice. What her father could have found in the drawing-room to be frightened at, she did not know; but she dropped her block and hurried to his assistance.

"What is it, father?"

Mr. Bennett had retired within the room when she arrived; and, going in after him, she perceived at once what had caused his alarm. There before her, looking more sinister than ever, stood the lunatic Peters; and there was an ominous bulge in his right coat-pocket which to her excited senses betrayed the presence of the revolver. What Jno. Peters was, as a matter of fact, carrying in his right coat-pocket was a bag of mixed chocolates which he had purchased in Windlehurst. But Billie's eyes, though bright, had no X-ray quality. Her simple creed was that, if Jno. Peters bulged at any point, that bulge must be caused by a pistol. She screamed, and backed against the wall. Her whole acquaintance with Jno Peters had been one constant backing against walls.

"Don't shoot!" she cried, as Mr. Peters absent-mindedly dipped his hand into the pocket of his coat. "Oh, please don't shoot!"

"What the deuce do you mean?" said Mr. Bennett irritably. "Wilhelmina, this man says that you told him you loved him."

"Yes, I did, and I do. Really, really, Mr. Peters, I do!"

"Suffering cats!"

Mr. Bennett clutched at the back of his chair.

"But you've only met him once," he added almost pleadingly.

"You don't understand, father dear," said Billie desperately. "I'll explain the whole thing later, when...."

"Father!" ejaculated Jno. Peters feebly. "Did you say 'father?'"

"Of course I said 'father!'"

"This is my daughter, Mr. Peters."

"My daughter! I mean, your daughter! Are—are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. Do you think I don't know my own daughter?"

"But she called me Mr. Peters!"

"Well, it's your name, isn't it?"

"But, if she—if this young lady is your daughter, how did she know my name?"

The point seemed to strike Mr. Bennett. He turned to Billie.

"That's true. Tell me, Wilhelmina, when did you and Mr. Peters meet?"

"Why, in—in Sir Mallaby Marlowe's office, the morning you came there and found me when I was talking to Sam."

Mr. Peters uttered a subdued gargling sound. He was finding this scene oppressive to a not very robust intellect.

"He—Mr. Samuel—told me your name was Miss Milliken," he said dully.

Billie stared at him.

"Mr. Marlowe told you my name was Miss Milliken!" she repeated.

"He told me that you were the sister of the Miss Milliken who acts as stenographer for the guv'—for Sir Mallaby, and sent me in to show you my revolver, because he said you were interested and wanted to see it."

Billie uttered an exclamation. So did Mr. Bennett, who hated mysteries.

"What revolver? Which revolver? What's all this about a revolver? Have you a revolver?"

"Why, yes, Mr. Bennett. It is packed now in my trunk, but usually I carry it about with me everywhere in order to take a little practice at the Rupert Street range. I bought it when Sir Mallaby told me he was sending me to America, because I thought I ought to be prepared—because of the Underworld, you know."

A cold gleam had come into Billie's eyes. Her face was pale and hard. If Sam Marlowe—at that moment carolling blithely in his bedroom at the Blue Boar in Windlehurst, washing his hands preparatory to descending to the coffee-room for a bit of cold lunch—could have seen her, the song would have frozen on his lips. Which, one might mention, as showing that there is always a bright side, would have been much appreciated by the travelling gentleman in the adjoining room, who had had a wild night with some other travelling gentlemen, and was then nursing a rather severe headache, separated from Sam's penetrating baritone only by the thickness of a wooden wall.

Billie knew all. And, terrible though the fact is as an indictment of the male sex, when a woman knows all, there is invariably trouble ahead for some man. There was trouble ahead for Samuel Marlowe. Billie, now in possession of the facts, had examined them and come to the conclusion that Sam had played a practical joke on her, and she was a girl who strongly disapproved of practical humour at her expense.

"That morning I met you at Sir Mallaby's office, Mr. Peters," she said in a frosty voice, "Mr. Marlowe had just finished telling me a long and convincing story to the effect that you were madly in love with a Miss Milliken, who had jilted you, and that this had driven you off your head, and that you spent your time going about with a pistol, trying to shoot every red-haired woman you saw, because you thought they were Miss Milliken. Naturally, when you came in and called me Miss Milliken, and brandished a revolver, I was very frightened. I thought it would be useless to tell you that I wasn't Miss Milliken, so I tried to persuade you that I was and hadn't jilted you after all."

"Good gracious!" said Mr. Peters, vastly relieved; and yet—for always there is bitter mixed with the sweet—a shade disappointed. "Then—er—you don't love me after all?"

"No!" said Billie. "I am engaged to Bream Mortimer, and I love him and nobody else in the world!"

The last portion of her observation was intended for the consumption of Mr. Bennett, rather than that of Mr. Peters, and he consumed it joyfully. He folded Billie in his ample embrace.

"I always thought you had a grain of sense hidden away somewhere," he said, paying her a striking tribute. "I hope now that we've heard the last of all this foolishness about that young hound Marlowe."

"You certainly have! I don't want ever to see him again! I hate him!"

"You couldn't do better, my dear," said Mr. Bennett, approvingly. "And now run away. Mr. Peters and I have some business to discuss."

A quarter of an hour later, Webster, the valet, sunning himself in the stable-yard, was aware of the daughter of his employer approaching him.

"Webster," said Billie. She was still pale. Her face was still hard, and her eyes still gleamed coldly.

"Miss?" said Webster politely, throwing away the cigarette with which he had been refreshing himself.

"Will you do something for me?"

"I should be more than delighted, miss."

Billie whisked into view an envelope which had been concealed in the recesses of her dress.

"Do you know the country about here well, Webster?"

"Within a certain radius, not unintimately, miss. I have been for several enjoyable rambles since the fine weather set in."

"Do you know the place where there is a road leading to Havant, and another to Cosham? It's about a mile down...."

"I know the spot well, miss."

"Well, straight in front of you when you get to the sign-post there is a little lane...."

"I know it, miss," said Webster, with a faint smile. Twice had he escorted Miss Trimblett, Billie's maid, thither. "A delightfully romantic spot. What with the overhanging trees, the wealth of blackberry bushes, the varied wild-flowers...."

"Yes, never mind about the wild-flowers now. I want you after lunch, to take this note to a gentleman you will find sitting on the gate at the bottom of the lane...."

"Sitting on the gate, miss. Yes, miss."

"Or leaning against it. You can't mistake him. He is rather tall and ... oh, well, there isn't likely to be anybody else there, so you can't make a mistake. Give him this, will you?"

"Certainly, miss. Er—any message?"

"Any what?"

"Any verbal message, miss?"

"No, certainly not! You won't forget, will you, Webster?"

"On no account whatever, miss. Shall I wait for an answer?"

"There won't be any answer," said Billie, setting her teeth for an instant. "Oh, Webster!"

"Miss?"

"I can rely on you to say nothing to anybody?"

"Most undoubtedly, miss. Most undoubtedly."

"Does anybody know anything about a feller named S. Marlowe?" inquired Webster, entering the kitchen. "Don't all speak at once! S. Marlowe. Ever heard of him?"

He paused for a reply, but nobody had any information to impart.

"Because there's something jolly well up! Our Miss B. is sending me with notes for him to the bottom of lanes."

"And her engaged to young Mr. Mortimer!" said the scullery-maid, shocked. "The way they go on. Chronic!" said the scullery-maid.

"Don't you go getting alarmed! And don't you," added Webster, "go shoving your oar in when your social superiors are talking! I've had to speak to you about that before. My remarks were addressed to Mrs. Withers here."

He indicated the cook with a respectful gesture.

"Yes, here's the note, Mrs. Withers. Of course, if you had a steamy kettle handy, in about half a moment we could ... but no, perhaps it's wiser not to risk it. And, come to that, I don't need to unstick the envelope to know what's inside here. It's the raspberry, ma'am, or I've lost all my power to read the human female countenance. Very cold and proud-looking she was! I don't know who this S. Marlowe is, but I do know one thing; in this hand I hold the instrument that's going to give it him in the neck, proper! Right in the neck, or my name isn't Montagu Webster!"

"Well!" said Mrs. Withers, comfortably, pausing for a moment from her labours. "Think of that!"

"The way I look at it," said Webster, "is that there's been some sort of understanding between our Miss B. and this S. Marlowe, and she's thought better of it and decided to stick to the man of her parent's choice. She's chosen wealth and made up her mind to hand the humble suitor the mitten. There was a rather similar situation in 'Cupid or Mammon,' that Nosegay Novelette I was reading in the train coming down here, only that ended different. For my part I'd be better pleased if our Miss B. would let the cash go, and obey the dictates of her own heart; but these modern girls are all alike! All out for the stuff, they are! Oh, well, it's none of my affair," said Webster, stifling a not unmanly sigh. For beneath that immaculate shirt-front there beat a warm heart. Montagu Webster was a sentimentalist.



