1*1 
 
 
 'ma
 
 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 . OF CALIF. LfSRARY. LOS ANGETffl
 
 RATHER LIKE . . 
 
 SOME ENDEAVOURS TO 
 
 ASSUME THE MANTLES 
 
 OF THE GREAT BY 
 
 JULES CASTIER. 
 
 WITH A 
 
 PUBLISHER'S NOTE 
 
 EMBODYING THE 
 OPINIONS OF 
 
 THE GREAT 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 LONDON : HERBERT JENKINS LTD. 
 I92O.
 
 PRINTED IN ENGLAND BY CHANCE AND BLAND LTD.. GLOUCESTER.
 
 PUBLISHER'S NOTE 
 
 When M. Castier's manuscript was introduced to 
 me as the work of one writing in an alien tongue, and 
 furthermore with the avowed object of parodying the 
 most famous British writers of the day, I confess I 
 was not enthusiastic. A glance at a page here and 
 there, however, aroused my interest, and later I read 
 it with keen enjoyment. 
 
 Having dealt with the rapacities of M. Castier's 
 literary representatives, I felt that such an unusual 
 book should be introduced to the public in a somewhat 
 different manner from that usually adopted. I 
 therefore determined to send a proof of each parody 
 to the author parodied. This I did with the following 
 letter. 
 
 " I am approaching you on rather an unusual 
 subject. Some time ago I had submitted to me, as 
 the work of a young Frenchman, a series of parodies 
 on the work of leading English writers, which had been 
 written whilst he was a prisoner in Germany. They 
 were so remarkable that I became keenly interested, 
 with the result that I accepted the book for publication. 
 
 " What I should like to do is to publish in a foreword 
 the opinions of the authors who have been parodied, 
 and to this end I am sending you a set of proofs of 
 the parody of your own work. 
 
 2129286
 
 6 PUBLISHER'S NOTE 
 
 " When I tell you that not so much as a comma 
 has been altered since the manuscript left the author's 
 hands, you will appreciate how remarkable it is that 
 a Frenchman should be able to write so in an alien 
 tongue. 
 
 " I may add that nearly all the principal writers 
 of the day are included in the volume. If you can 
 find time to express your opinion I shall be greatly 
 obliged." 
 
 The answers I give below in their alphabetical 
 order. 
 
 F. ANSTEY : " To be parodied is for an author 
 the highest of compliments and one which I have 
 never previously received. So I have read ' An Officer's 
 Gefangenenlager ' with much interest and pleasure 
 and am greatly impressed by its French author's 
 perfect command of the English language. If my 
 age had permitted and it had been my fate to be an 
 officer-prisoner in a German Camp, I can only hope 
 that I should have been able to describe the surround- 
 ings with as much humour and effect as my parodist. 
 But I doubt it." 
 
 G. K. CHESTERTON : " It is certainly an ex- 
 cellent imitation of my writing ; and probably greatly 
 preferable to the original. I certainly think it a 
 notable achievement even for the most sympathetic 
 foreigner ; to write a good translation of what a 
 man did say involves being a man of letters in two 
 languages ; but to write a good travesty of what he 
 might say is a much more remarkable thing ; and I 
 for one would rather read the travesty than the 
 translation." 
 
 JOHN GALSWORTHY : "I liked the wooden 
 spaniel, and was so glad when he fell and killed the
 
 PUBLISHER'S NOTE 7 
 
 Frenchman. But what a pity he didn't fall in the 
 third sentence and kill the parody. They are, surely, 
 not so easy to make as all that." 
 
 CHARLES GARVICE : " The pitfall into which 
 most parodists are so apt to fall, is that of over- 
 exaggeration ; too frequently they seize on an obvious 
 fault or weakness of the writer whose work they are 
 burlesquing, and harp upon it unduly ; in short, they 
 are in danger of missing the spirit of their author in 
 their efforts to belabour, with their jester's bladder, 
 the superficial defects of his workmanship. Our 
 parodist avoids this common error and, penetrating 
 below the surface of his victim's style and mental 
 processes, parodies with a subtlety which is all the 
 more remarkable, seeing that it is displayed by a 
 foreigner, to whom the tortuous peculiarities of our 
 exasperatingly rich language should be almost incom- 
 prehensible. If I may say so, I consider that he has 
 been more merciful to me than I deserve. If I were 
 parodying my own work, I am sure I could easily be 
 more cruel than my imitator has been ; this, no doubt, 
 accounts for my appreciation and enjoyment of the 
 skit. I can chuckle over the description ' bairns ' 
 and ' colleens,' as applied to Devonshire children ; of 
 course, the words are never used in that county : I 
 can smile at the grammatical distortions, the split 
 infinitives, the divided verbs, while I ask myself, in 
 fear and trembling, whether I have ever been guilty 
 of so vapid and uninteresting a story as that which 
 our jester has attributed to me. Anyway, I have 
 come to the conclusion that the clever parodist, such 
 as we have here, is not only an amusing artist, but an 
 extremely useful one, and that his subject, though he 
 may writhe under the strokes of the bladder, may be
 
 8 PUBLISHER'S NOTE 
 
 roused to a sense of his many weaknesses and to a 
 determination to do better work in the future. 
 
 MAURICE HEWLETT : " It is a long time since 
 I did the sort of thing parodied by your client, and I 
 fear that I have lost touch with it as well as savour. 
 To be perfectly honest I don't think he has got me, 
 though it is no doubt remarkable that he should do it 
 at all. Evidently he can write English idiom ; but 
 there is a gulf fixed between writing like Englishmen 
 and writing like a particular Englishman." 
 
 ROBERT HICHENS : " I have read ' The 
 Blood of the Call ' and been very much entertained 
 by it. It is astonishing that a Frenchman could 
 have written it. He has been specially skilful in 
 avoiding all gross caricature. The end is delight- 
 fully absurd and surprising. I hope he will have a 
 great success with his book." 
 
 E. W. HORNUNG : " A parody with a punch : 
 full of shrewd digs and condign chaff." 
 
 JEROME K. JEROME : " It is so long ago that I 
 wrote anything of this character that I hardly feel 
 myself to be a judge of the merit. I have the feeling 
 that I am looking at some strange drawing of myself 
 as a child. I hope you will understand." 
 
 W. W. JACOBS : " I have read the ' Yellow Pipe ' 
 with much interest. If it is the unaided work of a 
 Frenchman, ' remarkable ' is the only word to apply 
 to it." 
 
 W. J. LOCKE : "I am as much amused by the 
 shrewd way in which another has seen me as pleased 
 by the parodist's delicate irony."
 
 PUBLISHER'S NOTE 9 
 
 LEONARD MERRICK : " If I did not know that 
 I had never seen ' The Defence of Art ' before the 
 publishers sent me a proof, I should think that I had 
 written some of it. I should be a proud man if I could 
 mimic the style of any French author in any of his 
 contes half as brilliantly as M. Castier has mimicked 
 mine in my ' Tricotrin ' tales. But the style of my 
 ' Tricotrin ' tales is designedly French, and M. Castier 
 is a Frenchman I wish he had been moved to imitate 
 my stories of English life, instead ; I wish I needn't 
 wait till the book is published to read all the other 
 imitations in it. ' The Defence of Art ' makes me 
 intensely curious. M. Castier is bilinguous to an 
 extent that takes one's breath away. Some seven 
 or eight years ago, a volume of French verse, capti- 
 vating and delicious, reached me from a young poet 
 who was a stranger to me ; and the lengthy inscription, 
 in which the name of Tricotrin figured very agreeably, 
 was written in such supple English that I stared at it, 
 astonished. This was the first time I had met with 
 any of M. Castier 's work. M. Castier himself I have 
 never met yet. I learn that, since those days, he has 
 fought and suffered, and been a prisoner in Germany. 
 I am happy that he still lives. Recalling the qualities 
 of the poems that he sent to me, I think he will do 
 work that will live, too." 
 
 EDEN PHILLPOTTS: "Excellently done and 
 quite wonderful I think. You should have a very 
 entertaining piece of work and may its success rejoice 
 the amazing author and yourself." 
 
 WILLIAM LE QUEUX : " I have read a number 
 of travesties upon my plots and literary style, but 
 the story ' The Purple Praline ' is of outstanding 
 cleverness. ' I am, alas ! only too well aware of my
 
 io PUBLISHER'S NOTE 
 
 own faults and idiosyncracies which I trust the public 
 will forgive. Being, like the writer, of French birth, 
 my hope always is that my critics will overlook my 
 ofttimes inferior English. My ' style ' has often been 
 derided, I know. The fact is that my younger years 
 were spent in speaking foreign languages. In the 
 sensational story the plot and its development are the 
 chief points if one wishes as I always do to keep the 
 reader interested until the words ' The End.' For 
 my slips in English grammar I apologise but I cannot 
 help it. I have admired the story ' The Purple 
 Praline ' and have laughed heartily over it. My cari- 
 caturist, who is no doubt a genius, has exactly hit off 
 the cosmopolitism inherent in my work in the characters 
 of the Cavaliere Rabbitskini who, I suppose, wears 
 rabbit skin upon the collar of his coat, which so many 
 men in Italy wear in winter Nadejda Rubbishska of 
 ' the bejewelled hand ' the name sounds like that of 
 a street in Petrograd and of the haughty Piotr 
 Piklovitch Swaggeroff half-brother, most probably 
 to the Baron Twobobski of a popular revue. And 
 here I may venture to betray a secret. My secretary, 
 who has for years read and typed all that I have 
 written, and who had in her hands the proofs of ' The 
 Purple Praline ' before I did, passed it across to me 
 with the remark : ' This is exactly like your work ! 
 It's wonderful ! ' I read it, and agreed with her. 
 Though many skits upon my books have been published 
 in English, French, Italian, and German by authors 
 of those nationalities ' The Purple Praline ' is the 
 cleverest and most humorous of them all." 
 
 G. BERNARD SHAW : This is by miles the most 
 accurate parody of me I have ever seen, and the only 
 one that has not completely missed the point of my
 
 PUBLISHER'S NOTE n 
 
 rather tortured stage directions, in which my first 
 rule is to say nothing that could remind the reader that 
 what is being described is a stage and not a real place." 
 
 E. TEMPLE THURSTON : " I was interested to 
 receive the proofs of your French author's parody of 
 my work and assume that in asking for an opinion you 
 cannot expect it will be unbiassed and do not require 
 it to be anything but honest. For work then of a 
 Frenchman writing in a language other than his own, 
 it seems to me a very creditable performance indeed, 
 I only wish I could write as well in French. Parody 
 however seems to be an erroneous description of it, 
 as it seems somewhat lacking in wit which I hold to be 
 part of the essence of the spirit of parody." 
 
 H. A. VACHELL : "I have read the parody with 
 great interest and much amusement. It's first rate. 
 If the others are up to sample, I congratulate you on 
 finding a winner. It is amazing that any foreigner 
 should handle our language so well and naturally. 
 Let me know the title, please, of the book when it 
 appears, as I should like to have a copy. Oddly 
 enough, ' The Skipper ' was the nickname of one of 
 the best-known house-masters at Harrow in my time, 
 old Holmes. Probably your young Frenchman doesn't 
 know this, or he would have turned it to account." 
 
 H. G. WELLS : " No fear." 
 
 C. N. WILLIAMSON : " The proofs of the amus- 
 ing parody on ' The Lightning Conductor ' and ' The 
 Motor Maid ' have just been forwarded from France. 
 We both think the parody quite good, and much more 
 like us than we should ever dare to try and be like 
 ourselves ! Thank you for sending the proofs, which 
 I return at once, as I fear the forwarding has caused
 
 12 PUBLISHER'S NOTE 
 
 delay. Is not the clever French author of the parodies 
 doing his readers a bad turn in telling them to look for 
 scenery in Baedeker or Joanne ? We could never find 
 any there, or in any other guide-book, unless you can 
 call ' castle on right ; mountain on left ' scenic des- 
 criptions. Personally, I think for scenery he'd better 
 send them to our books ! " 
 
 HERBERT JENKINS.
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 ON December 2nd, 1914, I had the misfortune 10 
 be captured by the Germans in Alsace, and remained 
 a prisoner till after the Armistice was signed. After 
 a few uneventful months at Heidelberg, I came into 
 collision with the authorities, and remained so till 
 the end, passing through a series of imprisonments, 
 court-martials, more imprisonments, reprisals and the 
 like : I was even tried once (and sentenced) for high 
 treason. My greatest solace lay in reading whenever 
 I was allowed books ; and I hit upon the idea of 
 attempting to parody some of the authors for amuse- 
 ment's sake. When next in a period of comparative 
 liberty, I read some of my stuff to some English 
 comrades, who were kind enough to express their 
 satisfaction, and to advise me to seek publication 
 which I did. 
 
 My publisher tells me I should explain this (which 
 I do a mon corps defendant), also that I am a French- 
 man, and that not so much as a comma in my M.S. 
 has been altered since it left my hands. He no doubt 
 has his own very good reasons for imposing upon 
 me the irksome task of endeavouring to explain
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 myself. For this explanation and for the parodies 
 themselves, I beg to tender my apologies to all 
 concerned. 
 
 J. C. 
 
 PARIS, 
 
 July, 1919.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 ANSTEY, F. 
 
 BENNETT, ARNOLD . 
 CAINE, HALL . 
 CHESTERTON, G. K. . 
 
 CONRAD, JOSEPH V 
 
 CORELLI, MARIE . : 
 
 DOYLE, A. CON AN * 
 
 GALSWORTHY, JOHN 
 GARVICE, CHARLES . 
 HAGGARD, SIR H. RIDER 
 HARLAND, HENRY . 
 HEWLETT, MAURICE . 
 HICHENS, ROBERT 
 HORNUNG, E. W. 
 JACOBS, W. W. 
 JAMES, HENRY 
 JEROME, JEROME K. 
 KIPLING, RUDYARD . 
 
 LE QUEUX, WILLIAM 
 LOCKE, W. J. . 
 
 Page 
 An Officer's Gefangenen- 168 
 
 lager in Germany 
 A Tetralogy (i.) . 174 
 
 The Sinner . . . 255 
 What's Maddening about 
 
 Man . . -76 
 Dam 'im a Reminis- 
 cence . . . 153 
 The Double Soul . . 265 
 The Footprints on the 
 
 Ceiling . . .91 
 Punishment . . . 249 
 The Power of Love . 283 
 A Tetralogy (iv.) . 195 
 
 A Tetralogy (ii.) . 180 
 
 Lore of Narcissus . . 31 
 The Blood of the Call . 40 
 Two of a Trade . . 56 
 The Yellow Pipe . . 82 
 The Outlook . . 241 
 The Stage Student . 234 
 The Song of the Penny 
 
 Whistle . . -27 
 The Purple Praline . 272 
 The Heart of a Bachelor 105
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LONDON, JACK 
 MERRICK, LEONARD . 
 MERRIMAN, HENRY SETON. 
 NEWBOLT, HENRY . 
 PHILLPOTTS, EDEN . * 
 
 SERVICE, R. W. 
 SHAW, G. BERNARD 
 STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF ELISA- 
 BETH AND HER GERMAN 
 GARDEN " 
 
 THURSTON, E. TEMPLE 
 
 VACHELL, HORACE ANNES- 
 
 LEY . . , f]ii 
 
 WELLS, H. G. . 
 WILDE, OSCAR 
 
 Page 
 
 The Rival Calls . . 222 
 
 The Defence of Art 17 
 
 The Reapers . . 204 
 
 Admiral Life . . 244 
 
 A Tetralogy (iii.) . 186 
 
 Buck Up . . 246 
 
 The Exploiters . . 226 
 
 The Motor Car . . 37 
 
 The Lamp . . .38 
 
 Languages . . .38 
 
 Happy Thought . . 38 
 
 Books . . .;; -39 
 
 Susan and Her German 
 Sausage . . .126 
 
 The Father of Beautiful 
 Hope . -:'& 
 
 WILLIAMSON, 
 
 A. M. 
 
 C. N. AND 
 
 The Skipper 
 
 The Finding of Laura . 
 On Murder Considered as 
 a Fine Art :.'. 
 
 The First Heaven 
 
 62 
 
 159 
 116 
 
 68 
 133
 
 , RATHER LIKE 
 
 LEONARD MERRICK 
 
 THE DEFENCE OF ART 
 
 TRICOTRIN, the celebrated poet, whose 
 verses every publisher in Paris had rejected 
 scores of times, felt moody and irritable 
 as he climbed up the familiar stairs to his garret 
 in the Rue des Trois-Freres. And yet, extra- 
 ordinary as it may appear, his anger was not 
 due to his being out of funds : had he not just 
 partaken of a luxurious dinner at the " Faisan 
 d'Or," the splendid one franc fifty dinner that makes 
 half Montmartre's mouth water ? Why, had he not 
 the tremendous sum of eighteen francs thirty in his 
 bulging trousers pocket?, the remains of a brand- 
 new louis he had changed at the aforesaid " Faisan 
 d'Or " of course, he knew how to live, is it not ; he 
 had flicked the delighted garcon the royal pourboire 
 of twenty centimes. . . . No, his anger was not due to 
 want of funds, any more than to amorous depression : 
 had not Josephine, the new girl behind the counter of 
 i
 
 i8 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Madame Estelle's, the fashionable modiste in the 
 Rue Lepic, smiled caressingly on him that very after- 
 noon ? 
 
 Yet it is a fact that he felt cross ; it is a fact that he 
 viciously kicked open the door of the little room he 
 shared with Pitou, the no less famed composer ; and 
 that he flung himself on to his bed, at the immediate 
 peril of a complete collapse of that useful article of 
 furniture, which lacked a couple of legs, and was only 
 kept in its proper position by means of a pile of odd 
 manuscripts (de Fronsac was wont to declare that these 
 manuscripts were nothing but the " declined with 
 thanks " slips which Tricotrin reaped at random from 
 all possible publishing places). 
 
 " My old one," said Pitou, " mind the furniture ! 
 And kindly avoid disturbing me just now : I have 
 hit upon a fine motif for my Blue Symphony. It will 
 make all Paris flock to Colonne's ! " 
 
 " I fish myself of your symphony ! " dejectedly 
 replied the poet. " It may well go hang, for all I care 
 yes, and the whole of Paris may go hang with it ! " 
 
 " What have you ? " The composer's query was 
 full of wonder. " You are not hungry you told me 
 you had a louis. I have never known you have the 
 toothache ; and you don't look like a man with the 
 toothache. Is it is it your uncle from Lyons ? " 
 
 " No, it is not my uncle from Lyons," moaned 
 Tricotrin, slowly moving into a sitting posture. " It 
 is that confounded pig of Delorme." 
 
 " Delorme, the editor of La Gazette ? " broke in 
 Pitou, hardly believing his ears. 
 
 " Himself." 
 
 " My friend, I must compliment you on your 
 connections ! Why, I myself would not dare even to 
 submit my Sunshine Nocturne to Delorme ! "
 
 LEONARD MERRICK 19 
 
 " Of course, you fool, La Gazette doesn't publish 
 music ! But Delorme is the most heartless camel I 
 ever came across." 
 
 " What did he do ? Reject a poem ? " 
 " If that were all, I shouldn't be so angry about 
 him," petulantly replied Tricotrin. " No, he actually 
 played a fool's joke on me he offered himself my 
 head the cow ! " 
 
 " Tell me all," begged the composer ; " your 
 cruel story may inspire me with a heartrending end 
 for my new opera." 
 
 Thus adjured, Tricotrin related his misadventure : 
 " Imagine to yourself, my friend, that this very 
 morning, after you had gone out, a messenger boy 
 brought me a petit bleu from the great Delorme him- 
 self ! I could hardly believe my own eyes but there 
 was the blue envelope, and inside it, staring me in the 
 face, the yellow note-paper with the heading of 
 La Gazette \ Yes, rny friend, the editor the pig 
 did me the honour of begging me to call upon him 
 at three o'clock in the afternoon he would then 
 be happy to give me some information concerning 
 my poem, " The Deathless Motor-Car, " in fifteen 
 cantos, which I had been kind enough to submit to 
 La Gazette . . . Yes, I had sent them my " Deathless 
 Motor-Car " ; it had been declined by all the so-called 
 ' literary ' periodicals more fools they ! and I had 
 to send it somewhere. . . . Well, here I was then, 
 this morning, my old one, on the verge of celebrity. 
 My verse was going to appear in the largest Paris 
 halfpenny paper ! Picture to yourself my triumph ! 
 I was great, I was renowned ! " 
 
 " Go on," growled Pitou, " I want to hear the end ! " 
 
 " Well, naturally I called at the Gazette offices 
 
 you know, near that temple of pecuniary gods, the
 
 20 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Bourse. Equally naturally, I had dressed as smartly 
 as a poet should be dressed : I had Lajeunie's topper, 
 Flamant's gloves, and Sanquereau's black tie. . . . 
 Verlaine himself could not have looked more artistic 
 than I, when I was ushered into Delorme's private 
 office. ... It was marked private on the door, at any 
 rate, although there were about half a dozen other 
 men" lounging round Delorme's desk. . . . Imagine 
 my joy, my dear one, when I recognised these men as 
 the editors of important papers. Yes, there was 
 Lempereur, of the Frangais, and Saulanne, of Le 
 Demi-Mot, and Dulac, of La Folie Parisienne and 
 two or three equally chic ! My friend, I felt my 
 fortune was made. . . . Here is my friend Delorme, 
 thought I, who wishes to set a crown upon my budding 
 reputation, by introducing me to his colleagues 
 I am to enjoy a sort of Roman triumph before. ..." 
 
 " Never mind the triumph," heartlessly broke in 
 the composer, " come on to the fall." 
 
 " My friend, I did fall I fell from high ! . . . 
 Delorme rose and picked up a large foolscap manu- 
 script from his desk my ' Deathless Motor-Car ! ' 
 He walked across to the other editors, and just as I 
 was already hearing his words of praise in my mind's 
 ears, he suddenly burst out : ' Yes, that's the fool, 
 gentlemen, who dares waste some of my time, with his 
 rhymed trash.' . . . He actually said rhymed trash, 
 the brute ! . . . 'I wished you to see him for yourself, 
 so that you might all know M. Gustave Tricotrin for 
 the future, and be ready, if necessary, to place his 
 productions in their only proper sphere.' . . . And 
 he had the ' culot ' to chuck my poem into his waste- 
 paper basket the beast ! The others laughed 
 the pigs ! Oh, my friend, how sad I felt -how I pitied 
 these brutes who could not be stirred by the immortal
 
 LEONARD MERRICK 21 
 
 beauties of my verses ! . . . Still, I did not break 
 down no, Gustave Tricotrin knows how to be strong 
 in the hour of need ; I snatched my stanzas from 
 their ignoble resting-place, flung these camels a 
 scathing glance, and marched out of the house without 
 honouring them with a single word. My silence was 
 more eloquent than their abuse : my friend, I felt as 
 a lion-tarner leaving a cage of wild beasts ! . . . But 
 when I was outside, sadness began to fall upon me : my 
 dream was gone, my prospects ruined, my triumph 
 exploded ! I wandered wearily through some streets 
 but nothing can console me neither the bustle and 
 life of the city, nor the calm of Montmartre, nor 
 the wiles of Josephine, nor the wine of ' Le Faisan 
 d'Or.' . . . My friend, I thirst for revenge I will 
 and shall pay out that pig of Delorme ! Not till then 
 will I be able to write another verse ! " 
 
 After this outburst, the young poet heaved a deep 
 sigh, and fell back at full length on the bed, thereby 
 causing a three-legged bottomless chair to fall with 
 a clatter that would no doubt have made an excellent 
 thunder effect at the little Theatre Montmartre close 
 by, but which the luckless composer found fatal to the 
 inspiration of his symphony. Indeed, all thought of his 
 own art had by now left Pitou, who began to smart 
 at the slight done to Art in general, in the person of 
 his unhappy friend. Are not all artists brothers ? 
 A poet, a composer he who insults the one does 
 an injury to the other, and it is fitting that he should 
 be subject to their united wrath. . . . 
 
 " Say then," muttered Pitou, after a heavy silence, 
 " if Goujaud and I were to call upon this pig of an 
 editor, and to make a suitable oppointment for a 
 meeting at the Pare des Princes ? Goujaud has a 
 pair of swords, and he would. . . . '
 
 22 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 " No," listlessly muttered the poet, "I do not 
 commit myself with merchants ! He is but a vendor 
 of blackened paper I am an immortal singer : my 
 dear one, a god may not thrash a clown ! " 
 
 " And yet," muttered Pitou, " a god condescended 
 to thrash a composer ; did not a certain Apollo ..." 
 
 " My old one, you do him too great an honour 
 by comparing him to Marsyas. Marsyas could sing 
 he can but croak. . . Besides, he has not only 
 made me angry, he has offered himself my head. . . 
 Therefore, there is but one thing for me to do : to 
 offer myself his ! " 
 
 " Good! ' exclaimed the composer, " but how ? " 
 
 The two young men sat up late that night, dis- 
 cussing the weighty problem. By a stroke of good 
 luck, Pitou discovered a bottle under his bed a 
 bottle of " Bourgogne Supe*rieur," not quite empty, a 
 relic, no doubt, of the marriage banquet of little 
 Lisette and Touquet, the costumier at the corner of 
 the Rue des Martyrs. The bottle had cost as much 
 as one franc twenty perhaps even more and the 
 liquid ruby seemed to set Tricotrin's head afire. 
 When he did retire to rest at last the moodiness had 
 completely left him, and Pitou was as joyful as when 
 he had composed his immortal comic song, " Partant 
 pour le Moulin," for that fickle goddess Paulette 
 Fleury. . . . Had they not their plan, the subtle plan 
 by which they would fool the great Delorme, and show 
 him that a vile merchant may not in vain deride Art 
 and her noble priests ? Ha ! He had dared publicly 
 to raise a laugh at Tricotrin ? Well, now Tricotrin 
 and Pitou were going to get all Paris to laugh at him, 
 Delorme the pig ! 
 
 ... It was just at that time some days later, to be 
 quite correct that some of the Paris papers began
 
 LEONARD MERRICK 23 
 
 to publish eulogies of the great Republican, Arsene 
 Lepeltier, the centenary of whose birth it was fitting 
 to celebrate next month. Naturally, La Gazette took 
 up the whole thing as these celebrations deserve to 
 be taken up in fact, La Gazette was the first paper 
 to dwell upon the merits of the late Arsene Lepeltier, 
 Gambetta's friend, one of the promoters of the Re- 
 public, one of its most distinguished orators and 
 statesmen, one of France's most brilliant sons, the 
 man who. . . . etc., etc. The columns of La Gazette 
 were full of information about the great Arsene Le- 
 peltier, and the minor papers, needless to say, largely 
 preyed upon their larger brothers, so that, within 
 very few days, all Paris was talking of the projected 
 centenary celebration why, even of the statue by 
 none less than Rodin, which was to bear testimony 
 throughout eternity to the virtues of the deceased. . . 
 Of course, Arsene Lepeltier is not a name that was 
 present to everybody's mind ; but then, no more are 
 Jules Ferry, or Ferdinand Fabre, or Scheurer-Kestner, 
 or many more, who all have their statues amid the 
 majestic Tuileries, or the shady Luxembourg, and round 
 whom, now, a little Jacqueline is playing at puss-in- 
 the-corner, or a tiny citizen-to-be is spinning a top, 
 all in blissful ignorance of the great shadow that 
 looms above them. Anyhow, it is a fact that all Paris 
 was talking of Arsene Lepeltier and his manifold 
 virtues, and that the Government, at the urgent appeal 
 of La Gazette, had promised to consider the erection 
 of the memorial in the Cour Carree of the Louvre 
 quite near those of two other apostles of political 
 liberty : Gambetta and Lafayette. 
 
 And then, just when Arsene Lepeltier's popularity 
 was its at highest, the unforeseen occurred. ... A 
 tiny little literary review, " L'Ombre de la Butte," 
 practically unknown till then, published a long article
 
 24 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 by Lajeunie, the novelist, in which certain editors 
 of leading " dailies " were advised to look up their 
 information in the Larousse especially biographical 
 information in order to avoid possible mistakes, or 
 even (it was hinted) hoaxes on a large scale. It 
 began to dawn upon some Parisians (perhaps those 
 who, at the instigation of some friend or other, had 
 met one night at the Lune Rousse or the Quat'-z-Arts, 
 and read the article in L' Ombre de la Butte) that they 
 had, indeed, never heard of Arsene Lepeltier or of his 
 career. A few were dismayed to discover, upon 
 careful investigation, that the omniscient Larousse, 
 as well as the Grande Encyclopedic, shared their 
 ignorance on this head. 
 
 The thing was talked of ; it began to spread, down 
 the Rue des Martyrs and the Rue Pigalle, to the 
 Opera, right down to the Bourse, all along the Boule- 
 vards, across the Seine, even. . . . The Quartier 
 Latin laughed loudest, of course : from the Soufflet to 
 Lipp's, at Saint-Germain-des-Pres from the Place 
 Saint-Michel to the Gare Montparnasse, everybody 
 chuckled, grinned, or burst out laughing. Then a 
 biting and witty dirge appeared in L' Ombre de la 
 Butte above the name of Gustave Tricotrin and 
 some editors swore, and some bullied their clerks, 
 but Delorme raged, because he himself, in La Gazette, 
 had started the whole Arsene Lepeltier business, on 
 advice received. . . . How the devil had he received 
 it ? ... Why, yes, now he remembered. ... It 
 was the day after he had had his roaring joke on that 
 fool who called himself a poet, Tricotrin the very 
 day after. . . . What if . . . ? No, impossible ! . . . 
 And yet. . . 
 
 It will perhaps be best to let Pitou himself explain 
 the operation of the grand plan which, after all, did
 
 LEONARD MERRICK 25 
 
 no great harm, and was the means of but you shall 
 see what it was the means of ! 
 
 " Yes, my old one," said Pitou some time after, 
 to one of his colleagues in Art, " the whole idea was 
 worthy of us : when we went to bed that night, we had 
 resolved upon a triumphal revenge, the likes of which 
 Paris had never seen. . . . Who thought of it ? 
 My dear one, I credited you with enough sense^to 
 find that out by yourself and besides, my well- 
 known modesty prevents my answering that question 
 ... I hope I make myself understood ? . . . Well, 
 the next day I went to see my old copain de Fronsac 
 .- -. Yes, he was rather sore against me after ... a 
 trick ? No, my friend only a brilliant piece of 
 information I gave him, about a very sweet young 
 dancer . . . Yes, de Fronsac is dramatic critic to 
 La Voix Parisienne . . . Well, I promised to put 
 him on to another brilliant bit of copy, on condition 
 that he and I and Dubois, the editor of La Soiree, 
 whom he knows quite intimately should go and 
 discuss the matter over a bock, at the Cafi de la 
 Lune, at the hour of the aperitif. . . . Why the 
 Cafe de la Lune ? My poor friend, you are no Mac- 
 chiavelli ! Figure to yourself, then, if I must explain 
 everything, that this pig of Delorme is in the habit 
 of taking his aperitif at La Lune, every evening. . . . 
 Oh, of course, he makes quite a lot of money : he 
 can sip his vermouth every evening the camel ! . . . 
 Well, when we arrived at La Lune, de Fronsac, Dubois 
 and I, there was Delorme, calmly absorbing his usual 
 brand of poison, and talking politics to some other 
 fool of an editor. We sat down at the table next to 
 his, and . . . yes, de Fronsac did the thing hand- 
 somely, my old one : he paid me a demi and the 
 demis cost seventy-five centimes at La Lune. . . . 
 Well, we talked of different things, and I began to
 
 26 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 let out a hint or two about Gambetta, and Thiers, 
 and some of their friends. . . I dropped the name 
 of Ars6ne Lepeltier. . . . My friend, you are not a 
 Republican? . . . Anyway, Dubois' paper is . 
 and so is La Gazette, although, as you know, there is a 
 standing quarrel between the two . . . Dubois began 
 to take up the hint ... I could see Delorme had 
 overheard some of our remarks ; he called for ink 
 and paper and I went on ... Dubois became more 
 enthusiastic, and said he would write a leader about 
 Lepeltier on the very next day . . .Yes, and all the 
 time, Delorme the pig ! was scribbling away at 
 break-wrist speed ! . . . My friend, how I laughed in 
 my beard I am clean-shaven, you say ? Well, it is 
 but a figure of speech, such as we artists may use as 
 we please. ... As I was saying, how I laughed in my 
 beard, when I saw Delorme at last put his manuscript 
 into an envelope, bellow to a chasseur to despatch 
 it to his office without delay, and let out a sigh of 
 contentment as his gaze rested for an instant, with a 
 malicious twinkle, on his rival Dubois, who was 
 waiting till the next day ! . . . My dear one, I felt 
 like doing a gentle tango or even a turkey-trot 
 with the gerant of the cafe but I was strong enough 
 to conquer my impulse : what will you ? Art has 
 her dictates ! . . . Well, that is all. . . . The rest 
 came of its own accord . . . Lajeunie made a hit, 
 and so did Tricotrin . . . And I ? My friend, I 
 have earned the gratitude of my copain and of Art 
 and yes, Gustave and I have made a song about it, 
 which has rather caught on at the Scala. . . . You 
 ask whether we are rich ? . . . Well, that would 
 hardly be the word for it but if you are in need of a 
 louis, my old one ? Yes ? . . . Well, here you are, 
 then ; take it, with the unsolicited compliments of 
 Delorme that pig of Delorme ! "
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING 27 
 
 II 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING 
 
 THE SONG OF THE PENNY WHISTLE 
 
 THEY dursn't give a child a boomerang 
 A shot-gun plays no end of devilish pranks 
 The high-lalutin' toys, they may go hang, 
 The patent, sickening toys that earn no thanks 
 I'm blest by every kid that laughs or wails, 
 I'm ready to be lost and knocked about, 
 I'm never broke or tired, when all else fails, 
 You should hear me put an end to Tommy's shout ! 
 
 With my " speedy- wheedy-wheedy-wheedy-whish ! " 
 You should watch me raise the hair upon your head, 
 Just as Tommy, glad at howling at his wish, 
 Gets a licking from his dad, and crawls to bed ! 
 
 In the nurs'ry's quiet depth, behind the nurse, 
 When Tommy's sick at heart and has the blues, 
 You can hear me none the less I'm none the worse 
 For his thrashing, or his pater's loud abuse ; 
 You can hear me letting forth from out his heart 
 The bitterness that chokes a six-year-old, 
 And the joy and boyish hope that won't depart, 
 And the " No, I shan't, / shan't do what I'm told ! "
 
 28 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 With my " whizy-jizy-jizy-jizy-jee ! " 
 
 In the greasy, dirty, gaunt, foul-living slum, 
 
 I'm the voice of squalid nippers, mixed among the 
 
 smell of kippers, 
 And the only voice from heaven in the hum ! 
 
 In the filthy, lurid court, where man and wife 
 Leave behind an evil reek of beer and gin, 
 In the netherworld of bitterness and strife, 
 I alone am pure and clean, beside the din ! 
 I'm the voice of dirty bairns who want to live. 
 And I stand for their desire untarnished, whole 
 I'm the only thing they love and couldn't give, 
 I'm the echo bursting forth from out their soul ! 
 
 Yea, my " Hity-tity-tity-tity-hy ! " 
 
 Is the purest, whitest call amid the dirt ; 
 
 I'm the dazzling, shining, flicker that is not yet 
 
 drowned in liquor, 
 I'm the song of life unsoiled, unspoiled, unhurt ! 
 
 When the traffic roars and surges through the town, 
 'Mid the bustle and the shouts of swearing men 
 With the motor-'buses rushing up and down, 
 And the horses battling on right through the den 
 When the good old stoutish lady'd like to cross, 
 And she cringes, and she gasps, and cannot dare, 
 When she tries, and turns, and trots, all at a loss 
 Then my time has come to help for I am there ! 
 
 With my " Hooty-tooty-tooty-tooty-too ! " 
 7 stop the howling bedlam for the dame 
 I'm the trumpet of the Squire that shall pull her from 
 
 the mire, 
 I'm the voice that quells disorder, blows, and shame !
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING 29 
 
 When you've had your evening's talk, your last, last 
 
 drink, 
 
 And you're passing through the hall of your old club 
 When your wife has heard the play, and wants to 
 
 think, 
 
 And you can't afford a motor (there's the rub !), 
 When you're fed up with the party, and the ball, 
 And you manage to be left alone and quit 
 When you're rushing, or you're sneaking, through the 
 
 hall, 
 Don't I help you with my call and with my grit ? 
 
 With my " Ritty-titty-titty-titty-whee ! " 
 
 I'm the magnet for the cab that drives you back, 
 
 I'm the magic wand of wealth, I'm the call that gives 
 
 by stealth 
 All the luxury of thousands that you lack ! 
 
 In the far-off field of death where men will roam, 
 'Mid the trenches' zig-zag line, and clinging mud, 
 When no one dares to think of those at home, 
 And a shot rings now and then 'mid trickling blood- 
 In the cold, or in the blazing, red-hot sun, 
 In the torture-rack of this worst human hell 
 I just rally 'em to work that's to be done 
 I call 'em on by God, I do it well ! 
 
 With my " Ready-steady-steady-steady-rush ! " 
 
 You can see 'em run, and crawl, and gasp for breath 
 
 Yea, I make 'em look alive make 'em men, to dare, 
 
 and strive 
 I'm the war-march, charging on, right on, to Death !
 
 30 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Let the full-blown blast of bands resound on high, 
 With their brass, and with their wood-wind, and their 
 
 string : 
 They are changing they were born and they must 
 
 die, 
 They are faked, and forged, and fed they're not 
 
 the thing. 
 
 No, whatever be their time, their ringing strain, 
 Be it rag-time, boiling-hot, or Wagner's song, 
 There is something cramped and stift in their refrain, 
 There is something you can feel it that is wrong ! 
 
 But my " Hya-heea-hya-heea-whop ! " 
 
 Is the human cry, from cradles unto graves 
 
 From young lips that don't yet ken, to the hearts of 
 
 dying men, 
 I'm the deathless cry of children and of braves !
 
 MAURICE HEWLETT 31 
 
 III 
 
 MAURICE HEWLETT 
 
 LORE OF NARCISSUS 
 
 THAT Narcissus, nimble-bodied and fair-faced as 
 were the gods of old, aye, and the men the 
 which builded them in their gossamer-realm 
 of chanting myth that Narcissus, I say, promptly fell 
 in love with his own beauty the very first time he 
 was confronted with it, no simple-minded scholar is 
 prepared to deny. Those were the golden days, 
 the which have fled, the which have fled, and 
 the face of our sylvan pools reflects no more 
 that of a beauteous and unsophisticated youth 
 who may be enamoured of his own rippling image. 
 And the simple-minded scholar himself, however 
 innocent his thoughts, however young he may 
 have kept his threescore year old imagination ever 
 bubbling over with visions of fleeting nymphs, while 
 his deafened ears ring forever with the sweet sound 
 of the fond kisses stolen from their nimble lips by 
 some laughing faun, aye, even by old Pan himself 
 our simple-minded scholar, I say, cannot conjure up 
 to his dear old bespectacled eyes the picture of a 
 mediaeval Narcissus, a Narcissus neither young, nimble
 
 32 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 nor fair. ... A Narcissus neither young, nimble, 
 nor fair ? Aye, I hear ye start, O simple-minded 
 scholar : a Narcissus cannot be old, stiff or plain ; 
 is he not the living incarnation of all that beauty 
 the which has fled ? . . Maybe maybe ; who 
 can tell ? But be all this as it may, hear ye the tale 
 of our mediaeval Narcissus, middle-aged at best, 
 supple at most, and hardly even comely our mediaeval 
 Narcissus, I say, who, if he did not fall a captive to 
 his own charms, fell a slave aye, and a dead slave 
 at that to his own mirrored likeness as our hero 
 of bygone days and beauty. 
 
 In the year 1367 pray remark that this date may 
 be of ominous import to my hero (for do not its figures 
 call forth the total of 17 ?) an import the which our 
 modern science is apt to ignore to ignore or to laugh 
 at in the year 1367, I say, I find my Narcissus 
 one Paolo Testadoro calmly seated in an unpreten- 
 tious tavern behind the Merceria, just oft Rialto, in 
 the most ducal and noble city of Venice. There he 
 sits, middle-aged at best : aye, forty-five summers, no 
 doubt, have burned his ruddy face and strewn the 
 slanting forehead with endless creases and wrinkles 
 deeply dug ; there he sits, nimble no longer, supple 
 at most : for a soldier cannot afford to stiffen right 
 away, and must, if he would remain alive, preserve 
 some drops of oil in his joints, some bands of steel in 
 his wrists, and a lively play of eye and ear ; there he 
 sits, hardly even comely hardly even comely. Scarred, 
 wrinkled, and crimson, moustachios to the sky, with 
 a great grey cloak, well worn, well torn, covering 
 a seedy leather jerkin that has seen better days ; 
 one arm crooked towards his face, the other fondling 
 the long rapier that dangles at his side : his large 
 felt hat propped negligently on the tavern table ;
 
 MAURICE HEWLETT 33 
 
 wistful, disconsolate, with never a thought of mirth 
 that a fiasco of scarlet ruby juice can light ; there he 
 sits, brooding over his sorrowful plight. It is still 
 light still Apollo has not drawn his golden horses 
 behind the wall of night and, but for Testadoro, 
 the tavern is empty, empty even, for the now, of the 
 girl who had brought him his flagon " of thy land- 
 lord's best, thou blue-eyed madonna." The girl was 
 comely, had worn a deep blush when he so fervently 
 addressed her and had run out as soon as she had 
 discharged her duty. She had tun out away from 
 him, from him, Paolo Testadoro, late of Padua, for- 
 merly of Naples, than whom none had been more 
 dearly aye, and more often, loved. Could this 
 slip of a girl actually disdain him of the conquering 
 moustachios and feathered felt ? No, by Cock, she 
 could not and he was going to prove it ! 
 
 He rose from his stool where he had been squat- 
 ting on his hams and was suddenly confronted with 
 a weather-beaten and wrinkled cavalier, the sure 
 offspring of a long, wicked, and very noble line of 
 condottieri, who wore a grey cloak, like his own, and 
 a frown the like of his. They say that a man fore- 
 warned is forearmed, for that he may not then be 
 taken unawares ; and it must then follow that if 
 you warn not a man, he is apt either to fall behind in 
 an emergency, or to rush hot-headed into the fray. 
 Testadoro, I say, rising from his seat, saw a soldier 
 suddenly emerge from out the solitude he had thought 
 he was in -and the blood came surging to his ready 
 brain. " By Cock," he thought, " yon is the scare- 
 crow who has frightened away the wench. And I 
 thought myself alone in this thieves' den of a tavern ! 
 If that swelled-out bladder of a greasy old swash- 
 buckler believe he may play the rival to the wench 
 
 2
 
 34 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 I have wooed aye, and won it is time to cut him 
 into strips, by Cock ! " 
 
 His face was bent on wearing a deeper crimson 
 still ; not wine gives a visage that deep and daring 
 flush, the which is the lawful fruit of anger, hate and 
 speed. Nor did he notice that the same ominous 
 crimson wave had spread over the countenance of 
 the man now confronting him his rival, by Cock ! 
 Aye, that was the one and only thought that weighed 
 upon his massive head, and while he stood looking 
 at his rival's age-worn cloak, he let out his words 
 from the rancour of his heart. " Heigho, my friend, 
 thinkest thou to oust me in war or love ? I was 
 old in both ere thou leftest thy swaddling clout. 
 Thou wast not yet weaned, when I was deep in fire 
 and in wenches' kisses. Thrice pierced through the 
 heart, and ten times left for dead, with my record 
 of three hundred notches on my trusty rapier aye, 
 by Cock, a notch for a life thou thinkest not to 
 startle me, thou pasty-faced son of a mendicant 
 friar, thou bepaunched and tallow-eyed powerless 
 ruffian ? Get thee out of this before I dispatch thee 
 to hell, by Cock and leave me to mine own business, 
 while thou mindest thine among the thieves and 
 other gallows' birds, thy brethren ! " 
 
 Not an answer pealed to his ready ears ; after 
 this outburst, the figure opposite him dared take 
 up a waiting pose, as if it too were listening for an 
 answer, the which came not. " By Cock," roared 
 Testadoro, " thou art no more than a bladder, I see, 
 for that thou canst not even give a reply to a civil 
 speech ! Well, I consider thee carrion at this silence ; 
 and thou shalt not fail to descend right swiftly to 
 the other old Charion and his sticks. Now then, 
 have at thee, hell-bird ! "
 
 MAURICE HEWLETT 35 
 
 Scowling at his enemy, our hero let his thoughts 
 forage deep into the past, for as soon as the haze swept 
 away from golden memory, there were before him feats 
 of arms, feats of arms aye, and feats of love galore 
 the which no seedy youth of these days, however 
 brave of heart and hand, could ever have dreamed 
 in his most sanguine dreams . . . And now, of what 
 avail was all this brilliant past of loves and fights, 
 when this whipper-snapper of a man should dare 
 confront him in silence, and pretend to rob him of a 
 wench who was legitimately his ? A rival that he 
 should have a rival ! It had come to that ! And a 
 rival, moreover, whom no raging words of his could 
 urge into a like torrent of comely, godly, sweet abuse. 
 
 There are some whose fiery speech, like a surging 
 torrent of lava, requires the cold and solid impassive- 
 ness of rock and wind to burst out at its fiercest 
 some whom silence does but irritate the more to 
 whom calm is as the whip-lash to the bolting foal. 
 Such an one was our Testadoro, and quiet was a 
 particular stimulant to his ire. If he should encounter 
 a merry devil of a swashbuckler, free of his words 
 as of his blows, with an unquenchable and multi- 
 lingual fountain of ready oaths at the back of his 
 tongue, a fellow whom it was a pleasure to hark to, 
 in a word, be you a man of arms or a lady of pleasure 
 then, I say, would none be so bent on making a 
 friend of him as Paolo Testadoro, late of Padua, 
 formerly of Naples. There are many like him, more- 
 over, for what do we all most admire in others, but 
 the qualities aye, and the foibles too the which 
 fail not in us ? Broadly speaking, every man is a 
 mirror but I must not enter upon a discussion. 
 
 With a howl like that of a bleeding calf, Testadoro 
 flung himself at his opponent, who, if truth must
 
 36 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 be told, was responsible for the like gestures, though 
 in unwonted silence. Rapier in hand, his fury was 
 such as that of a belling stag in a dismal glade 
 and such was his roaring the echoes of the which 
 were his only reply the echoes, aye, and an ear- 
 splitting, thundering, resounding crash, as if all the 
 bottles in the little tavern had taken it into their 
 glossy bellies to fall at the same time. In came 
 running the girl of innocent wiles the unhappy 
 cause of the disaster, a frown of foreboding and of 
 fear by now printed on her comely brow. When 
 she entered the tavern room, alas, a scene of wreck 
 and desolation met her liquid eye a lifeless mass of 
 glass splinters, felt hats, grey coats, broken rapiers, 
 and a surging ocean of blood. 
 
 " Madonna ! Lo specchio mio ! " she cried, and 
 bent down towards the mess. . . . There was or 
 rather there was no more the worthy Paolo Testa- 
 doro, late of Padua, formerly of Naples, with bits of 
 shattered glass prodded into his forty-five summered 
 body, and the point of a glass rapier well spitted 
 through his heart. 
 
 Thus, in the year of grace 1367, it befell a warrior 
 bold to gaze at his own reflection in a high Venetian 
 mirror, the pride of Murano, and the joy of a comely 
 wench and his fate, alike that of the beauteous 
 Narcissus of old, was sealed thereby, and his life 
 brought to an ignominious if unexpected close 
 a conclusion as sound as that I, the chronicler, sit 
 here to write.
 
 R. L. STEVENSON 37 
 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 SOME HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED RHYMES 
 FROM "A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES." 
 
 THE MOTOR CAR 
 
 THE motor-car is full of fire, 
 And roars along at heart's desire,.. 
 Oh ! How I'd love to be the man 
 Who guides it straight behind a van ! 
 
 Just think how jolly it must be 
 To dodge and run, and toot, and see 
 The little children cross or gay 
 Run helter-skelter from its way! 
 
 The motor-car, besides, is full 
 Of noise just like a charging bull 
 And nothing looks so strong or swift 
 Not ev'n a train, not ev'n a lift. 
 
 But then, the motor-car must run 
 In pelting rain and that's no fun : 
 It's better far for little boys 
 To sit at home beside their toys.
 
 38 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 THE LAMP 
 
 WHEN the sun goes down far behind the west 
 Long before it's time to lie down to rest, 
 Then my nurse comes in, and she lights the lamp . . . 
 But it smells of oil, and its light seems damp. 
 
 I should like a lamp just like Dickie's own : 
 You turn a knob, and it burns alone ; 
 You don't need a match, and it's always right ; 
 It's shut up in glass, and can burn all night. 
 
 LANGUAGES (i) 
 
 I met a little girl to-day, 
 Who's very nice to run and play 
 But what she says is so, so queer, 
 I can't make out the things I hear ! 
 
 And when I rested on a bench, 
 Nurse said the little girl was French: 
 Why can't the children of all lands 
 Speak so that each one understands ? 
 
 HAPPY THOUGHT (2) 
 
 WHEN I grow up, of course I'll be 
 
 An aviator all may see : 
 
 And those who gave me sums to do, 
 
 I'll drop upon them trom the blue, 
 
 Right through their roofs, upon their beds, 
 
 And crack their silly, cruel heads 
 
 (l) Young R.L.S. had evidently not yet heard of esperanto, nor 
 even of volapuck. (Ed.) 
 
 (2) This " happy thought " is of course of a rather more blood- 
 thirsty nature than those generally expressed in "A Child's 
 garden." The provocation of " sums to do," however, 
 justifies retaliation. (Ed.)
 
 R. L. STEVENSON 39 
 
 BOOKS (3) 
 
 THE letters black, that all may know, 
 Are just like soldiers in a row, 
 And though they're silent, stiff and still, 
 I hear their talk, I see their drill. 
 
 And all the pages of the book, 
 They seem to call : "Do come and look ! 
 I've lovely treasures, all for you "... 
 And when I read, I love them too. 
 
 It must be grand, I think, to write 
 
 A book to please the children bright, 
 
 To make their eyes and hearts aglow 
 
 With thoughts they feel, and words they know ! 
 
 (3) This shows young R.L.S. in the light of a true prophet. 
 (Editor's notes).
 
 40 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 ON an afternoon in April, a man was carelessly 
 sauntering along the Strand. At first sight, 
 he would have attracted no more notice than 
 thousands of other men walking in the streets at 
 the same time ; but seen nearer, he was different. He 
 was not old, although a sort of unnatural stoop seemed 
 to possess his back ; and contrasting with the light 
 shining in his eyes, his skin had a bizarre yellowish 
 hue that is not generally seen in an Englishman : his 
 high forehead, and aquiline nose, moreover, seemed to 
 belie the roundness of his chin, arid thick, sensuous 
 lips added a touch of effeminacy to his already un- 
 common allure. He was well dressed, in so far as 
 his suit was of good cloth and cut to the height of 
 fashion ; yet, somehow, it did not seem to tit him as it 
 ought. It was easy to see that foreign blood flowed 
 in his veins. Paul Cashmere for that was his name 
 had been born in Egypt ; his father was English, 
 and his mother was of Oriental extraction indeed, 
 it was rumoured that she descended Irom one of the 
 sacred dancers in a small island of the Malay Archi- 
 pelago, who had been loved and carried off by an
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 41 
 
 English conqueror at the time of Clive or Warren 
 Hastings. Be this as it may, Paul had, at all events, 
 some beautiful Oriental jewels in his bachelor's 
 chambers behind Hannover Square, which had been 
 left to him by his mother when she died, and it is 
 quite possible that she had also told him some of the 
 strange tales connected with the gems, magnificent 
 turquoises, blazing rubies, cunningly-mounted emer- 
 alds, and glistening pearls which alone represented 
 a small fortune. 
 
 Cashmere felt peculiarly distrait on that warm 
 afternoon a sensation as of physical hunger gnawing 
 somewhere at his body as well as at his soul. Yet 
 he had no reason whatever to be unhappy, or even 
 ill at ease. He was comfortably off, with no cares 
 for the future which did away once for all with the 
 idea that he might have done without lunch on that 
 or any other day ; and, moreover, he was engaged 
 to be married to Esther Longwood, a very pretty 
 girl whom he had met several times at Lady Mark- 
 ham's, fallen in love with, and eventually proposed 
 to and been accepted by. He was to take her to 
 the theatre to-night and he had absolutely no 
 cause for bodily uneasiness. He had always enjoyed 
 the best of healths, his Egyptian birth mingling with 
 his British education, to give him corporal hardiness 
 and vigour. Yes, everything was going very well 
 with him, and yet he felt something unaccountably 
 bizarre this afternoon, something that made him 
 oblivious to all the life and bustle that surrounded 
 him, concentrating his sensations and emotions to 
 that little, insidious, gnawing pang, which went on 
 pecking at his body. or was it his soul ? 
 
 Cabs and taxis were rushing on, conveying hurried 
 men to stations, or pretty women to their friends.
 
 42 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Motor-' buses were pounding along, uttering their 
 fierce growl. Crossing-sweeps and newspaper boys 
 were running from one side to the other, dodging 
 the heavy traffic. Here were pompous business-men, 
 in frock-coats and top hats, reading their paper as 
 they walked. And there were women pretty women 
 who stood gazing in front of jewellers' shops, or plain 
 ones, their hands full of parcels, calling lustily to 
 a disobedient child. A dog was sitting wistfully 
 on a tobacconist's doorstep, as if it understood the 
 secret of human life and were sorry for it. A cat, 
 gliding nearly up to it, arched her back and started 
 hissing fiendishly. There, in the middle of the street, 
 stood a policeman, the picture of stolidness, helping 
 nervous old dames through the bedlam of traffic. 
 All sorts of noises mingled together in an increasing 
 and glaring hum : the stamping of hoofs, the roar of 
 motors, the tramping of hundreds of feet, the shrill 
 cries of surprise, joy or pain, the hissing of a distant 
 siren, the rumble of a heavy van and the twitter of 
 birds. And everything and everyone seemed to be 
 there for a purpose ; all had some definite object 
 to do. 
 
