'Don't say you have another.'

'I have. And,' added Mr Mifflin, with modest pride, 'it is a winner. This time I unhesitatingly assert that I have the goods. In about one minute from now you will hear me exclaim, in a clear musical voice, the single word, "Jump!" That is your cue to leap over the side as quick as you can move, for at that precise moment this spanking craft is going to capsize.'

George spun round in his seat. Mr Mifflin's face was shining with kindly enthusiasm. The shore was at least two hundred yards away, and that morning he had had his first swimming-lesson.

'A movement of the tiller will do it. These accidents are common objects of the seashore. I may mention that I can swim just enough to keep myself afloat; so it's up to you. I wouldn't do this for everyone, but, seeing that we were boys together—Are you ready?'

'Stop!' cried George. 'Don't do it! Listen!'

'Are you ready?'

The Ocean Beauty gave a plunge.

'You lunatic! Listen to me. It—'

'Jump!' said Mr Mifflin.

George came to the surface some yards from the overturned boat, and, looking round for Mr Mifflin, discovered that great thinker treading water a few feet away.

'Get to work, George,' he remarked.

It is not easy to shake one's fist at a man when in deep water, but George managed it.

'For twopence,' he cried, 'I'd leave you to look after yourself.'

'You can do better than that,' said Mr Mifflin. 'I'll give you threepence to tow me in. Hurry up. It's cold.'

In gloomy silence George gripped him by the elbows. Mr Mifflin looked over his shoulder.

'We shall have a good house,' he said. 'The stalls are full already, and the dress-circle's filling. Work away, George, you're doing fine. This act is going to be a scream from start to finish.'

With pleasant conversation he endeavoured to while away the monotony of the journey; but George made no reply. He was doing some rapid thinking. With ordinary luck, he felt bitterly, all would have been well. He could have gone on splashing vigorously under his teacher's care for a week, gradually improving till he emerged into a reasonably proficient swimmer. But now! In an age of miracles he might have explained away his present performance; but how was he to—And then there came to him an idea—simple, as all great ideas are, but magnificent.

He stopped and trod water.

'Tired?' said Mr Mifflin. 'Well, take a rest,' he added, kindly, 'take a rest. No need to hurry.'

'Look here,' said George, 'this piece is going to be recast. We're going to exchange parts. You're rescuing me. See? Never mind why. I haven't time to explain it to you now. Do you understand?'

'No,' said Mr Mifflin.

'I'll get behind you and push you; but don't forget, when we get to the shore, that you've done the rescuing.'

Mr Mifflin pondered.

'Is this wise?' he said. 'It is a strong part, the rescuer, but I'm not sure the other wouldn't suit my style better. The silent hand-grip, the catch in the voice. You want a practised actor for that. I don't think you'd be up to it, George.'

'Never mind about me. That's how it's going to be.'

Mr Mifflin pondered once more.

'No,' he said at length, 'it wouldn't do. You mean well, George, but it would kill the show. We'll go on as before.'

'Will we?' said George, unpleasantly. 'Would you like to know what I'm going to do to you, then? I'm going to hit you very hard under the jaw, and I'm going to take hold of your neck and squeeze it till you lose consciousness, and then I'm going to drag you to the beach and tell people I had to hit you because you lost your head and struggled.'

Mr Mifflin pondered for the third time.

'You are?' he said.

'I am,' said George.

'Then,' said Mr Mifflin, cordially, 'say no more. I take your point. My objections are removed. But,' he concluded, 'this is the last time I come bathing with you, George.'

Mr Mifflin's artistic misgivings as to his colleague's ability to handle so subtle a part as that of rescuee were more than justified on their arrival. A large and interested audience had collected by the time they reached the shore, an audience to which any artist should have been glad to play; but George, forcing his way through, hurried to the hotel without attempting to satisfy them. Not a single silent hand-shake did he bestow on his rescuer. There was no catch in his voice as he made the one remark which he did make—to a man with whiskers who asked him if the boat had upset. As an exhibition of rapid footwork his performance was good. In other respects it was poor.

He had just changed his wet clothes—it seemed to him that he had been doing nothing but change his wet clothes since he had come to Marvis Bay—when Mr Mifflin entered in a bathrobe.

'They lent me this downstairs,' he explained, 'while they dried my clothes. They would do anything for me. I'm the popular hero. My boy, you made the mistake of your life when you threw up the rescuer part. It has all the fat. I see that now. The rescuer plays the other man off the stage every time. I've just been interviewed by the fellow on the local newspaper. He's correspondent to a couple of London papers. The country will ring with this thing. I've told them all the parts I've ever played and my favourite breakfast food. There's a man coming up to take my photograph tomorrow. Footpills stock has gone up with a run. Wait till Monday and see what sort of a house we shall draw. By the way, the reporter fellow said one funny thing. He asked if you weren't the same man who was rescued yesterday by a girl. I said of course not—that you had only come down yesterday. But he stuck to it that you were.'

'He was quite right.'

'What!'

'I was.'

Mr Mifflin sat down on the bed.

'This fellow fell off the pier, and a girl brought him in.'

George nodded.

'And that was you?'

George nodded.

Mr Mifflin's eyes opened wide.

'It's the heat,' he declared, finally. 'That and the worry of rehearsals. I expect a doctor could give the technical name for it. It's a what-do-you-call-it—an obsession. You often hear of cases. Fellows who are absolutely sane really, but cracked on one particular subject. Some of them think they're teapots and things. You've got a craving for being rescued from drowning. What happens, old man? Do you suddenly get the delusion that you can't swim? No, it can't be that, because you were doing all the swimming for the two of us just now. I don't know, though. Maybe you didn't realize that you were swimming?'

George finished lacing his shoe and looked up.

'Listen,' he said; 'I'll talk slow, so that you can understand. Suppose you fell off a pier, and a girl took a great deal of trouble to get you to the shore, would you say, "Much obliged, but you needn't have been so officious. I can swim perfectly well?"'

Mr Mifflin considered this point. Intelligence began to dawn in his face. 'There is more in this than meets the eye,' he said. 'Tell me all.'

'This morning'—George's voice grew dreamy—'she gave me a swimming-lesson. She thought it was my first. Don't cackle like that. There's nothing to laugh at.'

Mr Mifflin contradicted this assertion.

'There is you,' he said, simply. 'This should be a lesson to you, George. Avoid deceit. In future be simple and straightforward. Take me as your model. You have managed to scrape through this time. Don't risk it again. You are young. There is still time to make a fresh start. It only needs will-power. Meanwhile, lend me something to wear. They are going to take a week drying my clothes.'

* * * * *

There was a rehearsal at the Beach Theatre that evening. George attended it in a spirit of resignation and left it in one of elation. Three days had passed since his last sight of the company at work, and in those three days, apparently, the impossible had been achieved. There was a snap and go about the piece now. The leading lady had at length mastered that cue, and gave it out with bell-like clearness. Arthur Mifflin, as if refreshed and braced by his salt-water bath, was infusing a welcome vigour into his part. And even the comedian, George could not help admitting, showed signs of being on the eve of becoming funny. It was with a light heart and a light step that he made his way back to the hotel.

In the veranda were a number of basket-chairs. Only one was occupied. He recognized the occupant.

'I've just come back from a rehearsal,' he said, seating himself beside her.

'Really?'

'The whole thing is different,' he went on, buoyantly. 'They know their lines. They act as if they meant it. Arthur Mifflin's fine. The comedian's improved till you wouldn't know him. I'm awfully pleased about it.'

'Really?'

George felt damped.

'I thought you might be pleased, too,' he said, lamely.

'Of course I am glad that things are going well. Your accident this afternoon was lucky, too, in a way, was it not? It will interest people in the play.'

'You heard about it?'

'I have been hearing about nothing else.'

'Curious it happening so soon after—'

'And so soon before the production of your play. Most curious.'

There was a silence. George began to feel uneasy. You could never tell with women, of course. It might be nothing; but it looked uncommonly as if—

He changed the subject.

'How is your aunt this evening, Miss Vaughan?'

'Quite well, thank you. She went in. She found it a little chilly.'

George heartily commended her good sense. A little chilly did not begin to express it. If the girl had been like this all the evening, he wondered her aunt had not caught pneumonia. He tried again.

'Will you have time to give me another lesson tomorrow?' he said.

She turned on him.

'Mr Callender, don't you think this farce has gone on long enough?'

Once, in the dear, dead days beyond recall, when but a happy child, George had been smitten unexpectedly by a sportive playmate a bare half-inch below his third waistcoat-button. The resulting emotions were still green in his memory. As he had felt then, so did he feel now.

'Miss Vaughan! I don't understand.'

'Really?'

'What have I done?'

'You have forgotten how to swim.'

A warm and prickly sensation began to manifest itself in the region of George's forehead.

'Forgotten!'

'Forgotten. And in a few months. I thought I had seen you before, and today I remembered. It was just about this time last year that I saw you at Hayling Island swimming perfectly wonderfully, and today you are taking lessons. Can you explain it?'

A frog-like croak was the best George could do in that line.

She went on.

'Business is business, I suppose, and a play has to be advertised somehow. But—'

'You don't think—' croaked George.

'I should have thought it rather beneath the dignity of an author; but, of course, you know your own business best. Only I object to being a conspirator. I am sorry for your sake that yesterday's episode attracted so little attention. Today it was much more satisfactory, wasn't it? I am so glad.'

There was a massive silence for about a hundred years.

'I think I'll go for a short stroll,' said George.

* * * * *

Scarcely had he disappeared when the long form of Mr Mifflin emerged from the shadow beyond the veranda.

'Could you spare me a moment?'

The girl looked up. The man was a stranger. She inclined her head coldly.

'My name is Mifflin,' said the other, dropping comfortably into the chair which had held the remains of George.

The girl inclined her head again more coldly; but it took more than that to embarrass Mr Mifflin. Dynamite might have done it, but not coldness.

'The Mifflin,' he explained, crossing his legs. 'I overheard your conversation just now.'

'You were listening?' said the girl, scornfully.

'For all I was worth,' said Mr Mifflin. 'These things are very much a matter of habit. For years I have been playing in pieces where I have had to stand concealed up stage, drinking in the private conversation of other people, and the thing has become a second nature to me. However, leaving that point for a moment, what I wish to say is that I heard you—unknowingly, of course—doing a good man a grave injustice.'

