I said I could not see anything objectionable in it.

"Come now, confess you are ashamed of it," he urged. "You only wrote it to make money."

"If you mean that I deliberately wrote low stuff to make money," I replied calmly, "it is untrue. There is nothing I am ashamed of. What you object to is simply realism." I pointed out Bret Harte had been as realistic, but they did not understand literature on that committee.

"Confess you are ashamed of yourself," he reiterated, "and we will look over it."

"I am not," I persisted, though I foresaw only too clearly that my summer's vacation was doomed if I told the truth. "What is the use of saying I am?"

The headmaster uplifted his hands in horror. "How, after all your kindness to him, he can contradict you——!" he cried.

"When I come to be your age," I conceded to the member of the committee, "it is possible I may look back on it with shame. At present I feel none."

In the end I was given the alternative of expulsion or of publishing nothing which had not passed the censorship of the committee. After considerable hesitation I chose the latter.

This was a blessing in disguise; for, as I have never been able to endure the slightest arbitrary interference with my work, I simply abstained from publishing. Thus, although I still wrote—mainly sentimental verses—my nocturnal studies were less interrupted. Not till I had graduated, and was of age, did I return to my inky vomit. Then came my next first book—a real book at last.

In this also I had the collaboration of a fellow-teacher, Louis Cowen by name. This time my colleague was part-author. It was only gradually that I had been admitted to the privilege of communion with him, for he was my senior by five or six years, and a man of brilliant parts who had already won his spurs in journalism, and who enjoyed deservedly the reputation of an Admirable Crichton. What drew me to him was his mordant wit (to-day, alas! wasted on anonymous journalism! If he would only reconsider his indetermination, the reading public would be the richer!) Together we planned plays, novels, treatises on political economy, and contributions to philosophy. Those were the days of dreams.



One afternoon he came to me with quivering sides, and told me that an idea for a little shilling book had occurred to him. It was that a Radical Prime Minister and a Conservative working man should change into each other by supernatural means, and the working man be confronted with the problem of governing, while the Prime Minister should be as comically out of place in the East End environment. He thought it would make a funny "Arabian Nights" sort of burlesque. And so it would have done; but, unfortunately, I saw subtler possibilities of political satire in it. I insisted the story must be real, not supernatural, the Prime Minister must be a Tory, weary of office, and it must be an ultra-Radical atheistic artisan bearing a marvellous resemblance to him who directs (and with complete success) the Conservative Administration. To add to the mischief, owing to my collaborator's evenings being largely taken up by other work, seven-eighths of the book came to be written by me, though the leading ideas were, of course, threshed out and the whole revised in common, and thus it became a vent-hole for all the ferment of a youth of twenty-one, whose literary faculty had furthermore been pent up for years by the potential censorship of a committee. The book, instead of being a shilling skit, grew to a ten-and-sixpenny (for that was the unfortunate price of publication) political treatise of over sixty long chapters and 500 closely-printed pages. I drew all the characters as seriously and complexly as if the fundamental conception were a matter of history; the out-going Premier became an elaborate study of a nineteenth century Hamlet; the Bethnal Green life amid which he came to live was presented with photographic fulness and my old trick of realism; the governmental manoeuvres were described with infinite detail; numerous real personages were introduced under nominal disguises, and subsequent history was curiously anticipated in some of the Female Franchise and Home Rule episodes. Worst of all, so super-subtle was the satire, that it was never actually stated straight out that the Premier had changed places with the Radical working man, so that the door might be left open for satirically suggested alternative explanations of the metamorphosis in their characters; and as, moreover, the two men re-assumed their original roles for one night only with infinitely complex effects, many readers, otherwise unimpeachable, reached the end without any suspicion of the actual plot—and yet (on their own confession) enjoyed the book!



In contrast to all this elephantine waggery the half-a-dozen chapters near the commencement, in which my collaborator sketched the first adventures of the Radical working man in Downing Street, were light and sparkling, and I feel sure the shilling skit he originally meditated would have been a great success. We christened the book The Premier and the Painter, ourselves J. Freeman Bell, had it type-written, and sent it round to the publishers in two enormous quarto volumes. I had been working at it for more than a year every evening after the hellish torture of the day's teaching, and all day every holiday, but now I had a good rest while it was playing its boomerang prank of returning to me once a month. The only gleam of hope came from Bentleys, who wrote to say that they could not make up their minds to reject it; but they prevailed upon themselves to part with it at last, though not without asking to see Mr. Bell's next book. At last it was accepted by Spencer Blackett, and, though it had been refused by all the best houses, it failed. Failed in a material sense, that is; for there was plenty of praise in the papers, though at too long intervals to do us any good. The Athenaeum has never spoken so well of anything I have done since. The late James Runciman (I learnt after his death that it was he) raved about it in various uninfluential organs. It even called forth a leader in the Family Herald (!), and there are odd people here and there, who know the secret of J. Freeman Bell, who declare that I. Zangwill will never do anything so good. There was some sort of a cheap edition, but it did not sell much, and when, some years ago, Spencer Blackett went out of business, I acquired the copyright and the remainder copies, which are still lying about somewhere. And not only did The Premier and the Painter fail with the great public, it did not even help either of us one step up the ladder; never got us a letter of encouragement nor a stroke of work. I had to begin journalism at the very bottom and entirely unassisted, narrowly escaping canvassing for advertisements, for I had by this time thrown up my scholastic position, and had gone forth into the world penniless and without even a "character," branded as an Atheist (because I did not worship the Lord who presided over our committee) and a Revolutionary (because I refused to break the law of the land).



I should stop here if I were certain I had written the required article. But as The Premier and the Painter was not entirely my first book, I may perhaps be expected to say something of my third first book, and the first to which I put my name—The Bachelors' Club. Years of literary apathy succeeded the failure of The Premier and the Painter. All I did was to publish a few serious poems (which, I hope, will survive Time), a couple of pseudonymous stories signed "The Baroness Von S." (!), and a long philosophical essay upon religion, and to lend a hand in the writing of a few playlets. Becoming convinced of the irresponsible mendacity of the dramatic profession, I gave up the stage, too, vowing never to write except on commission, and sank entirely into the slough of journalism (glad enough to get there), inter alia editing a comic paper (not Grimaldi, but Ariel) with a heavy heart. At last the long apathy wore off, and I resolved to cultivate literature again in my scraps of time. It is a mere accident that I wrote a pair of "funny" books, or put serious criticism of contemporary manners into a shape not understood in a country where only the dull are profound and only the ponderous are earnest. The Bachelors' Club was the result of a whimsical remark made by my dear friend, Eder of Bartholomew's, with whom I was then sharing rooms in Bernard Street, and who helped me greatly with it, and its publication was equally accidental. One spring day, in the year of grace 1891, having lived unsuccessfully for a score of years and seven upon this absurd planet, I crossed Fleet Street and stepped into what is called "success." It was like this. Mr. J. T. Grein, now of the Independent Theatre, meditated a little monthly called The Playgoers' Review, and he asked me to do an article for the first number, on the strength of some speeches I had made at the Playgoers' Club. When I got the proof it was marked "Please return at once to 6, Bouverie Street." My office boy being out, and Bouverie Street being only a few steps away, I took it over myself, and found myself, somewhat to my surprise, in the office of Henry & Co., publishers, and in the presence of Mr. J. Hannaford Bennett, an active partner in the firm. He greeted me by name, also to my surprise, and told me he had heard me speak at the Playgoers' Club. A little conversation ensued, and he mentioned that his firm was going to bring out a Library of Wit and Humour. I told him I had begun a book, avowedly humorous, and had written two chapters of it, and he straightway came over to my office, heard me read them, and immediately secured the book. (The then editor ultimately refused to have it in the "Whitefriars' Library of Wit and Humour," and so it was brought out separately.) Within three months, working in odds and ends of time, I finished it, correcting the proofs of the first chapters while I was writing the last; indeed, ever since the day I read those two chapters to Mr. Hannaford Bennett I have never written a line anywhere that has not been purchased before it was written. For, to my undying astonishment, two average editions of my real "First Book" were disposed of on the day of publication, to say nothing of the sale in New York. Unless I had acquired a reputation of which I was totally unconscious, it must have been the title that "fetched" the trade. Or, perhaps, it was the illustrations by my friend, Mr. George Hutchinson, whom I am proud to have discovered as a cartoonist for Ariel.