 And yet, as Paul walked on, the continual op- 
 pression of this little thing continued to claw at him 
 without any apparent reason. He felt a mysterious 
 something within him, as though the poisonous fangs 
 of a hissing snake were trying to clutch at his soul. . . 
 For it was his soul, surely. Hunger he had not, he 
 could not have. . . . What could it be his innermost 
 being was thus yearning for ? He had never had 
 this strange feeling before. . . . He walked listlessly 
 along ; from time to time, he responded, quite ab- 
 sently, to a friend's nod, or to an acquaintance's 
 more elaborate salutation. But he would have been
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 43 
 
 unable to recognize them himself, or even to remember 
 those whom he had indeed met on his way. His 
 thoughts were wandering in a maze of strange sen- 
 sations, in which the little gnawing pain was the 
 eternal leit-motiv, while his mind was really focussed 
 on no definite object. He saw the things around 
 him, and yet he heeded them not. Dozens of pretty 
 faces might have reminded him of his young fiancee, 
 but he did not smile back at the gushing or ironical 
 smiles that came his way : he had no eye for beauty 
 or for youth . . . His soul had, for the moment, 
 completely dispossessed his body. 
 
 Without his noticing it, he had left the busy 
 thoroughfares, to reach the comparative calm of 
 more secluded streets. He passed along a garden, 
 from which flowed to his ready nostrils delicate per- 
 fumes of honeysuckle and sweet-peas. The odour 
 attracted him unwillingly, and he stopped for a 
 moment, looking absently at the sunny beds and 
 shady leaves. Suddenly he noticed a bee emerge 
 from behind a nettle that a careless gardner had 
 allowed to grow in this beautifully cultivated spot. 
 The insect hovered for an instant over a bed of wall- 
 flowers, flew further, alighted on a massif of pansies, 
 again bounded off, and seemed to disdain all these 
 delicate and sweet-smelling jewels in bloom. It flew 
 from one to another, seeking here, looking there, but 
 apparently finding nowhere that upon which it had 
 started on its mysterious and all-important mission. 
 Paul saw it flit from stem to stem, from petal to 
 petal, listless, disconsolate, just as he. What was it 
 seeking, this humble insect ? What was the un- 
 known pain gnawing at its soul ? . . . All at once, 
 the bee seemed to have found its mission ; it shot 
 forth like a blazing topaz in the sun, straight to the
 
 44 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 ugly, poisonous, wild nettle from which Paul had seen 
 it emerge, and there it remained, apparently contented 
 at last. Was that, then, the rdle for which it had 
 been created to flutter an instant amid the smiling 
 sun and laughing flowers only to be fatally attracted, 
 in the end, by the squalid plant from which it had 
 issued ? 
 
 Paul walked on, and now the gnaw.ng pain came 
 on him in its fullest strength. He reached his rooms 
 more distressed than he could remember having 
 been since he had had the scarlet fever as a boy, and 
 was somewhat relieved when his Arab servant told 
 him, in French, that a gentleman was waiting for 
 him. 
 
 He found his visitor in the sitting-room. He 
 was a man of thiry-five, perhaps forty, with a large 
 black beard, and piercing, green eyes ; he was scru- 
 pulously attired in black frock-coat and trousers, 
 while a large black silk tie falling right down on to 
 his shirt-front proclaimed him to be a Frenchman, 
 and moreover an artist. 
 
 " I have the honour of addressing Monsieur Paul 
 Cashmere ? " he asked in very bad English. 
 
 " That is my name, Monsieur," answered Paul, 
 in very fluent French, which tongue he had acquired 
 as a boy, in the East. " Pray, be seated, and converse 
 in your own tongue for I presume you are a French- 
 man, Monsieur," he added, smiling. 
 
 " You are right, Monsieur," was the reply. " I 
 am Emile Roussillon, and you may have heard my 
 name . . ." 
 
 " Emile Roussillon ! " exclaimed Cashmere, " why, 
 Esther Longwood, the lady I am affianced to, has 
 often spoken to me about you. Although 1 have 
 never met you, I seem to know you very well, and I
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 45 
 
 can assure you you are most welcome in these bach- 
 elor's chambers." 
 
 " Thank you, Monsieur," courteously answered 
 Rousillon. " It is indeed from my dear friend, Miss 
 Longwood, that I heard of you, and I call upon you 
 at the present moment at her request." 
 
 " You have seen her ? She is not unwell ? " Paul 
 hastily cried out, forgetting his own mysterious pain. 
 
 " No, Monsieur, I have not seen her for over three 
 months," replied the Frenchman. " But I presume 
 her health is most excellent, as I received a telegram 
 from her as late as yesterday evening. But, no 
 doubt," he added, smiling, " you have had the oc- 
 casion of seeing Miss Longwood long since I saw her 
 last, and therefore you can be sure of what I can but 
 conjecture." 
 
 The subject of health suddenly brought back 
 to Paul the pangs he had been feeling before the 
 advent of his visitor. Roussillon went on : 
 
 " As I said, I received a telegram, yesterday night, 
 from Miss Longwood, asking me to call upon you 
 this afternoon, and to join you and your fiancee at 
 the theatre to-night. She wishes me to make the 
 acquaintance of her future husband, and I doubt not 
 that a soiree at a theatre in your company will be a 
 great pleasure to me if only I may believe I do not 
 intrude." 
 
 " Not at all," said Paul, " you are most heartily 
 welcome, and besides, any summons from Esther is 
 to me a command." 
 
 He called his Arab servant, and told him to bring 
 in Turkish Coffee. 
 
 " I am sure you will accept a cup of your favourite 
 beverage, Monsieur," he added courteously, glancing 
 at his visitor.
 
 46 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 ' ' Although I am not in the habit of drinking 
 coffee in the afternoon I am afraid we French have 
 taken to tea," Roussillon replied, " I shall be very 
 pleased to partake of a cup after my journey besides 
 which I have found that coffee always gives me 
 ideas." 
 
 They drank coffee as only connoisseurs can drink 
 and appreciate it. and as though to emphasize the 
 poet's words, his talk became brilliant with psycholo- 
 gical insight and the latest Parisian potins. He 
 made an appointment with his host : he was to meet 
 him and his fiancee at the theatre, and to have supper 
 after the performance, at Rusticani's ; " Yes," thought- 
 fully added Paul, " Rusticani's is the best place in 
 London to get a good souffle a la vanille and a decent 
 cup of coffee. I much prefer it to Cavalleri's, although 
 it is much less fashionable . . . ." 
 
 Roussillon withdrew, his mind full of his friend's 
 betrothed, whose character he had already summed 
 up. As a psychologist he was well known, his verses 
 having taken Paris by storm two years ago ; and it 
 was no new experience for him to penetrate into the 
 innermost secrets of a man's soul or of a woman's 
 in the time it took for an idle conversation. Never- 
 theless, he was glad to know he would have ample 
 opportunities to-night, at the theatre and at the 
 restaurant, of confirming his first observations. 
 
 When Emile Roussillon arrived at the immense 
 play-house that night, his friends were already there, 
 and beckoned him to the empty seat they had kept 
 for him ; he and Paul were on either side of Esther, 
 whose rosy cheeks, without even a suspicion of rouge 
 or of powder, seemed to burst into a brilliancy of 
 pleasure at seeing her friend and her lover and at the 
 expectation of the performance. Roussillon chatted
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 47 
 
 wittily in French, and noticed that Cashmere seemed 
 more silent and constrained than in the afternoon. 
 He saw the musicians file into their seats before the 
 curtain ; a little man with white hair stepped into 
 the orchestra, waved his baguette, and the overture 
 began. 
 
 The curtain was raised on an Oriental scene, in 
 some far-off imaginary land, where the sky is a delicate 
 blue, and palm-trees seem to grow everywhere at once. 
 Men in flowing silken garments, women in fantastic 
 kimono-gowns, moved along the stage, sang, and 
 danced. The play was a new opera by a young 
 Italian master, who had aimed at something at once 
 original and highly realistic So his librettist had 
 chosen to carry away the audience to some distant 
 Eastern island, while the composer introduced some 
 weird and savage music into his score the exact 
 rendering, said the play-bills, of exotic melodies, 
 harmonised according to the laws of those far-away 
 islands. 
 
 Roussillon studied the faces of his two companions 
 as the play proceeded. The girl's eyes were full of 
 wonder and joy, but her ears seemed to shrink from 
 the bizarre harmony, full of discordant sounds that 
 burst upon them : she was evidently interested in 
 the play, but it did not grip her completely : from 
 time to time, even, she allowed her gaze to roam 
 across the stalls, or to meet the smiling eyes of her 
 friend. Paul, on the contrary, appeared to drink 
 in the wonderful sights and sounds : the mysterious 
 flowers, the coral-besparkled sea, the sapphire sky, 
 sank deep into his eyes, while the unnatural music 
 was ardently drunk by his ready ears. There was a 
 little tinkling trill, to a bass accompaniment of tom- 
 toms and exotic lutes, that completely held him under
 
 48 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 a spell. And, now and again, he would seem to 
 quiver all over with the strange rhythm and the 
 fantastic passion of the music, with the sensuous 
 and thrilling horror of the play. 
 
 Before the curtain fell on the last act, he nervously 
 clutched at Esther's arm, and said in a terse whisper : 
 " I cannot endure it any longer I must go now." 
 All three filed out of the theatre, amid the unwelcome 
 whisperings of incensed spectators behind them, and 
 Paul spoke out, a twinge of pain on his yellow face 
 more yellow than ever in the twilight of a theatre 
 vestibule, while the play is still going on. " Monsieur," 
 he said to Roussillon, in French, " I must beg of you 
 to excuse me ... I absolutely cannot go to a rest- 
 aurant now : I feel ill, I feel ... I do not really 
 know what I feel ... If you will do me the favour 
 of accompanying Esther, I shall deem it a great 
 service . . . And you, my dearly-beloved," he added, 
 turning to the girl, who was visibly upset by this 
 sudden and painful contretemps, " you too must 
 excuse me if I play the role of a cold douche on your 
 projected pleasure . . . Really, I must return to my 
 rooms ; I am not fit to remain out. . . ." 
 
 " My poor Paul, of course you are not to stay out 
 if you feel unwell. I do hope it will prove to be 
 nothing serious . . . Send me a note as soon as you 
 can." 
 
 Roussillon hailed a cab for his new friend and 
 Paul gave his address in a hoarse whisper that was 
 painful to hear. He entered the cab without a word, 
 and was driven off. 
 
 When he remained alone with Eether, the poet 
 looked at the shivering girl : " Come," he said, " let 
 us go and have some supper, you look as if you needed 
 it."
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 49 
 
 " No, Emile " answered the girl, " I cannot think 
 of swallowing a morsel while poor dear Paul is suffer- 
 ing like that. . . . No, we shall not go to Rusticani's 
 to-night ; but drive me home, and tell me about 
 Paul," she added, smiling wistfully. 
 
 Roussillon hailed a hansom, and gave the driver 
 Esther's address, adding, in his foreign English, that 
 he was not to drive too fast. The man nodded, his 
 face wreathed in a vicious smile, which expressed 
 itself in the few words of foul slang he uttered while 
 he was regaining his box. Esther and her friend 
 were driven away in their turn. 
 
 The girl's anxious eyes were turned towards the 
 poet's piercing gaze : " Well," she exclaimed, " what 
 is your opinion of Paul ? I am glad you have seen 
 him, and spoken to him it was really most kind of 
 you to obey my sudden telegram, but I am sorry 
 he should feel unwell just on this occasion . . . And 
 you are something of a doctor, Emile," she added 
 hastily, " you often told me of your experiences as a 
 medical student in Paris . . . Tell me what is the 
 matter with Paul. . . . But tell me first of all what 
 you think of him. Is he not a splendid fellow ? " 
 
 " Certainly," replied Roussillon, " he is a splendid 
 fellow of that I am convinced. . . . Has he only 
 English blood in his veins ? " 
 
 " How penetrating you are ! " cried out the girl. 
 " No, his mother was of Oriental extraction ; her 
 ancestors lived somewhere in the Malay Archipelago." 
 
 " Just what I thought," muttered the psycholcg- 
 ist. " His pain must be more immaterial than 
 physical, more of the soul than of the body. I dare- 
 say Charcot could, at a glance, diagnose his case qvite 
 accurately ; but I have not Charvot's experience and 
 training . . . Still, I believe your fiancees English 
 3
 
 50 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 body is a ready receptacle for all sorts of mysterious 
 Eastern traditions, thoughts, or sensations ... Do 
 not misunderstand me, Esther," he continued, as he 
 saw an expression of awe flit into her ready gaze, " I 
 do not wish to say anything unkind, or to cause either 
 him or you the slightest sorrow. But, while your 
 future husband will lead the life of a respectable 
 English gentleman, I feel sure some part of his soul 
 will, from time to time, be impregnated with ancestral 
 memories, with Oriental, Extreme-Oriental, instincts 
 and habits. We must all heed to the call of our 
 primeval blood and Orientals above all. . . ." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " Esther anxiously asked, 
 'That he will go and do something dreadfully eccent- 
 ric ... worship a totem, or something like that ? " 
 
 " Perhaps not," he answered, smiling. " He will, 
 perhaps, do nothing at nil. The call will perhaps 
 only appeal to the innermost recesses of his soul that 
 is no doubt the explanation of the bizarre feeling 
 that troubled him to-night. But," he thoughtfully 
 added, " I daresay a good night's rest will bring the 
 Western man out again." 
 
 " And you think such attacks as this will go on 
 wearying him at regular intervals ? " said the girl, 
 now somewhat reassured by her companion's optimism. 
 
 " No," he replied, " certainly not at regular inter- 
 vals. But most probably they will recur ; they will 
 no doubt become fewer and farther between, and 
 weaker, too, but they are practically bound to come 
 on : the body, like the soul, cannot remain for ever 
 deaf to the imperious call of ancestry ; blood has a 
 voice, which must be heard from time to time. It 
 shall be heard ... it is at the present moment . . . 
 But I think nothing more terrible may occur than 
 some inconvenience as to-night."
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 51 
 
 " At all events," muttered Esther, " I am glad 
 you like Paul. Oh, how I wish we were married 
 already ! " 
 
 Her young face was brilliant now with gushing 
 hope and joy that her recent anxiety had suppressed. 
 They were already nearing her familiar house. The 
 hansom was rattling through grim, quiet streets where 
 unnatural darkness was but bespecked by the yellow 
 glow of gas lamps. No other cabs seemed to be out 
 at this yet early hour ; people were still at the theatres 
 or in the music-halls, or at most in the restaurants. 
 She looked out of the window, and saw but vague 
 outlines of gaunt houses, a railing that flickered an 
 instant in the light of a lamp, the fleeting curb, but 
 never a human soul. And she felt glad at being alone 
 with her old friend, who had brought some consola- 
 tion into her anxious mind, with the never-failing 
 weight of his psychological experience. 
 
 The hansom slowed down, and stopped in front of 
 a dark mansion. Esther recognised her own home, 
 and got out, while Roussillon paid and dismissed the 
 cabman, who drove off with a muttered remark of 
 " 'Ad enough of it, you two ? " The poet saw his 
 friend into her house. 
 
 "Oh," he exclaimed in French, as he took leave 
 of her, " I forgot to tell you I am not returning to 
 Paris till to-morrow night. I am staying at Charing 
 Cross, as usual. I hope to hear from you, Esther . . . 
 Good-night." 
 
 " Good-night," the girl gently responded, " and 
 thank you for remaining another day. I shall cer- 
 tainly see you to-morrow. Good-night." 
 
 Emile Roussillon walked back to his hotel, his 
 mind wrapped up in thought. " Poor Esther," he 
 muttered, " I tried to reassure her : she must be
 
 52 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 distraite by some welcome thought. But I feel sure 
 that Paul Cashmere has heard the Call to-day ; the 
 play itself has acted upon the hidden springs of his 
 soul . . . The Blood has called . . Who knows whether 
 the Call does not demand Blood ? "... He collided 
 into a burly policeman, who no doubt imagined him 
 to be drunk, but let him proceed without undue inter- 
 ference. He barely missed being run over as he 
 crossed a large thoroughfare, alive with its nocturnal 
 traffic. He trod on a blind beggar's toes, and 
 nearly crushed a stra} 7 dog. " Poor Esther ! " he 
 murmured once more as he reached his hotel. 
 
 The next morning at eleven, as he sat writing in 
 his luxurious room, an obsequious waiter brought him 
 a note wMch had just been delivered by a messenger- 
 boy. Rnussillon recognised Esther's handwriting at 
 once, and tore open the envelope. " My dear Emile," 
 it ran, " do come at once to the enclosed address. I 
 will explain later. Yours, E.L." Enclosed was one 
 of Cashmere's visiting cards. 
 
 Roussillon jumped up, set his hat upon his head, 
 and rushed out. He hailed a waiting cab in front of 
 the hotel, and gave Paul's address. All was a babel 
 of bustle and noise. . . . Cabs and taxis were rushing 
 on, conveying hurried men to stations, or pretty 
 women to their friends. Motor-'buses were pounding 
 along, uttering their fierce growls. Crossing-sweeps 
 and newspaper-boys were running from one side to 
 the other, dodging the heavy traffic. Here were 
 pompous business-men in frock-coats and top hats, 
 reading their papers as they walked. And there were 
 women pretty women who stood gazing in front of
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 53 
 
 jewellers' shops, or plain ones, their hands full of 
 parcels, calling lustily to a disobedient child. A dog 
 was sitting wistfully on a tobacconist's doorstop, as if it 
 understood the secret of human life and were sorry 
 for it. A cat, gliding nearly up to it, arched her back 
 and started hissing fiendishly. There, in the middle 
 of the street, stood a policeman, the picture of stolid- 
 ness, helping nervous old dames through the bedlam 
 of traffic. All sorts of noises mingled together in 
 an unceasing and glaring hum : the stamping of 
 hoofs, the roar of motors, the tramping of hundreds 
 of feet, the shrill cries of surprise, joy or pain, the 
 hissing of a distant siren, the rumble of a heavy van 
 and the twitter of birds. And everything and 
 everyone seemed to be there for a purpose ; all had 
 some definite object to do. 
 
 While this tableau was unravelling itself before 
 his half-closed eyes, like a huge cinema-film, Rous- 
 sillon thought of his friend and her fiance, and dark 
 visions of foreboding seemed to cloud the clear and 
 sunny day. The morning produced upon his highly- 
 strung imagination the effect of some large ante- 
 diluvian beast, just about to spring, and his mind's 
 eye was deep in the horror of blood . . . the Blood 
 of the Call, as he himself had named it but yesterday. 
 
 He alighted from his cab in front of Paul's rooms, 
 and met the Arab servant just as he had passed the 
 threshold. 
 
 " Where is your master ? " he asked, in French. 
 
 " Follow me, I will take you to him," the lad 
 answered, in the same tongue. 
 
 Roussillon was conducted to Cashmere's bedroom, 
 where he saw Esther's anxious form, and that of a 
 doctor bending over a sickbed. He walked across to 
 it, and saw Paul's yellow face, immobile as if in a
 
 54 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 trance, and horribly distorted by pain, while the 
 pillow and bedclothes were smeared with blood. 
 
 " Ah, you have come, Emile," murmured the girl, 
 and introduced her friend to the doctor. 
 
 " Good morning, Monsieur," said the physician. 
 " I am sorry to make your acquaintance under such 
 painful auspices . . . My dear," he added, turning 
 to Esther, " will you leave us for a few moments ? 
 I wish to say a word to Monsieur Roussillon." 
 
 The girl obediently left the room, with an anxious 
 glance at her senseless lover. 
 
 " Monsieur," exclaimed the doctor as soon as she 
 was gone, " this is a horrible case ! My patient is 
 dead . . ." 
 
 " Dead ? Alas ! " broke out Roussillon. 
 
 " Quite dead . . . Miss Longwood does not know 
 yet ; I told her he was in a trance . . . But he is no 
 more. . . . And the most horrible part is, he seems to 
 have died of poison ; the symptoms clearly point to 
 an Oriental alkaloid, which is only found in some 
 islands of the Malay Archipelago ; I have tested the 
 blood, which I found gushing from his mouth, and it 
 corroborates the first symptoms. How can the poor 
 man have been poisoned ? " 
 
 " Good heavens ! " suddenly exclaimed Roussillon, 
 " I think I understand. The inhabitants of these 
 particular islands are cannibals, are they not ? " 
 
 " Some of them are, most of them, even," 
 assented the doctor. 
 
 " And they use this alkaloid to poison their arrows, 
 and spears, and other weapons . . . Monsieur," he 
 added in a tragic whisper, " Monsieur Cashmere has 
 heard the voice of his ancestors and this " he 
 pointed to the blood-stains on the dead man's bed 
 " this is the Blood of the Call. Yesterday Cashmere
 
 ROBERT HICHENS 55 
 
 heard the imperious voice : the moral and physical 
 gnawing he felt in his body and in his soul was the 
 cannibal hunger. The play he witnessed last night 
 set his dormant ancestry afire, and I doubt not that 
 it kindled, at the same time, some of this poison in 
 his finger-tips ... for you know that cannibals 
 often poison their nails as they do their other weapons. 
 As he slept, no doubt, the gnawing, the cannibal 
 hunger, grew stronger and stronger ; they were 
 irresistible. And Monsieur Cashmere began eating his 
 own fingers. He would certainly have devoured his 
 whole body, but for the deathly poison, \vhich did its 
 work before he had time to do so ... That is all, 
 Monsieur . . . Poor Esther ! " he added, as an after- 
 thought, " this is terrible for her but there is no 
 resisting the voice of Nature, when she clamours for 
 Blood."
 
 56 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 E. W. HORNUNG 
 
 TWO OF A TRADE 
 
 THERE was only one passenger on the little two- 
 horse coach bustling from Clear Corner to 
 Rosanna. A tall, gaunt, beardless man in a 
 wide sombrero, he sat smoking a cigar, while he 
 ineffectually tried to quench the gushing torrent of 
 conversation that flowed forth from the driver's lips. 
 The flood included a high percentage of profanity, 
 the remaining minimum being mostly devoted to 
 questions about the old country, about Government 
 House and the new Governor, and other equally 
 meretricious kindred subjects. The passenger's re- 
 plies were short and perfunctory ; of disgust he 
 actually seemed to feel none, but he was visibly 
 annoyed by the man's constant volley of questioning. 
 He did not look like a trained bushman : his outward 
 appearance had far too much of the type one may 
 occasionally meet with in Sydney to say nothing of 
 the mother-country ; still, he was evidently no 
 maudlin new-chum, his neatly-couched answers, 
 however short, being tinged with more than a suspicion 
 of bush vernacular. He might have been an old 
 jackoroo, back from a spree in town or at home after
 
 E. W. HORNUNG 57 
 
 some exceptionally good season ; or he might indeed 
 be the manager of some Back-block station : an 
 unimpressive man, at all events, he gave no clue to 
 his occupations, desires or habits, beyond impressing 
 upon his solitary companion, despite his laconic 
 speech, his pleasant manners, that pleased no less 
 for just a touch of mannerism. 
 
 The coach was slowly speeding through what was 
 little better than a howling desert, when a horseman 
 on a white mare suddenly cantered out of the scrub, 
 a marvel of life among the surrounding desolation. 
 The driver found himself looking into the muzzle of 
 a long-barrelled revolver, and, supple in action, if 
 more profane still in words, he pulled up his two 
 horses, and awaited the end of the usual " sticking- 
 up " process. So far there was no unusual feature. 
 Then there came a spark and a crash, a volley of 
 oaths in a new voice, and the bushranger's revolver 
 dropped to the ground. The flood of profanity 
 stopped short, however, and the speaker regarded 
 the stage-coach passenger with a flaming eye that at 
 once suggested and dismissed the idea of murder. 
 
 " Move again at your peril ! " he drawled out, his 
 other hand emerging from out a bulging pocket, and 
 producing another vicious-looking long-barrelled pistol. 
 " You don't scare Stingaree with a baby's trick like 
 that ! " 
 
 Before he levelled his weapon, there was another 
 flash, another report, and the gun joined its brother 
 on the ground. 
 
 " Had enough ? " The passenger's quiet voice 
 leaped towards the discomfited bushranger. " Call 
 
 yourself Stingaree, do you ? Just like your d 
 
 cheek. /'// teach you to stick up Stingaree ! Get 
 off that horse ! "
 
 58 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Through the smoke, a long-barrelled revolver was 
 visible in either of his hands the exact counterpart 
 of those the outlaw had tried to use. His steady 
 gaze stared out from a single eyeglass on to his sorry 
 rival, who had by now dismounted and was stealthily 
 stretching a hand towards his fallen weapons. 
 
 " No you don't! " said the passenger in an impres- 
 sive whisper that made the bushranger stand suddenly 
 
 still. " Besides, your guns aren't worth a d cent, 
 
 by now : I took care of that. I put a bullet into 
 their barrels instead of putting it through your skull, 
 but it's not too late yet, if those hands of yours don't 
 go up at once, you whipper-snapper of a sham 
 Stingaree ! " Most of the nouns, I regret to say, 
 were coupled with adjectives rich in concentrated 
 profanity. 
 
 The discomfited bandit looked meekly on while 
 his victor quietly jumped off the coach, his eyeglass 
 still sticking to his eye, his revolver still turned danger- 
 ously towards him. A cool man evidently and used 
 to lightning changes of fortune, he calmly looked into 
 the murderous barrel, without attempting to disobey 
 the other's imperious order. 
 
 Meanwhile the passenger requested the dumb- 
 founded driver, in flowery speech, to leave the mail- 
 bags on the road, and to drive to Rosanna. Of 
 hesitation the second victim showed none, and he 
 lost no time in complying with the usual orders, 
 muttering the usual oaths as he did so. Soon the 
 coach was but a grey speck in the flying dust, and the 
 victorious passenger once more turned his attention 
 to the luckless bushranger. 
 
 " Get hold of those mail-bags," he said in a business- 
 like voice. The other meekly obeyed, his captor 
 taking hold of the white mare the while. As he was
 
 E. W. HORNUNG 59 
 
 about to jump astride, there was a double flash and 
 a loud report, and his long revolvers dropped to the 
 ground, smashed to splinters. A second later, he 
 found himself gazing into a similar weapon, seemingly 
 produced out of nowhere by the bushranger, while 
 he had been fumbling with the bags. In quick time 
 the new conqueror was sitting in his saddle, his white 
 mare having come back towards him as soon as she 
 was freed of her would-be rider. 
 
 " Thought you could do me, did you ? " he quietly 
 asked of his captive. " You see, I happen to know 
 a bit more of this business than you do, and when I 
 stick up a coach, I also keep an extra pair of revolvers 
 somewhere about me . . . As to shooting, my lad, 
 I don't deny you can do some, but you can't teach 
 me any monkey's tricks ... No, my beauty," he 
 called as the other was trying to get his right hand 
 into his pocket, " it's hands up or you'll have a 
 bullet through you ! " 
 
 The ex-passenger held up his hands without 
 a word ; evidently a calm man, too, he did not even 
 trouble to let fly an oath at his captor. 
 
 " And you'd better not try to impersonate me 
 again," the bushranger drawled out, looking at him 
 through an eyeglass dandily stuck before his eye ; 
 " Stingaree's going to teach you a thing or two. Do 
 you give me your dying oath you'll be up to no pranks, 
 or do you want me to tie you up ? " 
 
 " All right," came the reply, "I'll keep quiet 
 enough. Yes, I swear it," he hastily added, as the 
 long revolver pointed dangerously towards his head, 
 " I swear it, by God ! " 
 
 " Murder's the one crime I've never committed 
 but I shouldn't mind beginning on you, you second- 
 rate imitation of a flashlight sham ! And I shall
 
 60 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 certainly do so if you don't behave. Now you catch 
 hold of these mail-bags you were kind enough to get 
 out of the coach for me, and come along quietly. 
 
 The passenger picked up the bags, and both now 
 left the road for the bush, following the tracks even 
 the rider could still easily make out. They led him 
 through mazes of scrub and pooly glades. The bush- 
 ranger seemed to find the way familiar enough, but 
 he could not help glancing occasionally right or left 
 to make sure of his tracks. Suddenly he found himself 
 rolling head over heels, and falling right into a sandy 
 gully, while a triumphant shout echoed to his smarting 
 ears. 
 
 ' Well, Mr. would-be Stingaree," rang out the 
 passenger's voice in exulting tones, " have you got 
 those mail-bags fixed down yet ? I daresay you 
 think yourself an expert in this little game, but you 
 forgot to look in front of your horse's feet this time 
 ... A very handy thing, a couple of mail-bags, for 
 tripping a rider . . . Now then, hands up," he added, 
 picking up the revolver the bushranger had dropped 
 in his fall. 
 
 The tables were turned once again, and the ill- 
 fated bandit, as calm as after his first defeat, quietly 
 stood up with arms outstretched towards the sky. 
 
 " I think you'll find me a better bushman than 
 you, you new-chummiest ass of a new-chum," ex- 
 claimed the present victor. " I've had plenty of 
 occasions to learn my business, and I've made the 
 name of Stingaree rather well-known, right down 
 South of the Murray, even you ask Mr. Police 
 Superintendent Cairns he'll be able to tell you a 
 thing or two about me." 
 
 " All right, man," slowly rejoined the other. 
 " Don't get excited over it, that's all."
 
 E. W. HORNUNG 61 
 
 " Right you are, sonny. Now you just guide me 
 to your gunyah and you'd better do it quietly, too," 
 he added ominously, the long revolver glinting fero- 
 ciously in the slanting sun. 
 
 He jumped astride the white mare. There was a 
 slow, caressing call, and the ex-passenger, in his turn, 
 found himself tossed brutally on to the sand. The 
 whole scene barely took a few seconds. In a trice, 
 the weapon had once more changed hands, and the 
 bushranger's eyeglass was serenely smiling at his 
 twice-defeated captor. 
 
 " Think you know all about this business ? " his 
 gentle scorn drawled out. " You'd better take care 
 and have a horse of your own, before you start sticking 
 up Stingaree. There are circus-horses, my dear fellow, 
 much worse trained than Barmaid," and his left hand 
 lovingly patted his mare's delicate neck. " But this 
 time, my friend, I'm going to tie you up although 
 you deserve a bullet through your silly head. Here, 
 get that rope that's slung over a branch yes, this is 
 my gunyah look sharp ! " 
 
 The other meekly obeyed, and submitted to the 
 time-honoured trick of the bushrangers. He put his 
 foot through the loop at one end of the rope, threw 
 the other to his captor, and suffered him to wind the 
 coils round and round. Suddenly there was a heart- 
 rending yell . . . 
 
 (By an unaccountable piece of ill-luck, the MS. here 
 reaches the end of a page, and unfortunately it has been 
 impossible to find the remaining sheets of the story. 
 
 We are happy, however, to inform our readers that 
 we are offering a prize of 50 a minute for life fo 
 anyone who correctly answers the question : " Which of 
 them was Stingaree ? ")
 
 62 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 E. TEMPLE THURSTON 
 
 THE FATHER OF BEAUTIFUL HOPE. 
 
 IF you cross the dark moors that lie before you 
 when you come down from the shaggy peak 
 of Kickshinahangit, up and above the steep 
 valley of the Ballyhum, you will, after three hours' 
 steady walk through their desolate stillness, look 
 down upon the tiny village of Scrapaheap, that 
 seems to sleep lazily in the lap of the little river 
 of Splashum. 
 
 They have a taste for names everywhere in Ireland, 
 but nowhere so strong as on the Western coast, not 
 yet contaminated, for the most part, by the soul- 
 devasting rush of " civilisation " the railways that 
 kill romance, the cheap trips that do away with 
 treasures, the cockney invasion that destroys character. 
 A little knot of pink cottages, clustered together on 
 either side of a hardly visible ribbon that is proudly 
 called a road, enjoys a name of itself, as if it were 
 a village. Such a place was Scrapaheap, with its 
 hundred odd souls, old Finnerty, the smith, O'Heily, 
 the publican, a scrubby cobbler and a few others, 
 living God knows how. 
 
 I walked slowly through the village, and a little 
 further down, I saw a priest striding leisurely on,
 
 E. TEMPLE THURSTON 63 
 
 reading his breviary the while. Now, knowing the 
 untrodden ways of this world, I felt sure this was 
 Father Flanagan, the parish priest, who certainly 
 knew more about the souls in his charge than any 
 other living man. So I walked quietly up to him. 
 
 " Good-morning, Father," I said. 
 
 " Good-morning," he answered back. " Shure it's 
 the stranger from London ye are. Tis at O'Heily's 
 ye are staying, shure ? 'Tis like a prince he'll treat 
 ye, though ye'll not find our Scrapaheap anything 
 like Ballyhumbug or Splashatlarge." 
 
 He threw out those names, I felt, because I was 
 foreign to his village, and might be pleased at his 
 mentioning one or two more or less fashionable water- 
 ing-places. There is, besides, much pleasure in 
 Ireland for that man who triumphantly flings out 
 the Irish names. No one knows why this is so, but 
 it remains a fact. 
 
 "I'm sure O'Heily and his wife are making me 
 quite comfortable," I returned, with an enthusiasm 
 I am afraid I did not entirely feel . . . Such is this 
 world : here, if he but knew, was I, seeking rest, 
 hope, and beautiful mystery. With that damnable 
 logic of civilisation, I could not blurt out my quest 
 to this simple parish priest. " I'm sure they're 
 making me quite comfortable," I repeated, " but 
 . . . ." There was hesitation in the dropping of my 
 voice, and Father Flanagan was not long to notice it. 
 
 " Tis not ye were hoping for to find the comforts 
 of a London hotel at Scrapaheap ? " he said rather 
 demurely, with the faintest suspicion of a smile playing 
 at the corners of his mouth. 
 
 It is strange how quickly one's ears accustom 
 themselves to the ring of unusual sounds : by now 
 I was quite ready for the tinge of brogue on the priest's
 
 64 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 ruddy lips. " Besides," he hastily added, " O'Heily's 
 not a bad fella. . . . Besides, there's little Meg, an' 
 she's always ready, with the smiling eyes of her, to 
 make any stranger feel at home." 
 
 He had been slow to begin, but now I could see 
 the deepest strings in the old man's heart had been 
 set in motion. It is a nothing a strange catch in 
 the voice, a twitch of mouth or eye, a vibration of the 
 hand and the whole course of a life may be suddenly 
 changed. It was for this, moreover, that I had come 
 to this wild and magnificent part of the island ; it is 
 excuse or no excuse, according to those who can 
 judge, that I was endeavouring to sift a solemn 
 mystery, and was eager to settle an old wrong. Now, 
 once he had spoken of Meg of his own free will, it 
 was child's play for me to keep him to her. . . *. 
 
 ' There's Meg, to be sure," I said, a trifle absently. 
 " A fine slip of a girl, too. . . . Not far from twenty, 
 I should say." 
 
 " The way she might have been married, too," 
 he went on, a tinge of sadness and regret mingling 
 with his now familiar brogue. 
 
 " I should say she would not be lacking a sweet- 
 heart," I hastily put in. An Irish parish priest may 
 be told such things : he is like a grown-up baby 
 brother who likes to air his little secrets, in response 
 to queries from older young people, or younger old 
 ones 
 
 " Indeed, sir," he plaintively answered, " 'twas 
 a faerie's look she had in the eyes of her, the sweet 
 little colleen. An' 'tis bewitch she did young Pat 
 Flinnerty." 
 
 " And quite right, too," I hastily added. " But 
 you don't mean to say you believe in faeries, 
 Father ? "
 
 E. TEMPLE THURSTON 65 
 
 " There's believin' and believin' : don't they sow 
 their seeds all round the lives of us, same as some 
 invisible force that never ceases pushing us about ? 
 It's they gave Meg her sweetheart, an' it's they took 
 him away." 
 
 This was rank heresy in the mouth of a priest ! 
 Well, I would taunt him another time on the point 
 of the existence of faeries, for now I was quite content 
 with the story of little Meg's unhappy love. 
 
 " You see," he went on, " 'twas this way. Pat 
 Flinnerty was as honest a lad as Kickshinahangit 
 ever saw, with the snowy eyes of his. An' he was 
 after earnin' his own living, too what with Nalon's 
 farm, on which 'twas he did all the work, and McGuire's 
 dairy. Indade, he would be making quite a good 
 sum o' yellow money, and I knew he was wanting to 
 settle down on the farm with a good colleen for his 
 wife . . ." 
 
 " And little Meg, of course," I hazarded. 
 
 " Shure and wasn't she herself afther a-saying of 
 it too ? Everybody knew her little secret, and didn't 
 everybody wish her the very cheeriest happiness ? 
 . . . An' one day 'twas in May, mind ye, an' that's 
 where the faeries come in one day, Pat Flinnerty 
 left Scrapaheap and never came back. Of course 
 little Meg melted the blue eyes of hers crying, an' she 
 came to see me, an' to ask me where Pat might be. 
 Now, ye see, knowin' what I know, an' all about its 
 being in May, an' the power o' the faeries, don't ye 
 think I did well not to tell her all I knew ? The 
 telling o' the truth would have been the death of 
 her and she with the blue eyes of her full of tears, 
 too. ... So I was after a-giving her the hope I 
 did'na feel, an' I told her Pat had gone to London to 
 arrange about buying Nalon's farm. . . . Poor gurrll ! 
 
 4
 
 66 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Shure an' she believed me too an' I don't think 'tis 
 a great sin on the soul of me ! " 
 
 " It's no sin at all, Father, no sin at all," I replied 
 encouragingly. " As a matter of fact, it's quite true 
 young Pat Flinnerty went over to London last May." 
 
 " Niver a day!" exclaimed the priest. "An' 
 how are ye coming to be knowing that ? " 
 
 " Because," I answered very calmly, " I am his 
 uncle." 
 
 " But why the divil no why on earth did Pat 
 leave Scrapaheap all on a sudden an' without so 
 much as saying good-bye, too ? " said Father Flanagan. 
 
 " That's easily explained," I replied. ' You see, 
 I sent a man to fetch him, and he had to leave at 
 once, in order not to miss a very important guardians' 
 meeting. But he wrote to Meg as soon as he got to 
 London. I saw the letter why, he even gave it to 
 me to post. . . . And a nice, kind-hearted, gentle- 
 spirited letter it was." 
 
 " An' 'tis the way she never received it. I tell 
 ye 'tis the faeries," cried the priest. 
 
 " Impossible ! " I exclaimed. Without reason, 
 my hand went to my breast pocket, and mechanically 
 drew something out : it was a letter a letter addressed 
 to Miss Margaret O'Flapperhogan, c/o Mr. O'Heily, 
 Scrapaheap, Bondegaldee, Ireland. I let out a cry : 
 ' Why, here it is, to be sure ! I must have posted it, 
 poche restante, as the French say. To think that all 
 this is my fault ! I shall never forgive myself." 
 
 " Oh, is that you, uncle ? " cried a young voice 
 from behind ... A lad of about twenty came up to 
 us, leading by the hand a blushing peasant-girl, in 
 whom I had no difficulty in recognising little Meg. 
 But how changed a little Meg ! The sunshine of love 
 flowed from her innocent blue eyes, and her rosy lips
 
 E. TEMPLE THURSTON 67 
 
 were wreathed in the sweetest of girlish smiles, while 
 all her being bespoke radiant happiness. What a 
 contrast to the sad and frowning little Meg I had left 
 at the inn that very morning ! Then the young voice 
 rang out again : " You remember I asked your consent 
 to marry my Irish sweetheart. . . . Here she is, 
 uncle, and never a better lass did anyone set eyes 
 upon." 
 
 Meg's blush was heightened by now, but I took 
 her hand notwithstanding, and though she was but a 
 peasant-girl, and some of my friends in Piccadilly 
 might have laughed at me, T gently pressed it to my 
 lips. " Can you forgive me, Meg ? " I humbly asked ; 
 " how you must have suffered ! And all that was due 
 to . . ." 
 
 " Shure, and didn't Father Flanagan tell me all 
 about it ? " she gently made answer. I was always 
 thinkin' 'twas the faeries ye see, an' it was in May 
 too." 
 
 " Of course 'twas the faeries," added the priest, 
 smiling, and nudging me the while, " the faeries took 
 him away, and now they're afther a bringin' back of 
 him "... And his kind old eyes beamed on the 
 blushing and happy couple.
 
 68 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 OSCAR WILDE 
 
 ON MURDER CONSIDERED AS A FINE 
 
 ART 
 
 (An Intended Dialogue) 
 
 PERSONS : Cecil and Laurence. 
 SCENE : The library of a country-house in Yorkshire. 
 
 Cecil (leaving the piano as he hears Laurence enter) : 
 My dear Laurence, I thought you were never 
 
 coming ! 
 
 Laurence : Really, you are too flattering, my dear 
 Cecil. I cannot but feel honoured indeed when 
 you insinuate that you prefer my company to 
 that of Bach or of Chopin or was it Wagner you 
 were playing ? 
 
 Cecil : Neither : as a matter of fact, I was strumming 
 the popular airs in the latest Gaiety comedy. 
 
 Laurence : My dear fellow, Gaiety comedies are 
 certainly one of the relics of barbarity which we 
 do our best to keep. 
 
 Cecil : I really don't know about that : anybody can 
 go and enjoy a musical comedy, which is more 
 than can be said of the average play.
 
 OSCAR WILDE 69 
 
 Laurence : It is just because anybody, as you say, 
 can enjoy it, that it is a relic of primitive taste. 
 The things anybody understands and appreciates 
 a weapon, for instance, or a blow, or a harsh 
 cry cannot be those which must appeal to a 
 cultured mind or a delicately trained body. 
 
 Cecil : There may be a certain amount of truth in 
 what you say, but I cannot agree with you to 
 the full extent of your idea. 
 
 Laurence : What ? You mean to say that some 
 things can appeal equally well to the common 
 and the cultivated, can delight them equally, 
 and equally satisfy the mere lust for pleasure in 
 the one, and the desire for beauty in the other ? 
 
 Cecil : Certainly, my dear Laurence : take murder, 
 for instance. 
 
 Laurence : Murder ? 
 
 Cecil : Don't look as if you were shocked ! Murder 
 is not only a vulgar method of doing away with 
 an enemy, but it is also, in the hands of the elect, 
 a fine art in itself. 
 
 Laurence : My dear Cecil ! 
 
 Cecil : There can be no doubt about it, Laurence. 
 Simply to turn to modern historical facts, who 
 will deny that the exploits of the Borgias with 
 poison for their means of expression, are admir- 
 able works of art in themselves ? Did not that 
 arch-murderer Cellini weave into undying master- 
 pieces the gossamer fantasies of his brain and the 
 blood-stained metal that his cunning hands could 
 bear no longer ? Who can deny that Catherine 
 of Medici created an immortal symphony of blood, 
 the echoes of which are still murmuring all 
 through the silent corridors, the projecting turrets, 
 and the gilded banqueting halls of the Louvre ?
 
 70 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Do you count for nothing the scarlet tragedy of 
 Monaldeschi kneeling at the feet of his sovereign, 
 proud Christine of Sweden cannot you see the 
 abject wretch praying for his life, while his queen, 
 despising his cowardly appeals, gives the posted 
 assassins the sign they have agreed upon, and 
 the treacherous ambassador is left to writhe in his 
 own blood a black dot on a purple sea, in the 
 great gaunt library of Fontainebleau, whose glades 
 are ever visited with his ghost, even as his useless 
 coat of mail may still be seen just where he fell ? 
 Who can think without reverence of another 
 great queen, *he wistful Catherine of Russia, who 
 could so exquisitely modulate the banal song of 
 love and death, on the persons of courtiers and 
 courtesans who took her fancy for a day ? Ivan, 
 well named the Terrible, was a fiend, of course, 
 but there remains a charming sensation of over- 
 powering art in the blows he dealt. . . . 
 
 Laurence : I do not pretend to deny the morbid 
 charm of all these instances. 
 
 Cecil : My dear fellow, no charm can be morbid : it 
 can never be anything but charming. 
 
 Laurence : But you yourself must allow that they 
 all relate to royal or exalted personages that 
 they all occurred at least two centuries ago 
 and outside England. You cannot seriously 
 contend that murder may ever be, to us, a form 
 of art, like poetry or music ? 
 
 Cecil : Your objections, my dear Laurence, do not 
 amount to much, after all. Even everyday men 
 and women, in our own times, and in our own 
 " civilised " country, may attain to some art- 
 tistic ability in murder : take the case of Waine- 
 wright as an illustration : you recollect he
 
 OSCAR WILDE 71 
 
 poisoned his uncle, his wife's mother, his sister- 
 in-law and a number of other people, at whose 
 hands he had never received anything but kind- 
 ness. I will not dwell on these facts, beyond 
 remarking that Wainewright was and is now 
 recognised by all as an artist : his prose de- 
 lighted Charles Lamb, and his pictures are none too 
 pale a reflection of Sir Thomas Lawrence's own. 
 But what I insist upon is the singular point that 
 art, in the person of Wainewright, also found its 
 expression and truly a masterful expression it was 
 in the most subtle shades of poisoning which 
 proves beyond a doubt that murder, in the hands 
 of true artists, is quite as rich a material as 
 marble, paper, or words. 
 
 Laurence : I admit you to have proved your case as to 
 poisoning but as to that only. Your only 
 modern example, and the most illustrious of 
 your historical ones, only refer to poison. Where 
 is the art in the modern methods of doing away 
 with human life ? 
 
 Cecil : My dear Laurence, I am glad I have been able 
 to convince you of the truth of my proposition. . . 
 
 Laurence : Of your paradox. 
 
 Cecil : If you like : a paradox is but a truism, bril- 
 liantly clad. And now let me pursue my demon- 
 stration. First of all, you must observe that 
 murder has never been so plentiful, in spite of 
 Scripture, Religion, and morals, as it is nowadays. 
 
 Laurence : Really ? I should have thought that in 
 the good old times you just now referred to, when 
 the Borgias practised their . . . art. . . . 
 
 Cecil : You only look at the surface of things, 
 Laurence. No, believe me, murder has never yet 
 had such a wide scope for its activities not even
 
 72 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 in the bygone days of Nero or Caligula. As you 
 yourself remarked, we have modern methods of 
 dismissing human life : murder, like every other 
 earthly thing, is a ceaseless evolution. 
 
 Laurence: But what do you call the "modern 
 methods ? " 
 
 Cecil : That is precisely what I am coming to. First 
 though not foremost I may mention colon- 
 isation. . . . 
 
 Laurence : My dear fellow ! Colonisation murder ? 
 
 Cecil: Certainly. . . "A rose by any other name...." 
 Can you find a better one for the subtle art that 
 brings the white man to the wilds of Africa, to 
 destroy the indolent existence of fellow men, 
 (although black) ? He laughs at their ignorance, 
 derides their faith, plays havoc with their most 
 cherished beliefs and was wont to make use of 
 their activity by converting them into slaves. 
 This was immoral, of course ; so now he kills them. 
 . . . My dear Laurence, I shudder whenever a 
 foreigner denies the English an artistic sense : we 
 have proved to the whole world that we have this 
 particular branch of art much more highly 
 developed than any other nation, excepting, 
 perhaps, the Japanese. 
 
 Laurence : Have you any more of these ' modern ' 
 methods ? 
 
 Cecil : Certainly. I may mention war, though I do 
 not wish to dwell too long on this subject, which 
 has been too much talked of already. Of course 
 war is as old as mankind, but no one can deny 
 that the modern methods, and especially the 
 modern weapons, have immeasurably added to 
 its power, its horror, and its glow. These are 
 three intrinsically artistic qualities : and anybody
 
 OSCAR WILDE 73 
 
 with the faintest sense of art must acknowledge 
 that the slaying of hundreds, or of thousands, in 
 a flash of light, a roar, and a stroke, contains an 
 extraordinary aesthetic thrill as does the drop- 
 ping of bombs from an airship, or the singular 
 combat of two knights-errant of these days, astride 
 on their aerial chargers. . . . But I will not 
 develop this argument to its full length : you 
 must have grasped its unanswerable force . . . 
 Indeed, I often maintain that war only goes on 
 existing, or menacing, because it appeals so 
 violently to the primeval artistic instincts of 
 man. 
 
 Laurence : Please continue, my dear Cecil, you quite 
 overwhelm me. 
 
 Cecil: Next to these may I say "wholesale"? 
 methods, I would mention those practised by our 
 bred-in-the-bone criminals, our social dregs, them 
 whom our neighbours call " apaches "... Nay, 
 do not start, Laurence : the apache, whatever 
 the stench of his guilty conscience and unholy 
 body, the apache is an artist at heart ! M. 
 Tristan Bernard has most ingeniously studied 
 his psychology, although I fear he may have left 
 out some very interesting possibilities : there 
 are two fields of activity for the artistic cravings 
 of his soul love and murder. These generally 
 are closely allied, as the keenly observed sketches 
 of poor Charles-Louis Philippe, and of M. Charles 
 Henry Hirsch prove without a doubt. . . . There 
 is poetry, my dear Laurence, in the kiss a dastard 
 apache imprints upon the lusty, rouge-besmeared 
 lips of his wanton mistress, and there is poetry 
 in the death-stroke he deals his unlucky rivals. 
 Not only is there poetry, Laurence, but you must
 
 74 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 feel as I do, that that kiss, that that blow, are 
 poetry in themselves of the same artistic value 
 as the kisses Paris bestowed upon Helen, as the 
 blows Pyrrhus struck the faithless son of Priam. 
 
 Laurence : You quite convince me, my dear fellow 
 but please go on. 
 
 Cecil : The medical profession, too, may be said to 
 harbour a certain amount of artistic ability in 
 the domain of murder. Moliere and Lesage to 
 say nothing of Dickens already recognised the 
 possibilities qf the calling, and Doctor Sangrado 
 assuredly owes his success to the whimsical 
 fantasy he tickles in us all. But in our own 
 days, when every doctor is (at least, he will tell 
 you so) a man of science, can you not feel the 
 artistic thrill of administering an anaesthetic or of 
 performing the simplest surgical operation, that 
 of appendicitis, for instance ? Why, even the 
 diagnosis of a case is replete with the subtle mur- 
 murings of art : to feel a man's pulse, to look at 
 his eyes, to tap his chest and to give a verdict of 
 life or death (in most cases erroneous, of course) 
 must give one the same superhuman thrill as 
 doubtless the noble cardinal Ximenes felt when 
 he held a victim's doom in the droop of his eyelids 
 or the twist of his mouth . . . 
 
 Chemists, too, may introduce something of the 
 same sensation into their otherwise monotonous 
 calling by giving strychnine instead of soda 
 bicarbonate, for instance. . . . But this, of course, 
 comes under a heading already discussed, and 
 assented to by you. 
 
 Laurence : Oh ! I have, by now, quite come over to 
 your opinion, my dear Cecil.
 
 OSCAR WILDE 75 
 
 Cecil : In that case, it is perhaps useless for me to 
 exhaust the number of instances 1 might other- 
 wise furnish you with. Still, I cannot omit 
 mentioning meat-packers as characteristically 
 modern artists in the destruction of human life, 
 and I am sure Mr. Upton Sinclair agrees with me 
 in this respect. Practically all large manufactur- 
 ers may be included in the same class, and a 
 good many smaller ones without forgetting most 
 of our essentially modern business-men, financiers, 
 engineers, inventors, sportsmen, jugglers and 
 clowns of all descriptions. . . . And now let us 
 go for a walk in the garden. I have talked too 
 long, and must smoke a cigarette, whose wreaths 
 of silver grey may catch the slanting rays of the 
 fireless moon. . . . Come ! Let us watch her 
 smile !
 
 76 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 G. K. CHESTERTON 
 
 WHAT'S MADDENING ABOUT MAN 
 
 IF I am made to state abstractedly what good there 
 is in man, I stop practically as soon as I begin, 
 because very little remains to be stated after 
 I have said " his ideals." And this is a thing every- 
 body must agree upon, even Smith or Jones, who will 
 probably reply that they have no ideals : the obvious 
 retort to their argument is, of course, that they have 
 no good in them. Now, there are two things, and 
 two things only, that go to the composition of our 
 human essence : good and evil. Lord Shuffiegold 
 would deduce that evil makes about nine-tenths of 
 the average man. And he would be quite right. 
 But Bishop Heartson would equally deduce that evil 
 only constitutes one tenth of his human brethren. 
 And he would be quite right too. This seeming contra- 
 diction is most easily bridged over if one will but 
 remember that boundaries never divide : they unite. 
 And this it is, precisely, that brings us to what is 
 maddening about man : the fact that he has it in 
 his power to conciliate good and evil, and in the vast 
 majority of cases, resolutely refuses even to think of 
 doing so.
 
 G. K. CHESTERTON 77 
 
 It is not the negation of good that is evil, because, 
 if there generally is one sort of good, there may be 
 about a hundred million sorts of negation to it, only 
 one of which is positively evil. We cannot call a thing 
 a failure, simply because it has not been good. A 
 burglar who fails in an attempt to break into a house 
 has done no evil ; yet who will say he therefore has 
 done good ? In the like manner, a saint who fails 
 to convert a sinner has done no good ; yet who 
 would dream of saying he therefore has done evil ? 
 That is my point, though I have never tested the 
 efficacy of not doing evil or of not doing good. What 
 I mean is, that all men should make up their minds 
 to do something anything, be it burgling or convert- 
 ing sinners instead of adopting the strictly negative 
 (and usual) rule, of not doing something, whereby they 
 believe to change this rollicking world of ours into 
 something like a combination of Sunday-school texts 
 and rule-of -three. All men should decide to leave 
 the filthy swamp of I'd-better-not, and revel in the 
 delightful glades of Have-a-try. 
 