'Mr Callender could have defended himself if he had wished.'

'I was not referring to George. The injustice was to myself.'

'To you?'

'I was the sole author of this afternoon's little drama. I like George, but I cannot permit him to pose in any way as my collaborator. George has old-fashioned ideas. He does not keep abreast of the times. He can write plays, but he needs a man with a big brain to boom them for him. So, far from being entitled to any credit for this afternoon's work, he was actually opposed to it.'

'Then why did he pretend you had saved him?' she demanded.

'George's,' said Mr Mifflin, 'is essentially a chivalrous nature. At any crisis demanding a display of the finer feelings he is there with the goods before you can turn round. His friends frequently wrangle warmly as to whether he is most like Bayard, Lancelot, or Happy Hooligan. Some say one, some the other. It seems that yesterday you saved him from a watery grave without giving him time to explain that he could save himself. What could he do? He said to himself, "She must never know!" and acted accordingly. But let us leave George, and return—'

'Thank you, Mr Mifflin.' There was a break in her laugh. 'I don't think there is any necessity. I think I understand now. It was very clever of you.'

'It was more than cleverness,' said Mr Mifflin, rising. 'It was genius.'

* * * * *

A white form came to meet George as he re-entered the veranda.

'Mr Callender!'

He stopped.

'I'm very sorry I said such horrid things to you just now. I have been talking to Mr Mifflin, and I want to say I think it was ever so nice and thoughtful of you. I understand everything.'

George did not, by a good deal; but he understood sufficient for his needs. He shot forward as if some strong hand were behind him with a needle.

'Miss Vaughan—Mary—I—'

'I think I hear aunt calling,' said she.

* * * * *

But a benevolent Providence has ordained that aunts cannot call for ever; and it is on record that when George entered his box on the two hundredth night of that great London success, Fate's Footballs, he did not enter it alone.



WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE

It is possible that, at about the time at which this story opens, you may have gone into the Hotel Belvoir for a hair-cut. Many people did; for the young man behind the scissors, though of a singularly gloomy countenance, was undoubtedly an artist in his line. He clipped judiciously. He left no ridges. He never talked about the weather. And he allowed you to go away unburdened by any bottle of hair-food.

It is possible, too, that, being there, you decided that you might as well go the whole hog and be manicured at the same time.

It is not unlikely, moreover, that when you had got over the first shock of finding your hands so unexpectedly large and red, you felt disposed to chat with the young lady who looked after that branch of the business. In your genial way you may have permitted a note of gay (but gentlemanly) badinage to creep into your end of the dialogue.

In which case, if you had raised your eyes to the mirror, you would certainly have observed a marked increase of gloom in the demeanour of the young man attending to your apex. He took no official notice of the matter. A quick frown. A tightening of the lips. Nothing more. Jealous as Arthur Welsh was of all who inflicted gay badinage, however gentlemanly, on Maud Peters, he never forgot that he was an artist. Never, even in his blackest moments, had he yielded to the temptation to dig the point of the scissors the merest fraction of an inch into a client's skull.

But Maud, who saw, would understand. And, if the customer was an observant man, he would notice that her replies at that juncture became somewhat absent, her smile a little mechanical.

* * * * *

Jealousy, according to an eminent authority, is the 'hydra of calamities, the sevenfold death'. Arthur Welsh's was all that and a bit over. It was a constant shadow on Maud's happiness. No fair-minded girl objects to a certain tinge of jealousy. Kept within proper bounds, it is a compliment; it makes for piquancy; it is the gin in the ginger-beer of devotion. But it should be a condiment, not a fluid.

It was the unfairness of the thing which hurt Maud. Her conscience was clear. She knew girls—several girls—who gave the young men with whom they walked out ample excuse for being perfect Othellos. If she had ever flirted on the open beach with the baritone of the troupe of pierrots, like Jane Oddy, she could have excused Arthur's attitude. If, like Pauline Dicey, she had roller-skated for a solid hour with a black-moustached stranger while her fiance floundered in Mug's Alley she could have understood his frowning disapprovingly. But she was not like Pauline. She scorned the coquetries of Jane. Arthur was the centre of her world, and he knew it. Ever since the rainy evening when he had sheltered her under his umbrella to her Tube station, he had known perfectly well how things were with her. And yet just because, in a strictly business-like way, she was civil to her customers, he must scowl and bite his lip and behave generally as if it had been brought to his notice that he had been nurturing a serpent in his bosom. It was worse than wicked—it was unprofessional.

She remonstrated with him.

'It isn't fair,' she said, one morning when the rush of customers had ceased and they had the shop to themselves.

Matters had been worse than usual that morning. After days of rain and greyness the weather had turned over a new leaf. The sun glinted among the bottles of Unfailing Lotion in the window, and everything in the world seemed to have relaxed and become cheerful. Unfortunately, everything had included the customers. During the last few days they had taken their seats in moist gloom, and, brooding over the prospect of coming colds in the head, had had little that was pleasant to say to the divinity who was shaping their ends. But today it had been different. Warm and happy, they had bubbled over with gay small-talk.

'It isn't fair,' she repeated.

Arthur, who was stropping a razor and whistling tunelessly, raised his eyebrows. His manner was frosty.

'I fail to understand your meaning,' he said.

'You know what I mean. Do you think I didn't see you frowning when I was doing that gentleman's nails?'

The allusion was to the client who had just left—a jovial individual with a red face, who certainly had made Maud giggle a good deal. And why not? If a gentleman tells really funny stories, what harm is there in giggling? You had to be pleasant to people. If you snubbed customers, what happened? Why, sooner or later, it got round to the boss, and then where were you? Besides, it was not as if the red-faced customer had been rude. Write down on paper what he had said to her, and nobody could object to it. Write down on paper what she had said to him, and you couldn't object to that either. It was just Arthur's silliness.

She tossed her head.

'I am gratified,' said Arthur, ponderously—in happier moments Maud had admired his gift of language; he read a great deal: encyclopedias and papers and things—'I am gratified to find that you had time to bestow a glance on me. You appeared absorbed.'

Maud sniffed unhappily. She had meant to be cold and dignified throughout the conversation, but the sense of her wrongs was beginning to be too much for her. A large tear splashed on to her tray of orange-sticks. She wiped it away with the chamois leather.

'It isn't fair,' she sobbed. 'It isn't. You know I can't help it if gentlemen talk and joke with me. You know it's all in the day's work. I'm expected to be civil to gentlemen who come in to have their hands done. Silly I should look sitting as if I'd swallowed a poker. I do think you might understand, Arthur, you being in the profession yourself.'

He coughed.

'It isn't so much that you talk to them as that you seem to like—'

He stopped. Maud's dignity had melted completely. Her face was buried in her arms. She did not care if a million customers came in, all at the same time.

'Maud!'

She heard him moving towards her, but she did not look up. The next moment his arms were round her, and he was babbling.

And a customer, pushing open the door unnoticed two minutes later, retired hurriedly to get shaved elsewhere, doubting whether Arthur's mind was on his job.

For a time this little thunderstorm undoubtedly cleared the air. For a day or two Maud was happier than she ever remembered to have been. Arthur's behaviour was unexceptionable. He bought her a wrist-watch— light brown leather, very smart. He gave her some chocolates to eat in the Tube. He entertained her with amazing statistics, culled from the weekly paper which he bought on Tuesdays. He was, in short, the perfect lover. On the second day the red-faced man came in again. Arthur joined in the laughter at his stories. Everything seemed ideal.

It could not last. Gradually things slipped back into the old routine. Maud, looking up from her work, would see the frown and the bitten lip. She began again to feel uncomfortable and self-conscious as she worked. Sometimes their conversation on the way to the Tube was almost formal.

It was useless to say anything. She had a wholesome horror of being one of those women who nagged; and she felt that to complain again would amount to nagging. She tried to put the thing out of her mind, but it insisted on staying there. In a way she understood his feelings. He loved her so much, she supposed, that he hated the idea of her exchanging a single word with another man. This, in the abstract, was gratifying; but in practice it distressed her. She wished she were some sort of foreigner, so that nobody could talk to her. But then they would look at her, and that probably would produce much the same results. It was a hard world for a girl.

And then the strange thing happened. Arthur reformed. One might almost say that he reformed with a jerk. It was a parallel case to those sudden conversions at Welsh revival meetings. On Monday evening he had been at his worst. On the following morning he was a changed man. Not even after the original thunderstorm had he been more docile. Maud could not believe that first. The lip, once bitten, was stretched in a smile. She looked for the frown. It was not there.

Next day it was the same; and the day after that. When a week had gone by, and still the improvement was maintained, Maud felt that she might now look upon it as permanent. A great load seemed to have been taken off her mind. She revised her views on the world. It was a very good world, quite one of the best, with Arthur beaming upon it like a sun.

A number of eminent poets and essayists, in the course of the last few centuries, have recorded, in their several ways, their opinion that one can have too much of a good thing. The truth applies even to such a good thing as absence of jealousy. Little by little Maud began to grow uneasy. It began to come home to her that she preferred the old Arthur, of the scowl and the gnawed lip. Of him she had at least been sure. Whatever discomfort she may have suffered from his spirited imitations of Othello, at any rate they had proved that he loved her. She would have accepted gladly an equal amount of discomfort now in exchange for the same certainty. She could not read this new Arthur. His thoughts were a closed book. Superficially, he was all that she could have wished. He still continued to escort her to the Tube, to buy her occasional presents, to tap, when conversing, the pleasantly sentimental vein. But now these things were not enough. Her heart was troubled. Her thoughts frightened her. The little black imp at the back of her mind kept whispering and whispering, till at last she was forced to listen. 'He's tired of you. He doesn't love you any more. He's tired of you.'

* * * * *

It is not everybody who, in times of mental stress, can find ready to hand among his or her personal acquaintances an expert counsellor, prepared at a moment's notice to listen with sympathy and advise with tact and skill. Everyone's world is full of friends, relatives, and others, who will give advice on any subject that may be presented to them; but there are crises in life which cannot be left to the amateur. It is the aim of a certain widely read class of paper to fill this void.