CHAPTER XVI

WEBSTER, FRIEND IN NEED

At half-past two that afternoon, full of optimism and cold beef, gaily unconscious that Webster with measured strides was approaching ever nearer with the note that was to give it him in the neck, proper, Samuel Marlowe dangled his feet from the top bar of the gate at the end of the lane, and smoked contentedly as he waited for Billie to make her appearance. He had had an excellent lunch; his pipe was drawing well, and all Nature smiled. The breeze from the sea across the meadows tickled pleasantly the back of his head, and sang a soothing song in the long grass and ragged-robins at his feet. He was looking forward with a roseate glow of anticipation to the moment when the white flutter of Billie's dress would break the green of the foreground. How eagerly he would jump from the gate! How lovingly he would....

The elegant figure of Webster interrupted his reverie. Sam had never seen Webster before, and it was with no pleasure that he saw him now. He had come to regard this lane as his own private property, and he resented trespassers. He tucked his legs under him, and scowled at Webster under the brim of his hat.

The valet advanced towards him with the air of an affable executioner stepping daintily to the block.

"Mr. Marlowe, sir?" he inquired politely.

Sam was startled. He could making nothing of this.

"Eh? What?"

"Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. S. Marlowe?"

"Yes, that's my name."

"Mine is Webster, sir. I am Mr. Bennett's personal gentleman's gentleman. Miss Bennett entrusted me with this note to deliver to you, sir."

Sam began to grasp the position. For some reason or other, the dear girl had been prevented from coming this afternoon, and she had written to explain and relieve his anxiety. It was like her. It was just the sweet, thoughtful thing he would have expected her to do. His contentment with the existing scheme of things returned. The sun shone out again, and he found himself amiably disposed towards the messenger.

"Fine day," he said, as he took the note.

"Extremely, sir," said Webster, outwardly unemotional, inwardly full of a grave pity.

It was plain to him that there had been no previous little rift to prepare the young man for the cervical operation which awaited him, and he edged a little nearer, in order to be handy to catch Sam if the shock knocked him off the gate.

As it happened, it did not. Having read the opening words of the note, Sam rocked violently; but his feet were twined about the lower bars and this saved him from overbalancing. Webster stepped back, relieved.

The note fluttered to the ground. Webster, picking it up and handing it back, was enabled to get a glimpse of the first two sentences. They confirmed his suspicions. The note was hot stuff. Assuming that it continued as it began, it was about the warmest thing of its kind that pen had ever written. Webster had received one or two heated epistles from the sex in his time—your man of gallantry can hardly hope to escape these unpleasantnesses—but none had got off the mark quite so swiftly, and with quite so much frigid violence as this.

"Thanks," said Sam mechanically.

"Not at all, sir. You are very welcome."

Sam resumed his reading. A cold perspiration broke out on his forehead. His toes curled, and something seemed to be crawling down the small of his back. His heart had moved from its proper place and was now beating in his throat. He swallowed once or twice to remove the obstruction, but without success. A kind of pall had descended on the landscape, blotting out the sun.

Of all the rotten sensations in this world, the worst is the realisation that a thousand-to-one chance has come off, and caused our wrong-doing to be detected. There had seemed no possibility of that little ruse of his being discovered, and yet here was Billie in full possession of the facts. It almost made the thing worse that she did not say how she had come into possession of them. This gave Sam that feeling of self-pity, that sense of having been ill-used by Fate, which makes the bringing home of crime so particularly poignant.

"Fine day!" he muttered. He had a sort of subconscious feeling that it was imperative to keep engaging Webster in light conversation.

"Yes, sir. Weather still keeps up," agreed the valet suavely.

Sam frowned over the note. He felt injured. Sending a fellow notes didn't give him a chance. If she had come in person and denounced him it would not have been an agreeable experience, but at least it would have been possible then to have pleaded and cajoled and—and all that sort of thing. But what could he do now? It seemed to him that his only possible course was to write a note in reply, begging her to see him. He explored his pockets and found a pencil and a scrap of paper. For some moments he scribbled desperately. Then he folded the note.

"Will you take this to Miss Bennett?" he said, holding it out.

Webster took the missive, because he wanted to read it later at his leisure; but he shook his head.

"Useless, I fear, sir," he said gravely.

"What do you mean?"

"I am afraid it would effect little or nothing, sir, sending our Miss B. notes. She is not in the proper frame of mind to appreciate them. I saw her face when she handed me the letter you have just read, and I assure you, sir, she is not in a malleable mood."

"You seem to know a lot about it!"

"I have studied the sex, sir," said Webster modestly.

"I mean, about my business, confound it! You seem to know all about it!"

"Why, yes, sir, I think I may say that I have grasped the position of affairs. And, if you will permit me to say so, sir, you have my respectful sympathy."

Dignity is a sensitive plant which nourishes only under the fairest conditions. Sam's had perished in the bleak east wind of Billie's note. In other circumstances he might have resented this intrusion of a stranger into his most intimate concerns. His only emotion now, was one of dull but distinct gratitude. The four winds of Heaven blew chilly upon his raw and unprotected soul, and he wanted to wrap it up in a mantle of sympathy, careless of the source from which he borrowed that mantle. If Webster felt disposed, as he seemed to indicate, to comfort him, let the thing go on. At that moment Sam would have accepted condolences from a coal-heaver.

"I was reading a story—one of the Nosegay Novelettes; I do not know if you are familiar with the series, sir?—in which much the same situation occurred. It was entitled 'Cupid or Mammon.' The heroine, Lady Blanche Trefusis, forced by her parents to wed a wealthy suitor, despatches a note to her humble lover, informing him it cannot be. I believe it often happens like that, sir."

"You're all wrong," said Sam. "It's not that at all."

"Indeed, sir? I supposed it was."

"Nothing like it! I—I——."

Sam's dignity, on its death-bed, made a last effort to assert itself.

"I don't know what it's got to do with you!"

"Precisely, sir!" said Webster, with dignity. "Just as you say! Good afternoon, sir!"

He swayed gracefully, conveying a suggestion of departure without moving his feet. The action was enough for Sam. Dignity gave an expiring gurgle, and passed away, regretted by all.

"Don't go!" he cried.

The idea of being left alone in this infernal lane, without human support, overpowered him. Moreover, Webster had personality. He exuded it. Already Sam had begun to cling to him in spirit, and rely on his support.

"Don't go!"

"Certainly not, if you do not wish it, sir."

Webster coughed gently, to show his appreciation of the delicate nature of the conversation. He was consumed with curiosity, and his threatened departure had been but a pretence. A team of horses could not have moved Webster at that moment.

"Might I ask, then, what...?"

"There's been a misunderstanding," said Sam. "At least, there was, but now there isn't, if you see what I mean."

"I fear I have not quite grasped your meaning, sir."

"Well, I—I—played a sort of—you might almost call it a sort of trick on Miss Bennett. With the best motives, of course!"

"Of course, sir!"

"And she's found out! I don't know how she's found out, but she has! So there you are!"

"Of what nature would the trick be, sir? A species of ruse, sir,—some kind of innocent deception?"

"Well, it was like this."

It was a complicated story to tell, and Sam, a prey to conflicting emotions, told it badly; but such was the almost superhuman intelligence of Webster, that he succeeded in grasping the salient points. Indeed, he said that it reminded him of something of much the same kind in the Nosegay Novelette, "All for Her," where the hero, anxious to win the esteem of the lady of his heart, had bribed a tramp to simulate an attack upon her in a lonely road.

"The principle's the same," said Webster.

"Well, what did he do when she found out?"

"She did not find out, sir. All ended happily, and never had the wedding-bells in the old village church rung out a blither peal than they did at the subsequent union."

Sam was thoughtful.

"Bribed a tramp to attack her, did he?"

"Yes, sir. She had never thought much of him till that moment, sir. Very cold and haughty she had been, his social status being considerably inferior to her own. But, when she cried for help, and he dashed out from behind a hedge, well, it made all the difference."

"I wonder where I could get a good tramp," said Sam, meditatively.

Webster shook his head.

"I really would hardly recommend such a procedure, sir."

"No, it would be difficult to make a tramp understand what you wanted."

Sam brightened.

"I've got it! You pretend to attack her, and I'll...."

"I couldn't, sir! I couldn't, really! I should jeopardise my situation."

"Oh, come. Be a man!"

"No, sir, I fear not. There's a difference between handing in your resignation—I was compelled to do that only recently, owing to a few words I had with the guv'nor, though subsequently prevailed upon to withdraw it—I say there's a difference between handing in your resignation and being given the sack, and that's what would happen—without a character, what's more, and lucky if it didn't mean a prison cell! No, sir, I could not contemplate such a thing."

"Then I don't see that there's anything to be done," said Sam, morosely.

"Oh, I shouldn't say that, sir," said Webster encouragingly. "It's simply a matter of finding the way. The problem confronting us—you, I should say...."

"Us," said Sam. "Most decidedly us."

"Thank you very much, sir. I would not have presumed, but if you say so.... The problem confronting us, as I envisage it, resolves itself into this. You have offended our Miss B. and she has expressed a disinclination ever to see you again. How, then, is it possible, in spite of her attitude, to recapture her esteem?"

"Exactly," said Sam.

"There are several methods which occur to one...."

"They don't occur to me!"

"Well, for example, you might rescue her from a burning building, as in 'True As Steel'...."

"Set fire to the house, eh?" said Sam reflectively. "Yes, there might be something in that."