 Man may be defined (1) as an ineradicable com- 
 pound of harmless lunacy and savage virtue. Well, 
 to get this many-sided and generally ignored business 
 over, let it be said at once that the gravest defect in 
 man is not his lunacy : he is not half lunatic enough. 
 Surely no lunatic would allow thousands of fellow- 
 creatures to remain without a roof, while hundreds 
 of others are unemployed, while acres of building- 
 plots go begging, and tons of timber and iron flit 
 useless to the scrap-heap. But that is precisely what 
 man does allow. Lunacy therefore is not half enough 
 developed in man ; it is his lunacy that puts him 
 on to the track of doing things, but it is his savage 
 
 (i) He may be so defined, but on the other hand he may not. (Ed.)
 
 78 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 virtue that strictly arrests him in the very nick of 
 time, forbidding him to move his little finger, lest he 
 do evil. That is the whole question in a nutshell. 
 
 What is common to all men is not their vulgarity, 
 but their unwholesome fear of acting. The favourite 
 occupation of a man, nowadays, would seem to loaf 
 in a public square while some excited females attempt 
 to mob a policeman ; this negative spirit is merely 
 the product of civilisation. The civilised man that 
 theoretical and utterly impossible blend of two in- 
 compatible things, civilisation and man the civilised 
 man is, of course, neither civilised nor a man. He is 
 no longer a man, being content to become a sleeper 
 and he is not yet civilised, having only reached the 
 state of laziness. Mr. Kipling tells the story of Ung, 
 the artist of the stone age, who deceived his fellows 
 into thinking he worked as hard as they ; strictly 
 speaking, however, this is an anachronism : Ung did 
 not live in the stone-age. He lives in the XXth 
 century, and his name is Lever, Lyons, Whistler or 
 Lipton. It is this spirit of de-humanised and in- 
 complete civilisation that prompts so many young 
 men (who mostly call themselves " gentlemen's sons," 
 thereby accentuating the difference between a gentle- 
 man and a gentleman's son) to seek Government 
 employment, or at least Government office. Now it 
 is, of course, the characteristic prerogative of any 
 Government to do nothing, or at any rate as little as 
 possible. This is precisely the quality that appeals 
 so strongly to our gentlemen's sons, and urges them to 
 leave the active and shameful life of a merchant or a 
 squire, and to take up the void and brilliant career 
 of a statesman or a statesman's clerk. 
 
 Before setting forth the methods by which the 
 rapid progress of what I shall call the non-acting
 
 G. K. CHESTERTON 79 
 
 epidemic might be arrested, let me answer an objec- 
 tion which has several times been pitted against me. 
 " Brown and Jones," you say, " seek and ultimately 
 mid Government employment. Well, after all, so 
 did Milton and Sir Henry Rider Haggard." This is 
 all very well as far as it goes, but I am afraid it does 
 not go very far. (1) Nobody defends madness on 
 the grounds that Nietzsche and Maupassant went 
 mad ; no one admires murder as a career, for the 
 showy reason that Benvenuto Cellini was a murderer. 
 Milton, I contend, may have been a statesman and 
 so is Brown or Tomkinson ; nevertheless, Brown or 
 Tomkinson do not happen to be poets. As a matter 
 of fact, no objection could be better chosen to prove 
 my point, than one which gives a poet as an illustra- 
 tion. A poet is precisely a man who does (from the 
 Greek iroUtv, to do); a statesman, or for that matter, 
 the average gentleman's son, is a man who doesn't. 
 
 " Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," says 
 a proverb. Now proverbs, of course, are mostly lies, 
 and this one is no exception to the rule, at least in 
 our times. Formerly, no doubt, the world was full 
 of virtuous people who did their level best, to sow the 
 divine seed of good in the fertile garden of the Future. 
 Nowadays, we only meet (besides hot-headed females 
 trampling the blowing plants) sickly enthusiasts 
 whose one and only care is that no seed of evil should 
 be mixed with those already sown : not one of them 
 thinks of watering the beds. The evident result is 
 that all the good sown by our fathers dies in its growth, 
 while no new seeds are sown for our children. The 
 modern version of the proverb therefore ought to be : 
 " Too much unto the day is the good thereof." 
 
 (i) Certainly not in the case of Milton, but as far as South Africa 
 with Sir H.R.H. (Ed.)
 
 8o RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 There are only two methods of living that are now 
 conceivable : activity and laziness. When my tired 
 friends have worked too hard (or when they believe 
 they have worked too hard, which amounts to the 
 same thing) they join the army of the Unemployed. 
 When a man has been lazy sufficiently long he (some- 
 times) tries work by way of taking a change. Few, 
 however, have realised that it is possible to combine 
 these opposed principles of activity and laziness ; 
 it is just this combination, in the appropriate pro- 
 portion, which is called success. Preferring to do 
 nothing is called (according to social position) loafing, 
 idling, or being rich ; being unceasingly active is 
 known as slaving, swatting or muddling ; it is only by 
 taking the right percentage of both that a man may 
 make his life successful. 
 
 The reasons for believing in success are probably 
 as silly as those for any other human belief ; never- 
 theless, it is a thing the average man does believe in. 
 When Jones rushes out of bed because his baby is 
 driving him mad, he already sees his heir installed 
 in all that delightful combination of luxury and 
 happiness which we call success. Every boy, whatever 
 the thickness of his skull and the blindness of his 
 nature towards the future, dreams of himself as a 
 pirate king, or a 'bus conductor, or a station-master, 
 or a south-sea sailor, or a Klondyke treasure-seeker ; 
 his dreams are thousand-masked : the face beneath 
 the mask is but one, the half-Janus face of success. 
 
 I frankly say, therefore, that success seems to be 
 the fundamental aim of man's life which is a very 
 good thing in its way. But the maddening part of it 
 is that the average man does not know what he means 
 by success. For some it is a house in Mayfair, with 
 a few country seats in Devonshire, Wales and Scotland ;
 
 G. K. CHESTERTON 81 
 
 for others, it is a meal of fried fish and onions twice a 
 day. The notion of success, let it be said at once, is 
 not material ; it is purely in his mental self that a man 
 may be successful. That is the root of all evil : the 
 average man is afraid to do, because he is afraid 
 some action of his may spoil his " success." Whereas 
 the truth is that only by doing may he satisfy his 
 innermost craving for that " success " which no 
 Vanderbilt, perhaps, may call his, while the poorest 
 crossing-sweep may enjoy it.
 
 82 RATHER LIKE.. 
 
 W. W. JACOBS 
 
 THE YELLOW PIPE 
 
 1NGRATITOOD," said the night-watchman, re- 
 filling his long clay pipe from the pouch I 
 had. handed over to him, " ingratitood's about 
 the cheapest thing in the 'uman 'eart, an' I've met 
 with a good deal of it in my time, too. There's 
 some as'll tell you a feller never forgets a good 
 turn ; but my 'sprayience is just the reverse. I've 
 'ad friends, mind yer I dessay I've 'ad more 
 friends 'n any other man in my perfeshin ; 'an what 
 I 'aven't clone 'em in the way of good turns ain't 
 worth doin' any'ow. There's Peter Russet, f'r in- 
 stance : a 'ole bloomin' summer, w'ile 'e was out of a 
 job, I went an' used to stand 'im a pot at the " Boat- 
 swain's Rest " every evenin' yes, an' jolly 'ot it was, 
 I remember. An' now Peter jus' cuts me in the 
 street. 'Owever, that's neither 'ere nor there ; w'at 
 I wanted ter tell yer's quite another story. Maybe 
 you remember a young chap as was often knockin' 
 about Nat Wilkins 'is name was, and 'e called 'isself 
 a stevedore, although I never seed 'im do a stroke of 
 work, mind yer. 'E was pretty flush of 'is cash, too, 
 an' I can recollect 'im standin' me an' ole Sam Turner
 
 W. W. JACOBS 83 
 
 an' Tom Barker an' a few other chaps a pint of ale at 
 the " Admiral's Cabin." Well, one day 'e come up to 
 me in the arternoon sort o' quiet arternoon it was, 
 an' I 'adn't nothin' hextra speshul to do, on account 
 of a new policeman as was on 'is beat outside the 
 wharf, an' kept a look-out as would 'ave been dis- 
 graceful to a respectable watchman like me. 
 
 " Good arternoon," 'e says, pleasant-like enough, 
 twiddlin' 'is cane like a young fop outside a music-'all. 
 
 " 'Ulloa," I answers, without letting 'im see 'ow 
 pleased I was. " An' ow's trade ter-day ? 'Ave yer 
 sold any o' those patent dog-biscuits o' yourn, or 
 some o' your 'eat-proof sardines ? " 
 
 " Pretty fair," 'e calls back. " I say, though, 
 'ave you 'alf an hour to spare ? I wish to consult 
 you," 'e says, " on a matter o' some importance." 
 
 " Well," says I "it all depends. You know a 
 watchman's job is to remain on the premises an' if 
 I was caught. ..." 
 
 Next moment, though, I was wishin' as I'd never 
 spoken a word. 
 
 " Look 'ere," says 'e, "I was thinkin' of a quiet 
 gin an' bitters at the ' Admiral's Cabin ' ; but o' 
 course, if yer duty compels yer to remain sweatin' 
 in the sun, I can only congratulate your employer on 
 'is hexceptionally conscienshus staff "... An' a lot 
 more 'igh-sounding words 'e let go at me an 1 the 
 thermometer about ninety in the shade, too. Dis- 
 gustin,' I call it an' all because I'd been fool enough 
 to put in a word of caushun at the beginnin'. So I 
 ups and says : 
 
 " If it's only 'alf an hour's job, I'm your man." 
 
 ' Wot about that employer o' yourn ? " 'e shouts 
 back. ' You don't seem so devoted to 'im as yer 
 ought to be."
 
 84 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 " 'Tain't to be expected of a feller in my station," 
 says I. " Besides, I'm a night-watchman an' I'm 
 always ready to do a friend a good turn when I gets 
 the hopportunity." 
 
 " Wile all this talk 'ad been going on, I'd got into 
 my coat I was in my shirt-sleeves on account of the 
 'eat an' I was at 'is side in 'alf a jiffy. Well, 'e 
 went on jawin' like that for at least five minutes, an' 
 I told the p'liceman to keep 'is eyes extra-open for 
 about 'alf an hour not that I 'old with p'licemen, mind 
 yer, as a general rule, but there is cases when a man's 
 obliged to change 'is principles accordin' to necessity, 
 as the German Impror said w'en 'e tried to collar 
 Belgium. 
 
 We was quietly sitting in the saloon o' the " Ad- 
 miral's Cabin," over a decent-sized glass o' gin, when 
 Nat Wilkins suddenly takes a beautiful leather case 
 out of 'is trousers pocket and puts it under my nose. 
 
 " See that ? " 'e cries, as proud as a 'en with a 
 lot of new-'atched chicks. 
 
 " O' course I see it," I answers back, " but w'at 
 is it ? " 
 
 " You open it, an' 'ave a look. You never saw 
 such a beauty, I'll bet my hat." 
 
 Well, I opens the case, an' I'm blazed if it wasn't 
 a pipe. I'd been expectin' a di'mond necklace, at 
 least, by the looks of 'im : but there, 'tain't no good 
 'avin' insight into the 'uman characture wi' some, 
 fellers they allus manages ter disappint yer in the 
 end . . . Well, any'ow, 'ere was Nat Wilkins an' me 
 lookin' at the bloomin' pipe, w'en I just catches the 
 gaze of 'Enery Walker speakin' to the landlord in the 
 taproom. 'E also 'appened to catch sight o' me, an' 
 in 'e comes, smilin' like a 'ot-cross bun : I allus ap- 
 appreciates true comradeship when I sees it in a chap : 
 that's w'ere I kin respect 'uman nature.
 
 W. W. JACOBS 85 
 
 " Good . -irternoon, Mr Wilkins," 'e says, without 
 so much as lookin' at me. 
 
 " Good afternoon," answers Nat. " Lucky thing, 
 your just popping in : you an' your friend 'ere " 
 meanin' me " might do a good stroke of business 
 for me, an' lose nothin' by it, either." 
 
 " O' course," says 'Enery Walker. " I don't want 
 nothin' better . . . An' a 'ot day it is, too, my doctor 
 recommendin' to keep my throat moistened says 
 it's a real pan o' sea, that." 
 
 Nat, Wilkins ordered some more drink, an' 'Enery 
 'ad just about finished 'is straight off when the pipe 
 was shown round once more for inspeckshun. 'Enery 
 Walker was the first to open 'is mouth, a naterally 
 large mouth 'e's got, with rather a 'anging upper-lip. 
 So 'e speaks out : 
 
 " Wot's it made of? Barley-sugar?" 
 
 " Yer not serious, Mr. W'alker," says Nat. Why, 
 that's a beautiful meerschaum pipe, bran' new, and 
 delicately coloured. You don't find a pipe like that 
 twice in a lifetime. Worth about ten pounds, a pipe 
 like that." 
 
 " Ten pounds ? " I edjackerlated. " Why, 'GO'S 
 the bloke as is goin' to give ten pounds for a smoke ? 
 If I 'ad ten pounds to spare, I'd sooner do somethin* 
 intelligent with the tin. . . ." 
 
 " Yes," put in 'Enery Walker, " 'e'd come and 
 spend it at a nice quiet place like this, with a pal 
 or two like me to 'elp 'im wouldn't yer, Tom ? " 
 
 I glared at 'im then, seeing' as 'e might 'ave so 
 much as passed the time o' day with me when e' 
 came in, espeshully considerin' as I was, so to speak, 
 'is 'ost. But 'e didnt' seem to take no 'eed of my 
 indignation, an' went on jawing at Nat Wilkins. 
 
 The long an' short of the matter was that 'e
 
 86 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 proposed we should try an' sell the pipe ;. 'e even 
 went so far as to drop 'is price to height pounds, an' 
 offered us a commission of ten per cent rather 
 'andsome, you may think it. I thought it was a good 
 job too, but 'Enery Walker made no end of a fuss 
 about the 'ole affair, sayin' 'e never 'oped to be able 
 to get rid of the thing, 'aving no millionaire in 'is 
 immediate surroundings in spite of which, in the 
 end, 'e took the pipe with 'im. 
 
 Wen I got back to my w'arf, the p'liceman 'ad 
 disappeared, an' there was a suspishus-lookin' hindi- 
 vidooal trotting about the place, 'oo couldn't explain 
 'is business in anythin' like satisfactory terms. O' 
 course, me not bein' a feller to create speshul diffi- 
 culties, I just simply saw 'im back in the ferryman's 
 boat, an' prepared for a bit of a nap you see, it was 
 quite dark by then, an' nothin' was likely to 'appen. 
 As a matter of fact, nothin' did 'appen, which just 
 shows 'ow useless it is to try an' be conscienshus with 
 your employer. 
 
 The wery next mornin', just as I was sittin' down 
 to a quiet breakfast, I 'card a knockin' at my front 
 door, an' before even I 'ad time to go an' see what 
 was the matter, there was 'Enery Walker come rushin' 
 in an' gaspin', like a feller as 'as taken leave of 'is 
 senses. 
 
 " W 7 ot d'j^er mean," says I, " disturbin' a quiet 
 chap like me at this time o' day ? I need my rest, I 
 do, after a sleepless night spent in the service of my 
 employer." 
 
 " Never mind your rest," 'e blurts out. ' The 
 pipe as Nat Wilkins give us yesterday . . . ' 
 
 " 'Ere, old on," says I, " Nat didn't give me no pipe. 
 You was the chap as took it." 
 
 " Well, any'ow, it's gone ! "
 
 W. W. JACOBS 87 
 
 " Gone ! " I edjackerlates, all the blood rushin' 
 out o' my face in a single instant. " You don't mean 
 ter tell me yer've lost a tin-pound meerschaum pipe ? " 
 
 " No, I ain't lost it, you bet," 'e answers back. 
 " Some bloke must 'ave pinched it out o' the case. 
 I thought perhaps you might 'ave collered it, for a 
 practical joke . . . . " 
 
 " Practical joke be bio wed ! " says I, "I ain't a 
 chap to do a silly turn like that. Anyway, there's 
 ten pounds gone for yer, an' ten bob for me." 
 
 " Yer means four pounds eight for each on us, 
 Tom," 'e shouts back. " Remember, 'e gave the 
 thing to both of us, without naming anyone in 
 speshul." 
 
 "Look 'ere," says I, " 'oo d'you take me for? 
 You go an' lose the bloomin' pipe, an' make me lose 
 my commishun an' you've got the cheek to talk of 
 four pounds. Yer ought to be ashamed of yourself ! " 
 
 " It's no use kicking up a row, at all events," 
 says 'e. " The thing is, wot's to be done ? It's no 
 use goin' up to Nat Wilkins an' sayin' : ' 'Ere, we've 
 been an' lost the bloomin' thing.' 'E'd make us fork 
 out the tin, an' we'd be done, anyway. We've jolly 
 well got ter put our 'eads together, an' find a way 
 out o' the difficulty find a helegant solooshun." 
 
 Now, yer see, I was young and inexperienced then, 
 an' 'ad a brilliant idea. It was really no business of 
 mine, considerin' I 'adn't been and lost the pipe. But I 
 was gin'rous allus ready to 'elp a friend in need 
 though I will say I was a bit lack in' in the knowledge 
 of 'uman nature. So I puts my 'and on 'Enery 
 Walker's knee, an' whispers : 
 
 " Why should yer tell 'im at aU ? " 
 
 *' W'y," says 'e, " 'e'll want either 'is pipe or 'is 
 money which I ain't prepared to give in any case."
 
 88 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 " You fool ! " says I, " 'oo said the pipe was stolen ? 
 . . . That's where my artfulness comes in. D'you 
 remember, both of us took it for a hordinary clay 
 pipe you even thought it was made o' barley-sugar. 
 Well, w'y not get a j'eller clay pipe o' the same shape, 
 an' put it into the case ? 'Oo'l know the difference ? " 
 
 " Well, I'm blowed ! " 'e put in. " That's wot I 
 call a hextry top-hole miracle of hingeniousness. 'Ere, 
 lend me sixpence, an' I'll get a noo pipe at the first 
 tobacconist's I come across." 
 
 O' course, you'll say I was assoomin' a hundue 
 responsibility ; but as I said before, I allus was a chap 
 to 'elp a pal out of a hole. So I gave 'im sixpence 
 although 'e'd not so much as said good arternoon to 
 me the day before which only shows 'ow 'eartless !e 
 was. Well, that's neither 'ere nor there : at any 
 rate, arter I give 'im the tin, 'e rushes out o' my 'ouse, 
 and leaves me to a cold breakfast a dismal thing 
 arter a night's work. 
 
 Well, I lost sight o' 'Enery Walker arter that ; 
 some'ow 'e didn't seem to come near me at all, though 
 I 'card from a pal or two as 'e appeared to be rather 
 flush in cash, 'aving bought a new suit for 'isself an' 
 a bonnet for 'is wife; 'com I met one day lookin' like a 
 peacock as 'as found a noo feather in its tail. An' 
 about a week arterwards I 'ears the voice of Nat 
 Wilkins outside my w'arf , yellin' that loud, an' swearin' 
 that wishus, it was 'orrible to 'ear. 
 
 " Where's that blamed night-watchman o' yourn ? 
 Were is 'e ? D'you 'ear ? I absolutely insist upon 
 seem* 'im ! " I managed to make out from be'ind a 
 pile o' cases, 'cause I sort o' naterally didn't wish to 
 come out an* meet 'im just then. Luckily, the boy as 
 answered 'im 'ad enough presence o' mind to call 
 out as I was hout just then. Arter 'e'd waited about
 
 W. W. JACOBS 89 
 
 'alf an hour, 'e gave it up as a bad job, an' said 'e'd call 
 again in the hevenin'. I let 'im call, an' managed to 
 dodge that clever that 'e didn't get 'is sight o' me for 
 a week at least, although, mind you, 'e came te see me 
 four times a day, an' stood guard at our gates at 
 least three hours. ... In course, 'e didn't 'appen 
 to know as there was another way out o' my w'arf 
 round Jones and Robinson's back shed, an' straight 
 through Lim'us Dock. 
 
 One day, however, I 'appened to be off my guard, 
 'an was henjoyin' a cosy little mug of ale at the 
 " Lord Warden," w'en suddingly I 'ears a 'ear-splitting 
 yell, an' first thing I remember arterwards was a 
 sorter furious wild beast catchin' 'old o' my right 
 shoulder. 
 
 " There 'e is at last," 'e went on 'owlin'. " Got 
 yer at last, you whipper-snapper of a sneakin' 
 thief! ..." Fancy 'im callin' me a whipper-snapper ! 
 O' course it was 'im Nat Wilkins wilder'n I'd 
 ever thought a 'uman bein' could be which just 
 shows the power of mental hillusion on a hunsteady 
 mind. 
 
 ' What' yer mean by hinsultin' a respectable 
 workin' man ? " I returns, as sharp as steel. 
 
 ' You know very well what I mean," 'e shouts 
 back. " Think I 'aven't seen through yer little game ? 
 Wot about my pipe a beautiful an' rare meerschaum 
 pipe ? " 
 
 " Well, wot about it ? " says I. " You gave it 
 to 'Enery Walker to try to sell it 'e may 'ave sold 
 it, for all I know." 
 
 ' You lying skunk ! " 'e roars at me, 'oldin' a pipe- 
 case full in view. " You went an' changed it kept 
 my precious meerschaum pipe, and put this fourp'ny- 
 'a-p'ny yeller clay one in its place ! You thief ! "
 
 90 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 " Look 'ere," says I, vvarmin' up in the hargument, 
 " you just mind wot you say. You don't call me 
 names without gettin' a black heye." 
 
 Then 'e got wilder still, an' talked of the perlice, 
 an' 'is lawyer, an' so on : but Bill 'Ooper, the publican, 
 'e pointed out to 'im as 'e couldn't prove nothin' 
 agin' me, an' the colour 'is face went then was some- 
 thin' too dreadful heven for a nightmare. 
 
 " I say," I called to 'im then, " wot d'yer mean 
 by callin' me a thief, w'en you can't prove nothin' ? 
 You're a slanderer, you are, tryin' to spoil my repita- 
 tion." An' I ups an goes at 'im like mad 'cos' I 
 can tell you I was pretty well excited too by now. 
 
 We 'ad a reg'lar good fight then : I remember 'e 
 'ad two black eyes, an' I knocked out one of 'is front 
 teeth, w'ile 'e didn't do me much 'arm. An' in the 
 end, 'e crept away without a single word, which goes 
 to prove as a chap allus knows when 'e's beat. 
 
 I never seen 'im agin, o' course (/ saw to that). But 
 wot I wanted to say is this : as I never caught sight 
 of 'Enery Walker neither 'im as made a tidy pot by 
 collarin' the pipe, an' was mean enough to borrow 
 sixpence from the pal as saved 'im. an' only needed 
 fourpence-'a'p'ny, too. Yes, that's the depths in- 
 gratitood may go in some 'uman 'earts."
 
 A. CONAN DOYLE 91 
 
 A. CONAN DOYLE 
 
 THE FOOTPRINTS ON THE CEILING 
 
 Being an account of an adventure of Professor George 
 E. Challenger, Lord John Roxton, Mr. Sherlock 
 Holmes, Dr. Watson, M.D., and Mr. E. D. M alone. 
 
 WHEN, some years ago, I attempted to chronicle 
 the stupendous adventure of our little group 
 in the " Lost world " of South America, 
 and, some time later, its still more amazing episode 
 while the earth was passing through the " Poison 
 Belt " of ether, I little thought it might be my lot 
 to relate another marvellous occurrence some of us 
 were to go through ; and I feel it my duty to set it 
 down at once, while most of the details are still fresh 
 in my memory. 
 
 It was a warm day in June the fourteenth, as I 
 make out by an entry in my note-book that the 
 adventure may be said to begin. I had just come 
 out of Mr. MacArdle's office ; the kind-hearted old 
 Scot was about to retire from the post he had occupied 
 so long, that of news-editor to the Daily Gazette, to 
 which (I say it in all modesty) the proprietors had 
 decided to promote me. Old MacArdle had given 
 me a few parting words of sound advice, and I was
 
 92 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 still meditating his well-meant remarks while I sat 
 down in my own little office, which I was to leave so 
 soon. My brain was full of lingering thoughts of 
 the past, mingling with vague plans for the future, 
 when the office-boy came thundering in, bearing a 
 visiting-card between his none too clean fingers. 
 
 " A gentleman to see you, Mr. Malone," he cried, 
 banging the door. 
 
 " Sure it's me he wants to see, and not Mr. Mac- 
 Ardle ? " I cautiously demanded, not wishing to be 
 disturbed uselessly. 
 
 " He said Mr. Malone, sir," the boy assured me. 
 ' Well, show him in," I said, looking at the card, 
 which bore the printed inscription : Dr. Watson, 
 below which I read, in a barely legible handwriting : 
 requests the favour of a few minutes' interview with 
 Mr. Malone. Here were the tables turned, indeed ! 
 I was all the more puzzled, as I knew nothing of this 
 Dr. Watson. I was revolving in my mind the several 
 doctors, and the many Watsons, with whom 1 was 
 more or less acquainted, when the door opened again, 
 and a plain-faced man evidently a physician was 
 ushered in by the irrepressible office-boy. 
 
 " How do you do, Mr. Malone ? " he said in a 
 singularly oppressed-sounding voice, anxiety seeming 
 to pierce through his open lips and sallow cheeks. 
 
 " Good afternoon, Dr. Watson," I rejoined. " What 
 may I do for you ? I am afraid you must have made 
 a mistake, as . . ." 
 
 " I think not," he hastily interrupted. " I must 
 ask you to excuse me, but you are the Mr. Malone, 
 Professor Challenger's friend ? " 
 
 Indeed, I have the honour of his acquaintance," 
 said I, "although friendship is, I fear, too presumptuous 
 a word, on my part at least."
 
 A. CONAN DOYLE 93 
 
 " Well, Mr. Malone," he continued, in gulping 
 torrents of words, " I must intrude upon your time 
 to the extent of asking you for an introduction to 
 Professor Challenger's. It is a matter of life arid 
 death. I know the eminent scientist and his wife do 
 not care to be interviewed by strangers, and that is 
 the reason why I appeal to you." 
 
 " Indeed, Dr. Watson," I replied, " I doubt 
 whether Professor Challenger would consent to see 
 you at all, even if I were to introduce you to him." 
 
 "He is your friend and what I ask is on behalf 
 of a friend of mine, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, of whom 
 you have doubtless heard." 
 
 " I must apologise for my ignorance," I replied. 
 " However, I am quite willing to answer your urgent 
 appeal to friendship although I have very little 
 confidence in my power to help. The best I can do 
 would be, I suppose, to accompany you myself to 
 Professor Challenger's : you might explain the matter 
 to me on the way." 
 
 " Mr. Malone," he answered, heaving a deep sigh 
 of relief, " I shall indeed be greatly indebted to you, 
 if you can spare the time." 
 
 " Let me see," I mused, " there is a train from 
 Victoria at . . ." 
 
 But he interrupted me at once. 
 
 " I have a 40-horse-power Humber waiting outside, 
 which will take us to Rotherfield before we could get 
 there by train. 
 
 " Very well," I replied. " Pray excuse me a 
 moment while I see my assistant, and I shall be quite 
 ready for you." 
 
 I found Harper, my assistant, smoking his pipe in 
 the passage, and hurriedly told him of my unexpected 
 mission. After which, putting on my cap and coat,
 
 94 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 and throwing a couple of rugs over my arm, I rejoined 
 Dr. Watson and was conducted to his car, which 
 a smart chauffeur set in motion at once, without even 
 waiting for any direction from his master. 
 
 We had hardly set off, however, when I heard my 
 name shouted by a voice I could not fail to recognise 
 instantly, while I turned to gaze at a tall, thin figure, 
 clad in a grey tweed shooting suit, that emerged from 
 a motor-car just a few yards behind ours. 
 
 " Hullo, young fellah! " cried Lord John Roxton. 
 Beside him was sitting another tall man, though he 
 had nothing in common with his companion : silent 
 and absorbed, he looked more like a human mummy 
 than a living being, and the slow beating of the 
 temples was the only sign of life he seemed to give. 
 I was waving my hand in reply to Lord John when 
 my companion suddenly sprang up in his turn, 
 and, pointing towards the second car, cried out 
 excitedly : 
 
 ' What, Holmes! You don't mean to say you ..." 
 
 " My dear Watson," calmly replied my friend's 
 fellow-passenger, " since we are obviously bound for 
 the same destination, I think we could no better than 
 use the same ear. Lord John," he continued, turning 
 to his companion, " shall we join our friends ? I am 
 sure Dr. Watson's car will be more comfortable, and 
 faster than our taxi." 
 
 " Right you are," said Lord John, " besides, the 
 more, the merrier." 
 
 Accordingly both vehicles were stopped, Lord John 
 paid his chauffeur, and the little party of four were 
 soon seated in the capacious 4O-H.-P., smoothly 
 running southwards. 
 
 After a few exuberant remarks in Lord John 
 Roxton's most characteristic manner, his companion,
 
 A. CONAN DOYLE 95 
 
 looking keenly at me, began speaking in a marvellously 
 even and passionless voice. 
 
 " Good day, Mr. Malone." 
 
 " Indeed, Holmes," interrupted his friend, " I am 
 afraid I should have introduced you : pray excuse 
 my carelessness ... Though how you immediately 
 hit on Mr. Malone's name seeing you don't know 
 him, and absolutely ignored what I was about to do 
 I really fail to see." 
 
 " Marvellous ! " exclaimed Lord John, " most aston- 
 ishin', I call it." 
 
 "It is the simplest thing imaginable," Holmes 
 calmly proceeded, turning to me. " It is obvious you 
 are a journalist : your pockets are crammed with 
 note-books, and I see a Waterman peeping out of 
 your waistcoat pocket ; the second finger of your 
 right hand is somewhat horny on the left side an 
 evident sign of active use of pen and pencil ; there are a 
 few inkstains on your coat sleeves where, occasionally 
 you dab your pen to rid it of any small encumbrance 
 it may have caught ; you are somewhat short-sighted 
 a sign of much reading or writing. Moreover, I 
 see copies of the Daily Gazette protruding not only 
 from your coat, but also between the rugs over your 
 arm which makes it quite evident that you are on 
 the staff of that paper. Now I see you with my friend 
 Watson, who is greatly concerned with the fate of 
 Professor Challenger . . . Challenger has very few 
 journalist friends ; in fact, the only one is Mr. Malone : 
 a child would deduce your identity." 
 
 " Absolutely rippin' ! " exclaimed Lord John ; while 
 I was too much amazed for words. 
 
 " By the way," continued this remarkable man, 
 turning to my companion, " let me congratulate you 
 on your movements, rny dear Watson. It was indeed
 
 96 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 most thoughtful of you to enlist the services of Mr. 
 Malone, who is one of the two only men now hi England 
 with the power of securing an introduction to Pro- 
 fessor Challenger's. I was about to look him up 
 myself at his office, when, by a lucky chance, I met 
 Lord John Roxton, whom, of course, I instantly 
 recognised from the description given in Mr. Malone 's 
 narratives." 
 
 ' Yes," put in my friend, " extraordinary it was, 
 too, seein' you had never even set eyes on me before." 
 
 " A simple instance of deduction, aided by memory," 
 explained Sherlock Holmes. 
 
 Now, however, I turned to him and his friend, 
 with questioning eyes. 
 
 " Perhaps," said I, " you could now explain the 
 object of your mission ; for I cannot conceal my 
 astonishment." 
 
 " Right you are, young fellah," echoed Lord John. 
 " Come now, gentlemen, will you kindly explain ? " 
 
 ' You have a perfect right to know everything," 
 answered Dr. Watson, " and as we have some time 
 before us, I think there is no reason whatever for 
 withholding the explanation any longer. You must 
 know, then, that Professor Challenger has dis- 
 appeared." 
 
 The effect of this revelation was startling on both 
 of us. 
 
 " What ! " exclaimed Lord John, " a man of his 
 size, disappearin' in the middle of a civilised country ! " 
 
 " It is indeed incredible," I cried out. 
 
 ' I received the news from his old chauffeur," 
 Holmes said quietly, " and immediately started on 
 my investigation. At the present moment I happen 
 to know a few data concerning the case : for instance, 
 the person whom I suspect of having absconded with
 
 A. CONAN DOYLE 97 
 
 the professor is a small man, with blonde hair and 
 long finger nails ; he must be in some great distress, 
 and was formerly a creature of higher standard, now 
 evidently fallen somewhat in the social and moral 
 scale. I hope to lay my hands on him at no very 
 future date, but in order to do so, I must examine 
 Professor Challenger's abode with some care. That 
 is why I set out to find you, Mr. Malone, little dreaming 
 that I should first meet Lord John Roxton, and still 
 less that my friend Dr. Watson would be simul- 
 taneously and successfully engaged on the same 
 quest." 
 
 " Holmes/' excitedly exclaimed Dr. Watson, " ac- 
 customed to your deductive methods as I am, I am 
 quite overwhelmed by all this information about the 
 unknown blackguard on whose track we all of us are 
 now set ! How on earth has it been possible for you 
 to get at it ? Have you discovered some new clue 
 since I left you ? " 
 
 " None whatever," calmly rejoined this remarkable 
 man. " I know nothing more than you we were 
 together when the chauffeur rushed into my rooms in 
 Baker Street, and related his master's strange dis- 
 appearance." 
 
 ' Why, dash it all," Lord John cried out, " it's 
 clean marvellous ! " 
 
 " Indeed," I hastily added, " you might do us the 
 favour of explaining something of your process, Mr. 
 Holmes." 
 
 ' It is the simplest thing imaginable," he answered. 
 " All the data were inferred from Austin's visit. You 
 may recollect the man : of middle height, none too 
 strong, though indubitably tough, and eminently 
 impassive. From these characters, it is evident that 
 the kidnapper is a small man. . . ." 
 
 6
 
 98 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 " My dear Holmes ! " ejaculated the doctor. 
 
 " Of course, my dear fellow," continued his friend. 
 "If he had been tall and strong, or ortly of medium 
 height and strength, he would certainly have seen 
 to it that Austin be removed, and put out of the 
 possibility of telling tales. Austin was left free : 
 ergo the kidnapper is physically his inferior. The 
 colour of his hair, and the abnormal length of his 
 finger-nails, were immediately deduced by a casual 
 glance at the cap Austin wore it was not his own, 
 as I at once remarked ; you may recollect he said, in 
 reply to one of my questions, it was one of his master's ; 
 well, the cap was strewn with long, fair, reddish hairs, 
 and bore marks of tearing, which could only have been 
 accomplished by finger-nails : I have studied the 
 question in s~>me detail ; the technicalities may, of 
 course, be found in my pamphlet on the subject and 
 I am perfectly sure of my conclusion." 
 
 '' Rippin' ! " exclaimed Lord John Roxton. 
 
 " But how could you deduce the moral and social 
 part of your inference ? " I asked, admiration for this 
 deductive genious not yet quenching my thirst for his 
 secrets. 
 
 " Equally simple, Mr. Malone," he answered, 
 smiling. " First of all, it is quite clear no one would 
 dream of absconding with a man like Professor Chal- 
 lenger if he could possibly do otherwise ; hence the 
 great distress. Moreover, the fact of kidnapping a 
 man of such acknowledged genius points to a certain 
 intellectual and moral standard : the common crim- 
 inal would kidnap a millionaire, and hold him to 
 ransom but not a scientist : and last of all, our man 
 has certainly fallen rather low in the moral and social 
 scale, else he would visibly not have reverted to such 
 extreme measures . . . You see, it is all perfectly 
 simple."
 
 A. CONAN DOYLE 99 
 
 " You beat Euclid hollow," roared Lord John, 
 " Don't you think so, young fellah ? " 
 
 " As far as I can remember," I answered, smiling 
 ruefull}-, " Euclid only deduces things that everybody 
 knew already, or ought to know, \vhereas Mr. Holmes 
 makes the whole invisible effect appear under the full 
 limelight of the cause." 
 
 " Very neatly put, I'm sure," added Dr. Watson. 
 " But here, unless I am mistaken, we are at our 
 journey's end." 
 
 At some distance behind us, peering over a clipped 
 hedge, was Professor Challenger's so unhospitable 
 notice-board. We were passing between the posts of 
 a gate, and at the end of a drive hedged in with rhodo- 
 dendron bushes, the familiar brick house peered 
 smilingly at us that is, at least at two of us. 
 
 Entering the house, we were met by little Mrs. 
 Challenger, as dainty as ever, though her eyes were 
 red with recent crying, and her whole face bore the 
 marks of the anxiety and sorrow she had undergone. 
 She came up to Lord John and myself, while a look 
 of gratitude and hope passed, for an instant, across 
 her careworn features. 
 
 " Oh, Lord John, and you, Mr. Malonc ! " she 
 exclaimed in a voice bordering between tears and joy, 
 " how kind of you to come to me in my distress ! I 
 would not have dared to trouble you myself, but I 
 cannot express my relief at seeing you here." 
 
 " It's all right, my dear Mrs. Challenger," cheer- 
 fully replied Lord John Roxton. " Although Malone 
 and I are little good, I'm afraid, we've brought you a 
 rippin' friend in need, who'll find the Professor in half 
 the time it'd take me to stalk a buffalo. . . . May I 
 introduce you to Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and to Dr. 
 Watson, his friend ? . . . Gentlemen, Mrs. Challenger."
 
 ioo RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 She shook hands gratefully with both of them, and 
 was speaking some words of welcome to the latter, 
 when I noticed that Holmes had disappeared. Dr. 
 Watson immediately excused his friend's apparent im- 
 propriety, on the plea that he was already following 
 some clue to the mystery. All three of us then 
 followed her into the rosy boudoir where we had 
 passed such memorable hours while the world was 
 passing through the Poison Belt. 
 
 She had begun to relate her husband's strange 
 disappearance, which had occurred on the preceding 
 day. The professor had retired to his study after 
 breakfast, as usual, and when Austin, as was his 
 habit, knocked at the door to announce lunc , he had 
 received no answer ; the faithful chauffeur had 
 finally entered the study, only to find himself in an 
 empty room. His master had said nothing of leaving, 
 or even of going out ; indeed, nobody had left the 
 house, through the door, at any rate. Having reached 
 this point of her narrative, Mrs. Challenger broke 
 down, and it was ^nly by our combined eftorts that 
 she finally managed to recover her composure, though 
 her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 Suddenly the door was thrown open, and Sherlock 
 Holmes, keen and alert, burst into the room, walking 
 straight up to Dr. Watson. 
 
 " Watson," he said in that calm and passionless 
 voice of his, though it was easy to see he was tingling 
 with excitement, " would you be so kind as to give 
 me some information concerning Zeemann's phenom- 
 enon ? I have, myself, dabbled somewhat in science, 
 but I am afraid I have no recollection of this ap- 
 parentty recently-discovered notion, and I apply to 
 you as to the scientist of our party." 
 
 " My dear Holmes," replied Watson, visibly dis-
 
 A. CONAN DOYLE 101 
 
 appointed, " I'm sure I utterly fail to see what Zee- 
 mann's phenomenon has to do with your case. Indeed, 
 I am afraid it is somewhat outside the range of a 
 mere physician. Nevertheless, I may tell you broadly 
 what it is. Zeemann was the first to discover that all 
 the colours and lines revealed by spectral analysis 
 are actually deviated by some influences amongst 
 others, by a strong magnetic field." 
 
 " Then I have it ! " exclaimed Holmes, himself 
 moved to some display of excitement his voice no 
 longer suppressed. 
 
 " What ? " Mrs. Challenger cried out, " you mean 
 you have found. . ." 
 
 " Professor Challenger will be amongst us within a 
 few minutes," he resumed, in tones once more void 
 of any emotion. " Gentlemen, I request you to follow 
 me into the scientist's study. Pray excuse us, 
 Madam." 
 
 The four of us found ourselves in the familiar study, 
 a look of amazement on the faces of all save Sherlock 
 Holmes, who began in an even voice : "I must first 
 of all confess that I was completely wrong about the 
 results I told you of on the way here ; I was completely 
 misled by appearances, which only proves that one 
 should never work on pre-conceived ideas. However, 
 I am happy to say I discovered my mistake as soon as 
 I entered this room." 
 
 " How on earth could the simple aspect of this 
 room account for such a change ? " muttered Dr. 
 Watson, turning his puzzled face towards his 
 friend. 
 
 " Look," replied Holmes, pointing first to the 
 ceiling, and then to a mass of papers strewn about 
 the scientist's desk. " The ceiling unquestionably 
 bears footprints. . . , And these papers all contain
 
 102 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 diagrams and rough jottings, where the words, " Zee- 
 mann's phenomenon" ever recur. Here " he pointed 
 towards a little case attached to the wall, " is an 
 electric switch commanding an electro-magnet in the 
 laboratory (as the inscription says) : you may 
 notice the current is now on. On further investiga- 
 tion, I ascertained that the current consumed since 
 the Company's last visit (which happens to have been 
 yesterday) is no less than 2,000 Kwh. . . . The 
 missing link in this remarkable chain of evidence was 
 given me just now by Watson's explanation of Zee- 
 mann's phenomenon and now Professor Challenger 
 will instantly return." 
 
 All three of us were too dumfounded to under- 
 stand ; what Sherlock Holmes called a chain of 
 evidence was an inextricable labyrinth to me, and I 
 was just about to set a question, when I saw him 
 jump forward, and calmly switch off the electric 
 current. Immediately the silence seemed intensified ; 
 we gazed spellbound at one another, and suddenly 
 a massive form was visible, apparently dropping out 
 of nowhere, in the region of the ceiling. 
 
 Holmes was the first to act. He sprang forth, 
 and clutched at the apparition, from which a bellow- 
 ing yell issued at the same time. I came nearer in my 
 turn, and was able to make out a black beard, a huge 
 head, with a broad forehead and a dark plaster of 
 black hair, then two clear grey eyes, with their insolent 
 eyelids and suddenly I recognised the missing man. 
 Holmes, lithe as a panther, caught him in his arms, 
 and instantly set him on his feet. 
 
 " Hullo ! What the devil do you mean ? Now 
 my young friend, what is all this ? " How inexpres- 
 sibly glad I was to hear the familiar voice ! 
 
 " Why, Herr Professor ! " cried out Lord John.
 
 A, CONAN DOYLE 103 
 
 " Yes, himself," came Challenger's sonorous bass 
 and suddenly perceiving the two others, he went 
 on : " And may I ask who these intruders are ? " 
 
 " Dear Professor Challenger," I tried to calm him, 
 " these gentlemen came here with Lord John and 
 myself, and have just solved the mystery of your 
 disappearance. ..." 
 
 " My disappearance ? " he vigorously interrupted. 
 " How can I have disappeared, when I was simply 
 trying a little experiment on Zeemann's phenomenon ? 
 Pray answer that, sir yes, you, I mean ! " And he 
 turned savagely towards Sherlock Holmes. 
 
 Our remarkable friend calmly met his gaze ; 
 " May I ask you what day you make it out to be, 
 Professor Challenger ? " he enquired. 
 
 " What day ? " bellowed the irate scientist. " Tell 
 you what day it is ? Yes, sir, I can : it is the I3th 
 of June, and it also happens to be " here he looked 
 at his watch " 3.35 p.m." 
 
 " As a matter of fact," replied Holmes, " you hap- 
 pen to be wrong which is only natural after your 
 adventure : it is not the i3th, however, but the I4th ; 
 you have been absent from our planet for something 
 over twenty-seven hours." 
 
 " Extraordinary ! " muttered Lord John Roxton. 
 
 " Incredible ! " I could not help exclaiming. 
 
 " Would you mind explaining your meaning, which 
 appears somewhat blurred to my feeble intellect ? " 
 asked Challenger, taking up his thundering irony. 
 
 " Nothing is easier," said Sherlock Holmes. 
 " Yesterday morning, you came into your study, and 
 started experimenting about Zeemann's phenomenon. 
 You switched the current into a hyper-powerful 
 electro-magnet, evidently not thinking of the enormous 
 amount of iron a human body of your dimensions
 
 104 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 must contain or of the tremendous effect the mag- 
 netic field might have upon the spectrum such a body 
 would absorb. In short, Zeemann's phenomenon 
 deviated that spectrum further than could have been 
 expected and you followed it, quite unconsciously, 
 into space or into ether. Those are the traces of 
 your passage," he added, pointing to the footmarks on 
 the ceiling. "It is quite simple, as you see, my dear 
 Watson . . . And now, gentlemen, let us return to 
 Mrs. Challenger."
 
 W. J. LOCKE 105 
 
 W. J. LOCKE 
 
 THE HEART OF A BACHELOR 
 
 " T A VALEUR n'attend pas le nombre des 
 % annees," said the French poet. To Bob 
 
 * Chaynero, certainly, valour came before 
 years, which is all the more remarkable in a gutter- 
 snipe of his sort. For Bob was born and bred 
 in the gutter ; indeed, his habitual residence was 
 Walker Court, a none too sweet-smelling abode in 
 the immediate vicinity of Mile-End Road, White- 
 chapel ; and that is precisely where I made his 
 acquaintance. Now why should a man of my gener- 
 ally urbane temperament walk so far out of his habit- 
 ual milieu, as to haunt purlieus of so unsavoury a 
 description as Mile-End Road, and Walker Court ? 
 I am afraid that would be rather a long story : how- 
 ever, to be brief, I wanted to collect some " human " 
 documents for a paper I was preparing for the " Inter- 
 national Philanthropic Society," of which I was the 
 President ; and, like many a better man, I had taken 
 to slumming, thinking thereby to gain unfathomable 
 knowledge of some of the innermost things of our 
 passing souls which was rather a pretty conceit. 
 It was there, however, athirst for knowledge that
 
 io6 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 nothing save actual life may give, that I came across 
 the quaintest figure imaginable ; a mere boy, perhaps 
 ten years old, in the usual tattered garments that 
 make the nondescript attirail of the ragamuffin with 
 something at once brilliant and arresting, however, 
 in his general allure the air of a beaten dog that 
 thoroughly objects to being ill-treated, an unconscious 
 defiance to Slumland and to Philistia alike in the 
 blazing fire of his liquid eyes, and in the golden curls 
 of his unkempt head. 
 
 He was not very tall, he was not very beautiful ; 
 yet I smile as I recall to mind his heroic bearing to 
 the face of a life that had visibly been the cruellest 
 of step-mothers to him. As I remarked a moment 
 ago, the pathetic braggadocio of the small figure had 
 already arrested my attention, but the words that 
 sprang to the lips immediately took refuge outside 
 the commonplace. 
 
 " How much would it cost to go to Paris, sir ? " 
 His eyes were staring at me, and the quality of the 
 voice was musical as well as eager ; the question in 
 itself was startling from such lips, and no trace of 
 cockney accent was discernible about it not even 
 in the first word, in which the h was sounded as cor- 
 rectly as by an actor in the heyday of his fame. 
 
 I took some time to answer, but I managed it 
 somehow. " I'm afraid it does cost a good deal of 
 money. But how did you come to think of getting 
 there ? " 
 
 Perhaps something in my voice inspired him with 
 confidence ; he did not shrink away from me, as so 
 many of his type would have done. . . . But then, 
 who else, of his type, would have put such a question 
 to the first decently-dressed man who happened to 
 walk his way ? Fancy ? Pre-ordained sympathy ?
 
 W. J. LOCKE 107 
 
 Coup de foudre ? Who may tell the inner workings 
 of a boy's heart, a thousand times more complex 
 than any woman's, and hardly ever noticed, much less 
 studied, in our days of marriage market and electric 
 trains ? Whatever the answer, the youthful raga- 
 muffin had awakened a dormant chord within me, 
 and doubtless its echo was still vibrating in a neat 
 little casket of his nascent soul. 
 
 That is how we became friends, Bob Chaynero 
 and I. Before I was half an hour older, I learned all 
 about him : his name, the vile conduct of his parents, 
 and what proved vastly more interesting how he 
 had been taught the rudiments of speech by an old 
 Frenchman who had taken a liking to the boy, and 
 was now dead. 
 
 M. Lyonnais had been the old man's name ; he 
 had been, said Bob, a teacher of languages, as are so 
 many of his compatriots stranded to our (to them) 
 unhospitable shores. He spoke English like a foreigner, 
 it seemed, but knew it well ; besides, what matters 
 the tongue when the heart speaks ? And old M. 
 Lyonnais' heart had spoken to the boy's, transplanting 
 it out of the filth and ignorance it was born to know, 
 right into the golden garden of romance, far into the 
 brilliant realms of budding knowledge and flowering 
 fancy. 
 
 Yes, such was my first meeting with Bob Chaynero ; 
 and, stolid Englishman though I was, I could not 
 help my heart warming to the lad ; I resolved to 
 become the old man's successor and at once felt 
 thankful towards Providence for having given me a 
 purpose in life. Till then, I had been a mere idle 
 pedant, a podgy philosopher, whom some called 
 dilettante, and others (more numerous, no doubt), 
 fool ; to such as me, bachelorhood had always
 
 io8 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 appeared a necessity, not from any inkling of 
 misogyny, but from fear of the actual difficulties 
 of wooing and winning a maid ; I had always 
 been appalled at the thought of putting the fateful 
 question ; the idea of choosing a house, of fitting 
 it out, of calling on upholsterer furniture dealer, 
 and God alone knows how many other trades- 
 men, had been sufficient to keep me out of matrimony ; 
 perhaps also I had never met the lady whom I was 
 preordained, by Aphrodite's decree, to meet and love 
 in this world or the next. The finding of Bob was 
 to me what is, to a lonely mother, the advent of her 
 first child ; however, my child was already ten years 
 old. I had little difficulty in persuading his lawful 
 parents to leave his education in my hands ; a few 
 sovereigns go a long way towards facilitating such 
 arguments, and make them irresistible to the Mr. 
 Chayneros of our world. 
 
 From that day I had a child, and Bob had a friend, 
 who did not, perhaps, take the place of the one that 
 had departed for ever it will never appeal to me to 
 enter a dead man's shoes but strove to do his best 
 towards the lad. I was amazed at his knowledge, and 
 still more at his taste ; he certainly remembered more 
 about most subjects than the average gentleman's 
 son of his age let alone street urchins ; and fled with 
 horror from the glaring chromotint to the dainty 
 copperprint, unlike what any of his class would have 
 done. In music, too, his choice was cultivated ; I 
 would have no one believe that I am an instrumentist 
 of any skill, yet I do manage, with some luck, to express, 
 at least, part of the composer's meaning, when my 
 hands travel idly over the keys of my Broadwood ; 
 ragtime, let me say it frankly, appeals very little to 
 my taste, and I was surprised (and delighted beyond
 
 W. J. LOCKE 109 
 
 words) when I saw Bob nestle close to me while I 
 was rendering Rachmaninoff's beautiful serenade. 
 
 This delicacy of senses I strove to educate in him, 
 perhaps a little sad at heart, when all was said and 
 done, at not being the one to initiate him to truth 
 and beauty yet proud withal at being chosen by 
 Fate to pursue what had been so marvellously begun. 
 Sometimes I surprised myself longing to meet my 
 predecessor, the old Frenchman, who had probably 
 died of despair and poverty in the loathsome surround- 
 ings of Mile-End Road. And one day, I unearthed 
 the reason of my ward's remarkable question ; he 
 had often asked me about Paris, without condescend- 
 ing to unravel the mystery of his curiosity. No doubt 
 I happened to touch a sensitive chord in his vibrating 
 soul. Instantly he responded. Bob had been en- 
 trusted by his old master with a mission of love : the 
 poor old man had made him promise to go to Paris 
 as soon as he could, in order to call upon Lyonnais' 
 sister, who was, it appeared, much younger than he. 
 Bob had always kept his mission within call of his 
 memory. He knew the address, 16, Rue du Cherche- 
 Midi. He showed me, with a glow of triumph in his 
 eyes, the vast sum of one pound, two shillings and 
 ninepence halfpenny, which he had collected towards 
 the journey. His hoarding had began, I am sure, by 
 a farthing at a time, and but for the happy chance of 
 our meeting, I am afraid it would still have been far 
 below anything worth mentioning. . . . 
 
 "Bob," I said, "to-day week, we shall be in 
 Paris." 
 
 I saw two tears swell into his eyes, and trickle 
 slowly down his cheeks. What matter tears when 
 the heart is overflowing ? After he had cried a little, 
 after the manner of children and women, he became
 
 no RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 still more confidential. His face was radiantly beauti- 
 ful as he told me the name of his old protector's sister 
 Nicole it was a quaint, old-fashioned, girlish name, 
 rich with lingering echoes of Villon and Ronsard, and 
 smiling memories of mischievous eyes among rose 
 arbours . . . How old would she be now ? I could 
 but conjecture, of course ; Bob always referred to 
 his late friend, as " old M. Lyonnais " ; a Frenchman 
 who has come over to England as a teacher of 
 languages, and failed in the attempt Mile End Road 
 meant failure may die at any age, of course, but 
 he must be pretty far gone in years not to make a 
 last attempt to lay his aching bones in his own dear 
 country, especially when he has a sister there. So 
 I formed a mental picture of Mile. Nicole : I saw 
 a wizened petite vieille who would beckon us from the 
 threshold of her little logement on the sixth floor of a 
 dingy house, a quiet old maid, with a white cotton 
 bonnet round her crumpled chin and grey hair . . . 
 Well, in another week I would see her hi the flesh, 
 and Bob might at least be easy in his mind about that 
 last promise of his. 
 