Of this class Fireside Chat was one of the best-known representatives. In exchange for one penny its five hundred thousand readers received every week a serial story about life in highest circles, a short story packed with heart-interest, articles on the removal of stains and the best method of coping with the cold mutton, anecdotes of Royalty, photographs of peeresses, hints on dress, chats about baby, brief but pointed dialogues between Blogson and Snogson, poems, Great Thoughts from the Dead and Brainy, half-hours in the editor's cosy sanctum, a slab of brown paper, and—the journal's leading feature—Advice on Matters of the Heart. The weekly contribution of the advice specialist of Fireside Chat, entitled 'In the Consulting Room, by Dr Cupid', was made up mainly of Answers to Correspondents. He affected the bedside manner of the kind, breezy old physician; and probably gave a good deal of comfort. At any rate, he always seemed to have plenty of cases on his hands.

It was to this expert that Maud took her trouble. She had been a regular reader of the paper for several years; and had, indeed, consulted the great man once before, when he had replied favourably to her query as to whether it would be right for her to accept caramels from Arthur, then almost a stranger. It was only natural that she should go to him now, in an even greater dilemma. The letter was not easy to write, but she finished it at last; and, after an anxious interval, judgement was delivered as follows:

'Well, well, well! Bless my soul, what is all this? M. P. writes me:

'I am a young lady, and until recently was very, very happy, except that my fiance, though truly loving me, was of a very jealous disposition, though I am sure I gave him no cause. He would scowl when I spoke to any other man, and this used to make me unhappy. But for some time now he has quite changed, and does not seem to mind at all, and though at first this made me feel happy, to think that he had got over his jealousy, I now feel unhappy because I am beginning to be afraid that he no longer cares for me. Do you think this is so, and what ought I to do?'

'My dear young lady, I should like to be able to reassure you; but it is kindest sometimes, you know, to be candid, however it may hurt. It has been my experience that, when jealousy flies out of the window, indifference comes in at the door. In the old days a knight would joust for the love of a ladye, risking physical injury rather than permit others to rival him in her affections. I think, M. P., that you should endeavour to discover the true state of your fiance's feelings. I do not, of course, advocate anything in the shape of unwomanly behaviour, of which I am sure, my dear young lady, you are incapable; but I think that you should certainly try to pique your fiance, to test him. At your next ball, for instance, refuse him a certain number of dances, on the plea that your programme is full. At garden-parties, at-homes, and so on, exhibit pleasure in the society and conversation of other gentlemen, and mark his demeanour as you do so. These little tests should serve either to relieve your apprehensions, provided they are groundless, or to show you the truth. And, after all, if it is the truth, it must be faced, must it not, M. P.?'

Before the end of the day Maud knew the whole passage by heart. The more her mind dwelt on it, the more clearly did it seem to express what she had felt but could not put into words. The point about jousting struck her as particularly well taken. She had looked up 'joust' in the dictionary, and it seemed to her that in these few words was contained the kernel of her trouble. In the old days, if any man had attempted to rival him in her affections (outside business hours), Arthur would undoubtedly have jousted—and jousted with the vigour of one who means to make his presence felt. Now, in similar circumstances, he would probably step aside politely, as who should say, 'After you, my dear Alphonse.'

There was no time to lose. An hour after her first perusal of Dr Cupid's advice, Maud had begun to act upon it. By the time the first lull in the morning's work had come, and there was a chance for private conversation, she had invented an imaginary young man, a shadowy Lothario, who, being introduced into her home on the previous Sunday by her brother Horace, had carried on in a way you wouldn't believe, paying all manner of compliments.

'He said I had such white hands,' said Maud.

Arthur nodded, stropping a razor the while. He appeared to be bearing the revelations with complete fortitude. Yet, only a few weeks before, a customer's comment on this same whiteness had stirred him to his depths.

'And this morning—what do you think? Why, he meets me as bold as you please, and gives me a cake of toilet soap. Like his impudence!'

She paused, hopefully.

'Always useful, soap,' said Arthur, politely sententious.

'Lovely it was,' went on Maud, dully conscious of failure, but stippling in like an artist the little touches which give atmosphere and verisimilitude to a story. 'All scented. Horace will tease me about it, I can tell you.'

She paused. Surely he must—Why, a sea-anemone would be torn with jealousy at such a tale.

Arthur did not even wince. He was charming about it. Thought it very kind of the young fellow. Didn't blame him for being struck by the whiteness of her hands. Touched on the history of soap, which he happened to have been reading up in the encyclopedia at the free library. And behaved altogether in such a thoroughly gentlemanly fashion that Maud stayed awake half the night, crying.

* * * * *

If Maud had waited another twenty-four hours there would have been no need for her to have taxed her powers of invention, for on the following day there entered the shop and her life a young man who was not imaginary—a Lothario of flesh and blood. He made his entry with that air of having bought most of the neighbouring property which belongs exclusively to minor actors, men of weight on the Stock Exchange, and American professional pugilists.

Mr 'Skipper' Shute belonged to the last-named of the three classes. He had arrived in England two months previously for the purpose of holding a conference at eight-stone four with one Joseph Edwardes, to settle a question of superiority at that weight which had been vexing the sporting public of two countries for over a year. Having successfully out-argued Mr Edwardes, mainly by means of strenuous work in the clinches, he was now on the eve of starting on a lucrative music-hall tour with his celebrated inaudible monologue. As a result of these things he was feeling very, very pleased with the world in general, and with Mr Skipper Shute in particular. And when Mr Shute was pleased with himself his manner was apt to be of the breeziest.

He breezed into the shop, took a seat, and, having cast an experienced eye at Maud, and found her pleasing, extended both hands, and observed, 'Go the limit, kid.'

At any other time Maud might have resented being addressed as 'kid' by a customer, but now she welcomed it. With the exception of a slight thickening of the lobe of one ear, Mr Shute bore no outward signs of his profession. And being, to use his own phrase, a 'swell dresser', he was really a most presentable young man. Just, in fact, what Maud needed. She saw in him her last hope. If any faint spark of his ancient fire still lingered in Arthur, it was through Mr Shute that it must be fanned.

She smiled upon Mr Shute. She worked on his robust fingers as if it were an artistic treat to be permitted to handle them. So carefully did she toil that she was still busy when Arthur, taking off his apron and putting on his hat, went out for his twenty-minutes' lunch, leaving them alone together.

The door had scarcely shut when Mr Shute bent forward.

'Say!'

He sank his voice to a winning whisper.

'You look good to muh,' he said, gallantly.

'The idea!' said Maud, tossing her head.

'On the level,' Mr Shute assured her.

Maud laid down her orange-sticks.

'Don't be silly,' she said. 'There—I've finished.'

'I've not,' said Mr Shute. 'Not by a mile. Say!'

'Well?'

'What do you do with your evenings?'

'I go home.'

'Sure. But when you don't? It's a poor heart that never rejoices. Don't you ever whoop it up?'

'Whoop it up?'

'The mad whirl,' explained Mr Shute. 'Ice-cream soda and buck-wheat cakes, and a happy evening at lovely Luna Park.'

'I don't know where Luna Park is.'

'What did they teach you at school? It's out in that direction,' said Mr Shute, pointing over his shoulder. 'You go straight on about three thousand miles till you hit little old New York; then you turn to the right. Say, don't you ever get a little treat? Why not come along to the White City some old evening? This evening?'

'Mr Welsh is taking me to the White City tonight.'

'And who is Mr Welsh?'

'The gentleman who has just gone out.'

'Is that so? Well, he doesn't look a live one, but maybe it's just because he's had bad news today. You never can tell.' He rose. 'Farewell, Evelina, fairest of your sex. We shall meet again; so keep a stout heart.'

And, taking up his cane, straw hat, and yellow gloves, Mr Shute departed, leaving Maud to her thoughts.

She was disappointed. She had expected better results. Mr Shute had lowered with ease the record for gay badinage, hitherto held by the red-faced customer; yet to all appearances there had been no change in Arthur's manner. But perhaps he had scowled (or bitten his lip), and she had not noticed it. Apparently he had struck Mr Shute, an unbiased spectator, as gloomy. Perhaps at some moment when her eyes had been on her work—She hoped for the best.

Whatever his feelings may have been during the afternoon, Arthur was undeniably cheerful that evening. He was in excellent spirits. His light-hearted abandon on the Wiggle-Woggle had been noted and commented upon by several lookers-on. Confronted with the Hairy Ainus, he had touched a high level of facetiousness. And now, as he sat with her listening to the band, he was crooning joyously to himself in accompaniment to the music, without, it would appear, a care in the world.

Maud was hurt and anxious. In a mere acquaintance this blithe attitude would have been welcome. It would have helped her to enjoy her evening. But from Arthur at that particular moment she looked for something else. Why was he cheerful? Only a few hours ago she had been—yes, flirting with another man before his very eyes. What right had he to be cheerful? He ought to be heated, full of passionate demands for an explanation—a flushed, throaty thing to be coaxed back into a good temper and then forgiven—all this at great length—for having been in a bad one. Yes, she told herself, she had wanted certainty one way or the other, and here it was. Now she knew. He no longer cared for her.

She trembled.

'Cold?' said Arthur. 'Let's walk. Evenings beginning to draw in now. Lum-da-diddley-ah. That's what I call a good tune. Give me something lively and bright. Dumty-umpty-iddley-ah. Dum tum—'

'Funny thing—' said Maud, deliberately.

'What's a funny thing?'

'The gentleman in the brown suit whose hands I did this afternoon—'

'He was,' agreed Arthur, brightly. 'A very funny thing.'

Maud frowned. Wit at the expense of Hairy Ainus was one thing—at her own another.

'I was about to say,' she went on precisely, 'that it was a funny thing, a coincidence, seeing that I was already engaged, that the gentleman in the brown suit whose hands I did this afternoon should have asked me to come here, to the White City, with him tonight.'

For a moment they walked on in silence. To Maud it seemed a hopeful silence. Surely it must be the prelude to an outburst.

'Oh!' he said, and stopped.

Maud's heart gave a leap. Surely that was the old tone?

A couple of paces, and he spoke again.

'I didn't hear him ask you.'

His voice was disappointingly level.

'He asked me after you had gone out to lunch.'

'It's a nuisance,' said Arthur, cheerily, 'when things clash like that. But perhaps he'll ask you again. Nothing to prevent you coming here twice. Well repays a second visit, I always say. I think—'

'You shouldn't,' said a voice behind him. 'It hurts the head. Well, kid, being shown a good time?'