"I would hardly advise such a thing," said Webster, a little hastily—flattered at the readiness with which his disciple was taking his advice, yet acutely alive to the fact that he slept at the top of the house himself. "A little drastic, if I may say so. It might be better to save her from drowning, as in 'The Earl's Secret.'"

"Ah, but where could she drown?"

"Well, there is a lake in the grounds...."

"Excellent!" said Sam. "Terrific! I knew I could rely on you. Say no more! The whole thing's settled. You take her out rowing on the lake, and upset the boat. I plunge in.... I suppose you can swim?"

"No, sir."

"Oh? Well, never mind. You'll manage somehow, I expect. Cling to the upturned boat or something, I shouldn't wonder. There's always a way. Yes, that's the plan. When is the earliest you could arrange this?"

"I fear such a course must be considered out of the question, sir. It really wouldn't do."

"I can't see a flaw in it."

"Well, in the first place, it would certainly jeopardise my situation...."

"Oh, hang your situation! You talk as if you were Prime Minister or something. You can easily get another situation. A valuable man like you," said Sam ingratiatingly.

"No, sir," said Webster firmly. "From boyhood up I've always had a regular horror of the water. I can't so much as go paddling without an uneasy feeling."

The image of Webster paddling was arresting enough to occupy Sam's thoughts for a moment. It was an inspiring picture, and for an instant uplifted his spirits. Then they fell again.

"Well, I don't see what there is to be done," he said, gloomily. "It's no good my making suggestions, if you have some frivolous objection to all of them."

"My idea," said Webster, "would be something which did not involve my own personal and active co-operation, sir. If it is all the same to you, I should prefer to limit my assistance to advice and sympathy. I am anxious to help, but I am a man of regular habits, which I do not wish to disturb. Did you ever read 'Footpaths of Fate,' in the Nosegay series, sir? I've only just remembered it, and it contains the most helpful suggestion of the lot. There had been a misunderstanding between the heroine and the hero—their names have slipped my mind, though I fancy his was Cyril—and she had told him to hop it...."

"To what?"

"To leave her for ever, sir. And what do you think he did?"

"How the deuce do I know?"

"He kidnapped her little brother, sir, to whom she was devoted, kept him hidden for a bit, and then returned him, and in her gratitude all was forgotten and forgiven, and never...."

"I know. Never had the bells of the old village church...."

"Rung out a blither peal. Exactly, sir. Well, there, if you will allow me to say so, you are, sir! You need seek no further for a plan of action."

"Miss Bennett hasn't got a little brother."

"No, sir. But she has a dog, and is greatly attached to it."

Sam stared. From the expression on his face it was evident that Webster imagined himself to have made a suggestion of exceptional intelligence. It struck Sam as the silliest he had ever heard.

"You mean I ought to steal her dog?"

"Precisely, sir."

"But, good heavens! Have you seen that dog?"

"The one to which I allude is a small brown animal with a fluffy tail."

"Yes, and a bark like a steam-siren, and, in addition to that, about eighty-five teeth, all sharper than razors. I couldn't get within ten feet of that dog without its lifting the roof off, and, if I did, it would chew me into small pieces."

"I had anticipated that difficulty, sir. In 'Footpaths of Fate' there was a nurse who assisted the hero by drugging the child."

"By Jove!" said Sam, impressed.

"He rewarded her," said Webster, allowing his gaze to stray nonchalantly over the countryside, "liberally, very liberally."

"If you mean that you expect me to reward you if you drug the dog," said Sam, "don't worry. Let me bring this thing off, and you can have all I've got, and my cuff-links as well. Come now, this is really beginning to look like something. Speak to me more of this matter. Where do we go from here?"

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

"I mean, what's the next step in the scheme? Oh, Lord!" Sam's face fell. The light of hope died out of his eyes. "It's all off! It can't be done! How could I possibly get into the house? I take it that the little brute sleeps in the house?"

"That need constitute no obstacle, sir, no obstacle at all. The animal sleeps in a basket in the hall.... Perhaps you are familiar with the interior of the house, sir?"

"I haven't been inside it since I was at school. I'm Mr. Hignett's cousin, you know."

"Indeed, sir? I wasn't aware. Mr. Hignett has the mumps, poor gentleman."

"Has he?" said Sam, not particularly interested. "I used to stay with him," he went on, "during the holidays sometimes, but I've practically forgotten what the place is like inside. I remember the hall vaguely. Fireplace at one side, one or two suits of armour standing about, a sort of window-ledge near the front door...."

"Precisely, sir. It is close beside that window-ledge that the animal's basket is situated. If I administer a slight soporific...."

"Yes, but you haven't explained yet how I am to get into the house in the first place."

"Quite easily, sir. I can admit you through the drawing-room windows while dinner is in progress."

"Fine!"

"You can then secrete yourself in the cupboard in the drawing-room. Perhaps you recollect the cupboard to which I refer, sir?"

"No, I don't remember any cupboard. As a matter of fact, when I used to stay at the house the drawing-room was barred. Mrs. Hignett wouldn't let us inside it for fear we should smash her china. Is there a cupboard?"

"Immediately behind the piano, sir. A nice, roomy cupboard. I was glancing into it myself in a spirit of idle curiosity only the other day. It contains nothing except a few knick-knacks on an upper shelf. You could lock yourself in from the interior, and be quite comfortably seated on the floor till the household retired to bed."

"When would that be?"

"They retire quite early, sir, as a rule. By half-past ten the coast is generally clear. At that time I would suggest that I came down and knocked on the cupboard door to notify you that all was well."

Sam was glowing with frank approval.

"You know, you're a master-mind!" he said, enthusiastically.

"You're very kind, sir!"

"One of the lads, by Jove!" said Sam. "And not the worst of them! I don't want to flatter you, but there's a future for you in crime, if you cared to go in for it."

"I am glad that you appreciate my poor efforts, sir. Then we will regard the scheme as passed and approved?"

"I should say we would! It's a bird!"

"Very good, sir."

"I'll be round at about a quarter to eight. Will that be right?"

"Admirable, sir."

"And, I say, about that soporific.... Don't overdo it. Don't go killing the little beast."

"Oh, no, sir."

"Well," said Sam, "you can't say it's not a temptation. And you know what you Napoleons of the Underworld are!"



CHAPTER XVII

A CROWDED NIGHT

Sec. 1

If there is one thing more than another which weighs upon the mind of a story-teller as he chronicles the events which he has set out to describe, it is the thought that the reader may be growing impatient with him for straying from the main channel of his tale and devoting himself to what are, after all, minor developments. This story, for instance, opened with Mrs. Horace Hignett, the world-famous writer on Theosophy, going over to America to begin a lecturing-tour; and no one realises more keenly than I do that I have left Mrs. Hignett flat. I have thrust that great thinker into the background and concentrated my attention on the affairs of one who is both her mental and her moral inferior, Samuel Marlowe. I seem at this point to see the reader—a great brute of a fellow with beetling eyebrows and a jaw like the ram of a battleship, the sort of fellow who is full of determination and will stand no nonsense—rising to remark that he doesn't care what happened to Samuel Marlowe and that what he wants to know is, how Mrs. Hignett made out on her lecturing-tour. Did she go big in Buffalo? Did she have 'em tearing up the seats in Schenectady? Was she a riot in Chicago and a cyclone in St. Louis? Those are the points on which he desires information, or give him his money back.

I cannot supply the information. And, before you condemn me, let me hastily add that the fault is not mine but that of Mrs. Hignett herself. The fact is, she never went to Buffalo. Schenectady saw nothing of her. She did not get within a thousand miles of Chicago, nor did she penetrate to St. Louis. For the very morning after her son Eustace sailed for England in the liner "Atlantic," she happened to read in the paper one of those abridged passenger-lists which the journals of New York are in the habit of printing, and got a nasty shock when she saw that, among those whose society Eustace would enjoy during the voyage, was "Miss Wilhelmina Bennett, daughter of J. Rufus Bennett of Bennett, Mandelbaum and Co.". And within five minutes of digesting this information, she was at her desk writing out telegrams cancelling all her engagements. Iron-souled as this woman was, her fingers trembled as she wrote. She had a vision of Eustace and the daughter of J. Rufus Bennett strolling together on moonlit decks, leaning over rails damp with sea-spray and, in short, generally starting the whole trouble all over again.

In the height of the tourist season it is not always possible for one who wishes to leave America to spring on to the next boat. A long morning's telephoning to the offices of the Cunard and the White Star brought Mrs. Hignett the depressing information that it would be a full week before she could sail for England. That meant that the inflammable Eustace would have over two weeks to conduct an uninterrupted wooing, and Mrs. Hignett's heart sank, till suddenly she remembered that so poor a sailor as her son was not likely to have had leisure for any strolling on the deck during the voyage on the "Atlantic."

Having realised this, she became calmer and went about her preparations for departure with an easier mind. The danger was still great, but there was a good chance that she might be in time to intervene. She wound up her affairs in New York, and on the following Wednesday, boarded the "Nuronia" bound for Southampton.