 Of the journey itself, of Bob's wonder at the (to 
 him) tremendously long drive from Charing Cross to 
 Dover, of his delight at the sea passage (the Channel 
 was really, as a hearty sailor put it, a duck pond), 
 and his excited cries on setting foot on French soil 
 and in a French train, I shall say nothing, beyond 
 mentioning them. Used as he was to crowds of all 
 description, he could not help his bewildered expression 
 as we at last scrambled out on to the platform of the 
 Gare du Nord, in the bustle and haste of a great Paris
 
 W. J. LOCKE in 
 
 terminus, compared to which even those of London 
 bear quite a mild and tame aspect. We drove to a 
 quiet hotel in the little Rue des Beaux-Arts, where I 
 am always welcome on my flying visits. 
 
 I love Paris; I love to lose my golden moments 
 amid its grey walls and smiling gardens just as 
 other cranky old gentlemen love to lose their um- 
 brellas. Further, I took in at a glance that Bob was 
 delighted and awed at the same time. Does not the 
 realisation always come as a stunning blow after the 
 dream ? And yet, who is ever so completely sophisti- 
 cated as to be content with the dream ? Certainly 
 not Bob Chaynero and no more am I, thank God. 
 
 The next morning we spent, after a delightful early 
 breakfast do you remember those luxurious " crois- 
 sants " that melt on the palate, just as the voice of a 
 divine singer melts on the soul ? among the sunny 
 arbours of the Luxembourg, whose eternal youth 
 smiles on the dwindling centuries. Bob felt the charm 
 of the quaint elegance, so distant from anything he 
 had ever seen before, and it was in this transfigured 
 atmosphere of the soul that we traced our steps, in the 
 afternoon, to the old Rue du Cherche-Midi. The 
 street is a narrow, old-fashioned thoroughfare, still 
 preserving its aged sculptured porticos and some of its 
 gabled roofs, and number 16 turned out to be one of 
 the oldest-looking houses among its brethren. A 
 ferocious-eyed concierge told us, with unexpected 
 courtesy, that Mademoiselle Lyonnais lived en the 
 second storey of the front stairs. Thither we went, 
 and Bob himself rang the bell, while I could not help 
 noticing the tremor that passed all over his body. 
 
 There came a light patter of feet, the door opened, 
 and I saw a youthful face smiling on us. 
 
 " Monsieur demande . . ? "
 
 H2 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 " Mademoiselle Nicole Lyonnais habile bien id ? " 
 came my cautious answer, in a French that was not, 
 I am afraid, flawless. 
 
 " Oui, Monsieur c'est moi-meme . . . Donnez- 
 vous la peine d'entrer." 
 
 Shade of Penelope, here was a shock ! Mile. Nicole 
 was quite a girl, certainly less than thirty ; moreover, 
 she was very pretty, and her smile would have melted 
 an iceberg (to say nothing of a hardened bachelor). 
 Bob, of course, was less surprised : to him a girl of 
 twenty-five would appear quite old ; his eyes, however, 
 told their own tale, and I knew he would get on very 
 well with Mile. Nicole. 
 
 She showed us into a cosy little salon, in which 
 no trace of want could be detected. I. confess I was 
 exceedingly embarrassed ; our hostess added to my 
 confusion by her next, remark. 
 
 ' You must let me give your little boy a bonbon," 
 she said lightly, producing a box of pralines which she 
 enticingly held up to Bob's eager eyes. 
 
 " I . . . er . . . I am afraid he is not my little 
 boy," 1 hastened to add, " though I always do my 
 best to consider him as such." And I plunged head- 
 long into explanations, which ended (after a consider- 
 able length) by my mentioning the existence of M. 
 Lyonnais. 
 
 Two tears pearled on her deep grey eyes. " What ! " 
 she exclaimed, " Henri is in London after all ! I 
 believed him to be in Amazonia. He went away when 
 I was quite a little girl he was my elder by twenty 
 years. . . . and I never dreamt him to be so near. 
 But I must go to him at once : you will tell him, won't 
 you ? " 
 
 I was forced into giving further explanations, more 
 involved and more painful than the others. Her
 
 W. J. LOCKE 113 
 
 brother was evidently a demi-god to Mile. Nicole, and 
 the news of his misery and death (for I could not 
 withhold them any longer) made more tears rush to 
 her passionate eyes. I did my best to deal out the 
 bad news as gently as possible, after the way you 
 read (in books) of elderly gentlemen behaving to 
 young girls. 
 
 To say I failed in the attempt is merely to express 
 a truism ; nevertheless, my attitude, at any rate, 
 convinced our hostess of the sincerity of my sympathy, 
 and I felt she did not resent my patting her hand in 
 a fatherly way, while Bob (youth permits these things, 
 alas, when age forbids them !) resolutely clasped his 
 small arms round her pretty neck, and kissed her. 
 
 When the tears stopped, and the sobs began to 
 calm, Nicole became a little more confidential. Now, 
 a young girl's confidences are full of details, but she 
 generally manages to leave out the important ones. 
 With some interpolations, however, I succeeded in 
 securing her story, which was, after all, quite banal in 
 its simplicity : she had been left an orphan at the 
 tender age of five ; her brother, Henri, who had just 
 completed a brilliant course of studies at the Ecole 
 des Mines, finding himself penniless with a baby to 
 support, had no choice but to accept a situation far 
 out in Brazil, at Bacabal, in the heart of Amazonia, 
 where some copper and tin mines had been located; 
 by so doing he transgressed the French military law, 
 and forfeited his right to come back to France for a 
 long term of years ; yet how could he do otherwise ? 
 The child he left in Paris, under the custody of an old 
 servant (who had died when Nicole reached the age 
 of twenty-two) to whom he forwarded quarterly 
 drafts to minister to their small wants. How Lyon- 
 nais had fallen from his comparative eminence at 
 7
 
 114 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Bacabal to the depths of Mile End Road, will ever 
 remain a mystery to me, Bob being, of course, unable 
 to shed any light upon it. Be it as it may, Lyonnais 
 continued to provide his sister with modest sums of 
 money, which decreased as time went on ; they were 
 always sent from Amazonia, however, and he never 
 dropped a hint as to his present surroundings. The 
 girl had managed to make both ends meet, thanks 
 to rigid economy (at the outset) and to her being able 
 to give a few odd lessons (she was a fairly good English 
 and German scholar) which kept her in comparative 
 luxury. Then, some time ago, she had ceased to 
 receive any news of her brother ; and Bob had been 
 the unexpected means of making her acquainted 
 with the reason of his silence. 
 
 Our stay in Paris proved to be longer than I had 
 intended before setting out ; who can foretell his 
 actions even a week beforehand, except he be one of 
 your pragmatic human machines, that have time neither 
 for the unexpected nor for the pleasant, and whose 
 every thought stops short at the hated word " utility " ? 
 Our stay in Paris was in no way useful, nay, but it 
 was divine or rather, it was just human, with that 
 delicious mingling of budding happiness, present 
 pleasure, and far-off unreclaimable sorrow that alone 
 makes our life worth living. Of course, I often went 
 to see Mile. Nicole, and Bob grew her special favourite. 
 Perhaps it was this common sympathy that was the 
 initial delinquent perhaps the little god would have 
 pierced me otherwise with his burning shafts ; the 
 cause I know not ; but my aversion to bachelorhood 
 seemed to dwindle daily under Mile. Nicole's deep
 
 W. J. LOCKE 115 
 
 grey eyes, as a long preserved snowflake melts under 
 the rays of April sunshine. In former days I would 
 not have dreamt of doing some of the silly things I 
 became guilty of : I, the book-worm, the pedant, the 
 solitary owl, might be seen taking a smiling girl and 
 a boy in knickerbockers on the penny steamers to 
 Saint-Cloud, and the delightful haunts of Meudon, 
 wild as the wildest " rapin," full of a bohemianism 
 that was all the more bohemian, no doubt, because 
 it had been so long pent up. . . . 
 
 After all, why should I go on ? My delicious 
 dream, which began so unexpectedly in the Rue du 
 Cherche-Midi, will cease no more while God keeps my 
 breath on this earth ; I am writing this amid the roses 
 of my Surrey country-house (Eden could have been 
 no different) ; Nicole, my wife, is calling me in to tea, 
 while her loving eyes hover from a twelve-year-old 
 boy sitting near me, to a dimpled baby screaming 
 with laughter in his arms.
 
 n6 RATHER LIKE.. 
 
 H. G. WELLS 
 
 THE FINDING OF LAURA 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE NEW PLANET 
 
 1 
 
 OF course, it is all very obvious and quite natural 
 to us who live in the 22nd century, but to the 
 primitive men and women who existed about 
 2050, over a hundred years ago, the whole thing 
 bordered on the marvellous that obsolescent realm 
 of fuzzy-headed ignorance and fungoid growth of 
 erroneous learning. 
 
 That would be just about the time that Ferrers 
 had created his first model of hyper-atomic motor, 
 bringing the long and laborious researches of Lesage, 
 Tomkins, and Guglielmo to a sound, if unexpected, 
 conclusion. The presumptuous men of those early 
 days would, of course, be inordinately proud of a 
 machine that gave them about six million H.P. to 
 the. gramme ; (it is useful to remember that the first 
 motor founded on atomic dispersion barely gave a
 
 H. G. WELLS 117 
 
 thousandth part of that, and yet our distant ancestors 
 went clean head over heels with joy at the thought 
 of possessing what was, to them, such a condensed 
 form of energy). Zuccolo, I believe, was the first 
 to make use of the Ferrers motor for any really original 
 purpose, and he constructed an antiquated species of 
 self-propelling sphere, that just managed to defeat 
 the acceleration of gravity in the atmosphere of the 
 earth, pursued its puny course through ether, and 
 was eventually attracted by the power of gravity 
 towards some other celestial globe. . . . But this 
 bold outline of facts is by now known to everyone 
 with the slightest taste for historical erudition, and 
 I need not dwell upon it further than by mentioning 
 that Harvey and Jones were the first two Telluric 
 men who set foot on another globe than theirs, the 
 former on the moon, the latter on Mars 
 
 // 
 
 Little by little, our ancestors discovered the less 
 near planets, and even ventured to some of the most 
 visible stars, It is difficult for us to comprehend the 
 extraordinary enthusiasm that our grandfathers evi- 
 denced for the exploration of the cosmic bodies ; now 
 that we have a thrice daily service from our North 
 Pole to the Equator of Neptune (with restaurant accom- 
 modation), such nonsensical emotion seems altogether 
 out of place. But let us not forget that we are looking 
 at the past from the angle of the present times ; if 
 we try to focus our spiritual lens at the correct distance 
 of time, all these things become clearer. 
 
 Little by little, as I remarked, all the globes become 
 known to our race not without difficulty, of course, 
 on account of the feeble speed that could be extracted
 
 n8 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 from the Ferrers-Zuccolo shooting sphere. Those 
 were the days of compressed oxygen, and albumin- 
 tabloids . . . Still, our ancestors mastered most of 
 the planets, including Uranus and Neptune, and their 
 satellites ; one audacious man of those days (I forget 
 his name for the moment) was even so fortunate 
 (aided by a happy fluke in ethereal trade-vibrations) 
 as to drop clean on to Sirius. 
 
 /// 
 
 Then it was that H. G. Laurence, F.T.S.S. (those 
 were the opening days of the Telluric Science Society) 
 made his discovery of a new planet. He founded his 
 calculations on the perturbations of Uranus, and 
 was rewarded just as his erstwhile predecessor Lever- 
 rier ( a now forgotten astronomer, who flourished in 
 the igth century) had been with the exact co-ordin- 
 ates of his perturbing body. All the observatories 
 were turned toward the spot located by Laurence, 
 and, sure enough, at the appointed hour, there appeared 
 the newcomer in our little collection of planets. I 
 say " at the appointed hour " but that is not strictly 
 correct, the new planet, as a matter of fact, putting 
 in its appearance about seven minutes later than the 
 scheduled time. The fact was overlooked, of course, 
 and simply put down to a slight error in Laurence's 
 computations, though he always maintained them to 
 be strictly accurate. Anyway, his planet was named 
 Laura, and he was immensely proud of his discovery, 
 and full of a spirit of benevolent waggery towards 
 anyone who had appeared to doubt his assertions. 
 He was elected P.T.S.S. for ten years, because his 
 achievement was considered to be quite the highest 
 thing that could possibly be done in that period of
 
 H. G. WELLS 119 
 
 time, and he was awarded the first solid helium medal 
 the Telluric Science Society ever gave any of its 
 members. 
 
 Of course, Laurence had not only calculated the 
 co-ordinates of his planet for a given time, but he 
 had also computed its distance, diameter, specific 
 weight, age, chemical constitution, and so on. There 
 seemed to be nothing ostensibly remarkable or ir- 
 rationally novel in all these figures beyond the fact 
 that its average distance from the Earth was some- 
 thing over double that of Neptune. 
 
 IV 
 
 There was something tragically humorous in the 
 endeavours made to explore Laura, as all the other 
 planets had been explored. Of course, the distance 
 was great (for the time : remember all that is more 
 than a hundred years ago), but the fact of Sirius 
 having been reached laid aside that objection before 
 it was even formulated. 
 
 All the keenest cosmic explorers of the day set 
 out, in what was then the latest cry of Ferrers-Zuccolo 
 shooting spheres ; men like Gerald Brown and Leon 
 Lambert, the most foolhardy and enterprising of their 
 kind, made attempt on attempt. Some of them even 
 took Neptune as a secondary starting point ; some 
 tried Uranus instead, as nearer the new planet's latest 
 position ; they perfected their motors, and dropped 
 every milligramme of superfluous weight ; but it 
 remains a fact that they never reached the planet 
 Laura. Somehow, when they got within anything 
 like reasonable distance of it, they regularly had a 
 break-down in their motors, or some petty disturbance 
 stopped their further advance ; one of these would-be
 
 120 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 explorers even goes the length of saying that he 
 was beginning to see the mountains and lakes on 
 Laura's surface (through his wireless optoscope, of 
 course), when a gust of swelling ether forced him back 
 again, and he had to take refuge on one of the secondary 
 satellites of Jupiter. 
 
 And just at the same time there began to be 
 greater errors in the locating of the new planet. It 
 became more and more in advance over its scheduled 
 time, and the fact, of course, drew attention to the 
 initial seven minutes lateness when it had first been 
 discovered. And then, suddenly, it seemed to disap- 
 pear : however sharp the observatories proved them- 
 selves to be, Laura was sharper still, as if it took 
 pleasure in mocking both the astronomers and the 
 explorers. 
 
 Everybody felt the keenest interest in the mystery, 
 and Laurence himself was clean baffled by it. He 
 did all his calculations over and over again, and had 
 them looked through by his most eminent colleagues ; 
 but they found no trace of an error and Laura con- 
 tinued to be as unfindable and unapproachable as ever.
 
 H. G. WELLS 121 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE COUNTER-GRAVITY 
 
 M 
 
 It will be remembered Green's anti-gravity screen 
 was discovered in the opening months of 2051. The 
 principle of the apparatus was not unlike Faraday's 
 classical electric screen (Faraday was a primitive 
 igih century scientist, now hardly remembered, but 
 fairly well known in his day) ; by means of a wire 
 netting through which an alternative electro-telluric 
 current was switched on and off, the effects of gravity 
 were more or less completely counterbalanced suffi- 
 ciently so, at all events, for the men of those days 
 to be quite proud of the discovery. Of course, they 
 had not yet mastered the correct nature of the force 
 of gravity, and still clung to Newton's obsolete views 
 on the subject. 
 
 With the aid of Green's rudimentary apparatus, 
 it at all events became possible to experiment upon 
 what were then new and undreamt-of sensations. 
 Non-gravity aviation became an everyday matter, 
 and travel over the surface of the earth mere child's 
 play. The idea was, of course, for the aviator to
 
 122 RATHER LIKE 
 
 ascend to some distance from terra-firma (any distance, 
 though greater than the altitude of the highest moun- 
 tains), and then to switch on his Green anti-gravity 
 screen. When, in the course of its customary rota- 
 tion, the earth had turned beneath him so as to 
 present him with a view of his destination, he switched 
 off the screen, and suffered gravity to put him down 
 where he wanted to go. There was hardly any 
 expenditure of energy, and the entire process was so 
 gluckingly simple, that it always remains a mystery 
 that it had not been thought of earlier. 
 
 But it is hardly useful dwelling on so well-known 
 a subject. 
 
 77 
 
 Of course everyone still remembers the sensation 
 that arose from the flights of R. W. Rugban. He 
 was a simple bottle-washer in Green's laboratory, 
 and a man without any special scientific culture. 
 Nevertheless, it is to a lucky freak of his that the 
 men of those days owed the clearing up of the mystery 
 that flocculated around the planet Laura. 
 
 Rugban conceived the idea of adapting an anti- 
 gravity screen to one of the Ferrers-Zuccolo shooting 
 spheres, the hyper-atomic motor producing the electro- 
 telluric current necessary to the mechanism of the 
 screen. There was no ultimate motive about this 
 idea of the bottle-washer's it was simply one of those 
 lucky flukes without which all the genius of our 
 greatest scientists can produce but rudimentary 
 results, without attaining objective certainty. 
 
 Naturally, the adapting of the Green screen to 
 the shooting sphere entailed no gain of motive power, 
 the expenditure in electro-telluric current being far
 
 H. G. WELLS 123 
 
 greater than the gain due to the annihilation of gravity 
 near our planet. That is probably why no scientific 
 man had thought of the combination. But the fact 
 remains that Rugban actually landed on Laura on 
 his fourteenth flight. 
 
 He proved his assertion beyond the shadow of a 
 doubt, by bringing back with him a fragment of Laura 
 soil which contained the (then) unknown body of 
 Laurium, characterised by Laurence's statement, and 
 located in Laura's spectrum, while the planet had been 
 visible. Further, he was able to give the accurate 
 distances between Laura, Uranus and the Earth, and 
 the observatories were thus enabled to hit upon the 
 mysterious planet once more. That, however, was 
 not for any considerable length of time. Laura still 
 kept ahead of its computed position, and it was at 
 last ascertained that its trajectory could not possibly 
 be the one Laurence had assigned it, in accordance 
 with all the astronomical laws then known. 
 
 /// 
 
 The revelation came with Rugban's fifteenth flight, 
 when he set foot on Laura for the second time, and 
 triumphantly brought back one of the inhabitants 
 of the elusive planet. It was a curiously shaped 
 creature, with three legs and five arms, a head of 
 sorts, and a body not unlike those that populate the 
 smaller satellites of Neptune. The curious and salient 
 fact about the Lauran, however, was that it insisted 
 on standing on its hands, that were provided with a 
 species of vacuum-sucking-knobs, and thus got so 
 firm a grip of everything it was put upon that it 
 became well-nigh impossible to move it. The Lauran 
 explained by signs how anxious it was not to be shot
 
 124 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 out of the terrestrial atmosphere, and when Rugban 
 started the anti-gravity screen above the creature's 
 feet, it began to quake and shiver with terror. It 
 calmed down as soon as the current was switched off, 
 and again lost itself in voluble, if incomprehensible, 
 explanations. 
 
 They tried to grasp the meaning of the Lauran's 
 torrent of words, but it was impossible to make any- 
 thing of them without the help of a proper interpreter. 
 Green called Lug-Hsn, the ex-Neptune native, who 
 seemed to catch the gist of what was being said. 
 And then the explanation came, perfectly simple and 
 convincing. 
 
 On the planet Laura, said the new-brought creature, 
 weight was a negative force , everything was attracted 
 into space, away from the planet's atmosphere. Of 
 course, all the living species had to be provided with 
 vacuum-sucking-knobs in order to remain on the 
 planet at all and that was why the Lauran had been 
 so frenzied lest he should lose hold of the Earth. The 
 law of inverse ratio to the square of the distance had 
 been proved to exist by the Lauran scientists, but this 
 was a centrifugal, and not centripetal, force, on their 
 planet. 
 
 Naturally, the whole aspect of the case was com- 
 pletely changed ; Laurence immediately resumed his 
 computations, founding them upon a change of sign 
 in his equations. It was child's play to deduce the 
 true trajectory of the new planet a hyperbola, of 
 course, instead of the customary ellipse. It had been 
 an astounding stroke of good luck that Laura had 
 been discovered at all ; it was just in the region of the
 
 H. G. WELLS 125 
 
 curve's centre when Laurence had made his sensa- 
 tional discovery ; but now it was already speeding 
 through ether along one of its asymptotic branches. 
 
 Laura became the converging focus of all the 
 observatories once more, and they were able to trace 
 its flight nearer and nearer its located asymptote, till 
 at last its distance became greater than the power 
 of even the greatest equatorials then existing, and 
 the new planet disappeared for ever from our field of 
 vision.
 
 126 RATHER LIKE.. 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN 
 GARDEN ' 
 
 SUSAN AND HER GERMAN SAUSAGE 
 
 ~JHJEBRUARY $2nd. I love my kitchen. I am 
 Jl standing in it just now a kitchen so enticing 
 that merely to glance at it makes you wish to 
 remain there for ever and ever. There is an enormous 
 fireplace on one side, with a row of steaming sauce- 
 pans gently floating their warm fragrance, as, I 
 suppose, good and pure souls exhale some of their 
 goodness on all surrounding dreary or sordid ones. 
 It has three solid oak tables, so much alike in their 
 every detail, that it would be impossible to tell one 
 from another, if they were not set in different places 
 along the wall, so that you are bound to note exactly 
 where they stand. I have given them names, so that 
 I may know exactly where everything is : I remember 
 I put the pink tray on the January table and the salt- 
 cellar on the March table, while the August table 
 is reserved for the sausage-machine. It seems rather 
 natural that the sausage-machine should be put on 
 the August table ; it is a sort of poetic justice that 
 induced me to do so, and I feel the satisfaction of 
 duty done. Not that I always do my duty : it is
 
 THE AUTHOR OF " ELIZABETH ..." 127 
 
 sometimes so disagreeable that I just long to tread 
 the smiling fields of Pleasure, right into the pleasant 
 worlds of Whim, where I wander happily, plucking 
 now and then a flower of Surprise, and breathing the 
 luxurious fragrance of Forbidden Things. I know I 
 should not lose sight of the tedious path of Duty ; but 
 then, who does not ? And why has Duty chosen such 
 a narrow and thorny way ? If it really wanted every- 
 body to walk along it, why couldn't it turn itself into 
 a beautiful highroad, shaded with sprightly elms and 
 respectable poplars a road along it which it could 
 expect people to set forth without longing to leave 
 it at every moment ? But I suppose all these things 
 are explained in text-books, and that is just the reason 
 why I never read any, because I like mysteries to 
 remain mysterious ; I can't understand all the clever 
 people cudgelling their brains it does seem rather a 
 pity to cudgel even brains in order to explain things, 
 or to pass them over as unimportant preferably, I 
 think, to pass them over as unimportant when it 
 would be so easy just to leave them alone. Whenever 
 I feel like wishing to explain anything, I have found 
 my best way out of the difficulty is to turn reposefully 
 to my August table, and coax a yard of sausages out 
 of the patient and friendly machine. 
 
 It is really more an instrument of art than a mere 
 culinary tool. It has a shining nickel-plated paunch, 
 into which I love pressing pieces of cold joint, and its 
 handle is just the dearest little handle you can im- 
 agine. You turn it round just like the Italian round 
 the corner turns his organ ; but my sausage-machine 
 has the great advantage of being soundless, at least, 
 when it is well oiled and all in order. Sometimes there 
 seems to be something wrong with its woi^s, and it 
 insists on emitting a series of strange noises, like the
 
 128 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 mewing of a new kitten. But, after all, what do 
 sounds matter ? Sounds, I have been told are but 
 the vibrations of the air around us, and it's simply 
 no use trying to get away from them. I can under- 
 stand dodging things like being wet or falling in a 
 temper, because they are localised and fleeting ; but 
 it seems so utterly useless trying to run away from a 
 vibration ; why, the more you run away from it, 
 of course, the more it insists on following you, and 
 every place is full of mischievous echoes that simply 
 drop into your ears. You might, of course, try stop- 
 ping them with cotton-wool, but that looks so ugly 
 that I've never had the courage to do so. And, 
 besides, noise does no harm ; you can listen for a 
 sound, and listen, and listen, without ever growing 
 tired of it, without being a whit the worse for it, 
 while so many other things one generally doesn't 
 think of avoiding things like red-hot pokers, or 
 knives, or needles are harmful to an extent that 
 amazes me to think of. 
 
 The noise made by my sausage-machine when I 
 have forgotten to clean it out chimes in beautifully 
 with the groaning of the large kitchen clock in the 
 corner. The sausage-machine says : 
 
 and the clock answers back : 
 
 in a solemn bass voice that brings out the charming 
 melody of the treble. They do it over and over again, 
 and I am quite sure it must be some profound truth 
 they are doing their best to tell me, but I am fright- 
 fully sorry I can't understand their language.
 
 THE AUTHOR OF "ELIZABETH ..." 129 
 
 Languages are so important things that I often 
 wonder why each of us doesn't invent one for his own, 
 special, private use, instead of being obliged to bow 
 to what so many people have put down as the law. 
 Those that astonish me especially are the clever 
 people who know several of them languages, I mean ; 
 and I often wonder why they should have taken 
 the trouble of learning such a lot of funny sounds that 
 must go on mixing themselves up in their heads till 
 they can't know what they mean or what they say. 
 I suppose it is my own superfluous amount of inability 
 to learn anything that makes me pity the linguists ; 
 but pity them I certainly do, and I simply cannot 
 feel a spark of admiration for a man because he happens 
 to know a thing I don't want to learn. And that is, I 
 suppose, the true spirit of Christian modesty, for I 
 don't gaze with envy on my neighbour's language. 
 
 January 46th. I made at least three yards of 
 sausage this morning, and feel perfectly virtuous 
 about them the more so, as I like them, and shall 
 enjoy them at dinner this evening. They are pink 
 and soft and greasy, rather like Evil, I am afraid 
 though most of the Moralists always insist on de- 
 picting Evil as black and rigid. But then, what can 
 the Moralists know of Evil ? If they had anything 
 like an intimate acquaintance with it (or should it be 
 with her ?) they would be Moralists no longer, but 
 Immoralists, I suppose ; and no one who has not 
 simply wallowed in sin can appreciate the ecstasy 
 of doing so. It is an astonishment to me that so few 
 people seem to think any good of Evil, and hardly 
 any at all dare speak in her favour ; which must be 
 attributed, I submit, to the fear they live in of other 
 people knowing them as they really are. What one
 
 130 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 really is, one would ever keep to oneself ; at least, 
 most of us would ; and I suppose we must appear very 
 ugly indeed to our own eyes, that we should always 
 insist on wearing a mask. The mask we wear is what 
 the world calls our individuality ; sometimes it is 
 bright and smiling, sometimes wan and melancholy, 
 as often as not it is turned into a leering grin ; but, 
 however repulsive it may be, we seem to prefer it to 
 our own complexion. Of course, sometimes the mask 
 is but an unduly thick coat of rouge and poudre-de-riz, 
 and I am inclined to think the complexion, in this 
 case, must be exceptionally distasteful. 
 
 And yet, when I meditate on things generally 
 and my kitchen provides me with plenty of quiet hours 
 for meditating I can't help thinking how much 
 simpler it would be for everybody to throw over the 
 mask- wearing habit, As no one appears to be de- 
 ceived by it, it wouldn't really change anything at all, 
 but it would simplify matters exceedingly especially 
 matters relating to toilet and etiquette. The only 
 losers thereby would be the people who advertise in 
 magazines for somebody or other's Beauty Restorer, 
 or for Mrs. So-and-So's Newest Library of Deportment. 
 And that really wouldn't matter a great deal, because 
 all those people could easily set about doing something 
 else making sausages, for instance which would be 
 a great advantage to all concerned : they would easily 
 get over it ; people do. 
 
 The cook gave me notice to-day, because of an 
 indigestion she says she suffered from last night. 
 That's the worst of cooks : either they can't cook 
 at all, and you have to send them away, or they can, 
 and they give you notice for some reason or other. 
 On the whole, I don't know whether I don't prefer 
 the former variety, because it is always easier to make
 
 THE AUTHOR OF " ELIZABETH ..." 131 
 
 shift with a cook, even though she be a bad one, than 
 with no one at all. Still, I hope my present one will 
 reconsider her decision which she may very well do 
 aft : dinner, as she belongs to the latter class, and 
 T nad much trouble inducing her to come at all. She 
 is an able cook, as I just remarked, but she appears to 
 like putting things out of their places. She always 
 will put the pink tray on the March table, and believes 
 the January table would be utterly unhappy were it 
 not to bear the salt-cellar ; as to my sausage-machine, 
 I never let her touch it, so I am sure, at all events, 
 that it always remains augustly settled on the August 
 table. I like to see to it that things are always put 
 away where they belong to, and seeing to it makes 
 me feel like an empress in the middle of her Council 
 (if empresses do hold Councils). He misses much 
 who doesn't delight in ordering things to behave 
 properly, for things, like men, are addicted to the per- 
 nicious habit of getting out of order and generally 
 making messes of themselves. Of course, everybody 
 knows that a piece of bread and butter, if dropped on 
 the floor, will always fall butter downwards, especially 
 if the floor happens to be dusty ; also if you sharpen 
 your pencil when in a hurry, you are sure to break off 
 the point and cut your finger. It is a knack things 
 possess, but, like most other knacks, it is possible to 
 get the better of them ; in the former case, the simple 
 remedy is, of course, not to eat butter, and in the 
 latter, never, under whatever circumstances, to use 
 a pencil. 
 
 Only the other day I reaped a complete victory 
 (I don't know whether victories are really ever 
 " reaped " : certainly nobody ever sows them) over 
 a pair of tongs that were inordinately vicious. They 
 simply refused to pinch anything : whenever you
 
 132 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 tried to coax them into getting hold of a lump of coal, 
 they were sure to let it drop in the most inconvenient 
 places especially if the lump happened to be red-hot. 
 I tried all sorts of ways to train those tongs into 
 better behaviour ; but no wiles of mine, and no 
 strength, seemed to prevail ; they had been too badly 
 educated from the very beginning. But at last, just 
 as I was despairing of success, I hit upon the in- 
 genious plan of giving those tongs to a poor relative 
 of mine who has just married : thus, at one and the 
 same stroke, I got rid of the silly things that were 
 making my life a misery and of the poor relative 
 who was nearly as great a nuisance. I think that 
 is the true secret of success, and I give it gladly to all 
 those who feel downhearted : simply to make the most 
 of anything that comes your way. 
 
 But why waste a thought on things so abstract as 
 the secret of success ? They may delight those 
 frivolous persons who have nothing to do in life but 
 chatter idly and do nothing, but they are nothing to 
 me, because I always have my occupation waiting 
 for me on the August table. In fact, I am sorrowfully 
 amazed at the quantity of humans who seem to have 
 no interest in life beyond the fleeting realms of vain 
 ideas unceasingly brought to light, when they would 
 so greatly prefer remaining hidden beneath simple, 
 sterling facts. Why can't all these poor human 
 brethren turn to an active occupation, like mincing 
 meat and turning out sausages ? It would be so much 
 better for them. But then, they simply won't realise 
 it.
 
 C. N.'AND A. M. WILLIAMSON 133 
 
 C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON 
 
 THE FIRST HEAVEN 
 I 
 
 The Hon. Richard Crossworth to his mother, Lady 
 Crossworth, at Interlaken, Switzerland. 
 
 HOTEL DE FRANCE ET D'ANGLETERRE, 
 FONTAINEBLEAU, MAY I7TH. 
 
 DEAR MATER, 
 
 First of all, you've just got to wish you were me ! 
 That seems rather a silly manner of beginning a 
 letter, but things have been moving along at such a 
 pace, that I'm quite beside myself, and it's really not 
 easy at all to start in the ordinary filial way I should 
 feel bound to use if I were just a good little boy 
 writing to his dear mamma. 
 
 As it is, I'm going to have the time of my life and 
 I'm only sorry you can't be there to wish me luck, 
 because everything will be in full swing by the time 
 you could get here and besides, I shouldn't be here 
 any more if you did. But perhaps I ought to try 
 cind start explaining matters.
 
 134 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 When I left you at Interlaken Switzerland, you 
 know, is really no end of a bore to a fellow who likes 
 to do things I hardly dreamed I should be called 
 upon to assume the part of Perseus or Bellerophon or 
 St. George, or any of those fellows who got mixed up 
 with dragons and things ; but that's exactly what 
 I'm doing now. My dragon is a fairly good specimen 
 of the family ; its name is Otis K. Stayvesant, of 
 Detroit, Mich. And all I can say is that it or shall 
 I say he ? jolly well looks the part. I saw him for the 
 first time yesterday, at a little restaurant at Bois- 
 le-Roi, and he immediately struck me as being a 
 miserable bounder. He's stoutish and red and over- 
 dressed, with a lot of rings on his fingers, and quite 
 too many diamonds on his cuffs and shirt front (fancy 
 wearing diamonds on a motor tour !), and he's got a 
 wife who looks perfectly miserable and intensely 
 tired of him. But she's not the one I'm worrying 
 about : I daresay she married him for his money and 
 I suppose she's got jolly well what she deserved. Of 
 course, I couldn't help noticing things while we were 
 having dejeuner in the garden such a nice dejeuner 
 it was, too ; quite simple, you know, but so exquisitely 
 nice that you wonder why you go to Palace Hotels 
 and Ritzes and places like that, where they give you 
 gilded plaster and swells in evening dress to wait on 
 you, when you can have such jolly little meals in nice 
 little places like Bois-le-Roi. But I'm afraid I must 
 begin to philosophize. Well, as I was saying, I 
 couldn t help noticing how Otis K. Stayvesant (I saw 
 his name on the visitors' book) was treating his wife 
 and the servants generally, and, after all, I shouldn't 
 have minded if he hadn't been outright bullying 
 a girl who is with them a poor relation, I should 
 think, or a superior kind of lady's maid or travelling
 
 C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON 135 
 
 companion. He hardly let her eat a single mouthful, 
 poor girl : he was always at her with his " Evelyn, 
 just you go and fetch Mrs. Stayvesant's smelling- 
 bottle " or anything else he happened to think of ; 
 " Evelyn, I'm sure there's a draught you go and 
 shut that window " ; " Evelyn, go and tell that con- 
 founded waiter to hurry up with the chicken," and 
 so on, endlessly. Of course, the poor creature went 
 each time and there was not even a look of resent- 
 ment in her deep blue eyes as she left the table on 
 these fool's errands. In fact, that was just what 
 attracted my attention : if I'd been treated in anything 
 like the same manner, I know I'd have growled at 
 the dragon ; at any rate, I'd have shown him by my 
 face what I thought of him. But this girl did nothing 
 of the kind : she seemed to be amused at her ordeal ! 
 Just think of being amused when you are ordered 
 about, and your succulent dejeuner is left to get cold 
 while you tend to some preposterous or imaginary 
 want of an Otis K. Stayvesant ! I tell you I felt like 
 getting up and kicking him. 
 
 However, I succeeded in mastering that impulse 
 (and I'm not at all sorry now, as you shall 
 presently see) ; I looked on, making a wry face 
 at the Dragon, and (I think) a sympathetic one 
 at Andromeda I mean Evelyn. (Don't you think 
 Evelyn is such a sweet little name ?). Anyway, this 
 Evelyn, whatever her name, is a beautiful young 
 girl with blue eyes (I believe I mentioned them 
 before) and exquisite blonde hair, just of the right 
 hue, not stupidly flaxen, and not aggressively coppery. 
 She is just like a picture by Henner, with a sort of 
 diaphanous mist round her a saint's aureole, a poet 
 would call it which just makes you wish to gaze at 
 her and be good. But I mustn't let this letter be a
 
 136 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 simple catalogue of Evelyn's fascinations. (I can see 
 you smiling rather ironically at this sentence : but 
 don't you fall into the mistake of believing her to be 
 mendacious with all her beauty ; all her bearing was 
 modesty itself, and her good-humour throughout her 
 ordeal was what initially attracted my attention.) 
 
 Well, after that meal (I'm sure she must still have 
 felt hungry when the Dragon had feasted himself to 
 a nicety), they got into their motor (a great, big, ugly, 
 brand-new 140 H.P. Daimler) and Otis K. Stayvesant 
 himself sat at the wheel. (Why he had no chauffeur 
 I really don't know, but I greatly suspect the reason 
 is that he can't find one, all the previous ones having 
 been bullied out of his service.) Anyway, I followed 
 in my little green 50 H.P. Renault (the one you bought 
 me in Paris last month, a dear little runner) and I 
 followed the party at a convenient distance. The 
 Dragon's driving was somewhat erratic, but he never 
 put on enough speed to make it dangerous, not even 
 in a forest ; and he kept hooting and tooting in such 
 a wild manner that I'm perfectly sure all the little 
 squirrels must have been frightened to death. (The 
 squirrels in the Fontainebleau Forest are quite the 
 liveliest little creatures you can imagine). And after 
 lots of swaggering curves and unheard-of roundabouts, 
 they eventually reached this place the smartest in 
 Fontainebleau, despite the new-fangled efforts, and 
 stucco-magnificence, of the Savoy. 
 
 Naturally, I followed them, and that's why you 
 see the heading of " Hotel de France et d'Angleterre " 
 on this letter (else, I suppose, I should have gone down 
 south, and stopped at some picturesque place like 
 Dijon). I did the following without any pre-ordained 
 intention : you see, I happened to feel interested in 
 the little group, and just wondered what the Dragon
 
 C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON 137 
 
 was going to do next there were so many caddish 
 things he might have been up to. But what he 
 actually did was quite beyond my utmost expectations. 
 
 You see the Dragon is rather a rotter at speaking 
 French. There is nothing particularly remarkable in 
 that, of course, and I suppose I'd be just as bad if I 
 hadn't happened to spend four years in Paris under 
 the artistic care of Monsieur Balimbostock (dear, good, 
 sincere, living old fellow !) who took me through a 
 course of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. ... As it is, I 
 was strolling through the hotel garage (and, I am 
 afraid, in rather a neglige costume that of a motorist 
 who has attended his steel Pegasus), when I saw 
 myself confronted with Evelyn herself, with that good- 
 natured smile of hers playing about her mouth. She 
 did not recognise me, of course she had hardly had 
 time to notice anything around her during the dejeuner 
 at Bois-le-Roi and she evidently thought I was one 
 of the hotel hands in charge of the garage. 
 
 "Pardon, Monsieur," she said in fluent French, 
 and with the suspicion of a blush, " vous ne connai- 
 triez pas un pilote d'aeroplane ? " 
 
 I stared hard for a moment, but something 
 prompted me to play the game. So I just enquired 
 for further particulars, and I heard that Otis K. 
 Stayvesant "le Monsieur dont j'accompagne la 
 femme " was trying to find a suitable aeroplane, 
 provided with a chauffeur, to take the party over for 
 a trip to the south of France ; it appeared he had got 
 tired of his beastly Daimler (I suppose that meant 
 he didn't care to drive her himself), and, moreover, 
 he had sent her about the place (her, of all people !) 
 to discover the object of his latest whim. 
 
 I think the average fellow in my boots would have 
 gone and done something sill}' at that stage would
 
 138 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 have gone and had a few frank words with the Dragon, 
 and knocked some sense of decency into his silly head ; 
 and it would have served him jolly well right ; but 
 it might not have been particularly useful to the girl 
 on the contrary, in fact, as she was evidently de- 
 pendent on him. So I just concentrated my thoughts 
 for a miute or two, and told her I knew exactly the 
 chap her " Monsieur " was in need of, and would get 
 him to call upon Otis K. Stayvesant within two hours. 
 She thanked me for what she called my " amabiliteY' 
 and returned indoors, and I I ran back to my little 
 Renault, and bolted over to Barbizon. 
 
 Of course, you know Jean Langlois is staying at 
 Barbizon ? You remember him, don't you ? He's 
 quite a brick of a fellow, a downright artist in his 
 way, only with altogether too swell an income to 
 devote himself to his talent ; and he messes about 
 with all sorts of hobbies, the latest of which is 
 aviation. I knew he'd just got hold of a 250 H.P. 
 Bleriot biplane, with the duckiest little cabin im- 
 aginable, and I remembered it in good time. Well, 
 to cut the story short, I was lucky enough to find him 
 at home, and to get him to lend me his aeroplane for 
 three or four days though I didn't let him in to all 
 the private details you've got the privilege of knowing. 
 
 Anyhow, I was back again before the two hours 
 were over, and boldly asked to see Otis K. S., who 
 was having tea in the garden. He looked me up and 
 down, and asked me (rather aggressively) what I 
 wanted. 
 
 "I'm an aeroplane chauffeur," I replied, quite 
 pleasantly, and in English (you ought to have seen 
 Evelyn start !). 
 
 " Wa-11," he responded, turning towards the poor 
 girl, " so you weren't tryin' to get at me, after all ...
 
 C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON 139 
 
 All right," he continued, this time for my especial 
 benefit, " I want you to take my little party there's 
 my wife and myself, and my wife's companion, here 
 for a fly to the south and money no objection. What's 
 your price ? " 
 
 He certainly had rather direct methods of trans- 
 acting a piece of business, but on the whole, I preferred 
 rapidity and efficiency just then. I was rather in 
 a hole to get at a suitable figure, but I managed it on 
 the spur of the moment. I proposed 200 for the trip 
 and might have said either double or half that sum, 
 for all the attention he seemed to pay. But he didn't 
 lose sight of the financial side of the question for all 
 his apparent inattention, for he calmly said, " That'd 
 be inclusive, I suppose ? " 
 
 " By all means," I rejoined. And the bargain was 
 struck. I was to have accommodation at the same 
 hotels as my patrons, and we were to start on the 
 morrow. 
 
 I told him " my " machine was at Barbizon, and 
 that it would be necessary for them all to " embark " 
 there, as it was impossible to start an aeroplane in 
 the middle of a forest. He seemed rather disgusted 
 at first, but cooled down when I offered to drive the 
 party over to the starting-ground. And so the thing 
 was settled. 
 
 I felt rather " cheap " when I had left the Dragon, 
 and was trying to sneak unnoticed to my own room ; 
 but I was consoled by a look I had noticed in Evelyn's 
 eyes when she saw me arrive. 
 
 There now. That's how I first took my steps in the 
 gentle art of dragon-fighting. The whole trip will only 
 take three days trust Otis K. Stayvesant for " doing " 
 places in thorough record time ; and after that, I 
 suppose I shall have to devise further means for 
 keeping my eye on him and his wife's companion.
 
 140 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Anyway, I shall let you know of any unexpected 
 developments though there oughtn't to be any ; 
 Jean Langlois' " Albatros " is the safest biplane ever 
 produced so you needn't be anxious on my account. 
 The primitive cages-d-poules in which T served my 
 apprenticeship as a would-be aviator were infernal 
 machines compared to this little beauty. 
 
 And now, good-bye, little mater and wish me 
 luck for to-morrow! (And don't you wish you could 
 be here and see me ? ) 
 Your 
 
 DICK CROSSWORTH. 
 
 II 
 
 Evelyn Carrington to her friend, Elizabeth Hardy, 
 Laburnam Manor, Southfield, Surrey. 
 
 HOTEL DE LA CLOCHE, 
 
 DIJON, MAY i8th. 
 
 MY DEAREST BETTY, 
 
 Oh ! Why can't you be here with me, dearest, 
 just at the moment that is the moment of my life, 
 instead of losing your best days in the empty round 
 of conventional English country life that makes my 
 heart so unaccountably sick ? 
 
 I know very well we haven't all got the same 
 tastes in these matters ; and it's all very well for 
 you to reproach me with what you call my " romantic 
 views of life ; " but I simply can't bear the thought 
 of squandering my spring days in shallow society life, 
 pretending to be full of fun and nonsensical 
 " maidenly " thoughts, when I know very well that 
 I am, sooner or later, to fall a victim to some brute
 
 C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON 141 
 
 of a Jason or Hercules. At any rate, you know 
 my views are sincere, and that I have lived up to 
 them. Of course, the fact of my having no family 
 ties (except a guardian who prefers exploring the 
 centre of Australia and quite right he is, too) and 
 a handsome income of my own, makes it quite easy 
 for me to gratify my taste for adventure, and it's 
 been quite ducky of you to be my confidante from 
 the start, without ever giving me away. I haven't 
 forgotten it was through you that I found my "situa- 
 tion " as a companion to Mrs. Otis K. Stayvesant, 
 and if, to her and her husband, I am simple Evelyn 
 Thompson (it was better to take a nom de guerre) I know 
 I am to you, the stupid, romantic, idealistic heiress, 
 whom Society (with a capital S) knew and assailed 
 under the name of Miss Evelyn Carrington ; but I 
 am sure Society no longer gives a thought to me, 
 now that I have set mj' back on it since the last two 
 months and I can't say I regret it. 
 
 I told you, in my previous letters, just what I 
 thought of Mr. Otis K. Stayvesant and his bounder- 
 ishness has not at all decreased since then in fact, 
 it is rather the reverse, as you shall see. But I don't 
 mind it a bit ; when he orders me about as is his wont 
 (you see, to him I am just an ordinary " menial ") 
 I somehow feel inclined to laugh and I am sure 
 that is the best thing I can possibly do. He has been 
 more than usually sulky since the last chauffeur gave 
 notice ; you see, he has not been able to find another 
 yet, and he feels himself obliged to drive the car himself ; 
 he is certainly the rottenest motorist I ever came 
 across, and I honestly believe I could manage his car 
 much better than he can (though I don't suppose 
 I had better say anything about it). Yesterday he 
 eventually got us all out to Fontainebleau, but it was
 
 142 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 no fault of his if we didn't break our necks in the 
 forest ; you see, he has such original conceptions of 
 driving, and swerves the car all over the roads (which, 
 by the way, are really exceptionally well kept in these 
 parts). I am sure Mrs. S. would much rather travel 
 by train, but of course she daren't open her mouth to 
 her lord and master ! . . . Dearest, those are the joys 
 of married life, and I feel gladder and gladder at having 
 escaped from them ! 
 
 However, this is the point where the excitement 
 begins. It was at Fontainebleau that my " employer " 
 hit upon a really brilliant idea, and achieved a first- 
 rate caddish act ; he conceived the plan of leaving the 
 Daimler at the garage, and "doing" the rest of the 
 southern trip by aeroplane. Don't you think that's 
 perfectly glorious ? But now comes the Stayvesant- 
 ishness ; he actually ordered me to set about hunting 
 a suitable aviator. Just think of that! 
 
 But you know it's not my method to cry over 
 spilt milk and, besides, there wasn't any spilt yet 
 so I just went over to the hotel garage, thinking I 
 might possibly find someone who could give me the 
 required information, or at any rate, something to go 
 on with. And I came across a Chauffeur (I spell the 
 word with a capital C for reasons which you shall 
 see later on). This Chauffeur seemed just an ordinary 
 human being who had been attending to his usual 
 round of duties ; but there was something about him 
 that made me pick up courage and address him. 
 Dearest, he had none of those brutish looks that I 
 have generally noticed about most men I have come 
 across ; he actually looker! pleased with his lot. And, 
 for a Frenchman, he had exceedingly fair hair much 
 more like lots of Englishmen, in fact, that most of his 
 countrymen ; and, somehow or other, he reminded
 
 C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON 143 
 
 me of Lady Crossworth ; I really don't know what it 
 was the peculiar grey of his eyes, perhaps or the 
 curve of his lips. . . . Well, anyhow, I asked him, 
 in my most faultless French, whether he knew of any 
 aviator who would undertake to convey us to the 
 South of France, via. . . . over the hills and far away. 
 
 He might have burst out laughing outright ; in 
 fact, I half thought he would ; he seemed rather 
 flabbergasted. But, to my surprise and immense 
 gratification (as the lady novelists would say), he 
 answered quite simply that he did know a suitable 
 man, and would tell him to call on Mr. Stayvesant 
 that very afternoon. 
 
 And, true enough, the man turned up and who'd 
 you think it was ? Dearest, just imagine : it was 
 my Chauffeur himself ! He didn't seem taken aback 
 by my " employer's " bluntness (lack of manners 
 would be a better term for it), and eventually, every- 
 thing was settled to their mutual satisfaction. He 
 (the Chauffeur that is) was to drive us over to Barbizon 
 the next morning, and thence we were to start upon 
 our flying tour (that seems to be the right expression, 
 doesn't it ?). 
 
 By the way, the Chauffeur speaks English beauti- 
 fully ; in fact, I have never met a Frenchman with 
 a better accent which only shows how stupid 
 language prejudices are. Also, I didn't speak to him 
 when he came back in his new capacity of aviator, 
 but I couldn't help feeling glad to have him as the 
 general conductor of the plan ; he seems such a 
 reliable sort of fellow and I am sure we all need 
 one like him after Mr. Stayvesant's experiences at 
 the wheel. 
 
 All that occurred but yesterday, but it feels so 
 long ago, that I really don't know exactly what has
 
 144 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 come over me. Everything seems so far away, and 
 so bright and lovely I really can't explain it ; it 
 must be the Air ! 
 
 Have you ever been in an aeroplane ? I mean a 
 really good, sweet, quiet, touring aeroplane, with a 
 carrosserie just like that of a motor-car, and no silly 
 bits of wood or steel wire hanging about everywhere, 
 without a nauseating smell of oil and petrol, and all 
 those disagreeable nothings that were the disgrace 
 of the first flying machines ? 
 
 Ours is called " L'Albatros," and it deserves its 
 name. It is all nice and white and polished on the 
 outside, and the cabin is full of creamy cushions, and 
 nickel-plated flower-stands, and cut-glass mirrors, 
 and everything else that can be expected of a really 
 decent aeroplane. And it has a white bonnet, with 
 two twelve-cylinder silent motors, and just the sweetest 
 of varnished propellers. 
 
 Of course, Mrs. Stayvesant and her lord and master 
 got into the cabin, and after all their luggage had been 
 crammed into it too, there was hardly any room 
 left for me. The Chauffeur just imagine the polite- 
 ness of these French people ! noticed it before even 
 I had time to do so, and proposed I should sit outside 
 at the wheel, beside him ; he said he had plenty of 
 furs and rugs and he had ; so in the end I accepted, 
 much to the joy of Mr. S., who was thus afforded a 
 good opportunity of bullying his little wife, without 
 any tierce personne to interfere. 
 
 Oh, that first flight ! Dearest, I shall not even try 
 to describe it. It was like merry-go-rounds and 
 switchbacks and waltzes and skating and motoring 
 all rolled into one ! It was perfectly divine I (That's 
 one of those words that are being so sorrowfully 
 misused at the present moment ; but now I know 
 exactly what it means.)
 
 C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON 145 
 
 At first I felt just a wee tiny bit afraid, and I was 
 glad not to be shut up inside the cabin though that 
 was a perfectly stupid thought, because if anything 
 happened it wouldn't have mattered a jot where I was, 
 of course. . . . But nothing did happen, and I felt 
 nothing could happen, as long as our Chauffeur had 
 charge of the expedition. 
 
 He talked to me, of course and he chose English 
 as a means for his intercourse, probably because he 
 had noticed my French was not so perfect as his 
 English. My dear, what an all-round culture a 
 French chauffeur does possess ! He has travelled all 
 over Europe (which is perhaps not so remarkable in 
 a man of his calling) ; but also in America and Asia, 
 and he seems to know something of any subject one 
 may imagine. In fact, he is as well versed in art as 
 any "gentleman" I have ever met a good deal more 
 so, in fact ; and when he speaks of the tints of a 
 picture, or the plan of a monument (he is simply grand 
 when he gets on the subject of architecture), he is more 
 like a professor delivering a lecture than a mere 
 motorist driving his engine. But don't imagine him 
 as a pedant, a man with all sorts of silly flourishes of 
 empty words, like so many one meets in Museums ; 
 no, he speaks simply, though excitedly, of the things 
 he mentions, and it is easy to see he understands and 
 loves them. I feel sure he must, have been an artist 
 before he took on his present calling (one of those 
 the French call rates), but of course I simply couldn't 
 broach the subject ; so I just sat still and listened, 
 putting in a word from time to time, and doing my 
 best to show him I appreciated everything he said. 
 
 We didn't fly in anything like a straight line : 
 you see, it would be stupid to compare our " Albatros " 
 to a silly black crow. And we dipped down west, and 
 9
 
 146 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 actually flew over the Loire and some of its old 
 ch&teaux. . . .(i) 
 
 And that is how we arrived at Dijon, our first 
 halting-place, where we shall "lie" for the night (as 
 the old books say). 
 
 I am feeling just beautifully contented with life, 
 and not even Mr. Otis K. Stayvesant could make me 
 lose anything of the high spirits I am in after this 
 delightful first flight. 
 
 To-morrow we go on, and shall stop at Nimes 
 for lunch, and thence on to the Riviera. And then 
 
 Dearest, I am dropping to sleep, and I am perfectly 
 sure I shall dream of angels, and albatrosses, and swans, 
 and all sorts of sweet things with white wings and 
 perhaps also (a little) of my Chauffeur. 
 
 Good-bye, dearest ; I shall let you have my 
 further impressions to-morrow. 
 Your delighted 
 
 EVELYN. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Richard Crossworth to his Mother. 
 HOTEL D'EUROPE, 
 
 MONTPELLIER, MAY igth. 
 
 DEAR MATER, 
 
 Things have been moving rapidly since the day 
 before yesterday, but there is nothing disagreeable 
 (to me) in their rapidity. I remember telling you 
 in that first letter, about my career as a fighter of 
 
 (i) Here occurs a break in the authors' M.S., but we advise our 
 readers to look up their Guide Joanne or their Baedeker 
 (English Edition) for an accurate description of the 
 scenery. Ed.
 
 C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON 147 
 
 dragons : You've got to wish you were me I Well, 
 that wish applies stronger than ever ; just now, in 
 fact but let me relate everything that happened. 
 