So here the story comes to a nice sensational climax. Re-reading it, I feel dimly that there ought to be a moral in it somewhere for the benefit of struggling fellow-scribblers. But the best I can find is this: That if you are blessed with some talent, a great deal of industry, and an amount of conceit mighty enough to enable you to disregard superiors, equals and critics, as well as the fancied demands of the public, it is possible, without friends, or introductions, or bothering celebrities to read your manuscripts, or cultivating the camp of the log-rollers, to attain, by dint of slaving day and night for years during the flower of your youth, to a fame infinitely less widespread than a prize-fighter's, and a pecuniary position which you might with far less trouble have been born to.



By the Light of the Lamp.

BY HILDA NEWMAN.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY HAL HURST.

——-

A day in bed! Oh! the horror of it to a man who has never ailed anything in his life! A day away from the excitement (pleasurable or otherwise) of business, the moving throng of city streets, the anticipated chats with business friends and casual acquaintances—the world of men. Nothing to look upon but the four walls of the room, which, in spite of its cosiness, he only associates with dreams, nightmares, and dull memories of sleepless nights, and chilly mornings. Nothing to listen to but the twittering of the canary downstairs, and the distant wrangling of children in the nursery: no one to speak to but the harassed housewife, wanted in a dozen places at once, and the pert housemaid, whose noisiness is distracting. The man lay there, cursing his helplessness. In spite of his iron will, the unseen enemy, who had stolen in by night, conquered, holding him down with a hundred tingling fingers when he attempted to rise, and drawing a misty veil over his eyes when he tried to read, till at last he was forced to resign himself, with closed eyes, and turn day into night. But the lowered blind was a sorry substitute for the time of rest, and brought him no light, refreshing sleep, so, in the spirit, he occupied his customary chair at the office, writing and receiving cheques, drawing up new circulars, and ordering the clerks about in the abrupt, peremptory manner he thought proper to adopt towards subordinates—the wife included.

He tortured himself by picturing the disorganisation of the staff in his enforced absence—for he had grown to believe that nothing could prosper without his personal supervision, though the head clerk had been ten years in his employ. Then he remembered an important document, that should have been signed before, and a foreign letter, which probably awaited him, and fretted himself into a fever of impatience and aggravation.



Just at the climax of his reflections his wife entered the room. She was a silent little woman, with weary eyes. Perhaps her burden of household cares, and the complaints of an exacting husband, had made her prematurely old, for there were already silver threads among the dark brown coils of hair that were neatly twisted in a bygone fashion, though she was young enough to have had a bright colour in her cheek, a merry light in her dark eyes, and a smile on her lips. These, and a becoming dress, would have made her a pretty woman; but a friendless, convent girlhood, followed by an early marriage, and unswerving obedience to the calls of a husband and family who demanded and accepted her unceasing attention and the sacrifice of her youth, without a word of gratitude or sympathy, had made her what she was—a plain, insignificant, faded-looking creature, with unsatisfied yearnings, and heartaches that she did not betray, fearing to be misunderstood or ridiculed.



She listened quietly to his complaints, and bore without reproach his mocking answers to her offers of help. Then she softly drew up the blind, and went downstairs, returning with a daintily-spread tray. But the tempting oysters she had had such trouble to procure were pettishly refused, and the tray was not even allowed to be in the room. The wife sat down near the window, and took up a little garment she was making—her face was flushed, and her lips trembled as she stitched and folded—it seemed so hard that she could do nothing to please him, knowing, as she did, that he considered hers an idle life, since they kept servants to do the work of the house. He did not know of her heart-breaking attempts to keep within the limits of her weekly allowance, with unexpected calls from the nursery, and kitchen breakages; he forgot that it would not go so far now that there were more children to clothe and feed, and, when she gently hinted this, he hurled the bitter taunt of extravagance at her, not dreaming that she was really pinched for money, and stinting herself of a hundred and one things necessary to her comfort and well-being for the sake of her family. Indeed, it was part of his theory never to yield to requests of this kind, since they were sure to be followed by others at no distant date, and, besides, he greatly prided himself on firmness in domestic matters.

She was very worried to-day; anxious about her husband's health, and sorely grieved at the futility of all her efforts to interest or help him. Great tears gathered in her eyes, and were ready to fall, but they had to be forced back, for she was called out of the room again.

And so it went on throughout the afternoon—in and out—up and down—never resting—never still—her thoughts always with the discontented invalid, who fell asleep towards evening, after a satisfactory meal, cooked and served by his patient helpmate, and eaten in a desultory manner, as if its speedier consumption would imply too much appreciation of her culinary kindness.

About midnight he awoke, refreshed in body and mind, and singularly clear of brain.

His first feeling was one of intense relief, for he felt quite free from pain, and to-morrow would find him in town, writing and scolding—in short, himself again. He sat up in bed, and looked round. The gas was turned low, but on a little table consecrated to his wants stood a carefully-shaded lamp. By its soft light he discovered his wife, fast asleep in the low, wicker armchair, whose gay chintz cover contrasted strangely with her neat dark dress. She had evidently meant to sit up all night in case he felt worse, but had succumbed from sheer weariness, still grasping the tiny frock she had been mending. He noticed her roughened forefinger, but excused it, when he saw the little, even stitches. Finally, he decided not to disturb her, but, as he settled down again on the comfortable pillow, he was haunted by the image of her pale face, and, raising himself on his elbow, looked at her again, reflectively. She was certainly very white.

He blamed the lamplight at first, but his conscience spoke clearly in the dim silence, as he recalled her anxiety for him, and her gentle, restless footsteps on the stairs, and, now that he began to think of it, she had not eaten all day. He scolded her severely for it in his mind. Was there not plenty for her if she wanted it?

But that inner self would not be silenced. "How about her idle life?" it said—"has she had time to eat to-day?"

He could not answer.

She sighed in her sleep, and her lashes were wet as from recent tears. For the first time he noticed the silver hairs, and the lines about her eyes, and wondered at them.



And the still, small voice pierced his heart, saying, "Whose fault is it?"

As he shut his eyes—vainly endeavouring to dismiss the unwelcome thoughts that came crowding in upon his mind, and threatened to destroy his belief in the perfect theory he loved to expound—a past day rose before him. He held her hand, and, looking into her timid, girlish face, said to himself, "I can mould her to my will." Then she came to him, alone and friendless, with no one to help hide her inexperience and nervousness.

He recalled the gentle questions he was always too busy to answer, till they troubled him no more; and the silent reproach of her quivering lips when he blamed her for some little household error. And, though he believed that his training had made her useful and independent, he remembered, with a pang of remorse, many occasions on which an affectionate word of appreciation had hovered on his tongue, and wondered what foolish pride or reserve had made him hesitate and choke it down, when he knew what it meant to her. Birthdays, and all those little anniversaries which stand out clearly on the calendar of a woman's heart, he had forgotten, or remembered only when the time for wishes and kisses was over. Yet he had never reproached himself for this before. But to-day he had seen enough to understand something of the responsibility that rested on her, the ignorance of the servants, the healthy, clamouring children, who would only obey her, and the hundred and one daily incidents that would have worried him into a frenzy, but which only left her serene and patient, and anxious to do her duty. The poor wan face had grown lovely to him, and the lines on her forehead spoke with an eloquence beyond the most passionate appeal for sympathy that she could have uttered—what would the house be without her? What if he were going to lose her? His heart was shaken by a terrible fear as he sat up with misty eyes, and, brokenly uttering her name, held out his arms imploringly.

Oh! God, if she should never wake again!.... But she answered him, breathlessly, waking from a wonderful dream, in which she saw him wandering afar through a fragrant garden, that she longed to enter—then as she wept, despairingly hiding her face in her hands, she heard him calling her, first softly, then louder—and louder—

And the garden faded away.

But the dawn found her sobbing out years of loneliness on her husband's breast.



Memoirs of a Female Nihilist.

BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. ST. M. FITZ-GERALD.

——-

III.—ONE DAY.