The "Nuronia" is one of the slowest of the Cunard boats. It was built at a time when delirious crowds used to swoon on the dock if an ocean liner broke the record by getting across in nine days. It rolled over to Cherbourg, dallied at that picturesque port for some hours, then sauntered across the Channel and strolled into Southampton Water in the evening of the day on which Samuel Marlowe had sat in the lane plotting with Webster, the valet. At almost the exact moment when Sam, sidling through the windows of the drawing-room, slid into the cupboard behind the piano, Mrs. Hignett was standing at the Customs barrier telling the officials that she had nothing to declare.

Mrs. Hignett was a general who believed in forced marches. A lesser woman might have taken the boat-train to London and proceeded to Windles at her ease on the following afternoon. Mrs. Hignett was made of sterner stuff. Having fortified herself with a late dinner, she hired a car and set out on the cross-country journey. It was only when the car, a genuine antique, had broken down three times in the first ten miles, that she directed the driver to take her instead to the "Blue Boar" in Windlehurst, where she arrived, tired but thankful to have reached it at all, at about eleven o'clock.

At this point many, indeed most, women would have gone to bed; but the familiar Hampshire air and the knowledge that half an hour's walking would take her to her beloved home acted on Mrs. Hignett like a restorative. One glimpse of Windles she felt that she must have before she retired for the night, if only to assure herself that it was still there. She had a cup of coffee and a sandwich brought to her by the night-porter whom she had roused from sleep, for bedtime is early in Windlehurst, and then informed him that she was going for a short walk and would ring when she returned.

Her heart leaped joyfully as she turned in at the drive gates of her home and felt the well-remembered gravel crunching under her feet. The silhouette of the ruined castle against the summer sky gave her the feeling which all returning wanderers know. And, when she stepped on to the lawn and looked at the black bulk of the house, indistinct and shadowy with its backing of trees, tears came into her eyes. She experienced a rush of emotion which made her feel quite faint, and which lasted until, on tiptoeing nearer to the house in order to gloat more adequately upon it, she perceived that the French windows of the drawing-room were standing ajar. Sam had left them like this in order to facilitate departure, if a hurried departure should by any mischance be rendered necessary, and drawn curtains had kept the household from noticing the fact.

All the proprietor in Mrs. Hignett was roused. This, she felt indignantly, was the sort of thing she had been afraid would happen the moment her back was turned. Evidently laxity—one might almost say anarchy—had set in directly she had removed the eye of authority. She marched to the window and pushed it open. She had now completely abandoned her kindly scheme of refraining from rousing the sleeping house and spending the night at the inn. She stepped into the drawing-room with the single-minded purpose of routing Eustace out of his sleep and giving him a good talking-to for having failed to maintain her own standard of efficiency among the domestic staff. If there was one thing on which Mrs. Horace Hignett had always insisted it was that every window in the house must be closed at lights-out.

She pushed the curtains apart with a rattle and, at the same moment, from the direction of the door there came a low but distinct gasp which made her resolute heart jump and flutter. It was too dark to see anything distinctly, but, in the instant before it turned and fled, she caught sight of a shadowy male figure, and knew that her worst fears had been realised. The figure was too tall to be Eustace, and Eustace, she knew, was the only man in the house. Male figures, therefore, that went flitting about Windles, must be the figures of burglars.

Mrs. Hignett, bold woman though she was, stood for an instant spell-bound, and for one moment of not unpardonable panic tried to tell herself that she had been mistaken. Almost immediately, however, there came from the direction of the hall a dull chunky sound as though something soft had been kicked, followed by a low gurgle and the noise of staggering feet. Unless he were dancing a pas seul out of sheer lightness of heart, the nocturnal visitor must have tripped over something.

The latter theory was the correct one. Montagu Webster was a man who, at many a subscription ball, had shaken a gifted dancing-pump, and nothing in the proper circumstances pleased him better than to exercise the skill which had become his as the result of twelve private lessons at half-a-crown a visit; but he recognised the truth of the scriptural adage that there is a time for dancing, and that this was not it. His only desire when, stealing into the drawing-room he had been confronted through the curtains by a female figure, was to get back to his bedroom undetected. He supposed that one of the feminine members of the house-party must have been taking a stroll in the grounds, and he did not wish to stay and be compelled to make laborious explanations of his presence there in the dark. He decided to postpone the knocking on the cupboard door, which had been the signal arranged between himself and Sam, until a more suitable occasion. In the meantime he bounded silently out into the hall, and instantaneously tripped over the portly form of Smith, the bulldog, who, roused from a light sleep to the knowledge that something was going on, and being a dog who always liked to be in the centre of the maelstrom of events, had waddled out to investigate.

By the time Mrs. Hignett had pulled herself together sufficiently to feel brave enough to venture into the hall, Webster's presence of mind and Smith's gregariousness had combined to restore that part of the house to its normal nocturnal condition of emptiness. Webster's stagger had carried him almost up to the green baize door leading to the servants' staircase, and he proceeded to pass through it without checking his momentum, closely followed by Smith who, now convinced that interesting events were in progress which might possibly culminate in cake, had abandoned the idea of sleep, and meant to see the thing through. He gambolled in Webster's wake up the stairs and along the passage leading to the latter's room, and only paused when the door was brusquely shut in his face. Upon which he sat down to think the thing over. He was in no hurry. The night was before him, promising, as far as he could judge from the way it had opened, excellent entertainment.

Mrs. Hignett had listened fearfully to the uncouth noises from the hall. The burglars—she had now discovered that there were at least two of them—appeared to be actually romping. The situation had grown beyond her handling. If this troupe of terpsichorean marauders was to be dislodged she must have assistance. It was man's work. She made a brave dash through the hall mercifully unmolested; found the stairs; raced up them; and fell through the doorway of her son Eustace's bedroom like a spent Marathon runner staggering past the winning-post.

Sec. 2

At about the moment when Mrs. Hignett was crunching the gravel of the drive, Eustace was lying in bed, listening to Jane Hubbard as she told the story of how an alligator had once got into her tent while she was camping on the banks of the Issawassi River in Central Africa. Ever since he had become ill, it had been the large-hearted girl's kindly practice to soothe him to rest with some such narrative from her energetic past.

"And what happened then?" asked Eustace, breathlessly.

He had raised himself on one elbow in his bed. His eyes shone excitedly from a face which was almost the exact shape of an Association football; for he had reached the stage of mumps when the patient begins to swell as though somebody were inflating him with a bicycle-pump.

"Oh, I jabbed him in the eye with a pair of nail-scissors, and he went away!" said Jane Hubbard.

"You know, you're wonderful!" cried Eustace. "Simply wonderful!"

Jane Hubbard flushed a little beneath her tan. She loved his pretty enthusiasm. He was so genuinely stirred by what were to her the merest commonplaces of life.

"Why, if an alligator got into my tent," said Eustace, "I simply wouldn't know what to do! I should be nonplussed."

"Oh, it's just a knack," said Jane, carelessly. "You soon pick it up."

"Nail-scissors!"

"It ruined them, unfortunately. They were never any use again. For the rest of the trip I had to manicure myself with a hunting-spear."

"You're a marvel!"

Eustace lay back in bed and gave himself up to meditation. He had admired Jane Hubbard before, but the intimacy of the sick-room and the stories which she had told him to relieve the tedium of his invalid state had set the seal on his devotion. It has always been like this since Othello wooed Desdemona. For three days Jane Hubbard had been weaving her spell about Eustace Hignett, and now she monopolised his entire horizon. She had spoken, like Othello, of antres vast and deserts idle, rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touched heaven, and of the cannibals that each other eat, the Anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear would Eustace Hignett seriously incline, and swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange, 'twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful. He loved her for the dangers she had passed, and she loved him that he did pity them. In fact, one would have said that it was all over except buying the licence, had it not been for the fact that his very admiration served to keep Eustace from pouring out his heart. It seemed incredible to him that the queen of her sex, a girl who had chatted in terms of equality with African head-hunters and who swatted alligators as though they were flies, could ever lower herself to care for a man who looked like the "after-taking" advertisement of a patent food.

But even those whom Nature has destined to be mates may misunderstand each other, and Jane, who was as modest as she was brave, had come recently to place a different interpretation on his silence. In the last few days of the voyage she had quite made up her mind that Eustace Hignett loved her and would shortly intimate as much in the usual manner; but, since coming to Windles, she had begun to have doubts. She was not blind to the fact that Billie Bennett was distinctly prettier than herself and far more the type to which the ordinary man is attracted. And, much as she loathed the weakness and despised herself for yielding to it, she had become distinctly jealous of her. True, Billie was officially engaged to Bream Mortimer, but she had had experience of the brittleness of Miss Bennett's engagements, and she could by no means regard Eustace as immune.

"Do you suppose they will be happy?" she asked.

"Eh? Who?" said Eustace, excusably puzzled, for they had only just finished talking about alligators. But there had been a pause since his last remark, and Jane's thoughts had flitted back to the subject that usually occupied them.

"Billie and Bream Mortimer."

"Oh!" said Eustace. "Yes, I suppose so."

"She's a delightful girl."

"Yes," said Eustace without much animation.

"And, of course, it's nice their fathers being so keen on the match. It doesn't often happen that way."

"No. People's people generally want people to marry people people don't want to marry," said Eustace, clothing in words a profound truth which from the earliest days of civilisation has deeply affected the youth of every country.

"I suppose your mother has got somebody picked out for you to marry?" said Jane casually.