 The first day of our aerial journey was quite 
 uneventful, as far as incidents are concerned. Jean 
 Langlois' " Albatros " is a beautifully-behaved bird, 
 and the start from Barbizon came off quite smoothly. 
 Oh, I forgot to mention another of the Dragon's acts 
 of caddishness : Of course, he and Mrs. S. got into 
 the cabin as soon as they arrived on the scene ; further, 
 he insisted on putting all their traps inside with them 
 (I suppose he rather mistrusted me, and imagined 
 I might feel inclined to go through them if they had 
 been left outside with me). Well, anyway, there 
 were so many of them, that there was absolutely no 
 room left for that all-suffering poor girl, Evelyn. So 
 she was obliged to take a seat beside me. Luckily, I 
 had brought a whole lot of rugs with me, and I managed 
 to make her comfortable ; and it wasn't very cold, as 
 we never flew either very high or very fast. And thus 
 it came about that we were thrown into conversation 
 with each other, because " quefaire autour d'un volant, 
 a mains que I' on n'y cause ? " 
 
 I'm afraid I must rather have bored her, because 
 I really couldn't switch on to any personal talk with 
 a girl I didn't know in the least, and who, moreover, 
 couldn't be told the truth about me. So I began 
 talking of Art especially architecture : the topic 
 sprang up quite of itself, on account of some of the 
 chateaux we flew over. Still, she listened as if she 
 were interested, and even threw in rather apt remarks : 
 it really was the first time I heard a woman (barring 
 my little Mater, of course) express anything worth 
 saying on the subject of Art ; and 1 was immensely 
 pleased not to find the poor creature insufferably dull 
 as I had at first feared.
 
 148 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 We really got on capitally together, and by the 
 time we landed at Dijon, we had both, I am sure, 
 got rid of our mutual shyness towards each other. 
 Mrs. Stayvesant had a headache in the evening, and 
 her lord and master didn't feel like leaving the hotel. 
 But it would have been a shame to miss the sights of 
 the old Burgundian capital, especially on such a nice 
 day as this. So I offered to show Evelyn round the 
 place, with the result that we spent two or three 
 delightful hours. 
 
 First of all, we went to. ... (i). 
 
 It really felt as if all the glorious past, the 
 Hundred Years' war, the Middle-Ages, with all their 
 chivalry and cruel splendour, were alive and dancing 
 before our eyes, and when we came back to dinner, 
 we were both passionately engrossed in " ye olden 
 times." 
 
 Neither the dragon nor Mrs. S. appeared at 
 Table d'Hote ; and that dinner was simply gorgeous. 
 I don't simply mean the food ; of course, Dijon is noted 
 for its luxurious pates, and we did ample justice to 
 them, as well as to everything else the smiling garpons 
 set before us ; but the air seemed full of a sort of 
 electrical thrill, that would have made even dry bread 
 and muddy water seem a glorious feast. It was a 
 sort of confidential mood, and I longed to tell poor, 
 badly-treated Evelyn the whole truth just as I felt 
 she was on the verge of confiding to me the story of 
 all her troubles but somehow I managed to resist 
 the temptation, and am glad I did so now. 
 
 This morning, Mrs. S. no longer suffered from 
 headache, and the Dragon was as aggressively dragon- 
 ish as ever ; but I let him be, as I didn't want to 
 
 (t) -Another break in the MS. Vide Footnote on page 146 
 (Ed.)
 
 C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON 149 
 
 spoil the magic of the day by any retorts I might have 
 let loose upon him though God knows he deserved 
 much more than anything I might have said. 
 
 The start was as perfect as yesterday (really the 
 " Albatros " is a perfect little flyer !) and, of course, 
 Evelyn had to sit outside again. She looked somewhat 
 reserved, after yesterday evening's latent confidential 
 mood, and we again spoke of general subjects history 
 being the chief topic of our discourse. 
 
 We landed at Nimes about noon, and after dejeuner 
 resumed our journey : we were to go on to Nice, and 
 thence, to-morrow, to " do " the Riviera. However, 
 the gods decided otherwise 
 
 At this stage I can see your brows lifting, and hear 
 you exclaim something about an accident. . . . Well, 
 yes, there was an accident : though not a very bad 
 one ; and the fact that I am writing to you after it 
 occurred must set aside your fears for good and all. 
 
 It was just outside Tarascon the thing occurred. 
 Everything had been going so smoothly, I really 
 couldn't dream of imagining anything out of the way ; 
 but there came a sharp snap, and the next thing I 
 knew was that we were dropping for all we were 
 worth. The more speed I tried to put on, the more 
 we seemed to drop and then I saw what was the 
 matter : the propellor was broken. I tried the steering 
 gear, and put on a little upward curve but we were 
 far too low down for me to be able to perform a proper 
 landing. Which is a warning to me in future. I 
 shall never, never, never, fly below a thousand feet. 
 As it was, we had been hardly above two hundred, 
 and I saw the fields rushing up towards us at a terrific 
 speed. I put on all the upward curve I could, and 
 awaited developments. And then the crash came. 
 
 As soon as I felt it come, I let go the wheel, of
 
 150 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 course, and took hold of Evelyn, who was as pale as 
 death : I wanted to protect her, at all events, as much 
 as was in my power. And from the inside of the 
 cabin there issued a mixture of wails and American 
 oaths, such as had never before been my privilege to 
 hear a thing I don't regret. 
 
 It was fortunate for us the road from Tarascon 
 to Cette is grown with high poplars and spreading 
 fruit-trees. As it is, we just dashed into one of the 
 former, which sent us spinning on to one of the others, 
 and thence into a neighbouring field : but the final 
 drop was only about ten feet, and the field was a 
 vineyard that a thoughtful labourer had just been 
 shovelling through and through. Also, the aeroplane 
 didn't fall just on top of us, but swerved aside which 
 just proves its sense. 
 
 There wasn't much harm done except to the 
 " Albatros," and the two poor trees. Mr. and Mrs. 
 S. had been able to drop out of the cabin before the 
 machine touched ground and I rolled into the field. 
 After a few minutes of daziness, I tried to get up, and 
 felt a funny sort of pain in my left arm ; and I saw I 
 couldn't move it as I wanted to. Evelyn had fainted, 
 but she soon came to, and she was only slightly bruised 
 and scratched. The next thing I heard was the 
 Dragon's voice, cursing her actually cursing her ! 
 
 " Look here, you silly girl," he yelled, " why 
 
 the couldn't you hit upon a fellow who knew 
 
 his work. You leave my service this minute, 
 
 you. . ." and he kept on stringing his picturesque 
 Wall Street oaths together, just like a music-hall 
 nigger. 
 
 Altogether, it was more than I could stand ; and 
 I walked across to him. 
 
 " Mr. Otis K. Stayvesant," I said, trying to speak
 
 C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON 151 
 
 as calmly as I could (which was difficult, under the 
 circumstances) " you're a brute and a cad ! And I 
 forbid you to speak like that to a young lady." 
 
 "You forbid? " he blurted out, "you rotten young 
 half-a-dime flying fool ! And who are you, to forbid 
 me anything I jolly well please to do ? " 
 
 And then I told him my name. Oh, Mater, you 
 should have seen him stare, and mumble inarticulately 
 for at least five minutes, and walk about excitedly, 
 and generally behave like the fool he was. . . . But 
 my enjoyment of his discomfiture was suddenly put 
 a stop to by Evelyn's cry. 
 
 "What?" she exclaimed, in a high-pitched voice, 
 " you are the Honourable Richard Cross worth, Lady 
 Cross worth's only son ? Oh, I thought something of 
 the kind. . ." 
 
 That last phrase of hers came like a thunderbolt ; 
 how could she know anything about me, and still 
 more, about you ? . . . 
 
 And then she told me all ... Mater, she's not at 
 all the poor girl I thought her to be ; she's one of 
 your friends ; she's an heiress ; she's Evelyn Carring- 
 ton ! She ran away from a country-house in England, 
 because she couldn't bear the shallowness of society 
 life for a young girl . . . She . . . She's the perfect- 
 est perfect dear I've ever met ! 
 
 Mater, congratulate me congratulate us both ! . . . 
 I shall write again to-morrow. 
 
 Your rapturous 
 
 DICK.
 
 152 
 
 RATHER LIKE, 
 IV 
 
 Telegram from Evelyn Carrington to her friend, 
 Elizabeth Hardy. 
 
 HOTEL D'EUROPE, 
 
 MONTPELLIER, MAY 
 
 DEAREST, 
 
 Things have happened. The Chauffeur isn't a 
 chauffeur. He's Dick Crossworth. We're to be 
 married at Interlaken, where his mother is staying. 
 Congratulate me. 
 
 EVELYN.
 
 JOSEPH CONRAD 153 
 
 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 DAM 1M A REMINISCENCE 
 I 
 
 THE man turned slowly his head ; something in 
 his quiet gaze aroused in the intricacies of 
 a mind used to analyse the prompt reactions 
 of soul upon body and of calling and training upon 
 mere outer personality that peculiar interest which, 
 though not thrilling, is the beginning of everything 
 that any man may feel usually with his heart or 
 understand more or less incompletely with his brain. 
 
 He was standing by himself in the respectable 
 bar, with a tankard of ale within arm's reach ; a 
 medium-sized, non-commital sort of man, in a rather 
 shabby greyish suit, and boots that had long ago 
 ceased to be shining. He might have been anything 
 from a retired barber to an unsuccessful actor ; a 
 labourer in some way, and yet perhaps an employer 
 of labour a man, certainly, with a touch of super- 
 intendency in his quiet glance. There was also about 
 him a hint of rebellion against the everyday, hum- 
 drum, mass of human machines; products of the 
 same depressing organism, mere tools in the hands of
 
 154 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 fools or of knaves, they went steadily their ways, like 
 so many blind sheep, following stupidly a still more 
 stupid leader. Here was a fellow with an individuality 
 all his own ; capable of willing actually something by 
 himself, and of even carrying through steadily his 
 purpose. An uncommon fellow, few like whom come 
 to a man's ken in a lifetime. 
 
 My eyes have been accustomed since ever so long, 
 while gazing intently at some object definite, material 
 and physical, to, all at once, whizz off into the domain 
 of remembrance, with its myriad vistas tragic, beauti- 
 ful or indifferent. This was now the case as I looked 
 at the man ; I reverted unconsciously to far-off days 
 under an ever-smiling sun, before I had got used to 
 shore togs, and had not yet exchanged the elemental 
 sarong for a square mainsail coat. Unconsciously 
 I was projected headlong into the fanciful realm of 
 Southern Islands, and my ears seemed to be ringing 
 with the voice of old remembrance, a voice mournful, 
 immense and dear. . . 
 
 But not only remembrance was at work now ; 
 no, there were also the waves of air at the proper 
 length, propagated in accordance with correct mathe- 
 matical formulas, flowing resolutely into my brain- 
 centres, and re-echoing names sundry, bizarre and 
 unusual, names that I had heard already, pronounced 
 surely in such a voice calm, unemotional and exotic. . . 
 And suddenly my eyes seemed to be drawn away 
 from their wandering in the land of long-ago ; they 
 reverted once again to the stranger, and noted that 
 he was now speaking deliberately, and, moreover, 
 to me. He came slowly forward as he talked, and I 
 began to situate him in time as well as space. . . . And 
 yet. . . . Preposterous ! . . . Queer, exotic though 
 he appeared, there was still something strangely
 
 JOSEPH CONRAD 155 
 
 familiar, not only about his sunburnt and clean-shaven 
 face, but in the whole of his attitude, and even yes 
 even in his voice. Then he uttered a word that put 
 me on the track of the elusive past, like a black sea 
 that pitches suddenly a dreaming sailor to the precise 
 spot whither he was groping his way in the dark. It 
 was only a word, but it aroused through the length 
 and breadth of my wandering mind, an outburst 
 of evanescent consciousness, a flicker of light amongst 
 the floundering mass of things past, of things half 
 forgotten, of things not quite remembered. 
 
 " Dam' Im," was the word recurring several 
 times in the man's talk ; and suddenly I uprose from 
 my seat and remembered him. 
 
 " Surely I know you now," I said, " you are the 
 Bugis from one of the states of Wajo." 
 
 Yes, he was of course, now, I knew. His name 
 was Dam' Im, and I had traded often with him in the 
 harbour of Ucee at least, he used to call grandilo- 
 quently a harbour what was really little more than 
 a hospitable atoll, behind which stretched the smiling 
 sunlit shore of a little island crowned in the distance 
 by stately peaks over which Dam' Im had not exercised 
 yet his power. The kind of trade I had indulged in was 
 the usual one for South Sea ship-owners to commission 
 their skippers to carry out : I used to smuggle a few 
 nearly valueless old rifles to his shore, hand him some 
 rounds of ammunition, and receive sound dollars 
 in exchange ; of course, such trading was not without 
 its risks, but where is the fairly young skipper in the 
 merchant service who will not run them all and be 
 glad, adding as they do their glamour and spice to 
 the favours and the rages of the sea ? 
 
 And now here was Dam' Im talking to me under 
 other skies, after so many years that I hardly had
 
 156 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 remembered him at all. Here is his story, which I 
 repeat, as far as I am able, in his own words, only 
 pausing now and again to add a word, explanatory, 
 descriptive, or personal. 
 
 II 
 
 " It was after you had left Ucee for the last time. 
 The white tuans that came after you were not to be 
 trusted. I did not like them, and Drat' Er, my faith- 
 ful follower, saw always the bad spirit in them. 
 
 " And he was right. Soon there began to dawn 
 some trouble in the island. The Cheekis tribe our 
 brothers of the island, with whom we had been so 
 long at peace came down their mountain-sides, and 
 sent their chief, Bally who, to parley with me, Dam' 
 Im, who had power and many lands, and guns such 
 as the Dutch use, and a large store of powder. But 
 little did I know that Ballywho had at that very 
 moment some guns of his own, which other traders 
 must have smuggled to his mountains from the other 
 side of the island. I knew I was strong, and my 
 followers numerous but alas ! I knew not that Bally- 
 who was also strong, and fortified with the weight of 
 his wiles. 
 
 " He wanted his tribe to have the free run of Ucee 
 harbour without any taxes to pay, mind . . . Now, 
 how could I, Dam' Im, continue to live in my stockade, 
 and pay dollars for rifles and ammunition, if the 
 Cheekis payed taxes no more ? So I refused, of course, 
 and Ballywho returned towards his mountains with a 
 message of war. 
 
 " Drat' Er, my faithful retainer, exulted in the 
 news, as soon as I told him. But conscious of my 
 strength as I was, I could not help fearing the unknown
 
 JOSEPH CONRAD 157 
 
 future. Who knows what all the dead ancestors of 
 my tribesmen thought of the war that was to come 
 the more so as I intended to defend their thatched 
 roofs no longer with kriss and flint-headed arrow, but 
 with the white man's fire-bullet ? What would happen 
 if Ballywho and his mountain tribe threw us effectu- 
 ally back ? . . . The night seemed full of the unknown, 
 and the future loomed ominous. 
 
 " The same night, three hours after Ballywho had 
 left my stockade with my decision of war, an evil 
 omen clouded my brow. My pink cat Dearo died 
 suddenly, in horrible agony . . . Deaths, deaths, 
 deaths! 
 
 He uprose as he repeated thrice the word, and his 
 expression was so serious, so tragic, so full of poignancy 
 of the unknown, that, for an instant, I felt the tears 
 surge in my eyes, and sobs rush, strangling one another, 
 to the top of my throat. ... He continued, in a 
 calmer tone : 
 
 " You say the dead are dead. . . . Perhaps they 
 are, in your country ; perhaps your powerful king 
 can kill them to the core. But the chiefs of our isles 
 have not enough strength, and our dead do not really 
 die .... They live for ever, especially at night, 
 and they flit about one, and whisper, and cry. . . . 
 Yes, and cats are harder still to kill than men and 
 women. Dearo was ever present before my eyes, 
 in the rooms of my campong, in my prau when I went 
 out to command the harbour, in the folds of my 
 sarong. He was always there, wailing, suffering, 
 dying. . . . 
 
 " I left my stockade, I left my harbour of Ucee, 
 I left my old retainer, Drat' Er and all for Dearo . . . 
 For Dearo ! I could not bear the sight of his suffering 
 form in the peace and quiet of my rooms and I fled,
 
 158 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 I fled I went towards the mountains, to 
 
 seek Bally who ; and ever Dearo was before my eyes, 
 suffering agonies, dying, and always alive. . . . Alive ! 
 ... I saw Bally who in the midst of his inland village, 
 and he saw me. He thought I came as an enemy, 
 he thought I was leading my warriors to trap him 
 in the dark of the night. Yes, that is what he thought, 
 while I was but poor Dam' Im, fleeing from the horrible 
 sight of a dead cat that would not die. . . . 
 
 " I saw him lift a rifle to his shoulder. . . . Even 
 then I might have crouched, I might have fled, I 
 might have returned to Drat' Er and to Ucee ; but 
 the face of Dearo appeared again before my eyes, 
 and I could not move ... I saw a blaze ; I heard 
 a thundering, loud, near, and horrible . . . And I 
 remember no more. . . . 
 
 " When I awoke, I found myself in a prau, and 
 was soon carried aboard a white man's ship. . . . The 
 fire-bullet of Ballywho's rifle put me in the hands of 
 my enemies ; it had, moreover, pinned rny left arm 
 to my side, and made me as helpless as a baby, but 
 it must have also killed the ghost of Dearo, for, since 
 that tragic night, I saw him no more ... no more. 
 
 " I remained on board the Sea Dog, and heard later 
 that Bally who was now master of Ucee. . . . But 
 I never returned to my native shore, lest the dead 
 ghost of the dead Dearo should come to life again. . . . 
 I am now poor and lonely, I who was powerful and 
 a king in my own island. . . . But I worship the 
 white man's king, whose fire-bullet has freed me of 
 my horrible ghost. . . . Yes, he is now dead, dead! " 
 
 I think he might have done worse than become 
 a sailor.
 
 H. A. VACHELL 159 
 
 HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL 
 
 THE SKIPPER 
 
 MY brother A] ax had just come back from the 
 range, and met me as I was coming 
 dejectedly out of our kitchen, where I had 
 been trying some rather unhappy experiments in 
 cookery. 
 
 " I say," he called out, "do you remember a fellow 
 called Peterson ? " 
 
 " What sort of a fellow ? " I asked, " a tramp or 
 a millionaire ? " 
 
 "I don't know what he is at the present moment," 
 he answered, " though I should hardly think he is 
 actually a millionaire. But he's supposed to have 
 been at Harrow in our time." 
 
 I pondered some seconds over this latter piece 
 of information, and exclaimed excitedly : " Why, of 
 course ! He was Bodson's fag ; don't you remember 
 him a chap with reddish hair, any amount of freckles, 
 and enormously large hands ? . . . But what made 
 you ask me ? " 
 
 My brother proceeded to expound the reason for 
 his question. A man calling himself Peterson had 
 applied to Uncle Jake for our protection, under the
 
 160 RATHER LIKE. . . . 
 
 delusion, no doubt, that our ranch was a sort of roof 
 and shelter for any social derelict who passed that 
 way. In those days California was not by any means 
 what it is now, and the number of luckless Englishmen 
 it had lured to an ultimate failure was considerably 
 greater than anything we had imagined at that period 
 of ingenuity, when we hadn't yet learned that ignor- 
 ance must always pay its premium to experience. 
 We had often enough (far too often, if the truth must 
 be told) given our hospitality to passing tramps, and 
 had several times been made to pay for our greenness 
 in full. Wherefore, au premier abord, as the French 
 say, I felt inclined to eye any stranger with mistrust 
 especially that kind of stranger whose first and 
 foremost appeal rested on the worn grounds of auld 
 lang syne and school-fellowship. 
 
 " I think we've seen about enough of tramps on 
 this ranch," I said quietly. 
 
 " Just what I thought, too," returned my brother. 
 " But this chap doesn't appear to be a tramp at all, 
 according to uncle Jake and, besides, I believe 
 you're wanted to do the necessary jawing." 
 
 Now, at least, I saw what he was driving at. 
 Ajax, being the younger, always expected me to take 
 the lead in formal circumstances. If I say more or 
 less than he deems advisable, I am let in for a sound 
 rating after the ceremony. So this time I took my 
 precautions. 
 
 " Right you are," I said, "I'll put him off our 
 trail in record time. Where did you say he was ? " 
 
 " Uncle Jake told him to wait for us in front of 
 the big barn," came the answer. " But you can't 
 chuck him out like a twopenny-halfpenny beggar who 
 calls for a crust of bread. After all, if he's known 
 us at Harrow. . ."
 
 H. A. VACHELL 161 
 
 I took the affair resolutely into my hands ; "At 
 any rate," I said, " I'm just going to have a look at 
 the fellow." 
 
 We rode off together, and met our head vacquero 
 before we got within earshot of the barn. Uncle Jake 
 was glad I had come out, and said so. Yes, the stranger 
 was still waiting for us in the shade of our barn. 
 In reply to my eager questions, I elucidated that he 
 was not at all a disreputable-looking loafer, but had 
 the air of a successful rancher. " He's not like that 
 other Britisher you took hold of last year, Mr. Ajax," 
 he said, turning to my brother, " you know, the one 
 who looked like hell before you dressed him, and 
 like San Lorenzo afterwards yes, and managed to 
 clear away with the money he took out of your safe. 
 ... So I jus' told him you'd come along and see him." 
 
 " If he's so respectable," I put in, " it might have 
 been advisable to see him into the house." 
 
 " There's no knowing," cautiously replied Uncle 
 Jake, and Ajax nodded approvingly. I confess that 
 I was not averse to the same opinion. So, without 
 any more words, both of us proceeded to interview 
 the visitor. 
 
 We found him in the shade of the big barn, looking 
 calmly at us as if we had met casually in Piccadilly. 
 
 " Good morning," he said affably. 
 
 His voice and his manner were equally irreproach- 
 able. Moreover, his aspect was quite " engaging " 
 (to use the French word). Clean, without even one 
 day's growth of beard on his square chin, he stood 
 up quietly in all the dignity of his neat riding kit, 
 for all the world like a successful rancher or a spirited 
 sportsman. We acknowledged the salutation and he 
 went on : "I daresay you don't remember me . . . 
 I see it in your faces . . . Well, never mind I 
 
 10
 
 162 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 haven't called to try and squeeze a fiver out of you . . . 
 You see, I was just passing through this country, and 
 heard you had settled down so I resolved to look 
 you up ... I hope you will pardon the intrusion ? " 
 
 Ajax looked bluntly at him. " Our head vacquero 
 reported you were a Harrow fellow. You weren't at 
 Tommy's by any chance ? " 
 
 " No, mine was Bobby's . . . Ever heard of a chap 
 they used to call the Skipper ? " 
 
 " What ! The Skipper, Mathers' special chum ? " 
 I cried out. ' You don't mean to say you're the 
 Skipper ? " 
 
 The conviction (indicated by a pleasant smile) 
 was apparent on the stranger's face, and he went on 
 rather more glibly than before. 
 
 ' That's all right. I gave your man my name, 
 and I daresay you may have mistaken me for some 
 other fellow. I believe there were several Petersons 
 at Harrow in my time." 
 
 " Suppose," put in Ajax, " we came round to the 
 house. We can't entertain you very well out here, 
 but we'll do what we can indoors." 
 
 There was amusement in the glance I threw him ; 
 however, I didn't add anything, beyond asking Peter- 
 son where he had stabled his horse. 
 
 " Oh, ! " he said, " one of your cowboys took it 
 inside the barn. I'm sure it will get on very well as it 
 is." 
 
 The three of us were soon assembled in our com- 
 fortable sitting-room. We lit our pipes, and after 
 some minutes of small talk, the conversation took its 
 natural turn towards personal matters. We discussed 
 a few old memories of our respective houses, and 
 then, under my brother's searching glance, I managed 
 to put in a question that was intended as a " corker."
 
 H. A. VACHELL 163 
 
 " Well, look here, Skipper, I don't suppose your 
 only reason for looking us up was to hear yourself 
 chaffed and talk over Billy's and Tommy's ? Is there 
 anything we can do for you ? " 
 
 My " corker " went considerably wide of its mark. 
 
 " The fact is," answered Peterson, " I was passing 
 through this part of California, and I thought I might 
 just come and see you ... I hope I'm not intruding, 
 or trespassing on your time ? " 
 
 " Er . . . no, not at all," put in Ajax, as formally 
 as he would have done in a Park Lane drawing-room. 
 And I hastened to add a few words to the same effect. 
 
 " Well," continued the Skipper, " how are you 
 fellows doing ? Or are you down on your luck ? " 
 
 Now was the time for me to exercise the gentle 
 art of diplomacy. I looked meaningly at Ajax, and 
 replied rather dejectedly to our visitor. 
 
 " Of course, things never turn out so brilliant 
 as you hope they will. I'm afraid my brother and 
 I are rather green at the trade, and, of course, we 
 can't expect to succeed at the outset. The worst 
 of it is, so many of our ... er ... kind neighbours 
 seem to find it incumbent upon them to do us out of our 
 lawful profits whenever we happen to make any. 
 There was an old man named Dumble, who managed 
 to swindle those colts away from us, and our inestim- 
 able friend, Laban Swiggart, who successfully " had " 
 us in the affair of the fifteen fat steers. . . . However, 
 we don't complain : we didn't come out here to make 
 our fortunes so after all, there is no more to be 
 said." 
 
 Peterson looked ruthfully at us ; there was com- 
 passion and kindness in that look of his, and I confess 
 that I felt rather ashamed at the several falsehoods 
 I had concocted. He answered something about our
 
 164 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 being strivers, not thrivers, and we kept him to 
 dinner. 
 
 The meal was rather more elaborate than those 
 we were used to ; our housekeeper saw to things, 
 and evidently did not intend that our guest should 
 be impressed by a rough-and-tumble Californian 
 apology for a dinner. In spite of the claret (it was a 
 bottle of Romance Conti, '89, I remember) he insisted 
 on retiring very soon after his first pipe, pretexting 
 the necessity of an early departure next day. The 
 evening passed very pleasantly, however, though 
 the conversation was limited to old-time memories, 
 " shop " being, as by mutual consent, excluded ; and 
 in spite of reiterated offers of toddy, Peterson soon 
 went off to bed. 
 
 Next morning I got up rather later than usually, 
 and my brother welcomed me on my appearance with 
 an enigmatic smile : " Do you happen to remember," 
 he asked, " why that fellow Peterson was nicknamed 
 ' The Skipper ' ? " 
 
 " What's the matter ? " I asked hastily, " what's 
 he been up to ? " 
 
 " Nothing," replied Ajax, " except that he's gone." 
 
 " Well," I answered, " he said he wanted to leave 
 early, but I'm hanged if I thought he meant it as 
 truly as this. Besides, in all decency, he might have 
 said good-bye before quitting. ..." 
 
 " To say nothing of ' thank you,' if not for the 
 dinner, at least for the wine," added Ajax. 
 
 " Which reminds me," I broke in. " He was 
 called the ' Skipper ' just for that very reason : for 
 his fondness of leaving things undone." 
 
 " At all events," said my brother, " that's better 
 than doing those one shouldn't do at all." 
 
 The words made me attentive, and I hastened
 
 H. A. VACHELL 165 
 
 to the little room where we kept our burglar-proof 
 safe. There it was, perfectly intact, and I was begin- 
 ning to feel a despicable fool, when my eyes alighted 
 upon a neat little packet upon the desk. It was a 
 thick envelope, duly closed and sealed, and bore the 
 joint inscription of my brother's name and my own, 
 in a large, bold handwriting a handwriting I did 
 not recognise, but immediately attributed to our 
 departed guest. I called Ajax, and we opened the 
 packet : a bunch of crisp white sheets of paper ap- 
 peared within the envelope no fewer than two 
 hundred ten-pound Bank of England notes. 
 
 " What the dickens . . . . ? " I cried out. 
 
 " Well, I'm " ejaculated Ajax, whose language 
 
 is apt to be a trifle more forcible than mine on certain 
 occasions. 
 
 We never heard from Peterson while we remained 
 ranching in California, and I never unearthed the 
 mystery of those two thousand pounds till I was back 
 again in England. I was dining at Gloriani's, which 
 is decidedly my restaurant " of predilection " (to use 
 the French phrase) perhaps because the Glory is 
 not there dispossessed by the Gold, perhaps because 
 I happen to be on friendly terms not only with Agostino 
 the head waiter, but also with the padrone himself, 
 who, for the rest, resolutely refuses to employ German 
 waiters. I was sitting down to a luscious tournedos 
 such as only a continental chef can do to a nicety, 
 and \* as slowly sipping a glass of old Romance Conti 
 '89, I believe it was when I happened to observe a 
 man at a table near mine, whose face seemed oddly 
 familiar. There seemed to be a subtle link between
 
 166 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 the wine and the face, f:>r I became unconsciously 
 aware that my neighbour had driven me from that 
 paradise of a dinner-table which has no room for 
 two. And then, suddenly, I remembered : the face 
 was that of Peterson, the " Skipper," the man whose 
 visit to our ranch, years ago, had been marked so 
 vividly in my memory. 
 
 I went over to him, and after the usual words of 
 surprise and welcome, we both sat down to the same 
 table. While we were sipping the wine to which, 
 I remember, I applied a string of fragrant epithets 
 of the west I suddenly broached the subject of the 
 mysterious banknotes. Peterson blushed like a girl. 
 
 " What beats me," I added, " is the fact that they 
 should have been left on purpose I mean, not simply 
 dropped, lost, or strayed." 
 
 So " striking " (to use the French word) was my 
 question, that Peterson set down his glass, and said 
 carefully : "I thought it was the only way of helping 
 you." 
 
 " Do you mean to say," I ejaculated, " that the 
 money is yours ? " And a crowd of questions sprang 
 to my lips. 
 
 " Never mind that, for the present," answered 
 the Skipper, reverting to his favourite method, " the 
 question is : was it sufficient to keep you from ruin ? " 
 
 I burst out laughing. "I'm afraid there has been 
 a mutual mistake," I was able to add ; " you thought 
 us on the verge of failure and we mistook you for 
 a common parasite. I confess I did what I could to 
 induce you into your error, though you did nothing 
 of the same kind." And I proceeded to explain the 
 reasons for my pessimistic conversation : you can't 
 draw blood from a stone, and no tramp out West 
 would dream of robbing a couple of ruined Britishers.
 
 H. A. VACHELL 167 
 
 Now was his turn to burst into a sound laugh. 
 
 " Oh ! " he exclaimed, " to think you were pulling 
 my leg all the time ! Why, I actually took you at 
 your word, and that is precisely the reason for all that 
 followed. I had more money by me than I could 
 ever hope to spend upon myself, and I immediately 
 decided to use it to help two old schoolfellows in 
 distress. Of course I couldn't shove the notes brutally 
 into your hand, so I had to make use of stratagem : 
 that was the only reason for my retiring so early and 
 for my departing earlier still." 
 
 And I answered sotto-voce, as my brother would 
 have bellowed : " Well, I'm "
 
 168 RATHER LIKE.. 
 
 F. ANSTEY 
 
 AN OFFICERS' GEFANGENENLAGER IN 
 GERMANY 
 
 Scene : A more or less well paved paddock, with a 
 large building at one side, and some wooden huts on 
 the other ; the grounds are surrounded with barbed 
 wire, and a considerable number of electric lamps and 
 telegraph poles are visible ; the artistic effect is com- 
 pleted by a few pine trees and various seedy shrubs. 
 
 A few hundred officers of divers nationalities are 
 walking about in small groups. 
 
 1st British Officer (to 2nd ditto) : How long did you say 
 you'd been in this damned place ? 
 
 2nd B.O. : Two years to-morrow. 
 
 ist B.O. : By Jove ! You don't expect me to remain 
 as long as that, do you ? 
 
 2nd B.O. : My dear fellow, I'm afraid I don't expect 
 you to do anything at all. But I've already lost 
 two fivers betting on the length of the war, and 
 have completely given up speculating on the 
 question. 
 
 ist B.O. : Anyway, what do you do here ?
 
 F. ANSTEY 169 
 
 2nd B.O. : Anything you jolly well please. Splendid 
 opportunity for learning foreign languages, bracing 
 air, fine climate, wholesome food, and all that, you 
 know. 
 
 ist B.O. : Foreign languages ! Phew ! I don't mind 
 doing a little French, but I'm afraid Russian's 
 something beyond my line. Have you started ? 
 
 2nd B.O. : Sorry to say I have and a more murder- 
 ous thing in the way of jawing it's hard to con- 
 ceive ; beats German hollow ; full of declensions 
 and things, you know ; but it's useful to pass 
 away the time. 
 
 ist Russian Officer : Kak vuee poshivietie ? 
 
 2nd B.O. : Harasho, spaceebo . . . Now look here, 
 Petroff, you've got to speak English just now : 
 here's my friend Brown, who doesn't know a 
 word of Russian, but who's going to learn. 
 
 ist B.O. : Here, half a second, old fellow. I never 
 said I intended to : I'm sure I'm quite incapable 
 of ... 
 
 ist R.O. : Oh ! Ze Russian is not difficult, ze English 
 is very difficulter. 
 
 2nd B.O. : No, not " difficulter"" more difficult," 
 you know. 
 
 ist R.O. : Yes : to us always hard know when say 
 one word or ze ozer. But I hope before ze end of 
 ze war, know more of ze English. 
 
 ist B.O. : Of course. I'm sure I'll be jolly glad to 
 know as much Russian as you know of our 
 language. 
 
 ist R.O. : Eet is easy ; ze English pronounce is terr- 
 'ble ; ze Russian is much lighter. 
 
 2nd B.O. : I daresay but what about your verbs 
 and your declensions, especially your bloody 
 numbers, eh ?
 
 170 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 ist R.O. : Eet ees necessary learn them, zat ees all. 
 
 Zere is ... rulers . . . 
 2nd B.O. : Not " rulers " " rules." 
 ist R.O. : Yes, rules. Een English zere is only ze 
 
 exceptions. 
 ist B.O. : At any rate, when I left England, I was under 
 
 the impression that I was to fight and not against 
 
 grammatical rules. 
 ist French Officer (to second ditto) : Tiens,voila Jones: 
 
 $a doit etre 1'heure de ma lec.on. 
 2nd P.O. : Tu trouves 9a chic, de faire de 1'anglais 
 
 a outrance ? 
 ist P.O. : Mon vieux, c'est toujours 9a de pris sur la 
 
 captivite . . . D'ailleurs, toi, tu fais bien du 
 
 russe alors . . . 
 Ist P.O. (to 2nd B.O.) : Eet ees ze hour of ze lesson, 
 
 ees eet not ? 
 2nd B.O. : Right you are, old boy. Let's go to the 
 
 dining-room : we'll be a little warmer in there. 
 
 They move off together, while the 2nd P.O. does 
 
 the same with the R.O. 
 
 For a few moments words like : 
 Yes Mais non Harasho Da Not at all C'est c.a 
 
 etc., are heard ; upon which a group of B.O.'s 
 
 with tennis rackets come upon the scene}, 
 yd B.O. : I think it's our turn now ; the other fellows 
 
 have had their go at the courts. 
 4th B.O. : Besides, we've got to hurry up if we want 
 
 to play at all. I heard from a German soldier 
 
 that the tennis is going to be suppressed. 
 Chorus of protesting B.O.'s : What ? Damn these 
 
 Bodies! Impossible! Why? How ? When ? 
 
 Beastly swine, I call 'em, etc. 
 3rd P.O. (to a young B.O. who is the Hon. Sec. of 
 
 Dramatic Society) : Well, when is your next per- 
 formance coming off ?
 
 F. ANSTEY 171 
 
 The Hon. Sec. : I'm afraid there won't be any next 
 performance at all. The Kommandantur is going 
 to suppress them. 
 
 yd P.O. : What's the matter with them ? 
 
 The H.S. : I'm sure / don't know. Probably " re- 
 prisals " of some sort. You know these fellows 
 are always up to some trick or other. They can 
 never leave a chap in peace. One day they allow 
 a thing, and as soon as the expenses have been 
 run into, they put a stop to it. Jolly conven- 
 ient to favour their beastly trade ! 
 
 3rd P.O. : Jolly convenient, I daresay but jolly 
 swinish too. Not that it astonishes me at all, 
 after all I've seen. 
 
 The H.S. : Yes, I should think you know something 
 about them and their methods, after your five 
 months' imprisonment ! . . . Well, whatever 
 happens, we'll pull through some way or other. 
 
 $rd P.O. : We'll jolly well have to ... By the way, 
 do you happen to know of any English officer who 
 would like to learn French ? There's a friend of 
 mine who'd like to exchange some lessons with 
 an Englishman. 
 
 The H.S. : I don't know of anyone ; but there's that 
 new fellow arrived yesterday evening ; he ought 
 to be game ... I say, though, you're generally 
 well informed : what's the latest in " tuyaux ? " 
 
 yd P.O. : I'm afraid you're applying to the wrong 
 man . . . However, I may tell you confidenti- 
 ally, mind that the Americans are seriously 
 thinking of declaring war against Germany. 
 
 The H.S. : Seen something in the Koelnische Zeitung, 
 or some other of their beastly papers ? 
 
 yd P.O. : Better than that. I've got the unsolicited 
 opinion of a member of what a journalist would 
 style " the British public."
 
 172 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 TheH.S.: How's that ? 
 
 yd P.O. : Well, the other evening I was sitting in the 
 dining-room, doing some English with two other 
 chaps, when the English soldier who serves at the 
 table you know, the one with the vicious cockney 
 accent came up to me and calmly proceeded to 
 develop his views on foreign politics. 
 
 The H.S. : Just like his cheek ! 
 
 3rd P.O. : " Well, sir," he blurted out, " d'you think 
 as the 'Nited States '11 soon jine in this 'ere war ? 
 Blime if it wouldn't be a good stroke for these 'ere 
 Boches an' I honestly b'lieve as they'll 'ave a 
 go at 'em jolly soon an' serve 'em right, too ! 
 Don't you think so, sir ? " 
 
 The H.S. : Some of us have had their eyes on that fel- 
 low for some time, and I think he might be sent 
 away to a soldiers' camp ; he's getting rather too 
 cheeky altogether like that tall Canadian who 
 got drunk God knows on what about five times 
 a week ! 
 
 3rd P.O. : Oh, if that's all, there's no very great harm 
 done . . . 
 
 The H.S. : But that's not all. He's getting much 
 too swelled-headed altogether, and I'm sure it'd 
 do him no end of good to clear out of here. 
 
 (Etc.) 
 
 1st Italian Officer (to 4th F.O.) : Oggi parliamo itali- 
 
 ano ; Lei ha parlato francese tutta la giornata 
 
 d'ieri. 
 qth F.O. : Come lei vuol. Insomma, 1'italiano per 
 
 me non e piu difficile del francese per Lei . . . 
 
 Allons-y. 
 ist 7.0. : Non capisco " Allons-y ! "
 
 F. ANSTEY 173 
 
 4th P.O. : E domani, io non capiro " Avanti." 
 ist 1.0. : Va bene ! 
 
 (Etc.) 
 
 (A distant shout something between the bark of an 
 angry dog and the explosion of a German ^2-cm. shell 
 is heard, and discussed in an international group 
 of prisoners.) 
 
 $th P.O. : Bon Dieu ! Qu'est-ce qu'ils ont done, ces 
 
 cochons-la ? 
 $th B.O. : Damn them and their b y noises ! What 
 
 the dickens was that ? 
 yd R.O. : Chorrt vazmee ! Chto takoye ? Kakeeye 
 
 svolochee ! 
 A German N.C.O. : (approaching the group) : Achtung ! 
 
 Achtung ! 
 $th B.O, (to 5th F.O.) : Sayt ung general boche kee 
 
 viang par eecy. Say le momong de clearay out. . . 
 $th F.O. : Ces bougres-la ne peuvent pas nous f outre 
 
 la paix cinq minutes ? Mais vous avez raison, 
 
 Nicholson ; c'est le moment de se debiner . . . 
 
 (Scene closes in as a stout German General, heralded 
 by the barkings of " Achtung " by the impassive N.C.O. 
 and as impassive a " leutnant," advances upon the 
 international group that hastily disperses.}
 
 174 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 A TETRALOGY (NOT BY WAGNER) 
 
 (The following short, but thrilling, story, is the work 
 of four of our most brilliant novelists two of whom, in 
 fact, have already collaborated in longer and successful 
 works. By a stroke of good luck, we are now able to 
 offer our readers this new tale in four chapters : each 
 chapter was written by one of the collaborators, in his 
 most characteristic vein, Mr. Arnold Bennett being 
 responsible for the opening episode in the Five Towns, 
 Mr. Henry Harland, for the second act, in Northern 
 Italy, Mr. Eden Phillpotls for the middle part, the scene 
 of which is laid on Dartmoor, and Sir H. Rider Haggard 
 having written the sequel, occurring, of course, in South 
 Africa. We venture to hope that this original story will 
 meet with the unrestricted approval of our readers.} 
 
 PART I. 
 ARNOLD BENNETT 
 
 AT that particular moment when the relative 
 positions of the sun and of this little earth 
 caused it to be what is generally known 
 as 9 a.m. all along the meridian that is kind 
 enough to split Bursley from North to South, 
 William Thomas Dorner might have been found
 
 ARNOLD BENNETT 175 
 
 sitting at his little desk, behind the showrooms 
 of the Imperial Porcelain Emporium which is 
 only large for shop. William Thomas Dorner was 
 an accountant which is merely bluff for clerk 
 at a salary of a hundred a year, and with high artistic 
 cravings. These, the Empire Porcelain Company, 
 whose works are at the bottom of the hill where 
 Hanbridge begins, allowed him to satisfy absolutely 
 free of charge, in the contemplation of its own most 
 beautifully inconvenient premises, and of its gently 
 villainous-looking ledgers. Of course, the Emporium 
 itself, that is the showrooms where the British public 
 were requested to enter equally free of charge 
 and to acquire at a purely nominal price some of the 
 wares therein exposed, was of a quite different style 
 of architecture. There, the floors were everywhere 
 covered with the latest thing in carpets, to which, of 
 course, the British public did the usual amount of 
 damage at the rate of about five pounds a minute per 
 square foot. The walls were thickly padded with 
 high-class purple hangings, the precise tint of which 
 had been chosen by an expert in colour-schemes 
 you know the sort of men : they earn about a hundred 
 guineas every time they allow their eyelids to part 
 open. Now, as to the ceiling well, there probably 
 was one ; but it was so high up as to be practically 
 invisible to anyone but the particularly long-sighted. 
 The little office behind might have been an infinitesi- 
 mal fraction of the Emporium, but it was one no 
 material damage could possibly have been done to 
 by any amount of British publics, even though they 
 might have been largely composed of expert hooligans 
 or howling children. The fact is, you had to be told the 
 office was there, else you would most probably have 
 overlooked it " you " being, of course, the privileged
 
 176 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 person authorised to enter any of the Empire Porce- 
 lain Company's premises other than the showrooms. 
 If you had been able to enter the office at all, you 
 would just have caught a glimpse of a few bare boards 
 forming a cell about a couple of inches high, and a 
 foot or two long, with the same approximate width ; 
 in this perfectly undesirable room the wandering eye 
 would have caught a desk, and an imposing collection 
 of ledgers, apparently weighing a ton or so each. A 
 singularly sharp-sighted visitor might even have 
 discovered William Thomas Dorner. 
 
 William Thomas, who was generally known as 
 Bilt in the family atmosphere of Sneyd, the model 
 village where he spent his nights trying to make both 
 ends meet, gave the rest of his daily four-and-twenty 
 hours to the satisfaction of his artistic temperament, 
 by poring into the huge columns of figures that 
 majestically filled the pages of the Emporium's 
 ledgers. Imagine a dormouse looking at a mega- 
 therium, and you will have an approximate idea of 
 William Thomas ministering to his Company's well- 
 being. There was nothing haughty in his demeanour, 
 nothing that might have led him to be mistaken 
 for a female aristocrat enthroned behind a post-office 
 counter ; he was even known, from time to time, to 
 tighten his lips round the historic remains of a gold- 
 tipped cigarette, while his face would be wreathed in 
 the faintest ghost of a smile which, as a ghost, was 
 quite fair a thing after all. Now, gold-tipped cigarettes 
 of Bilt's most exclusive brand the maker's name is 
 something in " padopoulos " cost something above 
 their weight in gold, in our fair isles, although they 
 may very probably be cheap as dirt in Athens or 
 Constantinople, where paper and tin boxes and gold 
 tips and high-class patents are unknown. And it will
 
 ARNOLD BENNETT 177 
 
 be easily understood that a hundred a year is, after all, 
 but a poor little thing to an accountant whose artistic 
 cravings put him in the way of Thingumbobopado- 
 poulos. There you have the nucleus of the whole 
 question : Bilt was ambitious. Bilt could not do with 
 the beer and skittles that have so long satisfied the 
 British workman ; Bilt wanted that peculiar brand 
 of aromatised straw commonly known as Turkish 
 tobacco ; he craved for the delicious luxury of large 
 towns and large hotels, commodious chambers with 
 sofas, five electric lights, telephones, easy-chairs, high- 
 class wall-papers and carpets, a staff of frigid valets, 
 experts in the art of closing doors and waiting for 
 orders, and he longed for the spectacular dinners 
 in the same hotels, with their galaxy of lights, of 
 gowned women and men in evening dress, of French 
 names and unknown dishes (you know the sort of 
 things : the " Chateaubriand aux pommes," that 
 turns out to be a bit of steak, or the " Tournedos," 
 that is discovered amazingly like a piece of stewed 
 joint). In fact, Bilt ought to have been a belted earl, 
 or an American millionaire, or at least a musical comedy 
 star or a revue king but he happened to be a clerk at 
 a hundred a year, replete with the small change of 
 cleverness, but singularly lacking its subtler, thousands- 
 a-year variety. 
 
 If Bilt had been a thrifty man, of the Benjamin 
 Franklin type, he would no doubt have married an 
 efficient spinster, and endeavoured to live as comfort- 
 ably as possible (which is not saying a great deal) on 
 his prosaical income ; he would simply have stifled 
 his higher cravings, while he was carrying the baby 
 or wheeling the perambulator. That is what any 
 reasonable, ordinary person would have done ; but 
 Bilt was not like you or me, and after having smoked 
 ii
 
 178 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 some thousands of his particular cigarettes, he only 
 felt a keener desire for more. 
 
 Now Bilt's artistic money-spending potentialities 
 happened to be more or less known at Sneyd, and even 
 at Bursley, where the average Briton is content to 
 divert himself with a tankard of ale from (or rather at) 
 the nearest pub, and the genuinely inconvenient 
 Saturday night treat at the Empire, with the latest 
 thing in comic songs and revue entertainments. So 
 when it became known that the safe of the Imperial 
 Porcelain Emporium had been found empty one 
 morning by the head cashier of the Company, and that 
 William Thomas Dorner had disappeared, all the wise 
 heads of Bursley might have been seen nodding 
 synchronically, like so many metronomes timed to 
 the same measure. There were about a hundred " I 
 told you so's " to the minute, when the news got all 
 about the town, and at Hillport, the fashionable 
 suburb, you could have seen elegantly-clad females 
 turning up their delicate noses at the so-called " as- 
 pirations " of the lower classes. Miss Notchett a 
 spinster of uncertain age who practically never spoke 
 was reported to cry out : " What else can you ex- 
 pect of our Government ? " and her cook, a stout 
 matron with all the little tricks of deportment that 
 are always developed in her calling, broke an extra 
 china teapot while exclaiming " Oh, Lor ! " 
 
 And yet, however epoch-making the news of Bilt's 
 disappearance, however brilliantly the " Signal " made 
 use of this soul-thrilling material, with its sensational 
 headings " An accountant absconded Missing Man 
 Police poo-poohed " and so on the matter was 
 soon permitted to drop, under the still more sensa- 
 tional news of the batting averages of the Bursley 
 C.C., or of the colour of the latest musical comedy
 
 ARNOLD BENNETT 179 
 
 prima-donna's natural hair. Nobody seemed to have 
 the least memory of Bilt which is very human 
 after all. 
 
 But that very little human thing, the Imperial 
 Porcelain Company, whose Bursley Emporium had 
 been done out of two thousand pounds " by some 
 person or persons unknown " (though not unsuspected) 
 kept its memory in far better working order ; why, 
 it had experts in memory, men who were quite willing 
 to spend the whole of their days remembering (from 
 ii to 3), at a purely nominal salary of about a shilling 
 a minute. And one of these experts was entrusted 
 with the job of keeping his mind's eye on William 
 Thomas Dorner, and bringing him back again within 
 range of the Company's purely optical vision. 
 
 The expert, being an expert, did not apply to 
 Scotland Yard did not even for a fraction of a second 
 think of doing so. No, Scotland Yard and he, in a 
 friendly and enthusiastic way, detested each other 
 thoroughly. That is why he decided to hunt down 
 Bilt on his own, and then only to ask the aid of the 
 official service to arrest him in due form. 
 
 The very first thing the expert did was to visit 
 Bilt's late cottage at Sneyd, and to enquire about 
 him, casually, and not in such a manner as to make it 
 evident to anyone but a born fool that he was an 
 expert investigator. In somewhat less time than it 
 would take a fluent speaker to say " Jack Robinson," 
 the expert unearthed the only really important fact 
 about Bilt. In a fraction of that, his mind was made 
 up : a man with Bilt's artistic temperament would 
 certainly not bolt to a place like London with the 
 money he had temporarily made his ; he must seek him 
 somewhere on the continent, in Paris, say or better 
 still in Northern Italy. And to Northern Italy, 
 accordingly, he set off to seek him.
 
 i8o RATHER LIKE.. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 HENRY HARLAND 
 
 " What ! In the large hotel on the Gran* Canale ? " 
 
 " Si, Signore, the palace of the Inglese the 
 Britannia." 
 
 " And you say he has been there over a fortnight ? " 
 
 " His Excellency is right." 
 
 " But are you sure he is the man I am looking for 
 my very dear amico, the friend whose photo you are 
 still holding ? Look well, fanciulla mia I don't 
 want to make a mistake ! " 
 
 The little, soft, unkempt, pleasure-loving Italian 
 girl, bent those deceptively womanlike blue eyes of 
 hers towards the photograph she held in her plump, 
 sunburnt, and dirt-smeared hands. 
 
 " Of course," she softly laughed back, " of course 
 it is my friend Guglielmo. Does the signore come 
 all the way from England to see him ? " 
 
 " Not quite, cara mia ; I was in Italy, and I thought 
 I should find him here. So I came to Venice and 
 found you. 1 ' 
 
 Your matter-of-fact, stolid, British gentleman, 
 with his clear-cut, dry, soap-and-razor-like features, 
 is slow to unbend : but when he once begins why,
 
 HENRY HARLAND 181 
 
 then, he has le coeur sur la main. That was precisely 
 the case with Seton Smith, who had already made 
 a fast friend of little Giuseppina, and managed, in the 
 course of a joyous conversation in the piazzetta, to 
 extract a valuable piece of information for which he 
 had, in fact, come straight from Bursley, hi spite of 
 the words he had just spoken. 
 
 " You see, Giuseppina mia," he added as an after- 
 thought, "it is not always advisable to blurt out the 
 truth into every one's ears. Your mamma and babbo, 
 no doubt, told you that little girls should be seen and 
 not heard, and " 
 
 " Oh," cried out her merry, eager, laughing child- 
 ish voice, " I know very well when to say nothing !" 
 Her fawn-coloured eyelashes seemed to confirm this 
 subtle talent of hers. " But I must tell my friend 
 Guglielmo that you have come to see him." 
 
 " Yes, and spoil the pleasure of a surprise ? " 
 
 " Oh ! " This time constrainedly " I had not 
 thought of that. But he would be very glad, too, if 
 I told him your Excellency is here . . . Perhaps ? 
 
 The eager eyes hovered for an instant on the bril- 
 liant flower of hope she had suddenly made to blossom 
 out for herself dazzlingly blue they were, those eyes 
 of a tiny little Venetian maid. 
 
 " There never were such eyes," thought Seton 
 Smith. " There never was such a good thing as a 
 surprise," he said aloud. 
 
 " Well, then," admitted Giuseppina, " I want to 
 take a share in it." 
 
 " Of course, bambina mia. That's just why I am 
 so glad I found you. Tis easy to call on a friend at 
 a large hotel anyone can do that ; the merest news- 
 paper reporter excels in the art "
 
 182 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 " I hate newspapers," put in the girl, a small, 
 dignified and naturally charming pout coming across 
 her rosy lips, " they always tell you what you don't 
 want to know, and leave out all the good things. My 
 friend Guglielmo hates them, too." 
 
 " No doubt, my child," answered the Englishman. 
 " But, as we were saying, you and I must prepare a 
 grand surprise for our friend." 
 
 " Yes," eagerly rejoined the blue-eyed slip of 
 femininity. " If you like, I shall go and meet him at 
 the Lido I know he often goes across to look at the 
 lagoon and, when we come back, you can suddenly 
 appear, like a prince in a fairy-tale or like little 
 Giacomo, when we played at pirates on a desert 
 island ! Yes, that would be fine, Ecco !" 
 
 " Tis a very fine notion you've got into your 
 pretty little head," answered Seton Smith. " I, for 
 one, shall appreciate the surprise at its full worth 
 and your friend Guglielmo will never forget it in all his 
 life . . . You are a little witch, Giuseppina. But 
 tell me : how did you get to know Guglielmo ? " 
 
 " Oh, that was easy," laughed the diminutive 
 goddess. " I was playing behind the Merceria, with 
 Giacomo, when he came along, as though he were 
 looking for a gondola. I knew at once that he was 
 an Inglese, and I took him to a fine gondolier I 
 know. . . ." 
 
 " You seem to know everybody, fanciulla mia ! " 
 
 " This gondolier is Giacomo' s father. . . . Well, 
 after that, I saw him every day, and we went for walks 
 together. That is why I knew exactly where he likes 
 to go and where to meet him. I am quite sure he has 
 gone to the Stabilimento this morning, and will return 
 to the palace of the Inglese at sixteen o'clock. . . . 
 You see, my friend Guglielmo is very rich," she added 
 in a shy and demure tone of youthful pride.
 