The possibility of meeting Mr Shute had not occurred to Maud. She had assumed that, being aware that she would be there with another, he would have stayed away. It may, however, be remarked that she did not know Mr Shute. He was not one of your sensitive plants. He smiled pleasantly upon her, looking very dapper in evening dress and a silk hat that, though a size too small for him, shone like a mirror.

Maud hardly knew whether she was glad or sorry to see him. It did not seem to matter much now either way. Nothing seemed to matter much, in fact. Arthur's cheery acceptance of the news that she received invitations from others had been like a blow, leaving her numb and listless.

She made the introductions. The two men eyed each other.

'Pleased to meet you,' said Mr Shute.

'Weather keeps up,' said Arthur.

And from that point onward Mr Shute took command.

It is to be assumed that this was not the first time that Mr Shute had made one of a trio in these circumstances, for the swift dexterity with which he lost Arthur was certainly not that of a novice. So smoothly was it done that it was not until she emerged from the Witching Waves, guided by the pugilist's slim but formidable right arm, that Maud realized that Arthur had gone.

She gave a little cry of dismay. Secretly she was beginning to be somewhat afraid of Mr Shute. He was showing signs of being about to step out of the role she had assigned to him and attempt something on a larger scale. His manner had that extra touch of warmth which makes all the difference.

'Oh! He's gone!' she cried.

'Sure,' said Mr Shute. 'He's got a hurry-call from the Uji Village. The chief's cousin wants a hair-cut.'

'We must find him. We must.'

'Surest thing you know,' said Mr Shute. 'Plenty of time.'

'We must find him.'

Mr Shute regarded her with some displeasure.

'Seems to be ace-high with you, that dub,' he said.

'I don't understand you.'

'My observation was,' explained Mr Shute, coldly, 'that, judging from appearances, that dough-faced lemon was Willie-boy, the first and only love.'

Maud turned on him with flaming cheeks.

'Mr Welsh is nothing to me! Nothing! Nothing!' she cried.

She walked quickly on.

'Then, if there's a vacancy, star-eyes,' said the pugilist at her side, holding on a hat which showed a tendency to wobble, 'count me in. Directly I saw you—see here, what's the idea of this road-work? We aren't racing—'

Maud slowed down.

'That's better. As I was saying, directly I saw you, I said to myself, "That's the one you need. The original candy kid. The—"'

His hat lurched drunkenly as he answered the girl's increase of speed. He cursed it in a brief aside.

'That's what I said. "The original candy kid." So—'

He shot out a restraining hand. 'Arthur!' cried Maud. 'Arthur!'

'It's not my name' breathed Mr Shute, tenderly. 'Call me Clarence.'

Considered as an embrace, it was imperfect. At these moments a silk hat a size too small handicaps a man. The necessity of having to be careful about the nap prevented Mr Shute from doing himself complete justice. But he did enough to induce Arthur Welsh, who, having sighted the missing ones from afar, had been approaching them at a walking pace, to substitute a run for the walk, and arrive just as Maud wrenched herself free.

Mr Shute took off his hat, smoothed it, replaced it with extreme care, and turned his attention to the new-comer.

'Arthur!' said Maud.

Her heart gave a great leap. There was no mistaking the meaning in the eye that met hers. He cared! He cared!

'Arthur!'

He took no notice. His face was pale and working. He strode up to Mr Shute.

'Well?' he said between his teeth.

An eight-stone-four champion of the world has many unusual experiences in his life, but he rarely encounters men who say 'Well?' to him between their teeth. Mr Shute eyed this freak with profound wonder.

'I'll teach you to—to kiss young ladies!'

Mr Shute removed his hat again and gave it another brush. This gave him the necessary time for reflection.

'I don't need it,' he said. 'I've graduated.'

'Put them up!' hissed Arthur.

Almost a shocked look spread itself over the pugilist's face. So might Raphael have looked if requested to draw a pavement-picture.

'You aren't speaking to ME?' he said, incredulously.

'Put them up!'

Maud, trembling from head to foot, was conscious of one overwhelming emotion. She was terrified—yes. But stronger than the terror was the great wave of elation which swept over her. All her doubts had vanished. At last, after weary weeks of uncertainty, Arthur was about to give the supreme proof. He was going to joust for her.

A couple of passers-by had paused, interested, to watch developments. You could never tell, of course. Many an apparently promising row never got any farther than words. But, glancing at Arthur's face, they certainly felt justified in pausing. Mr Shute spoke.

'If it wasn't,' he said, carefully, 'that I don't want trouble with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, I'd—'

He broke off, for, to the accompaniment of a shout of approval from the two spectators, Arthur had swung his right fist, and it had taken him smartly on the side of the head.

Compared with the blows Mr Shute was wont to receive in the exercise of his profession, Arthur's was a gentle tap. But there was one circumstance which gave it a deadliness all its own. Achilles had his heel. Mr Shute's vulnerable point was at the other extremity. Instead of countering, he uttered a cry of agony, and clutched wildly with both hands at his hat.

He was too late. It fell to the ground and bounded away, with its proprietor in passionate chase. Arthur snorted and gently chafed his knuckles.

There was a calm about Mr Shute's demeanour as, having given his treasure a final polish and laid it carefully down, he began to advance on his adversary, which was more than ominous. His lips were a thin line of steel. The muscles stood out over his jaw-bones. Crouching in his professional manner, he moved forward softly, like a cat.

And it was at this precise moment, just as the two spectators, reinforced now by eleven other men of sporting tastes, were congratulating themselves on their acumen in having stopped to watch, that Police-Constable Robert Bryce, intruding fourteen stones of bone and muscle between the combatants, addressed to Mr Shute these memorable words: ''Ullo, 'ullo! 'Ullo, 'ullo, 'ul-lo!'

Mr Shute appealed to his sense of justice.

'The mutt knocked me hat off.'

'And I'd do it again,' said Arthur, truculently.

'Not while I'm here you wouldn't, young fellow,' said Mr Bryce, with decision. 'I'm surprised at you,' he went on, pained. 'And you look a respectable young chap, too. You pop off.'

A shrill voice from the crowd at this point offered the constable all cinematograph rights if he would allow the contest to proceed.

'And you pop off, too, all of you,' continued Mr Bryce. 'Blest if I know what kids are coming to nowadays. And as for you,' he said, addressing Mr Shute, 'all you've got to do is to keep that face of yours closed. That's what you've got to do. I've got my eye on you, mind, and if I catch you a-follerin' of him'—he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Arthur's departing figure—'I'll pinch you. Sure as you're alive.' He paused. 'I'd have done it already,' he added, pensively, 'if it wasn't me birthday.'

* * * * *

Arthur Welsh turned sharply. For some time he had been dimly aware that somebody was calling his name.

'Oh, Arthur!'

She was breathing quickly. He could see the tears in her eyes.

'I've been running. You walked so fast.'

He stared down at her gloomily.

'Go away,' he said. 'I've done with you.'

She clutched at his coat.

'Arthur, listen—listen! It's all a mistake. I thought you—you didn't care for me any more, and I was miserable, and I wrote to the paper and asked what should I do, and they said I ought to test you and try and make you jealous, and that that would relieve my apprehensions. And I hated it, but I did it, and you didn't seem to care till now. And you know that there's nobody but you.'

'You—The paper? What?' he stammered.

'Yes, yes, yes. I wrote to Fireside Chat, and Dr Cupid said that when jealousy flew out of the window indifference came in at the door, and that I must exhibit pleasure in the society of other gentlemen and mark your demeanour. So I—Oh!'

Arthur, luckier than Mr Shute, was not hampered by a too small silk hat.

It was a few moments later, as they moved slowly towards the Flip-Flap—which had seemed to both of them a fitting climax for the evening's emotions—that Arthur, fumbling in his waist-coat pocket, produced a small slip of paper.

'What's that?' Maud asked.

'Read it,' said Arthur. 'It's from Home Moments, in answer to a letter I sent them. And,' he added with heat, 'I'd like to have five minutes alone with the chap who wrote it.'

And under the electric light Maud read

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

By the Heart Specialist

Arthur W.—Jealousy, Arthur W., is not only the most wicked, but the most foolish of passions. Shakespeare says:

It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock The meat it feeds on.

You admit that you have frequently caused great distress to the young lady of your affections by your exhibition of this weakness. Exactly. There is nothing a girl dislikes or despises more than jealousy. Be a man, Arthur W. Fight against it. You may find it hard at first, but persevere. Keep a smiling face. If she seems to enjoy talking to other men, show no resentment. Be merry and bright. Believe me, it is the only way.



BY ADVICE OF COUNSEL

The traveller champed meditatively at his steak. He paid no attention to the altercation which was in progress between the waiter and the man at the other end of the dingy room. The sounds of strife ceased. The waiter came over to the traveller's table and stood behind his chair. He was ruffled.

'If he meant lamb,' he said, querulously, 'why didn't he say "lamb", so's a feller could hear him? I thought he said "ham", so I brought ham. Now Lord Percy gets all peevish.'

He laughed bitterly. The traveller made no reply.

'If people spoke distinct,' said the waiter, 'there wouldn't be half the trouble there is in the world. Not half the trouble there wouldn't be. I shouldn't be here, for one thing. In this restawrong, I mean.' A sigh escaped him.

'I shouldn't,' he said, 'and that's the truth. I should be getting up when I pleased, eating and drinking all I wanted, and carrying on same as in the good old days. You wouldn't think, to look at me, would you now, that I was once like the lily of the field?'

The waiter was a tall, stringy man, who gave the impression of having no spine. In that he drooped, he might have been said to resemble a flower, but in no other respect. He had sandy hair, weak eyes set close together, and a day's growth of red stubble on his chin. One could not see him in the lily class.

'What I mean to say is, I didn't toil, neither did I spin. Ah, them was happy days! Lying on me back, plenty of tobacco, something cool in a jug—'

He sighed once more.

'Did you ever know a man of the name of Moore? Jerry Moore?'

The traveller applied himself to his steak in silence.

'Nice feller. Simple sort of feller. Big. Quiet. Bit deaf in one ear. Straw-coloured hair. Blue eyes. 'Andsome, rather. Had a 'ouse just outside of Reigate. Has it still. Money of his own. Left him by his pa. Simple sort of feller. Not much to say for himself. I used to know him well in them days. Used to live with him. Nice feller he was. Big. Bit hard of hearing. Got a sleepy kind of grin, like this—something.'