Eight o'clock in the morning. I am taking my tea while idly turning over the leaves of a book, when the noise of an explosion causes me to suddenly raise my head. Explosions are not of rare occurrence at the fortress of X——, of which the outer wall encloses several hundred barrack rooms and places where the garrison are exercised, and I am quite accustomed to the noise of cannon and small arms. This solitary explosion, however, seemed so close at hand, and has so strongly shaken the prison, that, anxious to know what has happened, I rise and approach the door and listen. A few moments of silence—then, suddenly, from somewhere in the corridor, comes the jingle of spurs, the clash of swords, and the sound of voices. At first, all this noise is stationary, then gradually it grows and appears to spread on all sides. Something extraordinary has surely happened behind this heavy door, something is now happening which causes me anxiety. But what is it? Standing on tip-toes, I try to look through the small square of glass covering the wicket, but the outside shutter is closed, and in spite of the habit which I and other prisoners have of finding some small aperture through which a glimpse of the corridor may be obtained, to-day I can see nothing. Only the noise of heavy and rapid footsteps, each moment stronger and more distinct, comes to my ears. I seem to hear in the distance the choked and panting voice of Captain W—— asking some question, then another nearer and unknown voice replies—"Oh! yes, killed! Killed outright!"



Killed? Who? How and why? Killed? My God! Have I heard aright? Killed! No, no; it is impossible! Breathless, and with beating heart, I consider for a moment in order to find some pretext for having this heavy door opened. Shall I ask to see the director—or the doctor—or say I am thirsty and have no water? The latter is the most simple, and, my jug hastily emptied, I return to the wicket to knock. In ordinary times the slightest blow struck on the little square of glass brings my "blue angel," the warder. Now, I knock loudly, and again and again. The intervals seem like an eternity, but the little shutter remains closed, while the sound of spurs, swords, and voices cross each other in the corridor, sometimes near, then dying away into the distance. A few moments more of anxious waiting and agony almost insupportable, then I raise my arm determined to break the window, when a new noise from the outside causes a shudder to run through me.

Clear and sharp, the noise is that of windows broken in rapid succession; it is the signal that the prisoners have revolted. Distant at first, the noise approaches with lightning-like rapidity on the side of the principal building of the prison, and as it approaches it is accompanied by cries and loud questioning. Without knowing the cause of the outbreak, I seize the first hard object that comes to my hand, a dictionary, and with one bound I am on my table, and in my turn break the glass of my window, the fragments of which ring gaily as they fall, some into the court-yard, and the others on the stone floor of my cell.

As the window falls to pieces a flood of light invades my cell, and I feel the warm air, and smell a perfume as of new-mown hay. For a moment I am blinded, suffocated, then with both hands I seize the iron bars and draw myself up to the narrow window ledge. A confused noise of breaking glass gradually passing away in the distance, and the cracking of wood fills the pure air of the glorious summer morning; while on all sides are heard the voices of anxious men and women, all asking the same questions, "What has happened? Why are we revolting?"



For a long time these questions remain unanswered, then at last a new and distant voice—at times rendered inaudible by the wind—announces that a warder, or a guard, has killed one of our comrades, the prisoner Ivanoff, in his cell, and that the prisoners in the other buildings are breaking the furniture and the cell doors.

This reply, which comrades transmit from window to window, petrifies me. After hearing the explosion and the words spoken in the corridor; after a long and anxious incertitude; after this announcement of a revolt in which I myself am taking part—the reply is not unexpected. And yet I understand nothing of the matter; I am thoroughly upset, and my brain refuses to understand and believe. Killed? Ivanoff, the youth whom, by the way, I do not know personally. Killed? But why? Without weapons and under lock and key, what can he have done to deserve death? Has he attempted to escape? But does one attempt such an enterprise in open day and under the eyes of sentries and warders? Besides, Ivanoff had committed no other crime than fetching from the post-office a letter intended for one of his friends whose name he refused to give, while the friend, arrested since, has assumed the responsibility of the correspondence. Ivanoff was to have been liberated on bail in the course of a few days, and do those in such a position attempt escape on the eve of their release? But why, why has he been killed?

These questions I ask myself while the sound of breaking glass continues. My neighbours appear to have been pursuing a train of thought similar to mine, for I hear several of them calling to our informant, and enquiring, "How and why was he killed?"

Then a long, long, anxious wait, and then the reply, "Yes, killed!" Not by a warder, but by a sentry on guard in the court-yard, who, seeing Ivanoff at his window, shot him through the head. The occupier of a neighbouring cell, also at that moment at his window, saw the shot fired. Others heard the fall of the body. Some have called to him, and received no reply; therefore Ivanoff is dead. As to why he was assassinated, nobody knows.

This recital, several times interrupted by noises and screams, is nevertheless clear and precise. My neighbours, one after the other, descend from their windows, and commence to break up furniture and attack the doors. I follow their example, and recommence my work of destruction. Water-bottle, glass, basin, the wicket in the door, and all that is fragile in my cell flies to pieces, and, with the broken glass from the window, covers the floor. In spite of the feverish haste with which I accomplish this sad task, my heart is not in the work. All this is so unexpected, so unreal, so violent, that it bewilders me. But through the bewilderment the questions, "Is it possible? And why?" continue to force their way. Then I say to myself, "If this man, this soldier, has really killed Ivanoff, it was, perhaps, in a fit of drunkenness; or, perhaps, his gun went off accidentally; or, perhaps, seeing a prisoner at a window, he thought it an attempt at escape." While these ideas, rapid and confused, rush through my brain, I continue to break everything breakable that comes under my hands—because the others are doing the same—because, for prisoners, it is the only means of protest. The sentiment, however, which dominates me is not one of rage, but of infinite sadness, which presses me down and renders weak my trembling arms.

But now the uproar augments. Several prisoners have demolished their beds, and with the broken parts are attacking the doors. The noise of iron hurled with force against the oak panels dominates all others. Through my broken wicket, I hear the voice of the Commandant ordering the soldiers to fire on any prisoner leaving his cell, and to the warders to manacle all those who are attempting to break down their doors.



All these noises, blended with screams and imprecations, the jingle of spurs, the clatter of sword-scabbards crossing and recrossing each other, excite and intoxicate me. Wild at my lack of energy and strength, I seize with both hands my stool. It is old and worm-eaten, and after I have several times flung it on the floor, the joints give way, and it falls to pieces. As I turn to find some other object for destruction, a flushed and agitated face appears at the wicket, and a moment later the door is partly opened, and a warder pushes with violence a woman into my cell. So great is the force employed, and so rapid the movement, that I have difficulty in seizing her in my arms to prevent her falling upon the floor amongst the broken glass and debris of furniture.

This unexpected visitor is one of my friends and fellow-captives, Nadine B——. Surprised at this unexpected meeting, and the conditions under which it takes place, we are for some instants speechless, but during those few moments I again see all our past, and also note the changes which ten months' imprisonment have wrought in my friend; then, very pale, and trembling with nervous excitement, Nadine explains that her door having been forced during a struggle in the corridor, an officer ordered her to be removed and locked up with another female prisoner. Her cell was in the same corridor as that of Ivanoff, and of the death of the latter there is no doubt. Several comrades, her neighbours, have seen the body taken away. As to the grounds for his assassination, she heard a group of officers, before her door, conversing, and one said that the Commandant, not satisfied with the manner in which the warders in the corridors discharged their duties in watching the prisoners, gave orders to the sentries to watch from the court-yard and to shoot any prisoner who appeared at his window.

This, then, is the reason for this assassination, in open day, of a defenceless prisoner! The penalty of death for disobedience to one of the prison regulations. Is this, then, a caprice, or an access of ill-temper, on the part of an officer who has no authority in this matter, since prisoners awaiting trial are only responsible to the representatives of our so-called justice? Like a thunderclap this explanation drives away my hesitation and sadness, which are now replaced by indignation and a limitless horror; and while Nadine, sick and worn, throws herself upon my bed, I mount to my window in order to communicate the news to my neighbours. The narrow court-yard, into which the sunshine streams, is, as usual, empty, excepting for the sentry on his eternal march. Above the wall I see a row of soldiers and workwomen's faces, all pale, as they look at the prison and listen to the noises. As I appear at the window a woman covers her face with her hands and screams, and I recognise her as the wife of one of our comrades, a workman. This cry, this gesture, the word "torture" that I hear run along the crest of the wall—all this at first surprises me. As, however, I follow the direction of the eyes of those gazing at me, I discover the cause. My hands, by which I am holding myself to the window bars, are covered with blood, the result of my recent work of destruction of glass and woodwork. There is blood, too, on my light-coloured dress. Poor woman! By voice and gesture I try to calm her. But does she hear me down there? The sentry looks towards me. He is young and very pale, and in his eyes, stupefied by what is going on around him, there is a world of carelessness and passiveness, and as I look into them a shudder of agony and despair passes through me.