"Mother doesn't want me to marry anybody," said Eustace with gloom. It was another obstacle to his romance.

"What, never?"

"No."

"Why ever not?"

"As far as I can make out, if I marry, I get this house and mother has to clear out. Silly business!"

"Well, you wouldn't let your mother stand in the way if you ever really fell in love?" said Jane.

"It isn't so much a question of letting her stand in the way. The tough job would be preventing her. You've never met my mother!"

"No, I'm looking forward to it!"

"You're looking forward...!" Eustace eyed her with honest amazement.

"But what could your mother do? I mean, supposing you had made up your mind to marry somebody."

"What could she do? Why, there isn't anything she wouldn't do. Why, once...." Eustace broke off. The anecdote which he had been about to tell contained information which, on reflection, he did not wish to reveal.

"Once—...?" said Jane.

"Oh, well, I was just going to show you what mother is like. I—I was going out to lunch with a man, and—and—" Eustace was not a ready improvisator—"and she didn't want me to go, so she stole all my trousers!"

Jane Hubbard started, as if, wandering through one of her favourite jungles, she had perceived a snake in her path. She was thinking hard. That story which Billie had told her on the boat about the man to whom she had been engaged, whose mother had stolen his trousers on the wedding morning ... it all came back to her with a topical significance which it had never had before. It had lingered in her memory, as stories will, but it had been a detached episode, having no personal meaning for her. But now.... "She did that just to stop you going out to lunch with a man?" she said slowly.

"Yes, rotten thing to do, wasn't it?"

Jane Hubbard moved to the foot of the bed, and her forceful gaze, shooting across the intervening counterpane, pinned Eustace to the pillow. She was in the mood which had caused spines in Somaliland to curl like withered leaves.

"Were you ever engaged to Billie Bennett?" she demanded.

Eustace Hignett licked dry lips. His face looked like a hunted melon. The flannel bandage, draped around it by loving hands, hardly supported his sagging jaw.

"Why—er—"

"Were you?" cried Jane, stamping an imperious foot. There was that in her eye before which warriors of the lower Congo had become as chewed blotting-paper. Eustace Hignett shrivelled in the blaze. He was filled with an unendurable sense of guilt.

"Well—er—yes," he mumbled weakly.

Jane Hubbard buried her face in her hands and burst into tears. She might know what to do when alligators started exploring her tent, but she was a woman.

This sudden solution of steely strength into liquid weakness had on Eustace Hignett the stunning effects which the absence of the last stair has on the returning reveller creeping up to bed in the dark. It was as though his spiritual foot had come down hard on empty space and caused him to bite his tongue. Jane Hubbard had always been to him a rock of support. And now the rock had melted away and left him wallowing in a deep pool.

He wallowed gratefully. It had only needed this to brace him to the point of declaring his love. His awe of this girl had momentarily vanished. He felt strong and dashing. He scrambled down the bed and peered over the foot of it at her huddled form.

"Have some barley-water," he urged. "Try a little barley-water."

It was all he had to offer her except the medicine which, by the doctor's instructions, he took three times a day in a quarter of a glass of water.

"Go away!" sobbed Jane Hubbard.

The unreasonableness of this struck Eustace.

"But I can't. I'm in bed. Where could I go?"

"I hate you!"

"Oh, don't say that!"

"You're still in love with her!"

"Nonsense! I never was in love with her."

"Then why were you going to marry her?"

"Oh, I don't know. It seemed a good idea at the time."

"Oh! Oh! Oh!"

Eustace bent a little further over the end of the bed and patted her hair.

"Do have some barley-water," he said. "Just a sip!"

"You are in love with her!" sobbed Jane.

"I'm not! I love you!"

"You don't!"

"Pardon me!" said Eustace firmly. "I've loved you ever since you gave me that extraordinary drink with Worcester sauce in it on the boat."

"They why didn't you say so before?"

"I hadn't the nerve. You always seemed so—I don't know how to put it—I always seemed such a worm. I was just trying to get the courage to propose when I caught the mumps, and that seemed to me to finish it. No girl could love a man with three times the proper amount of face."

"As if that could make any difference! What does your outside matter? I have seen your inside!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I mean...."

Eustace fondled her back hair.

"Jane! Queen of my soul! Do you really love me?"

"I've loved you ever since we met on the Subway." She raised a tear-stained face. "If only I could be sure that you really loved me!"

"I can prove it!" said Eustace proudly. "You know how scared I am of my mother. Well, for your sake I overcame my fear, and did something which, if she ever found out about it, would make her sorer than a sunburned neck! This house. She absolutely refused to let it to old Bennett and old Mortimer. They kept after her about it, but she wouldn't hear of it. Well, you told me on the boat that Wilhelmina Bennett had invited you to spend the summer with her, and I knew that, if they didn't come to Windles, they would take some other place, and that meant I wouldn't see you. So I hunted up old Mortimer, and let it to him on the quiet, without telling my mother anything about it!"

"Why, you darling angel child," cried Jane Hubbard joyfully. "Did you really do that for my sake? Now I know you love me!"

"Of course, if mother ever got to hear of it...!"

Jane Hubbard pushed him gently into the nest of bedclothes, and tucked him in with strong, calm hands. She was a very different person from the girl who so short a while before had sobbed on the carpet. Love is a wonderful thing.

"You mustn't excite yourself," she said. "You'll be getting a temperature. Lie down and try to get to sleep." She kissed his bulbous face. "You have made me so happy, Eustace darling."

"That's good," said Eustace cordially. "But it's going to be an awful jar for mother!"

"Don't you worry about that. I'll break the news to your mother. I'm sure she will be quite reasonable about it."

Eustace opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.

"Lie back quite comfortably, and don't worry," said Jane Hubbard. "I'm going to my room to get a book to read you to sleep. I shan't be five minutes. And forget about your mother. I'll look after her."

Eustace closed his eyes. After all, this girl had fought lions, tigers, pumas, cannibals, and alligators in her time with a good deal of success. There might be a sporting chance of victory for her when she moved a step up in the animal kingdom and tackled his mother. He was not unduly optimistic, for he thought she was going out of her class; but he felt faintly hopeful. He allowed himself to drift into pleasant meditation.

There was a scrambling sound outside the door. The handle turned.

"Hullo! Back already?" said Eustace, opening his eyes.

The next moment he opened them wider. His mouth gaped slowly like a hole in a sliding cliff. Mrs. Horace Hignett was standing at his bedside.

Sec. 3

In the moment which elapsed before either of the two could calm their agitated brains to speech, Eustace became aware, as never before, of the truth of that well-known line—"Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far away." There was certainly little hope of peace with loved ones in his bedroom. Dully, he realised that in a few minutes Jane Hubbard would be returning with her book, but his imagination refused to envisage the scene which would then occur.

"Eustace!"

Mrs. Hignett gasped, hand on heart.

"Eustace!" For the first time Mrs. Hignett seemed to become aware that it was a changed face that confronted hers. "Good gracious! How stout you've grown!"

"It's mumps."

"Mumps!"

"Yes, I've got mumps."

Mrs. Hignett's mind was too fully occupied with other matters to allow her to dwell on this subject.

"Eustace, there are men in the house!"

This fact was just what Eustace had been wondering how to break to her.

"I know," he said uneasily.

"You know!" Mrs. Hignett stared. "Did you hear them?"

"Hear them?" said Eustace, puzzled.

"The drawing-room window was left open, and there are two burglars in the hall!"

"Oh, I say, no! That's rather rotten!" said Eustace.

"I saw them and heard them! I—oh!" Mrs. Hignett's sentence trailed off into a suppressed shriek, as the door opened and Jane Hubbard came in.

Jane Hubbard was a girl who by nature and training was well adapted to bear shocks. Her guiding motto in life was that helpful line of Horace—Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem. (For the benefit of those who have not, like myself, enjoyed an expensive classical education,—memento—Take my tip—servare—preserve—aequam—an unruffled—mentem—mind—rebus in arduis—in every crisis). She had only been out of the room a few minutes, and in that brief period a middle-aged lady of commanding aspect had apparently come up through a trap. It would have been enough to upset most girls, but Jane Hubbard bore it calmly. All through her vivid life her bedroom had been a sort of cosy corner for murderers, alligators, tarantulas, scorpions, and every variety of snake, so she accepted the middle-aged lady without comment.

"Good evening," she said placidly.

Mrs. Hignett, having rallied from her moment of weakness, glared at the new arrival dumbly. She could not place Jane. From the airy way in which she had strolled into the room, she appeared to be some sort of a nurse; but she wore no nurse's uniform.

"Who are you?" she asked stiffly.

"Who are you?" asked Jane.

"I," said Mrs. Hignett portentously, "am the owner of this house, and I should be glad to know what you are doing in it. I am Mrs. Horace Hignett."

A charming smile spread itself over Jane's finely-cut face.

"I'm so glad to meet you," she said. "I have heard so much about you."

"Indeed?" said Mrs. Hignett coldly. "And now I should like to hear a little about you."

"I've read all your books," said Jane. "I think they're wonderful."