 HENRY HARLAND 183 
 
 " Yes," replied Smith, with the faintest touch of 
 grimness, "he is very rich. . . . And where do you 
 propose me to fall upon him, and give him the best 
 surprise he has ever had ? " 
 
 " In the Giardino, behind San Servolo," promptly 
 answered the sorceress, like one well accustomed to 
 play such pranks. " We always get out of the Gondola 
 at San Servolo, and walk to San Giorgio through the 
 public Gardens. There is a little path leading to a 
 fountain : ecco, that is the place. Nobody is there as 
 a rule, and it is just the proper thing to play at 
 surprises." 
 
 " Va bene, little witch," replied Seton Smith. 
 " I shall hide behind the orleander, in the shade the 
 sun is kind enough to spread and slant at that hour, 
 and when I see you coming along, I shall jump out 
 like. . . . like little Giacomo, and shout Boo-oo-oo ! 
 . . . And then you'll laugh ! . . Qui vivra verra !" 
 
 "Oh, how nice everything will be ! " exclaimed 
 the little girl, clapping her sunburnt and dirty hands. 
 " We shall be there between half past sixteen and a 
 quarter to seventeen. It always takes the same time 
 I know! How pleased my friend Guglielmo will 
 be!" 
 
 " That's right," chuckled the Englishman. " Well, 
 I must be off now, but I won't forget the appointment 
 . . . And don't you forget to buy some sweets," he 
 added, slipping a sovereign into her dirty palms. 
 
 " Oh ! " Her girlish azure eyes lit up wonder- 
 ingly in a bewildering, charming, roguish utterly 
 irresponsible and not-to-be resisted a rippling, girlish 
 divine smile, that was a reflection of the sky above 
 and of the silvery waves below a smile that cut off 
 the answer ready on her lips, and expressed far more 
 than any mere words could do.
 
 184 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 And the Englishman, laughing softly, departed, 
 nodding to his odd and mischievous accomplice. 
 
 On that same afternoon, in the pleasant Public 
 Gardens filled with the subtle odours of orange-trees 
 and tamarin, among the playful shadows of ilexes 
 and orleanders, one might have heard the voices of 
 merry, quaint, old-fashioned southern children, busily 
 engaged in games of quaint descriptions, while passers- 
 by looked gaily on for a moment, and more often than 
 not joined in the hearty exclamations that filled the 
 air. Your southern person, with his blood rushing 
 readily to all his limbs, is apt to give vent to his 
 private feelings in a manner no self-respecting English 
 gentleman would approve of and yet none the less 
 charming for that. 
 
 Just beside a little, sandy, shadowy, smiling path, 
 that wound itself right up to the spluttering, sparkling, 
 laughing fountain, behind a gaunt old oleander, the 
 king of oleanders, stood Seton Smith, well hidden 
 among the ever-changing shadows, his anxious gaze 
 darting right or left from time to time, in expectation 
 of his new-found friend. 
 
 He espied her from afar, hand in hand with a tall 
 young man, who appeared strangely out of place in 
 this paradise of a Venetian garden a tall fellow, who 
 appeared to answer curtly the evidently numerous 
 questions with which his youthful companion inex- 
 haustingly plied him ; not an Italian, one could see 
 at first glance, despite the bronze hue beginning to 
 smother his northern pallor and smoking a gold- 
 tipped cigarette whose silver-grey curling wreaths 
 wandered lazily up into the clear blue sky. 
 
 Giuseppina and her friend, whom Seton Smith 
 (egregious circumstance) had no difficulty in recog- 
 nising as the original of the photograph he had showed
 
 HENRY HARLAND 185 
 
 the little girl that very morning, came along the little 
 path, chattering gaily (at least she was chattering 
 gaily), with the air of promeneurs well used to their 
 surroundings ; yet one could see an air of unusual 
 excitement and animation in the young, blue, usually 
 careless and absurdly beautiful little eyes. She went 
 on talking wildly, right up to the king of oleanders she 
 had mentioned as a trysting place to her latest friend, 
 the other rich Inglese. As they came opposite the 
 tree, Seton Smith's lithe form shot out from behind 
 the heavy shadows, and he laid his firm and sinewy 
 hand on the other's shoulder. 
 
 "I'm afraid the game's up, Mr. William Thomas 
 Dorner," he said in a peculiarly quiet voice. " No, 
 don't move, I've got you covered with my revolver . . . 
 That's better. You see, my friend Giuseppina quite 
 inadvertently put me on to your tracks, and being an 
 ileve de Sherlock Holmes, I promised her to give you a 
 surprise the surprise of your life. ... I think I 
 have been successful ? " 
 
 " Damn you ! " angrily let out the wretched man. 
 
 " Don't mind me," replied Seton Smith. " 'Tis 
 no business of yours, what becomes of me in post- 
 terrestrial times. . . . Come, now, will you follow me 
 quietly, or do you want me to handcuff you ? You'd 
 better avoid a row 'twill do you no good." 
 
 " All right," said Dorner sullenly, with a droop of 
 his heavy, tired, restless eyelids, " I'll follow you." 
 
 " You see, bambina mia," added Seton Smith, 
 turning to the bewildered and completely startled 
 little Italian girl, " your friend Guglielmo has lately 
 left his English home, carrying with him fifty thousand 
 lire that belong to his employers. Now he is coming 
 back with me to get his deserts. . . . And you had 
 better run along and play with little Giacomo."
 
 186 RATHER LIKE.. 
 
 PART III. 
 EDEN PHILLPOTTS 
 
 Between the village of Moretonbridge and the 
 hamlet of Posthampstead, there runs a track that 
 looks straight at the eastern arm of Dart opposite 
 Pittimerry Hill. The road flies over the impressive 
 shoulder of Heddymore Tor, jumps clean into a pit 
 that yawns on one side of the hill, bounds back round 
 its base, and finally jumps across Dart over an 
 ancient bridge about half a mile before touching 
 Posthampstead. 
 
 Now, just opposite the silent mass of Heddymore 
 Tor, which shuts out the sun soon after noon all along 
 the eastern slope of the land, there shall be seen a turf 
 hut, such as shepherds employ at eaning time. The 
 walls of this dwelling are old and weather-beaten, 
 and there shall presently appear upon them an ir- 
 regular frieze of holes that gape and leer, with their 
 sightless eyes and toothless mouths. The roof of 
 thatch has crumbled down in places ; rotted wood- 
 work will be seen lying about, seasoned into the same 
 colour as most of the lichened walls, where glimmer 
 wonderful fabrics of cryptogamous vegetation. Here 
 flourishes " reindeer-moss," that works its delicate
 
 EDEN PHILLPOTTS 187 
 
 patterns into the peering eyeless sockets through 
 which the heathy wind loves to come whistling along ; 
 here dwells the cladonia, its flaming gold weaving lace- 
 work on the bare grey of other lichens, and lighting up 
 the green setting of true mosses and various creepers. 
 On the outlying heath, too, humble vegetations cover 
 the granite blocks, in the dark crannies of which the 
 bittern and the jackdaw build their nests, while 
 screech-owls send forth their ghostly cry into the 
 night. 
 
 Generations of shepherds have used this hut, that 
 has been several times struck down by lightning, or 
 otherwise destroyed and built up again, thanks to 
 spontaneous subscriptions of kind neighbours. The 
 smith, at Moretonbridge, who is well-nigh sixty years 
 old, has told me, in his nervous Anglo-Saxon, which 
 still rings in my ears, how he remembers old Ezekiel, 
 the last one to inhabit the tumble-down place which 
 was already crumbling in his own boyhood. Neglect 
 had now added itself to decay, and nobody thought 
 of living in such a mouldy place. In spite of every- 
 thing, however, the hut, though empty, is not so 
 deserted as one might think : the place still has a 
 hearth of sorts, with its heap of grey ashes, while a 
 pile of sundry bottles and empty boxes look askance 
 at him who would be bold enough to enter by day. 
 
 The ruined hut is haunted, moreover, and you may 
 find those who still believe in the ghosts that assemble 
 there before departing on their nightly errand to 
 Barrow Farm. Not a woodman or a shepherd would 
 be seen nigh the place when the moon is out, and 
 although none will positively swear to have seen an 
 apparition, there are none that disbelieve in them, 
 save perhaps the younger generation that has grown 
 too matter-of-fact to fancy and too sceptical to deny.
 
 i88 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 It is natural that a tumble-down and desolate 
 place like Heddymore Hut should harbour the non- 
 descript flotsam that happen to pass across such a wild 
 tract of land as Dartmoor ; more than one fugitive 
 has sought under its crumbling roof a night's shelter 
 against God's wrath, and many are those who have 
 halted 'mid its battered walks long enough to catch 
 their second breath. 
 
 It was not particularly amazing, therefore, that 
 little Mary Oldhouse should find the old hut occupied 
 when she peeped into it one warm evening in May, 
 when the ling was already flowering among the furze, 
 and the sphagnum bog gave out its pregnant fragrance. 
 Mary was the daughter of John Oldhouse, the owner 
 of Barrow Farm, and resembled her father as little as it 
 is given to nature to manage. The former, a sturdy, 
 six-foot British countryman, seemed to embody 
 everything that England stands for : stern-featured 
 and ruddy-complexioned, he was the picture of bodily 
 vigour and tenacious hardihood. His daughter was a 
 frail little maid, whose butterfly existence spent itself 
 on Dartmoor, fluttering about from vale to Tor, from 
 farm to hamlet, up along the hundred slopes, and 
 down the slanting hills. She had often paid flying 
 visits to the old shepherd's hut, and was a firm believer 
 in the ghosts that were said to haunt it. Moreover, she 
 was not in the least afraid of them, being universally 
 petted and loved by every man. woman, and beast 
 upon the moor. It was true she had never met 
 anyone at all in her ramblings to the tumble-down 
 hut. So, to-night, when she found herself looking 
 upon a gaunt and mud-besmeared human form, sitting 
 on a pile of mouldy wood, she expressed some girlish 
 astonishment, but no genuine fear. 
 
 " Well ! " she exclaimed at length, as the unknown
 
 EDEN PHILLPOTTS 189 
 
 figure stared at her unsympathetically, " I knawed as 
 we'm gotten ghosts up about. Faither ban't right 
 when 'e doan't b'lieve they'm on Dartymoor. An' 
 'ere be one, butivul, an' all, biding anigh me. Us 
 knawed as they'm gert witty,* wise an' good." 
 
 " Stop your fool's talk, you silly girl ! " angrily 
 retorted the mysterious figure. " You'd better help me 
 to light a fire in this beastly crumbling place ! " 
 
 " If you'm angry wi' me, 'twon't help 'e much wi' 
 a fire," Mary laughed back. " Why, I never did hear 
 tell on a ghost as axed for warmth, seein' as it ought 
 to have catched enough where it comes from. But it 
 ban't like a good darter to refuse when she be bidden. 
 Besides, I be gert wi' kitchen fires to home, an' e' 
 shall see jest what us can be catched doin'." 
 
 The maid came forward, genuinely amused at so 
 strange a request from what she believed to be nothing 
 but a fleshless phantom. In doing so, however, her 
 dainty little foot came in contact with a large hob- 
 nailed boot, and she uttered a sharp cry of surprise in 
 which for the first time fear played a part. 
 
 " Oh ! So 'e ban't a real ghost, maister ! An' 
 what may 'e be doin' in the shepherd's hut this time 
 o' night ? " 
 
 " Who told you I was a ghost ? " answered the 
 stranger, less unkindly than he had spoken before. 
 " Whatever I may be, you made a very acceptable 
 proposal just now : I'm sure you must be a much 
 better hand at lighting a fire than I can ever hope to 
 be, and as I'm in sorrowful need of a blaze, it would be 
 a real kindness on your part to get one up for 
 me." 
 
 " Ess fay," iaid the girl. " But 'e must first tell 
 
 * Witty wise.
 
 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 me who 'e be. There's not many as would bide in this 
 hut at this hour o' day, an' if "e doan't answer me first, 
 'tis not for me to light the fires o' the likes of 'e. . . . 
 You'm not from Dartymoor, neither : 'e doan't talk 
 like us." 
 
 " True, my dear," retorted the unknown. " I 
 happen to be from a little place called Sneyd, a good 
 long way from here, though you've probably heard of 
 it : it's quite near Bursley and that's where they 
 make the crockery." 
 
 " That be no answer. . . . An' what might your 
 name be ? Us knows the names of all people on 
 Dartymoor, an' if 'e wants me to light your fire, 'e must 
 tell me who 'e be an' why 'e be here too." 
 
 " Well, then, little Miss Inquisitive," laughingly 
 replied the man, " my name is Dorner, and I'm out 
 here. . . er . . . for my health. And now," he added 
 rather hastily, " I believe I've earned the right to 
 your own name and to your help." 
 
 " Ess," said Mary Oldhouse, telling him her name 
 in her fresh, girlish voice, while she set to work with 
 scraps of wood and bits of straw which her dainty 
 fingers, aided by a match Dorner handed her silently, 
 soon kindled into a blaze. He put his hands greedily 
 to the generous warmth that sprang up from the hearth, 
 and she gazed at him for some moments without a 
 word. Still keeping near the fire, he began looking 
 at her in his turn, while the faintest blush sprang upon 
 her dimpled cheeks. Then he began speaking in a low, 
 musical voice, the like of which she had never heard 
 before, accustomed as she was to the coarser West- 
 Anglian tongue spoken by the farmers and the peasants 
 who inhabit Dartmoor. 
 
 " I must acknowledge your very welcome 
 services, little Mary ; and at the same time you force
 
 EDEN PHILLPOTTS 191 
 
 me to declare there are some remarkably pretty little 
 maids in these parts. Why, many an Italian beauty 
 would envy you your grey eyes and rosy cheeks, and 
 I am sure Monna Lisa's smile would faint before your 
 own ! " 
 
 " I be sure as I doan't knaw anything of Monna 
 Leeza," retorted the girl, "but there be a many men as 
 'd not speak to me like 'e. An' if faither was anigh, 
 an' catched 'e to ut, maybe he'd not like it either. 
 Us doan't knaw to say gert butivul things ; an' why 
 for should us ? " Yet she did not look angry, in spite 
 of the rebuke. And presently she went on : " If 'e 
 promise not to say any more o' they silly things about 
 my eyes or my cheeks, I'd not mind taking of 'e back 
 to Barrow Farm, where 'e could get a decent meal an' 
 a better bed than what 'e'll ever get in the old shep- 
 herd's hut. Faither ban't the man to refuse a fellow 
 creetur a shelter an' a morsel to eat." 
 
 " My dear," replied the man, " I am afraid I can 
 make no call on your hospitality just at present. But 
 if you could tell me the shortest cut to Plymouth, I'd 
 be truly grateful. The fact is, I have some rather 
 important business to transact, and ... er ... I 
 must not remain about here longer than is absolutely 
 necessary." 
 
 At the same time he drew a box of cigarettes from 
 his shabby coat, and proceeded to light one of them at 
 the already waning fire. Mary noticed the light golden 
 colour of the tobacco, and also the gold ring that 
 tipped the white paper where he drew it to his lips. 
 Through the gaping coat she also caught sight of a 
 hideous-looking design, that had grown familiar to her 
 accustomed eyes, though she had never seen the like 
 on any living man before. She uttered a sharp 
 exclamation of dismay.
 
 I 9 2 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 " 'E ban't one o' they prison convicts ? " she cried. 
 " Gaffer Prote often told me as they'm escaping from 
 Princetown gaol, but I'd never 'a thought as I'd see 
 un, an' take 'im for a ghost an' all not a mile up 
 along o' the old farm." 
 
 " Look here, Mary," the stranger said, more 
 seriously than he had ever spoken before. " You've 
 found out my secret but I'm sure you wouldn't harm 
 me ! Surely those rosy lips of yours were not made 
 to raise the hue and cry against an innocent man who 
 has managed to escape hard and unjust gaolers ! 
 Surely, your fairy eyes would not like to see me caged 
 within those terrible prison walls ! Come, I am at 
 your mercy : you will not kill my new-born hope ! " 
 
 She appeared truly moved by his words, and 
 reflected a long time before she answered. Then her 
 reply came in faltering tones, giving voice to the 
 thoughts that had kept her silent. 
 
 " Hold hard : this axes a lot of thinking about. 
 You'm an escaped prisoner, and if I don't tell on 'e, 
 I can never look up to faither's eyes no more ess fay 
 ... All the same, if I hadn't come over to the hut 
 to-night, but stayed quietly at home, I shouldn't have 
 seen 'e, and nobody else would have catched 'e to-night. 
 But why for be 'e a convict, dressed up like a mommet* 
 in a field ? " 
 
 " My dear," gently replied the escaped convict 
 " once the law gets hold of you, it's a hard thing to 
 justify one's conduct. However, I don't mind telling 
 you I was in the clutches of a big company that did its 
 best to ruin me yes, and had succeeded too, if Heaven 
 had not been kind at last by putting you across my 
 path ! . . . Mary, little Mary, you are all the world to 
 
 * Mommet scarecrow.
 
 EDEN PHILLPOTTS 193 
 
 me. I love you, Mary, I love you with all the strength 
 of my battered body, with all the yearning of my un- 
 chainable soul ! 
 
 Though I had never heard thy name, 
 
 I know thee from afar, 
 And thou shalt guide to life and fame, 
 
 Mine own, my shining star ! " 
 
 Now he was on his knees before the girl, for he saw 
 only the light of kindness in her tender eyes. Ten 
 minutes ago, she little knew what strange adventure 
 would befall her : instead of the ghastly apparitions 
 that failed of any audience, she was now confronted 
 with a man, a cultured man, whose polished speech 
 was unlike any of those she had met before, whose 
 voice was pleading for his liberty and life, while the 
 floating breeze outside brought all the fragrance of 
 the moor to her childish senses, awakening for the 
 first time to the talk of love. 
 
 " Why, you be talking like they do in books ! " she 
 exclaimed. But she did not push him away from her, 
 and her voice was more than uncommon tearful, 
 proving to demonstration that the stranger, whatever 
 his wrongs, had found his way to her heart. 
 
 He stroked her golden curls, and took her in his 
 arms. Outside, night had already fallen, wrapping 
 up the gaunt tors in its huge mantle of murky darkness. 
 Close by, the lapping, rippling Dart loosened the pinch 
 at Mary Oldhouse's heart : she reflected with surprise 
 that she was giving up all her past life of wandering 
 and roaming, all Dartmoor's gentle summer fragrance 
 and winter harshness, to this man, who had been but a 
 stranger to her a few minutes ago, but who was now 
 dearer to her than all her dreams of golden days. 
 
 12
 
 194 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Hand in hand, they left the hut : on the desolate 
 Moor, a granite cross seemed to indicate the way to 
 safety, as it had, of old, pointed out the road to many 
 an abbot walking from monastery to monastery. They 
 went very slowly at first, for she did not wish to reach 
 her father's farm till every one was fast asleep. No- 
 body would miss her : she had often spent the night 
 at some distant neighbours'. Her mind was fully 
 made up, and nothing could make her waver in her 
 purpose. 
 
 That same night, the fugitives, after having passed 
 the new hostelry at Two Bridges, and the old Saracen's 
 Head, reached the landing-place at Davenport Hard, 
 where Dorner easily found a small sailing tramp on 
 which they both embarked, well out of the clutches 
 of the law, and ready to face the lapping waves and 
 unknown coasts for which she was bound!
 
 H. RIDER HAGGARD 195 
 
 PART IV. 
 SIR H. RIDER HAGGARD 
 
 It will be remembered by all Captain John Good's 
 friends (and they are legions) that he was no mean 
 traveller, hunter, and explorer ; indeed, he undertook 
 several expeditions into the wilds of Southern Africa, 
 and accompanied his particular friend, Sir Henry 
 Curtis, on the quest that eventually revealed both his 
 long-lost brother and King Solomon's carefully hidden 
 treasure. It will therefore astonish no one that his 
 son Tom should have inherited a similar taste for 
 adventures in unknown countries, though this is a 
 thing that might well be disputed. Be this as it may, 
 young Tom Good was born and bred a big game hunter 
 and an ardent traveller. He especially haunted the 
 precincts his father had explored with old Alan 
 Ouatermain, and, in fact, made several trips out to 
 Africa, both before and since the war ; between these 
 roving travels, which would last for any period of time, 
 between a few months and several years, he would come 
 back to his old English home, where I often enjoyed 
 his genial hospitality. It was during one of my 
 visits to him that I happened to mention the name 
 of one William Dorner, a fraudulent clerk, who had
 
 196 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 been skilfully arrested in Venice, after having ab- 
 sconded with two thousand pounds belonging to his 
 employers, brought back to England, and sentenced 
 to three years' hard labour ; he had been wily enough 
 to break prison, and to escape from Dartmoor to 
 Africa, it was presumed ; nothing further had been 
 heard about him. But the singular fact about his 
 escape was the simultaneous disappearance from 
 Dartmoor of a young girl, Mary Oldhouse, the daughter 
 of a well-to-do farmer, of whom nothing was known 
 since the time of this extraordinary occurrence. I 
 had mentioned Dorner quite casually, in the middle 
 of an unremarkable conversation, and was surprised 
 to see my friend start suddenly as the name caught 
 his ear. 
 
 " What, Dorner ? " he exclaimed, " William 
 Thomas Dorner ? " 
 
 " Yes, I believe those are his names," I answered, 
 " and most ordinary they are, too. Do you happen 
 to know him ? " 
 
 " Why, I actually met him and his wife in South 
 Africa at least I met a man who called himself 
 Rorden, and told me his real name was Dorner. . . . 
 Perhaps the story would interest you ? Well, here 
 goes." And he broke into the following narrative, 
 which I have tried to set down as nearly as possible 
 in his own words : 
 
 " It was while I was out lion-hunting near Miner's 
 Rest in the Transvaal. Do you know Miner's Rest ? 
 Well, you certainly lose nothing by it ; it's the ugliest, 
 dustiest, beastliest place ever contaminated by the 
 scum of civilisation and the worst of barbarity. How- 
 ever, I didn't remain there very long : I only took time 
 to engage a couple of Kaffirs and an ox-waggon, which, 
 by the way, is far worse in quality and twice as dear,
 
 H. RIDER HAGGARD 197 
 
 in such a place, than in any decent city near the 
 coast, though that is a saying that might well be 
 disputed especially by the half -Zulu, half -Dutchman, 
 who transacts the bargain. Anyhow, I set out into the 
 interior, towards the Limpopo, with my little caravan, 
 hoping to settle a couple of lions at best, and, in case of 
 extra bad luck, to spend some fairly active and whole- 
 some weeks, at any rate. 
 
 " I remember my father often telling me how old 
 Alan Quatermain used to feel lonely in our European 
 crowds where he knew no one, while the silence of an 
 equatorial forest was good enough company for him. 
 Well, I feel just the same, and I can tell you the banks 
 of the Limpopo are far better company than the empty 
 snobbish set that flock to London or Paris. It is 
 impossible for me to conceive loneliness in the middle 
 of an African hunting ground, with a Westly-Richards 
 slung across my shoulder and an ample provision of 
 .507 express bullets in my cartridge belt. 
 
 " The oxen, I remember, had given us no end of 
 trouble during that little trip. There is nothing more 
 stupid than a bullock, and they are apt to be a regular 
 nuisance when once they make up their minds. Trek- 
 king is not altogether a bed of roses, I can tell you, 
 and I've done my full share of it, too. To begin with, 
 one of our beasts had managed to eat some plant or 
 other that disagreed with its constitution, and we 
 had been obliged to put a bullet through it. Another 
 had actually gone astray during the night, and what 
 we found left of it, next day, proved that it had made 
 a good supper to some preying lion that had been 
 cheeky enough to come near our camp without being 
 spotted, or even scented. Moreover, Jock, the elder 
 of my Kaffirs, was not an eminently reliable fellow, 
 as I had ample reasons to ascertain later on. The
 
 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 other, who responded to the musical name of Tim-Tim, 
 was quite a different sort, with whom I have since gone 
 through many adventures, and most curious some of 
 them were. 
 
 " Well, this particular trip didn't seem to turn out 
 peculiarly well, what with one thing and another ; 
 we lost some of our flour, I remember, crossing a ford 
 that happened to be deeper than we supposed. The 
 day after, however, we found a pretty little stream, 
 flowing between banks green with maidenhair fern, 
 wild asparagus, and many other beautiful grasses. 
 Moreover, game seemed rather plentiful in the neigh- 
 bourhood : the plains on the northern side of our stream 
 were swarming with springbock and blesbuck, and 
 many varieties of quazza and vilderbeeste. The 
 beauty of the place and the richness of its fauna made 
 me resolve to stay there a few days, in the hope that 
 we might come across a few odd lions, which are sure 
 to be about, in those latitudes, wherever they find a 
 good hunting ground. 
 
 "We established our skerm (i) on the banks of the 
 stream, and very pleasant it was, what with the 
 bathing in the deep current, the fresh and bracing 
 air, full of the fragrance of sugar bushes and wild 
 mimosa, and the promise of good sport in the very near 
 future. I told you just now I never felt lonely in an 
 African forest ; and so it happened that I was quietly 
 sitting on a large stone some distance away from my 
 camp, spending a very pleasant evening all by myself, 
 with no other companion than my pipe. The moon 
 was shining like a silver disc, and it was glorious to see 
 its lithe rays mingle light and shadows in a way no 
 painter could ever approach. Indeed, it would require 
 somebody with more words on the tip of his tongue 
 
 (i) Rough enclosure.
 
 H. RIDER HAGGARD 199 
 
 than I shall ever have, to describe such a scene as it 
 deserves ; so I will not even attempt to do so. 
 
 "Tim-Tim was cooking some impala-steaks from a 
 buck I had shot in the afternoon a remarkable case, I 
 remember, of a '570 express bullet passing clean through 
 the heart and presently a long, low moaning sound 
 was suddenly heard through the growth of many- 
 coloured vegetation and most remarkable it was in 
 the silence of the night. It seemed to come from so 
 far away, and my first thought was to look around 
 for some wild animal that might have strayed near the 
 camp. I saw nothing, however, and the moaning went 
 on, interrupted by long periods of strange and ominous 
 silence. Then came a distant rumbling, louder and 
 louder, as of a waggon approaching ; and presently 
 I did see a waggon in the far distance. It seemed 
 incredible that anyone should be trekking at that 
 time of the night ; evidently it was a fugitive or an 
 inexperienced hand. At first I refused to believe my 
 senses, what with the moonshine, which is apt to be 
 tricky at times, and with the murmur of the wind in 
 the bushes ; soon, however, I was obliged to believe 
 my eyes and ears, for there was a great big waggon, 
 drawn by four oxen, nearly opposite my skerm, just 
 across the river. A man was walking abreast, a white 
 man, though he was considerably sunburnt (this 
 much had I made out in the moonlight) ; and he was 
 smoking a cigarette. He had probably espied our 
 camp-fire from afar ; anyhow, he halted his team 
 just opposite the place where I was sitting, and cried 
 out to me in a tired sort of voice : 
 
 " Hullo ! Are you English ? " 
 
 " Yes," I answered looking intently at him 
 You see I didn't want to commit myself with a perfect 
 stranger, and at the same time, you can't stand on
 
 200 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 ceremony on the banks of the Limpopo as on those of 
 the Thames. 
 
 " I'm English too," he answered, " and in a sorry 
 plight. I've lost all my beastly niggers, and my 
 wife's ill and lying in the waggon : could you lend 
 me a hand in crossing this stream ? " 
 
 "His appeal to me was not to be refused, whatever 
 he may have been. You can't ignore a white man 
 in trouble in the middle of an African forest. Besides, 
 the extraordinary fact of his having a woman with 
 him would have been enough to secure any help I 
 might have been able to give. So I called to Jock 
 and Tim-Tim to cross the stream and catch hold of 
 the disselboom, to help the cart cross back ; which 
 they accordingly proceeded to do. 
 
 "And then occurred the unexpected, and a wild 
 scene it was, I can tell you. Hardly had my two 
 kaffirs begun turning the Englishman's unwilling team 
 towards our camp, when there arose a mighty roar, this 
 time alarmingly near me. Turning round, I saw a 
 huge lion, bellowing with rage, and evidently in great 
 pain : it had sprung upon a part of the buck Tim-Tim 
 had begun to prepare for dinner, and had spitted 
 itself on the impala that served for the cooking. I 
 jumped up, caught hold of my trusty Westly-Richards 
 that I never allowed to stray out of my reach, and let 
 fly at the brute. The bullet certainly did not miss 
 its mark, as I ascertained from renewed roars ; how- 
 ever, it failed to hit a vital part, and the beast slunk 
 away, still bellowing ominously. I thought it best 
 not to follow, what between its being well-nigh the 
 middle of the night, and my hearing another dreadful 
 noise just at the same moment : there was the waggon 
 in the middle of the stream, with my two kaffirs and 
 the Englishman driving the unwilling team. The
 
 H. RIDER HAGGARD 201 
 
 second ox on the left side, evidently more frightened 
 than the others, let out a wild whoop of terror, and 
 suddenly skreked (i) loose from its leather bands ; at 
 the same time, the disselboom of the cart went crash 
 into a boulder that seemed to have been placed there 
 on purpose. All was a scene of confusion : Tim-Tim 
 and Jock were swearing at the other oxen, that were all 
 three of them moaning dreadfully, while the English- 
 man shouted wild abuse at everybody and everything, 
 and a softer voice arose from inside the waggon, 
 shrieking in an agony of fright. I registered a quiet 
 oath to see the thing through, when, to crown all, 
 the stray bullock suddenly reappeared on my side of 
 the stream : there came a mighty roar, a piercing, 
 ear-splitting howl, and suddenly the wounded lion 
 came bounding on the poor brute's back. In less time 
 than it takes to describe it, I let fly from my Westly- 
 Richards and none too soon either. Even as it was, 
 however, there was plenty of mischief done, as you will 
 see at once : my bullet hit the lion full in the head, 
 killing him instantly, but the monster's impetus was 
 such that it fell with its victim, still gripping it with its 
 powerful claws, right into the very middle of the 
 striving team of oxen. The confusion was indescrib- 
 able, of course, but that was not the worst part of it. 
 After we had managed to clear away the mess, and to 
 disentangle what remained of the oxen, the waggon 
 and men, I was the first to notice that my unknown 
 fellow-countryman had struck headforemost on to the 
 boulder ; there he lay quite senseless, and I was making 
 ready to pick him up as gently as I could, when the 
 rock suddenly gave way, rolled on to the shore, and 
 disclosed a sort of pit that looked astonishingly like the 
 entrance to an underground tunnel. I told Tim-Tim 
 
 (I) To skrek To break loose from the trek tow.
 
 202 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 to examine the hole with care, while I carried the un- 
 conscious man to the fire ; I laid him down on a 
 blanket, and his wife, who had got out of the cart, 
 nursed him back to consciousness : it did not last 
 long, however ; that was the moment he gave me his 
 name. I expect he felt death stealing over him, for 
 very soon he said : " Friend, I told you my name was 
 Rorden ; well, that was a lie, and it's not the time 
 now for keeping it up. My real name is William 
 Thomas Dorner, and my unworthy life has already 
 been saved once by that lady," he pointed to the 
 woman who held him in her arms; "she is not my 
 lawful wife, but Heaven knows she could not have 
 been dearer to me, or acted more bravely and tenderly, 
 if we had been regularly married. Promise me you 
 will treat her gently and see her back to England. . ." 
 His voice died out at that point, while the woman 
 was in tears ; however, I gave the required promise, 
 and I noticed the look of relief that came into his 
 eyes ; then he sank down softly, turned a little to 
 one side, and lay still. 
 
 " Little remains to be told. The stroke of ill-luck 
 that killed Dorner proved the means of my providing 
 amply for his widow I am sure I may call her such. 
 She was a Dartmoor girl, and her accent, I remember, 
 was most amusing to my unsophisticated ears. Well, 
 as I said just now, when I saw the hole left open by 
 the dislodged boulder, I told Tim-Tim to go and see 
 what it w r as. Some time later, he came back crying : 
 " Look Inkoos ! " and carrying something bright in his 
 palm : I looked at the object and saw it was a necklace 
 of massive gold. So, as soon as we had disposed of the 
 dead man, and of the lion that had caused all the 
 turmoil, after having made things shipshape in the 
 camp, I went by myself to have a good look at the pit,
 
 H. RIDER HAGGARD 203 
 
 and most remarkable a place I discovered it to be. 
 It was a regular treasure chamber, as I made out from 
 some inscriptions I found on large stone boxes, as big 
 as Egyptian sarcophages : here, I managed to read, 
 was the long lost treasure of King Monolos, of whom 
 so many legends circulated in the middle-ages, and now 
 almost forgotten ; here was a find worth thousands, 
 perhaps millions of pounds ! Of course, it would have 
 taken several months to exhaust the treasure, and it 
 would have been necessary to organize a digging 
 expedition on quite a large scale, a thing I immediately 
 proposed doing, the haul being the rightful possession 
 of Mrs. Dorner for so I prefer to call her. However, 
 she would hear of nothing of the kind, and, as I myself 
 am sufficiently well-off to end my days without know- 
 ing want, we simply let the matter drop. The golden 
 necklace which Tim-Tim had brought back, she 
 accepted, however, and I sold it for her at Pretoria for 
 two thousand pounds a pretty sum, as you see. With 
 this money she set out for England, and I have since 
 heard that she is living happily in a little Dartmoor 
 village."
 
 204 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 HENRY SETON MERRIMAN 
 
 THE REAPERS 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " On a souvent besoin d'un plus petit que soi." 
 
 IN the very heart of busy, bustling Paris, the Rue 
 Vrvienne seems to stand out by itself for its 
 narrowness, combined with the large amount 
 of traffic that passes between its double row of six- 
 storeyed houses. From five or six in the morning, when 
 the first auto-buses begin to thunder through its 
 restless depth, far out into the sleeping night, it is 
 thronged with noisy vans, haughty taxis, and a swarm 
 of busy pedestrians, absorbed " hommes d'affaires," 
 well dressed clerks, brokers one and all, on their way 
 to or from that high temple of pecuniary gods the 
 Bourse. They walk in groups, smile their enigmatic 
 smiles, while from time to time, a hint that may be 
 worth a fortune drops from their otherwise sealed lips ; 
 they have lunched at Champeaux's or Tabary's, they 
 have taken their aperitif, and you naturally would 
 suppose they leave this pulsating corner of the city as 
 soon as their Temple closes its doors for the day.
 
 HENRY SETON MERRIMAN 205 
 
 Yet the Rue Vivienne is as crowded at five as it is at 
 noon, as seething at eight as it is at five. Which is 
 easily explained on the ground that after business comes 
 pleasure. 
 
 The first and deadliest sign of decay a city quarter 
 may give is the stealthy dying out of the pleasure 
 grounds that used to flourish within its bounds. Which 
 tends to prove that the quarter of the Bourse is in full 
 life. For not only is it a centre of finance in the day, 
 but it becomes the very heart of Paris for pleasure in 
 the night ; it is the centre of gravity of theatres and 
 music-halls, from the Seine to Montmartre, and from 
 the Madeleine to the Place de la Republique. And the 
 bustling financier fills so well his vocation, that he 
 automatically transforms himself into the foremost 
 " viveur " or the most professed " boulevardier " at 
 the stroke of the hour that keeps him, till the following 
 day, outside his business-haunts. Though little 
 dreamt of in England, such a transformation exists, 
 and is the strongest and simplest reason for the lasting 
 bustle of the Rue Vivienne. 
 
 The street itself, as all the world knows or pre- 
 tends to know, being a very ignorant and very vain 
 world runs perpendicular from the Boulevards to 
 the Bourse, pursuing its unswerving course right down 
 to the faded Palais-Royal ; and the corner of the Boule- 
 vards is not ten houses distant from the Theatre des 
 Varietes, where you get the wittiest laugh in the world. 
 And till about one o'clock in the morning you may see 
 it filled with belated theatre-goers, pretty women, 
 and the usual flotsam that haunt the fashionable 
 pleasure resorts of a great city. 
 
 Along this street, one fine night in May, M. 
 Ambroise Dancart was pacing his solitary steps. 
 Monsieur Dancart, with his little pointed beard, and
 
 206 RATHER LIKE. . . . 
 
 his carefully waxed moustache, was not the type of 
 man you would naturally expect to meet at such an 
 hour and in such a place ; though no dandy, he was 
 presentably clad in evening dress, which protruded 
 from under his light grey overcoat, creating in the 
 brain of the placid sergent de ville, who saw him pass 
 along, an impression of stolid respectability, distant 
 alike from the foppishness of those youths of our 
 generation who loll in deep chairs with their knees 
 higher than their heads, and from the unnecessary 
 severity of so many elderly Englishmen. He was of 
 middle height, rather small than otherwise, and had 
 it not been for his obviously curt manner of one who 
 observes everything and forgets nothing, the most 
 remarkable thing about him was that he was quite 
 unremarkable. He might have been about forty years 
 of age, judging from the slight stoop of his back and 
 the absence of grey in his beard and what was visible 
 of his hair. There was something, moreover, in the 
 grim set of his tightly-pressed lips, that suggested 
 secrecy and victory over self. In short, Monsieur 
 Dancart belonged to that race of Frenchmen who are 
 pleased to defy the time-worn caricature which too 
 many so-called " humorous " artists have circulated 
 among alien nations. As he calmly walked along the 
 pavement, his glistening grey eyes bespoke that 
 insight into human nature which alone makes a great 
 hunter or a great captain. He had come down the 
 Boulevard Montmartre, dodging leisurely among the 
 compact mass of pedestrians who crowded it at that 
 hour when the theatres were disgorging their hundreds 
 of spectators ; there he had felt like an eel in the hand 
 of an angler, never so happy as when it slips away 
 in the very nick of time. Then, at the corner of the 
 Rue Vivienne, he had suddenly turned to the left down
 
 HENRY SETON MERRIMAN 207 
 
 the little street, out of the glare of the powerful lamps 
 that change night into day on the Boulevards. 
 
 It is dangerous, however, for an eel to dodge too 
 much ; one last turn, one last wriggle, and the fish is 
 caught just like in the game of repartee, where one 
 ultimate thrust is at last parried and thrown back 
 into the fencer's very heart. As Monsieur Dancart 
 came abreast of the glass-covered and dimly-lit 
 Passage des Panoramas, a tall and obviously blonde 
 figure suddenly darted from out of the passage, 
 meeting the Frenchman just as the circus-rider meets 
 the horse galloping round the ring. 
 
 " You had better follow me quietly," said the new- 
 comer, in an undertone of French which had a slight 
 accent, such as Germans never overcome. His manner 
 of speaking, though quiet to the verge of placidity, 
 was unusual enough to be remembered later, and there 
 was something of a too obtrusive noiselessness in the 
 mode of his approach. 
 
 Dancart turned to face the stranger who addressed 
 him. There is none so ready with an answer as your 
 habitually silent man, and the little Frenchman's lips 
 hardly moved as he whispered : " Ah ! Meyer ! I 
 thought you would turn up round here, but I am 
 
 armed, and " The end of his sentence was lost 
 
 in a low, gurgling sound, as he limply dropped into the 
 tall man's arms. A careful observer might have 
 noticed the handkerchief clasped in the newcomer's 
 tightly-closed fist, when first he came upon Dancart ; 
 he would have seen the clenched hand slowly open, 
 the white cambric thrust forward under the French- 
 man's nose, and would not have failed to perceive 
 the sickening smell that, for an instant, pervaded that 
 corner of the atmosphere just before he sank upon the 
 other's breast. The tall man swiftly and silently
 
 
 208 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 carried his victim into a taxi that was waiting opposite, 
 and noiselessly drove off. 
 
 The whole scene had been enacted so quickly, so 
 little noise had been made, that not even the stolid 
 sergent de mile could have dreamt that here was 
 anything but the chance encounter of two belated 
 friends driving off together. Which happened to be 
 a fact ; though the tall kidnapper failed to notice 
 a dark figure behind one of the lighted windows of an 
 entresol opposite, who had stood peering at the rapid 
 drama, and hurriedly opened the window as the taxi 
 moved away.
 
 HENRY SETON MERRIMAN 209 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 " A renard, renard et demi." 
 
 THE harbour terminus of a railway line is not a 
 fashionable resort of wealth or beauty, for 
 though wealth and beauty pass below its 
 roof on their way to or from waiting trains, they do 
 little else but pass indeed, without entertaining for 
 a minute the idea of remaining there at all. 
 
 The Gare Maritime at Calais, built at the foot 
 of the wooden pier that reaches far out into the Channel, 
 is as typical an instance as any other ; moreover, as 
 it happens to be out of direct or easy communication 
 with the town itself, it is usually deserted. For facility 
 of communication is the key-note of activity, and makes 
 for the nine-tenths of that greatly debased and slandered 
 valuable success. For at least twenty hours of the 
 twenty-four, the station appears empty, its platforms 
 unoccupied by anything but stray dogs or wandering 
 explorers ; there is no sound but the distant rumble 
 of a shunting goods train or the angry toot of a steamer 
 leaving or entering the quiet harbour. Were it not 
 for the columns of smoke that arise from the numerous 
 chimneys, and the obtrusive posters stuck up every- 
 where posters advertising the numerous and other- 
 13
 
 210 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 wise unrecognised advantages of various bathing 
 resorts Continental or British, one might believe the 
 place to be abandoned, like the station of some ultra- 
 modern fairy-tale princess condemned by a cruel 
 stepmother to sleep through endless years. In the 
 other four hours, however, the Gare Maritime is a real 
 bedlam of activity. In the shade of the arcades, at the 
 corners of the buildings, at the booking-offices, at the 
 entrance to the buffet or the customs searching hall, 
 men stand in groups. There you will see flocks of 
 railway porters and commissionaires, apparently sprung 
 up from nowhere ; the little stall of the news vendor 
 suddenly opens into a galaxy of cosmopolitan literature ; 
 clerks run bustling about from one office to another ; 
 there you may see podgy little interpreters hailing one 
 another in a language that is a mixture of French, as 
 it is spoken by Parisian guttersnipes, and that English 
 that seems to be the national property of coster- 
 mongers. You will not fail to come across the inevit- 
 able retired sailor who clings for ever to the bustle of 
 arrivals and departures in which he used to play more 
 active a part ; for a man never loses the taste for that 
 peculiar branch of slavery to which he was addicted 
 so many years. There are also the stray travellers 
 from the town itself waiting for the train or the 
 steamer that is to convey them to other shores, and 
 a score of anxious friends or relatives awaiting some- 
 body's arrival. This bustle and life recurs, of course, 
 at those hours of day or night when the Dover boats 
 are due to come and leave, with their indispensable half 
 dozen trains to and from Paris, Cologne, Bale, and 
 other continental towns. It reaches its maximum 
 in the very first hours after noon, when two such crises 
 more or less interfere with one another, melting into 
 one longer period of life, babble and noise.
 
 HENRY SETON MERRIMAN 211 
 
 The first act of any importance in this succession 
 of events is the arrival of the first Dover boat, which 
 is, of course, preceded by the preparing of the three 
 or fpur trains into which its passengers are to be dis- 
 charged, on the every natural grounds that they 
 must go somewhere. As soon as the boat comes up 
 against the landing pier, it is taken possession of by the 
 army of porters, commissionaires, and interpreters, 
 who were calmly awaiting the event, and there follows a 
 pandemonium of cosmopolitan talk compared to which 
 Babel must have been child's play. Then comes the 
 disembarking of the ever numerous passengers typical 
 Englishmen for the most part, with their countless 
 portmanteaux and golf clubs which is, after all, not 
 so very unlike closing-time outside a large factory. 
 The travellers are made to pass through the customs 
 hall, where their belongings are duly searched by seedy- 
 looking officials who appear to revel in the havoc 
 they are playing with other people's possessions, 
 after which they are allowed to settle down in their 
 appropriate trains, to await the hour of departure 
 in the dining car or in the station refreshment rooms. 
 Some a very short minority, of course are actually 
 bound for Calais itself, and drive off in the antique 
 cabs which were no doubt old when the first steamer 
 made its apparition in the Straits. A smaller minority 
 still do not go on at all, their business taking them no 
 further than the Gare Maritime ; for the world is, after 
 all, but the place where you have your business to 
 transact. 
 
 Among the latter unusual minority, one fine day in 
 May, was a tall Englishman who seemed to know his 
 way about sufficiently to dispense with the noisy 
 services offered by the multifarious porters and 
 commissionaires* He could do without them all the
 
 212 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 better as he had no other luggage but a very small 
 dressing-case which he easily carried in his left hand, 
 while his right was sufficiently free to proffer the tickets 
 and other flotsam required of him by the numerous 
 officials that preside over these ceremonies. His was 
 the typical British face, rather pale of complexion, with 
 blue eyes deeply set under a wide forehead, while a 
 stray curl of flaxen hair was apparent under the rim 
 of his cloth cap. A quiet, restful man, this, whom 
 the ignorant would call phlegmatic, while those few who 
 see below the surface know that the restful man is he 
 whose life's task is well within the compass of his 
 ability. Of such a type was Stuart Rawdon, whose one 
 and only aim seemed to be the minding of his own 
 business which he did remarkably well. A silent 
 man, moreover, one of those men who, if they have 
 anything to say, say it, but if they have nothing, 
 remain silent. 
 
 There are many talkers in this noisy world of ours, 
 and it has become a truism to state that activity and 
 babble are in inverse ratio to one another. The doers 
 are not those that prattle ; and although it does not 
 follow that silence means activity, nobody will dis- 
 pute that taciturnity spells purpose. 
 
 Stuart Rawdon quickly passed through the crowd 
 that thronged the landing pier and the customs hall, 
 and walked straight to the buffet, like one who knows 
 what he wants and where he goes. He sat down at 
 a small table that commanded a view both of the whole 
 dining room and of the arcade without, and calmly 
 proceeded to order a healthy lunch. A woman en 
 voyage never eats what she would at home ; a man 
 never eats anything different ; which is, of course, but 
 one way of illustrating the " eternal feminine." Now, 
 however, the simple steak on Rawdon's plate pro-
 
 HENRY SETON MERRIMAN 213 
 
 claimed him a man in the full sense of the word, and 
 from the manner in which he did justice to it, you 
 naturally would conclude that he was looking forward 
 to some important business that might excmde the 
 possibility of indulging another meal for some time to 
 come. His lunch finished, he drew a slip of paper from 
 his coat-pocket, a white telegram at which he glanced 
 with the air of one who is already in complete possession 
 of its contents, and only wishes to make sure of every 
 minutest detail. He thrust back the slip into his 
 pocket, looked at the clock, and got up as a heavy rush 
 and fumble betokened the arrival of a train in front of 
 the station building. It was the boat-express from 
 Paris, timed to a nicety, and after a few seconds 
 began the inevitable rush of passengers and porters, 
 this time towards the steamer that was making ready 
 to convey them to England. 
 
 Rawdon cast a longside glance at the seething crowd ; 
 a spark flickered for an instant in his dreamy eyes, and 
 he quietly walked out of the buffet, through the corridor- 
 entrance of a first class compartment, and laid his 
 heavy hand on the shoulder of a tall and obviously 
 blonde passenger hurrying towards the other exit. 
 The man turned a nonplussed face towards the unex- 
 pected Englishman a face in which astonishment 
 and fear were plainly stamped. 
 
 " I'm afraid you won't take the Dover boat just 
 now," said Stuart Rawdon, in that quiet voice that 
 bespeaks at once purpose and victory. 
 
 " I there must be a mistake I don't know you," 
 replied the other, with the same harshness of tone that 
 had proclaimed him a Northern man two nights before 
 in the Rue Vivienne, to which his present uncomfortable 
 position added a note of passing anguish. 
 
 It is dangerous to stop a first-class traveller in
 
 214 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 the midst of a bustling crowd, as many have learnt 
 to their cost. Now, however, there was something 
 in Rawdon's quiet determination that clearly expressed 
 the knowledge of the danger he was running against 
 as well as the consciousness that he held higher trumps 
 in his own hand. 
 
 " There is no mistake at all, Mr. Meyer," the 
 name came out after some hesitation, that was full of 
 unspoken meaning, and sufficient to impress upon the 
 other's already wavering mind the ascendency of a 
 stronger will ; for he had lost that unbounded assurance 
 which almost always accompanies the greatest of human 
 blunders. " I know all about your little game," 
 Rawdon quietly continued, " my friend, Roger 
 Delamare, has let me have the particulars and, in 
 short, I have been commissioned to bring you back 
 to Paris, where you will kindly take me to M. Am- 
 broise Dancart, whom you have managed to outwit 
 the day before yesterday. It's no use trying to resist ; 
 I have the order for your arrest in my pocket, and 
 I intend to make use of it if necessary. Will you come 
 on quietly, Mr. Katzenstein ? " 
 
 Some words produce the effect of a whiplash. 
 The trapped foreigner suddenly looked up. " Gott im 
 Himmel ! " he exclaimed. " How do you know that 
 name ? " 
 
 " Never mind just now,' answered Stuart Rawdon. 
 " Will you come quietly, or do you want me to call for 
 help ? " 
 
 The Englishman obviously meant what he said, 
 and it is dangerous to cross a man who is intent on 
 his purpose, and victoriously carrying it out. The 
 other seemed to follow his memory step by step, 
 seeking the unknown clue which had enabled this 
 stranger to find out his name and his track. How-
 
 HENRY SETON MERRIMAN 215 
 
 ever, to find a clue one must have some indication 
 or other, and he had none. So he simply turned a 
 half puzzled, half angered face at his captor, and 
 meekly followed him into a reserved compartment 
 of the rapide that was getting up steam to convey its 
 load of pleasure-seekers to Paris.
 
 216 RATHER LIKE.. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " L'amour est enfant de Boh erne, 
 Et n'a jamais connu de loi." 
 
 MONSIEUR MEYER Madame de Saragosse." 
 Monsieur Meyer bowed with an old-time 
 elaborateness ; Madame de Saragosse in- 
 clined her fair head with a gleam in her deep blue 
 eyes, that somehow seemed unusual in her otherwise 
 placid countenance. Their hostess, Madame de 
 Vermandois, who had accomplished the banal intro- 
 duction, uttered a little sigh of relief, and went on to 
 other duties. 
 
 Monsieur Meyer appeared to know practically no 
 one amongst the brilliant society that thronged Madame 
 de Vermandois' salon in the Avenue du Bois. His 
 tall and conspicuously blonde figure was clad in the 
 best-fitting dress suit ; from his well-groomed hair to 
 the tips of his patent-leather boots, he seemed an 
 eminently presentable specimen of manhood. Yet 
 something perhaps the upward curl of his waxed 
 moustache, perhaps the slightly exaggerated erectness 
 of his deportment an erectness that was on the verge 
 of haughtiness stamped him, upon careful scrutiny, 
 as a foreigner. This impression was confirmed when
 
 HENRY SETON MERRIMAN 217 
 
 he spoke ; his voice was that of a trained talker, and 
 the choice of words and phrases proclaimed him to be 
 a man of the world, with, perhaps, more than the 
 average man of the world's share of that superficial 
 knowledge and general learning that is often mistaken 
 for education ; yet there was a lingering something in 
 his accent, a hint of harshness that the man from the 
 North never completely overcomes when he attempts 
 to speak in a southern tongue be he Russian, Pole 
 or German. The lady to whom he had just been intro- 
 duced with obvious pleasure, was also forsaken by 
 the brilliant crowd that attended Madame de Ver- 
 mandois' soiree. Black-haired and dark-eyed, with 
 her regular features deeply marked on her handsome 
 face, she certainly was striking enough to challenge 
 attention. People whispered to one another that she 
 was a princess in exile, or a gypsy both of which 
 might have been equally possible ; many of the youths 
 present youths who rowed, and rode, and roamed, 
 and smoked gold-tipped cigarettes in gilt and white 
 boudoirs would have liked an introduction to the 
 fair-skinned enchantress from the south ; but Madame 
 de Saragosse was not officially known in the Parisian 
 world of society loungers, so they turned upon her a 
 last look of effeminate despair, and sought consolation 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Their hostess herself, who, it was to be feared, was 
 somewhat cynical, like the average hostess of our day, 
 seemed mightily pleased with herself at having de- 
 livered her two solitary guests into each other's hands. 
 She belonged to that sort of modern ladies who are 
 never so happy as when they attend to other people's 
 business ; did she want information upon any subject 
 that tickled her feminine fancy, she had sure methods 
 of ultimately getting at the root of the matter, for
 
 2i8 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 she did ample justice to that ever-true saying of old 
 cherchez la femme. 
 
 That was probably the reason for the presence of 
 Madame de Saragosse in her salon, for a woman never 
 does anything without having good grounds for it. 
 
 Monsieur Meyer offered his arm to his fair partner, 
 and she allowed him to lead her to a secluded corner, 
 out of sight and hearing of the idle crowd that is 
 all the more inquisitive about other people's secret 
 motives, as it has none of its own. When they were 
 seated in the convenient nook of a smaller room, he 
 was the first to speak. 
 
 " I am thankful, indeed, to the Gods, for having 
 been introduced to you at last ! " His voice swelled 
 as though in triumph. 
 
 She lifted her blue eyes to his for a single instant, 
 and her lips parted as she laughingly answered : 
 " At last ? Is it so long since you first met me ? " 
 
 " The first time I saw you," he said, with a world 
 of meaning in his eager tones, " was about two months 
 ago two months ago, just opposite the Louvre ; 
 you were coming out of the little stone wicket that 
 leads into the Place du Carrousel, and I was walking 
 along the Rue de Rivoli " 
 
 " I must compliment you upon your memory it 
 is excellent indeed . ' ' There was something very slightly 
 ironical in her voice, and the play of her dark eye- 
 lashes added a touch of mockery to her already some- 
 what feline features. Here was evidently no novict 
 in the art of conversation, but a woman who knew 
 the value of that priceless gem, repartee. 
 