The voice of Nadine calling brings me to her side. Partly unconscious, she sobs in the commencement of a nervous crisis, and asks for water. Water! I have none. Not a drop! What is to be done?



And while I try to calm her with gentle words and caresses, and look round in the vain hope that some few drops of the precious fluid may have escaped my notice, the door of the cell is suddenly opened, and several soldiers, drunk with the uproar and the fight, rush in. A cry of horror escapes me, and instinctively I retreat behind my bed. The noise of chains and the voice of the Commandant ordering that all prisoners be immediately manacled, reassures me. Ah! the chains! Only the chains! I do not intend to resist. All resistance on my part would be useless. Besides, I am anxious to be rid of the presence of these soldiers, and would willingly hold out to them my bleeding hands, if a confused idea in my brain did not tell me that such an act would be one of cowardice. And now a soldier seizes them, and drawing them behind my back, fastens heavy iron manacles to my wrists. Another attempts a similar operation upon Nadine, who, frightened, struggles and screams. Making an effort to calm her, I try to approach, but a sudden jerk on the chain attached to my manacles causes intense pain in my arms, and a rough voice cries "Back." Back? Why? I do not want to abandon Nadine, and instinctively I grasp the bed behind me. Another and a stronger jerk, I stumble, and a piece of broken glass pierces my thin shoe, and cuts my foot, and I am pulled backwards. I am now against that part of the wall where, at the height of about three feet, there is an iron ring, and whilst one of the soldiers attaches my chain to this ring Nadine is dragged towards the opposite wall.

All this passes quickly in our cell, and the soldiers are soon gone and the door closed and locked. But in other cells prisoners resist, and as the struggle goes on and the noise increases so does the beating of my heart, and to me the tumult takes the proportions of a thunderstorm, and, broken down, I listen for some time without understanding the reason for the uproar.

Slowly the noises die away. Nadine, either calmed or worn out, sobs quietly, and in this relative peace, the first for several hours, my mind becomes clearer, and I begin to have some idea of what is passing in and around me.

My principal preoccupation is Nadine. She is pale, and appears to be so exhausted that I momentarily expect her to faint and remain suspended by the chains that rattle as she sobs. With a negative motion of her head and a few words, she assures me that the crisis is passed, that her arms pain her very much, and that she is very thirsty. Chained a few steps away, I cannot render her the slightest aid, and the thought of my helplessness is a cruel suffering. I, too, suffer in the arms. Heavy, they feel as though overrun and stung by thousands of insects, and, when I move, that sensation is changed to one of intense pain. My foot, too, is very painful, and as the blood oozes from my shoe it forms a pool, and I am very thirsty. All these sensations are lost in my extreme nervous excitement and anxiety for the others, who are now quiet, and for Nadine, from whom I instinctively turn my eyes.

It is very warm, and through the broken window I see a large patch of sky, so transparent and luminous that my eyes, long accustomed to the twilight of my cell, can hardly stand the brightness. There is light everywhere. The walls, dry and white at this period of the year, are flooded with light, and the sun's rays, as they fall on the broken glass on the floor, produce thousands of bright star-like points, flashing and filling the cell with iridescent stars.



With all this light there is the perfume-laden air blowing in at the window, and bringing the odours of the country in summer. Such is the quiet reigning that I can hear the sound of a distant church bell, can count the steps taken by the sentry in the court-yard below, and can hear the rustle of leaves of an open book on the floor, turned over by the gentle breeze.

But this silence is only intermittent. In one of the cells during the struggle preceding the putting on of chains the soldiers threw a prisoner on the ground, and, in order to keep him still, one of them knelt upon his chest. Fainting, and with broken ribs, the unfortunate is rapidly losing his life's blood. His brother, a youth, who has been thrown into his cell as Nadine was into mine, grows frantic at the sight of the blood pouring from the victim's mouth, and screams for help. In another cell a prisoner who for a long time past has suffered from melancholia, suddenly goes mad, and sings the "Marseillaise" at the top of his voice, laughs wildly, and then shouts orders to imaginary soldiers. Elsewhere, of two sisters who for a long time past have shared the same cell, the eldest, chained to the wall, is shrieking to her sister, who, owing to the rupture of a blood-vessel, has suddenly died. At intervals she screams—"Comrades! Helena is dying—I think she is dead." Below, beneath our feet, a prisoner, too tightly manacled, his hands and feet pressed back and chained behind and thrown face downward, after making desperate efforts to turn over or keep his head up, at last gives up the struggle, and with his mouth against the cold stones and a choking rattle in his throat, he at intervals moans, "Oh! oh!"

Each of these cries, accompanied by the strident clank of chains, produces upon me the effect of a galvanic battery, and I am obliged to put forth all that remains to me of moral strength to prevent myself from screaming and moaning like the others. With my feet in blood and my eyes burning with weeping, and the effect of the strong light, I try to maintain my upright position by leaning against the wall. Then from the depths of my heart something arises which causes it to throb as though it would burst.

I have never hated! My participation in the revolutionary movement was the outcome of my desire to soothe suffering and misery, and to see realised the dream of a universal happiness and a universal brotherhood; and even here in prison, even this morning, within a few steps of an assassinated comrade, I sought explanations, that is to say, excuses; I thought of an accident, of a misunderstanding. Now, I hate. I hate with all the strength of my soul this stupid and ferocious regime whose arbitrary authority puts the lives of thousands of defenceless human beings at the mercy of any one of its mercenaries. I hate it, because of the sufferings and the tears it has caused; for the obstacles it throws in the way of my country's development; for the chains which it places on thousands of bodies and thousands of souls; because of this thirst for blood which is growing within me. Yes! I hate it, and if it sufficed to will—if this tension of my entire being could resolve itself into action—oh! there would at this instant be many heads forming a cortege to the bloody head of the comrade who has been so cowardly and ferociously assassinated.

* * *



Eight o'clock at night. Nadine, very ill, sleeps upon my bed, groaning plaintively each time that an unconscious movement causes her to touch her arms, whilst I, like all the other prisoners not invalided, remain at my window. In spite of the silence of several months which has imposed upon us, the conversation flags. We are too tired, and there are too many sick amongst us; there are also the dead. Where are they now? Removed before our chains were taken off, they will this night be buried with other corpses of political prisoners, secretly hid away to rest by the police in order to avoid any public manifestation on the part of friends, or remarks on the part of the local population. These thoughts, at intervals, awaken our anger, and then murmurs are heard. As the night grows deeper, and the sounds of evening are lost in the mists, covering the country as with a veil, our sick nerves become calmer, and our hatred gives place to an immense and tender sadness. Then we talk of our mothers, of the mother of Helena Q——, and of Ivanoff's mother, both of whom are probably still in ignorance of the death of their children, and are still waiting and hoping. And then we talk of the impression made upon our parents and friends when the echoes of this terrible day reach their ears.

Just as the rattle of drums announces that the gates of the fortress are about to be closed for the night, we hear the tramp of soldiers and the jingle of sword-scabbards in the ground-floor corridor. It is a detachment of soldiers, accompanied by their officers and Captain W——, who have come to fetch away two of our comrades in order to escort them to the military prison. Young and vigorous, these two prisoners fought fiercely before they were overpowered and chained, and as the Commandant of the fortress, impatient at the duration of the struggle, took part in it, he was roughly handled. Blows struck at a superior officer constitute a crime for which the offenders are to be tried by court-martial. They know it, and we know it. But this haste on the part of the Commandant to have them in his hands—this order to transfer them at night—which is given by the Director in a trembling voice—is it a provocation or a folly? The outer court-yard is gradually and silently filling with moving shadows. Rifles, of which the barrels glitter in the starlight, are pointed towards our windows. This mute menace of a massacre in the darkness finds us indifferent, and not one of us leaves his or her place at the window. But some are ill, and all wounded and tired out by the emotions and struggles of the day, and having been without food for over twenty-six hours; and can we revolt again? As regards the court-martial, none fear, and all would be willing to be tried by it. Its verdicts are pitiless, terrible; but they are verdicts, and it is an end. To-morrow, one after the other, we shall go to the Director's cabinet, and there sign a declaration of our entire solidarity with those who are now being taken away, and that declaration, every word of which will be an insult thrown in the face of the Government, will terminate by a demand for trial by court-martial, not only of ourselves, but also of the Commandant of the fortress. This demand, as usual, will be supported by famine, by the absolute refusal of all prisoners to take any nourishment whatsoever, a process which kills the prisoners, but before which the Government, anxious to avoid the disastrous impression which these numerous deaths produce, yields, at least in appearance. Whilst we wait all is darkness, for the warders have not lit the little lamps. Through the disordered cells run strange murmurs, and passions are again aroused; while below, those who are being taken away make hasty preparations for their short journey.