In spite of herself, in spite of a feeling that this young woman was straying from the point, Mrs. Hignett could not check a slight influx of amiability. She was an authoress who received a good deal of incense from admirers, but she could always do with a bit more. Besides, most of the incense came by post. Living a quiet and retired life in the country, it was rarely that she got it handed to her face to face. She melted quite perceptibly. She did not cease to look like a basilisk, but she began to look like a basilisk who has had a good lunch.

"My favourite," said Jane, who for a week had been sitting daily in a chair in the drawing-room adjoining the table on which the authoress's complete works were assembled, "is 'The Spreading Light.' I do like 'The Spreading Light!'"

"It was written some years ago," said Mrs. Hignett with something approaching cordiality, "and I have since revised some of the views I state in it, but I still consider it quite a good text-book."

"Of course, I can see that 'What of the Morrow?' is more profound," said Jane. "But I read 'The Spreading Light' first, and of course that makes a difference."

"I can quite see that it would," agreed Mrs. Hignett. "One's first step across the threshold of a new mind, one's first glimpse...."

"Yes, it makes you feel...."

"Like some watcher of the skies," said Mrs. Hignett, "when a new planet swims into his ken, or like...."

"Yes, doesn't it!" said Jane.

Eustace, who had been listening to the conversation with every muscle tense, in much the same mental attitude as that of a peaceful citizen in a Wild West Saloon who holds himself in readiness to dive under a table directly the shooting begins, began to relax. What he had shrinkingly anticipated would be the biggest thing since the Dempsey-Carpentier fight seemed to be turning into a pleasant social and literary evening not unlike what he imagined a meeting of old Girton students must be. For the first time since his mother had come into the room he indulged in the luxury of a deep breath.

"But what are you doing here?" asked Mrs. Hignett, returning almost reluctantly to the main issue.

Eustace perceived that he had breathed too soon. In an unobtrusive way he subsided into the bed and softly pulled the sheets over his head, following the excellent tactics of the great Duke of Wellington in his Peninsular campaign. "When in doubt," the Duke used to say, "retire and dig yourself in."

"I'm nursing dear Eustace," said Jane.

Mrs. Hignett quivered, and cast an eye on the hump in the bedclothes which represented dear Eustace. A cold fear had come upon her.

"'Dear Eustace!'" she repeated mechanically.

"We're engaged," said Jane.

"Engaged! Eustace, is this true?"

"Yes," said a muffled voice from the interior of the bed.

"And poor Eustace is so worried," continued Jane, "about the house." She went on quickly. "He doesn't want to deprive you of it, because he knows what it means to you. So he is hoping—we are both hoping—that you will accept it as a present when we are married. We really shan't want it, you know. We are going to live in London. So you will take it, won't you—to please us?"

We all of us, even the greatest of us, have our moments of weakness. Only a short while back, in this very room, we have seen Jane Hubbard, that indomitable girl, sobbing brokenly on the carpet. Let us then not express any surprise at the sudden collapse of one of the world's greatest female thinkers. As the meaning of this speech smote on Mrs. Horace Hignett's understanding, she sank weeping into a chair. The ever-present fear that had haunted her had been exorcised. Windles was hers in perpetuity. The relief was too great. She sat in her chair and gulped; and Eustace, greatly encouraged, emerged slowly from the bedclothes like a worm after a thunderstorm.

How long this poignant scene would have lasted, one cannot say. It is a pity that it was cut short, for I should have liked to dwell upon it. But at this moment, from the regions downstairs, there suddenly burst upon the silent night such a whirlwind of sound as effectually dissipated the tense emotion in the room. Somebody appeared to have touched off the orchestrion in the drawing-room, and that willing instrument had begun again in the middle of a bar at the point where Jane Hubbard had switched it off four afternoons ago. Its wailing lament for the passing of Summer filled the whole house.

"That's too bad!" said Jane, a little annoyed. "At this time of night!"

"It's the burglars!" quavered Mrs. Hignett. In the stress of recent events she had completely forgotten the existence of those enemies of Society. "They were dancing in the hall when I arrived, and now they're playing the orchestrion!"

"Light-hearted chaps!" said Eustace, admiring the sang-froid of the criminal world. "Full of spirits!"

"This won't do," said Jane Hubbard, shaking her head. "We can't have this sort of thing. I'll go and fetch my gun."

"They'll murder you, dear!" panted Mrs. Hignett, clinging to her arm.

Jane Hubbard laughed.

"Murder me!" she said amusedly. "I'd like to catch them at it!"

Mrs. Hignett stood staring at the door as Jane closed it softly behind her.

"Eustace," she said solemnly, "that is a wonderful girl!"

"Yes! She once killed a panther—or a puma, I forget which—with a hat-pin!" said Eustace with enthusiasm.

"I could wish you no better wife!" said Mrs. Hignett.

She broke off with a sharp wail. Out in the passage something like a battery of artillery had roared.

The door opened and Jane Hubbard appeared, slipping a fresh cartridge into the elephant-gun.

"One of them was popping about outside here," she announced. "I took a shot at him, but I'm afraid I missed. The visibility was bad. At any rate he went away."

In this last statement she was perfectly accurate. Bream Mortimer, who had been aroused by the orchestrion and who had come out to see what was the matter, had gone away at the rate of fifty miles an hour. He had been creeping down the passage when he found himself suddenly confronted by a dim figure which, without a word, had attempted to slay him with an enormous gun. The shot had whistled past his ears and gone singing down the corridor. This was enough for Bream. He had returned to his room in three strides, and was now under the bed. The burglars might take everything in the house and welcome, so that they did not molest his privacy. That was the way Bream looked at it. And very sensible of him, too, I consider.

"We'd better go downstairs," said Jane. "Bring the candle. Not you, Eustace darling. You stay where you are or you may catch a chill. Don't stir out of bed!"

"I won't," said Eustace obediently.

Sec. 4

Of all the leisured pursuits, there are few less attractive to the thinking man than sitting in a dark cupboard waiting for a house-party to go to bed; and Sam, who had established himself in the one behind the piano at a quarter to eight, soon began to feel as if he had been there for an eternity. He could dimly remember a previous existence in which he had not been sitting in his present position, but it seemed so long ago that it was shadowy and unreal to him. The ordeal of spending the evening in this retreat had not appeared formidable when he had contemplated it that afternoon in the lane; but, now that he was actually undergoing it, it was extraordinary how many disadvantages it had.

Cupboards, as a class, are badly ventilated, and this one seemed to contain no air at all; and the warmth of the night, combined with the cupboard's natural stuffiness, had soon begun to reduce Sam to a condition of pulp. He seemed to himself to be sagging like an ice-cream in front of a fire. The darkness, too, weighed upon him. He was abominably thirsty. Also he wanted to smoke. In addition to this, the small of his back tickled, and he more than suspected the cupboard of harbouring mice. Not once or twice but many hundred times he wished that the ingenious Webster had thought of something simpler.

His was a position which would just have suited one of those Indian mystics who sit perfectly still for twenty years, contemplating the Infinite, but it reduced Sam to an almost imbecile state of boredom. He tried counting sheep. He tried going over his past life in his mind from the earliest moment he could recollect, and thought he had never encountered a duller series of episodes. He found a temporary solace by playing a succession of mental golf-games over all the courses he could remember, and he was just teeing up for the sixteenth at Muirfield, after playing Hoylake, St. Andrew's, Westward Ho, Hanger Hill, Mid-Surrey, Walton Heath, and Sandwich, when the light ceased to shine through the crack under the door, and he awoke with a sense of dull incredulity to the realisation that the occupants of the drawing-room had called it a day and that his vigil was over.

But was it? Once more alert, Sam became cautious. True, the light seemed to be off, but did that mean anything in a country-house, where people had the habit of going and strolling about the garden to all hours? Probably they were still popping about all over the place. At any rate, it was not worth risking coming out of his lair. He remembered that Webster had promised to come and knock an all-clear signal on the door. It would be safer to wait for that.

But the moments went by, and there was no knock. Sam began to grow impatient. The last few minutes of waiting in a cupboard are always the hardest. Time seemed to stretch out again interminably. Once he thought he heard footsteps but they led to nothing. Eventually, having strained his ears and finding everything still, he decided to take a chance. He fished in his pocket for the key, cautiously unlocked the door, opened it by slow inches, and peered out.

The room was in blackness. The house was still. All was well. With the feeling of a life-prisoner emerging from the Bastille, he began to crawl stiffly forward; and it was just then that the first of the disturbing events occurred which were to make this night memorable to him. Something like a rattlesnake suddenly went off with a whirr, and his head, jerking up, collided with the piano. It was only the cuckoo-clock, which now, having cleared its throat as was its custom before striking, proceeded to cuck eleven times in rapid succession before subsiding with another rattle; but to Sam it sounded like the end of the world.

He sat in the darkness, massaging his bruised skull. His hours of imprisonment in the cupboard had had a bad effect on his nervous system, and he vacillated between tears of weakness and a militant desire to get at the cuckoo-clock with a hatchet. He felt that it had done it on purpose and was now chuckling to itself in fancied security. For quite a minute he raged silently, and any cuckoo-clock which had strayed within his reach would have had a bad time of it. Then his attention was diverted.