 " Yes, my memory is good," he replied, like one 
 trying to convince an incredulous listener. " I might 
 tell you exactly the colour of the dress you wore, and 
 the shape of your hat. But I will not bore you with
 
 HENRY SETON MERRIMAN 219 
 
 such trifles. I have something much more important 
 to tell you, and that is the reason I came here to-night. 
 A friend of mine told me you were to attend Madame 
 de Vermandois' soiree, and I came here solely for this 
 minute this minute in which I may at last express 
 to you my lifelong devotion and my love." 
 
 The fateful word had been said at last. Madame 
 de Saragosse, like every woman who has received the 
 homage of a man's love, strove to conceal her joy 
 under the sphinx-like smile of her blue eyes. For a 
 woman is never so happy as when a man has declared 
 that she is all to him and never so enigmatical as 
 when she answers his ardent profession. 
 
 " Indeed, Monsieur," she slowly said, without 
 losing that slightly mocking tone to which her dark 
 eyelashes added such a mysterious charm, " indeed, 
 you say that you love me ? " 
 
 " Yes, Madame, I say so, and I ask for nothing else 
 but to prove it ! " 
 
 Her sparkling eyes swept the far end of the room for 
 an instant, and lit up with a gleam of triumph, such 
 as appears in the glance of him who feels he will be 
 victorious in the last, definite encounter. 
 
 " You wish to prove your love for me ? " she 
 slowly inquired. He hurriedly nodded his head in 
 reply, and she continued, something harsh seeming to 
 intrude upon her otherwise musical voice : " Prove it- 
 by leaving France for ever, by promising never to 
 return ! " 
 
 " What you ask is impossible ! I I cannot leave 
 Paris now! Absolutely I cannot." 
 
 " Well, then, Monsieur Katzenstein, I have friends 
 who will compel you to leave." 
 
 There is always something disquieting, startling 
 even, in an unexpected name suddenly thrown into
 
 220 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 your face when you were the least awaiting it. Now 
 the effect was increased tenfold by the sudden appari- 
 tion of three newcomers. Dancart, Stuart Rawdon 
 and another man, obviously French, quietly surrounded 
 the sofa on which " Monsieur Meyer " was sitting, 
 now deathly pale. The third of the party was the first 
 to speak. 
 
 " Monsieur Katzenstein," he said in a perfectly 
 even and passionless voice, " it is no use your pursuing 
 this comedy. Three days ago, you managed to kidnap 
 Monsieur Dancart, and to extract from him a 
 document ... of the highest importance. By a stroke 
 of good luck, I happened to witness the little scene 
 which was lucky inasmuch as it enabled me to be the 
 means of avoiding a European catastrophe. My 
 friend, Mr. Rawdon, was thus able to leave London in 
 time to stop your doing any mischief by bringing this 
 document to England at what we may term a 
 premature hour. Unfortunately for us, you were 
 clever enough to escape from his hands upon your 
 return to Paris. And it rested upon Mademoiselle 
 Vera Gviasdovich " he bowed elaborately to the 
 lady who had been known as Madame de Saragosse 
 " to put you once more into our hands. Now I must 
 ask you to hand back the document you were kind 
 enough to borrow from Monsieur Dancart, and to 
 leave this country for ever." 
 
 There are moments when a man feels he has lost 
 a game, however cleverly he may have played his hand. 
 Only fools and men of genius pretend not to know 
 this precise moment. Wherefore Monsieur Meyer, 
 instead of straining at this gordian knot to prove its 
 strength, as a woman would have done, calmly 
 extracted a sealed packet from his breast pocket, and 
 handed it to the speaker. Vera's eyes followed all his
 
 HENRY SETON MERRIMAN 221 
 
 movements with that feline grace which Slav women 
 alone possess. 
 
 Monsieur Meyer rose. 
 
 " I suppose," he said, turning a parting gaze on her 
 fair face, " I suppose we shall never meet again." 
 
 And he slowly walked out through the door.
 
 222 RATHER LIKE.. 
 
 JACK LONDON 
 
 THE RIVAL CALLS 
 
 " "X7"AH ! Chook ! Si wash ! " The man's voice 
 rang out, sharp and splitting in the clear 
 northern night, through which swept sheer 
 waves of cold brilliancy and corruscating bars of 
 greenish white that blotted out the stars. The dog, 
 head low and unseeing, was whining softly as its 
 muzzle shot through the tent flap, unheeding the 
 angry words and the whiplashes that came raining 
 upon it. At fifty below, it is unwholesome to wander 
 too far out from the heat of the stove, and the 
 man knew the wisdom of shoving the beast back 
 into the cold. 
 
 Sharp Fang was certainly the finest sled dog from 
 Dawson to Bering Sea ; as leader he had no equal, 
 and in this case he was something more to the man 
 than a mere sled drawer, a beast to which alone was 
 the glory given of pulling off along the narrow tracks 
 that were already glutted with the bones of straggling, 
 goldseekers. He was something of a friend, since man, 
 in the individual or in the aggregate, proves himself 
 unfit to live alone, and is therefore driven by sheer 
 necessity to take his pals where he can find them.
 
 JACK LONDON 223 
 
 Here, in the frozen north, any distance away from 
 Forty Mile, where the trail forks and crosses the river 
 to Fort Cudahy, in this unregenerate hell of ice and 
 snow, where the caribou shrills in the fall, and the 
 wolf-packs growl in the fierceness of the arctic winter, 
 there is nothing to hold a man's affections. The little 
 voices may lure him on and on, the voice of the gold 
 he thinks to win, the voice of the stars that deck the 
 obfuscating blue, the voice of the Yukon ; but that 
 greatest of all lures, that which is seen nowhere save 
 in a woman's eyes, is denied him out there. So, 
 some starving day of hard grub and harder gold, under 
 the bitter sting of the Arctic frost, the long-delayed 
 knowledge is vouchsafed him that he must take 
 something to his heart. In the northland, such know- 
 ledge is equal to that of Jehovah in the matter of 
 potency, and there begins something akin to friendship 
 between primeval man and whining beast. 
 
 The man had covered endless miles of tra^l with no 
 better companion than Sharp Fang. Up the Yukon 
 he had gone, up into the north-east, past Koyokuk, 
 Tanana and Minook, up along the trail of '98, crossing 
 and recrossing the Circle, through the Flats, on to Eagle, 
 covering all the country in the frantic rush for gold. 
 He had tried for and lost the Eldorado and Bonanza 
 claims, he had come into an occasional find immedi- 
 ately succeeded by a spree and a bust at Dawson ; but 
 although he had more than once staked and lost his 
 bottom ounce of dust, always had he managed to keep 
 the dog by him. Now he was broke again, trailing 
 far into the bitter North, whose voice shrilled more 
 harshly than ever into his frozen ears. Everything 
 had turned out wrong this trip, and not even the 
 frizzling grub, the frying bacon and beans, could free 
 his mind of the tormenting grip of winter. The
 
 224 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 pressure of the outside cold forced the inner heat 
 upward, and he breathed heavily as he swore at the 
 cringing dog without. 
 
 The beast desisted at last, and the man huddled 
 back to the stove, as near as possible to its grateful 
 heat. And then suddenly there came a fierce growl, 
 and strung along like a shrilling of hell winds were a 
 succession of deep howls like those of a wolf-dog mourn- 
 ing at the moon. The tent-flap was again pulled up, and 
 through the slit shot in a bristling mass of heaving fur. 
 
 The dog seemed to have lost all heed of its former 
 self ; its long snout was thrust forward at the man's 
 neck. It took its leap like any wild brute in the lone- 
 liness outside, and to the man was vouchsafed the 
 knowledge that it must have gone stark, howling, 
 mad. It missed its mark by a hair's breadth, and the 
 sheer strength of its bound brought it clean on the 
 pan where the beans were sizzling on the stove. 
 
 " By Gosh ! " let out the man, " it must be that 
 streak of Siwash ! 'Course, he's got the wolf -blood 
 in him." And to his smarting eyes there came the 
 vision of howling packs of desert-wolves unhaltingly 
 following a lonely sled-trail, and then, after the last 
 dog had dropped and been thrust into the starving 
 greedy throng, making short work of the stranded 
 miner left alone to die in the God-forsaken wilderness. 
 Many were the tales he had heard of the screeching 
 brutes, and now he remembered that many of the best 
 sled dogs are but little better than wolves, some of them 
 having been born, bred, or suckled by a starved out 
 she-wolf driven to the shelter of man. 
 
 Here was the wild come back with a vengeance, 
 the streak of wolf-blood that called again, louder than 
 any other voice, and drowning them all in its primitive 
 glory of unregenerate power.
 
 JACK LONDON 225 
 
 Sharp Fang uttered a deep, gutteral howl of rage 
 and pain, and, hardly recovering its balance, crouched 
 together for another spring. Its grey eyes were nearly 
 shot out of their sockets, and its clear white teeth 
 shone fiercely through the half-lit gloom of the tent. 
 An instant more, and the bound would have been taken, 
 the cruel fangs would have been driven deep into the 
 man's throat : but that moment never came. The 
 man gave out a low groan : " Ai ! Ya ! Sharp 
 Fang ! " The brute responded with a slow whine, and 
 relaxed its crouching attitude. 
 
 A second later there was vouchsafed to the man's 
 bloodshot eyes the astounding scene of the wolfish 
 brute completely calmed down, and squatting on its 
 hind legs, with its forepaws beating the air as quietly 
 as the best trained beast could do in a Dawson saloon, 
 amid the smiling eyes of nondescript virgins and 
 heavy jokes of breezy miners. Sharp Fang remained 
 some minutes in this histrionic pose, still whining 
 softly ; then sprawled on to all fours, rubbed its 
 bristling fur against the man's trembling hand, and 
 quietly stalked back into the howling cold without. 
 
 " What the flaming ", began the man. " Hold 
 
 on," he continued, his countenance relaxing, " of 
 course his father was Jake Briggs' circus dog, an' 'e 
 ain't no call to obey the streak of Siwash to the bitter 
 end ! "
 
 226 RATHER LIKE.. 
 
 G. BERNARD SHAW 
 
 THE EXPLOITERS 
 
 A decidedly unpleasant play. 
 
 A fine May morning in the cousultingroom of a 
 middleclass London doctor. It is a district rather remote 
 from Harley Street ; and the practitioner is simply an 
 ordinary one, with no hairbrained speciality that enables 
 him to curtail his work and double his fees. The room 
 is not very large, rents being high even in not fashionable 
 parts. Looking eastward from within instead of west- 
 ward from without, the street outside is seen through a 
 couple of the usual nonetoolarge and curtaindarkened 
 windows, between which you see an oilpainting dimly 
 representing a most respectable gentleman in the costume 
 of 1830. The wall in front of you has a door, leading 
 into the waiting-room : naturally the best furnished 
 one in the house. The other wall, which slants down 
 westwards, also has a door, leading into Dr. Periton's 
 private study. The fireplace is on this side of the room ; 
 and the mantelpiece has the usual ornaments : a pair 
 of antique-looking chandeliers, a marble clock and a 
 perpetual calender. The furniture, which may have 
 been acquired second-hand at Christies' ', comprises a desk
 
 G. BERNARD SHAW 227 
 
 with a few medical implements and writing requisites ; 
 a cupboard, now open, in which you may see a lot of flasks, 
 a mortar and pestle, and various other instruments ; 
 the doctor's chair, a couple of repcovered easy chairs for 
 visitors, and half a dozen cane chairs strewn about the 
 room. 
 
 The scene shows the middle-classedness of the whole 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 A young lady is sitting in one of the easy chairs. 
 She is dressed in the noncommittal tailormade costume 
 of 1910, with a flavor of eccentricity in the green color 
 of her veil, which is drawn up, revealing a pink com- 
 plexion, grey eyes visibly absorbed in revery, and a little 
 pugnose, which in a lady's face can't be called otherwise 
 than charming. 
 
 Dr. Periton is standing over her ; he is about 40 
 years of age, with the best bedside manners ; sharp- 
 featured, but with a caressing voice that tries to get to 
 the heart of his patients and, as often as not, fails in 
 the attempt. He has evidently failed just now. 
 
 PERITON : Well, dont you think so, my dear young 
 
 lady? 
 THE YOUNG LADY i No, I dont. I'm sure you arnt 
 
 the doctor they thought of sending me to. Youve 
 
 felt my pulse and seen my tongue, and now you 
 
 say Ive got neuralgia. . . . 
 
 PERITON [sweetly] : Gastralgia thats what I said. 
 THE YOUNG LADY : How CAN you know that ? You 
 
 didnt even wait for me to tell you my symptoms. 
 PERITON : Why, my dear young lady, thats exactly 
 
 what you wanted me to do, isnt it ? You see, 
 
 I'm a doctor. 
 THE YOUNG LADY : Yes, but you neednt pretend to 
 
 know whats the matter with me after two minutes
 
 228 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 of conversation. The idea ! One might think I 
 were your daughter, by the things you said about 
 me. 
 
 PERITON [impressed by her words] : I daresay I shouldnt 
 know you so well if you WERE my daughter. By 
 the way, how do you know youre NOT? 
 THE YOUNG LADY i Because your names Periton and 
 
 mines Harper, thats all. 
 PERITON : Yes, I daresay. But then, what does that 
 
 prove ? Do you know your father at all ? 
 THE YOUNG LADY : No, I dont. But what does that 
 
 prove ? 
 PERITON : Not much, I grant. 
 
 An uncomfortable silence ensues, after which he 
 resumes : 
 
 May I ask, are you Miss Harper or Mrs. ? 
 THE YOUNG LADY i Why, dont you know ? Youre a 
 doctor. . . . However, I dont mind telling you 
 my full name is Miss Elisabeth Harper. 
 PERITON : Elisabeth ? Indeed ? 
 
 His brows go up, expressing great agitation. At 
 
 the same moment the door of the waiting-room bursts 
 
 open ; and a man of forty or thereabouts walks into the 
 
 room, without having knocked at the door, or otherwise 
 
 bowed to the usual decorum of middleclass life. The 
 
 newcomer, tall and clean-shaven, except for a moustache, 
 
 wears an unconventional serge suit and a bowler hat, 
 
 which he hastily removes on seeing the lady. He then 
 
 dashes right up to the doctor. 
 
 PERITON : What ! Hopkins ?. . . . You ... I ... 
 
 HOPKINS : Sorry to disturb you, I'm sure. But I 
 
 cant help it. [Turning to Elisabeth uith his first 
 
 demonstration of politeness since his entrance] 
 
 Excuse me, Madam : my call is certainly more 
 
 urgent than yours.
 
 G. BERNARD SHAW 229 
 
 ELISABETH [outraged] : Oh, of course, youre a MAN. 
 
 HOPKINS [regardless of the taunt, to Periton] : Periton, 
 youre a swindler ! 
 
 PERITON : Excuse me, I'm engaged at the present 
 moment. My patient. . . . 
 
 HOPKINS [interrupting} : I dont care a fig for your 
 patient, I. ... 
 
 ELISABETH : Of course. A full-sized monkey like you 
 wouldnt eat figs. It feeds on acorns. 
 
 HOPKINS [ignoring her] : Periton, do you know youre a 
 good, fat, healthy beast of a usurer, and a thick- 
 headed, disgusting exploiter of the helpless into 
 the bargain ? Do you know you grind your fees 
 out of the poor beggars' pockets before youve 
 killed them, and snatch their bodies out of their 
 graves when you H AVE ? Youre a disgrace to a 
 civilised country, and I felt I could have no rest 
 till I'd thrown your damned filth into your 
 scoundrely face ! There ! 
 
 PERITON : Kindly leave this room at once, sir ! I 
 wonder dont you know youre a human life sucker 
 yourself. [Turning to Elisabeth with his most 
 professional air.] I must apologise for this man's 
 conduct, Miss Harper. If he doesnt leave my 
 house instantly, I'll telephone for the police. . . . 
 As I was saying when he came in, youre suffering 
 from. . . . 
 
 ELISABETH : No, please dont insist. I thought I was 
 at a doctor's ; but now 1 know better. Oh, you 
 hypocrite ! [she bursts out sobbing hysterically]. 
 
 PARLOUR-MAID [opening the door of the waiting-room] : 
 
 Lady and gentleman to see you, sir : Mrs. Harper 
 
 and the Rev. Joseph Knock jaw. 
 
 She ushers the visitors into the consulting-room. 
 
 The lady is middle-aged and stoutish, with a pleasant
 
 230 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 face and rather coarse features. She is attired in a fash- 
 ionable silk dress that would be in its place in Ostend or 
 Brussels, in the season, but glares horribly in the milder 
 atmosphere of a London suburb. The gentleman is 
 everything you can expect from his title. 
 PERITON : Really, I cant. . . . 
 
 MRS. HARPER [running towards Elisabeth] : Come, 
 Betty, my dear. How anxious I felt about you ! 
 Why couldnt you go to a decent doctor's ? I 
 wonder are you aware I know nearly all the Harley 
 Street specialists ? Instead of which you rush 
 to the first charlatan you happen to come 
 across. . . . 
 PERITON [white with indignation and amazement] : 
 
 Madam, do you know who youre talking of ? 
 MRS. HARPER : Yes, I do. I wonder have you the 
 cheek to trap a defenceless girl into your consult- 
 ing-room ? I thought something horrible had 
 happened to my poor Betty the moment 1 missed 
 her ; but I'd never have imagined anything so 
 horrid as THAT, if my old friend here [pointing 
 to the Rev. J. K.] hadnt put me on your track. 
 THE REV. j. : Yes, Ive had my eye on Mr. Periton for 
 some time ; and I know the way he derives his 
 income. 
 
 PERITON : What do you mean, sir ? 
 
 THE REV. j. : I mean what I say. Youre one of those 
 
 deceitful men who stick at nothing to attain 
 
 their own evil and selfish ends. Under cover of 
 
 your medical profession, youre nothing better 
 
 than a vulgar ! No. I wont say the word 
 
 in the presence of these ladies ; but you under- 
 stand perfectly well what I mean ! 
 ELISABETH : Oh ! How awful ! Mamma, I thought 
 he was an honest man ! Why, he even told me 
 he might be my father !
 
 G. BERNARD SHAW 231 
 
 MRS. HARPER [scandalized] : Betty ! You dont know 
 what youre saying. 
 
 HOPKINS [coming forward suddenly, and chucking Betty 
 under the chin] : No more you do, my dear. 
 
 MRS. HARPER : How dare you, sir? 
 
 HOPKINS : Why not ? I'm not her father ! 
 
 MRS. HARPER [lapsing into her natural manner] : Oh ! 
 To think of this happening to me ! And in London 
 too ! Isnt this a civilised country, Id like to 
 know ? Oh, that men should be so cruel . . . ! 
 [to the Rev. J., who looks on rather absently] : 
 Joseph, why cant you defend me ? Damn 
 you! 
 
 THE REV. j. : Restrain yourself, Mary, restrain your- 
 self. [To Hopkins, who is staring open-mouthed 
 at Mrs. Harper and is visibly attracted by her hand- 
 some features and coarse speech]. Do you know 
 what you have done, sir ? This lady [pointing 
 to Mrs. Harper] is a very old friend of mine ; and 
 youve no business to insult either her or her 
 daughter. 
 
 HOPKINS : Look here, werent you at Oxbridge in '92 ? 
 
 THE REV. j. [dumbfounded] : Yes. What of that ? 
 
 HOPKINS : Nothing. You dont happen to remember 
 a young lady that was there at the time ? Miss 
 Violet Vavasour ? 
 
 THE REV. j. : What do you mean, you blackguard ? 
 
 HOPKINS : Youre as much of a blackguard as I am, 
 anyway. I wonder do you know I'm Miss Vava- 
 sour's husband ? 
 
 THE REV. j. : Her husband ? ^ 
 
 PERITON [leaping up to him] : You ! ! ! Her husband ? 
 Liar ! I married Miss Vavasour That [pointing to
 
 232 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Mrs. Harper] is Miss Vavasour. [He suddenly 
 turns to her in a rage]. Yes : I call you to 
 witness. 
 
 MRS. HARPER : What this man says is true. He I s my 
 
 husband. [Turning to Periton] Oh, George, why 
 
 coutdnt you hold your tongue ? I recognized you 
 
 at once. . . . 
 
 THE REV. j. : There must be a mistake somewhere. I'm 
 
 sure. . . . 
 
 MRS. HARPER \ Theres no mistake, Joseph ; only my 
 sister and I were twins, and SHE was called Violet 
 ... on the stage. Shes living at Vienna now, 
 very rich, and quite respectable, arid she married 
 pointing to Hopkins] HIM. 
 ELISABETH : So that man [pointing to Periton] is my 
 
 father ? 
 
 PERITCN : Yes, my dear. 
 
 ELISABETH : Dont call me your dear ! I wont have it ! 
 and I'm not your dear : I'm nobody's dear ! I 
 belong to myself only ! 
 
 HOPKINS [sneering] : Yes : you can afford to belong to 
 yourself, on the substantial income your mother 
 and father provide you with. Most substantial 
 it is, too, and come by in the most honorable 
 way ! 
 
 THE REV. j. : I'm sure this is the moment to turn over a 
 
 new leaf : religion must come back upon all men. 
 
 PERITON : Oh ! Stop your damned cant, you scoundrel ! 
 
 Dont you know youre every bit as bad as all the 
 
 rest of us ? I wonder dont you know YOUR 
 
 income is derived from the mortgage you hold 
 
 over the . . . property Hopkins has in several 
 
 continental towns . . . Private hotels they are, 
 
 and managed by ... er ... Mrs. Harper. 
 
 MRS. HARPER : Yes, and provided for by you.
 
 G. BERNARD SHAW 233 
 
 ELISABETH : Oh ! You filthy rascals ! I'll never 
 speak to any of you again ! I'll go and marry 
 my American prince instead ! 
 She rushes hysterically out of the room ; Mrs. Harper 
 
 arms erect, strikes her favorite coarse-grained attitude ; 
 
 Periton and Hopkins seem ready to jump at each other's 
 
 throats, whilst the Rev. J. glares at everybody.
 
 234 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 JEROME K. JEROME 
 
 THE STAGE STUDENT 
 
 HE is a remarkable product of humanity the 
 Stage Student. Not that he is sometimes in 
 a hole for want of money, and thinks of 
 pawning his last umbrella a valuable heirloom 
 from his second cousin, who was grandson to 
 the bosom-friend of a very celebrated old man, 
 not because of that, bless his heart, no ! Why, 
 I myself have often felt like pawning my 
 umbrella have done it more than once, in fact ; 
 and I don't feel a bit more remarkable for it. But 
 what always strikes me as peculiar to the stage student 
 is that he never seems to get hold of anything at all 
 in the way of cash he is continually stonybroke 
 and yet he manages to jog along all right, and to 
 pursue his brilliant career as a student. Besides, he 
 always has something to pawn, as a last resource ; 
 indeed, the presence, at a period of desperate straits, 
 of a valuable and hitherto overlooked pawnable object 
 appears to be quite a distinctive feature of a student's 
 life in plays. Now, it is a simple thing, pawning, and 
 I have often enough wanted to do so ; but it is another 
 instance of the fickleness of the jade Fortune, that, 
 whenever / had most need to try it, I never could lay
 
 J. K. JEROME 235 
 
 hands on anytliing more valuable than a French 
 postage-stamp for 25 centimes (used) or a broken 
 teacup (generally my landlady's). And my friends 
 were just as bad, all of them. 
 
 Speaking of friends, that is another characteristic 
 trait of the stage student. He seems to have friends 
 all about the world, and real bricks they must be, too. 
 One of them has a sister, quite the loveliest girl you 
 ever saw, and as simple and charming as a new-born 
 babe ; apparently she does not know what money is 
 may have heard of it, in a casual sort of way, 
 but has certainly never seen or had any of her own. 
 Her ideal of life is a penny ride on the Putney steamers, 
 and a jam tart when she comes back ; that is all she 
 expects from the man she is going to marry who is, 
 of course, no other but the student himself. Why 
 the marriage does not immediately take place, I really 
 don't know, because, after all, the stage student might 
 easily provide his bride with the above-mentioned 
 luxuries at reasonable intervals, say once a month 
 bank-holidays extra. Of course, if they did marry at 
 
 once, there would be no play, and then So that 
 
 is doubtless the reason why they don't. 
 
 Besides the friend with the nice sister, the stage 
 student has quantities of others. He must get them 
 wholesale. One of them has a second cousin who is 
 in the Civil Service, and another is a military attache" 
 in Paris (or is it in Peru ? A mere difference of name, 
 of course). Now, although I myself had a good many 
 acquaintances in my youthful days, I really don't 
 remember having had any in that exalted line, and, 
 what is more important still, none of them seemed to 
 know any foreign ambassadors or military attaches. 
 Of course, I am prepared to admit they and / were to 
 blame for it, but it remains a fact for all that.
 
 236 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 They are tricky creatures, friends. I used to have 
 a good many of them, mostly fellows with healthy 
 appetites and little cash though nothing like, in 
 numbers, those the stage student can boast of. One 
 friend I had, I remember, was the possessor of a 
 sister ; he used to talk of her pretty lengthily at times, 
 but somehow he never seemed inclined to produce her. 
 I conjured up to myself visions of a fair girl in a 
 ravishing Liberty gown, nibbling sugar at the break- 
 fast table, and ordering the domestic staff all about 
 the house. One day, however, this notion exploded. 
 Christina that was her name married a third-rate 
 Chelsea clergyman, and I eventually saw her at a 
 garden-party to which I managed to get myself 
 invited. Of course, I ought according to the laws of 
 Stageland to have fallen desperately and hopelessly 
 in love with her ; but for the life of me, I couldn't. 
 She was about six feet two (I am a small man myself), 
 and certainly quite plain enough to be a suffragette. 
 Another acquaintance of mine, rather smaller at the 
 time, was the son and heir of a bosom-friend of one of 
 my maiden aunts. He was all right, as far as boys go, 
 but in a bachelor's rooms he was utterly impossible. 
 My domestic staff then consisted of a buxom landlady, 
 Mrs. Warbler, and my usual diet was haddock and 
 bloater, all three of which appeared to disagree with 
 Tommy's constitution. 
 
 But, as I was saying, the stage student is quite 
 a remarkable fellow in his way. He does all sorts of 
 things I never dreamt of doing, and, of course, there 
 are lots of others he leaves undone. For instance, 
 he doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word 
 exam. What he is driving at the whole day long is 
 a mystery to me to the present day, and I'm sure it 
 must be to him also. Of course, I know scores of
 
 J. K. JEROME 237 
 
 young people who jog along without seeming to fully 
 satisfy their soul's demands for medicine, law, 
 or mathematics. Take mathematics, for instance ; 
 it's a simple thing, mathematics all about 
 cubes and square roots, and sines and tangents ; 
 well, I happen to know a good many fellows 
 who stuff themselves more or less full of them. 
 Mind, I don't mean to say they wouldn't prefer to go 
 boating or flirting with a nice girl ; but the fact 
 remains that they don't spend the whole precious 
 day going into raptures about their love, or singing 
 songs of despair because they've lost their 
 bottom shilling while they take an extra-special 
 gold-tipped cigarette out of a solid-gold chest and 
 light it negligently with a match from a jewelled box. 
 No, they are different, these friends of mine why, 
 so was I myself, now I come to think of it : we got a 
 good deal of fun out of life, of course, but our days 
 were haunted by that frightful nightmare exams. 
 
 When I was very young and inexperienced, I used 
 to think exams were tortures worse than any of those 
 invented by the kind old Mother-Inquisition, specially 
 organised for the survival of the unfittest. Nervous- 
 ness, a shade of bashfulness, mayhap, and over and 
 above all, the bleak and deathly frown of the jade 
 Chance all these, combining their forces against a 
 hard-working and simple-minded youth, are quite 
 sufficient to get him plucked in any examination he 
 may care to enter for. That is what I thought in my 
 halcyone days of youth in those days when I myself 
 was subject to the ordeal of exams. Now, however, I 
 am grown older and I don't know. I don't want 
 to behave like the nurse, who sent the eldest girl to 
 see what Tommy was doing, and tell him he mustn't. 
 It's all very well to condemn exams. it's easy to
 
 238 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 condemn anything ; but what are you going to have 
 in their place ? Choice ? The drawing of lots ? 
 Cricket matches, or singular combats ? Any of these 
 might meet the case, of course, but who could seriously 
 contend they would prove better, in the long run ? 
 No, my dear young man, I'm afraid you'll have to put 
 up with exams for some time to come and to compete 
 against scores of pretty girls into the bargain : you'll 
 have to face your nervousness, and your shyness, and 
 the fickleness of fortune yes, you'll have to face them 
 all, as you do now and you'll do well to remember 
 that the best way of facing them is not to grind your 
 
 teeth, and rattle out " " (or words to that effect) 
 
 but to put your heart into your work, and to have 
 a sufficient knowledge of what you're going to be 
 asked. And you, my dear young lady, junior wrangler 
 or Girton girl, you'll wipe those pretty eyes of yours 
 and put away those blushes : they may help you to 
 ensnare a youthful cousin, but they must be of no 
 avail for the infinitely more serious business of passing 
 your exam. 
 
 He is also a fine singer, that stage student of ours. 
 His voice is a graceful tenor, of course, and when he 
 chirps " When other lips," that alone is amply suffi- 
 cient to turn all the pretty heads in the neighbourhood. 
 Now, whenever I or any of my student friends tried 
 to sing a thing we did, not unfrequently, I remember, 
 to the accompaniment of a rickety-rackety piano, and 
 a mandoline always drepressingly flat in the E 
 we didn't turn any heads at all, except that of my 
 domestic staff, who would come up in a most dignified 
 manner, and exclaim, " Lor, sir, I do declare ! Wot'll 
 you young gentlemen be up to next, I wonder ? 
 An' my 'usband as is down wi' 'numatics, too ! " 
 which, as often as not, put a stop to our vocal exertions.
 
 J. K. JEROME 239 
 
 There was a fellow I knew at one time, a most dis- 
 reputable wretch, I must acknowledge, who was 
 possessed of a remarkable talent in the musical art ; 
 he gave marvellous imitations of sick animals ; his 
 impersonation of a calf with a cold in its head was 
 enough to put a whole house into hysterics ; indeed, 
 it often did, and I don't know how many landladies 
 gave me instant notice after suffering his masterful 
 performances. Yes, a most disreputable wretch he 
 was, and sadly did he end : he is now, I believe, what 
 is called an Illustration of the Bar, and has recently 
 taken silk and added a Sir to his name ; I believe he 
 still indulges his vocal talent from time to time, though 
 he enjoys larger audiences now, and no member of 
 any domestic staff, however exalted, dares object 
 to his feats. 
 
 Another thing the stage student does with un- 
 common perfection is thought-reading. He is always 
 miles away from sordid reality, mind, soaring ahead 
 in regions of blissful penny steamers and cream tarts. 
 A learned gentleman speaks to him of some abstract 
 goodness-knows-what-I-mean sort of idea ; and a week 
 later, the stage student remembers every word the old 
 gentleman spoke. Not only does he remember every 
 word, but it also turns out that he has understood 
 every blessed one of them ; you see, while his mind 
 seemed to be wandering in ethereal regions ever and 
 ever so far away, it really was concentrated upon the 
 learned gentleman's thoughts and character, which 
 the youth read like a book. Myself, I am not a bit 
 like that ; I am pretty often puzzled by what people 
 mean when they speak, or even when they write ; 
 of course, in books learned books, mind they have 
 a graceful habit of telling you, in a footnote, that 
 the meaning of such and such a passage is obscure ; it
 
 240 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 is really very considerate of them, but (I say it in all 
 modesty) I very often manage to gather this before 
 I read the footnote at all. Well, the stage student does 
 nothing of the kind. He is prepared to deny the very 
 existence of any such thing as obscurity ; mind you, he 
 may have heard his great-grandfather's second cousin 
 hint at such a thing but even if it did happen to be 
 extant at that remote period, he is perfectly sure it 
 must, at the present moment, have disappeared 
 completely from the face of the earth ; to him, ob- 
 scurity, in fact, must be a sort of pterodactyl or 
 paleosaurus not even the fossil remains of which have 
 ever crossed his path. 
 
 Oh, yes, he is a wonderful fellow, the stage student !
 
 HENRY JAMES 241 
 
 LORD JAMES, pausing for a moment with the 
 tips of his fingers on a high-backed chair, had 
 before him the cosy walls of the breakfast 
 room, with its red and green paper and lighter grey 
 hangings, beautifully panelled in Elizabethan oak. In 
 the middle of the room stood the table all spotless 
 white cloth, dainty china, sparkling cut glass, and 
 shining silver all the gentle morning delicacies of an 
 English home. An ancient, a solid elegance pervaded 
 the chamber, and extended into the view through the 
 high window opening upon the sunny terrace without : 
 sanded walk, balustraded steps, spraying fountains 
 all the smiling vastness of a sunny park, with its 
 background of rippling trees and spotless sky. Every 
 detail seemed to speak, for itself, of the highest quality 
 tempered by taste and distinction. 
 
 Such was the outlook mellowed by the magician, 
 Time ; but the frigid man who stood gazing on it 
 evidently belonged to no such charming world of old 
 English beauty, or was a living part of the delicate 
 surroundings indeed, he was, for the eye, a manifest 
 counterpart to them all. Lord James was blatantly 
 15
 
 242 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 modern, and certainly nothing gave a truer aspect 
 of his real self than this morning atmosphere of a 
 dainty breakfast-room, accentuating the negative 
 relations between it and the keener instincts apparent, 
 to the student of thoughts, in his trenchant features. 
 
 Young he was no longer, but years, in such as he, 
 only serve to impress more thoroughly upon the body 
 the aspirations of the temperament. Clearly, he was a 
 man with full confidence in himself, and used to having 
 his own way in a world he had conquered by sheer 
 force of will and cleverness. He might have ruled by 
 the power of birth, as so many are satisfied to do, and 
 remain content with a brilliant and graceful stupidity ; 
 he might even have confessed, in a moment of abandon, 
 that he had often been within an ace of exchanging 
 his cleverness for a touch of old-time stateliness 
 although he was not lacking in distinction, and nothing 
 would have induced one to mistake him for an adept 
 of millionairish vulgarity. Doubtless, he had had to 
 struggle ; and certainly, his rather stumpy fingers, 
 poised on a chair back, proclaimed him to belong to 
 the world that acts and thinks, rather than to the 
 mundane strata that merely reaps what time has 
 sowed for its especial benefit. 
 
 Slowly the chair began to glide along the carpeted 
 floor, its movement being a rectilinear translation in a 
 direction perpendicular to the snowy edge of the 
 breakfast table ; under the skilful guidance of Lord 
 James' chubby hand, the muscles of which might 
 have been seen to bulge in a well-harmonised con- 
 traction, the motion began, very slowly at first, be- 
 coming gently accelerated little by little. At the same 
 time, the light in Lord James' eye, kinder and bolder 
 at once, shone upon the high back as it was used to 
 shine upon some fellow-financier he had just had the
 
 HENRY JAMES 243 
 
 better of in a most polite discussion that might have 
 left him the richer by several thousands of pounds 
 thus clearly exhibiting the fundamental relations 
 between the commanding intellect and the accom- 
 plished instrument. His lips were half open, as if 
 preparing to address some one with a significant 
 manner that he might have had, and his right arm 
 began to fold itself at the elbow, as though taking in a 
 graceful curve it was its obvious intention of assuming. 
 Indeed, his whole body seemed, for an instant, to 
 execute the charming premises of a very slight rota- 
 tion round a horizontal axis, remaining poised in an 
 attitude of discriminating expectance, while his left 
 boot, slightly pressed against the chair's foot-bar, 
 accompanied the slow movement of that high-backed 
 article of furniture. 
 
 Gently, very gently, the translation became more 
 accentuated, and suddenly changed into a twenty 
 degree rotation round a vertical axis, the foremost 
 left angle of the seat being now apparent from beneath 
 the white place of the snowy table-cloth. With a 
 sharpness that might well have been expected from 
 a man of his physique, Lord James seemed to grasp 
 the exact moment for steady and rapid action : his 
 fingers suddenly left the high back whereupon they 
 had been so gracefully resting ; his whole body, with a 
 litheness that was evidently the fruit of a lifelong 
 practice, seemed to prepare for a gentle leap that took 
 place before one had time to notice it ... The chair, 
 now propelled forwards by the same mascular activity, 
 though from different regions, slowly settled down 
 once more in rigid immobility before the table, as 
 though eminently glad, in the innermost recess of its 
 antiquity, that Lord James was now sitting down to 
 breakfast.
 
 244 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 HENRY NEWBOLT 
 
 ADMIRAL LIFE 
 
 COME ! What are ye thinking of, sighing, lads ? 
 Moping o'er child or wife ? 
 Not one of ye speak of dying, lads : 
 We're serving Admiral Life ! 
 He knocks us about from wave to wave, 
 He calls our fathers from out their grave, 
 He dubs the strong and he makes the brave 
 Come, here's to Admiral Life ! 
 
 In days that were peaceful, ay, and kind, 
 
 From Cromwell up to Fife, 
 He set us astir, and lay to wind, 
 
 Did good Admiral Life ! 
 He gave us our looms, our trade, our ore, 
 He taught us the tricks o' the old seashore, 
 He blew in our hearts the breath of yore 
 
 He made us, did Admiral Life ! 
 
 And now, if the clouds should burst again, 
 
 In a galloping, seething strife, 
 He's ready to quench our thirst again, 
 
 Is true old Admiral Life !
 
 HENRY NEWBOLT 245 
 
 He'll hoist our flag and he'll swell our hearts, 
 He'll coach us again for a thousand parts, 
 He'll send us around when the new fun starts, 
 Will fine old Admiral Life ! 
 
 Come ! Now is the time to bump your glass : 
 
 For him it is always rife ; 
 So fill it right up, and dump your lass, 
 
 And drink to Admiral Life ! 
 For he's a man to our own accord, 
 He's the only master our souls afford, 
 He's the only king and the only Lord 
 
 Yea, here's to Admiral Life !
 
 246 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 R. W. SERVICE 
 
 BUCK UP! 
 
 WHEN you don't know what to do, when you've 
 got a fit of blues, 
 And the world, somehow or other, goes 
 
 all wrong, 
 Don't forget the winning game is the one where first 
 
 you lose, 
 
 If you've only got the pluck to play along ! 
 There's no earthly bit of use in the bending of your 
 
 head, 
 
 In the moaning and the groaning and the whine ; 
 Buck up, laddie, try again you'll have better luck 
 
 instead 
 For the very worst of all is to repine ! 
 
 Yes, buck up, my boy, buck up for all you're worth ; 
 You be sure your time will come ; it's up to you ; 
 
 But whate'er you may have done, 
 
 Mind, it's only just begun, 
 Till the ultimate success is clear and true !
 
 R. W. SERVICE 247 
 
 When the field is deep in mud, and you've just received 
 
 a kick, 
 
 And the goal's a far-off spot you hardly see, 
 Rub it in for all you're worth, serve it hot, and serve 
 
 it thick : 
 
 You're the man to score a point and join the spree ; 
 There's the half-back charging on run, you fool, 
 
 run, though you fall 
 Now's the time to have a go let fly, let fly : 
 There you are ! Buck up, my lad, it's your boot has 
 
 kicked the ball, 
 And the keeper at the goal has passed it by ! 
 
 Yes, buck up, my lad, buck up for all you're worth ; 
 You be sure your time will come ; it's up to you ; 
 
 But, whatever may have been, 
 
 Play the ready game, the keen, 
 Till the ultimate success is clear and true ! 
 
 When the office doesn't pay, when you're hardly flush 
 
 in cash, 
 
 And the trades and competition seem unfair, 
 That's the time for cool endeavour, that's the time for 
 
 grit and dash 
 
 Not at all the time to cry and tear your hair. 
 Set your hand to decent work (there is always some 
 
 to do, 
 
 And you'll always find the time to do it in), 
 You shall not go under yet, if you're ready not to rue, 
 And you're bound to strike your mine and find 
 your tin. 
 
 Yes, buck up, old pard, buck up for all you're worth ; 
 You be sure your time will come ; it's up to you ; 
 
 But whatever may occur, 
 
 Be a man, and not a cur, 
 Till the ultimate success is clear and true 1
 
 248 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 When the final voyage comes, when you're lying sick 
 
 in bed, 
 
 When the doctors say there's nothing left to hope, 
 When the moments dwindle fast, when the last, last 
 
 word is said, 
 
 Turn a smiling face to God forget to mope. 
 What's the good of bitter thoughts, when you're 
 
 leaving earth for good 
 What's the good of crying now ? Come, drop 
 
 those sighs ! 
 No ! You just stand up once more, just as when, in 
 
 life you stood 
 Meet your Maker like a man, with open eyes ! 
 
 Yes, buck up, old man, buck up for all you're worth ! 
 You be sure your time will come ; it's up to you ; 
 
 But light till your final breath, 
 
 Look ahead, and straight at death, 
 Till the ultimate success is clear and true !
 
 JOHN GALSWORTHY 249 
 
 JOHN GALSWORTHY 
 
 PUNISHMENT 
 A pky in one Act 
 
 (The scene is the shop of Messrs. Will Wisp and Son, 
 on an April morning. The shop is a modern drapery 
 establishment, furnished with an oak counter with the 
 usual shelves at the back, and some chairs for the cus- 
 tomers. A wooden carving of a spaniel is the only 
 artistic ornament of the premises, which are strictly 
 utilitarian in their decoration. A panelled door at 
 the back leads to the manager's office, and another, 
 on the left, to a room marked " private." 
 
 The managing shop-walker, Coalfather, is busy behind 
 a desk, while an assistant, Timmers, is attending to 
 Marjorie Beesworth, a prospective customer.} 
 
 Coalfather (sotto voce} : Two - and - twopence - half - 
 penny and one-and-three-farthings oh, damn 
 these sums ! . . . 
 
 Timmers : Red crape, you said, Madam ? 
 
 Marjorie : Yes, I want two yards. 
 
 Timmers : I really don't know whether we have 
 anything in that line . . . Excuse me a 
 moment : I'll just go and ask the manager. 
 (He goes to Coalf other's desk}.
 
 250 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Marjorie (who takes a look of intense worry) : What 
 
 shall I do if they haven't got any ? I daren't 
 
 take it black, because I don't want him to think 
 
 I'm in mourning ; and yet, he must know there's 
 
 some change. 
 Timmers (coming back to her) : Er . . . The fact is, 
 
 we have just run out of red crape, madam ; but 
 
 we are expecting a new delivery, and if you could 
 
 wait a day or two. ... or we could send it 
 
 round . . . 
 
 (Cuivrand enters from the street. He is a shabby- 
 looking individual, with something foreign about him.) 
 Coalfather (speaking to an assistant behind the scenes) : 
 
 Wilson, just come along here a minute ; you're 
 
 wanted. 
 Cuivrand (eagerly, to Marjorie He speaks with a 
 
 foreign lisp) : Ha ! you see there, Madame ! I 
 
 thought you had entered into the shop, and I did 
 
 not mistake myself. 
 Marjorie : Why did you follow me ? 
 
 (Wilson, the junior assistant, has come in, and walks 
 up to Cuivrand, behind the counter.) 
 Wilson : Good day, sir. What can we do for you 
 
 this morning ? 
 Cuivrand : Oh ... I ... er ... Je n'ai besoin 
 
 de rien. I came in for Madame. 
 Wilson : Ah ? Yes . . . indeed, indeed . . . Fine 
 
 day, to-day, sir ... 
 Cuivrand : Veree fine, my friend, veree fine . . . (to 
 
 Marjorie) And what had you need of, madam ? 
 F A new costume ? 
 Marjorie : No ... er ... I wanted some stuff ; 
 
 but they have not got any. 
 Cuivrand : Not got any ? These Anglais know not 
 
 the galanterie . . . (to Timmers) You say you have 
 
 no stuff, no stuff for Madame ?
 
 JOHN GALSWORTHY 251 
 
 Timmers : I'm sorry to ^ay we haven't not just now, 
 sir. As* a matter of fact, we've just run out of 
 our stock in red crape, sir ... But if ... 
 
 Cuivrand : You pigs ! You cannot even sell what 
 Madame asks ? It is disgusting ! 
 
 Timmers : 'Ere, I say, sir, I can't stand that ! 
 (He goes to confer with Coalfather.) 
 
 Marjorie (to Cuivrand) : Oh ! Don't . . . please don't ! 
 . . . Can't you see they are doing their best, 
 but ... 
 
 Cuivrand : They are camels ! They should immediately 
 excuse themselves. But what can one expect 
 of these cochons d' Anglais ? 
 
 Coalfather (who has come forward from behind his 
 desk, and has been staring speechless at Cuivrand 
 during this outburst] : Look 'ere, you ought to 
 be ashamed o' yourself, coming inside a respect- 
 able drapery emporium, and kicking up a silly 
 row like that ! 
 
 Cuivrand ; 'E calls it " kicking up a silly row ! " You 
 can't understand the feelings of un homme du 
 monde ! 
 
 Coalfather : Stop your jaw, you untidy foreigner ! 
 
 Cuivrand : Yes, I am a foreigner, it is true. And when 
 I see 'ow the Anglais treat a woman, I am glad not 
 to be one of you ! You understand nothing ! You 
 are only a stupid merchant, a pig without intelli- 
 gence, an artless camel ! 
 
 Coalfather : That'll do ! Here, out you go 1 ... 
 Timmers, you chuck him out. 
 
 Marjorie : Oh, my God ! 
 
 Cuivrand : No, they shall not chuck me out, those 
 brutes ! I will remain 'ere . . . J'y suis, j'y 
 reste. I don't abandon a woman : I 'ave never 
 'urt a woman, and I ...
 
 252 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Coal father : Chuck it, I say ! Who said anything 
 about hurting a woman ? Get out of this, you 
 fathead ! 
 
 Cuivrand : No ! You shall not expulse me : I defend 
 it ! I am not veree strong, but I know to fight. 
 I ! 
 
 (Marjorie turns a pleading face towards him, but 
 he mistakes her expression for one of tenderness, takes 
 her in his arms and kisses her.} 
 Coalfather : Well, I never ! 
 
 (At the same instant Tom Wisp, the junior partner, 
 comes out of the door marked " private," and is taken 
 aback at the unusual scene.} 
 Tom : What on earth's the matter, Coalfather, what 
 
 does all this mean ? 
 Coalfather : I reaUy don't know, sir. It's this 'ere 
 
 foreigner who's making a ass of himself, and 
 
 Tom : Now, look here, sir, we really can't allow this 
 ... er ... this to occur in our establishment. 
 It's not decent. Anyone might come in this 
 very minute. 
 
 Cuivrand : Ha ! You are the patron ? Well, allow 
 me to tell you that your shop is a box, yes une 
 sale boUe / 
 Tom : Really, sir, if you have nothing else to say, I 
 
 must request you to leave the premises. 
 Cuivrand : I leave when I like. But you think you 
 can insult a 'armless woman without defence ? 
 You are not a gentleman, Monsieur ! 
 
 Tom : Who's been insulting anybody ? I say 
 
 (Will Wisp, senior, attracted by the commotion, 
 comes out of the door marked " Private.") 
 Wisp : What's all this, hey ? 
 
 Coalfather : There was a party came in here to order 
 some red crape, sir, and we said we'd oblige as
 
 JOHN GALSWORTHY 253 
 
 soon as possible. And then this silly foreigner 
 comes in and kicks up no end of a row . . . 
 
 Cuivrand : Yes, Monsieur, I defend 'armless women, 
 and I show you the true spirit of chivalry. 
 
 Wisp : Chivalry be blowed ! I want to know what 
 you came in here for ! 
 
 Cuivrand : I came for Madame. I love 'er ! I love 'er 
 
 veree much ! 
 (He takes her in his arms again, and kisses her.) 
 
 Tom : It's too bad ! And the second time, too ! 
 
 Wisp : We can't allow that in here . . . Wilson, just 
 go and call in the constable of the beat. 
 
 Wilson : Yes, sir. (He goes out into the street.) 
 
 Marjorie : Oh, dear ! What shall I do ? 
 
 Cuivrand : Fear not, Madame. They shall do you no 
 'arm. I am 'ere to defend you. I see now the 
 truth of this nation, and shall not lack the courage 
 to tell them what I think of them, (to Wisp) : 
 Yes, Monsieur, you are a nation that comprehends 
 not the beauty of the life ; the life it was not made 
 to refuse stuff to a 'armless woman ; the life it 
 was made to serve 'er ! But you are only pigs, 
 you Insulars ! 
 (Just at this moment, Wilson returns, bringing in a 
 
 police-constable behind him : he has heard Cuivrand' 's 
 
 last words.) 
 
 Policeman : 'Ere, you furriner ! You can't insult 
 us like that ! It's my duty to take you in 
 charge. 
 
 Cuivrand : What ? Arrest me me, an innocent and 
 chivalrous man ? You coward ! 
 
 Policeman : Stop your jaw, I say ! You're my 
 prisoner. And anything you say will be used as 
 evidence against you.
 
 254 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Cuivrand : Me ! Arrest me ? No, never ! 
 
 (Before anybody can stop him, he flies wildly into 
 the counter ; the wooden spaniel falls heavily on top of 
 him, and he falls down, motionless.} 
 Wisp : Well. I say ! 
 
 Policeman : He's done it this time, an' no mistake. 
 Tom: What! Dead? 
 Policeman : Dead as a doormat, yes, sir. 
 Coalfather : Dear, dear ! 
 
 Marjorie : That's what comes of wanting to arrest and 
 to punish a chivalrous man ! Oh, my God, what 
 shall I do ? 
 Coalfather : Dear, dear ! 
 
 (Marjorie stands petrified and looks wildly at him.} 
 The curtain falls.
 
 HALL CAINE 255 
 
 HALL CAINE 
 
 THE SINNER 
 
 SUSAN O'MURPHY, who lived with her aged 
 father in a tiny cottage at the far end of Bally- 
 whack, was by common judgment a gawk a 
 bright-eyed, broad-tongued, comely - looking gawk. 
 Nobody in the little village had ever been known to 
 utter any precise accusation against her no, not even 
 Pink Sam, landlord of the " Manx Pranks," who held 
 that sin need not be seen to be proven, on the strength 
 of the text that says : " Hear, ye deaf, and look, ye 
 blind, that ye may see." Yet old Red Bill, her father, 
 did no work of any kind, and had even ceased to be 
 noted as the most shameless poacher in the village. 
 
 Susan's was a queer cottage. Her mother, now 
 dead, had been famed as a beauty in her day, and 
 Susan, as a child, had her black hair and face as brown 
 as a hot-cross bun. At school, the other children 
 had laughed at her, and called her " darkie," and 
 many had been the battles fought on her account by 
 some of her youthful admirers, especially Pompey 
 Geenkrey, whom report named as the bastard son of
 
 256 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 the Deemster's brother. She had been used to run 
 about among the gorse and damp scraa soil, with 
 hardly any boots or stockings ; but the sun, instead 
 of burning her a darker brown, had made her into 
 a strapping girl, easy-going and good-tempered, to 
 whom Pink Sam was wont to apply the text : " But 
 they made light of it and went their ways." Like 
 the other Ballywhack children, she had been to school, 
 off and on, for a length of time calculated to give her 
 fairly rough notions of spelling, sufficient, at all events, 
 to enable her to read the paper to her father of an 
 evening. Indeed, she grew to be what the simple 
 Manx folk regarded as a " scholard," though where 
 the title came from no one exactly could say. She 
 was, however, dainty enough in her pink sun-bonnet, 
 red stockings and green shoes, and Pompey was a 
 frequent visitor to the tumble-down cottage, where 
 he met with many a sound rebuff from old Red Bill, 
 her father. 
 
 " Look here," he would say to the young fisherman, 
 " I don't want none of your fooling round my Susan, 
 by Gough ! 'S long as I'm here, I'll have none o' the 
 likes of you ! " 
 
 ' You're reg'lar rough on me, Mr. O'Murphy," 
 he replied. " What I says is why shouldn't I be 
 a good husband to your girl, and a good son to 
 yoursel' ? " 
 
 " Husband, indeed ! " grunted the old man. " A 
 clane youngster like you, without even a pound to call 
 his own ! And what d'you expect to live on, I'd like 
 to know ? It's clane mad you are, and those ones 
 as are more wiser than you'll ever be have their duty 
 to do : so off you go ! " 
 
 After which direct speech the disconsolate wooer 
 retreated to the " Manx Pranks," where Pink Sam
 
 HALL CAINE 257 
 
 delivered a warning lecture on the text : " But the 
 people are many ..." 
 
 " Master Geenkrey, 'tis labouring in vain you are ! 
 why not leave the lass alone, an' her being what she is, 
 too ? " 
 
 " See you here, Pink Sam," retorted the young man, 
 " I'll have none o' your calling her no names ! She's 
 a dacent girl, seeing as I'm willing to take her as my 
 wife, by Gough ! It's only her father who's a ..." 
 
 " Steady, boy veen, steady ! " answered the pub- 
 lican. " The Lord has said: 'Behold, I, even I, will 
 both search my sheep and seek them out.' You needn't 
 waste no words on him it's her as wants looking 
 after." 
 
 " What d'ye mane ? " enquired the young fisher- 
 man. 
 
 " I mane just what I say, Master Pompey. I seen 
 Susan in church ever so many Sundays running, an' 
 if ever she was a trollop before which I wouldn't 
 swear to, mind I'm middlin' sure she's nothing o' 
 the kind now. She's minding the texes, my boy, 
 the texes that say : ' Blessed is the man that trusteth 
 in the Lord ' ay, and the woman, too, you may be 
 sartin ! " 
 
 " Ye don't say so ! " ejaculated Pompey. " I've 
 been having my eye on t'young parzon, an' I do suppose 
 as he's the reason for why Red Bill'll have none 
 of me ! " 
 
 ' T shouldn't wonder if you was not far wrong, boy 
 veen," said Pink Sam. " Well, it'ud be a very good 
 thing for the girl, 'speshully if she loves him." 
 