I do not know them. We are about a hundred prisoners, arrested in different parts of the province at different times, and in spite of our being described as "accomplices," many of us have never met or heard of each other.



A few days later, before the windows are replaced, and the dull grey cloud again presses upon us, the desire to see and know each other suggests an idea. Each prisoner, standing at the window, holds a mirror which he or she passes outside the bars. Held at an angle these pieces of glass throw back floating images of pale, phantom-like faces, many of them unknown or unrecognisable. Those who are to-night leaving the prison are, for me, not even phantoms, but only voices heard for the first time this morning, and now so soon to be silenced, by the cord of Troloff, or in some cell at Schlusselbourg or the Cross.[11] And yet, as I listen to these voices dying away in the dark distance, I again experience all the despair and all the hate of the day, and my last "adieu" is choked in a sob—and when, a few moments later, the heavy outer door is closed, a great shudder as of death passes over the prison.

(To be continued.)

[11] Troloff—the Russian public executioner. Schlusselbourg and the Cross—names of central prisons where the prisoners, placed in small cells, are always chained. Deprived of books or tools, not allowed to see their friends, forbidden to write or receive letters, those subject to the treatment, after a few months, become mad and die.



A Slave of the Ring.

BY ALFRED BERLYN.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN GULICH.

——-



The Rev. Thomas Todd, curate of S. Athanasius, Great Wabbleton, sat at the table in his little parlour with a local newspaper in his hand and a troubled expression on his face. There was something incongruous in the appearance of the deep frown that puckered the curate's brows; for his countenance, in its normal aspect, was chubby and plump and bland, and his little grey eyes were wont to shine with a benign and even a humorous twinkle. He was not remarkably young, as curates go; but he was quite young enough to be a subject of absorbing interest to the lady members of the S. Athanasius congregation, and to find himself the frequent recipient of those marks of feminine attention which are the recognised perquisites of the junior assistant clergy.

Two or three times, the curate raised the paper from the table and re-read the passage that was evidently troubling him; and each time he did so the puckers deepened, and his expression became more and more careworn. It would have been difficult enough for a stranger to find any clue to the cause of his agitation in the portion of the Wabbleton Post and Grubley Advertiser which the clergyman held before him; and the wonder would certainly have been increased by the discovery that the passage to which the reverend gentleman's attention was directed was nothing else than the following innocent little paragraph of news:—

"Grubley.—We are asked to state that Benotti's Original Circus, one of the oldest established and most complete in the kingdom, will give two performances daily at Bounders Green during the whole of next week."

There seemed little enough in such an announcement to bring disquiet to the curate's mind. Possibly, he cherished a conscientious objection to circuses, and remembered that, as Grubley and Great Wabbleton were only three miles apart, a section of the S. Athanasius flock might be allured next week by the meretricious attraction at Bounders Green. Yet even such solicitude for the welfare of the flock of which he was the assistant shepherd seemed scarcely to account either for his obvious distress, or for the fragments of soliloquy that escaped him at every fresh study of the paper.

"Here, of all places in the world—absolute ruin—no, not on any account!"

At length, throwing down the Post, the curate seized his hat, started at a rapid pace for the Vicarage, and was soon seated tete-a-tete with his superior, an amiable old gentleman with a portly presence and an abiding faith in his assistant's ability to do the whole work of the parish unaided.

"Vicar, do you think you can spare me for the next week or so? The fact is, I am feeling the want of a change badly, and should be glad of a few days to run down to my people in Devonshire."

"My dear Todd, how unfortunate! I have just made arrangements to be away myself next week—and—and the week following. I am going up to London to stay with my old friend Canon Crozier. I was just coming to tell you so when you called. If you don't mind waiting till I return, I've no doubt we can manage to spare you for a day or two. Sorry you're not feeling well. By-the-bye, has that tiresome woman Mrs. Dunderton been worrying you? She came here yesterday about those candles, and threatened to write to the Bishop and denounce us as Popish conspirators. Couldn't you go and talk to her, and see if you can bring her to a more reasonable frame of mind?"

The talk drifted to church and parish matters, and, as soon as he decently could, the curate took his leave, looking very much more depressed and anxious than ever. As he raised the latch of the Vicarage gate, a voice, whose sound he knew only too well, called to him by name; and, turning, he beheld Miss Caroline Cope, the Vicar's daughter, pursuing him skittishly down the garden path. Miss Caroline was not young, neither was she amiable, and her appearance was quite remarkably unattractive. All this would have mattered little to the curate, but for the fact that she had lately shown for him a marked partiality that had inspired him with considerable uneasiness. At this moment, when his mind was troubled with other matters, her unwelcome appearance aroused in his breast a feeling of extreme irritation.



"Don't run away from me, you naughty, unfeeling man," she began, with an elephantine attempt at archness. "I was going to ask you to take me down to the schoolrooms, but I shall have to go alone if you fly away from me like this."

Mr. Todd, fervently wishing that flying were just then among his accomplishments, felt that now, while he was in the humour, was the time to free himself, finally if possible, from these embarrassing attentions.

"I am sorry I cannot give myself the pleasure of accompanying you, Miss Cope. I have several sick persons and others to call upon in different parts of the parish, and my duties will fully occupy the whole of my morning. I'm afraid I don't happen to be going in the direction of the schools, so I must say 'good morning' here."

And the curate raised his hat and passed on, fortifying himself with the reflection that what might in an ordinary case have been rudeness was in this instance the merest and most necessary self-defence.



Miss Cope stood looking after his retreating figure with a viperous look in her face, and with a feeling of intense rage, which she promised herself to translate into action at the very earliest opportunity.

Early in the following week, the Vicar started for London, and his curate was left in sole charge of the parish. That there was something amiss with Mr. Todd was evident to all who came in contact with him, both before and after the Vicar's departure. His former geniality seemed to have quite deserted him, and he looked worried, anxious, and ill. The ladies of S. Athanasius were greatly concerned at the change, and speculated wildly as to its cause. There was one among them, however, who made no comment upon the subject, and appeared, in fact, to ignore the curate's existence altogether. Whatever might be the source of that gentleman's troubles, he had, at any rate, freed himself from the unwelcome advances of Miss Caroline Cope.

The third morning after the Vicar's departure, his assistant was sent for to visit a sick parishioner who lived just outside Great Wabbleton, on the high road to Grubley. The summons was an imperative one; but he obeyed it with a curious and unwonted reluctance. As he reached the outskirts of the town and struck into the Grubley road, his distaste for his errand seemed to increase, and he looked uneasily from side to side with a strange, furtive glance, in singular contrast to his usual steady gaze and cheerful smile. He reached his destination, however, without adventure, and remained for some time at the invalid's bedside. His return journey was destined to be more eventful. He had not proceeded far on his way back to Great Wabbleton, when a showily-dressed woman, who was passing him on the road, stopped short and regarded him with a prolonged and half-puzzled stare that ended in a sudden cry of amazed recognition. "Well—I'm blest—it's Tommy!"



She was a buxom, and by no means unattractive, person of about five-and-thirty, with an irresistibly "horsey" suggestion about her appearance and gait. As the curate's eye met hers, he turned deadly pale, and his knees trembled beneath him. That which he had dreaded for days and nights had come to pass.

"Well, I'm blest!" said the lady again, "who'd have thought of meeting you here after all these years—and in this make-up, too! But I should have known you among a thousand, all the same. Why, Tommy, you don't mean to say they've gone and made a parson of you?"

The curate was desperate. His first impulse was to deny all knowledge of the woman who stood gazing into his face with a comical expression of mingled amusement and surprise. But her next words showed him the hopelessness of such a course.

"You're not going to say you don't know me, Tommy, though it is nigh twenty years since we were in the ring together, and you've got into a black coat and a dog-collar. Fancy them making a parson of you; Lord, who'd have thought it! Well, I've had a leg-up, too, since then. I'm Madame Benotti now. The old lady died, and he made me missus of himself and the show. He often talks about you, and wouldn't he stare, just, to see you in this rig-out!"

By the time, the Rev. Thomas Todd had recovered himself sufficiently to speak, and had decided that a bold course was the safest.