So concentrated was Sam on his private vendetta with the clock that no ordinary happening would have had the power to distract him. What occurred now was by no means ordinary, and it distracted him like an electric shock. As he sat on the floor, passing a tender hand over the egg-shaped bump which had already begun to manifest itself beneath his hair, something cold and wet touched his face, and paralysed him so completely both physically and mentally that he did not move a muscle but just congealed where he sat into a solid block of ice. He felt vaguely that this was the end. His heart had stopped beating and he simply could not imagine it ever starting again, and, if your heart refuses to beat, what hope is there for you?

At this moment something heavy and solid struck him squarely in the chest, rolling him over. Something gurgled asthmatically in the darkness. Something began to lick his eyes, ears, and chin in a sort of ecstasy; and, clutching out, he found his arms full of totally unexpected bulldog.

"Get out!" whispered Sam tensely, recovering his faculties with a jerk. "Go away!"

Smith took the opportunity of Sam's lips having opened to lick the roof of his mouth. Smith's attitude in the matter was that Providence in its all-seeing wisdom had sent him a human being at a moment when he had reluctantly been compelled to reconcile himself to a total absence of such indispensable adjuncts to a good time. He had just trotted downstairs in rather a disconsolate frame of mind after waiting with no result in front of Webster's bedroom door, and it was a real treat to him to meet a man, especially one seated in such a jolly and sociable manner on the floor. He welcomed Sam like a long-lost friend.

Between Smith and the humans who provided him with dog-biscuits and occasionally with sweet cakes there had always existed a state of misunderstanding which no words could remove. The position of the humans was quite clear; they had elected Smith to his present position on a straight watch-dog ticket. They expected him to be one of those dogs who rouse the house and save the spoons. They looked to him to pin burglars by the leg and hold on till the police arrived. Smith simply could not grasp such an attitude of mind. He regarded Windles not as a private house but as a social club, and was utterly unable to see any difference between the human beings he knew and the strangers who dropped in for a late chat after the place was locked up. He had no intention of biting Sam. The idea never entered his head. At the present moment what he felt about Sam was that he was one of the best fellows he had ever met and that he loved him like a brother.

Sam, in his unnerved state, could not bring himself to share these amiable sentiments. He was thinking bitterly that Webster might have had the intelligence to warn him of bulldogs on the premises. It was just the sort of woollen-headed thing fellows did, forgetting facts like that. He scrambled stiffly to his feet and tried to pierce the darkness that hemmed him in. He ignored Smith, who snuffled sportively about his ankles, and made for the slightly less black oblong which he took to be the door leading into the hall. He moved warily, but not warily enough to prevent his cannoning into and almost upsetting a small table with a vase on it. The table rocked and the vase jumped, and the first bit of luck that had come to Sam that night was when he reached out at a venture and caught it just as it was about to bound on to the carpet.

He stood there, shaking. The narrowness of the escape turned him cold. If he had been an instant later, there would have been a crash loud enough to wake a dozen sleeping houses. This sort of thing could not go on. He must have light. It might be a risk; there might be a chance of somebody upstairs seeing it and coming down to investigate; but it was a risk that must be taken. He declined to go on stumbling about in this darkness any longer. He groped his way with infinite care to the door, on the wall adjoining which, he presumed, the electric-light switch would be. It was nearly ten years since he had last been inside Windles, and it never occurred to him that in this progressive age even a woman like his Aunt Adeline, of whom he could believe almost anything, would still be using candles and oil-lamps as a means of illumination. His only doubt was whether the switch was where it was in most houses, near the door.

It is odd to reflect that, as his searching fingers touched the knob, a delicious feeling of relief came to Samuel Marlowe. This misguided young man actually felt at that moment that his troubles were over. He positively smiled as he placed a thumb on the knob and shoved.

He shoved strongly and sharply, and instantaneously there leaped at him out of the darkness a blare of music which appeared to his disordered mind quite solid. It seemed to wrap itself round him. It was all over the place. In a single instant the world had become one vast bellow of Tosti's "Good-bye."

How long he stood there, frozen, he did not know; nor can one say how long he would have stood there had nothing further come to invite his notice elsewhere. But, suddenly, drowning even the impromptu concert, there came from somewhere upstairs the roar of a gun; and, when he heard that, Sam's rigid limbs relaxed and a violent activity descended upon him. He bounded out into the hall, looking to right and to left for a hiding-place. One of the suits of armour which had been familiar to him in his boyhood loomed up in front of him, and with the sight came the recollection of how, when a mere child on his first visit to Windles, playing hide and seek with his cousin Eustace, he had concealed himself inside this very suit, and had not only baffled Eustace through a long summer evening but had wound up by almost scaring him into a decline by booing at him through the vizor of the helmet. Happy days, happy days! He leaped at the suit of armour. Having grown since he was last inside it, he found the helmet a tight fit, but he managed to get his head into it at last, and the body of the thing was quite roomy.

"Thank heaven!" said Sam.

He was not comfortable, but comfort just then was not his primary need.

Smith the bulldog, well satisfied with the way the entertainment had opened, sat down, wheezing slightly, to await developments.

Sec. 5

He had not long to wait. In a few minutes the hall had filled up nicely. There was Mr. Mortimer in his shirt-sleeves, Mr. Bennett in blue pyjamas and a dressing-gown, Mrs. Hignett in a travelling costume, Jane Hubbard with her elephant-gun, and Billie in a dinner dress. Smith welcomed them all impartially.

Somebody lit a lamp, and Mrs. Hignett stared speechlessly at the mob.

"Mr. Bennett! Mr. Mortimer!"

"Mrs. Hignett! What are you doing here?"

Mrs. Hignett drew herself up stiffly.

"What an odd question, Mr. Mortimer! I am in my own house!"

"But you rented it to me for the summer. At least, your son did."

"Eustace let you Windles for the summer!" said Mrs. Hignett incredulously.

Jane Hubbard returned from the drawing-room, where she had been switching off the orchestrion.

"Let us talk all that over cosily to-morrow," she said. "The point now is that there are burglars in the house."

"Burglars!" cried Mr. Bennett aghast. "I thought it was you playing that infernal instrument, Mortimer."

"What on earth should I play it for at this time of night?" said Mr. Mortimer irritably.

"It woke me up," said Mr. Bennett complainingly. "And I had had great difficulty in dropping off to sleep. I was in considerable pain. I believe I've caught the mumps from young Hignett."

"Nonsense! You're always imagining yourself ill," snapped Mr. Mortimer.

"My face hurts," persisted Mr. Bennett.

"You can't expect a face like that not to hurt," said Mr. Mortimer.

It appeared only too evident that the two old friends were again on the verge of one of their distressing fallings-out; but Jane Hubbard intervened once more. This practical-minded girl disliked the introducing of side-issues into the conversation. She was there to talk about burglars, and she intended to do so.

"For goodness sake stop it!" she said, almost petulantly for one usually so superior to emotion. "There'll be lots of time for quarrelling to-morrow. Just now we've got to catch these...."

"I'm not quarrelling," said Mr. Bennett.

"Yes, you are," said Mr. Mortimer.

"I'm not!"

"You are!"

"Don't argue!"

"I'm not arguing!"

"You are!"

"I'm not!"

Jane Hubbard had practically every noble quality which a woman can possess with the exception of patience. A patient woman would have stood by, shrinking from interrupting the dialogue. Jane Hubbard's robuster course was to raise the elephant-gun, point it at the front door, and pull the trigger.

"I thought that would stop you," she said complacently, as the echoes died away and Mr. Bennett had finished leaping into the air. She inserted a fresh cartridge, and sloped arms. "Now, the question is...."

"You made me bite my tongue!" said Mr. Bennett, deeply aggrieved.

"Serve you right!" said Jane placidly. "Now, the question is, have the fellows got away or are they hiding somewhere in the house? I think they're still in the house."

"The police!" exclaimed Mr. Bennett, forgetting his lacerated tongue and his other grievances. "We must summon the police!"

"Obviously!" said Mrs. Hignett, withdrawing her fascinated gaze from the ragged hole in the front door, the cost of repairing which she had been mentally assessing. "We must send for the police at once."

"We don't really need them, you know," said Jane. "If you'll all go to bed and just leave me to potter round with my gun...."

"And blow the whole house to pieces!" said Mrs. Hignett tartly. She had begun to revise her original estimate of this girl. To her, Windles was sacred, and anyone who went about shooting holes in it forfeited her esteem.

"Shall I go for the police?" said Billie. "I could bring them back in ten minutes in the car."

"Certainly not!" said Mr. Bennett. "My daughter gadding about all over the countryside in an automobile at this time of night!"

"If you think I ought not to go alone, I could take Bream."

"Where is Bream?" said Mr. Mortimer.

The odd fact that Bream was not among those present suddenly presented itself to the company.

"Where can he be?" said Billie.

Jane Hubbard laughed the wholesome, indulgent laugh of one who is broad-minded enough to see the humour of the situation even when the joke is at her expense.

"What a silly girl I am!" she said. "I do believe that was Bream I shot at upstairs. How foolish of me making a mistake like that!"

"You shot my only son!" cried Mr. Mortimer.