The traveller sipped his beer in thoughtful silence.

'I reckon you never met him,' said the waiter. 'Maybe you never knew Gentleman Bailey, either? We always called him that. He was one of these broken-down Eton or 'Arrer fellers, folks said. We struck up a partnership kind of casual, both being on the tramp together, and after a while we 'appened to be round about Reigate. And the first house we come to was this Jerry Moore's. He come up just as we was sliding to the back door, and grins that sleepy grin. Like this—something. "'Ullo!" he says. Gentleman kind of gives a whoop, and hollers, "If it ain't my old pal, Jerry Moore! Jack," he says to me, "this is my old pal, Mr Jerry Moore, wot I met in 'appier days down at Ramsgate one summer."

'They shakes hands, and Jerry Moore says, "Is this a friend of yours, Bailey?" looking at me. Gentleman introduces me. "We are partners," he says, "partners in misfortune. This is my friend, Mr Roach."

'"Come along in," says Jerry.

'So we went in, and he makes us at home. He's a bachelor, and lives all by himself in this desirable 'ouse.

'Well, I seen pretty quick that Jerry thinks the world of Gentleman. All that evening he's acting as if he's as pleased as Punch to have him there. Couldn't do enough for him. It was a bit of all right, I said to meself. It was, too.

'Next day we gets up late and has a good breakfast, and sits on the lawn and smokes. The sun was shining, the little birds was singing, and there wasn't a thing, east, west, north, or south, that looked like work. If I had been asked my address at that moment, on oath, I wouldn't have hesitated a second. I should have answered, "No. 1, Easy Street." You see, Jerry Moore was one of these slow, simple fellers, and you could tell in a moment what a lot he thought of Gentleman. Gentleman, you see, had a way with him. Not haughty, he wasn't. More affable, I should call it. He sort of made you feel that all men are born equal, but that it was awful good of him to be talking to you, and that he wouldn't do it for everybody. It went down proper with Jerry Moore. Jerry would sit and listen to him giving his views on things by the hour. By the end of the first day I was having visions of sitting in that garden a white-baked old man, and being laid out, when my time should come, in Jerry's front room.'

He paused, his mind evidently in the past, among the cigars and big breakfasts. Presently he took up his tale.

'This here Jerry Moore was a simple sort of feller. Deafies are like that. Ever noticed? Not that Jerry was a real deafy. His hearing was a bit off, but he could foller you if you spoke to him nice and clear. Well, I was saying, he was kind of simple. Liked to put in his days pottering about the little garden he'd made for himself, looking after his flowers and his fowls, and sit of an evening listening to Gentleman 'olding forth on Life. He was a philosopher, Gentleman was. And Jerry took everything he said as gospel. He didn't want no proofs. 'E and the King of Denmark would have been great pals. He just sat by with his big blue eyes getting rounder every minute and lapped it up.

'Now you'd think a man like that could be counted on, wouldn't you? Would he want anything more? Not he, you'd say. You'd be wrong. Believe me, there isn't a man on earth that's fixed and contented but what a woman can't knock his old Paradise into 'ash with one punch.

'It wasn't long before I begin to notice a change in Jerry. He never had been what you'd call a champion catch-as-catch-can talker, but now he was silenter than ever. And he got a habit of switching Gentleman off from his theories on Life in general to Woman in particular. This suited Gentleman just right. What he didn't know about Woman wasn't knowledge.

'Gentleman was too busy talking to have time to get suspicious, but I wasn't; and one day I draws Gentleman aside and puts it to him straight. "Gentleman," I says, "Jerry Moore is in love!"

'Well, this was a nasty knock, of course, for Gentleman. He knew as well as I did what it would mean if Jerry was to lead home a blushing bride through that front door. It would be outside into the cold, hard world for the bachelor friends. Gentleman sees that quick, and his jaw drops. I goes on. "All the time," I says, "that you're talking away of an evening, Jerry's seeing visions of a little woman sitting in your chair. And you can bet we don't enter into them visions. He may dream of little feet pattering about the house," I says, "but they aren't ours; and you can 'ave something on that both ways. Look alive, Gentleman," I says, "and think out some plan, or we might as well be padding the hoof now."

'Well, Gentleman did what he could. In his evening discourses he started to give it to Woman all he knew. Began to talk about Delilahs and Jezebels and Fools-there-was and the rest of it, and what a mug a feller was to let a female into 'is cosy home, who'd only make him spend his days hooking her up, and his nights wondering how to get back the blankets without waking her. My, he was crisp! Enough to have given Romeo the jumps, you'd have thought. But, lor! It's no good talking to them when they've got it bad.

'A few days later we caught him with the goods, talking in the road to a girl in a pink dress.

'I couldn't but admit that Jerry had picked one right from the top of the basket. This wasn't one of them languishing sort wot sits about in cosy corners and reads story-books, and don't care what's happening in the home so long as they find out what became of the hero in his duel with the Grand Duke. She was a brown, slim, wiry-looking little thing. You know. Held her chin up and looked you up and down with eyes the colour of Scotch whisky, as much as to say, "Well, what about it?" You could tell without looking at her, just by the feel of the atmosphere when she was near, that she had as much snap and go in her as Jerry Moore hadn't, which was a good bit. I knew, just as sure as I was standing there on one leg, that this was the sort of girl who would have me and Gentleman out of that house about three seconds after the clergyman had tied the knot.

'Jerry says, "These are my friends, Miss Tuxton—Mr Bailey and Mr Roach. They are staying with me for a visit. This is Miss Jane Tuxton," he says to us. "I was just going to see Miss Tuxton home," he says, sort of wistful. "Excellent," says Gentleman. "We'll come too." And we all goes along. There wasn't much done in the way of conversation. Jerry never was one for pushing out the words; nor was I, when in the presence of the sect; and Miss Jane had her chin in the air, as if she thought me and Gentleman was not needed in any way whatsoever. The only talk before we turned her in at the garden gate was done by Gentleman, who told a pretty long story about a friend of his in Upper Sydenham who had been silly enough to marry, and had had trouble ever since.

'That night, after we had went to bed, I said to Gentleman, "Gentleman," I says, "what's going to be done about this? We've got about as much chance, if Jerry marries that girl," I says, "as a couple of helpless chocolate creams at a school-girls' picnic." "If," says Gentleman. "He ain't married her yet. That is a girl of character, Jack. Trust me. Didn't she strike you as a girl who would like a man with a bit of devil in him, a man with some go in him, a you-be-darned kind of man? Does Jerry fill the bill? He's more like a doormat with 'Welcome' written on it, than anything else."

'Well, we seen a good deal of Miss Jane in the next week or so. We keeps Jerry under—what's it the heroine says in the melodrama? "Oh, cruel, cruel, S.P. something." Espionage, that's it. We keeps Jerry under espionage, and whenever he goes trickling round after the girl, we goes trickling round after him.

'"Things is running our way," says Gentleman to me, after one of these meetings. "That girl is getting cross with Jerry. She wants Reckless Rudolf, not a man who stands and grins when other men butt in on him and his girl. Mark my words, Jack. She'll get tired of Jerry, and go off and marry a soldier, and we'll live happy ever after." "Think so?" I says. "Sure of it," said Gentleman.

'It was the Sunday after this that Jerry Moore announces to us, wriggling, that he had an engagement to take supper with Jane and her folks. He'd have liked to have slipped away secret, but we was keeping him under espionage too crisp for that, so he has to tell us. "Excellent," said Gentleman. "It will be a great treat to Jack and myself to meet the family. We will go along with you." So off we all goes, and pushes our boots in sociable fashion under the Tuxton table. I looked at Miss Jane out of the corner of my eye; and, honest, that chin of hers was sticking out a foot, and Jerry didn't dare look at her. Love's young dream, I muses to myself, how swift it fades when a man has the nature and disposition of a lop-eared rabbit!

'The Tuxtons was four in number, not counting the parrot, and all male. There was Pa Tuxton, an old feller with a beard and glasses; a fat uncle; a big brother, who worked in a bank and was dressed like Moses in all his glory; and a little brother with a snub nose, that cheeky you'd have been surprised. And the parrot in its cage and a fat yellow dog. And they're all making themselves pleasant to Jerry, the wealthy future son-in-law, something awful. It's "How are the fowls, Mr Moore?" and "A little bit of this pie, Mr Moore; Jane made it," and Jerry sitting there with a feeble grin, saying "Yes" and "No" and nothing much more, while Miss Jane's eyes are snapping like Fifth of November fireworks. I could feel Jerry's chances going back a mile a minute. I felt as happy as a little child that evening. I sang going back home.

'Gentleman's pleased, too. "Jack," he says to me when we're in bed, "this is too easy. In my most sanguinary dreams I hardly hoped for this. No girl of spirit's going to love a man who behaves that way to her parents. The way to win the heart of a certain type of girl," he says, beginning on his theories, "the type to which Jane Tuxton belongs, is to be rude to her family. I've got Jane Tuxton sized up and labelled. Her kind wants her folks to dislike her young man. She wants to feel that she's the only one in the family that's got the sense to see the hidden good in Willie. She doesn't want to be one of a crowd hollering out what a nice young man he is. It takes some pluck in a man to stand up to a girl's family, and that's what Jane Tuxton is looking for in Jerry. Take it from one who has studied the sect," says Gentleman, "from John o' Groat's to Land's End, and back again."

'Next day Jerry Moore's looking as if he'd only sixpence in the world and had swallowed it. "What's the matter, Jerry?" says Gentleman. Jerry heaves a sigh. "Bailey," he says, "and you, Mr Roach, I expect you both seen how it is with me. I love Miss Jane Tuxton, and you seen for yourselves what transpires. She don't value me, not tuppence." "Say not so," says Gentleman, sympathetic. "You're doing fine. If you knew the sect as I do you wouldn't go by mere superficial silences and chin-tiltings. I can read a girl's heart, Jerry," he says, patting him on the shoulder, "and I tell you you're doing fine. All you want now is a little rapid work, and you win easy. To make the thing a cert," he says, getting up, "all you have to do is to make a dead set at her folks." He winks at me. "Don't just sit there like you did last night. Show 'em you've got something in you. You know what folks are: they think themselves the most important things on the map. Well, go to work. Consult them all you know. Every opportunity you get. There's nothing like consulting a girl's folks to put you in good with her." And he pats Jerry on the shoulder again and goes indoors to find his pipe.