"I'm really glad to see you again," he said, with a shuddering thought of the fate of Ananias; "it reminds me so of the old times. But, you see, things are changed with me. You remember the old gentleman who adopted me, and took me away from the circus? Well, he sent me to school and college, and then set his heart on my becoming, as you say, a parson. I haven't forgotten the old days, but—but you see, if the people round here knew about my having been——"

"Lor' bless you, Tommy," broke in the good-natured equestrienne, "you don't think I'd be so mean as to go and queer an old pal's pitch; you've nothing to fear from me; don't be afraid, there's nobody coming"—for the curate was looking distractedly round. "Well, I'm mighty glad to have seen you again, even in this get-up, but I won't stop and talk to you any longer, or one of your flock might come round the corner, and then—O my! wouldn't there be a rumpus? Ha, ha, ha!"

She laughed loudly, and the clergyman looked round again in an agony.

"Now, Tommy, good-bye to you, and good luck. But look here, before you go, just for the sake of the old times, when you were 'little Sandy,' and I used to do the bare-backed business, you'll give us a kiss, won't you, old man?"

And before the unhappy curate could prevent her, Madame Benotti had flung her muscular arms round his neck, and imprinted two sounding kisses on his cheeks.

At that fatal moment, a female figure came round the bend of the road, and, to his indescribable horror, the curate recognised the dread form of the Vicar's daughter. She had seen all—of that there could be no doubt, but she came on, passed them, and continued on her way to Grubley without the smallest sign of recognition.

"My goodness, Tommy, I hope that old cat wasn't one of your flock," remarked Madame Benotti, with real concern, as soon as she had passed. "You look as scared as if you had seen a ghost; I hope I haven't——"

But the curate waited to hear no more. With a hurried "Good-bye" he tore himself away, and made his way back to his apartments in a state bordering on desperation.



Locking himself in, he paced the room for some time, groaning aloud in a perfect frenzy of misery and apprehension. Then he flung himself into his chair, buried his face in his hands, and tried to think what was best to be done. After painful and intense thought, he decided that there was nothing for it but to tell Miss Cope the whole story, and appeal to her honour to keep it to herself. But how if she chose to revenge herself upon him by refusing to believe the story, or by declining to keep it secret? He could not conceal from himself that either of these results was more than possible. In that case, there remained only one resource; and it was of so terrible a nature that the curate positively shuddered at its contemplation. But it might even come to that; and better even that, he told himself, than the exposure, the ridicule, and the professional ruin that must otherwise befall him.

Hour after hour passed, and he was still nerving himself for the coming interview, when a tap came at the door, and a note, left by hand, was brought in to him. He glanced at the address, and tore open the envelope with trembling hand. It contained these few words, without any sort of preliminary:—

"I think it right to give you warning that I shall take the earliest opportunity of making known your disgraceful conduct witnessed by me in the public streets this morning.

"CAROLINE COPE."

The Rev. Thomas Todd placed the letter in his pocket with an air of desperate resolve, and started forth for the Vicarage without another moment's delay. It was now or never—if he hesitated, even for an hour, he might be irretrievably lost.



The first answer brought to him by the servant who opened the Vicarage door was not encouraging. "Miss Cope was engaged, and could not see Mr. Todd." But the curate dared not allow himself to be put off so easily. "Tell Miss Cope I must see her on business of the most serious importance," he said; and the message was duly carried to the Vicar's daughter. That lady, after a moment's hesitation, felt herself unable any longer to resist enjoying a foretaste of her coming triumph, and ordered Mr. Todd to be admitted.

The interview that followed confirmed the curate's worst fears. He told Miss Cope the whole story, and she flatly refused to believe a word of it. He begged her to go herself to the circus proprietor and his wife for proof of its truth, and she simply laughed in his face. He appealed to her honour to keep the story secret, and she coldly reminded him of the duty that devolved upon her, in her father's absence, of protecting the morals of his congregation.

Then at last, beaten and baffled at all points, the unhappy curate played his final card. He offered the Vicar's daughter the best possible evidence of his sincerity by asking her to become his wife. The effect was magical. It was the first chance of a husband that had ever come to Caroline in her thirty-nine years of life, and she had an inward conviction that it would be the last. The secret she had just learnt was known to no one in the parish but herself, and so, after a brief pretence of further parley to save appearances, she jumped at the offer, and the curate left the Vicarage an engaged man. His last desperate throw had succeeded. He had saved his position and his reputation; but at what a cost he dared not even think.



Within the next day or two, it became evident to all whom he met that there was something very seriously wrong with the Rev. Thomas Todd. His manner became first morose and abstracted, and then wild and eccentric. He was seen very little in the town, and when he did appear, his haggard face, his strange, absent air, and the unmistakable evidences of the profound depression that possessed him, were the objects of general remark. Some of the more charitable expressed a confident opinion that the curate had committed a crime; others decided, with more penetration, that he was going mad. From Miss Cope he kept carefully aloof. It had been arranged at that fatal interview that their engagement should be kept secret until the return of the Vicar, whose sanction must be obtained before the affair could be made public. Miss Cope was aware that the curate had two sermons to prepare in addition to his parish duties—for he would have to preach twice on Sunday owing to her father's absence; so she did not allow his non-appearance at the Vicarage on Friday or Saturday to greatly surprise her.

If she could have seen the way in which the preparation of those sermons was proceeding, she might have found more cause for anxiety. Shut up in his room with some sheets of blank paper before him, the curate sat for hours together, staring vacantly at the wall before him, and occasionally giving vent to a loud, strange laugh. The evening of Saturday passed into night, and still he sat on, looking before him into the darkness with the same vacant stare, and uttering from time to time the same wild, hoarse chuckle.



The light of Sunday morning, streaming into the room, fell upon a weird, dishevelled figure, that still stared fixedly at the wall, and every now and then muttered strange and wholly unclerical words and phrases. Still the hours wore on, until the sun rose high in the heavens, and the bells began to ring for church. Then came a knock at the curate's door. His landlady, surprised by his neglect of the breakfast hour, had been positively alarmed when he showed no sign of heeding the approach of church time. The knock was repeated; and then the clergyman sprang to his feet and unlocked the door.

"Wait a moment," he cried, with a wild laugh. "Now come in!"

The landlady put her head in at the door, and uttered a shriek of horror and amazement. The Rev. Thomas Todd was standing on his head in the middle of the hearthrug.

"God bless us and save us—the poor gentleman's gone clean out of his wits!"

The curate's only reply was a shrill whoop, followed by an agile leap into an upright position, and a wild grab at the terrified lady, whose thirteen stone of solid matronhood he whirled round his head and tossed across the room as if it had been a feather-weight. Then, hatless and unkempt, he tore down stairs into the street, and started at a furious pace in the direction of S. Athanasius.

It was three minutes to eleven, and the last stroke of the clanky church-bell had just died away in a series of unmusical vibrations. The townspeople, in all the added importance of Sunday clothes, gathered in an ever-thickening knot about the gates, greeting one another before they passed on into the church. At that moment, there floated towards them on the breeze a sudden, sharp shout that rooted them to the spot in positive consternation.



"Houp-la! Houp-la! Hey! Hey!! Hey!!!" And in another instant the unfortunate curate, tearing down the road, had flung himself among them and scattered them right and left by a series of vigorous and splendidly-executed somersaults. With a well-directed leap, and a wild cry of "Here we are again!" he vaulted lightly over the church gate, and began to run up the path towards the door, until, at last, the horrified onlookers awoke to the realities of the situation and half-a-dozen sturdy townsmen rushed upon and seized the unhappy man. Then a woman's piercing scream was heard, and the Vicar's daughter, who had just arrived on the scene, fell fainting to the ground.

There was no service at S. Athanasius that morning, and the Rev. Thomas Todd was later on conveyed, still shouting fragments of circus dialogue, to the County Lunatic Asylum. The curate's mind had temporarily given way beneath the strain of the position in which he had found himself placed, and of the horrible future that lay before him, and his insanity had taken the form of an imaginary return to the scenes of his early life. When, some two years later, he was discharged cured, he attached himself to a mission about to start for the South African Coast, and left England without re-visiting Great Wabbleton.

Long afterwards, Miss Caroline Cope, in a burst of confidence, one day related to her special friend, Miss Lavinia Murby, the doctor's daughter, how the Rev. Thomas Todd had proposed to her a few days before his melancholy seizure.