 " Love ? And do you think he'd be fool enough 
 
 to marry a lass like Susan ? I daresay she could 
 
 make 'im a dacent cup o' tay but she couldn't 
 
 even understand one of his sermons, to say nothing of 
 
 16
 
 258 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 helping him make them, as old Mrs. Puttey used to 
 do for the Rector ! " 
 
 " I wouldn't be so sure of that, Master Geenkrey," 
 replied the publican. " Susan's a good middlin' 
 scholard, an' many's the time as I've seen 'er with a 
 fat book in 'er hand a book as I understand nothin' 
 about, mind you, and full o' Latin and French texes 
 ... I knows all about 'er book, 'cause I happened to 
 look at it once, when she'd left it on a bench outside ; 
 an' she's been studyin' 'ard as 'ard can be. Oh, yes, 
 I can tell you, an' no mistake ... 'He that hath 
 ears to hear, let him hear.' ' 
 
 Pompey felt a little click of frightened sorrow in 
 his heart of hearts, like a cuckoo hatched in a sparrow's 
 nest. He felt the girl he loved was escaping him 
 now towards another. Ah ! The tearful, bitter 
 thought ! . . . She was making herself worthy of 
 another, higher placed than he, and he was to lose her 
 after all ! ... What a dreadful thing it was to be a 
 man ! What a tragic thing ! What a horrible and vile 
 thing ! To be played with and fooled by the first 
 hussy that comes along ! That was man's lot. Inter- 
 est ! Cant ! Ambition ! Those were the motives 
 that made woman act ! To be nothing, to be con- 
 quered, to be trampled upon ! 
 
 Pompey fled to his little bare attic that night, and 
 cried for the shame of it. Poor Pompey ! Poor 
 Pompey ! Poor Pompey ! 
 
 II 
 
 Susan was in her little bedroom on a glorious 
 summer day, and it was not more than three o'clock. 
 Eustace Smallpox, the young parson, had promised 
 to come and fetch her at four, and they were to be
 
 HALL CAINE 259 
 
 married in a week. He had often doubted the wisdom 
 of this course, but he loved her dearly, and since he 
 had heard her pronounce the words Dominus Vobis- 
 cum, he knew Susan was worthy of him, in spite of 
 her lowly birth and indifferent upbringing ; he had 
 experienced his moment of triumph but little did 
 he know the battle that \vas raging in the girl's heart. 
 
 She flung herself down upon her little bed, and 
 her eyes filled with tears. What mattered it to her 
 that the village gossip had always been against her 
 to her who had never been base in her own heart ? 
 Yesterday only, for the first time in her life, she had 
 realised the depth of her passion, when Eustace had 
 spoken to her at last, and she had yielded to his 
 earnest entreaties. 
 
 " Oh Gough ! " she exclaimed in a fervid prayer, 
 " what have I done ! Oh, save me, Lord ! " 
 
 She was conscious of her frailty, as a woman 
 always is when she falls from honour ; yet she knew 
 she was not the victim of a hurried impulse, but the 
 slave, of an everlasting and pathetic ideal the tender, 
 merciful, deep-rooted belief that blood is thicker than 
 water. And she had given herself whole-heartedly 
 and freely, as a true woman does and she prayed 
 for forgiveness. 
 
 Then she dried her eyes, and chose a pretty frock 
 for her lover's visit. This she took from a home-made 
 niche contrived out of a shelf in front of which a 
 curtain was hung on a piece of string. It was a 
 simple green print skirt, with a bodice of the same 
 material, like waves on a purple sea. She took a pink 
 bonnet to match, and white shoes and stockings that 
 brought out the burly elegance of her ankles and the 
 ample smallness of her feet. All these articles she laid 
 upon her bed, looked at them intently with a wistful,
 
 26o RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 fascinated smile ; then she took up each of them in 
 turn, poised them in front of her smiling eyes, and put 
 them on, to emerge as a bonny Manx lass, aglow with 
 tender years and bounding blood. 
 
 Eustace met her outside the little cottage. 
 
 " Susan ! " he softly cried ; and the next instant 
 she was in his arms. 
 
 " I love you, dear ! " she exclaimed, nestling her 
 beautiful face against his clerical waistcoat. 
 
 Something, however, in his fervid gaze, arrested 
 her attention, and her smile lost its freshness. 
 
 " What is the matter, Eustace ? Something is 
 troubling you ! . . . Tell me ! " 
 
 " Nothing, my darling nothing important . . . 
 Only that I must leave you for a short time ..." 
 
 " Leave me, Eustace, leave me ? Surely you do not 
 mean it ! Domine, ora pro nobis ! It cannot be 
 true ! " 
 
 " Alas, too true, my dear one, too true ! But don't 
 think I shall ever forget you ! I shall always remem- 
 ber your sweet love, always ! And in my old days it 
 will be something beautiful to look back upon. ..." 
 
 " I don't want you to look back upon it ! I want 
 you to look upon it now, and to look at me \ I love 
 you, Eustace ! I love you, and you are mine ! Nothing 
 can divide us now ! " 
 
 " Don't say that, Susan ! The sea is wide and 
 the world is large, the voice of love is sweet, but Duty 
 is stern ! " 
 
 " Duty ? What is Duty ? Your duty is here, 
 Eustace, ever at my side ! " 
 
 " Susan, don't look at me like that ! Don't ! I 
 cannot bear it ! " 
 
 " I will ! I am yours, dear, and you are mine ! 
 Kiss me ! Say you won't go ! "
 
 HALL CAINE 261 
 
 She clung to him desperately, and tears were in 
 both their eyes. 
 
 " I love you too, dear," he moaned, " but oh, 
 how pitiless is the call of duty ! " 
 
 " But why must you leave me now ? Why ? " 
 
 " Dearest, you cannot understand ... I owe a 
 friend half-a-crown, and I know something terrible 
 will happen if he does not get the money within three 
 days ... I dare not send it by post : it might get 
 lost. No ! I must go to London myself ... I leave 
 for Douglas to-night . . . And I shall not forget you, 
 my dear. The memory of our love will ever bind me 
 to you ! " 
 
 " I want you to remain ! I want you ! Eustace, 
 don't go to London ! " 
 
 " I must, dear, I must ... Be brave I shall 
 soon be back ! " 
 
 " No ! Don't leave me ! I love you ! Oh, how 
 I love you ! " 
 
 She was fighting for her life, and she knew it. But 
 he slowly disengaged himself from her embrace. 
 
 " My dear, I must . . . Dire is the necessity ! 
 God Himself would never pardon me if I left my friend 
 in the lurch. He knows it is hard enough for me as it 
 is : you must be brave ! " 
 
 She sank on her knees upon the gorse, sobbing 
 silently, while he slowly disappeared behind the 
 cottage . . . Would God have no pity on her after 
 all? 
 
 Ill 
 
 Several weeks passed, and the parson did not come 
 back. The loneliness was killing her. As time wore 
 on, she saw more and more of Pompey, and his rough
 
 262 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 words of consolation made the red riot of her right- 
 eousness run rabid in her heart. And the climax 
 was reached when she became conscious that she was 
 about to become a mother. And a terrible fear began 
 to possess her : would the child that was born to her 
 be a boy, like his father, or a girl, like herself ? 
 
 The fact that she was unmarried mattered little 
 to her at first, but the horror of the situation began to 
 dawn upon her after a few days. And she was the 
 more sorry when Pompey, plucking courage, deliber- 
 ately asked her, one evening, to be his wife. 
 
 " You see, Susan," he said in his rough Manx way, 
 " I only mane good to you. I know as I don't know 
 much, and can't even say my everin' prayers in Latin, 
 same as you. And I've not got much money, neither. 
 But Pink Sam says as the rich man shall lie down, but 
 he shall not be gathered : he openeth his eyes, and 
 he is not ... So, you see, I can open mine, and see 
 you and that'll be quite enough for a simple fellow 
 like me." 
 
 " Don't, Pompey, don't ! You cannot under- 
 stand ! " In her secret heart she was fighting against 
 the temptation to let this man give her his name 
 and her child a father. But what a terrible sin she 
 would be committing ! Would God ever pardon 
 such a trespass ? 
 
 Pompey Geenkrey, however, had a heart of gold 
 under his coarse fisherman's clothes ; and though he 
 could not imagine the torture she was suffering, he 
 guessed the pain she must be feeling. 
 
 " Don't cry, Susan, don't cry," he exclaimed. 
 " 'Tis the young parzon ye're wanting, I know 'tis 
 not mesel', you can't decave me . . Well, I'll fetch 
 him back for you, never you fear I'll fetch him 
 back ! "
 
 HALL CAINE 263 
 
 The generosity of the Manxman left her aghast ; 
 his words were wondrous solemn and terribly un- 
 expected, but thsy brought an immense relief to her 
 overburdened heart. 
 
 " Oh, Pompey ! " she muttered, amid her tears. 
 And the young man rushed to his fishing-smack and 
 set out on his chivalrous errand. 
 
 That night Susan flung herself upon her little bed 
 with something like relief in her heavy heart. Ah, 
 to-night ! But what would to-morrow bring ? How 
 could she live with such thoughts swelling in her 
 breast ? How could she sleep ? How could she 
 remain awake ? Susan ! Eustace ! Pompey ! To- 
 morrow ! Oh, God ! Oh, God ! 
 
 IV 
 
 Three day.s later, Pompey once more stood in 
 front of the little cottage, his arms linked with that 
 of the young parson, who looked mighty pale and 
 wondrous shattered. Their steps did not make 
 much noise on the gravel, but Susan came running 
 out of the honeysuckle-covered door to meet them. 
 She uttered a little wild click of frightened joy, and 
 rushed towards Eustace. 
 
 " At last ! " she gasped. 
 
 " Yes, I have come back to you, my darling," he 
 made answer. " But I am not the righteous man I 
 was I ..." 
 
 " Never mind, Eustace," said Susan. " Nothing 
 at all matters, except that I love you ! " 
 
 " No, dear, nothing matters but my soul and 
 that belongs to God ! He will help me in this sweet 
 hour, for He knows I am no" yet bad to the core ! 
 ' Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold ' : I have
 
 264 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 a public confession to make, and while Pompey is 
 here . . ." 
 
 " Why, he is gone ! " exclaimed Susan, looking 
 round. " The dear kind, fellow has left us alone." 
 
 " Well, my confession shall be none the less public, 
 darling : the birds, and the flowers, and the stones, 
 and the very earth, shall know my sin ! . . . When I 
 left you I thought ..." 
 
 And he would have unburdened his heavy soul for 
 all the wide world to hear. This was the hour of 
 his redemption, his sin confessed in all but deed, when 
 his conscience was clean before him, when the world 
 was ready for his acknowledgment, with the hand of 
 the fallen woman that loved him in his. He stood 
 there ready to face any odds that might befall him. 
 
 And she ? She shut his mouth with a fiery kiss, 
 and he knew, as the sun blinked through the jewels 
 of his tears, that the whole future was before them 
 both, to atone and to love.
 
 MARIE CORELLI 265 
 
 MARIE CORELLI 
 
 THE DOUBLE SOUL 
 
 NOISE shrieks and rumours, and endless bustle ! 
 Noise and the ever-moving crowd went ever 
 on and on, amid the throb of the fair! The 
 place was full of people and booths people arrayed 
 in their Sunday-best, booths ostentatiously decorated 
 with scarlet and gilt lettering booths sending forth 
 their torrents of raging harmony, while the thud of 
 a distant merry-go-round, under the lustrous blue of 
 the skies, spreading upwards heavenwards was like 
 the heart-beating of the fair's immense and dazzling 
 soul. Here was Life Life struggling forth in sound, 
 in colour, and in movement Life bursting out of the 
 ever-brilliant shell of Time, little heeding Death, that 
 chaos of ultimate darkness Life, a seething, raging 
 orgy of unadulterated beauty and waning youth, with 
 never a thought for good or evil ! The perpetual buzz 
 of sham activity was as though the trump of Resur- 
 rection had sounded, and all this feverish noise this 
 strange bustle was the Flaming sword upon the 
 volcano of seething passions, the pit of lurking en- 
 deavour, which Man calls his Soul !
 
 266 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 The crowd was less dense (i), perhaps, in front of 
 a poorly illuminated stall a shabby, faded booth 
 that lacked the brilliant lustre and those sort of 
 qualities that attract instant attention immediate 
 notice from those who might otherwise pass away 
 into oblivion. The letters that had once been gilt 
 still spelt, through the dwindling sands of Time and 
 Space, the words of old : " Tcmpus Fugit " ; that 
 was all ; no vain and boasting assertion of unrevealed 
 treasures of marvellous, hidden things of surrepti- 
 tious wonders that were to be disclosed within for 
 a beggar's fee ... And the crowd, like a blind, 
 soulless creature, like those sort of evanescent four- 
 wheelers that simply follow their unintelligent and 
 wholly unreligious leader the crowd barely lingered 
 for an instant, uninterested, unattracted and went 
 on to more opulent and soul-distressing shows. 
 
 A girl was sitting in front of the poor little booth 
 a girl who, at the first glance, had belonged to those 
 sort of people who are termed " well-to-do " before 
 they come down in life people who cultivate their 
 pocket before they think of their soul and for whom 
 a thousand-pound monument in the cemetery after 
 an earth-burial according to the rites (2) of their 
 own particular religion, be it Lutheran or Catholic, is 
 the acme of respectability. This girl, my heroine, 
 whose name was written up above her on the faded 
 velvet lintel, looked haggard and worn among the 
 flare of the myriad lamps the flare that seemed to 
 grow less and less as the shadow of her preoccupation 
 deepened more and more ; she smiled faintly, and 
 
 (1) The word is taken in its etymological, rather than its colloquial, 
 
 sense, though the latter would be quite correct. (Note by 
 Augastus Meddlesome, M.A.) 
 
 (2) The authoress no doubt meant " the wrongs." (Note by 
 
 Augustus Meddlesome, M.A.)
 
 MARIE CORELLI 267 
 
 looking straight at the dwindling crowd, the whole 
 fair was impregnated with her latent sorrow. 
 
 One man, however, did not turn away a man of 
 large stature, with shaggy hair and a lean, florid face 
 a man of thought rather than action. He stepped 
 out from the mass of mere pleasure-seekers, and came 
 up to the faded booth. 
 
 " Do you tell fortunes ? " he said ; and forthwith 
 walked up the rickety steps. 
 
 She was silent for an instant, and her eyes lit up 
 with an imperial smile imperial, because past the 
 sway of usual human atmosphere ; then she languidly 
 answered : 
 
 " To those who believe those who have the 
 Faith." 
 
 " It must be hard work," he replied, " come, tell 
 me what I may expect." 
 
 He held out his hand for her inspection the 
 beautiful, true, untamed gaze of a steadfast eye ; 
 and her answer came slowly a deep answer fresh 
 from the soul. 
 
 " You are learned in the ways of men. What can 
 I tell you that you do not know already ? I would 
 not dare to reveal your past and your future is as 
 clear as crystal." 
 
 " Come, Miss Fugit," he said in a soft, musical 
 voice, " I see you judge me right. But if you will not 
 tell me what is before me, shall not I forecast what is 
 in store for you ? " 
 
 His cold, flaming eyes were now full upon hers, 
 and she seemed to resent his gaze a gaze that seemed 
 charged with a weird charm a gaze that hovered 
 on the pinions of immortality. Soon, however, she 
 yielded to his fervid depth of mastery, and he slowly 
 proceeded.
 
 268 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 " My name is Eugene Dratoff, and I have con- 
 quered Matter ! Soon, very soon, there shall arise 
 through the miracle of Science a better, a higher 
 Manhood and Womanhood upon this earth ! As 
 we see it now, thousands are unhappy, millions are 
 miserable. They seek what ? Success ! And what 
 is success ? False hypocrisy ! Stupid lie ! ... There 
 is but one Success different to all petty grievances 
 and foul triumphs the Success that gives us the 
 knowledge of the Us we dream of as rising in the shape 
 of a soul from our dead body ! " 
 
 Now she knew ! She was all a-tremble as he 
 continued, his eyes flashing in the darkness that had 
 now grown around them. 
 
 " Yes ! Even you, who were an acrobat in former 
 days, Miss Fugit, shall pass to a better state through 
 the higher workings of Science. Come ! Look at 
 this ! " 
 
 He took a long tube from the inner pocket of his 
 coat, and placed the shining metal before her careworn 
 eyes. Suddenly he pressed a hidden spring and the 
 whir of machinery fell upon her pearl-like ears, while 
 she listened to his inspired lecture. 
 
 " Life is Movement ; Movement is Life. What- 
 ever moves cannot be dead : that is the great principle 
 of the world of this and of the Other. Wherever 
 some reigning Spirit some Divine Being causes 
 motion to animate the stark and dreary form of 
 Matter, there begins Life there is Life. Stillness is 
 Death ; Death is the end of Movement. But not the 
 ultimate end ! The ultimate end of Movement is 
 more Movement Movement on a higher, grander 
 level than before Movement such as we poor mortals 
 could not even conceive, if the keen eye of Science 
 had not been given to aid our powerless microscopes
 
 MARIE CORELLI 269 
 
 . . . Here, in this tube, is Motion do you hear it ? 
 Each revolution of the mechanism ordained by Science 
 brings the seer nearer to that ultimate Movement 
 which is the true Life ; it looses the Soul from the 
 vulgar grip of the gruesome Body ! it purifies the 
 Spirit from the revolting supremacy of Matter ! Look ! 
 What do you see ? " 
 
 Hs thrust the end of the tube towards Tempus' 
 fugitive eye, and she sprang up with an involuntary 
 exclamation. 
 
 " How glorious ! " she cried ; " why, it seems full 
 of Light and Heat ! " 
 
 " It is full of Light and Heat," he replied. " Light 
 and Heat are but forms of Movement and I have 
 condensed them into my tube in such a manner as you 
 see. To look at them as you are doing now is to move 
 it is to live ! . . . And you know Heat," he went on. 
 
 " Yes," said Tempus, " I used to be a fire-eater 
 when I was very small one of those sort of conjurers 
 who swallow flames at Hampstead beautiful, ugly 
 flames that leap to one's throat and terrify the 
 audience." 
 
 " This is excellent," Eugene continued, " a fire- 
 eater is truly most nearly alive ! The fire he absorbs 
 is most readily transmuted into Motion into Life ! 
 and therefore you will come nearer to actually living 
 than anbyody else I could have chosen . . . Come, 
 Miss Fugit, you are not afraid ? " 
 
 " No I am not afraid ! " 
 
 " Good ! And do you feel any new sensation in 
 your soul ? " 
 
 " Yes I feel like the Sun- King coming into his 
 kingdom (i) I feel warm I feel lighter I feel . . . 
 
 (i) This is probably the Kingdom -Come so often mentioned. 
 (Note by Augustus Meddlesome, M.A.)
 
 270 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 Oh, I feel as if some liquid, fluid, solid, ethereal, 
 burning vapour, were slowly impregnating my body ! " 
 
 Eugene Dratoff slowly lowered the tube, out of 
 which a pungent vapour was beginning to rise, like 
 the snowy mists that mount from the dreamy valleys 
 whenever the flash of morn caresses them. Liquid 
 Fire ! Here were straight, curly fumes fumes which 
 the vulgar might call spirits fumes which the scientist 
 in him proclaimed to be the quintessence of rare fruits 
 mellowed by the fantastic kiss of Heat and Motion ! 
 
 She drank them avidly, with her nose, with her 
 ears, with her very soul ! And the new Life throbbed 
 within her the Life she had never known the Life 
 that was to be hers, henceforward, whenever Time 
 and circumstances would allow ! 
 
 " More, more ! " she panted, " give me more ! I 
 like the smell, and the taste is divine ! " 
 
 " Yes, I know it is," replied Dratoff. " My Science 
 cannot fail ! Yet another poor human is dragged 
 upwards heavenwards by its might. Oh, the deri- 
 sion of solid matter ! Now you feel your soul rising 
 forth from your body ! " 
 
 Tempus Fugit now stood up, quivering with 
 excitement. She seemed hardly capable of remaining 
 still, and oddly enough, her steps were uncertain. 
 She clutched at Dratoff, lurched, and fell, while at the 
 same time she gave vent to a weird laugh. 
 
 " Saved ! Yes I am saved ! You are two men 
 there are two booths everything is two ! . . . Give 
 me . . . some more ... for to-day for to-morrow 
 for always ! " 
 
 " That is enough for to-day," he answered, his gaze 
 full of the wonder of discovered worlds. ' To-day 
 you are freed from the mortal strain of matter to-day 
 you live! To-morrow, if you are again chilly and
 
 MARIE CORELLI 271 
 
 sad, you may forget again : cold is only negative 
 Motion Motion is life the Fumes are Motion the 
 fire-tube makes the fumes the Liquid fills the Tube (2) 
 the bottle contains the Liquid the bottle is here ! " 
 And he set upon the miserable floor a bottle a 
 bottle which he took from the pocket of his coat a 
 large round bottle a bottle on which her fervid gaze 
 read the double word " WHISKEY "though it was 
 inscribed but once . . . 
 
 (2) Also the Straphangers. (Note by Augustus Meddlesome, M.A.)
 
 272 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 WILLIAM LE QUEUX 
 
 THE PURPLE PRALINE 
 
 " XT'ES, it is terrible, terrible ! " said my friend the 
 Cavaliere Rabbitskini, who had hastily 
 summoned me by telephone from my 
 comfortable quarters in Baysvvater to his own 
 luxurious suite at the " Cecil." I had made his 
 acquaintance at Monte-Carlo some months pre- 
 viously, when I had been sent thither on an 
 unofficial mission by one of the most powerful mon- 
 archs of Southern Europe, whom discretion forbids to 
 name. The Cavaliere was staying at the same hotel 
 the best in the place, of course and it had not 
 taken me long to discover that he was in the diplomatic 
 service of a Power the sovereign of which has several 
 times been pleased to commend my modest labours. 
 Our acquaintance had quickly blossomed into intimate 
 friendship, and I had not been astonished at all on 
 receiving a telephone-call from Rabbitskini, though 
 I did not know, at the moment, that he was in London 
 at aU. 
 
 I answered the Cavaliere's summons at once, de- 
 lighted at the opportunity of seeing my old friend ;
 
 WILLIAM LE QUEUX 273 
 
 but instead of the shining Southern eyes and black 
 hair I was accustomed to see, there he appeared before 
 me like a stricken man, his face careworn and wan, 
 and with an abundant profusion of white hair upon 
 his handsome head. 
 
 He proceeded at once to explain the trouble that 
 was evidently distressing him. 
 
 " I am just back from Rome," he said in a hoarse 
 whisper, " where I have been commissioned to bring 
 over some documents of European importance to 
 France. I need hardly say," he added, " that my 
 mission is quite confidential, involving two of the 
 greatest names the present times can boast of." 
 
 " I understand," I assented. For one who, like 
 myself, has been happy in meeting most of the crowned 
 heads of Europe, and boasts to be on terms of friend- 
 ship with not a few of them, the nature of my friend's 
 mission, was, of course, perfectly easy to grasp. 
 
 " Well," he went on, " the most important of these 
 papers the one which may bring a dreadful calamity 
 on the face of international politics, has disappeared ! 
 I had it in my bag, here, with the others now it is 
 gone, and I am ruined ! . . . My friend, if ever I 
 have been in need of your help, it is now ! Without the 
 stolen document I am as a dead man worse, I am 
 dishonoured ! You will not refuse your help ? " 
 
 ' My dear Cavaliere," I promptly replied, " my 
 time, of which I have an abundant profusion, is at 
 your service, and I may venture to say, I hope, that 
 I have some experience in these matters. I remember 
 a similar case that happened to Sir Laurence Tommy- 
 rot less than three years ago . . . But stay ! " I broke 
 out suddenly struck by a brilliant clue " If you were 
 on your way from Rome to France, how is it the 
 document was stolen in London ? " 
 17
 
 274 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 " My friend, nous autres statesmen must be ever 
 wary. I knew very well I was being followed and 
 spied upon. It would have been too simple to go to 
 Paris by the direct route : any fool could have done 
 that ... I came over to London, via Switzerland 
 and Belgium, intending to then cross back to Paris." 
 
 " Yes," I muttered ; " the thief, whoever he is, 
 must be an old hand, with enough cunning to im- 
 mediately grasp the intricacies of diplomatic service 
 . . . But he has left no trace of his presence ? " 
 
 " There are too many, alas ! " moaned the Cava- 
 liere, " and the most important of all is the disappear- 
 ance of the document." He dropped his voice to a 
 hoarse whisper : " Look at this," he added, and 
 pointed to a crumpled piece of tissue paper, on which 
 I read, after flattening it out, the letters F.O.O.L. 
 
 " This is extraordinary ! " I exclaimed. " Have 
 you seen anything of Nadejda Rubbishska lately ? " 
 
 " No," answered Rabbitskini," but what has that 
 to do with . . ." 
 
 " Everything, mon cher," I replied. " Nadejda has 
 a weakness for pralines and especially for Osborne 
 Owen's. This slip of paper may be the clue we are 
 looking for ! " 
 
 " But you do not mean to say," hastily began the 
 Cavaliere. 
 
 " I mean to say I am beginning to understand ! 
 My friend, this crumpled bit of paper was made to 
 wrap up a little bonbon it bears the name of the 
 firm I mentioned Frank Osbome Owen, London 
 her favourite firm ! . . . What would be more natural 
 therefore than that she should have dropped it here ? 
 If she dropped it, she must have come here ! If she 
 came, she must have taken something with her as a 
 souvenir . . . One of your papers is missing ... It
 
 WILLIAM LE QUEUX 275 
 
 must be that, therefore . . . My friend, I begin to 
 see ! Before a month has elapsed, I shall unravel 
 this mystery ! You may count upon me ! " 
 
 I rose and took leave of the Cavaliere Rabbitskini. 
 As I left the luxuriously-furnished salon, I thought 
 I heard the rippling sound of a woman's laughter. 
 
 II 
 
 Three days later, I was at Petersburg, wandering 
 through the beautifully lit garden of the Villa Rode. 
 I was surrounded by the brilliant society of the Russian 
 capital officers in uniform, with splendid crosses on 
 their smart tunics, women in evening dress, carrying 
 themselves with that elastic swing which is inherent 
 in the Slav girl, fair-haired men smiling and conversing 
 in soft musical tones which no Englishman can ever 
 hope to attain. The atmosphere was one of luxurious 
 ease, and seemed ever so far away from the sordid 
 reality which too often mars the joy of our western 
 revelry. 
 
 I had noticed from afar the form of a tall, blonde 
 girl with perfect, regular features, who was clad in a 
 magnificent decollete dress of green silk, and carrying 
 herself with that elegance which an Englishwoman 
 alone can call hers. I recognised her at once, and 
 walked up to her as soon as the young captain of the 
 guard, who was in deep conversation with her, de- 
 parted towards the brilliantly-lit buffet. 
 
 " What ! You here, my friend ? " she exclaimed 
 in a deep, melodious voice which proclaimed her to be 
 charmingly foreign. " I thought you were at Monte- 
 Carlo !" 
 
 " No, my dear Nadejda," I replied, bending over 
 her jewelled hand. " I always leave the sunny South
 
 276 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 at this period of the year." I tried to speak as casually 
 as I could, but I could not help noticing the look of 
 anxiety that passed across her face as she espied me. 
 
 Yes, she was certainly lovely, I reflected, and any 
 man would be ready to suffer mortal agonies to call 
 her his. Nadejda Rubbishska was one of the most 
 beautiful women in Europe, and I had met her in 
 various capitals, where she had always been a favourite 
 in the best society. 
 
 " Is not this garden lovely ? " she said. " I think 
 it is one of the sweetest spots in the world ! " 
 
 " Especially when there is a charming young 
 guardsman to accompany one," I supplemented, 
 smiling. 
 
 " Ha ! You have noticed I w T as not alone ? " 
 
 " My dear Nadejda, I have travelled far and wide, 
 and know the ways of the world. Who would think 
 of coming alone to the Villa Rode ? " 
 
 " Well, you are here alone, for that matter," she 
 rejoined, " unless . . . But no, it is impossible ! " 
 
 " Quite," I replied, joining in her smile. " I came 
 alone, as you surmise, but I have not the slightest 
 intention of departing in the same manner. I am sure 
 the Gospoja Nadejda Rubbishska will deign to let me 
 see her back to her hotel." 
 
 My assurance evidently vexed her. ' You are 
 sure ? " she said ; " and what will Captain Swaggeroff 
 say ? " 
 
 " I care very little for what he says, I assure 
 you. The fact is, my dear Nadejda, I have something 
 very important to tell you something very impor- 
 tant." 
 
 Just at that moment, the young captain was 
 returning, bearing a cup of iced champagne on a 
 silver tray. " Hotitie li Vuec . . ." ? he began. But 
 I interrupted him at once.
 
 WILLIAM LE QUEUX 277 
 
 " Gospodin Kapitan," I threw in, " I am exceedingly 
 sorry to interrupt, but I believe I have the honour 
 of addressing Piotr Picklovitch Swaggeroff ? " 
 
 " That is my name," he replied, a trifle haughtily, 
 " but I have not the honour of your acquaintance, 
 doomayoo." 
 
 " Nitchevo," I smilingly assented, with an Oriental 
 shrug. " I am the bearer of a message to you from 
 His Imperial Majesty." 
 
 He immediately fell to attention, and saluted me 
 in the military manner, while I took a slip of paper 
 from my breast pocket, and handed it to him. The 
 paper bore the Imperial seal, and no officer would 
 dare disobey the order it contained. He turned to his 
 companion with keen regret stamped on his youthful 
 face. 
 
 " I am summoned to the Winter Palace at once," 
 he said, a tremor in his voice. " How can I ask you 
 to excuse me, Nadejda Sickovna ? " 
 
 The girl had become deathly pale. " Pray do not 
 trouble, Gospodin Kapitan," I reassured him; " I shall 
 see your charming friend back." At the same time, 
 I darted a look of intense meaning full at her eyes ; 
 she was trembling all over, but she said nothing as 
 the captain kissed her hand and departed, saluting. 
 
 " You did well to be reasonable," I said to her as 
 soon as we were alone once more ; "if you had be- 
 trayed yourself by so much as a word, Piotr Picklo- 
 vitch would have known all. Even now . . . ! " 
 My voice, though low, was full of unspoken menace, and 
 Nadejda knew that I do not threaten in vain. 
 
 " Come, what is it you want ? " she asked fiercely, 
 her voice losing all the musical softness that gave it 
 so much Oriental charm. 
 
 " That you shall soon learn, my dear," I replied,
 
 278 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 " But first of all, may I offer you one of these pra- 
 lines?" 
 
 I tendered her a jewelled box which I took from 
 my pocket, and her pallor increased ; she would have 
 fallen, but for my protecting arm. 
 
 " What ? " she gasped, " pralines and an order 
 from the Czar ? Then you must know . . . ! " 
 
 " I know all," I sternly replied, "and you must 
 come with me and undo the mischief you have made. 
 Quick, or your lover may pay the penalty ! " 
 
 Unresisting, she let herself be led to the cloakroom, 
 and we jumped into my troika that was waiting 
 outside. 
 
 " To the Southern station ! " I called to the 
 moujik, and away clattered the horses. 
 
 Before leaving, however, I had picked up a tiny 
 silver box which Nadejda had dropped, and no one, 
 not even herself, had noticed the slight movement of 
 mine. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Nord-Express had just arrived at the Gare du 
 Nord, bearing me and my unwilling companion to the 
 French capital. Directly 1 was outside the station, 
 I hailed a taxi, and was driven to my comfortable flat 
 in the Avenue Kleber. Notwithstanding that I am 
 keenly cosmopolitan, I usually have an apartment 
 in most of the European capitals, which enables me to 
 take what steps in my various important and confi- 
 dential missions that I desire. 
 
 Each throb of the motor, and each tick of the 
 taxi, was now bringing me nearer the solution of the 
 mystery, and very soon I hoped, with an abundant 
 profusion of certainty, to restore the stolen document
 
 WILLIAM LE QUEUX 279 
 
 to the hands of my friend the Cavaliere Rabbitskini. 
 My companion was still, like myself, in evening dress, 
 for she had no luggage with her as we left the Russian 
 capital ; here, in the sunny daylight of Paris, her low- 
 necked gown looked oddly out of place ; yet, despite 
 the look of abject terror in her eyes, she carried herself 
 with that easy, elastic swing, which no other but the 
 Slav woman can ever hope to possess. 
 
 " Here we are," I said, as the taxi stopped in front 
 of a monumental immeuble near the Trocadero. And 
 I led her towards the lift. 
 
 I spoke a few words in French to my valet, on 
 entering the flat, and conducted Nadejda Rubbishska 
 to my study. As soon as the cafe-au-lait and croissants 
 had been brought in, I turned to her again, a smile of 
 contentment on my hitherto anxious face. 
 
 " Are you not afriaid," I asked, " to drink coffee 
 with me ? " 
 
 " Why should I be ? " she replied, defiance leaping 
 to her bloodless lips. 
 
 " Because," I very slowly made answer, " it 
 would be terribly easy for me to slip in a few drops of 
 cyanhydric acid." 
 
 She started up in terror. " Spare me ! " she 
 exclaimed. " Oh ! I am only a poor, defenceless girl, 
 and you cannot, surely, use your man's strength 
 against ..." 
 
 " Against your womanish wits ! " I supplemented 
 " No, Nadejda, I shall not use my man's strength, 
 because, at last, I have a proof against you a 
 material pilce a conviction / ' 
 
 And I took out of my waistcoat pocket the tiny 
 silver box which she had dropped as we left the Villa 
 Rode. 
 
 " You fiend ! " she hissed, clenching her small
 
 280 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 fists. If hate could kill, I would have been a dead 
 man then. 
 
 "It is no use resisting, Nadejda," I calmly pro- 
 ceeded, " the game is up. My friend, Roger Foulcan, 
 the Chef de la Surete, is waiting for you outside, and 
 I shall hand you over to him . . . unless " 
 
 " Unless ? " she echoed, breathless. 
 
 " Unless you restore to the Cavaliere Rabbitskini 
 the paper you so cleverly stole from his room in 
 London, ten days ago ! " 
 
 " And if I refuse ? " she enquired, a shade of 
 defiance still throbbing in her voice. 
 
 " If you refuse, you will immediately be arrested 
 by the Paris police, and," I harshly added, " Piotr 
 Picklovitch will eat your purple praline ! " 
 
 The last words produced the effect I had hoped 
 for. " It is well," she said, " I will give you back the 
 document." 
 
 She appeared submissive enough, now the fight 
 turned against her. I rang the bell, and spoke a 
 few words to my man, whereupon my friend the 
 Cavaliere was shown into the room. 
 
 " I am glad to see you again, amico mio," he 
 exclaimed, pressing my hand, " and with the Signor- 
 ina, too ? " he continued, his voice full of a question- 
 ing tone. 
 
 " The Signorina will be charming enough to give 
 you back your strayed paper, my dear Cavaliere 
 n'est-ce pas, Nadejda ? " I replied. 
 
 The girl, with that feline grace which Southern 
 women alone possess, extracted a folded note from 
 her bosom, and tendered it to the Cavaliere, who took 
 it eagerly from her outstretched fingers. 
 
 ' Yes ! " he exclaimed, " that is the very paper ! 
 I am saved, thank God ! . . . And Europe is spared a
 
 WILLIAM LE QUEUX 281 
 
 catastrophe ! . . .Ah, my friend, how can I ever 
 thank you ? " He came towards me with tears of 
 joy in his eyes, and I understood his delight as he 
 took both my hands in his. 
 
 " But how have you been able to restore the lost 
 document ? " he enquired, amazement getting the 
 better of his joy. 
 
 " It has been a difficult mystery to solve," I replied, 
 " but I set my wits to it as never before, and the result 
 has not been lacking, When I was in your rooms 
 at the ' Cecil,' " I began my explanation, " I was able 
 to at once notice a slip of crumpled paper, from 
 which it was child's play to deduce the truth : that 
 Nadejda Rubbishska or I should say Sally Sloper, 
 for that is her real name was the thief. The difficulty 
 was not to trace her, either, as I knew she was due 
 at Petersburg very shortly, an a confidential mission 
 for a monarch I cannot name at present ; no, the 
 difficulty was to secure a hold upon her to find some 
 way of forcing her, without scandal, to restore what 
 she had stolen . . . That is where I had to cudgel 
 my brains ! But ere long I found a way ..." 
 
 " Serpent ! " hissed the girl, hardly able to control 
 her rage, though endowed with that elastic carriage 
 which is inherent in the woman from ihe North. 
 But I went on, heedless of the interruption. 
 
 " I knew she had a passion for pralines, and I also 
 remembered several cases of mysterious deaths that 
 have never been solved poor Count Rotteno, less 
 than a year ago, for instance and others. There 
 must be some link, I thought, between these . . ." 
 
 " What ! " exclaimed the Cavaliere, " you think 
 
 
 " Listen, my friend ! Pralines are roasted almonds, 
 and Osborne Owen's, Nadejda's favourite ones, are
 
 282 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 remarkable for their bitterness. Now, bitter almonds 
 contain a certain quantity of cyanhydric acid, one of the 
 deadliest known poisons ... Do you begin to see ? 
 . . . Nadejda was a great consumer of Osborne Owen's 
 pralines but not for herself ! By distilling the al- 
 monds she could, without exciting suspicion, procure 
 sufficient doses of the terrible poison, which she kept 
 in a tiny silver box, and gave her victims to absorb 
 in a purple sweet." 
 
 " This is marvellous ! " said Rabbitskini. " But 
 how were you able to get a hold upon her ? " 
 
 " L'eternel masculin," I replied, smiling. " It was 
 easy for me to learn that she was engaged to a 
 young captain of the Russian Guard. Moreover, 
 I have been happy enough of late, to do his Imperial 
 Majesty some little services which he was glad to 
 commend, and to reciprocate when I made bold to 
 ask. At the Villa Rode, where I saw Nadejda and her 
 lover, I noticed that he had taken a praline out of a 
 box she had handed to him : I was not slow to at 
 once seize upon the opportunity, for I noticed the 
 sweet was a purple one ! If she refused to follow 
 me, I would expose her to her lover, who would eat 
 the praline as a test and then . . . ! I had her in 
 my hands now ! Nadejda was at her wits' end, and 
 as a last resource, tried to drop her dangerous silver 
 box ; I picked it up unnoticed, however, and " 
 
 A loud shriek interrupted me. We both turned 
 round hastily . Nadejda Rubbishska was lying 
 prone on the floor, a purple praline between her teeth, 
 a look of defiance still upon her ghastly face . . . 
 
 It was a Friday, and I have good reason to remem- 
 ber the day on which at last was solved the mystery 
 of the Purple Praline.
 
 CHARLES GARVICE 283 
 
 CHARLES GARVICE 
 
 THE POWER OF LOVE 
 I 
 
 HAROLD MAYFORD was walking moodily along 
 Piccadilly, his back turned upon the busy 
 heart of London. 
 
 Things had decidedly been against him of late 
 and just when Falje ought to have stood by him, as he 
 told himself that the chances that the life that he 
 was leading would come to an end were rapidly in- 
 creasing. The hope which he had thought he had a 
 right to entertain seemed foolish in the face of his 
 present condition, and there were less opportunities 
 than ever of his retrieving his fortunes. Only a week 
 ago, he was the happiest man alive, and now ! 
 
 Harold was the head clerk in the office of Walker 
 and Stalker, the influential and fashionable solicitors ; 
 he was not as old as most of the young clerks one may 
 meet in most of the similar firms, but though he 
 numbered less years than many, his learning and 
 experience qualified him very well for the high position 
 that was his. He had been used to clean living and 
 hard work, having spent his childhood in Devonshire,
 
 284 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 where, as a baim, he used to play to his heart's content 
 with the other boys and colleens, and spend less hours 
 than he ought to have done at the dame's school that 
 was an establishment that professsd to teach almost 
 everything. The days passed by, and he became 
 a bronzed-cheeked youth, used to being starved with 
 the cold or numbed from doing without tea ; he was 
 sent to a public school, which turned him out as quite 
 a fine young man, healthy in body, soul, and intellect, 
 with a strapping constitution and the desire to get on. 
 He had easily found a situation in the city, and by 
 dint of hard work and thorough conscientiousness, 
 had been promoted before he was thirty to the un- 
 usually high position he now occupied for a man of 
 his age. 
 
 Indeed, everything had gone very well not as 
 well, of course, as they might have done in a leaf 
 drawn from the Golden Age, but still most satisfact- 
 orily. A month ago, too, he had been introduced 
 to Mamie Fullerton at a ball that old Mrs. Somerset 
 had thought that she was obliged to give every year. 
 Harold, with that perfect ease that obtains in the 
 West-end drawing-rooms, had spent a heavenly 
 evening, though he had not imagined that the pleasure 
 that he felt that the young girl had given him was 
 anything stronger than an ordinary sensation of 
 sympathy which he had felt almost certain he had 
 experienced many a time before. Since then, he had 
 had less chances than ever of forgetting Mamie, whom 
 he had met several times, either in town or at her 
 father's country-house, where he had been invited 
 several times, and had had ample opportunity to 
 feel that he was welcome. 
 
 Then, suddenly, yesterday, the crash had come. 
 An important document involving great losses in the
 
 CHARLES GARVICE 285 
 
 famous Stuart-Melville case, had disappeared from 
 Walker and Stalker's, and he, as head clerk, was, of 
 course, responsible for the loss. Not only was he 
 completely beggared by this stroke of ill-luck, but 
 even his reputation, which he had thought he had 
 maintained above suspicion, was tarnished thereby : 
 it was darkly hinted that he had purposely mislaid 
 the valuable deed, and all sorts of dark and dastardly 
 motives were ascribed to such an act of secret cunning. 
 His employers had not mentioned it, naturally, but 
 the sneer that he had thought that he had seen on Mr. 
 Walker's usually benignant face, and the frown on 
 Mr. Stalker's, had been sufficient to show him how 
 things were being taken in that quarter. If the deed 
 was not found within two days, he must resign, he 
 felt he could not face a dismissal. And that meant 
 losing Mamie, anyway . . . Yes, things were indeed 
 black against him. 
 
 In his disconsolate walk, he suddenly bumped 
 into a passer-by. 
 
 " What the deuce ! " began the victim, and 
 
 suddenly changed his tone : " Why, if it isn't Mayford ! 
 How are you, old man ? " 
 
 The speaker, whose name was Cuthbert Harrison, 
 was a former clerk of Walker and Stalker's, a handsome 
 youth who was making a name for himself as a stock- 
 broker. 
 
 " Oh ! Harrison ! " replied Harold, absently, 
 " very glad to meet you, I'm sure." 
 
 " What's the matter, old chap ? You look rather 
 downhearted ! ... If I didn't know you to be per- 
 fectly virtuous, I might believe you've been betting 
 rather heavily, and running into debt. . . But I 
 know very well it can't be that . . ." 
 
 " No, it isn't," snapped Harold. He had never
 
 286 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 had a liking for Harrison, and he thought he detected 
 something in the nature of a sneer in his too friendly 
 talk. 
 
 " No offence meant, my dear fellow ... I didn't 
 imagine you were so touchy ! By the way, are you 
 going to the Fullerton's this evening ? " 
 
 " No, I don't think I am . . . The fact is, I am 
 not feeling rather well to-day." 
 
 " Mean to turn in early ? Quite the best thing, 
 too . . . well, good-bye." 
 
 He held out his hand to Harold, who shook it 
 silently ; but he could not help thinking that the face 
 that was behind the hand that was being held out to 
 him was not a frank, open face that one delights in 
 meeting. And the thought that Harrison would go 
 to the Fullertons' that very evening, and see Mamie, 
 while he would sit up restlessly in his chambers in 
 Baker Street, was a torture to his honest soul. 
 
 Cuthbert Harrison continued his walk at a brisk 
 pace, and Harold was still wondering at the sarcastic 
 tone he had used towards him, when he suddenly 
 became aware of a shabby-looking man who approached 
 him from the other side of the street. 
 
 " Excuse me, sir," muttered the man, coming up 
 to him, " I just noticed as you was talking to Mr. 
 'Arrison." 
 
 " Yes well, what about it ? " enquired Harold. 
 
 ' You see, sir, Mr. 'Arrison and I don't pick off 
 very well together, and I thought perhaps as I saw you 
 talking with him, as you might sort of give me his 
 address that is, if you've no objection, of course, 
 sir." 
 
 " Really, I don't know whether I should be justi- 
 fied. ..." Harold began. But the shabby man 
 interrupted him at once.
 
 CHARLES GARVICE 287 
 
 " Of course, if 'e's a special friend o' yours, there's 
 no more to be said. But I should advise you to choose 
 your friends a bit better, that's all. A low-down, 
 lying skunk that's what Mr. 'Arrison is at 'eart 
 and I've got good proof of it, too ! " 
 
 " Look here, my man," said Harold, " I don't 
 want to listen to your wild talk." He sincerely hoped 
 the man would leave him alone, yet he was oddly 
 fascinated by what he had said : these revelations 
 of Cuthbert Harrison's true character hardly came 
 as a surprise to him, for he was a good judge of 
 men. 
 
 " I think you had better leave me," he went on. 
 
 " Not yet," said the shabby man. " I've got the 
 thin end of a wedge in Mr. 'Arrison's side and I want 
 to get even with 'im for the wrong 'e's done me ! I 
 got three years hard for a forgery he was the actual 
 author of and now I've got information about the 
 Stuart-Melville deed ..." 
 
 Harold sprang up at the name. 
 
 " What has Mr. Harrison to do with the Stuart- 
 Melville case ? " 
 
 " Ah ! That's just his little game ! He knows 
 that nobody knows that I know anything about it ; 
 but, for once, he's wrong ! " 
 
 " Look here," exclaimed Harold in a terse whisper, 
 " I don't want to know anything about Mr. Harrison, 
 but any information you can give me about the Stuart- 
 Melville deed I am most anxious to hear, and shall 
 readily pay for. Come ! Name your price ! " 
 
 " Not 'ere, sir not 'ere in the street." 
 
 " Well, then, come with me to my place quick ! " 
 
 He hailed a taxi, and the two men were soon 
 seated in Mayford's comfortable chambers. The inter- 
 view did not last many minutes, but it was quite long
 
 288 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 enough to melt Harold's moodiness and to give him 
 back the buoyancy he had lost but so short a while ago. 
 
 II 
 
 Cuthbert Harrison was a trequent visitor at the 
 Fullerton's, and his handsome figure and smart 
 clothes made him a favourite in society. The dinner, 
 to-night, in their large house in Pont Street, was quite 
 a social function, and Lady Fullerton was rather 
 proud of her guests. The fact that Harold Mayford 
 failed to put in an appearance passed without com- 
 ment, and even without notice, though Mamie looked 
 rather anxiously at each new guest before Harrison 
 finally took her in to dinner. He was in high spirits, 
 and did not mean to let the shadow of an anxiety 
 trouble his fair companion. 
 
 " I am really glad they have given me a seat next 
 to you," he said to her with a pleasant smile ; " fancy 
 me sitting between old Lady Podger and Miss Tomkins, 
 for instance ! " 
 
 " Why, they are both very nice, I'm sure," replied 
 Mamie. 
 
 " Like most of the ' very nice ' people one meets," 
 he retorted, " the farther the nicer." 
 
 He did not allow the conversation to flag for an 
 instant, and she responded readily to his efforts. 
 Mamie was quite a pretty girl with blue eyes and a 
 wealth of golden hair that she had done up in a charm- 
 ingly girlish and becoming manner ; and her simple 
 dress was as graceful as any elaborate creation of 
 fashion. 
 
 After some desultory talk, the topics of the day 
 were mentioned, and Lady Podger put in a word 
 about the Stuart-Melville case.
 
 CHARLES GARVICE 289 
 
 "It is most remarkable, really," she said. " My 
 brother told me to-day everything depends upon the 
 production of an old deed, and I tell myself that the 
 chances are that the document that is the key that 
 is missing will never be found at all." 
 
 " Have you any private information ? " enquired 
 Sir Morton Fullerton, with a note of amused scepticism 
 in his voice. 
 
 " I don't think anybody has the least knowledge 
 about it at all," put in Harrison. 
 
 " I shouldn't be so sure, young man," retorted 
 Lady Podger. " I heard something about a discharged 
 clerk and a stolen copy of the deed and it is difficult 
 not to feel interested in such a mystery." 
 
 There was nothing very remarkable in this piece 
 of information, as the old lady always " heard some- 
 thing " about everything, and it was generally proved 
 that her knowledge was quite imaginary a mere 
 bubble bursting in the rapid flow of smart conversa- 
 tion. Yet Cuthbert seemed struck with the remark, 
 and something of his high spirits froze in the warm 
 atmosphere of the dinner-table, as the repast drew to 
 its end. 
 
 While the ladies were retiring to the drawing-room, 
 one of the maids, whose name was Jane, came up to 
 her, and murmured something in her ear. 
 
 " For me ? " answered the girl, " you are sure he 
 asked for me ? " 
 
 " Yes, miss, I'm quite sure," she insisted, " an' 
 he says as he's got to see you on hurgent business 
 about Mr. Mayford, miss." 
 
 Mamie's heart gave a jump ; she had not expected 
 to hear that name now and in such queer circum- 
 stances. 
 
 r " < " It\ isn't Mr. Mayford himself, by any chance? " 
 she asked.
 
 290 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 "Lor! No, miss," replied Jane. "I know Mr. 
 Mayford well enough, I assure you, to be able to 
 distinguish him from the shabby man as is waiting 
 houtside in the conservatory, miss." 
 
 " Very well," said Mamie, " I shall go and see 
 what he wants." 
 
 She followed the maid to the conservatory, where 
 a shabbily-dressed man was waiting, hat in hand. 
 He advanced towards her with a respectful look in 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Good evening, miss. Please excuse my disturb- 
 ing you at this time of the day, but I have important 
 news to communicate to you." 
 
 " What is it ? Quick ! I can't spare you more 
 than a moment," she exclaimed. 
 
 " I shan't detain you long, miss. I only want to 
 give you this." And he took a large envelope out 
 of his shabby coat, which he handed to the astonished 
 girl. " There's nothing to hurt you, miss, on the 
 contrary I shouldn't dream of hurting you" he went 
 on. ' You see, if you give that envelope to Mr. 
 Mayford, you'll make him the happiest man alive." 
 
 " Do you really think so ? " she asked, sweetly 
 blushing. 
 
 " Yes, it's ... it's a paper he most anxiously 
 needs." 
 
 " Very well," said Mamie, " I believe you. I 
 shall say I have got a headache, and take it to his 
 place at once." She spoke the words with a note of 
 defiance, that showed that the flutter that her heart 
 was in was not the kind that leave their friends in 
 the lurch. Less girls than one thinks, perhaps, would 
 have acted similarly ; but Mamie was staunch in 
 her friendship or was it already love ? 
 
 " I think Mr. Mayford will come here to-night,"
 
 CHARLES GARVICE "291 
 
 replied the stranger " at least, he told me he intended 
 doing so. Good-bye, Miss, and thank you." 
 
 He went out as quietly as he had come in, and left 
 her in a gentle flutter of anticipation. 
 
 As she retraced her steps towards the drawing- 
 room, she saw Harold coming into the hall. A rosy 
 blush spread over her delicate cheeks as he came 
 towards her. 
 
 " Mamie ! " he exclaimed softly. And she did not 
 resent the familiar use he made of her Christian name 
 the name that she knew that he knew that he liked. 
 Her answer came deep from the bottom of her heart, 
 before even she had time to think of what she was 
 going to say. 
 
 " Harold ! " she murmured very sweetly, " why 
 didn't you come to dinner ? " 
 
 " Because I was a fool," he replied ; " I thought 
 I I could never come again ..." 
 
 " You silly boy ! " she cried ; and there was pure 
 joy in her voice. " Who told you that ? Mr. Harri- 
 son ? " 
 
 He attempted to answer ; but the harder he tried, 
 the less words he was able to utter. Love, especially 
 such love as his, bound him dumb in the face of his 
 happiness. 
 
 " By the way," she went on, " I have something 
 for you something very important." And she gave 
 him the envelope that she knew that the shabby man 
 wanted her to deliver into his hands. The hope 
 which he had felt he had renewed came flooding his 
 overfull heart. 
 
 " The deed ! " he exclaimed, " the Stuart-Melville 
 deed ! Mamie, I am saved ! I owe you more than 
 my happiness ! You give me back my honour ! " 
 
 The next moment she was in his arms, and they
 
 292 RATHER LIKE.... 
 
 were in rapture like two children He looked deeply 
 into the eyes of the woman he loved, and beheld 
 binding faith and everlasting love. 
 
 " Dearest," he said, " I know all and all is well. 
 Harrison thought he would rob me of everything I 
 had my situation, my good name, my honour and 
 my love ; but, by a happy chance, you have given 
 me back everything I owe all to you ! " 
 
 " To me ? " she exclaimed in grave astonishment. 
 
 " Yes," he replied. " The man who gave you this 
 envelope and gave me the knowledge of Cuthbert 
 Harrison's guilt acted solely for you : he was a 
 crossing-sweep in former days, and you gave him 
 sixpence on a frosty day. He has never forgotten it, 
 and his devotion is the fruit of your sweet charity ! " 
 
 When they entered the drawing-room together, 
 Harrison was gone, nor was he ever heard of again. 
 
 THE END.
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which it was borrowed. 
 
 NON-REN 
 
 j^ i i y 
 
 419 
 
 DUE 2 WKS FROM DA 
 
 
 
 E RECEIVED
 
 A 000 052 372 o 
 
 bBKEXTANO'8 
 k.ellepg * 8t.Hoi.er. 
 New York
 
 , - 
 
 I HERBERT 1 
 
 { JENKINS' ) 
 
 BOOK / 
 
 j x 
 
 Un