'Jerry turns to me. "Do you think that's really so?" he says. I says, "I do." "He knows all about girls, I reckon," says Jerry. "You can go by him every time," I says. "Well, well," says Jerry, sort of thoughtful.'

The waiter paused. His eye was sad and dreamy. Then he took up the burden of his tale.

'First thing that happens is that Gentleman has a sore tooth on the next Sunday, so don't feel like coming along with us. He sits at home, dosing it with whisky, and Jerry and me goes off alone.

'So Jerry and me pikes off, and once more we prepares to settle down around the board. I hadn't noticed Jerry particular, but just now I catches sight of his face in the light of the lamp. Ever see one of those fighters when he's sitting in his corner before a fight, waiting for the gong to go? Well, Jerry looks like that; and it surprises me.

'I told you about the fat yellow dog that permeated the Tuxton's house, didn't I? The family thought a lot of that dog, though of all the ugly brutes I ever met he was the worst. Sniffing round and growling all the time. Well, this evening he comes up to Jerry just as he's going to sit down, and starts to growl. Old Pa Tuxton looks over his glasses and licks his tongue. "Rover! Rover!" he says, kind of mild. "Naughty Rover; he don't like strangers, I'm afraid." Jerry looks at Pa Tuxton, and he looks at the dog, and I'm just expecting him to say "No" or "Yes", same as the other night, when he lets out a nasty laugh—one of them bitter laughs. "Ho!" he says. "Ho! don't he? Then perhaps he'd better get further away from them." And he ups with his boot and—well, the dog hit the far wall.

'Jerry sits down and pulls up his chair. "I don't approve," he says, fierce, "of folks keeping great, fat, ugly, bad-tempered yellow dogs that are a nuisance to all. I don't like it."

'There was a silence you could have scooped out with a spoon. Have you ever had a rabbit turn round on you and growl? That's how we all felt when Jerry outs with them crisp words. They took our breath away.

'While we were getting it back again the parrot, which was in its cage, let out a squawk. Honest, I jumped a foot in my chair.

'Jerry gets up very deliberate, and walks over to the parrot. "Is this a menagerie?" he says. "Can't a man have supper in peace without an image like you starting to holler? Go to sleep."

'We was all staring at him surprised, especially Uncle Dick Tuxton, whose particular pet the parrot was. He'd brought him home all the way from some foreign parts.

'"Hello, Billy!" says the bird, shrugging his shoulders and puffing himself up. "R-r-r-r! R-r-r-r! 'lo, Billy! 'lo, 'lo, 'lo! R-r WAH!"

'Jerry gives its cage a bang.

'"Don't talk back at me," he says, "or I'll knock your head off. You think because you've got a green tail you're someone." And he stalks back to his chair and sits glaring at Uncle Dick.

'Well, all this wasn't what you might call promoting an easy flow of conversation. Everyone's looking at Jerry, 'specially me, wondering what next, and trying to get their breath, and Jerry's frowning at the cold beef, and there's a sort of awkward pause. Miss Jane is the first to get busy. She bustles about and gets the food served out, and we begins to eat. But still there's not so much conversation that you'd notice it. This goes on till we reaches the concluding stages, and then Uncle Dick comes up to the scratch.

'"How is the fowls, Mr Moore?" he says.

'"Gimme some more pie," says Jerry. "What?"

'Uncle Dick repeats his remark.

'"Fowls?" says Jerry. "What do you know about fowls? Your notion of a fowl is an ugly bird with a green tail, a Wellington nose, and—gimme a bit of cheese."

'Uncle Dick's fond of the parrot, so he speaks up for him. "Polly's always been reckoned a handsome bird," he says.

'"He wants stuffing," says Jerry.

'And Uncle Dick drops out of the talk.

'Up comes big brother, Ralph his name was. He's the bank-clerk and a dude. He gives his cuffs a flick, and starts in to make things jolly all round by telling a story about a man he knows named Wotherspoon. Jerry fixes him with his eye, and, half-way through, interrupts.

'"That waistcoat of yours is fierce," he says.

'"Pardon?" says Ralph.

'"That waistcoat of yours," says Jerry. "It hurts me eyes. It's like an electric sign."

'"Why, Jerry," I says, but he just scowls at me and I stops.

'Ralph is proud of his clothes, and he isn't going to stand this. He glares at Jerry and Jerry glares at him.

'"Who do you think you are?" says Ralph, breathing hard.

'"Button up your coat," says Jerry.

'"Look 'ere!" says Ralph.

'"Cover it up, I tell you," says Jerry. "Do you want to blind me?" Pa Tuxton interrupts.

'"Why, Mr Moore," he begins, sort of soothing; when the small brother, who's been staring at Jerry, chips in. I told you he was cheeky.

'He says, "Pa, what a funny nose Mr Moore's got!"

'And that did it. Jerry rises, very slow, and leans across the table and clips the kid brother one side of the ear-'ole. And then there's a general imbroglio, everyone standing up and the kid hollering and the dog barking.

'"If you'd brought him up better," says Jerry, severe, to Pa Tuxton, "this wouldn't ever have happened."

Pa Tuxton gives a sort of howl.

'"Mr Moore," he yells, "what is the meaning of this extraordinary behaviour? You come here and strike me child—"

'Jerry bangs on the table.

'"Yes," he says, "and I'd strike him again. Listen to me," he says. "You think just because I'm quiet I ain't got no spirit. You think all I can do is to sit and smile. You think—Bah! You aren't on to the hidden depths in me character. I'm one of them still waters that runs deep. I'm—Here, you get out of it! Yes, all of you! Except Jane. Jane and me wants this room to have a private talk in. I've got a lot of things to say to Jane. Are you going?"

'I turns to the crowd. I was awful disturbed. "You mustn't take any notice," I says. "He ain't well. He ain't himself." When just then the parrot cuts with another of them squawks. Jerry jumps at it.

'"You first," he says, and flings the cage out of the window. "Now you," he says to the yellow dog, putting him out through the door. And then he folds his arms and scowls at us, and we all notice suddenly that he's very big. We look at one another, and we begins to edge towards the door. All except Jane, who's staring at Jerry as if he's a ghost.

'"Mr Moore," says Pa Tuxton, dignified, "we'll leave you. You're drunk."

'"I'm not drunk," says Jerry. "I'm in love."

'"Jane," says Pa Tuxton, "come with me, and leave this ruffian to himself."

'"Jane," says Jerry, "stop here, and come and lay your head on my shoulder."

'"Jane," says Pa Tuxton, "do you hear me?"

'"Jane," says Jerry, "I'm waiting."

'She looks from one to the other for a spell, and then she moves to where Jerry's standing.

'"I'll stop," she says, sort of quiet.

'And we drifts out.'

The waiter snorted.

'I got back home quick as I could,' he said, 'and relates the proceedings to Gentleman. Gentleman's rattled. "I don't believe it," he says. "Don't stand there and tell me Jerry Moore did them things. Why, it ain't in the man. 'Specially after what I said to him about the way he ought to behave. How could he have done so?" Just then in comes Jerry, beaming all over. "Boys," he shouts, "congratulate me. It's all right. We've fixed it up. She says she hadn't known me properly before. She says she'd always reckoned me a sheep, while all the time I was one of them strong, silent men." He turns to Gentleman—'

The man at the other end of the room was calling for his bill.

'All right, all right,' said the waiter. 'Coming! He turns to Gentleman,' he went on rapidly, 'and he says, "Bailey, I owe it all to you, because if you hadn't told me to insult her folks—"'

He leaned on the traveller's table and fixed him with an eye that pleaded for sympathy.

''Ow about that?' he said. 'Isn't that crisp? "Insult her folks!" Them was his very words. "Insult her folks."'

The traveller looked at him inquiringly.

'Can you beat it?' said the waiter.

'I don't know what you are saying,' said the traveller. 'If it is important, write it on a slip of paper. I am stone-deaf.'



ROUGH-HEW THEM HOW WE WILL

Paul Boielle was a waiter. The word 'waiter' suggests a soft-voiced, deft-handed being, moving swiftly and without noise in an atmosphere of luxury and shaded lamps. At Bredin's Parisian Cafe and Restaurant in Soho, where Paul worked, there were none of these things; and Paul himself, though he certainly moved swiftly, was by no means noiseless. His progress through the room resembled in almost equal proportions the finish of a Marathon race, the star-act of a professional juggler, and a monologue by an Earl's Court side-showman. Constant acquaintance rendered regular habitues callous to the wonder, but to a stranger the sight of Paul tearing over the difficult between-tables course, his hands loaded with two vast pyramids of dishes, shouting as he went the mystic word, 'Comingsarecominginamomentsaresteaksareyessarecomingsare!' was impressive to a degree. For doing far less exacting feats on the stage music-hall performers were being paid fifty pounds a week. Paul got eighteen shillings.

What a blessing is poverty, properly considered. If Paul had received more than eighteen shillings a week he would not have lived in an attic. He would have luxuriated in a bed-sitting-room on the second floor; and would consequently have missed what was practically a genuine north light. The skylight which went with the attic was so arranged that the room was a studio in miniature, and, as Paul was engaged in his spare moments in painting a great picture, nothing could have been more fortunate; for Paul, like so many of our public men, lived two lives. Off duty, the sprinting, barking juggler of Bredin's Parisian Cafe became the quiet follower of Art. Ever since his childhood he had had a passion for drawing and painting. He regretted that Fate had allowed him so little time for such work; but after all, he reflected, all great artists had had their struggles—so why not he? Moreover, they were now nearly at an end. An hour here, an hour there, and every Thursday a whole afternoon, and the great picture was within measurable distance of completion. He had won through. Without models, without leisure, hungry, tired, he had nevertheless triumphed. A few more touches, and the masterpiece would be ready for purchase. And after that all would be plain sailing. Paul could forecast the scene so exactly. The picture would be at the dealer's, possibly—one must not be too sanguine—thrust away in some odd corner. The wealthy connoisseur would come in. At first he would not see the masterpiece; other more prominently displayed works would catch his eye. He would turn from them in weary scorn, and then!... Paul wondered how big the cheque would be.