"Ah, my dear, you see he couldn't have been right, even then," was that lady's sympathetic comment.



People I Have Never Met.

BY SCOTT RANKIN.

——-

ZANGWILL.



"I will show this Anglo-Jewish community that I am a man to be reckoned with. I will crush it—not it me. Then some day it will find out its mistake; and it will seize the hem of my coat, and beseech me to be its Rabbi. Then, and only then, shall we have true Judaism in London.

"The folk who compose our picture are children of the Ghetto. If they are not the children, they are at least the grandchildren of the Ghetto."

—"CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO."



[Sidenote: Joseph Hatton on the art of tipping.]

Almost everything has been reduced to an art. You can learn journalism outside a newspaper, playwriting by theory, French without a master. How to succeed in literature and how not; both ways have been laid down for the student. There is scarcely an art or a habit you cannot learn in books. Etiquette, how to make up, stock-jobbing, acting, gardening, and a host of intellectual pursuits, have their rules and regulations; but the mysterious and delicate art of tipping as yet remains unexploited in the social ethics of this much-taught generation. It is high time that the proper method of giving tips should be defined, its laws codified, its many possibilities of error guarded against, and some system set forth whereby the tipper may give the greatest satisfaction to the tipped at the most moderate, if not the least, outlay in current coin of the realm. The art could be illustrated with many examples from the earliest times. Pelagia's tip to Hypatia's father was the dancer's cestus, which was jewelled with precious stones enough to stock the shop of a Bond Street jeweller of our own time. According to the truthful interpretation of the old English days which we find in the drama, the most popular method of tipping was to present your gold in a long, knitted purse, which you threw at the tippee's feet or slapped into the palm of his hand; but this system seems to have lapsed; and no fresh regulation has been established in the unwritten laws of the douceur, which goes back even before the days when extravagant and unwilling tips were often enforced with pincers, racks, and other imperative inventions. Monte Cristo gave wonderful tips, and Monte Carlo is lavish to this day. The genius that wrecked Panama has an open hand. Promoters of London companies know how to be liberal. Not much art is required, I believe, to distribute largess of this kind. Nor are certain classes of American aldermen difficult to deal with. The art that should be made most clear is how to pay your host's servants for your host's hospitality; how to show your gratitude to a newspaper man without hurting his amour propre; how to meet the requirements of the middleman of life and labour without "giving yourself away"; how to tip the parson when you are married; and, in this connection, one may remark the consolation of dying; the tippee does not trouble you at your own funeral.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: With reference to waiters, deans, and other public servants.]

The waiter at public dinners is a very considerate person. He assists you in every possible way he can. With every dish he practically jogs your memory; and, as an accompaniment to the dessert, he informs you that he "must now leave"; is there "anything else he can do for you?" If you are of a reflective nature you may, in a moment of abstraction, rise from your seat and shake hands with him; but if, as a right-minded citizen, you have constantly in view the universal claim upon your purse, you will thank your friendly and condescending attendant, and pay him for the services he has rendered to his employer. You may in your thoughtlessness and abstraction have jeopardised the success of the waiter's arrangements for carrying off a certain bottle of wine which he had planted for convenient removal. How much you should give him is considered to depend upon the quality of the wine which you have been fully charged for with your ticket; and this question of cuisine and wine still further complicates the difficult adjustment of the rightful claims of the attendant and what is due to your own honour, not to mention your reputation as a gourmet. An irreverent American, after a first experience, I conclude, of English travel, said that you are safe in tipping any Britisher below the dignity of a bishop; but a fellow-countryman, guided by this opinion, felt very unhappy when, after being shown over a famous cathedral by the dean, he slipped half-a-sovereign into his very reverend guide's hand, and received, in return, an intimation that the poor's box was in the porch. I remember on one occasion, when I was investigating a question that called for special courtesy on the part of a public official, I was disturbed during my work with the question whether I might tip him, and, if so, to what extent. The subject almost "got on my nerves" before the inquiry, which lasted an hour or two, came to an end; at last I determined that it was a case for a tip. I gave him ten shillings. For a moment I thought I had offended him, and, remembering the dean and the poor box, was about to say, "Give it to a charity," when the official plaintively inquired if I couldn't "make it a sovereign?"

* * * * *

[Sidenote: He discourses concerning the ethics of tipping.]

Give up the idea that tipping will succumb to any agitation. So long as commodities have to be paid for in cash, and not in fine words and sweet smiles, tipping will exist. The moralist may rave against it, but ask him in what way his gratitude manifests itself when a railway porter politely relieves him of half-a-dozen bags, and deposits them in a snug corner, whilst he has barely time to take his ticket at the booking-office. It is surely impossible to abuse the same porter if, out of a feeling of recognition for favours previously received, he leaves the belated passenger to manage the best way he can under a cartload of shawls, rugs, hat and bonnet-boxes, to attend again to your comforts. You hardly sympathise with your fellow-traveller, although he may be using very strong language against the identical porter, in whose favour, for the second time, you part with a few coppers. It is the desire to secure the comforts and commodities provided by the activity of others that will perpetuate tipping. After all, this is not limited to menials. It is given, and unscrupulously accepted by all grades of society, and by all conditions of men. I have known a company director give to a titled nobody a berth promised to someone else, because he had been familiarly addressed by His Lordship in a public place, and had been "honoured" by a few minutes' conversation. That was not, of course, a tip in the ordinary sense of the word, but it amounted, however, to the same thing. It secured a good berth to his "Excellency." And what say you of the whiskies and waters, brandies and sodas, the champagne, oysters, luncheons, and dinners to which our good city men generously ask a would-be customer? That, I suppose, is called "paving the way to a good business." I have not unfrequently heard people regret that they were unable to refuse a favour in return for a civility. That civility was most likely a dinner, or even something less. Kisses distributed by ladies in hotly-contested constituencies, the promise of a Government post, an invitation to a party, a mere familiar recognition, a penny, are all varieties which make the thing so general.

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[Sidenote: He believes the custom will die out with human nature.]

Wedding presents are not given without an arriere pensee, and at Christmas our object is mostly to please the parents. Our indignation, however, is not roused by this, because we are in the habit, I suppose, of distributing and receiving such acknowledgments ourselves. We want to suppress small tips; in fact, such as are most wanted by the recipient, whose only source of revenue they constitute in many cases. We fail to realise that, were servants well paid, "tipping" would not take the form of an imposition. Employers, especially at hotels and restaurants, either give ridiculously low wages, or suppress these altogether, and in many establishments hire the tables to the waiters at so much a day or week for the privilege of serving. At present this custom has become so deeply rooted that it has given growth to a most perfect secret code of signs and marks by which each class of servants is informed how much he has to expect from the liberality of the inexperienced and unwary stranger. This applies especially to hotel servants, and has become the crying abuse against which we try to react. This code is not local, but has acquired an internationality which professors of Volapuk would be proud to claim for their language. I remember once an irascible old gentleman complaining bitterly against the incivility of the hotel servants, who never helped him with his traps. He found no exception to the rule except when his wanderings took him to some remote part of Scotland, where, he assured me, the "braying of the socialist pedants had not yet been heard." I suspected that my friend was not over-generous, and timidly sounded him on the point. His reply confirmed my suspicion. I thereupon showed him the cause of the servants' inattention, amounting sometimes even to rudeness—a little chalk mark on each bag. I advised him to carefully wipe that off after leaving the hotels. The effect was most satisfactory—my friend has had no reason to complain since, at least when he got into a hotel. The position of hotel labels also serves to indicate if anything can be expected from the traveller. Of course, this is not countenanced by "mine host," who dismisses the user of such messages, but as that man is generally a wide-awake and useful rogue, there is little doubt but that he is reinstated in his functions shortly after the traveller is gone. Beggars and tramps have a similar system of conveying to their confreres information as to the likely reception they may expect from the occupants of the different residences on the road. They never fail to warn them against dogs and other disagreeable surprise or dangers, should they by some unaccountable absent-mindedness forget that there is such a thing as the eighth commandment. In conclusion, pourboire, buona mancia, backshish, tipping or bribery, was born with man, and will only die out with him.

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[Sidenote: Giuseppe of the Cafe Doney, at Florence: his experience.]