"I shot at him," said Jane. "My belief is that I missed him. Though how I came to do it beats me. I don't suppose I've missed a sitter like that since I was a child in the nursery. Of course," she proceeded, looking on the reasonable side, "the visibility wasn't good, but it's no use saying I oughtn't at least to have winged him, because I ought." She shook her head with a touch of self-reproach. "I shall get chaffed about this if it comes out," she said regretfully.

"The poor boy must be in his room," said Mr. Mortimer.

"Under the bed, if you ask me," said Jane, blowing on the barrel of her gun and polishing it with the side of her hand. "He's all right! Leave him alone, and the housemaid will sweep him up in the morning."

"Oh, he can't be!" cried Billie, revolted.

A girl of high spirit, it seemed to her repellent that the man she was engaged to marry should be displaying such a craven spirit. At that moment she despised and hated Bream Mortimer. I think she was wrong, mind you. It is not my place to criticise the little group of people whose simple annals I am relating—my position is merely that of a reporter—; but personally I think highly of Bream's sturdy common-sense. If somebody loosed off an elephant-gun at me in a dark corridor, I would climb on to the roof and pull it up after me. Still, rightly or wrongly, that was how Billie felt; and it flashed across her mind that Samuel Marlowe, scoundrel though he was, would not have behaved like this. And for a moment a certain wistfulness added itself to the varied emotions then engaging her mind.

"I'll go and look, if you like," said Jane agreeably. "You amuse yourselves somehow till I come back."

She ran easily up the stairs, three at a time. Mr. Mortimer turned to Mr. Bennett.

"It's all very well your saying Wilhelmina mustn't go, but, if she doesn't, how can we get the police? The house isn't on the 'phone, and nobody else can drive the car."

"That's true," said Mr. Bennett, wavering.

"Of course, we could drop them a post-card first thing to-morrow morning," said Mr. Mortimer in his nasty sarcastic way.

"I'm going," said Billie resolutely. It occurred to her, as it has occurred to so many women before her, how helpless men are in a crisis. The temporary withdrawal of Jane Hubbard had had the effect which the removal of the rudder has on a boat. "It's the only thing to do. I shall be back in no time."

She stepped firmly to the coat-rack, and began to put on her motoring-cloak. And just then Jane Hubbard came downstairs, shepherding before her a pale and glassy-eyed Bream.

"Right under the bed," she announced cheerfully, "making a noise like a piece of fluff in order to deceive burglars."

Billie cast a scornful look at her fiance. Absolutely unjustified, in my opinion, but nevertheless she cast it. But it had no effect at all. Terror had stunned Bream Mortimer's perceptions. His was what the doctors call a penumbral mental condition.

"Bream," said Billie, "I want you to come in the car with me to fetch the police."

"All right," said Bream.

"Get your coat."

"All right," said Bream.

"And cap."

"All right," said Bream.

He followed Billie in a docile manner out through the front door, and they made their way to the garage at the back of the house, both silent. The only difference between their respective silences was that Billie's was thoughtful, while Bream's was just the silence of a man who has unhitched his brain and is getting along as well as he can without it.

In the hall they had left, Jane Hubbard once more took command of affairs.

"Well, that's something done," she said, scratching Smith's broad back with the muzzle of her weapon. "Something accomplished, something done, has earned a night's repose. Not that we're going to get it yet. I think those fellows are hiding somewhere, and we ought to search the house and rout them out. It's a pity Smith isn't a bloodhound. He's a good cake-hound, but as a watch-dog he doesn't finish in the first ten."

The cake-hound, charmed at the compliment, frisked about her feet like a young elephant.

"The first thing to do," continued Jane, "is to go through the ground-floor rooms...." She paused to strike a match against the suit of armour nearest to her, a proceeding which elicited a sharp cry of protest from Mrs. Hignett, and lit a cigarette. "I'll go first, as I've got a gun...." She blew a cloud of smoke. "I shall want somebody with me to carry a light, and...."

"Tchoo!"

"What?" said Jane.

"I didn't speak," said Mr. Mortimer. "Who am I to speak?" he went on bitterly. "Who am I that it should be supposed that I have anything sensible to suggest?"

"Somebody spoke," said Jane. "I...."

"Achoo!"

"Do you feel a draught, Mr. Bennett?" cried Jane sharply, wheeling round on him.

"There is a draught," began Mr. Bennett.

"Well, finish sneezing and I'll go on."

"I didn't sneeze!"

"Somebody sneezed."

"It seemed to come from just behind you," said Mrs. Hignett nervously.

"It couldn't have come from just behind me," said Jane, "because there isn't anything behind me from which it could have...." She stopped suddenly, in her eyes the light of understanding, on her face the set expression which was wont to come to it on the eve of action. "Oh!" she said in a different voice, a voice which was cold and tense and sinister. "Oh, I see!" She raised her gun, and placed a muscular forefinger on the trigger. "Come out of that!" she said. "Come out of that suit of armour and let's have a look at you!"

"I can explain everything," said a muffled voice through the vizor of the helmet. "I can—achoo!" The smoke of the cigarette tickled Sam's nostrils again, and he suspended his remarks.

"I shall count three," said Jane Hubbard, "One—two—"

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" said Sam petulantly.

"You'd better!" said Jane.

"I can't get this dashed helmet off!"

"If you don't come quick, I'll blow it off."

Sam stepped out into the hall, a picturesque figure which combined the costumes of two widely separated centuries. Modern as far as the neck, he slipped back at that point to the Middle Ages.

"Hands up!" commanded Jane Hubbard.

"My hands are up!" retorted Sam querulously, as he wrenched at his unbecoming head-wear.

"Never mind trying to raise your hat," said Jane. "If you've lost the combination, we'll dispense with the formalities. What we're anxious to hear is what you're doing in the house at this time of night, and who your pals are. Come along, my lad, make a clean breast of it and perhaps you'll get off easier. Are you a gang?"

"Do I look like a gang?"

"If you ask me what you look like...."

"My name is Marlowe ... Samuel Marlowe...."

"Alias what?"

"Alias nothing! I say my name is Samuel Marlowe...."

An explosive roar burst from Mr. Bennett.

"The scoundrel! I know him! I forbade him the house, and...."

"And by what right did you forbid people my house, Mr. Bennett?" said Mrs. Hignett with acerbity.

"I've rented the house, Mortimer and I rented it from your son...."

"Yes, yes, yes," said Jane Hubbard. "Never mind about that. So you know this fellow, do you?"

"I don't know him!"

"You said you did."

"I refuse to know him!" went on Mr. Bennett. "I won't know him! I decline to have anything to do with him!"

"But you identify him?"

"If he says he's Samuel Marlowe," assented Mr. Bennett grudgingly, "I suppose he is. I can't imagine anybody saying he was Samuel Marlowe if he didn't know it could be proved against him."

"Are you my nephew Samuel?" said Mrs. Hignett.

"Yes," said Sam.

"Well, what are you doing in my house?"

"It's my house," said Mr. Bennett, "for the summer, Henry Mortimer's and mine. Isn't that right, Henry?"

"Dead right," said Mr. Mortimer.

"There!" said Mr. Bennett. "You hear? And when Henry Mortimer says a thing, it's so. There's nobody's word I'd take before Henry Mortimer's."

"When Rufus Bennett makes an assertion," said Mr. Mortimer, highly flattered by these kind words, "you can bank on it. Rufus Bennett's word is his bond. Rufus Bennett is a white man!"

The two old friends, reconciled once more, clasped hands with a good deal of feeling.

"I am not disputing Mr. Bennett's claim to belong to the Caucasian race," said Mrs. Hignett testily. "I merely maintain that this house is m...."

"Yes, yes, yes, yes!" interrupted Jane. "You can thresh all that out some other time. The point is, if this fellow is your nephew, I don't see what we can do. We'll have to let him go."

"I came to this house," said Sam, raising his vizor to facilitate speech, "to make a social call...."

"At this hour of the night!" snapped Mrs. Hignett. "You always were an inconsiderate boy, Samuel."

"I came to inquire after poor Eustace's mumps. I've only just heard that the poor chap was ill."

"He's getting along quite well," said Jane, melting. "If I had known you were so fond of Eustace...."

"All right, is he?" said Sam.

"Well, not quite all right, but he's going on very nicely."

"Fine!"

"Eustace and I are engaged, you know!"

"No, really? Splendid! I can't see you very distinctly—how those Johnnies in the old days ever contrived to put up a scrap with things like this on their heads beats me—but you sound a good sort. I hope you'll be very happy."

"Thank you ever so much, Mr. Marlowe. I'm sure we shall."

"Eustace is one of the best."

"How nice of you to say so."

"All this," interrupted Mrs. Hignett, who had been a chaffing auditor of this interchange of courtesies, "is beside the point. Why did you dance in the hall, Samuel, and play the orchestrion?"

"Yes," said Mr. Bennett, reminded of his grievance, "waking people up."

"Scaring us all to death!" complained Mr. Mortimer.

"I remember you as a boy, Samuel," said Mrs. Hignett, "lamentably lacking in consideration for others and concentrated only on your selfish pleasures. You seem to have altered very little."

"Don't ballyrag the poor man," said Jane Hubbard. "Be human! Lend him a sardine opener!"

"I shall do nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Hignett. "I never liked him and I dislike him now. He has got himself into this trouble through his own wrong-headedness."