There were reasons why he wanted the money. Looking at him as he cantered over the linoleum at Bredin's, you would have said that his mind was on his work. But it was not so. He took and executed orders as automatically as the penny-in-the-slot musical-box in the corner took pennies and produced tunes. His thoughts were of Jeanne Le Brocq, his co-worker at Bredin's, and a little cigar shop down Brixton way which he knew was in the market at a reasonable rate. To marry the former and own the latter was Paul's idea of the earthly paradise, and it was the wealthy connoisseur, and he alone, who could open the gates.

Jeanne was a large, slow-moving Norman girl, stolidly handsome. One could picture her in a de Maupassant farmyard. In the clatter and bustle of Bredin's Parisian Cafe she appeared out of place, like a cow in a boiler-factory. To Paul, who worshipped her with all the fervour of a little man for a large woman, her deliberate methods seemed all that was beautiful and dignified. To his mind she lent a tone to the vulgar whirlpool of gorging humanity, as if she had been some goddess mixing in a Homeric battle. The whirlpool had other views—and expressed them. One coarse-fibred brute, indeed, once went so far as to address to her the frightful words, ''Urry up, there, Tottie! Look slippy.' It was wrong, of course, for Paul to slip and spill an order of scrambled eggs down the brute's coatsleeve, but who can blame him?

Among those who did not see eye to eye with Paul in his views on deportment in waitresses was M. Bredin himself, the owner of the Parisian Cafe; and it was this circumstance which first gave Paul the opportunity of declaring the passion which was gnawing him with the fierce fury of a Bredin customer gnawing a tough steak against time during the rush hour. He had long worshipped her from afar, but nothing more intimate than a 'Good morning, Miss Jeanne', had escaped him, till one day during a slack spell he came upon her in the little passage leading to the kitchen, her face hidden in her apron, her back jerking with sobs.

Business is business. Paul had a message to deliver to the cook respecting 'two fried, coffee, and one stale'. He delivered it and returned. Jeanne was still sobbing.

'Ah, Miss Jeanne,' cried Paul, stricken, 'what is the matter? What is it? Why do you weep?'

'The patron,' sobbed Jeanne. 'He—'

'My angel,' said Paul, 'he is a pig.'

This was perfectly true. No conscientious judge of character could have denied that Paul had hit the bull's eye. Bredin was a pig. He looked like a pig; he ate like a pig; he grunted like a pig. He had the lavish embonpoint of a pig. Also a porcine soul. If you had tied a bit of blue ribbon round his neck you could have won prizes with him at a show.

Paul's eyes flashed with fury. 'I will slap him in the eye,' he roared.

'He called me a tortoise.'

'And kick him in the stomach,' added Paul.

Jeanne's sobs were running on second speed now. The anguish was diminishing. Paul took advantage of the improved conditions to slide an arm part of the way round her waist. In two minutes he had said as much as the ordinary man could have worked off in ten. All good stuff, too. No padding.

Jeanne's face rose from her apron like a full moon. She was too astounded to be angry.

Paul continued to babble. Jeanne looked at him with growing wrath. That she, who received daily the affectionate badinage of gentlemen in bowler hats and check suits, who had once been invited to the White City by a solicitor's clerk, should be addressed in this way by a waiter! It was too much. She threw off his hand.

'Wretched little man!' she cried, stamping angrily.

'My angel!' protested Paul.

Jeanne uttered a scornful laugh.

'You!' she said.

There are few more withering remarks than 'You!' spoken in a certain way. Jeanne spoke it in just that way.

Paul wilted.

'On eighteen shillings a week,' went on Jeanne, satirically, 'you would support a wife, yes? Why—'

Paul recovered himself. He had an opening now, and proceeded to use it.

'Listen,' he said. 'At present, yes, it is true, I earn but eighteen shillings a week, but it will not always be so, no. I am not only a waiter. I am also an artist. I have painted a great picture. For a whole year I have worked, and now it is ready. I will sell it, and then, my angel—?'

Jeanne's face had lost some of its scorn. She was listening with some respect. 'A picture?' she said, thoughtfully. 'There is money in pictures.'

For the first time Paul was glad that his arm was no longer round her waist. To do justice to the great work he needed both hands for purposes of gesticulation.

'There is money in this picture,' he said. 'Oh, it is beautiful. I call it "The Awakening". It is a woodland scene. I come back from my work here, hot and tired, and a mere glance at that wood refreshes me. It is so cool, so green. The sun filters in golden splashes through the foliage. On a mossy bank, between two trees, lies a beautiful girl asleep. Above her, bending fondly over her, just about to kiss that flower-like face, is a young man in the dress of a shepherd. At the last moment he has looked over his shoulder to make sure that there is nobody near to see. He is wearing an expression so happy, so proud, that one's heart goes out to him.'

'Yes, there might be money in that,' cried Jeanne.

'There is, there is!' cried Paul. 'I shall sell it for many francs to a wealthy connoisseur. And then, my angel—'

'You are a good little man,' said the angel, patronizingly. 'Perhaps. We will see.'

Paul caught her hand and kissed it. She smiled indulgently. 'Yes,' she said. 'There might be money. These English pay much money for pictures.'

* * * * *

It is pretty generally admitted that Geoffrey Chaucer, the eminent poet of the fourteenth century, though obsessed with an almost Rooseveltian passion for the new spelling, was there with the goods when it came to profundity of thought. It was Chaucer who wrote the lines:

The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne, Th' assay so hard, so sharpe the conquering.

Which means, broadly, that it is difficult to paint a picture, but a great deal more difficult to sell it.

Across the centuries Paul Boielle shook hands with Geoffrey Chaucer. 'So sharpe the conquering' put his case in a nutshell.

The full story of his wanderings with the masterpiece would read like an Odyssey and be about as long. It shall be condensed.

There was an artist who dined at intervals at Bredin's Parisian Cafe, and, as the artistic temperament was too impatient to be suited by Jeanne's leisurely methods, it had fallen to Paul to wait upon him. It was to this expert that Paul, emboldened by the geniality of the artist's manner, went for information. How did monsieur sell his pictures? Monsieur said he didn't, except once in a blue moon. But when he did? Oh, he took the thing to the dealers. Paul thanked him. A friend of him, he explained, had painted a picture and wished to sell it.

'Poor devil!' was the artist's comment.

Next day, it happening to be a Thursday, Paul started on his travels. He started buoyantly, but by evening he was as a punctured balloon. Every dealer had the same remark to make—to wit, no room.

'Have you yet sold the picture?' inquired Jeanne, when they met. 'Not yet,' said Paul. 'But they are delicate matters, these negotiations. I use finesse. I proceed with caution.'

He approached the artist again.

'With the dealers,' he said, 'my friend has been a little unfortunate. They say they have no room.'

'I know,' said the artist, nodding.

'Is there, perhaps, another way?'

'What sort of a picture is it?' inquired the artist.

Paul became enthusiastic.

'Ah! monsieur, it is beautiful. It is a woodland scene. A beautiful girl—'

'Oh! Then he had better try the magazines. They might use it for a cover.'

Paul thanked him effusively. On the following Thursday he visited divers art editors. The art editors seemed to be in the same unhappy condition as the dealers. 'Overstocked!' was their cry.

'The picture?' said Jeanne, on the Friday morning. 'Is it sold?'

'Not yet,' said Paul, 'but—'

'Always but!'

'My angel!'

'Bah!' said Jeanne, with a toss of her large but shapely head.

By the end of the month Paul was fighting in the last ditch, wandering disconsolately among those who dwell in outer darkness and have grimy thumbs. Seven of these in all he visited on that black Thursday, and each of the seven rubbed the surface of the painting with a grimy thumb, snorted, and dismissed him. Sick and beaten, Paul took the masterpiece back to his skylight room.

All that night he lay awake, thinking. It was a weary bundle of nerves that came to the Parisian Cafe next morning. He was late in arriving, which was good in that it delayed the inevitable question as to the fate of the picture, but bad in every other respect. M. Bredin, squatting behind the cash-desk, grunted fiercely at him; and, worse, Jeanne, who, owing to his absence, had had to be busier than suited her disposition, was distant and haughty. A murky gloom settled upon Paul.

Now it so happened that M. Bredin, when things went well with him, was wont to be filled with a ponderous amiability. It was not often that this took a practical form, though it is on record that in an exuberant moment he once gave a small boy a halfpenny. More frequently it merely led him to soften the porcine austerity of his demeanour. Today, business having been uncommonly good, he felt pleased with the world. He had left his cash-desk and was assailing a bowl of soup at one of the side-tables. Except for a belated luncher at the end of the room the place was empty. It was one of the hours when there was a lull in the proceedings at the Parisian Cafe. Paul was leaning, wrapped in the gloom, against the wall. Jeanne was waiting on the proprietor.

M. Bredin finished his meal and rose. He felt content. All was well with the world. As he lumbered to his desk he passed Jeanne. He stopped. He wheezed a compliment. Then another. Paul, from his place by the wall, watched with jealous fury.

M. Bredin chucked Jeanne under the chin.

As he did so, the belated luncher called 'Waiter!' but Paul was otherwise engaged. His entire nervous system seemed to have been stirred up with a pole. With a hoarse cry he dashed forward. He would destroy this pig who chucked his Jeanne under the chin.

The first intimation M. Bredin had of the declaration of war was the impact of a French roll on his ear. It was one of those nobbly, chunky rolls with sharp corners, almost as deadly as a piece of shrapnel. M. Bredin was incapable of jumping, but he uttered a howl and his vast body quivered like a stricken jelly. A second roll, whizzing by, slapped against the wall. A moment later a cream-bun burst in sticky ruin on the proprietor's left eye.

The belated luncher had been anxious to pay his bill and go, but he came swiftly to the conclusion that this was worth stopping on for. He leaned back in his chair and watched. M. Bredin had entrenched himself behind the cash-desk, peering nervously at Paul through the cream, and Paul, pouring forth abuse in his native tongue, was brandishing a chocolate eclair. The situation looked good to the spectator.

It was spoiled by Jeanne, who seized Paul by the arm and shook him, adding her own voice to the babel. It was enough. The eclair fell to the floor. Paul's voice died away. His face took on again its crushed, hunted expression. The voice of M. Bredin, freed from competition, rose shrill and wrathful.