Ah! Milor, what do I think of "teeping?" What would become of me without it? In some forty or fifty years I shall be a rich man, and perhaps keep a cafe myself, thanks to the benevolence and generosity of the American and English milors. At first I was a cabman, but in Italy no one gives the cabman a pourboire; so my friends said, "Ah! Giuseppe, you must make money somehow. Become a waiter, and you will grow rich." So they took me to our padrone, and he made me a waiter, and I am growing rich on "teeps." But it is not my own compatriots, Milor, who make me rich. When I attend one of them, he will only give me ten centimes (a penny), and if I attend two of them they will give me fifteen centimes between them. But the English and Americans will sometimes give me fifty or a hundred centimes at a time. But, alas! that happens very seldom. When I am in luck I save two hundred centimes a day (1s. 8d.), and shall, in a great many years, have a cafe of my own. Perhaps Milor will assist? Grazie.

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[Sidenote: The head waiter at the —— sets forth his views.]

Instead of complaining against tipping, the public should oblige the employers to pay their servants more liberally. In modern restaurants—and I suppose the custom has come from Paris—waiters have to pay the employers sums varying from one to four shillings a day according to the number and position of tables they serve. Their work averages from fourteen to sixteen hours a day. It begins at eight, and sometimes long after midnight they are still at work. Out of their earnings they have to pay all breakages and washing, and, for the thirty to thirty-five shillings they earn a week, they have to put up, from a class of customers, with patience and a perpetual smile, more abuse than one in any other ten men would stand. It not unfrequently happens that a waiter would do without it rather than accept a tip which assumes the form of an insult. We look upon it as a remuneration due to us, and, after trying to satisfy the client, we do not see why he should think it an unbearable nuisance, and treat the recipient with contempt. In many cases, after exacting the most constant attention, and heaping unmerited abuse on the irresponsible waiter, the client who has most likely spent on himself enough to keep a family a whole week, grudges the sixpence he has to give the attendant, and makes him feel it by throwing the coppers down, accompanying the action by an insulting remark. Like all men whose business it is to minister to the comfort of others, many among us are very shrewd observers, and can tell at a glance what treatment we may expect from certain customers, and we behave accordingly. We are seldom mistaken in our judgment. Experience has taught us that the most generous, and at the same time most gentlemanly, "tippers" are the Israelitish Anglo-German financiers. There is a difference between them and the young spendthrift who inconsiderately throws away his money. No, sir, the Anglo-German banker, orders, goes carefully through the account, and then gives his money liberally. After him comes the Russian. The Englishman, who is next best, is closely followed by the French and German.

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[Sidenote: His opinion of Americans as tippers.]

The American is nowhere. It is a mistaken idea to believe that he is generous. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, but the majority of them come out here just to see the sights, and talk about them on their return. A certain sum is laid aside for the purpose, and I am sure they contrive to make economies upon it. The Americans are, besides, disagreeable to serve. They never lose the opportunity of making disparaging comparisons between their country and the old world. Our restaurants are country inns compared to theirs, their waiters are smarter, their services of better class, our cooking is miles behind theirs, and as to concoction of drinks, of course we have to take a back seat. We are also very slow. A steak, in Chicago, for instance, is cooked in about the fifteenth of the time required here. When it comes to paying, the American finds that everything is also dearer over here; gives very little or nothing to that inattentive waiter, threatens to lodge a complaint against him, and goes away satisfied that everyone is impressed by the grandeur of the Great Republic as represented by himself, one of its worthy citizens.

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[Sidenote: Of Scotchmen and millionaires.]

In England, the Scotch are the least liberal. In Scotland, waiters and hotel servants are paid. An attempt to introduce in Edinburgh the continental system failed most ignominiously in 1886, and the enterprising restaurateur had to revert to the local system, and replace all the former waiters, who ran back to London rather than be reduced to the dire necessity of going into the workhouse. Young men, as a rule, are more generous than elderly people, and the fair sex is, in general, very stingy. A gentleman accompanied by a lady, if she is only an acquaintance, is sure to tip generously, pour la galerie, although he may look as if he wanted to accompany every penny by a kick. But when the same person dines with his wife or sister, the remuneration is as small as decency can permit. When a waiter spots such a relation between a party of diners, he generally tries to escape the obligation of offering them a table. At the large restaurants we gauge the diners' liberality very frequently at one glance, and in any case form an accurate opinion of him by the way he orders his menu. We know whether we have to do with a gentleman or a cad, and whether his subsequent parsimoniousness is caused by cussedness or simply ignorance of the customs of such establishments, and we treat him in consequence. It is pitiful sometimes to see all the ruses employed by well-meaning people, unwilling to be thought unaccustomed to the life of a large restaurant, and my advice to such persons would be to remain natural rather than become ridiculous. The manner in which the tip is given varies according to the nationality and character of the donor. The most ostentatious among these is the South American millionaire, whose gift varies according to the number of people present. As a rule, the wealthy man is not generous.

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[Sidenote: A commissionnaire can tell people's dispositions at sight.]

I can say at first sight whether a person is of a kindly disposition, for I would rather assist such a person and get nothing than one who makes me feel the weight of his liberality. The amount a man may make depends a great deal on his wits. To forestall a gentleman's wishes, give him the necessary information, and to the point; to assist him when assistance is most needed, and not before, is what is most appreciated. When in a theatre I see a couple occupying a bad seat, when better ones are vacant, I make the suggestion, and would certainly be astonished if the gentleman did not acknowledge the hint. When the working classes do not syndicate they have to accept wages so ridiculously low that they are obliged to find some means of increasing their earnings. But will it ever be possible to suppress the "evil"? Allow me to doubt it. The thing is, therefore, to prevent tipping taking the form of an imposition. This can only be done by paying good wages.

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[Sidenote: Barr gives the straight tip.]

A native of Cuba once said to me, with an air of proud superiority, "We have the yellow fever always in Havana." I was unable to make any such boastful claim for North America, and so the Cuban rightly thought he had the advantage of me. They think nothing of the yellow fever in Havana, but when the malady is imported into Florida the people of that peninsula become panic-stricken. The yellow fever in the Southern States strikes terror. It seems to be worse in its effects when it enters the States than it is where they always have it. So it is with tipping. It is always present in Europe in a mild form, but periodically tipping swoops down upon the United States, and its effects are dreadful to contemplate. If tipping ever becomes epidemic in America, the unfortunate citizens will have to leave, and seek a cheaper country, for the haughty waiter in an American hotel scorns the humbler coins of the realm, and accepts nothing less than half a dollar. Happily, tipping has, up to date, been more or less of an exotic in America, but I have grave fears that the Chicago Exhibition, attracting as it does so many incurable tippers from Europe, will cause the disease to take firm root in the States, and entail years of suffering hereafter.

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[Sidenote: Summing up.]

I do not agree with the member of the club who holds in one paragraph that Scotsmen are mean in the giving of tips. Speaking as a Scotsman myself, I admit that we like to go the whole distance from Liverpool Street to Charing Cross for our penny. We desire to get the worth of our bawbee. And it is a cold day when we don't. But it must be remembered that a Scotsman is conscientious, and he knows that tipping is an indefensible vice, so he discourages it as much as possible, being compelled by custom to fall in with it. Then, again, the man who claims that Americans are not liberal doesn't know what he is talking about. The trouble with the American is that he does not know the exact amount to give, and that bothers him, and causes him to curse the custom in choice and varied language. Speaking now as an American, I will give a tip right here. If Conan Doyle, or George Meredith, or some author in whom Americans have confidence, would get out a book entitled, say, "The Right Tip, or Tuppence on the Shilling," giving exactly the correct sum to pay on all occasions, Americans would buy up the whole edition and bless the author. I think Americans are altogether too lavish with their tips, and thus make it difficult for us poorer people, whom nobody tips, to get along. A friend of mine, on leaving one of the big London hotels, changed several five pound notes into half-crowns, and distributed these coins right and left all the way from his rooms to the carriage, giving one or more to every person who looked as if he would accept. He met no refusals, and departed amidst much eclat. He thought he had done the square thing, as he expressed it, but I looked on the action as corrupting and indefensible. He deserves to have his name blazoned here as a warning, but I shall not mention it, merely contenting myself by saying that he was formerly a United States senator, was at that time Minister to Spain, and is at the present moment President of the World's Fair.

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The portrait of Mrs. Henniker, which appeared in The Idler for May—"LIONS IN THEIR DENS": V. THE LORD LIEUTENANT AT DUBLIN CASTLE—was from a photograph taken by Messrs. WERNER AND SON, OF DUBLIN.

THE END