'The marksman is getting sacked,' mused the onlooker, diagnosing the situation.

He was right. The next moment Paul, limp and depressed, had retired to the kitchen passage, discharged. It was here, after a few minutes, that Jeanne found him.

'Fool! Idiot! Imbecile!' said Jeanne.

Paul stared at her without speaking.

'To throw rolls at the patron. Imbecile!'

'He—' began Paul.

'Bah! And what if he did? Must you then attack him like a mad dog? What is it to you?'

Paul was conscious of a dull longing for sympathy, a monstrous sense of oppression. Everything was going wrong. Surely Jeanne must be touched by his heroism? But no. She was scolding furiously. Suppose Andromeda had turned and scolded Perseus after he had slain the sea-monster! Paul mopped his forehead with his napkin. The bottom had dropped out of his world.

'Jeanne!'

'Bah! Do not talk to me, idiot of a little man. Almost you lost me my place also. The patron was in two minds. But I coaxed him. A fine thing that would have been, to lose my good place through your foolishness. To throw rolls. My goodness!'

She swept back into the room again, leaving Paul still standing by the kitchen door. Something seemed to have snapped inside him. How long he stood there he did not know, but presently from the dining-room came calls of 'Waiter!' and automatically he fell once more into his work, as an actor takes up his part. A stranger would have noticed nothing remarkable in him. He bustled to and fro with undiminished energy.

At the end of the day M. Bredin paid him his eighteen shillings with a grunt, and Paul walked out of the restaurant a masterless man.

He went to his attic and sat down on the bed. Propped up against the wall was the picture. He looked at it with unseeing eyes. He stared dully before him.

Then thoughts came to him with a rush, leaping and dancing in his mind like imps in Hades. He had a curious sense of detachment. He seemed to be watching himself from a great distance.

This was the end. The little imps danced and leaped; and then one separated itself from the crowd, to grow bigger than, the rest, to pirouette more energetically. He rose. His mind was made up. He would kill himself.

He went downstairs and out into the street. He thought hard as he walked. He would kill himself, but how?

His preoccupation was so great that an automobile, rounding a corner, missed him by inches as he crossed the road. The chauffeur shouted angrily at him as he leapt back.

Paul shook his fist at the retreating lights.

'Pig!' he shouted. 'Assassin! Scoundrel! Villain! Would you kill me? I will take your number, rascal. I will inform the police. Villain!'

A policeman had strolled up and was eyeing him curiously. Paul turned to him, full of his wrongs.

'Officer,' he cried, 'I have a complaint. These pigs of chauffeurs! They are reckless. They drive so recklessly. Hence the great number of accidents.'

'Awful!' said the policeman. 'Pass along, sonny.'

Paul walked on, fuming. It was abominable that these chauffeurs—And then an idea came to him. He had found a way.

* * * * *

It was quiet in the Park. He had chosen the Park because it was dark and there would be none to see and interfere. He waited long in the shadow by the roadside. Presently from the darkness there came the distant drone of powerful engines. Lights appeared, like the blazing eyes of a dragon swooping down to devour its prey.

He ran out into the road with a shout.

It was an error, that shout. He had intended it for an inarticulate farewell to his picture, to Jeanne, to life. It was excusable to the driver of the motor that he misinterpreted it. It seemed to him a cry of warning. There was a great jarring of brakes, a scuttering of locked wheels on the dry road, and the car came to a standstill a full yard from where he stood.

'What the deuce—' said a cool voice from behind the lights.

Paul struck his chest and folded his arms.

'I am here,' he cried. 'Destroy me!'

'Let George do it,' said the voice, in a marked American accent. 'I never murder on a Friday; it's unlucky. If it's not a rude question, which asylum are you from? Halloa!'

The exclamation was one of surprise, for Paul's nerves had finally given way, and he was now in a heap on the road, sobbing.

The man climbed down and came into the light. He was a tall young man with a pleasant, clean-cut face. He stopped and shook Paul.

'Quit that,' he said. 'Maybe it's not true. And if it is, there's always hope. Cut it out. What's the matter? All in?'

Paul sat up, gulping convulsively. He was thoroughly unstrung. The cold, desperate mood had passed. In its place came the old feeling of desolation. He was a child, aching for sympathy. He wanted to tell his troubles. Punctuating his narrative with many gestures and an occasional gulp, he proceeded to do so. The American listened attentively.

'So you can't sell your picture, and you've lost your job, and your girl has shaken you?' he said. 'Pretty bad, but still you've no call to go mingling with automobile wheels. You come along with me to my hotel, and tomorrow we'll see if we can't fix up something.'

* * * * *

There was breakfast at the hotel next morning, a breakfast to put heart into a man. During the meal a messenger dispatched in a cab to Paul's lodgings returned with the canvas. A deferential waiter informed the American that it had been taken with every possible care to his suite.

'Good,' said the young man. 'If you're through, we'll go and have a look at it.'

They went upstairs. There was the picture resting against a chair.

'Why, I call that fine,' said the young man. 'It's a cracker jack.'

Paul's heart gave a sudden leap. Could it be that here was the wealthy connoisseur? He was wealthy, for he drove an automobile and lived in an expensive hotel. He was a connoisseur, for he had said that the picture was a crackerjack.

'Monsieur is kind,' murmured Paul.

'It's a bear-cat,' said the young man, admiringly.

'Monsieur is flattering,' said Paul, dimly perceiving a compliment.

'I've been looking for a picture like that,' said the young man, 'for months.'

Paul's eyes rolled heavenwards.

'If you'll make a few alterations, I'll buy it and ask for more.'

'Alterations, monsieur?'

'One or two small ones.' He pointed to the stooping figure of the shepherd. 'Now, you see this prominent citizen. What's he doing!'

'He is stooping,' said Paul, fervently, 'to bestow upon his loved one a kiss. And she, sleeping, all unconscious, dreaming of him—'

'Never mind about her. Fix your mind on him. Willie is the "star" in this show. You have summed him up accurately. He is stooping. Stooping good. Now, if that fellow was wearing braces and stooped like that, you'd say he'd burst those braces, wouldn't you?'

With a somewhat dazed air Paul said that he thought he would. Till now he had not looked at the figure from just that view-point.

'You'd say he'd bust them?'

'Assuredly, monsieur.'

'No!' said the young man, solemnly, tapping him earnestly on the chest. 'That's where you're wrong. Not if they were Galloway's Tried and Proven. Galloway's Tried and Proven will stand any old strain you care to put on them. See small bills. Wear Galloway's Tried and Proven, and fate cannot touch you. You can take it from me. I'm the company's general manager.'

'Indeed, monsieur!'

'And I'll make a proposition to you. Cut out that mossy bank, and make the girl lying in a hammock. Put Willie in shirt-sleeves instead of a bath-robe, and fix him up with a pair of the Tried and Proven, and I'll give you three thousand dollars for that picture and a retaining fee of four thousand a year to work for us and nobody else for any number of years you care to mention. You've got the goods. You've got just the touch. That happy look on Willie's face, for instance. You can see in a minute why he's so happy. It's because he's wearing the Tried and Proven, and he knows that however far he stoops they won't break. Is that a deal?'

Paul's reply left no room for doubt. Seizing the young man firmly round the waist, he kissed him with extreme fervour on both cheeks.

'Here, break away!' cried the astonished general manager. 'That's no way to sign a business contract.'

* * * * *

It was at about five minutes after one that afternoon that Constable Thomas Parsons, patrolling his beat, was aware of a man motioning to him from the doorway of Bredin's Parisian Cafe and Restaurant. The man looked like a pig. He grunted like a pig. He had the lavish embonpoint of a pig. Constable Parsons suspected that he had a porcine soul. Indeed, the thought flitted across Constable Parsons' mind that, if he were to tie a bit of blue ribbon round his neck, he could win prizes with him at a show.

'What's all this?' he inquired, halting.

The stout man talked volubly in French. Constable Parsons shook his head.

'Talk sense,' he advised.

'In dere,' cried the stout man, pointing behind him into the restaurant, 'a man, a—how you say?—yes, sacked. An employe whom I yesterday sacked, today he returns. I say to him, "Cochon, va!"'

'What's that?'

'I say, "Peeg, go!" How you say? Yes, "pop off!" I say, "Peeg, pop off!" But he—no, no; he sits and will not go. Come in, officer, and expel him.'

With massive dignity the policeman entered the restaurant. At one of the tables sat Paul, calm and distrait. From across the room Jeanne stared freezingly.

'What's all this?' inquired Constable Parsons. Paul looked up.

'I too,' he admitted, 'I cannot understand. Figure to yourself, monsieur. I enter this cafe to lunch, and this man here would expel me.'

'He is an employe whom I—I myself—have but yesterday dismissed,' vociferated M. Bredin. 'He has no money to lunch at my restaurant.'

The policeman eyed Paul sternly.

'Eh?' he said. 'That so? You'd better come along.'

Paul's eyebrows rose.

Before the round eyes of M. Bredin he began to produce from his pockets and to lay upon the table bank-notes and sovereigns. The cloth was covered with them.

He picked up a half-sovereign.

'If monsieur,' he said to the policeman, 'would accept this as a slight consolation for the inconvenience which this foolish person here has caused him—'

'Not half,' said Mr Parsons, affably. 'Look here'—he turned to the gaping proprietor—'if you go on like this you'll be getting yourself into trouble. See? You take care another time.'

Paul called for the bill of fare.

It was the inferior person who had succeeded to his place as waiter who attended to his needs during the meal; but when he had lunched it was Jeanne who brought his coffee.

She bent over the table.

'You sold your picture, Paul—yes?' she whispered. 'For much money? How glad I am, dear Paul. Now we will—'

Paul met her glance coolly.

'Will you be so kind,' he said, 'as to bring me also a cigarette, my good girl?'



THE MAN WHO DISLIKED CATS

It was Harold who first made us acquainted, when I was dining one night at the Cafe Britannique, in Soho. It is a peculiarity of the Cafe Britannique that you will always find flies there, even in winter. Snow was falling that night as I turned in at the door, but, glancing about me, I noticed several of the old faces. My old acquaintance, Percy the bluebottle, looking wonderfully fit despite his years, was doing deep breathing exercises on a mutton cutlet, and was too busy to do more than pause for a moment to nod at me; but his cousin, Harold, always active, sighted me and bustled up to do the honours.